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Rating: 
Summary: Jerry Bledsoe does it again!
Review: Another winner for Jerry Bledsoe. This man is an author extradordinaire! With highly acclaimed books like "Bitter Blood" and "Blood Games" under his belt, Bledsoe strikes another homerun with the story of Velma Barfield. If you like true crime, buy this book, as well as Bledsoe's other books.... Before he wakes, Blood games (my personal favorite) and Bitter Blood (this book will blow your mind away!).
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Summary: Excellent true crime book
Review: Extremely Well-written ans meticulously researched, Death Sentence tells the story of convicted murderer Velma Barfield who was executed by lethal injection in North Carolina in the late 1980's. Reading this book, I knew Velma was guilty, knew that she was a cold-blooded killer who murdered for financial gain and...yet...I found it really, really difficult not to feel some compassion for her as she neared the end of her life on death row. This book didn't change my mind about the death penalty but I came away from reading it with the uneasy conviction that Velma Barfield was sincerely remorseful about her crimes (as well she should) and was a changed woman.I don't think her death row religous awakening was phony. I could be wrong.I found it easy to intensely dislike the early Velma but not the elderly Velma. Anyway, unlike so many true crime books, Death Sentence makes you think about much larger issues.
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Summary: There are better true crime novels
Review: First I would like to say that Jerry Bledsoe did a excellent job putting this book together. This book is about Velma Barfied, a woman punished with the death penalty for posining her victims with arsenic, starting when she was young leading up to her death. Velmas final faith in God, the victims fellings of loss, betrayal and pain, Velmas familys issues of deceit, of denial, guilt, memories of happy times and sad, and pain along with Velmas friends of old and new whom stood beside her till her final breath are all bits and pieces of this heart-wrenching true story. I really can't say I am for or against the death penalty, I'm not sure anyone really knows until you are the victim of a murdered family/friend or on the other side and a family/friend of the murderer... no-one wants a loved one to die in any way. And this book showed both sides I felt for Velmas family and friends and I also felt for the victims of such horrible deaths. This is the first novel of a true life nature that I have read, and some how it all seems so unreal... When I first found out what Velma did I was appalled, and I am still appalled and do not aprove of her actions, but then my heart started opening up to her family - if they could forgive her for murdering there mother/grandmother/greatgrandmother and her childrens father and still stand behind her - it broke my heart. This is a novel of great controversy, there aren't any easy answers in my eyes, we forget that theirs always victims on both sides - but this was by far well written book.
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Summary: ". . .It Hardly Behooves Us To Talk About The Rest Of Us!"
Review: I have this little sign that reads: "There's so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it hardly behooves us to talk about the rest of us." Once upon a time not so long ago, there was a time when a slim and healthy, young man who had grown up with both poverty and big dreams was just starting out in the entertainment business and causing the girls to scream and swoon. About that same time, a young woman who had come from an abusive home was putting her heart into building a happy home for her husband and two small children. As the years passed, the young entertainer became more and more popular--and so did the homemaker.I knew the story of Velma Barfield well, so I knew how the story was going to end--yet, the writer had a way of making me live each step with Velma and her family, just as if I didn't know the ending. A friend went to see Titanic, and he told me that the movie was done so well that he never gave up hope that both Jack and Rose would survive, even though he knew that Jack wouldn't. This is the way I felt while reading this book. When a sympathetic character such as Velma Barfield ends up on death row, it makes a lot of people rethink their views on capital punishment, because it brings it so close to home. The "bad" people aren't some sort of cardboard characters anymore. They're your sons, daughters, Mommies, Daddies, and grandparents. And that's when we come to realize, through the masterful telling of their stories through books such as this one, that there really ARE no totally "bad" people, placing value on the lives of ALL people involved!
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Summary: I support the death penalty more than ever
Review: I'm sorry, but I did not see Velma Barfield as a "sympathetic" character. 99% of us have had less than perfect childhoods, but we don't use prescription drugs to hide from the world or poison people we perceive as being in our way. I don't care how "redeemed" a killer on death row becomes. It doesn't bring back the people they murdered. And I think it's ridiculous how convicted murderers can delay their punishment for years with appeals and stays, things that their victims never got. No, the book did not make me "re-think" my pro-death penalty stance. If you play, you must pay,,,whether you're Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy...or a grandmother from North Carolina.
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Summary: I support the death penalty more than ever
Review: I'm sorry, but I did not see Velma Barfield as a "sympathetic" character. 99% of us have had less than perfect childhoods, but we don't use prescription drugs to hide from the world or poison people we perceive as being in our way. I don't care how "redeemed" a killer on death row becomes. It doesn't bring back the people they murdered. And I think it's ridiculous how convicted murderers can delay their punishment for years with appeals and stays, things that their victims never got. No, the book did not make me "re-think" my pro-death penalty stance. If you play, you must pay,,,whether you're Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy...or a grandmother from North Carolina.
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Summary: The truth is scarier than fiction
Review: In 1984, Velma Barfield was the first woman executed by a state in the United States in over two decades. What led Velma into using arsenic to kill four people over a decade? Jerry Bledsoe explores Velma's background, the impact of her conviction on her children, and insight into the key characters that were involved in her trial such as her attorneys and the prosecuting attorney. The second part of this true life story is Velma's finding God as she awaits her execution. This true life crime story is an incredible accomplishment by Jerry Bledsoe because the author provides a wider examination than normally found with these type of books. Mr. Bledsoe goes beyond just Velma by delving into the motivations of her attorneys and the prosecutor, and the impact on Velma's family. By doing this, the talented writer makes the book seem more complete than most legal thrillers and leaves readers pondering the merits of the death penalty in a way rarely seen on the printed page. This reviewer will go second hand booking in order to read Mr. Bledsoe's previous true crime stories (BITTER BLOOD, BLOOD GAMES, and BEFORE HE WAKES) as well as his fictional work (THE ANGEL DOLLS) because if they are half as good DEATH SENTENCE, they are masterpieces.
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Summary: Tobacco Road noir
Review: This engrossing account of Margie Velma Barfield is unusual in the areas it highlights -- the emotional horror that the family and friends of the murderer and her victims experience; the chilling process of deliberately taking a human life via an artifically contrived legal system; the questionable truth of the condemned's redemption. Not many true-crime books focus on these aspects of a capital case and Bledsoe does a fantastic job of presenting a very nuanced account of the Barfield case. Barfield's guilt was established without a shadow of a doubt very early in the investigation of the death of her lover, Stuart Taylor. Since there's obviously no drama inherent in an open and shut case of this nature, most true crime accounts would immediately shift focus to the question of what drove the murderer to commit his or her crimes. Bledsoe spares us the usual arm-chair psychology. Instead, he carefully explains the tortuous appeals process and the politics underlying the literally life-and-death decisions that lie at the end of that process. I am a proponent of the death penalty, but I am also firmly convinced that the state owes those people accused of a capital crime an adequate defense. Otherwise, the death penalty becomes an arbitrary punishment imposed on defendants who lack the financial resources to pay for competent legal representation. Margie Velma Barfield was unquestionably guilty of the crime which led to her execution at Central Prison in Raleigh. She is also unquestionably guilty of destroying the lives of everyone around her. And I believe she was unquestionably sane enough to know that what she was doing was wrong. What remains in question, however, is whether the State of North Carolina, in its zeal to punish her, adequately guarded her constitutional rights. Bledsoe does an outstanding job of raising precisely this issue and has the good grace to let us decide for ourselves. Jerry Bledsoe is probably one of the best true crime writers in the United States. His work is always well-crafted. This book, while lacking some of the powerful narrative of his other work, is an important read for those of us who want to make sure the death penalty does not degenerate into state-sponsored vengeance disguised as justice.
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Summary: kept my interest!
Review: This is a great book. I've been in favor of the death penalty for a long time but for the first time I've been given a reason to give my opinion some second thought. What a heartwrenching story. The tears were flowing as I read the last 50 pages.......
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