GATESVILLE, Texas (Court TV) — A woman convicted of murdering her husband with the help of her secret lesbian lover is maintaining her innocence in a new interview more than 20 years after she was sentenced to life behind bars.
Celeste Beard Johnson appears in an interview. (Interview With A Killer)
Celeste Beard Johnson, 63, was convicted of the murder of her husband, Steven Beard, 74, who died days after he was shot in his bedroom in October 1999.
Johnson was 40 years Beard’s junior and has admitted that she married her husband for his money. The couple met at the Austin Country Club, where Beard was a member and Johnson was a waitress. Beard, a recent widower, moved Johnson into his home just 10 days after burying his previous wife. “He married me because I was a trophy wife,” Johnson told Court TV’s David Scott in Sunday’s episode of “Interview With A Killer.” “That doesn’t mean I didn’t fall in love with him.”
Johnson had been married three times before meeting Beard and brought twin teenage daughters to the marriage. “I accepted his drinking,” she said. “We accepted each other’s idiosyncracies.”
Beard had a lot of money, and investigators said Johnson had no problem spending it. In 1997, Beard placed $500,000 into a trust for his wife; the money was gone within six months. “I flew all over the country furnishing the house,” Johnson told Scott. She also maintained that a $35,000 allowance was for “maintenance of the house.”
Johnson spent time at mental hospitals during the course of her marriage, and it was at one of those treatment centers that she met Tracy Tarlton, who would become her lover. In her interview with Scott, Johnson denied having any romantic relationship with Tarlton. “It became obvious after awhile that Tracy became enamored with me,” Johnson said. “She didn’t tell me why she was really in the treatment center. She was a big fat liar. I thought she was in there for the same issues as me.”
At Johnson’s trial, Tarlton testified that Johnson plotted with her to kill Beard and enlisted her lover to carry out the murder, telling her lover that her husband was an abusive monster. On Oct. 1, 1999, Tarlton entered the Beards’ home through an unlocked door and shot Steven while he was in bed in the master bedroom. Johnson was in her daughter’s room in another part of the house. In a phone call to 911, Beard told the dispatcher, “Hurry! My guts just came out of my stomach!”
Celeste Beard Johnson and her two daughters appear in a family portrait. (Interview With A Killer)
Investigators said that even as her husband lay in the hospital with a gunshot wound, Johnson continued spending his money. “What’s so hard to understand?” Johnson told Scott when he began to press her about her behavior. “I spent $26,000 on handrails. Everything was for the house. What’s so hard to understand? Who cares?”
After her arrest, Tarlton told investigators about Johnson’s involvement in the plot to kill Beard. In response, Johnson attempted to hire a hit man, paying a woman named Donna Goodson more than $10,000 to that end. Johnson admits paying Goodson but denies there was any nefarious purpose to the payments. “I paid her to be my friend, and then she turned around and said that it was to hire a hit man.”
While Johnson has appeared in several television interviews since her conviction, she appeared unhappy with Scott during their time together. In fact, she called an abrupt end to their first meeting and gave Scott the middle finger as she left. “Why are you talking down to me like I haven’t laid myself bare for the entire world to read about?” Johnson said. “This is not interviewing me like a professional reporter.”
Despite her misgivings, Johnson returned for a second interview with Scott and revealed why she believes her own daughters turned against her at her trial and shared her one regret in the case. Hear her story in her own words in the episode “Unmasked” when it premieres on May 31 at 8 p.m. ET on Court TV.
