On December 3rd, 2025, deputies in Sebastian County, Arkansas responded to a welfare check at a home in Bonanza—a town of about 600 people where, according to the local police chief, everybody knows everybody and most folks still leave their doors unlocked. They found Charity Beallis, 40 years old, and her six-year-old twins, Eliana and Maverick, dead from gunshot wounds.
The day before, Charity had been in court for what was supposed to be the final hearing in her divorce from Dr. Randall Beallis—a family physician she’d accused of strangling her in front of those same children nine months earlier. She’d spent those nine months fighting for sole custody. She lost. The court awarded Randall joint custody on December 2nd. Less than 24 hours later, she and the twins were dead.
Now here’s where most coverage of this case stops and draws a straight line. Abusive husband. Dead wife. System failure. And maybe that’s exactly what happened. But when you pull the court records, the police reports, and the documented history of everyone involved, what you find is something far more complicated. You find two people—both with histories of violence, accusations, and chaos—locked in a fight over two children. And one of them allegedly confessed to a previous killing.
This isn’t a story with a clear villain. This is a story where almost everyone has blood on their hands, and the only people who didn’t deserve any of this are the two six-year-olds who ended up in the ground.
Let’s start with what we actually know happened.
December 2nd, 2025: Charity and Randall appear in Sebastian County Circuit Court. According to Randall’s attorney, the court awards him joint custody of the twins at this hearing. For Charity, this was a loss. She’d filed for divorce in March, requested sole custody, cited the alleged strangulation. She told a state senator she feared for her life. She posted on Facebook that the system was protecting “the criminal—a local doctor.” And after all of that, the court said she had to share those kids with him.
December 3rd: Charity allegedly requested an emergency hearing. She doesn’t show up. Someone calls for a welfare check. Workers at the home let deputies inside. Three bodies. Gunshot wounds. No signs of forced entry reported. No suspect named. No arrest made.
That same day, Charity’s father Randy Powell calls the judge who oversaw the divorce and, according to court documents, tells her she “might as well have pulled the trigger herself” and that “the court has blood on her hands.”
December 4th—one day after the bodies are found—Randall’s attorney files a motion to dismiss the divorce. The logic is simple: if the divorce wasn’t finalized, he’s not an ex-husband. He’s a widower. That matters for the estate. That matters for the house. That matters for who controls what happens next.
So that’s the timeline. Now let’s talk about the people involved, because this is where it gets uncomfortable.
Randall Beallis is a family physician who’s been licensed in Arkansas for nearly two decades. In February 2025, he was arrested after allegedly strangling Charity in front of their children. He was initially charged with aggravated assault on a family member, domestic battery, and two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor. By October, those charges had been pled down to a single count of third-degree domestic battery—a misdemeanor. He got a suspended sentence, a $1,500 fine, and a no-contact order.
This wasn’t his first troubled marriage. His second wife, Shawna Beallis, died on January 5th, 2012. Gunshot wound to the forehead. Ruled a suicide. When police arrived at the home that day, Randall answered the door and said, “She killed herself.” Officers noted the home looked “out of order”—a plant knocked over, the coffee table out of place, cardboard boxes scattered like someone was packing to leave. There was a suicide note. There was a wine bottle and glass on the kitchen table.
Randall told police that Shawna threatened suicide “almost monthly.” He said he’d previously replaced the live rounds in her gun with plastic dummy rounds. She found out, got upset, went to Walmart and bought real bullets. Surveillance footage and a receipt confirmed the purchase. He said he spent four hours talking her down, got a headache, thought she was calm, and went back to work. He ignored two calls from her because he was angry. When he came home, she was dead.
After the interview, according to police reports, Randall asked for his phone so he could call his lawyer to “stop divorce papers from being sent in the mail.”
The evidence from that case was destroyed in 2014 by court order. Toxicology was never completed. The case was reopened briefly in 2021 after new information came to light, then closed again.
So that’s Randall. Now let’s talk about Charity—because this is the part of the story that almost nobody is covering.
In February 2021, Bonanza police officer Stephanie Hill responded to an incident at the Beallis home. As part of that investigation, she interviewed Charity’s father, Randy Powell. According to the police report—and there’s body cam footage of this conversation—Powell told Officer Hill that Charity had confessed to him. According to that report, he said she told him “she is the one who shot Shawna, and that she was glad the detectives did not fingerprint a wine glass that she had been drinking out of, while she was at their residence.”
That’s in a police report. Charity’s own father allegedly told police his daughter confessed to killing Randall’s previous wife.
Now, when media started covering this case after Charity’s death, Randy Powell walked that back. He told reporters he never said his daughter was involved—only that “she knew who did it.” But the police report says otherwise. And there’s body cam footage.
This wasn’t the only time Charity was allegedly involved in firearm violence. In August 2013—nine months after her first divorce from Randall—she was arrested for aggravated assault with a firearm. According to a Times Record article from that date, she allegedly pointed a gun at a man’s chest. The address listed in the arrest matches the Dunston Drive property associated with Randall—the same address where Shawna had died less than two years earlier.
And then there’s her relationship with her first son, John.
In 2013, Charity’s own father—the same man now on television demanding justice for her—petitioned the court for custody of John. According to allegations in those custody filings, the child “would be in grave danger in her care,” would “be subjected to mental and physical abuse,” and “feared for his own safety.” A judge ordered Charity’s medical records released because her “medical problems could place the minor child in danger.”
The specific allegations in those filings are disturbing. Charity allegedly told her child she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. She allegedly threatened him. According to allegations documented in the custody proceedings, she allegedly picked the lock on the bathroom door while her then-13-year-old son was using the facilities and recorded him—and those filings suggest this happened more than once. At one point during the custody proceedings, Charity reportedly stated she would rather John go to the Department of Human Services than live with her father.
Fast forward to May 2020. John is seventeen. He gets into a disagreement with Charity and Randall. That same day, both of them—Charity and Randall—take knives and slash the tires on his truck. While holding the infant twins.
John recorded it. He went to police. Here’s what’s interesting about the charges: Randall was charged with criminal mischief. Charity was charged with criminal mischief plus aggravated assault on a family member. She got the violent charge. He didn’t. John successfully sued for emancipation from both of them.
So when we’re looking at this case, we’re not looking at a clear victim and a clear perpetrator. We’re looking at two people with documented histories of violence. We’re looking at a woman whose own father allegedly told police she confessed to killing someone. We’re looking at a man whose previous wife also died from a gunshot wound under disputed circumstances. We’re looking at a household where both parents slashed their teenage son’s tires while holding babies.
And now we have three dead bodies and no cause of death.
The autopsy results are still pending. We don’t know how many times each victim was shot. We don’t know what firearm was used or who owned it. We don’t know if the doors were locked from inside. We don’t know anything about scene staging. What we do know is that law enforcement stated early on that they don’t believe there’s an ongoing threat to the public. Draw your own conclusions about what that might mean.
There’s also the dumpster. Three days after the bodies were found, a woman in Fort Smith was going through a dumpster at an apartment complex and pulled out a black trash bag. Inside: photos of the Beallis family, a receipt with Charity’s Bonanza address, and a necklace with the twins’ names on it. She called police. Detectives came and collected the items. When John Powell later mentioned this discovery to a detective, according to his account, the detective’s response was: “How did you find out?”
As for motive, the financial angle is weaker than you’d think. According to a detailed breakdown of the couple’s prenup that has circulated in local coverage, in the event of divorce, Randall would pay Charity $10,000. That’s it. The prenup also reportedly stated that in the event of divorce or her death, Randall would make no claim on her property, income, or estate. The house is valued at around $474,000. After legal fees, taxes, and whatever debt exists on the property, the actual amount anyone might gain from her death could be relatively modest. Not exactly a fortune worth killing for.
Right now, Charity’s adult son John is fighting to finalize the divorce and administer his mother’s estate. A judge has ruled that John will receive his mother’s body for burial. Randall will receive the twins.
Let that sit for a moment. The man who was under a no-contact order—the man Charity accused of strangling her in front of those children—is the one who will bury them.
Here’s what I keep coming back to. Eliana and Maverick Beallis were six years old. They didn’t choose their parents. They didn’t choose the chaos, the violence, the accusations, the court battles. They didn’t choose to be held by adults wielding knives. They didn’t choose to witness whatever they witnessed in that house over the years.
Whatever happened on December 3rd—whether their father killed them, whether their mother killed them, whether someone else entirely is responsible—those kids are the only people in this story who bear no blame for any of it.
The national media wants this to be simple. They want a villain and a victim and a system that failed. And maybe when the autopsy comes back, that’s exactly what we’ll have. But right now, what we have is a case where a woman whose father allegedly told police she confessed to one killing ended up dead alongside her children, one day after losing a custody battle to a man whose previous wife also died from a gunshot wound.
Two adults with documented arrests for violence, years of accusations, and a pattern of mutual destruction. Two children caught in the middle.
And we still don’t know who pulled the trigger.
