The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large (the mammoth book of ...)

by Nigel Cawthorne

  Chapman was between the open door and the body of the truck and held onto the door as the truck drove away. He heard Tina screaming for Drew to stop. As the truck pulled out of the parking lot, the door slammed shut, knocking Chapman into a ditch. He picked himself up, ran to the bar and began beating on the front door.

  At 2.52 a.m., Seabrook Police Officer Marc Hatton was on patrol when he saw Chapman beating on the bar’s door and stopped. Chapman’s trousers were covered in mud and he was hysterical. He told Hatton that his friend had just been kidnapped. He gave a full description of Drew’s maroon, full-sized, single-cab Chevrolet truck. The description of the appellant’s truck was broadcast to other officers in the area.

  At 3.49 a.m., Harris County Deputy Constable Sean Kitchens spotted Drew’s truck and pulled him over for failing to maintain a single lane of traffic. Deputy Kitchens asked Drew for his licence. But when he leant over to retrieve his licence from the glove compartment, Kitchens noticed a bloody foot lying on the seat. When Kitchens asked who it belonged to, Drew said: “That’s my friend Tina. She’s knocked out over there.”

  Investigating further, the deputy found Tina Flood lying unconscious in the foetal position against the passenger’s door. She was naked except for her skirt, which was bunched around her waist. Her panties and blouse were later found in Drew’s truck. She was bloody, bruised and scraped, and there were abrasions on her leg, buttocks and arms.

  Kitchens called for back-up. When it arrived, Drew was asked to step out of the truck. Deputy Kitchens noticed a scratch on Drew’s right arm, three scratches on the back and side of his neck, and what looked like blood on his shirt collar.

  Tina Flood was rushed to the Clear Lake Regional Medical Center. Emergency Room nurse Christine McFall conducted a sexual assault examination. According to McFall, Tina repeatedly cried out: “Please help me. Please help me. Don’t hurt me.” And Emergency Room nurse Mary Jane Heady heard Tina say: “Please don’t rape me.”

  A CAT scan showed that Tina had sustained a skull fracture, which caused her brain to swell and haemorrhage. She was rushed into surgery. Tina died a day and a half later because of swelling in her brain.

  The medical examiner found at least two distinct fractures to Tina’s skull, the result of one or possibly two separate acts of blunt trauma. A considerable amount of force was required to cause those fractures. There was an abrasion on the back of Tina’s head and a bruise on the back of her brain immediately below the point of impact. On the opposite side of her head, there was a massive amount of bleeding, but no external bruising on her skin. Such an injury is typically found where a moving head strikes a stationary object. Tina’s ear was swollen and there was a bruise behind the ear. This bruise could be related to the skull fracture, but the swelling of the ear indicated the injury was probably caused by a separate impact. The medical examiner said that the injury to Tina’s ear was more consistent with something striking her or her head striking something on that side.

  The abrasions and contusions on Tina’s shoulder, shoulder blade, elbow, lower back and buttocks were consistent with being dragged on a rough surface, such as concrete. The wrinkling or crumpling of the skin on Tina’s back was consistent with the skin having been stepped on. The abrasions were not consistent with those that might result from jumping out of a moving vehicle. Further, there were small oval contusions on Tina’s lower legs, ankles, and upper right arm, consistent with finger impressions. There were also abrasions on Tina’s knuckles and the meaty part of the thumbs of both hands, suggesting defensive injuries. Drew had scratches on his right arm and neck.

  The medical examiner also found bruising in the soft tissue of both sides of Tina’s neck. This, he said, was caused by direct external compression often seen in manual strangulations. The anal swabs taken during the sexual assault examination contained Drew’s DNA. While there were no obvious abrasions or tears in the vagina and anal area, the area was a little darker than normal, which suggested trauma.

  The State tried Drew for capital murder, but the jury found him only guilty of felony murder and he was sentenced to life in prison. He appealed, but on 14 February 2002 both the conviction and the sentence were upheld.

  Drew was also suspected of several sexual assaults and possibly the murder of Jessica Lee Cain. A search of his former home in League City, where his parents still lived, unearthed a vial containing several human teeth. League City was the home of the famous “killing fields” murders, but Drew would have been too young to have committed them, though it is thought that he did rape other women in the area.

  Another case bore a similarity to Jessica Cain’s disappearance. It involved 17-year-old Michelle Doherty Thomas, who was last seen leaving her family’s home in Alta Loma, Texas, less that two miles from Santa Fe, on 5 October 1985. She was planning to meet friends at a nightclub on Galveston Island later in the evening, but she never arrived and has not been heard from again. Her family reported her missing on 7 October 1985, two days after her disappearance. She had served as an informant during a drug bust in 1985 and the police believe that she could have been abducted and murdered as a result.

  Another young woman went missing from Galveston County in 1988. Twenty-two-year-old Suzanne Rene Richerson was a student at Texas A & M University in Galveston and was employed as a night clerk at Casa Del Mar Condominiums on Seawall Boulevard. She was last seen at work at around 6 a.m. on 7 October by the resort security guards. Another employee who was sleeping in the room above Richerson’s office woke up to hear a woman scream shortly after the guards left the vicinity. Then came the sound of a car door being slammed shut, accompanied by another scream, and the sound of a car racing from the parking lot shortly after. A guest arrived at Richerson’s office to check out at about 6.30 a.m. and discovered the desk unattended. There were no signs of a struggle and Suzanne’s purse, school books and car were left at the resort. One of her shoes was found in the parking lot later that morning, but Suzanne Richerson has never been seen again. There was a suspect in the Richerson case named Gabriel Soto. But he died on 31 July 2002, aged 39, from a drug overdose. Soto was charged with intimidating witnesses in the case, though never charged for the abduction. However investigators believe he played a role in Richerson’s disappearance.

  The FBI set up Operation HALT—standing for Homicide-Abduction Liaison Team—to investigate the disappearances. At first, they thought they were looking for a single serial killer and were hopeful that they could put him behind bars. But they soon realized that they were looking for a number of killers whose crimes overlapped. Typically victims have disappeared while out alone, only to be found dead in a remote spot weeks or months later, leaving no hint as to their attacker’s identity or motive.

  The small towns and country roads in that part of Texas have proved an easy place to hunt victims. The patchwork of jurisdictions makes it easy for killers to hide their activities. Over the past 40 years a huge influx of people have settled in this fast-growing corner of Texas. The refineries and ports draw transients. And the bayous shrouded with long-leafed pine, beech and oaks have served as a dumping ground for killers from Houston as well as local predators. In some cases the victim is unknown. In early 1999 a small boy went out for a walk with his dog in some marshy woods. The dog found a bone, and then the boy saw a skull. Nearby, the police would later find earrings, shreds of clothing and a belt tied around a tree. Investigators believe the killer used it to bind the young woman while she was sexually assaulted.

  Evidence pointed to a serial killer long ago when two girls disappeared from the same convenience store in the 1970s. Then four bodies were found between 1984 and 1991 in a overgrown patch of land next to Calder Road near League City off I–45 dubbed the “killing fields”. In the 3000 block of Calder Drive was the abandoned League City Oil Field, tucked away between houses, strip joints, a few rundown businesses and Star Dust Trail Rides, run by retired NASA engineer Robert Able. All four victims were laying nude on the ground, face up
and under trees with their arms crossed. They had been sexually assaulted and were placed within a hundred-yard radius of each other. One investigator who studied the scene thought the killer had used a footpath to view the bodies. The metal gates across one part of Calder Drive and adjacent Ervin Street are locked blocking access by automobile. Clearly the killer had had prior knowledge of this secluded area.

  FBI profiler Mark Young said that there were at least four serial killers working the I–45 corridor. The picture was further confused by killers who only claimed a single victim. Few cases can be definitively linked as the method of abduction, cause of death and dumping ground often varies wildly. It is possible that a smaller number of killers is at work, who constantly change their modus operandi. However, it is very unusual for so many “low-risk” victims—that is, women not involved in drugs, prostitution or other illegal activity—to be murdered or go missing in such a relatively small geographic area without a number of serial killers being responsible for the majority of the crimes. Computer analysis of the evidence also indicates multiple murderers are at work. One killer has a preference for slim, short brown-haired women. Another killer has distinctive habits in the way he disposes of bodies.

  Of particular interest were the “killing field” murders, which were the only cases publicly linked together by authorities. The first body to be discovered was that of 23-year-old cocktail waitress Heidi Villerial Fye, who vanished on 10 October 1983, after leaving her parents’ home to use a payphone in a convenience store at Hobbs and West Main Street in League City. Her remains were found on 4 April 1984 when a dog carried her skull to a nearby house. She had been beaten with a club. She had several broken ribs and probably died from blunt force trauma to her head.

  Then on 2 February 1986 four boys riding dirt bikes across the area smelled a foul odour. This led them to the skeletal remains of a female about 50 yards from where Heidi Fye had been found. They called the police. Never identified, she had died between six weeks and six months before she was found. She had been shot in the back by a .22 calibre weapon. But the post mortem also revealed healed fractures of the ribs. She was about 25 years old, weighed between 140 to 160 pounds and was between 5 feet 5 inches to 5 feet 8 inches tall. She had light reddish-brown shoulder length hair and had a distinct gap between her upper front teeth. But no one answering that description was listed as missing.

  Later that day the police searching the area found a second body just 20 yards from the first. This was identified as Laura Lynn Miller, aged 16, a Clear Creek High School sophomore. She went missing on 1 September 1984, shortly after the Miller family had moved to League City. Their phone had not been connected, so she had gone out with her mother find a payphone to call her boyfriend. The one she found was the payphone in the same convenience store where Heidi Fye had last been seen. Her mother wanted her to come home, but Laura insisted on finishing her call, saying she was old enough to walk home by herself. When she did not turn up the police said that she was a runaway. But when her father heard about the discovery of Heidi Fye’s body, he insisted that the police check the same area for his daughter. At that time nothing was found. It was only when they were looking for clues to the Jane Doe murder that they stumbled across her. She had been shot in the head.

  For over five years there were no new discoveries at Calder Drive. Robert Abel continued to rent the property for his Stardust Trail Rides, then bought a lot at 3001 Calder Drive to stable his horses. His stepdaughter was riding on 8 September 1991 when she came across another set of skeletal remains a hundred yards from where the other bodies had been found.

  This second Jane Doe died between a month and four months before her remains were found. She was too badly decomposed to determine the exact cause of death. There was a possibility that she had been strangled using a curtain cord found nearby. However she had also been beaten with a club and this was the most likely cause of death. Interestingly, she had two poorly healed fractured ribs like the first Jane Doe. She had been about 31 years old, between 5 feet and 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed about 100 to 130 pounds, with a small frame and long, fine, light brown hair. All four women were left lying on their backs with their arms folded across their chests. Although there is not an exact match between the four “killing fields” murders—two had been shot, two beaten to death—the positioning of the bodies, along with the fact that the two identified victims had disappeared from the same payphone in the same convenience store, indicated that the murders were all the work of the same man.

  Robert Abel, who has since died, was one of a raft of suspects, as was his one-time employee, Mark Stallings. After being fired by Abel, Stallings ended up in jail. There, in 2001, he confessed to some of the I–45 murders. However, the police could find no physical evidence to connect Stallings to the murders and could not substantiate his claims. Indeed he would only have been 15 or 16 at the time of the first murders. Investigators consider it unlikely that he is involved and only made his claims to improve his reputation in jail, where he is currently serving 489 years for aggravated assault and attempting to escape.

  A search of Abel’s property turned up nothing. Tim Miller, Laura’s father, conducting his own search, used trained dogs and heavy equipment to dig up the sector where the victims had been found. Even a small retention pond in the old oil field was drained, but only the remains of a purse and some rotting clothes were found.

  In an attempt to clear his name, Abel took a polygraph test on a national news show and passed. The FBI eventually eliminated Abel from their investigations, though some League City cops still have their doubts. But with only scant physical evidence and no eyewitness, the police were stymied. They even resorted to putting a billboard up on I–45 asking for help with the case. No new information came in and the case seemed dead.

  Then in December 2005, Tim Miller received a letter from someone claiming to be the man who killed his daughter and others.

  “Tim Miller, boo,” it read. “It’s me you’re looking for, but I’m the last man your Laura saw and many more.”

  It was composed from words cut out of newspapers and magazines, like a ransom note. When Miller first opened the enveloped, he dismissed the contents as a messy newsletter. Then he spotted the Corvette Concepts’ logo.

  On 2 November 1983, someone had entered the business office of Corvette Concepts garage at 595 West Main Street in League City and stabbed Beth Wilburn over 100 times, killing her. When Tommy McGraw arrived at work he was stabbed multiple times. The implement used to stab him was left impaled in the dead man’s spine. Then James Oatis, an electrician working at the rear of the business, was shot several times. He, too, died. The triple murder remains unsolved.

  The letter boasted about the I–45 deaths and its author bragged that he was too smart for the police to catch. After receiving the letter Miller was so angry that he went out to the spot where Laura’s body had been found. After it had been removed by the police, he had put up a wooden cross in her memory. The cross had been knocked down and broken apart, though he later repaired it. Nearby he found some pornographic videos. One featured a 16-year-old girl. Laura was 16. Miller believes that whoever sent the letter left these as a calling card for him to find and, in 2006, he had a public appeal for the man who wrote the letter to contact him again.

  However, the police remain sceptical. It came just five months after Robert Abel died and it may have been sent by a friend or relative of Abel who was seeking to clear his name. Nobody has ever been charged with these murders.

  The Occult and Violent Ritual Crime Center, Inc., have analyzed the I–45 murders and believe that four serial killers are at work. The first offender was responsible for the abduction of 13-year-old Colette Wilson. She went missing on 17 June 1971 after the leader of the band she was in dropped her at a bus stop in Alvin, Texas, some ten miles from the I–45. Her naked body was found five months later in November 1971, 40 miles away near Addicks Reservoir in West Houston, on I–10 and Highway 6. Th
e cause of death was a gunshot to the head. Her musical instrument was never found.

  Next came 14-year-old Brenda Jones, who went missing two weeks later. She disappeared on 1 July 1971 while walking to Galveston hospital to visit an aunt. The hospital was close to I--45. Her body was found the next day floating in nearby Galveston Bay, close to the Seawolf Parkway, which was also near the I–45. The cause of death was a head wound and a slip stuffed into her mouth.

  On 28 October 1971, 19-year-old Gloria Gonzales went missing near her home in Houston. Her body was found in November 1971 near Addicks Reservoir, 35 yards from where Colette Wilson’s body had been found. Again the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. However, the Occult and Violent Ritual Crime Research Center think this is the work of a second killer, possibly the same man who killed Heidi Fye in 1983.

  On 9 November 1971, 12-year-old Alison Craven’s mother had to go out to run an errand. She was away for about an hour. When she returned to their apartment near the I–45, her daughter was missing. Two hands, the bones from an arm and some teeth were found in a nearby field. On 25 February 1972 the rest of her skeleton was found in a Pearland field, five miles from I–45 and ten miles from where she had last been seen. Her murder does not make the OVRCRC list and may have been a one-off.