Buried Memories
The sensational true story of Betty Lou Beets, “one of the most infamous murderers in modern Texas history” (Dallas Morning News).
In 1985, the Gun Barrel City police found missing fire department captain Jimmy Don Beets’s body inside a wishing well in the neatly tended garden of his wife, forty-eight-year-old Betty Lou Beets. They also discovered the remains of Betty Lou’s fourth husband, Doyle Wayne Barker. Each had been shot in the head and buried in a sleeping bag. It wasn’t long before investigators unearthed the terrible truth.
As Betty Lou’s sordid past as a topless dancer, cocktail waitress, and wife to five men emerged, so did her chilling trail of marital violence. She shot her second husband, Billy York Lane, in the back. She tried to run over her third husband, Ronnie Threlkeld, with a car. Both survived to tell their horrific stories. But Barker and Beets, spouses four and five, weren’t so lucky.
After a headline-making trial, Betty Lou Beets was sentenced to death by lethal injection—and fifteen years later, she captured national attention again by becoming the second woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War. Buried Memories is the full true crime story of this notorious black widow, from award-winning journalist Irene Pence.
In 1985, the Gun Barrel City police found missing fire department captain Jimmy Don Beets’s body inside a wishing well in the neatly tended garden of his wife, forty-eight-year-old Betty Lou Beets. They also discovered the remains of Betty Lou’s fourth husband, Doyle Wayne Barker. Each had been shot in the head and buried in a sleeping bag. It wasn’t long before investigators unearthed the terrible truth.
As Betty Lou’s sordid past as a topless dancer, cocktail waitress, and wife to five men emerged, so did her chilling trail of marital violence. She shot her second husband, Billy York Lane, in the back. She tried to run over her third husband, Ronnie Threlkeld, with a car. Both survived to tell their horrific stories. But Barker and Beets, spouses four and five, weren’t so lucky.
After a headline-making trial, Betty Lou Beets was sentenced to death by lethal injection—and fifteen years later, she captured national attention again by becoming the second woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War. Buried Memories is the full true crime story of this notorious black widow, from award-winning journalist Irene Pence.
