Texas Killing Fields case: Man gets 20 years in 1986 death of teen
James Elmore Jr. sentenced to 20 years for manslaughter in the 1986 death of Laura Miller, found in the Texas Killing Fields.
A Texas man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the death of a teenager whose body was discovered in an area long associated with the unsolved killings of dozens of women near Houston.
A Galveston County jury handed down the maximum sentence on Thursday to James Dolphs Elmore Jr., a day after convicting him of manslaughter in the death of 16-year-old Laura Miller. Elmore, 61, was arrested earlier this year and accused of preparing the dose of cocaine that killed Miller. Her body was found in 1986 in the region known as the "Texas Killing Fields."
The case is among the rare prosecutions tied to the deaths of more than 30 girls and young women whose bodies were found along a stretch of land near Interstate 45, southeast of Houston. Investigators have long believed multiple perpetrators may be responsible for the killings, which have inspired books, films, and a Netflix documentary.
Miller was one of four young women whose remains were discovered between 1984 and 1991 in a rural field off a desolate road in League City, about 28 miles from Houston.
Prosecutors alleged that Elmore prepared a vial of cocaine that was administered to Miller by Clyde Hedrick, a longtime friend of Elmore's. Authorities had identified Hedrick as a suspect in the deaths of the four women. The district attorney's office had sought a grand jury indictment against Hedrick in March, but the 72-year-old died by suicide before the presentation.
Hedrick had previously been convicted of manslaughter in 2014 in the death of Ellen Beason, whose body was found in 1985. He was released on parole in 2022 and remained on parole at the time of his death.
Following Laura Miller's death, her father, Tim Miller, founded Texas EquuSearch, a nonprofit organization that assists in locating missing persons.
Most of the deaths associated with the "Texas Killing Fields" remain unsolved. In a separate development in 2022, William Reece, an Oklahoma death row inmate, pleaded guilty to three murders in Texas, including those of Laura Smither and Jessica Cain in Galveston County and Kelli Cox, whose body was found in Brazoria County. He received life sentences for those murders.