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Celeste Beard Johnson Asked Me to Investigate Her Conviction · Luke's English Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm in Austin, Texas, here to meet investigative journalist
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Susie Spencer.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I had been following the case for years because I'm
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: always interested in cases that involve mental health issues.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Susie's a Texas girl, and in this case, she's woven
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: into the story in ways that still catch me off guard.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I grew up going to the same summer camp, really,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: and so I knew some of her relatives.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: This isn't just a case Susie researched, It's one that's
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: followed her.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I had friends come to me and say, I know
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: your next book.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: You have to write. The book Susie wrote is called
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: The Fortune Teller, and it's about a woman that I've
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: also been corresponding with. Celeste Johnson, sometimes Celeste Bratcher, sometimes
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Celeste Beard, sometimes Celeste Martinez, regardless of her last name.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: She was convicted of capital murder for the bizarre death
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of her husband, Stephen Beard. In the letters she sends me,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Celeste claims she's been quote vilified by the media, but
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: what she means is that she's innocent. To me, she writes, quote,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: as you're aware, my case has been unfairly publicized. We
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: have made available to you all my trial transcripts, depositions,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and appeals on a thumb drive. I've gone through everything.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: But before we get too deep, know that I've heard
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: this before. In fact, I've rarely spoken to an inmate
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: who didn't claim they were railroaded. A Texas jury found
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Celest Beard Johnson guilty of capital murder in the death
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of her elderly husband. Celeste isn't a one time predator.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: She's a serial monogamist. And in her case, serial monogamy
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't look like violence, at least not at first, not
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: until you try trace the line backwards. Because with Celeste,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: when death finally arrives, it doesn't come out of nowhere.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I'm James Buddy Day, this is unmarked. I've been spending
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: my weekends with stacks of letters, articles, court documents, photocopies,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: boxes of material I've been sent by Celeste and her team.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: And yes, Celeste has a team. Now, I know that
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: sounds strange, but that part actually isn't unusual. You See,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: when I get in contact with an inmate, it usually
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: goes one of two ways. They either have a single
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: person on the outside, someone they trust to manage correspondence
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: handle affairs things like that, or they have something more organized,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a team dedicated to getting them out, and Celeste falls
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: into the second category. There's a small group around her
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: that's been sending me packages, carefully assembled, labeled with notations.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: All of it is meant to do one thing, exonerate her.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: And I want you to know that I've reviewed everything
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: they've sent and it doesn't celest Beard Johnson is as
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: guilty as they come. Here's what you need to know.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: On October third, nineteen ninety nine, Celeste orchestrated the murder
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of her fourth husband, Stephen Beard. The plan was hers
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and the act was carried out by her lover, and
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: it came after a series of failed attempts that read
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: less like true crime and more like dark satire. I've
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: clicked through hundreds of core transcripts provided by Celeste. At
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: times the testimony feels surreal, almost absurd. Honestly, parts of
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: it read like a Coen Brothers movie, but the outcome
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't funny. Celeste was later convicted of injury to an
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: elderly person and capital murder. When I sit down with
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Susie Spencer and Austin, we trade stories about Celeste, about
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: the version of her that exists on paper and the
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: version people encounter in person.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: When I would hear the stories about Celeste and all
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: the terrible things that she had done, I'd go, how
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: could anybody like her to want to be around her enjoy?
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I don't get this. I don't get this until I
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: went to prison and interviewed her. I was almost charmed.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: She was hysterically funny and smart and just fun to
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: be around. And when the interview was over and they're
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: kicking me out of prison, I didn't want to leave.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Despite the document dump, Celeste provides me with no formal
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: psychological diagnosis of any kind. I don't know if she's
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: ever seen a doctor in prison, but everything I've experienced,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: everything people describe when they meet her, points towards what
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: psychologists refri to as primary psychopathy. In that profile, fear
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't condition behavior the way it does for most people.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Stress doesn't register as a break. Emotion exists, but it
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't integrate. People like Celeste can read others, They understand
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the consequences, they understand moral rules, but the internal warning signs,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the ones that tell most people when to stop, never
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: fully engage. So they keep crossing boundaries, they keep pushing,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: They do whatever it takes to get what they want,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: no matter the cost. The best place to begin is
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty. Celeste Johnson is seventeen years old, a teenage bride,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: born and raised in California, one of four adopted children.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Her adoptive mother struggles with severe mental health issues and
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: is institutionalized multiple times throughout celest youth. Later, Celeste will
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: claim she was abused by her adoptive father and her
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: older adoptive brother.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Now, when she says she was sexually abused, do I
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: believe that one? Yes, I do, because there are other
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: family members that said she was abused, and she talked
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: about that when she was a little kid. Her father
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: denies that she was abused, but most people believe her.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: What striking is this The extensive documentation Celeste is sent
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: to me speaks to none of this. Once again, and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: across sworn civil testimony, Celeste Beard never talks about her
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: childhood at all. This isn't an omission in storytelling. It's
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: deliberate restraint because her childhood shapes her, as evidenced by
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: records showing that when Celeste is seventeen she marries another
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: teenager named Craig Bratcher. The marriage follows a pregnancy, and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: shortly after her eighteenth birthday, Celeste gives birth to twin girls,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Christina and Jennifer. Now, this time in celeste life is
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: very significant. It's the first time she uses the social
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: institution of marriage to escape her circumstances at home. She's pregnant,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: reportedly abused, and feels like an outsider, adopted, unstable, unprotected.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: But all of that changes the moment she gets married.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: It's a lesson that will come to define her entire life. Now,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: even though marriage solves problems for Celeste in nineteen eighty,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: it doesn't do the same for those around her. Years later,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: the twins will testify against her at her murder trial.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Christina and Jennifer later recall a household marked by instability,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: physical and emotional abuse. In the eighties, both girls are
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: removed from Celeste's care and placed into foster homes. It's
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: another pivotal moment, one that directly shapes the crime Celeste
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: carries out decades later. In the late eighties, after losing custody,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Celeste and Craig Bratcher divorce. She marries again. Briefly to
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: an Air Force mechanic named Harold Wolf, but that marriage
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: also ends in divorce in nineteen ninety one, and Celeste
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: flees to Arizona, where she struggles to make ends meet
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and is convicted of insurance fraud after burning a car
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: she had reported stolen. She serves three months in prison,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: and after her release, she marries for a third time.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Martinez was her third husband, who she met in
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: a bar in Arizona. And if there is a love
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: of her life, I would think Jimmy Martinez comes to
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: the closest. Jimmy's a good looking guy, he's young, he's fit.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: She referred to him as BMW, Big Mexican Winner, and
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: he loved that. He tried to sneak that phrase into court,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: so everyone knew about that.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Now. I've gone back to the court records trying to
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: locate what Susie is referring to here, and I found it.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: In volume thirty six. There's a lengthy exchange where the judge,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: the prosecutor, and the defense council debate whether the crude
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: phrase big Mexican Wiener should be admissible in court. To them,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: it's not a punchline. It's evidence, and at one point
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the judge pauses the arguments and says, quote, my first
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: impression of why it should be admissible is because having
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: a nickname for somebody's penis tends to show that they're
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: very familiar with them at that particular time, familiar enough
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: to have a nickname for it when talking to other people.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: This is the kind of moment that defines Celeste's case.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: It's riddled with absurdities, not because the crime is absurd,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: but because her behavior is as evidenced by her next
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: marriage to a man more than thirty five years her senior.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: It's nineteen ninety three and Celeste is working as a
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: cocktail waitress at the exclusive Austin Country Club overlooking the
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Colorado River. She's still married to Jimmy Martinez at this time,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: though she manages to meet her next husband, Stephen Beard. Now,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Beard is nothing like her other husband's. He's a former
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Fox Broadcasting executive and co founder of Austin's KIITV. By
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, the station was one of the original
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Fox affiliates, and Beard eventually sold his shares for a
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: small fortune. And when Celeste meets Stephen Beard. He's been
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: married for forty two years to a woman named Elise,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: who is stricken with cancer.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: At the time, Steve's wife died, and two weeks later
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: he asked Celeste out on a date. By around December,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: she was moving in with him and saying she was
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: going to divorce Jimmy because her daughters she had lost
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: custody to them, and Steve said, I'll help you get
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: your daughters back.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: To be clear, I've seen no records that Celeste sought
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: custody of her daughters prior to April of nineteen ninety four,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: when they would have been thirteen or fourteen. But she
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: uses this ruse to ingratiate herself with Beard, and once
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: she moves in with him, she files for divorce from
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Martinez. Within a year, on February eighteenth, nineteen ninety five,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Celeste is remarried. She and Stephen Beard hold the reception
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: at the Austin Country Club where they met.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: When people would say Steve, why are you doing this,
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: he'd say, because I couldn't help my wife a lease
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: when she was dying of cancer. The least I can
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: do is try to save Celeste. Then he was crazy
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: about her children, And here's this mother who says she
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: wants her kids so back. So let me come save
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: you and get your kids back and we can all
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: be a big, happy family.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Let me adopt at first. Steve's money solves a lot
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: of problems for celest Once again, she's able to use
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: this social institution of marriage to escape her circumstances. Beard
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: pays off a twenty thousand dollars restitution bill still hanging
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: over Celeste from her Arizona conviction. He bankrolls her custody fight.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: He relocates one of the twins, Christina, to Austin. The other, Jennifer,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: remains with her biological father, Craig Bratcher, celeste first husband,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: And ironically, through all of this, it's Craig who sees
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the Danis immediately.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Craig Bratcher, Celeste's first husband, when she found out that
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Steve and Celeste were involved, he tried and tried to
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: get in touch with Steve, saying, you don't know what
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: you're getting yourself into. Get out of there. She's deadly.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: The warnings are ignored, and when the twins enter ninth grade,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: it's Craig Bratcher who tragically takes his own life. Steve
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: legally adopts both girls, reuniting them with Celeste, and showers
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: her with gifts. A sixteen thousand dollars diamond cocktail ring,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: a three thousand dollars wristwatch, a new Ford explorer.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: And Steve he was envamored. He was like seventy years old,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: obese and grief stricken about his wife dying. His daughter
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: was in Dallas. He had a son in Virginia, another
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: son in Chicago. He didn't have any fans.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: For Steve's part, He's grieving, isolated, lonely, and deeply invested
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in Celeste. Within a year, things begin to unravel. Celeste
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: is burning through cash, reportedly half a million dollars in
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: six months. She resumes sleeping with her ex husband, Jimmy Martinez,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: and she begins telling increasingly outrageous lies to cover her tracks.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Celeste at one point told him she had cancer, which
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: in fact, it's something she told many people and she
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: never did as far as I know.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: The discrepancies settle into a familiar pattern. Celeste acts out,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Steve gets angry. Celeste returns in tears, apologetic, remorseful, and
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: she frames her behavior as the fallout of long standing
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: mental health struggles tied to a traumatic childhood.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: But always Celeste will come to him weeping and saying,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: I love you so much, I'm so sorry. You know,
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I'll cut back or it's just because I'm so depressed,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: and she'll go off to another mental health facility, and
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: he would just always be suckered back into it.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety eight, the behavior escalades.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Celeste had stolen some of his wife's jewelry and silver
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: and hawked it, and at that point I believe that
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: was the first time he filed for divorce.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: When Steve threatens divorce, Celeste threatens self harm. In one study,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I found primary psychopathic offenders threaten self harm about forty
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to sixty percent of the time, which is high, but
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: only a fraction of that five to ten percent in
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: most cases make a medically serious attempt.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: She put a gun to her head, but it wasn't loaded,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: and that would be sort of typical to sluss I'm
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: gonna blow my brains out, but oh dee, the gun's
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: not loaded. Oh wow, I don't know how to load
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: the gun.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: After the incident, Celeste agrees to be voluntarily admitted to
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Saint David's Pavilion for psychiatric treatment in Central Austin, and
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: it's there inside the mental health facility that something happens.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Celeste meets another patient. Her name is Tracy Tarleton. This
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: is the woman that Susie Spencer knew both personally and professionally.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: I had been following the case for years because I'm
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: always interested in cases that involve mental health issues, but
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: also the fact that Tracy Charlton worked at book People,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: which is an important store to authors in Texas.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: If you spend time in Austin, you've almost certainly been
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the Book People. It's one of those places that doesn't
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: just sell books, It anchors a community, and at the time,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Tracy is a respected figure.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: I don't think book People has been run as well
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: as managed as well as it did when Tracy Tarletonlton
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: was there.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: The woman is brilliant, but throughout her life Tracy struggles
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: like Celes Tracy Carey's deep trauma, but the shape of
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: it is different. When I'm speaking with Susie, she remembers
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: this from attending summer camp with Tracy.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: When I go back and look at our summer camp annuals,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: you see Tracy as a little girl, and she just
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: looks so happy and everything. And then around at age
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: ten eleven or twelve, you can see her demeanor change.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: And her mother was physically, emotionally and sexually abusive to Tracy.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Despite difficulty in her upbringing, Tracy finds acceptance in college.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: When Tracy was attending the University of Texas, she told
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: my friend who was her mentor, that she was gay.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: So she's been pretty much out with this since college.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: She ended up graduating from Texas A and M University
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: with a degree in biology, and then went out and
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: did research, and she worked for the Back Conservatory, and
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: so all of that was well and good. The only
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: thing that kept popping up in her life causing problems
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: was her mental health issues.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: If you drive across the Congress Avenue bridge at dusk,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you'll see it, the flight of the bats rising from
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: under the bridge. It's the same colony Tracy Tarlton once
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: studied well tormented by depression. One court record, I found
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: documents numerous occasions in which Tracy played Russian Roulette with
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: a loaded revolver in moments of despair and.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Book people said, you're having a nervous breakdown. Get help,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: and so it was because of book people's encouragement that
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: she went to the mental health facility. She ended up
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: at St. David's pavilion.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: It's nineteen ninety nine and Celest's daughter, one of the twins.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Christina introduces Celeste and Tracy inside Saint David's pavilion. At
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the time, Tracy is heavily medicated and deeply isolated.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Because Christina would visit Celeste and go, oh, look at
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: that poor girl and everything, and she'd want to help
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: her out. So she started bringing in pizzas and stuff,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: and then celestin Tracy started talking at.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Saint David's pavilions. The two women share stories of trauma,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: often spending nights talking for hours.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, Celeste talks about how Tracy was the first
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: person she ever ever felt comfortable with talking about her
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: sexual abuse, so that was a bond. But Celeste is
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: brilliant also and sublest has difficulty with the truth, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I think when she saw Tracy it was like, this
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: is someone I can make fall in love with me
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: and do my bidding.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And Susie's describing is textbook calibration of a primary psychopath.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Celeste doesn't bond with Tracy because she's overwhelmed by this
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: shared trauma. Instead, she bonds because she recognizes access Tracy's history,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: her depression, her isolation. Those are all openings for Celeste.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: So once that bond is formed, the question for Celeste
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: isn't whether it will be used, it's how far it
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: can be taken, And predictably, Celeste wastes little time. She
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: convinces Tracy to join her in being transferred to Timberlawn
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Hospital in Dallas, three hours away from Steve. There they
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: share a room, and according to Tracy, the relationship turns intimate.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: After Tracy and Celeste left Saint David's, they went to Timberlawn,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: a psychiatric facility in the Dallas Fort Worth area, and
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: there the nurses walked in on them when Celeste was
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: topless and Tracy was sitting on top of her giving
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: her a massage.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Now here's the crazy part. In the documents, letters, and
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: depositions that Celeste has provided me, she denies anything romantic
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: ever occurred between her and Tracy Tarlton, a claim that
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: was a core part of her defense. In one court document,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: her defense is summarized as follows. Quote the nature of
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the relationship between Celeste Johnson and Tarlton was a matter
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: of dispute. At trial, Tarleton, a lesbian, testified that she
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: loved Celeste and believed Celeste loved her. The defense, on
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the other hand, portrayed Tarleton as delusional and Celeste as
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the object of Tarlton's obsessive behavior. So let's look at
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the evidence. Tracy testified that after Timberlawn, both women returned
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: to Austin, where they continued seeing each other regularly through
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen ninety nine. Prosecutors corroborated these encounters
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: with receipts and witnesses from the Red Roof Inn and
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a Laquinta in Waco, Texas.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Tracy testified to the orgasms that Celeste had at Tracy's
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: how do I phrase that? Handiwork? Whatever, you know?
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And the evidence of their affair does not end there.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: In fact, it was witnessed by numerous people.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Tracy and Celeste through a party for Tracy's employees at
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: book people at the party everyone saw Celeste sitting in
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Tracy's lap and nuzzling her ear. At the end of
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: the party, well, it was still going on, but Tracy
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: and celested good night and went to the bedroom together.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Everyone at book people believe Tracy and Celeste were lovers.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: At one point, Tracy is invited to Celeste's home for
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: a barbecue, where she meets Stephen Beard for the first time.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: According to witnesses, Tracy gets drunk while the family dines
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: on hamburgers, leading to an altercation.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Tracy started kissing Celeste. Christina saw it, and I believe
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: at some point they told Steve, and Steve supposedly blew
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: up and said Tracy get out of here.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: As Tracy Tarlton would later testify, this is the point
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: where Celeste reframes her marriage entirely. She tells Tracy that
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: she married Stephen Beard to regain custody of her two daughters,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: but now she feels trapped in a loveless, suffocating relationship.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Celeste would constantly say, all he does is put me down.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: He abuses me emotionally with fight, he won't give me
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: any money, he won't let me do this, he won't
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: let me do that. It was just Steve was this
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: horrible human being, and Tracy would say, divorce him.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Digging through trial testimony, I found this excerpt from Tracy
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: who says quote. Celeste's portrayal of what was going on
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: was that she felt trapped by this man who was
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: slowly killing her. She couldn't get out from under him
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: psychologically or emotionally.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: And she would say, he'll hunt me down. He has
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: so much money, he'll hunt me down. There's no way.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: She kept emphasizing that over and over. He'll hunt me down.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: We got a kill him.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: That's the tipping point, the moment Celeste stops talking about
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: escape and starts talking about violence. It begins with poisoning,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of all things. Celeste lobbies Tracy to buy her ten
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: ecstasy tablets that she grinds up and puts in Stephen's
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: drink while they're at a jazz club. She's trying to
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: make it look like his drink was spiked by a stranger,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't work. In fact, celest reports to Tracy
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: that the drugs have no effect at all, and what
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: follows plays out with a kind of grim absurdity. Celeste
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: decides to obtain a more potent poison. She asked Tracy
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: to order her a copy of The Poisoner's Handbook, a
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: controversial quasi self published guide from the nineteen eighties and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: early nineties focused on plant, animal, and chemical poison.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: So they got a poisoner's handbook and learned how to
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: meet botulism. And they were going to mix it into
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the hamburger meat and for the chili and then put
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: it on chili cheese dogs and Steve what eat it
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: and nd die. But it didn't work.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Stephen Beard, it turns out, has the stomach of a furnace.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't deter Celeste. It doesn't slow her down,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: it doesn't prompt doubt. It just forces escalation.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: She would put sleeping pills into his food or his
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: orange juice. She would hope that the combination would kill him.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Steve was a heavy drinker and he liked cheap vodka,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: and she would dump out the vodka and pour ever
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: clear in it, which is a higher proof, hoping that
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: would kill him.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: After one such attempt, in the fall of nineteen ninety nine,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Celeste calls Tracy and asks her to come over to
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the house. When Tarlton arrives, she finds Stephen Beard unconscious
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: at the dining room table. Together, they move him to
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the floor. Celeste then places a plastic grocery bag over
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: his head. In an attempt to.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Suffocate him, and Tracy said that she was holding the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: bag around his neck and should see the bag going
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: in and out with his breath.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Both women take turns with the plastic bag, but once
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: again it does not work, and after their arms tire,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Tracy leaves and Celeste calls an ambulance. According to medical
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: records in September nineteen ninety nine, Stephen Beard is then
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: admitted to the hospital with a blood alcohol level of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty eight milligrams per desoleader. Celeste lies,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: telling the doctors she found him passed out on the
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: kitchen floor, but at the same time she's making plans
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: for the future. She contacts a travel agent at the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Davenport Shopping Center and books a last minute, twenty eight
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: day tour of Europe for herself and Steve at a
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: cost of more than fifty thousand dollars. They're scheduled to
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: leave on Sunday, October third, nineteen ninety nine. Then, just
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: days before the trip, Celeste shows up at Tracy's place unannounced.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Celeste is frantic, tearful, desperate, She pleads, saying quote, I
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: can't make it anymore. I can't do it. I'll never
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: make it back from Europe. He will kill me over there.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: He'll get me at trial. Tracy later clarifies what Celeste meant,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: That Steve wasn't threatening her directly, but that his emotional
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: abuse would drive her to kill herself. Remember, on paper,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Celeste is planning a month long European vacation. In private,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: she's describing herself as trapped and doomed. That contradiction isn't confusion,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: it's calculation. She asks Tracy to kill Steve with a
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: shotgun that Tracy has over her mantle. Years later, in
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: a letter Celeste sends me, she points to a new witness,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: two friends of Tracy's from AA, who she claims will
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: confirm that Tracy acted alone. Celest writes, quote Tracy told
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: them I am not a party to her shooting. One
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: is a sworn up position from Celeste Selmy, who claims
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: that Tracy offered an unprovoked confession in prison with no corroboration.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: But the record tells a drastically different story. I've seen
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the phone records, and between August twenty ninth and October first,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, there are ninety eight calls between Celeste
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: and Tracy Tarlton three hundred and thirty six minutes of
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: conversation on the day of the shooting. Alone, there are
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: eight calls totaling fifteen minutes.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Celeste had Tracy come over that day and walk through
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: the house to show her where she wanted to enter.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: At trial, Tracy testifies quote, she showed me where to park,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: where to enter the grounds, and then we walked through
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: how I would exit my car, where I would enter
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the house, how I would approach the bedroom, how I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: would exit the house and exit the grounds.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Celeste gave Tracy plastic to put on the floorboard in
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: seats of her car. She told Tracy to wear her
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: black tennis shoes, black clothes a black hat.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: That night, shortly after two am, Tracy Tarlton drives to
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the Beard residence.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: She got in her car, turned on the radio, rolled
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: down the window, lit a cigarette, and started driving. She
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: pulled in to the back side of the house. Tracy
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: remembers her tires punching on the gravel.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: The gate is open, just as planned. She enters through
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: an unlocked door near Stephen Beard's room.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Celested made sure the alarm wasn't on. She'd made sure
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: that Steve's dog, Megan, who barked its strangers, wasn't there.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: At the house, Tracy finds Stephen Beard asleep in bed.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: She wastes little time, walks up within five or six
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: feet and pull the trigger. The shot hits Steve in
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the stomach. He jerks awake and starts grasping for a
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: panic button that he keeps on his side table. Tracy
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: sees him moving, believes he's reaching for a gun, and
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: she runs.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Steve has no idea what's happened. You can't get a
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: hold of Celeste, who's supposed to be in the house.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: The panic button alarm isn't working. He finally, some way
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: gets on the phone, calls nine to one one and says, help,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: My guts have jumped out of my stomach. He said,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: what how?
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: What is going on there?
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Yourself?
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: My wife is somewhere in the house.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: When the police arrived, they smashed through the door with
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: a baton.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: At first, even ems don't understand what they're seeing.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: When ems arrived, they thought maybe Steve had had surgery
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: and had busted his stitchues the stitches finally they saw
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: a shotgun shell. One of the cops picked it up
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: with his bare hands and said, Oh, I think we
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: may have a murder scene here.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Beard is rushed to hospital, where he undergoes multiple surgeries,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: his life hanging by a thread. At the same time,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: police see the excessive phone activity between Celeste and Tracy
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Tarlton and visit Tracy at her house, where they see
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: the shotgun in plain sight.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: They smelled it. They noticed it smelled a fresh oil,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: like it had just been cleaned.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Tracy willingly allows police to take the gun for examination,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: unaware that they've recovered the shell from Stephen Beard's bedroom.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Two days later, ballistics come back a match. Tracy is
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: arrested and initially charged with injury to an elderly person.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Tracy's attorneys had been trying to get her to make
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: a deal with the state, and that was the state's goal.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Tracy would not rat on Celeste because she still loved her.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: In the hospital, Steve begins to recover, and on January eighteenth,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: a little more than three months after the shooting, Beard
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: is sent back home with Celeste. The next day, Celeste
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: calls Beard's doctors and insists he'd be readmitted after examining him.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: The doctor agrees and once in the hospital, Stephen Beard's
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: condition deteriorates rapidly, and on January twenty second, two thousand,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Stephen Beard succumbs to his injuries and dies. The cause
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: of death is listed as a blood clot directly linked
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: to the shotgun wound.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: After Steve died in January of two thousand and one, night,
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Celeste at a bar met a guy named Cole Johnson,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: a young, good looking blonde guy who rode a motorcycle.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: She and Cole were driving to Oklahoma and decided to
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: get married.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: You really have to step back and picture what's going on.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: At this point, Stephen Beard has just died. Tracy Tarlton
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: is now in prison, charged with his murder, awaiting trial
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: and still refusing to cooperate with prosecutors, willing to take
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the blame all to protect Celeste. But Celeste has completely
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: moved on. She's used marriage to get away once again.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Till Tracy was reading the newspaper in the summer of
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: two thousand and reads that Celeste wasn't at a hearing,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: a court hearing, because she was on her honeymoon with
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: her husband, Cole Johnson. And that's when Tracy went, I
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: get it.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I was used.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: She never loved me.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I was used for Tracy. The illusion finally collapses, and
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: once it does, everything else follows. In the end, the
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: case turns the way most of these cases do. In
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: exchange for a plea bargain, Tracy agrees to testify that
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Celeste was the one who planned the murder.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Tracy pled guilty with the stipulation that she would testify
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: against Celeste and testify truthfully, and then in return she
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: would get twenty years, of which she served ten. They
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: announce a plea agreement and Celeste is arrested a trial.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Celeste defense is simple and familiar.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Her defense was Tracy and I were just friends. Yes,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: she had a crush on she was obsessed with me.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: She stalked me. She was delusional and imagining that we
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: had a relationship. She's just a crazy, obsessed woman who
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: killed my husband that I loved dearly.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: It's a weak reversal. Week the woman she once confided
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: in became unstable. The relationship she cultivated became imaginary. In
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: letters she sends me years later, she still insists that
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: she was never part of the plan, but the record
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: tells a different story.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: When Tracy cries over the crime. She is truly weeping.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: When Celeste does it, Celeste will pull down her eye
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: and wipe with a tissue, and then she wipes her
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: eyeball itself, not tears, and then that makes her eyes
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: turn red so that it looks like she's crime.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: That's where this case ends, not with mystery, but with clarity.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Celest Beard Johnson is found guilty of capital murder and
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: A primary psychopath doesn't collapse under pressure. They reconfigure over
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: and over again. When one bond stops being useful, it's discarded.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: When one narrative fails, another replaces it. There's no rupture,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: no reckoning, just movement. I'm not the first journalist Celestbiard
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Johnson has reached out to, nor will I be the last.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: She will find people to be part of her team,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: to grasp on to any shred of so called evidence,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: to show anything other than the truth. In one of
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: her letters, Celeste writes, quote, I think only you can
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: do my case the justice it deserves. After everything I've learned,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I'd have to be foolish to hear that is sincerity.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Whatever she says is real in the moment, whoever she's
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: facing matters most until they don't. Before we wrap, I
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: want to take a second to acknowledge you this community
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: is growing faster than we honestly expected, and that only
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: happens because people are listening closely, they're thinking critically, and
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: they're sticking around for the conversations that don't end when
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the story does. The comments, the debates, the pushback, even
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: the disagreements. They matter, We read them, and they shape
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: where this show goes next. If you're new here, welcome,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: and if you've been here since the early episodes, thank
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: you for helping us build something that values nuance over noise.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: This episode of Unmarked was produced by John Dido and
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: edited by Dave Alderson. Our additional producer is Jesse Demiray.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: We've much more coming soon, and if you're still here,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: you're already part of what makes this