Tracey Tarlton
| Celeste Beard | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Celeste Beard Johnson February 13, 1963 |
| Occupation | Inmate |
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated |
| Spouse(s) | Craig Bratcher (divorced) Henry Wolfe (divorced) Jimmy Martinez (divorced) Steven Beard (widowed) Spencer Cole Johnson (divorced) |
| Children | Jennifer and Kristina |
| Conviction(s) | Murder, injury to an elderly individual, and conspiracy to commit murder |
 HLN:Scorned Lover's Week: Texas vs. Celeste Beard
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Celeste Beard Johnson (born February 13, 1963), more commonly known as Celeste Beard, is a convicted American murderer who is serving a life sentence at the Murray Unit in Gatesville, Texas for the 1999 murder of her millionaire husband, Steven Beard. She is Texas Department of Criminal Justice offender #01157250.
Celeste Johnson's biological parents are unknown. She claimed that her adoptive parents, Edwin and Nancy Johnson, physically abused her as a child and she made a suicidal gesture during puberty. At age 17 she became pregnant and gave birth to twins, Jennifer and Kristina, with first husband Craig Bratcher. After their divorce, Celeste Johnson lost custody of her daughters.
She married twice more before meeting Steven Beard while she was a waitress at the Austin Country Club. Beard, a retired Fox Broadcasting Company executive and self-made multi-millionaire more than twice her age, was a widower whose wife had died of cancer. Johnson moved in with him after he convinced her that he would help her regain custody of her daughters. After winning the case, they began dating in secret (with Johnson pretending to be Beard's housekeeper) until Beard's daughter discovered them in a hotel room during the 1993 Super Bowl. They were married on February 18, 1995, with Beard's family and friends suspicious that Johnson had married him for his money.
On October 2, 1999, Beard was shot in the stomach while he was asleep, at his home near Jollyville, Texas. The wound became infected, and he died on January 22, 2000. Local police tied the shooting to Johnson's friend, Tracey Tarlton. The women had met in Saint David’s Pavilion, a mental-health facility, after Johnson threatened to commit suicide when she and Beard began fighting over her lavish spending. Tarlton, arrested at home six days after the shooting, was charged with assault. The police began to hear that Johnson had spoken negatively about Beard. She refused to let them interview him while he was hospitalized; her behavior was oddly casual after his death, and she had slept in a different room the night he was shot.
Despite mounting suspicion of Johnson and Tarlton's romantic feelings for her, Tarlton remained silent until July 2000, when she read in a local newspaper that Johnson had remarried, 6 months, after Beard’s death. Realizing that their relationship was a sham and none of what Johnson told her about her marriage was true, Tarlton told police shortly before her murder trial began in March 2002 that Johnson had persuaded her to shoot Beard; Johnson claimed that Beard had emotionally abused her to the point of suicide, and getting rid of him was the only way the women could be together.
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