Arrest Made in Cold-Case 'Texas Killing Fields' Murders

More than four decades after bodies began turning up along a desolate stretch of land between Houston and Galveston, an arrest has been made in the "Texas Killing Fields" investigation and prosecutors say there could be more to come.

• Galveston County officials on Wednesday announced the arrest of 61-year-old James Dolphs Elmore Jr. of Bacliff. He has been charged with manslaughter and evidence tampering in the 1984 killing of Laura Miller and with tampering in the 1986 death of Audrey Cook. Prosecutors allege Elmore helped dispose of victims' bodies and prepared a "vial of cocaine" for Miller that was passed to her by another man, Clyde Hedrick, the leading suspect in at least four murders.

• District Attorney Kenneth Cusick said a multi-agency review of the long-stalled case led investigators back to Elmore. Cusick said his office sought grand jury indictments against Hedrick in the deaths of Miller, Cook, and two other women, Heidi Fye and Donna Prudhomme. Hedrick died by suicide last month, before the grand jury presentation, but evidence laid out then helped secure Elmore's indictment, Cusick said. He said Hedrick, 72, took his own life shortly after investigators interviewed him, the Houston Chronicle reports.
• The DA emphasized that "this is not over," citing other active leads tied to the roughly 30 women found in the Killing Fields area between 1984 and 1991.

• Laura's Miller father, Tim Miller, founded the Texas EquuSearch search-and-rescue organization after the kidnap and murder of his 16-year-old daughter. "Just because there's an arrest and everything, don't think Tim Miller is going to walk away from Texas EquuSearch and quit helping families. No, I think we're just getting started again," he said Wednesday. "We got other girls to find, we got closure to bring more families."
• A spokesperson for the family of Fye, the first victim found in the area in 1984, described news of the arrest and death as "bittersweet," Fox 26 reports. "If the League City detectives would've just listened to my grandfather, some girls would be alive," the spokesperson said, adding: "It's sad that Clyde didn't get to pay for what he did—on the other hand, I'm glad that he doesn't breathe the same breath we breathe on Earth."