Beard, a retired Fox Broadcasting executive and self-made multi-millionaire more than twice her age, was a widower whose wife had died of cancer.
[citation needed] Tarlton remained silent until July 2000, when she read in a local newspaper that Johnson had remarried six months after Beard's death and realized that their relationship had been a sham.
At Johnson's trial, prosecutors charged that she had married Beard for his money and wanted him dead because he was tired of her extravagant spending and was considering divorce.
[9] In 2003, Johnson was convicted of capital murder, under The Texas Law of Parties,[10] receiving a 2 consecutive 40 year life sentences.
[11][12] Johnson has continued to maintain her innocence for 19+ years and as of 2019[update] is imprisoned at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Lane Murray Unit in Gatesville.
[13] Tarlton received a 10-year reduced sentence in exchange for testifying against Johnson, and was released on parole in August 2011 and lives in San Antonio.
[14] The case was covered on such news documentaries and true crime programs as American Justice, Snapped (1st episode), Deadly Women, Vengeance: Killer Millionaires, Reasonable Doubt, and ABC's 20/20.
[15][16][17][18][19][20] Previously unrevealed information about the lives, the crime, and the trial in the exclusive biography, The Celeste Beard Johnson Story, was released in 2019.
[23] On June 13, 2021, Lifetime aired Secrets of a Gold Digger Killer, a TV film that featured Julie Benz as Celeste.