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00:01:06
this is true crime garage and this is The Killing Fields [Music] trilogy [Music]
00:01:58
oh [Music] part two the 1980s the 1970s were nothing less than tragic for the gaveston area as the dead
00:02:14
bodies and number of missing girls just kept adding up there was an arrest and a
00:02:19
conviction yet the murders continued but still there was hope as the 1970s were drawing to a close the
00:02:27
murders and the finding of bodies seemed to be tapering off Suzanne Bowers was the last of far too many victims of the
00:02:35
70s and she was last seen in 1977 the murder cases had gone Cold and The Killing Fields were silent but they
00:02:44
weren't empty the 1980s were Upon Us time for a fresh start time for a new beginning
00:02:52
October 1983 Heidi Fay was 23 years old she left her parents house to go see her boy
00:02:59
boyfriend she didn't have a ride so she chose to hitchhike which would prove to be a fatal
00:03:05
mistake almost a year later another young lady from League City Texas would go missing this time it's 16-year-old
00:03:13
Laura Miller some eyewitness Reports say Laura may have been last spotted at the
00:03:18
same convenience store where Heidi was last seen next was 19-year-old Shelly Sykes whose blue Pinto was found
00:03:25
abandoned on I45 in May of 1986 Suzanne Renee Richardson from galston was last seen on October 7th
00:03:36
1988 combine these with the bodies of two Jane does both found in the killing field both unclaimed and
00:03:45
unidentified the fields were not silent anymore many nights Lura Miller's Father
00:03:50
Tim would go to The Killing Fields sitting alone in the dark listening to The Whispers In The Wind and waiting for
00:03:58
his daughter's killer some nights he cried some he yelled and screamed and once in a while he
00:04:06
slept the victims of the Killing Fields refused to be quiet and one by one they were
00:04:12
located these are their [Music] stories [Music] in October of 1983 25-year-old Heidi fi
00:04:44
she along with her six-year-old daughter were staying at her parents house for a
00:04:48
while on the evening of October 7th Heidi's father and a friend were watching a baseball game she told her
00:04:55
father that she was going to go into town to see her boyfriend she she thought that she could hitch a ride from
00:05:01
someone at a nearby convenience store so she walked down to the store located on
00:05:06
the corner of Hobs Road in West Main Street this is quite near I45 well Heidi never made it to see her
00:05:13
boyfriend later the boyfriend called the house to talk to Heidi but learned that
00:05:18
she was not there instead he ends up telling her parents that he had not heard from her so her father went out
00:05:24
looking for her and he started with the convenience store he spoke to the clerk now to be clear this is a gas station
00:05:31
SLC convenience store so he spoke with the clerk and she remembered seeing Heidi and told heid's father that she
00:05:38
had used the pay phone outside and then she had seen Heidi walk away 6 months later in April of 1984 at
00:05:47
a home off of CER Road this is a very rural area we have parents sitting on their front porch watching their toddler
00:05:55
play in the front yard yeah as they watch their toddler play they're going to see their dog come out out of the
00:05:59
woods and the dog's going to have something in its mouth yeah at first the parents thought that perhaps the dog had
00:06:05
found a ball or something that someone had left behind in the woods well it wasn't until the dog got closer that
00:06:11
they realized that this was not a ball in fact it was a skull the dog had brought it to the front yard and then
00:06:18
dropped it near the toddler the police were called and they searched the area and about 300 yard from the house police
00:06:27
found the skeleton of Heidi fi the skeleton is going to be found underneath a tree lying on its back yes this is in
00:06:34
the area near the colder oil field they found her clothing in a necklace of hers
00:06:40
nearby the medical examiner could not determine the cause of death now she did have some broken ribs so it's been often
00:06:48
speculated that she most likely would beat to death yeah and her remains are going to be found in a location later
00:06:54
named The Killing Fields 30-year-old Ellen Ray B who was last seen alive July 1984 uh she was last seen drinking with
00:07:04
a guy named Clyde hendrik at a League City nightclub now Clyde hendrik was there with her but there was also
00:07:10
another couple and this couple was not super close with Clyde but the woman knew Ellen B well and all of them all
00:07:19
four of them had been part of the same little group that hung out at this nightclub you know most nights they
00:07:25
would be there after work drinking since B and hendrik were still drinking when the couple had left uh eventually she
00:07:34
had lost touch with her friend and not seen her friend in some time so she started to nag hendrik Kyle hendrik when
00:07:40
he would when she would see him at the nightclub you know what happened to what happened to be what happened to my
00:07:47
friend where what did you guys do that night she was pressing Clyde hendrik to tell her if he knew anything uh the
00:07:53
woman says that hendrik denied any knowledge of what could have happened to Ellen B uh but she wasn't convinced so
00:08:01
she figured that if she got him drunk well then he might talk now this turns out her idea worked MH on a rainy
00:08:09
November night this is 4 months after B vanished Henrik told the woman that he could take her to where B was so she got
00:08:19
in the car with him oh well that doesn't this seems like a bad idea yeah well hendrik took her down old Galviston
00:08:27
Highway and pulled over into a stretch of woods not far from some railroad tracks mhm uh he then grabbed a
00:08:34
flashlight and the woman followed him down to a ravine that served as a dump for discarded Furniture appliances tires
00:08:41
and old junk he led her to what news reports have consistently called a couch once there he aimed the light toward a
00:08:49
nearly fleshless corpse at first the woman couldn't tell if it was really her friend hendrik gave the body a little
00:08:57
kick and when he did this the body shifted a bit and now the woman could see something she recognized around the
00:09:04
neck of the body this was a necklace one that she had given to B yeah and at this
00:09:09
point Hedrick is going to tell her a story and then he's later going to tell this same story to the police The Story
00:09:15
Goes Like This he says that he and B left the Texas Moon club that night in July 1984 and headed toward an abandoned
00:09:24
sand pit in Dickinson that served as a popular swimming hole mhm B slipped out of her clothes and into the water while
00:09:32
hendrik smoked a joint in his truck then he noticed that his truck had got stuck
00:09:37
on the way out to the swimming hole so he worked on this truck getting it out while B continued to swim after a while
00:09:44
he saw that B's body was floating in the swimming hole so he pulled her body from
00:09:50
the water he administered CPR but she was still unresponsive so Hedrick carried her to his truck and he headed
00:09:58
toward the hosital hospital but then he panicked and feared that he might be accused of killing her so he took her to
00:10:06
the spot that we just described and placed the couch on top of her pedrick made one thing clear to this woman
00:10:14
though he stated you know I hadn't killed B but I wouldn't think twice about killing you if you told anyone wow
00:10:22
so uh kind of a sign of guilty well this began in 8 months of hell for this woman
00:10:29
the woman said that hendrik stalked her uh he turned up at the same stores when it was clear that he was he wasn't there
00:10:36
to shop um she would come home and find a piece of paper stuck in the screen door with a big c written on it uh she
00:10:45
says this is Clyde hedrick's calling card uh and even worse she said that sometimes she would come home and her
00:10:52
two little boys well they would then tell her that a man had come by so whatever HRI wanted she gave him during
00:11:00
this time for you know she was fearing for her kids lives finally on a night when her boys were visiting family out
00:11:08
of town she decided to tell Hedrick she was done and she told him if you want to
00:11:13
kill me go ahead and kill me because I'm not playing your game anymore uh the next day she led police to Bon's body
00:11:20
right and at first hedrick's story makes some sense right some logical sense you
00:11:26
know we were swimming uh she drowned I tried BR I was taking her to the hospital I freaked out M where it gets a
00:11:33
little weird for me is once he tells the friend and then he starts basically threatening her yeah um and part of me
00:11:41
as the friend would be going why would I be fearful of you if I believe his story
00:11:48
why would I be fearful of him he didn't kill this girl it was an accident so chances are he's not going to kill me
00:11:55
well of course the police and the prosecutors had trouble buying hedrick's story about B's death you know the
00:12:02
skinny dipping related death uh but the galvaston County Medical Examiner found no evidence of Foul Play when he
00:12:11
examined the body uh so Hedrick was he was charged uh and ultimately convicted of a misdemeanor of abusing a corpse he
00:12:20
was sentenced to a year behind bars but uh the interesting thing here is while Hedrick was incarcerated right
00:12:28
investigators with the galston County Sheriff's Office The League City police department and the FBI continued to
00:12:37
probe the circumstances of Ellen B's death in September of 1984 we have Tim Miller his wife and
00:12:45
16-year-old daughter Laura Miller they had recently moved into a home in League City Texas in search of a fresh new
00:12:53
start for young Laura although they were they were from a town that was not too far away uh a new school is what the
00:12:59
family was in search of and they believed that League City Texas had just the school and a Cozy home for them for
00:13:06
this Fresh Start yeah you see that all all the time Laura suffered from seizures uh for most of her life this
00:13:12
caused some trouble for her at school she was different from the other kids and couldn't hide it because the
00:13:18
seizures although infrequent seem to come at inopportune times Laura was pretty and very likable so she had no
00:13:26
trouble fitting in in that sense but her parents believe the uncontrollable episodes first started affecting her
00:13:31
schoolwork and then later her choice of friends a lot of the other kids parents were afraid to have Laura visit their
00:13:38
home they especially did not want her to stay the night right worried that they would not know what to do if she
00:13:44
suffered a seizure at their home and a lot of the kids didn't want to stay at Laura's home as the seizures were just
00:13:51
something that that most kids and teenagers didn't understand and of course we tend to be afraid of things
00:13:56
that we don't understand uh I'll give you an example of a situation this poor young girl had to go through when Laura
00:14:03
was about 11 or 12 she was in the choir at her school and everyone knows that the choir always puts on a good
00:14:10
presentation some you know at Christmas time for the parents and students to celebrate the holiday season well they
00:14:16
put on a presentation we don't know if it's good oh they're all good um they're most of the time not Laura was selected
00:14:24
for a solo and she had a seizure during her solo uh she was not in the choir for
00:14:32
much longer after that the Miller family was stuck they were still unpacking at their new home they weren't quite
00:14:39
settled into their new home yet and this is September 10th Laura asked her mother
00:14:44
for a favor The Miller's home phone was not yet set up and she was missing some of her old friends and especially her
00:14:52
boyfriend and wanted to talk to them and tell them about her new home and school
00:14:56
so Laura asked her mother if she could take her to a nearby pay phone so she could make a couple of calls Laura's
00:15:03
mother agreed they went to the gas station convenience store this is on the corner of Hobbs in Maine same one mhm
00:15:11
where Laura would use the outdoor pay phone to reconnect with some of her old friends Laura's mother waited in the car
00:15:19
now after some time had passed it was time to leave Laura's mother had to go to work Laura begged her mother to let
00:15:26
her stay reminding her that she is 16 years old and the gas station was only about a mile from their home and she
00:15:33
could walk home Laura's mother agreed and after giving her daughter a few more quarters she waved goodbye and was on
00:15:39
her way to work later that night when Laura's Father Tim got home from work he was surprised to see his daughter was
00:15:47
not at the house as he waited for her to return he grew more nervous and decided
00:15:52
to hop in his truck and go to a pay phone and check in with his wife maybe she had you know given l permission to
00:15:59
go somewhere right um You can imagine how his nervousness though quickly changed to confusion and fear when he
00:16:06
phones his wife and learned that she had left Laura alone at the gas station pay
00:16:12
phone Tim raced to the actual gas station that they were talking about and he spoke with the clerk the clerk had
00:16:19
not seen Laura didn't know where she was uh the night came and went and then the
00:16:25
following day Tim drove to the League City Police Department and filed a missing person's report when the officer
00:16:32
learned that Laura and her family had recently moved the officer assured Tim that the girl had simply taken off with
00:16:38
some friends and this sort of thing happens all the time and it would only be a matter of time before she would
00:16:44
turn up yeah that's your lazy answer the next night came and went and by now Laura's parents knew in their gut that
00:16:52
Laura wouldn't have run away or just taken off for a while and they truly feared that she may have suffered a
00:16:59
seizure somewhere or she could have been injured and unable to seek help you know
00:17:04
their minds raced from thought to thought as they tried to figure out what could have happened to Laura as the
00:17:10
weeks went by they began to lose any sense of hope then Tim Miller heard something that shook him to his core he
00:17:18
learned that just a few months before the Miller family moved to League City a dog had dug up a human skull in an area
00:17:24
off a cder road in League City leading the police to the of what turned out to be 25-year-old woman who had disappeared
00:17:32
in October of 1983 Heidi fi lived with her parents as we had said but this was just about three blocks away from The
00:17:40
Miller's new home right three blocks away they're also going to come to the realization that she used the same pay
00:17:47
phone at the same convenience store that their their daughter used yes and so Tim
00:17:51
Miller is more than disturbed by The Coincidence soon after Tim had a feeling that he wasn't really searching for
00:17:59
Laura but searching for her body Miller Miller again went to the League City police department and this time he asked
00:18:06
a detective if they' searched for Laura in the field where Heidi fi's body was found all that had been reported was
00:18:14
that fi was found in the 3000 block of Calder road so Tim didn't have an exact address or exact location of where this
00:18:21
body was found right now the detective's response a a dismissive eye roll and he
00:18:28
gave Tim a theory the detective said that Heidi fi worked at a bar she was a cocktail waitress some guy probably took
00:18:36
her out after closing time she wouldn't consent to sex there was a struggle and the guy killed her and dumped her Heidi
00:18:42
fi's murder as far as he was concerned was an isolated incident even though we saw her at the pay phone at the
00:18:49
convenience store mhm so so he's just making up random stuff you're going to be a lazy pile of dog dookie right
00:18:58
don't be a cop okay in the days and weeks that followed Miller hounded the detectives he urged them to search the
00:19:06
field for Laura or at least give him the exact location so he could search the field himself they told him to let them
00:19:13
do their job and not to contact fi's family as the months then turned into a year Tim and his wife Jan Miller they
00:19:21
were not dealing well with Laura's disappearance Tim began drinking quite heavily and then 17 months after Laura
00:19:29
went missing Tim checked himself into a hospital that same day in February of 1986 kids riding dirt bikes through the
00:19:37
fields off of CER Road smelled something rotten and they called the police this turned out to be the skeleton of a woman
00:19:45
um possibly 25 years old who had been shot in the back uh possibly from a 22 caliber weapon there was a bullet hole
00:19:55
in her spine her body would have been dumped in the field within the previous 6 weeks uh she was described as I said
00:20:03
as 25 years old 5'5 to 5' 8 in tall 140 to 160 lb she had reddish brown hair and
00:20:13
a distinct gap in her teeth uh she was lying about 200 ft from where Heidi fi had been found they could tell that she
00:20:22
was too old to be Laura Miller uh police had nothing to identify this woman and she had she had not been there long
00:20:30
enough to be any of the other older missing women cases that we've had despite many efforts she has never been
00:20:38
identified and is known today simply as Jane Doe then while the police were searching
00:20:45
for more clues in this case they came upon another body just 20 yards away from Jane Doe the other body was
00:20:52
identified as 16-year-old Laura Miller no longer was she missing and turn turn out her father had been right right the
00:21:00
medical examiner was unable to determine how or when Laura was killed now there there were three victims all found in
00:21:09
that same area all had been killed and then placed there in less than a three-year time span they were all found
00:21:16
lying on their backs and underneath of a tree someone had placed them there lying
00:21:21
them out like they had simply gone to sleep forever under a tree yeah but you wonder if that means something the cases
00:21:29
the causes of death were not considered the same Heidi had most likely been Beat
00:21:34
to Death Jane do died of a gunshot and lore's cause of death was unknown all three victims were white with shoulder
00:21:41
length brown hair brownish hair uh Tim Miller's emotions turned to anger uh when asked about the bodies being found
00:21:50
in the field Tim Miller told the newspapers Jane do was killed and place there after Laura maybe if the police
00:21:56
had done their jobs Jane Doe may not have been killed and he said that he blames the Jane Doe's death on the
00:22:05
police yeah it's tough I mean with not every case do I want the parents or or the loved ones of the victims to go
00:22:13
after the cops but some of these cases just seems so ridiculous and and again these lazy answers and this lazy uh
00:22:20
police work you know maybe they are responsible for Jane Do's death well Tim was not only angry with the police but
00:22:27
he was angry with himself you know Laura was his daughter and he believed he was
00:22:31
supposed to protect her he was also filled with guilt because he knew he should not have listened to the police
00:22:39
he should he believed he should have gone against them and went to the fields and searched for his daughter or talk to
00:22:44
the other you know victim's parents mhm well if so he may have found her a long time ago and who knows what evidence
00:22:51
would have come with that right a couple of months just before Christmas in 1986
00:22:57
Tim his wife wife Jan and their only other daughter this is uh her name is Wendy went to the location in the field
00:23:04
where Laura's body was found Tim had constructed a large wooden cross uh they brought it to the spot um now where she
00:23:12
was found there is a cross uh the Millers believe that Laura should have two graves uh one of them being of their
00:23:20
choosing and one in the field where she was found and the other thing we have to
00:23:25
keep in mind here Captain is that at this time the police they had laur's remains and they would not release them
00:23:32
to the family for about three years wow so you know the family needed something and it takes you it takes you three
00:23:40
years to do autopsy and get all the information you need well and the family they believe that Laura deserved a
00:23:46
resting place even in the meantime um the family planted a tree at this location and place some sentimental
00:23:53
items around the cross uh but this would not be the last time uh or the last visit to the fields
00:24:00
because for Tim Miller this area became sacred ground yeah this guy becomes I mean just he he almost acts like
00:24:09
somebody in a movie what you imagine you would act like if this tragedy ever happened to your family well he was
00:24:17
going to try to bury his pain and anger in the same field where Loris killer had
00:24:21
left her right Tim thought that the secret to finding his daughter's killer was the area you know the the location
00:24:29
that they are now calling the killing field now let's talk about the name here for a second the name came from a movie
00:24:34
that came out around this same time called The Killing Fields uh but it had nothing to do with the murders down in
00:24:41
Texas this was about finding Mass graves in Cambodia after the Texas murder land
00:24:47
near CER field received the name the Texas Killing Field the murders gain national attention uh the killings along
00:24:55
I5 the Galviston serial killer and the Killing Fields were now big news it's just a shame that the big news didn't
00:25:01
come with big results we'll get right back to part two of The Killing Fields Trilogy right after this quick beer
00:25:09
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Cellular when Freedom calls we're here to answer call us at 1888 [Music] Freedom all right cheers mates thanks
00:27:26
for uh joining us in the garage well captain now we have new detectives looking at these three new murders and
00:27:34
the reason why we have new detectives is just like we said yesterday you know eventually our story the victims in this
00:27:40
story will span the course of Three Counties and we will have many different police and Sheriff's departments
00:27:46
investigating these murders M so the new detectives that are looking for answers
00:27:51
in the three killing field murders they were hindered by one of the same problems that plagued most of the
00:27:57
investig ations into the murders that took place in the 70s the bodies sat there for quite some time and evidence
00:28:03
was lost hairs fibers fingerprints tire and shoe tracks all washed away but the victims in the 80s presented another
00:28:13
problem in all three cases police were certain all three had been killed elsewhere and then brought and dumped in
00:28:19
the field several investigators pointed out that they didn't have a crime scene to deduce what had occurred or who was
00:28:27
to blow blame for the bodies they only had bodies to look at no crime scene well let's talk a little bit more about
00:28:32
Tim Miller the father of Laura Miller yeah he began spending most of his time in the field where Laura's body was
00:28:38
found in the evenings after work when it was still daylight he would search the field looking for Clues looking for
00:28:45
anything sometimes he did this on foot other times on Horseback after dark Tim would sit in the field or in his truck
00:28:53
drinking beer and smoking cigarettes Tim believed that laur's killer would returned to the field one night and if
00:28:59
he did well Tim would be there and Tim could get the guy's plate number or confront him or maybe even kill him and
00:29:06
leave him there in the field well I believe he was out there with with a gun yeah many nights uh Tim stayed in the
00:29:14
oil field all in the field all night uh sometimes cursing the killer sometimes cursing God and at sometimes even
00:29:21
cursing Laura uh Tim would cry out to the killer asking him why doesn't he come out into the field and kill him or
00:29:29
at least try to on some occasions as you said Tim brought his gun with him sometimes this was for protection other
00:29:36
times might be to kill the man that killed his daughter on one of these nights uh whether it was out of anger or
00:29:43
if it was simply an experiment only Tim might know for sure but Tim pointed his gun to the sky and he pulled the trigger
00:29:51
until it was out of bullets well then he waited and he waited and yet no one came
00:29:58
not the police not anyone at all and you know he started to wonder did anyone hear did they even hear the shots that
00:30:05
he fired that night Tim doesn't think so well and you wonder how much of this is
00:30:10
also just I mean he's heavily drinking mhm you know is he is he uh make believe in any of this is he falling asleep and
00:30:18
having any odd dreams about him being out there what was real and what was uh what was fictitious and all this
00:30:26
drinking and anger turned into more drinking and then the addition of drugs and grief Tim lost his job and his
00:30:33
marriage Tim and Jan's marriage started to fall apart when Laura disappeared and
00:30:38
it only got worse after they found her body there was a lot of arguing and at times they blamed each other for what
00:30:45
happened maybe if they hadn't moved to a new home or maybe if Jan hadn't left lore at the gas station maybe if Tim was
00:30:52
more understanding none of this would have happened they didn't just blame each other they they blame themselves
00:30:58
and all this would prove to be too much right and like we've talked about before
00:31:03
the success rate of a marriage goes down by tons of percentage once you lose a child all right we have to back up here
00:31:11
just a little bit Captain to Memorial Day Weekend 1986 uh and introduce 19-year-old Shelly
00:31:18
Sykes Shelly attended the University of Texas she had a boyfriend in a job she was a waitress at a very busy and very
00:31:26
popular seafood restaurant in galvaston this is one of those no nothing like that this is one
00:31:33
of those places that everyone says you have to try and if you are just visiting the island for a long weekend to enjoy
00:31:40
the beach well Long John silers this is a place that is a must stop before you go home I guess this restaurant's been
00:31:46
around since like 1911 or something like that but anyway shell worked at this place now her father and her boyfriend
00:31:54
didn't love Shelly working on galeston they both kind of thought the place to be a bit of
00:31:59
a a Sin City you know everyone travels there for fun in the sun uh there's lots of drinking lots of parties and let's
00:32:07
not forget shelle's father uh would be old enough to remember all of the horror stories about all the murdered and
00:32:14
missing women and girls from the 70s so shell was there working late uh she left
00:32:21
work around 11:30 p.m. that night after clocking out shell went out to the parking lot and hopped in her 1980 blue
00:32:29
Ford Pinto uh she lived with her father and stepmother and would typically get home around midnight on these late night
00:32:36
shifts and hang out with her father for a bit for some late night TV before turning in well on this night her father
00:32:43
was out of town on a trip with some friends so shell after work intended to drive out to her boyfriend's house to
00:32:50
watch some movies well after more than enough time had passed for Shell to arrive her boyfriend Mark became
00:32:57
concerned Mark called the restaurant and spoke with a coworker of Shell's only to
00:33:02
hear what he had expected that shell had left a long time ago worried shell may have had some car trouble of sorts uh
00:33:10
Mark then drove from his house to the restaurant and back when he got back to his house he asked his father to go with
00:33:17
him and search for Shelly in the blue Ford Pinto once again they tried to retrace Shell's route isn't that crazy
00:33:24
that's what we used to have to do 80 and '90s you know before cell phones you just you know you'd have you you'd have
00:33:32
that Gap when you went from one place to another place there' be be that Gap in time where now it's like you could make
00:33:39
a cell phone call well this time what they were going to do they were going to have uh Mark's father he would drive
00:33:45
while Mark he would keep his eyes glued to the sides of the highway looking for her vehicle eventually Mark spotted the
00:33:53
car Mark pointed out the vehicle to his father and they approached the vehicle uh they could see that the dome light
00:34:00
was on inside of her car all of the doors were closed they hopped out of their vehicle and ran up to the car now
00:34:07
the first thing that they noticed is that the driver's side window had been smashed and there was glass on the
00:34:13
outside of the car and more lying on the inside and it makes you start to wonder
00:34:17
you know did Shelly have car problems park the car leave the car maybe start walking and somebody came by and uh
00:34:25
tried to break into the car the two men noticed blood uh this is blood on the glass and blood on the car door they
00:34:32
notified authorities Shell's father who was out of town uh he was notified as well police arrived on the scene and
00:34:40
Shell's father he was racing toward galvaston to try to figure out what had happened to his daughter and her car now
00:34:47
shelle's boyfriend and his father noticed that the responders uh to the situation they were concerned that there
00:34:54
had been a car accident the officers took report and they asked Mark if he wanted to get the car off the road and
00:35:02
return it to Shell's home now Mark he's the boyfriend his father stepped in he interrupted the officer explaining that
00:35:10
he was convinced that there had not been a traffic accident at all he believed that something awful may have happened
00:35:15
and he told them that he would not be taking the car anywhere he wanted the officer to have the car picked up by one
00:35:23
of you know somebody with the police department right so they can investigate the car and secure the car and then
00:35:29
search it for evidence um after some convincing the officers agreed to do this oh they decided to do their job
00:35:37
well now the following day at the police department some people came forward having seen the blue Pinto involved in
00:35:44
some strange and alarming activity the prior night uh first was a couple of drivers from two different cars that had
00:35:52
seen the pinto uh they told officers that they had witnessed the pinto in a brief but dangerous car chase Shell's
00:35:59
car was being chased by a pickup truck after the truck pursued the vehicle and forced it to the side of the road A man
00:36:08
jumped out of the truck and pulled his shirt off he then wrapped the shirt around his fist and he began pounding
00:36:14
and punching the driver's side window until he smashed it the man then reached through the broken glass and into the
00:36:21
car and pulled Shelly through the window and out of the car Jesus shell fought the man and grabbed at the car window as
00:36:29
the man carried her Kicking and Screaming back to his truck one of the witnesses said something to the man uh
00:36:37
and I don't need to use any of the language that the man used that night you want me to use it but but basically
00:36:44
he told them uh that what they had witnessed was some kind of domestic dispute uh it was none of their business
00:36:50
and they should leave um when the witness started to speak to the man again the man then motioned at as though
00:36:57
he was going to pull out a gun so the witnesses left uh a composite drawing was made of this suspect but neither of
00:37:06
the witnesses got a plate number from this guy's truck um so of course the police they're investigating this crime
00:37:14
but they they don't have a whole lot to go on well they start investigating Shell's boyfriend of course Mark um and
00:37:21
he did cooperate uh in the investigation he offered to assist them as much as he
00:37:26
could in the investigation now after some time had went by on this case uh Shell's father in a moment of
00:37:33
desperation he picked up the phone and he called John Walsh now at this time John Walsh was a bit of you know he was
00:37:41
an advocate for missing persons uh he had not become a TV personality by this point uh but he called John Walsh and he
00:37:49
asked him for advice you know I'm looking for my daughter what can I do John Walsh told him do do whatever you
00:37:57
can to keep this case in the media if you keep the case in the media you keep it alive in the newspapers and you keep
00:38:04
the police officers out of the coffee shops and you keep them on the streets doing their job right well after a while
00:38:12
into the investigation police eventually got another eyewitness this time the eyewitness backed up the two previous
00:38:20
eyewitness statements but added a bit of a Twist this eyewitness had seen another
00:38:25
man inside the pickup truck right that would make sense after more than 8 months uh nothing seemed to be happening
00:38:33
with the case they were running out of leads the family wasn't getting any answers and then in another moment of
00:38:39
desperation again Shell's father picked up the phone this time he called the FBI
00:38:45
he spoke with the supervising agent um and he said you know have you let me tell you about my daughter that went
00:38:52
missing and nothing seems to be happening with this case he asked the man do you have any kids and the kid guy
00:38:58
said yes and he said have you ever been in a shopping mall or been in a grocery store and you turn around and and your
00:39:06
kid has disappeared and that moment of fear and nervousness that just takes over your body and he said yes of course
00:39:15
he says well I've been doing this for nine I've been doing this for eight months for eight months I've had this
00:39:20
feeling I've been looking for my daughter so the FBI eventually sends out to investigators to help the local
00:39:30
officers in their search for Shelly uh and still the investigation kind of drags on with really no new information
00:39:39
as the one-year anniversary approached of Shelly syes disappearance the family refused to give up hope uh they started
00:39:46
pushing local newspapers to carry the story again they started putting up Billboards seeking information and they
00:39:53
put out more flyers by this time they had put out like 300,000 Flyers looking for their daughter well then one month
00:40:01
later something happened this is on June 22nd 1987 a man called 911 begging for help
00:40:09
uh the man was staying in a hotel and he had tried to hang himself and he had also slit his wrist uh when the police
00:40:17
arrived they found two suicide notes in one of the notes the man wrote that he was involved in the kidnapping of Shelly
00:40:25
Sykes the man was 29-year-old John King King was taken to the hospital and the next day he was interviewed by the
00:40:33
police at the hospital now King not only implicated himself but implicated a friend of his as having been involved in
00:40:41
the kidnapping as well and this is Gerald zwarst after King was released from the hospital he was interviewed
00:40:49
again this time at Police Headquarters and the interview would be videotaped when asked about the night that the girl
00:40:56
had gone missing King told the investigators that he and zwarst had been out fishing all day they were
00:41:02
drinking smoking pot and PCP that night well there's your problem around midnight they were driving off of
00:41:09
galston Island when they spotted a young girl driving in her car well they gestured at her the men were
00:41:17
were now following her car pulling up next to her and trying to flirt with Shelly eventually Shelly gave the men
00:41:24
the bird and tried to feet away from them King told the cops that zwarst was driving and that he just went crazy he
00:41:31
forced the girl off of the road and the busted out her window now sounds like some Wayne Brady stuff King wasn't able
00:41:40
to give really great detailed information or maybe he was and he was just withholding it um but he claimed
00:41:48
that he was extremely high and drunk that night and he was in a bit of a drug and alcohol Haze through this whole deal
00:41:56
hay said that the men took Shelly to king's parents house and took her uh back to the woods behind the house King
00:42:04
said that zwarst then took a shovel and Shelly into the woods King didn't know how long they were gone but Shelly
00:42:12
didn't come back right so Shell's remains should be you know on this guy's property and the thing here is Captain
00:42:18
King wasn't really certain how shell had died or at least he couldn't tell investigators how she had died he said
00:42:25
that maybe she was hit with the shovel or maybe she was buried alive um basically what ends up coming this comes
00:42:33
down to is we have two guys picked up for this and ultimately they would just simply blame one another they both
00:42:41
admitted to being together that night they both admitted to chasing her car and pulling her out of the vehicle but
00:42:49
when it came to the actual events of what happened once she was in the truck or once they got back to King's property
00:42:56
um they they differed on their stories of who was to blame and whose idea it was to to kill the girl there was a lot
00:43:04
of problems with this case because one thing that happened was it seemed like the guys or at least one of the guys was
00:43:12
willing to lead the police to the body of Shelly Sykes the problem Captain was that they
00:43:19
both lawyered up and once they lawyered up they were no longer willing to lead them to the body police went out there
00:43:27
and I mean they they searched with everything that they could anything that you could think of all means uh they
00:43:33
never found Shelley Sykes body what eventually happened was the two men were charged with kidnapping but they were
00:43:40
not charged with murder and I think you know that's a bit of a let down but in a
00:43:46
way I think it's a bit of a brilliant move by the prosecutor because at that time in Texas
00:43:53
as far as murder and kidnapping went they both carried pretty much the same punishment right and here here's was the
00:44:01
prosecutor's thought was this you know without a body and now I have two guys blaming one another uh who are going to
00:44:09
be in separate trials it's going to be hard to get a murder conviction now of course they do have the death penalty
00:44:16
for capital murder down there but the problem is you know if you can't get the death penalty then you're looking at a
00:44:23
life sentence well kidnapping carries the same punishment carries a life sentence yeah so he thought you know
00:44:29
what let's let's do this let's go after kidnapping because they had a solid Surefire win case when it came to
00:44:37
kidnapping they had a very weak case when it came to a situation of murder charged them with kidnapping got the
00:44:43
conviction and then the thought is this if the body is ever recovered if they do
00:44:48
find it eventually then they could potentially go back and seek the death penalty against one or both of these
00:44:54
guys so we got these two two clowns we got zor and King right and we know that they're responsible for her kidnapping
00:45:02
we both agree they're responsible for her murder as well 100% And so what's weird about The Killing Fields is that
00:45:09
there is this you know huge timeline for one right right we got 70s 80s '90s and
00:45:16
then we also have these cases within the overall case where we know that these individuals are responsible for this
00:45:24
murder but are they responsible for maybe possibly another one right and then is this just a big Dumping Ground
00:45:31
and so is that you know so not all the cases fall under one killer but how many of them are connected I mean there could
00:45:40
be six Killers mhm well in this situation they're connected by the location where the bodies are found and
00:45:47
like you said so at this point in our story we have zwarst and King who are spending the rest of their lives in
00:45:52
prison for kidnapping and like you said we know they killed that poor girl we also have uh Clyde Hedrick who is
00:46:00
serving just that one-year sentence for the abuse of a corpse but at the same time what took place here in the 80s is
00:46:07
we had these three bodies that were found in that field near CER Road and there's no there's we don't have any
00:46:13
guilty party we don't have anybody in handcuffs for one or any of those murders and furthermore we have one
00:46:20
victim that's that's remains unidentified right and we still have some of those victims from the 70 mhm
00:46:26
with no answers no leads well in a quick followup before we close out the 1980s uh regarding Clyde Hedrick
00:46:34
remember he got the abuse of a corpse charge received oneyear sentence for that yeah he is the one that was
00:46:40
claiming he went swimming with his girlfriend he found her face up took her CPR and then put her out by the trash
00:46:48
correct now remember the medical examiner couldn't find a cause of death they couldn't find any um they didn't
00:46:56
see any evidence of Foul Play when they reviewed the body so he ended up spending one year like you said earlier
00:47:03
he got one year in the clink well remember we said that the FBI and the sheriff's department they were going to
00:47:10
continue to look in and investigate that situation while he was sitting in prison
00:47:16
so ultimately what they ended up doing was they exhumed the body of Ellen Ray B and when they looked at it a second time
00:47:24
through different eyes they were able to determine that the cause of death was actually homicide it wasn't an
00:47:30
accidental death it wasn't uh a drowning like they had originally thought they found that she had been struck in the
00:47:37
head there was obvious signs of of trauma to the to the skull right you you figure they would have got that the
00:47:44
first time well it would be many years later captain that he would ultimately be sentenced to prison he would reive 20
00:47:51
years in prison for the 1984 beating death of Ellen Ray [Music] be and for everything True Crime Check
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