Celeste Beard

Celeste Beard Johnson (born February 13, 1963), more commonly known as Celeste Beard, is a convicted American murderer who is serving a life sentence at the Crain Unit in Gatesville, Texas for the 1999 murder of her millionaire husband, Steven Beard.

Celeste Johnson's biological parents are unknown. 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 made a suicidal gesture during puberty. At age 17, Johnson became pregnant and gave birth to twins, Jennifer and Kristina, with abusive first husband, Craig Bratcher. Bratcher committed suicide in 1996 after being arrested for assaulting his second wife and her children.

Johnson married twice more before meeting Steven Beard while she was a waitress at a country club in Austin, Texas. 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 moved in with Beard after he convinced her that he would legally adopt her daughters. They were married on February 18, 1995, with Beard's family and friends suspicious that Johnson had married him for his money.

On October 3, 1999, Beard was shot in the stomach while he was asleep, at their home in Westlake. Beard was later released from the hospital, but succumbed to a blood clot on January 22, 2000. 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. Tarlton confessed to the shooting and was arrested at home six days after the shooting, was charged with assault. The police began to hear that Johnson had spoken negatively about Beard. Their attorney, David Kuperman, refused to allow police to interview Beard while he was hospitalized, due to his grave condition.

Tarlton was delusional about her friendship with Celeste. 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. Shortly before her murder trial began in March 2002, Tarlton told police that Johnson had persuaded her to shoot Beard claiming that Beard had emotionally abused Johnson to the point of suicide. Tarlton was determined that getting rid of him was the only way the women could be together. Celeste has vehemently denied this persuasion.

Based on Tarlton's statement, Johnson was arrested on March 28, 2002. 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. The Beard attorney, David Kuperman, testified that Steven did not want a divorce and the underlying issues of the spending was addressed during joint-therapy (both Beards in attendance) sessions treating Johnson's depression. 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.

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 Johnson and several witnesses, Tarlton tried to kiss her after she had passed out during her daughters' 1999 high school graduation. 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. Several witnesses saw no unusual problems in Johnson and Beard's marriage, and DeGuerin alleged that Johnson's daughters lied on the witness stand because they would inherit no money if their mother was acquitted. Kristina was adverse during her testimony, answering to the defense, "I do not remember," 298 times.

In 2003, Johnson was convicted of capital murder, under The Texas Law of Parties, receiving a mandatory life sentence. She will be eligible for parole on April 1, 2042. Johnson continues to maintain her innocence for 19+ years and as of 2019 is imprisoned at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Lane Murray Unit in Gatesville. Tarlton received a 10-year reduced sentence in exchange for testifying against Johnson, and was released on parole in August 2011 and lives in San Antonio. Tarlton will be released from parole in August 2021.

The case was covered on such news documentary programs as American Justice, Snapped (1st episode), Deadly Women, and ABC's 20/20. Previously unrevealed information about the lives, the crime, and the trial in the exclusive biography, The Celeste Beard Johnson Story, was released in 2019.

Johnson and five other inmates published From the Big House to Your House, a cookbook that lists recipes that can be made in prison cells with ingredients from the prison commissary.

In 2017, Celeste's daughter, Jennifer, was wounded after a shooting while attending a Halloween party. She had to undergo more than ten surgeries but survived.

In 2021, the case was covered in the "Fatal Fortune" episode of Vengeance: Killer Millionaires.

On June 13, 2021, Lifetime aired Secrets of a Gold Digger Killer, a TV film that featured Julie Benz as Celeste.