Criminology - The Texas Killing Fields Part1

Episode Date: May 9, 2020

We're discussing the stretch of Interstate 45, between Houston and Galveston, TX, that has become known over the years as "The Killing Fields". Since the early 1970s, at least 30 women and young girls have disappeared or have been found murdered over this 53-mile stretch of land. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss this case that has baffled investigators for years. There have been so many victims over such a long period of time. Could these murders be the work of just one heinous predator? Or, as many investigators believe, have there been a number of serial killers operating in the same area over this period of time? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 111 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford, how are you? I'm doing good. I'm excited. We've got the first of a two-parter on a big case. So I've been looking forward to this one. Yeah. I think this is a case that a lot of people are. fascinated with. So I think people are really going to like both of these. And, you know,

obviously we're doing part one right now. I will say this. It's a case that we get a lot of requests for. So I mean, you know, when you get a lot of requests for something specific, you have to think there's a lot of people that have a great deal of interest in it. And a lot of people like the the way we used to do multiple cases. or multiple episodes about cases, this is going to be one of those times where we have to put this over multiple episodes because there's just a lot of content to go through. So before we jump in, we continue to have a great deal of new Patreon support. We had My You the Vampire. I mean, we'll take them, right?

Yeah, vampires, zombies, anyone that is willing to support the show, we're with you. We do not discriminate, right, Mor? we had Brenda Gallo, Michelle McDonald, Jennifer Carroll, Jeff Pollitt, and Maggie Schultz. So a lot of great new Patreon support, and we really appreciate it. Yeah, and a lot of those names, I say it every week, those names are familiar in many instances because they support us on social media too, so that's awesome. And if anyone out there is considering supporting criminology on Patreon, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology.

We actually had a PayPal donation too. We don't get a lot of it. We don't advertise it, to be honest with you. But our really good friend Christine Hazel sent us a sizable donation on PayPal. And it's amazing. If there is anybody that is interested in supporting the show that way, you can do so by sending it to Emash Digital at gmail.com. All right, buddy, let's dive into this case.

And let's start off talking about Interstate 45 between Houston and Galveston, Texas. That's considered one of the deadliest highways in America. It's been called the Highway to Hell. It's a 53-mile stretch of pretty desolate land halfway between Houston and Galveston. There is an especially deadly area of land bordering Calder oil field in League City, Texas. Since the early 1970s, at least 30 women and young girls have disappeared or have been found murdered in or near the roughly 25 acre of fields there. These mysterious murders and missing persons cases have led to that area being dubbed the Texas killing fields. Others refer to this series of murders as the I-45 killings.

So you will see it listed both ways. Investigators believe more than one serial killer was involved in these homicides and disappearances. The brutal killings began in 1971. On July 13th of that year, the body of 14-year-old Brenda Kay Jones was found in the Galveston Channel near Pelican Island. She was last seen earlier in the month. An autopsy revealed that she was strangled to death.

A few months later on November 17. 1971. The bodies of 15-year-old Debbie Ackerman and her friend Maria Johnson, who was also 15, were found bound and partially nude in Turner's Bayou in Texas City, just a few miles north of Galveston. Just three days earlier, on Sunday, November 14th, Debbie and Maria went on a double date, and Debbie stayed the night at Maria's house. Monday was a school holiday, so the girls decided to go to downtown Galveston and do some shopping in the Port Holiday Mall. located near Fourth and Water Streets. Maria wanted to buy her boyfriend a birthday present.

At 6 p.m., Maria Johnson's mother called Debbie's parents when she hadn't heard from her daughter and told them that she was going to call the police. Police began searching for the girls. And they located a woman who said that she saw two girls who matched the description of Debbie and Maria getting into a pickup truck with a man on the beachfront. On November 17th, this was three days after the girls went missing, a lone fisherman found Maria Johnson's body floating in the water in Turner's Bayou behind the Texas City Reservoir. She was nude from the waist down and her hands and feet had been bound together with

fishing line. She had been shot with a 38 caliber pistol. Once in the head and once in the neck. Once Maria's body had been found, an all-out search for Debbie ensued. The next morning, November 18th, police found Debbie's body at the water's edge, about 100 yards from where Maria's body was recovered. Like Maria, Debbie was nude from the waist down, and her hands and feet were bound with black shoelaces or drawl strings.

Debbie had been shot in the chin and back. Because both bodies had been in the water, County medical examiner Dr. Robert Buckland couldn't determine if the girls had been raped. Dr. Buckland said it appeared that Debbie and Maria were both kneeling when they were shot to death. Debbie was killed first, then dumped into the bayou. Authorities said they found an open cattle gate leading to the crime scene, a pair of gloves, and spent 38 shell casings. Police were not certain if Debbie and Maria's murder was connected to Brenda Jones's murder from a few months earlier, but they did acknowledge the similarities.

day that Maria and Debbie were witness getting into a white truck, another girl, 17-year-old Leslie White of Houston was attacked. She too had accepted a ride from a man in a white truck. Leslie told authorities that she accepted a ride from a man on the beach front who was driving a pickup truck. The man threatened to rape her. And as he drove around looking for a private spot, Leslie jumped from the moving vehicle, saving her life. Despite suffering some minor injuries, she was able to escape the man in the truck. And who knows what would have ultimately happened to Leslie if she had. About a week after the murders of Maria Johnson and Debbie Ackerman, the remains of 19-year-old Gloria Gonzalez were found near Attic's Reservoir on November 23rd.

Gloria was a Houston area bookkeeper. She was last seen a month earlier on October 28th in Houston. An autopsy revealed Gloria had been beaten to death. Her head was found next to her body. Three days later on November 26th, the body of 13-year-old Clette Wilson was found not far from where Gloria's body was recovered. Glet was the daughter of Dr. Thomas O. Wilson, a dentist. She had been attending a band camp in Pearland, a town near Sugarland, and was dropped off after camp let out for the day at the intersection of Highway 6 and County Road 99, west of Alvin.

Her mother usually picked her up there. On June 17th, Mrs. Wilson arrived about 10 minutes late and was horrified to find Colette was nowhere to be found. Police were called in and began searching for Collette. They learned that at around 1230 p.m., the day she vanished, an older model black car was seen leaving the area where Colette normally waited for her mother. Mrs. Wilson herself actually saw this same vehicle drive by her as she neared the area where Colette was supposed to be waiting. Mrs. Wilson said that the car was driven by a white male and that there was a dark haired female sitting in the back.

But she was unable to tell whether or not it was Collette. This car was last seen heading south on County Road 99 toward the old Manville Road. Five months later on November 26, 1971, Colette's badly decomposed body was found, about 200 yards from where a hunter found Gloria Gonzalez's remains. As in Gloria's case, Colette's head was also found separated from the rest of her body. But the medical examiner concluded that both of their bodies being headless was as a result of decomposition. and not decapitation. Colette's father identified his daughter, through dental work he himself had performed on Collette. He also recognized the peace ring she was wearing when she vanished.

Colette's cause of death couldn't be determined, and police found no signs of clothing with Colette's body, suggesting she had been nude when she was dumped there. So, Morph, I think, pretty obvious, right? Police at this point realized that they had a problem on their hand and that the remains of these victims found, you know, relatively close together, suggested that they might have some type of predator running around. They meticulously searched the areas where the bodies were found and they made a disturbing discovery. Two days after Collette's body was discovered, investigators found a coffee can of deteriorating flesh and bone. This was late Sunday night on the 28th. This was in an area about a mile southeast of

where Collette and Gloria's remains had been found. The can was taken to the Harris County Mort for testing to determine if the contents were human. But it's not clear what came from that testing. So we don't have all the details on this, but you'd have to say more if this is extraordinary. extremely intriguing to find a coffee can of flesh and bone. Okay, what does that mean? Are we looking at a collector who, for whatever reason, left behind what he was collecting? I mean, your imagination could run wild when talking about something like this if the testing did determine that this was actual flesh and bone. Yeah, I think anytime you're in one of these desolate, deserted areas and you find something and open it up, there's a chance that what you're going to find is going to be something that you don't want to find. I remember one time I was in the woods and I found a suitcase miles from the road and it was a footlocker about four feet long.

And I remember thinking, I'm going to open this and this is, there's a good chance there's a body in here. I remember thinking at the time. And luckily it wasn't. It was trash. I don't know who lugged it out there, how it got all the way out there. but there was nothing sinister at all besides a bunch of trash. I thought you were going to say that your father was actually D.B. Cooper or something. I thought that there was going to be more to that story.

I wish it was a big thing of money, but it was just trash. So here's the thing to me, right? You know, out in desolate areas or really any area, I mean, you can stumble upon bone. Now, I'm not human bone, a lot of animal bones and things like that. But to have something in a coffee can. Okay, to me, that adds an entirely different level to it because now you know for a fact there was some type of human interaction. An animal could get hit by a car, could get killed by another animal, and there's bones. But a human had to put whatever this was inside the coffee can.

So, you know, let your imagination run wild. The discovery of Colette and Gloria's bodies brought the murder count to five. Police theorized that Colette's and Gloria's murders were connected to each other, but likely not to the other three murders. If they were right, then this meant there were at least two deadly killers on the prow in the same vicinity. Shortly after Colette's and Gloria's bodies were found, Sheriff C.V. Kern announced that he expected an arrest in the upcoming days. He said he had the name and description of a suspect from a woman who was kidnapped at a Houston bus stop earlier in November, but escaped after the man tried to force her to perform a sexual act. Sheriff Kern didn't release the name of this man.

As far as we can tell from research, that man was never arrested in relation to the murders. Police hope that as 1971 turned to 1972, perhaps the mysterious murders might stop. But very early on in the new year, they realized that was not going to be the case. because on January 3rd, 1972, two boys found a human skull floating in Clear Lake while they were fishing on Taylor Bayou near Webster, Texas. Examination confirmed that it belonged to a young girl. Six weeks later, police found the rest of the remains, along with those of a second girl. Using dental records, the two sets of remains were identified as, 14-year-old Rhonda Johnson, and 13-year-old Sharon Shaw.

The cause of death for both girls could not be determined. It turned out that Rhonda and Sharon were friends. They were last seen on August 4, 1971, walking along Seawall Boulevard towards the Jericho, Surf, and Sea Shop in Galveston, Texas. In June, 1972, five months after Rhonda and Sharon's bodies were found, 23-year-old Michael Lloyd's self confessed to killing Rhonda and Sharon, but gave several versions of what happened and where he dumped the bodies. None of the versions matched the facts of the case. For example, one time he said he disposed of the bodies at El Largo, 20 miles from Taylor Bayou.

Self, a known sex offender, later told an investigator that the new police chief Don Morris, and assistant police chief Tommy Deal attacked him and beat a confession out of him. Regardless, he was arrested and on May 15, 1973, self was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison. But the story of the murders of Rhonda and Sharon didn't in there because in 1980, another man confessed to their murders. the man who wasn't publicly named reportedly suffered from some type of mental illness, but he did live close to where Rhonda and Sharon's remains were found. He gave a vague confession, but mentioned using an electrical cord to tie the girls' bodies down. This was a detail never mentioned by Michael Self, who was in prison for the murders.

And as it turns out, this information was accurate. And it was something that police had intentionally withheld from the public. Despite the new confession and the accurate description of the use of the electrical cord, this man's confession was pretty much dismissed and self remained in prison. Michael Lloyd's self died in prison in 2000. And more of what I think is remarkable about this case, is, you know, when you research it, it really comes out that many of the current authorities now believe that Michael Self actually was framed, as he originally claimed, by police chief

Don Morris and assistant police chief Tommy Deal. Now, Michael Self wasn't a saint by any stretch. He was a convicted sex offender. But if he wasn't responsible for the murders of Ronda Johnson and Sharon Shaw, then the real killer alluded police, perhaps taking more victims in the process. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020.

Blood and Water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries,

your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodontas. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. About a month and a half after the bodies of Rhonda Johnson and Sharon Shaw were found, the partial remains of 12-year-old Allison Craven were found in a field on February 25, 1972, in the town of Pearland, almost 20 miles from her Houston home.

Allison lived in a Houston apartment with her mother. She was last seen almost four months before her body was found. On November 9, 1971, Allison's mother left her home while she ran out to run some errands. When she returned, Allison was gone. Originally, only Allison's arm bones, hand bones, and teeth were discovered. Three months later, in May 1972, police recovered more of Allison's remains, not far from the original discovery. On May 3, 1972, police charged 22-year-old Henry 7,000. Henry Doyle, Shufflin Jr. with Allison's murder. According to investigators, Shufflin gave them an

oral statement about the murder. They were taking a written statement from him when a court-appointed defense attorney arrived and spoke with Shufflin after conferring with his lawyer. Shufflin said that he was emotionally sick and very frightened and that he was easily pressured. He demanded that they no longer questioned him unless his lawyer was present. It turned out that Shufflin had been under psychiatric care in the previous months before his arrest. He was convicted for Allison's murder in October 1973. Then in 1975, he appealed his conviction and lost. According to mystery and true crime author Catherine Casey, who wrote a book on the killing fields titled

deliver us, Shufflin served his time and was released from prison. Casey contends that Allison's murder should not be associated with the others in the series, but Allison's murder is still often listed with the other I-45 murder victims due to the proximity and time frame in relation to the others. Henry Shufflin died in 2008. About a year after Allison Craven's body was found, 16-year-old Kimberly Pitchford disappeared on January 3, 1973, after attending a driver's education class at Dobby High School in Houston. Kimberly failed to call her parents to be picked up following the class. Two days later, a couple of brothers found her coat hanging on a fence and her body in a ditch in Brazoria County. She had been strangled to death.

On September 6, 1974, 12-year-old Brooks Bracewell and her friend, 14-year-old Georgia Gear, disappeared. The girls both lived in the same neighborhood in Dickinson, Texas, and both girls attended McAdams Junior High School. On the day of their disappearance, the girls walked to the school bus stop, but they decided to skip school for the day instead of attending their classes. The girls were later seen that day at the El Rancho Motel on County Road 517 near Alvin with several males. They were all playing foosball. They were again seen later in the day without the males, hitchhiking along County Road 517. On April 18, 1976, about a year and a half after Brooks and Georgia vanished, an oil rig worker found two partial human. skulls in a drainage ditch at a Phillips oil site in Brazoria County. Police were called and searched

the area for clues or evidence, but no other remains or evidence was found. Later, many would say that this search by police was flawed. When a new Brasuray County Sheriff was elected five years later in 1981, he ordered a new search of the area for the rest of the remains. That search took place in the area in April. The search was massive, and it included Brazoria County Sheriff's deputies, Texas Department of Corrections volunteers and inmates of the county jail. This second search led to the discovery of more teeth, the lower jaw of one of the skulls, and patches of clothing. Now that authorities had more teeth and a jawbone, they had enough to officially ID the remains

as those of Brooks Bracewell and Georgia Gear. The cause of death for the girls was revealed to likely be the result of many heavy blows to the head. And it's probably not a big shocker morph, but serial killer Henry Lee Lucas was questioned regarding the girl's disappearances in the late 1970s. But authority said he only gave vague details about picking up the girls. He was never really a solid suspect. But I think as most people know, it was not unusual for Lucas to try and take credit for basically any unsubstable. And so, solve Texas crime. I mean, over the years, he confessed to, what, more, hundreds of different murders.

Yeah, and it wouldn't be the last time that his name would come up in the Texas Killingfield's case. Following the murders of Brooks Bracewell and Georgia Gear, it was almost three years before another girl disappeared. On Saturday morning, May 21, 1977, 12-year-old Suzanne Bowers was last seen in visiting her grandmother in the 4,000 block of South Half Street in Galveston, not far from Seawall Boulevard. Around 10.45 a.m., Suzanne decided to walk to her home in the 3,100 block of Avenue P, about a mile away. She wanted to grab her swimsuit before heading to the beach.

She had walked that route many times in the past, but this time, Suzanne never made it home. Authorities believe someone picked her up in a vehicle. 22 months later, motorcyclists found skeletal remains in a secluded field just inside the western boundary of Galveston County near Altiloma on March 26, 1979. They were identified as those of Suzanne Bowers. And here Morph is where Henry Lee Lucas showed up again. In relation to a case in this series, he confessed to Suzanne's murder in 1984, but was never charged due to lack of evidence.

Police said that he did provide details. of the murder that only the killer would have known. But authorities really have not ever elaborated further on what those details really were. At the time, Lucas confessed to Suzanne's murder, he was already on death row, having received the death sentence for one of 10 murders for which he was convicted. In 1998, Lucas's death sentence was commuted to life in prison. And he died three years later, so Lucas was never charged in relation to Suzanne's murder, nor was anyone else. Following the murder of Suzanne Bowers in 1977, things along the Interstate 45 Texas killing field seemed to quiet down, and the series of attacks seemed to come to a halt. Perhaps the

heat of all the investigations going on was too much for the predator, or predators, responsible for the attacks in the area. Maybe it's possible that the killer or killers moved away temporarily. or went to prison for other crimes. Whatever the case, it wasn't until late 1983, over five years since the last attack in this series, that another victim would go missing. Heidi Villa Real Fy, a 23-year-old bartender, vanished in October 1983.

She was last seen on October 10th at a convenience store located off of West Main Street and Hobbs in League City, Texas. Her remains were not found until, April 4, 1984, after a dog carried her skull to a nearby home, a search of the area by police resulted in the recovery of the rest of her remains in the 3,000 block of Calder Road in League City. A few months later, another teenager disappeared. 16-year-old Laura Miller and her family had just moved to League City from Dickinson. The Miller's telephone hadn't been installed yet. On September 10,

1984, Laura's mother, Janet Miller, dropped her off at convenience store to use the payphone so she could call her boyfriend. Later, when the boyfriend showed up at the millers looking for Laura, Laura's parents became worried because she hadn't come home yet. It wasn't necessarily that they thought Laura was the victim of foul play, but because Laura suffered from seizures, and they feared a medical emergency. What the millers didn't know was at the convenience store where Laura was dropped off was the same one, Heidi Fy vanished from the year before. The Miller's contacted police. But because Laura had a history of anxiety and depression, police insisted that she most likely either ran away or perhaps she had even taken her own life.

Laura's parents knew that wasn't the case. And they were fearful of what might have happened to her. On February 3rd, 1986, almost a year and a half. after she vanished, Laura's body was found in the same field, where Heidi Fy's body was found. In fact, Laura's body was found in pretty much the same location where Heidi Fy's remains had been found. While searching the field for clues in Laura's murder, police found a third body in the same field. Police were shocked to stumble upon another body, and they had no leads to, I, identified this victim. She was eventually named a Jane Doe. She was believed to be about 25 years old and had died

six weeks to six months prior to being found. Years later in 1991, police found a fourth victim in the same field. She was given the name Janet Doe. She was believed to be about 31 years old and was dead for about six weeks when they found her. Police believe all four victims were killed elsewhere. dumped in the field. All four victims were nude. Three of the bodies were propped up as if the killer wanted to come back and admire his work. It wouldn't be until April 2019 when police announced they identified Jane Doe and Janet Doe. The road to the identification was not quick or easy. ABC 13 in Houston reported that new renderings based on the snapshot DNA phenotype of Jane Doe in May 2016, and Janet Doe in May 2017 gave detectives insight into the victim's features as well as their genealogy.

A year later in April 2018, detectives worked with the FBI to build the victim's family trees. They then compared the profiles of the victims against the family tree DNA database. On January 29, 2019, the league's city. Police Department received the results of those comparisons from the FBI, and they were ultimately able to identify and locate Jane Doe and Janet Doe's family members. Jane Doe turned out to be 32-year-old Audrey Lee Cook, who was a mechanic. Audrey was last seen in December of 1985. She was originally from Memphis, Tennessee, and had moved to Texas from California about

nine years prior to her disappearance. Audrey used to write letters every couple of weeks to her mother back in Memphis. One letter read, Dear Mom and Dad, how are you? We're fine. It's been hot here since the rain stopped. One day last week, it was 100 degrees. These letters detailed an ordinary life in Galveston, but around Christmas 1985, the letter stopped. Her family wasn't worried at first, because Audrey was a free spirit and she wanted to do her own thing. Her aunt Shirley Love began searching for Audrey about a year later. She tracked down previous landlords in Channel View in Houston, her former boss at a balloon party store, and the roommate Audrey moved to Texas with in 1976.

No one knew what had happened to Audrey. What truly didn't know was that Audrey had been murdered two months after sending her last letter. She also didn't know that her body had been found in 1986. Janito turned out to be 34-year-old Donna Prude Home of Nassau Bay, Texas. Donna was one of six children and had lived most of her life in Port Arthur, Texas. She was married and had two sons, but her husband became abusive and she fled with her boys. By the late 1980s, Donna was in a new relationship. She stayed in touch with family and seemed happy, but Donna fell on hard times right before that relationship ended.

She dropped her boys off at their grandmothers, and Donna by herself moved to Clear Lake, Texas to rebuild her life. She had hoped to take her kids back once life was a little bit better for all of them. In 1989, Donna wanted to travel and asked her sister, Diane, for a copy of her birth certificate. Diane mailed it to Donna, and she never heard her from her. her sister again. Donna was last seen in July 1991. Diane spent years searching for her sister, and Donna's sons grew up without their mother. Donna's oldest son was involved in a car accident that left him paralyzed. He asked about his mother every time he saw Diane. He died before her remains were identified. It was hard to think that the same killer wasn't responsible for the four

bodies found in the single field. Since three of the four bodies renewed, they were all lying face up and their arms were folded across her chest. Despite the remains of the victims found in this field being identified, the killer was not. Heartbroken following his daughter's murder, Laura Miller's father, Tim, erected a wooden cross where his daughter's body was found years later. While visiting the spot, he found that the cross had been knocked over and broken. Next to the broken cross, he discovered some seeded. which were pornographic in nature in October 2005.

More than a decade after his daughter was killed, Tim Miller received a letter in the mail. The letter was an old-style ransom type of letter, made from cut-out sections of newspaper and magazines. The person who sent it to Tim seemed to be taunting the distraught father in taking responsibility for his daughter's murder, while at the same time making fun of police. Additionally, the latter also seemed to address or take credit for a high-profile case in the League

City area, the 1983 Corvette Concepts murders. In November of that year, the co-owners of Corvette Concepts, a league city garage, and an employee of theirs were found murdered inside the building. The case went unsolved until 2016 when a former disgruntled employee was arrested for the murders. It's not clear if the letter sent to Tim Miller was a cruel hoax or from someone actually connected to the Texas killing field murders. As for Tim Miller, following the murder of his daughter, he became a fierce victim's advocate founding Texas Equistarch-mounted search and recovery.

That organization is a nonprofit that provides volunteer horse-mounted search and recovery for lost and missing persons. Over the years, he also became heavily involved in the search for the Texas Killingfield Killer or Killers. And we'll talk more about these efforts in the next episode. The Texas Killingfield's murders did not stop after the discovery of Donna Prudhomes remains in 1991. Five years later, 14-year-old Lynette Bibbs and her friend, 15-year-old Tamara Fisher,

disappeared from Houston on February 1, 1996. Just two days later, on Saturday, February 3rd, and, her friend, and so. their bodies were found in a wooded area off Interstate 59. They had been killed earlier that day. Lynette was fully clothed and had been shot in the back of the head. Tamara wore only a cotton blouse and clear plastic sandals. She had been shot in the forehead and also below her left ear. There were no outward signs that either of the girls had been sexually assaulted.

Their bodies had no other injuries. besides the gunshot wounds. It wasn't clear to police whether the girls were killed where they were found or not. There was a blood trail from Tamara's body to a nearby dirt road.

But there was no blood leading away from Lynette's body. The two girls were found about 150 yards apart from each other. Over a year later on April 3rd, 1997, 12-year-old Laura Smither left her home in Friendswood, Texas to go for a jog. She never returned home. She was last seen running down the street that she lived on.

On the morning of her disappearance, the Smither family was making pancakes for breakfast. Laura asked her mother, Gay Smither, if she could go jogging for breakfast. And her mom said yes. When Laura failed to return home, her parents called the police. Over 600 volunteers helped authorities search for Laura. On April 20, 1997, 17 days after she went missing, Laura's body was found in a muddy area near a retention pond in Pasadena, Texas. This was about 20 miles northeast of her home.

Devastated, her parents found at the Laura Recovery Center for missing children in her honor. This nonprofit organization works to prevent kidnappings and abductions and to recover victims of such events. Sadly, it wasn't long before Laura's parents were called to assist in a another child's disappearance. In August 1997, 17-year-old Jessica Kane disappeared from Lamarck, Texas. Jessica had just graduated from Galveston's O'Connell High School in May, and she was excited to attend Sam Houston State University as a criminology and drama student. She and a friend were planning a trip to New York the following summer. Jessica was last seen at 1.30 a.m. on August 17th,

1997, at a Webster restaurant where she and a few other drama students were having a cast party. Her father, C.H. Kane, found Jessica's tan extended Ford truck on the southbound shoulder of I-45 between exits 7 and 8. The truck was locked, undamaged, and, and, and, and, and, and, you and in good working condition. Jessica's wallet was on the seat. A large-scale investigation in search followed, but Jessica wasn't found. On July 12, 2002,

23-old Sarah Trustee left her residence on Avenue E in Algoa, Texas, during the evening hours to go for a walk. She then went for a bicycle ride. She was last seen riding her bike around 11 p.m. near the Algoa Baptist Church. The next day, found in the foyer of the church.

Two weeks later, fishermen found her body in the Texas City Dike on July 28, 2002. The final murder victim considered to be part of the Killingfield series was 16-year-old Teresa Vanegas. She disappeared from Dickinson, Texas on Halloween in 2006. She was last seen near the Green K subdivision on foot around 11 p.m. that night. Three days later, her body was found in a field across from Dickinson High School. There have been a number of suspects and police have followed up on a good number of leads, but no arrests have ever been made in Teresa's case. In addition to all of the murder victims along the I-45 Texas

killing fields, several women have disappeared from the area and have yet to be found. They may or may not be connected to the murder victims, but this is something that we'll explore. These cases in particular, as well as more potential suspects in the second of this two-part series, will also get into a dramatic encounter and detail some of the experiences Tim Miller had in the hunt for his daughter's killer. All of that to come on next week's episode, of criminology. Morph, no doubt. This is a very big case,

depending on, you know, how many victims you believe are in this series, how many different killers you believe. And it varies, right, from person to person. Anytime you have a series of murders that have some connection, there's always going to be an argument about whether or not certain individuals should or should not be connected to the series. And I think to add to that, this is a case that spans a large number of years.

And so, you know, all of these things we'll talk about probably in more detail in the next episode. But, you know, it's interesting from that standpoint. It's tragic because so many young girls and women lost their life. But when you get it. into the mystery of these murders and whether or not they're all connected, whether it's one person, you have multiple killers, or these are, you know, serial killings, but done in chunks. I mean, I think it's a big part of this case. I don't know what's scarier. If the possibility that there was one maniac committing all of these.

attacks over three and a half decades or there were multiple people in that area committing these crimes either way it's a very frightening scenario and I think this is a prime example of an area where back when these attacks were happening anyone with a wife a daughter a sister anyone with a with a woman in their life a young girl in their life was probably warning them be careful don't go out Watch yourself. I can only imagine the fright that was going on in that community. Oh, yeah, no doubt. Now, I'll go back to your question, which one is scarier. I don't know how to answer it either because they're both terrifying. The thought that one person

could deal out this much carnage and take so many lives and operate for so many years and not be caught, that's scary. But then the thought, that there's a whole bunch of people, multiple individuals running around, killing in the same area at the same time? Well, that's scary too. Thanks goes out to Debbie Buck at Truecrimdiva.com for writing and research assistants in this episode. If you haven't done so yet and you love the show, go out, give us a five-star rating. Tell your friends. You know you have friends out there who love true crime. Tell them about criminology. That goes a long way. If you want to find us social media. We're on Twitter with a handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook

by searching for Criminology Podcast or by searching for our discussion group, which is Criminology Podcast, Discussion and Fans. All right, Morf, so that is part one of two of the Texas Killing Fields. We'll be back with this second part next Saturday night in an all-new episode of criminology. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.