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On August 6, 1983, Betty Lou Beets reported to authorities that her husband, Jimmy Don Beets, had disappeared after setting out on a fishing trip at Cedar Creek Lake in Texas.
Just six days following his mysterious disappearance, Jimmy Don’s boat was discovered adrift, with his nitroglycerine pills scattered onboard. However, the firefighter himself remained missing. Strangely, within weeks, Betty Lou began the process of claiming Jimmy Don’s pension benefits.
The question loomed: what truly happened to Jimmy Don? The television series Killer Grannies on Oxygen delved into the nearly two-year investigation by the Henderson County Sheriff’s Department, which ultimately uncovered a chilling truth linked to an ornamental wishing well.
Betty Lou Beets’s turbulent marital past
Betty Lou and Jimmy Don had wed in 1982. As investigative journalist Glenna Whitely described, “Once they got together, they were inseparable.”
Remarkably, Jimmy Don was Betty Lou’s fifth husband. Throughout her life, she was married seven times, twice to two different men.
Interestingly, investigators learned that Jimmy Don wasn’t the only man who married Betty Lou—a mom of six—to vanish into thin air.
Doyle Wayne Baker married her twice, first in 1979 and once again the year after they divorced. And while he disappeared in 1981, Betty Lou claimed she had no information.
Sheriffs get a case-changing tip
After chasing leads that turned into dead ends, sheriffs finally got a break in June 1985.
A man who’d had an affair with Betty Lou informed officials what she’d told him after a night of heavy drinking.
“She said, ‘The last guy I screwed,’” Whitely shared, “‘I killed and buried in my front yard.’”
Investigators turned to Betty Lou’s adult children to corroborate the tip. Her daughter Phyllis said she knew that her mother killed Jimmy Don and her sister, Shirley, helped dispose of him as well as another man’s body.
Officials were told that Jimmy Don was buried under decorative outdoor wishing well he built for her and the other body was in the ground under a shed.
Betty Lou Beets arrested for murder
Before investigators could arrest Betty Lou, they responded to an incident involving her younger son and her current boyfriend, Ray, a convicted felon on parole.
After an argument, the teen grabbed guns at the house and shot out the tires on Ray’s vehicle. Officials collected a few firearms, including a .38 special.
Meanwhile, Betty Lou was informed that police were headed to her property to dig for bodies.
“That scared her,” said County Sheriff’s Office former chief investigator Michael O’Brien. “She turned from a smiling grandma to a snarling wolf.”
Two bodies were recovered and identified through dental records as Jimmy Don and Doyle.
Bullets found in the men’s remains were a match for the .38-caliber gun seized from the Beets residence during the incident between Ray and Betty Lou’s son.
Investigators determined that Betty Lou’s daughter Shirley helped bury Doyle while Betty Lou’s son Robert helped bury Jimmy Don. The two were charged for their roles in the crimes.
Sheriffs also learned that Betty Lou had tried to take out a $10,000 life insurance policy on Jimmy Don without his knowledge.
“Betty Lou killed Jimmy Don for the insurance money,” said O’Brien. “This is a capital murder case.”
As such, Betty Lou, dubbed a “black widow” by the press, faced the death penalty in what became a high-profile case.
Who killed Jimmy Don Beets?
Betty Lou’s trial for Jimmy Don’s murder took place in the fall of 1985. Shirley and Robert, who’d taken plea deals, testified for the prosecution.
In a shocking twist, Betty Lou took the stand and accused Robert of killing Jimmy Don. However, the jury was not convinced.
She was convicted of murdering Jimmy Don, and her motive was financial gain. She was sentenced to death.
Over the next 15 years, she unsuccessfully tried to appeal her case. On Feb. 24, 2000, at the Huntsville Unit prison, Betty Lou, 62, died by lethal injection.
She was the second woman executed in Texas after the reintroduction of the death penalty.
For more gripping cases like this one, watch Killer Grannies on the Oxygen app.
