'Texas Killing Fields': What Happened to Laura Miller and Was Her Killer Found?

Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields is the third installment in Netflix's true-crime documentary series, Crime Scene, following on from The Times Square Killer and The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.

The Texas Killing Fields explores the unsolved murders of four young women, whose remains were discovered along the interstate corridor connecting Houston and the beach town of Galveston, known as The Texas Killing Fields.

Between 1971 and 2006, over 30 female bodies were found in the area. All of the victims were between 12 and 25 years old.

Episode 1 of Texas Killing Fields introduces audiences to Tim Miller and his fight to solve his daughter Laura's murder, along with the deaths of three other women.

Newsweek has everything you need to know about Laura Miller and her father's fight for justice.

What Happened to Laura Miller?

On September 10, 1984, 16-year-old Laura Miller disappeared a short distance from her home in Texas.

Earlier that evening, she had asked her mother to drive her to a payphone so she could call her boyfriend. After their phone call, Laura Miller had intended to walk home. She never returned.

Sadly, more than a year later, her body was found in the same patch of land near Calder Road as 23-year-old Heidi Fye, who had vanished in 1983. Fye's remains were located in April 1984 and Laura Miller's in 1986.

During the search, another woman's body was found, but unfortunately she couldn't be identified at the time and became known as Jane Doe. In 2019, Jane Doe was identified as Audrey Lee Cook, a 30-year-old mechanic who had last been seen alive in December 1985.

In 1991, a fourth woman was found in the same area, but was unidentifiable. She became known as Janet Doe until she could be fully identified in 2019 as Donna Gonsoulin Prudhomme, according to Oxygen.

Has Laura Miller's Killer Ever Been Found?

No, unfortunately Laura Miller's killer has never been brought to justice.

As heard in The Texas Killing Fields, Tim Miller and other victims' families didn't believe the authorities were doing enough to track down the killer, or the killers, responsible. Often, they were told their teenage daughters had run away from home.

Taking matters into his own hands, Tim Miller set up his own investigation as a volunteer search-and-rescuer.

In 2000, he established the Texas EquuSearch (TES), a volunteer organization that helps families to try and locate missing family members. According to the official TES website, the organization has worked on more than 2,000 cases and discovered over 300 bodies and 400 living people.

Laura Miller's father also believes he knows who took his daughter's life almost 30 years ago.

He suspects his next-door neighbor, Clyde Hedrick was responsible.

Hedrick, who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the death of 29-year-old Ellen Rae Simpson Beason, has denied any involvement in Laura Miller's disappearance and death.

Beason's body was found in July 1984, two months before Laura Miller disappeared, on a dirt road in Galveston County. At the time, Hedrick was convicted of abusing a corpse and sentenced to a year in jail as there was not enough evidence to prove Hedrick had been killed.

However, in 2014, Beason's death was ruled as a homicide, and Hedrick was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

He served eight years of his 20-year sentence before he was released on good behavior.

According to ABC13, Hedrick has a lengthy history of violent crimes and has allegedly said in the past he had killed four or five women.

In July 2022, Tim Miller won a wrongful death lawsuit against Hedrick that he filed in 2014. Tim Miller was awarded $24 million in liability and damages.

As Oxygen reported, the judge granted the motion on default when Hedrick failed to appear, despite notice of the hearing.

However, despite being found civilly liable for Laura Miller's death, Hedrick has never been charged with her murder.

Speaking after the hearing, Tim Miller told the press: "I filed the wrongful death suit to let Clyde Hedrick know that, 'Clyde, I'm still here, I am still here, and I'm not going to quit until the day I die.

"I want to let Clyde know that, 'I know what you did to my daughter, and I'm not going to let you rest until we have you where you need to be for the rest of your life.'"

He added: "As time goes by and the more information I get and, the more information I am continuing to get, I have no doubt in my mind Clyde Hedrick is responsible for Laura's murder."

At one point in the 1990s, former Nasa engineer Robert Abel was a suspect in the Texas Killing Field murders. However, there was no evidence linking him to the crime, according to The Guardian.

In 2005, Abel was killed as he drove an ATV over a rail crossing and was hit by an oncoming train.

Today, The League City Police Department in Texas is still working on solving the murders of Fye, Miller, Cook and Prudhomme.

In a statement on the FBI website in 2019, Special Agent Richard Rennison, who has worked the Calder Road killings case out of the FBI's Houston Field Office, Texas City Resident Agency, for more than a decade said: "It's important for the public to know that we have not given up. It may be labeled a cold case, but that doesn't mean it's sitting on a shelf and isn't being worked.

"It's being worked actively at the FBI and actively at the League City Police Department."

Investigators believe the similarities in all four unsolved murders suggest it was one killer. However, multiple killers cannot be ruled out, Rennison noted.

Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields is streaming on Netflix now.