On this day, Nov. 2, in 1984, 53-year-old grandmother and a serial poisoner Velma Barfield became the first woman to be executed by lethal injection.
Known as the “Deathrow Grandma,” Barfield was convicted of killing six people, including her mother and boyfriend.
Charges were brought against her in 1978, after her fiance suddenly died and a medical examiner found traces of arsenic in his liver. Prosecutors said Barfield killed her boyfriend because she was worried that he had discovered that she had been forging checks on his account.
She confessed to poisoning her first husband and burning their house down in 1969, and killing her second husband less than a year later. She killed her mother in 1974, and two elderly people in her care — one in 1976 and one the following year.
— Scott McCabe
