Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - She Killed BOTH Her Husbands - The Betty Lou Beets Story

Episode Date: February 8, 2026

Betty Lou Beets was a Texas woman who became known as the “Black Widow” after murdering two of her husbands in the early 1980s for financial gain.

So this woman has five different husbands and she like kills a bunch of them. Now the woman's name is Betty Lou and Betty Lou is 15 when all this starts, living in Virginia. And Betty Lou is just a weird person. Like she apparently likes to get married, but she doesn't seem to like the guys she's marrying. Like one day in 1952, while she's still in the ninth grade, she gets married for the first time. to husband number one. 16 years later, when she's 31, husband number one leaves her for another woman.

Then in 1970, she gets married again to another guy, husband number two. But that same year, she and husband number two divorce. However, they continue to see each other. Then a year later, in 1971, they get into a fight, and he hits her and he breaks her nose. A year after that, in 1972, They get into another fight and she shoots him a couple of times.

He doesn't die, though. Then she claims self-defense and he stops cooperating with police so she doesn't go to prison for this. But they are, in fact, broken up. But then that same year, 1972, they get back together. But then one month later, she and husband number two finally get a divorce. Okay, but then a few years go by and it's now 1978. And Betty Lou meets a new guy, and she marries him. He's husband number three.

So these two end up moving to Texas, and they fight a lot. And at one point, she tries to run him over with her car. So they're only married for about a year before she and husband number three also get a divorce. That same year she gets that divorce, 1979, she meets another new guy, and she gets married to him. And he'll be husband number four. And she and husband number four also start fighting a lot, so after only being married for a year, in 1980, they get a divorce. But for some reason, they continue to see each other. I guess they like smash him. But then, a year later in 1981, she decides that she's ultimately tired of his shit and that she's going to straight up murder him.

So one night, they are at home and she waits for him to go to sleep. Once he's out, she gets a gun and she sneaks up on him and blam, she shoots him in the head, and she just leaves his body there. The next day, she goes over to her daughter's house, and she confesses to what she did. She's like, I shot husband number four last night. And this daughter is from a previous marriage, by the way. And Betty Lou tells her daughter that husband number four's body is still back at the trailer where she lives, and she asks her if she'll help her get rid of it.

And I guess daughter's like, all right. So they both go back to the trailer, and they pick up the guy's body, and they drag it over to a hole that had been previously dug for a barbecue pit, and they dump it in there. The next day, Betty Lou gets some cinder blocks,

and she builds, like, a makeshift patio over the place where they buried the body. So the body is now basically underneath the back porch. And so, that's that. Husband number four is gone. And no one knows what happened to him. I guess everyone just assumes that he just like ran off in the middle of the night or something. And no one suspects that Betty Lou did anything wrong. So she just moves on with her life like nothing happened. And about a year goes by and it's now 1982. And surprise, surprise, Betty Lou meets a new guy. And they start dating and pretty quickly they get married.

So he's husband number five. And husband number five moves into her trailer with her, the one with the body buried underneath the back patio. And within a year, by 1983, this marriage starts running into some problems. Now they're fighting all the time and not getting along. And since she already killed her last husband and got away with it, she decides to do the same thing to husband number five.

That way, not only can she be rid of him, but she can collect on his life insurance policy and his pension benefits. So one night, she and husband number five are at home, and she gets her gun, and blam, blam, she straight up murders him. Right after that, her son comes over after riding his motorcycle. And he's obviously a son from a different marriage. It's not like she just killed his dad. And I guess Betty's like, I finally did it.

I killed husband number five. and she asks her son to help her bury the body. And the son hears this request and I guess he's just like, Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney Plus. Let's go! Get ready for a new case. We're the greatest partners of all time. New friends.

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Now available on Disney Plus rated PG. And right now you can get Disney Plus and Hulu for just $4.99 a month for 3.000. months with a special limit to time offer ends March 24th. After three months plan auto renews at 1299 a month terms apply. So they both pick up husband number five and they drag him out to the front yard and they dump him in a wishing well that's out there. Now here's the thing about all this though. There is apparently a specific clause in husband number five's life insurance policy that says that it will pay more in the event that he dies in an accident. So Betty Lou's like well, I guess I gotta make his death look like an accident.

So she and her son get husband number five's fishing boat and they take it out to the local lake that he's always fishing in. Then they scatter his heart pills all over the boat and they leave his fishing license in it. Then they push it off into the lake because they're trying to make it look like he just went fishing one day and then randomly fell overboard or something. After that, Betty Lou goes back to her trailer

and she calls police and she's like, my fifth husband is missing. And so police start investigating. And three weeks go by. And they've looked everywhere and they still can't find him. But then, around this time, some bystander reports that they found a fishing boat abandoned on the lake. And so police go and they search it

and they find husband number five's fishing license and his heart pills scattered all over the place. And so police start searching the lake. And so police start searching the lake. lake for husband number five's body. And of course, they don't find it because it's buried in Betty Lou's well. Meanwhile, during all this, Betty Lou, she's trying to get paid. She wants to cash in that insurance money. But there's an issue with that. It's a little too early to be collecting life insurance because police are still looking for husband number five. So technically, he hasn't been

declared dead. So instead, she decides to burn down a lake house that he owns so that she can collect insurance money on it. So she goes and she burns down the lakehouse. Then she tries to collect the insurance money, but for some reason, she's not successful. I guess she gets rejected. And more months pass. And by now, Betty Lou, she's getting really impatient. I mean, she's ready to collect on that life insurance policy and those pension benefits. So she goes and she has husband number five officially declared dead and she's made the administrator of his estate. However, according to the law, required to wait three years before she can get anything from his estate. So she waits, and two years go by. And one day, kind of randomly, police get a call. And the call is from some random guy. And this guy

claims that he used to hook up with Betty Lou. And that one night they got really drunk and she told him that she killed husband number five and buried him in the front yard. And so police hear this and they're like, snap, and they bring in one of Betty Lou's daughters and they question her. Not the daughter from before, a totally different daughter. But this daughter spills everything saying, I know my mom killed husband number five. And so police get a warrant and they go search Betty Lou's trailer and they find husband number five's body in the wishing well out front and husband number four underneath the back patio. And so bam, they arrest Betty Lou. Here's her mugshot. And ultimately, Betty Lou goes to trial and she's found guilty and she gets sentenced to death.

And interestingly, neither of her kids who helped her with the bodies got any prison time because they both ended up flipping on her.