Doomed to Fail - Ep 245: The Texas Killing Fields - Part 2

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

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In a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans. And what your country can do. Boom, we are back live talking, chatting, having a great time. How you doing, Taylor? Good. Good. I also made these BTS earrings that spin, you see?

I think you have an obsession. I actually am starting to worry about you. Oh, my God. That's so cool. Yeah, I'm good. I'm ready for your story. Are you doing your second half? your. So yes, I'm going to be covering part two of our Texas

Killingfield series. I'm technically on a wrap it after this, but I did find a really, really fun family murder that happened that are associated with Texas Killing Fills that are also tied to like a Jesus Freak cult. And I kind of might do a mini side quest. I didn't like factor that in because it was like a family situation, not like part of the standard Texas Kling Fills. But that one was pretty, fun too. But I kind of alluded to what we're going to talk about here last time, which had to do with we're going to cover a NASA scientist who was accused and suspected of being a part of this.

So we're going to cover a lot of folks here. It's going to be fun. Space makes you crazy. Space does that. So last week we went through the 1970s. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, right. We have to introduce ourselves. Hello. Sorry about that. Welcome to Jude's to Fisle. We bring you historical disasters and failures and interesting stories. And today, Fars is going to talk about the Texas killing fields. If you haven't listened to the first episode, go back and listen to that one. Or listen to this one, then go back and listen to this one again. Yeah, sorry, I got really excited and just decided to skip straight past our intro,

which is also, by the way, guys, the reason why Taylor fired me from doing intros because I was doing it all the time and totally forgetting. So here we are. Going back. So, here we go. Last week, we went through the 1970s killings and discussed Michael Self and Edward Bell. Edward Bell, who was arrested for another murder, but who we think committed several the Texas killing field murders.

And then Michael Self, who was convicted of two murders, but who we think is probably innocent because the police were arrested and were also bank robbers convicted of 50 and 30 years in prison and also torturing confessions out of people like this guy. So that's the world we're in. Yeah, I'd go back and look at all those. cases. Is that good? Not good at all. In the 1980s, there were an additional 13 murders. Again, tell the stories from the perspective of the victims. It really doesn't paint any sort of narrative because it's just the exact same thing. You can only use those words of descriptors so

many times. It's not that interesting. So we're going to start today with a guy named Clyde Edwin Hedrick, which three names, serial killer, everybody knows this. We'll start with the victim, he was convicted of killing, Ellen Beeson. So Ellen was also, real quick, a lot of this story is from like the 80s in Texas in the middle of nowhere when Texas was like sparsely populated back then. And some of the details are like a little bit wonky because like part of it I'm pulling from a Texas monthly article, part of it I'm pulling from a Wikipedia page, part of it I'm from a Netflix series.

Like, it's not as totally a clear narrative. So some of this stuff I'm going to be like, and we think it's this, because it's not 100% guaranteed. So that's just real quick. Okay. Ellen was 29 when she went missing on July 29th of 1984. That day, she was at

Texas Moon Club, which I had to, this is one of the things I spent way too much time researching. So I was like, what is the Moon Club? Like, what in my mind, I was like, just has to be like a strip club or a broth. You know, like, it has like an old West Texas vibe to it or sound to it. It's not. It's like a social club where people just go there, drink, and play darts.

That's basically it. It's died. That's what it was. Yeah. And there she met a guy named Clyde Edwin Hedrick, who was a local construction worker. And it's also worth noting that another victim was a waitress. at Texas Moon Club, who'd go missing a year or so later. According to her friends, she, Ellen, and Clyde made plans to go swimming later on that day,

and Clyde was the last person she was ever seen with. Her remains were discovered about a year later. Again, the details are a little bit difficult to track. I could not figure out how we know this, but apparently Clyde took one of Ellen's friends to the part to where he had buried or dumped her body and had shown her the body and said

you know be compliant in some way otherwise they'll do this to you as well that's all I can kind of assume of what happened the friend obviously I mean it took her some months but she obviously went and later reported this to the police

so Clyde was arrested he was originally arrested on abuse of a corpse instead of to one year in prison for that. Wait, because he dug that girl up? Because he was like fishing with the corpse and just like jabbed it with a stick

and saying like, hey, look at this, look at this. Like you shouldn't do that. Yeah. Let the corpse remain where it's at. He would claim that she had died due to accidental drowning while they were swimming. So it was just an accident. And he just dumped her body where he could dump her.

in 2011 I'm sorry, that feels worse That feels like the crime Again This is like Texas In the 1980s Your construction worker Hanging out of the moon club

Like This doesn't feel that odd to me Maybe I'm like So Texas at this point That like this doesn't warn my brain The way it probably should I just feel like you should report If your friend dies

There's a ghost They weren't friends. They met that day and then she died that day. Doesn't matter. Yeah. Keep going. So in 2011, they would exhume Ellen's body and they determined that she actually had several skull fractures, which I read that. And again, this is one of those things where I can't really piece it together. I'm like, I'm pretty sure in the 1980s, they also had eyeballs.

And they could determine that the skull was fractured. Maybe her hair was too big. Oh, no, but she was wet. And she was decomposing in a swamp for like a year. She probably didn't have any hair anyways. Again, I don't totally know. But then again, it's hard to, I'm not trying to cast aspersions. But when your cops are bank robbers and beating the confessions out of people,

maybe the investigators aren't the best. Yeah. So after they discovered that she had these fractures through her skull, they would charge him with her murder. And he was found guilty of involuntary mansions. slaughter in 2014 and sentenced to 20 years. This is crazy, though. Hear me out. In 1977, in the interest of trying to alleviate prison crowding, Texas had passed a law that called for mandatory parole for any prisoner if there are accrued good time plus actual time served in prison

equaled the total prison sentence. So if you're like exceptionally good, then you get, it's logarithmic, like it increases based on amount of time that you're there. Like one day isn't one day basically. One day could be five days. One day could be ten days, right? Like, that's what I'm getting at. Depending on how you do. Yeah. Like, if you're good enough to where you haven't gotten a prison or fraction, well, you get one day of good time. But if you then become like a teacher in prison,

then you get 10 days per day. Like, that's what I'm getting at. So even though Clyde was charged for this murder slash involuntary manslaughter charge in 2014, they had to apply the old law to him. That's always been the case and law. You always have to apply the law that's relevant to that person. You can't do it retroactive. So because of that, again, he got sentenced in 2014. He was released in October of 2021.

Wow. Yeah. There was one man. one father of a victim who was not pleased with this Tim Miller Laura's father from part from part one who is also the founder of the nonprofit Equusarch quick reminder Laura Miller was a

16 year old who went missing a few months after Ellen had gone missing her body was found in 1986 and according to informants this guy cried had confessed in jail to Laura's murder as well as up to five other girls so clyde was never charged for laura's murder or anyone else's except ellens but in 22 tim miller filed a wrongful death lawsuit against clide and secured a 24 million judgment in his

in his favor it's meaningless it actually has literally no value it's like the guys of serial killer rapist rotting in jail who was a construction worker when he wasn't drunk at the texas he doesn't have 20 Yeah, you're never going to get any money out of this guy. In March of 2026, Clyde, who was 72 at the time, was admitted to a Houston area hospital with respiratory issues and was plugged into a respirator with breathing tubes. He was visited by detectives on March 21st of 2026. What? This just happened.

To discuss the other murders he was presumed to have committed, which I want to go into details of how they reached out presumption here in a sudden. Second, shortly after that visit, Clyde voluntarily removed his breathing tube and died. Yeah. Of course he did. Yeah. So technically, his cause of death was suicide. This is 2026 just happened from murders standing from 20 plus years ago. Wait, do they count that as suicide?

That counted as suicide. Yeah. Even though the doctors let you do it? I don't think the doctors let him do it. I think he just did it. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, because there's a reason why he probably thought his duck was cooked.

Yeah. Goose was cooked. No, I can't say. The goose or duck. The chicken, the chicken was cooked. I think of the goose. His cook was chicken. Okay.

Again, this is not where his story ends, because it's all tied back to what just happened in Texas. Back in the day, Clyde was buddies with a local scumbag drug dealer named James Elmore Junon. year. Some way, somehow, Laura's father, Tim, was put on to James Elmore as a potential suspect or someone who had involved in all this

stuff that's going on. Over the course of four years, he met with Elmore 30 times, and Elmore had provided on his own volition enough information that was not public to make Tim really suspicious if he was involved in some way.

According to a warrant issue for his arrest, Tim Miller told police that Elmore admitted to being present at night Laura Miller was killed. He said he had provided a vial of, like, cocaine that was contaminated or something, that he knew was fatal to Clyde

to be administered to Laura to kill her. That's his story. Thanks. Tim also told police that Elmore had told him that he had acquired a house from Clyde years ago and there were bodies apparently buried there.

these discussions were why detectives were visiting Clyde in the hospital, and also would led to a grand jury indictment of both men. The one for Clyde became moot. They didn't do anything because he died. He committed suicide. He's out of the picture. So police moved against Elmore and arrested him on March 31st, 2026 to charge him with manslaughter in Laura Miller's death.

Dude, this is 40, what is it? 42 years ago. He was also. implicated in the murder of a girl named Audrey Cook, along with, like, another guy who was also implicated named Mark Stalling. Audrey was 30 when she went missing in 1985 and was found on the same day as Laura was found. Clyde was never implicated for Audrey's murder, but Elmore was. I'm going to tell you more about this.

There's a reason why I brought this Audrey person into this picture, because it all connects. It's weird. It's like, the more you scrape on, you're more like, and this guy knows is that guy, and that guy knew this guy. And the Omar's. And the Ormors. I literally wrote down here. I was like, dude, at 41 years of age, I don't have a single dirtbag friend.

I probably haven't had a single dirtbag friend since college. You know, and that's my version of dirtbag. It's like the grimy guy who also, like, just sells weed and thinks he's the coolest guy. You know, like, it's a guy who knows two future serial killers. He's friends on a first-ane basis implicated across multiple, affidavits and warrants and grand jury indictments and both of them. It's not a great friend group. Yeah, and he's a serial killer. He's not a serial killer. He's a drug dealer.

Like, his buddies are just these garbage people. So back to Audrey Cook and how James Elmour is tied into this. So during a call with Tim Miller, Elmore said that Clyde burned down a house on a piece of property and buried bodies in the rubble. from what I originally gathered, I assumed the bodies were in the house, and he set fire to them, and then they just kind of burned up and never discovered.

I'll clarify that here in a second because we learned a little bit more detail. The connection here is kind of tenuous, and investigators haven't revealed key details, but for some reason, Elmore's also indicated at Audrey Cook's disappearance

in so much as he was charged with tampering with evidence. So that's what he actually got charged with in her situation. The best guess, I can make here are that one body was in the house when it burned. Then someone either Clyde or this Mark Stalling guy took Audrey Cook's body to the rubble and buried her underneath it with Elmore's help.

Like that's the info we have. Either way, Elmore was again arrested March 31st, 2026. Mark Stalling, he's got to be like 60-something. These guys aren't that old. That's what's crazy. These people were like doing this stuff when they were like 20. Yeah, oh, God, yeah. You'll grow up fast, son.

So Mark Stalling is almost certainly a serial killer because he's also implicated in the death of another girl named Donna Prudhomme. He was serving two life sentences on an unrelated kidnapping charge when in 2013 he confessed to having picked up a woman, going to a nearby hotel, doing drugs together, then choking her to death and dumping her in the field. In 2019, DNA forensics identified the woman he was. describing is this Donna Prudhubh woman who is also a part of the Texas killing fuel bodies.

So it's almost certain he killed her given the information he had of the case. But it's also unlikely he'll ever be formally charged with her death or Audrey Cook's death, given the fact that he's already serving two life sentences, resources are tied. Like, why charge this guy? Like, he's going to die in jail anyways. We'll just let it go. Also, it's tied to a confession. He could just like go on the stand and say I lied.

So. Yeah. Then we get to another of Tim Miller's pursued suspects. And this is where Tim kind of becomes a bad guy in my view. Like, I mean, he's doing a lot of good and he's done a lot of good. And he's been like really, I don't know, admirable father in this whole situation. But he really, really got this one wrong by most people's estimation. And that's this poor bastard named Robert William Abel.

And again, I alluded to him in part one because he's the Nassau Scientist. Oh, okay. Mm-hmm. So, quick geography, Houston Space Center is like right next to League City. It's like four and a half miles from League City. And League City is where a cluster of these bodies are kind of falling or coming together on the I-45 strip between Houston and Galveston. Makes sense?

Sure. We're by the board. It's humid. We're by the water. Exactly. Swamps, mosquitoes, giant roaches. That's all you need to know about that part of the world. And NASA.

Abel's background was an aerospace engineering. Again, I could not find an exact job title for what he did, but he worked on some pretty consequential things. His main project was working on the Saturn Rockets, which Quick History lesson, the Saturn Rockets or the propulsion method of getting humans into space, specifically for the Apollo missions.

So he was pretty high up. He was actually high enough to where he was, I was literally trying to do the math timeline-wise on this. He was briefing Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 fame played by Tom Hanks in the movie. But he was one of those guys. So when they were like Houston, we have a problem. I'm like, this guy was probably in that room

and trying to solve this issue for them. Yeah. And from what I gathered, research game, he was kind of confusing in people because he really was not a, he didn't fit into a stereotype. And I think that partially disadvantaged him. his personality to people that knew him was kind of like a redneck. Like, just like, you would never know that he's one of the smartest men in the world

if he talked to him. You'd be like, he's just a heck. Like, he's inconspential. In the 1980s, Able had purchased land right next to where the bodies in the 1980s had been bound. And then a few years after that, he leased another 11 acres, which is where bodies were actually then starting to be found. his whole intent of buying all this property and all this land was to start a business called Stardust Trail Rides to offer horseback rides to people that was doing a side hustle business

that's what he was trying to do I hate horseback riding yeah I don't get it either I really I don't want to ride it no I was like they're cool they're beautiful animals but like absolutely not I don't want a minstrel horse but I want to I want to like cuddle with it I want to like have it in bed with me. I don't want to like ride it, you know. God, my poor daughter so allergic to horses, but I, oh, we are going to see the equestrian

shenanigans at the Olympics in two years. No, that's fun. It's really fun. I'm really jealous of you guys getting all those tickets. I heard that they're crazy expensive, by the way. He's a lot of money and an organization, random as shit, but when, I don't know. When you got a chance?

Yeah. Okay, Abel. So when he found out that all these bodies had been found on his land, or in adjacent to it in some cases. He offered up access to the land. He offered up access to his courses, to his backhoe to whatever investigators want to help with their investigation. And weirdly enough, that was kind of perceived as him being like suspicious, not helpful for some reason. This was also around the time where the profile of a serial killer is organized

versus disorganized, had really gained traction from law enforcement. And again, for like, as a reminder, organized killers are socially competent. They're highly intelligent. They're meticulous than playing their crimes, disorganizes the opposite, and police looked at Abel, and they were like, this guy said, NASA scientists. Like, he's, like, crazy smart, crazy capable.

He's being super helpful for some reason. Usually these guys should be weird recluses, but he's, like, not, and that's weird. I think it was a little bit of, like, I don't know, prejudice that, like, drew them to him. Like, what's this guy's deal? Yeah.

Yeah. And he's also off-footing, not often, but he's disarming because you talk to him. You're like, wait, what? You're, you're, you're smart? Like, you don't mean? Like, that's also part of the prejudice, I think. They decided to look him as a person of interest.

They issued a warrant to search his home, and it revealed nothing. There's nothing going on. And police ultimately absolved him of any involvement in the crimes. Regardless, once it became known to the public that the police were looking into him, he was just an outcast. like he was just shunned by everyone. There were stories about how people would like call him a murderer as they drove by his house or when they saw him at the grocery store.

He had to shut his business because everybody was terrified of him and nobody would go near his business. And so, yeah, it was kind of depressing. It was kind of sad. Tim Miller contributed a lot to this. You don't think you're going to say something. I do kind of want to say that. I might go horseback riding and get a suspected murderer's house

if that was like part of the deal. Okay. Well, it's going to be a niche business to Yelp, but I'm sure we could try and find it for you. I don't want to, but I'm saying that that makes it kind of fun because it can be kind of scary. Yeah, it was like a nighttime thing. Yeah. You know. So Tim Miller really contributed to this because he did think that Abel had some involvement.

I mean, he sort of seems like he's accusing a lot of folks, actually. And he harassed the shit out of Abel. He'd leave him threatening voicemails. He parked outside of his house and kind of flare at him. According to Miller himself, one time he pulled a gun and put it to Abel's head. Like, he was going hard at this guy. Yeah. Years later, Miller was convinced that Abel took no part in the murders and went to him

and apologized for tormenting him. And by that point, Abel was, how old was he? He was 65 years old. He'd been living alone in complete isolation for six years. He had to leave the city. Like he had to sell his land, his property, his house, everything, and, like, go live in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah, it was really sad.

And we don't know if he died by suicide, but most people think he died by suicide. What ended up happening was he drove his golf part onto some railroad tracks and then got hit by a train. But it's like, did the golf part stall and then he didn't see the train? Or, like, it sounds like he killed himself. Oh, that's terrible. Yeah. What a bad way to go. then this is the last one we have william lewis reese who is the most definitive of anybody who has

absolutely for sure killed several of these people he was a real serial serial killer like there's no denying he was an actual serial killer he is 66 years old right now again it's so weird to me that this isn't i'm not talking about like 200 years ago it's 66 years old today. Yeah. In 1986, he was caught for kidnapping and assaulting several women, given 25 years in prison, but ultimately only served 10 years and was released in 1996. The following year, he moved to Houston. In between April and August of 1997, he killed three girls for a part of the Texas killing field.

Oh, my God. That's not the worst of it, actually. He also was in Oklahoma when he got. killed, he went back and killed somebody else another girl in Oklahoma. He killed four girls in four months. Wow. Yeah, he was on a terror. He also looks really scary. Like, I don't know what it is about him, but when you look at a picture of him when he's like incarcerated, there's one of him being like surrounded by

prison guards and he just looks like a demon. Wait, what's the name again? Who we're talking about? William Lewis Reese. Continue. you. There was one potential victim, a girl named Sandra Sapa, who escaped after an attempted kidnapping and murder, who would help

this is weird. They used, like, hypnosis to get her to remember his license plate number, and it worked apparently. Wow, that's cool. And so police were able to find Reese because of this girl, Sandra. He was extradited to Oklahoma for that one murder that happened there of the, that's not a part of the Texas killing field cases. He was found guilty and sentenced to death for that one there.

Then he was taken back to Texas and convicted of the three killings that we know he did and sent us a life in prison for those. As of January 2026, he had just been, like literally just recently, he was extradited from Texas to go live on Oklahoma death row, which is where he is today. Beth, I'm going to say it got out for some reason. Yeah, you would think, right? No, I think that guy, like if you look at his picture, like he looks like no parole officer's going to look at that guy and say

Sam rehabilitated on him. Yeah. He looks crazy. He looks like evil Santa Claus. He does a little like evil. They don't make it not bad because they have him like chained up so he like looks like a very guilty man, which he is. He's like Steve Bouchemmy and Conair.

Yes. And they wheel him out in a dolly? Yes. So that's my story. Like I said, I have a bit of an addendum here, which like doesn't totally, the reason why I covered the people that I cover is because there's linkage at every level, either between the victims, the families, the killers, the scumbag drug dealer. Like, it's weird. It overlaps over and over and over again. And I thought that was really interesting from a narrative perspective that like all these people were kind of in this weird ooze together.

but there's one that stands out, again, the Jesus freak murders, which I want to go into. Maybe I'll have to give it a pause and circle back to it, but it is pretty fascinating. It is pretty interesting. It's cult-related, family disappearance, all that stuff. But, yeah, I kind of want to maybe pivot to engineering disasters. Yeah. It sounds fun. Yeah, maybe we're murdered out at this point.

It's been a couple. Too many murders in a row is too many murders in a row. You feel a little bit like, I don't know. But no, that's interesting. I mean, it's such a, obviously, like, never, you should never hitchhike or like all those things, you know, but just, there's so many towns, I'm sure, all over the world where it's like, yep, people get murdered here, you know, and then anything happens. Yeah. The more remote, the more desolate, the more likely it happens. Yeah.

Which is probably why like places like Texas has this situation. And I'm sure, you know, is it Florida, doesn't Florida have like the highway of tears or something where it's just like truckers dumping dead girls in the middle road? I think there's one in Washington State. Like, yeah, they're kind of everywhere. Yeah. On like those like lonely roads, you know,

where you can dump a body really easily. Yeah. So, so anyways, that. That's my story. Again, there might be a part 2.5 addendum related to this cult, but we'll see. We'll see. I might be murdered out for a little bit, but we'll see. We can take a break.

Yeah. That's what I got, Taylor. Cool. That's exciting. Thank you. I have one bit of news while I was downloading photos for my last episode. I got a photo of the courthouse in Liverpool where Florence Maybrook was

tried and it's the same place that William Herbert Wallace was tried and you did that murder a couple years ago. He's the guy, he was another where like Lizzie Borden style, there's no way he did it, no way he didn't do it. So yeah. It's all interconnected. Mm-hmm.

We're part of the bloodstream. Mm-hmm. Sweet. Any listener of mail today? No, I think that's all I got. but please send us emails to the doom tofillpod at gmail.com and let us know if there's anything that we could do. I just told my friend, my friend was like, I'm super interested in volcanoes. And I was like, well, I learned so much. So if you haven't listened to our seven episodes about volcanoes, go back and listen to those. Lots of stuff to listen to. And yes, find us on social

media, like us everywhere. And please tell your friends. we are going to be five episodes away from our 250th wow that's crazy I know we've been at this for a while well yeah again right to us dovetepil pod at gmail.com find us on the socials dovetifal pod Taylor thank you thank you for us

wrote and cut it off there