Betty Lou Beets was born as Betty Lou Dunevant on March 12, 1937, in Roxboro, North Carolina. Her parents were Margaret Louise Smithwick and James Garland Dunevant. When Betty was young, she became deaf after having measles. She later claimed that she had been sexually abused by her father.

When she was a child, her family moved to Hampton, Virginia. Her father worked as a machinist at the Langley Research Center. Betty’s early teenage years were difficult. When she was 12 years old, her mother was institutionalized. This event forced her to take care of her younger brother and sister.

On August 6, 1983, Betty Lou Beets reported her fifth husband, Jimmy Don Beets, missing from their home in Texas. Beets’s son, Robert Branson, later testified that his mother had expressed her intention to kill her husband. After leaving the house for a couple of hours, Robert returned to find Jimmy Don dead from two gunshot wounds. He helped his mother bury the body in the front yard. The next day, Betty Lou put some of Jimmy Don's heart medication in his fishing boat, and they abandoned the boat in a nearby lake. The boat was found on August 12, 1983, and authorities believed that Jimmy Don had drowned.

In 1985, police received information that led to Beets' arrest for the murder of her husband. A search of her home found Jimmy Don's remains in a filled-in wishing well. Additionally, the remains of her fourth husband, Doyle Wayne Barker, were discovered buried in the garage. Both men had been shot with a .38 caliber pistol. Beets was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of Jimmy Don, but she was not tried for the murder of Barker.

Her trial began on July 11, 1985. Beets pleaded not guilty and claimed that her children had committed the murders. She was found guilty on October 11, and during the penalty phase of the trial, the jury sentenced her to death. Beets was incarcerated at the Mountain View Unit in Texas.

Throughout the years following her conviction, Beets filed numerous appeals. After her case was reviewed by higher courts, her conviction was initially overturned but later reinstated. After several failed attempts to delay her execution, a new execution date was set.

Beets was executed by lethal injection at 6:18 PM on February 24, 2000, in the Huntsville Unit of Texas. She did not request a final meal or make a final statement.