This topic was submitted by a viewer who said they would love our take on this story. That is flattering but it also could be they want to hear me pronounce a ton of names wrong. Sadly there are a lot of names in this story. Regardless this topic and this story in history is intense and mind-boggling. What are we talking about? The Texas Killing Fields.
They say everything is bigger in Texas apparently that is a thing with their killing fields. Hopefully, it’s the only killing field. I’m sure you have heard of The Texas Killing Fields as it hit Netflix in 2022 and has been covered by many people in books and shows. Maybe you haven’t heard of it so let's tell you about it think that is why you are hear right?
So what is the Texas Killing Field first of all? The Texas Killing Fields are a title used to talk about an area on Interstate Highway 45 in Texas. Interstate 45 (I-45[a]) is a major Interstate Highway located entirely within the US state of Texas. While most Interstate routes that have numbers ending in "5" are cross-country north–south routes, I-45 is comparatively short, with the entire route located in Texas. Additionally, it has the shortest length of all the interstates that end in a "5." It connects the cities of Dallas and Houston, continuing southeast from Houston to Galveston over the Galveston Causeway to the Gulf of Mexico.
In the early 1970’s more than 30 bodies were found. They were found in a 25-acre patch of land in League City Texas. League City Texas is near Houston and according to a 2020 census had a population of 112,129. League City was settled at the former site of a Karankawa Indian village.[9] Three families, the Butlers, the Cowarts, and the Perkinses, are considered to be the founding families of the city. The Winfield Family has also recently been acknowledged as a founding family by the City Government. League City despite it’s past is the 3rd largest boating anchorage in the US and was recognized as the top ten smartest cities in Texas. Pretty nice place.
More than 30 bodies would have loved to grow old in this pretty nice place but were not able to as they were found in the Texas Killing Fields. Most of these bodies were of girls or young women. Unfortunately, there are many other young girls who disappeared from the area and are still missing. The age range of these victims is 12-25 years. Many shared similar physical features and similar hairstyles. What’s crazy to me is many of these murders and missing cases were not solved despite all of the state and local police and even the FBI’s involvement.
The location of the Texas Killing Fields has been described by many different places on the internet as the perfect place for killing somebody and getting away with it. Many people have gone to the fields and could see refineries in the background but is a place where you could yell and scream and nobody would hear you. You could run and have nowhere to go. I-45 attracts for whatever reason a different kind of person. They got the drifters, construction workers, ex-convicts, and the addicts. This seems to add to not only the murders themselves but to the inability to find these murderers.
So why did everything go crazy in this area in the 70’s? Oil. Some say money is the root of all evil and the Houston area was booming with money and then came the evil. The oil crisis of 1973 or referred to as the Arab oil embargo. Without going too nerdy on this it was when oil prices rose 300%. Where is there a lot of oil? You guessed it Houston area. Texas produced 1.8 Billion barrels of oil in 2022. The next closest was New Mexico with 574 million barrels. There are so many refineries that even the Texas Killing Fields are next to what? A refinery.
In the 70s in this area had 670,000 jobs added, and 24 billion dollars were put into the banks. Where did these people come from? It’s believed from the Rust Belt or a region in the US that had an industrial decline that started in the 50s but really peaked in the 70s and 80s. So you had people with little money, and criminal records looking for a new place to make money. Murders in this area went from 820 in the 50’s to almost 2300 in the 70s. From 15,000 violent crimes to 69,000. Amongst these murders and violent crimes more than 30 of them happened within 25 acres. With so many crimes the local and state police were very overwhelmed adding to the inability to get suspects and convictions.
Speaking of that there were only 4 suspects and 4 convictions. The first suspect was Michael Lloyd Self. A convicted sex offender and gas station operator. He confessed to a couple of the murders but within months retracted his confessions claiming that he had been tortured into confessing, with the interrogators suffocating with a plastic bag, burning him with cigarette butts and a radiator, as well as being assaulted by the police chief, Don Morris. Nevertheless, on September 18, 1974, Self was convicted of killing Shaw and received life in prison, despite the fact that his confessions showed great discrepancies concerning the victims' clothing, the date of the murders, the locations of the bodies, how they were killed, and various other details.
Edward Harold Bell the second suspect had been arrested 12 times for sick acts towards children. He was a silent partner at a surf shop and knew some of the victims. In 1978 Bell was performing a lewd act on the street in front of a group of teenage girls and was confronted by an ex-Marine Larry Dickens. Dickens removed the keys and refused to let Bell go until the cops came. Before that happened Bell killed Dickens. He posted bail and fled the US and couldn’t be found for over two decades. He was arrested for Dickens's murder and while in jail confessed to the murder of 5 girls in 1971 and 6 more between 1974 and 1977. He gave names and details but was never charged with these murders. He was a suspect until he died in 2019.
Mark Stallings suspect number 3. A convicted kidnapper confessed to killing a girl in 1991 while serving a life sentence. His testimony showed great consistency with the details of the crime, he worked near the homes of some of the missing girls, and guess what, he was never charged.
Suspect 4 was Clyde Edwin Hedrick. He had a criminal record of trespassing, theft, abuse of a corpse, attempted arson, possession of marijuana, driving while intoxicated, and sexual assault. He made a jailhouse confession for two of the murders. He served time in jail for the conviction of one of the murders in 1984 and was released in 2021.
The three other convictions were thanks to evolving technology caught these criminals and tied them to the murders from DNA because they committed crimes later in life. They would all serve life in prison and die behind bars.
The following are the confirmed or suspected victims of the Texas Killing Fields. I apologize in advance for saying any of these names wrong but we felt it was important to give their names a mention not only for them but for the families who have had to deal with these tragedies every day since.
Colette Anise Wilson, 13
Brenda Kaye Jones, 14
Rhonda Renee Johnson, 14, and Sharon Lynn Shaw, 13
Gloria Ann Gonzales, 19
Allison Anne Craven, 12
Debbie Catherine Ackerman and Maria Talbot Johnson, both 15
Kimberly Raye Pitchford, 16,
Brooks Bracewell, 12, and Georgia Caroline Geer, 14
Suzanne “Suzie” Bowers, 12
Tina Gail Clouse, 17, and Harold Dean Clouse Jr., 20
Michelle Angela Garvey, 15
Susan Lee Eads, 20
Heide Marie Villarreal-Fye, 25
Sondra Kay Ramber, 14
Laura Lynn Miller, 16
Ellen Rae Simpson Beason, 29
7-year-old Michelle Doherty Thomas
Audrey Lee Cook, 30
Shelley Kathleen Sikes, 19
Suzanne Rene Richerson, 22
Donna Marie Prudhomme, 34
Lynette Bibbs, 14, and Tamara Fisher, 15
Krystal Jean Baker, 13
Laura Smither, 12
Kelli Ann Cox,[45] 20,
Jessica Lee Cain, 17
Tot Tran Harriman, 57
Sara Ann Lewis Trusty, 23
Terressa Lynn Vanegas, 16
Many people have many theories about what happened throughout the decades and we may never know the truth. Horrible crimes committed by horrible people. We always try to leave you with a quote and we are going to leave you with one from a father of one of the victims who has been fighting every single day. Even when he tried to quit, he couldn’t and here is a quote why.
“I would go out there, and I’d stand in front of that cross, and I’d say: ‘Laura, please don't hate your daddy. I cannot come out here anymore. I have to say goodbye, and I have to put my life back together.’ I'd be walking away, and I'd hear a little voice say: ‘Dad don't quit. Please don't quit.’” Tim Miller
Sources
https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/txcrime.htm
Wiki
https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23014/houston/population
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2022/11/30/texas-killing-fields-documentary-clyde-hedrick-tim-miller/10798389002/
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/houston/2023/04/11/448852/houston-region-second-largest-population-surge-u-s-2022-census-analysis-finds/#:~:text=The%20analysis%20attributed%20two%2Dthirds,a%20margin%20of%20nearly%2040%2C000.