![]() When Tarlton was arrested for drunk driving and Johnson bailed her out, Beard, angered by the relentless phone calls, demanded that Tarlton stop contacting the couple. According to Johnson and several witnesses, Tarlton tried to kiss her after she had passed out during her daughters' 1999 high school graduation. Johnson's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, alleged that she had nothing to do with the shooting and that Tarlton, whom he dismissed as an unreliable witness due to documented mental instability, acted alone Tarlton was obsessed with Johnson, who denied making sexual advances toward her. According to Beard's accountant, Johnson spent $321,000 in October and November 1999, an additional $249,000 by December 10 and another $100,000 in the six weeks ending March 31, 2000. The Beard attorney, David Kuperman, testified that Steven did not want a divorce and the underlying issues of the spending were addressed during joint therapy (both Beards in attendance) sessions treating Johnson's depression. At Johnson's trial, prosecutors charged that she had married Beard for his money and wanted him dead because he was tired of her extravagant spending and was considering divorce. Johnson has vehemently denied this persuasion.īased on Tarlton's statement, Johnson was arrested on March 28, 2002. Tarlton was determined that getting rid of him was the only way the women could be together. Shortly before her murder trial began in March 2002, Tarlton told police that Johnson had persuaded her to shoot Beard, claiming that he had emotionally abused Johnson to the point of suicide. Tarlton remained silent until July 2000, when she read in a local newspaper that Johnson had remarried six months after Beard’s death and realized that their relationship was a sham. ![]() Their attorney, David Kuperman, refused to allow police to interview Beard while he was hospitalized, due to his grave condition. The police began to hear that Johnson had spoken negatively about Beard. Tarlton confessed to the shooting and was arrested at home six days after the shooting, was charged with assault. Local police tied the shooting to Tracey Tarlton, who Johnson had met at Saint David’s Pavilion, a mental health facility, after Johnson was admitted for depression. Beard was later released from the hospital, but succumbed to a blood clot on January 22, 2000. On October 3, 1999, Beard was shot in the stomach while he was asleep at their home in Westlake Hills, Texas. They were married on February 18, 1995, with Beard's family and friends suspicious that Johnson had married him for his money. Johnson moved in with Beard after he convinced her that he would legally adopt her daughters. Beard, a retired Fox Broadcasting executive and self-made multi-millionaire more than twice her age, was a widower whose wife had died of cancer. Johnson married twice more before meeting Steven Beard while she was a waitress at a country club in Austin, Texas. At age 17, Johnson became pregnant and gave birth to twins, Jennifer and Kristina, with her abusive first husband, Craig Bratcher. She met her birth mother only one time and was told, "I am not your mother, I was just your incubator." She claimed that her adoptive parent, Edwin Johnson, physically abused her as a child and that she attempted suicide during puberty. Murder, injury to an elderly individual, and conspiracy to commit murder Ĭeleste Beard Johnson (born February 13, 1963), more commonly known as Celeste Beard, is an American convicted murderer who is serving a life sentence at the Lane Murray (SHU) in Gatesville, Texas, for the 1999 murder of her millionaire husband, Steven Beard.Ĭeleste Johnson's biological parents are unknown.
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