Velma Barfield- Death Row Granny

In this chilling Part One of Storyteller, we dive into the haunting true story of Velma Barfield—later known as “Death Row Granny,” one of America’s most notorious female serial killers.

What begins as a shocking phone call to a college student quickly unravels into a dark and disturbing past. When Ronnie Burke is told his mother will be arrested for murder, he has no idea the nightmare that’s about to unfold… or the role his own mother may have played.

From Velma’s traumatic childhood in rural poverty—marked by abuse, fear, and survival—to her seemingly perfect marriage and family life, this episode explores the early years that shaped a killer. But everything changes after a life-altering surgery in the 1960s, when addiction, personality shifts, and prescription drugs begin to take hold.

As her family life crumbles under the weight of Valium dependency, alcoholism, and emotional turmoil, tragedy strikes in a deadly house fire that leaves more questions than answers.

Was it truly an accident… or the beginning of something far more sinister?

This is only the beginning.

In Part One, we uncover the origins of a woman who would later become one of the first women executed in the United States after the reinstatement of the death penalty—and the disturbing path that led her there.

🔪 True crime, dark history, and psychological unraveling—this is a story you won’t forget.

Follow Storyteller for Part Two, where the body count rises and the truth becomes impossible to ignore.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Storyteller where I try to find the wildest story I can each week, and Teresa hears it all for the first time. I'm Courtney, and I'm Teresa.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

And do I have a story for you?

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Better be a good one.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I think it's good. It is gonna be two parts, sorry. Because there's no chill. Yeah, because there's no chill, and I can't just write like a short no one. So Ronnie Burke was a busy man, a tired man, but he didn't let that slow him down as he left his college campus and raced the 15 miles to a different college campus where he worked part-time to support his wife and young son during the last semester of his college career. Ronnie was thinking about how much he looked forward to the day he didn't have to rush from his college courses to work and everywhere in between. And that day was within sight. Ronnie was in the final months of his bachelor's degree. Ronnie arrived at his job at Robison Technical Institute. That's in North Carolina and Robison. Oh, ours, right. I know. Ron Robinson. So he arrives at his job at Rob, I think I'm saying it right, Robison Technical Institute, and was only there a short time when the phone rang. Answering it, the voice on the other end of the phone refused to give their name, but rather calmly informed Ronnie that his mother would be arrested that day for murder. Ronnie was shocked and he questioned this person, but they refused to, you know, give him any more information or who they were, and all they would say is, I thought you oughta know. And so Ronnie hangs up and he doesn't know what to do. He finally told his boss he had some family business to handle and he drove to his mother's house. When he got there, you know, it's the afternoon, but he shook her awake because his mother worked at the late shift, the overnight shift at a nursing home, and she slept most of the day. So he wakes her up and he explains to her the phone call he had gotten and she bursts into tears instantly. And she is saying, kind of.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

She knew.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Yeah, and she's saying she thinks the police thought that she had killed him, him being Stuart Taylor, Ronnie's mom's fiancee, that had recently died after what all had thought to be a terrible bout of the flu. Ronnie tried to placate his mother, calm her down, and while trying to get information from her, during all of this, Velma, Ronnie's mother, uttered the words that he knew signaled the end of all of their lives as they knew it. I only meant to make him sick. Velma choked out through her sobs. This is the story of Velma Barfield, better known to some as the death row granny. That's one hell of a name, ain't it? Tried poisoning her fucking fiance or some shit. Yeah, yeah. So uh yeah, so um, yeah, it's it's a wild ride. And I really wanted to make this just one episode, but again, um, I just couldn't do it. I got writing and I was like, oh, I'm so many pages in. Oh my god, and we're only halfway through the story, so it's gonna be two parts, but it's an interesting one for sure. There's a lot of different things going on here. So Margie Velma Bullard was born in South Carolina, I'm sorry, North Carolina, to Murphy and Lily Bullard. And she would be known in her family by her middle name as Velma. So Murphy, Velma's father, was the youngest in his family and was known by anyone who met him as gregarious, boisterous, and at times volatile. Lily McMillan, Velma's mother, was the exact opposite of Murphy. She was sweet, she was docile, and she was smart as a whip. And when Lily was 18, yeah, 18, when she was younger, she had lost both of her parents. So she kind of bounced between her siblings, and she ended up at her sister Nellie's house, which Nellie was a neighbor to Murphy. So they're about the same age. She's not really got a family of her own. And it's pretty obvious why they, you know, they're in this rural North Carolina area. It's pretty obvious how they were drawn to each other's. Um, but no one on either side even knew they were do dating, so they really didn't expect um their wedding. In fact, Lily um slipped from the window of her sister's home and went to Murphy, went with Murphy to South Carolina the night of July 27th, 1929, and they were married. Lily turned 19 two days later. So their first child. Well, they loved how sweet. Their first child was a son named Olive. Lily loved her son, Olive. Not Oliver, just Olive. Olive. Yep, Olive. So I want to say, I'm not 100%, but I want to say Murphy's middle name might have been Olive. So that might be why. Anyways, yeah, so Olive. Very different. So goodness. So Lily desperate wanted a girl next, and she was awarded this wish when her second child, Velma, arrived on the scene. Velma was the oldest girl in the second of a large family that would eventually equal nine children. She had eight siblings. Oh my god. Um, Velma hated her childhood. And later she would only be able to recall a handful of good experiences in her youth. Like she barely had any good memories of her growing up. So are you good?

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yeah. A little thing popped up that said battery saver. Oh, you're oh, I was like, what? And I was trying to find out like where the battery was and like how but it's at 30%.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

So okay, you're doing amazing. This isn't a long one now that I've split it into two, so we should get through it. Uh so for the most part, as Delma was the second oldest and a girl, she was essentially became a second mother to her siblings, a cook and a housekeeper. And all of that was on the easy days when her father didn't have her and her brother Olive in the fields picking cotton and her tobacco. So if she wasn't slaving away inside, she was slaving away outside. Delma's relationship with her parents was one of resentment or fear for as long as she could remember. Murphy, her father, was a drunk who flew into rages that could be set off by something as simple as his biscuits being cold when Lily set his plate down in front of him for dinner. I guess he would just be worse though. You ever had a cold biscuit? Yeah, come on. He eat those bugs.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

They're all hard and everything. Oh, there's absolutely no reason for a cold biscuit.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Right, yeah. So Murphy would just fly into a rage over this. He would like throw his plate at Lily if she did that. I still have a plate or two in my life. Then there were like little things around the farm, completely like out of anyone's control, that went hand in hand with living on a farm. Like if a snake got into the chicken coop and ate the eggs, Murphy would make it so his family, his children would pay the price. Lily or the children were often falling victim to his abuse for just a snake getting the eggs. Like that's no one's fault, but he would just rage and beat the shit out of anybody who he could find. So when Murphy wasn't beating the shit out of his family or the farm animals, uh, there's a story about him nearly killing a donkey just because the donkey wouldn't like walk straight. Yeah. Um, yeah. So when he wasn't busy being a, you know, this the worst. Um, he was out buying things he couldn't afford or drinking until he couldn't see. So Murphy was super cool. Murphy always had a need to impress people and would plunge his family into poverty just so he could buy the nicest, newest cars. A family member would later say about Murphy that his pocketbook was too small for his operation. If you know what I mean, is what the No, his family's like, you can't afford that. What are you doing? So meanwhile, his children were sent to school in flower sack clothes and were only afforded one new pair of shoes a year.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

So if you were in puberty and you were growing, you were fucked, huh?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yes, that's too damn bad. So he'd come home drunk and he'd rough up Lily and Velma, who slept on a cot in her parents' room, saw it all. If something went wrong on the farm during the day, Lily would rush about trying to make it right before Murphy got home from his day job at one of the mills or plants close by that he worked at through the years. Lily, if she had not been able to cover up the error, especially if it'd been caused by one of the children, often tried to take the bull. But if Murphy had an inclination that it was one of the children's fault, he'd line every one of the children up and whip every single one of them. So not great.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Velma sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

He just sounds super sweet and carry. So Velma's resentment for her mother bloomed because as she saw it, Lily didn't protect her children, and Velma hated her for her meekness. So I think Lily tried to like take the blame so she'd get beaten. But if that didn't work, she didn't stop Murphy from beating the kids and really hated her for it. Um yeah, she only felt anger towards her mother. Overall, um, Velma would say later, much later, I was always afraid. She was always afraid of something happening, something blowing up. So she obviously longed to escape her life, the drudgery of having to care for another baby as Lily kept popping them out, or the cooking or the picking of the I mean, Lily is like Velma got by the time Velma got married, Lily's like still having babies, I think. My god. Okay, uh, so Velma longed to escape her life. The drudgery of having to care for another baby as Lily kept popping them out, the cooking, the picking of the tobacco and the cotton, and the endless tours that would result in a whipping if she ever did them wrong. Velma only knew fear and work and she hated it. She was like, I'm straight up not having a good time. I did not ask for this life. Yeah, so she found her first escape when she started elementary school. Velma was smart and loved being away from home, obviously. And she on she wished that the whole school year went all year long. She was like, Oh, I hate that we have summers off, you know. So, but it wasn't all, you know, good in the hood at school because Velma quickly realized just how poor her family was when she started school. Other kids regularly got new clothes and shoes from the fancy department stores in Fayetteville, and she was wearing these flower sack, you know, homemade clothes. Um, they had delicately packed lunches from home where Velma would have like a pail with a slight hunk of cornbread in it. Like kids would tease her, and she just really realized, like, oh god.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

She wasn't really poor though. Her dad just made really shitty choices and lots of that he couldn't afford.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Absolutely, yeah. So, you know, she's seeing all these rich kids and or just, you know, median, you know, and so she felt bad. She felt inferior because she only got one new pair of clunky, sturdy, ugly ass shoes each school year. And if she wore them out before the beginning of next school year, that was just too damn bad. Her parents were not buying her another pair. So this is when Velma's climbing first started. She'd steal candy from the store, or she'd steal coins from her father's pockets and buy candy, and she made sure to eat the candy in front of the kids who made fun of her for being poor. And the success with the candy heist really emboldened her to increase her thievery. And she stole $80 from a neighbor's house one day. Shit. Yeah, which back then is like that's a lot of money. Yeah. But it was quickly realized that Velma was the culprit, and her dad beat the shit out of her with her belt, and that stopped her life of crime, and no more incidents were known of in her yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Do you think every kid goes to that like little shoplifting phase? Did you ever do it?

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yes, but I didn't mean to. I think we were checking out at some place like Hastings is what I picture in my mind, and they always had like that shit on the counter, you know?

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

And I was like, these are free, you know. So I just took it. Like I thought they were free, and I got I got my butt beat by my grandpa when he found out because he was like, She's a thing. And I was like, Oh my god, I thought I thought that was free. Like, I didn't know. I was very young. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

I went through it. I only like, I don't know, not for very long.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

You know, just just a couple times. Like, can I get away with stealing this pack of gum? Or you know, I think every kid does.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

I think they do because I feel like everyone.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

I don't know. Does Logan listen to our podcast?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I don't know. Logan, happy.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Because I just realized that we just totally forgot about his birthday. At least I did. I totally forgot to message him. So happy related birthday, Logan.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

I had it on my phone to text him and then I forgot because I'm a bad so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

I hope he listens to this. So and the reason why I think about Shopping is because I remember he told me he got banned from Shopco for Shopping. That's incredible. That's what just brought his name up.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

That is so funny. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

We love you, Logan. We hope you listen. It's okay, that was great. Uh so the next escape came when Velma discovered a love of basketball and that she was hella good at it. Yeah, Parked in school, um, where she was in all, huh? I get who knows? She got M Jordan. So Parked in school had a girls' basketball team, and the coach actually saw Velma playing in the schoolyard one day, and he was like, Oh my god, she's so good. And he asked her to join the team, and she she loved it. She was good at it. It gave her finally some positive attention and it kept her away from home. So she was loving basketball. But it wasn't long before her mother said she had to quit the sport. Lily had just given birth to twins and she needed Velma's help at home. Yeah. No, let that girl do that. Oh my god. So forced to quit basketball and made to return to her life of drudgery. Velma's resentment and hatred for her mother really like festered and grew. Like, really, what was her mom doing? Like, she can't fucking take care of the kids. Does she have a job? No, not that I know it was I don't know. She's making sure them biscuits were hot. She's just constantly warming biscuits. She's just so finally Velma found her ticket out of her family home, and it came in the form of a tall, dark, and handsome boy named Thomas Burke. Velma couldn't believe anyone took notice of her. Velma actually thought herself very ugly. Um, she thought she was too short, she thought her teeth were ugly, she was very self-conscious. Um, she had a knot on her head um that she had gotten in the fourth grade when her and another student ran into each other on the schoolyard just full whack. And Velma had such a hard hit to the head that it left her unconscious for a little bit there during the day. So this knot.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

She had a knot, like a permanent knot.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yeah, it sounds like it. Yeah. And so, and I don't think it was like crazy big or anything. It's not like she had a goiter or something, but um, she wasn't like old goiter head. Um, but she was very self-conscious about this. So she was just like, and it didn't matter that everyone else thought Velma was very, you know, an attractive petite girl. Velma did not. And so she was surprised by Thomas's attention. And Thomas was just the smitten kitten with Velma. He was like, that's the one, you know, he just immediately took to her, and they were thickest thieves. So Thomas's family lived about a half mile away from Velma's family in a big white house with French doors, a big wraparound porch, and indoor plumbing. It was far nicer than anywhere Murphy had moved his family to because Murphy kept moving. They were constantly moving, like just in these small areas, but he'd have to go find a job or he'd want to return to farming. So none of his houses ever had indoor plumbing. Um, yeah, they always had to use an outhouse or the woods to do their business, even up until the time she's in high school. Velma's in high school, but none of that mattered to Murphy when he found out about Velma's Velma and Thomas. Murphy quickly decided that he hated Thomas, saying his family were no good white trash and forbade Velma from seeing Thomas or dating anyone for that. Yeah. He was just jealous because they had indoor plumbing. Right. Yeah, like, oh my god. So this edict probably made Thomas all the more attractive in Velma's eyes, as it does. As soon as you tell a young girl they can't see a boy, they're like, I love him. I love him. Yeah. And she kept seeing him throughout her junior year. And it was in her junior year when she was 17 that Thomas proposed. And Velma just kind of laughed in his face. And she was like, My father will never allow that. Thomas countered very quickly, he said, I've thought about it. We could just sneak down to South Carolina where permission wasn't needed for us to get married because she was under 18. And just as her mother before her, then on the night of December 1st, 1949, Velma slipped from her window and joined Thomas in his car down the road, and they drove to South Carolina and were married that night. So yeah, but she was too afraid to tell her parents. So she like snuck back in that night and went to bed.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

She was married, but she's still living with her parents and everything. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

So it only took, I think she told her mom the next day, and then I think it was two days later that she finally got up the nerve to tell her father, and she knew he would react badly. He Murphy went into a rage that reached higher levels that than anyone in the family had ever seen before. He screamed at Velma, he screamed at Lily, saying it was her fault. Then he woke up his uh oldest son, Olive, and screamed at him and said it was his fault. Like he was he was mad at her, he was like, God damn it. So uh Murphy loaded his family in the car in hopes of getting the marriage annulled or beating Thomas. I don't know really for sure what his plan was. But Olive slid into the driver's seat to drive his father on his crusade, and Velma and Lily were in the backseat. But apparently Olive didn't get into the car or didn't get the car into the gear quick enough. And Murphy just hauled off and hit him. Like he just, you know, knocked Olive across the face. And Olive finally, I think Olive would have been 18 at this time, finally said, That's it. You've hit me for the last damn time. And he screamed that at his father and he got out and he ran from the car, running for the woods. And Murphy was hot on his trail. Like Murphy was like, God damn it, these fucking kids. Velna and Lily ran back into the house as like father and son, or just I don't know, traipsing through the woods. And they just went back inside. And Murphy showed up later, much later, and he was drunk as a skunk. And he told Lily to pack his things. He's like, Pack me a bag. I am leaving this family. No one gives a damn about him or his feelings. I'm done, is what he's like. I'm I'm out of here. My biscuits are always cold. Yeah, my adult children will not listen to me. And how dare they want to have their own lives? What the fuck? So yeah. So he then Murphy, you know, went to the next stage of drunkenness and just started to sob. Like it, he's just sitting in his old recliner in the living room, just sobbing. And Velma was scared because it was the only second time in her life she had ever seen her father cry. I think the only other time is when his father had died. Thankfully, Murphy just like cried himself to sleep like a little kid. And when he did that, Velma started packing her things, and Thomas came for her that night, and she moved into that big pretty house of Thomas and his family, leaving her horrid childhood behind at the ripe old age of 17.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

So she's the fact that she even went home after being married. I would have been like, no, don't take me back there. I'm fine. Yeah, I can't. Did you go back for your one pair of clunky shoes? Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

She was just so afraid to tell her father. She was like, I need a couple days. Oh my God. So yeah, Thomas and Velma would go on to have a loving and like very safe marriage. They started out, everything was golden. She was like appreciated and loved, and just really felt things for the first time in her life that she never had felt before. The other thing was that Thomas had never drank a day in his life. And Velma, having grown up with Murphy, loved him every more every day for it. She was like, I couldn't have found a more perfect person because he doesn't even drink. Velma gave birth to their first child, Ronald Thomas, on December 15th, 1951, and their daughter, Pamela Marie, on September 3rd, 1953. So um they had children pretty quick. They were done after that. Um, and Velma swore that her children would never have a childhood like hers, full of fears and chores, just work, all of this stuff. Her children would only know love and warmth. And her and Thomas made good on that. Like these kids had a golden childhood. It was completely different from the way that Velma had grown up. So she stayed home with the children, she read to them constantly, she took them to the beach, to church, she played basketball with them as they grew. She just lived and breathed by her children. She did everything with them that they wanted to do, and so did Thomas whenever he was not at work. So they were just, yeah, this very tight family union. The family lived in a big white house with a big porch and a yard for her children and the neighborhood children to play in it. So it was just kind of like kids are in and out all the time, and you know, it was really idyllic, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Do you know she kept in touch with her family? She does. She does. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

And we'll learn about it more in part two. But actually, her father, once he starts having like grandkids, like he kind of three, you know, one eight. He starts going to church. He stops drinking. He dotes on his grandchildren. I mean, his grandchildren are like could not reconcile the man they knew with who Velma knew. They were two different people. So yeah, so they were just on the block. They were on the same block as their church. And if anything was going on at the church, the Burke family was involved. They were there like three nights a week or two nights a week and you know, Sundays and everything. Velma was teaching Sunday school, like they were always doing stuff at that church. So a tighter knit, happy family had never been seen. But then in 1963, at just age 31, Velma started hemorrhaging or, you know, losing massive amounts of blood from the reproductive system. And she was told that she had to have a hysterectomy. Doctors never said one word to Velma about the hormonal changes changes that come with such a procedure. So they didn't give her hormones. They didn't even tell her there was going to be a change. Nothing. Yeah. Change she did. Velma began to change overnight. She would be depressed for days. She started to snap at Thomas or the children, and then she'd be deeply depressed about that. And when she wasn't depressed, she felt very on edge and like nervous, very anxious all the time. Um, and then she'd become almost manic. She'd go on baking midges and eat much of it, only to rapidly sink into depression and obsess over her weight, which is crazy because at her heaviest, Velma had only ever weighed around 125 pounds. Well, yeah, but she was like, I'm so fat. I'm so oh my god. And it was also during this time that Velma started to experience extreme back pain. And she finally, with all this going on, she was like, It's time to see a doctor. Like, it can't go on like this. When she went to the doctor, she was given diet pills for her phantom fatness, as she thought of it, Tylenol with codeine for the back pain, and Valium, Valium, I can't say it now, for the edginess and nervousness that she had been feeling. So, this is all happening in 1963, the same year that Valium um arrived on the pharmaceutical scene, and it was a hit. Everyone was like, Everybody loved it. Everyone loved it. Valium quickly became the world's top-selling drug and was dubbed mommy's little helper, as it was strongly Yeah, ads with that on that. I was like, oh my god. It was strongly marketed to women to help with anxiety. Um, and it was truly a wonder drug, and doctors started prescribing it willy-nilly to sad housewives. Their waiting rooms finally becoming a ghost town as more and more women were feeling happy with the prescriptions and refills their doctors gave them. Like they were like, Oh, I feel fantastic. Like, I don't need to, you know, these doctors are like, oh my God, I've just gotten so many people out of my hair if I just give them Volume. So what no one knew at this time was that, and when doctors prescribed it to Velma, was that Valium was highly addictive, like crazy addictive. In fact, if it was consistently used, even within four to six weeks, the brain can begin to rely on volume to function, requiring higher doses to achieve the same sedative effects. So you would just have to take more and more and more because it just wouldn't work. So it was like oxy, but just that was like the first oxy. Yes, yeah. Um, and withdrawal from the drug was very dangerous. If one tried to critic cold turkey, they could have at the very least seizures, or they could, at the worst, die. Like if you just tried to stop it, you had to be weaned off of it because your body could just shut down. Your brain like craved it. But unaware of the side effects of it, Velma took her new battery of drugs and felt better for the first time in a while. She was her. So there were some other changes in the Burke household too, um, that signaled to Ronnie, now 13, and Pam 11, that the golden years of their childhood were possibly coming to an end. First, it was the changes in Velma, um, but then there was a big change in Thomas's life, too. Um, he had joined the local JC's chapter. Doesn't seem like a big deal. According to Wikipedia, the JC's mission is to provide developmental opportunities that empower young people to create positive change. But it sounds like this chapter of the JC's that Thomas joins joined's mission was to have a drinking weekie or 16 during their chapter meetings. So they're just like all hanging out and getting drunk.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

So he didn't drink though, but he starts drinking because of the Jay C.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Yes, and Velma was incense. She was furious and quickly started to harp on Thomas for his drinking. Thomas, for his part, did not see what the big goddamn deal was. He worked hard to support his family, and it was perfectly reasonable for him to drink to have a drink or two with his friends after these meetings. Like he's I don't see what, and that's all it was.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

Remember, remember JC Park and JC Pool here? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is that because it's sponsored by it's spelled the same. Yeah. I didn't even know that was a thing. Like I heard like the Elf Club, the Eagles, and the movie.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

I didn't know it was that she was a JC. Yep. You know who one of the most famous JCs is? John Wayne Gacy. Like your grandpa. No, he was a Mason. Yeah. So yeah. So he he that's all it was at first. Like, he's like, I'm having like a beer, maybe two at these meetings. Like, I work hard. I do not see what the fucking problem is, Velma. But when Thomas refused to quit the JC's or his occasional beer, the harping from Velma turned into shouting matches between the two of them. And Velma started taking more pills to deal with the rapid decline of her marriage. It's all bad. And Ronnie and Pam, during the hardest years of their lives, where they could use the support of their parents as they navigated adolescence, were having to play referee, referee to their parents' constant bickering. And as time went on, the two children became their parents' caretakers instead of it being the other way around. Like, yeah, Thomas began to drink more and more. And soon, if he wasn't at work, he was drunk. I mean, it was one or off.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Velma started, you know, because of Velma started to take so many pills that the children would find her pass out on the floor or in such dazes that she barely recognized her own children. They, you know, they're in high school and they're having to deal with all this. It's awful. Like I think that there's lots of victims in this story that we'll learn about, but Pam and Ronnie are some of the worst. Their whole lives were just taken up by all of this. Pam entered high school. It quickly became apparent that she had her mother's talent for basketball and she made the varsity team her freshman year. So Pam was kicking ass at basketball. And Velma never missed a game, and Ronnie was a scorekeeper, so he was always there to watch his sister. But as Velma's pill taking reached new heights, if she thought Pam was benched unfairly, Velma would make a scene, either yelling in the stands or actually coming down onto the court to yell at referees and coaches alike. She was making a scene. So Pam would wish to be invisible due from you know the embarrassment, and Ronnie would have to leave his scorekeeping post to drag his mother from the gym. It was horrible. Ronnie and Pam could not understand how their idyllic life had so rapidly turned into one filled with screaming, addiction, fear. It was bad. And it happened so quickly, too. And then the inedible happened. Thomas got a DY and lost his job.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

So no.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

What did he work at? Like, was he like a bus driver or something?

SPEAKER_00 29:42

No, no, but he I think he had a couple different jobs. But one, he drove truck for like the Dr. Pepper bottling company, you know, like he delivered yeah, and stuff. I don't know if that's exactly, but yeah, whatever it was when he was, if he was at a textile mill, they yeah, he got canned. So um he yeah, he had nothing to do now but drink. Like he had nothing but free time, and he was too messy to even like leave his house.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

There's none of that. That's not what you should get from that story. You should totally like look at all this free time I have now, so I'm just gonna start boosting it up even more.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Yeah, no, he went the wrong way with it. Um yeah, so he just had his all his free time was to go into drinking, and Ronnie and Pam had thought he couldn't drink more than he had before, and they saw him instead consume more than was imaginable. Like they could not believe how much alcohol this man was putting down every single day. Thomas would frequently drink himself to the point of not remembering anything and would often pass out in the living room or Ronnie's room where he would sometimes sleep to get away from Velma, and he would often fall asleep with a cigarette in his hand, one of his children having to grab it before it fell and putting it out in the ashtray. So not great. And perhaps this frequent event is why no one was super surprised um when on April 21st, 1969, the Burke's house went up in flames, and Thomas, age 37, was found dead inside. Yeah. The fire was ruled an accident um because it was believed that Thomas had fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand, and that's how the fire started. Ronnie was a senior in high school at this time, and Pam, just a year behind him, had to bury their father as teenagers. Like, and they were then left with a mother who was increasingly dependent on tranquilizers just to get through the day. The children really had hoped and they felt guilty about this, but they did hope that now that their father was gone, Velma would start to get better. Like she didn't need to take all of these like tranquilizers because she was addicted. Yeah. Yeah. After all, she had started the movie because she was so unhappy about Thomas and his drinking. But unfortunately for Ronnie and Pam, Velma's drug use would only go on to get much, much worse. And as no one at the time understood how addictive, you know, volume was, and if someone was addicted to it, the incredible lengths that that person would go to get it. I mean, you hear about it, you know, people who are addicted to meth or, you know, something and what they'll do just to make sure they get their next, you know, fix and everything. It was the same kind of situation way back then, but they didn't have the understanding of how addictive it was.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

And Velma was one of the people that would go incredible lengths to get just to make sure she had her, she called them her medicines. There's a book on it, and it's always, you took too much of your medicines, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 32:47

I always like to think that if I were to get addicted to some sort of pill, it'd be my candy.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

Gotta take my gotta eat some candy.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

You know. It's great. I do know, I just always wanted to be my candy.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

You're my candy. Yeah, I think it's healthy. So she would, you know, from visiting multiple doctors for many prescriptions. It was later described as a bullpen of doctors, is what Velma had. Like she would just go around to different ones to get as much drugs as she could. She then started writing bad checks. Eventually, insurance fraud comes up, eventually stealing prescription pads from doctors and even murder. We'll find out for two for sure during part two. This could all be combined into one. Keep going.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Sorry, everyone. It's crazy how just out of hand, how out it's yeah, it's quite a ride. And I thought, well, we need to really get into it because even yeah, so sorry, I can't I have no chill. I can't write a short episode. I'm so sorry. Are you googling her right now? You stop it.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

No, I took a screenshot of what I'm supposed to say, so I'm getting ready.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Nice, good, okay. Yeah, so everyone everyone I took a picture of my my outro.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

You're doing so good. Thank you. Super responsible. Can't keep my computer charge worship, but I can take a picture of an outro. It keeps things interesting. It's fine.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Yeah, so I sorry it's part two parts, but we hope to see you guys next week. Um, thank you so much for listening to Storyteller. Tell your friends, join us on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Storyteller. TikTok. Wait. Okay. At Storyteller Pod. Facebook. Storyteller Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

You nailed it. You did so good. And be sure to follow, like, comment, and the podcast. Um, download the podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. It really helps the show. So thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next week. Thank you. We