Summary:

On Aug. 6, 1983, Betty Lou Beets reported her husband, retired Dallas fireman Jimmy Don Beets, missing from their home near Cedar Creek Lake, in Henderson County, Texas.

Jimmy Don's boat was found drifting near the Redwood Beach Marina on Cedar Creek Lake on Aug. 12, 1983. In the boat authorities found Jimmy Don's fishing license, his nitroglycerine tablets and a life jacket.

Almost two years passed before the Henderson County Sheriff's Department received information from a credible confidential informant that indicated Jimmy Don's death may have resulted from foul play.

Beets's son, Robert Branson, told authorities his mother informed him that evening she intended to kill Jimmy Don; instructing him to leave the residence while she did so.

Branson said that he returned approximately two hours later to find Jimmy Don dead from two gunshot wounds and that he helped Beets conceal the body in an ornamental "wishing well" in the front yard of their house.

Branson also said that the day after the murder, Beets placed some of Jimmy Don's heart medication in his boat while he removed the propeller. The two then abandoned the boat in Cedar Creek Lake.

A search warrant at the residence uncovered the body.

Additionally, the remains of Doyle Wayne Barker, another former husband of Beets, were found buried under a storage shed in the back yard. Two bullets were found in Jimmy Don's remains, and three bullets were found in Barker's remains.

All five bullets were identified as .38 caliber projectiles; the same caliber as a pistol seized from the Beets residence during an unrelated incident.

Beets' daughter, Shirley Stenger, told detectives that she had assisted her mother in burying the body of Barker in Oct. 1981, after Beets had shot and killed him.

MEDIA ADVISORY: BETTY LOU BEETS SCHEDULED TO BE EXECUTED.

AUSTIN - Friday, February 11, 2000 - Texas Attorney General John Cornyn offers the following information on Betty Lou Beets who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m., Thursday, February 24th:

FACTS OF THE CRIME

On Aug. 6, 1983, Betty Lou Beets reported her husband, retired Dallas fireman Jimmy Don Beets, missing from their home near Cedar Creek Lake, in Henderson County, Texas.

Beets's son, Robert Branson, later told authorities his mother informed him that evening she intended to kill Jimmy Don; instructing him to leave the residence while she did so.

Branson said that he returned approximately two hours later to find Jimmy Don dead from two gunshot wounds and that he helped Beets conceal the body in an ornamental "wishing well" in the front yard of their house. Beets then called the police.

Branson said that the next day, Beets placed some of Jimmy Don's heart medication in his boat while he removed the propeller. The two then abandoned the boat in Cedar Creek Lake. Later that day, the search for Jimmy Don commenced.

Members of the Henderson County Sheriff's Department, Texas Parks and Wildlife agents and numerous fire department employees searched unsuccessfully for three weeks.

However, Jimmy Don's boat was found drifting near the Redwood Beach Marina on Cedar Creek Lake on Aug. 12, 1983. In the boat authorities found Jimmy Don's fishing license, his nitroglycerine tablets and a life jacket. Beets was summoned to the marina where she identified the boat and its contents as the property of her husband. Jimmy Don's body was not found.

Almost two years passed before the Henderson County Sheriff's Department received information from a credible confidential informant that indicated Jimmy Don's death may have resulted from foul play.

The investigation resumed in the spring of 1985, culminating when Rick Rose, an investigator for the sheriff's department, obtained an arrest warrant for Beets.

Beets was apprehended by officers of the Mansfield Police Department on June 8, 1985, and booked into the Henderson County jail. While Beets was in custody, Rose secured an evidentiary search warrant for the Beets residence and its premises. Jimmy Don's remains were found buried in the front yard, under the "wishing well."

Additionally, the remains of Doyle Wayne Barker, another former husband of Beets, were found buried under a storage shed in the back yard. Two bullets were found in Jimmy Don's remains, and three bullets were found in Barker's remains.

All five bullets were identified as .38 caliber projectiles; the same caliber as a pistol seized from the Beets residence during an unrelated incident.

Both Branson and his sister, Shirley Stegner, revealed to investigators that Beets had confided to them at the time of the murder her plan to kill Jimmy Don. In addition, Stegner told detectives that she had assisted her mother in burying the body of Barker in Oct. 1981, after Beets had shot and killed him.

Various other witnesses testified at trial concerning Beet's attempts to collect life insurance and pension benefits after Jimmy Don's death, as well as her successful sale of Jimmy Don's boat almost a year after his death.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On July 11, 1985, Betty Lou Beets was indicted for the capital offense of the murder of Jimmy Don Beets for remuneration and the promise of remuneration. Beets was tried in the 173rd District Court of Henderson County before a jury upon a plea of not guilty.

On Oct. 11, 1985, the jury found Beets guilty of the capital offense. At a separate punishment hearing on Oct. 14, 1985, the trial court sentenced Beets to death.

Beets's conviction and sentence were automatically appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. In its original opinion, the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed Beets's conviction for capital murder, finding that murder committed for the purpose of obtaining insurance and pension benefits did not constitute murder for remuneration, as defined by the Texas Penal Code.

On Sept. 21, 1988, after the State requested a rehearing of the case, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Beets's conviction and sentence. The United States Supreme Court denied her petition for writ of certiorari on June 26, 1989.

The trial court then scheduled Beets's execution for Nov. 8, 1989. On Oct. 16, 1989, Beets filed a motion for a stay of execution to allow her time to prepare and file a state habeas corpus application.

On Nov. 1, she filed a state habeas petition and the trial court stayed her execution to permit adequate time to consider the claims raised. On June 27, 1990, the Court of Criminal Appeals denied habeas relief.

On Sept. 20, 1990, the trial court scheduled Beets's execution for Dec. 6, 1990. On Sept. 25, 1990, Beets filed a second petition for writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court denied certiorari on Nov. 26, 1990.

On Dec. 3, 1990, less than three days before her scheduled execution, Beets filed her federal petition for writ of habeas corpus and an application for stay of execution in federal district court.

The federal district court granted a stay of execution on Dec. 4, 1990. On Jan. 22 and 23, 1991, and April 1, 1991, the court conducted an evidentiary hearing and, on May 9, 1991, entered final judgment granting relief on one of Beets's claims, and denying all others.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of Beet's claims, but reversed the judgment of the district court on the one claim granted relief on March 18, 1993, and remanded the case to the federal district court.

On remand, Beets's one remaining claim was addressed by the district court, and on Sept. 2, 1998, habeas corpus relief was denied. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of relief on June 28, 1999.

Beets's motions for panel rehearing and rehearing by the en banc court were denied on Aug. 18, 1999. The Supreme Court denied Beets's petition for certiorari review on Jan. 18, 2000.

PRIOR CRIMINAL HISTORY

Betty Lou Beets admitted that she previously had been convicted of public lewdness, which apparently occurred when she was in Charlie's Angels Bar, a Dallas bar, where she was then employed but was not working when the incident occurred.

Beets testified that she "auditioned" that night, without specifying what type of audition it was for: "Well, it's a topless place but I wasn't topless." Beets also admitted on cross-examination that she had been convicted of another misdemeanor offense that resulted when she shot another former husband, Bill Lane, in the side of the stomach.

DRUGS AND/OR ALCOHOL

Betty Lou Beets, a cashier and waitress, was convicted of the August 1983 shooting death of her fifth husband at the couple's home near Gun Barrel City in East Texas in what authorities said was a scheme to collect over $100,000 in insurance benefits and a $1200 per month pension.

His body was found buried under a wishing well in their front yard. Jimmy Don Beets was a Dallas firefighter who disappeared on Aug. 6, 1983. His fishing boat was found drifting on Lake Athens.

Texas Executes Betty Lou Beets for Husband's Murder

CNN.com

February 24, 2000

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (CNN) -- Texas on Thursday evening executed a 62-year-old woman, who supporters say was driven to kill her husband by years of domestic abuse.

Betty Lou Beets, convicted of murdering her husband in 1983, was put to death by lethal injection at 6:18 p.m. CST at a state prison in Huntsville, Texas.

Beets' attorneys exhausted their last legal recourse about an hour before the execution, when Gov. George W. Bush declined to stop it. Bush's decision came just minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court declined a request by Beets' attorneys to step into the case. Beets declined a final meal and did not make a final statement before the execution.

"She's very scared," Beets' attorney Joe Margulies had told CNN earlier in the day. "She doesn't want to be strapped down to that gurney all alone." A federal appeals court on Thursday afternoon denied a motion to stop the execution.

In its ruling, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld a lower court ruling issued Wednesday rejecting a plea from Beets' attorneys that her case be re-examined by Texas officials because she was a battered wife.

Beets is only the fourth woman executed in the United States since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976. Karla Faye Tucker was the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War, when she was put to death on February 3, 1998, for a 1983 pickax murder.

Beets, who had five children, nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, is the oldest person put to death in Texas since the state resumed executions in 1982. Texas, which leads the nation in capital punishment, has now executed 208 people since then.

Beets was convicted of murder for the 1983 shooting death of Dallas fire captain Jimmy Don Beets, her fifth husband, in what prosecutors said was a scheme to collect his life insurance and pension. She also had been convicted of shooting and wounding her second husband, and charged -- but never tried -- in the 1981 shooting death of her fourth husband.

'All my mama's life, she's been abused'

In Austin, U.S. District Judge James Nowlin said the motion to stop the execution, filed as part of a lawsuit seeking to have Beets' case reviewed because she was a battered wife, was "yet another example of a prisoner attempting to delay execution just prior to the execution date."

The judge also dismissed the lawsuit, which argued that Beets' civil rights were violated because she was not given a chance to present evidence that she suffered years of domestic abuse in her five marriages. On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, dominated by Bush appointees, rejected Beets' pleas for a 180-day reprieve and commutation of her sentence.

Beets' legal team and a coalition of supporters including domestic-violence awareness groups and Amnesty International USA wanted her death sentence commuted to life in prison.

They said Beets, who has been in jail since 1985, was damaged both physically and psychologically and that she had poor legal counsel because the jury that sentenced her to die was not told about the abuse. "Betty's daughters went to (a previous defense attorney) ... and gave him pictures of Betty taken after she had been beaten up, horribly battered," Margulies said. "Had he looked, he could have amassed the information that we eventually got ... and asked the (parole) board to review, but they declined. "What we're saying is, 'Give us the opportunity to present our evidence on battering that the jury didn't hear.'"

Beets' daughter, Faye Lane, told the parole board Tuesday: "All my mama's life, she's been abused. I've seen it with my own eyes. And I know that if the jury heard the truth about my mama, she only could have done something like this if she'd been very scared or threatened. "I'm not saying that my mother should go free, but to be allowed to live out her remaining years in prison."

Letters to Bush

Two U.N. experts on human rights had appealed to Bush in a letter Thursday to spare Beets from execution. Asma Jahangir and Radhika Coomaraswamy of the U.N. Commission on Human rights expressed their concern that "abuse and extreme violence" suffered by Beets were not considered by the investigating authorities or the courts when convicting and sentencing her for murder.

The two U.N. officials urged Bush to consider the specific circumstances of the crime, "and in particular the violent abuse which Betty Lou Beets suffered at the hands of her spouses and the effect of this abuse on her state of mind and her actions."

In another letter Wednesday, the group Human Rights Watch had called on Bush to grant Beets a 30-day reprieve, with senior researcher Allyson Collins citing "a perfect opportunity for Governor Bush to display his much-touted conservative compassion."

Bush, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, had said he would not decide what action to take until the matter had run its course in the courts. "The question I'm going to ask is, 'Is she guilty of the crime?'" said the governor, who returned to Austin late Wednesday.

Texas has carried out 120 executions since Bush took office in January 1995 -- the latest on Wednesday night when Cornelius Goss, 38, was put to death for a 1987 murder. Bush has never granted a 30-day reprieve, but he commuted one death penalty to life in prison, citing flimsy evidence against the inmate.

'I don't remember what happened'

The bodies of Beets' fourth and fifth husbands were found under a wishing well in the yard of her mobile home at Gun Barrel City, Texas. They had been shot in the head, execution-style.

Prosecutors say she murdered Jimmy Don Beets, a Dallas fire captain, but she says she doesn't know how her husband was killed. "I wouldn't willingly do that," Betty Lou Beets said in a death row interview. "But I don't remember what happened then ... it's just a blank to me."

BETTY LOU BEETS: Grandmotherly Victim, or the "Black Widow"?

About.com

"I really believe that to kill me is to tell every battered woman and child, every abused woman and child that there is not a chance, that there is no end but death, that we can't fight back." -Betty Lou Beets

On Feb. 24, 62-year-old Betty Beets is scheduled to be only the second woman to be executed by the State of Texas (after Karla Faye Tucker) since the Civil War. She was convicted for the 1983 murder of her fifth husband, Jimmy Don Beets.

Prosecutors claimed that she killed him for a $100,000 insurance policy. She claims she killed him because she was a victim of abuse (though she originally tried to blame two of her children for the murder).

"Her long history of abuse, beginning as a child and continuing throughout adulthood, it certainly sounds like she suffered from battered women's syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder." -Bree Buchanan of the Texas Council on Family Violence

Beets had never heard of "battered women's syndrome" when she was tried for her husband's murder, but she's embracing it now. She insists that if the jury had known the extent of the abuse she'd lived through (she says her attorney had photos of her but chose not to present them at the trial) they'd never have condemned her to death, if indeed they'd have convicted her at all.

To be sure, her life has been difficult, beginning with a rape at age five. It's very likely that she was abused by most of her seven husbands. And no doubt she believes that women should be taught to stand up for themselves against domestic abuse.

But it's also true that she's fought back more than most: She's been indicted (though never tried) for the murder of her fourth husband, Doyle Wayne Barker, whose body was found buried outside of her home (near the body of Jimmy Don Beets); and in 1972, she shot her second husband in the back of the head (he survived), and was allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanor assault.

"My time is running out and the state of Texas will pick up where my husband left off. While the Texas law enforcement out there did nothing to help me, it is now legal for them to finish the job." -Betty Lou Beets

Feb. 16 Update: Death penalty opponents claim that Texas Governor George W. Bush is refusing to grant Beets clemency for political reasons because he wants to present himself as being tough on crime. In fact, though, there have been over 100 executions in Texas while Bush was Governor, and clemency has only been granted once: in a case where the inmate had been shown to be innocent.

Feb. 18 Update: A lawyer for Betty Beets has filed suit against the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, claiming they were obligated under state law to give special clemency consideration to battered women convicted of killing family members.

Feb. 22 Update: The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied her clemency request.

Feb. 23 Update: A Federal judge denied her motion for a stay of execution. Beets's lawyers claimed she'd been denied her civil rights because she hadn't been permitted to testify at her trial about being abused by her husbands. U.S. District Judge James Nowlin left little doubt about his feelings when he called the motion "yet another example of a prisoner attempting to delay execution just prior to the execution date."

Feb. 24 Update: Bush returns to Texas to consider Beets's case; and, no doubt, the political implications of any decision he makes.

Bleached blonde barmaid Betty Lou Beets seemed to be very unlucky in her choice of husbands. Out of the five, four disappeared without trace and the other (number 3) left her after she planted a bullet in his back after a nasty fight.

When husband number 5 appeared to have drowned in a fishing accident poor Betty was distraught, as were his colleagues at the local fire department especially when his body could not be found in the relatively small lake where the accident was assumed to have occurred. Betty Lou at least had the wishing well he had dug for her in the yard of her trailer in rural Texas to remember him by.

The insurance payout which she claimed almost as soon as he disappeared also helped her to come to terms with her loss. Unfortunately, suspicions were raised within the local police and investigations centering on the bottom of the lovingly constructed well revealed husband number 5 wrapped in a sleeping bag and with a bullet lodged in his brain.

'Black Widow' Executed

Great-Grandmother Is 4th Female Inmate to Die in U.S. Since 1976

By Geraldine Sealy

ABCNews.com

Betty Lou Beets, a great-grandmother convicted of murder in the death of her fifth husband, was executed by lethal injection tonight. 

Despite pleas by battered women’s groups and death-penalty opponents, great-grandmother and convicted murderer Betty Lou Beets has been executed in Texas.

The 62-year-old so-called Black Widow, convicted of killing her fifth husband, lost her final hope at a reprieve yesterday when both the U.S. Supreme Court and Texas Gov. George W. Bush declined to stop the execution.

Beets died at 6:18 p.m. local time at the death house in Huntsville, Texas, 10 minutes after lethal drugs began coursing through her body. As she lay on the gurney in the death chamber, Beets declined an invitation to make a final statement, prison officials said. As she waited for word of a reprieve, Beets wrote letters, read the Bible, and visited with the chaplain in the holding cell near the death chamber, according to a prison spokesman.

Beets is only the second woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War and the fourth in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Shortly before the execution, Bush released a statement explaining his decision not to step in: “After careful review of the evidence of the case, I concur with the jury that Betty Lou Beets is guilty of this murder. I’m confident that the courts, both state and federal, have thoroughly reviewed all the issues raised by the defendant.” Bush could have offered a one-time 30-day reprieve. Both the Supreme Court and a federal appeals court had rejected Beets’ plea for a reprieve earlier today.

Battered Wife or Black Widow?

Beets’ lawyers and supporters — a coalition of death-penalty opponents and battered women’s advocates — had appealed in recent weeks to Texas authorities for a stay to allow for a review of her case. Some supporters protested outside the death house before, during, and after the execution.

Beets never confessed to killing Jimmy Don Beets, her fifth husband, in 1983. But his body was found buried under a planter in her front yard, along with the body of Mrs. Beets’ fourth husband, Doyle Barker. Both men had been shot and their bodies stuffed in blue sleeping bags.

Beets and her supporters maintained the jury that sentenced her to die in 1985 for killing Jimmy Don Beets for insurance money did not hear all the evidence.

For example, the panel never considered, they said, that she was abused both physically and sexually from a young age and by all her husbands. But a member of the jury who condemned Beets said in a recently penned letter to Bush — released by the governor’s office today — that the panel made the right decision. “She knew that her actions would cause Jimmy’ s death. She did it for the insurance money. She continues to be a threat to society,” wrote juror Connie Harrington.

At a press conference outside the death house, the son of Jimmy Don Beets expressed his satisfaction that the state had taken Betty Lou Beets’ life. “I ask that God be with her family,” James Beets said. “Now she knows what we feel like.”

Gov., Courts, Board Reject Plea

But her supporters pointed to the fact that Beets was convicted before “battered women’s syndrome” was widely used as a defense in courtrooms — and before states began commuting sentences of victims of domestic violence.

Since 1991, more than 100 imprisoned battered women from 20 states have had their sentences commuted. “[Jurors] didn’t know they were dealing with a battered woman who had been abused since she was 5,” Sister Helen Prejean, a death-penalty opponent made famous by the movie Dead Man Walking, said on ABCNEWS’ Good Morning America. Prejean said she was “appalled” by the case. “They condemned her to death without knowing that,” she said.

Beets was also the victim of ineffective counsel, her advocates said. And, she was never granted a review of her case, as mandated by a 1991 Texas legislative order that requires the parole board to reconsider the sentences handed down in murder cases involving domestic violence.

Beets’ attorneys filed suit against the parole board and prison system, claiming her rights were violated because she was denied the review under the 1991 mandate. But U.S. District Judge James Nowlin on Wednesday threw out the lawsuit, saying it was just another example of an inmate trying to delay execution at the last moment. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the Supreme Court also rejected the lawsuit today.

Two Executions in Two Days

On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Paroles and Pardons had already refused to grant a reprieve or commute her sentence. The panel’s chairman said Beets had never confessed or shown remorse for her actions and did not show enough evidence that domestic violence caused her to commit the crime. Beets was the second inmate to die in Texas in two days.

Texas Executes 'Black Widow'

Bush Rejects 62-Year-Old's Last-Minute Appeal

APBNews Online

Feb. 24, 2000

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A 62-year-old woman was executed by injection tonight after Gov. George W. Bush rejected her claim that she killed her fifth husband in self-defense and deserved a reprieve.

Betty Lou Beets became the fourth woman to be executed in the United States since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed the death penalty to resume. She was the second woman executed in Texas since the Civil War.

She gave no final statement as she lay strapped to the death chamber gurney. She made no eye contact with the victim's family but smiled at relatives watching through a window at her side. She continued smiling as she slipped into unconsciousness.

Death penalty opponents and domestic violence organizations had urged Bush to grant Beets a 30-day delay, arguing it would be consistent with his description of himself as a "compassionate conservative" in his presidential campaign.

The delay was Bush's only option because the state parole board did not recommend that her sentence be commuted to life in prison. During his 5 1/2 years as governor, 120 convicted killers have been executed in Texas. He has spared one condemned inmate.

'I concur with the jury'

"After careful review of the evidence of the case, I concur with the jury that Betty Lou Beets is guilty of this murder," Bush said in a written statement after returning to Texas from California, where he was campaigning for the Republican nomination. "I'm confident that the courts, both state and federal, have thoroughly reviewed all the issues raised by the defendant."

Beets and her lawyers insisted the former bartender-waitress, convicted of fatally shooting fifth husband Jimmy Don Beets nearly 17 years ago and burying his body under a flower garden, was the victim of years of domestic abuse and should be allowed to live.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans today rejected an appeal that accused the state of not following its own rules in reviewing Beets' case. The arguments were dismissed Wednesday by a federal judge in Austin as a delay tactic. Beets' lawyers also took the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected it without comment.

Callers opposed execution

According to the governor's office, Bush had received 2,108 phone calls and letters opposing Beets' execution by this afternoon, and 57 calls and letters favoring it. "A decision to stay the execution of Ms. Beets would demonstrate your compassionate conservatism and that you are willing to do what is right even in the face of potential criticism from your constituents," the Rev. Jesse Jackson wrote Bush today.

Steven Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, implored to Bush grant a reprieve "so evidence of her being battered ... may be fully evaluated." "Far from receiving careful consideration, the role of domestic abuse in Betty's crime has been continually swept under the rug by the Texas court system," Hawkins said.

Follows Karla Faye Tucker Before Beets, the last woman executed in Texas was Karla Faye Tucker on Feb. 3, 1998. Tucker hacked two people to death with a pickax but said she had a religious conversion in prison and appealed for mercy.

Bush was criticized for mocking Tucker in a magazine interview last year. Beets was the ninth convicted killer and the second in as many days to be executed in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state. She spent this morning meeting with relatives. She declined to request a final meal.

Although Beets insisted she was innocent, a jury convicted her of killing Jimmy Don Beets, a Dallas Fire Department captain, to collect his life insurance and pension. Her claims of domestic abuse surfaced only recently and were not a factor in her 1985 trial, although one of her daughters, Faye Lane, in a tearful plea for her mother's life, said this week her mother was acting in self-defense after years of abuse. "I know that if the jury heard the truth about my momma; she only could have done something like this if she'd been very scared or threatened," Lane said.

Two other husbands shot James Beets, the murder victim's son, discounted claims of abuse, saying she told friends her husband of 11 months had been the best thing to happen to her. "Why is she saying what she is saying about my daddy?" James Beets said.

Beets -- dubbed the "black widow" by prosecutors -- also was convicted of shooting and wounding her second husband, Bill Lane, and was charged but never tried in the 1981 shooting death of her fourth husband, Doyle Barker.

Acting on a tip two years after Jimmy Don Beets was reported missing from a fishing trip, authorities found his body buried under a wishing well flower garden in the yard of their trailer home.

They also discovered nearby in another shallow grave the body of Barker, who had been missing for four years. Both had been shot in the back of the head and stuffed into blue sleeping bags. Beets blamed a son for Jimmy Don Beets' death.

In Memorium - Betty Lou Beets

Bettie Lou Beets, a 62-years-old great grandmother, was executed by the State of Texas on February 24, 2000 after being abused, physically, mentally and emotionally by various men in her life since early childhood.

Despite of all the reports she gave the police, which clearly demonstrated the terrorizing conditions she was living under, nobody ever cared to handle the situation before it was too late.

Beets became the 4th woman to be killed by the state in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 and the 1st. by the State of Texas since the 1998 execution of Karla Faye Tucker

"I really believe that to kill me is to tell every battered woman and child, every abused woman and child that there is not a chance, that there is no end but death, that we can’t fight back. It doesn’t have to be this way and God help us all if it happens this way".

Bettie was abused all her life in one way or an other, ever since she was three, since her earliest memories. She was physically, mentally and emotionally abused since her first memories.

As an adult and mother she was literally held hostage and threatened with guns being held to her head - in her own home by a very violent man for a year and a half. She filed numerous reports of domestic abuse to the police, but Bettie was not taken serously before it was too late. Because of hearing-empairment, she was learning disabled since school. She got married at 15 and had 6 children.

When her husband left her and the children after 17 years, she suffered further humiliation because she had no scooling, no training, nor could she communicate properly because of the hearing-empairment.

She turned to alcoholism and went from one abusive relationship to the other. On one occasion, she was dragged out on the field, and almost strangled, raped, and told she could scream as much as she liked, because there were no one there to hear her screams. Bettie was sentenced to death for the tragic murder of her 5. husband.

Because she couldn't hear, she didn't know what was going on during trial. There were no speakers, nobody told her what was happening and her attorney has later been charged for co-operation with the prosecution. It was never brought to the jury's attention that Bettie was deaf, and that she could only understand parts of what was going on.

All of her story was available to the courts, her attorney at trial and the state, none of it was told and the jury didn't get to hear any of it While on death row for women in Texas, Bettie went through humiliation all over again. She - as the others - was being stripped searched daily, which according to Bettie brought back childhood nightmares.

Betty Lou Beets, the appellant, was convicted by a jury of committing the offense of capital murder of Jimmy Don Beets, who was then her lawful husband. It was alleged in the indictment that the appellant "did then and there, knowingly and intentionally cause[d] the death of an individual, namely, Jimmy Don Beets, by shooting him with a firearm, and the said murder was committed for remuneration and the promise of remuneration, namely: money from the proceeds of retirement benefits from the employment of Jimmy Don Beets with the City of Dallas, insurance policies on the said Jimmy Don Beets in which the [appellant] is the named beneficiary, and the estate of Jimmy Don Beets." The record reflects that Beets died intestate.

At the time of his death, Beets and appellant had been married less than one year, although they had previously lived together for an unknown period of time.After the jury found appellant guilty of the offense of capital murder, "as alleged in the indictment", The indictment obviously alleges the offense of murder and the aggravating element of remuneration, which causes the offense of murder to be elevated to capital murder. it thereafter answered in the affirmative the special issues that were submitted to it pursuant to Art. 37.071, V.A.C.C.P

The special issues were as follows: "Was the conduct of the Defendant, Betty Lou Beets, that caused the death of the deceased, Jimmy Don Beets, committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result?"; "Is there a probability that the Defendant, Betty Lou Beets, would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society?"Neither the appellant nor the State presented any testimony or evidence at the punishment stage of the trial; the State relying upon the evidence that had been presented at the guilt stage of the trial as the basis for the jury's answers to the special issues that were submitted at the punishment stage of the trial. Thereafter, the trial judge assessed the appellant's punishment at death. We reverse.

Lil Smith, owner of the Redwood Beach Marina, which is located between the communities of Kemp and Seven Points or between the communities of Seven Points and Gun Barrel City on Cedar Creek Lake or Reservoir, testified that around 10:00 o'clock p.m. on August 6, 1983, several of her customers at the marina noticed an empty boat drifting on the lake near the marina.

Two of her customers went and got the empty boat and brought it to shore. Found inside the boat was a fishing license with the name "Jimmy Don Beets" thereon. Also found in the boat were a medicine bottle containing nitroglycerine tablets and a life jacket. Several tablets from the bottle were found in the bottom of the boat.

The Coast Guard and Parks and Wildlife were notified and several of their personnel came to the marina. Smith then looked in the telephone book to see if anyone by the name of Jimmy Don Beets was listed, found that name, telephoned the listed number several times, and finally spoke to appellant and informed her about the empty boat and the finding of Beets' fishing license.

The appellant later told Smith that the reason she did not immediately answer the telephone was because she was outside in the yard and did not hear it ring.

The appellant went to the marina and identified the boat and the fishing license as belonging to Beets, who was then her lawful husband. The boat was established to be Beets' separate property, having been acquired before he and appellant married.

On July 24, 1984, almost a year after Beets was reported missing, but before the skeletal remains of his body were found, appellant sold the boat to Martha and Michael J. Miller. During the trial, Martha testified to the facts of the sale of the boat by appellant to her and her husband.

The record also reflects that Beets owned a house, which was also apparently his separate property. Appellant testified that she and Beets had tried to sell the house before Beets disappeared.

The house mysteriously burned. Apparently, after letters testamentary issued, appellant, through counsel, unsuccessfully attempted to recover on a fire insurance policy that insured the house for fire loss.Because of high winds, it was decided by the authorities that a search for Beets' body would not commence until the next morning, August 7th.

Johnny Marr, a deputy sheriff for Henderson County, testified that at approximately 8:30 o'clock a.m. on August 7th, he and Hugh G. De Woody, the Fire Chief of the Payne Spring Fire Department, went to the appellant's residence to see if Beets had possibly returned home since he had been reported missing. Appellant told Marr that her husband "had went fishing the night before [on the lake and 'had been having trouble with his boat'], and hadn't returned Saturday morning." Marr told appellant that as speed boat races were taking place on the lake that day, and because of the numerous boats that would be in the lake that day, it was likely that Beets' body would be found by someone. When appellant testified, she denied that Marr and De Woody came to her residence that morning.

Mike Warren of the Parks and Wildlife Department testified that extensive search efforts were made by members of several different fire departments, which included members of the City of Dallas Fire Department, for whom Beets had been employed for approximately 26 years, members of the Henderson County Sheriff's Department, Coast Guard personnel, and many other persons. Although the search lasted for three weeks, Beets' body was never recovered.

Denny Burris, a chaplain with the City of Dallas Fire Department, testified that he visited with appellant several times after Beets was reported missing. Burris testified that appellant made inquiry of him whether she was covered by any insurance policies that Beets might have had with the City of Dallas, as well as inquiring whether she would be entitled to receive any pension benefits that Beets might have accumulated. Appellant did not profess to Burris that she had any specific knowledge of either insurance coverage on Beets' life or any pension benefits Beets might have accumulated. Burris told her that he did not know but would check into the matter and report back to her.

Burris did check and learned that Beets's life was insured with the total amount of insurance being approximately $110,000. He also learned that appellant would be entitled to receive approximately $1,200 each month from Beets' pension benefits.

Burris advised appellant of his findings, and also told her that according to the City Attorney of Dallas that because Beets' body had not been recovered there would be a seven year waiting period before any payment of insurance proceeds could occur.

Evidence was adduced during the trial which established that approximately two years later, the appellant, through an attorney, applied for and received letters testamentary. At the same time, appellant, through the attorney, applied to have Beets legally declared dead.

On March 5, 1985, approximately three months before the skeletal remains of Beets' body were found and identified, Beets was legally declared dead by the presiding judge of the County Court of Henderson County. Appellant was made the administratix of Beets' estate.

These proceedings appear proper under the provisions of Section 72 of the Probate Code. That section also provides that "Distribution of the estate to the persons entitled thereto shall not be made by the personal representative until after the expiration of three (3) years from the date such letters [testamentary] are granted."

However, on April 4, 1985, the attorney for Beets' only natural child, James Donald Beets, filed a motion for new trial in that cause. On June 10, 1985, two days after appellant was arrested on June 8, 1985, the presiding judge of the County Court of Henderson County issued an "Order for Protection."

At the time of trial, the issue of who would ultimately administer Beets' estate, as well as who would ultimately financially benefit from his estate, had not been resolved. By the probate records, Beets died intestate.

Rick Rose, an investigator for the Henderson County Sheriff's Department, testified that he became directly involved in this case almost two years after Beets' had disappeared.

His direct involvement in the case occurred after "[he] received information from a [credible] confidential informant who gave [him] facts that there may be possible ... questions [concerning the cause of the death] of Jimmy Don Beets." This occurred sometime in the spring of 1985. At that time, neither Beets' body nor the physical remains of his body had been found. As a result of Rose's investigation, he secured an arrest warrant for the appellant that charged her with the murder of Beets.

Rose had her arrested on June 8, 1985 by members of the Mansfield Police Department, who turned her over to Rose, who booked her into the Henderson County Jail.

The validity of the arrest warrant, which is not in the record of appeal, was not challenged in the trial court nor is it challenged on appeal in this Court. Rose testified that after appellant was incarcerated he went and secured "an evidentiary search warrant" to search the appellant's residence and its premises.

The validity of the search warrant, which is also not in the record, was not challenged in the trial court nor is it challenged on appeal in this Court. Pursuant to the execution of the search warrant, physical remains of the bodies of Beets and Doyle Wayne Barker, another former husband of appellant's, were found at different locations on the premises where the appellant and Beets were living at the time Beets disappeared.

The jury was not then made aware of the extraneous offense testimony regarding Barker's disappearance and death. This came into evidence after the trial judge conducted a hearing on appellant's motion to exclude such testimony, which he overruled.

Beets' remains were found buried in the "wishing well," which was located in the front yard of the residence. Barker's remains were found buried under a storage shed located in the backyard of the residence. Two bullets were recovered from Beets' remains.

The remains of the two bodies were transported to the Dallas Forensic Science Laboratory where they were subsequently identified as being the remains of the bodies of Beets and Barker.

A Collector's item pistol that had been previously recovered from the appellant's residence as a result of an incident that did not involve the appellant and was not directly related to the cause at Bar was also turned over to the Dallas laboratory.

Robert "Robbie" Franklin Branson, II, one of appellant's sons, who we will hereinafter refer to as Robbie, testified.

The trial judge later instructed the jury that Robbie was, as a matter of law, an accomplice witness to the Beets' killing.

Robbie, who was then on felony probation for committing a burglary that had occurred in Navarro County, which is unrelated to this case, testified that he was living with appellant and Beets on August 6, 1983, when appellant falsely reported Beets missing; that appellant told him that she was going to kill Beets that evening; that Robbie then left the residence at the suggestion of appellant, because "she said she wanted me to leave and she didn't want me to be around when she shot and killed him," and remained absent for approximately two hours, after which he returned to the residence when he learned that his mother had actually shot and killed Beets during his absence.

Robbie thereafter assisted appellant in placing Beets' body in the "wishing well", which he and Beets had previously constructed. The next day, after appellant put some of Beets' heart pills in the boat that Beets owned and after Robbie took the propeller off the boat, Robbie took the boat to the main part of the lake, abandoned it, and was soon met by appellant near that location. The two then returned home.

During cross-examination, the appellant's attorney several times accused Robbie of being the actual killer of Beets, which Robbie denied. Robbie admitted that his participation with appellant in burying Beet's body in the "wishing well" had preyed on his conscience.

However, except for telling his ex-common-law wife who did not testify, Robbie remained silent on the subject for almost two years. Robbie testified that he remained silent because he wanted "to protect his mother." However, after his mother was arrested, Robbie commenced cooperating with the authorities, "to protect his back[side]."

Robbie testified that he knew of Barker, but had only seen him one time, and that he did not live with his mother and Barker when she and Barker were married and lived together.

Shirley Stegner, one of appellant's daughters and a sister of Robbie, also testified for the prosecution. Shirley testified that her mother telephoned her on the night of August 6th and requested that Shirley come to her residence, which Shirley did.

During the telephone conversation, Shirley asked her mother "if she had done what we had talked about before," which conversation related to appellant previously telling Shirley that she was going to kill Beets, put Beets' body in the boat, have Robbie take the boat out into the lake, where he would drop Beets' body into the lake, and then set the boat adrift, so that it would look like Beets had accidentally drowned. Appellant responded: "Yes."

Shirley went to her mother's residence but after she got there appellant informed her that "everything was taken care of and that I could go back home," which she did.

Shirley testified that several weeks later she returned to her mother's residence when she was informed by appellant that "her and my brother Robbie had buried Jimmy Don Beets in the wishing well." Shirley never testified that appellant had admitted to her that she had killed Beets in order to recover on any insurance policies or to receive any pension benefits that Beets might have had.

At this time during the trial, the trial judge conducted a hearing on the appellant's motion to exclude any extraneous offense testimony going to the death of Barker, after which the trial judge overruled the motion, thus permitting the State to then present testimony going to the disappearance and death of Barker. See, however, post.

In the presence of the jury, Shirley testified that in October, 1981, almost two years before Beets disappeared, when her mother and Barker were married and living together, while she and her mother were "sitting around a campfire", her mother told her that "she was going to kill Doyle Wayne Barker" because "she couldn't put up with anymore of him beating her and that she didn't want him around anymore."

Her mother also told her that "the trailer [house] was in his name and she was just a co-signer on it and that if they were to get a divorce, that he would end up with the trailer [house]." Approximately 3 or 4 days later, at Shirley's residence, Shirley and her mother had another conversation, during which her mother told her that "it was all over with and she had done what she intended to do ... She told [Shirley] that she waited until [Barker] went to sleep and then she got the gun and covered it with a pillow and pulled the trigger and when she pulled the trigger, the pillow [interfered] with the firing pin, so she hesitated for a minute, afraid that Wayne was going to wake up, and she cocked the gun again and fired and shot him in the head."

Thereafter, Shirley assisted her mother in disposing of Barker's body: "We drug him from the trailer outside to the back and put him in the hole that had already been dug [in order to build a barbeque pit]." Shirley further testified that "the next day [she and her mother] went and bought some cinder blocks and [built] a patio" over the hole in which Barker's body had been placed. Subsequently, a large storage shed replaced the patio.

During cross-examination, Shirley testified that although she had also been charged with the murder of Barker and her $1,000,000 bail bond had been reduced to $5,000 she had not been promised anything by the prosecution in exchange for her testimony against her mother.

We pause to point out that in the conversations that Shirley had with her mother regarding Barker's death, other than the reference to the trailer house, appellant did not admit to Shirley that she was going to kill Barker for financial gain. There is also no evidence whatsoever in the record that might reflect or indicate that appellant financially benefited from Barker's death.

There is also no evidence in the record that might reflect or indicate that the trailer house to which appellant referred and the trailer house in which appellant and Beets resided when Beets was reported missing are one and the same trailer house.

Rick Rose was recalled to testify. Rose testified to the recovery of the skeletal or physical remains of Beets and Barker's bodies. See ante. The remains were transported to the Dallas Forensic Science Laboratory where they were subsequently identified as being the skeletal or physical remains of Beets and Barker's bodies.

Dr. Charles S. Petty, the Chief Medical Examiner and Director of the Dallas County Forensic Science Laboratory, testified to the "post-mortem autopsy" that he performed on the skeletal remains that had been sent to the laboratory.

Petty testified that he identified the bones as those of Beets and Barker's bodies. Petty testified that the cause of death of Beets was "the gunshot wound defect in the skull and locating of not one but two bullets, one in the region of the skull and the other in the region of the bones of the trunk. In my opinion, death was due to one, if not two, gunshot wounds ... One in the head and one in the trunk somewhere."

Two bullets were recovered from the skeletal remains of Beets' body; one from the skull area of the body and one from the trunk area of the body. Dr. Randall L. Callison, who had been Beets' dentist during his lifetime, testified that he made a comparison of Beets' skeletal remains with x-rays that he had and in his opinion "the bodily remains that were presented to me from the Dallas County Medical Examiners were the remains of Jimmy Don Beets."Petty also testified that the bullets found in Beets' skeletal remains could have been fired from the same weapon, but he was unable to positively testify that they were fired from the Collector's item pistol. Three bullets were recovered from the skeletal remains of Barker's body. Petty testified that the cause of Barker's death was "gunshot wounds."

Allen Jones, a firearms examiner employed by the Dallas County Forensic Science Laboratory, testified that he examined the recovered bullets, after which he formed the opinion that they were fired from a .38 calibre type weapon, which was the calibre of the Collector's item pistol.

Jones, however, was unable to positively testify that in his opinion the bullets that were fired came from the Collector's item pistol that had been previously recovered from the appellant's residence. See ante. Jackie Collins, a niece of Beets who was also an employee of J.C. Penney Life Insurance Company, testified to Beets' personally cancelling an insurance policy in the amount of $10,000 on May 19, 1983.

The application, which had apparently been sent with a monthly J.C. Penney bill to either Beets or appellant or to both of them, had been filled out without Beets' knowledge. What attracted Collins' attention to the application was the fact that the address on the application was not Beets' but was that of another of appellant's daughters.

Appellant was the named beneficiary on the application. When appellant testified, she did not deny that she had filled out the application, signed Beets' name to the application, and returned it with the monthly payment.

Peggy Sherrills Webb, an employee of the City of Dallas who was a "Benefits Supervisor with Personnel", testified that Beets had a life insurance policy with the City in the amount of $86,000, with the appellant the named beneficiary of the policy.

George Chaney, a documents examiner who had been employed for 23 years by the Secret Service and was presently employed by James Leroy Lewis and Associates, documents examiners located in Dallas, testified that the signature on the J.C. Penney's application, "J.D. Beets", was signed by appellant, but that the signature "J.D. Beets," that authorized the policy to be cancelled, was Beets' actual signature.

Chaney also testified that the signature on the certificate of transfer or bill of sale for the boat, "J.D. Beets", which occurred when the boat was sold to the Mitchells, was signed by appellant.

This, however, occurred on July 24, 1984, almost one year after Beets had disappeared. When appellant testified, she did not dispute the fact that she had sold the boat to the Mitchells nor did she dispute that she signed Beets' name to the bill of sale.

Jerry Hast, an employee of the City of Dallas, who was the "Administrator of the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund", testified concerning an application for benefits that had been filed by an attorney on behalf of appellant, which occurred after the letters testamentary had issued. Hast testified that "The Pension Board" voted to approve a settlement with appellant for pension benefits.

This settlement was going to be finalized on June 10, 1985. Hast also testified that the settlement was cancelled after members of the Board learned that appellant had been arrested for murdering Beets.

The appellant would have received $15,852.59 plus a monthly benefit of $790.42 for the rest of her life or until she remarried had the settlement been finalized. Whether the $15,852.59 referred to any insurance policies is not reflected in the record on appeal. As previously pointed out, our Probate Code prohibits distribution of a missing person's estate until three years from the date the letters testamentary issued have expired. E. Stewart Elrich, Jr., Manager of the Group Life Claims Department of Republic National Life Group Insurance Company, testified that his company had issued a life insurance policy on Beets' life in the amount of $23,428.