Murder With My Husband - 311. A Love Affair That Turned Deadly - The Murder of Steven Beard

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

On this episode, Payton and Garrett dive into the case of Steven Beard. When the wealthy retired man calls 911 claiming his stomach literally exploded, police are shocked to figure out what really happened. Links: Netflix Video Every Monday @11am PST, 12pm MST, 2pm EST 1pm CST https://www.netflix.com/murderwithmyhusband  Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderwithmyhusband NEW MERCH LINK: https://mwmhshop.com Discount Codes: https://mailchi.mp/c6f48670aeac/oh-no-media-discount-codes Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/themwmh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7 Case Sources: ABCNews.go.com - https://abcnews.go.com/US/twin-daughters-recount-testifying-mother-deadly-alleged-love/story?id=93120585 CBSNews.com - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-family-friend-questioned-12-05-2003/ Medium.com - https://medium.com/@ringosayya/killed-by-wifes-secret-lesbian-lover-22b211773dca Yahoo.com - https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/where-tracey-tarlton-woman-shot-132400856.html GoodMorningAmerica.com - https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/amp/news/story/alleged-love-triangle-turn-deadly-wife-center-millionaire-93120519 AllThatsInteresting.com - https://allthatsinteresting.com/celeste-beard Bustle.com -  https://www.bustle.com/p/women-who-kills-celeste-beard-johnson-is-still-serving-a-life-sentence-for-the-murder-of-her-husband-16999991 CaseLaw.FindLaw.com - https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/tx-court-of-appeals/1175149.html Wikipedia.com - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celeste_Beard Murderpedia.org - https://murderpedia.org/female.B/b/beard-celeste-photos.htm Oxygen.com - https://www.oxygen.com/snapped-behind-bars/crime-news/celeste-beard-johnson-speaks-out-about-murder-conviction Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with my husband. I'm Peyton Morland. And I'm Garrett Morland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. We don't have any announcements today.

So if you want to follow us on Instagram, please do. You can check out Peyton's at Peyton Morland or mine at Garrett Morland. Also our Murder with My Husband, Instagram. Kind of all the latest updates. We post pictures. Yeah. Come stay updated with us. We hope you guys are having a wonderful Monday or whatever day you are watching or listening to this.

True. We love you so much. What we got? No, we need to give him your 10 seconds. 10 seconds. I think I've mentioned this before, but like I get these migraines where the only thing that happens is my vision goes out, like gone. Like I can probably see like one tenth of what I normally do. Like everything super blurry.

It's kind of crazy. Anyways, happened this morning. really annoying. I've gotten my head scanned a couple times. Everything's good there. Not really sure why I get them. It just, it'll happen randomly. There's no kind of rhyme or reason or anything. So yeah, if you guys were curious, that's what happens to my head. So I got one of those this morning, but all good now. I can see again. It usually lasts about like 30 to 45 minutes and then my vision just comes back. Strange, right? I don't know. Maybe I have some super power or something that I don't know about yet. That'd be pretty cool. I would love that.

Other than that, nothing crazy for my 10 seconds. Bagel shop. I'm going hard on the bagel shop. Again, follow us on Instagram if you want to stay up today on my bagel shop. If you want to stay up to date on anything murder with my husband. We've made it a goal to try to improve our murder with my husband's social media. So see what happens there. Goals.

Goals are important. Doesn't mean it always happen, but they're important. Words of wisdom. Words of wisdom. All right, everyone, thanks for being here. We're going to hop right into today's case. Our sources for this episode are ABCNews.go.com, CBSNews.com, medium.com, Yahoo.com. Good morning, America.com.

While that's interesting.com, bustle.com, case law. Dot, fin law.com, murderpedia, and oxygen. Disclaimer, this episode includes mentions of suicidal ideation. So if you or someone you know is struggling, please call or test. the suicide crisis lifeline at 988 for help. And as always, please listen with care. Love is like a drug. It's not just a saying it's actually true. Falling in love activates the same reward centers in the brain and it causes us to release a lot of the same euphoric chemicals too. Endorphins, dopamine, oxytocin. So hearing that, it is no surprise that people do completely irrational things.

while they are falling in love. They, you know, say things they wouldn't normally say, do things they wouldn't normally do. And the high that you get from falling in love doesn't actually last forever. And when it wears off and we look back on the way we behaved, we might realize the mistakes that we made during that time, the people we forgot, the plans we abandoned, the feelings we may have hurt along the way. Though for some people, those mistakes are a lot more drastic than others. And sometimes, like we'll see in today's case, they can even be deadly. I think a lot of times in true crime, when you see someone kill because they want to be with an affair partner or something, you're like, oh my gosh, why not just get divorced? But the reality of it is, these people are high.

They're high on these drugs of falling in love. And it happens. way more often than you would think, which is why it's so real. It's so dangerous. It happens so much. If you're on social media, I mean, people are always posting like, look what my ex said to me. I don't know, just things like that. People say some crazy shiz. And act. Some crazy stuff. Wild. But also, I mean. Again, you're releasing those endorphins into your body. Crazy him. Mm-hmm. So let's dial back the clock to the late, 90s as we head to an area right outside of Austin, Texas called Westlake Hills. The Westlake Hills, late 90s, and it's here that we meet the former general manager of a local

news channel and self-made millionaire Stephen Beard. Now, Stephen was a true native Texan. He grew up in the state. He served in the Navy Air Corps. he went on to attend Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University all in his lone star state. Stephen got his start in radio and advertising in the 50s and slowly climbed the corporate ladder over time. And eventually, around the 1970s, he made the move over to television. And then in 1983, he helped launch a Fox-affiliated launch a Fox-affiliated

local TV channel called KBVO TV as its founding general manager. Now, Stephen and his wife, Elise, had three children, and they built a really nice life together in the Austin area. But then in 1993, Elise, Stephen's wife, died of cancer, leaving the now 69-year-old Stephen Beard, a widow. And what happened next? Probably rubbed a few people the wrong way. But Stephen was not really great on his own. So within a few weeks of Elise's death,

he was getting to know a waitress from their local country club. A 30-year-old woman named Celeste Johnson. In case anyone is curious, 70 minus 30 is 40, just some simple math. in case again, anyone's curious. Now, their first date included a fancy meal at an Italian restaurant, a nightcap at his lavish home, and then he let Celeste drive his $50,000 Lexus back to her place. And after that, things escalated quickly just a few weeks later.

The two were in a full-blown relationship, and Stephen asked Celeste if she and her twin daughters wanted to come live with him. Celeste didn't have it very easy up until this point. She never really knew her birth parents. She claimed the only time she met her birth mother, she said to her, quote, I'm not your mother. I was just your incubator. Okay. So Celeste was adopted but claimed she had experienced physical abuse at the hands of her adoptive father,

which led to thoughts of suicide as she became a teenager. But things changed for Celeste when at 17 years old, she actually got pregnant with twin girls. Christina and Jennifer. She actually married the twins' father, but that didn't really work out as she had hoped. They were soon divorced, and Celeste took the girls on the road,

moving from one state to another to find a new home. Along the way, Celeste married two more times, once to an Air Force mechanic, who she divorced in 1991, and then to a man named Jimmy, Martinez. That didn't work out either. And that's when Celeste finally found herself in Austin, trying to make it on her own while raising her two now 13-year-old twin daughters. And she's working at the local country club. And then that brings us back to when she met 69-year-old Stephen

Beard around October or November of 1993. Now, by January of 1994, a few months later, she and the girls were living in his mansion. And that same year, Stephen sold his shares of the news company and added to his already pretty massive fortune. And finally, after 13 months under the same roof, Stephen decided he wanted to marry Celeste. He was just going to jump. From one marriage right to the other,

but of course he knew that Celeste needed to sign a pre-up first, which was smart and Celeste agreed to it. it still left her with $500,000, though not a cent more, if they got divorced. Pretty good, though, pretty good. So on February 18, 1995, five days after Celeste's 32nd birthday, the two tied the knot at the same Austin Country Club where they met. And in 1998, Stephen even adopted Celeste two dollars. Wow, okay.

Christine and Jennifer, this was after their birth father died. of suicide. Geez, I mean, as big as the age differences, I mean, sounds like it's going well. Now, as a family, they began to travel all over the world and take wave runners out on the lake near their vacation home, about 40 miles north of Austin. You know, there sometimes is nothing more fun than taking out a jet ski or a sea do. They're so fun. So fun, especially when you're riding on the back of Garrett-Siniki.

flipping you off. Oh, yeah. It's like the best. The best. So safe to say, they were living the dream Celeste had always imagined for herself and her twin girls. And friends of Stevens even claimed Celeste kind of made him younger at heart and he really was madly in love with her, which meant he was spending a lot of money on Celeste as well. Not only did he buy her tons of lavish gifts and jewelry, he gave her a $10,000. a month allowance. And that was basically spent on redoing parts of their house, growing fancy parties, and going on month-long extravagant vacations to places like China.

But in October of 1999, okay, also $10,000 a month in 1999. Yeah, it's probably like, I'm going to say close for like $30,000 a month now. Yeah, $10,000 is a lot now. Yeah. So in October of 1999, something happens. happened that no amount of money could fix. In the early morning hours of October 2nd, Stephen Beard was awoken from a deep sleep in his Austin home. He and Celeste had actually been sleeping in different rooms at that point because she complained that his breathing machine was too loud.

So he reached for his phone on his nightstand and dialed 911 himself. And when the operator answered, Stephen told them he needed an ambulance immediately. Wow. So early morning hours, Stephen's calling 911 on his own. And when they ask him, okay, why do you need an ambulance? He says, quote, my guts just jumped out of my stomach. They blew out. Yeah, they blew out of my stomach and they're lying on my stomach.

What in the... I know. I got to just jump out of my stomach. He tells the operator he's in terrible pain. He has no idea what happened to him other than he can see his guts on his stomach. Holy crap. And then he asked if the police would call the house and try to wake up his wife, who was actually asleep in the other wing.

So as first responders are now heading to the Beard's mansion, they try Celeste a few different times, but no one is answering. And when they get there, they find the doors are all locked, the lights are all off, and nothing seems broken. They spot Stephen through the window, lying on his bed, bleeding. So they break open a patio door to get inside. And they race to treat Stephen, who does, in fact, have an open wound on his stomach. At first, they think, okay, maybe he had some sort of hernia operation and his incision on. his stomach had split open.

But then Celeste and her daughter, Kristen, finally wake up and storm into the room from the other side of the house to see what all the commotion is. And this is when they see Stephen, her husband, and Kristen's stepfather, being loaded onto a stretcher. They tell Celeste that a helicopter is on its way

to airlift Stephen to a hospital. And Celeste is completely distraught, yelling things like, please don't let him die. And in the meantime, police are already starting to examine the bedroom and trying to figure out what happened here. And they find a few strange things in all of this commotion. Stephen's bathroom has been completely rummaged through.

Clothes have been pulled out of the drawers and thrown out onto the floor. Stephen's wallet is missing cash. But none of the big ticket items like jewelry or other valuable possessions seem to be missing. So police are like, this honestly looks a little staged. And then they actually find the source of Stephen's injury. He didn't have a hernia that had split open. Someone caught him, right? Lying on the floor of his bedroom is a fresh shell casing from a 20-gauge shotgun.

Someone shot him? So Christina and Celeste meet Stephen at the hospital along. Sorry, no, keep going. I'm just already thinking, how did she not hear the gunshot? But I guess if she's in the other wing of the house, maybe not. But I don't know, gunshots are loud. Shotgun. Like, there's just a lot of stuff running through my mind.

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com slash husband. So Christina and Celeste are at the hospital along with Celeste other daughter, Jennifer, and her boyfriend, Christopher, who were staying at Stevens Lakehouse that night. And as they're all sitting in the waiting room, seeing if they're adopted, father will live, police come and speak with them about the bullet casing they found. Because by now, they're like, this was not an accident. Stephen was shot in the middle of the night in his own home. And when a detective tells the family, like, hey, he was shot with a shotgun, any idea what happened, any idea who would have done this? Christopher, who is the boyfriend, one of the twin daughter's boyfriends actually perks up and says, what about, quote, that crazy Tracy? And Jennifer, who is

the girlfriend of Christopher and one of the twins, thinks, wait a second, that makes sense because this crazy Tracy also owns a 20-gauge shotgun. So the family's like, oh, yeah, it's crazy Tracy. And the cops are like, who's crazy Tracy? Okay. Okay. Well, she was someone who worked at a little bookstore near Austin and had met Celeste, the mother, about seven months earlier while the two were both in a mental health facility. So Tracy Tarleton was about 35 years old at the time that she met Celeste in this facility. And like Celeste, she had had a bit of a troubled past. She had dealt with addictions, specifically narcotics and alcohol abuse.

She had also suffered from suicidal ideation. But on paper, Tracy's upbringing was a bit different from Celeste. She was the daughter of a well-known Fort Worth, Texas lawyer. She had graduated from Texas A&M with a biology degree. Okay. And over the years, she'd worked a few different government jobs before landing at that bookstore in 1994. Now, fast forward.

And then earlier in the year that Stephen was shot. So in 1999, Tracy had had a nervous breakdown at work, shouting, getting violent in front of people at the bookstore, and that's when her friends and family encouraged her to seek mental health treatment. She checked herself into a place called St. David's Pavilion, and that was where she met Celeste Beard in March of 1999. Now, at the time, I want to clarify, Celeste was also at St. David's Pavilion voluntarily. Oh, for having thoughts of suicide? Yes.

Stephen had asked her to check in after experiencing suicidal ideation. And at first, it seemed like Tracy and Celeste found comfort in one another over some of their shared thoughts and traumas. Some trauma bonding. But over time, things kind of changed between the two and the facility. Tracy was openly gay. And according to Celeste, she had wanted to start a physical, more intimate relationship with her after they had begun to bond. Okay. But Celeste didn't feel the same way.

The two stayed friends after they left the facility. But now, that entire relationship was being called into question. Interesting. Because the entire family is saying it was definitely Tracy. They're like, why would she do it? So on and so forth. So the following day, October 3rd. Third, police go to Tracy's to speak with her in person, try to understand what really is this

dynamic? Why is the family pointing fingers at you? And the first thing they do ask her is if she owns a shotgun. And she says yes. And she even shows the shotgun to police. Well, detectives run that casing. They found it at the crime scene. So almost instead of getting some understanding, they just go in immediately looking for

physical evidence. Yeah. And they discover that it is an exact match for the shotgun at Tracy's house. So pretty quickly... It seems a little... Maybe it is as open and shut as it seems, but then we have to figure out why. Well, and here's the thing. I think something that happens often in true crime cases that from the outside looking

and does seem a little odd is police really trust a victim's family if they believe there's a suspect because I mean who knows a victim's personal life more and most of the time when someone is killed it does happen to be someone they know and not a stranger and so police especially in this case really go forward with if his entire family is pointing the finger at Tracy yeah we almost don't need to doubt it we just need to go in and see if the physical evidence matches and that's exactly what they do and on october 8th just six days after stephen was shot Tracy is arrested and charged with assault. I guess the hard part is, I mean, but someone else could have taken her gun, right?

Like, Celeste could have had her gun. Like, do they have DNA that shows that she was there? Or is it just the gun matching? Well, and here's the thing. I tried to look this up because I've noticed in true crime cases, they'll be like, oh, the shell casing matched. And I don't know if that's like a 100% exclusive match or, oh, this gun, could have been a gun that you know what I mean? Yeah, as far as I am aware, it's usually a pretty dead giveaway.

With shell casings because you can like match up the lines, correct? There's more to it than you think, correct? As far as I'm aware, it could be wrong, but as far as my knowledge on guns and shell casings, yeah. Because sometimes I feel like they'll be like, oh, that gun used that type of bullets. And it's like, yeah, so does 45 other guns. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep.

But yeah, I guess matching the actual forensics of a shell casing is definitely different. So shortly after this, Tracy is released on Bond as she awaits trial. And I know what you guys are all asking at this point. Okay, she got charged with assault. So is Stephen Beard alive after being shot with a shotgun? Well, shockingly, he is on the road to recovery in the hospital. I'll just read this just in case anyone's curious. So it is, it's the fired cartridge case found that the crime scene has been identified as having been fired by the same specific firearm as that casing.

So, I mean, it's pretty, it's open and shut for the most part. I think the way they do this is when a gun fires, it creates patterns. It creates patterns on the shell casing that is just dependent on what the inside of the gun looks like. Granted, I'm sure someone out there knows a lot more than us, so feel free to comment it somewhere. I know it's more complicated than what we're explaining. But maybe it is more exclusive than just like, hey, there's a possibility this gun did this. Maybe it is more like they match this gun as the gun that shot this. Oh, no, it is. Yes, yes.

Because it comes out of that specific gun from that shell casing. Right. Yeah. So he's on the road to recovery, though. It is definitely a bumpy one. He had damaged several internal organs, including his colon, but after seven surgeries, Stephen, who is fairly old, was now in stable condition. And following some rehab, he was eventually released from the hospital in January of 2000. Now, his doctors warned the family.

He was still at an increased risk of infection, so please be diligent about giving. him his antibiotics. However, within a few days, he was back at the hospital with an infection. And at 8 a.m. on January 22nd, Stephen had a terrible pain in his chest, followed by a high fever and low blood pressure. He ended up testing positive for staff infection, and some reports said he had a blood clot that went to his heart. Jeez. And by that afternoon, 75-year-old Steve, Stephen Beard was dead. So although he had survived this shooting, he ended up dying of complications

from the injuries of this shooting, which meant Tracy Tarleton was no longer being charged with assault. Six days later, she was re-arrested and slapped with murder charges. Now, what was strange about Tracy's case was, again, when the prosecution's like, okay, well, what's the motive?

It doesn't exactly make sense. why she would have gone after Stephen just to get Celeste. This is something that isn't adding up to detectives, but no matter how much the police try to pressure Tracy into speaking out, they're like, what happened? Why? Why is your gun here? What happened? She refuses to budge. She doesn't say a thing about motive or an accomplice or anything. Not even when they're like, hey, we'll offer you a plea bargain. Like the forensic evidence, is tied to you. We will offer you to talk to us. So detectives are like, whatever. We'll just

close the case and move on. As did Celeste Beard. There were quite a few things that don't sit right about this entire thing, especially for those who knew the intimate details about Celeste and Stephen's marriage before this shooting. So according to some sources, the trouble between the two had actually started right after the two tied the knot. Little things that were hard to pinpoint. Like, Stephen had noticed his late wife's jewelry had gone missing from his safety deposit box. And then Celeste started spending more time at Stevens' lakehouse, 40 miles northwest of Austin,

rather than like staying at the house that they shared together. And it wasn't a huge secret that Celeste was spending a lot of Stephen's money at the same time. and apparently between October and November of 1999, she spent close to $320,000 within a month. Oh my gosh. Which is I would, I'm not an inflation expert, but I would say close to half million, maybe like $600,000, maybe more. Well, and then she spends another $250,000 in the month of December 1999 alone. They had a good Christmas. That's insane.

I mean, that's a hundred money now. Mind you, Stephen is already giving her 10 grand a month to do whatever she wants with. And he also had paid off $20,000 in debt that Celeste had from previous insurance fraud and funded her custody. Insurance fraud. Yeah. Okay. But obviously, she is wanting more. And it was also made clear by Celeste that her relationship with Stephen was not romantic.

So this is what she is. she's telling her friends. Like, I'm 30, he's 70. She's like 32. But basically, and she's like, and no, it's not, it's not romantic at all this. It's just like purely like companionship, basically. But the thing is, is he didn't know that on his side of things. She claims they were only intimate twice in their marriage, the night that she had moved in with him and then the night they got married. Now, Stephen apparently got so fed up with this that she wouldn't be intimate, that just four months into the marriage, he ends up telling Celeste that he's not sure they're meant for each other. And then he basically threatens to file divorce. But supposedly,

he changed his mind when they agreed on what they called a, quote, oral sex solution. So this was exclusively on Sunday mornings. Oral sex, they named it. Yes. So this is how they were going to make it so they weren't getting divorced. They both agreed on this. Every Sunday morning. Now beforehand, Celeste would say things to her daughter's like, well, got to go make my money now.

And then go do oral sex solution in the other room. Okay. All right. So it's very clear where Celeste stands in this marriage. Like, yeah. I mean, it's clear she's just. Her duty is being married. It's kind of clear.

To be honest, she's just there for the money. Yeah. And she's not quiet about it. Yeah. Like she's like, yeah, he almost divorced me. So now I have to do this thing once a week. And that's my, that's like me going to work. That's how I get my paycheck for the week.

Okay. All right. All right. All right. I don't really know what to say about that. So cool. As the years went on, Celeste began looking outside the marriage for romance. Because as, I mean, it's obvious.

This is, her marriage is not, um, taking off that box. On her side. Yes. Yeah. So this is when she actually rekindles things with her third husband, Jimmy Martinez, who she's divorced from. And she really went out of her way to make that happen. According to her daughters, there were times when Celeste would spike Stevens food and drink

with sleeping pills to get him to pass out so she could leave the house and go hang out with Jimmy, Martinez, her ex-husband. Yeah, it's illegal. not to mention Celeste would say terrible things about Stephen behind his back, like openly, she hated him, she didn't want to go on vacations with him, she just wished that he would die already. So by New Year's Eve 1999, it's safe to say Stephen, he's not dumb. He had had enough.

He'd caught on to her tris, her overspending, and maybe even the sleeping pills. And he told Celeste, that's it, I'm going to cut you off financially. which she then responded with threats of suicide. And according to her daughters, there was one night when she even grabbed a gun and started waving it around the home. Stephen and Christina were there. Like they witnessed this whole thing.

Christina said everyone felt like fair game at that moment. Celeste had no concerns about hurting anyone. All of which led them urging her to go stay at the hospital where she ends up meeting Tracy. And I bet you that she actually did fall in love with Tracy. I bet you they're in love with each other. And this has been downplayed.

And this has been downplayed. And Tracy tried to kill. And maybe there was a little gas lighting. Yeah, 100%. Calling Crazy Tracy, the entire family calling her that. So I'm not entirely sure what was going through Stevens' mind after he was shot in October. But I do know when he comes home, but before he gets the infection and ends up dying, he ends up changing his will secretly.

So Celeste was actually supposed to inherit millions of dollars, a bunch of his personal property, including half the interest on his homes. But... Instead, he made sure that his biological and two adopted daughters would actually now split his inheritance. Holy wait. Could you imagine that he dies and the mom gets nothing but the daughters?

Yeah. That would be... I mean, that would create some... You'd really see if your mom actually liked you or not. Right. Like that would be some family drama. So this had kind of been in the works, but essentially he amends a lot of these things months before he finally passes away. And it seems he did all of that without Celeste's knowledge, like I said.

But Celeste strange behavior did not stop after Stephen's death. In fact, it got even more unsettling. For example, as Celeste was preparing for her husband's funeral, she told her 18-year-old daughters, that she was going to buy them as well to pink coffins, which, considering Celeste's history of like waving a gun around the house for the daughters, this wasn't a funny joke of like, oh, you're prepping for our funerals too. That's just weird. And then a few months later, she sold Stevens house for $2 million.

Wait, how'd she get? I thought she didn't get anything. I don't know if it was like she had the right because they were married and she was living in the house because I know that like there's something called spousal. Yeah, but if you give the house to someone else in your will. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he just like left it up to if she's still living here, she can sell it. You know what I mean?

But it was his saving his savings. Like his other money? Yeah. Okay. Wills are so complicated. No, because yeah. I mean, if he gave the house to the twins or his son, she wouldn't be able to sell it. So it had have been to her.

I've actually been like religiously watching the Corey Richens trial, which is a wife who is accused of allegedly murdering her husband for money is the main motive. And he had like a trust. And this is the only reason I know of like spousal the whole home thing because she claimed that she could sell the house. But the reality was her name wasn't actually on. the home. It was just in her husband's name. So they were like, you living here doesn't actually affect this because your name was never on the home to begin with. I don't know. It's like a whole complicated thing. I also think it varies state to state, to be honest, the rules on all that.

Then Celeste starts seeing another man, a bartender and musician named Cole Johnson. The two were seen out partying together and within six months of losing Stephen, she and Cole were married. This is now Celeste's fifth trip to the altar. But things really came to a head around February of 2000 when Celeste pulled out a knife. Jeez, what is going on with this girl, man? And begins to pressure her twin daughters into dying by suicide. It's like a whole mental crisis. She needs to be gone.

She does this and then she begins stabbing herself in the leg. Oh my gosh. And so her daughter's call 9-1-3. 9-1. then Celeste is taken to the hospital after being discharged. Christina and Jennifer decide they have been through enough. They leave home and their mother for their own safety, but Celeste's wild behavior doesn't stop. She continues calling them, making threats.

I mean, the relationship between her and her daughters after Stephen's death, who, remember, adopted them, is just getting shredded. I would assume it's because he did leave a bunch of stuff to the daughters, not her. Yes. And that's why the relationship's getting. worse and worse. And the twins end up recording some of the conversations they're having with their mother. And then they eventually share those recorded phone calls with police. Okay. So by the way, this whole entire time, police have now definitely had their suspicions on

Celeste with all of the fallout since the murder. But at this point, everything they had was circumstantial. And the issue is Tracy, who is sitting in prison, confesses to being in the house that night and shooting Stephen. So despite the fact that police are like, we think Celeste did it, they have someone sitting in prison who has a forensic match to the gun who's like, no, I did it. Like, she's fully confessed. But now police are starting to wonder, wait, has Celeste, like, fully manipulated Tracy and asked her to do it? And now she's, like, protecting her in prison? Or did Tracy really act alone. Well, as you know, Tracy is refusing to implicate Celeste.

In fact, a grand jury waited more than a year and a half after Stephen's death to indict Tracy on murder charges because they were hoping that she would eventually relax and end up talking because they just don't think they have the full story. Yeah. But she doesn't. But then all of this changes when Tracy sees a newspaper article from her jail cell. She sees an article that Celeste Beard, who's... whose husband had been murdered and Tracy was sitting in prison for it had actually now remarried

pretty quickly to a man named Cole Johnson. What the freak is going on? And Tracy, who was clearly out of the loop in prison, contacts her attorney and says, that's it. I'm finally ready to talk about what happened that night. So while it was true that Tracy had a pretty big infatuation with Celeste, what detectives weren't told at the beginning because Celeste had lied to everyone and had gaslit Tracy was that the feelings were mutual because when they were in the mental health facility, Tracy and Celeste

had actually begun having a physical and emotional affair, a full-blown relationship. And as the two women spent more and more time with each other, the more they bonded over traumatic upbringings and the more secrets they revealed to one another. And according to Tracy, that's when Celeste told her she had only married Stephen to help secure custody of her two daughters. She now felt like she was trapped in this marriage. He was emotionally and physically abusive to her. And that's what had driven her to the point of suicide and why she was now in the hospital.

She. Now, that doesn't match any of the statements from anyone else. Again, Celeste's own daughter, Christina, who lived there, along with other witnesses, say none of this was true. No one had ever seen Stephen be emotionally or even physically abusive. He wasn't the one giving her sleeping pills. so he could go cheat. And there were no reports ever made to the police.

But Tracy, obviously in the hospital, has no reason not to believe Celeste. And when they were both discharged from St. David's, they actually continue spending time together. It's not like it was just like this secret love affair at the hospital. They spent a lot of time together. Everyone who worked at Tracy's bookstore now knew about Celeste her girlfriend. And in July of 1999, Celeste even let Tracy host a party for all of her employees at the bookstore at Stevens Lakehouse. But as you know, on the other side of this, the family is like, oh, that's just crazy Tracy,

the friend that mom met. Now, at this party, multiple people, including Celeste's own daughters, actually see Tracy and Celeste kissing and then found them. Oh. Sheesh. And then found them in bed together the following morning after this crazy wild party at the lakehouse. Yeah, they just keep calling her crazy Tracy.

And so this is the point when Stephen is like, yeah, the daughter's now no, and they're like, yeah, no, you're no longer bringing Tracy around. Like she's not a lot. You're not hanging out with her anymore. But nothing changes. Tracy told police she knew Celeste was putting sleeping pills in her husband's food and drink so she could sneak out of the house to be with her as well as her other ex-husband. I can't believe none of this was brought up. None of this was. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, she thought she was in love with her. Yeah, I know. But there was one night in the fall of 1999, about a month before the shooting, when Celeste called Tracy and asked her to rush over to the house. There, Tracy actually found Stephen unconscious at the dining room table. She and Celeste moved him to the floor, and then Celeste tried to suffocate him with a plastic bag. What in the world is going on right now? Only apparently it doesn't work.

which I don't know. I don't know how he failed that, but apparently he doesn't die. And this is when Tracy and Celeste kind of come up with this plan together of like, we got to get rid of him because Celeste has put on this whole battered wife thing. And Tracy believes her. She believed everything was wrong in this house, that he was abusive,

that he was physically abusive. And Tracy tells police, I felt bad from her. I thought he was a terrible man that she was truly trapped and he wasn't going to let up. And then in late September, Celeste went to Tracy asking for a favor. She was supposed to travel with Stephen to Europe in the next few weeks and she was like, I can't go. I can't go be alone with him.

She knew Tracy was an avid skeet shooter and a good shot. So Celeste asked Tracy to sneak into their home and shoot Stephen before this European trip so she wouldn't have to go. And Tracy claims to police that she refused to do it at first. But when Celeste was like, listen, if I have to go on this trip, I'm going to just kill myself instead. So she threatens suicide. And Tracy's like, okay, never mind, I will help you.

And then she asked Celeste for a few favors as well. If she was caught, she wanted Celeste to find safe homes for her pets, pay for her legal fees and support her in gel, all of which Celeste swore she would do. And Tracy being so in love, thinking they were in a full-blown relationship going to end up together, followed through on the offer. So on the afternoon of October 1st, Tracy went by the house to plot everything out with Celeste. Celeste told her Jennifer would be up at the lakehouse with her boyfriend, but Christina would be asleep in another wing of the house. She showed Tracy where to park, how to get in, where Stephen would be sleeping and Celeste also promised to rush in and grab the shotgun casing, which we know she didn't do.

So around 2 a.m. the morning of October 2nd, Tracy arrived at the house, found the gate open as planned, and entered through an unlocked door near Stephen's room. She fired off a shot and left. But Celeste doesn't collect the bullet and Stephen doesn't die that night. And Celeste didn't do much to protect Tracy when police asked about her because they offer up Crazy Tracy as the number one suspect. That's wild. And the part of this story that makes sense as to why Tracy stayed quiet for so long that was hidden from anyone, everyone was that after the charges were filed, Celeste remained in contact daily with Tracy. Celeste was using a secret burner phone to call her. Celeste told Tracy she had been stuck.

she had been stuffing things into his wounds to try and infect him and make him sicker so that he couldn't say he had done this. And apparently it worked, as we know. But once Stephen died and Tracy's charges were upgraded to murder, this is when she stops hearing from Celeste. She kind of ghosts her. And then she learns about Celeste's new marriage and she feels ultimate betrayal. And that's when she started realizing maybe Celeste had been lying to me all the time.

Maybe she wasn't at risk in that house. Maybe there was no hostility. There was no abuse. She believes at this point that Celeste wanted Stephen gone because she wanted her share of his fortune, which, welcome to the club, Celeste. You're just a little bit late in realizing of that. But this isn't the end of it. In February of 2000, shortly after Stephen died,

Celeste went to her personal assistant and asked her if she, quote, knew of anyone who could now get rid of Tracy. Celeste believed it was only a matter of time before Tracy flips on her and begins cooperating with police. This girl's nuts. This girl's nuts. Gives her assistant $500 to try and hire a hitman. But the assistant was like, uh, that's it. I'm going to ask Celeste for more and more money and then never actually hire a hitman.

I'm just going to keep trying to get money out of her. Now, when Celeste's daughter Christina caught on to all of these payments happening, Celeste was like, well, listen, I'm just trying to get rid of Tracy because I'm worried she's going to pin it on me. And then she also begins to threaten. her own daughter being like, and if you tell anyone, you're also getting a hitman and going put by. So with Tracy Tarleton's statement on the record, Celeste is also now arrested because they now have an eyewitness, or they now have a witness turning against her, and she's charged with

capital murder. Celeste continues this whole entire time to insist that there was never an affair. Tracy was delusional. She was just obsessed with her. And when Celeste trial arrived in 2003, Tracy was the star witness, obviously. Basically, the trial goes as everything that I've told you, phone calls come up. Christina even turns in a phone call of Celeste saying, I tried to hire somebody to kill Tracy. So no one is on Celeste's team at this trial. Celeste was found guilty of capital murder.

Her daughters... But Tracy's charges probably don't really change, correct? Like, I mean, I don't know what, I mean, she is the one who tried to kill. Celeste spoke out about her daughter's testifying against her. They said, quote, when they found out that they weren't going to get any money until I died or went to prison, that's when they turned against me. So she's like claiming like, oh, they just wanted any money I had. The will must be different than we thought too. There must be something else going on that we don't know.

Well, she did sell the house. True. But the thing is, I also think she's just trying to find a reason why her kids would turn against. her other than the fact that she's the bad guy. Tracy, however, was released on parole in 2011 after serving 10 of her 20-year sentence. So she served 10 years in prison. Okay. Tracy has told the press, I don't wake up one single day without feeling shame for what I did.

Thankfully, the love drug wore off on Tracy. She was able to see the truth, the lies, and the manipulation for what they really were. Yeah, I don't know how much honestly I blame Tracy. sound weird, but I mean, what she did is horrible. She needs to serve time for it, which she did. But people can't, yeah, I don't know. But this just goes back to manipulation grifters. It's fairly obvious.

Celeste was manipulating everyone in her life, including her own children. Yeah. In order to get her way. And I think a lot more people would fall victim to that than you want to believe. Yeah. And that is the murder of Stephen Beard and the entire chaotic surrounding of it. look, it just comes down to Celeste was actually insane the entire

time. She's insane. Well, and Tracy was clearly not in a good mental spot when she met Celeste. No, I mean, they both met at a mental facility. Yeah. Like... You're going to be impressionable. And again, I'm not making excuses

for Tracy because she still murdered someone. Well, no, she didn't kill him. He didn't die because of a gunshot. Right. And that also came up at trial that like technically it was a temer. Correct. It would have been a lot different if he would have died because of the gunshot. Celeste actually got first screen murder for admitting to the fact that she was trying to keep him sick and make him die. Because he probably would have recovered and would have been fine if Celeste didn't do what she did.

Which is why Celeste got such a large sentence. Yeah. Because they had evidence. But here's the thing. Again, Tracy was like Celeste is being abused. I'm saving a woman from a horrible situation. Like when someone is able to lie and manipulate, reality just starts to bend and not look real to everyone involved.

All right, you guys, that is our episode this week. And we will see you next time with another one. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.