Holding It Together (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

A 1999 Texas murder mystery unfolds through a 911 call, revealing a web of love, betrayal, and deception involving a wealthy man's death, his wife, and her lover. The case reveals shocking twists, including a secret affair and a murder plot. The story is dramatized with fictionalized elements for storytelling purposes.

Key takeaways

• A man was shot with a shotgun in his home.
• His wife and her lover were involved in a secret affair.
• The wife orchestrated her husband's murder to inherit his wealth.

Transcript preview

In October of 1999, a 911 dispatcher in Austin, Texas was nearing the end of a long night shift when a strange call came in. The caller was a man who just said his guts had been blown out of his stomach. The dispatcher asked him to explain what actually happened, but the caller wouldn't say. He just kept saying that he had woken up and his guts were hanging out and now he's holding his guts in with his hand and he needed an ambulance right now. But before we get into that story, if you're, if you're a of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the follow button's house and add hot sauce to the solution for their eye contacts. Okay, let's get into today's story. On the night of October 1st, 1999, a 75-year-old man named Steve Beard sat on the patio of his mansion in Austin, Texas sipping on a cocktail. And it was a great night, warm evening, the leaves rustling in the trees all around his property, and behind his house there was this creek that was flowing along, and in the house he could hear his wife Celeste washing the dishes. So Steve had met Celeste, only about six years ago. It was actually shortly after his first wife, Elise, had died of cancer. And Steve had been with his first wife for 45 years, and they'd raised three kids together. And he'd just been totally lost after she had passed away. And really, after she had died, he had spent a lot of nights just sitting alone at the Austin Country Club, where actually Celeste had been working as a waitress. Celeste was only 30 years old at the time, which meant she was almost 40 years younger than Steve. But there had been an immediate them and they got married just over a year later. Now some of Steve's friends and family had immediately assumed that you know given this age gap that Celeste was simply after Steve for his money. Steve after all had made a fortune as a business owner and a TV station executive and he was worth about 10 million dollars. But Steve knew that money could not possibly be the only thing Celeste saw in him. I mean he knew that he took great care of Celeste and also he took great care of her twin teenage daughters. I mean he took great care of her twin teenage daughters. I mean he he really helped give Celeste and her girls the stability that they desperately needed. However, despite that stability, one thing that Celeste had always struggled with for much of her life was depression. And in fact, earlier that year, it had gotten so bad that Celeste had actually tried to end her own life. And, you know, she had failed, she had lived, but as a result of that attempt, she'd spent a few weeks in a psychiatric hospital. Now, of course, that was a really traumatic and awful thing for the family. But from Steve's perspective, the upside of this was that Celeste was put on some new medication as a result of this hospital stay. She had made some good friends actually while she was at the hospital. And to Steve, it just seemed like, you know, maybe now things were starting to maybe turn around for Celeste. And to Steve, the fact that Celeste appeared to be on the right path again was great timing, because recently Steve had actually been dealing with health problems of his own. Twice in the past few months, passed out and actually had to be hospitalized himself. The doctors told him he had high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and he had some heart and kidney issues, but they actually couldn't quite figure out why he was fainting. They just knew he had several symptoms going on. Now Steve thought it was very likely stress-related and he just needed to relax. So in fact, in two days from now, he was going to be taking Celeste on a three week vacation around Europe. After everything Celeste had been through that year and also, you know, Steve had been through as well, as well, as well, issues, he felt like they both could use some time away, just the two of them. But now, when Steve got up from a seat out on the patio of his home and he put the empty cocktail glass down on the table and he turned and he opened the glass door that led into the bedroom, he saw that even though he'd already packed his suitcase for this European trip, you know, several days ago, Celeste's suitcase was still empty in the closet. And Steve couldn't help but feel like, it seems like, it seems like, it seems like Celeste might be getting cold feet like she should have been packed already and she's clearly putting it off. So Steve left the bedroom and he went down the hallway and went into the kitchen where he found Celeste cleaning up. And when he got in there as gently as he could he told Celeste, hey, you know, when you get a chance you really ought to pack. And she told him, oh, don't worry about it. You know, she's just been busy all week. She'd get to it. Steve nodded, you wasn't really convinced that she'd He told Celeste he was going to go to bed and she told him that she actually intended to stay up for a bit longer. One of her daughters was having a sleepover at the family's lake house that night and she said that she might go over there and just check on them later. Celeste told Steve that when she returned from doing that, she would sleep in a different room to avoid waking him up. Steve thanked her and gave her a kiss good night and then he turned and then he got ready for bed, climbed into bed and then he put on his oxygen mask because he had because he had sleep apnea because he had sleep apnea because he had covers up and he drifted off to sleep. Hours later around 3 a.m. Steve woke up and immediately he felt this horrible pain in his stomach and even though it was dark in his room he looked down you know he's got the mask still on his face and he could tell there was something on his stomach and he reached down instinctively and he grabbed at his stomach and he felt something wet on his hands and so when a panic he ripped off his mask and he kind of sat up to look down at his abdomen but he felt intensified so much just by trying to sit up that he fell back down and so he reached over and he clicked on the light and he looked down and there was blood all over his stomach like all over the sheets everywhere and so he begins screaming out for Celeste and as he's screaming like the pain is only getting worse and worse and worse and Celeste is not coming in the room she's not even responding and so as he's looking down like completely panic stricken watching all this blood coming out of his gut he has no idea how this is no idea how this is happening He just reached over and grabbed the phone and he dialed 911. Just minutes later, a squad car from the Travis County Sheriff's Department pulled up outside of Steve's house with its lights flashing. Deputy Alan Howard climbed out of that car and he saw a fire captain and another pair of deputies on the front step pounding on the door. All Deputy Howard knew was that a man in this home had called in was some kind of medical emergency. But the dispatcher had a not quite understood what was wrong with him. And so Howard just ran over to the front door and there the other deputies told him that so far nobody was answering their knocks. Howard knew at this point, you know, time is of the essence. They had to get in and make sure this person was okay. And so he didn't want to just sit out here and wait any longer. So he left the front porch and he went along the side of the side of the side of the house to see if there was maybe another door that was unlocked, he then, he eventually flight of stairs that went up to a patio attached to a bedroom. And so up Howard went, the deputies followed, they got up there, and they looked into the house and they saw a light was on. And then through the glass door, they could all see there was an elderly man laying in bed with a telephone receiver in one hand, and his other hand appeared to be just covered in blood. Howard walked up to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. So he pulled out his heavy duty flashlight and he broke the glass, reached the glass, reached in, unlocked it, unlocked it, unlocked it and locked it, unlocked it and locked it and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, unlocked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, unlocked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and locked it, and Howard ran into the bedroom and when he got right next to the bed he looked at this man who was still conscious but he had a gaping hole in his stomach like his intestines were literally spilling out and that's why his other hand was so