Texas woman executed for killing her husband

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A 62-year-old woman was executed by injection Thursday after Gov. George W. Bush rejected her claim<br>that she killed her fifth husband in self-defense and deserved a reprieve.<br><br>Betty

Thursday, February 24th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A 62-year-old woman was executed by injection Thursday after Gov. George W. Bush rejected her claim
that she killed her fifth husband in self-defense and deserved a reprieve.

Betty Lou Beets became the fourth woman to be executed in the United States since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed the death
penalty to resume. She was the second woman executed in Texas since the Civil War.

She gave no final statement as she lay strapped to the death chamber gurney. She made no eye contact with the victim's family,
but smiled at her attorney and a spiritual adviser watching through a window at her side. She continued smiling as she slipped into
unconsciousness.

Death penalty opponents and domestic violence organizations had urged Bush to grant Beets a 30-day delay, arguing it would be
consistent with his description of himself as a "compassionate conservative" in his presidential campaign. The delay was Bush's
only option, since the state parole board did not recommend that her sentence be commuted to life in prison.

During his 51/2 years as governor, 120 convicted killers have been executed in Texas, and Bush has said he is certain all of them were guilty. He spared one condemned inmate whose guilt, he said, was in
doubt.

"After careful review of the evidence of the case, I concur with the jury that Betty Lou Beets is guilty of this murder," Bush said in a written statement after returning to Texas from
California, where he was campaigning for the Republican nomination.

"I'm confident that the courts, both state and federal, have thoroughly reviewed all the issues raised by the defendant."

Prosecutors said Beets shot and killed two of her husbands, but she was only tried in the death of her fifth husband, Dallas Fire Captain Jimmy Don Beets, nearly 17 years ago. Prosecutors said she killed him to collect his life insurance and pension.

Beets and her lawyers insisted the former bartender-waitress was the victim of years of domestic abuse and should be allowed to
live.

On Thursday the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected an appeal that accused the state of not following its own
rules in reviewing Beets' case. The arguments were dismissed Wednesday by a federal judge in Austin as a delay tactic.

Beets' lawyers also took the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected it without comment.

According to the governor's office, Bush had received 2,108 phone calls and letters opposing Beets' execution by Thursday
afternoon, and 57 favoring it.

"A decision to stay the execution of Ms. Beets would demonstrate your compassionate conservatism and that you are willing to do what is right even in the face of potential criticism from your constituents," the Rev. Jesse Jackson wrote Bush on Thursday.

Steven Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, implored Bush to grant a reprieve "so
evidence of her being battered ... may be fully evaluated."

"Far from receiving careful consideration, the role of domestic abuse in Betty's crime has been continually swept under the rug by the Texas court system," Hawkins said.

Before Beets, the last woman executed in Texas was Karla Faye Tucker, on Feb. 3, 1998. Tucker hacked two people to death with a
pickax but said she had a religious conversion in prison and appealed for mercy. Bush was criticized for mocking Tucker in a magazine interview last year.

Beets was the ninth convicted killer and the second in as many days to be executed in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state.

Her claims of domestic abuse surfaced only recently and were not a factor in her 1985 trial, although one of her daughters, Faye
Lane, in a tearful plea for her mother's life, said this week her mother was acting in self-defense after years of abuse.

James Beets, the murder victim's son, discounted claims of abuse, saying she told friends her husband of 11 months had been
the best thing to happen to her.

"My dad was a Dallas fireman for 26 years," he said after witnessing the execution. "He lived to help people, not hurt people."

Betty Lou Beets also was convicted of shooting and wounding her second husband, Bill Lane.

Acting on a tip two years after Jimmy Don Beets was reported missing from a fishing trip, authorities found his body buried under a wishing well flower garden in the yard of their trailer home. They also discovered nearby in another shallow grave the body of husband No. 4, Doyle Barker, who had been missing for four years.

Both had been shot in the back of the head and stuffed into blue sleeping bags.

Beets blamed a son for Jimmy Don Beets' death. The son denied any involvement and testified against her. Beets explained Barker's
disappearance by saying he left one day and never returned.

She blamed husband No. 2, Lane, for Barker's death. Although she was charged in his death, she was never tried.

"I felt the 14 years she was down here done me no justice until today," Barker's son, Rodney, said after watching the execution.
"And I felt like the state of Texas had done something for me finally as a victim. I want people to know victims have rights too. We're tired of hearing about Betty Beets.