Texas Killing Fields (location)

The Texas Killing Fields is an area bordering the Calder Oil Field, a 25-acre patch of land situated a mile from the stretch of Interstate 45 known as the "Highway of Hell" because of its high rate of traffic accidents. Since the early 1970s roughly 30 bodies have been extracted from the towns around the Killing Fields, mainly consisting of young girls. Despite exhaustive efforts by the Texas City Police with the assistance of the FBI, very few cases have been solved. Furthermore, many young girls have disappeared from the area, their bodies, if deceased, still missing. The fields have been described as "a perfect place for killing somebody and getting away with it." After visiting some sites of the recovered remains in Texas City, Ami Canaan Mann, director of the film The Texas Killing Fields, commented, "You could actually see the refineries that are in the South end of Texas City. You could see the I-45. But if you yelled no one would necessarily hear you, and if you ran there wouldn’t necessarily be anywhere to go." Suspects: It has been speculated that many of the cases are the work of a serial killer, because of a number of similarities with some of the cases. Many of the victims fall into the age range of 10–25 and many shared similar physical features with a few having similar hairstyles. Another parallel is that the majority of the bodies were found next to a water mass. Although they are common characteristics, most of them could just as well be deemed circumstantial, and lack of distinct evidence and technological development at the time of the crimes limited the ability to conceive solid evidence of there being one or more serial killers preying along the I-45. One suspect was convicted murderer Edward Harold Bell, 72 years old in November 2011, who claimed in a 1998 letter to police to have murdered 11 girls in Galveston County. Although he had been a longtime suspect, prosecutors claimed they did not have enough evidence to prosecute him. Arrest in the Krystal Jean Baker case: In April 2012, 16 years after Krystal Jean Baker's beaten, raped and strangled body was found, Kevin Edison Smith was arrested and convicted for her murder. In 2009, Smith had been arrested on a drug charge in Louisiana, and around the same time a detective tested Krystal Baker's dress for DNA and the match was confirmed using advanced modern-day technologies that were not available at the time of Krystal's disappearance. The jury deliberated for no more than 30 minutes before Smith was sentenced to life in prison. Film adaptation: The Hollywood adaptation of the deadly events that occurred along the I-45 was released on September 9, 2011, with the title Texas Killing Fields. Directed by Ami Canaan Mann and starring Sam Worthington and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the film is loosely based on the real cases while depicting a fictionalized portrayal of the struggle local police faced in attempting to solve the murders. The film focuses on the lead police detectives, Capt. Brian Goetschius and Mike Land, who dedicated their careers to solving the mysteries of I-45. The filmmakers hired officers Brian Goetschius and Mike Land as consultants while making the movie. Janet Miller, mother of victim Laura Miller, said in an interview with the Dallas Morning News that she was angry at first about the idea of a film, stating “I was upset because no one notified me. The parents should know what’s going on.” Screenwriter and Federal Agent Donald Ferrarone said he drew information from an interview with a kidnapping victim and the family of one of the deceased. Tim Miller, father of victim Laura Miller, said he saw the film for what the filmmakers had intended, to raise awareness about the crimes and generate new tips about the crimes. In an interview with CBS News for 48 Hours Mystery, actor Sam Worthington said, “People you never know might just go and see the movie and go, 'Oh, I remember when someone went down in the fields, and I remember a certain car and a certain person seemed a bit dodgy.' Maybe a family can then know what happened to their daughters.” Book: Author Kathryn Casey's book, Deliver Us: Three Decades of Murder and Redemption in the Infamous I-45/Texas Killing Fields, was released by HarperCollins in January 2015 and examines 19 murder cases, from 1971 through the 1990s.