} (Paula and Cindy would not be interviewed, but they have not retracted the sworn statements they gave Bittner.) In2005, he stopped his golf cart on the railroad tracks and waited for a train to slam into him. What made Abel a suspect was that he owned the property right next to the land where the bodies were found. Its your way of thumbing your nose at the police, telling them that they wont ever catch you., Sitting across the table from me at a coffee shop, Abel bowed his head. Heidi Fye, 23, vanished in 1983, and her remains were located in April 1984, and 16-year-old Laura Miller's body was found close by in 1986. Besides, they didnt even use a big enough backhoe, one that could get down to the bottom of the pond. "Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields" is about the victims and the suspects of the famous killings that happened in Texas, mainly around a stretch of I-45 in the late 80s. Miller, his eyes wild with excitement, put the backhoe into gear and started scooping up earth over a ten-square-foot area. I feel for these girls. Many people who live in the surrounding towns and bedroom communities wont come near the place. While Robert Abel was a prime suspect in the Killing Fields at one point, he certainly wasn't the only suspect. The building pictured in the back belonged to Robert Abel. A fourth body was also found six years later in 1991 in the same area and was identified as Donna Gonsoulin Prudhomme in 2019. Long story short, he's the prime suspect in the murder of four women found in an oil field next to property he owns. Robert Abel, a retired NASA engineer, has been linked to the disappearance and deaths of several young women in Texas since the 1990s. I added that Miller planned to keep digging with the assistance of the search dogs, which could easily smell decomposed bodies buried as far back as fifteen years ago. Robert Abel, a former NASA engineer who ran a minor horseback-riding business, remained one of the chief suspects in the Texas Killing Fields Murders case. eventAction: 'click_image_ads' It remains unclear if Abel had taken his own life. He was hit by a train while traveling on his golf cart. investigators have flown over the site in helicopters and brought in cadaver dogs to look for bodies. window.googletag.cmd.push(function() { Heides father, who had worked as an automobile tire salesman, hunted for her himself, walking the fields around League City almost every day. (Part of a bullet turned up with her remains at the medical examiners office.) She had been reported missing by her family in . We are one of the worlds fastest growing The show interviews a number of people (including me) about Abel. One day a group of teenage boys, hoping to prove their courage when they spotted him cruising through town in his pickup, rolled down their car windows and shouted, Hey, Killer! Over the years, he has become such a focus of fear and hostility that in 1997, nearly two hundred people fanned out over his land without his permission, looking for the body of a pretty college student who had disappeared from a Bennigans restaurant not far from League City and who to this day has never been found. Born November 25, 1955 in Memphis, Tennessee Last seen in December 1985 Believed to be around age 30 at time of death Lived in the Houston/Channelview/Heights areas of Texas in the years leading up to her death Worked as a mechanic for a golf cart company in Houston, Harrison Equipment Company in Houston, and Balloon Affair in Houston. Some law enforcement officials said the beta-blockers he took for his high blood pressure could have affected the results of those tests. Robert, though, immediately insisted on his innocence and always maintained he was not involved in the murders in any way, shape, or form. Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives. The police tried hard to incriminate Abel with his home being searched for evidence and him being interviewed by the detectives on the case multiple times only for it all to go in vain. But at least there was someone new for them to questiona retired NASA engineer who had been leasing land on one side of the 25-acre oil field for nearly a decade and who, in 1990, had bought eleven acres adjacent to the field to open Stardust Trailrides, a small horseback-riding business. A few construction workers, employees of Millers, were on hand to help, as were friends and even Millers ex-wife. He claimed he was a man with a clean record and someone who had never been on the wrong side of the law before. A slightly built sixty-year-old with thinning brown hair and a mustache, Abel walks stiffly because of a bad back, wears reading glasses, and takes pills for his high blood pressure. I wouldnt know how to kill.. They hadnt. Within a mere decade, the bodies of four women were recovered from a 25-acre marshland along Calder Road in League City, Texas. It's owned by Robert Abel, a former NASA engineer who transformed part of the area into stables. We are one of the worlds fastest growing }); LEAGUE CITY, TEXAS: With the Netflix true crime documentary 'Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields' being on the top 10 of the streaming giants service, it is a show that is not at all to be missed. Lets start here. Nearby were a dozen search dogs, including four trained to detect the scent of decomposing human flesh. We had to search for suspects, says Pat Bittner, the League City detective who, at the tender age of 30, was put in charge of the murder investigation. While the discoveries gripped the city in fear, the police were faced with several challenging murder inquiries, which had more twists and turns than they could ever imagine. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), I dont think people here realize that ol Tim will want to keep digging all night, one said with a grin as he popped open a beer. Abel shrugged, appearing neither anxious nor relieved. Yet according to Gottlieb, Abel was successful with women. Not exactly the response Id get if Id been beating them, he said. . One of Abels friends, a man who sang cowboy songs at Stardust Trailrides, was approached by a private detective who asked several questions about him and then said he was working for one of his ex-wives. In June 1989 he married Cindy Jacobs, a secretary for an accounting firm whom he had met earlier that year at the Hilton hotel bar. Youre the killer. Moreover, an organized killer prefers working in what the FBI calls a comfort zone, an area very familiar to him where he receives little or no interference from outsiders. Is it possible that Robert Abel is a cold, calculating murderer, one who is consumed by a twisted need to prey on young women but also patient enough to wait years between attacksand smart enough to leave almost no clues behind? In his own way he was very charismatic, says an ex-girlfriend. The actors in "Texas Killing Fields' hoped somehow, the film . "My life has been destroyed, my reputation ruined," he told Texas Monthly, "I didn't kill any of those girls. In our conversations Abel always denied every allegation they had made against him. After a long search, police officers discovered the rest of the body and identified the remains as those of Heide Villareal Fye, a 23-year-old cocktail waitress who had been reported missing six months earlier. Over the years, various suspects have come and gone. William Reece: Who Were His Victims? Nearly two years later, in February 1986, four boys riding their dirt bikes past the oil field smelled a putrid odor and came across another decomposed body about fifty yards from the spot where Heide Fye was found. Well, who knows what happened out here? he said. He was also worried about other private citizens who, he said, might be tempted to tell lies about him to get the reward money (now at $50,000) that the League City Police Department was offering for information leading to the arrest of the killer. Another. If we had any hope of getting man to the moon, we had to get the maximum Saturn payload into orbit, says Robert Gottlieb, a veteran aerospace engineer who now works at Boeing. Netflix Netflix's new docuseries, Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields, explores the mysterious disappearances and deaths of many young women and girls in southern Texas, dating back to. Stallings was never charged in any of the I-45 Killings nor the Killings Fields murders despite any of his confessions. But Mr. Abel doesnt want to come down here any more to answer them. Hedrick was released into an unknown halfway house from prison, just eight years into his 20-year sentence. Of course hed want the murders solved. When I later asked Abel directly about the photo album, he acted surprised that I was suspicious. He lived next to an oil field in League City that is infamously known as the Killing Fields. Then finally, in 1993, nine years after Laura's disappearance, an unlikely suspect emerged: Robert Abel, a retired NASA engineer. Every day since 1986every single dayI had been waking up thinking about the last moments of Lauras life. On the advice of another father whose daughter had been murdered in another town, Miller checked himself into the psychiatric unit of a hospital for ten days, promising when he left not to hurt Abel but vowing that he would keep pressuring him to confess. According to sources: Without informing the League City police departmentThey think Im a little crazyMiller borrowed a tractor and a backhoe and persuaded the Greater Houston Search Dogs team to join him in his first dig. Was Robert Abel The Texas Fields Killer? In 1997 one police department ran a computer search of registered sex offenders living between Houston and Galveston, and more than 2,100 names popped up. . Abel took an energetic part in solving the crimes, which only made him more suspicious. Teenage boys would drive past his stablesand shout out, killer. And she was ready to talk. A couple of detectives think youre talking to me because you want to draw attention to yourself, I told him. The four killings remain shrouded in mystery and ex-Nasa engineer Robert Abel was also among the suspects accused. The victim was never identified and became known as Jane Doe. You might have been trying to deceive them, to provide false leads, I said. Netflix is now streaming a three-part docuseries on the murders, titledCrime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields. All we know is that there was a terrible scream the night she disappeared, says her mother, Kathy Richerson. Willie Payne, a respected private investigator hired by some of the parents to help locate their missing daughters, says he cant imagine that Abel would have been dumb enough to leave three of the girls lying within yards of his property line. But Bittner has an answer for that too. This was despite the fact that an affidavit had Abel marked as a serial sexual offender who showed signs of mad behavior that is often seen with serial killers. More than 30 bodies have been found in the area between 1971 to 2006 leading to its very unceremonious moniker. "And there's no doubt they would have kept going up"he pauses,. On the other hand, detectives continued to carry out their usual investigative procedure, which included a thorough search of his ranch, house, as well as vehicles. The Texas Killing Fields. Tim Miller in "Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields" on Netflix. Gomez added that the murderer was in all likelihood preoccupied with the media accounts of the crimes and perhaps had kept newspaper articles about them; he also could possess jewelry or clothing from the dead women to serve as his trophies. Gomez gave Bittner a list of other characteristics about the killer, including superior attitude, multiple sex partners, a history of cruelty to animals, usually described as a troublemaker, and will act out his anger. Bittner was intrigued: Gomez could have been describing Abel. 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