Buried Memories (22 page)

“After about fifteen minutes, Shirley and Betty both came out, looking like they were in a really good mood. We stayed outside and talked for another forty-five minutes, then came on back to Dallas. Shirley was in a good mood all the way back, but never mentioned anything her mother had told her.”

“When did she tell you Jimmy Don was missing?”

“She didn’t. I had to hear it the following Monday morning when I went to work. Shirley and I broke up a month later. I never saw Betty again after that Friday night in August.”

Rose had to sort out all the information. People’s memories would dim or play tricks with them. He looked for facts that were verified by others’ testimony or physical evidence they had. There were still many hours of searching ahead of him.

Newspaper reporters had found Wayne Barker’s brother, Jackie Barker, and asked him about his brother’s disappearance.

“I called Betty after I hadn’t heard from Wayne for a while,” Barker said. “She told me that he left one night to get a package of cigarettes, and just didn’t come back. That’s all she said. I couldn’t imagine he’d do something like that and leave a new pickup just sitting there.”

“Did you know Betty Barker?” the reporter asked.

“Yes. I was my brother’s best man when he married Betty for the second time in July of 1981. When Wayne never showed up, I suspected foul play, but I was never suspicious of Betty. She was just too super-nice when I was around her.”

It was late at night in the DA’s office. Rick Rose had gone to see Mike O’Brien to review the case. They were both disappointed that Shirley Stegner refused to talk. Without her testimony, there could be no first-hand witness of Betty Beets’s actions. All they had so far was second- and third-hand information. If Shirley had been involved in burying anyone, she would have been an eyewitness to at least seeing the body.

“Do we know for sure that she helped bury both men?” O’Brien asked.

“Wayne Barker, for sure,” Rose said. “You know, if someone else did help Betty with Jimmy Don, then we’d have an additional witness out there. Let’s go back to Phyllis, because she’s the first to break the news.”

The next day, Rick Rose contacted Phyllis Coleman and convinced her to meet him at the Seagoville Police Station, not far from her home in Balch Springs. He took Deputy Ron Shields with him as a witness, thinking it was about time Shields saw another part of law enforcement other than waiting in cars and digging through dirt.

Phyllis Coleman’s appearance surprised both deputies. She was pretty. Her long, shiny blond hair and blue eyes made her look like a young Betty Beets. Her thin body bordered on anorexia, and her nervousness made Rose think she was speeding on something. The large tattoos on each arm indicated she had seen the seedier side of life.

Phyllis came into the police station, frowning with a “now what?” attitude.

“We just needed to clarify some things,” Rose told her.

They sat in a small room that held a Coke machine, a few chairs, and a couple of tables covered with detective magazines.

“You told us that Shirley helped your mom bury Wayne Barker.”

Phyllis nodded.

“So did she also bury Jimmy Don?”

“Nah, Shirley wouldn’t have done that. She was furious with Mama. We all loved Jimmy Don. Shirley didn’t want Mama to kill him for anything. So no way would she help bury him.”

“So your mother buried him herself?”

“No, she got my brother Robby. He helped put Jimmy Don in the well.”

Rose tried to hide his amazement. Inside he reeled, hearing about the bizarre participation of Betty’s family. “Did your mother happen to mention Jimmy Don building that well right before he died?”

“No,” Phyllis said, looking surprised. “She told me she built it herself.”

Like waiting for the other shoe to drop, Robby Branson continued working as a crane operator for his father’s construction company, all the while knowing Shirley had been arrested for helping their mother bury Wayne Barker.

As time slipped by, he became more puzzled. Wouldn’t Shirley tell the investigators that he’d helped bury one of his mother’s victims? Was his sister protecting him by keeping quiet about his involvement?

Then one day at work, Robby glanced over his shoulder and saw a man approaching him with a white Stetson, cowboy boots, and a gold star. He wasn’t surprised.

Karen Warner, another investigator for the district attorney, had been out of the state on a two-week vacation when the case broke. Her area of expertise primarily involved child-abuse and sexual-abuse cases, but she helped in other areas when they needed her. Rick Rose had asked her to assist with the statement by Robby Branson, who was now sitting before them, tapping a pencil and avoiding everyone’s eyes.

When Robby first walked into the district attorney’s office, his large, muscular body made him appear older than his twenty-one years. The dark skin he inherited from his father was even darker from his hours of working outside in the hot summer sun.

Rose read him his rights, which he promptly waived and readily agreed to give them a written statement.

TWENTY-ONE

A tape recorder captured Robby Branson’s words as he related a tale of the worst child abuse Karen could imagine. Robby kept his head down as he spoke. He appeared frightened, and he probably was, but Karen could only feel sympathy for him. O’Brien had told her earlier that when he first met Robby, he thought of him as a good kid, but presumed his home life with Betty Beets would invite anyone to go astray.

Robby reported his mother’s nonchalance when she told him that she planned to kill Jimmy Don that night and would need his help. Everything seemed so matter-of-fact and acidly cold of Betty. Robby related each detail about leaving the house so his mother could shoot Jimmy Don, then coming home and dragging the body out to the well. He, too, mentioned how good Jimmy Don had been to his mother.

“Have you told anyone other than your sisters about this?” Rose asked.

“Yeah,” Robby said with some hesitation. “My common-law wife. She lives in California. About eighteen months after I helped bury Jimmy Don, I just had to get it off my chest. So I told her about it, and how my mom planned it. I also said that Mom killed Wayne Barker too. So this morning I called her and told her not to tell the police what I had said about the murders, but that was before my arrest.”

Karen found it difficult to listen.
How could a mother involve her own child in a murder? Even in the wild, female animals fight to the death to protect their young, and here his mother had used him as an accomplice to murder.

Betty Beets wanted out of jail. E. Ray Andrews convinced her that he could make that happen if only he could get her bail bond reduced. He’d have that opportunity at her habeas corpus hearing tomorrow. But today on June 13, the law required that she be brought before a magistrate to determine her bond and clarify charges.

Michael O’Brien had begun thinking about Betty’s indictment before her arrest. After reading volumes of case law, he decided to base it on the “Candy Man” killing in Houston. A Houston dentist, Ronald O’Bryan, had taken out massive life insurance policies on his two young children, then fed them cyanide-laced pixie stick candy. His daughter became violently ill, but his son died. Once law enforcement found the newly purchased insurance policies, they established premeditation, and found O’Bryan guilty of capital murder.

From the affidavits of Betty’s children and fire department chaplain, Denny Burris, O’Brien felt certain he knew Betty’s motive. Especially when he learned the amount of insurance Jimmy Don had. Today, O’Brien wrote the charge against Betty that would form the basis for her indictment—an indictment the prosecution would have to prove at her trial.

Deputies escorted Betty from her jail cell to the Henderson County Courthouse. The three-story, redbrick courthouse graced an entire city block in the center of Athens. Built in 1919, the Georgian-style building boasted four imposing columns on every side before each entrance. Eighty-year-old live oaks and magnolia trees gave the grounds a parklike setting.

Betty stood before Justice of the Peace O. D. Baggett. After a clerk swore her in, Judge Baggett read her charge:

“Betty Lou Beets, on or about the 6th of August, 1983, and before making and filing of this complaint, in the County of Henderson and State of Texas, did then and there unlawfully, intentionally, and knowingly cause the death of an individual, Jimmy Don Beets, by shooting him with a firearm, for remuneration and the promise of remuneration, to wit: an insurance policy from employment with the City of Dallas by the said Jimmy Don Beets in which the said defendant is the beneficiary.”

Then Judge Baggett charged her with capital murder and ordered her to be held without bond. Now Betty’s only hope was her habeas corpus hearing the next day.

Rick Rose made a quick call to investigators in Pasadena, California, and asked them to visit a Jennifer Cook. In a taped and written statement, she admitted everything that Robby had told her, thoroughly corroborating his story.

The officers asked if she had told anyone.

“Just my grandmother,” Jennifer said. “She didn’t believe me and said she thought I could really come up with the whoppers. Told me not to tell anyone else because they’d think I was daft.”

“What did you tell the investigators?” Betty asked her daughter while she clung to the bars separating their cells.

“I haven’t said a word,” her daughter replied. “E. Ray told me not to talk. But I’m scared shitless. I could end up in the electric chair. Damn it, Mama, you got me into all this.”

“So you wanted me to take the abuse?”

Shirley closed her eyes. “Do we have to go over that shit again? You know you didn’t have to kill Wayne, and goddamn it, Jimmy Don never laid a hand on you.”

“Okay, we don’t have to go over that shit again.” Betty stayed quiet for a moment, then said, “It was only a matter of time before Jimmy Don started beating me. He’d given me some pretty angry looks lately.”

“Mama, can’t we talk about something else? I just got home from my honeymoon. Jay calls every day wondering when in the hell I’m getting out. This is no way to start a marriage.”

These discussions made Shirley long for a cell far removed from her mother’s, but once when she complained about being thrown into this particular cell, a deputy told her that the jail had very few spaces for female felony inmates.

Rick Rose opened the ballistics report that had just arrived. The document outlined the testing on the bullets found inside the sleeping bags of Wayne Barker and Jimmy Don Beets. It had been difficult to test the semi-jacketed, .38-caliber bullets because of their corroded and oxidized condition, but they were similar enough to indicate that both men could have been shot with the same gun. All of the bullets had six land-and-groove impressions with a left-hand twist. What a coincidence was that? In the same house where two people are killed is a weapon that generally fits the same description. Rose knew that the weapons having this style of rifling were primarily Colt revolvers.

He reached for his file, which had grown thick in the last six weeks. Pulling out the list of Betty’s guns he had taken from her trailer, his first glance rested on the one with the red line drawn through it. Betty’s highlighting drew his attention to the .38 Colt police special revolver.

He immediately left for the evidence locker. Deputy Kite had locked up the two guns Bobby Branson had used in his shoot-out. The deputy in charge of the locker retrieved the guns and handed them to Rose.

Rose compared serial numbers. One matched perfectly—an antique Colt revolver, probably sixty years old, with an ornately carved ivory handle. He instantly put in an order to have the gun test fired. Then he’d compare those bullets to the ones taken from the bodies.

Judge Jack H. Holland presided over Betty Beets’s habeas corpus hearing in the 173rd Judicial District Court. The tailored courtroom held no carved molding or unnecessary decor. Its straightforward design resembled a plain but distinguished church with dark paneled walls and matching pews of the same dark wood. Twelve brown leather chairs awaited the jurors, and a V-shaped table in the center of the room accommodated both the prosecution and defense.

The District Attorney, Bill Bandy, would do anything to keep Betty incarcerated. The short, witty, down-to-earth attorney had earned his law degree while working days, and attending South Texas College of Law in the evenings. He still considered that easy compared to the combat he’d seen in Korea as a foot soldier. Now he was in a different kind of combat with E. Ray Andrews, a man he had known for many years.

E. Ray came to court in a huff. He insisted he had only heard about Betty’s habeas corpus hearing yesterday. Having had no time to prepare, he asked for a delay.

District Judge Holland, a thin, distinguished-looking man, was the first and only judge, since the 173rd District had been formed in 1970. The respected judge spoke softly, for he never found it necessary to raise his voice. He sat patiently in his brown leather chair on its raised platform, listening to E. Ray carry on.

“Since this is a capital murder case and you say you just learned about it,” the judge told him, “we can afford you more time if you need it.”

E. Ray said, “Your Honor, I really do. I mean, I was just crossing the street when I heard a rumor out yesterday afternoon, and I couldn’t understand them bringing her over here without my being here.”

Then Andrews tested the water by asking if the prosecution would allow a $100,000 bail. Bandy quickly rejected an amount that Betty might somehow be able to pay and obtain her freedom.

Having that attempt fail, Andrews decided to go ahead with the hearing after all.

Bandy called Rick Rose to the stand and took him through all the legal proceedings that led up to Betty’s arrest. Then it was E. Ray’s turn to question Rose.