Buried Memories (24 page)

“I liked my dad and Jimmy Don Beets. Bill Lane was okay to be around, but I’ve seen him beat my mother until she couldn’t open her eyes. One time I had to go to jail to bond her out after she shot Lane.”

But at today’s interrogation, Faye just shook her head, saying it was impossible to believe this actually happened in her family.

E. Ray wanted more positive things said about Betty Beets, and it appeared the only person who would do that was Betty herself, so he called her to the stand.

“Do you know anything about the death of Jimmy Don Beets?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do you know anything about the death of Wayne Barker?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you know why Phyllis or any of your kids would say anything to hurt you?”

“No, sir. We’ve always been a close family.”

Andrews explained that capital murder involved killing someone for money or something similar, such as insurance.

“I didn’t do that,” Betty said. Showing no emotion or remorse, her reserve contrasted sharply with her daughters’ emotional displays.

“Have you collected a quarter in insurance money from any husband?”

“I haven’t collected anything from anybody.”

Andrews knew he had to mention Betty’s going to court two months before to have Jimmy Don declared legally dead before the prosecution brought it up. He asked, “Did you intend to wait seven years for the insurance?”

“I never wanted any money from him. I don’t know how much insurance I have coming.”

“Now you testified that you were standing next to Ray Bone when he was on the phone telling Deputy Rose what highway you’d be fixin’ to come in on. Why’d he have him do that?”

Bandy objected to Andrews questioning what the investigator was after, calling it a .“fishing expedition.”

“If this is a fishing expedition,” E. Ray retorted, “I haven’t caught anything.”

That comment abruptly brought the hearing to a close, and Judge Venita Lucas decided to bind Betty Beets to the grand jury.

Jimmy Don Beets received a second burial on June 21. His family held his funeral service at Roselawn Memorial Garden in Seagoville, Texas. He was laid to rest amid the East Texas rolling hills decorated with red and pink begonias. A host of Dallas Fire Department officials participated, and several gave glowing eulogies for their friend. In the weeks ahead, he would have a granite headstone with a bronze military plaque because he had served in the U.S. Army.

Few of the people standing before his flag-draped casket knew that Jimmy Don was being buried without his skull.

TWENTY-TWO

By July 11, over a month after the skeletal remains were discovered, there was more action going on in the courthouse corridors than in the courtroom, and only hours from the grand jury hearing.

Rick Rose and Michael O’Brien clustered in a hallway with Robert Branson, Sr., and Jay Stegner, Shirley’s father and new husband. Both Branson and Stegner looked drained and stressed from the ordeal.

“I really want to help her,” Mr. Branson said. “But that can only happen if she’s willing to help herself.”

“Let’s get Phyllis to talk some sense into Shirley,” O’Brien suggested. “Phyllis tells us all the time how unfair she thinks it is that Shirley’s locked up for something her mom did. She also affirmed that E. Ray’s telling Shirley to keep her mouth shut.”

O’Brien marched the group closer to a corner in the hallway, farther away from the growing crowd.

“Here’s what we should do. Let’s bring Shirley over here to the courthouse and find a room where they can be alone. Then Phyllis can explain the situation to her.”

The jail sat several blocks away from the courthouse, and O’Brien called over there to request a deputy pick up Shirley Thompson Stegner and bring her over.

Now the two sisters huddled together in a small room. Bookcases lined the walls with volumes that were fat with criminal cases.

“I am so damn scared,” Shirley complained. “I’m worried about my life.”

“I bet,” Phyllis said sympathetically. “I know in my heart that you were only trying to help Mama. So listen to this. You need to tell the truth about her; then they’ll know you didn’t kill anyone. Also, you have to ditch E. Ray, ’cause he’s just on Mama’s side.”

“They want me to testify against Mama?” Shirley said, appearing concerned.

Phyllis nodded.

“But I’ll still need a lawyer, won’t I?”

“Daddy will get you one. He told me that a little while ago in the hall. He’ll pay for the lawyer and everything.”

“Then what happens to me?”

Phyllis thought for a moment. “They didn’t really spell that out, but I’d think without that extra murder charge, you’d get your bail reduced. Then Daddy would get a bail bond and you’d be outta there.”

A broad smile brightened Shirley’s face. “Hell yes, I’ll do it!”

With all the publicity about the trial, Betty received numerous letters people sent to the jail, but only after a deputy first read and thoroughly inspected them.

In late September as her trial approached, an anonymous writer sent Betty one of her more unusual letters:

Dear Mrs. Beets,

Don’t let anyone read, hear, or see this letter. I am writing in regards to your case. I am the only one who can help you. Do everything that I tell you.

Tell the jailer that someone is in the cell with you and you are hearing voices. Begin running back and forth like you have lost your mind.

When they take you to the doctor, don’t say anything to him. Just start touching things on his desk. Fall on the floor and move your body up and down. When they touch you, stop and act like you don’t know what is going on. This will make everyone think you are having a mental breakdown.

When you see your attorney, don’t say anything to him or anyone for that matter. Then they will take you before a judge and have you committed to an institution. When you decide to be yourself, you must tell them you don’t remember anything. This will save your life. They cannot prosecute you, for you will be classified as a mentally ill person, and no one can touch you for as long as you don’t remember.

If you don’t do what I say, you will die. Destroy this letter. I do this because I like helping people.

“I don’t know a lawyer,” Robert Branson said after Phyllis ran out to tell him of Shirley’s decision.

“There are lawyers all around this courthouse square,” Mike O’Brien told him, pointing to the street outside the building. “Just head in any direction and you’ll find one.”

Twenty minutes later, Robert Branson came back with a lawyer in tow. Jay Stegner threw his fist in the air, screaming, “Yes! Shirley’s getting out!”

Investigator Karen Warner waited in the DA’s office for Shirley Stegner to give her long-anticipated statement. Shirley’s newly hired attorney ushered her into a long, carpeted room that could have been used for a board meeting. Michael O’Brien and Rick Rose walked in behind them, and they all gathered in chairs at one end of the table. A fresh tape had been placed into the recorder.

Warner, a pretty woman, was always professional. Now she needed that professionalism to help camouflage her inner softness, for when she first saw Shirley, Warner thought her heart would bleed for the painfully thin young woman who had lost many a bout to drugs.

Karen Warner looked into Shirley’s eyes and saw old eyes—nothing sparkled. Shirley appeared to have seen too much in her short life.

As a state’s witness, Shirley was surrounded by people who wanted to help her, but she remained wired tight and very nervous.

It had been over a month since Shirley had been read her rights, but now with her own attorney present, she waived her right to be silent.

Rose said, “Why don’t you start at the very beginning, and tell us when you first knew about your mother’s plans?”

“I believe it was October of 1981 when my mother, Betty Lou Beets, told me she was going to kill Wayne Barker. We were in her backyard on Red Bluff Loop at Cherokee Shores sitting around a bonfire . . .”

Everyone saw the stress on Shirley’s face and heard it in her voice, but she continued, relating everything that had happened from when she first heard her mother’s plan until she helped bury Barker in the backyard. When she spoke of her mother getting someone with a backhoe to dig the grave for Barker, O’Brien jotted down a note.

Warner artfully pulled details from Shirley by continually asking questions. “What happened right before that occurred?” or “Once your mother did that, what immediately followed?” She forced Shirley to search back in her mind four years and come up with details that would provide the missing pieces to their puzzle.

Shirley’s information established that her mother had minutely planned Barker’s murder. “Betty told me that she was going to wait until Wayne went to sleep and that she would shoot him while he was in bed.”

After Shirley finished describing the first murder, she said, “Approximately one year later, Betty married Jimmy Don Beets. Their marriage was the best I recall Betty ever having. Jimmy Don was loved by all of Betty’s children, and he treated Betty and all of us better than we had ever been treated by a stepfather. I lived with them for three months. Jimmy Don let me stay there to help me through a marital crisis.

“In July of 1983, Betty told me she believed she was going to end up killing Jimmy Don. I told her, ”Mama, you promised me that you’d never do anything like this again. I just can’t help you because all of us love Jimmy Don. We all loved Wayne too.’

“A week before his death, she told me she was going to ask Robby, my brother, to take Jimmy Don’s boat out on the lake, set it adrift, and make it appear that he had disappeared in a boating accident.”

She reached for the Coke Rick Rose had placed in front of her and took a big gulp, then wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

“Around the first part of August 1983, Betty called me. At that time I had remarried and was living with my new husband, Jody Thompson, in Dallas. When Betty called, I asked, ”Have you done it?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ By that I knew she had killed Jimmy Don.

“Betty wanted me to come down to Cedar Creek to see her because she was upset. She told me to tell my husband that she and Jimmy Don had been fighting and that Jimmy Don had left and gone to Dallas. So my husband and I drove down around one in the morning. I no sooner walked in her door when Betty said, ‘Everything’s been taken care of. You can go back home.’ By that I understood she had got Robby to help bury Jimmy Don.

“After that, I’ve had very little contact with Betty until our arrest for the murders of Wayne and Jimmy Don. Since we’ve been in custody at the Henderson County Jail, Betty again confirmed that she had shot Jimmy Don and buried him in the wishing well.”

During the time Shirley was making her statement to the DA, Betty Beets had been lying on her cot trying to take an afternoon nap. She had awakened intermittently, concerned that her daughter had been absent for almost three hours.

Her greatest fear was that the investigators were forcing Shirley to talk.

By late afternoon, Shirley came down the jail corridor. Once her daughter went inside the next cell, Betty sat up and squinted in disbelief.

Shirley had changed into street clothes, and now hurried around her cell, collecting her few personal belongings.

“Why the hell are you dressed like that?”

Shirley said nothing.

“Where’re you going?”

Shirley turned around, a brush in one hand, a shoe in the other. “I’m going to where I should be,” she said. “I’m going home.”

With the combination of Robby’s and Shirley’s statements, Rose and O’Brien finally had their hands on two sworn affidavits that completed the picture of what had happened during both murders.

Their case against Betty Beets grew stronger by the day.

Mike O’Brien began searching for the man who dug Wayne Barker’s grave.

Fire Captain Hugh DeWoody knew everyone in the area, so O’Brien called him. He explained the situation to DeWoody, and told him that finding the backhoe operator would corroborate Shirley’s testimony.

“I know some of those people,” DeWoody told him.

“Many of the subdivisions have maintenance crews because they have to fix their own ditches and roads. I’d guess most of them would have backhoes.”

“The man would probably be running off his mouth by now, unless he thinks I’m after him for accessory to a murder,” O’Brien said.

“That would keep him quiet,” DeWoody said. “I’ll give you a call as soon as I know something.”

After all the testimony had been given in the preliminary hearings, the grand jury’s decision appeared a foregone conclusion. It surprised no one when on July 11, 1985, the grand jury returned two murder indictments against Betty Lou Beets, and one against Shirley Stegner for Wayne Barker’s death.

A letter from Betty to another inmate had been intercepted by jail authorities. In the letter, Betty questioned Phyllis’s statement to Rick Rose and told the other inmate that Phyllis “was on drugs real bad.” She wanted to know if the statement would stand up in court because of Phyllis’s drug-fuzzed mind. Betty knew better than to divulge anything incriminating in her letter; in fact, she did just the opposite and questioned if the police knew how the two men found in her yard had been killed. If the investigators hoped to find a jailhouse confession from Betty, they were disappointed.