Speaker 1: This episode maintain content of a graphic nature, including descriptions
Speaker 1: of physical and sexual violence against adults, children, and animals.
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Shannon. Hi I'm Tanya, and we are Crimes
Speaker 2: and Consequences, a hardcore true crime podcast. Hey Shannon, Hey Tanya,
Speaker 2: how are you? I'm doing pretty good for a Monday.
Speaker 3: How are you?
Speaker 2: I am doing a really good for a Monday too.
Speaker 2: I've come to some decisions.
Speaker 3: Oh, important life decisions.
Speaker 2: I like to call them first world problem. So no, seriously,
Speaker 2: A while back, I was using ozembic right caab really
Speaker 2: good results. Then some life events happened. I put it
Speaker 2: on the back burner and it's been about gosh, six
Speaker 2: eight weeks now, you know. And just yesterday I was sinking,
Speaker 2: I need to get my head back on it. I
Speaker 2: need to get back on it because they had really
Speaker 2: good results and I like it. And then I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: whoa Thursday is Thanksgiving? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm
Speaker 2: not starting it right now. I'm not going to start
Speaker 2: it until January probably this is prime grazing time. Yes,
Speaker 2: you know, I did this guy, we'll call him Ronnie. Ronnie.
Speaker 2: I had to take him to rehab twice, and I
Speaker 2: remember both times. Yeah, both times we had to stop
Speaker 2: and get him a fifth of Jamison that he was
Speaker 2: going to polish off in the twenty minute ride to rehab,
Speaker 2: which was usually going to keep him out of jail time.
Speaker 2: So that's how I feel like I am, Tanya. This
Speaker 2: is my Jamison time. I'm loading up on Jamison until
Speaker 2: I get to rehab, which is December. After Leftover, it's
Speaker 2: just Nomber twenty eight. I'll be ready for.
Speaker 3: Zen Helm Pigure's your rehab exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm ready. I'm fucking ready right after Christmas.
Speaker 3: Yes, I hear you.
Speaker 2: How's it going with you?
Speaker 3: Oh it's great. I also was on nozempic, but I
Speaker 3: haven't been taking it the past few weeks, and I
Speaker 3: because I just wanted to see, like, can I still maintain?
Speaker 3: I've been able to maintain. I've still lost the pounds,
Speaker 3: so I'm up around like thirty five pounds.
Speaker 2: So see that's what I mean. Like, I know, I'll
Speaker 2: let you know what I weigh my next land because
Speaker 2: I don't want to know yet. You know, I'm not
Speaker 2: ready to face that. You're right, I'm not facing it,
Speaker 2: not yet. So I have some big eating to do.
Speaker 2: I don't know about me and massed potatoes. We're gonna
Speaker 2: get down in dead day.
Speaker 3: So what do you got for me today?
Speaker 2: Well, I do have a story about Miss Betty Lou Beats.
Speaker 2: And before I tell you, let me let everybody know
Speaker 2: that wherever you're listening to us, that goal ahead and
Speaker 2: hit subscribing, you'll never miss us crimes and consequences. So, Tommy,
Speaker 2: let me tell you about Betty Lou Dunavante. That's her
Speaker 2: maiden name, which we will call her Betty Lou Beats.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, okay, So Betty Lou. She was
Speaker 2: born in Roxboro, North Carolina, on March twelfth, nineteen thirty seven.
Speaker 2: That makes her Pisces. Okay, So she had a hell
Speaker 2: of a childhood. She lost her hearing at a very
Speaker 2: early age. She was three due to the measles and yeah,
Speaker 2: I know in nineteen thirty seven, so forty measles, no backs.
Speaker 2: She claimed to have been sexually abused by her own
Speaker 2: father when she was only five years old. She was
Speaker 2: the second child born to her parents. Her father's name
Speaker 2: was James Garland Dounavon and her mother was Margaret Louise
Speaker 2: Smithwick Smithwick Dounavon the town of Roxboro barely had five
Speaker 2: thousand people in its population at the time Betty came
Speaker 2: into the world, and this area was still trying to
Speaker 2: get back on its feet, and the community was just
Speaker 2: trying to find their way out of the Great Depression
Speaker 2: m h m hm. At the time of her birth,
Speaker 2: Betty's family resided in a very small cabin that had
Speaker 2: no running water, and the windows of the cabin home
Speaker 2: didn't even have glass in them. Can you imagine that
Speaker 2: is just like little house on a prairie?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Do you remember reading those books too?
Speaker 3: I did not read the books. Oh, I only watched
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I Oh my gosh. You know you're always worried
Speaker 2: about the hungry wolf in the winter. Yeah, and then
Speaker 2: there's a window in the panes. So Betty had an
Speaker 2: older brother named Dewey, and to also two younger siblings,
Speaker 2: but not much has really known about them, other than
Speaker 2: the fact that Betty and Dewey had to take care
Speaker 2: of one another when she was around twelve years old
Speaker 2: after her mother became mentally ill. Will dive deeper into
Speaker 2: Margaret's mental state, but before her mother became mentally ill.
Speaker 2: She cleaned mansions and homes of wealthy families. Whenever their
Speaker 2: mother came back home after long day's work. Margaret would
Speaker 2: always love telling her children every little detail of the
Speaker 2: houses she worked in that day. Especially that was exciting. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, like I wonder what mom saw today. Betty's
Speaker 2: eyes would light up and sparkle while listening to her
Speaker 2: mother's detailed day. The small family lived in poverty, so
Speaker 2: they never were really able to get their hands on
Speaker 2: milk and vegetables, so they had no choice other than
Speaker 2: to survive on flour, salted pork, and corn meal. You imagine. No, Now,
Speaker 2: I didn't really know what the difference between regular pork
Speaker 2: and salted pork was, so I did a little digging,
Speaker 2: and I was able to discover that salted pork is
Speaker 2: usually used for adding flavor to dishes, like you added
Speaker 2: to canned baked beans. Get that nice savory flavor. Now,
Speaker 2: these three food items were barely nourishing enough to keep
Speaker 2: Betty and Dewey fed. The family's only way to get
Speaker 2: heat in the cabin without windows was a cold stove,
Speaker 2: but since the house had no windows, the heat was
Speaker 2: never felt. Betty and her brother were always fighting colds
Speaker 2: and the flu due to their constant lack of warmth
Speaker 2: in the winter months. When she was still a child,
Speaker 2: her family moved from North Carolina to the industrial town
Speaker 2: of Danville, Virginia. This was only about thirty miles north
Speaker 2: from Roxboro, North Carolina. While Betty and Dewey went to daycare,
Speaker 2: Margaret and James were able to find work at the
Speaker 2: local cottinas. While working there, Betty's parents were able to
Speaker 2: provide more than the basic necessities for their children. They
Speaker 2: were also able to move into a cozy little home
Speaker 2: that had windows and was able to keep the family warm.
Speaker 2: See how things can just change in a day, right,
Speaker 2: That's like grueling kind of childhood for.
Speaker 3: Didn't even imagine.
Speaker 2: Oh. After this move was when Betty got sick with
Speaker 2: the measles, and this illness nearly killed her. She was
Speaker 2: only about five years old and she suffered through one
Speaker 2: hundred and five degree fever for days. Ooh Ough, her
Speaker 2: mother looked after her and would try to keep her
Speaker 2: little girl's temperature down with ice cold compresses on her forehead.
Speaker 2: She once compared Betty's fevered body temperature to a frying pan.
Speaker 2: I bet yeah, Margaret prayed and prayed that God wouldn't
Speaker 2: take her baby because she was that sick with the
Speaker 2: measles came one ear infection after the next, and when
Speaker 2: Betty got better and was able to return to school,
Speaker 2: she could barely hear her teachers as they went through
Speaker 2: their lessons. Betty struggled and she had to repeat the
Speaker 2: fourth grade. Oh boy, Yeah, this in itself is embarrassing
Speaker 2: for any child to go through. As the rest of
Speaker 2: her friends moved on to the next grade, she was
Speaker 2: absolutely humiliated as her friends made fun of her When
Speaker 2: they would see her in the hallways at school. They
Speaker 2: would chant at her and call her stupid. It just
Speaker 2: makes me want to punch makes it, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. I know that there are children, but it
Speaker 2: makes me want to just be their age for just
Speaker 2: a quick minute, take care of some business. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna grow right back up. But Betty didn't know any
Speaker 2: better about herself. She leave the rumors about herself. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that is really what kids do. And that's why
Speaker 2: you know how kids can be jerk sometimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: It really is. The first bullies. Betty's mother, Margaret, gave
Speaker 2: birth to a son named Jinny when Betty was eight
Speaker 2: years old. Two years later, another child was born, a
Speaker 2: daughter who they named Jackie. Four years after giving birth
Speaker 2: to Jackie, Margaret had a mental breakdown, or what they
Speaker 2: called a psychotic break. Never once did she experience any
Speaker 2: symptoms that would lead doctors into predicting that this was
Speaker 2: going to happen. One day, everything was fine, and the
Speaker 2: next day the cotton mill called an ambulance for Margaret
Speaker 2: to be rushed to the closest hospital. Margaret was admitted
Speaker 2: and she stayed in the hospital for a week, and
Speaker 2: when she was finally released, Margaret was pale and completely
Speaker 2: shaken at what had just occurred in her place of work.
Speaker 2: Nothing like this had ever happened to her, so she
Speaker 2: had no clue what to think, and she was scared.
Speaker 2: Her doctors provided her with medications to regulate her, and
Speaker 2: they would consistently come by the house to make sure
Speaker 2: she was okay. Not long after the mental break, she
Speaker 2: sadly began to hallucinate demons, and she began hearing voices
Speaker 2: in her head that sounds like schizophrenia, Yeah, definitely. Often
Speaker 2: she would have moments where she was physically trying to
Speaker 2: fight off the demons that only she could see, and
Speaker 2: with that came many people believing that Margaret was out
Speaker 2: of her mind and crazy when she needed mental help.
Speaker 2: Betty witnessed a lot of her mom's mental state and
Speaker 2: she became terrified whenever she saw her mother acting strangely
Speaker 2: and violently, and after seeing this, Betty wondered if this
Speaker 2: illness was hereditary. Well after her mental illness got worse,
Speaker 2: roughly a year later, Margaret was sent to live at
Speaker 2: Eastern State Hospital located in Williamsburg, Virginia, about two hundred
Speaker 2: miles east of Danville. While she was institutionalized, she was
Speaker 2: for three months and while she was there, she went
Speaker 2: through some pretty tough treatments such as shock therapy and
Speaker 2: insulin coma therapy.
Speaker 3: Wow Yeah.
Speaker 2: Insulin coma therapy was used between the years nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: three in nineteen sixty and This concept was used to
Speaker 2: help mental patients deal with severe mental problems. This form
Speaker 2: of treatment consisted of patients getting injected with a very
Speaker 2: large dose of insulin to create a medically induced coma.
Speaker 2: It was considered to be crucial throughout the development of
Speaker 2: psychiatry in the United States. This was eventually phased out
Speaker 2: when antidepressants had been invented in a pill form and
Speaker 2: they were able to help patients without administering incredible amounts
Speaker 2: of Although this technique was considered to be monumental, it
Speaker 2: was also discovered to have no real effect on mental patients.
Speaker 3: Oh that's great. So making people go into these medically
Speaker 3: induced comas and they didn't help at all.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. You know how many time I would
Speaker 2: be like, I need to go into a coma. I
Speaker 2: need to fucking go into a coma. I have an
Speaker 2: appointment to go into a comma. You know that would
Speaker 2: be nice.
Speaker 3: This is just crazy, though, that really is.
Speaker 2: What nineteen thirty three. Inineteen sixty we didn't know shit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like that's gonna help.
Speaker 3: Come on. Yeah, they put them to sleep.
Speaker 2: That did help.
Speaker 3: They didn't have to be watched, you know exactly.
Speaker 2: It helped. Who worked there? Yeah, I give them off
Speaker 2: their backs?
Speaker 3: Yeah right, they didn't care.
Speaker 2: That was yeah. I would love to know the first
Speaker 2: like hypothesis of behind this experiment. Well, Sadly, Betty was
Speaker 2: not only bullied for having to repeat the fourth grade,
Speaker 2: but she was also bullied for her mom's mental capacity. Now,
Speaker 2: these little assholes would always fake having seizures when passing
Speaker 2: Betty in the hallways at school. That's hilarious, Oh because
Speaker 2: yeah that I'm dealing with this at homes Thanks for yeah, Dix,
Speaker 2: And they would frantically waving their hands as if to
Speaker 2: flail while getting a reaction out of the rest of
Speaker 2: Betty's classmates. Clowns. Fucking clowns, right. This constant torment made
Speaker 2: Betty come to the realization that she hated school and
Speaker 2: would do anything to get away from it. She took
Speaker 2: on the mother role for the rest of her siblings.
Speaker 2: She cooked and she cleaned up after everyone. She would
Speaker 2: often feel too exhausted to go to school, and she
Speaker 2: missed a lot of class because she had other priorities
Speaker 2: she felt more more important than getting bullied every day.
Speaker 2: I hear your sister. She eventually weighed only eighty pounds. Yeah,
Speaker 2: with all the shit she was going through with her mom.
Speaker 2: Betty's father would often come home from work completely drunk
Speaker 2: because he had fallen into a depressed state due to
Speaker 2: Margaret's mental state. Whenever her father, James, was drunk, Betty
Speaker 2: would become scared of him. One wrong move could get
Speaker 2: her beaten with the leather belt that he had just
Speaker 2: taken off after having a long, strenuous day at the Cottinals.
Speaker 2: After Betty was beaten, she would obey her father, but
Speaker 2: this created hostility within Betty, as it would, she came
Speaker 2: to the understanding that if she obeyed him, there would
Speaker 2: be no beatings. It's truly heartbreaking to see how Betty
Speaker 2: suffered as a young child, and here is yet another
Speaker 2: example of feeling sorry for the child, but not for
Speaker 2: the murderous adult. You know, yeah, we feel sorry and
Speaker 2: I do. This is hard, this is a hard upbringing.
Speaker 2: These years felt like an eternity to Betty, so at
Speaker 2: her first chance of freedom, she jumped. So Betty, when
Speaker 2: she was fifteen years old, she got married to an
Speaker 2: eighteen year old man named Rob Franklin Branson. Now, when
Speaker 2: the two first met, he was quiet and she was
Speaker 2: hard working at the local zipper factory. Sometimes life it's
Speaker 2: so scripted. Let's make him work at the local zipper factory.
Speaker 2: Even though he didn't have much money and the future
Speaker 2: didn't look pretty, she didn't care one bit. Margaret forced
Speaker 2: Betty into marrying him because she thought Betty was pregnant.
Speaker 2: The reasoning behind this thought was because she had not
Speaker 2: gotten her period yet. And when a girl hadn't had
Speaker 2: her period at the age of fifteen while, then she
Speaker 2: must be pregnant, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not male nourished or anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not like he's eighty pounds or something else. No,
Speaker 2: it must be pregnancy. The truth of the matter was
Speaker 2: that Betty was a virgin who just hadn't gotten her
Speaker 2: first period yet. So after Margaret's strong encouragement, Betty and
Speaker 2: Robert were married on July eighteenth, nineteen fifty two, and
Speaker 2: this was only a month after she finished her freshman
Speaker 2: year of high school. Whoa a year after their marriage,
Speaker 2: Betty became pregnant with the couple's first child. Thing. According
Speaker 2: to reports, the marriage between Betty and Robert was abusive
Speaker 2: and she still wanted freedom that comes along with being
Speaker 2: a young teenage girl. At one point, Betty said to
Speaker 2: her husband, I'm no better off now than when I
Speaker 2: had to cook and clean from my parents, and having
Speaker 2: this baby is just like being saddled with my brother
Speaker 2: and sister. Yikes. She was a wife and new mother,
Speaker 2: but the couple separated. You to the abuse, Robert thought
Speaker 2: that maybe more money would make his complaining wife happier,
Speaker 2: so he went to Norfolk, the shipyard to find a
Speaker 2: better paying job. He was making a lot more money,
Speaker 2: so he tried to shower his new little family with
Speaker 2: gifts and luxuries that Betty never had before. Rather than
Speaker 2: being happy that she could live as comfortably as she
Speaker 2: ever had, Betty was pissed about being at home with
Speaker 2: the baby instead of having her freedom. She would often
Speaker 2: say at the time, I'm only sixteen. That does yeah,
Speaker 2: I hear you right what? I am only sixteen.
Speaker 3: I am only sixteen. Jesus, give me a break.
Speaker 2: It also didn't help that whenever she would run into
Speaker 2: her former classmates, they would always brag about the best
Speaker 2: high school events that they knew she was missing out on,
Speaker 2: like proms, homecoming dances, football games, pep rallies. The couple
Speaker 2: constantly argued, and due to this they separated for a
Speaker 2: happy year. When the separation happened, she had to move
Speaker 2: herself and faith back home to live with her parents,
Speaker 2: and this crushed her more than anything else, so she
Speaker 2: fell into a severely depressed state. He knew that she
Speaker 2: didn't want to be in her current situation, and she
Speaker 2: tried to kill herself by swallowing two whole bottles of aspirin. Yikes,
Speaker 2: yes yeah. After her parents found her unconscious next to
Speaker 2: two empty bottles, they called her husband and told him
Speaker 2: exactly what happened. Robert rushed to her bedside and convinced
Speaker 2: her to get back together with him. Not long after
Speaker 2: the two got back together, their daughter, Connie was born,
Speaker 2: and with a new baby came a brand new start.
Speaker 2: Robert found a new job in Texas working construction, and
Speaker 2: this job offered a lot more money than he was
Speaker 2: making at the shipyard. The family of four packed up
Speaker 2: and moved to Mesquite, Texas, and this small town is
Speaker 2: located about eighteen minutes east of Dallas. While Betty began
Speaker 2: to fall in love with being a full time mother,
Speaker 2: Robert did very well at his new job. The family
Speaker 2: began to blossom into a family of five when their
Speaker 2: daughter surely came into the world the beginning of nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine. She and Robert would have three more children together.
Speaker 2: Their third daughter, Phyllis, was born in nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 2: Their first son, Robert Franklin, the second he goes by Robbie,
Speaker 2: was born in nineteen sixty four, and their second son,
Speaker 2: Bobby was born in nineteen sixty six. Whoa right, Well,
Speaker 2: she went from not being lying to be a mom
Speaker 2: to being a mom a nice brood of kids you know,
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, pretty cool. Within their fourteen year long marriage,
Speaker 2: Robert and Betty parented six children. Betty was only twenty
Speaker 2: nine years old and she was considered to be very attractive.
Speaker 2: She knew how to dress to her body type, and
Speaker 2: her body type was very unusual for a woman who
Speaker 2: had given birth to six children. She had a tiny waist,
Speaker 2: large boobs, and she wore makeup that looked to be
Speaker 2: applied professionally, but she would do it herself. She would
Speaker 2: also spol four inch high heels since she was only
Speaker 2: five to two inches tall. She bleached her hair out
Speaker 2: blonde since that was the color of her hair when
Speaker 2: she was young, and she would give herself perms to
Speaker 2: keep her hair as high as heaven and asinous closer
Speaker 2: to God girl yes, and as voluminous as she possibly
Speaker 2: couldn't and this was very in style at the time,
Speaker 2: especially for women who were looking for a man in
Speaker 2: the local bars. Saying, staying home raising six kids was
Speaker 2: something that she was getting over, and she began to
Speaker 2: crave a man who would make her feel sexy and wanted.
Speaker 2: You know, I did not pick a body in this
Speaker 2: incarnation that would rebound so robustly after pregnancy, after one,
Speaker 2: let alone six.
Speaker 3: Yes, but when I tell you, you know you weren't
Speaker 3: sixteen fast?
Speaker 2: What that's true? You know? Yes, I was almost double
Speaker 2: that I was thirty one. Yeah, she're just older. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean just that when I see women who are
Speaker 2: like and I'm like, and you're amazing, even though I
Speaker 2: know it has nothing to do with them or else
Speaker 2: we'd all be doing it right. But like, your body
Speaker 2: just has its own running system which is so much
Speaker 2: more different than mine. So now, Betty, she began to
Speaker 2: go out late at night to see two things, a
Speaker 2: man and a good time, oh, which are the same
Speaker 2: faith as they are two sides of the same coin. Yes,
Speaker 2: So she began to recruit her older kids to babysit
Speaker 2: the youngest ones, and after she dressed herself to the nines,
Speaker 2: she drove to a bar located in East Dallas called
Speaker 2: the Silver Slipper. Betty was a smashing success at the
Speaker 2: bars as men began to fight over her, and she
Speaker 2: realized that this was the life she never got to
Speaker 2: live right you are, and according to her, it wasn't
Speaker 2: too late. She was going to grab life by the longhorns.
Speaker 2: When this became a usual thing at home, her kids
Speaker 2: began to become angry with her. She would literally do
Speaker 2: anything to get out of that house and away from
Speaker 2: her reality. The home that she once kept tidy was
Speaker 2: falling apart quickly. Robert even said to her, Betty, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to put up with this. I always thought
Speaker 2: you were a good wife, and I know the kids
Speaker 2: love you, but I can't handle how you're acting while
Speaker 2: I'm out trying to support our family. Robert, by all accounts,
Speaker 2: was considered to be quite a handsome man, and women
Speaker 2: really seemed to find him attractive. In nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: he demanded a divorce from Betty after the two had
Speaker 2: been married for seventeen years, and once the divorce was finalized,
Speaker 2: he quickly got remarried to a younger woman. I'd like
Speaker 2: to hear his side of the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can blame Betty for going to the bars,
Speaker 2: but if you're doing a madman thing where you're always
Speaker 2: out and about. Yeah, So the ended marriage with Robert
Speaker 2: absolutely destroyed Betty both emotionally and financially. She got full
Speaker 2: custody of the six children. Now, this is a different time,
Speaker 2: and Robert was required to pay a court ordered monthly
Speaker 2: amount of three hundred and fifty dollars for child support,
Speaker 2: which is the equivalent a little over three thousand today.
Speaker 2: It was decent money in nineteen sixty nine, but you
Speaker 2: split between six children. It wasn't enough, you know now,
Speaker 2: because this is covering all the bills and all the
Speaker 2: six kids for three hundred and fifty a month. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't know how much their rent would be or
Speaker 2: their mortgage. You know, there's things, but it wasn't enough,
Speaker 2: especially since Betty didn't work. Betty drank to help cope
Speaker 2: with the loneliness that she was experiencing, and she's spent
Speaker 2: most of her nights out on a town bar hopping.
Speaker 2: As the children got older, they wasted no time, leaving
Speaker 2: Betty one by one. Betty even sent some of them
Speaker 2: away so that she could live her life the way
Speaker 2: she wanted. Now, Faye actually met a nice man and
Speaker 2: moved out after marrying him at the age of fifteen. Wow, Yeah,
Speaker 2: everyone's jumped and ship. You know, she jumped ship. Betty
Speaker 2: jumps ship for her family. You know, the cycle repeating.
Speaker 2: Now her oldest is doing the same. So after Fay
Speaker 2: moved out to start a life of her own, Betty
Speaker 2: sent Robbie and Phyllis away to live with their father
Speaker 2: and his new bride. That's so bitchy, you know. Oh
Speaker 2: your father just got married.
Speaker 3: Go yeah, you go live with your day go.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Robbie is only eight years old and Phyllis was ten.
Speaker 2: These are crucial girling years for these kids. At this
Speaker 2: time too, when Betty was kissing Robbie goodbye, he had
Speaker 2: tears in his eyes and pleaded with his mom to
Speaker 2: let him live with her. And she just looked at
Speaker 2: him and said soon. Yeah. Why I know what. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Oh I couldn't even imagine. Oh this is where we
Speaker 2: part ways, the cool bar life, the fun bar life.
Speaker 2: But she did, she said soon. And then she went
Speaker 2: five years without seeing him at all. Wow. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: we know Robbie's had hopefully good therapy.
Speaker 3: Yes, hopefully.
Speaker 2: Ah yes, And when she did see him, it was
Speaker 2: only for a couple of minutes. Ten years went by
Speaker 2: in total before he came back home to live with
Speaker 2: his mother. Now that's awkward h Connie eventually left the
Speaker 2: house and went to live with Fay. Shirley would sometimes
Speaker 2: live with Betty, but most of the time she lived
Speaker 2: with her friends. Now Bobby, he was only a toddler
Speaker 2: at three years old when his parents divorced, and he
Speaker 2: was Betty's favorite. He was the only child she actually
Speaker 2: wanted to keep with her. Yeah, until he turns about
Speaker 2: six or seven, and that's when the week really fall
Speaker 2: away when it comes to adultings. Robert completely washed his
Speaker 2: hands with Betty once their divorce was finalized, and the
Speaker 2: money that Betty was able to get from welfare organizations
Speaker 2: wasn't enough to cover her everyday expenses. With my children,
Speaker 2: all of their children noticed that after their dad left
Speaker 2: their mom, Betty wasn't truly happy with anyone else. Ever. Again,
Speaker 2: their children remembered the good times between their parents and
Speaker 2: their second daughter. Connie once told a friend, most of
Speaker 2: the good times I remember about my mother were before
Speaker 2: she and my daddy got divorced. Mama worked so hard
Speaker 2: to please him, and when Daddy worked nights, she would
Speaker 2: put on makeup before she went to bed, so when
Speaker 2: he came home around two or three in the morning,
Speaker 2: she's looking nice for him. Oh, oh fuck that I know.
Speaker 2: Why is he coming fucking home two or three in
Speaker 2: the morning? What the fuck?
Speaker 3: You washed my face before I go to bed? Just
Speaker 3: deal with it.
Speaker 2: That's right, Yes, skincare is and it is very important.
Speaker 2: That's very dulting. The marriage with Robert did finally come
Speaker 2: to an end in nineteen sixty nine. In the following year,
Speaker 2: she married her second husband, named Billy york Lane when
Speaker 2: she was thirty three years old, and Betty thought that
Speaker 2: she had escaped abuse when she and Robert separated, but sadly,
Speaker 2: the same ensued with Billy, and shit got pretty wild
Speaker 2: when they were married. There were many mind games being
Speaker 2: played by both parties along with jealousy and betrayal. Betty
Speaker 2: was actually excited to introduce him to her kids before
Speaker 2: they all moved out or were kicked out. She told
Speaker 2: her kids that they would love him since he was
Speaker 2: so nice to her. If only she would have spent
Speaker 2: more time getting to know him before they tied, not
Speaker 2: on July twenty eight, nineteen seventy, she would have seen
Speaker 2: how bad of the temper he had. Gaining weight rather
Speaker 2: quickly while with Billy, and even though she kept drinking.
Speaker 2: She also took a drug called dexatrim. Remember dexatrin. Remember
Speaker 2: she took it regularly. Betty admittedly took more of this
Speaker 2: drugs than what the label instructed, and according to Betty,
Speaker 2: if she took more of it, the weight would just
Speaker 2: fall off. Yeah, because it's speed.
Speaker 3: Exactly, because it's speed.
Speaker 2: Cocaine's less aggressive.
Speaker 3: Cousin, I remember dexat I remember the commercials and shiit.
Speaker 2: Know, Gosh, if it would I don't even know where
Speaker 2: we'd be, I know.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: Sadly, the side effect she experienced were not exactly what
Speaker 2: she had in mind. She experienced insomnia, agitation, migraines, a
Speaker 2: bad temper, as you do. Didn't we call it roid rage? Yes,
Speaker 2: it was like a roid range. She was so. Her
Speaker 2: personality also changed drastically, and her children began to notice
Speaker 2: that their mom had more than one personality that would
Speaker 2: come out due to the overuse of the weight loss drug. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my bets, she would be completely calm one second, and
Speaker 2: like a switch flipped in her brain, she would be
Speaker 2: screaming and cussing it out her kids. Even before the
Speaker 2: changes in Betty's moods, Billy's abuse was shown within the
Speaker 2: first week of being newlyweds. He loved slapping her around,
Speaker 2: but this quickly escalated into beatings and punching her. Her
Speaker 2: kids couldn't stand to see their mother covered in bruises
Speaker 2: like that. Billy knew that she always did everything she
Speaker 2: could to look her best, so his favorite spot to
Speaker 2: punch and beat her was her face. He knew that
Speaker 2: would hurt more than just physically. It would kill her
Speaker 2: not to be able to cover the deep purple bruises
Speaker 2: on her face because the foundation wasn't enough to cover them. Eventually,
Speaker 2: in late October nineteen seventy, she filed a restraining order
Speaker 2: against Billy, and the two divorced two months later. This
Speaker 2: never stopped him, though, and the fights ensued. It almost
Speaker 2: seemed like the two of them were addicted to one another.
Speaker 2: Yeah that trauma bond or yeah, toxic relation. On more
Speaker 2: than one occasion, Betty would come home from work to
Speaker 2: notice a car sitting a little ways from her apartment
Speaker 2: with the headlights off, and since she could see the silhouette,
Speaker 2: she knew it was Billy watching her from afar. She
Speaker 2: also said that while she was driving, she could see
Speaker 2: him following her in her rear view mirror. Betty once
Speaker 2: told her doctor, I don't know what's wrong with me.
Speaker 2: I get so depressed because I can't pull myself away
Speaker 2: from this man and he keeps hitting me. The doctor
Speaker 2: took many notes of her bruising and injuries from the
Speaker 2: abuse and recorded them in her medical chart. Rather than
Speaker 2: telling her to go to the police to report this
Speaker 2: domestic elence, he prescribed her an antidepressant perfect don't yeah,
Speaker 2: because endure and take this pill. Only a few months later,
Speaker 2: she made a trip to the emergency room because he
Speaker 2: hit her so hard in the eye that her skin
Speaker 2: busted open and she needed to get stitches to close
Speaker 2: the Wont so much for that Anni fucking depressant.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In May of nineteen seventy one, during one of their
Speaker 2: many arguments, Billy broke Betty's nose. And what does anyone
Speaker 2: do in that situation, Tanya, what do you think someone
Speaker 2: breaks your nose? You fucking grab a gun? Yeah? Shoot him?
Speaker 2: And she did. She didn't just shoot him once, she
Speaker 2: shot him two times in the back, in the back,
Speaker 2: in the back, so he was it's just I know,
Speaker 2: probably from all that abuse, and now you're gonna fucking
Speaker 2: run scurry and away. I have to bust my fucking
Speaker 2: nose right. You know your sins are gonna find you, bitch.
Speaker 2: So not that I condone shooting in the back, but
Speaker 2: I can understand the situation unfolding. As such, the police
Speaker 2: came to the house and they arrested her. She was
Speaker 2: then charged with assault with in time to commit murder
Speaker 2: with malice. Billy told the police that he was completely
Speaker 2: blindsided by this attempt at his life, and of course
Speaker 2: the police believed him. Betty claimed that she was defending
Speaker 2: herself and due to her shooting him in the back,
Speaker 2: authorities had a very hard time believing that she feared
Speaker 2: for her life. Connie was there when it all happened,
Speaker 2: and she was bawling her eyes out when the police
Speaker 2: responded to a nine to one one call to Betty's apartment.
Speaker 2: Connie told the police that Billy called the house and
Speaker 2: said that he was coming, and after Connie hung up
Speaker 2: the phone, she called the operator and told her to
Speaker 2: call the police. Connie had been listening on her mother's
Speaker 2: call from Billy on the extension, so she heard everything
Speaker 2: that was said. Billy's daughter, Barbara had a different story
Speaker 2: to tell. She told the police that she had also
Speaker 2: been listening in when the phone rang at Billy's apartment,
Speaker 2: but her story was very different. She told the officers
Speaker 2: that Betty was the one who called Billy to come
Speaker 2: over and get his things from the apartment. Barbara said,
Speaker 2: Betty called and Dad answered the phone. She was crying
Speaker 2: and asked Dad to come over to get his things.
Speaker 2: He asked, how many times are you gonna shoot me,
Speaker 2: and she said none. He also asked how many police
Speaker 2: would be there, and she said none. Dad wanted her
Speaker 2: to meet him at a different location, but she wouldn't
Speaker 2: do it. She told the police that her father left
Speaker 2: the house a little after one am that night, and
Speaker 2: he told Barbara that he would be back within a
Speaker 2: half hour, and she said at the time, I begged
Speaker 2: him not to go, but he went anyway. Billy had
Speaker 2: to be rushed into surgery because his condition was critical.
Speaker 2: The surgeons went in to remove the two bullets that
Speaker 2: were lodged into his body and so defense Billy gave
Speaker 2: the police officers the run around before He later admitted
Speaker 2: that he threatened to kill her before she shot him,
Speaker 2: and the charges were eventually dropped. So he did threaten
Speaker 2: to kill her.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, fuck around and find out I guess exactly,
Speaker 3: get a couple of bullets in your body.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and nothn't like beating a woman, you know. Fuck.
Speaker 2: As I mentioned earlier, Billy and Betty were separated and
Speaker 2: divorced at the time of the shooting, but they actually
Speaker 2: got remarried to one another.
Speaker 3: Oh geez ooh.
Speaker 2: Toxic relationship right. A trial actually took place for the
Speaker 2: attempted murder, and that's what rekindled their romance. Believes or not,
Speaker 2: maybe I love you, I love you, I love you baby.
Speaker 2: The second time around only lasted for about a month
Speaker 2: before getting divorced for a second time in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: I guess the second marriage was more of an annulment
Speaker 2: than divorce. Betty wasn't really one to stay single for
Speaker 2: too long, so the following year, Betty began dating a
Speaker 2: man named Ronnie Threllcold, who was a pretty heavy drinker.
Speaker 2: After four years of dating, the couple finally became husband
Speaker 2: and wife in nineteen seventy eight. Ronnie's way of life
Speaker 2: really didn't jive with what Betty wanted out of a husband.
Speaker 2: The marriage didn't last long at all, and this was
Speaker 2: because Betty tried to run him over with her car.
Speaker 2: That'll do it. So they separated after that, and they
Speaker 2: were only married for a year. Alexa, please play another
Speaker 2: one bites the dust. Ronnie was Betty's third husband for
Speaker 2: the listeners who are keeping count, and he would be
Speaker 2: the final man to leave a marriage to Betty with
Speaker 2: his heart still beating. Oh ooh, here it comes. Betty
Speaker 2: had a pretty rough year on her own and she
Speaker 2: was actually arrested for public indecency or lewdness. She was
Speaker 2: working at a topless at the time and she spent
Speaker 2: thirty days behind bars for this offense. So once again,
Speaker 2: Betty wasted no time moving on and in the same
Speaker 2: year she divorced Ronnie. She married her fourth husband, whose
Speaker 2: name was Doyle Wayne Baker. In nineteen seventy nine, about
Speaker 2: two years into the marriage, Doyle was shot and killed.
Speaker 2: Betty killed her fourth husband and buried his body in
Speaker 2: her own yard. Oh shit. Betty did what she could
Speaker 2: to keep up with the facade of the abandoned wife,
Speaker 2: and she went as far as telling all of her
Speaker 2: friend's family and neighbors that she and Doyle got into
Speaker 2: a pretty heated argument and after the argument, Doyle took
Speaker 2: off while also leaving his vehicle behind at the house,
Speaker 2: because that's what she'd do.
Speaker 3: Because you're gonna storm off on foot.
Speaker 2: I'm leaving and I'm gonna leave my car and disappear. Yes,
Speaker 2: never to be heard from ever. Yeah, that didn't add
Speaker 2: up at all. Did he walk away or hitchhike or
Speaker 2: get away from her? Unfortunately everyone believed her story because
Speaker 2: the couple were always fighting with each other. His disappearance
Speaker 2: was in October of nineteen eighty one. I've said it before.
Speaker 2: The eighties was a time to get away with shit,
Speaker 2: all the shit you could possibly get away with. The
Speaker 2: late seventies early eighties, there was no technology. They were
Speaker 2: taking swabs that they wouldn't be able to test for
Speaker 2: another twenty five years exactly. His disappearance was in October
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty one, and his body was later found
Speaker 2: on Betty's property. Betty's daughter later stated that she had
Speaker 2: helped her mother bury his body. Even though the bullets
Speaker 2: matched a gun that Betty owned. She was never tried
Speaker 2: for his murder. Wow, m h two years after shooting
Speaker 2: what was that?
Speaker 3: I said? That's crazy?
Speaker 2: It really is. Two years after shooting and killing Doyle.
Speaker 2: She married a retired fireman named Jimmy Don Beats, and
Speaker 2: he would be her last husband. Two years into their marriage, though,
Speaker 2: Betty called the police and reported Jimmy missing on August sixth,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two. According to Betty, he disappeared from their
Speaker 2: home located in Henderson County, Texas near the Cedar Creek Lake.
Speaker 2: Jimmy was a fisherman, so when Betty called the police,
Speaker 2: she told the cops that he had disappeared while out
Speaker 2: on his boat. According to her, he should have been home,
Speaker 2: but he was just never came back. Unfortunately, Jimmy's boat
Speaker 2: was found six days later near the Redwood Beach Marina,
Speaker 2: which is only about fourteen miles from the home they shared.
Speaker 2: On the boat, the police found nitroglycerin, tablets and his
Speaker 2: life best along with his fishing license eerie. So, around
Speaker 2: ten pm on August sixth, nineteen eighty three, several people
Speaker 2: at the Redwood Beach Marina saw Jimmy's empty boat floating
Speaker 2: out on the lake. Two people volunteered to go retrieve
Speaker 2: the empty boat and they were able to bring it
Speaker 2: to shore. The boat was served and that's when the
Speaker 2: license with the name Jimmy Don Beats was found. The
Speaker 2: Coastguard was called along with the Parks and Wildlife Service,
Speaker 2: and authorities came to the marina for further investigation. The
Speaker 2: owner of the marina looked up Jimmy's name in the
Speaker 2: phone book to see if they could get in touch
Speaker 2: with anyone to notify them about the boat. Jimmy's number
Speaker 2: was listed and the owner finally called the phone number
Speaker 2: multiple times. Finally Betty answered the phone and she was
Speaker 2: notified that her husband's fishing boat was found, along with
Speaker 2: his license. Betty went down to the marina and identified
Speaker 2: everything to be her husband's, and she pretended to be
Speaker 2: worried about his safety due to the high Wednesday that night,
Speaker 2: a search was conducted for Jimmy's body in the lake.
Speaker 2: The following morning, Oh my gosh, what.
Speaker 3: What he's missing? Oh my god, you found his boat?
Speaker 3: What in the net?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, did you find those? I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I thought I thought I saw them have the pills.
Speaker 2: How stupid they lie?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The following morning, authorities went back to Jimmy and Betty's
Speaker 2: home to see if he had come back home after
Speaker 2: being reported missing, and Betty told them that her husband
Speaker 2: went out fishing the previous night and he had been
Speaker 2: experiencing problems with his boat. The deputy sheriff for Henderson
Speaker 2: County told Betty that Jimmy's body would likely be found
Speaker 2: by another person out on the lake since there would
Speaker 2: be scheduled speedboat races taking place later that day. When
Speaker 2: nobody stumbled across Jimmy's body, many people came together to
Speaker 2: search for Jimmy, and these groups included people from the
Speaker 2: Coast Guard, the City of Dallas Fire Department. Since Jimmy
Speaker 2: had been a fireman for almost twenty six years and
Speaker 2: the search went on for three weeks, no luck. Now,
Speaker 2: the chaplain of the fire department went over to Betty's
Speaker 2: house to talk to her about after death benefit if
Speaker 2: they did find Jimmy deceased. She asked if she would
Speaker 2: be taken care of what thems that came along with
Speaker 2: being the wife of a firefighter. The chaplain told Betty
Speaker 2: that he would check to see if she was covered
Speaker 2: and he would report back to her as soon as possible. Now,
Speaker 2: after some digging, it was discovered that there was a
Speaker 2: life insurance policy worth one hundred and ten thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and Betty would be able to receive twelve hundred a
Speaker 2: month from Jimmy's pension with the Fire department, and that
Speaker 2: monthly amount is worth about thirty eight hundred a month today.
Speaker 2: So Betty, she was pretty stunned after she found out
Speaker 2: that if Jimmy's body was never found, there would be
Speaker 2: a seven year long waiting period before any insurance moneys
Speaker 2: were paid out to her.
Speaker 3: So let me guess his body.
Speaker 2: His body. The case seemed to have gone cold for
Speaker 2: about two years until the spring of nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 2: when a credible confidential informant told the Henderson County Sheriff's
Speaker 2: office that they had some information into Jimmy's disappear prints.
Speaker 2: The informant alleged that there had been foul play and
Speaker 2: that Jimmy was no longer alive. The investigators on Jimmy's
Speaker 2: case chose to talk to Betty's son, Robbie Branson, from
Speaker 2: her first marriage, and when the detective spoke to Robert,
Speaker 2: he had a lot to say, and what he did
Speaker 2: say was incredibly crucial to the case. He told the
Speaker 2: authorities that his mother actually confided in him. But this
Speaker 2: was not a run of the mill confession, she told
Speaker 2: her son in confidence that she was planning on killing Jimmy.
Speaker 2: When she was going to carry the murder out, she
Speaker 2: told her son that he wasn't allowed to be in
Speaker 2: the house when she did kill him. Robert did as
Speaker 2: he was told and he left the house. When he
Speaker 2: returned home, he came home to find Jimmy dead and
Speaker 2: he had two bullet holes in him. He later testified.
Speaker 2: She said she wanted me to leave and she didn't
Speaker 2: want me to be around when she shot and killed him,
Speaker 2: and he was out of the house for about two
Speaker 2: hours that day. What's even more crazy is that Robert
Speaker 2: also helped his mother get rid of Jimmy's dead body.
Speaker 2: Two of them hoisted his body over the opening of
Speaker 2: an ornamental wishing well that was in the front yard
Speaker 2: of the house. Oh my gosh, right there.
Speaker 3: I know nobody wants to look down the fucking well.
Speaker 2: Thank you. The satisfact about how his body was wrapped
Speaker 2: into the well was that Betty asked Jimmy to build
Speaker 2: the wishing well to make the yard look better, so
Speaker 2: she's dumping him in the well he built for her.
Speaker 2: Poor guy, he had no clue that he was building it.
Speaker 2: He was building his own burial place until his body
Speaker 2: was eventually found. Robbie had actually helped Jimmy build this
Speaker 2: so oh my goodness, oh man, so its stepson helps
Speaker 2: him build this thing for his mother, the Jimmy's wife.
Speaker 2: After his body was placed, Betty planted flowers over the
Speaker 2: grave to conceal everything. His body was placed in a
Speaker 2: sleeping bag before it was buried for the next two years,
Speaker 2: and Robbie was only nineteen at the time he helped
Speaker 2: his mother hide her last victim. Betty obviously had thought
Speaker 2: through every step of this murder, and with all that
Speaker 2: we just said, she definitely premeditated the entire thing. Before
Speaker 2: carrying out the murder, she had taken out a life
Speaker 2: insurance policy the hundred ten thousand. But this was all
Speaker 2: without Jimmy's knowledge. After the murder was completed, Betty and
Speaker 2: her son went to plant evidence on Jimmy's boat. Betty
Speaker 2: planted the nitro glacering tablets in his life jacket. I'm sorry, Betty,
Speaker 2: that's about the dumbest thing. How accessible is nitro glycerin
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four, You know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 2: don't even get I think people.
Speaker 3: Used to take it for her conditions or something.
Speaker 2: Oh you know what, I'm getting confused with folks do
Speaker 2: I'm like these stupid people. I think you of Syan
Speaker 2: night Dample. I'm like, Betty, how available are these tablets?
Speaker 2: Jesus Okay, that totally I have a clearer vision, Thank you, Tony.
Speaker 2: Betty planted that I drove gloss round tablets in his
Speaker 2: life jacket, and Robbie removed the propeller from the boat
Speaker 2: so that it would just float aimlessly. He then testified
Speaker 2: that he took the boat out into the middle of
Speaker 2: the lake before he abandoned it, and then he went
Speaker 2: back to meet his mother. They both returned back home
Speaker 2: as if nothing happened. After the confidential informant talked to
Speaker 2: investigators about foul play being behind Jimmy's disappearance, Betty was
Speaker 2: arrested for Jimmy's murder on June eighth, nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 2: and she was booked at the Hunderson County Jail. A
Speaker 2: search werer't was then obtained and a search of Betty's
Speaker 2: property was carried out for the home and the surrounding premises.
Speaker 2: So during the search, Jimmy's body was found in the well,
Speaker 2: and the remains of Doyle Wayne Barker were also found
Speaker 2: in a different area on the premises. Doyle's body was
Speaker 2: located buried under a storage shed in the backyard of
Speaker 2: the house. Both bodies were then taken to the Dallas
Speaker 2: Forensic Science Lab where they were formerly identified. Two bullets
Speaker 2: were recovered from Jimmy's body and a pistol words recovered
Speaker 2: from Betty's house previously, but this could have been the
Speaker 2: gun used in shooting Billy years prior. The records don't specify.
Speaker 2: Betty was charged with the murder of Doyle, but sadly
Speaker 2: she was never tried. But don't worry, she gets hers
Speaker 2: on the end. So throughout the trial that took place
Speaker 2: on the fall of nineteen eighty five, Robbie was actually
Speaker 2: accused of being the actual killer of his stepfather, Jimmy Beets.
Speaker 2: Robbie did admit that he participated in getting rid of
Speaker 2: Jimmy's body, and the only person he ever told was
Speaker 2: his common law wife at the time. She never took
Speaker 2: the stand to testify. Robbie stayed silent otherwise for two years,
Speaker 2: and he told the court that he only did this
Speaker 2: to protect his mother. After his mother was arrested, he
Speaker 2: had no other choice than to fully cooperate with the investigators.
Speaker 2: When he was asked about his mother's former husband, Doyle,
Speaker 2: he told the court that he did know of him
Speaker 2: and he had only seen him once. Robbie didn't live
Speaker 2: with his mother when she was married to Doyle. So
Speaker 2: Betty's daughter also testified for the prosecution, and she told
Speaker 2: the court that she was called by her mother on
Speaker 2: the night of Jimmy's murder. Her mother had called her
Speaker 2: to ask if her daughter could come over to her house,
Speaker 2: and she agreed. While on the phone with her mother,
Speaker 2: surely asked if she had done anything like she said
Speaker 2: she would do in a previous conversation. During this previous conversation,
Speaker 2: Betty was on the phone screaming that she was going
Speaker 2: to kill Jimmy and place his body on his boat,
Speaker 2: take the boat out, and Robbie would drop his body
Speaker 2: and the lake to make it look like Jimmy accidentally drowned.
Speaker 3: Wow, she really had your whole plan right there, all.
Speaker 2: Thing, Canary thing. Honestly, those are excellent bullet point. I mean,
Speaker 2: just told you how it laid out right.
Speaker 3: There, exactly and that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 2: Thank you, surely so. After Shirley asked her mother if
Speaker 2: she had followed through on the night of his murder,
Speaker 2: Betty replied that she had surely got all the way
Speaker 2: to her mother's house for Betty to tell her that
Speaker 2: she was no longer needed and everything had been taken
Speaker 2: care of. Shirley went back home as if her mother
Speaker 2: didn't just kill her husband and got rid of his body.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm out of here, pe tomorrow, Mama, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll call you later. A few weeks later, Shirley was
Speaker 2: told by her mother that she and Robbie buryed Jimmy
Speaker 2: in the Wishing Mound. She also told the court that
Speaker 2: her mother never admitted that she killed him for any
Speaker 2: insurance money. After Shirley was finished testifying for the prosecution
Speaker 2: on Jimmy's murder, the judge held a hearing in which
Speaker 2: Shirley testified about her mother and Doyle. Betty filed a
Speaker 2: motion to have all of her previous offenses thrown out
Speaker 2: in regard to Doyle's death, but the judge overruled the motion.
Speaker 2: Shirley remained on the stand to testify about Doyle's death
Speaker 2: and disappearance in October of nineteen eighty one. Betty and
Speaker 2: Doyle were married and living in the same home. One night,
Speaker 2: while Shirley and her mother were sitting outside around a campfire,
Speaker 2: Betty told her daughter that she was going to kill Doyle.
Speaker 2: She really was really candid with her kids, you know,
Speaker 2: just the comfortableness that just let me just tell you
Speaker 2: how I'm feeling.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna kill Doyle.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna kill Doyle. You want to be here, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna kill Doyle. So when Shirley asked her mother why
Speaker 2: she wanted to kill him, Betty told her that she
Speaker 2: didn't want to put up with any more of his beating.
Speaker 2: Well that makes I can see this, so what but
Speaker 2: this also you can leave. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: If you're also planning, I've been in that situation, so
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to tell. But it's going to end
Speaker 2: in killing someone. That's either way, you lose. You know
Speaker 2: you're a loser. So the house was in Doyle's name,
Speaker 2: but Betty was a co signer, so if they were
Speaker 2: to get divorced, Doyle would have gotten to keep the house,
Speaker 2: and that didn't apply with Betty about Four days later,
Speaker 2: Betty met Shirley at her house and Betty told her
Speaker 2: that she had killed Doyle. She waited until Doyle was
Speaker 2: asleep and went out to get her gun and covered
Speaker 2: the barrel of it with a pillow. When when she
Speaker 2: went to pull the trigger, the gun didn't go off.
Speaker 2: Betty was scared in that instance, and she was afraid
Speaker 2: that he was going to wake up, so she quickly
Speaker 2: gathered herself, cocked the gun for a second time, and
Speaker 2: pulled the trigger. He was shot in the head and
Speaker 2: killed instantly. Surely then testified that she helped him other
Speaker 2: get rid of Doyle's body. They both dragged his body
Speaker 2: from inside the house and they placed his body inside
Speaker 2: inside a pre dug hole. The scream prebeditated like nothing
Speaker 2: screams that like the pre dug hole. Now, this hole
Speaker 2: had been dug for a barbecue pit, but Betty had
Speaker 2: other plans. Following day, Betty went out and purchased some
Speaker 2: cinderblocks and built a patio over the hole to cover
Speaker 2: Dennis's Well, that's a Freudian slip a name.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, he's his asses and under the patio.
Speaker 2: Shit, I know. That just tells on me okay, So
Speaker 2: she built a patio over the hole to cover Doyle's remains.
Speaker 2: This patio was a cement base to house the storage
Speaker 2: shed that she would put on top.
Speaker 3: I see. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, while she was cross examined, Surely admitted that she
Speaker 2: was charged alongside her mother for the murder of Joe Barker,
Speaker 2: and her one million dollar bond was reduced to five
Speaker 2: thousand in exchange for her testimony against her mother, but
Speaker 2: she was never promised anything from the prosecution. There was
Speaker 2: no record of Betty killing Doyle for any financial benefit,
Speaker 2: nor did she admit anything of that sort to Shirley.
Speaker 2: The medical examiner was then called to testify and doctor
Speaker 2: Charles Petty talked about the two skeletons that were recovered
Speaker 2: from Betty's property. He determined that the cause of Jimmy's
Speaker 2: death was two gunshot wounds, one in his skull and
Speaker 2: the other was found within the trunk area. Both bullets
Speaker 2: were shot from the same weapon, but he was unable
Speaker 2: to determine which gun fired them. Three bullets were retrieved
Speaker 2: from Doyle's body, and obviously his cause of death was
Speaker 2: determined to be from gunshot wounds. Nothing else was specifically noted.
Speaker 2: A firearms examiner testified that the bullets were fired from
Speaker 2: a thirty eight kid hell of her weapon, and this
Speaker 2: was the same caliber of the gun sees from Betty's
Speaker 2: house when they searched the place, he was still nonetheless
Speaker 2: able to determine if the bullets came from that specific gun.
Speaker 2: One of Jimmy's nieces, who worked for JC Penny Life
Speaker 2: Insurance Company, testified that her uncle, Jimmy personally came in
Speaker 2: to cancel a life insurance policy that was worth ten
Speaker 2: thousand dollars on May nineteenth, nineteen eighty three, and he
Speaker 2: canceled this because it had been done without his knowledge.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he only found out when he found the
Speaker 2: bill in the house. The thing that was odd about
Speaker 2: this was the fact that their address wasn't on the application.
Speaker 2: It was the address of one of Betty's daughters, So
Speaker 2: Betty was having the bill sent to oh yeah, well
Speaker 2: girls's house, so Jimmy wouldn't be the wiser. Now, Betty
Speaker 2: was the sole beneficiary, and she signed Jimmy's name and
Speaker 2: returned it with the monthly payment. There was also another
Speaker 2: life insurance policy with the City of Dallas that was
Speaker 2: worth eighty six thousand, with Betty named as the sole beneficiary,
Speaker 2: and an employee at the insurance company testified to that.
Speaker 2: A documents examiner also testified that he had been employed
Speaker 2: by the Secret Service for over two decades, but he
Speaker 2: had been working as a document's examiner at the time
Speaker 2: of his testimony in this trial. He testified that the
Speaker 2: signature on the JC Penny application was signed by Betty
Speaker 2: and that the signature for the cancelation was signed by Jimmy.
Speaker 2: Betty also sold Jimmy's vote roughly one year after he
Speaker 2: was reported missing, and the bill of sale was signed
Speaker 2: with Jimmy's name but by Betty. Those two signatures were
Speaker 2: a perfect match.
Speaker 3: Dumb ass.
Speaker 2: According to reports, Betty got drunk one night and bragged
Speaker 2: about the two murders to a new boyfriend at the time.
Speaker 2: So I have a hard time believing that he wasn't
Speaker 2: the confidential informant who called in the tip to the
Speaker 2: Henderson County Sheriff's office night, right. Yeah. So, after the
Speaker 2: jury deliberated, Betty was found guilty of capital murder for
Speaker 2: the murder of Jimmy Beats And even though she was
Speaker 2: never tried for the murder of Doyle Barker. She was
Speaker 2: sentenced to death by Lethland injection, which was carried out
Speaker 2: in February of two thousand and she died by lethaland
Speaker 2: injection sixty two years old.
Speaker 4: Damn, wow, that is I would love, you know, in
Speaker 4: a different world, on a different plane, if she could
Speaker 4: have produced a memoir, I would have read it.
Speaker 2: I would read this woman's life.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, like, yeah, she's got some
Speaker 3: shit to tell.
Speaker 2: Exactly, Like how do you come to like the decisions
Speaker 2: we make all Like what what's that? What's the fuel
Speaker 2: that makes our decisions? You know, she feels threatened and
Speaker 2: she's getting beat and then she's planning. You know, she
Speaker 2: has a hole already, dug. The woman's a planner.
Speaker 3: You know. She's like, oh, yeah, his little lass is
Speaker 3: gonna end up in that hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've already done it before. And I go,
Speaker 2: you know, my relationships are with people who I said, oh,
Speaker 2: he got pissed and left and this is he's done
Speaker 2: this before, Like I won't even blink and I you
Speaker 2: guys are toxic. I'm not surprised. You know, plan on
Speaker 2: people's emotions like that. Now, my pleasure, my pleasure. I
Speaker 2: love bringing you these stories even it's interesting. I love human.
Speaker 2: What word am I looking for?
Speaker 3: The human?
Speaker 2: Conscious? The human? What makes humans tick? I do love it?
Speaker 3: So you know, that's the fascinating part of true crime
Speaker 3: for me, Like it's.
Speaker 2: Like why do these people do this stuff?
Speaker 3: Like you know, like there's stories we've done where it's
Speaker 3: like mob mentality where like a bunch of kids will
Speaker 3: get together.
Speaker 2: And kill like another kid or something, and right, you.
Speaker 3: Know it's wrong and whatever. And then you know, husbands
Speaker 3: kill wives and wives kill husbands.
Speaker 2: And whole crimes of passion.
Speaker 3: Like we've done, like kids kill their whole family just
Speaker 3: for stupid reasons. It's like I would I wish I
Speaker 3: could like.
Speaker 2: Hear the thought process something, Yes exactly, I mean just
Speaker 2: pop in your brain. What's going on here? Totally fascinating.
Speaker 2: So yes, my pleasure, my friend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no problems, So everyone, if you could hit subscribe
Speaker 3: or follow and whatever app you're listening to. Also, we
Speaker 3: have a website, Crimesanconsequences dot com. There's merch you can
Speaker 3: check that out. The holidays are coming, you might want
Speaker 3: to check it out and get your favorite ask for
Speaker 3: your sweatshirt or what have you, and then if you
Speaker 3: enjoy the episodes that we have, we also do one
Speaker 3: that is not released to the public. It's on our
Speaker 3: Patreon account. It's key a t R O N yes
Speaker 3: dot com slash t n T crimes. You also can
Speaker 3: subscribe to it on the Apple podcast app. But we
Speaker 3: release one extra episode a week, so if you just
Speaker 3: can't get enough, you might ask you that we probably
Speaker 3: have over two hundred now, or roughly about that two
Speaker 3: hundred episodes. There's Shannon and I, and there's lots and
Speaker 3: lots of Tilly and I.
Speaker 2: So lots of flavors that choose from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, lots of so.
Speaker 2: I like to consider myself chocolate, So if you want chocolate,
Speaker 2: that would be me.
Speaker 3: And I guess they're like strawberry or maybe like Jacky
Speaker 3: Road or something. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I like it. I love the sweep. All right, all right, Fannie,
Speaker 2: you have a great week. I love you. I missed
Speaker 2: you on until next time.
Speaker 3: Until next time, we will see you all.
Speaker 4: Bye.
Speaker 2: Hi guys,