By Bridget Heath
You can see the refineries from the Texas killing field. If you were a victim in this area no one would hear your cries for help, it's very desolate. You can also see Intestate 45, if you ran from here there would be no where to run. The fields have been described as a perfect place for killing someone and getting away with it.
The killing field is 25 acres thats located in League City, Texas and a 26 mile drive to Houston, TX. Since the early 70's dozens of bodies of murder victims have been found along Interstate 45. The bodies have been mostly young girls and or young women. Many more girls have gone missing from the area and these girls bodies are still missing. It's believed that there are multiple serial killers. And if there are multiple killers then does the smell of death draw other killers to the area like a scavenger. Or are they watching the news reports and putting their own victims in the same areas as to not be easily found. And maybe they are laughing in the face of law enforcement, watching them try to solve cases as they are led around by so-called clues and not knowing that another body close by. It's to bad that we cant see into the future like a psychic can.
Most of the girls range in age from 12 to 25 years old. Some but not all share the same features like a hairstyle and physical traits. There have been a few of these murders solved. These claims were based on confessions given by prisoners, or confessions given under duress from the police.
3 victims were found in 1971. Colette Anise Wilson age 13, went missing from the Alvin bus stop on Country Road 99 on Highway 6 in Alvin, Tx. Her body was found five months later on November 26, 1971 near the Addicks Reservoir Close to where Gloria Gonzales was found 4 months later just 35 yards where Colette had been found. Collette Wilson was shot in the head.
Brenda Kaye Jones, 14 she was last seen walking to Galveston hospital, close to Interstate 45. She was on her way to visit her aunt on July 1, 1971 in Galveston, TX. Her body was found the next day floating in the Galveston Bay near Pelican Island. That was close to Seawolf Parkway and near Interstate 45. She had a sock crammed into her mouth and had died from a head wound.
Rhonda Renee Johnson and Sharon Lynn Shaw ages 13 and 14 disappeared in Harris County Texas on August 4, 1971, they were seen walking along Seawall Blvd in Galveston near a local beach. In 1972 two boys fishing discovered a human skull that was floating in the water, and they thought it was a spots ball. Some six weeks later law enforcement found the rest of the body. Then another girl was found in a marsh near the lake. It was positively identified as Sharon Lynn Shaw. The other body was identified as Rhonda Renee Johnson.
Gloria Anne Gonzales 19 was last seen on October 28, 1971 near her apt on Jacquelin St. In Houston, TX. Her remains were found near Addicks Reservoir in the same area as Colette Wilson on November 23, 1971. She died with blunt force trauma to her head.
Allison Anne Craven 12 was reported missing by her mother on November 9, 1971, when she returned home to their apartment in Houston, Tx near Interstate 45 after shopping for an hour. Three months passed and police found partial remains in a nearby field, two hands along with bones from an arm and some teeth. On February 25, 1972 the rest of the skeleton was found in a Pearland Texas field also near Interstate 45 and about 10 miles from where she was last seen.
Debbie Catherine Ackerman and Maria Talbot Johnson both 15, were last seen attempting to hitchhike near an ice-cream shop in Galveston, Tx on November 15, 1971. Witnesses reported seeing a man in a white van stopping and picking the girls up after agreeing to take them to Houston Tex. Their bodies were found bound and partially nude in Turner's Bayou on November 17, 1971 near Texas City. Both had been shot to death before being tied down and drowned.
Kimberly Raye Pitchford 16 was last seen at Dobie High School in Houston, TX she was there for a driving test on Jan 3, 1973. Her body was found by two teenage boys two days later in a ditch in Angelton, Tx around noon on County road 65 in Brazoria County on January 5, 1973. She had on a blue dress but her watch and shoes were missing. She had been strangled.
Brooks Bracewell 12 and Georgia Caroline Geer 14 were last seen at the Utotem connivance store located off of interstate 45 on September 6, 1974. Georgia was last seen in an orange outfit. Brooks was wearing plaid high-rise pants and a gold v-neck sweater. In 1976 some of her remains were found by police in Alvin, TX but due to neglect her remains were not identified until a new detective took over the case in 1981 and they re-examined the ditch where they were originally found on April 3 1981 and found more remains as well as fragments of a gold sweater and plaid pants.
Tina Gail Clouse 17, and Harold Dean Clouse Jr, were found on Jan 12, 1981 in north Harris County, TX in a boggy wooded area just north of the Houston City limits. A passer by with a dog that went into the woods returned a decomposing human arm. The searching party prompted by the dog's discovery helped find the heavily decomposed bodies of the Clouse couple near Wallisville Rd. Both were victims of homicide. In 2021 the victims were positively identified as Dean And Tina and in 2022 their daughter Holly Marie was located alive in Oklahoma.
Michele Angela Garvey 15, went missing from New London Connecticut after running away from home on June 1, 1982 in Ray Town TX. at the age of 14. Her body was found on July 1, 1982 in Baytown, TX one month after she went missing. She was strangled and had been sexually assaulted. Her body was disposed of in a field after she died, and possibly hours after her murder. She was buried near two other unidentified murder victims in 1981 who were identified as Dean and Tina Clouse. Garvey's family provided DNA in Aug 2013 and Michele was identified in 2014.
Susan Lee Eads 20, was a cocktail waitress who left her family home in Harris County, TX around 4:30 pm on Aug 30, 1983 to her work place. The following day a motorist discovered her body a few miles away from her home. Susan had been strangled to death with the bodysuit she was wearing which had been used as a tourniquet. Her car was found adjacent to a vacant lot where she was found. Eads was last seen at a local club with a white man wearing a cowboy hat. Her mother received phone calls from a man who called himself Bill and he claimed to have photos of her daughter. A DNA profile was extracted from Eads body matched a man named Arthur Raymond Davis Jr. He died in a single car accident on Jan 16, 1984.
Heide Marie Villareal-Fye 25, On Oct 10, 1983 was a cocktail waitress was last seen at a convenience store located off West Main St and Hobbs in League City TX on April 4, 1984. Heide's remains were discovered after a dog brought a skull to a nearby house in Calder Field on the 3000 block of Calder Road near League City, TX it was determined that she died from blunt force trauma to the head.
Sondra Kay Ramber 14, was last seen at her families home in Santa Fe, TX on October 26, 1983. At her home there was food in the oven cooking and her purse and coat were still in the house. She was believed to have gone to the store for a moment but never returned.
Laura Lynn Miller 16 was last seen on September 10, 1984 at the same convenience store Villareal-Fye was last seen at a year earlier in League City, TX using a payphone to call her boyfriend. Her remains were found on February 2, 1986 60 ft away from where police had found Villareal-Fye the year before.
Ellen Rae Simpson Beason 29 was last seen with friend on July 29, 1985 at the Texas Moon Club in League City, TX where she met a construction worker Clyde Hedrick. She told friends that she and Hedrick were going swimming. Her decomposed remains were discovered underneath a sofa in a wooded area beside Old Causeway Road in Galveston, County. Upon exhumation of her remains in 2012. It was ruled that she had suffered several severe skull fractures.
Michele Doherty Thomas 17, was last seen leaving her family residence in Santa Fe, TX on October 5, 1985 after she returned home from work at a Galveston, TX gas station. She left to meet friends at a nightclub located on Galveston Island. Acquaintances of Michelle's claimed that while they stopped at a connivence store on the way to the nightclub, that they saw Michelle had gotten into a truck with two men. Authorities believe that she was abducted and murdered.
Audrey Lee Cook 30, was last heard from on late December 1985. Cook's remains were found in the 3000 Block of Calder Road, on the same day the body of Laura Miller was located nearby. The victims were not buried, rather they were hidden from view. Both were left in a supine position near a tree. Cook had a small calibre gunshot wound to the back severing her spine and had suffered additional injuries to several ribs. She was identified in April 2019 along with Donna Prudhomme via genetic genealogy.
Shelly Kathleen Sikes 19, was last seen leaving her job at Gaido's Seafood Restaurant on the beach front in Galveston, TX. On May 24, 1986 her car was found the next day, it was stuck in the mud, blood-stained and abandoned on the side of Interstate 45 access road south of Galveston causeway. The driver's side window had been broken and blood stains were discovered on the door and on the driver's seat. She has never been found.
Suzanne Rene Richerson 22 was a night clerk at Casa Del Mar Condo's located on Seawall Blvd. in Galveston, TX. She was last seen at work at 6 am on October 7, 1988 by a resort security guard. Shortly after another employee who was sleeping in the room above Richersons office heard a loud female scream. The witness heard a car door slam shut and a car speeding away. She was never heard from again.
Donna Marie Prudhomme 34, was last heard from in July 1991 in Nassau Bay, TX. On September 8, 1991 a local resident came across a badly decomposing body in a field by Calder Road. She was identified in April 2019 along with Audrey Cook with genetic genealogy on family tree DNA.
On February 1, 1996 Lynette Bibbs 14, and Tamara Fisher 15, went to a local club for teenagers. There was a 22 year old male who claimed to have dropped off the girls off at a motel near the city centre on Old Spanish Trail. The girls were located February 3, 1996 in Cleveland, TX. They had been shot death but it's believed to be by more than one person.
Krystal Jean Baker 13, was last seen near Interstate 45 on March 5, 1996 in Texas City, Texas, leaving her grandmother's house to go use a payphone after an argument. Two hours later her body was found, she had been raped, strangled, and dumped over the Interstate 10 Trinity River Bridge. Baker's great aunt was Marilyn Monroe. Kevin Edison Smith was convicted in 2012 and sentenced to life in prison. In 2019 the Governor of Texas signed the Krystal Jean Baker Act which allows collection of DNA from individuals arrested for certain felonies prior to conviction.
Laura Smither 12, was last seen on April 3, 1997 in Friendswood, Texas jogging on her home street. She had told her mother that she was going on a 20 min run. Seventeen days later on April 20, 1997 her body was found in a retention pond in Pasadena, Texas. In 1998 her parents established the Laura Recovery Center, they aid in searches for recovery of kidnap victims. William Lewis Reece was convicted of the murders of Laura Smither, Kelli Cox and Jessica Cain in June 2022.
Kelli Ann Cox, 20 was last seen at a Connoco gas station in Denton, Texas she had locked herself out of her car and she was calling her boyfriend to help her. Over 18 years later on March 18, 2016, Kellie's remains were discovered after suspected serial killer William Lewis Reece showed investigators to search in the area of Brazoria County, Texas where her remains were found.
Jessica Lee Cain 17, Was last seen at Bennigan's restaurant near Baybrook Mall in Clear Lake Texas she was dining with friends around 1:30 a.m. She was reported missing by her father who found her truck abandoned along Interstate 45. On March 18, 2016 Jessica's remains were found in a field off of East Orem Road, next to the Hobby Airport. Suspected serial killer William Lewis Reece directed the investigators to the area where the search was conducted and Jessica's remains were found.
Tot Tran Harriman 57, was visiting relatives in Texas and had mapped out a route between League City, Texas and Corpus Christi, Texas and was going to travel Highway 35. She left on July 12, 2001 at 5:00 a.m. from her son's home near League City, Texas. Tot was last seen driving her 1995 Lincoln Continental along highway 35. Neither she, or her 1995 Lincoln have ever been found.
Sara Ann Lewis Trusty 23, was last seen in the evening riding her bike in Algoa, Texas near her church around 11 p.m. Her bike was found the next day in the Foyer of Algoa Baptist Church the next day. Her body was discovered on July 28, 2002 in a dike in Texas City, Texas in a nearby reservoir by a fisherman.
Terressa Lynn Vanegas 16, was last seen in Dickinson, Texas walking near the Green Caye Subdivision on October 31, 2006. Three days later her body was found strangled, raped, and with her hair cut off in a field across from Dickinson High school.
As of 2022, out of the 33 murders connected to the area of the Texas Killing Fields only three cases have been linked to a suspect with a conviction being secured. The first of these is Shelley Sikes a teenager who had been abducted after leaving her job in Galveston in 1986. Although her body was never found, John King, and Geral Zwarst later confessed to kidnapping and murdering her before dumping her body in the fields. They were both sentenced to life in prison and die behind bars.
There have been four suspects convicted of crimes tied to the killing fields, and these four suspects are responsible for three murders and one disappearance. Many of these killings are believed to be the work of several separate serial killers, who are unconnected and simply chose the location as it is isolated yet close to a major Highway and two major cities Houston, and Galveston.
There are many of these cases that have no suspect. 11 of these cases have a named suspect who was either convicted or strongly suspected of being involved. That leaves 22 cases where there is no suspect. Over the years there have been several potential suspects.
Another person of interest is Mark Stallings, he is a convicted criminal who is serving a life sentence for kidnapping and other crimes. In 2013, he confessed that he was responsible for the 1991 murder of Donna Prudhomme, she was found in a Calder road oil field. At the time of the murder, Mark Stallings lived in League City, Texas and worked as a ranch hand near where several victim's bodies were found. Additionally the details of Stallings confession matched several details of Prudhomme's death. Despite this, he is also a suspect in the death of Audrey Cook, whose body was found near Laura Miller's in the Calder Road Oil Field.
Clyde Hedrick was only charged with Ellen Beason's death, she was found in Galveston in 1984. In 2012, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the crime. However, in 2021, after serving only a fraction of his sentence, he was let out on good behavior. After his release he was residing in a halfway house.
In 1996, Krystal Baker left home after an argument with her mother. She was last seen in front of a connivence store and hours later was found dumped off the side of a bridge near Texas City, Texas. 16 years after her murder, in 2012 Kevin Edison Smith was arrested and convicted after re-tested DNA evidence linked him to the crime. He was sentenced to life in prison.
In 2015, William Reece a suspected serial killer was already serving a life sentence, he was linked by DNA to a murder in Oklahoma. When he was interrogated for his offense, he voluntarily confessed to three other murders, two of which were Texas Killing Field victims Laura Smither and Jessica Cain. In 2021 he was sentenced to life in prison for these murders. He was already on death row awaiting execution.
Edward Harold Bell has always been associated with the Texas Killing Fields murders. He was identified as a potential suspect as early as the 1970's after the League City Police Department and FBI became aware of his activities in the area. Edward Bell owned a surf shop in Galveston that was frequented by two of the victims Maria Johnson and Debbie Ackerman. He also owned a property in Dickinson that was extremely close to where two other victims, Brooks Bracewell and Georgia Greer, were found murdered.
Bell fled the country in 1978 after gunning down a man in Dickinson, Texas, who confronted Bell after he exposed himself in front of a group of children. Police caught up to him in 1993 and extraditing him from Panama back to the US to stand trial for murder. While serving his sentence for this crime, Bell wrote several letters to the District Attorney for Harris County, wherein he confessed to at least 11 of the killing field murders. These claims have been investigated in the Documentary "The Eleven". Despite his claims and knowledge of the cases he confessed to, Bell was never charged in any of the murders. Bell died behind bars in April 2019.
It's been decades since young women began turning up dead on Interstate 45 between Houston and Galveston, in a marshy, and desolate area near the Gulf of Mexico. At least 30 bodies have been discovered since the 1970's most were female and very few cases have been solved. Hopefully with more new DNA technology we can solve a-lot more homicides in the USA. Lord knows the families of missing children and adults are ready to have their cases solved and can move on with their lives, no matter how hard that maybe. I hope and pray that the new technology will bring a-lot of answers to a-lot of old cases, lord know the cops need the help. To all the families out there God bless you on your journey, that you didn't sign up for. Amen.
Editor's note: this article ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is reproduced as written. Almost every case in it is unsolved, and the reader should carry that through the whole catalogue: most of these women and girls have no convicted killer, and the men named in the closing section are at different distances from proof. Convicted: Kevin Edison Smith for Krystal Jean Baker; William Lewis Reece for Laura Smither, Kelli Cox and Jessica Cain; John Robert King and Gerald Zwarst for Shelley Sikes, whose body has never been found. Not convicted of murder: Clyde Hedrick was tried over Ellen Beason and convicted of abuse of a corpse rather than of killing her, which the article's phrasing blurs. Mark Stallings confessed to the murder of Donna Prudhomme in 2013 and has never been charged with it. Edward Harold Bell confessed by letter to at least eleven of these killings and was never charged with any; he was serving a sentence for a different killing and died in prison in 2019. Arthur Raymond Davis Jr, matched by DNA to Susan Eads, died in 1984 and was never tried. None of the four is in this archive's roster. The article's own arithmetic wobbles, giving thirty-three murders and then three convictions, then four convicted suspects covering three murders and one disappearance, then eleven cases with a named suspect and twenty-two without; those figures are the author's tally and do not reconcile. The Clouse case belongs here as a correction rather than a killing field murder: Dean and Tina Clouse were identified in 2021 and their daughter Holly Marie was found alive.