A Kiss Before Death

In the summer of 1960 Betty Jean Williams was seventeen and about to begin her senior year at Odessa High School in Odessa, Texas. Odessa was an oil town in Ector County, a place that had boomed and busted since it was founded in 1881 as a water stop on the railroad, and Betty's family lived on the poor side of town, in a small house on an unpaved street near the oil fields. Her father was a carpenter who could not keep steady work; her mother, Mary, took a job at JCPenney. The family were strict Baptists, and her father preached about sin and damnation.

Betty was bright, restless and theatrical. She read Jack Kerouac and listened to Lenny Bruce, wore black and white lipstick, wrote constantly in diaries and notes, argued against segregation, and dreamed of acting on Broadway. Her cousin, Shelton 'Shelly' Williams, later wrote a book about her, Washed in Blood, and remembered their long talks in the family car. Betty told him most people did not understand her. She was in the drama club, played Juliet in a speech-team scene from Romeo and Juliet, and worked part-time at Woolworth's, saving to leave Odessa.

details of the account remain covered until revealed His father was a Second World War veteran who owned an electrical contracting business. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Betty thought he was sensitive and that he listened to her. 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 Betty was humiliated. Her father searched her room, found her diary and read detailed accounts of her sexual experiences; he was furious and she begged him to believe she had changed. By the winter of 1960 she was depressed, telling friends she would be better off dead. She took four aspirin in what she called a half-hearted suicide attempt, and she climbed into the rafters of the school auditorium intending to throw herself onto the stage but lacked the courage. She asked several classmates, half joking, whether they would kill her; most laughed it off, because Betty was always dramatic.

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 She asked that he not suffer for it.

On the night of 21 March 1961 Betty sneaked out of the house for a coke date with Ike Nail, a junior who had driven her home from rehearsal. 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 He had taken his father's 12-gauge shotgun, two lead weights, wire, rope, shells and a miner's helmet so that he could see while wading out into the water.

At a stock pond on his father's hunting grounds, about three miles beyond No Trees, they sat in the jeep and talked for fifteen or twenty minutes. Betty was cheerful and spoke about heaven. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The blast tore into the side of her head and partly decapitated her. this part of the story is covered for now He left his muddy boots on the bank, drove home and went to school the next morning as though nothing had happened.

At 7.45 a.m. on 22 March 1961 Betty's mother telephoned the police. Betty had not been seen since ten o'clock the previous night, and torn bedclothing in her room made the police fear foul play. At school the principal pulled her friends out of class one by one. 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 I killed her.' He said she had begged him, that she wanted to go to heaven and thought it the only way to be happy, and that there was no motive and he thought he was crazy.

this part of the story is covered for now He said Betty first asked him on the Monday and he agreed on the Tuesday, that he had made up his mind before collecting her, and that he had hoped to talk her out of it but knew he could go through with it. He described the kiss, the shot, the weights, the miner's helmet and the walk back to the car to warm himself. He said he felt towards her 'like a cat dying in a muddy street in the rain'. Officers did not believe him at first. Four officers and a criminal investigator drove with him out along the Kermit highway, turned down a cow path and climbed an incline to the pond, which afterwards was known as Dead Girl's Pond. They found blood, tissue and skin where he said the shooting happened, and his boots on the shore. details of the account remain covered until revealed The press photographed him at the scene for twenty minutes; he was not handcuffed. The autopsy found the shotgun had been held against her skin, that her brain was destroyed, and that she had not been sexually assaulted and was not pregnant.

A second note, written earlier, was produced as evidence that Betty had been contemplating suicide, although it predated the killing by months. Odessa largely blamed Betty. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now His strategy was temporary insanity. Under Texas law at the time, a defendant found temporarily insane at the moment of the crime walked free without any hospital commitment. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

The hearing became a carnival. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed The defence called his parents, teachers, the head football coach, the former principal and a string of character witnesses, all of whom described him as a fine boy. Classmates testified that Betty had asked them to kill her but that they had not taken her seriously. 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 It was moved 600 miles to Beaumont. details of the account remain covered until revealed The courtroom applauded and he was mobbed by jubilant supporters. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He never got into trouble again. A reporter who saw him in later life found a solitary man in a mint-green frame house with a rusted pickup and a yard of packed dirt, eating frozen Salisbury steak. He died on 5 January 2019, aged 75.

Betty became a ghost story. From the 1960s teenagers parked opposite Odessa High School at midnight, flashed their headlights three times and called her name, hoping to see her at the auditorium windows. The stories multiplied: that she fell from a ladder, hanged herself, or was shot on stage by a football-player boyfriend during a play. The school painted over the auditorium windows in 2007. Teachers and pupils still report footsteps, flickering lights and moving objects, and a coach who knew her is said to be visited in the field house. In 2015 the theatre arts teacher said that whenever something unexplained happens, someone says: 'It's Betty.'