Women Behind Bars - Season 1, Episode 9 - Celeste and Bernice - Full Episode | Forensic Files

on this episode of women behind bars one woman is convicted of murdering her millionaire husband
the first jewelry he gave me was like a three carat diamond ring and a 42 diamond cocktail ring i can see him
laying in bed he's got a phone in his hand it's covered in blood and he's literally
holding his intestines in his hand then bernice ahrens tells her story she was an alleged accomplice in the fatal
beating of a man held captive in her home they administered their beating of him including pouring
ammonia or bleach in his wounds all i know is that one day i went to work and i came home
and buddy's dead two women two brutal crimes these are the stories of celeste johnson
and bernice ahrens [Music] [Music] in the early hours of october 2nd 1999 a deputy responded to a frantic 9-1-1
call originating from the home of aging multi-millionaire stephen beard and his wife celeste
hello do you need an ambulance he said that he's woken up in the middle of the night and his intestines are in
his hands i believe the term used was guts have blown out it first appeared to be a
medical emergency however it was soon apparent that someone had tried to murder stephen
beard it was clear that he had been shot that night the hunt for the shooter eventually led
to the arrest of a mentally unstable woman named tracy tarleton who was a friend of
stephen's wife celeste tracy fell madly in love with celeste tracy tarleton was trying to
eliminate the competition by eliminating celeste husbands was celeste johnson behind a cruel plot to get rid of her
husband for his fortune or did she take the fall for a woman who wanted celeste all to herself
i grew up in southern california i was a few days old when i was adopted celeste was one of four children to be
adopted by edwin and nancy johnson the family lived in a quiet suburb about an hour north of los angeles california
i went to private schools and my life was real structured as far as the school and swim team but our home life
was very crazy she was a very bright precocious beautiful child but she had this kind of dark side too
where she would she would just go off on her brothers and her mother did take her in for
psychiatric treatment but it didn't seem to actually help by the time celeste reached high school
her parents had divorced and the financial strain forced the top student to enroll in public school
suddenly i'm thrown into this new environment all these people have all these freedoms that i never experienced so
when i was about 14 or 15 i got involved with craig who happened to live right around the corner
at 17 craig bratcher was two years older than celeste and according to celeste their
relationship was dysfunctional from the very start he would have me come over like at 2 30
or 3 o'clock in the morning and he would have sex with me and then in the morning i would clean his
house and i thought that was left when celeste was 17 she gave birth to twin girls christina
and jennifer fathered by craig the twins were born several months early they were in the incubator for
a few months and at first i couldn't even take them out or touch them or anything so i think we never really
bonded celeste describes her eventual marriage to craig as on again off again and highly
volatile [Music] crime writer catherine casey spent over a year researching the murder
she uncovered records and spoke to the beard's friends and family members according to casey more than anything
else celeste dreamed of a different life celeste saw herself as being entitled to more in life and craig didn't make a
lot of money she needed that in her life she needed money by 1988 celeste had left craig she would
ultimately be married five times but claimed that her kids were her primary concern if the person i married
couldn't get along with my kids then i just left them but records uncovered by catherine casey
paint a picture of celeste's kids spending months at a time in the custody of people other than
their mother she was reported for leaving the kids home alone she dropped them off at foster homes
from early ages on when they became inconvenient for her in 1990 when the girls were 10 celeste
gave up custody and sent them to live with their father craig then in 1991 the 27 year old divorcee
met 30 year old jimmy martinez we met at a bar in phoenix and he walked up and said
i'm going to marry you and move you to texas and so two weeks later i was gone celeste and jimmy settled in austin
texas but it didn't take long for problems to arise in celeste's marriage to husband number three
before long he found out that the credit card bills were going up and it caused friction in the
relationship through interviews with celeste children and those who knew her casey discovered that when things got
tough celeste would threaten to commit suicide there was the time when she tried to
jump out of the car on the middle of the freeway and jimmy grabbed her by the arm she
reported him to the police saying that it was domestic abuse while still married to jimmy in 1993 30
year old celeste took a job as a waitress at the exclusive austin country club it's where everyone and especially the
old money in austin society that's where they hang out one of its members was 69 year old
stephen beard who had recently sold his share of a local television station making him worth an estimated 15 million
dollars he had three adult children in their 40s he was a big gregarious man demanding but i guess what attracted
me to him was his wife had a stroke and he would bring her in and he would be feeding her scotch and i
mean it would just be running down her chin to me that showed how much he left her
eventually she died in october of 93 and i went up to him and i gave him a hug and he told me later on that that hug
meant so much to him just imagine if you're less beard you're a waitress working for tips and all of a
sudden you see this lonely old very wealthy man who just wants companionship mr beard probably thought it was the
greatest thing in the world so ten days later we started uh dating and i moved in with him by christmas
when we went into the clothing store you know he picked me out of shirt it was like six hundred dollars
and then the first uh jewelry he gave me was like a three carat diamond ring and
a 42 diamond cocktail ring i mean he just lavished me with all this stuff shortly after moving
in with stephen celeste filed for divorce from jimmy martinez and in february of 1995 married steven beard
despite the near 40-year age difference to some the two seemed like a perfect match you couldn't
help it like celeste she had a great sense of humor and a nice laugh she was easily amused
he found a woman who could make him happy and that he wanted to shower attention on
but the honeymoon wouldn't last long when women behind bars continues she became obsessed with me celeste
asked tracy to kill steve she said if you don't i will kill myself and tracy agreed to kill steve to save
celeste's life when 32 year old celeste married 71 year old steven beard in february of 1995
her life suddenly felt like a dream come true he just put me on this pedestal and
i never felt like that before with somebody i felt safe with him she saw his bankroll
she saw the money he was able to give her the life she thought she deserved but problems began to crop up
almost immediately celeste claimed stephen still wasn't over the death of his ex-wife elise
we were living in the mansion that he lived with the lease everywhere i looked you know with my
hair everything i felt like he was trying to turn me into her and i didn't want to be her i wanted to
be me after less than five months of marriage the couple filed for divorce but within a week they reconciled and
stephen made plans to build a brand new mansion and lake house for celeste he also agreed to help her regain
custody of her 13 year old daughters the whole deal was if i married him he had to get
my kids back i wanted to make sure that no matter what my kids were set for the rest of their life
steven funded a costly legal battle and celeste was eventually granted custody of her daughters
he also gave celeste a half million dollars to spend as she wished her closet was as big as most people's
living rooms she had a shoe collection that rivaled mel de marcos i think one six-month
period she went through half a million dollars the rate it was going she would have
bankrupted him despite his generosity according to celeste life with stephen beard became
increasingly unbearable all i had to do was be there at five o'clock when it was cocktail hour and we would
have to sit sometimes till 10 o'clock and just our whole life revolved around cocktail hour and it drove me
crazy they were both pretty volatile people she was a compulsive spender steven had some issues he drank very
heavily i would always use the divorce card because i had been married so many times he knew that i would walk
but celeste never did walk for one thing she'd signed a strict prenuptial agreement
he was in love with celeste but he was a businessman and he understood money if they divorced during the first three
years of the marriage she got nothing besides her personal property if she was married to him at the time
that he died well then celeste was the primary beneficiary of the trust in the spring of 1999
after a confrontation with stephen over money celeste threatened suicide and admitted herself to st
david's pavilion a psychiatric hospital in central austin she goes the same day and basically
she's got friends coming over and having pizzas delivered it's like a party but while there she strikes up
this friendship with tracy talton according to authorities tracy was an alcoholic who
was suffering from serious depression and had recently tried to commit suicide there was this pathetic lump of a person
that my heart just went out to her tracy was at a low point in her life she was truly someone who had lived a
horrific childhood she'd gone to st david's because she was drinking again and she'd become
seriously suicidal celeste beard gave every indication to tracy tarleton that celeste beard wanted to be in a
sexual relationship with tracy taught before long there were kind of stolen kisses and little romantic embraces
somebody walked in one day and found tracy uh giving celeste a back rub celeste had her shirt off on the bed she
soon fell in love with some less beer just like many people who have come in contact with her
dead celeste insists the relationship was strictly platonic and denies any kind of
sexual contact with tracy i really left her as a as a friend i didn't care that she was a lesbian i had just
finally found somebody that i could talk to the two women then went to another institution called timberlawn together
and actually lived together as outpatients at the end of their stay there they became lovers according to
testimony the affair continued after celeste's release in the summer of 1999 a relationship which celeste says had
evolved into a one-sided obsession she became obsessed with me it finally escalated at my kids graduation party
at the end of august photos show celeste dancing with tracy and sitting on her lap
later on someone found the two in bed together celeste ate a lot of marijuana brownies and drank a
lot of straight vodka did sex occur between them i think it did but i think it did
in times when celeste was so out of it she didn't realize it in the fall of 1999 celeste's husband
discovered the two women kissing during a dinner party at the beard mansion what finally happened was that steven
beard kicked tracy out of their house told her never to come back tracy tarleton would later testify to a
very different version of her relationship with celeste celes beer was telling tracy tarleton
i'm in this very very bad marriage i don't want to be there so she was always talking about committing suicide
about hurting herself stephen determined to take celeste on a worldwide tour they would be gone for
months he told quite a few people that this trip was a test to see if he and celeste could get along
together if this didn't work out the implication was there that he would go forward with
the divorce prosecutors theorized celeste feared that stephen would divorce her cutting off access to his funds so in
order to maintain her lavish lifestyle celeste needed to stay married but life with stephen had become intolerable
so because of having to spend time with a person who she was telling everybody disgusted her she decided that something
had to be done quickly she was not willing to take another extended trip with her husband she asked tracy
to shoot and kill steve for tracy balk didn't want to do it celeste said if you don't i will die i will kill
myself and tracy agreed to kill steve to save celeste's life in order to get steve beard's money she
needed him dead in the early hours of october 2nd 1999 the travis county sheriff's department
received a 911 rookie allen howard was dispatched to the scene i go to the left side of the house and i
can see him laying in bed he's got a phone in his hand it's covered in blood and he's literally
holding his intestines in his hand i take an expandable baton and actually break out that glass door
at this time i've been joined by one of the medics and it does not look good at this time
and he points out a shotgun shell to me at that point everything changes the light finally goes off while we have
a shooting when women behind bars continues a scheming wife tries to get away with murder she
started screaming what happened to my husband what happened to my husband over and over and over what happened to
my husband and later in this episode of women behind bars a middle-aged mother claims
her friend forced her to take part in a fatal beating when that gun comes out you don't play
games with her she snapped and i wasn't going to mess with a crazy person in the early morning hours of october
2nd 1999 a deputy responding to an emergency call at a mansion in southwest austin
discovered that a wealthy 74 year old stephen beard had been shot in the stomach
it first appeared to be a burglary gone awry when his much younger wife celeste emerged the plot began to thicken
he started screaming what happened to my husband what happened to my husband over
and over and over it's not where is he going is he in danger of dying is there anything i can
do with some deputies she was almost hysterical but with other deputies she seemed almost giddy according to reports
that wasn't the only thing strange about celeste's behavior it was suspicious that she had not heard
the shotgun being fired it was suspicious that there was clearly a scene set up there to make it appear
that a burglary had occurred while stephen beard was rushed to the hospital the police wasted no time in interviewing
celeste daughters one had been in the beard house that night and the other had been staying
with her boyfriend at the family's lake house a name that immediately comes up is
tracy taulton and they go to tracy talton's home and she admits to them that she does own a
shotgun and that shotgun turns out to be the shotgun from which the bullet that injured mr beard
was fired from six days later tracy tarleton was arrested and charged with injury to an elderly person
she quickly posted the 25 000 bail and remained free for more than a year as the weeks wore on investigators
became convinced that celeste beard was somehow involved and that her primary motive was to
inherit her husband's fortune they zeroed in on celeste because celeste was acting so oddly
she put a sign up on the door banning the police from going in to interview him he didn't want to talk to the police he
just wanted to put everything behind us critically injured stephen was taken by life flight to a local hospital
he underwent emergency surgery but was stabilized after several days evidence shows that while her husband
was in the hospital celeste remained in constant contact with tracy tarleton at times he was very close to death but
he hung in there and he improved and over a period of months continued to get stronger
in january he's finally released from the hospital just one day after his release stephen
beard was readmitted to the hospital for complications relating to his injuries in a matter of days the 75 year old was
dead for a long time it looked like it would just be tracy tarleton who'd go down for
this she was indicted first for the shooting and then after steve died for the murder
there was this lesbian relationship going on between celeste beard and tracy tarleton the only thing that stood
between her and celeste beard getting together with steven beard but tarleton would find out differently
tracy taulton happened to read a newspaper one day that had a wedding announcement in it
and it was a wedding between celeste beard and her new husband at that point tracy talton realized
there was no relationship between her and celeste beard in february of 2001 tarleton was
formally charged with capital murder she was arrested and held on five hundred thousand dollars bail
in march 2002 while still in jail and awaiting trial tarleton finally agreed to cooperate she
told prosecutors celeste convinced her to enter the beard home in the middle of the night
and shoot stephen as he slept around two o'clock in the morning tracy drove to the beard mansion she'd
got out of the car the door was unlocked and celeste had told her that it would be
she walked into the bedroom stood at the foot of the bed saw steve sleeping in the bed put her
gun up took a deep breath and pulled the trigger meanwhile celeste's relationship with
her twin daughters had deteriorated due to her irrational behavior following steven's death
just before their 18th birthday stephen had legally adopted the twins naming them as partial heirs to his
estate after his death the twins joined steven's natural children in a lawsuit to regain control of steven's estate
from celeste to keep their mother from spending the beard fortune they saw her on the day of his funeral
practically celebrating his death laughing about him having died on march 29 2002 celeste was arrested
and indicted for the murder of her husband stephen beard opening arguments in her trial were
presented the following february the prosecutors did a pretty good job of showing was that
she definitely moved into the starting to plot steven's death the night that stephen witnessed the
celeste beer and tracy tarleton kiss she's willing to enter into a lesbian relationship
in order to manipulate that person into killing her husband dicta guerin argues for celeste
that tracy tarleton is just plum crazy that this woman is an aggressive predatory lesbian
who has gone after celeste tracy is an evil person she's really is as close as someone can be
to being a homicidal uh maniac prosecutors then presented testimony from a woman named donna
goodson who claimed that celeste paid her to hire a hitman to kill tracy tarleton in
2000 after steven's murder tracy is the one who can really pull it all together and give the
complete picture it all really hung on her testimony if she came off as unbelievable on the
stand the prosecutors would not win prosecutors did a good job of showing that celeste beard
went through a lot of pains to strike up a close personal relationship with tracy tarleton and that
she was doing this with a thought in mind of using tracy tarleton in the end a jury believed that
celeste used tracy to get rid of steven beard when the verdict was read and i looked
over at celeste and she had this lost quizzical look in her face as she didn't understand
[Applause] [Laughter] celeste johnson who is serving her sentence at a maximum security prison in
texas has a message for her 27 year old twin daughters whose testimony helped put her away for
life i would tell them that i love them and i hope that someday that they'll be able
to forgive me for whatever i've done to make them turn on me like this and i'm sorry but i don't feel like it's
right either that i have to live here for the rest of my life for a crime that they know
that i did not commit in accordance with his will stephen beard's estate was divided between his
three biological children and celeste's twin daughters i just keep thinking that the truth is
going to come out and that i'm going to be able to to walk out of here with all these life lessons that i've learned
and live my life different be a be a better person [Music] next up on women behind bars a mentally
impaired man is allegedly abused and beaten to death by a gang of six led by two older women she was
hitting him and she wouldn't feed her and let him eat and i told her you can't do that he's a
human being for more information on women behind bars go to www.wetv.com on august 26 1998 police found the body
of a 59 year old mentally handicapped man buddy musso in a ditch on the side of a
road [Music] at first the authorities could not id the victim because the injuries were so extensive
his body was beaten literally from the top of his head to his toes investigators were led to a
gang of six including 54 year old bernice aarons and the ringleader suzanne basso
bernice claimed she was forced to participate while police believed she was a willing accomplice to the other
woman suzanne used a lot of manipulation and threats to get these folks to do what she wanted
they all said they were scared of what she might do to them if they did not comply with her orders
was bernice ahrens a willing participant in buddy musso's sadistic death [Music]
or was she forced to follow the orders of her domineering friend fifty-one-year-old bernice ahrens was a
lonely widowed mother of two living in houston texas with her 25 year old son craig and 22 year old daughter
hope she had never had any brushes with the law bernice ahrens was a middle-aged woman with two adult
children craig and hope she had a job had an apartment she lived with her children
both craig and hope were slow in 1995 bernice met suzanne basso a 41 year old security guard for
apartment complexes and businesses i worked in the harris county marriage license and
dba office and she came in as a customer and i helped her we got to talking and she asked me to go to dinner that
evening and i went i was just wanting friendship suzanne and bernice became fast friends
she was always warm and friendly and helpful and if i needed to go someplace if i needed some extra money if i didn't
have she would you know she was a person i could i thought i could count on but suzanne also had a mysterious past
she just had a lot of aliases a lot of identifications i don't know that anybody truly really
knew her or what she was about because she tried to be somebody else all the time
in july 1997 a few years after meeting bernice suzanne traveled to new jersey to visit
friends and met cognitively impaired louis buddy musso at a church bazaar buddy musso was a 59 year old man
who probably had the mindset of an eight-year-old he was mentally challenged lived in cliffside park new jersey
at an assistant living facility everyone in the assisted living facility just loved him
suzanne i think targeted him you know honed right in on him saw him alone saw him by himself started
communicating with him by phone and by letters he got very smitten with her and they started this so-called
relationship where he saved up money to buy her an engagement ring and he was saving up his money to
come to texas buddy wanted to be loved he wanted to be part of a family and i believe that suzanne
told him that that's what was going to happen if he moved to houston he bought a greyhound bus ticket had
bought some cowboy boots and a shirt and a necktie and got on the bus and headed
for texas in june 1998 buddy moved to san jacinto texas to live with 44 year old suzanne
basso and her developmentally delayed 23 year old son james o'malley when buddy arrived in texas his dreams of having
a wife and a family never materialized he was living with suzanne basso in a rental home and basically lived a life
of servitude she had him carry groceries take out the trash you know do all the grunt work she took
him away from his support system and so was able to have her will with him at that point in time
according to court testimony suzanne started to abuse buddy as soon as he arrived in texas
she beat him many times for not doing what she wanted him to do soon after his arrival suzanne
introduced buddy to bernice when she told me that she met him in new york that he was a friend of her sons and
he was going to come and live with them and i was surprised you know that i thought he had a family boy come
here meanwhile suzanne immediately laid claim to buddy's assets [Music] she typed up a last will and testament
for betty which bernice aaron signed as well as some of the other kids signed as witnesses that upon
buddy's death all of his property would go to suzanne one of the provisions in it is that
suzanne basso is to get all of the insurance policies that i have and all the money that is to be in the
policies no one else is to get a cent from it bernice claims suzanne forced her to sign the will as a witness
one day she made me sign something and i don't know what it was but she says you gotta sign this and
and i i didn't even read it fourteen months after buddy had moved to texas forty-four-year-old suzanne brought
buddy and her son james to stay at bernice's apartment saying she had a leak in her home
according to bernice's statement to police buddy was in bad shape when they arrived
she says that suzanne brought buddy over to her house friday he had two black eyes several cuts on
the back of his head buddy would sit on the mat in the hallway and pick his head where he had
cuts and make it bleed and it would make suzanne mad and she would beat him with anything that was
handy she hit him with a belt hands a wooden bird anything she had bernice didn't call the police instead
she allowed suzanne buddy and james to move into her home that she shared with her adult children
craig and hope ahrens and hope's fiancee terence singleton and i suggest that was the wrong thing to do
that was the wrong thing to do because that's when everything happened bernice claims that suzanne
took over immediately after moving in she claimed that suzanne brandished a gun to control the situation
every time she would leave the apartment she would have one of my kids with her i could have got the cops and said
something but i didn't know what she would do with my kids i wasn't going to take that chance when
that gun comes out you don't play games with her [Music] according to the testimony of each
participant the group including the adult children became involved in beating and torturing
buddy right away you know their mom's there and so they were going to do what their mom wanted
them to do and again were involved that way the abuse continued round the clock for
the next four days they all took part each one whether they slapped him they kicked him they hit him with the
bat hit him with the vacuum cleaner attachment dumped him in the tub all of the torture that he endured was
at the hands of all six all of them took part in one way or another i believe that it was very easy
for suzanne to lead them she was the ringleader of the group and because of their slowness
and probably because they wanted to please her they participated in what she began we were scared of her
of one person that had that gun that mighty gun that could have done a lot of damage
i was scared and the kids followed my lead buddy was such a sweet soul and i don't think
he really fought back and so they had an open field to abuse him at will under suzanne's direction and
consent the punishments kept getting worse and worse and worse i think at some point they just didn't
even see him as a human being this was a primitive tribal animalistic act that was so far removed from
the social norms that it's difficult to conceive bernice claims she was either at work or
away from her home during most of the beatings but police allege that bernice didn't just watch
she actually took part in the brutality in her statement to police at the time of her arrest bernice admitted to
participating in the abuse although now she claims having no recollection of it i don't i don't remember this
i don't remember seeing any of this what do you want me to say i don't remember it there wasn't
any person there that was strong enough to prevent this from happening or to say
you know hey we shouldn't do this she was hitting him and she wouldn't let him eat
and i told her i said you can't do that he's a human being what are you doing and she says to me you shut up
four days after suzanne buddy and her son had moved into bernice's apartment suzanne went to the police to claim that
buddy had disappeared she tried to set up a defense for herself she called the family and told them that
buddy was missing and then he'd possibly run away with a little spanish lady that
he had met at the washitaria which was a complete lie and she also made a police report saying that that he
was missing at 10 15 p.m on tuesday august 25 1998 after five days of vicious beatings
buddy musso received a fatal blow in the bathroom of bernice aaron's apartment they administered their final beating of
him including scratching him with the wire brush on his body and pouring ammonia or bleach or ponzol in his
wounds and dumping him in the bathtub where he eventually died in her statement to the police bernice
claimed that she was in the house when buddy died but passively waited for suzanne to
orchestrate the disposal of the body she told the boys to get him dressed that we would have to get rid of the
body and i says no we're calling 911 she says no we're getting rid of the body that's
when they put clothes on him they put shoes on the wrong foot put him in the trunk of the car drove
him to a remote area and dumped his body out on the side of the road when women behind bars continues the
medical examiner described a person who just slowly was beaten to death [Music] after suffering weeks of abuse 59 year
old buddy musso was tortured and killed by six accomplices including 54 year old bernice ahrens
on august 26 1998 the day after he was killed a jogger discovered musso's brutalized
body in a ditch on the side of a road the victim had been severely beaten we knew we had a homicide the first
thing that we noticed was that the with the extent of the injuries of him that the body had
on clean clothes very very few blood stains he had one shoe on it and it was on the
wrong foot there was no identification on the body at all well at that point i'd called the
dispatcher and had her check for missing persons and she notified us that a lady had reported
a missing person they were able to put the two and two together and recognize that the person
that was found in the field was in fact the person that was reported missing by suzanne
i went to the address of the lady that reported that particular person missing and made contact with her
chief pruitt drove suzanne basso and her son james to the crime scene i stopped the car back beyond the other
side of the bridge and got out with uh james o'malley and walked him up to about
where he could see the victim buddy museum and asked him if if that in fact was buddy
and he immediately confirmed that it was buddy under questioning james o'malley suzanne's son
confessed that they had killed buddy but suzanne insisted she was innocent she just broke down and
she went into her it's not my fault they did this and they did that and i told her i said
well your son just confessed of everybody's involvement in this o'malley also named bernice erins and
her two adult children hope and craig in his confession later on police searched bernice's apartment
and questioned her her kids and her daughter's fiance terence singleton we knew that they were probably involved
we detained them and then we started safeguarding evidence when the cops came i look like breathed
like a sign of relief like i'm glad it's over it's over and i'm glad the six accomplices were booked in the harris
county jail and charged with capital murder i was in so much shock this you know
just being there because i've never gotten into any kind of trouble before and i never was in a courtroom or
anything so i didn't know what to expect and i'm just sitting there like like a dummy
we tried her for capital murder and we were seeking a life sentence for capital murder i think that bernice
was willing to do whatever suzanne asked i don't know if it was just for the friendship
or the fact that bernice was just kind of lonely and looking for somebody you know just to sort of give
her positive feedback i don't know [Music] bernice's defense attorney argued that
her role in the crime was minor and blamed suzanne vasso he claimed that suzanne had masterminded
the murder in order to get money from buddy's insurance policies of which suzanne was the sole
beneficiary everybody's defense primarily pointed to suzanne basso as as the ringleader and she was
bernice had a full-time job so her part was well you know i was working how can i know what's going on when i'm
at work all i know is that one day i went to work and i came home and the house was empty
and then they all started coming in she says but he's dead but the prosecution argued
that bernice knew about the abuse and participated they presented as evidence a typewritten
signed copy of bernice's verbal confession at the time of her arrest in which she admitted to some
culpability it was clear that suzanne was the one in charge and bernice was willing to do her
bidding they tried to argue that they were just present the law says that merely being present
doesn't make you responsible for a crime they were all willing and active participants
and as a result of all of them acting together this man died [Music] the cornerstone of the prosecution's
case were photos and testimony which proved that musso had suffered greatly the autopsy photographs were
extremely important in this case because that was our case to show how badly that man had been
beaten the medical examiner described a person who just slowly was beaten to death
the jury found bernice aaron's guilty of murder and they gave her 80 years in the texas department of
corrections i was in total shock because i didn't do it i kept saying i didn't do it i didn't do it
and i felt that all right if i was in the house when it happened which i was i'm admitting that at least i could have
been charged with cynics you know an accessory or something but not for the crime i
didn't do the crime i was glad that the jury gave bernice 80 years because that's a lot of time
and i thought that was appropriate for her actions bernice's children were also found
guilty 26 year old craig was sentenced to 60 years 23 year old hope got 20 years for a plea
bargain where she confessed to murder and testified in suzanne's trial against her
suzanne was found guilty and convicted of capital murder on august 27 1999 the jury also convicted james
o'malley and terence singleton of capital murder they were sentenced to life in prison
suzanne basso was tried for the capital murder of buddy musso we sought the death penalty and the jury
ultimately sentenced suzanne basso to death for that crime suzanne is a death row inmate at a
medical facility in a maximum security prison i don't believe in the death penalty but
that's one person that i believe should get the death penalty for ruining other people's lives
yes in 2002 bernice was transferred to a maximum security prison in marlin texas
the same facility where her daughter hope is serving her sentence she sees her daughter once a week
bernice maintains her innocence but does regret her actions if i didn't open up my house to her
none of this would have happened and i blame myself for the whole thing

Brief Summary

Celeste Johnson and Bernice Ahrens face severe consequences for their involvement in brutal murders of their partners.

Key points

Celeste's Lavish Lifestyle. Celeste marries Stephen Beard for wealth, but their relationship quickly deteriorates.
Murderous Plot Unfolds. Celeste Beard's life takes a dark turn as she plots against her husband.
A Shocking 911 Call. Stephen Beard calls for help after being shot, revealing a gruesome scene.
Celeste's Arrest. On March 29, 2002, Celeste Beard was arrested and indicted for her husband's murder.
The Trial Begins. Opening arguments in Celeste's trial were presented in February following her arrest.
Celeste's Manipulation. Celeste entered a lesbian relationship to manipulate Tracy into killing her husband.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I felt safe with him.

Celeste reflects on her relationship with Stephen Beard.

8:56WatchJan 12, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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