Too Many Dead Husbands

details of the account remain covered until revealed The family lived in a pine cabin with no electricity, no running water and no glass in the windows, surviving on salt pork and flour. When she was five they moved to Danville, Virginia, where her father found construction work, and that year she caught a severe case of measles. A fever that reached 105 degrees left her with more than half her hearing gone and affected her speech. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

At fifteen, in the summer after ninth grade, she married Robert Franklin Branson, an eighteen-year-old who worked at a zipper factory, on July 18th, 1952. Their daughter Fay was born in 1953, followed by Connie in 1954, Shirley in 1959, Phyllis in 1962, Robert Jr., called Robby, in 1964, and Bobby in 1966. The marriage was violent at times. In 1969 Robert demanded a divorce, leaving her with six children and $250 a month in child support, later raised to about $300. this part of the story is covered for now

In 1970 she met Billy York Lane, a house painter, and married him on July 28th. By October 28th she had a restraining order against him. They divorced late that year but kept returning to each other. In June 1971 he broke her nose, and on January 17th, 1972, after threatening to kill her at a bar, he came to her Dallas apartment. She shot him several times with a .22 pistol, but the bullet holes were in his back. details of the account remain covered until revealed They remarried immediately afterwards and split again within a month.

She moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, with Bobby and worked at a 7-Eleven. In November 1973 she met Ronnie Threlkeld, a salesman, at a country bar, and they moved to Dallas and married on February 16th, 1978. The marriage was volatile. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed

She met Doyle Wayne Barker, a roofer and construction worker, at a truck stop in Mesquite, Texas, and married him on October 3rd, 1979. They separated after seven weeks, but a serious car crash that left her with a basilar skull fracture brought them back together. They bought a half-acre lot in the Cherokee Hills section of Gun Barrel City for $8,800 and a cream and brown two-bedroom trailer, and he built a shed out back. A divorce was filed in 1980 but never completed. By October 1981 she was telling her children that Barker had started slapping her. Her daughter Shirley asked what she would do, and she said she was going to kill him. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it She had paid a construction worker $20 to dig a four-foot hole, telling him it was for a barbecue pit.

A few nights later, while Barker slept, she took an antique .38 revolver from her nightstand, drank some Jim Beam, held a pillow over the gun as a silencer and shot him in the head. His body jerked, so she shot him again. She wrapped the body in plastic and a blue sleeping bag, hid it in a closet, and spent the night washing blood from the sheets, towels and her nightgown. this part of the story is covered for now That night they dragged the body down the front steps, buried it in the hole, and planned to cover it with a patio and cinder blocks so that no one, and no dog, would find it.

Less than a year later she met Jimmy Don Beats, an army veteran and fire department captain born on Christmas Eve, 1957, in a bar. They married on August 19th, 1982. She asked him to build a decorative wishing well in the yard, directly over Barker's grave. On August 5th, 1983, Jimmy Don went night fishing and did not come home. The next morning two fishermen found his boat drifting near the dock; the propeller was sheared and his glasses and nitroglycerine pills were on the floor. A large search of Cedar Creek Lake by boats and private planes found nothing. details of the account remain covered until revealed She was the beneficiary of a $100,000 life insurance policy and a $1,200 a month fire department pension. In 1984 she burned Jimmy Don's lake house to the ground and collected a settlement, and in February 1985 she filed for his death certificate.

On June 8th, 1985, acting on a tip from her son Robby, police dug up the yard. Under the wishing well they found a three-by-three piece of plywood, then a blue sleeping bag holding Jimmy Don Beats, and beneath him the body of Doyle Wayne Barker, with a bullet hole in the skull. Robby had helped bury Beats, and Shirley then admitted helping bury Barker in 1981. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Jimmy Don Beats is buried in Roseelawn Memorial Gardens in Seagoville, Texas.