Killing Fields Trilogy /// Part 1 /// 132 | Forensic Files

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postpaid unlimited talk text and data plan offered by T-Mobile Verizon May 2023 this is true crime
garage and this is The Killing Fields [Music] trilogy [Music] oh Interstate 45 or
I45 is a Highway located entirely in the state of Texas the interstate is just over 280 mi in length and connects two
major US Cities Dallas and Houston from Houston the highway continues Southeast down to
galvaston there is a portion of I45 that is known to Houston resident as the Golf
Freeway a short elevated section of I45 in southern downtown Houston is known as
Pierce elevated and a 50-m stretch of desolate land between Houston and Galviston is
called the highway of Hell a mile from I45 lies a 25 acre patch of land that borders the CER oil
field this is known to all as the Texas Killing Field it is is just rugged Wasteland but
it is here that for decades the dead have appeared starting in the early 1970s and
to this day many bodies of murder victims have been found within this area and the killing
field many girls and young women have gone missing several have never been found there are some similarities in
these cases all of the victims are pretty young girls and women between the ages of 12 and 23 and most of the
located victims were found in or around water the Texas Killing Fields murders will involve three different counties
and 12 different law enforcement agencies have worked these cases including the FBI despite exhaustive efforts very few
of these murders have been solved many officers say that the 50-m stretch is the perfect Dumping Ground
for serial killers and the killing field has been described as a place that even
if you yelled no one would hear you and if you ran there wouldn't be anywhere to
go this is the perfect place for killing someone and getting away with it the disappearances abductions and murders
span over 30 years Welcome to The Killing Fields [Music] trilogy [Music] part one the
1970s by the 1970s America knew all about crime she had experienced so much of it in her young history the 1960s was
the decade of the assassination we lost so many great leaders of men and women during that decade Texas was home
to one of the worst when John F Kennedy was shot dead in front of a crowd of people in Dallas on November 22nd
1963 in the 1970s America would become aware of monsters that had been around since the beginning but were lurking
quietly in the shadows the serial killers this was to be the decade when America and the world would learn about
Ted Bundy John gasy and David burkowitz and again Texas would be home to one of the worst some called him the Galviston
killer or the purple passion killer many said he didn't have a name or that he had several whoever he was he traveled
the I45 Highway and he played in The Killing Fields June 1971 13-year-old Colette Wilson vanished
after being being dropped off at a bus stop after her school ban practice before her mother could pick
her up someone else did a couple weeks after Colette's Disappearance in July Brenda Jones just 14 disappeared while
on her way to visit a sick relative at Galveston General Hospital which is right off of Interstate
45 October 1971 Gloria Gonzalez 19 a grocery store bookkeeper left on on vacation and that
was the last time she was seen alive in November Debbie Akerman and Maria Johnson best friends were last
seen together outside of an ice cream store January of 1973 Kimberly Pitchford 16 years old
walked out of a driver's education class she was going to call her mother for a ride home but she never did she was
never heard from again Brooks Bryce well and Georgia gear from Dickinson Texas were last seen at a convenience store in
September of the following year 12-year-old Suzanne Bowers was abducted as she walked home in May of
1977 11 victims in total at the time authorities believed the killings were all the work of a
single killer most of the victims were similar in appearance and most were found near or in bodies of water several
of these cases would be a nightmare to investigate as the area only had scattered small towns and the police did
not share information freely or compare notes sure a nightmare to investigate but more so a nightmare for
the communities to endure the loss fear had set in for Galviston in the surrounding area murder had come to town
and this was only the beginning Welcome to The Killing Fields [Music] trilogy [Music]
1971 Colette Wilson was one of 10 children they lived in Alvin Texas Colette's father Thomas was a dentist
Colette had just finished the seventh grade and that summer she was attending band camp at a local high school on
Thursday June 17th at 12:30 p.m. in the afternoon her band director dropped her off at Highway 6 and County Road 99 her
mother arrived at 12:36 p.m. but Colette was nowhere to be found when she accompanied her mother Claire to the bus
stop to pick up her older sister Colette Alice said in an interview we thought maybe she had gotten a ride with someone
else so we called all of her friends that lived nearby they were unable to find any sign of Colette and the family
knew something something must be terribly wrong they reported the girl missing but unfortunately the
authorities labeled her a runaway Colette was just 13 years old at this time which seems a little young to be
labeled someone who might run away just in my opinion well it's very irresponsible so regardless of what the
authorities thought that didn't stop the Wilson family from taking out an Alvin Texas map and organizing volunteer
volunteers who would search the area for the next 3 weeks Colette's little sister
calls the agony she said the best thing that they could do was kneel around Colette's bed and pray every day and
night saying it held them together during the long months as they searched for Colette a couple weeks after
Colette's disappearance on July 1st Brenda Jones who was just 14 years old she left her house now Brenda's family
didn't have much money they didn't have a car Brenda's mother and her sisters relied on public transportation to make
their way about Brenda disappeared after a visit to a sick relative at galvaston
General Hospital which is right off of Interstate 45 now the bus driver would later confirm to police and
investigators that Brenda had made it to the bus stop the bus had dropped her off
there so this is on her way back home she arrived at the bus stop this means she disappeared just blocks from her
house Brenda's mother reported her as missing that night however police told her that they would not file the report
because it was too soon she had not been missing long enough and she would probably turn up sooner rather than
later right and this is in the 7s these laws would be changed later yeah and this is something we will see and have
seen throughout the course of the 70s you know often when a kid goes missing especially a teenager the authorities
immediately believe that they've run away or they've just taken off with some friends because I'm sure that's what
happens 90% of the time regardless you got to take these reports seriously so now we have Colette which is 13 years
old her family's looking for and now we have 14-year-old Brenda that her family's looking for her as well yeah
and Brenda's family did not have to look too long her body was found the next day
the day after she had gone missing uh she was found floating in galvaston Bay close to the Sea Wolf Parkway and near
I45 her body was nude and she had died from manual strangulation now there are a lot of
websites out there a lot of hacks out there that have reported that Brenda died from a head wound but this is just
simply not true if you go and do the research in this case you will find that her cause of death uh to be head wound
don't email that to us later email the the creator of that website cuz that information is wrong right but how many
autopsies have we seen that were wrong right and I'm just reporting what's been seen on several websites that have
covered this case the information that we have is from from a very credible Source uh who has reviewed the actual
autopsy so that's why I'm going to go with well I'm just you know stating oh I mean if you know FY Malik is doing these
autopsies I mean we're all screwed mhm well the night that Brenda had gone missing she was wearing sandles the kind
with the long laces that you can wrap up around your ankles and shins like the Caesar mhm well someone had ripped the
laces from those sandals and used them to bind branda's feet and wrist the medical examiner made a strange
Discovery someone had forcibly stuffed the girl's underwear into her throat and they determined that this was after she
was killed the medical examiner also was able to narrow down the time of death um
whoever had abducted her kept her alive most of that night uh she was killed sometime near Sunrise it was the medical
examiner's opinion that Brenda had been thrown in the water from either a pier or a boat and was not simply just tossed
in from the shore you'd think if they threw her in from a boat that's a little more discreet than off of a pier yeah
and I think they're able to judge this by the amount of cuts and bruising that would have gone on on the body after the
time of death um they didn't find a lot of these and that's why they believed that it was somebody that had kind of
cleanly tossed her into the water from a a point that might be already out a considerable distance in the water
now of course all of these cases are very sad but this next one is particularly sad and it's because you
know sometimes when we go looking for new cases to cover or cases that are suggested to us it's this is rare but it
does happen sometimes there is nothing out there on a Case especially for some of the cases early 1980s and prior to
that there is simply no digital footprint or very little or very few uh bits of information regarding some of
these cases you know like when we covered Tony Muny that Cold Case right uh he had a very small digital footprint
other than a Cold Case database basically there was nothing on Tony monzy that's why investigative databases
blogs forums and web sluther are so important to what we are trying to do as we move further from Paper Trails and
deeper into the digital age the digital footprint of victims becomes more and more important uh you know we get asked
a lot how can I get involved in this True Crime community and be more than just a spectator uh how can I do more
than just listen to podcast or watch documentaries look I would not suggest someone going out and hitting the
pavement and going out and investigating crimes um you know that's what the paid
professionals are for uh but the thing is what you can do is find a couple of cold cases from your area from back in
the 80s the 70s maybe even the 60s Google them see what comes up if nothing comes up then get creative you know find
the old old newspaper articles this will most likely require you to get out from
behind your computer and go out and do some work but gather some information write up a short well and when you say
creative that doesn't mean make up the story exactly right yes get the facts right cuz somebody out there is hearing
you and they're thinking oh yeah I just make up the story I could spin a good yarn that's that's a good idea yeah get
some credible information gather the information write up a short but extremely accurate report post it
somewhere use you know the victim's name right and that leads us to this next possible victim which is uh Gloria an
Gonzalez now she was reported missing now her body was never found mhm yeah and really the only digital footprint
that she has is she's simply a name on some list that are out there and that's about it um of course she was probably
once a lovely young person and now she's just a name on a list if it weren't for
Katherine Casey's wonderful book titled Deliver Us um I don't think we would know anything of value about her case uh
but what we gained from the book Deliver Us is that uh Glorianne Gonzalez was 19
years old she worked at a Houston grocery store now she did disappear on October 28th
1971 and it's believed that she would have disappeared somewhere near her home in Houston uh because you know she was
last seen by her roommate at their apartment on Jacqueline Street uh her roommate would be the one to to report
Gloria as missing that brings us to Debbie acur and Maria Johnson who were both from
galeston Texas and both 15 years old but in their minds they were kind of going on 20 uh they were best friends uh their
friends and loved ones say that they were unseparable they loved the water and spent much of their time on the
beaches of galvaston MH they were regulars at the local surf shops and the Wix ski school at 9:00 a.m. on November
11th 1971 the two left Maria Johnson's house where they had they had stayed there the night before they went to a
galston mall now around noon they were last seen together outside of an ice cream store and they were hitchhiking uh
two girls working at the ice cream store saw Debbie and Maria get into a white van the van had curtains in the back
windows and had a piece symbol sticker on it right and he's in love man the driver was reported to be white and much
older than the girls the girls could not tell if there was anyone else in the van
or not other than the driver it's very odd to me that hitchhiking was a lot more popular in the in the 70s MH well
in some cases uh as with was the case with Debbie and Maria um they almost preferred hitchhiking it seemed to be
somewhat of a hobby not just just a means of getting to where they needed to go but rather than taking any form of
public transportation they would usually hitchhike my father talked about this before he used to pick up hitchhikers a
lot I I don't know why I think it was just like a common thing but he'd pick them up and uh he he recently got like a
brand new car or a newer car in the 70s picked up a hitchhiker and the guy had like some stuff sticking out of his bag
and it poked the the seat and ripped his seat so getting in his car rips the guy's seat he drives him you know a
couple miles tells him get out of my damn car but never picked up a hitchhiker after that well and the funny
thing that you see in when you watch movies that are based in like the 70s yes hitchhiking was such a common thing
that they almost always throw it in a movie in the 70s somewhere where you'll see that cheesy part where there's a
girl on the side of the road or a guy thumb out in the air car pulls up car goes driver goes where are you heading
to going to the beach driver goes far out and then the guy guy or girl gets in the car and then they drive far out man
they drive to the beach most of the time nothing happens but we know from covering these cases that uh there's a
reason why hitchhiking is no longer a popular thing to do yeah you can blame Bundy for that well Debbie and Maria
they weren't heard from for a few hours so one of the parents reached out to the
other set of parents and it was quickly determined that neither of the parents had seen either girl in quite some time
they were reported missing because the girls were together it was believed by police that the two had run away and
they were quote probably on drugs uh 2 days later just about 36 hours after the two were last seen the body of the two
young girls were found this is just 10 Mi north of where they were last seen they were in Turner's Bayou in Texas
City a fisherman found the two floating in water both girls had been shot they were nuded from the waist down both
girls had their wrists bound with long black um what what may have been cords or Sho strings mhm so so the hands and
the the feet were bound correct similar to the the the other victim and I believe in this case that it was
specifically noted that these two girls were bound with their wrists in front of
them right but either way they're bound right and and then the the other difference here is the other victim was
died by strangulation these girls died by gunshot correct now just two days later a man at addict's Reservoir in
West Houston he was out walking with a metal detector looking for you know lost items of value maybe some precious
metals he's looking for his manhood when he he ended up coming across a decomposing headless
corpse the man had to get in his car and drive to a nearby house to phone in what
he had found to the police now there would be several weird findings with this here first the decapitated body
okay so they found the head but for some reason the head had no Flesh on it it was just skull and bone okay uh this was
not the case with the body though the the body had Flesh on it and was decomposing at a normal rate MH later
the medical examiner would determine that the body uh was that of missing 19-year-old Gloria Gonzalez who we we
had talked about earlier they determined that the decapitation was not something
done by her killer but it had been done by the work of animals in the area Gloria had been there laying face down
for quite some time I don't know if they ever figured out why the skull had no skin on it uh and the body still did I
couldn't find that anywhere um I could find that the medical examiner didn't think that the the flesh removed from
the skull was due to animals anyway the weirdest part okay so repeat that cuz that's not very clear so
the the decapitation was done by animals the medical examiner uh in in their opinion the decapitation was due to
animals removing the skull from the corps right so if animals are removing the skull then they're removing the skin
around the skull but it was of the medical examiner's opinion that the flesh was not removed um by animal that
has no logical there's no logical sense there unless the skull would have been in a place where it would have
decomposed at a at a much faster rate due to any you know there's different it could be any number of reasons of of of
the environment but I'm with you I think that if if you if you can make the leap
and believe that animals removed the skull they most likely chewed up the the soft bits of tissue off of the face well
that's gross um but we have turtles in this area right and turtles are known for you know the fleshy Parts like the
nose and the ears were normally attacked first by like turtles well if that wasn't strange enough for you in this
situation Captain here's another strange situation so maybe the weirdest part of
everything that was found that day they ended up finding several teeth with the skull these were loose teeth um but
later the medical examiner determined that one of the teeth did not belong to the victim that they had found to Gloria
Gonzalez now Gloria they obviously ruled her death a homicide but because of this tooth they
were going to need to go back and search the area when they did just about 50 yard from where they had found the body
of Gloria Gonzalez they located another body M uh not so much a body but rather a pile of bones without the skull but
they they found the Jawbone so there were going to be they're going to have to go to dental records here to try to
identify this body right but all aren't they capable of doing a DNA test on that
tooth and matching it with that skeleton um that I don't know but what I what I do know that they did was they
they took this Jawbone uh and I what they can do is take the one loose tooth and see if it would fit in the Jawbone
right um now remember when the story started we started talking about 13-year-old Colette Wilson who had gone
missing from the bus stop after a band camp practice and remember said that her father was a dentist well he was also
her dentist he would later be the one that had to identify the remains based on dental records uh as the remains of
of his daughter kette that seems like it makes a bunch of sense hey don't you think that they could have another
dentist come in and look at the records and look at they they could do that they
wouldn't have to have the father do that that seems very insensitive unless the father wanted to do it he he may I bet
you he he offered offered his services in this situation you think that's a little bit of conflict of interest it it
was all of his work so he would be considered the dental expert when it came to this particular person still I
think a conflict of interest some of her belongings were found with her remains but her instrument her musical
instrument was never located so at this point in the timeline we have five missing but four bodies have been found
mhm and we have no arrest and the newspapers are starting to make the connection you know we have several
murders of girls and young women uh could they be connected and you know should police be looking for a killer or
maybe even worse Killers well they're going to start digging hard and looking for suspects in this case and we have
some suspects that kind of present themselves now I'll go through this by way of using in a newspaper article that
took place this is from a u Houston newspaper and was printed in 1989 but it's in regards to some activities
during the 70s um a convicted murderer who has vowed to seek revenge and kill Law Officers in the Houston area is out
of jail as of 1989 and he may be heading back to Houston authorities say Anthony
Michael nopa he's 41 years old at the time of his release he was released from prison after serving 15 years of his
50-year sentence for killing a Brazoria County woman uh authorities think nopa will return to Houston where his family
and friends are and said they are worried about the threats he has made in the past we have Jimmy Jones of the Bora
County Sheriff's Office said he is concerned about nopa since the murder has threatened to kill several Law Men
and recently turned down offers for parole uh until he was ultimately let go in 1989 now after his murder conviction
in 1972 nopa threatened to kill kill Jones and a guy named James Evans who is an investigator with the Harris County
Sheriff's office now investigator Jones says that he took these threats seriously and still did at the time of
his release back in 1971 noo was investigated in connection with the deaths of Six Women in Montgomery Harris
and Bora counties but he was only convicted in one of the deaths nopo was sentenced to 50 years in prison in 197 2
in the death of Linda Fay Sutherland who was 22 years old from bizor County southernland was found dead with 72
bullet wounds in her back shoulders and legs now we have another guy here Harry Andrew lanam he was sentenced to 25
years in prison for the same killing and he also he was also investigated in the
other five incidences as an accomplice but the five cases other than the five cases against nopa crumbled in 1972
because Lam he attempted to escape from jail he he lunged at an officer tried to
grab his gun and the officer shot Lam and killed him unfortunately we have two guys that are convicted of one murder of
a young woman they're being invest investiga some of the deaths that we just talked about but their main witness
their only witness that they had in these investigations was that was Lam who was killed when he tried to escape
from prison right so noo was uh he has a bit of a background here he was convicted of rape before uh he did the
bizor county killing a testimony in that trial indicated that he took a young woman to an auto salvage yard and raped
her repeatedly noo pleaded guilty to a lesser offense in the case because the woman was too terrified to testify
against him so obviously the police had two suspects that they liked a lot in some of these
if not all of these murders just not able to piece it together you know it it wouldn't surprise me in the least if
these guys committed one or more of these outstanding cases one thing that has that was said in the investigation
regarding Linda Fay's death uh and and I believe it was Harry Lam that said this
he said the two men didn't talk to each other after they had picked up Linda M but the whole time that they were
driving around they both knew that they were going to kill her like it's like wow you know that that rings of maybe
these two have done this sort of thing before all right we'll get back into the Killing Fields Trilogy after this quick
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have the bodies of several young girls and women showing up popping up all over the I45 and Galviston area and then we
have those two suspects but that investigation quickly went nowhere so continuing on this takes us to January
3rd 1972 when two boys fishing on Taylor Bayou near Webster Texas they found a human skull floating in the lake the
skull ended up belonging to a young girl uh 6 weeks later authorities searching a
nearby Field find the rest of her remains and along with it they find the remains of another girl dental records
identified the girls as Ronda Johnson and Sharon Shaw now they had gone missing the previous summer they went
missing in August of 1971 Unfortunately they were too decomposed in their cause of death uh
would not be determined well CU this is in Texas and bodies decomposed way faster in Texas I believe due to the sun
and the elements MH now uh this is a bit of a a crazy story here so about 5 months after the girls bodies were found
23-year-old gas station attendant Michael Lloyd self was arrested and he was charged with the murders apparently
self was being investigated for some other crime at the time uh this was something Petty like like theft or
something like that something that had nothing to do with the murders of these two girls he ends up being convicted of
the crimes and he was sentenced to life in prison however he has always claimed that he is innocent of these two murders
well how did this whole thing go down let's let's go through this Captain so we have Ronda Johnson and Sharon Shaw
they were last seen on August 4th 1971 they were heading towards the Jericho Surf and Sea shop in Galveston Texas an
investigation that's what they told family members or friends correct so an investigation was soon launched uh
pressure was placed on the officers investigating these murders because ronda's grandfather was a prominent city
council member in late May 1972 the Webster City Council hired a new police chief this is Don moris and an assistant
chief Tommy deal uh they you can question if they were qualified for these positions they came from the
traffic division of the Texas Department of Public Safety a few weeks after the two were hired Morris received a tip
from city councilman Glenn price about Michael Lloyd self now at the Time Michael Lloyd self was a known sex
offender because he had been arrested in previous uh cases for peeping Tom incidents mhm and we know where that
normally leads to M on June 9th 1972 at 5:00 a.m. Tommy deal and officer Herman Morgan visited the gas station where
self worked the night shift deal mentioned that he believed self was thinking about the two girls referring
to Ronda and Sharon when they were talking to self but now self would say that he was confused about the
conversation they were having he believed that he was talking about his estranged wife and his and new
girlfriend uh and wasn't talking about murder at all later that morning s I'm I'm confused by all this so he
confesses but he thinks he's talking about somebody else no he's he's being interviewed by these two officers right
okay and so they're asking him about two girls they never mention them by name and they're not talking about girls
being murdered they're just talking to him about two girls that he was talking to that he well and they claimed that he
knew these two girls and they knew who he was talking about so he assumed that they were talking about his aranged wife
that he had not seen in a while and his new girlfriend M um later that morning Michael Lloyd self did he voluntarily
went to the police station for further questioning the officers asked self if he had recognized pictures of Ronda and
Sharon he said that he had recognized them but he did not know them uh maybe seen them around maybe they were
somebody that had come into the gas station at some point but immediately afterwards well and you know this cuz
you worked out a gas station for a while you you start seeing regulars MH and you
kind of know them by fa same with with the bank you might not know their name but you've seen them coming into the
bank multiple times or the gas station multiple times and with the gas station for me Captain a lot of times I didn't
know the person by name but I knew him by oh this is the coffee maror a lights guy you know that's the thing he gets
every other morning and this could be the case here um but immediately after he says that he recognized the girls but
did not know them well self was arrested and he was charged for their murders so
investigators no evidence well yeah and and other than I yeah I think I kind of know him oh arrest him mhm um Michael
Lloyd self was not he's described as not the sharpest tool in the shed let's say
um the officer interrogated him after they arrested him and during this interrogation they
claimed that they had evidence connecting him to the murders again self- denies any involvement what what's
this evidence uh I don't think that that's ever clear to anybody right right CU there was none M well another officer
Jerry Mitchell he stopped in during the interrogation and he was observing the interrogation and he noticed that he
thought that Michael Lloyd self was quite relaxed reled and he did not appear to be nervous at all um Mitchell
left the room and chief Morris remember we talked about him he then took charge of the in
interrogation according to Michael Lloyd self Morris started asking him about why
he killed the victims moris said that he wanted a confession and he would not leave until he got one Morris allegedly
held self against a wall and poked him multiple times with his night stick Morris also allegedly took out bullets
from his gun and placed them on the table Michael Lloyd selfelf would later say that he really feared that Morris
was going to kill him okay so he's being held against the wall being poke with the night stick and these are the back
in the 70s I mean this is one long stick it's not the kind that um you know retracts right right so these thingses
are tough yeah it's like being poked with a small baseball bat yeah but maybe even harder mhm and then he's taken
bullets out of his gun yeah and he's placing him on the table yeah uh well you might you might as well just
waterboard him at this point right Morris allegedly told Michael Lloyd self that he would shoot him if he didn't
sign a confession um So eventually Michael Lloyd self agreed to write and sign a
confession uh the thing here is he would have to sign multiple confessions because he didn't get a lot
of the information right in the earlier confessions um eventually it's alleged that Morris told him what he had to
write down and less than an hour we've seen this time and time again haven't we yeah it's it's pathetic is what it is
yeah less than an hour after Jerry Mitchell left he then returned and at this point he's seeing Michael Lloyd
self in a much different situation no longer is he relaxed and calm he now describes Michael Lloyd self to be
extremely upset and visibly shaken um Mitchell noticed that Morris had self rewrite his confession several times
self self's confession did not completely match with the known facts of the case uh in his confession self
claimed that he had dumped the bodies at Largo which was 20 M from the Taylor Bayou where the bodies were actually
found and and we've talked about this before one of a detective friend that we know uh talks about how he would go in
get a ritten confession come back out not even look at it and just put it on his desk and then go back in and go hey
look that this story is not all lining up now he wouldn't tell them this part isn't lining up or this part isn't
lining up he would just tell them this isn't really lining up so write it again and he' do that sometimes several times
and by taking all three confessions you get a better picture of what was actually happening but in this case this
person is going oh by the way this isn't correct and this isn't correct and this
isn't correct I mean we you see this you know like we talked about before with like Jesse Miss Kelly I mean leading the
the witness I mean what Justice is this yeah yeah it's it's like a teacher grading a paper that keeps returning the
paper to you with the wrong answer circled or with a big red X on them and wants you to correct what you got wrong
right uh you know the confession stated that self choked one of the girls but there was no evidence of that injury on
their remains so first he gets the location of the bodies Wrong by 20 miles then he gets the cause of death in one
of the girls as wrong as well the confession also stated that self went to Sharon's house to pick up the girls but
her family contradicts that and that they because they left on their own yeah they weren't last seen at at her house I
get yeah so it's ridiculous uh the other thing about the confession while we're on the the wrong
ANW get me heated up get me get me started his confession also stated that the girls were yelling waving and
hanging out of his car but there were no witnesses that could be found to confirm
this all right in fact Witnesses placed the girls in Galviston at around 900 p.m. even though in self confession they
were already with him in Webster by that time it's ridiculous so 3 days after self's arrest and confession he took a
polygraph test where he again confessed to the murders uh he also claimed that he had knowledge on other murders that
had taken place in Texas in 1971 and 1972 uh in his second confession self claimed that he hit the girls with a
coke bottle and then dumped them in the bayou these statements again conflict with his first confession and so but he
took this polygraph test what what were the findings of that test he failed the test the test where he confess to the
murders right he fails that test in his second confession self also claimed that
he stripped the girls clothing and threw it into the side onto the side of the highway however the girl's clothing was
found with them along with uh an unidentified pair of keys all right I don't know how you get
a confession more wrong than this I mean it's well here's the problem though is you have this system where people get
ahead people make more money you know uh private Pro uh public prosecutors don't
make a lot of money the more convictions they get the more then they can move up
the ranks right and and this is ridiculous because it's all about just getting the win who cares how you get it
maybe you deflate the football a little bit who cares you got to get the win and
and this is what's so ridiculous it should be based off of you need to get the truth and if you don't get a
conviction who cares it's about getting the truth well and it sounds to me like one of these guys got a significant
promotion both these guys received significant promotions from Traffic Division all the way up to chief of
police and assistant chief one of these guys had a relative that was a high ranking public official and these guys
get in here they don't know what they're doing and they there there's a new sheriff in town I'm going to solve all
these cases right and this new sheriff Town's a real turd bag well listen to this two weeks after Michael Lloyd self
was arrested two sheriff's deputies checked him out of the jail this is on the pretext of buying him dinner
afterwards the deputies wa sometimes you talk too fast so they're going to check
him out of jail mhm to buy him dinner correct a guy that confessed to killing two teenagers mhm right okay so
afterwards I'm guessing this is after their nice sitdown dinner together the deputies drove him around to places
mentioned in the confession and took pictures of him at these places this was presented in court as a third confession
by Michael Lloyd self all right self's attorney claimed that this was not a confession and was actually illegal you
know they're they're taking pictures of him at these different sites of him like
standing and pointing to things and you know so it looks very in of course it does but we take you out we
get we get you a sberry steak and then we're going to drop you off at these locations and take your picture while
you're there this is horrible police work well during while he was awaiting trial uh
there was an investigator this is Dave uh coborn he met with Michael Lloyd self in jail and self told him that Morris
and deal had attacked him and beat a confession out of him he also mentioned how Morris removed several bullets from
a handgun and placed them in front of him and now cobor he remembered that that he had witnessed Morris doing the
same thing uh to another prisoner before now coborn wanted to testify at Michael
Lloyd self's trial however he was they they never called him and would not let him testify during this trial on May
15th 1973 Michael Lloyd self was convicted of murder and sentenced to life and Prison
3 years later remember the sheriffs that we were talking about these these wonderful Guys Don Morris and Tommy deal
uh these police guys they were arrested and charged with bank robbery oh really mhm oh really they were part of a
robbery group that had robbed banks in 1972 and 1973 in 1976 deal Tommy deal Tommy [ __ ] stain
Morris was sentenced to 5 5 years in prison and deal was sentenced to 30 years in prison well there is karma for
you you know and I believe in that so they got what they deserved they finally got caught for their ridiculous uh
illegal actions you know uh why they were wearing the badge and when they weren't wearing the badge they got
caught yeah they were not deserving of being public officials or Public Service uh people at all um now despite the
arrest of nopa and Lam who we talked about earlier who had killed the one girl and you know whether you agree or
disagree with the arrest and conviction of Michael Lloyd sth mhm you know no one's arguing that nopa and Lam didn't
kill Linda Fay Southerland but of course you have to wonder how many more murders
did those two do um but if if they did all of them U or you also have to wonder why would the murders continue after
these arrest and these convictions and that's exactly what happened right yeah so now we have uh January 3rd
1973 we have Kimberly Pitchford who is age 16 she took the school bus to attend all of her classes that day now after
school she went to detention she had detention for being late to a class after detention she went to her driver's
education class this class started at 5:00 p.m. and it was over at 6:00 p.m. she was supposed to call home for a ride
her her mom waited for the call but the call never came then Kimberly's parents started calling all of her friends
asking where they could find their daughter later that night Kimberly's parents filed a missing person's Report
with the police MH 2 Days Later two boys traveling on a rural stretch of road uh
this is County Road 65 uh the two boys spotted a black coat near a guard rail they got out of their
vehicle to check it out before they could return to their vehicle they spotted what appear appeared to be a
body floating upside down in a nearby ditch that was this ditch is full of water due to recent heavy rainfall the
this frightened the boys and they weren't really sure what they were looking at so they went and got one of
the boys's fathers who returned to the area with the boys and after nudging the body with a stick um he believed that
they were looking at a real dead body they notified police of what they had found and Kimberly Pitchford had been
located she had been strangled and her body was found about 25 miles south of where she was last scene that was the
driving school in Pasadena Texas which we should knowe is near the Interstate 45 right so legs arms bound um I I don't
have any of that information I don't think that that was the case with her body they probably would have reported
it if if it was such yeah and the the black thing that they spotted near the guard rail turned out to be some of her
clothing I believe it was a jacket that she would would have been wearing at the
time of her disappearance uh Georgia gear uh age 14 and Brooks bracewell age 12 uh they had apparently skipped school
on September 6th 1974 shortly afterward they were reported missing now several tips came in uh one tip saying that they
were seen at a motel near Alvin Texas playing football with a group of guys several other tips said that the two
girls were seen hitchhiking uh but the tip that may have the most credibility as this is the most
widely reported to this day is that they were last seen together in a convenience
store in Dickinson Texas this is again close to the infamous Texas Interstate I45 the two girls wouldn't be found for
quite some time it wasn't until April 18th 1981 that the bodies were found a man working near an oil field found two
skulls this area is basically swamp land near Alvin Texas the dental records identified the skulls as belonging to
the two missing girls Georgia gear and Brooks bracewell injuries to the skull pointed to obvious cause of death the
two teenage girls had been beaten to death uh to me it's it's strange that the the tip that seems to have stood the
test of time better than the others is the convenience store tip and not the playing football tip you know I only
question this because the bodies were found closer to the area of the football tip rather than that of the store which
was in Dickinson uh which is not terribly far from still you know right well but what's interesting here is you
know we have victims that that have died from strangulation we've had victims die
from gunshots and now we have uh two victims that have died from um being beat in the in the head mhm yeah the the
cause of death here is all over all over the shop now um we have 12-year-old Suzanne Bowers she was abducted while
she was walking home in May of 1977 uh around 10:00 a.m. on May 21st uh she left her grandparents home she was
going to head back to her own house uh her plan was to go home and get a bathing suit and then a bicycle and head
to the beach uh Suzanne had rode her bike to the beach often so this wasn't something out of the norm for her
Suzanne had a friend waiting for her at the beach but unfortunately Suzanne never arrived and when the grandparents
started looking for Suzanne they quickly learned that she never even she never even arrived at her own parents home to
retrieve the bicycle and the bathing suit right two years later two boys out riding dirt bikes found the skeleton of
Suzanne Bowers you find it a little odd that you know you'll have one individual
one individual female go missing or two individual female males go missing and and they're always found by it it seems
like a group of two boys mhm well I I think that plays to the areas where these bodies are found uh these These
are areas that are kind of out of the way you know you often hear that they're being found by fishermen or two guys on
two dudes on dirt bikes right uh two boys playing in the woods um so I think it just lends to where they're being
found um here's the weird thing though the Bowers case is is not considered to be solved um but I'm sure at one point
many investigators considered the case to be closed this was one of many many murders that remember uh a guy by the
name of Henry Lee Lucas yeah we talked about him when we discuss discussed ois tul in the uh Adam Walsh case now uh
Henry Lee Lucas was a man that claimed to have killed anywhere from about 40 to 150 people well this was one of the
murders that he said said he gave a vague confession uh that that he had killed Suzanne Bowers yeah but he also
lied about tons of stuff mhm I mean he I mean one he claims he killed way more people than he actually did Kill and
then half the confessions that he was confessing to like there was little to no evidence connecting him well and his
confession regarding Suzanne Bowers kind of went like this the detectives were like hey this you remember this little
girl 12 years old that was picked up in this area and then she was found later found dead in this area and he's like
sure I I was I could have been in that area I I probably killed somebody a little girl I don't remember her name
and then anything else that he gave to them it was really nothing of any value regarding the girl's case or or her
murder at all right again I think this you know sometimes they they don't do their due diligence to have the case
closed that is closing on their own because they don't want to deal with it later Henry Lee Lucas would recant many
of his confessions but this was one that he specifically named you know he specifically said by name he didn't kill
Suzanne Bowers stating what little he knew about the case was fed to him by police officers and he confessed to this
murder in trade for favors and privileges um it's been noted that in a lot of these confessions and in a lot of
these cases that he received small privileges you know like cigarettes and access outside of the prison where they
would take him on these field trips to identify places where he supposedly killed somebody and also allowing him
access to a a personal TV uh in his cell for his help on all these you know many
cases across the southern states and also I think more phone privileges as well yeah you know when you're riding
away in prison I would assume that that would be like you know a Golden Ticket yeah he was he was you know if if what
my gut tells me about Lucas is he's just really a big loser that probably killed
one or two people or was involved in in one or two incidences and he was you know he he took advantage of of the
situation and was able to manipulate some of these officers into getting what he wanted and at the same time these
officers you know they're not trying to do anything wrong but they need to clear
these cases and they see this guy who acts like a monster and talks about things that only a monster would do and
they think oh well he's capable and he says he did it so there you go they are doing something wrong because they you
have to ask the questions to get the answers to find the truth and if he isn't able to supply you with those
answers without you force feeding those answers then he he didn't do the crime the crime needs to stay open the case
needs to stay open there needs to be real Justice for these families real Justice for the victims and that's what
they're doing wrong right you're exactly right Captain because then what you're ultimately left with years later when
the when the dust clears When the Smoke Clears and you figure out that these confessions are wrong you're left with
no answers and you're also left with the situation where people stop investigating these these cases and and
they they go cold because you think that they're closed yeah or think about how many times uh there are cases solved
years later because um this guy got drunk and he was telling me about this time you know and these drunk
confessions or whatever drunk confessions deathbed confessions right but you get some weird conf confession
and they go well look it doesn't matter doesn't matter about these confessions because this guy is the guy that he's in
jail MH and and so this guy might must just be drunk and they dis missed certain evidence and there's a big time
period that goes by when they say this crime was committed uh by by Lucas well there's time that goes by that you're
you're missing out on evidence idence and and and footwork that you could have done so yeah they did something really
wrong and they and they do it wrong constantly a couple of items in closing before we finish up with the
1970s um first Colette Wilson the first girl that we discussed uh many consider her to be the first of many victims she
was the girl that was was found in her father Thomas uh a dentist identified the remains as Colette due to her dental
work that he had performed now Colette's father Thomas he only lived for about 4
years after her death the family said that he became obsessed with solving the case uh and he sadly died of a heart
attack at the young age of 42 now regarding Michael Lloyd self and the bad cops that sent him to prison for life
Don Morris and Tommy deal both were both of these bad cops were eventually paroled uh but deal was later arrested
again for another robbery um yeah he's just just a bad seed man yeah um now Michael Lloyd self's attorney
pushed for a new trial for many many years for him but that ended with no luck at all then in April 2nd of uh 1980
a man walked into a police station in Taylor Lake Texas and confessed to the murders of Ronda Johnson and Sharon Shaw
the man's confession was vague uh but he did mention that he used a cord to tie the girl's bodies down uh this fact was
never mentioned by Michael Lloyd self however the police did know about the court and had purpose purposefully
withheld the fact in order to determine uh possible truth of of the confession that they would receive the man although
suffering from psychosis did know the girls and actually lived in the same apartment complex as one of them uh the
name of this man was withheld from newspaper articles uh despite the confession and criminal activities of
the bad cops Morrison deal Michael Lloyd self's conviction was upheld and in 1992 Michael Lloyd self
was denied parole on March 30th 1993 uh US Supreme Court refused to consider his request for a new trial
self uh and his attorney and even investigator coborn uh however are certain that someone else is responsible
for the murders of Ronda Johnson and Sharon Shaw Michael Lloyd self passed away in prison in
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Killing Fields Trilogy /// Part 1 of 3

Part 1 of 3

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There is a large plot of land about a mile from interstate 45 in south Texas called the Killing Field. This spot along with the stretch of I-45 that runs from Houston to Galveston have claimed many victims and held many secrets. Since 1971 homicides of girls and young women have occurred here at an alarming rate. There have been over thirty murders and several women who have vanished. This story will span three different Texas Counties. Twelve different law enforcement agencies worked these cases. Join us as we take a trip to one of our favorite states to discuss one of America's most notorious serial cases.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the Texas Killing Fields and the unsolved murders of young women along Interstate 45 in the 1970s.

Key points

The 1970s: A Decade of Monsters. America became aware of serial killers lurking in the shadows during the 1970s.
The Killing Fields. A desolate area where bodies have been found for decades, known as the Texas Killing Fields.
Brenda Jones' Disappearance. 14-year-old Brenda Jones vanished after a visit to a hospital, leading to a tragic discovery.
Debbie Akerman and Maria Johnson. Best friends went missing together, leading to a tragic discovery just days later.
Discovery of Loose Teeth. Several loose teeth were found with a skull, leading to a deeper investigation.
Confession Under Duress. Michael Lloyd Self's confession was coerced through aggressive interrogation tactics.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is the perfect place for killing someone and getting away with it.

4:05WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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