A man convicted in connection with a death linked to the notorious "Texas Killing Fields" has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. James Dolphs Elmore Jr., 61, received the maximum sentence from a Galveston County jury after being found guilty of manslaughter in the 1986 death of 16-year-old Laura Miller.
Elmore was arrested earlier this year and accused of preparing a dose of cocaine administered to Miller. Her body was among dozens of women found in a stretch of land along Interstate 45 southeast of Houston, a region that became known as the "Texas Killing Fields." Investigators believe multiple individuals may be responsible for the deaths of more than 30 girls and young women discovered in the area.
Miller was one of four young women whose bodies were found between 1984 and 1991 in a rural field in League City. Authorities alleged that Clyde Hedrick, Elmore's longtime friend, was responsible for the deaths of these four women. The district attorney's office had sought grand jury indictments against Hedrick, but he died by suicide in March before the presentation.
Hedrick had previously been convicted of manslaughter in 2014 for the death of Ellen Beason, whose body was found in 1985. He was released from prison in 2022 and was on parole at the time of his death.
Laura Miller's father, Tim Miller, founded the nonprofit Texas EquuSearch, which assists in the search for missing persons, following his daughter's death. Many of the deaths associated with the "Texas Killing Fields" remain unsolved.
In a separate development in 2022, William Reece, an inmate on death row in Oklahoma, pleaded guilty to three murders in Texas. These included the deaths of 12-year-old Laura Smither and 17-year-old Jessica Cain in Galveston County, and 20-year-old Kelli Cox, whose body was found in Brazoria County. Reece received life sentences for these convictions.