01x03 - The Reckoning

[bunniefuu]

Webster 9-1-1.

Someone came in and said

that she had been abducted

and that she jumped out of a vehicle

Okay.

and that she's bleeding.

Is she

in the parking lot?

She's in the parking lot.

Webster-based Medic One.

Need you en route to the Waffle House.

In May of 1997,

there was a young woman abducted.

She was in his pickup truck,

and they were driving north

on Interstate 45 towards Houston.

And she was able to open the door

on the freeway and jump out.

She had scrapes all over.

She was bleeding.

Turned out the woman's name

was Sandra Sapaugh.

The only thing I was thinking was like,

he's gonna k*ll me.

I'd rather jump and k*ll myself

than him doing what he was gonna do.

So, I jumped.

She became

very severely injured,

but she survived.

She went to the police station.

Couldn't remember

the license plate number,

but she described more

of what the inside of the truck look like.

She also described

the man who had abducted her.

A receding hairline,

big bags underneath his eyes,

and a black cowboy hat.

That's him.

The benefit of the case

with the woman who was able

to get out of the truck is

she could identify him.

Having an eyewitness to point out

and say, "This is who abducted me,"

it was a major breakthrough.

The man is believed

to be driving a pickup truck.

He's described as white,

in his mid-thirties, with a medium build.

How do we catch him?

You can easily exit Interstate 45

at night,

throw open the back door,

toss your body out.

The water covers up

your physical evidence.

And you're gone.

Laura Smither and other victims,

all of them happened

along the same stretch of I-45.

The days

after Laura first went missing,

police departments on that I-45 corridor

started comparing notes.

They started collaborating.

One county did a survey

of sex criminals who lived in this area,

and they came up

with the number of 2,100 men.

Near the end of September,

a cop I know,

Sue Dietrich, went over to talk

to the police chief in Friendswood.

He started talking about a suspect

in the Laura Smither case.

I realize that was, in fact, very similar

to the information given by Sandra.

That guy fits the description.

Number four,

step on the red circle.

They brought him in

for an in-person lineup.

Sandra's eyes locked on him

the minute that he walked in.

I want you to repeat after me

in a loud, clear voice.

"Do not scream."

Do not scream.

"Get in the truck."

Get in the truck.

"I'll k*ll you, b*tch."

I'll k*ll you, b*tch.

She said, "It's number four. That's him."

And it was Bill Reece.

They got a search warrant for his house.

And his truck.

And they found the black cowboy hat

that Sandra had talked about.

They were able to arrest Reece

for her abduction.

William Reece,

he was working in construction

during the period Laura Smither

and other young women disappeared.

He was a sex offender

out of Oklahoma

who had just gotten out of prison

after serving time

for two different sexual assaults.

William Reece

had come to Houston to work.

In 1997,

there was a new subdivision

going in very close

to where Laura Smither lived,

and William Reece was working

construction at that new subdivision.

And it turned out,

at nine o'clock,

when Laura started off on her jog,

Bill Reece was being released

by the foreman on the job that day

because it was gonna rain.

We don't know what he said

to get her in the truck.

We don't know if he used a weapon.

We don't know if he

tricked her.

But she was never seen after that.

When Laura was first missing,

William Lewis Reece was being interviewed

very early on and watched.

It was really when Sandra Sapaugh

was abducted.

And I wondered at that time.

When it was on the same stretch of road.

Was he involved?

While we were

investigating William Reece in 1997,

we had to consider he was potentially

a suspect for the Calder Road killings.

It's extremely rare

to have two serial K*llers

in the same close proximity,

separated by only a few years.

But at the time Heide Fye, Laura Miller,

and Jane Doe were discovered

William Reece was in prison in Oklahoma,

so he couldn't have been

responsible for those.

The man arrested

for a Webster kidnapping

and named as the prime suspect

in the k*lling of Friendswood's

Laura Smither.

Besides the Smither m*rder,

police are investigating

whether Reece could also be involved

with the disappearance

of another local teenager,

Jessica Cain of Tiki Island.

At the beginning,

Reece had a very convincing

good-old-boy country act.

And I've watched the tape.

He was very convincing.

It sounds bad because they got me set up

like I'm a serial k*ller.

I didn't k*ll her.

Never seen the girl, never met the girl.

I've never been with the girl.

With Laura Smither,

she was found deceased.

There was very little evidence, and

then Jessica Cain, she wasn't even found.

The district attorney chose

to prosecute for Sandra, not for Laura,

because he felt that we didn't have

enough evidence for a capital m*rder case,

which was very frustrating

to me at the time

because I thought

we had plenty to prosecute.

William Reece

has not been charged

in the unsolved Laura Smither case,

although her parents

are a constant presence

here at the kidnapping trial.

Reece was convicted

for the kidnapping of Sandra Sapaugh

and sentenced to 60 years.

I interviewed Reece when I was

just starting to work on the book.

- Did you k*ll Laura Smither?

- Nope.

Huh. So you never

saw Laura that day?

Like, even just jogging down the street

when you were driving by in your truck?

No.

What about Jessica Cain?

Who's that?

The girl

who disappeared on I-45?

- Why do you think people look at you?

- I don't give a damn.

I mean, I got everything I need

to prove that I'm innocent.

Nothing links me to anything.

He just denied and denied.

So what do you think

happened here?

I really don't care.

I walked out of there

believing he had k*lled both of them.

But I didn't have anything

on my tape recorder that proved it.

Since 1983, Galveston County

has an unusually large number

of mysterious disappearances.

All involve young women,

many only teenagers.

All have either disappeared

or turned up dead.

Police are afraid

those responsible may still be out there.

How did we get all these

sick b*stards in one spot?

I don't know. I don't get it.

I don't get it.

As time passed

and no evidence materialized,

the Calder Road killings,

they were frozen cold.

In the '90s, the detectives

never gave up on Abel.

But there was no evidence

that Abel had done anything.

At one point, Tim decided

that Robert wasn't guilty.

Tim Miller,

the most adamant Abel-hater

in all of that part of Texas,

a man who wanted to k*ll Abel,

realized that he had gone way too far.

And at some point, he called Abel

and said, "I'm sorry."

I just had the opportunity

to hug his neck and say,

"Robert, please forgive me."

And we cried together and stuff.

But it wasn't enough.

It was too late.

Abel knew that he'd never be thought of

as anything but a serial k*ller

for the rest of his life.

In League City, he continued

to be a suspect until he died.

He drove his golf cart

right up on the tracks,

just as a train was getting there.

We'll probably never know

if it was suicide or an accident.

Totally destroyed his life until

he couldn't stand what they did anymore.

Couldn't deal with it.

Waste of time and another wasted life.

There are a lot of victims here.

- What's your name?

- Clyde Hedrick.

Clyde, tell me

about your decorations.

We just do it for the kids.

Put the little tombstone things out here.

You know, give them an idea of a grave.

Clyde Hedrick.

He was on my radar the minute

they told me early on about Ellen Beason.

But then this Robert Abel

is a person of interest and everything.

Waste of time.

And then it went back to the same person

I was looking at in the very beginning.

After the trial for tampering

with the body of Ellen Beason,

he got into trouble

with the law time and again.

Clyde Hedrick, he had already

done time in prison in Florida.

The file that the Galveston County

DA's office has on Clyde Hedrick

is pretty thick.

He was accused by various

ex-wives and ex-girlfriends

of beating them, cocaine, arson.

Clyde Hedrick

knew everything about this area.

Clyde worked for a contractor

that was right here on Calder.

We did get information.

This is one of the spots Clyde would dump

some of his building materials.

Right beside Laura's body,

there was some old shingles

and some old rotten wood

that was apparently

taken off somebody's house.

That's the business he was in.

Tim Miller contacted myself

and a sheriff's department detective

and asked to meet with us.

He and I went to Tim's office

and sat down with him,

and Tim asked for help.

Tim Miller was suspicious

of Clyde Hedrick's involvement

in his daughter's m*rder.

For years, I think police who knew

about the Ellen Beason case

were very skeptical of the statements

that were given by Clyde Hedrick.

He was always the focus,

and it was always thought

that he was far more involved in that

than we were able to convict him for.

Myself

and several other investigators

formed an ad hoc task force.

We had the idea if we reopen

the Ellen Beason case,

maybe that would bring in some more

information and possible tips

to the other unsolved cases.

If we were gonna hold somebody

accountable for her m*rder,

it is evidence that we had to have.

In March of 2012,

we exhumed Ellen Beason's body,

and it was a very difficult decision.

I can't imagine having that

be my loved one.

Clyde, why don't you

have a seat right here.

I've never seen a Dr Pepper can like that.

Yeah, it just pops on.

I only got half a jaw from the cancer.

I'm Ted Tommy Hanson

with Galveston Sheriff's Office,

Agent Rennison with the FBI,

and you're Clyde Edwin Hedrick, right?

- Yes.

- Okay.

Let's start with Ellen Beason.

Who's that?

When we were driving over,

I said, "When's the last time

you carried a body around?"

And you said: "I never did that."

- Oh, and that's her?

- That's her.

Back in 1985 when this happened,

the medical examiner's office didn't have

certain equipment they have today.

Right.

We exhumed her body.

That means we dug it up.

And she has a massive skull fracture.

And I don't mean a little hairline crack.

We're talking a massive skull fracture

that would absolutely cause death.

I don't see how that's possible.

Well, it's possible.

We had forensic anthropologist

take a look at the remains.

And according to

the medical professionals,

that could only have been done

through homicide.

I'm not trying to see

if she got a skull fracture.

I'm trying to see how

she got the skull fracture.

The only way I could possibly think of

is that maybe that's what

When she went swimming

and then she was not swimming,

but there's nothing in there that

You know, I was in that water,

you know, years.

There's no way she dove in

and hit her head.

There's no way in hell

that she had skull fractures.

I don't like seeing someone

get away with m*rder.

That's just not right.

A judge of your character

is how you own up to your responsibilities

when you make mistakes,

and you're failing miserably, Clyde.

I can put my hand on a stack of bibles,

and I know I've never, ever hurt

anybody as far as death-wise.

Definitive. That happened.

Complete puzzle to me.

I think he felt this was behind him,

and perhaps he'd gotten away with it.

The force needed to cause

that fracture was a great powerful force,

a force that wasn't an accident,

but that was intended to take a life.

That, along with other things,

gave us enough evidence

to charge Clyde

for the m*rder of Ellen Beason.

Is that him?

Oh, yeah. That's him.

Yeah, that's him. That's him.

I mean, the list goes on and on.

It's sickening looking through sh*t.

I mean, it truly is.

An additional piece

of evidence we had

was some statements that Hedrick had made

to other inmates in the county jail

while he was awaiting trial.

We typically call them jailhouse snitches,

jailhouse informants.

Hedrick spoke about the Ellen Beason case

and made admissions to other murders.

One of those, he included

the name of Laura Miller.

Tucked away

in the prosecution's case

involving Beason is a document titled,

"Notice of Intent to Use Evidence

of Other Crimes, Wrongs, or Acts."

In this document, prosecutors write,

"Defendant had sex with Laura Miller

and then intentionally

and knowingly k*lled her."

Prosecutors have indicated

Clyde Hedrick was also involved

in the k*lling Fields murders

in the mid '80s,

and have never been solved.

Without ever reaching out

to Tim Miller, her father,

I had now filed a document

that said I knew a man had m*rder*d

and potentially r*ped his daughter.

I regret that.

It was the way that I met Tim Miller,

which is not a great way to meet someone.

How did you

find out about that?

Well, I read it in court reports.

Taunting and bragging.

His own admission when he was in jail.

How he had sex with Laura

before he k*lled her.

How he k*lled Heide.

I received

a phone call from Tim Miller,

and I went further and explained to him

the source of that information,

and why it wasn't necessarily

a break in the case.

Texas law states

that a person cannot be convicted

on the basis of jailhouse informants,

but the defendant's involvement

has to be corroborated.

I talked to one of the guys

that was in jail with Clyde

when Clyde actually told them

that he had sex with Laura

before he m*rder*d her.

Pretty painful conversation.

You know, I was just hoping to get that

one little piece of evidence,

but I think anything I would've found

and turned over to the police,

it would just be probably lost.

I know that Tim wants the k*ller

of his daughter brought to justice.

I want that. I think everybody wants that.

We asked Hedrick

if he had anything to say about Laura.

"They're trying to pin me

for the k*lling Fields murders."

"I didn't k*ll her.

I didn't even know her."

The criminal justice system

is just a long,

brutal system for victims

and for families of victims.

But he fights every single day.

I filed a wrongful death suit

against him.

And I'll fight till my dying breath.

Clyde Hedrick sat quietly

as prosecutors told the jury

he is the man who k*lled and then tried

to hide the body of Ellen Rae Beason.

The 29-year-old woman,

left discarded under a couch

and forgotten about.

Some of Heide's family

was at the trial.

Tim Miller was there.

I had heart palpitations,

a lot of anxieties.

Difficult being there,

but it'd be harder not to be there.

I ended up cross-examining

the medical examiner.

From all of the photographs that we had

of his very initial examination

of Ellen Beason,

there were only two of the skull,

neither showing the area

where the fracture was.

I argued to the jury,

the medical examiner,

in an attempt to protect his reputation,

hid or destroyed evidence from the state.

We tried Clyde Hedrick for m*rder.

The jury found him guilty of manslaughter.

So after Clyde was convicted,

there was sentencing portion of the trial.

A former family member testified.

I was called in

as a witness for the sentencing phase.

The district attorney,

Kevin Petroff, wanted the jury

to hear what I had to say.

To really show

what kind of person Clyde Hedrick is.

I told them what had happened,

and that things progressively got worse.

There were times that I would fall asleep

watching TV in the living room.

And I could feel somebody

touching me.

It was just It was so hard to wake up.

And I was just so tired.

He would make me, like,

a glass of Kool-Aid or something.

I don't like Kool-Aid.

But if he made you something,

you take it.

One morning, I woke up

and I had to go straight to the bathroom.

I would be sore in places

that I shouldn't be.

You could tell on some level

that she was reliving it

as she was describing it to the jury.

It was very strong.

It was difficult to listen to.

For the Ellen Beason case,

the jury deliberated

fairly quickly and came back

with the maximum sentence

of 20 years in prison.

Somebody finally listened.

The Ellen Beason trial,

that was very eye-opening to me.

The autopsy decision

being grossly incorrect

just brought to light

some of the same frustrations we've had

in our case with my aunt Heide.

The medical examiner,

he did not preserve her clothing.

He did not preserve fingernails.

He did not preserve items

that could potentially contain

physical forensic evidence

that a lot of juries want

in a case to get convictions.

In most of these cases,

they've lost a lot of the evidence.

The shirt that was found

near Laura's body was gone.

There could be DNA.

But if they never find the shirt,

we'll never know.

There's just not enough resources

for cold cases in America in general.

There's still a lot of cases

that get forgotten,

and that don't get solved.

And that is allowing

serial K*llers to go free.

These cases were old.

The world might have forgotten about it,

but those families didn't.

It just brought to light

the fact that

we're gonna have to dive into this deeper.

It would really, really be nice

to get some closure for these families.

Anything I can do to help

these people, I'm gonna try my hardest.

When I first started working

the Calder Road case,

it was somewhat difficult because

I didn't have access to all of the files

at League City Police Department.

I just wanted to read as much as I could

and see if a new set of fresh eyes could

maybe find something others didn't see.

The benefit of working cold cases is

technology improves over time.

The end of 2017, we decided

to try to use forensic genealogy

to identify the two women,

and had a hard time convincing

League City that it was a good technique.

It could answer the question

that has been

hanging around since the 1980s.

Who were these women?

Jane and Janet Doe

were unidentified

throughout the course

of the investigation.

League City,

they were a little resistant at first.

But in January of 2019,

on my birthday,

we were able to extract a DNA profile

and put it into those databases.

We were able to identify these two women.

First was Janet Doe.

Donna Gonsulin Prudhomme.

We were able to identify her

after 30-plus years.

And then the next day,

we were able to identify

Jane Doe as Audrey Lee Cook.

We sort of had assumed

maybe these women were transient people,

and the opposite was true.

Donna Gonsulin Prudhomme

had come here like a lot of other people

we've been talking about

because Houston was a boomtown,

there was work.

Audrey Lee Cook,

she was a mechanic,

and her family had been looking

for her for a long time.

After Donna Prudhomme

was positively ID'd, and Audrey,

I said, "We can get somebody indicted

and convicted on these girls."

What we're hoping for is somebody

who knew either one of these girls

to provide some information, anything,

even if you don't think it's a big deal.

We wanna know everything about them.

Families that go through this

When do we give up? We never give up.

Hey, Lee. Tim.

Tim, how's it going, man?

Well, I'm all right, you know.

We're gonna get four girls up

on these digital billboards.

Hopefully we'll get more information,

some calls coming in,

some possible leads and stuff.

You need to send me

exactly what you want to say on it,

and then we rotate them on the digital.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Hey, I'm gonna text you

this license plate number.

Thanks.

I had a lot of plans,

and I had a lot of goals in my life.

I know God

had different plans for Tim Miller.

And I'm not gonna say I like them.

I'm not gonna say I still like them today.

I mean,

he's getting up there in years.

We both are.

And I've seen him out on searches.

And I know he's in a lot of pain.

And he gets right down in that hole

and starts digging with everybody else.

Tim is very tenacious.

He won't give up,

and he doesn't like to lose.

He's good.

Tim Miller is one of the loudest voices

for these victims.

He keeps asking for someone

to be held accountable.

Are we gonna use ATVs out there?

It's a big-a*s area.

What's your schedule?

He keeps insisting

that they should find out who did this.

Clyde, he would talk

about past women

and what they used to do together.

And then that's when

Mother would get upset,

and they would get into arguments.

The first time that I met Tim,

it was at the trial.

It was right after I testified,

and he wanted to talk to me

about his daughter,

Laura Miller,

who Clyde knew.

Just lived on the same street as them.

This is Abel's stuff.

That was that fence line.

But after he told me

about his daughter

the age,

just all the connections,

all the similarities,

it just made sense.

It made sense.

Can you print that out and mark the fence?

Yeah.

Let's go to the k*lling Fields.

Tim had asked me

if I would go out to Calder Road.

See if I had been out there before.

You know, maybe, maybe not.

Right around here,

they had that gate.

I need to remember

if this was the same place Clyde took me.

How old were you then?

- Teenager.

- Twelve, thirteen?

And so

when we entered this property

none of it looked familiar

until I hit the tree line,

and there was this big metal pipe thing

coming out of the ground.

It was a trail,

and then there was a little pond.

Something about that metal pipe.

It was like a rush.

It just all came back.

I didn't know

it was Calder Road at the time,

but I was there.

Clyde had to do a mowing job

on his buddy's property.

It was the same place.

It was Calder Road.

I could see him.

He was doing something with the ground.

He was digging.

I don't know

what Clyde was doing out there,

but I can't believe that's where I was.

It makes sense now.

After the things that I've seen

and heard and have been through,

I was relieved

that he was finally behind bars.

You know, I was really hoping

that he would end up dying behind bars.

Tonight, 67-year-old

Clyde Hedrick is out of prison.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice

says he was released yesterday

on mandatory supervision.

I could not believe it.

It was like a punch in the stomach.

He was released on parole.

So, he's out today on parole.

How much time did he serve?

Eight years.

Clyde got early release

due to a technicality, a Texas law.

I don't know.

There was at least one instance

in which Clyde Hedrick was in prison

that came up

for the possibility of parole,

and we fought that successfully.

But this time was different.

The laws that are in effect

are those that were in effect

at the time of the crime.

This was a mandatory release.

This is not something that

there was a hearing or could be fought.

The way the laws were set up

is he was to be released at that time.

So, there wasn't much to be done about it.

If they would've listened to me

in the beginning,

they would've found Laura.

There would've been probably evidence.

At least they would've been able

to determine a cause of death.

Hmm.

I hate going through this sh*t.

I'm telling you, I f*cking hate it.

There's no reason 30-some years later

I need to even be doing this sh*t.

Where do you stop?

I know that throughout

the course of a criminal justice case,

that victims feel

there's a lot of injustices,

and that's certainly one of them.

It's disheartening for me.

I can't imagine the pain

and frustration that Tim Miller feels.

That Marla feels.

But it is the law.

And so, I understand it.

We have to accept that.

Vulnerable women.

The most vulnerable.

That's who he seeks out.

That's the kind of man that they released.

This transitional center

is Hedrick's new address.

He's not in prison right now,

and he's free to go.

He's free to go.

Miller plans to be

across the street tomorrow morning

to discuss his concerns

with these latest developments.

Clyde Hedrick, right now,

is somewhere in here,

in a halfway house.

I'm gonna introduce several people

who are directly affected by Clyde.

I'm gonna ask Nina Edwards

to come up here and share a few words.

Hi, I'm Nina Edwards.

I'm Heide Fye's niece.

My grandfather spent

endless hours searching for her

and recording notes.

And my grandmother went to her grave

not knowing what happened

to her baby girl.

On behalf of my family,

I thank you for letting me

speak today on behalf of Heide,

who's not able to be with us today.

Put this mic right here.

I'm here to speak on behalf of myself

and the victims

who no longer have a voice,

and the victims out there

who haven't found their voice yet.

We had a press conference.

I was talking to the public,

and I was talking to Clyde.

Just because you were not convicted

of other crimes does not mean

you did not commit them.

Thank you, everyone, for your support.

I need as many people to know as possible

what kind of person

our law has put back out on the streets.

I think, as all of us feel here,

in the very beginning

when we begged and asked for help,

we were denied.

None of us are quitting.

In fact, I believe

we're just getting started.

I'll never, ever forget this day.

I said, "William, what's going

through your mind?"

"You have any remorse over this?"

Incredibly, he looked right at my eyes.

He said, "Mr. Miller,

you'll never understand this,

but people like me,

we don't have remorse."

There were a number of years in there

where we truly didn't think

we'd ever see this day.

I am just relieved

that now the official records

will show he was found guilty

and convicted of taking

my daughter away from us.

We just have to wait

for the wheels of justice to turn.

And hopefully, I'm gonna start pedaling

a lot faster than before.

We're never gonna give up.

We're going to pursue this

until my dying day, anyway.

We're still getting information

on the Calder Road killings.

If you have information

about any of these four victims,

please reach out to the FBI.

You can remain anonymous.

I retire in about

a year and a half from now.

So I've got some work to do.

I filed a wrongful death suit

to let Clyde Hedrick know that,

"Clyde, I'm still here. I am still here."