'Trophy Wife' Who Killed Millionaire Husband Claims Their Twin Daughters Set Her Up
'Trophy Wife' Who Killed Millionaire Husband Claims Their Twin Daughters Set Her Up
KC BakerTue, June 2, 2026 at 8:27 PM UTC
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Celeste Beard Johnson in Court TV's "Interview with a Killer"
Credit: COURT TV/YouTube
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Celeste Beard Johnson, 63, says in Court TV's "Interview with a Killer" that she did not orchestrate the shooting of her fourth husband, Steven Beard, 74, in 1999
Johnson, who is serving a life sentence for murdering him, says her former lover, police and her twin daughters set her up
Beard died of a blood clot as a result of his shooting, an autopsy found
The self-proclaimed Texas “trophy” wife convicted of orchestrating the 1999 murder of her millionaire husband claims she is in prison because her twin daughters set her up.
In the season 4 finale of Court TV’s “Interview with a Killer,” which debuted on May 29, 63-year-old Celeste Beard Johnson says that her accomplice, her alleged former lover Tracey Tarlton, as well as law enforcement and her twin daughters, set her up to make it look like she masterminded the plot to kill her fourth husband, Steven Beard, 74.
When Court TV’s David Scott asks Johnson if she thinks that her daughters, Jennifer Beard and Kristina Fritz, turned on her for money, she replies, “Yes, I do.”
Johnson says she told her daughters they were going to get some of the fortune Beard left behind when he died.
“They really thought they were going to get the money and they were really upset when they didn't get it,” she says.
“But that was my fault for telling them that they were going to get the money.”
Jennifer Beard and Kristina Fritz, Celeste Beard Johnson's twin daughters in 20/20's Tainted Love
Credit: ABC
She alleged, “When they found out they weren't getting the money right away, that it had to go through me, I found out that first they tried to get me in a mental hospital declared insane. And then when that didn't work, they couldn't get the attorneys to declare me insane, then they turned it around and said I participated with Tracey.”
When Scott says Johnson essentially “planted the seed,” she says, “that was my fault."
“And see, it was my fault for teaching them how to lie.”
Johnson was convicted of capital murder on March 19, 2003, for masterminding the 1999 shooting.
Beard survived the shooting at their home in the Austin suburb of Westlake Hills and spent four months in the hospital recovering from his wounds.
Released from the hospital, he returned home, where Johnson cared for him. Shortly after, he was rushed to the hospital, where he died days later.
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An autopsy found that the cause of Beard's death was pulmonary embolism and bronchopneumonia with sepsis, a complication of his shotgun wound, according to court records.
Found guilty in a jury trial, Johnson, who remarried six months after Beard died and changed her name to Celeste Beard Johnson, was sentenced to life in prison.
During the sensational trial, Beard’s daughters testified against her, saying their mother treated Beard poorly.“She would put sleeping pills in his food,” one of her daughters testified in court, according to the episode. “And then sometime, like right after like 5:00 in the afternoon before dinner, she would have cocktails with him.”
He would proceed to get “really drunk then eat and pass out.”
Asked if she ever heard her mother refer to those drinks as a “graveyard,” one of her daughters testified, “Multiple times.”
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Her daughters also taped her saying “I hired somebody to kill Tracey,” which was played in court.
Johnson says that the tape was edited to make her appear guilty.
Convicted of shooting Beard, Tarlton was sentenced to 10 years in prison with 12 years of probation. She was released in 2011.
Johnson is serving her sentence at the Dr. Lane Murray Unit, a women’s prison in Gatesville operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
She will be eligible for parole in 2042.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
