Killing Fields Trilogy /// Part 3 of 3 | Forensic Files

This is True Crime Garage. And this is The Killing Fields Trilogy. The Killing Fields
Part 3. The 1980s was when the now notorious plot of land received the name The Killing Field.
And it certainly deserved it. For many parents and loved ones, this was simply a graveyard.
The Killing Field joined the other stretches of land around Interstate 45 as a place to be avoided,
feared, and hated. Was there no end in sight? When does the healing start? When this nightmare began back in 1971,
no one would have imagined all of the lives lost to The Killing Fields and how many years the murders would span.
But evil has no time limit. And evil does not always age as fast as the rest of us.
Unless you destroy it, evil stays. By now, The Killing Fields have taught us that evil is not just a guy in a
truck trolling the highway looking for victims or a man with a gun. Sometimes it's much more than that.
Sometimes evil has a place. In early 1996, Crystal Jean Baker, only 13 years old,
left her grandmother's home walking to meet a friend. In April of 1997, 12-year-old Laura Kate Smither went
jogging like she had done several times before on a quiet road near her home. In the summer of '97, Jessica Cain, 17,
attended a party and later her truck would be found on I-45, but Jessica was nowhere in sight.
Would Crystal, Laura, and Jessica simply vanish like so many young ladies before
them? Or would they be found in The Killing Fields? In Part 3, we're going to cover the
1990s and beyond. Now, I know the last two decades, the '70s and '80s, were filled with a lot of death and a lot of
frustration about how some of the different police departments handled some of the cases and the missing
persons reports. I do want to remind everyone that this was a long time ago and a lot of what took place was taking
place in small towns or rural areas. A lot of the time this was going on as populations were starting to grow in
these areas between Houston and Galveston, and sometimes these smaller departments are having trouble keeping
up. But just just as I remind you about that, I want to point out that today is going
to be a different day, Captain, because today we are going to get some answers. There is some light at the end of this
tunnel, but before we can find that light, we all need to hop into the tunnel together. So, here we go. Well, I
hope everybody showered. On September 8th, 1991, another female body was found by a
couple people on horseback. Uh this was found in the same area as Heidi Faye, Laura Miller, and Jane Doe, which were
all located in an area near Calder Field in the '80s. Because she would become the second
unidentified body located in this field, she was labeled Janet Doe. You know, yesterday I complained about
one of the victims and how there was practically no information on her and that her case now feels like she's just
a name on a list. This one is equally sad and the same with Jane Doe because they are in the same situation, but they
are not even names on a list. Here's what we do know. They suspect this victim was about 24 to 34 years of
age. She was Caucasian with brown hair, approximately 115 lb, and 5 ft 1 in tall. But when Janet Doe was found in
1991, League City investigators got a funny feeling about a retired NASA engineer
who owned acreage adjacent to The Killing Field. Mhm. This is Robert Abel. Robert Abel
ran a popular horseback riding range called Stardust Trail Rides, and he seemed almost too eager to
cooperate when detectives started asking him about the bodies that kept turning up near the land that he owned.
Well, he's also newer to the area. Yeah, he actually owned a bunch of land uh quite north of this.
Uh and this was a new plot of land for him. So, League City lead investigator Pat Bittner, he sought guidance from an
FBI agent who specialized in serial sexual homicides. Uh the agent told Bittner that the murderer probably lived
close to the comfort zone and could very well have insinuated himself into the investigation. Mhm. Also, the agent said
the murderer was in all likelihood preoccupied with the media accounts about the crimes and perhaps he kept
newspaper articles about them. Based on that profile, Bittner was able to secure a search warrant in 1993.
Now, they turned Abel's home upside down. Yeah. They found guns in Abel's home. Um I would say this is probably
not uncommon. This is a rural area and this is Texas. Right. Uh they also found many newspaper articles uh clipped out
of area newspapers regarding their coverage of the murder cases. All of these items were confiscated.
Um I know I sound like a lunatic here, Captain, but of those confiscated items, I have things like that in my house. So,
I don't necessarily think that that points to anything, but you know, don't dare have Kool-Aid in your refrigerator,
right? Right. So, in the end, investigators found nothing linking Abel to the murders.
But that would not be the end of it. Nope, not because of two men. The first is someone that we spoke a lot about in
Part 2, Tim Miller, the father of murder victim found in the field uh Laura Miller.
She was found near Robert Abel's land in the '80s. Mhm. When they did the search
warrant on Robert Abel's house and property, the investigators were clearly focusing on Abel, and this just fed Tim
Miller's anger, and he became convinced that Abel had killed his daughter, Laura.
Well, and some would speculate he was the reason why Abel was getting so much heat to begin with. This proved to be
toxic fuel for a man that was already in a downward spiral. Mhm. Tim Miller dreamed of killing Abel.
Uh he would park his truck on the street out by Abel's mailbox, and damn near every day when Abel came out to get the
mail, Miller would harass Abel. Right. I wouldn't recommend this. No. Uh he would call him names. He would
accuse him of murder and accuse him of serial murder. Mhm. Now, one day in 1994,
uh Miller was out waiting by Abel's mailbox. He started harassing the old man. Now, by this point, Abel was fed up
with the harassment. He was receiving not just harassment from Tim Miller, but from people in town as well.
Right. So, Abel decided he was going to shout something rude back to Tim Miller.
He said something nasty about Laura Miller and the other dead girls that were found there. Mhm. Well, Tim lost
it, and he jumped out of his truck, and he ran up to Abel, and he pulled out a gun.
Tim Miller stood there and held a gun to Robert Abel's head. He really wanted to pull the trigger, uh
but he didn't. Thankfully, he didn't. Miller had finally hit rock bottom, uh and at this point, he checked himself
into a psych ward where he stayed for 10 days. Now, nothing would diminish his need to
solve his daughter's murder, but sometime after he got out of the hospital, he learned to channel into
something much more productive, and a few years later, Tim Miller created Texas EquuSearch. Uh the organization
has assisted in investigations in 38 states and eight countries to this day. Yeah, we talked about them back when we
covered the Casey Anthony case. Years later, Tim Miller would admit his role in what he calls the Robert Abel
witch hunt, uh saying that he regrets it. Right. Just so we're clear, I mean, Robert Abel was completely innocent of
anything that people were claiming or anything that they're investigating, and was actually cooperative from the
beginning. He was cooperative um with Miller himself. And then, you know, we have a whole system and an and a
community of people that turn on him so much so where he had to move to a whole different state. And and still this case
uh haunts him to this day because, you know, these allegations have followed him wherever he goes. So,
it you know, I understand that you lose a loved one and you're looking for somebody to blame, but you know, you
can't make these giant leaps. You know, it's one thing to leap over a uh puddle,
but when you're leaping over a um ocean to uh point the finger at somebody, it's very irresponsible. And
and the amount of damage that uh Miller did to Abel, that that law enforcement did to Abel, and the community did did
to Abel is just really uncalled for. Well, and to put it bluntly, you know, in an in an
interview years afterwards, Tim Miller told a reporter that yeah, he had helped ruin Robert Abel's life there for a
couple of years. Uh and as you said, maybe even after. Um now, before we move on from Janet Doe's murder, I do want to
point out that police have a long-time suspect that they like very, very much for this homicide. But in a strange
twist, it kind of leads back to Robert Abel. Uh this is taken from a Houston Chronicle article by Ruth Rendon from
2001 titled "Man's Confession Could Solve Killing Field Case". A Texas prison inmate has confessed to
killing as many as six women in Fort Bend and Galveston counties, including some at the infamous site here known as
the Killing Field. Mark Stallings, age 34, has not yet been charged with any of the murders.
However, League City Police Captain Chris Reed said DNA test will confirm whether Stallings was involved in any of
the slayings of four women whose bodies were dumped in the field off of Calder Road, just west of Interstate 45 from
1983 to 1991. He confessed to multiple homicides. Uh Reed would go on to say, "We don't
know which ones at this time. We have an idea, but we're not real sure because we
haven't corroborated anything he has said." Reed said Stallings gave police information that was very believable. He
said the inmate told officers that he once lived in a mobile home on the land near where the bodies were found, and
that he once worked for Robert Abel. Mhm. Abel, 62 at the time of this article, said that he recalled Stallings
working for him for his ranch operation. But he said he fired Stallings because he was too dumb to even string a fence.
Okay. I've never strung a fence, so maybe I'm an idiot. to have to throw me in that category
with you, Captain. Mhm. League City Police uh who interviewed Stallings over 1-week period
in mid-September said it may take a month before lab tests and results could show whether his DNA sample matches
evidence collected from the crime scenes. Reed said Stallings is helping authorities identify at least one of
those women uh who have been dubbed Jane or Janet Doe. Stallings was brought to the
attention of League City Police by Fort Bend County Sheriff's officials, to whom
he had written during the summer and claimed to have had information about some of the murders in that county. With
the with the Jane and Janet Doe, I I believe for me it's like it's hard for me to believe that they're Texas natives
and that nobody um would claim them or there would be no connection with some missing person
report. To me, it seems like they would have to be almost somebody from a different state that was transported
here somehow, or possibly a runaway from another state. Fort Bend County Sheriff said some of
the details in the letter suggested that he had to have more than knowledge picked up from the media.
Investigators and Texas Rangers visited with Stallings in prison and brought him
to this county for about a week, saying he took the Rangers and the detectives for some drives, pointed out some
places, and it became apparent that he knew what he was talking about. The sheriff said that although physical
evidence is lacking, charges against Stallings were likely for the April 1986 slaying of Benna Bowen, 27, and the June
1989 death of 18-year-old April Eaves. He convinced the detectives that he legitimately was there at the time.
There are details that only the investigating officers or those close to it would have known, and they stated he
knew some of those details. He also led them to the scene, which is not an easy scene to find, according to
the authorities, since it is, you know, it's out in a pasture. Uh also noting that the area had changed
considerably since the time that the murders had occurred. Now, Eaves' body was found in an
abandoned mobile home near Old Richmond Road. Bowen's body was found in an underdeveloped area of the county known
as Park Westheimer. Both women, described by authorities as crack cocaine addicts working the streets in
Houston's Montrose area. They were both strangled, and when Stallings had talked
about these murders in these cases with the authorities, he showed absolutely no
remorse at all. Stallings is an inmate at Clements Unit in Amarillo. Uh he is serving a life
sentence for aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He committed the crime in Walker County
in August of 1998. He is also serving a sentence for aggravated assault and possession of a firearm by a felon in
Brazoria County, and for burglary of a building with intent to commit theft in Harris County. Mhm. Records also show
Stallings has used a variety of aliases over the years and has given two birth dates. So, what's his motive for telling
the cops this? Well, that's a good question, and we'll get into that. Uh one of the officers said that he is
baffled as to why Stallings contacted his department, uh saying it is strange in that he waited so many years. You'd
think this guy was trying to clear his innocence. Mhm. Um but stating, "I don't think that a guy like this has a
conscience." I They truly don't know what his motive is or was. Doesn't make a lot of logical sense. He
doesn't have a conscience, but he's coming forward with this information to give closure to the family, possibly. Or
I mean, he's helping out law enforcement. He's helping out uh you know, these families on some level
to give them closure. So, it's kind of weird to go, you know, he he feels zero remorse. Well, if he
felt zero remorse, why talk about it? Well, and the thing too is that the investigators were spending just as much
time investigating what he was stating had happened, but during this time they're also investigating him as far as
what makes him tick. Why would he talk about this, you know? Um is he capable? Now, in the end,
Captain, uh Stallings was never charged with any of these murders. And I'm guessing that none of the DNA would have
matched, or they would have charged him with something. Now, Stallings gave a confession in these cases, but he would
never actually sign uh sign one in front of anybody. Right. Now, he stated in an interview years afterwards,
uh when asked why would he why would he confess to these crimes? Well, he still says
that he did a couple of these murders, but he won't sign anything. However, he states that it was clear He was serving
a life sentence. He thought that if they if he confessed to these crimes, they would take him out of the prison, and he
would have to go around out in these rural areas with the police on several different trips.
Right. He figured that at some point he would be able to figure out how to escape on one of those trips. Okay, so
there's his motive. Mhm. Yeah, so this guy didn't kill. And look, it could be a case we've seen these cases before. I
mean, you know, I have enough details from a possibly a prison another prisoner. Mhm.
So, you know, when they say, "Well, he had all these details that the only the investigators would know."
Well, where did he get these details? If the DNA doesn't match, he wasn't there.
And he didn't do these crimes, but where did he get that information from to at least make
the law enforcement believe him? Or was it a simple case of the law enforcement just wanted to believe him? Mhm.
Um I To be honest with you, Captain, I actually I like Stallings for a couple of these
cases. But what what about the DNA? Well, and I'll get into that. I I don't know anything about this Benna Bowen
case, um but I do know some stuff about the April Eaves case. Um and he had he had all the details of
this actual case. Uh and he stated in his confession that he didn't he didn't rape her.
Um so, that might be part of the reason why there was no DNA found of his. Now, what were the details that he got right?
Well, he stated that he he picked her up. She was a working girl. He took her to an abandoned mobile home
to have sex with her. She decided she didn't want to have sex with him and he got angry with her and he's also said
that he enjoyed choking women. Mhm. That was something that he was into. Now, um,
she was strangled with a ligature. She was stuffed into a closet and her two there were two dogs inside this
mobile home that he said he left there intentionally. He also said that he broke the handle
off of the door so that nobody could get into the mobile home jamming it shut. With the dogs inside. Yeah, so
what are the things that he got right? He he got the mobile home right. He got the strangled with a ligature, stuffed
in a closet inside that mobile home, the two dogs and the broken handle off of the door. Now, according to
That's pretty detailed. That's pretty detailed also saying that he did not rape her. So, if she didn't
fight back in a manner that he would, you know, that she gained any of his DNA. Mhm.
And which might be the case because he said that she was a drug addict and he knew that and they smoked some crack
together. She might have been out of it by the time addict. Yeah. She might have been out of
it by the time that he killed her. I I just feel like there's too many details that he got right and a lot of those
details were not in any of the newspapers. These were things that, um, really only the investigators and and
possibly the killer would have known. So, I think that's one thing that they're referring to as that he had some
some knowledge. Now, these two cases are not considered part of the Texas Killing
Fields story. Well, he's probably not he's probably not signing that uh, confession because that would probably
put him on the chopping block for uh, the death penalty. Yeah, and then on top that off if his whole motivation was
to try to escape. Well, once see, and the thing here is too, he said in a later interview, he's
like, well, I I just thought that they would keep taking me out and keep taking me out on these trips. And he said after
about a week, they didn't seem to want to talk to him that much anymore. There's a chance that those
investigators or those police officers got a vibe from him like, this dude is dangerous. We don't want to take him out
of the prison. If he's going to he's just really annoying. Yeah, if he's going to tell us anything, he needs to
sign a he needs to sign an official document before we're going to work on this anymore.
But, yeah, but those cops normally most cops aren't going to, you know, take a guy out that is cuffed, you know.
Mhm. They got to you got your billy club on you, right? You got this guy that's a giant turd
bag, right? I'd love to take this guy out with go out in the fields and and the whole time
I go, "You want to run? I wish you would. I wish you would. Cuz I'd beat the living hell out of him with
a billy club. Well, like I said, two of these two cases, the Bowens case and the
Eves case are not considered to be part of the Texas Killing Fields story, but if Stallings is the killer of one or
more of these girls in our story, well, then of course he is part of this story.
And I like him for this Janet Doe murder. Uh, At least. And it sounds like the police do, too. This is the one
where Well, no, but the the one that you just talked about. Um, I like him for the Eves murder and I also like him for
this unidentified girl, this Janet Doe murder. At least those two. Yeah, and I'll tell you why I like him for the
Janet Doe murder. And it sounds like the police do, too. They still have him in some interviews
I've heard to this date he's considered the number one suspect for Janet Doe. Here's the thought. Mhm. Um, and this is
what he has said in some of his confessions regarding Janet Doe. So, who was she? We we have no name. He says
that he picked he picked up a girl on the side of the road. Mhm. Uh, he said he says in his confession, "I don't know
her name. I didn't I didn't care what her name was. I pulled over to pick her up. I thought she was a working girl. It
turns out she was. When we got to talking, she was clearly a crack addict and she
wanted to smoke a bunch of crack, have some sex, and she said that she she tells him now, this is a very sick man,
so who knows what where the truth is in this. But, he says that she told him that she wanted to die during sex. What?
Yeah, and he says in his confession to these are just to high. This is just to reporters now, not
to police. He says, "Well, when she told me that, I thought, well, you've you've
bumped into the right guy." Baby, I'm your man. Well, he was looking for someone to kill according to
according to Stallings. And this is going to sound strange, but he worked for Robert Abel and he was technically
he says he was hired to be the foreman of Robert Abel's property. And for a time he lived in a mobile home or a
cabin. It's been referred to as both. But, this is the guy that can't string a fence. Right, but he he lived in one of
these places on what is labeled the Killing Field, you know, out near Robert Abel's property. And he said that
eventually he was fired by Robert Abel. He also says that Robert Abel was an evil man.
He when asked if Robert Abel put those bodies in the Killing Field and if Robert Abel killed them, Stallings
actually said he didn't know anything about those three murders. He didn't he didn't know that Robert Abel he said
Robert Abel would have been capable of killing women, but he didn't know if Robert Abel put those three women there.
We can't throw Abel under the bus with no evidence. Yeah, but he says that when he worked for Abel, Abel seemed to be
very concerned about the bodies popping up in the area, which I mean, I guess you're a business owner. Well, and any
regular person would be concerned about bodies popping up anywhere. Yeah, when they when that body was found, you know,
about a mile from my house in the park, I mean, that's all you can talk about or
think about. So. He said that when Robert Abel was being investigated to be this possible serial killer, Mhm. well,
he fired Stallings. And Stallings being a guy evil man anyway, he decided he was
going to he was going to get even with Robert Abel. So, he was looking for a girl to kill and he was going to place
her on his property. This guy is a real bucket of turds. Well, the other thing here, Captain,
evidence pointing toward maybe he did this Janet Doe murder, he got her description very accurate.
Um, with the exception of her age, he in his confession he states that he thinks
she might have been 20 years old where we have, you know, the the experts are saying she was more likely 24 to early
30s. Um, who knows, you know, with her with her being a drug addict, with being a crack addict like he said, if she was
in fact a crack addict, it may have been hard to determine age when he picked her
up on the side of the road. Well, he might have asked her, "How old are you?" "Oh, I'm 20." And and maybe,
you know, again, maybe she was closer to 30, but she knew, you know, as a sex worker or something
that, "Hey, if I say 20 that, you know, gets me more money or something. I don't
know." And personally, and I think you will agree with me here, Captain, I just don't get the vibe that Robert Abel was
involved in killing anybody. No. He worked for NASA. I mean, he was a smart guy. It makes it, um,
what Miller says is like, you know, this guy moved into the area. He bought land.
And a lot of this was it was after a divorce and he was trying to rebuild his life and then this happens. So, you got
to feel bad for I feel bad for him. Yeah, and we you and I were watching an interview with Tim Miller where he says,
you know, Robert Abel was a victim in this whole thing partly because of Tim Miller's doing.
But, you know, Tim Miller says he didn't kill anybody. And I'll tell you what, there was nobody pointing more fingers
at Robert Abel than Tim Miller. So, I I just I just don't in my my gut tells me Robert Abel did not kill anybody.
Yeah, and I think I misspoke and said he moved out of state. He I think he just moved within the state, but uh, Well,
it's a big state, so it feels like you moved a whole 'nother country. Right, it's a country on its own. Got to
love Texas. God bless Texas. We'll get right back to part three of the Killing Fields trilogy after this
quick beer break. And we're back. Cheers to everybody out there. Crystal Jean Baker, age 13. She lived
with her grandmother and on March 5th, 1996, this is after an argument with her grandmother, Crystal left the house. She
went off walking to a tire store where she asked to use the phone. Now, the people working there, they let her use
the phone, but she kind of abused the favor. Uh, she was there for a considerable amount of time and she
called several people. It's believed that she was looking for a ride to a friend's house in Bayou Vista, which is
a short distance from where she was. Well, then the workers at the store, they told her that she couldn't tie up
the phone line all day long, you know, she needed to move on. They have a business to run.
From there she went walking down the street. Uh, this is Texas Avenue in Texas City.
This is where she would be last seen. 5 hours later, her body was found under the I-10 bridge over Trinity River in
Chambers County. She had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and killed by ligature strangulation.
Now, her face was badly beaten. Um the closest highway to where she was last seen is the I-45.
They were able to collect some DNA from the body. Now, DNA at this point is still primitive, of course, but at this
point they made all of the proper precautions to collect DNA and preserve it for later.
But they had no eyewitnesses to her disappearance or her abduction. Mhm. So, like many of these other cases, the
police really had no leads to go on. And there's going to be another victim in April of 1997. Yeah, Laura Kate Smither,
she's just 12 years old. She lived with her father and stepmother. Now, Laura's mother had passed away years ago from
breast cancer when Laura was only about 2 years old. It took Laura's father some
time, but he eventually remarried, and he and his new wife had a baby. Laura's stepmother raised Laura as her own, as
her like her first child. Mhm. Uh Laura was aspiring to be a ballerina, um and even at the young age
of 12, she was into physical fitness. So, on the morning of April 3rd, '97, uh Laura went jogging near her home in
Friendswood, Texas. Uh again, this is near I-45. Uh she would go out jogging while her
parents made breakfast, and she would return in time to sit down with them for a nice meal. That was the typical
weekend thing, right? This doesn't seem like a place you want to let somebody go running.
Well, her parents made breakfast, and they waited for a while, and yet Laura had not returned.
17 days later, her body was found in 3 ft of water in a drainage pipe in a retention pond
in Pasadena near I-45. Mhm. She was nude except for tan socks and a ring. Uh she had been decapitated.
A dark-colored pickup was observed in the same area as where she was last seen. And a composite drawing was done
of this driver of the truck. So, at least we have a lead here. Yeah, and the thing here is, unlike most of these
other cases, there were some suspects in the beginning of this investigation. Now, police quickly started working on
one suspect in particular, and this is William Reese. Well, who is William Reese? He is a guy that 5 months, just 5
months before Laura disappeared, Reese was paroled out of an Oklahoma prison for serving 10 years of a 15-year
sentence for kidnapping and rape. On the day that she went missing, Reese was in the Smithers neighborhood working
as a bulldozer operator. Mhm. Due to weather that day, Reese was sent home. He sent off of the job site and sent
home for the day. This would be about the same time that Laura would have been out on her run.
Now, Reese was picked up for this, and he was polygraphed multiple times, but the results were always
inconclusive. The test administrator complained that Reese was not cooperating with the test. They tested
him multiple times, and they had the same problem over and over again. What William Reese was doing was during the
test, he would constantly cough. Uh he would be moving around and fidgeting during the test. And when they would ask
him to take the test again, he would just continue to do this time after time. Right. Results inconclusive.
Uh the police were going to continue to work on William Reese, but for now, they
didn't really have anything that would lead to an arrest. Well, it's like this double-edged sword.
He's willing to take the test, but he's not willing to like actually cooperate with them. A- And for Reese, it might
just be, you know, he's he's on parole. Uh you know, he might not have the opportunity to decide whether he wants
to cooperate or not. Um around 1:00 a.m. Now, this is on May 16th, just shortly after just a less than a month after or
sorry, just a little over a month after the disappearance of Laura Kate Smither,
Sandra Sapol stopped at a convenience store to use a payphone to call a friend. Now, Sandra planned to stay at a
motel that night. She had just split up with her boyfriend. Well, while on the phone, she noticed a man get out of a
white truck. He was wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, and a cowboy hat. She saw him watching her. Mhm. She
complained about the guy to her friend on the phone. After she was done chatting, she hung up
the phone, and she got in her van, and she pulled off onto NASA Road 1. She wasn't driving for too far when she
realized that she had a flat tire. So, she pulled off to the side of the road. Then
Convenient flat tire. Yeah, because then a truck stopped behind her. At first, she was thankful
because she didn't have any idea of how to change her tire, but she was quickly startled when she saw it was the man
from the convenience store parking lot. He came up, and he offered to help her, but she still had a really bad feeling
about this whole situation. While he prepared to change the tire, he asked Sandra to retrieve something from
his truck. He had left the door open on his truck, so she went up to the truck, and then she felt a knife to her throat.
He then forced her into the truck. He drove off with her, and after a while, they were heading north on I-45.
The man yelled threats at her and fondled her as he drove the truck. Now, Sandra realized the passenger door was
unlocked. So, she flung the door open, and she attempted to jump onto the highway that raced below her.
Instead, the man caught her by the blouse. She fought him as she was hanging out of the truck. Eventually,
her shirt ripped, and she fell to the pavement. Now, she's very badly hurt by this time, but she's going to have to
get up and run. The man slammed on the brakes. She heard the truck come to a stop, but then she
saw the headlights of an oncoming car. Now, she jumped in the middle of the road and waved her hands. Sandra was
able to give a very good description of the man after being saved by the passerby. Um she was able to give a good
description of the man and the truck. Uh she said the man was white, uh 5 ft 9, about 200 lb with dirty
blonde hair. Mhm. He had a mustache, and he had bags under his eyes. Uh she said
that the truck was a white dually truck. Paper or plastic? Uh and she stated that she believed that
the truck was probably a diesel and probably a Ford. Um eventually, Well, there's there's
your problem. Well, the thing here is, Captain, you know, she got very lucky to escape him
that night, and she got lucky that somebody was was driving on the street late that night to pick her up.
Well, after giving this great description, now we have several months of this investigation go by of this
possible abduction of Sandra. And police don't really have any leads on this, but
they have this description that was done with one of those Identikit systems that
they have. Right. Well, we have two law enforcement officers. They're meeting for lunch, and one of them is
investigating or has been investigating the Laura Kate Smither case. The other is investigating this possible abduction
of Sandra. Mhm. Well, they're kind of comparing notes, and they're talking about their open cases and the cases
that are most on their mind at this time. And it's through this lunch meeting that
the one law enforcement agent, she figures out that the person that she is looking for, she's looking for this
person that's just been described to her. Mhm. She figures out that it's the same guy
that is a suspect in this other case. And when you look at the picture, the real-life picture of this dude, and
compare it to the sketch, Mhm. Yeah, I mean, it rarely do you see it like this where it matches the guy to a T.
Well, later, um he is identified. We have William Reese. Uh this is the guy that was fidgeting
and coughing during the polygraph test. Now, he is identified by Sandra as her abductor, and identified by persons at
the convenience store as well as being the guy that hopped out of the truck and was watching her as she was on the
phone. Gotcha. That's right. Eventually, Reese was charged with aggravated kidnapping of Sandra. And the thing here
is, Now, is that going to be a life sentence? Um it took I don't Captain, I'm not certain about his prison
sentence on that one. Um he was found guilty. It did take several months, though, to connect Reese
to this abduction. That brings us to another person. This is Jessica Lee Cain. Uh she's age 17. Um
she is currently still missing. Yeah, Jessica was last seen leaving a Bennigan's. I've never been there and
never tried it. I guess it's a Is it still around? I I don't know, but it was a chain at one time. I think it
was one of those all-day breakfast places. I probably screwed that all up. Maybe not, but I I
hope it is. Well, she was there with friends at this Bennigan's restaurant in Webster, Texas,
and she would have left there about 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. Now, that seems awfully late for somebody who's just 17. Uh she
was an actress in a a school play and this was kind of like a cast party after the play
and this was like the one time that her parents changed her curfew so she could stay out late.
I I think I talked about this before showing my nerd side. I got pulled over for curfew one time.
Um the officer didn't believe us that we're coming from a orchestra competition.
And and both me and the driver were wearing tuxedos. I'm like, you think we did wear this on a Saturday night?
That's right. This is our McDonald's outfit. We just we just wanted to go to IHOP.
Well, this was on August 17th, 1997 when she was last seen. Okay, so she leaves, right? And about 2
hours later her truck is found along I-45. There was no signs of any type of struggle at all
and her truck was found to be operational. Um her wallet and keys were found inside the truck. There were
eyewitnesses that saw her walking from her parked truck toward a red Isuzu Amigo that was stopped behind her. But
other than this and and a sighting of a white truck being in the area, those were really the only two leads that
police had to work with. And it might have not been red, it might have been pink. Remember we had that buddy that
had a Isuzu Amigo. Yeah, and I don't know if it was pink, it would but it was definitely not red.
It was a strange I don't even know if they had a red like a solid red. Yeah, it was a strange color. But it but
you're right, it could have looked red or pinkish in the dark. Anyway, I want to jump back to
to somebody that we've talked about a lot here. Tim Miller, this is in 2005. We're going
to fast forward to 2005. Now, Tim Miller had been in Aruba with his EquuSearch Jamaica. Yeah, Aruba.
I want to take you. with his EquuSearch group. Now, he was there assisting with the search for missing high school
student 18-year-old Natalie Holloway who had vanished while on her way on a high school graduation trip. Don't
forget this Saturday, August 19th on the August Oxygen channel at 9:00 8:00 Central.
And he had been gone for quite some time. When he returned home, amongst other things that he returned home to, there
was a big pile of mail after all this time, right? He found a very strange letter. In this letter had words
these were letters and words that were cut out of magazines and newspapers. And on it there were demonic symbols and
the number 666 and a message that said, "Able is not the devil sought by the League City Blue Fuzz."
The key to the nightmare field of death, Tim Miller, it's me you're looking for.
I was the last man your Laura saw and many more. The police won't find me. More bodies and more bones to be found.
Now, regarding this strange letter that he gets, um a lot of the investigators believed
it to just be some kind of hoax. I think there's there's I just a hoax, it's coming from a real
dick face. Right. And the thing here is, Captain, Tim Miller I think has mixed emotions
about this letter. I think there are there are times where he agrees that it's probably a hoax and other times he
thinks he, you know, it it meant something and he knew who it could have been from.
Um but we we will get back to Tim Miller here in a bit because now our story takes us to September of 2010.
Um this is when a Louisiana welder is being held on $1 million bail after being charged in connection with the
1996 death of 13-year-old Texas City girl Crystal Jean Baker. She was one of the girls on our list in the killing
fields story. She is um the second one that we mentioned in this episode. Now, the thing here is, Texas
City Police Chief Robert Burby said that the arrest of Kevin Edison Smith was made through a DNA match. Smith was
arrested on his four on his 40th birthday. So, happy birthday, Kevin. Yeah, happy birthday, douchebag. Yeah,
he was arrested at work. And I think one one kind of thing that's funny here is when they went to pick this guy up, like
this is a different situation because when you go to pick up a suspect and you have to question them and you're you're
hoping to find evidence to get a conviction, that's much much different than this situation. They're going and
picking this guy up knowing that they have a conviction in their pocket. And they realize the officers realize
mean, it's not 100% but you have the DNA and that's normally a slam dunk. Normally a slam dunk. Yeah, so one of
the officers on the way to pick this guy up, he's at work when they pick him up.
One of the officers notices that it's his birthday that day. So so so when they're put when they're slapping the
cuffs on Kevin Edison Smith, one of the officers leaned in and said, "Happy birthday."
Gotcha. I like that guy. Gotcha. Yeah. Well, the the Texas City Police Chief said that DNA was collected from Smith
during a recent arrest and this was matched to DNA that they found at the murder scene
of the teen girl, the 13-year-old girl. He was arrested in Louisiana and he was arrested after being pulled
over for a traffic violation, just a simple traffic violation, but police found illegal prescription drugs in his
car. So, when he's arrested, they took his DNA, they put it on file. Sometime after
this, Crystal's clothing, remember we said that they had saved her items that we had primitive DNA testing back then,
they saved her items, her clothing and evidence from that, they preserved it. They were going back and looking for DNA
on these items and testing it over the years. Um and eventually they were able to pull DNA from this. Well, when they
entered it into the national database, a couple days later they get a callback saying
there's a match on the DNA that you sent in. And it turns out to be this Kevin Edison Smith. Right, our Kevin dick face
piece of [ __ ] However you want to say his name, it's up to you. However you want to pronounce it. But they get this
joker what, 14 years later? 14 years after he committed the murder. And we and we
have, you know, a decade 70s, 80s, 90s and a lot of these cases, I mean, we do have some leads or number one suspects,
but a lot of these cases we have no leads, we don't have any suspects. And and let alone a
conviction. So, here we get a conviction. Now, Kevin got lucky, I would say. His case was
eligible for the death penalty. However, the prosecutor chose to only go for life
in prison. Now, the prosecutor was not being lenient on Kevin by any means but stated
that they think he is possibly connected to several other murders from that area
and get this, from around the country and they needed to investigate him further. Um he's he's a guy that lived
in several different states over a short period of time. Right, their theory here is if we keep
him alive, then we can get him to talk more often. Um now, that brings us to the strange story of Edward Bell and the
11 that went to heaven. Edward Harold Bell, so he's a convicted murderer and he has claimed that he is
also a serial killer and he's behind the deaths of 11 girls from the from the 70s, the cases that we spoke about in
the 70s in part one of this trilogy. Right. Edward Harold Bell calls his victims the 11 that went to heaven.
He has given a chilling confession from his prison cell where he was serving a 70-year sentence for the murder of a
former Marine. This is Larry Dickens from back in 1978. Now, the way that this went down, Dickens
confronted Bell after he had exposed himself and began masturbating in front of a group of girls in Pasadena, Texas.
Mr. Dickens, he when he saw the girls frightened and saw what Bell was doing, he told his mother to call the police
and he was going to basically go out and beat this guy up and keep him there until the police arrived.
Right, good for him. Dickens was unaware that Bell was armed. Mr. Dickens' mother watched from her
house as Bell shot her son four times with a pistol and then shot him once again with a rifle.
Now, Bell was apprehended not far from the crime scene. He would claim that it was self-defense as that he was
attacked. Well, you were attacked cuz you're showing your dinghy. Well, he gets out on bail. Now, Bell went on the
run for 14 years before being caught in Panama in 1993 and jailed. He went to jail the
following year. You know, strange connection to last week's story that we did most wanted,
but Bell's Bell's case was featured on America's Most Wanted and I guess Matthew McConaughey played the
the Larry Dickens who was killed, the victim. Well, all right, all right, all right.
Harold Bell, he claims he was turned into a sex offender and killer by his father in a systematic program of abuse
and brainwashing. He also claims that his three ex-wives were part of this, quote-unquote, program.
Mhm. Now, Bell says he murdered 11 girls in Houston and the counties of Galveston, Webster, and Dickinson.
Five in 1971 and six more from 1974 to 1977, including 15-year-old Debbie Ackerman
and Maria Johnson who disappeared while hitchhiking in Texas in 1971. The two girls were shot as they stood
tied up half-naked in a river, says Bell. Their abductor tied them up, stripped them from the waist down, and left their
bodies in the river. At the time, Bell lived in an apartment on a beach and he had bought a surf shop that both of the
girls were have they were known to have visited. Right. And and that's the big thing here because a lot of people
confess to stuff. I mean, and and they didn't have no connection. Yeah. And he had details of how he shot
them and was able to describe the remote bridge where the bodies were recovered.
Bell also said he had killed a red-haired teenage girl named Pitchford that he called Pitchford after
kidnapping her near a mall. Now, that brings up the question, was this Kimberly Ray Pitchford, 16, who
disappeared after taking a driver's education class before her body was found in 1973? Probably most likely.
Bell also claims to not know the names of most of the girls that he killed, but in some cases he remembers the color of
their hair. Bell also owned a field near where two middle school students, Georgia Geer,
who was 14, and Brooks Bracewell, 12, where they were last seen in Dickinson, Texas in 1974.
Now, as we said, Bell was well, he was a well-known sex offender in the 1970s. He
was stopped by police at least a dozen times for masturbating and and flashing girls.
Most of the victims of this flashing and stuff that he did would have been about
11 to 16 years old. Somehow he was able to repeatedly avoid prosecution in those
cases. Bell sent That's ridiculous. Apparently, Bell sent prosecutors in Texas letters containing
his confession in 1998, but they remained a secret until 2011. Why? I don't know. You would have to ask the
investigators that. This was not information that they wanted to release for some reason. Senior investigators in
Galveston have believed for a long time that Bell was behind more crimes, but prosecutors have not pressed charges
because they do not believe they have enough evidence. Now, in excerpts from the letters obtained by the Houston
Chronicle, it has emerged that Bell claims a brainwashing program began by his father who forced him to be a
flasher, to rape girls, and to kill. Right, but that's also a common sign of like a psychopath is they don't accept
responsibility. They always put the blame on somebody else. As far as Bell goes, yeah, he had information on these
different murders, but a lot of the investigators have argued that the the information that he provided them was
all information that was in the newspapers at the time. It's been suggested that maybe he was looking up
the cases on the internet. Yeah, but you can't I mean, but he's the one that owned the
surf shop, right? Right. So, I mean, you can't make that stuff up. No, you can't
make that stuff up. And and one thing that people have argued, you know, when they say, well, all the information he
has is what was presented in the media. Well, they're saying, well, he's been locked up for a long time before he
chose to provide this information. And he's not because of his status, he does not have access to the internet. Mhm.
So, either he either he read the stuff in the newspaper and has a you know, an airtight memory and remembers all
this stuff, or he actually had some knowledge of these crimes. One thing that throws it off though, also, when
you have no evidence and he's making these strange claims about the program that brainwashed him and turned him into
a killer. Um Mhm. That really kind of turns those confessions on their side. We also need
to talk about Clyde Hedrick. He was someone we spoke about in part two. He was the one sentenced to 20 years in
prison for the 1984 beating death of Ellen Ray Beason. Um this he wasn't sentenced again for this until March of
2014. And since then, Hedrick has been linked to the murders of Heidi Fye and Laura
Miller and three unidentified women. Mhm. Prosecutors had planned to present evidence of Hedrick linking him to the
murders of Fye and Miller, but as of this date, he has not been charged with their deaths. He remains in the minds of
many to be the prime suspect in not only the deaths of Miller and Fye, but Jane Doe, who was found in the same area.
Someone involved in the case said that the problem is this, there's no shortage of women who describe Hedrick as an
absolute monster, but when it comes to the killing fields, is he the right monster?
Hedrick, it turned out, was a former neighbor of Tim Miller's. This is this is a strange connection here, Captain.
They pieced this together after 2014. They figured out that he was a former neighbor of Tim Miller's. They lived on
the same block in Dickinson. This was before the Millers moved to League City in 1984. Tim Miller said, you know,
he he he became a neighbor again, essentially, once they moved. And Tim Miller said that back from their days in
Dickinson, that Hedrick could have seen Laura every day. And given the kind of crowd that Laura had started to run
with, there's a chance that she may have known him. Now, Tim Miller believes Hedrick killed his daughter Laura. He
also believes that he killed Heidi Fye and Jane Doe. We also need to circle back to William Reece as well. Yeah,
because there's been an update on this suspect. This is coming from news that just came out this month. Experts say
that William Reece fits serial killer profile. This is from an article that came out on August 4th. So, we have it
states a Texas man suspected in cold case killings of two women and two girls 20 years ago fits the profile of a
serial killer because he chose his victims by gender and age and derived pleasure from the control he exerted
over them before they died. Criminal experts and law enforcement officials said this on Friday, August 4th, 2017.
Now, William Lewis Reece, 58, is charged with the deaths of 19-year-old Tiffany Johnson. Now, Tiffany Johnson's death
doesn't have anything to do with the Texas Killing Fields story. However, he's remained a suspect in some of these
other cases, and I'm happy to report that they are pressing charges against William Lewis Reece in the deaths of
17-year-old Jessica Cain and 12-year-old Laura Smither that we talked about today. Good. Hopefully, there's some
justice and closure for the families. Reece is also suspected of, but not charged with, the death of 20-year-old
Kelly Cox, whose remains were discovered outside of Houston and identified last year. Reece was already serving a
60-year prison sentence in Texas for kidnapping. You had asked earlier what prison sentence he got. Well, he got 60
years for this thing. He has led police to graves where Cain and Cox's remains were found. All four
victims disappeared over a 4-month period in 1997. Johnston was from Oklahoma, while the
other three were from Texas. Now, Oklahoma prosecutors announced on Thursday, August 3rd, that they would
seek the death penalty in the Johnston killing, and Reece has pled not guilty. He faces two more counts of murder in
Galveston County, southeast of Houston, but authorities say those charges in Texas are on hold pending the outcome of
Reece's Oklahoma trial. Right, but in that trial, they're going to find he was connected by DNA. Yeah,
and it seemed that that kind of blew the doors open on this investigation because
then we have him leading them to to the bodies of these two girls that they've not been able to find for decades. Yeah,
this case is so difficult cuz one, it spans '70s, '80s, '90s, but as we've seen,
we have we don't have a lot of convictions, but we have a lot of people that they look, some of these people are
guilty as sin. They just haven't been convicted. So, we have we have multiple we have a handful of killers. We have
we have um so many so many victims, but we have a handful of killers. We don't just have one. Well, and that's
ultimately what the Killing Fields has been about. Um you know, there have been people over the years that have argued
that this is all the work of one guy. And unfortunately, I think what we're seeing here is, you know, maybe it would
have been easier to crack this case and and save some lives along the way had that been the case, but I think what we
can see here, whether you believe some of these confessions or not, it doesn't matter, but but it's obvious that we
have the work of many different evil people in the same area. Well, right, but you can't argue with
the DNA evidence that that they have found. Yes, and that's what's great. That's the light at the end of this
tunnel. We have William Reece who's going to finally face charges in these old cold cases. We also have
Clyde Hedrick who could face charges at some point, and this will start taking these cases off of the books and giving
some people some much-needed closure. Well, yeah, and so the idea that there's this one boogeyman haunting the area
makes you wonder if this area somehow cursed in a way, or if there's some like what what is in the water down
there that is is causing all these killings. We may never know, but the nice thing is that we're finally getting
some answers to these cases and hopefully they'll continue to work them and we'll get the answers that we need.
Hope you guys enjoyed the Killing Fields trilogy. Thanks for listening and thanks
for telling a friend. That's right. And for everything True Crime Garage, make sure you visit truecrimegarage.com.
And until next time, be good, be kind, and don't litter.

Killing Fields Trilogy /// Part 3 of 3

Part 3 of 3

TrueCrimeGarage.com

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 details the Killing Fields cases from the 1990s, focusing on victims Crystal Baker, Laura Smither, and Jessica Cain, and suspects like William Reese.

Key points

The Killing Fields Trilogy. Exploring the dark history of The Killing Fields and the lives lost there.
Tim Miller's Transformation. From grief to action, Tim Miller founded Texas EquuSearch to help find missing persons.
Mark Stallings' Confession. A prison inmate claims to have killed multiple women linked to The Killing Fields.
The Janet Doe Murder. Stallings is the number one suspect in the Janet Doe murder case.
Crystal Jean Baker's Tragic End. Crystal, age 13, was last seen after leaving her grandmother's house.
Laura Kate Smither's Disappearance. Laura, age 12, went jogging and was found dead 17 days later.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Today we are going to get some answers.

4:27WatchDec 4, 2022

Tension

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