HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Editor's Note: The above video was published on Nov. 7, 2022.
Despite efforts to delay his lethal injection, Tracy Beatty, of Whitehouse, who was convicted of strangling his mother to death almost 20 years ago, will be executed Wednesday night.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined blocking Beatty's execution, which is set for 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Huntsville State Penitentiary.
A lower federal court previously dismissed Beatty’s claims of the state prison system jeopardizing his constitutional rights of proving he may have an intellectual disability. A 2002 Supreme Court decision stated those who have an intellectual disability cannot be executed.
Beatty argued in the federal litigation that he could not be fully evaluated because prison officials would not allow him to take off his handcuffs.
SCOTUS then declined Beatty's application for stay of execution.
His execution date has changed multiple times, including in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beatty also recently tried to claim juror misconduct at his 2004 trial.
Ahead of his execution date, Beatty said, in spite of his efforts to stay the execution, he's at peace.
“I'm not worried about it. And I've already made my peace with the Man. So I know where I'm going,” Beatty said in an Oct. 12 interview with CBS19 at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston. “I’ll be in a lot better place than this.”
Beatty was sentenced in August 2004 for the capital murder of his mother Carolyn “Callie” Ruth Click, who he strangled and later buried in the backyard in Whitehouse on Nov. 25, 2003.
In recalling what led to her death, Beatty said he was “heartbroken” because she was his mom, and he said it was an accident.
“That's why I've made my peace with the man upstairs. I know I'll see her again,” he said.
Since serving his prison sentence, he’s made plans to be baptized and married a woman from Israel in an Oct. 25 ceremony.
BACKGROUND
In October 2003, he began staying with Click while on parole after serving a prison sentence for intentionally injuring his 18-month-old niece, according to the Tyler Morning Telegraph.
Witnesses said Click had forgiven him when he came to her home in October, the Morning Telegraph reported.
He said they got along for a little while.
But on Nov. 25, 2003, Beatty said he was drinking all day and he came into the house drunk.
“She just started talking trash and raising hell and telling me I wouldn't be staying out,” he said.
He said he tried to leave but Click grabbed him by his hair, which according to him she knew that would make him angry.
“I just grabbed her by her throat and the back of her neck, and picked her up and threw her back toward her recliner," Beatty said.
Believing he just knocked her out, Beatty said he went into the room he was staying in and placed a lamp in front of the door. He also got a gun ready from underneath the dresser.
The next morning, he walked down the hallway to see her legs still sticking out of the recliner. He thought “this ain’t right” and when he felt her skin, he could tell she was “gone.”
Once he realized she died, Beatty said he picked her up, undressed her and placed her in the bathtub to wash blood off her face and head.
She laid in a pool of water for three days until he realized he had to do “something.”
“So I just dug a grave in the backyard and put her in it. She always said she wanted to be buried there on top of the hill anyways,” he said.
He didn’t get caught until a month later.
According to the Tyler Morning Telegraph report in 2003, Beatty was arrested in Henderson County on auto and theft charges and he told inmates he killed his mother. He asked investigators to let him guide them to Click's body to “get her out of the hole before Christmas."
Just two days before Christmas, cadaver dogs found her nude, contorted body in a small, shallow grave behind her pale yellow trailer in Whitehouse.
Beatty buried her with mothballs and garlic, covered her with cat litter and lumber, and tied panty hose over her neck and face, the Tyler Paper’s previous report read.
In addition to strangling his mother, police found Beatty beat her badly, broke her bones and injured her head. He burned her items, stole her car and used credit cards to buy drugs and alcohol, according to court records obtained by the Tyler Paper.
WATCH AND READ OUR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH BEATTY HERE: