1986 – Freeport/Clute Rebecca Beard’s Murder ~~ Part 2 – And She Never Came Home

1986 – Freeport/Clute Rebecca Beard’s Story

Part 2 – And She Never Came Home

(Part 1 is here.)

Hi friends, it’s Brenda with Vintage Texas Crimes, and I’ve got the next part of this story for you. This isn’t going to be one we can wrap up quickly. It’s going to be at least six more parts. I’ll give you a lot of detail, but you’ll have to draw your own conclusions.

Last time, in Part 1, we talked about clubs and night life in 1986. This week, we’re going to talk about Rebecca’s family, events leading up to Saturday, March 1, and  through March 3.

As you know, twenty-two-year-old Rebecca Beard disappeared on March 2, 1986. She had been to the Excalibur Club in Freeport, Texas, that evening, but from there, police had a hard time following the trail.

Nine long years later, a local man named Paul Taylor was indicted for her murder. As he was about to go to trial, he received an offer to plead guilty and be sentenced to life. In exchange, Paul Taylor was to show them where he had buried her and for her body to be recovered. (I will provide pictures of him in a subsequent post.)

The family still doesn’t have her body. Follow their Facebook page, Finding Becky Beard. You will soon learn the family will not stop looking for answers until they have her body and she can be properly buried. (Update: there is a dig underway today 7/30/25 – details at Finding Becky Beard!) 

Old Texas crime stories are my thing; some have great lessons in history, and I’ve wanted to look into this one for a long time. It seemed to be over and done. I didn’t really know anything new had happened until I Googled her story last week.

Let me preface this by saying the only person who has been charged or found guilty of this crime is Paul Taylor. However, in 2022, additional information came into the family’s hands, including police reports they had never seen. A concerned, credible individual said they should look into it, so they did. The FBI has also been involved. In 2022,  Texas EquuSearch did an 11-day search at the site they were directed to, but her remains weren’t recovered.

The family had believed for 27 years that Rebecca had died in a certain way, and they had put it to bed and moved on. Reading the investigative reports reopened their wounds; reality shifted hard for them.

The first odd thing about the reports was this: no one during the first few days of the investigation said that Rebecca was with Paul Taylor at any point. No one saw him at the Excalibur Club on the night she went missing.

And then, there were other people mentioned, people who saw her, people who observed things, a person she left with, and people who claimed to know where Rebecca was going next.

This is my retelling of the story based on the 70 pages of text and documents extracted from the Facebook page of Finding Becky Beard. I dug into newspapers, a slew of property records from 1984 to 1985, and any other credible information I could find about this crime.

This may put some people off:  I am not using the real names of several people in this story. For instance, one guy wouldn’t take a polygraph. I’m not going to use his name. There are others, too. You can find it if you read Finding Becky Beard, or if you ask for the police records from the investigation, but I don’t want his name to pop up on my blog which may aggravate him. Rather, the individual’s last name will be a color, the first name will just be whatever pops in my mind. That way, you will know a name has been substituted without my disrupting the story by stopping to explain.

Why not use the real names? I am not an activist or a journalist trying to call anyone out. I’m a storyteller. I simply don’t want to use the real names and cause anyone to clutch their pearls and hit the smelling salts because their name is on my blog.

I’m writing this one because the family desperately wants to recover Rebecca’s body. They actually hurt over this. It’s horrible … so maybe someone will read it and remember something else to help find Rebecca’s remains. Maybe another creator with a larger following will pick up the story and do their own re-telling. The more exposure, the better for the family; it may lead to the truth of what really happened to Rebecca Beard.

So, with that said, let’s get started on Part 2 of this old Texas crime story.

First, we are going to wind it back a little.

Sometimes you can’t appreciate the story until you know the foundation it was built upon. And, in this case, a young woman disappeared … and you know as well as you know your name people were whispering and victim shaming.

“Well, she ought not to have been out. She should have been home getting ready to go to church in the morning.”

And you know the gossips were buzzing, saying things like,

“What girl would be out dancing until all hours? Well, you know who I am talking about, Lucille, that pretty blond on the posters all over town. She went to that honky tonk up where the old Pickwick Cafeteria used to be and never came home. Maybe she ran off … but she shouldn’t have been there to start with.”

Rebecca Beard wasn’t just a girl going to the clubs. She was a beloved granddaughter, a needed daughter, a big sister, and most of all, she was the center of one little girl’s life; she was a mother.

She had a daughter named Brittany who turned three years old 18 days after her mother disappeared.

 

That’s why we are turning back the clock for a minute. I want you to see this young woman as a person who mattered to a tight-knit family.

So, let’s start in 1961– Shirley and Leon Buchanan and their two daughters, had been living in Freeport, for several years.  Leon came from a finance background, and he landed a job at First National Bank of Freeport, that year.

Before long, Shirley went to work at Dingles’ Furniture on West Second Street. The Buchanans were well-thought of in the community. They worked hard, and year by year, Shirley and Leon Buchanan grew an enviable life for their family.

Things were going well. They decided it was time to have a new home built. They hired Simmons Building Supply to act as general contractor to build it for them on West 11^th Street.

Rebecca’s mother, Linda, was the older of the Buchanans’ two daughters. She was a popular girl at Brazosport High School. A lover of horses and rodeo; in fact, the local newspaper congratulated her in the fall of 1959 when she was nominated to be Brazosport High’s Rodeo Queen Contestant at age 15.

Linda married and along came three daughters. The oldest, Teresa; two years later, Rebecca, born in 1964; and finally, the youngest, Carol, came along a few years later.

Before Laura could blink and turn around twice, her girls had turned into teenagers. Rebecca graduated from high school in 1982 and married Darrell Beard; they had a precious little girl and named her Brittany.

Linda opened up a bridal shop, and by then, Shirley had purchased Dingles Furniture Store. And just so you know, Dingles was considered the premier furniture store in the area for many years. Back in the day, if you shopped at Dingles, your furniture was of the best quality money could buy.

In 1981, Leon had retired from his executive vice president position at the bank, but he wasn’t ready for real retirement. A couple of years later, Linda and Carol moved in with them. At that point, Leon was running his  new car dealership: Buchanan Oldsmobile and Jeep.

The next thing you know, Rebecca and Darrell called it quits … that happens with young marriages. Rebecca and two-year-old Brittany also moved to the Buchanan’s home. The house was full, everyone was busy, and believe it or not, they got along just fine.

There wasn’t a lazy one in the bunch which made for a harmonious home. This family worked hard and took good care of each other. There was enough genuine love and support to go around, and everyone pitched in to look after Brittany.

In 1983, Carol met the love of her life … a cute boy named Brandon. They locked eyes in driver’s ed class and that was it. (Spoiler alert! They’ve been together ever since. )

Rebecca went to work for Buchanan Oldsmobile and Jeep, and she always had a new Oldsmobile to drive, one of the demos from the lot.

However, she had gotten a ticket, probably for speeding, I’m not sure … that was in January or February 1986, and when she got pulled over, she didn’t have her driver’s license with her. She couldn’t present it to the officer; and that made her citation more expensive … after all, she was driving a company car, so Rebecca’s boss and grandfather, Leon, told her she couldn’t drive her car until she got her driver’s license replaced.

Right away, Rebecca took care of it. But until her license arrived, she was without a car to drive.

On the morning of Saturday, March 1, 1986, the phone rang at the Buchanan’s home … remember how those landline phones could ring like a fire alarm? So loud!

Linda answered, and the call was from Rebecca; she asked her mother to pick her up in Houston.

“I thought you were staying until tomorrow,” said Linda. That had been the agreement.

“No. I am going to skip the last two performances; I just want to come home today,” said Rebecca. She had been working as a volunteer in the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo Executive Committee VIP Club for four days and had been spending nights with a Houston friend, but she was ready to get back home.

“I can’t come get you right now; my car isn’t running right, and Memmaw is working; I can’t use her car.”

Carol volunteered her help, “I’ll call Brandon and see if I can borrow his truck to pick her up.”

Naturally, Brandon said it would be fine as long as she had his truck back to him before 3:00 when he got off work. A few minutes later, Carol was cruising north on Highway 288 to the Astrodome, where the rodeo was held in those years.

The sisters grabbed lunch and got back on the road, southbound. All the way home, Rebecca was in a mood. She wasn’t bubbly or happy-go-lucky and looking ready for the next adventure.

Saturday night was on the horizon, and Rebecca tried to convince Carol to go out with her that evening. But Carol was tired; she and Brandon had been out late the night before—in fact, they had been to the rodeo to see George Strait with Rebecca. They were going to stay in that night … they would be at his house … it had already been decided.

No matter how Rebecca begged her younger sister, Carol wouldn’t budge. No, she was not going out … they were hanging out at Brandon’s house that evening.

When the sisters pulled into their grandmother’s driveway, Rebecca got out of the truck. She was miffed because Carol wouldn’t change her mind. She grabbed her suitcase, but before she shut the door. Rebecca had leaned into the cab and, smiling a half-smile, said, “You know I love you, don’t you?”

Carol had a flickering thought she later regretted, thinking Rebecca wanted to make her feel guilty for not going out that night.

Carol would remember that moment for the rest of her life. It was the last time she saw her sister.

Carol wrote this about Saturday, March 1, 1986, on Finding Becky Beard:

“It’s 9:30 p.m. Becky is home getting dressed to go back out.

My mom tried talking her out of going. Rebecca’s good friend, Aaron White, was there with her. He was going to give her a ride to the Excalibur Club. White couldn’t stay at the club because he was on call for his job at the plant. Becky had just gotten her new driver’s license in the mail that day, but my grandfather was out of town, and her car was at the dealership. That’s why she didn’t have a car that night…

In a little less than six hours she will be gone.”

~~~~~

If I had to point out one thing that made me want to work on this difficult story, it’s because of something Carol said on the FBB page. She posted it in 2022, reflecting on how her sister wasn’t living her best life in 1986 … how she was jerked out of life before she got the opportunity to grow into who she was meant to be … how she was destined for more … and at the time of her death, Rebecca was a work in progress.

Maybe she wasn’t on the straight and narrow, generally speaking, but she still had one foot on level ground; she had her mother, her sisters, and her grandmother who would not have let her fail. Those women were a force to be reckoned with. And most of all, Rebecca had Brittany to keep her tethered to the ground.

~~~~~

Carol also reflected on how her mother, Linda, was in disagreement about Rebecca’s decision to go out that night. Linda said she needed to stay in, but Rebecca was determined.

You see, Rebecca had been out several days in February. For two days around her birthday, a guy she was dating, Tucker Black, took her to Galveston for two days. There were others joining them there. That’s a story within itself, and I know little about it.

However, in Carol’s words, “The short version is she went to Galveston on the 14th and 15th. When she got home, something was different—dark. Becky wasn’t herself. She refused to talk about Galveston or Tucker. She ignored his phone calls and messages to call him back. He sent roses—they went straight in the trash—card unopened.”

So, because she had been away then, and she had just been away from home volunteering at the rodeo and away from home for four days, Linda had to say something … she told her daughter that she needed to settle down and get a plan for the future.

Rebecca ignored her like any normal 22-year-old would.

She and Aaron left her grandmother’s house and went to his home, where they stayed and visited with Aaron’s father. After that, Aaron dropped her off at the Excalibur Club and went back home. Around midnight, she called Aaron White’s house and asked him to come get her, but he had been called out to work.

That was the last direct report from someone they knew the family had about Rebecca.

Excalibur closed at 2:00 p.m., but Rebecca didn’t come home at closing time. Linda was getting a little steamed over it. She went to bed with the door unlocked.

The clock crept around to 3:00 a.m.

Linda woke up with a start. She got up and locked the front door. Rebecca would have to wake them up when she got home to get in… that way Linda would know she came in.

She made herself go back to sleep …  again, she woke up. It was 6:00 a.m.

Rebecca still had not come home.

Sunday – March 2, 1986

Linda had tickets to take Shirley to a performance in Houston’s theater district. They left for Houston around 11:00, but Linda was worried sick and called home throughout the day, checking to see if Rebecca had come in. Too worried to watch the play, the women decided to leave before the first intermission.

When Linda got home, she called Aaron White, the last person she saw Becky with. He said he dropped her off at the Excalibur Club and went home because he was on call for his job. And you know, back then, you had to wait by the phone at home. There weren’t any cell phones.

Aaron said he didn’t hear from her after he dropped her off, but told Rebecca’s mother she had called his home after he was called out to work. Linda called the hospital and the police station. Nothing.

Linda called Rebecca’s friends, her adoptive father in Lumberton, and her soon-to-be ex-husband, Darrell. No one had heard from her daughter.

Finally, Linda called the Freeport Police Department and reported Rebecca missing, but they wouldn’t take a report … not until March 4 at 7:30 p.m. when she had been missing a full 72 hours.

March 3, 1986— Missing Day 2—This is Carol’s account of that day.

“It was Monday morning, March 3. My mom and I headed to work at the bridal shop. I skipped school to help with making missing posters. Becky had just had some pictures made, so we chose one of those for her poster and had 200 copies made.

My mom called the Freeport Police Department to let them know we still had not heard from her. They sent an officer; he got to the bridal shop around 10:00 a.m.

He took Becky’s legal name, date of birth, address, and description, but said my mom would still need to come to the police station on Tuesday, March 4—and not before 7:30 p.m.— to file an official missing person’s report.

After work, my mom and I split up. She headed to Lake Jackson, where she put flyers up at a bar called Chevy’s, a steakhouse Becky had worked at part time, and a few more places where Becky hung out.

Gail, my late mother-in-law, and I hit everywhere from Ernie’s Corner to Surfside.

While my mom was in Lake Jackson, the weather got really bad—it was storming; it rained so much our area was literally flooded (keep that in your back pocket for later).

My mother was sitting at a red light praying for answers when a bolt of lightning lit up the sky—she saw Becky dressed exactly as she looked when she left the house, but she was lying down and no longer alive. (My mother never shared that with anyone until a few months ago).

I believe at that moment our mother was on a mission—she was no longer “Momma.” (Becky was the only one who called her that out of the three of us.) Right then, she became a detective. She was focused; I never once saw my mother grieve until after Paul Taylor’s sentencing in 1995.

My mother headed home in the continuing horrible weather, stopping at Excalibur to hang up flyers since it was Becky’s last known location. While she was there, she talked to the bartender, and he recalled seeing Becky there Saturday night, but had nothing more than that to offer.”

Earlier that Day – a Chilling Phone Call

Carol also described a strange phone call from the afternoon of March 3. At the time, it was just weird. Looking back at it today, it is sick, twisted, and horribly mean.

She wrote, “Brandon had a death in the family, and the funeral was that afternoon. I came home from school early to get dressed. Just as I was walking out the door, the phone rang. I ran to answer it, of course. It might be news about Becky, and my heart was about to jump out of my throat.

‘Hello?’

On the other end was a man’s voice.

‘Is Becky there?’

I really didn’t know what to say except that she wasn’t home right then.

He said, ‘Well, this is Dr. Walker. Becky missed her appointment this morning. Did she go to work last night at the steakhouse?’

Before I could think of a response, he said, ‘Just let her know I called.’

And he hung up.

I gave it no more thought right then. I had a funeral to get to. I didn’t know I was speaking to my sister’s killer, or at least the one who pulled the trigger.”

We’ll pick up next time when Rebecca’s family goes to the police station the next evening.