Death Sentence (47 page)

“I’m loading up for when they have fish and corned beef and that awful ol’ breaded veal,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t stand those.”

Jennie Lancaster arrived with Rivka Gordon, the medical director at Women’s Prison, who also had become close to Velma. They visited for an hour after Pike left, and one of the guards on duty noted of Velma in the log while they were there, “Seems to be in good spirits … laughing a lot.”

The guards, seeing Velma in such ease and good cheer, could only think that she believed she soon would be getting a stay and leaving this place. She simply didn’t seem to be a woman facing death.

Phil Carter came after Lancaster and Gordon left and stayed to watch the beginning of the local TV news. The lead story was about Velma’s new appeal, and at the end the reporter noted that she wasn’t the only prisoner facing imminent execution. Two others in different parts of the country were scheduled to die that very night.

“That’s enough of the news,” Velma told the guard. “You can turn that off.”

Among her belongings were three boxes of note cards and two sheets of stamps and, after Carter left, she asked the guards for those, saying she had a lot of writing to do. She also requested the tape player that Carter had loaned her and a tape of hymns by George Beverly Shea, one of several that Ruth Graham had sent recently.

“Isn’t that tape beautiful?” she asked a guard as she sat on her bunk writing notes of thanks to people who had taken an interest in her during her years in prison. She wrote for two hours, and when she handed a stack of stamped envelopes to the guard, asking that they be taken to the mailroom, the guard noted that the envelope on top was addressed to Ruth Graham.

“I’m going to try to sleep,” Velma told her. It was ten-thirty.

“If you need anything,” said the guard, “let me know.”

“Thank you. I will. Good night.”

Twenty minutes later, Velma was asleep, and an hour after that she was snoring loudly. She slept soundly as the condemned men in Texas and Louisiana were put to death.

Years later, Pam would have few memories of this awful week, most of them erased by pain and sorrow.

“There are so many blanks,” she said. “I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It was all I could do to function, to get up, get the kids dressed. I was just totally wiped out.”

Raleigh Times
reporter Sharon Kilby called Tuesday morning, hoping to get Pam’s reaction to the new appeal, but she didn’t want to talk to anybody.

“She’s burned out on the press,” Kirby said.

What did they expect from the hearing? Kilby asked.

“We’re not hopeful at all. We’ve been up and down this thing so many times we’ve just become calloused. Our eyes are fixed on November 2. That’s reality to us.”

Kilby also called Faye, who, while emotional, was at least able to talk.

“You don’t know what to get prepared for. If I start building my hopes up on the appeal, it’ll be just like it was with the clemency decision. I just got this feeling everything would be all right and she would get it. At this point, I’m scared to hope.”

Velma had a satisfying visit with Anne Lotz Tuesday morning. She told Lotz that she didn’t want any of her family to witness her execution because she knew that image would never leave them, and she wanted them to remember her as she was in happier times. Lotz didn’t want Velma to be surrounded only by strangers at her death. If it would be any comfort, or make it any easier, she said, she was willing to be there. Velma accepted.

But something else that Lotz said on this visit would prove to be of even more comfort to Velma.

“Velma, don’t think of it as the execution chamber,” Lotz told her. “Think of it as the gateway to heaven.”

In coming days, Velma would repeat that to many people.

Lotz had just finished her visit and was on her way to the warden’s office to add her name to the witness list as Judge Craig Ellis was opening the hearing on Velma’s motions in Lumberton shortly after eleven. Joe Freeman Britt had filed the state’s answer that morning. “The apparent purpose for this motion is simply to stay or delay the pending execution,” said the brief. “This court ought not permit this clear abuse of the motion for appropriate relief provisions.”

The response was accompanied by affidavits signed by Velma’s original attorney, Bob Jacobson, and the trial judge, Henry McKinnon, both saying that they saw no signs that Velma was suffering from drug withdrawal during her trial. McKinnon said that Velma “appeared to be unemotional, stolid and undemonstrative” and that her testimony had been lucid and responsive.

“It was clear that she understood the nature of the charges against her and the nature of the proceedings,” said Jacobson. “She was able to relate to me in a reasonable and rational way and to assist me in providing for her defense.”

Judge Ellis told Velma’s lawyers that he had reviewed their arguments and found them unconvincing. The issues they’d raised already had been resolved or had been waived by their failure to raise them earlier.

“There is no merit to any allegations which suggest that a new trial be granted,” he said.

The proceeding lasted only fifteen minutes, and when reporters crowded around Britt afterward to ask his reaction, he responded almost tauntingly.

“We had expected an attack,” he said, “but when it came we didn’t expect it to be so feeble.”

The outcome was no surprise to Burr. He went to a telephone to call Little in Raleigh. Forty minutes later, Little filed a twenty-page motion with the clerk of the Supreme Court, seeking a stay and appealing Ellis’ decision.

Velma ate only half of her lunch Tuesday. She had heard nothing about her appeal and asked that the TV be turned on so that she could see the news. But the news had already gone off and the regular programming had resumed.

“Oh, it’s just that ol’ soap opera lovin’,” she said. “You can turn that off.”

She asked instead for her radio and tuned it to a talk-news station. An hour later, while she was examining legal papers sent by Little, she heard that Judge Ellis had denied her appeal.

She turned off the radio then. “I’ve heard what I wanted to hear,” she said and asked for her tape player and hymns.

“Appears relaxed and calm,” a guard noted in the log.

Velma spent the afternoon reading the most recent chapters of her book, which Cecil Murphey had sent. Murphey’s final interview had been only four days earlier and he was writing more even as she read.

Supper came early, and it was Velma’s nightmare: the awful breaded veal with gravy. She was wetting her face with a washcloth when it arrived, and she held the cloth over her mouth and nearly gagged when she saw it. “I don’t eat that stuff,” she said.

She did eat the salad, though, and a couple of bites of potatoes. She was finishing off the chocolate ice cream when Rivka Gordon arrived. They watched the local TV news, learning that at that very moment the state supreme court was again considering Velma’s fate.

Velma sent out for a canteen order, offering a five-dollar bill in payment, and soon Jennie Lancaster appeared. The cell was filled with talk and laughter. Halloween, which would be the next day, was the subject for a while, the guards noted.

At six-thirty, a guard came to tell Lancaster that the warden needed to speak with her by telephone. She returned with news, but a bulletin flashed on the TV before she could deliver it.

“The North Carolina Supreme Court has just refused a stay of execution for convicted killer Velma Barfield,” the anchorman announced dramatically. He went on to report that Velma’s lawyers would be taking her appeal to the federal courts.

“There was a moment of silence,” a guard wrote in the log, before conversation resumed in the cell. “Barfield still seems to be in good spirits,” the guard noted.

At nine, Velma spent more than an hour with Jimmie Little, learning about the less-than-hopeful events of the day. He had been late in arriving because he first had to go to the home of the federal court clerk to deliver the documents that would put the federal appeal in motion.

Velma returned to her cell in remarkably high spirits, and afterward she laughed and talked with her guards. She told about the big birthday party at Women’s Prison, how good it had made her feel and what good people were there, both staff and inmates. She even started talking about her execution, now just fifty-two hours away. Nobody should feel sorry for her because of that, she said. It would not be a sad event if it came about, but a glorious one, an awakening to a far better life in a far better place. Her guards had no doubt that she was convinced of that.

After showering and brushing her teeth, Velma requested a pen and a special box of cards among her possessions. She needed to do some writing, she said, but she didn’t know how many cards she could get to. “My eyelids are awfully heavy.”

An hour later, Velma was still writing, and her mood had shifted. She seemed distant and sad when a guard came to tell her that she had to finish because the lights had to be turned down. Velma quickly read over the card she had just finished and tucked it into an envelope. It was a special one. If she were executed, it would be her final message to Jimmie Little.

By midnight, Velma was asleep and soon was snoring. But when a guard peered into her cell at 3:20, she saw something that startled her. Velma was on her back with her head tilted slightly to the right, her mouth open. She appeared to be sleeping, but her whole body was trembling. The guard alerted her superiors, who came quickly and ordered the cell door opened. The sound of the door roused Velma.

“Are you okay?” asked one of the guards.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Velma answered.

“Okay, just checking.”

The guard was ordered to keep a close watch and report any changes. Velma seemed to doze off again, but twenty minutes later she got up to use the toilet and was unable to go back to sleep. She asked for hot water, instant coffee and creamer. She also wanted the lights turned up so she could read, but master control ruled that was against policy. For an hour, she sat on her bunk, sipping her coffee and staring at the concrete block wall, seemingly deep in thought. Finally, she picked up her Bible and tried to read in the dim light. At 5:47, a guard noted in the log that Velma was on her knees beside her bunk, praying fervently.

The lights came on at six, and when a nurse brought her medicine at 6:30, Velma was still reading her Bible.

“Any problems?” the nurse inquired.

“No, I’m all right,” Velma said.

After her morning session with the Roanes Wednesday, Velma returned to face some unpleasant business. The warden was coming to talk about final visits and the schedule for the next day, her last if the federal courts didn’t intervene. He would be followed by two technicians who would explain the execution procedures in detail.

Jennie Lancaster came to be with Velma during this, as did Phil Carter and Skip Pike.

She would be escorted from her cell fifty minutes before the execution hour, the technicians told her. She would be taken to a preparation room and placed on a gurney. Her wrists and ankles would be secured with lined straps.

A cardiac monitor and a stethoscope would be attached to her chest and intravenous lines would be inserted in each arm. One problem might arise: Good veins had to be found for the needles in time to keep the execution’s precisely timed schedule. That was troublesome sometimes with people as plump as Velma. If good veins could not be found, a local anesthetic would be administered and incisions made—a “cut down” the technicians called this, but they didn’t use those words with her.

A saline solution would drip from intravenous bags mounted on the gurney to keep the veins open. Velma would have time with the chaplains and to make a final statement before being rolled into the chamber. She would be in the chamber, visible to the witnesses, for about ten minutes before the execution began.

Upon the warden’s signal, sodium pentothal would be injected into the intravenous lines. Velma would fall asleep almost instantly. Only then would pancuronium bromide, a total muscle relaxant called Pavulon, begin to flow into her veins. Within minutes, Velma’s breath and heartbeat would gradually stop. There should be no pain, other than that which came from inserting the intravenous needles at the beginning.

Velma would simply go to sleep in the gas chamber and wake up in heaven.

Noon newscasts and afternoon newspapers carried reports Wednesday that former Watergate conspirator Charles Colson, who had started a prison ministry after serving seven months for obstruction of justice, had called on Governor Hunt to stop Velma’s execution.

“Let not Mrs. Barfield be remembered as the first American executed for partisan political reasons,” Colson said in a telegram. “I plead with you to spare yourself, your state and our country the awful charge that in U.S. politics human life is cheap when compared to votes.”

Many others shared Colson’s view. Amnesty International sent representatives to the governor’s office. And hundreds of letters and telegrams were still arriving daily from throughout the world, asking that Hunt change his mind.

The support committee had reserved rooms at the Hilton near North Carolina State University, less than a mile from the prison, for Ronnie, Pam and Kirby, Faye and Cliff on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Jimmie Little and Richard Burr also had rooms there. Pam and Kirby, and Faye and Cliff arrived at the hotel shortly after noon Wednesday. Ronnie had remained behind, planning to come only when he knew for certain that the execution would take place.