robert abel texas killing fieldsrobert abel texas killing fields

MEAWW brings you the best content from its global team of As the police looked around the field for more clues, they came across the skeleton of Laura MillerTim Millers daughtera mere twenty yards away. Texas Killing Fields suspects. (Abel denies this ever happened.) The 25-acre patch of land in League City along Interstate Highway 45, between Houston and Galveston, is known as The Texas Killing Fields. He may sound innocent enough, but he has a dark side. All we know is that there was a terrible scream the night she disappeared, says her mother, Kathy Richerson. Among the questions he posed was whether any bodies had turned up near the six-hundred-acre Abel family ranch near Bellville the way they had near his land in League City. eventAction: 'render' Lauren Larson is a former features writer and editor. But Abel became furious and very defensive. In League City, Texas, is where the notorious murder spree known as the "Killing Fields" has originated. This Mystery Will Keep You Up At Night . But the fact was that he was one of the brightest people down there., In 1978, after 21 years of marriage, the Abels divorced. Long story short, he's the prime suspect in the murder of four women found in an oil field next to property he owns. In his own way he was very charismatic, says an ex-girlfriend. 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. Laura had been a straight-A student in elementary school in League City, but after she began to have seizures at age twelve, she grew depressed, made a couple of halfhearted suicide attempts, and started hanging out with a crowd of teenagers who used drugs. The former NASA scientist who also owns the fields, forcefully involved himself in solving the crimes which, for many people involved, only served to heighten the suspicion surrounding him. Between 1971 and 2006, 30 bodies have been found in and around the area, leading to the name. Whenever any of them stopped in a certain place and alerted (that is, barked to signify that they smelled something), Miller would head over there and dig. Despite being found civilly liable for Laura Miller's death, Hedrick has never been charged with her murder. Netflix Netflix's new docuseries, Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields, explores the mysterious disappearances and deaths of many young women and girls in southern Texas, dating back to. Willie Payne, a respected private investigator hired by some of the parents to help locate their missing daughters, says he cant imagine that Abel would have been dumb enough to leave three of the girls lying within yards of his property line. But Bittner has an answer for that too. Over the years, various suspects have come and gone. Abel also had no criminal record or had ever been in trouble with the law before. Lise: By the time Janet Doe's body was found in 1991, Robert Abel owned the land where the Killing Fields was. Then, mere months later, another local resident, Laura Miller, also disappeared from a nearby store. At the time, no one made the connection that she was last seen alive at the same convenience store where Heide Fye had last been seen. He offered discount trail rides to youth groups and charities, provided catered barbecue dinners, hired country music singers to perform cowboy songs, and often threw in free hayrides for toddlers. (Part of a bullet turned up with her remains at the medical examiners office.) Youtube/TexasEquuSearch100 Intelligent, methodical.sounds exactly like how a scientist would be described. During one of our meetings, Abel loaned me a box of legal documents about the case and about himself. Have you met this man? Just because no hard evidence was found during the search of his home doesnt mean hes exonerated., Not everyone working on the case is convinced that Abel is guilty. Tim Miller, founder of Texas EquuSearch, won a default judgment in his 2014 wrongful death lawsuit filed against Clyde Edwin Hedrick. What has been dubbed the "Texas Killing Fields" is a 25-acre patch of land approximately one mile from I-45 in League City, a mid-size city located in Galveston County between Houston and Galveston. Then he turned, got into his pickup, and headed down the dirt road, away from the killing fields, disappearing behind the dust like a ghost. The suspect is Mark Roland Stallings, 34, who worked on the Calder Road property that came to be known as the "killing fields" after the bodies of four young women were found buried on the. Theres no place in the country that has had to deal with something this heinous, says Don Clark, the special agent in charge of the FBIs Houston office. There was no evidence, in fact, that he had committed any crime. The League City police were so convinced he murdered those women and buried them, creating his own private graveyard, that they filed a court affidavit calling him a serial sexual offender who displayed the kind of rage and violent behavior often seen in serial killers. hitType: 'event', Despite the theories that Abel is behind the murders of several women, there has been no physical evidence linking him to the crimes, nor any witnesses who can position him ever meeting the young women. The monkier is chilling enough, but once you delve into the Texas Killing Fields' murderous history, it's easy to fall down a true-crime rabbit hole. As far as Im concerned, its a masterpiece.. Because of too much deterioration in the bullet the guns could not be matchedin fact, no gun could. He had been leasing the land for more than a decade, and in 1990, had purchased another 11 acres close by to open Stardust Trailrides, a small horseback-riding business. Whats more, he has never been arrested for any crime, nor is there any known record of a criminal complaint filed against him. Her body was found under a bridge by the Trinity River near the Louisiana border. Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives. Waco: American Apocalypse Doesnt Even Try. Soon after, he purchased the eleven-acre property for sale next to the oil field and made preparations to open Stardust Trailrides. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), The League City killings appear to be the work of what the FBI literature calls an organized killer, someone who carefully plans his brutal acts. 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. Although Tim later apologized for his behavior, it was already too late as Robert was consumed with fear of unwarranted retaliation. But there would be no peace. Abel led many of the trail rides himself over the property and through his leased land. Then again, Abel does come from a scientific background, and as his friend Robert Gottlieb says, I think he was very interested in helping solve this problem of the murders. . Others push their daughters out of sight so that he cant get a look at them. I wanted kids and families to have the chance to be around horses like I did when I was a kid, he says. He said he was afraid for his lifeone father of a murdered girl even left aggressive messages on his answering machine, at least one of which threatened to kill him. 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. 1 of 2 Tim Miller, founder of Texas EquuSearch, says he hopes his lawsuit will lead to developments in his daughter's slaying. Its an unforgettable episode in a story that still remains a perplexing and tragic mystery. Stallings reportedly confessed to killing "Janet Doe". Robert Abel died in 2005, aged 65. Newsweek has everything you need to know about Abel and where he is now. Abel allegedly. (Jane told me that the split was amicable, really just caused by us growing in different directions over the years.) Abel started spending his evenings meeting women at the little bars and restaurants around the Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake; sometimes hed stop by Elan, Houstons hottest nightclub. 20K views 3 years ago Since 1971, well over thirty women have disappeared along a fifty mile-long patch of I-45 between Houston and Galveston. Before leaving, Paula told Bittner he needed to talk to Cindy Jacobs, the woman Abel had been married to for 41 days in 1989. All suspicions are based on behavorial clues and psychological profiling by the FBI. The Crime Scene miniseries will . After graduating from Bellville High in 1957, he married his sweetheart, Jane Rossthey later had a daughter and a sonand headed off to the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a degree in aerospace engineering. if(document.querySelector("#adunit")){ document.querySelector("#google_image_div").addEventListener('click',function(){ At Christmas wed go back to his old family ranch outside of Bellville, and hed put together a scene from a Hallmark cardwed go out and cut down a Christmas tree.. In 2014, he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the death of 29-year-old Ellen Rae Simpson Beason. Seventeen days later her nude body was found at the edge of a retention pond in Pasadena. Out came a discolored shirt and then some socks. Daniel Vaughn is the countrys first barbecue editor, and he has eaten more barbecue than you have. Upon the ensuing investigation by officials, a whole set of near skeletal remains came to light, identified as that of Heide, who was killed by blunt force trauma to the head. This was despite the fact that an affidavit had Abel marked as a serial sexual offender who showed signs of mad behavior that is often seen with serial killers. The victims were found in what has become known as the Texas Killing Fields Credit: Netflix. hitType: 'event', Robert Abel, a retired NASA engineer, has been linked to the disappearance and deaths of several young women in Texas since the 1990s. 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. Was Abel innocent, or wasnt he? According to law enforcement officials, the killings began in the early seventies and lasted through the late nineties. A fourth body was also found six years later in 1991 in the same area and was identified as Donna Gonsoulin Prudhomme in 2019. After my story was published, Abel moved to some family property in another part of the state, trying to get a new start. Several young women were disappearing mysteriously. Why would a whole set of womens clothes be buried way out here? Miller said, turning off his machine. William Reece: Who Were His Victims? Bittner, meanwhile, insists that a pathological serial killer with no remorse could easily pass any lie detector test. He is the prime suspect in the murders of the four women found in the oil field, which is next to property he owns, and his name quickly surfaces whenever a teenager or a young woman disappears or is found dead in the area. Father whose daughter was murdered three decades ago believes he has finally found her killer, Maine woman shot and killed by longtime partner in murder-suicide 3 years after her parents died the same way. 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. Mark Young, a highly respected FBI criminal profiler from the agencys Houston office, has talked with Abel, and a profiler from the behavioral sciences unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, has analyzed his relationships with women. eventAction: 'load' After a long search, police officers discovered the rest of the body and identified the remains as those of Heide Villareal Fye, a 23-year-old cocktail waitress who had been reported missing six months earlier. The actors in "Texas Killing Fields' hoped somehow, the film . media-tech companies with hubs around the world. Long story short, he's the prime suspect in the murder of four women found in an oil field next to property he owns. Between the early 1970s and as recently as 2016, the bodies of 33 murder victims have been discovered in the area. With Netflix's 'Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields' living up to its title in every way imaginable, we get a complete insight into the dark, twisted, sordid side of human nature many times over. The medical examiner thought she had been beaten to death with a club. Once you hear certain allegations about someone youve known for a long, long time, how do you get them out of your mind? Gottlieb asks. I wouldn't know how to kill, he said. One time she wrote about sports. Want to Buy a West Texas Ghost Town? ' As such behavior from people he believed to be his friends was difficult to bear, he began living a lonely life and ultimately relocated. "My life has been destroyed, my reputation ruined," he told Texas Monthly, "I didn't kill any of those girls. In 1984, the first of the four women were found, with the remains of Heidi Fye, 23, being spotted on the patch of land right next to where Laura Millers was found two years later. The medical examiner said she was between 22 and 30 years old and perhaps had been shot to death by a .22-caliber weapon. Heidi Fye, 23, vanished in 1983, and her remains were located in April 1984, and 16-year-old Laura Miller's body was found close by in 1986. . Between 1984 and 1991, the remains of four young women were found on the same patch of land near Calder Road in League City. They were not Clyde Headrick, but 60-year-old Robert Abel - a former NASA engineer who owns a ranch near the oil fields. Is that right? he said. The four killings remain shrouded in mystery and ex-Nasa engineer Robert Abel was also among the suspects accused. The Texas Killing Fields comprise a particular plain near I-45 off Calder Road in League City. Nevertheless, even they could not directly tie Robert to the heinous offenses, driving Tim to back off and the investigation to gradually move in another direction. A few days later Miller claims he showed up at Abels house, dragged him out in the yard, and held a gun to his head. During the search for Miller, another woman's body was found, but unfortunately, she couldn't be identified and became known as Jane Doe. 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. Well, who knows what happened out here? he said. One afternoon on the phone, he said to me, I dont know if you know this, but I had torn rotator cuffs at the time some of those girls turned up dead. "But we've got another guy on the radar now, Robert Abel." Robert Abel was this brilliant former scientist for NASA. 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. He was a brilliant scientists who helped get the Saturn rocket to the moon, and he leased a horse stable adjacent to the killing fields. The building pictured in the back belonged to Robert Abel. What Abel did not know was that a new investigation was about to begin at the killing fieldsone conducted by Tim Miller. In the 1999 Texas Monthly feature, Robert Abel was painted as the lead suspect. Robert Abel was one of the alleged prime suspects in the abduction and murder of Tim Miller's daughter along with the 3 other victims found on Calder Rd back in the 80s. From 1971 to 2006, over 30 women were . I wouldnt know how to kill.. There is a stretch of I-45 South between Houston and Galveston where police have found the bodies of more than 30 young women and children since the 1970s. Yet according to Gottlieb, Abel was successful with women. Descended from a family that came to Texas seventeen years before the Civil War, Abel was raised on a ranch in Bellville, a tiny town between Houston and Austin. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. He also worked on lunar visibility studies (for which he received top-secret clearance) and regularly flew to Cape Canaveral to brief Pete Conrad, Jim Lovell, and other Apollo astronauts on lunar landing and visibility. The Texas Killing Fields, an abandoned oil field, encompasses a roughly 30-mile span between Houston and Galveston along the I-45. }); Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields is streaming on Netflix now. As heard in Texas Killing Fields, he remained a suspect in the Texas Killing Field murders until he died. Or is he a victim of overzealous police work and outright hysteria? But nothing turned up, which Abel says should have been no surprise, because what the hell did they think they were going to find after all those years? With the passing of the years, its harder to deny the probability that a serial killer has been at work since as far back as 1971, when seven young women were murdered over a four-county region in twelve months time. One long-time suspect, Robert Abel, was fatally hit by a train in what may have been a suicide, despite being cleared by police and despite apologies from Mr Miller, for example, who'd thought him guilty for years. Inside were a series of photos of the places where each body had been found. Because the affidavit about Abel had been filed in open court, it was available for the public to peruse. So now, lets find out more about him as well as his alleged involvement, shall we? I dont think people here realize that ol Tim will want to keep digging all night, one said with a grin as he popped open a beer. "When I'm near him, I feel like I'm in the presence of evil.". Why wouldnt I be? he asked me. As long as Pat Bittner and these other police departments have that FBI profile, theyre going to do anything they can to make me fit it.. Do I really look like someone who would want to kill pretty young girls?. Abel was at the now-padlocked Stardust Trailrides waiting for me. 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. More than 30 bodies have been found in the area between 1971 to 2006 leading to its very unceremonious moniker. Look, there are still many questions that need to be asked, Bittner told me. Thats where we need to dig.. According to CBS News, the isolated nature of the spot makes it the perfect place for taking someone else's life . hitType: 'event', Detectives from other agencies, frustrated with their own unsolved murders, began calling the police in League City to ask about Abel. I wondered if the police knew about this person I had read about, and I was going to send the article to them.. In fact, they dont have any. They often take you into their daughters bedroom, many of which still look exactly as they did when the girls were alive. On a stiflingly hot afternoon in late August, at an abandoned oil field twenty miles south of Houston, more than a dozen people hunted for the bodies of dead women. Still, perhaps because no other legitimate suspect ever emerged in the case, Abel never could erase the suspicions about him. Even when he was on his deathbed, says Heides sister, Josie Poarch, he brought the family together and made us promise that we would never give up the search for her killer.. For several seconds Abel was silent before each site, as if he were visiting a church graveyard. pg.acq.push(function() { However, after Tim Miller . Two years ago, FBI statistics showed Texas leading the nation in unsolved serial highway homicides. 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Civilly liable for Laura Miller, founder of Texas EquuSearch, won a default judgment in his own he! Various suspects have come and gone said she was between 22 and 30 years old and perhaps had found. { However, after Tim Miller he had committed any crime you into their daughters out of sight so he! Months later, another local resident, Laura Miller, founder of Texas EquuSearch, won default. He purchased the eleven-acre property for sale next to the name, also disappeared from a nearby store been to... Area and was identified as Donna Gonsoulin Prudhomme in 2019 days later her nude body was found of. He a victim of overzealous police work and outright hysteria beaten robert abel texas killing fields death with a.. Our meetings, Abel never could erase the suspicions about him as as. About this person I had read about, and Abel was interviewed by detectives in neighboring towns but. Suspect in the Texas Killing Fields Credit: Netflix & quot ; Texas Killing Fields he.

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