Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Texas Killing Fields - 30+ WOMEN! 40+ YEARS! Who Killed Laura Miller?!

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Texas Killing Fields - 30+ WOMEN! 40+ YEARS! Who Killed Laura Miller?! · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: When I was a death investigator, I got to the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: point in my mind and I think probably in my soul.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I was so burned out where I would begin to imagine,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and this had to do with a diagnosis of PTSD,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: that death was my companion. And everywhere I went, death
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: was with me. And you know, when you have PTSD,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you think about these horrible things. You know, you get
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: agoraphobia and you become kind of paranoid. A heightened sense
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: of guarding, I guess, as they say. Death seemed like
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: a constant companion. But can you imagine, in reality, that
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: you're sitting across the table from someone that you knew
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: had something to do with your precious daughter's death. And
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: you had developed a relationship with them for the purposes
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of trying to elicit information, just to get some scrap,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: some understanding. Today on Body Bags, we're going to talk
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: about a case or cases that and also one such person,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Tim Miller. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Brother Dave, it goes without saying that you and I
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: have spent time with Tim Miller. I'm not a personal
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: friend of his. However, I can tell you, and you've
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: spent far more time with him than I have, we've
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: been on a number of shows over the years. Tim
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: has a heart for searching for those that are missing.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: But the root of that, I don't know what you
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: would call it, that impetus that drives him forward every
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: single day has to do with the death of his
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: precious daughter. And we've kind of seen this unfold. I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: don't Again, I always use this, always allude to this.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I don't think you could walk into a Hollywood studio
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and try to pitch the story and they would believe it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: But that's where we are right now.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I thought for years, Joe, and I mean this, I
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: thought for years we're never going to have a resolution
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: for Tim. Tim Miller is, the reason you might recognize
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: his name is Texas EquiSearch. When we're searching for people,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Texas EquiSearch is popular. They are the premium. They're the
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: one everybody else looks to. Now, granted, there are other organizations.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Most of them are just incredible groups of volunteers who
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: have spent time and money, you know, searching, helping families
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: find some kind of resolution. And with Tim Miller starting
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Texas EquiSearch, it began, believe it or not, with his
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: own daughter being part of what has now been called
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: the Texas Killing Fields. And, you know, when we say
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: the Texas Killing Fields, it's talking about 30 murders, 30 women,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: more or less, because it's an area, and I pulled
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: this up because I wanted to be very specific. While
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: you have a lot of women, 30 or more, and yet,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: there's probably more than one person involved in the killings,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: kind of like with what's happening at Gilgo.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: You know, a.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Lot has been made about Rex Heuermann. Oh, got the guy,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: got the Long Island serial killer.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: No, you don't.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: You got one, because I don't think Heuermann was the
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: only one working in that area, and we still have
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: people who are not directly attached to him. Well, same
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: thing is true here with the Texas killing fields. It
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: refers to a stretch of area called Notorious, an area
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: near League City, along I-45, the corridor between Houston and Galveston.
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  Speaker 2: Most of us, unless you're living in Texas in that area,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: we know Galveston from.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: The song by Glen Campbell.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And yet, or if you study hurricanes, the Galveston hurricane
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: in the early 1900s. And yet the name Texas Killing
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  Speaker 2: Fields is used very broadly in the sense that it's
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: about a number of women found in a.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Fairly broad area. OK, we're talking about four today.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: In particular, actually, we're talking about two, Laura Miller and
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Audrey Lee Cook.
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  Speaker 3: So I was going to say four.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: There are four that are kind of all put together
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: in the same grouping. Also includes Heidi Villareal Fry and
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Donna Prudhomme.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: So along with Laura.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Miller and Audrey Lee Cook, those are the four that
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: kind of all get put together. And we'll see how
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: they attach as we go. Today, though, focusing on two.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: And the reason is in the last 12 months, after
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: all these years, because we're looking at stuff from 1984.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: after all these years, Joseph Scott Morgan, we now know
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: who killed Laura Miller. We now know who probably killed
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Audrey Lee Cook. Um, we actually have somebody who has
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: been on trial for being involved in those two homicides,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: something I thought we would never see Joe. And the
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: reason we know a lot about is because of Tim Miller.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because of Tim. And I, um, I was reflecting
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: back because, you know, these cases started, the so-called Texas
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: killing fields cases start, you know, they trace their origins
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: back to the early 70s, actually, you know, where you've
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: got this field or fields that are littered with these remains. And,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the names or two of the
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: names that came up in my mind as soon as
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I heard about this, I was thinking about Henry Lee Lucas.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: an honest tool because they were active during that period
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: of time as well. And they were in Texas, um,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and you know, Florida, a couple of other places as well.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And of course they use that to great effect to
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: get free trips, to go out and say, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I took responsibility for this, but they did kill people.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: And many times they did it, um, together. And again,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: this is one of these anomalous kind of serial events.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Where you've got individuals that are paired with one another.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So I don't think that it's beyond the scope to
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: believe that there is certainly more than two people that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: were maybe making these depositions, if you will, in these locations.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: And the problem is, is that for a long, long time,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and Tim has spoken about this, I don't want to
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: put words in his mouth. To say that he was
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: dissatisfied with the way investigations were going and probably his
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: view from behind the curtain as to how other investigations
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: had been going related to all of these cases, you know,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: left him somewhat frustrated. And this evidence that you might
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: recover at a scene like this that is, in fact,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: so vast, Brother Dave, it's easy to lose things. and
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: particularly when you do not begin as an investigator to
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: see patterns developing. And look, I'm not casting aspersions upon
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: those individuals that started working these cases all those years ago, okay?
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: You have to have a certain number of cases before
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: pattern recognition kicks in. And what am I talking about? Well,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: You know, when the people that do profiling and whatnot,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: they begin to tick boxes relative to similarities between cases, right? Well,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: if that's the route you're going to go down with
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: that group of people doing what they do, and I
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: think that it can be dangerous for forensics, actual forensics people,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: because you'll get locked into a mindset relative to what
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: you're looking for. Like, if you're doing pattern recognition as
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: an investigator at a scene, It's fine to make note
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of what you're seeing, but don't paint yourself into a
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: corner intellectually and say you're discarding all of the possibilities.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Because if you do that, it's going to lead you
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: down a path of exclusion, where you're essentially discounting everything
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: else that is kind of swirling around you. And one
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: of the problems is that, Dave, from an investigative standpoint,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: if you look at investigators, from a familial standpoint and
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: a kind of a family tree of investigators, 30, 40
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: year period, how many investigators have come and gone? And
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: with the descending lines, again, going back to this idea
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of almost genealogical connection, you know, professionally, who passed on
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: what information at one point in time, who had developed
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: leads or thoughts about a particular crime, and it may
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: have influenced investigators, you know, down the road, you know,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: to come in. We don't exist in a perfect world.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: So this is how things can get sideways sometimes, okay,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: with investigations.
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  Speaker 3: We get that way. When we're reporting these things.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: We do.
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  Speaker 3: We'll see it.
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  Speaker 2: In particular, when you and I are on a show
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: together on a story we've dealt with, and we'll hear
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: people say things on the show, and both of us
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: are going, come on, man, really?
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  Speaker 3: Are you watching TikTok all day? Is that what you're
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: really doing? Because that's not investigation.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
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  Speaker 2: And so it is something that happens. People get tunnel
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: vision and think of one thing and one thing only.
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  Speaker 2: But what we have here, With Laura Miller in particular
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  Speaker 2: and Audrey Lee Cook, and this is the interesting, not interesting,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: it's all, again, whenever I say this is fascinating or interesting,
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  Speaker 2: I feel like I am being cold to the victim's families,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: and I'm not. I'm trying not to be. It's just
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: we're trying to figure out who did this, and to
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  Speaker 2: be honest with you, I try to figure out why.
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  Speaker 2: What drove this person or persons to doing this heinous crime?
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  Speaker 2: And Laura Miller and Audrey Lee Cook Laura Miller went
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  Speaker 2: missing September of 84. She left her house. She's 16
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  Speaker 2: years old. Joe leaves her house to go make a
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  Speaker 2: phone call.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: Or at least that's what she said. Hey, I'm going
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  Speaker 3: to make a phone call. She vanishes.
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  Speaker 2: She's gone into thin air. A 16 year old girl.
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  Speaker 2: Think about that for just a minute. If you have
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  Speaker 2: a child, you know, that went through those teen years
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  Speaker 2: or anyway, when she went missing, It took almost a
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: year and a half before they found her. Her remains
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: were not found until February of 86. So think about
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  Speaker 2: that from September of 84 to February of 86. And
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: when they found her, she wasn't alone. They found the
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  Speaker 2: remains of Laura Miller with the remains of Audrey Lee Cook.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Now, they didn't identify Audrey Lee Cook right away. Matter
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  Speaker 2: of fact, Joe, she was a Jane Doe for decades.
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  Speaker 2: And as we look at today's episode, that's what we're
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: breaking down are the the two victims found in the
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: same spot, which. Mathematically, what are the odds that it
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: was somebody different, you know, that. I can't imagine. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: have you ever found remains near one another that were
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  Speaker 2: by two different sets of murderers?
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  Speaker 3: Has that ever happened?
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I have found, yeah, and I've been present when
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: adjunct remains have been found at a location. One of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the problems, though, particularly in such an isolated area and
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: such an unguarded area, is thinking about, you know, how
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: did those remains wind up there? And if you're trying
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: to assess it, What condition were the remains in? Had
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the remains been, I don't know, positioned in any particular way?
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And still, after all this time, could you actually have
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: appreciated positionality? You know, if there's any kind of posing
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: going on and this sort of thing. Because, Dave, I've
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: got to tell you, this is, to me, thinking about this.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: These remains are not, how can I say this? They're
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: out for preservation. Try not to be disrespectful. They're out
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: for display. Okay, this is not something where you're going
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  Speaker 1: in and you're trying to hide. And that might be
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the most sinister part to this. But as we move
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: through this horrible, horrible tragedy, let's keep in mind, has
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the killer actually been caught? Or are they out there
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: still somewhere? Or, Are they long since dead? Oh, brother Dave, there's, uh,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a couple of things you look for, um,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: relative to serialized events. Um, and when you show up
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: at the scene where a remain has been found and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: keep in mind, um, it's been my experience. Well, I've
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: had to, I've had, I've had individuals that I believe
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: killed on the site where the remains were found. And
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: then I've had other individuals that have killed at another
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: site and removed those remains to the dumping location. All right.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: So you're going to have, and I've traveled on about this, uh,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: many times, certainly in class. Um, over the years and
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: on air too, you know, where you have these levels
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of scenes, you have primary scene, secondary scene and tertiary scenes.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of the way you have to figure
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: things out or to try to understand if you have
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: enough evidence that will kind of be the key to
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: open the door here. If you have an individual that is, say,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: deposited and posed, okay, And when I say posed, you
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: can have individuals that are resting against things. You can have,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I've had individuals that are literally laid on the ground
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and spread eagle, nude or partially nude. And this is intentional.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: You know, when you see these, you'll see them either
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: in a supine position, sometimes means face up or prone position,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: face down. Legs will be spread apart. Arms will be spread.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I have not had one of these, but I've had people,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: friends of mine that have worked cases where individuals were
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: bound in almost a fetal-like position, and they're deposited. And
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: you see this lots of times with bindings, you know,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: like on the wrists, the ankles, and maybe they're kind
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: of hogtied, you know, when you find them. And without
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: going too far down this road, it really gives you
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: kind of an insight into, I think, the thinking of
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the perpetrator that's doing this. And Many profilers say that
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the more complex the posing, the the intentional nature of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: these events gives you an insight into the level of
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: of intellect for this person. I know that people would say, well, intellect,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: they're stupid for doing it. Look, man. the Marquis de
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Sade was brilliant. I mean, he really was. And that's
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: what kept him going, I think, for all the crimes
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: that he perpetrated over the years and even documented them,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: wrote about them extensively. And he was an animal, okay?
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So don't misconstrue this, okay? Because many times these people
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: have real high intellectual abilities. It's just that that ability
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: is directed in one specific area. You know, we sit
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: around and we think about, well, I got to pay
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the light bill this month. I got to feed my dogs.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I got to take care of myself. I got to
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: go to the doctor. These people, all that stuff is,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: even if they have it as adjunct to the behavior
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: that they're focused on, they're laser focused on going out
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: and killing people. And, you know, you think about what
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: kind of thought goes into this preparation. And again, if
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: you're a police officer or an investigator and you're showing
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: up at the scene, it's important that you take care.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: at the scene, because if that is the primary scene,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: am I stepping over any evidence in my grounding or grinding,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: you know, spent casings into the ground? Am I missing
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: some kind of fiber evidence or anything like this? Yeah.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: And then if it's a not the primary, but the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: secondary scene where they've been taken and deposited, well, am
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I brushing up against anything where maybe they left a
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: bit of thread tied in a tree?
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: And when you're talking about posing two people in a field,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: you're talking about a lot of area that is going
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: to be touched by the evidence, by the human being
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: who is still alive, moving the dead, decomposing body. But
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: in this case, Joe, we've got Laura Miller, 16 years old,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: and Audrey Lee Cook.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Who's 30-ish. Were they killed where they were found and posed?
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Yep. Both of them?
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Or were they killed somewhere else and taken to where
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: they were found? Because that gives you a whole new
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: pathway of possible evidence.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We've thought about this a lot, like with overrode.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I know I'm not picking on these guys because they
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: make America roll. But we've talked a lot about, you know,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: overrode truckers, you know, and One of the reasons they
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: come into focus many times is because they literally have
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a crime scene on wheels where they can if they
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: want to, you know, like choke out a prostitute and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: a sleeper. Well, they can do that and then they
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: can drive somewhere and deposit the remains. Right. So that
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: would be the primary scene inside of that sleeper. And
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: then depending upon where they place the body, that can
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: be the secondary scene. And then you can have tertiary things, too,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: where they're throwing stuff out of the window and, you know,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: all of that. So, in talking about this, where these
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: two young ladies and, you know, again, we mentioned a third,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: that what type of pathway was taken to get to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: that location? And because you mentioned this, I've got to
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: address this real quick. The League City area, and they're
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: calling this League City, okay? It's Galveston County, I think. Dude,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: this is an isolated area, and particularly back when this
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: was really cooking, when these bodies were being found, very isolated, rural.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: You'd have cattle, that sort of thing. It's kind of
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: overgrown scrubland. Who would have knowledge that this place even existed?
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And how would they know to access this area? And
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: there's been one other troubling hypothesis through, well, let's say intriguing.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know if troubling is a term, but intriguing
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: in the sense that somebody at one point in time,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I love it when somebody says something, actually proffered this idea.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: this view that bodies had been placed out in these
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: various locations, almost like a walking path. So that they
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: were in specific areas so that you could go back
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: and almost like, you know, night gallery with, you know,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Rod Serling, you know, he's walking through the gallery. It's
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: almost like, you're taking a look at the handiwork as
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you go along. You don't want it obscure. You don't
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: want it not visible because you can go back out
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: there and the profilers always say they love to go
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: back and fantasize about these things and think about them,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: all these sorts of things. And again, that offers up
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: a whole new level of horror here. But you have
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to kind of extricate yourself from that as a forensic
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: science and crime scene processor relative to What kind of
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: evidence can you collect out here that is going to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: point back to somebody? And when you get remains that
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: are degraded to a great degree, it's really hard to
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: make fatal diagnoses. And we've got kind of a combination here.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Some of these cases we've got involving blunt force trauma.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: There are cases involving gunfire. So, again, you're getting this
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: overlap with all of these cases because you think about
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: a serial perpetrator generally sticks with a single methodology. Right.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: There are those outliers that will do multiple things in
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: order to bring about death. But some of these people
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: get very, very comfortable with it. That might be one
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: of the reasons, I think, that you– they believe you
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: can think about people working in tandem with one another, right?
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Because one person might do something the other person might
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: not do, but they're the same result at the end.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: I was looking at this because there are certain things
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: that I was telling you before we started that every
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: show you surprise me with something. It's like you have
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: information stored that I can't find. It's like a file
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: in your head. But in this case, because of Tim
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Miller and because of our knowledge of Tim, It has
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: been on our radar for years. When Laura Miller was
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: found and Audrey Cook, they were found by two teen
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: boys riding bikes through the field, okay? And this is
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: what frustrates me, Joe, and I'm not knocking anybody with this,
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: but the area where Laura Miller was found, you know,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: in the field and was found by these two kids
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: bicycling through the field, it was an area that Tim Miller...
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: had suggested that searchers search. We're trying to find out, again,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: resources and everything. I don't know what all was going on.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: And this is, as you mentioned, this is an area
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: that has a lot of, there's a lot of area
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: to look. You're not talking about a football field. You're
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: talking about 20 football fields. And you can overlook things
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: in that. It's almost happenstance that these two boys riding
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: their bicycles, came across the remains. And all I could
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: think of is, as you were talking, Joe, is how
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: much evidence did the boys disturb? Not knowing, not intentional,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: not willful, but, you know, just by accident. How much
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: would I disturb if I was just walking through a
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: field and came upon something, you know?
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, and I hear what you're saying. Actually,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I had a discussion about this recently in class with
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: my students. At the end, I think when you're taking
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: a long view of it, you have to take the
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: good with the bad. If, in fact, you do, if
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you're on your bike or if you're on foot and
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: you're walking through this area or riding through this area
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: on a bicycle, could you have rolled over something? Could
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: you have stepped on something? Many people remember where humans
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: are tactile creatures. You might not believe it. Many people
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: have to go up and touch things. You know, they'll
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: actually put their hands on skeletal remains many times. Because
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: here's the one thing about skeletal remains that I have
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: heard consistently throughout my career. One of two things. People
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: either say, I thought that it was something from Halloween
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: or something like that, or I thought it was an animal, non-human.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: And so they'll go up and they'll attempted. They're not
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: thinking Friday the 13th horror movies here. They're thinking, I'm
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: trying to understand what I'm seeing and how does it compute. Now,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the horror might descend upon them later. But, you know,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: when they walk up, they'll. And so and Lord only
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: knows how many other people had walked through the area.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: And we're talking about when you have remains that are
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: degraded to this point. Think about, you know, how long
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Laura's body had been out there. How many other folks,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: how many other animals, you know, had walked through this area,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: tramped along? Not to mention, were any of the serial perpetrators,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: did they go back and revisit? Did they adjust anything
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: at the scene? Because they will do that periodically. And
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: then they've just gone about their business. Maybe they're depositing
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: something else out there. You just never know. And so
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you have to take all of that into consideration. So
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: in answer to your question, I would rather say, okay, yeah,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: you might have disrupted it, but we have the body.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: And then I can go back as an investigator, if
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I can speak to that person, our finder, right? If
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I can speak to that finder and say, what did
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: you do? Did you touch the remains in any way?
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Show me where you walked, okay? Like, what was your
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: first reaction? And you're not, and particularly if you're talking
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: to a kid, you don't want to scare them. But
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: you want to say, hey, man, look, I know this
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: is really tough, but can you and I'm not going
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: to take you back out there. But can you just
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: kind of describe to me, first off, how you saw
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: how you first recognized that you thought that it might
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: have been a body? And then what was your next action?
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: What did you do at that point? Show me how
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: you walked, where you walked. Tell me what you did
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: once you got up on the body. Did you touch
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: it with your foot? Because some people will do that.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: They will. Did you bend over, put your hands there,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: or did you automatically see that it's a human remain
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and you do an about face and you get out
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: of there as expeditiously as possible? I'm trying to find
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: a cell, well, it wouldn't have been a cell phone.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to find some house that I can go
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: to or some home or a pay phone or something
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: just to, you know, call 911. So all of that
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: stuff is factored in, you know, when you're beginning to
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: process a scene and And it's good to have that
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: knowledge when you're first advised or the thing is broken
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: down for you because you're showing up cold to it
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: as an investigator and you don't know what kind of
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: elements have been put into the equation prior to you
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: trying to figure this thing out. Music So, Dave, here
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: we are. I think one of the things that's fascinating
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: about this and always fascinates me regarding old cases, you know,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: kind of how do we get from that day when
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: we'll focus on Laura here, when she just vaporizes. She's
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: no more. Tim doesn't have her at the dinner table anymore.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: He actually made a comment like that, talking about that
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: there's always an empty chair. God bless him. There's always
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: an empty chair. And that's just as real to him
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: today as it was back then.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you brought that up about Tim because, friends, look,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: when Tim Miller founded Texas EquiSearch, it was to help
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: other families find their missing loved one. He did not
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: know where his daughter was. When he started Texas EquiSearch,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: he did not know where his daughter was.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Think about that for a minute because He's looking. And
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I say the.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: He founded it then because as he started looking, he
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: realized how little was available. You know, he's out there
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: and he's looking and trying to figure out how can
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: I help in the future to prevent another dad from
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: having to get out here and look on his own?
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: And so that was when you look back at the
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: history of Equisy, it began with Tim Miller looking for
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: his daughter. And then after she's found, after her remains
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: are found after 17 months, Joe, and you said that
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: in the first segment, you said that they were posed.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: We're talking about two bodies, the remains of two people,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Laura Miller and Audrey Cook. Did they die about the
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: same time, Joe? Do we know that? I know when
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: their bodies are found, it's, you know, But do we
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: know that?
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Not necessarily. And that's where, because the bodies are in
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: such an advanced state of decay, that all of a
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: sudden your timeline gets blown. So that's why it's really
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: important that when you go back in time and you
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: begin to think about what data did you have relative
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: to when they were last seen, you try to marry
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: that up with the level of degrading the remains that
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: exist and can you compare the two the two remains
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: there to the same level of decompositional change very very
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: difficult stuff to do particularly when you're you're absent major
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: pieces major data points along the way you know like
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: for instance you know any kind of soft tissue that
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: could give you an indication of what kind of trauma
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: was involved in a particular case, those sorts of things.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: And it makes it makes it very, very difficult.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Well, we know that, you know, we know Laura left
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: her home to, you know, in September of 84. With
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Audrey Lee Cook is a little bit different. She was
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: from Tennessee and she regularly back then, again, is in
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: the days before cell phones. And it was at a
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: time back then. Those of you who are under 40
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: probably don't know this. We used to have a telephone
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: in your house. And when you wanted to call out
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: of your local area, it was a long distance call.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: And they could be expensive.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Back in the early 80s, calling from Texas to Memphis,
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Tennessee would be a long distance call.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: It would be.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: And it would be expensive. So we used to do something.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: It's really kind of neat. I know that when we
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: talk about writing a letter, you're thinking about an email.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: But see, back in the day, we used to use
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: pieces of paper. And we would use a writing utensil,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: a pencil or a pen, and we would write words
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: and create sentences.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: And we would then sign that, you know.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: And then we would go to this thing called the
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: post office where they sold stamps. And we would put
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: it on and we would mail the letters.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And our family would get them.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Well, in the case of Audrey Lee Cook, her family,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: she regularly wrote her family. I mean, really, like they...
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: They knew to bank on it, Joe. She stopped writing
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: just prior to Christmas of 1985. And so that's when
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: it is believed that something happened to Audrey Lee Cook
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: because the letter stopped around.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Christmas of 85.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: And we know that her remains were found, you know,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: February 2nd of 86, along with Laura Miller, who had
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: been missing since September of 84. So we've got two
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: women who, well, one child, 16, and the other 30-ish.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: And they both vanished at very different times, but are
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: both found at the same time.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, what a shock that would be, too, for
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: those investigators, right? You know, because you go out there
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: and you find one remain, one set of remains. And
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: then you realize that this thing is going to expand.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: And maybe even geometrically, you don't know what else is
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: out there. And are they connected? And again, this goes
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: back to the idea of trying to understand the nature
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: of how they died, what brought them to their end. Because,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: you know, just looking at the skeletal remains at the
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: scene in both of these cases, Dave, you could tell
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: just a quick glance that neither one of these individuals
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: are advanced in age. So you know that they're young.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and what are the odds that two young people would
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: drop dead? And I know that one is 30 and
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: one is 16, but trust me, 30 years of age
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: is very, very young when it comes to just somebody
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: spontaneously dying, again, stating the obvious. So if that is
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: not where our question or where our answer lay, we
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: have to consider other possibilities. When... I'm at a scene
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: and I'm trying to assess skeletal remains. I'm going to
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: look for anything out there that might be an indicator. Now,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: I can't do a, let's just say we're talking about
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: potential gunfire-related death, okay? So, before I ever begin to
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: handle the remains at all, because generally with homicidal cases,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: gunfire is going to be the number one cause of death, okay,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: wherever they're shot. So I want to sweep the area
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: with a metal detector and just determine if there's any
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: kind of lead projectile, if there's any kind of casings
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: or anything like that before I'm ever going to try
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: to remove these remains. Because one of the primary things
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: is going to be orientation. Okay. orientation of the remains
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that are left, the core bit of the body that
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: is there relative to any kind of spent casings, lead
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: core projectiles, anything that's out there, or maybe a knife
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: has been left behind. So I need to go down
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the checklist and kind of rule this out so I
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: can contextualize everything. But, you know, when you're at a scene,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: you don't have obvious head trauma, you know, with a skeleton.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: You don't have like if you find the sternum, you
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: don't have a press contact wound because it's a flat bone.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I've had those where a weapon is placed up to
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: a sternum and discharged. You don't have any of that
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: and you don't have like a noose tied around the
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: neck of the skeletal remains or what remains therein. You
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: got to scratch your head. Because sometimes you're just not
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: going to have answers as to what's been left behind.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Now, how did Laura Miller die and how did Audrey
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Lee Cook die?
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Well, when you think about Laura Miller, I think one
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: of the chilling things is that you cannot come away
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: from that at the scene with definitive answers. Oh, wow.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Her cause of death rests in eyewitness testimony that came
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: up much later, Brother Dave. And it, of all things...
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: involves cocaine, which to me, there's a certain level of,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd mentioned the Marquis de Sade a few
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: moments ago. There is a real sadistic bent to this.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Just think about that just for a second. You're 16
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: years old. You're being held, you know, by an individual
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: that is, in fact, you don't know it, but they're
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: about to end your life. And they might even be
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: displaying the syringe to you for whatever sadistic reason they have.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: You've got, in this case, two individuals. One is prepping
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: an injection. They're demonstrating it to you. They're threatening you.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: And then they take a syringe and they draw it up.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: They draw it up. And you're 16 years old. You're
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: deathly afraid of needles. All kids are, right? It's not some,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, I need a shot. I'd love to have
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: a shot. Something that is within us anyway. And then
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: you're injected. And then as you're injected, the cocaine begins
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: to take hold. It begins to burn in your veins.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: There's been certain people that inject cocaine and they describe
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: it like a fire in their veins. And this is
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: something that's completely foreign to someone of 16 years of
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: age that has never abused drugs. And you feel this
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: flush coming over you. You can feel your Your heart
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: began to race. You've got a crushing headache. Vessels are
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: changing in your body. And all of a sudden, you
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: become short of breath. Can't breathe. And you're probably being
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: restrained on top of her.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, my gosh.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: And then you've got a perpetrator that later admits, Dave,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: that he's staring into her eyes. and watches her seize.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: And her eyes close, and he watches her die. That's
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: the kind of horror that we're talking about here. You know,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: and I hope that that little descriptor brings that home.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: But Dave, I'm fascinated how we came to this place
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: relative to having an understanding of all of this, because
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: this is a rarity, man. This is a real rarity.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Think about this for a minute. We started off talking
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: about the Texas killing fields and how there were 30
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: about 30 women that had been found in this general area,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: all killed and investigations that overlapped one another, trying to
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: identify people and who did this or that. And it
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: finally came down to, there was a guy, there are
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: actually two guys. Um, Clyde Hedrick was one of them
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: and James Elmore is the other. Uh, Both live in
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: the area. And they are part of the investigation. Detectives
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: zeroing in on them. But it really came down to
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Tim Miller, Joe. Tim Miller was going to find out
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: what happened to his daughter. And Tim Miller, after years,
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: by the way, years, and years and years.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: Decades going by. Tim is out working.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: By the time Tim Miller finds out what happened to
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: his daughter, Joe, Texas EquiSearch had become a legendary source
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: of help for finding people and offering families some type
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: of resolution that Tim Miller did not have yet. In 2022,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: he finally sits down with James Elmore, starts talking to him,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: interviewing him, Hours and hours. And James Elmore finally starts
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: talking to him, Joe. And it's James Elmore who actually
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: described what happened. What you described happening to Laura with
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: a hot shot of cocaine, how her heart was rapidly beating,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: her body begins to seize, and the eyes, the light
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: goes out of them, is because that's what James Elmore
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: told Tim Miller. And Tim Miller was wise enough to
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: record it. Sully James Elmore was not in great health.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: And so in 2022, Tim Miller recorded James Elmore giving
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: a confession to what happened to Laura Miller. Well, it
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: still took years to get this in court, Joe.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: Matter of fact, Tim Miller filed a civil lawsuit.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: So that he could have some kind, because he didn't
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: see a criminal prosecution coming.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: So he filed a civil lawsuit in 2022.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: He believed Clyde Hedrick was responsible for the death of
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: his daughter, Laura. You know, I mentioned James Elmore. See,
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: James Elmore admitted to loading the cocaine into the shot,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: into the needle.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: But James Elmore didn't. said, well, I didn't poke her
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: with it. Clyde did it.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Clyde Hedrick is the one who, I was just doing
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: what Clyde told me to do. That's all I was doing. Well,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Clyde Hedrick was in prison, Joe. He had already been convicted.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Bragging about killing, by the way, in 2014, there was
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: a prosecution of Ellen Beeson, another woman, part of the
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Texas killing fields. And Clyde Hedrick was convicted. Guy's bragging
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: about killing people, man.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: You know, it's going to come back to bite you.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: So as this case was moving forward, Tim Miller has
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: the civil lawsuit against James Elmore, against Clyde Hedrick, because
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: he believed that's who was responsible for his daughter's death,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: having talked with James Elmore. Well, police finally, as it
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: moves forward, the prosecution develops a case, Joe, and they
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: go to court and present it. This past spring, James
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Elmore was indicted, Joe. And do you know what happened
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: in March when the indictment comes down against James Elmore?
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: Clyde Hedrick was next because the case is all coming together,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Justice Scott Morgan.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Do you know what happened to Clyde Hedrick?
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's depended upon an oxygen supply, which he deprived
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: himself of because he removed his breathing tube.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: While in the hospital, by the way.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, while in the hospital. And he's, I guess, standing
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: before his maker, awaiting whatever sentence will be passed on there. But,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: you know... Think about it. He got it easy. When
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: we were talking about Laura's death, you know, Audrey, who
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: was found immediately adjacent, had remained unidentified for a long,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: long time. All we had were skeletal remains. She was
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: executed by a gunshot wound. And that's why early on
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: I had said, you've got multiple actions going on here
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: that are all fatal, right?
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Wait a minute. So Laura Miller was overdosed with cocaine.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: Killed with it, murdered with it.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: And Audrey Lee Cook was shot.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was. Executed. Yeah. And she's got like broken
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: ribs as well. You know, they made note of that.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: You know, the anthropologist is they were examining her remains.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: So that's what makes this also just nutty. There is
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: another batch of cases that are out there. You know,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: we're like blunt force trauma is perhaps involved in some
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: of these cases. And it's really hard to know because, again,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: I go back, and it's very dissatisfying, I think, on
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: one level intellectually because these remains are degraded to the
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: point where you might not ever know. And many times, prosecutors,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: when they're moving forward, and you and I have covered
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: these cases, brother, where they'll say, yeah, we don't have
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: a cause of death, but we're charging you with homicide.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: And even medical examiners and coroners will rule cases as homicide.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: They'll rule a manner as homicide with the cause of
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: death left undetermined. It's the circumstantial data that comes in
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: where you kind of have to make these intellectual leaps. Because,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: you know, again, you go back, you're not supposed to
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: have these young women that are just you know, got called,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: they just fell over dead. That doesn't happen. And then
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you look at the concentration geographically, you know, in these cases,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: all the cases, not just these that we are specifically
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: mentioning today. Right. And I guess it, it all kind
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: of comes back down to this brother day. When I
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: think about what we were talking about earlier, how many
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: more are there out there? You know, I mean, that have,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: have never been accounted for. Um, Or maybe whether animals,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: maybe even a perpetrator, had gone back out and collected remains.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: You had predation by animals that drug remains off. Things
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: that no one will ever be held to account for.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: We do know this, though. At least we have an
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: accounting now. that is credited to one individual who is
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: going to face the music, I guess.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: Well, to a degree, yeah. No, you're right. Look, Clyde
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: Hedrick's dead, okay?
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: He killed himself, and so he's not going to face
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: any kind of charges like this, even though it's believed
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: that he gave the shot based on James Elmore telling
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: what happened.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: James Elmore, in the last weeks— was convicted. Specifically, he
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: was trying to get the, I want to make sure
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: I don't get this wrong because.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: When he was indicted, you know, in the spring, Clyde
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: Hedrick killed himself. So all we had left was James
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Elmore to actually try to get a case on. And
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: he was convicted. He did go to court. The trial
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: just ended. He was convicted in manslaughter, felony manslaughter in
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: the death of Laura Miller. He also was charged with
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: tampering with evidence, the body of Laura Miller, and tampering
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: with evidence, moving the body of Audrey Cook. By the way,
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: when James Elmore was helping to move the body of
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Laura Miller, Joe, he said that he didn't know he
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: was moving Laura Miller. He thought he was just moving trash. Now,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: based on him admitting to so many other things, I
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: don't know why he would not be truthful with that.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know. There's always, again, going back to Lucas
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: and Tool, and you'll find this, there's a thread that
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: runs through what a lot of these perpetrators do. There
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: is a dash of truth coupled with misdirection. And I
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: think many times it's, and I don't know, maybe, I mean,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: that's between him and, you know, whether or not he's
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: telling the truth or not. And you cannot, you know,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: what are you going to do to try to force
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: it out of him? There's no way, you know, if
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: he is not telling the truth in this particular instance.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I'll be curious to watch his stay in the correctional
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: facility as it is, or now as He's been a
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: convicted felon. I mean, he's been in the joint before.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: But now, in light of this, he has money to
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: play with, if you will. He has capital in this.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Because if he gets a sense that he can play
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: any card here to maybe improve his situation, he might.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Keep in mind, how long did he interact with Tim?
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: It was... was years. He interacted with Tim.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: Three years.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and just kind of teased it out over a
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: period of time. I don't know. I mean, Tim's a
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: much stronger guy than I would be.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: He just wanted to know, Joe.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: He just needed to know what happened to his daughter.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: And by the way, For those of you who might
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: take a path of going, well, she was using cocaine.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: No wonder she overdosed. No, no, no.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Just so you're clear on this. The shot that was
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: given to her was not for enjoyment. According to James Elmore,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: mixed up two grams of cocaine to shoot into her.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: One gram of cocaine. If you're partying, chopping it up
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: and snorting it, you're talking about a night out.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Just one.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: For two grams to go into one person in one shot,
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: it's there to kill them.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: It's not there for fun. A 16-year-old that has no
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: tolerance whatsoever for it. And two grams. It's going to
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: kill you. Yeah. And so in this particular case, we've
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: kind of chatted about this before, Dave, in cases involving drugs,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: if they can be weaponized to the point. We have
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: people that do poisonings and this sort of thing. And
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: that's what we're looking at here. It's just such a
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: horrible thing. way to go. But I pray for the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: peace in Tim's life now and the rest of his
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: extended family. And as I always say, there never will
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: be closure. But I can tell you what there always
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: will be. An empty chair at the dinner table because
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: of these circumstances where somebody would be this much of
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: a monster. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body bags.