Tracey Tarlton: Tricked Into Shooting Gay Lover’s Rich Hubby (FPD CASE VAULT)

Lesbian Tracey Tarlton would do anything for her pretty lover, Celeste Beard. That included murder.

On Oct. 2, 1999, the frumpy bookstore manager snuck into the Austin, Texas, mansion of Celeste's multi-millionaire fourth hubby Steven Beard, 75, and ambushed him with a shotgun as he slept. As Tarlton snuck off, Beard awoke, confused and in agonizing pain. He called 911 screaming: "My guts just blew out of my stomach!"

An ambulance rushed the 300-pound former TV exec to the hospital. Paramedics believed stitches from a recent hernia operation had burst. Cops, however, found a shotgun shell by his bed.

Who shot him? "How about that crazy Tracey?" a Beard friend said. Tracey's hot gay romance with Celeste was no secret — so cops checked Tarlton out.

After admitting she owned a shotgun, Tracey was charged with murder when Beard died a few months later. She DIDN’T reveal that Celeste had asked her to kill her husband. Celeste claimed Beard was a wife-beater. With him out of the way, she said she and Tracey could be together forever.

But Celeste was lying. In reality, she only loved herself — and money. The heartless gold digger was spending Beard's $12 million fortune hand-over-fist. Her closets held hundreds of pairs of shoes. In fact, she could have gone 18 months without donning the same footwear.

In the months leading up to the shooting, fed-up Beard cut off Celeste's allowance. Then, the cunning vixen met Tracey and turned on the charm, convincing lesbian lover Tarlton to kill for her.

And the spend-crazy wife nearly got away with the perfect crime. But Celeste made a mistake. She broke up with Tracey while the accused killer was in prison awaiting trial. Then she married again!

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Scorned Tracey had a change of heart. She made a deal with prosecutors, confessing: "I did it for Celeste."

Celeste got put away for life. But even though SHE pulled the trigger, Tracey got only 20 years and was paroled in 2011 due to her cooperation with the prosecution.