Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields, a true crime documentary on Netflix, is one of the top 10 shows on the service, thus it should not be missed at all. He thus slowly realized that very few believed in his claims of innocence, especially as locals began avoiding him in public places as well. He was also worried about other private citizens who, he said, might be tempted to tell lies about him to get the reward money (now at $50,000) that the League City Police Department was offering for information leading to the arrest of the killer. However, there was no evidence linking him to the crime, according to The. If we had any hope of getting man to the moon, we had to get the maximum Saturn payload into orbit, says Robert Gottlieb, a veteran aerospace engineer who now works at Boeing. By all accounts, Stardust Trailrides was an immediate success, drawing people from all over the Houston area, including a few couples who came to have their wedding conducted on horseback. As if thats not enough, a fourth (and final) nearly decomposed skeletal corpse was located by local residents in the same field on September 8, 1991, which also remained unidentified for decades. After my story was published, Abel moved to some family property in another part of the state, trying to get a new start. }) pg.acq.push(function() { Yesterday in another thread on this sub, u/talllongblackhair posted this very interesting long form article published in 1999 about Robert Abel, a suspect in the Texas Killing Fields murders. And none of them have been more interesting than a former NASA engineer, Robert Abel, who owned a small horseback-riding business outside the town of League City. Apocalypse Sow: Can Anything Stop the Feral Hog Invasion? Suppose youre such a confident killer that you think youre smarter than the police, he says. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), Stallings was never charged in any of the I-45 Killings nor the Killings Fields murders despite any of his confessions. eventAction: 'click_image_ads' And, indeed, one former girlfriend did tell me that Paula had contacted her, asking that she, too, go to the police and talk about Abels behavior when she had dated him. On Monday, members of the House Judiciary Committee met in New York for a hearing on violent crime in the city. It was on April 4, 1984, when a womans dog suddenly ran off into the wilderness near the field, but the shocking aspect was that he returned with a human skull in his mouth. He told me he never mistreated animalsIts ridiculous to think that you can run a horseback-riding business with horses that are scared of human beingsand that he didnt carry a gun. A few construction workers, employees of Millers, were on hand to help, as were friends and even Millers ex-wife. In League City, where Abel has lived for sixteen years, officers have searched his home and questioned his friends and family. I wondered if she had the time to call out for me or her mother., After Lauras death, Miller began drinking heavily; six months later, he and Lauras mother, Jan Miller, divorced. In 2014, he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the death of 29-year-old Ellen Rae Simpson Beason. 1 of 2 Tim Miller, founder of Texas EquuSearch, says he hopes his lawsuit will lead to developments in his daughter's slaying. In Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields, his ex-wife's daughter outlines Hedrick's predatory behaviour when she was . We had our rounds, our arguments and fights. The suspect on a piece of land he owns. }); LEAGUE CITY, TEXAS: With the Netflix true crime documentary 'Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields' being on the top 10 of the streaming giants service, it is a show that is not at all to be missed. Abel led many of the trail rides himself over the property and through his leased land. . The father of murdered Laura was for a time convinced that Abel was guilty of killing her. For a moment, the only sound was the wind lightly rustling the trees and the low growl of diesel trucks changing gears out on I-45. Somethings down there, Miller shouted as people came running with their flashlights. But she never made it. Texas Monthly interviewed Abel in 1999. At the bottom of the box I saw a small photo album with the words Robert Abel printed on the cover. However, detectives reportedly suspected Robert only because of his proximity to the crime scene and his alleged aggressive personality experts had determined he was a perfect fit for the profile of a serial killer. Detectives from other agencies, frustrated with their own unsolved murders, began calling the police in League City to ask about Abel. ' As such behavior from people he believed to be his friends was difficult to bear, he began living a lonely life and ultimately relocated. The 25-year-old cocktail waitress disappeared after she left her parents' home to hitch a ride to Houston to visit her boyfriend. Bell was identified as a potential suspect as early as the 1970s after the League City Police Department and FBI became aware of his activities in the area. eventAction: 'click_adunit' In fact, Bittner is a bright young man who grew up in Ohio, received a degree in criminal justice from Michigan State University, and moved to Texas to be a police officerhardly the stereotype of the tobacco-chewing small-town lawman. A few minutes later two dogs began barking at the same spot by a tree. But that doesnt mean we will stop looking for her. },false) At that moment, with his back aching and his eyes squinting, he seemed like a kindly old man. For several seconds Abel was silent before each site, as if he were visiting a church graveyard. Was Robert Abel The Texas Fields Killer? But Mr. Abel doesnt want to come down here any more to answer them. But not once did I ever think there was anything to fear about him. When I asked her if he abused horses, she replied that she saw him hit one once, when the horse was raring and had her young daughter corneredbut he didnt beat the horse., Still, the damage had been done. What Is The Docu-Series 'Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields' About? As the police looked around the field for more clues, they came across the skeleton of Laura MillerTim Millers daughtera mere twenty yards away. He said the photographs had been taken by a private investigator hired by his attorney. There was no evidence, in fact, that he had committed any crime. Galveston County judge Lonnie Cox granted Miller's motion . Because they were placed within a thousand feet of each other, a private investigator who has studied the scene many times thinks the killer created a walking path for himself to visually inspect his trophies one by one. Indeed, many police detectives and FBI agents are convinced that this is the personal graveyard of a vicious serial killer. McCarthy used his speech in NYC to slam President Joe Biden for doing "nothing" to address the nation's financial crisis. After all, several of his ex-wives as well as partners had accused him of domestic violence and mental torture, with one claiming he even hurt his horses by beating them with a pipe. The Texas Killing Fields is a 25-acre patch of land in the area along the Interstate highway 45 between Houston and Galveston. . ga('create', 'UA-67136960-15', 'auto', 'ads'); The building pictured in the back belonged to Robert Abel. }); (The rest of the photos were of family, friends, and various people hed shot as an amateur photographer. In case charges were ever brought against me, I wanted to know exactly what I was being accused of, he said. Thats because while attempts to recover her remains as safely as possible were being made on February 2, 1986, local law enforcement came across a third body, which remained unidentified at the time. As per reports, once Robert became a suspect in the Calder Field murder investigation, people began alienating him from their lives. The four killings remain shrouded in mystery and ex-Nasa engineer Robert Abel was also among the suspects accused. The first was discovered in April 1984, after a dog owned by a couple living several hundred yards away carried home a human skull and dropped it at the feet of their three-year-old daughter. The police soon ascertained the incident as death by suicide, and even the general consensus believes that he chose death as he did not want to go on leading such a lonely life. Abel was at the now-padlocked Stardust Trailrides waiting for me. Nov. 3, 2001. In 1997 one police department ran a computer search of registered sex offenders living between Houston and Galveston, and more than 2,100 names popped up. Abel died in 2005, when he was 65 years old, when he was hit by a train while traveling on a golf cart. Dozens dead and several serial killer suspects: The haunting reality of the Texas Killing Fields. What made Abel a suspect was that he owned the property right next to the land where the bodies were found. One suspect was Robert Abel, a former NASA engineer, who owned property next to the Calder Road fields. There are many days when I think about driving over there, putting a gun to his head, and pulling the trigger, Miller says. Family devastated as mom and unborn baby tragically die after 'unexpected' medical emergency, Was Beckett Rex edited out of 'American Idol' Season 21? Matamoros Was Once Relatively Safe for Texans. In June 1989 he married Cindy Jacobs, a secretary for an accounting firm whom he had met earlier that year at the Hilton hotel bar. He has been interviewed by detectives from neighboring towns. MEAWW is an initialism for Media Entertainment Arts WorldWide. There are places in the world that are not evil due to any supernatural forces or demonic influences, but rather because This story is from Texas Monthlys archives. However, as the show portrays, the investigation soon led to Robert Abel, who was considered a suspect for a long time. On the advice of another father whose daughter had been murdered in another town, Miller checked himself into the psychiatric unit of a hospital for ten days, promising when he left not to hurt Abel but vowing that he would keep pressuring him to confess. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotOnload', function(event) { Like Jane Doe, this woman was never identified. Or is he a victim of overzealous police work and outright hysteria? Want to Buy a West Texas Ghost Town? Despite being found civilly liable for Laura Miller's death, Hedrick has never been charged with her murder. When Im near him, I feel like Im in the presence of evil., Yet there are problems with the allegations against Abel: Not a shred of physical evidence has ever been found linking him to the four women found dumped in the oil field, no evidence has been uncovered by any police department that can connect him to the murders they have been investigating, and no witness can place him with any of the teenagers or women before they were found dead. ga('ads.send', { The League City Police Department naturally wound up under increasing pressure to nab a culprit, and they came to believe they'd found one, courtesy of an FBI profile that matched a local: Robert. In 1993, for over 12 hours, officers had searched his home for bodies and evidence using cadaver dogs to find evidence linking him to the murders. Tim Miller, whose sixteen-year-old daughter, Laura, was found dead in the killing fields, is so convinced of Abels guilt that he has left threatening messages on his answering machine, demanding that he confess. The victim was never identified and became known as Jane Doe. Coming here was my chance to keep working at NASA and be able to work some cattle on the weekends, he says. "Shy" NASA employee The modest and calm Abel was at NASA right after the university - he helped create the Saturn series of rockets that delivered Apollo teams to the moon. He was hit by a train while traveling on his golf cart. Two years ago, FBI statistics showed Texas leading the nation in unsolved serial highway homicides. In the occasion you've heard of the so-called Texas Killing Fields, there's a correct likelihood that you just occur to be from the Lone Star Dispute. Content Warning: Article contains topics of self-harm, domestic violence, and animal cruelty Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields, the third entry in Netflix's Crime Scene series, suggests many possible suspects responsible for the murders of the killing field victims. Every day since 1986every single dayI had been waking up thinking about the last moments of Lauras life. As Miller drove his tractor past the cross that marked Lauras body, the dogs began to fan out. The first one was of 23-year-old Heide Fye, who went missing on October 10, 1983, only to be discovered almost six months later. He had tracked down the owner of the 25-acre oil field and persuaded him to lease it for $10 a year. Why wouldnt I be? he asked me. He wouldnt answer any more questions, left the building, and later went to the mayor and complained about me. As it turns out, Tim Miller might have found an old garbage dump.. Emily McCullar is a senior editor covering pop culture, news, and Texas history. She became known as Janet Doe until she could be named in 2019 as Donna Gonsoulin Prudhomme, according to Oxygen. You can spend a week driving through the towns south of Houston, visiting the parents of murdered daughters. Besides, they didnt even use a big enough backhoe, one that could get down to the bottom of the pond. The Texas Killing Fields in League City, Texas, is a plot of ground where the bodies of four unsolved murder victims of women were discovered. The Killing Fields September 18, 2019 Decades Later, Investigators Still Searching for Answers in Murders of Four Women The women seemingly had little in common. All suspicions are based on behavorial clues and psychological profiling by the FBI. The gold tooth turned out to be from Abels own mouth. In2005, he stopped his golf cart on the railroad tracks and waited for a train to slam into him. He even made suggestions about what we should be doing in our investigation.. For three decades, the marshy stretch off I-45 between Houston and Galveston kept turning up dead . Leave them blank to get signed up. One of the best films from 2016 and nobody saw it. Mosquito Hawks Are Flitting All Over Texas. 'Sister Wives' star Kody Brown feels ex-wife Christine Brown's engagement to David Woolley is 'staged for TV' amid family drama, Jacob Stevens: Family shares heartbreaking photo of teen who died attempting viral TikTok challenge, 'I'd do the same again': Donna Delbono, who turned in killer teen son to cops, says she has 'no regrets'. Although he refused to take a police-administered polygraph test about the killing fields murdershe said he didnt trust the League City Police Department as long as Bittner was on the payrollhe did take two lie detector tests conducted by private examiners, who say he passed. None of the dead womens clothing or jewelry was found. Have you met this man? 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