Man sentenced to 20 years over a 'Texas Killing Fields' case, decades after dozens of bodies found

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) — A man convicted over a “ Texas Killing Fields ” death was sentenced to 20 years in prison Thursday in a rare trial related to the bodies of dozens of women found near Houston beginning in the 1970s.

James Dolphs Elmore Jr. was sentenced a day after a Galveston County jury found him guilty of manslaughter in the death of 16-year-old Laura Miller, whose body was found in the infamous area in 1986. Elmore, 61, was arrested earlier this year and accused of preparing the dose of cocaine that killed Miller.

Investigators believe multiple people may be responsible for the deaths of more than 30 girls and young women, whose bodies were found in a stretch of land along Interstate 45 southeast of Houston. The “Texas Killing Fields” have inspired books, movies and a Netflix documentary.

Miller was one of four young women whose bodies were found between 1984 and 1991 in a rural field off a desolate dirt road in League City, located about 28 miles (45 kilometers) southeast of Houston.

Elmore was accused in an indictment of preparing a vial of cocaine that was administered to Miller by Clyde Hedrick, who authorities have alleged was the person responsible for the deaths of the four women and had been Elmore’s longtime friend. The district attorney’s office said in March that they had decided to seek grand jury indictments against Hedrick in the deaths, but the 72-year-old Hedrick died by suicide before the grand jury presentation.

Hedrick was convicted of manslaughter in 2014 in the death of Ellen Beason, a young woman whose body was found in 1985 after going missing the previous years. He was released in 2022 and was still on parole at the time of his death, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

After Laura Miller's death, her father, Tim Miller, founded Texas EquuSearch, a nonprofit that helps look for missing people.

Most of the deaths associated with the “Texas Killing Fields” remain unsolved.

In 2022, William Reece , an Oklahoma death row inmate, pleaded guilty to three murders in Texas, including those of 12-year-old Laura Smither and 17-year-old Jessica Cain in Galveston County, and 20-year-old Kelli Cox , who was from Denton in North Texas but whose body was found hundreds of miles away in Brazoria County, located next to Galveston County. He received life sentences for all three murders.