Celeste Beard

Celeste Johnson's biological parents are unknown. She met her birth mother only one time and was told, "I am not your mother, I was just your incubator."[3] She claimed that her adoptive parent, Edwin Johnson, physically abused her as a child and that she attempted suicide during puberty.[4] At age 17, Johnson became pregnant and gave birth to twins, Jennifer and Kristina, with her abusive first husband, Craig Bratcher.[2] Bratcher committed suicide in 1996.

Johnson married twice more before meeting Steven Beard while she was a waitress at a country club in Austin, Texas. Beard, a retired Fox Broadcasting executive and self-made multi-millionaire more than twice her age, was a widower whose wife had died of cancer. Johnson moved in with Beard after he convinced her that he would legally adopt her daughters. They were married on February 18, 1995, with Beard's family and friends suspicious that Johnson had married him for his money.[5]

On October 3, 1999, Beard was shot in the stomach while he was asleep at their home in Westlake Hills, Texas. Beard was later released from the hospital, but succumbed to a blood clot on January 22, 2000.[2] Local police tied the shooting to Tracey Tarlton who Johnson had met at Saint David’s Pavilion, a mental health facility, after Johnson was admitted there for depression. Johnson and Tarton had began a friendly relationship, often inviting each other to dinner or to just 'hang out'. Over time, they had realized that they both wanted an intimate releationship but Johnson had repeatedly told Tartlton that it would only be possible if they murder Beard. This all turned out to be a sickening lie. Tarlton confessed to the shooting and was arrested at home six days after the shooting, and subsequently charged with assault. The police began to hear that Johnson had spoken negatively about Beard. Their attorney, David Kuperman, refused to allow police to interview Beard while he was hospitalized due to his grave condition.

External video
HLN:Scorned Lover's Week: Texas vs. Celeste Beard

Tarlton remained silent until July 2000, when she read in a local newspaper that Johnson had remarried six months after Beard’s death and realized that their relationship had been a sham. Shortly before her murder trial began in March 2002, Tarlton told police that Johnson had persuaded her to shoot Beard, claiming that he had emotionally abused Johnson to the point of suicide. Tarlton was determined that getting rid of him was the only way the women could be together.[6] Johnson has vehemently denied this persuasion.

Based on Tarlton's statement, Johnson was arrested on March 28, 2002. At Johnson's trial, prosecutors charged that she had married Beard for his money and wanted him dead because he was tired of her extravagant spending and was considering divorce.[7] The Beard attorney, David Kuperman, testified that Steven did not want a divorce and the underlying issues of the spending were addressed during joint therapy (both Beards in attendance) sessions treating Johnson's depression.[8] According to Beard's accountant, Johnson spent $321,000 in October and November 1999, an additional $249,000 by December 10 and another $100,000 in the six weeks ending March 31, 2000.

Johnson's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, alleged that she had nothing to do with the shooting and that Tarlton, whom he dismissed as an unreliable witness due to documented mental instability, acted alone; Tarlton was obsessed with Johnson, who denied making sexual advances toward her. According to Johnson and several witnesses, Tarlton tried to kiss her after she had passed out during her daughters' 1999 high school graduation. When Tarlton was arrested for drunk driving and Johnson bailed her out, Beard, angered by the relentless phone calls, demanded that Tarlton stop contacting the couple. Several witnesses saw no unusual problems in Johnson and Beard's marriage, and DeGuerin alleged that Johnson's daughters lied on the witness stand because they would inherit no money if their mother was acquitted. Kristina was adverse during her testimony, answering to the defense, "I do not remember," 298 times.[9]

In 2003, Johnson was convicted of capital murder, under The Texas Law of Parties,[10] receiving a 2 consecutive 40 year life sentences. She will be eligible for parole on April 1, 2042, at the age of 79.[11][12] Johnson continues to maintain her innocence for 19+ years and as of 2019 is imprisoned at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Lane Murray Unit in Gatesville.[13] Tarlton received a 10-year reduced sentence in exchange for testifying against Johnson, and was released on parole in August 2011 and lives in San Antonio.[14]

The case was covered on such news documentaries and true crime programs as American Justice, Snapped (1st episode), Deadly Women, Vengeance: Killer Millionaires, Reasonable Doubt, and ABC's 20/20.[15][16][17][18][19][20] Previously unrevealed information about the lives, the crime, and the trial in the exclusive biography, The Celeste Beard Johnson Story, was released in 2019.[21]

Johnson and five other inmates published From the Big House to Your House, a cookbook that lists recipes that can be made in prison cells with ingredients from the prison commissary.[22]

In 2017, Celeste's daughter, Jennifer, was wounded after a shooting while attending a Halloween party. She had to undergo more than ten surgeries but survived.[23]

On June 13, 2021, Lifetime aired Secrets of a Gold Digger Killer, a TV film that featured Julie Benz as Celeste.

In 2022, ABC aired two episodes titled "What the Sisters Saw - Part 1 & 2" on the show Who Do You Believe?. The show featured interviews with Celeste, her two daughters, and other people in the case.

Other murders in the Austin area:

• 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders
• Murder of Jennifer Cave
• Murders of John Goosey and Stacy Barnett

• Marlow, John (2009), Evil Wives: Deadly Women Whose Crimes Knew No Limits, ISBN 978-1-84837-367-9
• Celeste: The Celeste Beard Johnson Story by Nancy Hall and W.R. Mesiano ISBN 978-0996843751

• pro-Celeste Beard website
• archived (2012) Free Celeste website
• Witnesses during the trial of Celeste Beard
• Celeste Beard at Crime Library