Buried under the wishing well.

Betty Lou Beets

Gun barrel City Texas 1982, Jimmy Don Beets unwinds after a hard day working at the fire department. Jimmy Beets was a wonderful man, he was loved by so many people, just an old country boy that everybody had a lot of respect for. Also at the bar a lively waitress named Betty Lou Barker. Betty Lou takes a shine to the laid-back Texan. He thought she was really a lot of fun and a very cute person. So he married her after knowing her for about six months. Betty sassy charm is just a mask. Jimmy is being quietly stalked by a black widow. In the world of homicide, a black widow is the term given to a woman who chooses a mate, marries and kills him for profit. Betty was fun, she was so cute, she was a sharp dresser, she was a great dancer and she was really a good time.

For crime writer Irene pence Betty Lou beets is a compelling character. Married at 15, she has six children. After she had the sixth child, she thought that staying home with a lot of children was not fun and so that's when she started going to the bars and meeting other men. Betty Lou's bar-hopping is too much for her husband of 18 years, he files for divorce. In the following years men and money come and go but Jimmy Don beets looks like he might be the real thing. He's her fifth husband in ten years. He had been divorced for a few months and he was looking towards an early retirement, and didn't want to be retired and alone. Early in the marriage Betty Lou has a special request, she wants a wishing well built in the front yard. Her devoted husband is happy to help. He showed such love for her and she was so sweet to him, that sweet nature is all a facade. Betty-Lou was capable of showing people her good face, the people that matter to her, she would smile at them make them feel good about themselves.

Who would suspect anybody that nice of murder. Jimmy Don beets is in serious danger, he has just dug his own grave. Jimmy Don Beets is a down-to-earth Texan fire captain, married to a new wife Betty Lou. He's just a few years from retirement. I think everybody had time in the department knew Jimmy Don Beets. A chaplain at the Dallas Fire Department, Denny Burris, worked alongside Jimmy Don. A very responsible individual who had one quality, that seemed to rise above a lot of other people, common sense, but common sense isn't enough to see through the mask of a killer. Black widow's don't have too much difficulty putting on a mask and appearing to be an ordinary person to everyone around them. Sociopaths can do that quite well, they don't hear voices, they're not delusional, they're not killing for fun or for sex. It's a cold blooded event. Betty Lou Beets is a lady with many secrets, her last husband, Doyle Wayne Barker hasn't been seen for a year because he's buried in Betty Lou's backyard.

She told her daughter that she really wanted to get rid of him and so the daughter said well divorce him and she said and then I'd lose the trailer and winter's coming, I would be out here in the cold, I'm gonna kill Wayne. So, she tried to get her daughter to help her bury Wayne Barker. Betty's daughter surely is shocked but her mother is a strong woman. Betty Lou will do the dirty work, her daughter just has to help clean up. Betty state of mind was calm, cool and collected. These were not crimes of passion. Within a year Betty Lou has a new husband and a new reason to kill. With a husband, if he had money she could get it by murder. Then, she would murder him. He was probably the wealthiest of her husband's. He had a house that was all paid for, a boat that was all paid for. There was a lot of monetary gain to kill Jimmy. Six months into their marriage, Jimmy goes missing.

I received a call that morning that Jimmy had apparently drowned, an accident out at Cedar Creek Lake. His fishing boat is found drifting on the lake empty. While the search goes on for days, no body is found, all that remains is an air of suspicion. They found it very strange that Jimmy turned up missing in the first place, because he was a very careful boater. He didn't take any chances. She didn't act normally for a grieving widow. She made the statement if they don't find Jimmy, when can I expect begin receiving benefits? For me it was like just kind of aghast that she would even ask something like this. This is only the third day, that we've been out there. But Jimmy is not at the bottom of the lake. After four days building Betty's wishing well. He falls into bed, exhausted. The Black Widow moves in for the kill. This time Betty's son Bobby is tangled in her deadly web, she has her well here, now she has her wish, a husband buried beneath it. Bobby was so afraid that something was going to happen to his mother, knowing now she had actually killed her husband.

Betty gets Bobby to finish the crime. He takes Jimmy’s fishing license, his glasses and his heart pills puts them in his boat and sets it adrift on the lake. Two years pass, Jimmy’s disappearance is still a mystery. Then Betty Lou finds a new man and jokes about having buried her own husband. I guess the old saying your sins are going to always find you, they did in Betty Lou's case and it came as a result of just a slip of the tongue. Betty Lou's new boyfriend also has loose lips, he takes the news straight to the police. The person that I spoke to inform me that Betty Lou actually told him that there was a body buried under her porch. So, that was my first solid clue. Detective Rick Rose pays Betty Lou a visit. Underneath the Wishing Well, he finds a body. It's the missing fire captain Jimmy. Out back another surprise, the body of Doyle Wayne Barker. Most people don't expect a woman to kill two husbands, in the same house, with the same gun, over a period of three years.

I don't think Betty thought for a minute that she would get caught. The boldness of burying the body of someone you killed on your own property. She did not think she was gonna get caught. Arrested for murder, Betty Lou will do anything to save herself. Betty put Betty first, and that's the bottom line, she turns on her own children trying to blame them, for the murders. I don't think she cared. I don't think she felt any empathy for her victims, nor did she have any empathy for what her kids, might have been feeling involving them. In this the trial jury finds Betty Lou guilty of two murders. My visit with her, and the trial, is something that I don't think in my mind's eye, will I ever forget. I don't know how you can describe the eyes of that lady. Her stare was just a glaring type of stare, and her eyebrows weren't raised, but they were just just staring. Betty Lou's deadly past is finally exposed.

After arguing with her second husband she shoots him. She shot him at least twice and she explained to the police, how he was trying to attack her, and they always questioned why the bullets were in the back of his head. He survives. Husband number three also has a lucky escape, she tried to run him over with her car. He managed to jump behind a van and saved his life. Her next two husband's end up buried in her yard, but Jimmy will be Betty's final victim. On February 24th 2000 Betty Lou is executed by lethal injection. Most of the homicides I worked are generally spontaneous. They happened because of an event, somebody got mad, angry and committed the act. Those are different types of mindsets and in her case the mindset was purely premeditation and planning. She was a cold-blooded killer.