Celeste Johnson's biological parents are unknown. She claimed that her adoptive parents, Edwin and Nancy Johnson, physically abused her as a child and that she made a suicidal gesture during puberty. At age 17, Johnson became pregnant and gave birth to twins, Jennifer and Kristina, with first husband Craig Bratcher. After their divorce, she lost custody of her daughters. Johnson married twice more before meeting Steven Beard while she was a waitress at a country club in Austin, Texas. Beard, a retired Fox Broadcasting executive and self-made multi-millionaire more than twice her age, was a widower whose wife had died of cancer. Johnson moved in with Beard after he convinced her that he would help her regain custody of her daughters. After winning the case, they began dating in secret until his 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.
Crime
On October 2, 1999, Beard was shot in the stomach while he was asleep, at his home near Jollyville. Beard was later released from the hospital, but succumbed to a blood clot on January 22, 2000. Local police tied the shooting to Tracey Tarlton, who Johnson had met at Saint David’s Pavilion, a mental health facility, after Johnson threatened to commit suicide when she began fighting with Beard 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, behaved inappropriately after his death, and had slept in a different room the night he was shot. Despite mounting suspicion of a lesbian relationship between Johnson and Tarlton, the latter remained silent until July 2000, when she read in a local newspaper that Johnson had remarried six months after Beard’s death and realized that their relationship was a sham. Shortly before her murder trial began in March 2002, Tarlton told police 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.
Trial
Based on Tarlton's statement, Johnson was arrested on March 28, 2002. At Johnson's trial, prosecutors charged that she had married Beard for his money and wanted him dead because he was tired of her extravagant spending and was considering divorce. According to Beard's accountant, Johnson spent $321,000 in October and November 1999, an additional $249,000 by December 10 and another $100,000 in the six weeks ending March 31, 2000. Prosecutors alleged that Johnson had never loved Beard because of their age difference and his obesity. She had a hostile relationship with her daughters, who claimed to have heard their mother make threats against Beard. A friend of Johnson claimed that she had hired her a month after Beard's death to kill Tarlton and cover up her crime. Other witnesses testified that they saw Tarlton and Johnson flirting and behaving affectionately, demonstrating Johnson's manipulative personality. Johnson's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, alleged that she had nothing to do with the shooting and that Tarlton acted alone; Tarlton was obsessed with Johnson, who denied making sexual advances toward her. According to Johnson, Tarlton tried to kiss her after she had passed out during her daughters' 1999 high school graduation. When Tarlton was arrested for drunk driving and Johnson bailed her out, Beard demanded that Tarlton stop contacting the couple. Several witnesses saw no problems in Johnson and Beard's marriage, and DeGuerin alleged that Johnson's daughters lied on the witness stand because they would inherit less money if their mother was acquitted. In 2003, Johnson was convicted of capital murder, receiving a mandatory life sentence. She will be eligible for parole on April 1, 2042. Johnson continues to maintain her innocence and, is imprisoned at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Christina Melton Crain Unit in Gatesville. Tarlton received a 10-year reduced sentence in exchange for testifying against Johnson, and was released on parole in August 2011 and lives in San Antonio.
In the media
Crime author Kathryn Casey covered the Beard case in her book She Wanted it All: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and a Texas Millionaire. Author Suzy Spencer wrote The Fortune Hunter, with a 2nd edition released in 2015. The case was covered on such news documentary programs as American Justice, and Deadly Women, as well as ABC's 20/20. Johnson and five other inmates published From the Big House to Your House, a cookbook that lists recipes that can be made in prison cells with ingredients from the prison commissary. The biography, Celeste: The Celeste Beard Johnson Story, was released January 2019. In 2017, Celeste's daughter, Jennifer, was wounded after a shooting while attending a Halloween party. She had to undergo more than ten surgeries but survived.
