On this day, Nov. 2, 1984

Published November 1, 2008 4:00am ET



Velma Barfield becomes the first woman to be executed by lethal injection.

Barfield, a 53-year-old grandmother and a serial poisoner, also became the first woman in the United States to be executed since 1962.

Known as the “Deathrow Grandma,” Barfield confessed to fatally poisoning four people with arsenic, including her mother and boyfriend.

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