1 00:00:06,049 --> 00:00:08,051 [insects chirping] 2 00:00:09,385 --> 00:00:11,387 [eerie music] 3 00:00:15,391 --> 00:00:17,894 [Tim] I became obsessed with this place. 4 00:00:17,977 --> 00:00:19,103 [gunshot] 5 00:00:19,771 --> 00:00:23,441 I remember one night, I came out here, and I had my .357 Magnum. 6 00:00:23,524 --> 00:00:24,734 [gunshot] 7 00:00:25,568 --> 00:00:28,696 I shot that thing six times, 8 00:00:29,322 --> 00:00:31,115 hoping the cops would come. 9 00:00:31,199 --> 00:00:32,116 [gunshots] 10 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:33,826 Nobody came. 11 00:00:33,910 --> 00:00:34,869 [gunshot] 12 00:00:36,829 --> 00:00:40,416 I'm 75 years old. You think I still wanna do this every day? 13 00:00:40,500 --> 00:00:41,459 But I will. 14 00:00:42,710 --> 00:00:43,753 [gunshot] 15 00:00:44,504 --> 00:00:46,172 I'll fight till my dying breath, 16 00:00:46,255 --> 00:00:49,092 trying to find out who murdered my daughter. 17 00:00:52,470 --> 00:00:56,432 [Lise] The Calder fields are just an enigma. 18 00:00:56,516 --> 00:00:58,935 [woman] It's a place where bad things happen. 19 00:00:59,018 --> 00:01:01,187 [reporter] Police are baffled over the latest discovery 20 00:01:01,270 --> 00:01:03,064 at what some are calling a killing field. 21 00:01:03,147 --> 00:01:05,441 Their bodies found in the League City field. 22 00:01:05,525 --> 00:01:06,984 [Skip] The Killing Fields. 23 00:01:07,068 --> 00:01:11,239 It's an easy place to dump a body, and you can get away with it. 24 00:01:11,322 --> 00:01:13,366 [Kevin] This was brutal murder. 25 00:01:14,117 --> 00:01:16,828 And it's here in our backyard. 26 00:01:17,870 --> 00:01:21,582 [reporter 1] Since 1983, Galveston County has an unusually large number 27 00:01:21,666 --> 00:01:23,584 of mysterious disappearances. 28 00:01:23,668 --> 00:01:25,920 [reporter 2] Just yards off this busy highway, 29 00:01:26,003 --> 00:01:29,090 abducted girls and women had been killed and dumped. 30 00:01:29,173 --> 00:01:32,760 It was like, poof, vanished. 31 00:01:32,844 --> 00:01:33,803 She was gone. 32 00:01:34,345 --> 00:01:36,597 [Skip] There were over two dozen victims. 33 00:01:37,223 --> 00:01:39,851 Was it one killer? Multiple killers? 34 00:01:40,351 --> 00:01:42,520 Well, you know what? If you wanna commit a crime, 35 00:01:42,603 --> 00:01:45,106 do it here, because they sure can't solve it. 36 00:01:46,065 --> 00:01:47,817 [Lise] It's a scary story. 37 00:01:47,900 --> 00:01:50,361 We have been allowing serial killers to go free. 38 00:01:50,444 --> 00:01:55,324 You gave him the green light to continue killing our girls. 39 00:01:55,908 --> 00:01:58,327 [Kathryn] These are just notorious cases. 40 00:01:58,411 --> 00:02:01,539 The world might have forgotten about it, but those families didn't. 41 00:02:02,123 --> 00:02:05,418 Whoever did this, I want them punished. 42 00:02:05,501 --> 00:02:07,003 The families deserve answers. 43 00:02:07,962 --> 00:02:10,381 Our loved ones deserve justice. 44 00:02:11,007 --> 00:02:13,634 [Tim] Put a mark right at the fence line right there. 45 00:02:14,760 --> 00:02:18,014 All this new information could be the key to the entire case. 46 00:02:18,097 --> 00:02:21,726 [woman] After the things that I've seen and heard, 47 00:02:22,393 --> 00:02:25,438 I want to put a spotlight on the situation. 48 00:02:29,483 --> 00:02:31,402 I want to bring it out of the dark. 49 00:02:31,903 --> 00:02:33,905 [dramatic music] 50 00:02:38,367 --> 00:02:40,703 [dark opening theme music] 51 00:03:03,809 --> 00:03:05,686 [Skip] If you drive down I-45 today… 52 00:03:07,480 --> 00:03:09,565 you'll see two worlds there, 53 00:03:10,608 --> 00:03:13,277 the suburban world that's reaching its tendrils south… 54 00:03:14,487 --> 00:03:15,947 [woman] Whoo! 55 00:03:16,030 --> 00:03:20,451 …and there's still the last vestiges of the old world of South Coast 56 00:03:20,534 --> 00:03:22,411 that people don't remember anymore. 57 00:03:24,580 --> 00:03:25,957 [car horn honking] 58 00:03:27,291 --> 00:03:31,504 [Lise] As you drive south out of Houston on I-45, 59 00:03:32,588 --> 00:03:35,633 there are a lot of small towns on either side of it. 60 00:03:36,968 --> 00:03:42,265 There's a lot of just empty fields, bayous, retention ponds, 61 00:03:43,474 --> 00:03:46,352 and the petrochemical plants all hug the coastline. 62 00:03:48,479 --> 00:03:51,816 There are a lot of old oil fields and marshes 63 00:03:51,899 --> 00:03:54,360 between Houston and Galveston. 64 00:03:54,443 --> 00:03:57,488 A lot of those places are still very remote. 65 00:03:57,571 --> 00:04:00,866 It was a place where killers could hide bodies pretty easily. 66 00:04:01,951 --> 00:04:03,995 [Skip] In certain areas, the body disappears, 67 00:04:04,078 --> 00:04:07,290 and then you shut the door, and you drive on, and you're home clear. 68 00:04:14,630 --> 00:04:16,882 [Richard] This is what's known as the Killing Fields. 69 00:04:19,343 --> 00:04:24,015 The Calder Road fields were owned by a petrochemical company. 70 00:04:24,098 --> 00:04:27,143 A large amount of acres with nothing on it 71 00:04:27,226 --> 00:04:30,396 other than a horse trail ride business. 72 00:04:30,980 --> 00:04:33,107 It was a dirt road with a dead end. 73 00:04:33,607 --> 00:04:35,443 Not much around it at all. 74 00:04:38,362 --> 00:04:39,655 My name is Richard Rennison, 75 00:04:39,739 --> 00:04:43,326 and I'm a supervisory special agent for the FBI in Texas City. 76 00:04:44,118 --> 00:04:47,455 I started my law enforcement career at the League City Police Department. 77 00:04:47,538 --> 00:04:51,584 And that was when I was first introduced to the Killing Fields. 78 00:04:52,543 --> 00:04:56,088 It was a very big case for the department. The department was small. 79 00:04:56,172 --> 00:04:59,216 It was always on the back of my mind. This is something I'd like to work on 80 00:04:59,300 --> 00:05:00,509 when I get the experience. 81 00:05:01,844 --> 00:05:05,181 Once I transferred back with the FBI, then I was able to work on it. 82 00:05:11,854 --> 00:05:14,065 Through the tree line on the other side of the road, 83 00:05:14,148 --> 00:05:16,484 there's some houses and trailers over there. 84 00:05:16,567 --> 00:05:20,696 That's three, four hundred yards. That's a good ways, so… 85 00:05:23,574 --> 00:05:27,161 There was a couple that had a house on Calder Road. 86 00:05:29,830 --> 00:05:32,333 And their kid was outside playing in the yard, 87 00:05:32,416 --> 00:05:34,710 and their dog ran off into the woods. 88 00:05:36,295 --> 00:05:40,591 And a little while later, it came back, and it had something round in its mouth, 89 00:05:40,674 --> 00:05:43,302 and they thought it had found a ball out there. 90 00:05:43,386 --> 00:05:45,429 So they went out to investigate. 91 00:05:47,390 --> 00:05:49,767 In the dog's mouth was a human skull. 92 00:05:51,685 --> 00:05:53,687 They also found a skeleton. 93 00:05:57,858 --> 00:05:58,943 [Skip] Two years later… 94 00:06:00,778 --> 00:06:03,823 some boys were riding their bicycles by that same area. 95 00:06:06,534 --> 00:06:09,036 They found the skeleton of another young woman. 96 00:06:11,038 --> 00:06:15,918 And while the police were looking around the area for any evidence 97 00:06:16,001 --> 00:06:18,879 that might help them find the identity of the second girl… 98 00:06:23,384 --> 00:06:25,302 they come across a third skeleton 99 00:06:26,595 --> 00:06:29,098 25 yards away from where the second girl was found. 100 00:06:30,891 --> 00:06:33,602 [Richard] This was so, so different. 101 00:06:33,686 --> 00:06:36,772 It was so thick, just minus your little trails. 102 00:06:37,898 --> 00:06:39,859 You couldn't walk around like this at all. 103 00:06:42,236 --> 00:06:44,071 But this is the spot where… 104 00:06:44,947 --> 00:06:46,115 where they were found. 105 00:06:49,368 --> 00:06:52,204 Three of the victims were found just yards away from each other. 106 00:06:52,288 --> 00:06:53,497 Uh, really close. 107 00:06:54,540 --> 00:06:57,793 And the person kept coming back to the same location, uh… 108 00:07:00,546 --> 00:07:01,422 Wow. 109 00:07:03,257 --> 00:07:05,676 [Kathryn] The Calder Road killings 110 00:07:05,759 --> 00:07:09,722 have haunted this part of Texas for a really long time. 111 00:07:09,805 --> 00:07:12,683 And at a certain point, they just kind of haunted me. 112 00:07:14,768 --> 00:07:17,938 My husband and I would drive from Houston down to Galveston 113 00:07:18,022 --> 00:07:20,149 for a nice weekend or to go to the beach, 114 00:07:21,275 --> 00:07:24,236 and there'd be a billboard with one of the girls' faces. 115 00:07:27,031 --> 00:07:29,408 You're on your way to have a great seafood dinner, 116 00:07:30,159 --> 00:07:32,328 and what's on your mind is, 117 00:07:33,454 --> 00:07:36,081 "I wonder why so many women are dying around here." 118 00:07:36,165 --> 00:07:40,920 And I kept kind of collecting the articles as they evolved. 119 00:07:41,003 --> 00:07:43,297 So that's when I started the book. 120 00:07:44,173 --> 00:07:45,799 These cases are old, you know. 121 00:07:45,883 --> 00:07:48,260 Nothing going on with them when I started the book. 122 00:07:49,386 --> 00:07:53,015 But the families just kept these cases alive. 123 00:07:53,974 --> 00:07:57,520 And Tim Miller's one of the first people I kind of reached out to. 124 00:07:59,563 --> 00:08:01,815 [Tim] When we get called on a case, 125 00:08:02,483 --> 00:08:04,693 I'm one of the guys that can go to the family and say, 126 00:08:04,777 --> 00:08:07,613 "Listen, I know what you're going through." 127 00:08:09,657 --> 00:08:10,574 "I know." 128 00:08:12,701 --> 00:08:14,286 You're starting to shed, buddy. 129 00:08:14,995 --> 00:08:18,499 The very, very first body I ever found was on that horse. 130 00:08:20,125 --> 00:08:21,502 That's why we called it EquuSearch. 131 00:08:22,586 --> 00:08:26,423 You know, we've been in 42 states in 11 different countries. 132 00:08:26,507 --> 00:08:28,342 Never charged a family ten cents. 133 00:08:29,051 --> 00:08:32,304 [Kathryn] Tim Miller's kind of a well-known figure here 134 00:08:32,388 --> 00:08:33,806 on the Gulf Coast. 135 00:08:35,057 --> 00:08:39,353 The idea that someplace, there's somebody who's turned up missing 136 00:08:39,436 --> 00:08:43,399 and nobody is looking for them is just too much for him to carry. 137 00:08:43,482 --> 00:08:45,359 So he goes out, and he does it. 138 00:08:45,442 --> 00:08:46,277 But… 139 00:08:48,654 --> 00:08:52,199 sometimes when I talk to him, I wonder if he's still looking for Laura. 140 00:08:53,409 --> 00:08:54,743 I think I'm gonna take a break. 141 00:08:57,913 --> 00:09:01,000 I'll never forget the day that my daughter disappeared. 142 00:09:02,626 --> 00:09:04,461 It's like it was yesterday. 143 00:09:09,967 --> 00:09:11,802 I was walkin' outdoor about quarter to seven, 144 00:09:11,885 --> 00:09:13,470 and Laura said, "Dad, can I talk to you?" 145 00:09:13,554 --> 00:09:15,389 And I said, "Sure, sis, what's on your mind?" 146 00:09:15,472 --> 00:09:18,267 And she says, "Is it okay if Vernon comes over tonight?" 147 00:09:19,268 --> 00:09:20,603 Vernon was her boyfriend. 148 00:09:20,686 --> 00:09:22,980 And I said, "Yes, I think that'd be a good idea." 149 00:09:25,316 --> 00:09:29,361 "Mom's gonna be putting stuff away, and I'll actually barbecue outside." 150 00:09:30,321 --> 00:09:33,282 "When Mom comes home for lunch, have her take you down to the pay phone." 151 00:09:35,784 --> 00:09:37,661 We just moved into this house, 152 00:09:38,579 --> 00:09:41,999 and back then, they didn't have your phone hooked up the day you moved in. 153 00:09:42,958 --> 00:09:46,378 So, Laura's mom came home, took her to the pay phone. 154 00:09:53,093 --> 00:09:54,762 Laura's talking on the phone. 155 00:09:55,596 --> 00:09:58,807 Her mom says, "Laura, hurry up. I'm gonna be late for work." 156 00:09:58,891 --> 00:10:02,895 And Laura says, "I just want to talk to Vernon a bit longer. I can walk home." 157 00:10:05,773 --> 00:10:08,067 Less than a half-mile away from the pay phone. 158 00:10:10,986 --> 00:10:14,281 Later, I got home, and Laura's mother got home. 159 00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:17,117 And we got a knock on the door. It was Vernon. 160 00:10:17,201 --> 00:10:19,411 I said, "Vernon, where's Laura?" He says, "I don't know." 161 00:10:23,082 --> 00:10:24,500 And Laura didn't make it home. 162 00:10:32,424 --> 00:10:33,634 We panicked. 163 00:10:34,718 --> 00:10:37,471 She was 16. She had a seizure problem. 164 00:10:37,554 --> 00:10:41,767 Laura had to be on her Dilantin twice a day, 165 00:10:41,850 --> 00:10:43,769 or she was gonna be in trouble. 166 00:10:44,645 --> 00:10:47,356 We said, "Oh my God. Laura was walking home from the store." 167 00:10:48,982 --> 00:10:50,651 "She had a seizure." 168 00:10:51,902 --> 00:10:55,114 "Now she's in one of the hospitals as little Jane Doe, so…" 169 00:10:55,989 --> 00:11:00,369 We went to two hospitals in the area, and there was no little Jane Doe. 170 00:11:00,452 --> 00:11:01,704 There was no Laura there. 171 00:11:03,414 --> 00:11:05,708 We went to the police, reported her missing, 172 00:11:06,291 --> 00:11:08,210 and police said she was a runaway. 173 00:11:09,712 --> 00:11:11,922 They said, "Go home. Wait by your phone." 174 00:11:12,589 --> 00:11:13,924 "Laura's gonna be calling." 175 00:11:16,176 --> 00:11:18,387 [Kathryn] The Millers, they were given the answer 176 00:11:18,470 --> 00:11:20,347 that so many parents were given. 177 00:11:20,431 --> 00:11:22,182 That, "Oh, she just ran away." 178 00:11:22,266 --> 00:11:25,894 "Oh, she's just with friends. Just be patient. She'll show up." 179 00:11:28,105 --> 00:11:29,648 [Tim] Laura loved music. 180 00:11:29,732 --> 00:11:32,192 Linda Ronstadt. Fleetwood Mac. 181 00:11:33,026 --> 00:11:34,611 She had a lot of friends. 182 00:11:35,779 --> 00:11:39,116 [Kathryn] She was running with maybe a little bit of a rough crowd. 183 00:11:39,199 --> 00:11:42,244 Some of the kids were smoking pot and getting into a few things. 184 00:11:44,955 --> 00:11:47,666 Everybody wants to be accepted by somebody. 185 00:11:49,376 --> 00:11:51,837 [Kathryn] The Millers had been living in Dickinson, Texas, 186 00:11:51,920 --> 00:11:55,007 and they moved not too far away to League City, Texas, 187 00:11:55,090 --> 00:11:57,718 in order to get Laura into a different school system. 188 00:12:00,804 --> 00:12:02,931 To give her a fresh start. 189 00:12:05,893 --> 00:12:06,977 [Tim] I said to the police, 190 00:12:07,060 --> 00:12:11,106 "Listen, Laura is in trouble. She has to have her medication." 191 00:12:13,317 --> 00:12:16,403 And I will never, ever forget that detective telling me, 192 00:12:16,487 --> 00:12:20,199 "Laura is very streetwise, and she can get her medication anywhere." 193 00:12:26,330 --> 00:12:28,791 [Kathryn] I don't think the police took Laura's disappearance 194 00:12:28,874 --> 00:12:31,627 anywhere near as seriously as they should have. 195 00:12:31,710 --> 00:12:33,587 But unbeknownst to Tim, 196 00:12:33,670 --> 00:12:37,090 she wasn't the first young woman to disappear in the area. 197 00:12:37,966 --> 00:12:40,219 There was a girl named Heide Fye. 198 00:12:41,220 --> 00:12:43,597 [ominous music] 199 00:12:55,192 --> 00:12:58,403 [Joe Villareal] This recording that's coming up next 200 00:12:58,987 --> 00:13:00,739 was taken some years back. 201 00:13:01,281 --> 00:13:03,617 The voices are of Heide, 202 00:13:04,535 --> 00:13:07,329 and Mom and myself. 203 00:13:09,873 --> 00:13:11,959 One day right around Christmas, 204 00:13:12,042 --> 00:13:13,877 Heide had bought me a tape recorder. 205 00:13:16,213 --> 00:13:18,841 Say something to see if you can make the needle move. 206 00:13:19,675 --> 00:13:21,218 [Heide] Needle, move! 207 00:13:21,301 --> 00:13:22,719 [Heide laughs] 208 00:13:26,890 --> 00:13:29,226 [Nina] Heide was born in 1958 209 00:13:29,309 --> 00:13:32,771 to Joe and Janie Villareal, my grandparents. 210 00:13:32,855 --> 00:13:34,857 The world knows her as Heide Fye. 211 00:13:35,524 --> 00:13:38,402 But our family affectionately calls her Heide. 212 00:13:39,278 --> 00:13:41,989 My aunt was really the light in the room 213 00:13:42,865 --> 00:13:45,701 that really went out when she went missing. 214 00:13:48,161 --> 00:13:50,497 [Joe] October 7, 1983. 215 00:13:51,206 --> 00:13:53,750 My daughter Heide was on her way to Houston 216 00:13:54,793 --> 00:13:56,461 to the small trailer house that, uh, 217 00:13:57,588 --> 00:14:00,090 her boyfriend was supposed to be fixing up. 218 00:14:00,173 --> 00:14:04,344 [Nina] The plan was to move their trailer into my mother's backyard. 219 00:14:04,428 --> 00:14:07,055 They were gonna stay there, save up some money. 220 00:14:08,432 --> 00:14:11,768 [Joe] She got all ready to go. Poked her head into the den there. 221 00:14:11,852 --> 00:14:14,479 And she said, "Daddy, I'll see you tomorrow." 222 00:14:16,565 --> 00:14:18,108 [Nina] She was gonna walk to the store. 223 00:14:20,193 --> 00:14:22,195 She was probably at that pay phone, 224 00:14:22,279 --> 00:14:25,824 calling her friends, see if she could catch a ride. 225 00:14:31,163 --> 00:14:31,997 But… 226 00:14:32,998 --> 00:14:35,042 she never showed up in Houston. 227 00:14:35,125 --> 00:14:37,127 [ominous music] 228 00:14:39,546 --> 00:14:41,548 [audio jittering] 229 00:14:59,066 --> 00:15:02,903 The clerk at the convenience store said she watched her make a phone call 230 00:15:03,987 --> 00:15:05,447 from that telephone booth. 231 00:15:07,950 --> 00:15:11,161 [Joe] It's real lonely out there from where she was calling. 232 00:15:11,954 --> 00:15:13,664 No lights on the street at all. 233 00:15:17,876 --> 00:15:21,254 We decided, "Okay, we've got to go talk to the police." 234 00:15:22,464 --> 00:15:24,466 [Richard] I don't know the exact circumstances 235 00:15:24,549 --> 00:15:28,261 of when she went missing, because nobody knows for sure. 236 00:15:28,345 --> 00:15:34,351 But she was an average 25-year-old girl working in a bar called the Texas Moon. 237 00:15:35,477 --> 00:15:37,145 Then she disappeared. 238 00:15:38,939 --> 00:15:43,110 [Nina] The League City police basically felt like it was just 239 00:15:43,193 --> 00:15:46,363 her trying to get away and not to worry about it. 240 00:15:47,572 --> 00:15:50,200 Give it a few more days. She'll come back. 241 00:15:50,283 --> 00:15:51,994 No need to go to the media. 242 00:15:52,077 --> 00:15:53,829 Don't put posters out. 243 00:15:55,247 --> 00:15:57,207 Let's just give it some time. 244 00:15:59,167 --> 00:16:03,005 My grandfather, he wasn't going to just sit on his hands. 245 00:16:03,088 --> 00:16:05,132 He wasn't built that way. 246 00:16:06,633 --> 00:16:09,386 [Joe] She's too close to me, she's too close to the baby 247 00:16:10,137 --> 00:16:11,263 to pull a stunt like this. 248 00:16:13,056 --> 00:16:14,391 I've got to find her. 249 00:16:16,268 --> 00:16:21,940 [Nina] My grandfather went out and searched every single day for her. 250 00:16:22,691 --> 00:16:25,235 My grandfather would interview people in nightclubs, 251 00:16:25,318 --> 00:16:29,406 and he would drive across town without telling us. 252 00:16:31,408 --> 00:16:34,036 [Joe] I would have to jot down what they would tell me, 253 00:16:34,119 --> 00:16:37,372 and then I'd come back and put it on this tape. 254 00:16:38,081 --> 00:16:41,543 [Nina] Two or three times a day, sometimes, he would get on the recorder… 255 00:16:43,462 --> 00:16:46,798 and he would describe the people that he talked to. 256 00:16:46,882 --> 00:16:49,801 He would write down names, phone numbers. 257 00:16:50,510 --> 00:16:54,389 [Joe] I know damn well these people know something. 258 00:16:55,432 --> 00:16:56,475 They know. 259 00:17:02,856 --> 00:17:08,028 Her remains weren't found until April of 1984. 260 00:17:08,904 --> 00:17:10,155 It was six months. 261 00:17:10,739 --> 00:17:13,241 And the discovery of her remains 262 00:17:13,325 --> 00:17:17,245 out in the Calder field was pretty horrific. 263 00:17:21,750 --> 00:17:23,627 Through the tree line on the other side, 264 00:17:23,710 --> 00:17:26,963 one of those houses is where the dog brought back the remains. 265 00:17:28,006 --> 00:17:29,633 It had found a human skull. 266 00:17:35,639 --> 00:17:37,015 It was Heide's skull. 267 00:17:38,517 --> 00:17:42,437 Police responded, and they came out and started searching the field. 268 00:17:43,772 --> 00:17:47,609 And they found Heide's body laid underneath a tree. 269 00:18:02,207 --> 00:18:03,041 Sorry. 270 00:18:06,628 --> 00:18:08,630 [ominous music] 271 00:18:13,468 --> 00:18:16,388 [Richard] She was, uh, advanced state of decomposition. 272 00:18:17,556 --> 00:18:19,391 A lot of the bones were spread by animals, 273 00:18:19,474 --> 00:18:22,394 so it was hard to see if there was any signature 274 00:18:22,477 --> 00:18:24,271 or anything that the killer may have done. 275 00:18:24,896 --> 00:18:27,691 So, it didn't really glean a lot of information from that. 276 00:18:32,195 --> 00:18:35,740 The suspected cause of death was trauma. 277 00:18:35,824 --> 00:18:38,076 Severe broken ribs. 278 00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:43,081 It wasn't until the discovery of her remains 279 00:18:43,165 --> 00:18:46,543 that it got some real attention from the police. 280 00:18:47,669 --> 00:18:51,339 Like, okay, well, maybe we should have listened to her family. 281 00:18:52,632 --> 00:18:54,176 [Joe] It's now 1:45. 282 00:18:54,926 --> 00:18:56,970 I'm going back to the Texas Moon. 283 00:18:59,598 --> 00:19:02,809 [Richard] From the Texas Moon where Heide worked, 284 00:19:02,893 --> 00:19:06,438 Calder Road is probably about four or five miles away. 285 00:19:08,648 --> 00:19:13,695 [Joe] I have given these names to the police to check out. 286 00:19:13,778 --> 00:19:16,948 And there'll be some more because I'm gonna keep on looking. 287 00:19:18,283 --> 00:19:21,828 [Nina] There were several people of interest 288 00:19:21,912 --> 00:19:23,747 that were close enough to Heide 289 00:19:23,830 --> 00:19:26,833 that he really felt like needed to be questioned, 290 00:19:28,043 --> 00:19:31,880 but he didn't feel like he was getting the response from them 291 00:19:31,963 --> 00:19:34,549 that he was hoping for. 292 00:19:36,551 --> 00:19:39,471 [Richard] There was multiple different suspects, 293 00:19:39,554 --> 00:19:43,225 but none of them panned out to where they had enough evidence to charge anybody. 294 00:19:43,308 --> 00:19:44,559 [Nina] More times than not, 295 00:19:44,643 --> 00:19:47,771 when you read his journals or you listen to his tapes, 296 00:19:47,854 --> 00:19:50,190 it's just disappointment in his voice. 297 00:19:51,524 --> 00:19:52,984 [Joe] Something's got to be done. 298 00:19:54,194 --> 00:19:56,738 My little girl can't just die like this. 299 00:20:04,621 --> 00:20:08,333 [Tim] Heide's body was found in April of 1984. 300 00:20:11,002 --> 00:20:14,047 And then Laura disappeared in September. 301 00:20:20,262 --> 00:20:22,180 There was a pay phone right here in this corner. 302 00:20:22,847 --> 00:20:26,476 The pay phone that Laura was last seen at, 303 00:20:26,559 --> 00:20:30,480 this is where Heide also was last seen at. 304 00:20:34,317 --> 00:20:36,861 I don't think we had to do a lot to connect the dots. 305 00:20:36,945 --> 00:20:38,947 Possibly these are connected. 306 00:20:40,031 --> 00:20:42,242 We went back to the police department and said, 307 00:20:42,325 --> 00:20:46,246 "We know about this girl that was found named Heide Fye." 308 00:20:46,329 --> 00:20:47,872 "They live close to here." 309 00:20:49,165 --> 00:20:51,459 That detective stopped me in my tracks and said, 310 00:20:51,543 --> 00:20:55,922 "Number one, I told you before that's an isolated incident." 311 00:20:56,006 --> 00:20:59,342 "Heide worked in a bar. Someone took her out after it closed." 312 00:20:59,426 --> 00:21:02,095 "And, uh, they murdered her and threw her out." 313 00:21:02,887 --> 00:21:05,890 They said, "Don't go talking to Heide's family." 314 00:21:05,974 --> 00:21:09,019 "They're trying to get over Heide's loss." 315 00:21:09,644 --> 00:21:12,981 [Kathryn] Heide's parents didn't really know Tim. 316 00:21:13,064 --> 00:21:16,568 And, like the Millers, they'd been told not to communicate. 317 00:21:17,360 --> 00:21:20,905 [Joe] We've been just not saying nothing, as they have told us, 318 00:21:21,656 --> 00:21:25,702 not to discuss this with anyone else other than ourselves here. 319 00:21:27,203 --> 00:21:28,079 [sighs] 320 00:21:28,163 --> 00:21:29,914 And the families felt all alone. 321 00:21:29,998 --> 00:21:33,084 They really felt as if they'd been abandoned in this process. 322 00:21:34,085 --> 00:21:37,088 Because there was so little going on with the investigations, 323 00:21:37,172 --> 00:21:39,215 the parents were forced to do their own. 324 00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:46,723 [Tim] I said, "Would you please search that property Heide's body was found?" 325 00:21:47,474 --> 00:21:50,977 I physically asked the police, "Please tell me where this is at." 326 00:21:52,187 --> 00:21:54,773 "We want to know so we could go out there." 327 00:21:54,856 --> 00:21:57,400 They told me, "Well, that's private property." 328 00:21:57,484 --> 00:22:00,487 "It's all fenced in. Nobody can get there." 329 00:22:02,322 --> 00:22:03,573 I begged and pleaded. 330 00:22:04,074 --> 00:22:07,243 "This has just happened. You think there could be a similarity?" 331 00:22:10,038 --> 00:22:13,083 They did their best to convince me I'd lost my damn mind. 332 00:22:13,166 --> 00:22:14,042 [scoffs] 333 00:22:20,590 --> 00:22:22,592 [ominous music] 334 00:22:28,098 --> 00:22:30,809 There was a path that came through here, 335 00:22:30,892 --> 00:22:33,770 and it was so full of trash and old refrigerators 336 00:22:33,853 --> 00:22:36,189 and different things people had dumped. 337 00:22:36,898 --> 00:22:39,609 And some kids were actually riding dirt bikes, 338 00:22:39,692 --> 00:22:42,529 and they got a foul odor just right over there. 339 00:22:43,947 --> 00:22:46,074 And they went up to it, and, uh… 340 00:22:47,617 --> 00:22:50,370 and it was a… a girl. 341 00:22:54,999 --> 00:22:57,085 [Richard] When the detectives and crime scene personnel 342 00:22:57,168 --> 00:22:59,170 showed up to work the scene, 343 00:22:59,254 --> 00:23:00,964 they didn't know who she was, 344 00:23:01,756 --> 00:23:05,969 but the medical examiner's office provided us with some information. 345 00:23:06,761 --> 00:23:09,597 An age range, 20 to 30, roughly. 346 00:23:09,681 --> 00:23:11,349 She had a gap in her teeth. 347 00:23:11,433 --> 00:23:14,394 Didn't know who she was, so she was named Jane Doe. 348 00:23:17,647 --> 00:23:20,984 As the detectives and crime scene personnel were out there, 349 00:23:21,067 --> 00:23:23,736 they expanded their search looking for other evidence. 350 00:23:25,738 --> 00:23:28,074 And then they found the body of another female. 351 00:23:31,995 --> 00:23:34,914 [detective] We discovered an unidentified body 352 00:23:34,998 --> 00:23:38,877 in the field about approximately 100 yards from the location of the first. 353 00:23:46,885 --> 00:23:49,471 [Tim] I knew that morning when it came out in the paper. 354 00:23:50,054 --> 00:23:53,141 Remains of two females found. So… 355 00:23:55,018 --> 00:23:56,436 Yeah, I remember that day. 356 00:23:58,688 --> 00:24:02,901 The bodies were both laid under trees. They were fairly close together. 357 00:24:04,235 --> 00:24:05,862 And they were on their backs. 358 00:24:07,322 --> 00:24:10,450 And it was almost as if they'd just been laid there and positioned. 359 00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:15,955 Jane Doe had been shot with a .22 caliber gun. 360 00:24:16,039 --> 00:24:18,249 There was a bullet lodged in her spine. 361 00:24:19,918 --> 00:24:23,588 And at that point, they started to look into the other body. 362 00:24:26,257 --> 00:24:28,092 They used dental records. 363 00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:33,097 And it turned out that it was Laura's remains. 364 00:24:34,098 --> 00:24:36,100 [somber music] 365 00:24:40,271 --> 00:24:41,314 [sniffles] 366 00:24:49,822 --> 00:24:52,992 [Kathryn] There was a blue plaid Western shirt 367 00:24:53,076 --> 00:24:54,953 that was found near Laura's body. 368 00:24:57,163 --> 00:24:59,499 The shirt had some stains on it, 369 00:24:59,582 --> 00:25:04,045 and back in the 1980s, we didn't have DNA yet. 370 00:25:04,963 --> 00:25:10,218 But the police tagged the case number from Laura's murder on the shirt. 371 00:25:12,929 --> 00:25:14,722 [Richard] Two bodies on the same day. 372 00:25:15,723 --> 00:25:20,228 That day in February of '86, it's when things really broke bad. 373 00:25:24,274 --> 00:25:29,404 [Kathryn] In 1984, there was a movie out about the Khmer Rouge 374 00:25:29,487 --> 00:25:30,655 called The Killing Fields. 375 00:25:30,738 --> 00:25:32,031 [announcer] The Killing Fields. 376 00:25:33,283 --> 00:25:37,203 [Kathryn] And after the bodies started showing up on Calder Road, 377 00:25:37,912 --> 00:25:41,416 people started referring to it more as the Texas Killing Field. 378 00:25:42,500 --> 00:25:45,670 At that point, it started to get a lot more attention. 379 00:25:45,753 --> 00:25:47,922 [Skip] One after another after another, 380 00:25:48,006 --> 00:25:51,092 these ritualistic killings of young women, 381 00:25:51,593 --> 00:25:55,305 all set up in an array like some kind of work of art. 382 00:25:57,515 --> 00:26:00,518 And no one could sort of figure out all the pieces of the puzzle. 383 00:26:03,062 --> 00:26:06,190 [Tim] Laura had been there the entire 17 months. 384 00:26:07,025 --> 00:26:09,277 Almost exactly where I asked them to look. 385 00:26:10,361 --> 00:26:13,156 What if they would've done what I asked them to do? 386 00:26:13,239 --> 00:26:14,240 They would've found Laura. 387 00:26:15,575 --> 00:26:17,702 She would've been dead, but… 388 00:26:18,953 --> 00:26:21,080 there probably would've been some evidence. 389 00:26:22,624 --> 00:26:26,002 They probably would've been able to determine a cause of death. 390 00:26:27,295 --> 00:26:28,421 There's a lot of pain. 391 00:26:29,339 --> 00:26:31,132 I'm the one that should have… 392 00:26:32,550 --> 00:26:35,887 followed through and maybe talked to Heide's parents. 393 00:26:38,473 --> 00:26:39,766 And I didn't do it. 394 00:26:43,853 --> 00:26:47,649 I know what it's like to be paralyzed and not knowing what to do, 395 00:26:48,274 --> 00:26:50,568 because I know what I did not do 396 00:26:51,194 --> 00:26:52,654 for my own daughter. 397 00:26:55,615 --> 00:26:58,868 If Heide's dad and me could have got together early on, 398 00:26:58,951 --> 00:27:01,204 we wouldn't be here again this many years later. 399 00:27:01,287 --> 00:27:04,207 And you know what? This right here is what killed Heide's dad 400 00:27:04,290 --> 00:27:05,667 way before his time. 401 00:27:07,752 --> 00:27:09,462 Poor man died of a broken heart. 402 00:27:11,714 --> 00:27:13,716 [somber music playing] 403 00:27:20,723 --> 00:27:22,684 [Richard] I can't imagine losing a daughter. 404 00:27:24,936 --> 00:27:26,062 I cannot imagine. 405 00:27:31,693 --> 00:27:35,154 If you're looking at a small town that doesn't have a lot of violent crime, 406 00:27:35,238 --> 00:27:37,073 then suddenly, within a two-year period, 407 00:27:37,156 --> 00:27:40,410 you have abductions and kidnappings and murders, 408 00:27:40,493 --> 00:27:41,577 this is very unusual. 409 00:27:43,162 --> 00:27:45,164 That was the point where 410 00:27:45,248 --> 00:27:49,836 people realize this is a serial killer, this is real, and it's in our community. 411 00:27:51,379 --> 00:27:53,297 The fact that somebody's out there 412 00:27:53,965 --> 00:27:57,760 killing people and not being held responsible for it bothers me. 413 00:27:58,344 --> 00:28:00,513 You know, what was happening here? 414 00:28:01,848 --> 00:28:07,311 These killings of young women had been going on as far back as 1971. 415 00:28:14,610 --> 00:28:17,530 [Lise] In the '70s, Houston was a city of a million people. 416 00:28:17,613 --> 00:28:19,615 You had the NASA Space Center. 417 00:28:21,701 --> 00:28:23,286 There was an oil boom going on. 418 00:28:23,870 --> 00:28:25,496 Exxon was starting to build 419 00:28:25,580 --> 00:28:28,291 what would become some of the biggest refineries in the world. 420 00:28:28,958 --> 00:28:30,168 It was a boomtown. 421 00:28:30,251 --> 00:28:31,544 [crowds cheering] 422 00:28:31,627 --> 00:28:35,298 We wanted to try a larger city and see what it was like, 423 00:28:35,381 --> 00:28:37,133 and it's just been fabulous. 424 00:28:37,216 --> 00:28:39,802 This is the hub of the petroleum industry here in Houston. 425 00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:45,016 I'm a geologist, so I thought I'd give it a try. 426 00:28:45,892 --> 00:28:47,560 You can see it's a lot of fun out here. 427 00:28:49,687 --> 00:28:52,607 [Lise] Because of what was happening all around Houston, there was work. 428 00:28:55,401 --> 00:28:58,446 You had a lot of people moving in. You had a lot of people moving around. 429 00:28:59,489 --> 00:29:03,993 And there were also sort of smaller railroad towns along I-45 430 00:29:04,076 --> 00:29:06,996 that began to grow, began to become sort of suburbs. 431 00:29:07,997 --> 00:29:11,292 [Skip] Malls, neighborhoods, and bedroom communities. 432 00:29:11,375 --> 00:29:12,877 All that was growing. 433 00:29:14,712 --> 00:29:17,799 And at the same time, there were drifters. 434 00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:22,762 Men with criminal pasts. 435 00:29:23,596 --> 00:29:26,140 [Richard] Having the beaches, it's very transient. 436 00:29:26,224 --> 00:29:28,059 People here for the weekend, then they're gone. 437 00:29:29,352 --> 00:29:32,021 And so those two cultures eventually collided. 438 00:29:33,314 --> 00:29:35,066 [tires squeal] 439 00:29:36,192 --> 00:29:37,777 [Lise] This is Maria Johnson. 440 00:29:37,860 --> 00:29:40,696 And this is her best friend, Debbie Ackerman. 441 00:29:42,114 --> 00:29:47,411 They were 15 when they disappeared in November of 1971. 442 00:29:49,872 --> 00:29:52,333 Debbie Ackerman was a champion water-skier. 443 00:29:52,917 --> 00:29:54,043 Fifteen years old. 444 00:29:58,256 --> 00:29:59,423 They were best friends. 445 00:30:01,259 --> 00:30:03,386 Young active surfer girls 446 00:30:05,012 --> 00:30:06,889 having a good time in the '70s. 447 00:30:06,973 --> 00:30:08,975 [ominous music] 448 00:30:13,729 --> 00:30:15,147 And then they disappeared. 449 00:30:18,693 --> 00:30:21,362 Their bodies were found fairly quickly. 450 00:30:21,445 --> 00:30:25,283 [reporter] On November 17th, the body of 15-year-old Maria Johnson 451 00:30:25,366 --> 00:30:28,452 was found in a pool of water fifty miles west of Houston. 452 00:30:28,536 --> 00:30:31,414 The next day, the body of 15-year-old Debbie Ackerman 453 00:30:31,497 --> 00:30:33,165 was found in that same pond. 454 00:30:34,667 --> 00:30:39,130 My estimation, the body has been in the water approximately 48 to 60 hours. 455 00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:43,009 [Lise] By the time they disappeared, there'd already been 456 00:30:43,092 --> 00:30:45,261 other mysterious disappearances. 457 00:30:45,344 --> 00:30:47,138 [reporter] November 26th, 458 00:30:47,221 --> 00:30:50,016 the partial skeleton of 13-year-old Colette Wilson 459 00:30:50,099 --> 00:30:53,060 was found at Addicks Reservoir, ten miles west of Houston. 460 00:30:54,270 --> 00:31:00,067 [Lise] They were all teenagers along I-45 who mysteriously disappeared suddenly, 461 00:31:00,151 --> 00:31:01,319 either alone or in pairs. 462 00:31:02,194 --> 00:31:03,529 In the past six months, 463 00:31:03,613 --> 00:31:07,700 seven teenage girls and young women aged 13 to 21 464 00:31:07,783 --> 00:31:10,703 have been found murdered in the vicinity of Houston, Texas. 465 00:31:12,747 --> 00:31:16,584 [Skip] The years begin to build up. They were being viciously murdered. 466 00:31:18,836 --> 00:31:22,173 And there was no answer as to who was doing it. 467 00:31:22,965 --> 00:31:25,343 [reporter 2] Lawmen search hopefully for clues 468 00:31:25,426 --> 00:31:27,678 but are fearful of finding additional bodies. 469 00:31:29,972 --> 00:31:32,975 [Lise] From 1971 to 1977. 470 00:31:33,059 --> 00:31:34,352 Eleven girls. 471 00:31:35,478 --> 00:31:36,520 No answers. 472 00:31:40,775 --> 00:31:44,528 You have to remember this was an era when there were no surveillance cameras 473 00:31:44,612 --> 00:31:45,571 in parking lots. 474 00:31:47,740 --> 00:31:50,701 No license plate readers on the side of highways. 475 00:31:51,619 --> 00:31:53,996 There were 11 different jurisdictions. 476 00:31:54,830 --> 00:31:55,873 That was a problem 477 00:31:55,957 --> 00:31:58,167 because the police didn't share information. 478 00:31:59,835 --> 00:32:02,922 [Lise] I think it shows how, along the I-45 corridor, 479 00:32:04,173 --> 00:32:06,092 if somebody's allowed to get away with one murder, 480 00:32:06,175 --> 00:32:09,512 they might be able to get away with another or another or another. 481 00:32:10,429 --> 00:32:13,432 What we see again in the '80s is a new group of murders 482 00:32:13,516 --> 00:32:18,896 that start to occur at a different stretch of I-45 up in League City. 483 00:32:20,731 --> 00:32:22,108 The Texas Killing Fields. 484 00:32:26,904 --> 00:32:30,950 [woman] We traveled that stretch of highway going to and from Galveston. 485 00:32:31,742 --> 00:32:33,327 Did that my whole life. 486 00:32:35,830 --> 00:32:37,581 And being a female, 487 00:32:38,499 --> 00:32:41,669 you know, your parents talk to you about safety, 488 00:32:42,253 --> 00:32:43,671 being careful. 489 00:32:47,216 --> 00:32:50,761 My mom and dad were divorced before I was in kindergarten. 490 00:32:53,097 --> 00:32:55,558 Things changed when I was in the fifth grade. 491 00:32:56,183 --> 00:32:57,435 That's when 492 00:32:58,352 --> 00:33:00,187 my mother met someone new. 493 00:33:00,771 --> 00:33:04,900 She brought him home, um, to meet me and my brother. 494 00:33:06,944 --> 00:33:11,323 To me, it was just another boyfriend, you know, not sure how long 495 00:33:12,033 --> 00:33:13,492 he was going to be around. 496 00:33:15,578 --> 00:33:16,620 She liked him. 497 00:33:18,372 --> 00:33:20,374 His name was Clyde Hedrick. 498 00:33:24,295 --> 00:33:28,215 So, this is where the dance club used to be, 499 00:33:29,592 --> 00:33:33,387 that he "happened" to run into my mother. 500 00:33:35,931 --> 00:33:37,600 [director] Why do you say it like that? 501 00:33:39,226 --> 00:33:40,811 Because that was his plan. 502 00:33:44,815 --> 00:33:48,277 [Lise] Clyde Hedrick, he was a good-looking man back in the day. 503 00:33:48,819 --> 00:33:50,905 He liked to wear a black cowboy hat. 504 00:33:51,489 --> 00:33:55,117 He liked to go to bars, dancing contests. 505 00:33:57,244 --> 00:33:59,497 And he'd often win those contests. 506 00:34:01,707 --> 00:34:03,542 He considered himself a ladies' man. 507 00:34:04,460 --> 00:34:07,838 I would say a little bit like a Casanova conman. 508 00:34:09,256 --> 00:34:11,759 [woman] He found out just enough 509 00:34:13,344 --> 00:34:14,303 that he knew 510 00:34:15,930 --> 00:34:17,640 where she went. 511 00:34:19,975 --> 00:34:21,644 And they met at the bar. 512 00:34:25,147 --> 00:34:27,149 And she took him home… 513 00:34:30,236 --> 00:34:31,654 because 514 00:34:32,238 --> 00:34:33,823 he could dance. 515 00:34:36,408 --> 00:34:40,579 [Lise] Clyde Hedrick was attracted to Houston in the '70s and '80s 516 00:34:40,663 --> 00:34:42,331 by the construction boom. 517 00:34:43,666 --> 00:34:45,417 He moved here from Florida, 518 00:34:46,752 --> 00:34:48,504 and got work as a roofer. 519 00:34:49,588 --> 00:34:51,132 It's pretty easy for somebody 520 00:34:51,215 --> 00:34:53,759 to get a job in construction without a background check. 521 00:34:56,554 --> 00:35:01,267 We had no idea who he was at the time, but we started 522 00:35:02,393 --> 00:35:03,978 to find out more 523 00:35:04,645 --> 00:35:08,941 because my dad actually checked him out. 524 00:35:10,109 --> 00:35:13,612 He had a printout of his criminal history. 525 00:35:15,364 --> 00:35:17,950 [director] What was Clyde in prison for at the time? 526 00:35:20,077 --> 00:35:22,830 I think he was in prison for, um, 527 00:35:23,873 --> 00:35:25,332 abuse of a corpse. 528 00:35:32,298 --> 00:35:38,220 It turned out that Hedrick had been involved in a mysterious death, 529 00:35:39,305 --> 00:35:41,265 a woman named Ellen Beason. 530 00:35:44,351 --> 00:35:46,353 [insects chirping] 531 00:36:01,619 --> 00:36:04,038 [Kevin] Ellen Beason was a young woman 532 00:36:04,121 --> 00:36:07,416 that lived with her parents and brother in Friendswood, Texas. 533 00:36:11,587 --> 00:36:13,589 She was in her twenties. 534 00:36:13,672 --> 00:36:14,924 She had a good job. 535 00:36:16,717 --> 00:36:18,010 She enjoyed dancing. 536 00:36:19,470 --> 00:36:22,598 All of that changed the evening she met Clyde Hedrick. 537 00:36:23,974 --> 00:36:28,229 In July of '84, her friend Candy Gifford took Ellen Beason 538 00:36:28,312 --> 00:36:31,065 to a local bar called the Texas Moon 539 00:36:31,649 --> 00:36:35,194 and introduced Ellen to Clyde Hedrick. 540 00:36:35,861 --> 00:36:37,571 They hit it off to some degree. 541 00:36:37,655 --> 00:36:39,281 [insects chirping] 542 00:36:40,324 --> 00:36:43,118 [Kathryn] When Ellen Beason didn't show up at work the next day, 543 00:36:43,202 --> 00:36:46,247 when her friends couldn't find her, her family couldn't find her, 544 00:36:46,914 --> 00:36:48,791 they started asking Clyde. 545 00:36:49,750 --> 00:36:51,043 "Where is she? What happened?" 546 00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:56,882 [Kevin] Clyde Hedrick said he saw Ellen Beason leave in a truck, 547 00:36:57,591 --> 00:37:00,344 that she just left with some friends. 548 00:37:01,929 --> 00:37:02,805 [car alarm beeps] 549 00:37:04,265 --> 00:37:05,808 As the weeks passed, 550 00:37:06,684 --> 00:37:08,352 she really began to get concerned. 551 00:37:13,232 --> 00:37:17,444 Candy, she would often bring up the subject of Ellen to Clyde. 552 00:37:18,028 --> 00:37:20,698 And he grew more and more impatient with that. 553 00:37:22,658 --> 00:37:24,910 One day, Clyde had just had enough. 554 00:37:26,161 --> 00:37:29,748 And in an argument, he said, "Well, then I'll show you where she is." 555 00:37:33,669 --> 00:37:36,547 Clyde drove Candy Gifford to a location 556 00:37:36,630 --> 00:37:41,385 just before the bridge from the mainland to Galveston Island. 557 00:37:43,470 --> 00:37:46,307 This was sort of a dirt road, a rough road. 558 00:37:47,558 --> 00:37:49,977 It was a small building near the railroad tracks. 559 00:37:50,602 --> 00:37:53,188 There was some tires on an old sofa 560 00:37:53,272 --> 00:37:55,649 that had been discarded by the side of the road. 561 00:37:56,692 --> 00:37:58,193 He removed those. 562 00:37:59,236 --> 00:38:02,114 And that's where she saw the remains of Ellen Beason. 563 00:38:02,197 --> 00:38:04,199 [disturbing music playing] 564 00:38:17,713 --> 00:38:20,382 It had been six months after Ellen went missing. 565 00:38:21,508 --> 00:38:25,846 Why it took Candy another six, seven months to go to the police… 566 00:38:26,347 --> 00:38:28,307 [spluttering] …it's hard for me to say. 567 00:38:29,224 --> 00:38:31,060 But I think she was scared of Clyde. 568 00:38:31,143 --> 00:38:32,853 Because that night, 569 00:38:33,979 --> 00:38:38,025 he told her that, "If you tell anyone, this can happen to you too." 570 00:38:38,108 --> 00:38:40,110 [insects chirping] 571 00:38:45,324 --> 00:38:48,535 We know that the Texas Moon was obviously in that direction, 572 00:38:48,619 --> 00:38:50,412 and not just shortly, 573 00:38:50,496 --> 00:38:53,791 but, you know, at least 20 to 25 miles in that direction. 574 00:38:56,710 --> 00:39:01,632 Because of the lack of traffic, y-you can see the weeds are high enough. 575 00:39:01,715 --> 00:39:05,094 You got the sense that this was something hidden. 576 00:39:05,177 --> 00:39:09,306 This was something that he was basically disposing of her, 577 00:39:09,807 --> 00:39:12,101 just like you dispose of a couch or a mattress 578 00:39:12,184 --> 00:39:15,437 or any other number of things that were thrown out here. 579 00:39:18,649 --> 00:39:21,944 [Kathryn] The police found her in a bad state of decomp. 580 00:39:23,278 --> 00:39:27,699 She was still wearing the necklace she'd worn that night to the Texas Moon. 581 00:39:30,828 --> 00:39:34,248 Clyde said that he and Ellen had gone out to a swimming hole, 582 00:39:34,873 --> 00:39:37,501 and she had wanted to go skinny-dipping. 583 00:39:42,423 --> 00:39:46,552 He said he looked out, and she was floating on top of the water. 584 00:39:49,847 --> 00:39:50,973 She had drowned. 585 00:39:53,183 --> 00:39:57,020 [Kevin] To hear Clyde tell the story of Ellen Beason drowning that night, 586 00:39:59,690 --> 00:40:02,109 he panicked, put her in the back of the truck, 587 00:40:03,026 --> 00:40:06,738 and then on the way to the hospital, as he describes it, 588 00:40:06,822 --> 00:40:10,826 he decided to ditch the body for fear that he would be suspected of foul play. 589 00:40:11,326 --> 00:40:14,455 And that's when he put her under the couch and under the tires. 590 00:40:18,876 --> 00:40:21,587 When you see someone who, um, 591 00:40:22,212 --> 00:40:25,716 dumps a body in a place where there's just so much trash, 592 00:40:25,799 --> 00:40:28,427 he didn't see her as a person. 593 00:40:28,510 --> 00:40:30,137 He didn't see her as a human. 594 00:40:30,220 --> 00:40:34,725 He saw her as some trash that he needed to hide away 595 00:40:34,808 --> 00:40:36,310 from the police and authorities. 596 00:40:36,393 --> 00:40:38,562 And I think that says a lot about a person. 597 00:40:38,645 --> 00:40:40,981 [birds squawking] 598 00:40:41,064 --> 00:40:44,776 Ellen Beason's remains were taken to the Galveston County medical examiner. 599 00:40:45,861 --> 00:40:48,489 She was still very much exposed to the elements out there. 600 00:40:48,572 --> 00:40:50,365 It is a wet area. 601 00:40:50,449 --> 00:40:54,119 The skin had long since deteriorated in the elements. 602 00:40:54,203 --> 00:40:55,412 It was just bones. 603 00:40:56,872 --> 00:41:01,043 The medical examiner indicated that both the cause and the manner 604 00:41:01,126 --> 00:41:04,087 of the death of Ellen Beason could not be determined. 605 00:41:07,799 --> 00:41:10,844 The only charge that the DA's office could bring was 606 00:41:10,928 --> 00:41:13,430 the tampering with evidence, 607 00:41:13,514 --> 00:41:15,849 basically dumping Ellen Beason's body. 608 00:41:16,767 --> 00:41:19,186 The charge at the time was called abuse of corpse. 609 00:41:20,437 --> 00:41:21,605 [Kathryn] He was convicted. 610 00:41:21,688 --> 00:41:25,192 He was fined $2,000 and one year in prison. 611 00:41:26,527 --> 00:41:30,656 [Kevin] After the abuse of corpse case and a year in county jail, 612 00:41:31,156 --> 00:41:33,158 Clyde Hedrick was a free man. 613 00:41:34,243 --> 00:41:36,411 He had been tried. He had been convicted. 614 00:41:36,495 --> 00:41:39,456 There wasn't much else for us to do at that point. 615 00:41:43,335 --> 00:41:46,922 When you don't have scientific evidence, then there are a lot of challenges. 616 00:41:49,675 --> 00:41:53,136 This part of Houston, we have pretty severe weather. 617 00:41:53,929 --> 00:41:55,847 [reporter] The storm battered the Gulf Coast 618 00:41:55,931 --> 00:41:57,432 with torrential rains and flooding. 619 00:41:58,934 --> 00:42:00,352 [Kathryn] It's on a coastal plain. 620 00:42:03,605 --> 00:42:05,190 We have hurricanes. 621 00:42:06,358 --> 00:42:08,318 And it floods. 622 00:42:08,819 --> 00:42:11,863 [reporter 2] Flash flood watches are out on all of South Texas. 623 00:42:12,990 --> 00:42:16,952 [Kathryn] When the hurricanes come in, they're pretty brutal. 624 00:42:17,035 --> 00:42:19,913 [reporter 3] Hurricane Gilbert has been blamed for at least 66 deaths 625 00:42:19,997 --> 00:42:22,374 and billions of dollars worth of damage. 626 00:42:22,457 --> 00:42:27,504 [Kathryn] People understand that water is very hard on evidence, 627 00:42:27,588 --> 00:42:29,631 that it destroys DNA. 628 00:42:29,715 --> 00:42:32,551 It destroys a lot of what the police look for 629 00:42:32,634 --> 00:42:34,886 when they try to piece a crime together. 630 00:42:36,638 --> 00:42:41,226 Water speeds up decomposition, but the heat down here does too, you know? 631 00:42:41,310 --> 00:42:43,437 We have this incredible heat. 632 00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:48,734 So, a lot of times with the girls' bodies, all that was found were skeletal remains. 633 00:42:51,653 --> 00:42:52,988 [Richard] The Calder Road cases, 634 00:42:53,071 --> 00:42:54,906 they were somewhat intertwined, 635 00:42:54,990 --> 00:42:58,201 mostly by the time frame with Ellen Beason. 636 00:42:58,952 --> 00:43:02,372 If there was similarities between the two, it could be the same perpetrator. 637 00:43:02,998 --> 00:43:06,501 Since Ellen went missing in 1984, 638 00:43:06,585 --> 00:43:09,838 which was the year after Heide Fye first went missing, 639 00:43:10,380 --> 00:43:12,466 we absolutely had to consider that it could be related. 640 00:43:15,886 --> 00:43:21,016 The story Clyde told about Ellen Beason never made any sense. 641 00:43:21,099 --> 00:43:25,020 And her death occurred during the same period 642 00:43:25,103 --> 00:43:29,274 when the other three women were found in the Texas Killing Fields. 643 00:43:29,358 --> 00:43:32,527 League City and Dickinson are not very far apart. 644 00:43:33,403 --> 00:43:37,407 So when Clyde Hedrick becomes the main suspect 645 00:43:37,491 --> 00:43:39,534 in the murder of Ellen Beason, 646 00:43:40,619 --> 00:43:44,873 he also becomes one of the main suspects in the Texas Killing Fields. 647 00:43:47,167 --> 00:43:51,421 But at the time, because they were unsolved cases, 648 00:43:51,505 --> 00:43:53,298 I had a hard time with the police 649 00:43:53,382 --> 00:43:55,967 just like you're having a hard time with the police. 650 00:43:56,051 --> 00:43:58,053 [ominous music] 651 00:44:01,473 --> 00:44:04,351 The first time I reached out to Tim Miller, 652 00:44:04,434 --> 00:44:06,269 he spent the whole day with me, 653 00:44:07,437 --> 00:44:11,108 talking about Laura and how he was still fighting 654 00:44:11,191 --> 00:44:14,111 to try to find the person who killed his daughter. 655 00:44:14,194 --> 00:44:18,323 And one of the first things Tim said was, "Well, what you really ought to look at 656 00:44:18,407 --> 00:44:21,201 is the Ellen Beason case and Clyde Hedrick." 657 00:44:23,370 --> 00:44:27,791 [Tim] He was on my radar the minute I learned about Ellen Beason. 658 00:44:30,335 --> 00:44:32,212 And then I do what any parent's gonna do, 659 00:44:32,295 --> 00:44:35,507 is start asking questions, find out more about this cat. 660 00:44:43,181 --> 00:44:46,643 This is my house here in Dickinson. 661 00:44:47,769 --> 00:44:50,856 Two houses in between my house and Clyde's house. 662 00:44:54,401 --> 00:44:55,819 This is where Clyde lived. 663 00:44:56,903 --> 00:44:58,029 I never knew him. 664 00:44:59,114 --> 00:45:01,324 I think maybe I'd seen him one time 665 00:45:01,408 --> 00:45:04,202 when the guy had a flat tire, and I gave him a tire. 666 00:45:04,786 --> 00:45:08,248 I went in my shop right there. There was a tire and a rim. 667 00:45:08,331 --> 00:45:12,294 And I brought it out to him, and I said, "Here, man, I got one that's gonna fit." 668 00:45:12,377 --> 00:45:13,712 He said, "What do I owe you?" 669 00:45:13,795 --> 00:45:16,798 I said, "Man, nothing." I said, "You look like a hard-working guy." 670 00:45:18,759 --> 00:45:20,302 And I think it was Clyde. 671 00:45:22,262 --> 00:45:26,057 There's one of Laura's little friends that still contacts me that 672 00:45:26,141 --> 00:45:28,435 her and Laura would go walking, 673 00:45:28,518 --> 00:45:31,688 and they would walk way around 674 00:45:31,772 --> 00:45:33,899 because Laura was afraid of Clyde Hedrick. 675 00:45:34,691 --> 00:45:36,693 [ominous music] 676 00:45:45,327 --> 00:45:47,329 I don't know how it all happened that morning. 677 00:45:47,412 --> 00:45:48,955 I can only speculate. 678 00:45:49,539 --> 00:45:51,541 [insects chirping] 679 00:45:52,542 --> 00:45:57,005 [Kevin] Whether it's an accident, or it's something that happened naturally, 680 00:45:57,088 --> 00:45:59,633 why would you dump a body 681 00:46:00,634 --> 00:46:04,387 like he did, just like trash by the side of the road, 682 00:46:04,471 --> 00:46:06,556 if there wasn't something else going on? 683 00:46:09,309 --> 00:46:10,477 [woman] Ellen Beason. 684 00:46:12,312 --> 00:46:16,608 My mother, she would ask Clyde about it, and 685 00:46:17,901 --> 00:46:20,862 whatever answer he gave her was good enough for her, 686 00:46:20,946 --> 00:46:23,406 because she didn't… She didn't leave him. 687 00:46:25,075 --> 00:46:26,326 She kept him around. 688 00:46:28,870 --> 00:46:29,996 And so, they… 689 00:46:32,457 --> 00:46:33,583 They got married. 690 00:46:41,675 --> 00:46:46,555 [Skip] The thing about these kind of killings is the police weren't cynical. 691 00:46:47,806 --> 00:46:49,266 They weren't skeptical. 692 00:46:49,349 --> 00:46:51,184 They just didn't know what to do. 693 00:46:51,726 --> 00:46:53,728 Well, you know what? If you wanna commit a crime, 694 00:46:53,812 --> 00:46:55,605 do it here, because they sure can't solve it. 695 00:46:59,985 --> 00:47:04,739 [Skip] In the '70s, they had a dozen murders in this one area of the state. 696 00:47:05,866 --> 00:47:07,784 And then in 1986, 697 00:47:07,868 --> 00:47:11,788 three bodies were found within a period of two years, 698 00:47:11,872 --> 00:47:13,582 all within 50 yards of each other. 699 00:47:15,500 --> 00:47:16,543 Was it one killer? 700 00:47:17,961 --> 00:47:19,379 Was it multiple killers? 701 00:47:19,963 --> 00:47:21,673 What was going on? 702 00:47:22,549 --> 00:47:23,675 There was no answer. 703 00:47:24,968 --> 00:47:27,721 [Kathryn] And then it happened again. 704 00:47:29,973 --> 00:47:32,017 [reporter] Police are baffled over latest discovery 705 00:47:32,100 --> 00:47:34,144 at what some are now calling a killing field. 706 00:47:34,227 --> 00:47:37,689 The body of a fourth victim, a woman, was found just two weeks ago. 707 00:47:37,772 --> 00:47:41,610 [Lise] Another body is found on the same piece of land. 708 00:47:41,693 --> 00:47:45,113 [reporter 2] A fourth body found in the same location. 709 00:47:48,199 --> 00:47:49,367 Here we go again. 710 00:47:51,161 --> 00:47:53,163 [somber ending theme]