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TDCJ #442312 on a 4 year
sentence from Dallas County for Injury to a Child. Beatty was
released on Mandatory Supervision and returned with a new
conviction, a 15 year sentence from Dallas County for Theft.
Summary of Incident
On 07/25/2003 in Smith County,
Texas, Beatty strangled his mother, a sixty-two year old white
female, placed her in the bathtub for two days and then buried
her in a shallow grave in their backyard.
Co-defendants
None
Race and Gender of Victim
White Female
August Execution Date Set for Tyler Man
By Casey Knaupp -
TylerPaper.com
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
A 48-year-old Tyler man condemned in 2004 for killing his mother
returned to a Smith County courtroom Wednesday and was ordered to
be executed on Aug. 13.
Tracy Lane Beatty exhausted his state appeals when the Texas Court
of Criminal Appeals denied him habeas corpus relief in a May 6
opinion. The defendant was brought back to Smith County from death
row Wednesday and 241st District Judge Jack Skeen Jr. set his date
of execution.
Beatty will pursue federal appears so it is unlikely he will be
executed on that date.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his capital murder
conviction and death sentence March 11.
Beatty was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection by
a Smith County jury for killing Carolyn "Callie" Click, 62,
stealing her car, draining her credit and bank accounts to buy
drugs and alcohol, giving away her personal items and burying her
body in a shallow grave behind her mobile home Nov. 25, 2003.
Beatty’s lawyers filed the writ of habeas corpus, presenting 10
allegations that challenged the validity of his conviction and
sentence. Skeen submitted findings of fact and conclusions of law,
and recommendation that relief be denied was followed by the Court
of Criminal Appeals.
Defense attorney Jeff Haas told Skeen he would file an appeal in
federal court.
Defense attorneys Robert Perkins and Don Davidson also appeared in
court for the brief hearing, as well as District Attorney Matt
Bingham and First Assistant DA April Sikes.
The Trial
Neighbors testified Ms. Click and Beatty had a rocky relationship
and fought almost daily but that the victim offered her son a
place to stay after he was paroled from prison in October 2003.
Ms. Click reportedly had kicked her son out of her house the day
of her murder. Beatty told family, friends and law enforcement
about five different stories before he led authorities to his
mother's body and confessed nearly a month after the murder,
evidence showed.
A pathologist testified Ms. Click was suffocated, strangled or
smothered to death. She suffered broken bones in her neck, cracked
ribs, blunt force trauma to her head and a fractured breastbone.
While awaiting the capital murder trial, Beatty was found with a
long, sharp metal shank in jail. Also before the trial began,
Beatty was found in contempt of court for refusing Skeen's order
to provide the state with a handwriting sample.
Parole records indicated Beatty threatened a parole officer and
assaulted his mother, which resulted in his parole being revoked
before the capital murder offense.
Witnesses said Beatty had been arrested 21 times for various
offenses, including injury to his 18-month-old niece in which
Beatty shocked her with an electrical cord, burned her with a
cigarette, pulled out her hair and struck her in the face.
There were 16 incidents where Beatty threatened or attacked prison
employees or showed other acts of violence while in several Texas
prisons. Since 1987, when Beatty was first released from prison on
parole, the defendant has been in and out of prison and has had
his parole revoked four times. Beatty was on parole at the time of
the capital murder.
Beatty once claimed to be a member of the Arian Circle, a white
supremacist prison gang.
