Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - The $12 Million Motive: Who Shot Steven Beard?

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

In October 1999, retired Austin TV executive Steven Beard woke in his home to a shotgun wound in his stomach. When police traced the bullet, it led somewhere nobody expected: a local bookstore manager with no connection to Steven at all, but a very close one to his wife, Celeste. Morgan and Kaelyn follow the clues in one of Texas's most jaw-dropping murder cases: a bond forged in a psychiatric treatment facility, a $12 million fortune bled dry by compulsive spending, and twin daughters who took the stand against their own mother. By the end, one woman would confess to pulling the trigger, and the other would be convicted of putting the gun in her hand. Head over to our Clues YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@CluesPodIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Clues to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals including Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories & more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow us on SocialYouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudiosInstagram: @cluespodcast | @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaClues is hosted by Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore Instagram: @morgsyabsher | @itskaelynmooreTikTok: @twohottakes | @heartstartspoundingEpisode Sponsors:Save up to 61% off with free gifts with code CLUES at https://www.gruns.co Get started now at ⁠⁠https://www.HelloAlma.com/CLUES Head to https://www.minkycouture.com, use code CLUES, and get into the BEST. BLANKET. EVER. Go to https://www.Zenni.com/PODCAST and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off your first order, plus free shipping on all US orders over $65. Start with a demo at https://www.ElevenLabs.io/Clues

Hi everyone, Carter Roy here. Before today's episode, I want to tell you about my Crime House show Murder True Crime Stories. Join me every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, as I explore history's most notorious murders like you've never heard before. Follow murder, true crime stories available wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. Stephen Beard was a media mogul. He amassed a $12 million fortune and became one of most beloved men in Austin, Texas, and then on October 2nd, 1999, he woke up in his bed after being shot in the stomach. Stephen had no idea what had happened to him, but investigators quickly figured it out. And what they uncovered was a marriage built on lies, money, and manipulation.

And what followed was one of the strangest trials Texas has ever seen. Hi guys, welcome back to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases. I'm Kaila Moore, and I'm going to be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories, and the court files released on these cases. And I'm your internet sleuth, Morgan Apshur. I'm the one who's diving into the Reddit forums and anything else I can find online to talk about the lesser known details and pull the threads that just don't add up.

Don't forget to share your thoughts on social, want ad-free and early access to clues, and the rest of the crimehouse lineup? Subscribe to Crimehouse Plus and get at least two bonus episodes from across Crimehouse every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com, or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap, try free at the top of the clues page. Now, let's get into Stephen Beard's case and the clues that defined it. So I came across this case. I kept getting social videos of this woman freaking out at an investigator. And I was like, who is this?

What? Literally the first clip I ever saw was her name. You will soon learn as Celeste. But Celeste being like, I'm done with this. and like flipping off the interviewer and like wheeling away in her jail uniform. And I was like, what the heck did she do? Yeah, what is going on here? And I soon unraveled it and hence why it ended up on our agenda.

And it turned out to be one of the most dramatic insane cases. Yeah. As far as like money, wealth, power, rich, privilege. Twist, turns. Oh, my. It is tea. This is just like what happened in this case? If this would happen today, it would be everywhere.

Everywhere. You wouldn't be able to escape it. No. But it happened, what, almost 30 years ago? Yeah, yeah. And at the center of it all, you just have this guy who was just trying to get by after, you know, losing his wife. And what you guys are going to learn today is crazy.

So, without further ado, let's just get into this one. Yeah, we're going to show you some pictures, videos, maps on screen if you're watching the video. And if you're listening, you're going to find all that same stuff on our socials. at Clues Podcast on Socials. Yeah, you're definitely going to want to look at the Instagram because we're going to show how bougie this family was. And just a quick warning before we begin,

this episode contains discussions of suicide and suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. And as always, listen with care. And with that, we're going to start on 3 a.m. on October 2, 1999. 74-year-old Stephen Beard is awoken by a gunshot. to his stomach. He dials 911, but he can't explain to the operator what happened. He has no idea. He just knows that he's holding his guts and his hand. Have you heard the 911 call? Yeah, he's so calm.

It's so, I know. He is so calm. He's like, honey, I don't know what happened. Yeah. Yeah, he is shockingly calm in this 911 call. I imagine you're just in shock when something like that happens. So in another wing of his massive home, his wife, 36-year-old Celeste Beard, is sound asleep. That's not unusual for this couple to be sleeping apart. Stephen snores. He also has sleep apnea. He needs a CPAP machine to get through the night. And that's seemingly why Celeste doesn't hear anything strange from Stephen's side of the house tonight. And neither does their 19-year-old daughter, Christina, who's asleep in the same room as Celeste. What they wake up to is sirens, red and blue lights, and the footsteps of paramedics and police moving through the house.

Celeste gets up, sees what's happening, and she follows them as they wheel her husband out on a stretcher. She is sobbing and she's begging them to not let him die. And then, mid-panick, she says something that detectives find a bit odd. This is perfect timing, she tells them. We were supposed to go to Europe tomorrow. So Stephen Beard was born on November 27, 1924, into a poor family in Dallas, Texas. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he came home and took a job at Neiman Marcus, the department store. There he met a young woman who was modeling clothes for the store, Elise Adams.

They fell in love and they were married in 1948. Stephen was 24. Elise was 22. Stephen really ramped up his ambition after the wedding. He left the department store and started chasing bigger opportunities. First, he was in radio, then he was in advertising. He climbed the corporate ladder through the 50s and 60s in Dallas. While Elise stayed home and raised their three children, Stephen, Becky, and Paul, they were born in quick succession between 1949 and 1953. This looked like the American dream.

It was all taking real shape when Stephen switched careers in the 1970s from advertising to television. This move took the family to Austin, and by 1981, it had really paid off. So Stephen became a partner and general manager of KVO, which is an independent TV station. that was trying to find its footing in the Austin market. And then in the mid-1980s, KBVO landed one of the original affiliate deals with a brand-new network that no one had heard of yet. Maybe you've heard of them, Morgan, Fox. Over the next decade, the station's value only climbed.

It was like incredible timing on his part. But as Steven's business life peaked, his personal life kind of started falling apart. I saw one clip that they sold the station for 54 million. 54 million. $54 million. Computer. What was that worth back then? So that's worth around $118 million today.

Yeah. Wow. That's wild. And also, like, I used to live in Austin. I'm obsessed with Austin. But Austin was not the Austin of today back then. It was like a very, like you could live like a king forever on that much money back then. In the early 1990s, when Elise was in her mid-60s, she was diagnosed with cancer.

The treatment was really brutal on Elise. She was a former model, too, and she really cared about how she was presented. Throughout the entire treatment, though, Stephen barely left her side. Unfortunately, the treatment did not work, and in October of 1993, Elise passed away. She was 67 years old. 69-year-old, Stephen was devastated. Friends said that he drank heavily in the months following her death. And some of that drinking happened at the Austin Country Club, where he and Elise were members.

They were there so often that they got to know one of the waitresses that worked there. It was a 30-year-old woman named Celeste Johnson. So after Elise died, Stephen kept showing up at the club alone, looking for something to fill the silence. According to Stephen, he missed having someone to take care of. According to Celeste, Stephen was quite drunk when he was at the club, was very loud. And most people wouldn't take his table. But Celeste was unafraid to. But then, just 10 days after burying his wife,

Stephen moved Celeste into his home to be his house manager. Pretty quick. Pretty quick. They were married for 45 years and 10 days after he moves this other woman in. To be a house manager. And you said that he was really strict about saying she was a house manager. He was. I mean, people would ask him, like casually one of his best friends that was interviewed extensively in a documentary I saw, would be like, how's your girlfriend doing?

And he quoted Stephen saying, house manager, god damn it. House manager. Like, he was like very like, no, no, no, no, boundary, house manager. Yes. Yes. Okay. Interesting. So let's talk a little bit more about Celeste. Celeste was born on February 13th, 1963 in Culver City, California. She was adopted as an infant by Edwin Johnson, an Air Force veteran, and his wife Nancy, who was a telephone operator. By Celeste's own account, the house she grew up in was not really a safe one. She described being sexually abused by her adoptive father from around age four to age 12, and later she claimed by an older adoptive brother, all while her adoptive mother cycled in and out of psychiatric institutions. The damage showed up pretty early in her life.

Celeste did attempt to take her own life when she was a preteen, and then she dropped out of high school after getting pregnant at 17 by a boy named Craig. In 1980, she gave birth to identical twin girls, Jennifer and Christina, and she married Craig shortly after, but the marriage did not last. By her account, the marriage was violent, and in 1983, 20-year-old Celeste left, taking the three-year-old twins with her. The long custody battle that followed eventually split the sisters apart. Christina stayed with Celeste while Jennifer went to go live with her father in Washington State. And the years after her divorce, Celeste kept moving, kept remarrying, all with Christina in tow. She had a second marriage and then a third, and eventually that brought her and Christina to Austin, Texas in 1993.

Jennifer was still some 2,000 miles away with her father, but that marriage that brought them to Austin didn't last either. And that left Celeste entering her 30s with three divorces, and she was barely keeping her head above water when it came to finances. She did have real work experience, though, despite never finishing high school. She did accounting for a utility company, and she had audited expenditure. accounts for American Express. But once she got to Austin, she chose something a little simpler. She was waitressing at the Austin Country Club. A friend working there was making more money in really like a third of the hours that Celeste was putting in elsewhere. And when she got this job, it really paid off. Celeste was charming. She was pretty. And certain members started requesting

her table by name. And one of them was a recently widowed television executive named Stephen Beard. So shortly after Elisa's funeral, 68-year-old Stephen took 30-year-old Celeste to a lavish Italian dinner in Austin. Then they went back to his mansion for a nightcap. At the end of the night, he let her drive herself home in his Lexus. That Christmas, he gave her a $16,000 cocktail ring, a $3,000 watch, and a brand-new Ford Explorer.

He also helped fund her still-unsettled custody battle for 14-year-old Christina and Jennifer, and that October, Stephen got a huge, huge windfall. He sold his stake in KBVO, instantly becoming one of the wealthiest private citizens in Austin. So riding that high, the couple decided that they were going to get married in February of 1995. He had Celeste sign a pre-up if they divorced. This was their deal. If they divorced, she would get $500,000, but not a cent more. And if they were married for three years, she would get another $500,000.

On February 18th of 1995, they tied the knot at the Austin Country Club the same spot that they met. And at the time, custody of Jennifer still belonged to her father, Craig, in Washington. But that changed in 1996 because unfortunately, Craig did take his own life. And 16-year-old Jennifer moved to Austin to join her mother and her twin sister, Christina, and also Stephen now. For the first time since elementary school, Jennifer and Christina were under one roof. And in 1998, just months before the girls turned 18, Stephen legally adopted them. And, you know, however you feel about getting into a relationship after his wife's death, the girls described loving him. They really, really felt taking care of by Stephen.

Yeah, Jennifer gets interviewed a lot. And she said, you know, we were 17. Yeah. He didn't have to adopt us. But he really, you know, wanted to. And he told us how proud of us he was. Yeah. And that felt good.

Yes. And it's really, I mean, this was, again, like them coming together, but Jennifer moved from living in a mobile home with her dad to now like a mansion. Yeah. All of this was just such a shock and whirlwind for them and to then be reunited. Yeah. This was a big moment in their lives. Yeah. And it seemed like Stephen was really trying to make sure that it was special.

Yeah. And for the next year, this was their life right up until those early hours of October 2nd, 1999. So back on October 2nd, 1999, deputies are. arrive with EMS at the Beard Home, and Stephen is alive and conscious. But he was bleeding badly from the abdomen. Again, he still had no idea what happened. He had just woken up, felt and saw the wound. Again, he had his little CPAP on. The room was loud. He didn't see anything. Paramedics first guessed that it might have been a surgical complication at close to 300 pounds. They wondered if they were looking at a hernia operation gone wrong. Maybe an incision had torn

open. Still, the wound looked really gruesome to them, so they questioned if it was even something that could have just happened on its own. So they take a closer look around the bedroom, which brings us to our first clue. Now, they didn't see a trail of blood going out the door. There wasn't a sign of a struggle. And as they were looking around the bedroom in the bathroom, it didn't look like a burglar had broken in. They did notice that some drawers were pulled open, a lamp was knocked over on its side, clothing was all over the floor. Stephen's wallet and some cash did appear to be missing. But the closer they looked, the less that held up.

If things were tipped over, it looked like they had been like gently tipped over. Like the lamp is something that gets brought up a lot, that the lamp would have been broken because of how delicate it was, but instead it was just gently placed on its side. Also, Celeste's jewelry sat out in plain view, untouched, as did a lot of other valuables. Instead, it seemed like somebody wanted to look like the place was ransacked. Then, right as paramedics lifted Stephen onto the stretcher, one of the responded deputies noticed

something, a shell casing on the bedroom floor, freshly fired from a 20-gauge shotgun. Detectives also found the patio door had been left unlocked, which explained how the attacker got in, but beyond the half-baked robbery and a shell, they had nothing to go on. But all of this was looking so suspicious from the gecko because, again, extremely wealthy neighborhood. All of these houses in this area have alarms embedded in them. This isn't just an easy thing to do. Get in and get out unscathed like this. So paramedics fly, Stephen, to a hospital by helicopter.

Doctors rush him in a surgery. At 74 years old and somewhat overweight with a gunshot wound of the abdomen, they didn't think Stephen was going to survive the night, let alone be able to recover. So while doctors did everything they could to save Stephen's life, officers turned to Celeste. They thought her behavior back at the house had been a bit strange. One minute, she's screaming, quote, don't let him die as she followed them out to the ambulance. And then the next, she was calling it perfect timing because they were supposed to leave for Europe the next day. So was she like trying to crack a joke?

She's trying to say it sarcastically and it just didn't read that way. Police didn't read it as sarcasm. To them, it seemed like she was actually relieved not to be traveling with him. Which is so wild. To be like, actually, for my husband to be shot in the stomach by an unknown assailant, this is good timing. Great timing. I didn't want to go anyways. You're up.

Wow. Yeah, so our second clue in this is Celeste's bizarre behavior. Back at the house, officers had clocked something else. For someone screaming that hard, there wasn't. a single tear on her face. Now, again, everyone reacts differently in these situations, but back at the hospital when they took her statement, she said that she had been asleep on the other side of the house and hadn't heard anything. Her daughter, Christina, who was the only other person home at the time, said the same. Now, Jennifer had been told by Celeste to stay away for the night.

Go up to the cabin with your boyfriend and, you know, take the dog with you too, because Stevens, he's kind of being mean to the dog. So investigators swabbed Celeste and Christina's hand for gunpowder residue. The women were told that this was standard. No one was a suspect yet. But Celeste came off as paranoid to investigators. So officers, you know, they're starting to take a step back. Instead, they decide to stop questioning Celeste and just watch what you kind of did next.

What no one expected was Stephen actually survived surgery that night. And yet Celeste wasted no time hiring a criminal defense attorney. What are you defending yourself against? He's not dead. And she immediately hires an attorney. Yeah.

Just a couple of days in a Stevens recovery, Celeste also posted a handwritten sign outside of his hospital room. It said, no visitors, including police, got in without her permission or without her lawyer present. Which, obviously,

is a problem for detectives. They tried to question. Steven, right away after his surgery, but he was intubated, exhausted. I mean, when you're intubated and you have a tube down your throat, you can't communicate. And he's probably sedated. So he doesn't pull it out. Yeah. When they came back a few days later, once he could actually respond, hospital security turned them away on Celeste orders. So they were really looking at this and like officially her behavior was so erratic that their attention is grabbed. Yeah, you really don't want us to try to figure out who went into your home at night with a gun and shot your husband. Don't you? want this solve? You have two daughters that live at the house. Like, you don't, you don't want this off. You just don't care about who it was. Yeah. So they are so weirded out that they start digging deeper into Celeste life. This episode is brought to you by Alma. Alma is on a mission to simplify access to high quality, affordable mental health care. When you want to talk to a therapist, the last thing you want to do is fight with insurance, figure out if someone's available. Like,

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Get started now at helloalma.com slash clues. That's helloalma.com slash C-L-U-E-S. Eight years, hundreds of episodes, and we've barely scratched the surface of true crime. I'm Mark. And I'm Bethan, and this is seeing red. Every Wednesday, we bring you another extraordinary case. And our huge back catalogue has everything from notorious murders, and baffling disappearances, to scams, scandals, survival stories and crimes you won't believe actually happened.

If you're new to seeing red, you've got a lot to catch up on. Search seeing red a true crime podcast wherever you listen. This episode is brought to you by Grooons. Fall always brings that back to reality shift where life gets pretty chaotic and nutrition usually takes a back seat. Grooons has been a very consistent daily habit

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all supported by over 35,000 research publications. They're vegan, gluten-free, low-calorie, and HSA-FSA-eligible. I've been taking Grooms, and I think you'll like them too. Save up to 61% off with free gifts with code clues at grooms.co. That's g-r-un-s.com. So by now, Celeste's twin daughters, that's 19-year-old Christina and Jennifer, Christina went to the hospital with Celeste on the night of the shooting, and they had been there every day since.

but Jennifer, as we said, was not home the night of the tragedy. Her and her boyfriend drove back from that cabin that night on October 2nd, and her boyfriend Christopher kept visiting over the next few days. He really wanted to support Jennifer as she was going through this. So while Celeste was busy with Stephen, one of the officers saw a chance to talk with the twins alone. He asked standard questions, like, did they have any theories about who might have shot Stephen?

and why. And Christopher had a name ready. He said, how about that crazy Tracy? He was talking about a woman named Tracy Tarleton who was a friend of Celeste's. From what he knew, he found Tracy and her relationship with Celeste to be very odd. And Jennifer and Christina agreed with this. After hearing that, Detective Rick Wines drove out to meet Tracy. A background check hadn't turned up much on her. She was in her mid-30s, lived in South Austin, and managed a really popular bookstore called Book People. There was one DUI on a record, but that was it. Wines wasn't sure if he was chasing a real lead or just a friend who had made a really bad impression on Christopher. But he pursued it anyways.

When he knocked, Tracy opened the door, introduced herself, and invited him in. He asked if she owned a shotgun and she said she did. After a moment's hesitation, she went and got it, which is our third clue. no ordinary weapon. It was a thousand-dollar Italian-made Franke, a 20-gauge engraved with her own name. She said it was a gift from her father. Wines sent it off for ballistic testing. And the results came back a few days later. The shell casing from Stevens' bedroom floor had been fired from that exact gun. In less than a week, this had gone from an unsolved shooting with no real leads to a suspect is named. And they had been.

have the weapon. What they still didn't understand, though, was the motive. So on October 8th, detectives brought Tracy in for questioning. And when they told her about the match, they expected a surprise, a defense, maybe even denial that the gun was even hers. Instead, Tracy just full on admits that, yeah, I pulled the trigger. But then they ask her why, and she doesn't answer. She doesn't say a single word. After that, Tracy was charged with injury to an elderly person rather than attempted murder, that charge was actually easier to prove and it was a safer charge to file right away, though she was quickly released on Bond. But investigators were betting that given time, her silence would break. If she was willing to talk to them and tell them everything right away

and maybe hold a little bit closer to her chest, they figured, well, eventually she'll probably just tell us the rest of it. And if that did happen, if she did tell them what she had done, they could always upgrade her charges. So they felt like they just had to be patient. While Tracy was staying silent, though. Stephen was fighting through serious recovery. He needed seven separate surgeries to deal with the fallout. Somehow, his body managed to hold on, and for a little while, it did look like he was getting better. Plus, for the first time in years, Stephen wasn't drinking. He wasn't able to in the hospital, and that did start improving his health and his overall mood. After more than three months, on January 18, 2000, Stephen was finally discharged and sent home.

but he was not there for long. The very next day after he gets discharged, Celeste calls his doctor. She says that he's having chest pains and a severe yeast infection in his groin, and so they readmit him almost immediately. And then at 8 a.m. on January 22nd, just four days later,

his temperature shot up so high he became delirious, and that afternoon, Stephen Beard passed away. Both the attending physician and the medical examiner recorded the cause of death as pulmonary embolism and bronchon pneumonia with sepsis. Stephen was laid to rest next to his first wife, Elise, and the charge against Tracy Charlton was no longer injury to an elderly person, but it was now capital murder. So in Texas, capital murder can carry a life sentence.

Investigators were sure that once Tracy heard about this new charge, she would talk because she would probably want to strike a deal at least. But every time prosecutors put an offer in front of her, she would turn it down and she'd stay silent. And that silence was not just infuriating. It was also very confusing. Because was there something or someone that had so much power over Tracy that she was staying silent? Eventually, prosecutors did run out of patience. And on February 16, 2001, the grand jury formally indicted Tracy for murder and she was taken back into custody. But a conviction still felt unlikely without a confession or that clear motive that they were looking for.

So investigators went back to square one, determined to learn everything they could about this situation. Not just about Tracy, but they wanted to learn more about Celeste and Stephen as well. Because Celeste's behavior and all that stuff that still got detectives thinking. They started pulling apart the marriage piece by piece. They were combing through financial records, old complaints, basically anything that might have. explain why someone would want Stephen dead. And even if that someone wasn't the one that pulled the trigger and what they found painted a very different picture than the one they thought they knew. Very different. As detectives dug into Stephen and Celeste's marriage, they didn't have to go far

to start learning the truth, which brings us to our fourth clue, just how much trouble this marriage was in. And I'm talking long before Tracy Tarleton ever came into the picture. The cracks showed up around June 1995, four months after the wedding, Stephen actually filed for divorce. According to him, they weren't having sex, and Celeste's reluctance in the bedroom left him desperate enough to just walk away entirely. The marriage survived only because they had worked out an arrangement. A standing Sunday morning sex date. Celeste didn't exactly hide this from her daughters. She would announce it on her way to his den, and she would say things like, quote, going to go make some money.

Which these two girls are also already traumatized, and now they're also exposed to that. Yeah. Jennifer in the dock basically says, I shouldn't know when my mom was going and giving blow jobs. Yeah. Yes. 100%. So inappropriate. So inappropriate.

So inappropriate. So despite this clear dislike of intimacy that Celeste had, Stephen was at least satisfied with this arrangement. But there were other things that he was getting frustrated about. her out of control spending being one of them. In his view, it was just too much. I mean, he had already given her an allowance, and sources do vary on the amount, but it was at least $10,000 a month, up to potentially $35,000 a month, which every month she was just blowing right through. Yeah, yeah, immediately. I think I read that she blew through $500,000 in like six months. Something like that. And then that's why he started to be like, you're getting just an allowance.

Yeah. And that's when, so it was after the $500,000 and she was just getting this allowance. Yeah. And so he's, you know, giving her this allowance. And at the same time, she's just dragging his name through the mud. Now, I hate this word, but this is a direct quote. So I'm going to say it. But Celeste started calling Stephen, quote, the fat bastard or the old fool and made it clear to her friends that she wished that he would just.

die already. Yeah, and that's a direct quote from her too. Direct quote. We have that in quotations in the script. Just die already. Her daughters would describe her as being unpredictable, warm one minute, turning on you the next. Christina recalled one night when Celeste pulled out a gun and just waved it around the room at her and Stephen. That unpredictable nature was really hurting her relationship with her daughters and her marriage. And I will say, like in one of the docs I watch, Jennifer does even call her my mom or my mother. It is Celeste. Celeste. She just calls her Celeste. Just Celeste. Like, no attachment to this woman. No, which is, again, so understandable. Like, again, look at the trauma.

Yeah. And as time goes on, Celeste just starts spending more and more time away from Stephen. She rekindled a romance with an ex-husband, Jimmy Martinez, and would slip out at night to meet him. When he wasn't available, she would party with a friend. Stephen usually went to bed at around 9.30 p.m., but to speed that up, Celeste was spiking. his food and drinks with crushed sleeping pills so she could leave sooner. And Stephen seemed unaware of the nighttime activities, but he was still watching the spending. And by the end of 1998, it felt like it was really hitting a breaking point. His accountant tallied up what Celeste had spent on holiday shopping and came back with an astonishing

figure. $300,000 for just holiday shopping. Can you imagine going to a Christmas party at their house? It would have been incredible. I mean, $300,000. That's wild. There is a story I heard from a friend that said Celeste told me, you know, Stephen's upset again at the country club one day. And the friend asked why. And she goes, well, I tried to sell his dead wife's jewelry. So she was like going in a safety deposit box, taking jewelry, trying to sell it. Trying to get more money. You know, it's coming from a friend. This is what the friend is saying. Well, hearsay. Yeah.

But at the start of 1999, Stephen starts threatening to divorce her again. Like, it is hit. It's just too much. It's too much, Celeste. And he said at the very least, he's going to cut off her credit cards. Like, something's got to give.

So at this point, Celeste responds by becoming deeply upset and saying she's going to harm herself. So in early 1999, Stephen sent her to St. David's Pavilion, a psychiatric hospital in Austin. and it was there that she met and befriended a fellow patient, Tracy Tarleton. So Tracy had been admitted to St. David's after a public breakdown at her job.

In February of 1999, she had an episode at the bookstore she managed, shrieking and threatening violence in front of her coworkers. It was frightening enough that friends and family urged her to check herself in for treatment. And this was not Tracy's first time struggling. Tracy had a history of drug and alcohol abuse and a previous attempt at her own life. When she entered the hospital, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and it was while she was being treated for it, that she met Celeste. The two women got really close, really fast, and it was enough that the staff all noticed this happening. And when they were discharged, that friendship didn't end.

And if anything, they grew even more attached outside of the facility. They spent nearly every day together over the next several months. Now, obviously, investigators aren't getting anything from Tracy. However, Jennifer and Christina, along with their boyfriends, were more than happy to talk about Celeste and Tracy's relationship. And what they'd witnessed between them went far beyond a close friendship. That is our fifth clue. The twins said that the two women were often physically affectionate.

One party in July of 1999 really stood out for Christina. She remembered them holding hands, and Celeste was even photographed sitting on Tracy's lap. The next morning when Christina and her boyfriend just, came to help clean up, they found the two of them asleep in the same bed. Around that time, books about lesbian relationships and sex started turning up around the house. Eventually, Christina pressed her mother to explain what's going on, and Celeste supposedly said, quote, Tracy's a lesbian, and she's in love with me. Isn't that funny? End quote. Christina didn't really

find it funny. She also found that it only was half the story, because in her view, Celeste seemed to be in love with Tracy too. So she kept pushing, and eventually Celeste told her plainly that she and Tracy were in a sexual relationship. Tracy separately told Christina the same thing. When investigators started questioning Tracy's coworkers, they backed up this story. Tracy wasn't secretive about their romance at all. Celeste visited the bookstore often. Tracy talked about her like they were girlfriends.

And so it was starting to get a lot harder for Celeste to hide all. of this too. In September of 1999, at one of their burger nights, they would hold these barbecue burger nights on Wednesdays, everyone was invited. Christina saw Tracy and Celeste kissing openly at this for everyone to see. Yeah, and Stephen saw it too. Christina remembered him throwing Tracy out of the house. Shortly after that, Stephen booked an extended trip to Europe for him and Celeste, seemingly as a way to get her away from Tracy. And that was the trip that Celeste was excited not to take. Which makes sense now.

According to that quote, right? Like, perfect timing. Yeah. So was it a coincidence that Stephen was shot the day before? Well, by the summer of 2000, investigators had plenty of secondhand accounts of the romance. But they still had nothing that explained why Tracy pulled the trigger. If anything, Celeste was the one with the motive, which is clearly. clue number six for us. Under Stevens' will, Celeste stood to inherit roughly $6 million,

half of his net worth. Police wondered if maybe Celeste put Tracy up to it, promised her a cut, or maybe Tracy did it on her own to have Celeste to herself, like, hey, husband's out of the way, now you can really be with me. Both were plausible, but again, investigators can't just prove this, because no one's talking at this point. Tracy is out on bond. She's keeping. She's keeping quiet, Celeste isn't talking, but she had been keeping busy. Shortly after Stephen's death, Celeste was partying pretty hard, out at bars all night, sleeping all day, rinse and repeat. In February of 2000, just one month after Stephen died, she met a man named Cole Johnson at one of those bars and started a relationship with him. He was a carpenter and a bartender. Apparently, he swept her

off her feet. And on July 3rd, five months after they had met, six months after Stephen's death, Celeste and Cole got married in Aspen, Colorado. The news reached Austin quickly and eventually made its way to Tracy. And Tracy was furious. This episode is brought to you by Zeni Optical. Be honest with yourself for a second. How long have you been wearing the exact same pair of glasses holding off on an upgrade just because we're replacing them usually costs a small fortune. I used to put up with scratched lenses for months because I couldn't justify dropping hundreds of dollars, but then I found frames I love on zeni.com. I'm the type of person that likes to have glasses everywhere. I keep glasses in my car, by my bed, a pair in my bag, because I lose

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will actually love. 11 labs.io slash clues. L-E-E-V-E-N-L-A-B-S dot I-O-S-Clus. Something is happening in Dawson Creek. A wave of violence has swept over this community of just 13,000 people. It's like the kind of stuff you only hear about on TV. 15 murders in the last five years. Some criminals, I put them into the category of supervillains. I'm Timothy Sawa and from CBC's undercover and the Fifth Estate, an investigation into deaths and disappearances in Dawson Creek and what's behind it all.

I'm not saying another word. Leave me alone. The Mile Zero murders. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. After reading about Celeste's wedding in the newspaper, again, like, Celeste didn't even ring her up, give her a call. Something really shifted for Tracy. The relationship she thought she had suddenly didn't seem worth protecting. Definitely not worth life in prison for. Yes. So in July of 2000, Tracy asked to me with prosecutors.

And there, she finally said the words that they had been waiting for. Quote, I did it for Celeste. That confession is our seventh clue. Tracy admitted that their relationship started when they were patients at St. David's, and almost immediately they started having a relationship. By her account, Celeste was flirtatious from the very beginning, and it wasn't long before Celeste came into her room and kissed her. When the two were transferred together to Timberlon,

another psychiatric facility, it got even more intimate. Tracy said they first slept together there, roughly a month after meeting on March 20, 1999. staff noticed so quickly that they did try to keep the women in separate rooms, but it didn't work. And the relationship didn't end at discharge. I mean, according to Tracy, the two became regulars at an Austin motel, meeting there throughout the spring and summer of 1999. Tracy sent Celeste love letters. Celeste sent her birthday card addressed simply, quote, to the one I love.

Tracy said Celeste told her how trapped she felt in the marriage and that Stephen was abusive. Celeste supposedly told her she thought about dying because of him. If Stephen were gone, Celeste said that they could finally be together. And Tracy really believed all of this. To her, there was no inkling that this was a lie because Celeste was being with her. They were together. Yeah. And so she really wanted to help Celeste find a way out.

Because of the pre-nup, Celeste wasn't interested in divorce. If the marriage was going to end, it would end one way. Stephen's death. Because at the end of that was a pretty big payout. I mean, again, $6 million. Yeah. So Tracy said that they actually made a few attempts on Stephen's life. They once tried to poison Stephen with a homemade botulin bacterium, sprinkled it on his food. And apparently this was from a recipe that was sold at Tracy's bookstore. Add that to the things, like my list of really sketchy Google searches because I was also looking up, how do you make homemade botulin? Did you find anything out?

Yeah, I did. I mean, I've only ever heard of people getting it accidentally. Like, you hear the horror stories of like botulism where someone will leave rice out for five days. That's huge. And not put it in the fridge and eat it or pasta. Pasta is a big one. That was really the only times I'd ever heard of that happening. But I guess if you can do it by accident, you can probably try to do it on purpose.

Yeah. I mean, Tracy said that they were, they had multiple jars, I guess, cooking. in a closet at her house. And they would put it on as chili dogs. To try to give him botulism. Yeah. It's so, I just never heard that before. It didn't work.

There was also a night that they tried to suffocate him with a plastic bag while he was passed out at the dining table. But they did stop because they were afraid it would be too obvious. Did you see, so why was he passed out at the dining table? Did they get had, because she would give him sleeping pills, but also he was drinking a lot. Drinking. And yeah, I mean, crushing up pills. Yeah, and those two things together are really bad news.

Yeah. Yeah, but it explains why he might not have woken up once there's a bag over his head, too. Like, he's knocked out. Really unconscious. By the end of September 1999, they felt like the pressure was really building. Like, there was something more urgent coming, that trip to Europe, again, in part to potentially get her away from Tracy. And so, according to Tracy, Celeste was convinced that she wouldn't survive being gone that, long with him and begged Tracy to help her stop it before they could leave. So on October 1st,

the day before the trip, Tracy said Celeste, walked her through exactly what to do. She told her where to park, away from any neighbors who might see. She told her which door would be unlocked, the patio, where Stephen would be sleeping, and to shoot him in the stomach, saying it would be less messy. That night, Tracy said, she almost didn't go through with it. Even after slipping in through the patio door and making her way to Stephen's bedroom, she stood in the dark next to his bed and just froze. And then, in her words, she just told herself that, hey, you got to do this. So she fired once and then left the same way she had came in. It was exactly the motive and exact chain of events that investigators had been digging for since October of 1999. Now,

all that was left was just arrest Celeste. So in March of Teeth, 2002, with her own trial just days away, Tracy struck a deal. She pleaded guilty to murder in exchange for a 20-year sentence and an agreement to testify against Celeste. Celeste was arrested on March 28, 2002, for arranging her husband's murder. Their case was good, but it wasn't ironclad, because under Texas law, an accomplice's word isn't enough to convict on its own. They needed something that didn't come from Tracy to make the case against Celeste stick, so they had to keep digging. One of the people they turned to was her hairdresser and friend Donna Goodson. Donna and Celeste had been close for a while, partying together a lot before Stephen was shot.

In January of 2000, soon after his death, Celeste hired Donna as a personal assistant, and the two started spending even more time together. Celeste really trusted Donna, enough to openly discuss the investigation into Stephen's death with her. And a request she had made during one of those conversations is our eighth clue. On February 10, 2000, Donna and Celeste took a trip to Houston and then Louisiana. On that trip, Celeste told Donna something. Her attorney said that it would only take two pieces of evidence to indict someone for murder, the gun and Tracy. Celeste was basically bragging in Donna's eyes that Tracy's conviction was a sure thing, and she is going to get off scot-free.

But then Donna pointed out a problem. What if Tracy ends up cooperating with the prosecution? I mean, at that point, Tracy still wasn't talking. She was still protecting Celeste. I mean, Celeste hadn't gotten married yet. But Celeste started to worry that Tracy could turn on her. She didn't know when or why, but she wanted a plan for if and when that happened. So she asked Donna if she knew anyone who could help get rid of Tracy.

Donna was shocked, but she hit it. And seen an opportunity, she quickly spun up a plan. She said, sure, anybody can get rid of anybody for the right price. Of course, Donna didn't actually know a hitman, but she convinced Celeste that she did. And so the woman made a deal. Celeste would pay Donna to find someone. Once they were back in Austin, Celeste handed Donna. $500, showed her where Tracy lived, and told her what car she drove. Now, weeks passed, Tracy was still

very much alive. Celeste got impatient. Donna said she needed more money. She wasn't getting any takers for that price. So Celeste paid again. And again. $2,500. Another $2,500. Then $7,460. By the time it was all said and done, Celeste had paid Donna more than $12,000 chasing a hitman that was never going to happen. That was in early 2000, nearly two years before Celeste was arrested. It was only now, though, with Celeste in custody, that Donna laid all of this out for prosecutors. And Christina, her daughter, did corroborate this. You see, Christina had secretly been recording phone calls with her mother since Stephen's death. Clever girl.

One of those recordings had Celeste telling Christina that she had hired someone to kill Tracy. But it probably wasn't going to happen. And she's telling her daughter all of this. Like she's, the amount that she's putting on her children

is just really appalling. I mean, it gets worse. Like, Celeste ends up taking both girls to a funeral home and they go casket shopping. and apparently there's like pink caskets there and this is coming from Jennifer

and apparently she points at the caskets and goes, that's for you guys next basically being like if you talk and you turn on me you're going down threatening to kill your own kids by having them pick out a casket? Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. So between Donna's account, Christina's tapes,

prosecutors finally had what they needed. independent evidence tying Celeste to Stevens murder. So Celeste hired defense attorney Dick DeGieran in October of 2002. When the trial opened on February 3rd, 2003, it was already being called the trial of the century in Austin. Yeah. And for those that might be, like, your ears might be ringing with Dick DeGyren, he was Robert Durst's lawyer. Oh, wow. I didn't make that connection.

Yeah. Big, big, big, big lawyer. So, like, her hiring him was a huge deal. It also rubbed people the wrong way because he's famous, he's big. They knew he was likely expensive. Yeah.

How she paying for him with Stevens money. With Steven's money. So people were, like, really upset by that too. Of course, of course. So media descended from around the country and spectators filled the hallways every day. The jury was told that because of the Texas law of parties, Celeste didn't have to pull the trigger.

to be guilty of capital murder. Prosecutors just had to prove that she solicited it, directed it, or helped make it happen, which meant the whole case came down to one question. Did Celeste do enough to put a gun in Tracy's hands, even if she never touched it herself? While Tracy was a huge part of the prosecution's case, on the stand for 15 hours spread across three days, and she walked the jury through all of it. Yeah, there's pictures of her from court that I've seen where she's holding the shot. and like showing exactly how she pointed it.

And like that visual, she tells him everything. It's so powerful. But she doesn't have the most damaging testimony that actually comes from Celeste's own daughters. Jennifer said that their mother married Stephen for his money. She's like there's no if, ands are butts about it. And both of the girls described the very clearly romantic relationship between her and Tracy. And they said all of this with Celeste right there, watching and listening. and DeGieran's entire defense came down to three words.

Tracy is crazy. He said that Tracy was a delusional, obsessive woman, and the relationship that she described only existed in her own mind and nowhere else, and that Celeste's daughters were lying. They were motivated by a multi-million dollar inheritance that they would lose if their mother was acquitted. He also said that Celeste had no reason to want Stephen dead.

Alive, he was a very generous guy with his money. he was also predictable. He was worth far more in his life than his death ever could be. Celeste, during this entire trial, never once took the stand. Instead, jurors heard a taped deposition in which she flatly denied ever so much as kissing Tracy, a claim that did not hold up at all because, remember, at that barbecue, everyone saw them kissing. So there were so many witnesses that came forward and were like, yeah, they were kissing. And then Celeste is like, no, we weren't.

weren't. And so, of course, like, yeah. Anything you say at that point isn't credible. You've lost all trust, integrity. Yeah. Also, her lawyer did make a pretty bold choice. He decided to get up on a table, lay down, and put a bunch of pillows on his stomach. Yeah. To kind of imitate what Stephen would look like. And like, that's why Tracy shot him in the stomach. She didn't go for the head because she couldn't see his head. And I think a lot of people were like, okay, well, you're fat shaming a guy who's dead. Yeah. Also, what does that have to do with any of this? No idea. And there's another lawyer from the prosecution side who was interviewed and was like, first time you've seen that in Texas state history and likely the last. I do think that there is, and I have noticed this like a few

times in my career, there is a tactic, whether it's negotiating or trying to convince someone of something, where you're like, if I just act bizarre enough, no one will understand what's happening and they'll just side with me to make it go away. Yeah. Like, I've been in negotiations too where, like, some man will just start, like, shouting things that don't make any sense because they think you just want to get off the phone call with them. And so you'll be like, yeah, okay, whatever, you know? And I think that is a thing people do. So he's probably like, if I get up and I just cover myself in pillows, like, people are going to be, they're going to lose track of what? what's happening.

Think about the case we covered where the blood analysis expert puts ketchup in his mouth and spits it out on the stand. Yes. Was that? That was the Peterson case. Yeah, the staircase case where it was Dr. Henry Lee, spitting ketchup at a. And you're like, what are we doing here? It's an interesting tactic to take. Very strange.

So on March 19, 2003, the jury reached their verdict. Guilty on both counts, capital murder and injury to an elderly individual. The state never sought the death penalty, which meant that the capital murder conviction carried a mandatory life-in-prison sentence. And on the second count, the jury did add a $10,000 fine. But before sentencing, Stephen's family did get to address Celeste directly. His son from his first marriage, Stephen Beard III, did not hold back. He said that he hoped Celeste would burn in hell. Christina was next.

She said, quote, you say we turned on you. Well, you turned on us. You turned on the whole Beard family. He let you into his home, loved you, honored you, and you violated him and murdered him. Shame on you. Then, outside of the courthouse, Stephen Beard's son said something that no one expected. It's sad to have to say it, he said, but I have to thank Tracy Tarleton too. She shot my father, but without her, we wouldn't have gotten here. Which is crazy to have to say that.

Like, yeah, she killed him, but without her, we also wouldn't have this justice. Right, right. Like she was the one that came forward. And I do think, I think he also means Celeste was going to have someone kill him no matter what. Yeah. I think she viewed all of the relationships in her life. Like, what can I get out of this? I don't know that she really cared about any of these people. I don't think she did. I think she saw money in Stephen. I think she saw someone who would do her bidding and Tracy. And then when she goes and marries the other guy and when she's done with those relationships, she just discards them. Yeah. I mean, I've seen a lot of people, even herself, like, just describe her as a survivor. And I think in her head, that's what it took for her to survive. Like, that mentality. For Celeste, as a survivor. Yeah. That's like self-described, right?

Like, I made these choices to make sure my daughters were then taken care of. Like, I sacrificed having to do Sunday sex days. Yeah, to make sure my- Like, she looked at it like, that was like just a battle that she went. through. I know and it's so tough because obviously it feels like she suffered as a child for sure. And there's a lot of trauma there. You feel sorry for the child, but when someone's an adult, they have a lot more responsibility for themselves. And so like the bad decisions you make as an adult, I don't think you have as much grace as you do when you're a child suffering. And I mean, so many of the things that

she says are just lies. And everything we have about her childhood comes from her. Everything we have about how she viewed the situation and the scenario comes from her. And so you just have to really, you know, weigh that as you're weighing your thoughts on hers. I guess how I'll say it. No, it is, it's, this is a very complicated case. I'm curious if there's anyone out there that is like, no, because I mean, to this day, she is still proclaiming her innocence. Yeah. Does interview after interview after interview. Her mom has been interviewed. I have a quote here. I wrote down from her mom that her mom is basically saying that there was like a special bond between Celeste and Stephen.

Quote, there was a special bond between Celest and Stephen and I don't care how fat he was or how rich he was. She really cared for Stephen. Oh my God. People just, he's just catching strays everywhere. This poor guy. I know. Like no one will just let him rest.

No. In 2006, the Texas Court of Appeals took up her case. They rejected every single argument that her side put forward and her conviction. and her conviction stood and still does as of this recording. Tracy served her sentence and she was paroled in August of 2011 after about 10 years behind bars. As far as loose ends about this case, there doesn't seem to be many. I would say, you know, on Reddit and the public do really tend to agree with what the courts decided. Any loose ends kind of come from Celeste herself.

I mean, when confronted by an interviewer about that casket story, she says, well, yeah, we went and looked at caskets, but I never told them that. So like, she'll say yes. But what are you doing casket shopping with your daughters? It's interesting when you watch interviews with her because it feels like she knows that she can't lie completely. This is what it feels like to me just watching, right? Yeah.

She can't lie completely, but it's, yeah, but it didn't happen that way. Or yeah, but they interpreted it wrong. Yeah. It's always the yeah, but. So it's never like a, oh, that's true. Yes. So it's really interesting. An excuse for everything.

Yeah, even the audio recording. that her daughter Christina took, like she says, well, they were cut. So you didn't hear Christina baiting me. Yeah, of course. And that's why I reacted and screamed on the audio recording. All of this is a big conspiracy that everyone in her life is doing against her. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious where all of you have gone to at this point? Like, is there any chance that it really was just Tracy acting alone and out of obsession? I mean, to me, I was, I think the most shocked by the lawyer claiming that there was never anything intimate or sexual between them. And I'm like, but there were witnesses.

I know. I know. That's the thing where you're like, okay, well, you're just lying. Like you're just saying things. Obviously, there's that many witnesses. Yeah. But that's kind of it for loose ends. Yeah.

And we like to end the episodes with a little bit of activism. And one thing is that Jennifer and Christina, Celeste's children, we're already living through something that a lot of kids do experience. And that is a childhood split apart by custody battle. or foster placements and a mother whose moods they could never quite predict. And what they described is not unique to this case. That's why we wanted to highlight the Child Help National Child Abuse Hotline. It is 1-800 number four, letter A, child, that is, in layman's terms, 1-800-4-22-443,

and it is staffed 24-7. They connect callers to local resources and over 170 languages, and it's all confidential. And if you're an adult now and you're still carrying the weight of a childhood that looked like Jennifer and Christina's, a licensed therapist can help untangle patterns that follow people for decades as long after they've left the house that caused them. And with that, we want to highlight a missing person this week. The missing person we want to highlight this week is Raja Adriana McQueen. Roger McQueen was last seen in her 2018 Nissan Central at approximately 7.30 a.m. on June 26, 2021, in the area of East 131 Street and Harvard Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio.

Her car was later observed being driven by another individual with two new bullet-hold effects, one in the roof and one in the rear passenger door. The vehicle's appearance had been altered by the removal of the hub caps and her license plate, and a dealer plate was visible in the rear window. Raja is described as having black hair, 5-6, black female, and was about 133 pounds at the time of her disappearance. If you have any information concerning this case, please contact the FBI's Cleveland Field Office at 216-522-1-4-00,

your local FBI office, the nearest American Embassy or consulate, or you can submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov. Your identity can remain anonymous, and there is a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the recovery of Raja McQueen and or her missing 2018 Nissan Centra. And that is all we have for this episode of Clues. And now we want to turn it over to you guys. We covered a lot today, but I'm very curious to hear from our audience.

What you guys think? You can leave us comments wherever you listen. We're always reading through everything. Yeah, yeah. I've been getting a lot of messages lately, which I appreciate because we see our messages. Yeah. We don't see the clues ones. So keep sending them.

But the comments, you guys, every week, week after week, you are so engaged. and we appreciate it so much. At Crime House, we really value your support. So share your thoughts on social media, and remember to rate, review, follow, and subscribe. Tell others discover our show. And don't forget, for early, add free access. Subscribe to Crimehouse Plus at CrimehousePlus.com.

Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of the Clues page. Thanks, guys. Thanks, bye. Bye. Hi, Goals and Goblins. I'm Vanessa Richardson. It's officially our favorite time of year at Crime House, spooky season. Every Sunday this month, we're dropping a bonus episode on Crime House 24-7, where

true crime becomes paranormal, a ghost hunt that ends with an innocent man dead in the street, a skeleton sealed inside a hollow tree nameless for 80 years, a ghost testimony that puts a killer in prison and a murder defense built on demonic possession. Listen every Sunday on Crime House 24-7, or join Crimehouse Plus for all four right now ad-free. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at Crimehouseplus.com. If you're looking for another show to check out, listen to my Crime House show, Murder, True Crime Stories. Join me as I dig into history's most notorious murders like you've never heard before. Follow Murder, True Crime Stories, available wherever you listen to podcasts.