Can DNA provide answers in deaths of 2 women in ‘Texas Killings Fields’?

A digital composite image and DNA analysis released by the League City Police Department of a woman whose body was found in a field near Calder Road in 1986. The analysis indicates that the woman had family that may have originated in Tennessee. less A digital composite image and DNA analysis released by the League City Police Department of a woman whose body was found in a field near Calder Road in 1986. The analysis indicates that the woman had family ... more Photo: League City Police Department Photo: League City Police Department Image 1 of / 21 Caption Close Can DNA provide answers in deaths of 2 women in ‘Texas Killings Fields’? 1 / 21 Back to Gallery

For decades, two women found slain in League City have had no identity, connected only by a gruesome thread — their decomposed bodies were dumped in the same swampy field off of Interstate 45 as several other women who were found brutally murdered there some 30 years ago.

But a breakthrough in forensic DNA analysis may help League City detectives identify the skeletal remains of the two female victims, who died in 1986 and 1991 in the area off Calder Road known as the "Texas Killing Fields." They are relying on strikingly detailed composite sketches developed from DNA drawn from the two victims' bones, hoping to get the public's help in tracking down relatives of the deceased.

The advances in DNA technology have brought cautious optimism about solving two cases that have confounded local investigators for decades and yielded few suspects. League City investigators, working with Parabon NanoLabs, a DNA technology company in Virginia, have sought to piece together the physical appearance and ancestry of the two unidentified women using a new method of analysis called DNA "phenotyping."

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DNA forensics and ancestry databases were used to great effect earlier this year, when California authorities were able to locate the infamous "Golden State Killer" suspect, accused of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders. Authorities in that case used DNA from an old crime scene to find distant relatives with matching genetic profiles.

The "Texas Killing Fields" is a boggy, 25-acre stretch of land along I-45 where four female victims were found between 1983 and 1991, including the two unidentified women. No one has ever been convicted in connection with the four deaths.

"We think it's huge, the ability to use (phenotyping) as a tool," said League City police spokesman Kelly Williamson. "As most people know, the longer a case goes on from the date of an event, the harder it is to solve it. So our mindset is, 'Yeah this is an awesome tool but we can't jump ahead of ourselves.' Our ultimate goal right now is to find out who these people are and give closure to anybody we can."

Identifying the two female victims could lead to a suspect in the killings, Williamson said.

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Four victims, no convictions

The first of the four victims whom League City investigators are focusing on — Heide Villareal Fye, a 25-year-old waitress and bartender — left her parents' house in League City on Oct. 7, 1983, to hitch a ride to Houston to see her boyfriend. The following April, her remains were found in the clearing.

Another victim, 16-year-old Laura Lynn Miller, disappeared after using a pay phone at a nearby convenience store. Her body was found in the same clearing in February 1986. Laura Miller's father, Tim Miller, is the founder of Texas Equusearch, a search and rescue organization dedicated to searching for missing persons. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday. The remains of one of the other two female victims were found next to Laura Miler's body.

League City police have worked with Parabon to develop sophisticated renderings in hopes of solving that mystery and that of the fourth unidentified female victim.

League City investigators learned of Parabon phenotyping software two years ago, and immediately worked with them to analyze the unidentified women's DNA and make "predictions" about the color of their eyes, hair and skin, as well as freckling and the shape of their faces. These predictions were combined with a forensic facial reconstruction to create the composite Snapshot images of the victims.

The woman whose body was found next to that of Laura Miller in 1986, a Jane Doe, most likely had fair to very fair skin, blue or green eyes, blond/brown hair, few or no freckles, and a likely family origin of Tennessee, according to the DNA analysis.

Coroners estimate the woman was 22 to 30 years old and 5-foot-5 to 5-foot-8, and that she died six weeks to six months prior to being found. The woman had a small caliber gunshot wound to the back. She also had old, healed injuries that were unrelated to her death. Her left fifth and fourth ribs showed healed fractures that were likely the result of a singular event. She also had a noticeable gap in the upper portion of her front teeth.

The woman whose body was found in 1991, given the name Janet Doe, most likely had fair skin, hazel eyes, brown hair, and few or no freckles.

It is believed the woman's relatives were of Louisiana Acadian descent. Special areas of interest in Louisiana where the victim's extended family may have originated include Broussard, Lafayette Parish, New Iberia, Abbeville, Breaux Bridge, and St. Martin Parish. It is also possible she had family from Vermillion Parish, St. Landry Parish, and Assumption Parish.

Coroners estimate that that female victim was 24 to 34 years old, 5 feet to 5-foot-3 and weighed 100 to 130 pounds. She died six weeks to several months prior to being found. The woman also had numerous old, healed injuries that were unrelated to her death. Her right first and second ribs showed healed fractures at the spine; the victim had a compression injury to her upper spine in three places; her lower spine showed signs of an old, poorly healed compression injury.

Authorities believe these injuries and her poor dental condition may have been the result of a singular injury that occurred sometime prior to her killing, and that she may have had problems with her head or spinal movements as a result.

'Persons of interest'

No one has ever been convicted in connection with the deaths of the four women found in the Calder Road field, though Williamson said there are "persons of interest" in the slayings that investigators have not been able to eliminate.

The "Texas Killing Fields" became a catch-all reference for the 22 women — many teenagers — who died mysteriously in several small towns bordering I-45. The murders began in June 1971, when 13-year-old Colette Wilson went missing after getting off at a bus stop after school. She was found near Addicks Reservoir some five months later, dead from a gunshot wound to the head. All of the other victims were strangled, shot, or savagely beaten. Six of the victims were killed in pairs.

To this day, there has been only one conviction tied to the Killing Fields deaths. Kevin Edison Smith, 45, was given life in prison without parole for the 1986 murder of 13-year-old Krystal Jean Baker. Smith was linked to the crime after he was arrested in Louisiana for an unrelated incident in 2010. Smith was identified as the killer after a DNA test performed on him matched samples taken from Baker's underwear and dress.

Suspects have emerged in connection with other murders in this area over the years.

Mark Roland Stallings, who is serving two life sentences for a series of unrelated crimes, told author Kathryn Casey that he killed "Janet Doe" in 1991. Stallings said the woman was a teenage prostitute whom he strangled and dumped in the clearing off of Calder Road. Stallings remains a prime suspect in the 1991 murder and two other slayings in Fort Bend County.

Stallings has claimed at different times to different people that he picked up the girl from one of several low-budget hotels on Telephone Road just south of I-45 and took her to the Calder Road property.

In one of many rambling letters in December 2013 addressed to Jim Carroll, an ex-con who exchanged letters with Stallings for more than two years, Stallings described the female victim as "dirty blond about 5'2" or 5'3" about 115 pounds The clothes she had on (were) big because she was on crack."

Stallings worked for a man who owned the Calder Road property owner at one time — a former NASA engineer named Robert Able, who is now deceased. Stallings told KHOU-TV in a 2016 interview that after he and the young woman left the hotel, they went for a drive and he eventually strangled her with a seat belt.

Casey, who published the 2015 book "Deliver Us: Three Decades of Murder and Redemption in the Infamous I-45/Texas Killing Fields," said she took Stallings' admission to a forensic pathologist, who said it was "highly possible" that the 1991 victim died in the manner that Stallings described.

"Maybe if we can find out who the girl is, that will lead to more of an investigation into her life and find out if Mark Stallings is telling the truth when he says that he killed her," Casey said.

Another man, Clyde Edwin Hedrick — who was sentenced in 2014 to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Ellen Beason — was linked to the deaths of Heidi Fye and Laura Miller during his trial, but he was never charged.

A third man, William Reece, currently serving a 60-year sentence in Oklahoma for kidnapping a woman, was indicted for murder in Texas in 2017 in connection with two homicides loosely connected to the Texas Killing Fields victims. Reece was charged in the 1997 slayings of 17-year-old Jessica Cain of Tiki Island and of 12-year old Laura Smither, whose body was found near a Pasadena pond 17 days after she was abducted after leaving her home to go jogging. Reece is a suspected serial killer linked to attacks on at least seven different women across Texas. He is scheduled to be tried next year in Oklahoma on a murder charge for the 1997 killing of a young woman.

The League City Police Department is asking anyone with information that may help the investigation to call Lt. Michael Buffington at (281) 338 8220.

"These girls deserve their names back, they deserve their faces, their families deserve to know what happened to them, they deserve a grave with a stone on top of it, with a real name on top of it — a place their families can go to visit them," Casey said.

Staff writer Lise Olsen contributed to this report.

Nick Powell covers Galveston County for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and send him tips at nick.powell@chron.com