Beets was deaf due to a childhood bout with measles, and claimed she was sexually abused by her father.

[1][2] When Beets was a child, the family moved from North Carolina to Hampton, Virginia, where her father was employed as a machinist at the Langley Research Center.

[6] Beets had a criminal history prior to her arrest for murder, including public lewdness, and shooting former husband Bill Lane in the side of the abdomen.

He helped his mother conceal the body below ground in the front yard of the house, after which Betty Lou Beets telephoned the police.

Believing that he had fallen overboard and drowned, the police spent three weeks dragging the lake looking for Jimmy Don's body.

In 1985, information was received by the Henderson County Sheriff that led to enough evidence to arrest Beets for the August 6 murder.

The Supreme Court of the United States denied a writ of certiorari on June 26, 1989, and an execution date was set for November 8.

The United States Court of Appeals upheld the decision on March 18, 1993, and also overturned the one claim that had been granted relief.

[citation needed] Beets was executed by lethal injection at 6:18 pm CST on February 24, 2000, in the Huntsville Unit.

Betty Lou Beets' crimes were retold by her daughter, Shirley Furgala, as part of an episode of the TV series Evil Lives Here on September 13, 2020.