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‘Texas Killing Fields’: Clyde Hedrick’s friend shares new details in EquuSearch founder’s daughter’s cold case
A man claiming to be an associate of convicted killer Clyde Edwin Hedrick showed Tim Miller where the pair allegedly "dumped a lot of things" in Texas' infamous "Killing Fields" and where Hedrick allegedly stalked Miller's daughter before she vanished.
It was an area off the beaten path near their old home that "no one else knew she went to," Miller told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.
On multiple occasions since April 2022, the man met with Miller to drive to Calder Road along Interstate 45 in coastal League City, Texas. That's where Miller's 16-year-old daughter, Laura, was found dead in 1986.
"He said, ‘Here. Stop right here. Stop right here,’" Miller said. "So I stopped, and he kept staring out the window, and he said, ‘We dumped something right there.’ I said that's exactly where Laura was dumped.
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"He said, ‘I don’t know what it was, but we dumped something in there.' So I asked him, ‘How many times you been out here?’ He said, ‘Clyde and I used to come out here all the time and dump stuff.’"
They were looking at a 25-acre patch of land that was the subject of Netflix's true-crime documentary called "Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields," where 30 bodies – mostly females between the ages of 12 and 25 – were found since the 1970s.
Miller would not name the man who claimed to be Hedrick's associate, citing the man's cooperation with law enforcement as investigations into "Killing Fields" cases, including Laura's, remain active.
No one has been criminally charged in Laura's 1984 abduction and death, but Miller has long suspected Hedrick. Miller won a $24 million wrongful death lawsuit against him after Hedrick failed to show up for the civil trial, according to authorities and court records.
The criminal case remains open and active, Galveston County District Attorney Jack Roady said in July 2022 after Miller won the civil suit. "Clyde Hedrick has not been ruled out as a suspect in these investigations," Roady said.
Miller and the man who said he was with Hedrick for years continued their drive when Miller asked him where Hedrick used to live.
"We rode into Dickinson and stopped in front of a house that was only two houses away from the house we just moved out of," Miller said. "He kept staring at that house, and he said this is where Clyde lived. And then he told me, ‘Someday you may know what happened in that house.’"
They drove a couple of hundred feet away, took a left and then right, Miller said, and then the man told him to stop.
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"He said, ‘You see those woods over there… That’s where Clyde used to hide and watch Laura,'" Miller said. "Well there was a cemetery there that was right beside the Dickinson bayou that's three blocks away from our house, and Laura would go there and hang out by the cemetery.
"It was a tranquil, little place, and no one knew Laura did that, so when he told me that, I said (to myself), ‘This guy is real./’"
That's when Miller took the man to law enforcement and prosecutors. He said he couldn't go into details about what else what was said during the interview because it's part of an active investigation.
But Miller asked the man why it took him so long to say something, and he told Miller there were only three of them – him, Hedrick and another man, who recently died – and he feared they would kill him.
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What law enforcement is going to be able to use as evidence or testimony in a potential criminal case involving Laura's death is unknown because the man's memory is fading from heavy drug use over the years and his health is deteriorating, Miller said.
Laura's case appears to be as cold as ever, according to Miller, who met with authorities last week and left "more frustrated than I've been in many years."
Meanwhile, Hedrick, who has been convicted of other crimes over the years, including a 2014 manslaughter conviction in the 1984 death of Ellen Ray Beason, was released to mandatory supervision on Oct. 4, 2021, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Hedrick is scheduled to remain on GPS leg-monitored supervision until April 3, 2033, but he's eligible to be released from that requirement this month, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed.
It's part of the program he's in where clients can be reviewed for release every six months to a year.
As of Jan. 31, the Board of Pardons and Paroles had not received an application on Hedrick's behalf, the state Department of Criminal Justice said.
Miller is concerned about Hedrick's potential release from parole supervision. Hedrick is 68, but Miller said, "He's healthier now than when he was arrested."
"If he gets out, he will kill again," Miller said.
Hedrick could not be reached for this story.
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Miller expressed doubt that his daughter's murder will be solved and questioned the authorities' authenticity when they say they're still investigating, but he continues to bring potential witnesses and evidence to them.
A little over 20 years ago he founded Texas EquuSearch, a volunteer search and rescue organization that has assisted missing persons cases around the country.
Since its inception, the group has assisted more than 2,000 cases, helped recover 428 missing persons alive and the remains of 326 deceased victims, according to its website.
The group recently assisted with high-profile cases, including those of Dylan Rounds, the 19-year-old Utah farmer who vanished under suspicious circumstances in May, and Summer Wells, the Tennessee 6-year-old who went missing from her parents’ home last summer.
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