True Crime Campfire - Viper: The Story of Celeste Beard Johnson

Episode Date: October 9, 2020

Most people have at least some degree of appreciation for what they have. They know how to count their blessings, as they say. Most people, if given a beautiful home and beautiful clothes, lavish trips and the love of a sincere, kindly partner, would probably feel like they’d done pretty well for themselves. But then you’ve got people like the bad bitch in today’s story. To a greed goblin like her, the world and everyone in it exist to serve. Everything else life has to offer takes a backseat to the relentless pursuit of More. More money, more stuff, more attention…more everything. You might remember our girl Dante Sutorius from our episode “Inferno” a while back. And when you listened to that story, you might have thought you’d encountered the scariest broad to ever draw breath. Ha. Well that was nothin’. Sources:She Wanted It All by Kathryn CaseyCBS "48 Hours Mystery," Episode "For Love or Money"Oxygen's "Snapped," Episode "Celeste Beard Johnson"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Most people have at least some degree of appreciation for what they have. They know how to count their blessings, as they say. Most people, if given a beautiful home and beautiful clothes, lavish trips and the love of a sincere, kindly partner would probably feel like they'd done pretty well for themselves. But then you've got people like the bad bitch in today's story. To a greed goblin like her, the world, and everyone in it exist to serve. Everything else life has to offer takes a back seat to the relentless pursuit of more. More money, more stuff, more attention, more everything.

You might remember our girl Dante Satorius from our episode Inferno, a while back. And when you listen to that story, you might have thought you'd encountered the scariest broad to ever draw breath. Well, that was nothing. Buckle up, ducklings, because this is Viper, the story of Celeste Beard Johnson. So, campers, we're in... an affluent suburb of Austin, Texas, the early morning hours of October 2, 1999. All was dark and quiet in the beautiful upscale home of retired TV executive Steve Beard. Steve was asleep in bed. Down the hall, his wife Celeste was in her own bedroom,

and Christina, one of Steve's twin stepdaughters, was sleeping in hers. Peaceful. Steve never heard the subtle sound of the glass door to his bedroom sliding open, or the soft footsteps entering the room. All he knew was he was suddenly awake and in a universe of pain. He had a sense of a huge loud noise having just split the quiet, and his insides felt like they had been ripped apart. Baffled in in agony, Steve grabbed at his belly and felt blood, and unbelievably, he could feel his own intestines hanging outside his body.

Just take a second and imagine. The terror, I can't even, it's just, oh, one of the worst things I've ever heard. Yes. He frantically felt around for the phone beside his bed, and moments later the local 911 Center got one of the strangest, most chilling calls they'd ever gotten. They could hear the pain and the fear in Steve's voice as he said, My guts just blew out of my stomach. What else could you say, right? Down the hall, Steve's adopted daughter, Christina Beard, had been startled awake by a gunshot.

Terrified, she huddled in bed until she saw red and blue lights flashing outside the window and realized the police were there. A moment later, her mom, Celeste, popped her head into the room and said, the cops are outside. Can you go see what they want? Christina was still groggy and scared, and she said, what's happening? Celeste said, EMS is here for your dad. He has a medical emergency. They're flying him to the hospital. A medical emergency? Christina was confused. Why would the cops be there for a medical emergency? Celeste looked impatient. He's been shot.

As the paramedics rushed Steve Beard to the nearest hospital, Christina called her twin sister, Jennifer, who was staying over at a friend's house that night. to come join them. Steve Beard wasn't their biological dad, but he'd adopted them after marrying their mom, and they loved him dearly. They couldn't believe this was happening. At the hospital, as Steve was rushed into surgery

to try and repair the gaping hole a gunshot had left in his stomach, Celeste took Christina aside. She said, Listen, they're going to ask you who could have done this. And the clear message from Celeste was, you better be careful what you say. It would take a little while for the implications of that to fully sink in for Christina.

For now, she just huddled down in a chair to wait for her sister, and for the doctors to come out and tell her whether or not she still had a dad. But we're going to put a pin in that for now and talk a little bit about the, let's call it, colorful life history of Steve Beard's much younger wife, Celeste,

and how she came to be sitting nervously, irritably, in this hospital as her husband underwent emergency surgery. As so many of the baddies we describe on this show did, Celeste, had a troubled childhood. She was adopted, as were all her siblings. Her parents put on a good front as an ordinary, devoutly religious family, but Celeste's mom struggled with mental health

issues. Once she had a complete breakdown and almost drowned the kids in the bathtub. She spent some time in a psychiatric clinic after that. It was a tumultuous atmosphere for the kids to grow up in, and not just because of their mom's mental illness. Their dad had his issues too. For example, at one point he quit his steady job to study elocution, and he started telling everybody to call him by his biblical name Jedediah. It's always Jedediah. It is always Jedediah. There is no good connotation that goes with that name. No, that's not going to be good when somebody says to start calling him Jedediah. Eventually, the parents split up and the divorce was ugly. According to one of Celeste's brothers, quote,

Dad was crazy, but mom was vindictive. She brainwashed the girls to hate dad. So there was parental alienation going on, just a bad scene all around. Naturally, all this is going to affect a teenage girl, and Celeste was no exception. She had a lot of anger, and she acted out by sleeping around a lot.

Now, no slut shaming here, but Celeste seemed to know how much this would bother, her religious parents. And she started awfully young. Yeah, she really did. Celeste had always been naturally charming. She could talk anybody into anything, even as a little kid. And she used that to full advantage, with girls and boys.

When one of her brothers lost his virginity, the girl said, oh, I've already done it with Celeste. Oh, my God. That must have been super fun and not at all traumatizing for her brother, right? there's nothing better than losing your V-card and finding out that your first teenage infatuation has already gone heels up with your sister. Yikes. Celeste's parents' divorce raged on for three years, a good chunk of her high school years, and they were in and out of court.

At one point, Celeste actually testified against her father for assault. She claimed he'd stabbed her right underneath her eye and tried to kill her. But her best friend was confused by this. She'd never seen a mark or bandage anywhere on Celeste's face. And Celeste hadn't said a word about any of this to her. Weeks after this dramatic courtroom testimony, Celeste missed her period and took a pregnancy test. It was positive.

She was 17 years old. The father was her 19-year-old boyfriend, Craig Bratcher. They had a dramatic, tumultuous, toxic-sounding relationship pretty much from minute one. Friends said Celeste brought out the worst in him. She wheedled him into skipping class with her, made up stories about being harassed or attacked, and goaded him into fighting the supposed attackers to defend her. Yeah, are we seeing a pattern here?

Durauma. Celeste thrived on it. For some reason, she claims she'd been told she couldn't get pregnant, which seems like a weird thing for a 17-year-old to have been told, so I'm not sure why. At any rate, she seems to have regarded this pregnancy as a miracle, which just, good God. At 17, I would have regarded it as a disaster along the lines of the Hindenburg, but we're all different. Yeah, I'm still coming to terms with the idea that my friends are having children on purpose, like now. I go through, like, when they tell me they're pregnant, I go through that moment where I'm like, oh, what are you going to do? I've done that too, and I'm in my 40s.

What are you going to do, like, to my married friend who's been trying for, you know, six months to get pregnant? And then I remember they're like adults with jobs and shit and like a stable relationship. Oh, you, this is a good. Congratulations. I'm so happy for you. This was, this is a good, this is a good thing. Head shift. Head shift. Right. And before long, she got even more astounding news. She was having twins, two little girls. And on December 6th, 1980, with Celeste out to hear pregs, she and Craig got married. She gave birth to the girls two months early, which isn't uncommon with multiples, and she named them Jennifer and Christina.

I know y'all are going to be just shocked to hear this, because teenage marriages with newborn twins in the mix usually run like a well-oiled love machine. But Craig and Celeste's marriage was, let's say, a little bit rocky. Just a smidge. Celeste had this not a big deal at all unfortunate habit of running off with other men leaving Craig to take care of the babies

by himself and then when she wanted to come back she'd guilt-trip him into taking her back by telling stories from her troubled childhood she had demons she said but they weren't her fault and Craig would take her back

every time by all accounts Craig was an amazing dad. He loved his girls, loved spending time with them, and taking care of them. According to Celeste, though, Craig was an abusive rapist. She filed restraining orders against him, pressed charges for waving a gun around, for which he spent four months in jail. Craig says she later took all his money and ran off with one of the guys he met there in jail, but they never stayed broken up for long. Craig took her back when she was done with his former jailmate, for example. Now, obviously, we take any and all claims of abuse and sexual assault seriously. We should always

believe victims unless we have compelling reasons not to, but I think there are some compelling reasons to doubt the picture Celeste's paints of Craig, though he admits himself that their relationship was volatile. According to their daughter Christina, for example, she once saw Celeste slam her own arm

repeatedly in a corridor on purpose until it broke. Oh my God. And then she flipp and laughed about it and bragged about her pain threshold. Which just holy shit snacks. That is intense. Wow. Now, Christina isn't 100% sure that that was one of the times that she accused Craig

of physical abuse, but she thinks it was, and she says she never once saw her dad hit Celeste. And Celeste most definitely has a unique relationship with the truth, by which I mean she wouldn't know it if it's shit in her hair. For example, one day Craig's mom got a call from a friend of hers, and there were tears in this woman's voice, and she said, oh, I'm so sorry about your sweet granddaughter. And Craig's mom was like, huh? Y'all, Celeste had just been at the registrar's office at a business school where she'd signed up for classes trying to get a tuition refund past the cutoff date. When the registrar asked why she needed it, she said, one of my twins died. Yeah, that was a lie.

So this woman lied about losing a child to get a tuition refund. And Craig's mom later said she was disgusted, but not really surprised. She said money meant more to Celeste than anything. even her own children. Uh, yeah, clearly. Now, the timing on this next bit gave me whiplash because it seems like Celeste and Craig managed to fit a lot of drama into this amount of time, but 18 months after they got married,

they divorced. Celeste got custody of the twins and moved in with her bestie gale. But despite the divorce, Celeste and Craig kept hooking up sexually because apparently they are gluttons for misery. Guys, campers, it's been a minute. since I've given relationship advice in earnest on this show. And I think we're overdue. Listen to me.

You have got to stop having sex with your exes. Yeah, that's good advice. I don't care how good it is. It is never, ever, ever worth it, ever, ever, ever. Yeah, once you're out, just go, just run. Just for God's sake, you got out for a reason. Yeah. So many people I know get stuck in the same.

cycle, and it really just prevents them from, one, developing healthy coping mechanisms and boundaries, and two, stops any new relationship from forming. Stop it. You are an adult, presumably, not a horny rabbit in spring. Do not make me get the True Crime Can't Fire branded spray bottle. I already know we're going to piss people off with that one. That's on you, Katie. So, Gail said living with Celeste was fun at first, but the

Bloom fell off that rose pretty damn quick. Gail says Celeste didn't seem to take care of the twins well at all. She would come home from work and Celeste would be leaving for her waitressing job and the poor kids would just be dirty and in tears. She also said Celeste seemed to revel in stringing Craig along and manipulating him. One time she found a love letter Celeste had written Craig and she'd signed another woman's name to it. What the hell?

Why? Who the hell knows? She was working some kind of weird little scam. Gail was privy to plenty of arguments between Celeste and Craig, and she says Celeste was pretty fond of throwing pots and pans at him and stuff like that, but she agrees with Christina that she never saw Craig get physical with Celeste at all. And in a creepy, single white female-esque move, Celeste started getting weirdly possessive of her friend Gail. She was demanding to know where she was all the time, just like a flippin abusive spouse or something. So, naturally, Gail felt suffocated by this, and before long she moved in.

out. Celeste's reaction? Not good. Yeah. She freaked out and screamed and demanded to know where Gail was going and when Gail refused to tell her, she winged a butcher knife at her face. Wow. And it just went like into the wall like right next to Gail's head and she just hauled ass the hell out the door and fled. Yikes. You know that is such a measured, thoughtful, mature response. Yeah, we're going to see a lot of those. She reminds me a lot of Dante Satorias. You're going to see that more and more as we go. Dante, Tracy.

Celeste is Dante 2.0? Yes. Gail was so petrified of her that she basically went into hiding after that. And I do not blame her. Hell no. That reminds me of Shireldell, too, actually. Absolutely. Yes.

Poor gay Dordy having to flee town and go into hiding to a escape that nasty, biotch. Yep. Later on, Gail heard through the grapevine that not long after she moved out, Celeste had left her twin daughters with a foster home. What the fuck? It's crazy.

Not with their dad in a foster home. She claimed it was because she couldn't afford to support them. But people who were privy to the situation later said they got the impression that she was just distracted by her new. guy. Now, speak of Dante Satorius. Yeah, she did that, like, stuff exactly like that. Just drop them off. Celeste's daughter, Jennifer, later said, we never knew if or when she'd come back. Oh, God. Can you imagine? God. Later, Celeste moved back in with Craig for a while and took back custody of the kids. But the blissful reunion did not last long. Surprise. Get out.

And Celeste was soon involved with a new guy called Pete, poor bastard. So Celeste, bless her, put the girls in foster care again, you know, because she's got to focus on Pete. Proceeded to scam him out of thousands of dollars and then left him high and dry with full responsibility for the lease on the new apartment. And moved back in with Craig. Craig. My guy. But, you know, we have all known people in relationships like this, where the two people just have this toxic hold over each other,

and it's like super glue. So before long, Celeste and Craig got pregnant again. And then, out of nowhere, she announced she wanted to put the baby up for adoption. And because she's Celeste, she ran a con on the adoptive family. She told them they had to pay her $10,000 for her hospital bills. In reality, Craig's insurance actually covered everything. Once Celeste had that 10 grand in hand and had handed off her brand new baby to its new, probably much, much better, mom and dad, she took the twins, now six years old, took her and

Craig's tax refund and hit the bricks. Left Craig for another guy again. Craig melted down after that. He tried to commit suicide, but a friend got to him in time and got help. Her new relationship was short-lived, so Celeste was soon on her own once again. That fall, she left the twins alone at the house. and CPS found out and took them away. So as you can see, Christina and Jennifer's childhood

was pretty much a revolving door of mom, foster care, mom and dad, foster care, mom, foster care, and so on. Some of the foster homes were nice, but some were awful, and the girls never had a sense of stability. They never had a safe place, never had a soft place to fall. Once, when Celeste came to visit them at one of their foster homes, they cried and begged her not to leave them there.

God. The girl said she just walked away. She didn't even seem sad about it. Oh, my God. It's ironic. Celeste has said several times in interviews that all she ever wanted was for someone to take care of her. Yeah.

I bet that's what Christina and Jennifer dreamed about too. But that doesn't seem to have occurred to Celeste. The next dude to come into Celeste's orbit was a guy, called Harold Wolf. Now that's Harold with two A's because this case was not weird enough already. Harold was an Air Force guy, a jet engine mechanic. Ooh, mas macho. He said he was drawn to Celeste, but he never really trusted her. She set off some kind of primal alarm bells in the back of his mind. And he just went right ahead and got involved with her anyway, which yet again proves what we always say, never ignore your little voice.

When he realized his instincts were right and tried to break up with her, Celeste told him she was pregnant. So he decided to try and stick it out. They went to see a couple's counselor and prepare for a rage stroke because when he told the counselor about how loudly his inner alarms were clanging about Celeste, she very helpfully told him he was being irrational. Oh, my God. Oh, great. Good to know our mental health care professionals are here when we need them to encourage us to ignore our intuition. Super. Good job. So, bless his heart, Harald, went ahead and married Celeste.

And as soon as she got that ring on her finger, oh, guess what? She told him she'd lost the baby. And if you can't tell, I have doubts about whether there ever was one. For some godforsaken reason, the state let her have the twins back around this time, too. Celeste seems to pretty much just use the foster care system, like a shelf she could store the kids on when she didn't feel like dealing with them. And what the hell Craig's problem was, I can't imagine either. I think he tried to get full custody at some point during all this. Maybe, I don't know, it's not entirely clear from the sources,

but he is far from blameless in this, so we don't want to imply otherwise. Harold and Celeste lived in Phoenix, Arizona at the time, and Celeste lied about having a junior college degree to get a job as head of accounts payable at an ice wholesaler there. And that was where she met an older lady named Lou Thompson, who had always wanted a daughter and had the kind of sweet, trusting personality that people like Celeste zero in on like heat-seeking missile. Soon, Celeste was calling her mom and regaling her with all her dramatic woes

because Celeste always had lots of dramatic woes. Lou fell for everything Celeste told her, and unsurprisingly, she soon came to believe that Harald was an abusive monster. This is the story Celeste told about every man in her life without fail. Literally every guy she was ever with was an abusive monster, according to her. Lou's niece had seen another side of Celeste, mean and manipulative and sneaky, and prone to backstabbing, and she tried to warn her aunt. But Lou didn't want to hear it.

But if Lou and her husband were enablers for Celeste, they were also a positive force for the twins. After years being shunted around from mom to foster home to dad and back again, now they spent lots of time with the Thompsons, who became like grandparents to them and treated them like gold. Between that and starting up a tradition where they got to spend the summers with Craig, their lives finally started to kind of even out and become a little happier. There was a weird hiccup in their lives the year Celeste and Harold got married, though.

One afternoon, Celeste sat the twins down and told them that she had sad news, that their grandma Nancy had died. And they went to the funeral, and the kids remember seeing an old lady in an open casket, but they didn't recognize her because they hadn't seen their grandma Nancy since they were babies. Now, remember that we told you this, y'all, because it's going to come up again later, and it's going to be weird as shit. So, as we said, Celeste had all. always tingled Harold's spidey senses, and it didn't take long for their marriage to hit the skids.

But every time Harold tried to leave, Celeste threatened to kill herself. One time she took a handful of pills. Another time she threatened to step into the tub with a plugged-in hairdriar. And she did it all in front of the terrified twins, who would cry and beg her not to hurt herself. The twins had very different attitudes toward their mom. Jennifer had a lot of anger at her. She was close to her dad, and she loved it when they got spend the summers at his house. But Christina, bless her little heart, adored Celeste, and she worried about her constantly. Just breaks my heart, poor little pumpkin. She was so parentified. And as people tend to do when somebody's threatening to kill themselves otherwise, Harold agreed to stay with

Celeste as long as she agreed to get couples counseling, because that worked out so well before, right? That counselor was the reason you got into this mess. Come on, Harold. The counselor told Celeste, she needed help. And she did check herself into a psychiatric hospital briefly to try and get it. About a year into their marriage, the Air Force told Harold, he was going to be transferred to Japan. But because of her stay in a psych hospital, Celeste wouldn't be allowed to go with him. Which is really weird. I had no idea.

The military did that. And, you know, shows what I know. Maybe they don't anymore. Anyway, Celeste wigged. out at this. And she harassed his superiors so much calling and yelling at them that they finally just canceled the transfer. Needless to say, this did not do Harold's military career any favors. Which like, yeah, you're really showing them you're not crazy. Their marriage got progressively more toxic and argumentative. At one point, Harold alleges that she

kicked him in the back while they were in bed. He hit her with a pillow to get her to back off and she called the cops and said he hit her. He got arrested, she bailed him out, she begged him to take her back, he did. And their mutual misery continued until Harold finally had to report for a one-year tour of duty in Iceland. Celeste didn't go. Instead, she moved in with Lou, had an affair with a bartender, got pregnant, lost the baby, and got a hysterectomy. She claimed later that it was because of ovarian cancer, but Lou said it was just because she didn't want to worry about getting pregnant again. She didn't remember Celeste ever having any kind of cancer at all. Yeah, she liked lying about having cancer. That comes up a lot in

Celeste's story. For a while, Celeste left the twins with Lou and moved in with Lou's son, Jimmy, and his boyfriend. Now, their friendship went great at first. They would party together and stuff, but soon Jimmy started to see the same kind of stuff so many others had seen in Celeste. She was two-faced. She seemed to revel in manipulating people. She actively tried to drive a wedge between the two boyfriends, pitting one against the other. But when Jimmy tried to tell Lou, she stuck up for Celeste as always. Well, thanks, mom, right? Yeah, great. Then she started dating another guy, and he gifted her with a shiny new set of boobs. Celeste was partying it up, Sands Herald.

At night, she'd leave the nine-year-old twins alone in the apartment so she could go out. The girls say they were hungry a lot, as Celeste blew tons of money on partying and didn't leave any food in the house. The apartment was disgusting. When she was home, little Christina mothered her. She had to wake Celeste up for work in the morning, and it was a brutal task. Celeste would complain and get mad, and it would take minutes and minutes for poor Chris to get her out of bed, which, you know, should never have been her job in the first place. People said the girl seemed scared of her.

And finally, one day, Jennifer told Lou that Celeste was grinding something up and putting it in their food to make them sleep. Yes, and did Lou believe her? No, no, she did not. She assumed it was just the little girl's wild imagination. So may I stop a moment and say for the record, fuck you, Lou, you suck. Fuck off, Lou. Christina would later say that their mom used to hit them with wooden spoons,

so hard that the spoons would break. Finally, somebody reported her to CPS, and the girls were, once again, taken away. Celeste was also a fan of insurance. fraud. I know you're shocked and disappointed since she's normally such a stand-up gal, but yeah. Herald had bought her this lemon yellow Ford Taurus

and she hated the damn thing, so much so that she got a vanity plate that said lemon. Eventually, she just took it out to the desert and burned it, reported it stolen, and used the insurance money to buy herself a thunderbird. She told Lou about it and just laughed and laughed, which was dumb, but nobody ever accused Celeste being a criminal mastermind.

Later, she housed at for Lou and her husband when they were out of town, and when they got back, Celeste told Lou that they'd been robbed. The burglars had taken the TV, the VCR, and some priceless family heirlooms, silverware, and Lou's mother's jewelry, stuff with sentimental value as well as monetary value. When the police came to investigate, they told Lou, somebody you know did this. They knew just were to find all the valuables. Huh. And when it was time for Lou and her husband to fill out the insurance claim for the robbery, Celeste said, why don't you add some extra stuff to the list? Lou said, no, of course not. And Celeste just laughed and said, my lawyer says everybody does it. So Lou gave in reluctantly and filed the fraudulent claim, which inflated their

losses by about 13 grand. At the end of 1990, Celeste called Craig and told him she was willing to give him custody of the twins. She wanted to join the army, she said. So the girls went to live with Craig in Washington State, and shortly after they arrived, they got a postcard from Grandma. But it wasn't Craig's mom. It was from Grandma Nancy. Remember, the one who was supposed to be dead? Yeah, Campers, this woman took her twin daughters to a funeral for Who? We have no idea. Maybe just some random old lady. It sure as hell wasn't for her mother because her mother wasn't dead. Just what the? This case is just full of weird details, but I think this is the weirdest one for me. And the girls never got an explanation for it.

It's so weird. She just told him their grandma was dead, and she freaking wasn't. Celeste's big plan to join the army fizzled out fast, and in the spring of 91, she got herself into a little spot of bob. father. She'd bought a dog for Lou and her husband at one point, and for some reason now she wanted him back, and when they refused to let her have him, Celeste called the cops. And while she had him there, she freaking dimmed him out about the insurance scam. The one she had talked them into. And worse than that, she claimed that the Thompson's had staged the robbery itself just to collect the insurance money. She said she'd seen some of the stuff they'd reported stolen

back in their house weeks later. When the detective assigned to the case, told Lou about Celeste's allegations. Lou said she didn't believe it. This woman, I swear to God. She said, Celeste would never hurt me like that. Girl, wake up. And the detective finally convinced her that Celeste had, in fact, said all that stuff, and Lou just cracked like an egg. She fessed up to the inflated insurance scam,

but she adamantly denied staging the robbery. And, for good measure, finally getting a backbone, she also told him about Celeste torching her yellow tors for the insurance money the year before. The detective got bad vibes off Celeste for minute one, and he believed Lou and her husband. He figured Celeste had staged the burglary herself, but he couldn't prove it. Enter Jimmy Martinez, aka husband number three. She met him at a bar with one of those mechanical bowls, and it was lust at first sight.

She married him fast, despite the fact that, you know, she'd never gotten around to divorcing herald. Her twins found out about their new stepdaddy via postcard. Celeste had kept in sporadic touch with them by phone, usually just calling long enough to yell at them and then yell at Craig, but like most manipulators, she didn't like having people out of her control for very long. So pretty soon, she started obsessing about getting the twins back. Craig stood his ground, though. He was in a new relationship with the woman who was good to the kids. They were happy. They were doing well.

He was not going to uproot him again. Yeah, Celeste didn't like that. She started calling Christina and sobbing over the phone. talking to her like a confidant instead of her 10-year-old daughter. She said she couldn't live without her. She said Christina was her favorite daughter. She threatened to kill herself

if she didn't get the girls back. Chris was tormented with anxiety about her mom. Jen, on the other hand, had nightmares about having to go back to her. At one point, Celeste coached Christina to say that Craig was hitting her. But a thorough investigation proved this to be a total fabrication, and Chris later said Craig never hit her once.

She was just saying what her mom had told her to say. She'd always treated Christina and Jennifer like little servants, making them clean up after her and pack up all her stuff whenever she moved. And she also made them lie for her a lot. When they first met Jimmy, she'd said, Now remember, if Jimmy asks, I had cancer before and all my hair fell out. You remember that, right? Oh, my God.

Ugh. Celeste and Jimmy's marriage was a mess pretty much from the start. Who to thunk it, right? And shortly after they moved to Austin, Texas in 19, 1992, it broke up. Maybe don't marry somebody just because they have nice legs, Jimbo. Bless your heart, honey. And once again, Ms. Celeste was a single lady, footloose and fancy free. She eventually guilt-tripped poor little Christina into moving to Austin to be with her. Craig had won custody by this point, finally, but poor little Chris begged to stay with her mom. See, she was the parent in that

relationship. And this 10-11-year-old girl felt responsible for keeping her mom from killing herself, which is just absolutely vile and makes me furious. When Craig would call to talk to Christina, he could hear Celeste in the background whispering, Tell your dad you don't love him anymore. Tell him you don't want to live with him ever again. God, I hate this bitch, Katie. I just hate her so, so bad.

And this is rich. Poor Harold got back from Iceland to find that his wife had, A, married and dumped somebody else while he was gone. B, left him $60,000 worth of debt from her little shopping hobby, and C, taken all his stuff, including a stamp collection he'd had since he was a kid. She took his fricket's stamp collection. Who does that? He filed for a divorce as fast as he could haul ass to the courthouse. Celeste liked Austin.

She got a job as a waitress at a fancy country club, and it was the same. there in the fancy dining room that she met Steve Beard, a wealthy TV executive. Steve was usually a big, friendly presence around the club, but at the time they first met, he was melancholy. He just lost his wife to cancer. They'd been married 40-plus years, and she was the love of his life. Man. He was lost without her. Steve needed a new house manager to help him care for his big, gorgeous property and manage his affairs. And when he asked around the club to see if anyone knew of someone who might be right for the job, somebody suggested Celeste. Steve was, by all accounts, a great guy. He was so

gregarious and fun. Friends called him the mayor of Bourbon Street. He had buckets of money, and he loved giving people lavish gifts. He had a beautiful 300-acre ranch complete with 150 sheep, cattle and horses, but he was still careful with his money, never spent more than he could afford to. Celeste must have taken one look at him, this 70-something man with more money than she'd ever seen in her life, and thought she'd hit the lotto. She turned the charm knob all the way up to 11, and he hired her on the spot. But it didn't take long for their business arrangement to morph into a I'm just going to say relationship because I'm not sure what else to call it. She moved in with him, and Christina came with her.

Celeste was younger than Steve's youngest kid, by the way. Ew. When Christina asked Celeste why she was with him, Celeste was matter of fact. She said, he's rich. But to the people who cared about Steve, she went on and on about how much she adored him. Craig actually called Steve at one point and tried to warn him, but he was over the moon for her already. Steve wasn't completely naive, though. After he asked Celeste to marry him, he wrote up a pre-up.

It said that if the marriage broke up in the first three years, Celeste would get nothing except what she brought into the marriage herself. After that, she'd get $500,000. If they were still married when he died, however, she would get a million. Did ominous music just start up in anybody else's head? Mm-hmm. Yeah, me too. They got married at the country club It was one of the happiest days of Steve's life

And the night they got back from their five-star honeymoon in New Orleans Celeste ground up some sleeping pills and put them in his dinner She said to Christina Please forgive this gross fat shaming language This is a quote I can't stand being here all night with that fat fuck This way he'll have a few drinks and pass out Then I can go out

Charming She's a peach ain't she I can't fucking stand this bridge. Yeah, she's one of the worst human beings has ever drawn breath, seriously. A few months after the wedding, Steve went to his safety deposit box and realized his late wife Elisa's jewelry was missing.

He told the bank it was stolen and they were confused. They said that his wife Celeste had come in and opened the box. Steve was shocked, deeply hurt, and livid. So much so that he started divorce proceedings, in fact. And Celeste panicked.

She sobbed, she begged, and finally confessed that she'd taken the jewelry to pay attorney's fees for her custody fight with Craig. She was just desperate, she said. She'd never do anything so stupid again. She even checked herself into a psychiatric hospital to show that she was committed to change. Despite her breaking out all these big guns, though, Steve was still determined to go through with a divorce. But, as so many poor bastards had done before him, three months later, he took her back. Partly it was because he was embarrassed. So many people, his kids include, had warned him that Celeste was probably a gold digger and he was being ridiculous marrying her.

He didn't want those people to be proven right. But also, Celeste had charmed him. She was good at that. Once she knew she was comfortably back in with Steve, Celeste began trying to keep his grown children away from him. She intercepted phone calls and when they asked to come visit, she'd always come up with excuses why it wouldn't work out. She also fell right back into her routine of drugging Steve's nightly vodka to go out with her friends, spending obscene amounts of money.

Celeste shopped compulsively and bought all the best stuff. A lot of it she'd never even wear. One day she spent 50 grand in one afternoon, which I literally, I don't even think I could do it. It's obscene. And then suddenly, tragedy struck. Craig, whose second marriage had just broken up, took his own life. And I can only imagine how traumatic that was for Christina and Jennifer,

especially Jen, who was living with him at the time. and now, much to her total despair, Jen had no choice but to move in with Celeste. She was devastated by it, but soon she came to realize what a kind, loving man Steve was. He was amazingly generous with the girls and eventually ended up adopting them and letting them take his last name. The newly formed Beard family took spectacular trips all over the world, and the girls started doing well in school and making friends. Thanks to Steve, life was better for them. But it wasn't enough for Celeste. She started forging Steve's signature and overdrawing his bank account.

After that, he started sending his financial documents to a P.O. box. Despite that, he still let her spend hundreds of thousands of dollars decorating the interior of the new house he'd built her. After she spent seven grand one day on throw pillows alone, Steve made a decision. He decided maybe she'd be happier if she had money of her own. So he set up a half-million-dollar trust for her, brought in a financial executive. expert to counsel her on how to invest it wisely, blah, blah, blah. In six months, it was gone.

She'd blown through every cent. And Celeste soon realized she'd done goofed up bad, because from that point onward, based on what he'd already given her in the terms of their pre-up, Steve's financial obligation to her in a divorce was done. Now, if they ever divorced, he owed her bupkis. Rett Row. I don't think that the lack of foresight in someone like Celeste,

will ever cease to surprise me. It's pathological and absolutely stunning. It really is. Amazing. If you and I came into $500,000. Oh, my God. Literally, I would never, like, I would not spend a cent that I'd be fine. Yeah, I'd be fine for life. Yeah, I'd be fine.

Exactly. Oh, my God. Stresses me out. It does me too. It does me too. It does me too. Money stuff just, you know, gets under my skin. Celeste's reaction to this, of course, was to take out more credit

cards in Steve's name and hide the bills. And she forbids Steve from coming into the girl's wing of the house where her and the twins' bedrooms were, and she constantly bitched about having to fulfill her sexual obligations to Steve. Every so often, she'd look at the girls, remember,

these are her teenage daughters, and say, got to go pay some bills, and then she'd head off to Steve's bedroom to have sex with them. Afterwards, she'd let Steve know she wanted some fancy thing or other, and once it was an eight-carat diamond ring. Steve got her a diamond necklace instead, like beautiful, more expensive, lovely thing,

but it wasn't what she'd asked for. And instead of saying, oh my God, thank you for this beautiful diamond necklace, she told the twins, and again excuse this awful language, that fat fuck is going to regret this. Holy shit. And as Celeste continued spiking his nightly cocktail with sedatives, Steve's doctors became increasingly concerned and puzzled about his worsening diabetes. They couldn't figure out why he was doing so badly. In 1998, Steve made some changes to his will, including naming Celeste as a beneficiary. If he died while they were still married, she'd get both their houses, plus his IRAs, his country club membership, and $500,000. Oh, Steve, you signed your death warrant, darling.

It's just heartbreaking, isn't it? Eventually, Steve got sick of Celeste's bullshit. it. The spending, the lying, the stealing. The last straw was when he found out she was having an affair with her ex-husband Jimmy. He told her, I've had enough. I want a divorce. Celeste's response? She pointed a gun at her head and threatened to kill herself, as she had with the previous men who had threatened to leave her. Yeah, that's a right mom. Horrified, Steve took her to a psychiatric hospital called St. David's Pavilion and checked her in. And It's here that the story takes a definitive turn.

The turn it can't come back from. Because while at St. David's, Celeste met Tracy Tarleton. People like Celeste can always zero in on the vulnerable, the people who will be easiest to manipulate. And she locked in on Tracy right away. Tracy was the manager of one of the most popular indie bookstores in Austin. Smart, lots of friends, loved animals. But she had demons. She'd been abused as a child, and as an adult, she was a natural-born caregiver.

She spent her life looking for people to nurture. In college, Tracy had come to terms with her sexuality and come out as a lesbian. She got kicked out of her sorority as a result, lost some friends, and spiraled down into depression and drinking. Sucks. Horrible. She'd been in and out of rehab for alcohol. She attempted suicide. Tracy had not had an easy road.

And she was enchanted by Celeste, who worked hard to charm her. In between flirting, she complained about Steve. As she had with every other man she'd ever been with, she accused him of being abusive and controlling. She said she was afraid to leave him. She was afraid he'd hunt her down and kill her. Tracy, of course, had no way of knowing that Steve was the one trying to leave. And when they could find a quiet spot out of sight of the hospital staff, Celeste and Tracy would make out. Celeste told Tracy she couldn't wait to be discharged so they could have full-on sex.

She lied that she couldn't orgasm with a man, so she needed Tracy to teach her how to experience sexual pleasure. She stroked Tracy's ego, made her feel needed, like she was Celeste's savior. Basically, Tracy never even knew what hit her. And of course, she also didn't know while Celeste was at St. David's, she was diagnosed with narcissistic and history on. personality disorders. Yeah, that's a fun combo. Awful combo. When Celeste's psychologist got wind of the developing relationship between her and Tracy

and said it wasn't a good idea for them to room together, Celeste used the situation to claim that it was Steve who was trying to keep them apart. Tracy was devastated. She despised Steve. He was the enemy. Meanwhile, Steve knew nothing about Celeste's developing lesbian romance. He was taking care of the twins, and he made it clear to them that even if he and their mom divorced, they were still his daughters, and they were welcome to keep living with him if they wanted to. When Celeste and Tracy finally got discharged from St. David's, their relationship revved up.

Soon, Tracy was getting her hair done at the same fancy salon as Celeste, and dressing better, too, wearing a little makeup. Everyone Tracy worked with at the bookstore knew she had a new girlfriend named Celeste. Loads of people saw them together. holding hands, kissing, being affectionate. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that they were a couple. At a party for the staff at Tracy's bookstore, several people overheard Celeste saying to Tracy, when Steve is dead, we can live here together and wake up together every morning. And another fun little detail about that party, Celeste made pot brownies and didn't tell anybody there was pot in them. So a bunch of people just got dosed without their consent.

Yeah, she's a peach, ain't she? God, fuck off, Celeste. I know. Like, tell, you know, at least plenty of people like pop brownies, but you should tell them. Of course, Celeste was still banging her ex-husband Jimmy on the side, but Tracy didn't need to know that. And let's be clear about this. Tracy was still very vulnerable emotionally, still having suicidal thoughts, still being treated for depression. This was somebody who did not need to be strung along. Not long after Celeste got out of the psych hospital, Steve decided to take her on a grand tour of Europe, as both a welcome home present and as a way to reconnect. This was a $53,000 trip. And all Celeste had to say about it was how horrible it was going to be to have to spend a whole month with him.

For his part, Steve seemed to be enjoying planning the trip. Always the manipulator, Celeste kept Tracy constantly off balance about their relationship. Tracy was smitten, absolutely devoted to Celeste, and Celeste made sure Tracy knew she wasn't quite as sure. Sometimes she'd say, I'm not even sure I'm a lesbian. They argued a lot, but Celeste always promised things would change. It was just hard, you know, because of Steve. She couldn't think straight because of Steve.

He was such a monster. Meanwhile, Celeste laughed to her friends about drugging Steve and turning off his oxygen. And when Tracy made a suicide attempt, Celeste told her therapist, I hope Tracy doesn't kill herself and interrupt this trip I've got coming up. Charming. After Tracy's suicide attempt, Celeste ramped up her talk of Steve's alleged abuse. She and Tracy could never be together while Steve was still around, she said. He'd find her. He had too much money, too much power. She couldn't just get a divorce. Plus, she'd get nothing. She'd be homeless. Destitute. She'd rather be dead. And she was practically hysterical

about the Europe trip. She said, I can't go to Europe with him. I'll never survive it. And Tracy believed every word. Even after she finally met Steve at a dinner party one night and Steve was really kind and friendly and nothing like Celeste had led her to believe. Thanking her for being such a good friend to Celeste. Must be an act, she figured. Their talk got darker. Celeste asked Tracy to order the poisoner's handbook and make some botulism toxin for her so she could feed it to Steve. And Tracy did it. They tried the botulism twice and it didn't work either time. All it did was make Steve a little sick to his stomach. Celeste was getting desperate. She just kept saying, I can't go to Europe with him. I can't. And as the trip approached,

Celeste and Tracy ramped up their efforts to usher Steve into the hereafter. They tried giving him 10 doses of ecstasy, which didn't work. They replaced his vodka with straight Everclear. He passed out, but he didn't die. One night, Christina and Jen found pictures of gunshot wounds on their mom's desk, but they couldn't figure out why. Steve started thinking about divorce again around this time, but he wasn't really pursuing it yet. He knew his marriage wasn't working. He'd found a stash of credit cards, four with aliases. Celeste must have known he had one foot out the door, and that the cushy life she'd been enjoying so much was headed out with him. So when Tracy told her one day that she

had a shotgun, Celeste became fixated on the idea of shooting Steve. But when she brought it up, Tracy refused. Hell no, I can't shoot anybody. I'm sorry, I just can't. So Celeste did what she often did when someone was refusing to give her something she really wanted. She threatened to kill herself. She said, if I have to live with this abusive man, one more week, I'm going to die. And I'll tell you, I've seen her do it in interviews, and she is a good crier. Just like Michelle Carno, or whatever her name was, carno. She can summon those big tears and everything, which is very convincing. And Tracy believed her. I mean, she was in love with her. She couldn't bear the thought of her dying.

So finally, Tracy, who had never felt like she was good enough in her life, who had struggled with depression and self-loathing as long as she could remember, felt like she had a purpose in life. And it was to rescue this beautiful woman who she loved so much from this horrible, monstrous man. And after it was over, of course, they'd be together, forever. Friday morning, October 1st, two days before the Europe trip, they made a plan. Tracy would slip into Steve's bedroom through the sliding glass door, which Celeste would leave unlocked, shoot him, and leave the same way. When Tracy warned her that the shotgun would drop a shell, Celeste told her, make sure to pick it up. But if you can't find it, don't worry, I'll find it and pick it up after you leave.

She said, I want you to shoot him in the stomach. And when Tracy pointed out that a gut shot would make him suffer horribly, our girl. said, look, I don't want blood on the walls. I don't want to have to redecorate. Holy shit. I guess she figured a headshot would get blood spatter all over her nice walls. Jesus, Murphy. You know, say what you will about this bitch, but she has a very strict set of priorities, and she sticks with them. I mean, off-market Regina George has fucked up priorities, but she is not a flip-flopper. No, she's consistent, that's for sure.

And it all went off without a hitch. Except Tracy couldn't find that shotgun shell after she shot Steve. And funnily enough, for some reason, Celeste didn't go in there and get it. One of the deputies found it later. Huh, I wonder why she forgot to do that. Wouldn't be on purpose, surely. Steve's call to 911 came through just before 3 a.m. His exact words were,

my guts blew out of my stomach. Oh, that poor dude. He asked for Celeste to be called as well. When EMS finally got to him, Celeste said, This is perfect timing. We're supposed to go to Europe tomorrow. God. Later, that morning at the hospital,

Steve had come out of surgery, but was still in critical condition. The bullet had shredded the lower right quadrant of his abdomen. He'd lost blood, suffered intestinal damage, and had been exposed to a serious infection. At one point while he was in surgery, Celeste pulled Christina aside and said,

when they ask you who might have done this, don't you dare mention Tracy's name, no matter what? But as soon as the detective asked the standard, do you know anyone who would want to hurt Steve? The twins promptly answered Tracy Tarleton. Good for them. Hell yes. Family friends were already suspicious of Celeste at that point,

they were worried she would pull the plug. Yeah. The doctors were giving Steve about a 50-50 chance of survival. When he woke up, the detectives wanted to question him, but he was too weak to talk. They did the blink once for yes method. He couldn't identify who did this to him, but Steve's kids immediately said Celeste was behind it. For her part, Tracy claimed that she and Celeste had a short affair, but we're just friends now. Just gals being pals, you know. They also asked to see her gun and test it. She did tell them that Steve and Celeste had a bad marriage. So there's a

mountain of awful and absurd stuff we could tell you about Celeste's behavior while Steve languished in intensive care in the following weeks. Too much to tell you all of it. So we're just going to hit some highlights. And I think they'll help us complete our portrait of the puff adder in a blonde wig that is Ms. Celeste veered. She veered back and forth between extremely convincing displays of devoted concerned wife and obvious suspect. On one hand, she'd hardly leave his bedside. She'd cry. She'd tell everyone she couldn't stand to see him in pain. On the other, she obsessed about getting control of his bank accounts. She went on a lavish shopping trip to replace the stuff he'd bled all over, like really soon after the shooting. She called the travel agent and demanded a refund

for the Europe trip. She also stopped detectives from talking to Steve, saying he was too sick to talk. And anyway, he should have his attorney present if they're going to ask him questions. What? Is the victim, you fucking weirdo? If the detectives didn't already think she was involved at that point, they sure as shit did now. It didn't help that she'd retained one of the top criminal defense attorneys in Austin. Steve's kids were all telling them it was her. They told the investigators how Celeste had kept them away from him, stolen his money, and how his health had mysteriously gone downhill recently for no discernible reason.

Tracy and Celeste stayed in regular contact after the shooting. When Tracy asked Celeste why she hadn't picked up the shotgun shell, Celeste told her she had fallen back asleep and didn't wake back up until the police were knocking at the door. That's a normal human reaction. Falling asleep. After your husband's been shot. Couldn't be that you wanted them to find something they could connect to Tracy in case somebody were to try to blame the murder on her, could it? Nah.

Nah. To the twins, she said she thought Tracy must have done the shooting, and now she was trying to frame her. That's why she needed a criminal defense lawyer. She told Christina and Jen not to talk to the DA's office or the police. Meanwhile, the detectives had pulled Celeste and Tracy's phone records and found all the calls between them, before and after the shooting. When the ballistics came back as a match for Tracy's gun, they weren't surprised. They drew up an arrest warrant for aggravated assault and injury to the elderly. Now, why not attempted murder? I don't know. But those charges alone carried a possible life sentence, so whatever. When they put the grab-us on Tracy, they also served a search warrant on her house and found her journals, which made it very clear that she and Celeste had a lot more than a gal-pal relationship. Tracy was madly in love. Meanwhile, poor Steve languished in the ICU, still in critical condition, and Celeste just kept on living life large, getting her hair done, nails done, going shopping, the whole thing.

and still wrangling to try to get her mitts on Steve's bank accounts. People were starting to talk. When Celeste found out the detectives were still investigating the case, that it hadn't ended with Tracy's arrest, she was furious. Of course. But she was still playing the devoted wife as best she could, visiting Steve in the ICU. Steve was at high risk of infection,

so everybody who visited was asked to wear a surgical gown and wash their hands thoroughly before going in. One of the twins's boyfriends said he repeatedly saw Celeste going in without washing her hands. and kissing Steve when she'd just been complaining about a sore throat, stuff like that. Steve, poor guy, was in a bad way, emotionally as well as physically. He was crying a lot, in pain all the time. He needed a tracheotomy, daily wound cleaning and dressing, and he'd have to be in a wheelchair indefinitely.

His doctor said he was going to need skin grafts on his poor stomach, and he was zoned out on painkillers most of the time. But none of it seemed to bother Celeste, at least when nobody important was watching. watching. Celeste was so devastatingly bad at murder. She really was. First, she tries to party him to death with grain alcohol and Molly. And then she's just like, fuck it, shotgun. And then finally, when that didn't work, she was like, oh, so elegant, the common germ. Perfect. No one will suspect me, even though several people saw me putting my mouth on his face. For being such a certified awful person, she really, really could not get it right.

Well, not to mention the fact that she was constantly running her mouth about how much she hated. Now her life would be better when he's dead. Right. Years ago, Steve had signed over his medical power of attorney to his daughter Becky, but now Celeste tried to block her from seeing him. One time she stood in front of the door and yelled, he has a new family now. He doesn't love any of you. And then she made sure that Steve signed a new form, giving her medical power of attorney, and stopping his biological kids from learning anything about their dad's condition.

Soon, Steve could talk by covering his trache opening, and Celeste was just disgusted. She said to the twins, now I'll have to listen to that old fuck telling me what to do. Charming. Again. God. Tracy had posted bail by now, and she was out of jail awaiting trial. And although Celeste had told the twins she was afraid Tracy was trying to frame her for the shooting, she was still meeting up with her lover slash gal pal on the sly. Tracy was not okay. She'd attempted suicide since her arrest and almost died.

Celeste, of course, was only worried about herself. She wanted to convince Steve to change his will. She told Tracy, I'm just going to play the devoted wife. She said if she could just get him home from the hospital, she could make him die of sepsis. She'd spit on her hands and clean his wound, and that ought to do the trick. When Tracy begged her not to,

I mean, if she killed him, Tracy was going to be staring down the bearable murder charge. Celeste just kind of shrugged. Like, yeah, I'm going to do what I'm going to do. And, of course, she kept spending Steve's money. She went through about $300,000 in the four weeks following the shooting. Just digest that, $300,000 in four weeks. And Steve knew about it.

I mean, he was keeping track of his finances from the hospital, but he let it go. Until one afternoon, Celeste made the tactical error of making a phone call to Tracy right in front of him. Whoopsie doodle. I don't know if she thought he was just too zoned or asleep or something, but, hon, that wasn't the best idea. Because Steve, of course, was immediately suspicious. and he started asking her, you know, did you put Tracy up to the shooting?

And Celeste, y'all, I wish to God I knew how to work the kind of magic these people have. I really do because Celeste, curse her damn hide, was able to somehow convince Stevie was wrong and fold him back into her loving arms. Oh, no, it's so frustrating. It's so frustrating. It's like watching a horror movie and the protagonist goes down in the basement. Don't go down to the basement. Don't go down to the basement.

In November, a reporter from the Austin American statesman called to interview Celeste about the case, and she refused to answer a bunch of questions, thereby making him suddenly a lot more interested in her. Yeah, good job. Way to hold it together there. Well, it gets better. A few days later, the reporter received an anonymous letter. It read in part, Celeste is one of the most giving people in the world. She helps out everyone and treats everyone as her her equal, even though she is a very wealthy woman. Gross. Celeste adore Steve and is the valiant survivor of a horrific past that included child and sexual abuse, domestic violence, and ovarian cancer.

The beards were to leave for a month-long trip to Europe the day after Stephen was shot. Celeste was hoping that if Tracy did not see or talk with her for that length of time, she would be able to be rid of Tracy for good. I'm telling you all of this off the record. Celeste trusted someone who is crazy. She feels tremendous guilt over the entire situation, even though Stephen has told her not to give it another thought. Please do not further hurt a family that is already suffering.

Oh, what a mysterious mystery. I know. I wonder who wrote that. It's a puzzler, in it? Yeah, I'm sure it will surprise no one to hear that this letter turned up later on on Celeste's computer. So, nice try, babe. And by the way, our main source for this is the book she wanted it all by Catherine Casey,

and that's where all these direct quotations are coming from. The case started to get traction in the media with headlines like, A Shot in the Night, Wife's Friend charged an attack on TV executive. Meanwhile, Steve was hanging in there. He was heavily medicated, in and out of consciousness, and Celeste got him to sign a letter giving her access to his bank accounts. In December, Steve called his banker and asked about a few missing checks he'd been expecting. They looked into it, and Celeste had cleaned him out of more than $550,000 in the three-plus months he'd been in the hospital.

I literally don't know how that's possible. Like I said earlier, that stresses me out. Can't deal with it. But Steve must have been falling for her devoted wife routine. Either that, or he was just high as hell on painkillers. because shortly after that he signed off on an addition to the trust, giving Celeste a bigger monthly stipend if he died. Celeste, who really in that bright, bless her, thought that this meant he'd changed his will to give her everything, which wasn't even close to the case. She crowed about it to Tracy. He's giving me everything. It's all mine. Sounding like a flippant Batman villain or some shit.

And shortly after this, she gave Tracy a wedding band. Gotta keep her sweet, right? And she got to work manipulating Steve's finances again, finding illegal, fraudulent ways around the limitations on her access to his accounts, all while Steve worked hard to get better. Yeah, I think Celeste's villain name would be the bungling widow. Because, you know, incompetent and bad at murder has too many syllables. Right. By now, Steve had had seven operations in the span of two months, and he'd been transferred to a rehab facility. After the new year, they started talking about sending him home, but the medical staff wanted Celeste to hire a home health care nurse for him. Celeste wasn't having it.

She insisted she could take care of him perfectly well herself, and eventually they relented. Steve came home, and they gave Celeste detailed guidance on how to protect him from infection. Still a huge risk. To Tracy, she said, I wish he'd just fucking die already and leave me alone. She also told Tracy why she was so adamant that the rehab center let Steve come home with her, no home health care nurse. She said she felt sure she could finish him off once she had him to herself. She said, I just won't wash my hands.

When Tracy would beg her not to do anything to cause Steve's death, Celeste would just brush her off. Steve was over the moon to be home, but that happiness didn't last long, just a few short weeks, most of which Celeste spent avoiding his company as much as possible, despite her, her promise to take good care of him. On January 19th, he took a turn for the worse. Celeste had a nail appointment that day, but she called her manicurist and said, I can't keep my appointment. Steve's dying. I don't want him to die in the house, so I'm taking him back to the hospital. Steve was wheezing, his blood pressure had dropped dangerously low, his lower abdomen was hot to the touch and painful. He was disoriented and breathing shallowly. They moved him to the ICU.

Shortly after, Christina, who was sitting by his bedside and trying to comfort him, heard Steve say, hello, Elise, his first wife. It gave Christina chills. Soon after, Steve's heart gave out. He died at 3.15 p.m. of septic shock. When they told Celeste, she laid it on thick, really going for her Oscar. She wailed and shrieked and sobbed and had to be sedated. Later, she said to Christina, did you hear Steve's dying wish?

He said he forgave whoever shot him, and he doesn't want the case pursued. Just take a moment and sit with the absolute massive set of brass balls on this woman for a second. God almighty. Incredible. Celeste didn't even want to have a funeral. She had to be talked into it. Within two days, she had the twins clean out Steve's closets and take everything to Goodwill, except for the suit she was burying him in.

Celeste laughed and joked around in the limo on the way to the funeral, and she had the driver make a quick stop on the way. Steve owned a lot of real estate, including a pharmacy, and Celeste ran in and told the pharmacist, I own this place now. Time for you people to kiss my asses the way you kiss Steve's. And then she just sashayed out on her way to her husband's funeral. Are we sure she wasn't trying to become a suspect? Yeah, no, I'm not sure of them. Celeste had finally gotten what she wanted, Steve dead and out of her hair.

But she was hardly a merry widow. First of all, she was super pissed about her inheritance when she found out she, totally misunderstood and she was getting a lot less than she wanted and that she thought. And she was clearly paranoid about being arrested, constantly fretting aloud to the twins about Tracy trying to set her up. They didn't buy it. They'd found evidence that she was still talking to Tracy, a secret cell phone for one thing, and they had a strong suspicion she was involved. So Celeste was not doing great. At one point, she physically attacked a nail tech at her favorite salon because she thought the woman was spreading rumors about her involvement in Steve's death.

Yeah, just like, she had like a butcher knife. I don't remember if she actually attacked her with the butcher knife. She had a butcher knife in her purse. But she physically attacked this woman and was like injured and stuff. Wow. And in February, she sat the twins down and told them she wanted a suicide pact. Things were just too hard and she didn't want to die alone. These are her children.

Jesus Lord. Okay. Now, while Steve was still in the hospital, Celeste had made a new friend. a tough-looking lady named Donna, who was the receptionist at Celeste's favorite salon. And as the media attention on the case and on Celeste herself heated up, Celeste confided that she was getting more and more nervous. People in her social circle were talking. Lots of them had seen her canoodling with Tracy at various parties, and Celeste worry that they

were talking to the police. And as she and Donna got closer and Celeste started to trust her, she began to float the idea of having Tracy Tarleton killed. Did Donna know anybody by chance? Look, she said, Tracy's crazy, and she's obsessed with me. She's going to try to take me down with her. You have to help me. I'll pay you. Donna's reaction? Pretty much to string Celeste along and take as much money as she could squeeze out of her, with no real intention of finding her a hitman. At least, that's what Donna claimed later on. I guess, we can't know for sure, can we?

Celeste hired Donna to work for her at her house, and Donna slowly got more and more cash out of her for the considerable expenses involved in finding a hitman. It was always going to happen soon. Donna promised. And every time she asked for more cash, Celeste paid up. All told, she gave Donna about $5,500.

And as we know, campers, that's not even enough to get you on the real hitman's waiting list. but whatever, Celeste. Jeff. Greedy pitch. His name is Jeff, if you recall it. His name is Jeff, yes. Yeah.

The hitman. The hitman. Let's be clear about something, by the way. Tracy had no desire whatsoever to take Celeste down with her. By now, she told her attorney the whole truth, but she forbid him from using any of the info against Celeste. And attorney-client privilege prevented him from telling the police that Celeste was the mastermind behind the murder. Every time the investigators tried to get Tracy to give Celeste up, she refused point-blank.

She was in love. She still believed everything Celeste had told her about Steve and how abusive he was. While she was in the midst of all this plotting and scheming, Celeste and Christina got into an intense discussion over the phone one night. And Celeste blurted out that she'd hired somebody to kill Tracy. Chris had been pretty sure her mom was guilty before this, but now she was sure. And it just so happened that she'd had the foresight to record the conversation. Time to go to the investigators with what she knew.

So now behind the scenes, as Celeste waited for Donna to come through with the hitman, the twins began secretly working with the police. So the investigation ticked along for a bit. But Celeste and Tracy spoke less and less, and Tracy got more and more depressed. And then things got even worse when an article came out in the newspaper that not only revealed the hitman plot, but also another bombshell piece of information. Celeste was married to a bartender and carpenter named Spencer Cole Johnson. What the fuck? This bitch has been married more times than I've been in a relationship.

I think this was number five or number six. That's so many. Jesus Christ. I'm not sure if this was a strategic move on the part of the prosecutor, but right around the time Celeste's new marriage hit the media, they added capital murder to Tracy's charges. She was arrested and brought in, and now she was sitting in jail facing the death penalty while Celeste was on her honeymoon, spending Steve's money, buying her new hubby a house. The penny finally dropped for Tracy. She'd been played. She let the prosecutor know she wanted to talk. At long last, she told them the truth, and she told it again, hooked up to a polygraph machine. She passed with flying colors.

The DA made Tracy an offer. Testify to this in court, and we'll give you a deal. You'll have a chance to get out of prison someday. Trace said yes, not just because of the shot at eventual freedom, but because she finally saw what Celeste was. And reading all the newspaper articles about Steve's death, she'd come to realize that he was probably just a really nice guy who didn't deserve any of this. Tracy realized she'd been pulled into a lie.

So it was time to put the habeas gravis on Celeste for charges of capital murder, murder, and injury to an elderly individual. After a brief attempt to win Tracy back over to her side from jail with love letters and promises of eternal fidelity, Celeste hired Rockstar Defense Attorney Dick DeGarren, and they went after Tracy full bore at Celeste's trial, bringing up her long history of suicide attempts and depression, arguing that she was nothing but a crazy, obsessed lover

who had tried to get rid of the competition. Problem with that was, literally everybody on Earth had seen her being all lovey-dovey with Tracy, including her own twin daughters, who testified against their mother to devastating effect. She'd never been careful about what she said around them, see, probably because they weren't ever really. people to her. Sure. And they'd heard just all kinds of shit, all her evil comments about Steve

before and after his death. They'd found the secret cell phone she'd used to call Tracy after Steve was shot, and they had that recording, the one where Celeste confessed hiring a hitman to kill Tracy. Not good. Not good. The twins had had a nasty realization of their own as the investigation wore on. Apparently, Celeste had been using their social security numbers since they were 12 and had torpedoed their credit. They couldn't apply for credit cards or cell phones or anything because of Celeste racking up credit in their names and never paying it off. Mom of the year, am I right? Despite Degarin's attempts to discredit her, Tracy did well on the stand. I think a lot of the time we know the truth when we hear it. And Tracy was just so sad up

there. You could really feel that she loved Celeste and believed she loved her too. You could feel how betrayed she felt. She was telling the truth, and it showed. The jury deliberated for three days, which is usually good for the defense, so everybody was nervous. There was no need. Celeste was convicted, and Celeste burst into tears as Dick DeGaron had a minor little hissy-fit and demanded the jury be polled. So Celeste had to sit there and listen to all 12 people say guilty, guilty, guilty, hell yes, guilty as hot-buttered sin. She's serving a mandatory life sentence as we speak, and she's not eligible for parole until 2042. I like the sound of that. She still maintains her innocence, by the way, and can sometimes be

seen on various true crime shows, weeping and bitching about her evil daughters who lied and betrayed her on the stand. Since her conviction, the twins have tried to move on with their lives, which I'm sure has been hard for each of them in their own way. But there have been bright spots for them. For one thing, they've reunited with the baby sister Celeste gave up for adoption years and years ago, and they now have a relationship with her, which is sweet. They also have a Christmas tradition where they gather at a church with other victims of violent crimes and their families to decorate a tree of remembrance and hand up a gold angel in memory of Steve. I think that's very sweet. Yeah. And I hope they're doing well,

and I'm sorry their mom sucked so much. They deserved better, and so did Steve Beard. And although Tracy Charlton did a really stupid thing, she had a really stupid thing, and it's good that she paid a price for that, but she is actually out of prison now. I forget how long she did. I think she did 12 years, if I remember rightly. And she absolutely is intensely remorseful. I've seen her in interviews. I mean, she gets it.

She got played. Yeah. So I'm sorry if she ever met Celeste. And certainly Steve Beard deserved far, far better in the golden years of his life than this flippin walking nightmare of a woman. And, yeah, Tracy paid her debt to society. She sure did. She knows she did wrong.

I hope she's able to find some kind of peace. Yeah, I hope so, too. So, that was a wild one, right campers? Yeah, you know we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And our shout out today is for our beautiful and brilliant friend, Layla Shike, and her angelic doggos, of course. Layla saved us this week. Katie and I were both dealing with some life stuff.

that might have prevented us from getting an episode out this week, but Layla, bless her, had these wonderful, detailed notes about Celeste for a presentation that she did one time and she donated them to us. For nothing, just here you go. And we relied extremely heavily on them and we are so grateful.

She did a terrific job. So thank you, Layla. We love you. We appreciate it. You're a terrific researcher. Seriously, I couldn't believe how good these notes were. Incredible. And by the way, if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out.

Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free at least a day early, sometimes more, plus an extra episode a month and a free sticker. And we've also got these rad enamel pins while supplies last for patrons in the $5 and up categories. So if you can, come join us.