The Texas Killing Fields: Serial Killer? (Part 1)

The General Location and Story

Today,  dear listeners, let’s venture waaaaaayyyyy down south.  We’re going to the land of ranches, cowboys, and rodeos…. Texas.  Specifically, we’re going to take you to the Houston area.  With a population of just over 2.28 million people, Houston is the largest city in TX by population, and has over double the population of the state’s capital, Austin.  If you take I-45 south east out of Houston, after driving for half an hour or so, you will be in or around League City, TX.  League City is considered one of the suburbs of Houston and has a population of just over 100 thousand people.  It sits almost right in the middle between Houston and Galveston, TX.  

Within TX, Interstate 45 runs from Dallas, down to Houston, then on to Galveston and the Gulf of Mexico.  Typically, interstates with odd numbers are north / south running, while interstates ending in even numbers run east / west. Typically, interstates run through several states and transverse the country, but as we mentioned, 45 just runs through this portion of TX, and is actually the shortest of all the interstates that end in a 5…. Little useless knowledge for ya there. 

With this being a 2 part episode we will briefly lay out what each episode will be about.  The first part is going to be mainly on a case commonly referred to as the Calder Road Killings.  The second part is going to get into different victims and suspects.  When many people talk about these cases and refer to the Killing Fields in TX, they are really referring to the Calder Road case.  The Netflix documentary series focuses mainly on the bodies that were discovered on Caldera Road.  But when we say “Killing Fields,” we are really referring to this corridor that stretches along I 45… because that’s what it is.  Since the 70s, there have been DOZENS of bodies found in the area.   

The killing fields have oftentimes been compared to a park… in Baltimore.  You probably know the park if you’re a true crime listener.  It’s Leakin Park.  If that name doesn’t immediately jump out at you, we will go over it a little bit.  It has been in the news most notably because it was where Alonzo Sellers discovered the body of 18 year old Hae Min Lee in 1999.  Everyone who’s listening to this knows this case, Adnan went to prison for over 2 decades and in October of 2022, the charges against Adnan were dropped and he was freed.  On March 28th of 2023 though, Adnan’s conviction was reinstated by an appellate court, but they stayed the effective date by 60 days, so Adnan’s fight is far from over, and Hae’s family still doesn’t have justice for her murder.  

 What brought us to Hae and Adnan though was the similarities between this land in TX and Leakin Park.  Since 1946, there have been 71 bodies discovered in the park.  That number is also considered to be low because of shotty record keeping back in the day.  It’s probably much higher.  There have been both men and women and ages have ranged from less than a year to 69 years old.  The park was a focal point in Serial, and mentioned throughout the HBO show “The Wire,” which took place in Baltimore and focused on gang and drug activity.  In 2011, officials began to close off what were referred to as “risky” areas in the park, meaning parts where higher numbers of bodies were found.  They also cleared land for trails and made new bike trails in an effort to bring in more walkers and bike riders.  Essentially, they were trying to get more people and eyes in the park to make it harder for anyone to dump a body without being seen.  It’s a fierce uphill battle, but they’re trying to improve and escape the park’s grizzly history. 

It’s not difficult to look at Leakin Park and the I 45 corridor and see the similarities.  The Caldera Road area in League city sits about a mile from I 45 and is part of a 25 or so acre plot of land where bodies have been discovered.  Today, there is a memorial setup in a section of the grounds.  There are neighborhoods to the east that were not there in the 70s and 80s, they’ve only been constructed in the recent years.  It was a much more desolate place than it is today.  Over the years it has become overgrown, and unused.  Back in the day though, it was owned by an oil company and served as an oil field.  There was the occasional mobile home nearby, but for all intents and purposes, it was an area where you could go and  not be seen.  This is likely why the killer / killers chose this area to leave their victims, they were very aware of how few people actually go out there.  

Tim Miller

Tim Miller – you’ve heard that name.  Tim is the founder and director of Texas EquuSearch (TES), whom we’ve talked about before, specifically in our episode covering Maleah Davis (MT 189 for those who want to listen).  Whenever there is the unfortunate occurrence of someone going missing or suspicions that there might be a body somewhere, TES donates their time and expertise as they can.  When Tim was first called in to assist in a search, they searched on horseback, which is the basis behind their name, Texas (cause… Texas), Eqqu (for equine .. horses), Search (cause that’s what they do.)  They’ve aided in the searches for Caylee Anthony, Maleah Davis like we mentioned, and Natalee Holloway and countless others.  

The unfortunate founding of TES comes back to Tim and his family.  In September of 1984, Tim and his family were just settling into League City, having just recently moved there.  When Laura was a baby, only 6 months old, she got sick and eventually was in a coma for a day and a half with a high fever.  When she came out of the coma, the fever had broken, but damage had been done.  It had caused scar tissue to form on her brain.  The effect wasn’t immediately apparent, but eventually, she began to suffer from seizures.  Tim said that for about seven years, they dealt with the seizure problem, but eventually, Laura grew out of it.  She became an A/B student, and loved to sing and listen to music all the time.  She was popular in school and had lots of friends.  

Then when she was 11, she got the flu, which led to another high fever; which led to the seizures returning.  They were devastating.  It caused her to have to quit singing with her choir, and she missed lots of school.  Tim said that with the return of the seizures, her whole life was stripped from her.  Sooo, when the Millers moved to League City, it was a time when it would take a few days for the phone company to come out and get your phone hooked up, unless you were great at planning and had them show up as you were moving in… but for most people that just wasn’t worth the hassle.  So, they didn’t have a phone in their new house, and Laura caught Tim one morning as he was getting ready to leave for work.  She asked him if her boyfriend, Vernon, could come over that night.  He said it was, but since he was walking out for work, he told Laura to ask her mom to take her to the pay phone down the road at a convenience store to call Vernon and let him know.  

Tim left for work and his wife took Laura to the pay phone where she called and talked with Vernon.  Her mom had to go to work and she called for Laura to get off the phone so she wouldn’t be late.  Laura said that she would just walk back home.  It was the middle of the day, and Laura knew the way back.  She told her mom that it was only a half a mile, she would be fine.  No one thought anything bad would happen.  She left Laura on the phone and told her to get back home soon.  

When they returned home from work later in the day, Laura wasn’t there.  They thought that she and Vernon had possibly gone out on a walk, so they waited for them to return.  Then they heard a knock and were surprised to see that it was Vernon, just arriving.  Laura was missing.  No one had seen or heard from her since her mom left her earlier in the day.  Vernon said that the last he heard from Laura was that phone call.  They spent the next several hours scouring their neighborhood, all night.  They drove all over trying to find Laura.  

The next morning, they went to the police station and told them that Laura was missing.  In a move that will shock absolutely no one, the police didn’t take it seriously because she was “probably a runaway.”  When Tim countered with the fact that that would be absolutely out of character for Laura and that she had a medical condition and relied on medicine for her seizures.. They said “girls her age were smart and could find a way to get what they needed on the street.”  What in the absolute fuckkkk??!!  That made absolutely no sense to any one, and Tim said that at the time, he just didn’t know what to do.  He didn’t know how to get them to take their claims seriously.  At one point in the Netflix documentary he said that if you ever wanted to commit a crime to do it in League City, cause they would never solve it. 

Before the Millers had moved to League city, 23 year old Heidi Fye was missing.  Heidi, or as her family affectionately called her, He-Dee, was a cocktail waitress at a local bar named Texas Moon.  Anyone who met her said that she was cheerful and generous with everyone she met.  She never hesitated to help anyone in need, and Heidi was very close with her family.  No one who met Heidi could say a bad thing about her and she had no enemies that anyone knew of, so it was a complete shock out of left field when she went missing and difficult for friends and family to accept.  

In October of 1983, Heidi was staying at her parent’s house in League City.  She told them she was going to walk down to the gas station nearby to call her boyfriend on the pay phone.  The store owner remembered seeing Heide that day and she used the phone and then started walking back home.  That was the last time anyone saw her.   It seemed like she disappeared into thin air.  Within hours, her family knew that something was wrong.  They went out and searched all over the neighborhood and went to all of the places she was known to hang out, but no one found her.  They told the authorities, but with pretty much no clues or tips to her whereabouts, they quickly ran out of things to look into regarding Heidi’s disappearance.  Heidi’s family hoped and prayed that she was okay and would be found safe, but that was unfortunately not the case. 

Calder Road

As we mentioned earlier, Calder Road looked different back then.  While there were a few mobile homes here or there, there weren’t tons of people who would have been out and about in the area.  It was a remote area to say the least.  So, the manner in which Heidi’s body was discovered differs between different places.  In the Netflix series, they say that there were some kids outside playing when their dog ran off into the woods for a bit.  The dog then came out with what they thought was a ball, but it turned out to be a human skull.  Some articles you may read say that a woman was out walking with her dog who ran off into the woods, then returned with a human skull.  While there are differences in the story, the gist is the same.  

The authorities were called and immediately conducted a search of the area.  They recovered complete remains.  They noted that the body was completely nude which indicated to them that sexual abuse had occurred.  The medical examiner conducted an examination and apart from the body being beaten, she also had broken ribs and cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head.  It didn’t take long for authorities to identify the body as Heide Fye.  

Fast forward back to the Millers trying to find Laura.  Tim learned about Heidi’s disappearance and how her body was discovered.  He talked to the police because of similarities in Laura and Heidi’s vanishing.  They both seemingly disappeared in an instant.  They lived only four blocks from one another….. Also… THE LAST PLACE THEY WERE BOTH SEEN AT WAS THE SAME DAMN GAS STATION PAY PHONE.  Laura had been missing for three days when Tim brought up the similarities to the police, they brushed it off.  They told him that Heidi’s disappearance was an isolated incident.  She worked at a bar, and he felt like they were implying that it was a patron from the bar that killed her.  Tim asked if they could disclose where Heidi’s body was found, so he could go out and search for himself, but they refused, telling him it was private property.  

After five days without hearing from Laura, Tim said that he knew in his heart that she was dead.  “I didn’t have a clue what to do. I think I tried to drink myself to death. I couldn’t work. I lost my job. Laura’s mother and I didn’t have the best relationship and it certainly got worse. Every time our phone would ring, or someone would drive by the house slowly or knock on our door, I got heart palpitations. I didn’t know if they were bringing me good news, that they’d found Laura and were bringing her home, or if they were bringing bad news that she was dead.”  

For a year and a half, time dragged by and there was no information regarding Laura’s abduction.  Tim said that during this time that he was so depressed that he considered suicide.  He went as far as to check himself into a hospital for six days.  While he was in the hospital, he read a newspaper that said there were remains found in a local field of two females.  There were some kids out riding bikes (possibly dirt bikes) when they smelled something foul around Calder Road.  They found a body that had been dead for four to five weeks.  They called the authorities who came to investigate the scene.  As they started to look over the area, they found skeletal remains about six feet from where the initial body was discovered.  This meant that in the span of two years, three bodies had been left on this plot of land near Calder Road.  

Laura’s mother went to the police station and said that one of the bodies they found could be Laura.  The police requested a hair sample and dental x-rays.  From what I’ve seen around, they requested some of Laura’s clothes to see if they could get a hair sample which seems odd, instead of a brush.  But, it had been quite some time since Laura had disappeared, so it’s possible that the Millers had gotten rid of stuff like that, but knowing the mental hurdles that Tim was working to overcome, that seems unlikely.  Obviously that doesn’t mean anything, just an odd detail that jumped out. 

When the police compared the dental records and DNA to that of the skeletal remains, they confirmed that it was Laura.  Tim was PISSED, saying “I blamed the cops.  I didn’t think they were doing their jobs. If they would have gone out there the first day I asked them to, Laura would still have been dead, but there might have been evidence.”

If you remember, when Tim talked to the police about Heidi initially, they gave the impression that they thought it was an isolated incident.  After the discovery of Laura and Jane Doe, they went as far as to tell the Fye’s not to talk to Tim about Heidi’s disappearance because the cases weren’t related.  They said that Tim was grasping at straws trying to find any answer he could.  For the longest time, the two families didn’t talk with one another about their daughter’s cases, but eventually they did and found solace in strength in one another.  

After learning that the remains were Laura’s, Tim went into another depression.  He said, “I was the father. I was supposed to protect her and take care of her, and I had failed. I failed by not doing the right job, by not searching. I failed by not going to Heidi’s family’s house to find out where they’d found her. If I would have done that, maybe I would have found Laura tied up; maybe she would have been alive and I could have saved her. Or maybe I would have found her and it wouldn’t have been months after the animals got to her. I beat myself up because I didn’t do enough while Laura was missing.”

Tim talked to all of Laura’s friends and who she hung out with, in an attempt to get any information he could.  The police refused to tell Laura’s parents exactly where they found her remains.  They learned from newspapers that it was the same field that Heidi was found in, but the police wouldn’t narrow it down to an exact location.  We’re talking about a huge area, so it was difficult, but Tim and his wife got out and walked the property themselves.  Eventually, they found an area that had flags all over it, indicating a crime scene.  They learned that Laura’s skeletal remains had been scattered over a 20ish foot radius because animals had gotten to her remains long before she was discovered.  

The Millers wanted Laura’s remains for a burial, but the coroner asked them if they could keep them longer for the investigation.  Tim agreed because he wanted to know how Laura had died, but the police ended up keeping her remains for another three years.  That wasn’t the end though.  When they received Laura’s remains, there were notes on the autopsy report about exhuming Laura if necessary which The Millers would have to agree to, but they discovered that they had only been given 28 of Laura’s bones.  When they investigated more, they learned that some of Laura’s remains were sent to a medical research facility without their consent.  To make it worse, officials said that the remains were sent in error, but the department made a profit from it.  Tim hired an attorney and sued them for $16 Million.. And won.  But, that was really just to prove a point, they just wanted all of their daughter’s remains, so they agreed to drop the suit if ALL of Laura’s bones were returned.  Finally, they were able to bury Laura and say goodbye properly. 

In September of 1991, two people were again out near Calder Road.  They were going through some of the trails on horseback.  Can you guess what they found?  They found a badly decomposed body in a field.  After a medical examination, they estimated that she had died at least six weeks prior.  At the time, they were unable to determine her identity.  So that meant that there were now four bodies that had been discovered in the Caldera Road area; Heidi, Laura, Jane Doe, and now Janet Doe.  

In part two, we will get into how Jane and Janet Doe were eventually identified, and other cases from the Killing Fields.

FOR PART TWO, CLICK HERE!