Execution Report: Betty Beets

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Beets collected $100,000 in insurance an pension benefits from the death of her fifth husband. A jury convicted her of capital murder in October 1985 and sentenced her to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals originally reversed her conviction, finding that the crime did not constitute the capital offense of murder for remuneration as defined in Texas law. However, the state requested a rehearing of the case, and in September 1988, the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in favor of the state and reinstated Beets' conviction.

On appeal, Beets claimed that she did not even know of the insurance policy on Jimmy Don Beets until a year and a half after she killed him, when her lawyer told her. She claimed that her lawyer should have resigned and testified on her behalf. In May 1991, Beets won an appeal in federal district court, on this claim. The state appealed that decision to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in favor of the state in March 1993 and sent the case back to the district court for reconsideration. That court ruled against Beets in September 1998. All of her subsequent appeals were denied.

On death row, Beets' supporters claimed that she was abused as a child and by all of her husbands, and that the jury was not told about this when they decided to sentence her to death. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Beets' request to commute her sentence to life in prison by an 18-0 vote. The board also voted 13-5 not to grant a reprieve of her execution.

In a death row interview, Beets said that she didn't remember what happened to her fourth or fifth husbands. "It's just a blank to me," she said. She did not make a final statement at her execution. She was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.

By David Carson. Posted on 13 June 2002.
Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Texas Attorney General's office, CNN.