Authorities say the new search follows charges filed last month against James Elmore in two longtime Galveston County killings.
BACLIFF, TX — Investigators searched a home in Bacliff on Thursday as part of the long-running Texas Killing Fields investigation, focusing on a property tied to James Elmore Jr., the man charged last month in the 1984 death of Laura Miller and the 1986 death of Audrey Cook.
The search marked the latest turn in one of Texas’ most notorious cold-case investigations. Prosecutors say the work is part of an active inquiry that reopened in 2024 and has already led to charges against Elmore, 61, after decades of questions about killings linked to the isolated League City area known as the Texas Killing Fields. The immediate stakes are whether investigators can recover human remains or other evidence that could help explain what happened to additional victims and whether more charges could follow.
Law enforcement officers gathered Thursday morning at a home on 18th Street in Bacliff, a coastal community about 40 miles southeast of Houston. Aerial footage showed officers around the property as authorities executed two search warrants. Galveston County District Attorney Kenneth Cusick gave only a brief public statement at the scene, saying the activity was part of an ongoing investigation. “What you’re seeing out this morning is a result of an ongoing investigation,” Cusick said. He declined to spell out what investigators expected to find, but court records released with the warrants gave a clearer picture. Those records say authorities were following statements attributed to Elmore that a body may be buried beneath the property, which records describe as once having been owned by Clyde Hedrick and later by Elmore. The warrants also allowed investigators to use ground-penetrating radar and other methods to look for buried evidence.
The search warrant affidavit ties the new operation to conversations that Tim Miller, Laura Miller’s father and the founder of Texas EquuSearch, said he had with Elmore over the past year. According to the affidavit, Tim Miller told investigators that Elmore said in April 2025 that he had been present the night Laura Miller died in September 1984. The document says Elmore admitted he prepared a vial of cocaine containing a lethal dose and that Hedrick gave it to the 16-year-old girl. The warrant also says Elmore later told Tim Miller by phone in March 2026 that a body was buried under the 18th Street property. In one version described in the records, Elmore said Hedrick burned a structure on the land and buried victims under the rubble. The affidavit says investigators saw signs in historical aerial photographs of landscaping changes and structures that were removed or added over the years. Authorities have not said publicly whether they found remains Thursday, how long the search will continue, or whether the possible victims are believed to be among the women long associated with the case.
The Texas Killing Fields name refers most directly to a stretch near Calder Road and Ervin Street in League City where four women’s bodies were found between 1984 and 1991: Laura Miller, Audrey Cook, Heidi Fye-Villareal and Donna Prudhomme. Over the years, the case grew beyond those four names as other killings and disappearances in the broader region were discussed alongside the field, helping turn the area into a symbol of unsolved violence against women and girls near Houston and Galveston. Prosecutors said this month that roughly 30 women’s deaths have been tied in some way to the broader Killing Fields history. For years, Clyde Hedrick had been seen by investigators and victims’ families as a central suspect. Authorities said last month that they had reopened the evidence in 2024 and were preparing to present Hedrick’s case to a grand jury when he died by suicide on March 21, 2026, at a Houston hospital. His death ended the possibility of prosecuting him, but officials said it did not end the investigation.
That reopened case led to Elmore’s arrest at the end of March. Prosecutors charged him with one count of manslaughter in Laura Miller’s death and two tampering counts tied to the disposal of Laura Miller’s and Audrey Cook’s bodies. According to the indictment, Elmore “did recklessly cause the death” of Laura Miller by preparing a vial of cocaine for Hedrick to administer. Prosecutors have also said the tampering allegations stem from Elmore’s role in the disposition of the victims’ bodies. Elmore was booked into the Galveston County Jail and remained there as of Thursday. Authorities have said there are other active leads and have not ruled out more arrests. The newly released search records added another layer to the inquiry by saying investigators also obtained authority to seize video equipment, tapes and digital media from the Bacliff property after a separate search of a phone found during Elmore’s arrest allegedly turned up images that investigators believed showed child sexual abuse material. That allegation has not been described as part of the homicide charges, but it appears in the warrant as one reason officers sought broader access to the property.
For families who have waited more than 40 years, Thursday’s search was another painful but important step. Tim Miller has spent decades pressing for answers in his daughter’s case while building Texas EquuSearch into one of the country’s best-known volunteer search groups. At an earlier April news conference announcing the charges, he and other relatives said the case still held unanswered questions even after Elmore’s arrest. Prosecutors echoed that point. Cusick said after the charges were announced that the case was still moving and that authorities were following additional leads. That message hung over the Bacliff search as officers worked around a modest home in a quiet Gulf Coast community, looking beneath the ground for evidence that may have survived fire, weather and time. The central unknowns remain large: whether unidentified victims are buried there, whether any remains can be matched to missing women, and whether the physical evidence will support additional homicide or tampering counts. What is clear is that investigators now see the property as significant enough to search with specialized tools after years in which the case seemed frozen.
By Thursday evening, authorities still had not announced any recovery of human remains or any new criminal counts tied to the search. The next public milestone is likely to be an update from the Galveston County district attorney’s office or court filings tied to the warrants as the investigation moves forward.
Author note: Last updated April 16, 2026.