A Houston-area man is in jail Tuesday after being indicted by a Galveston County grand jury in a decades-long murder investigation.
Bacliff resident James Dolphs Elmore Jr., 61, is being charged with manslaughter and felony tampering with evidence in the unsolved murder of Laura Miller, and another evidence tampering charge in the similar but also unsolved murder of Audrey Cook.
Elmore was arrested Tuesday and booked into the Galveston County jail in connection with the murders of several women between 1984 and 1991 whose bodies were found in various places in Southeast Texas.
There have been several sources pointing to Elmore as one of two men involved in what came to be known as the “Texas Killing Fields” murders, according to authorities.
Most of the more than 30 female victims were between 12 and 25 years old.
A news conference is scheduled for Wednesday morning to discuss details of Tuesday’s arrest.
Investigators have believed for decades, based on testimony, that Elmore helped Clyde Edwin Hedrick hide the bodies of the young women after the murders, but were never able to gather enough evidence against either of the two men to bring them to justice.
And Clyde Hedrick died 10 days ago, age 72, of an undisclosed ailment at a Houston hospital.
The murder of Laura Miller not far from her home in 1984 led her father, Tim Miller, to organize the group Texas Equusearch, volunteers who gather to aid Texas law enforcement agencies in searches for missing people in wide open areas for which there might otherwise be too few personnel to search effectively.