COD: Strangulation

1983 Case # 83-6947
Murder of Laura Jean Donez
April 18, 1983 – FM 149 7 miles north of Montgomery, Texas
SYNOPSIS: At approx. 1:00 pm, an oilfield worker observed a fire
burning in a wooded area, near a logging road, approx. 400 yards west of
FM 149. The dead body of an unidentified white female was found in the
fire and MCSO Deputies were called. The fire had been set with what
appeared to be a road flare and an autopsy revealed that she had been
strangled. The victim was soon identified as Laura Jean Donez (16 yoa),
who had last been seen walking away from her residence in the 3500
block of Raymond Street, Houston, Texas. Donez had reportedly left to
buy a hamburger at a nearby restaurant. Self-professed Serial Killer
Henry Lee Lucas subsequently confessed to the crime, along with several
others in Montgomery County, in 1983. Lucas had confessed to approx.
600 murders, with about 200 cleared across the United States. Lucas died
in prison in 2001, after his death sentence was commuted to life. Lucas had recanted his confessions and it is believed that he is not responsible
for most of the crimes he confessed too

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Kimberly Rae Pitchford was last seen after her first driver's ed class at Frank Dobie High School, 11111 Beamer Rd, Houston, about 6 pm on Wednesday, January 3, 1973. Her parents were expecting a call when she was ready to be picked up, but it never came. Two days later a couple of teenage boys discovered her body in a dranage ditch along CR 65 about a mile north of CR 63 near Iowa Colony in Brazoria County. She was partially clad and had been strangled with a rope. Her murder has never been solved. Ed Bell has claimed responsibility and says he picked her up near Gulfgate Mall in Houston.

Found Slain
37 Years Later: Where is Kimberly's Killer


Quote:
Bell identified another of his victims as a reddish-blond Houston teen named "Pitchford," kidnapped near Gulfgate Mall. Harris County medical examiner's records and newspaper archives show Kimberly Rae Pitchford, a 16-year-old who lived near Hobby airport, never returned home after taking a driver's education class at Frank Dobie High School in Houston. Her body was found in a thicket in Brazoria County in January 1973.

Ed Bell's Confessions

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Angela Desiree Kelly, 12, body found on 03/28/1979, Red Bluff Rd, Pasadena

Quote:
In a case from March 1979, a motorist discovered the body of Angela Desiree Kelly on the curb in the 7800 block of Red Bluff Road. She had been strangled and her hands were tied behind her back.

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1984 Case # 84-19417
Murder of Brenda Maureen Hackett

September 9, 1984 – FM 2854 3 miles west of I-45, Conroe, Texas

SYNOPSIS: Brenda Hackett was 24 years of age, lived in a rented home
off Roy Harris Loop (Conroe), and worked at Club Daniels in Conroe as a
server. On September 9, 1984, at approx. 4:23 pm, Brenda Hackett
phoned her mother from a payphone at Safeway located at 1100 West
Dallas Street, Conroe. On September 10, 1984, at approx. 3:00 pm, a
passing train observed a body in “Contrary Creek” located alongside the
railroad trestle next to FM 2854 approx. 3 miles west of I-45. MCSO
Deputies responded and found the dead body of Hackett lying partially in
the water and she had been strangled with a pair of pantyhose. On
September 13, 1984, Hackett’s dark green 1967 Ford Mustang was found
abandoned on Arnold Street, just behind the Cross-Roads Shopping Center
where Hackett had made her last known phone call. The car contained
Hackett’s purse and shoes and had been observed parked at that location
on September 10, 1984, at approx. 4:30 am. MCSO Cold Case Detectives
recently had DNA testing conducted on semen collected from Hackett’s
body, which resulted in an unknown male DNA profile being obtained.

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Unknown Doe - Found near Huntsville, TX 11/01/1980

Unknown Doe - Age about 14 to17, Caucasian, brunette. Dumped on I-45 about five miles north of Huntsville on November 1, 1980.

She was nude, had been strangled with pantyhose and had human bites on her body. Described as 5'4" tall, 110 pounds.

A truck driver found her body. The victim's body was dumped on side of I-45 north, 2 miles north of Huntsville, TX. The general condition of the body and her overall health and nutrition indicated she had probably come from a middle class home. There was no identification with the body. No semen was found on or in the victim's body.

When the murder became known through media, several people came forward and said they’d seen a teenager matching her description the day before her body was found.

A witness identified the victim as a girl who had been at the South End Gulf station around 18:30 on Halloween night asking for directions to the Ellis prison unit.

She had been wearing blue jeans, a yellow pullover sweater with big pockets that hung below her waist, and she was carrying high-heeled sandals in her hand. To the best of his recollection, she had been let out of a 1973 or ‘74 blue Chevrolet, possibly a Caprice, with a lighter colored top, which was being driven by a white male. She looked disheveled like she had been traveling, and perhaps sleeping in her clothes. She left the station, walking north on Sam Houston avenue. A waitress working at the Hitchin’ Post truck stop on Interstate 45 said the girl came into the restaurant the same evening and again, asked for directions to the Ellis Unit, saying she had a friend there. A map was drawn for her and she departed. The waitress asked the girl how old she was and the girl responded 19. The witness thought that was an obvious lie and then asked if her parents knew where she was. The young girl replied, "Who cares". The witness then stated she asked her where she was from. The girl replied Aransas Pass/Rockport, TX area. It has not been verified that the girl was the unidentified victim.

Her photograph was shown to every inmate at Ellis Prison Unit, but no one claimed to know the girl.

On January 16, 1981, the unidentified girl was buried in the Adickes Addition at Oakwood Cemetery. Huntsville Funeral Home buried her, and Morris Memorials provided her tombstone. It is believed that Henry Lee Lucas killed this girl, but investigators could not make a match between the bite mark on her left shoulder and his dental reconstruction. STILL UNSOLVED

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Laurie Lee Tremblay, 15 - 09/26/1986 Killed - Houston

Laurie Lee Tremblay – Age 15.
Tremblay, 15, was found slain behind a Ninfa's restaurant at 10694 Westheimer about 7:10 a.m. Friday, less than an hour after she left the nearby apartment she shared with her mother at 12735 Whittington. She was on her way to catch a bus on Dairy Ashford at Westella to the Montrose-area school she attended.

Investigators with the Harris County medical examiner's office said the girl was strangled with some type of cord. Police said they have no leads or motives in the attack. There was evidence she may have been killed elsewhere and then dumped behind the restaurant.

One of Anthony Allen Shore's strangulation victims, killed September 26, 1986. She was last seen alive walking from her family's apartment to the bus stop; Shore dumped her body behind a restaurant. Shore once reportedly lived in League City, the Galveston city where the infamous "Killing Fields" are located. Where 4 other victims have been discovered between 1983 and 1991.

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Case # 82-18737
Murder of Gloria Ann Stephan
October 2, 1982 – Alford Road, Magnolia, Texas

SYNOPSIS: At approx. 4:00 pm, a resident found the body of an
unidentified white female in “the gravel pit” located off Alford Road.
Another resident had been by the same location and reported that the body
was not present at that location at about 9:30 am, the same day. The
victim had been strangled with a ligature and stabbed to death. Victim
was positively identified by fingerprints as Gloria Ann Stephan, who was
last seen at a convenience store in the 13000 block of Northshore in
Houston, Texas on October 2, 1982, at about 12:00 pm. Stephan had been
driving her light blue 1975 Plymouth station wagon. On October 3, 1982,
at approx. 1:00 am, a Texas DPS Trooper found Stephan’s car abandoned
along Hwy 290 in Kerrville, Texas. Self-professed Serial Killer Henry
Lee Lucas subsequently confessed to the crime, along with several others
in Montgomery County, in 1983. Lucas had confessed to approx. 600
murders, with about 200 cleared across the United States. Lucas died in
prison in 2001, after his death sentence was commuted to life. Lucas had
recanted his confessions and it is believed that he is not responsible for
most of the crimes he confessed too.

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Murder of Laura Marie Purchase
March 17, 1983 – I-45 at League Line Road, Conroe, Texas
SYNOPSIS: At approx. 3:00 am, an MCSO Patrol Deputy observed a fire
burning just inside the woods along the northbound service road of I-45 at
League Line Road. The dead body of an unidentified white female was
found within the fire, which had recently been set. An autopsy determined
that she had died from strangulation and the fire set with an accelerant.
Self-professed Serial Killer Henry Lee Lucas subsequently confessed to
the crime, along with several others in Montgomery County, in 1983.
Lucas had confessed to approx. 600 murders, with about 200 cleared
across the United States. In 1986, the victim was later positively
identified as Laura Marie Purchase after fingerprints were matched.
Purchase was last known to have been in Houston, Texas on March 5,
1983, living with a man named “Howard” or “Howie” who played in a
band called “Malibu”. Lucas died in prison in 2001, after his death
sentence was commuted to life. Lucas had recanted his confessions and it is believed that he is not responsible for most of the crimes he confessed too. Recent DNA testing of semen from Purchase’s body has been conducted by MCSO Cold Case Detectives, eliminating Lucas from the DNA.

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1988 Case # 88-01492
Murder of Daphne Darlene Browne
January 17, 1988 – Rainforest Rd at Penguin Rd, Clear Creek Subdivision, Magnolia, Texas
SYNOPSIS: Daphne Darlene Brown was 32 years of age and resided
with her husband in the 16000 block of Burklin Street in Magnolia, Texas.
On January 16, 1988, at approx. 6:00 pm, Daphne Browne met a female
friend on Cherry Park Way in Houston, Texas to play bingo. At approx.
10:30 pm, same date, Daphne Browne departed the bingo hall enroute
home. On January 17, 1988, at approx. 8:45 am, Daphne Browne’s
husband reported her as Missing to the MCSO. On January 17, 1988, at
approx. 2:20 pm, a resident of the Clear Creek Subdivision observed
Daphne Browne’s brown 1983 Chevrolet Suburban parked at the end of
Rainforest Road at Penguin Street in Magnolia. Daphne Browne’s dead
body was discovered inside the rear of the vehicle and it appeared that she had been strangled with a “bungee” type cord. MCSO Cold Case
Detectives recently had DNA testing conducted in this case.
No Photo Available

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Eilenne Schatelowitz, 22 - March 25, 1986 - Found in League City, strangled

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Eilenne Schatelowitz, 22, whose body was found March 26, 1986 in a League City drainage ditch. Schatelowitz, 22, of Santa Fe, a mother of three who was separated from her husband, was last seen the night of March 25 after leaving a Dickinson convenience store where she worked.

Larry Wayne Herrington, 21, and Jonathan Bradford Bristow, 20, both of Dickinson, were jailed in April 1986 when they were stopped by police in Shawnee, Okla., for driving a van which belonged to Schatelowitz. The body of the victim was found March 26 in a ditch off FM 1266 near Houston Gulf Airport in east League City. She last had been seen the night of March 25 after leaving a Dickinson convenience store where she worked. The suspects are accused of strangling Schatelowitz, dumping her body in the ditch and taking her van after she agreed to give them a ride.

Police Detective Rex Fancher said there appears to be no connection between the Schatelowitz case and the deaths of two other young women whose bodies were found in the League City Killing Fields.

**Similar to other cases** RESOLVED

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Maria Del Carmen Estrada, 21 - April 16, 1992 Murdered by Anthony Allen Shore

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Maria Del Carmen Estrada - Age 21, Hispanic, brunette.One of Anthony Allen Shore's strangulation victims, killed in April 1992. Estrada was last seen when she left her home to walk to work. Her body was found hours later in the drive through lane of a Dairy Queen restaurant. One breast had a mark similar to a bite. A ligature and garrote composed of a small piece of wooden dowel had been twisted so tightly that it was embedded in Maria’s neck.

Shore once reportedly lived in League City, the Galveston city where the infamous "Killing Fields" are located. Where 4 other victims have were discovered between 1983 and 1991.

Shore told police Estrada got into his car after he offered her a ride to work. He said he parked behind a Dairy Queen and kissed her and she got violent when he tried to have sex with her. "I opened her blouse and she resisted," he told a detective in October 2003. "There were voices in my head that I was going to have her, regardless, to possess her in some way." He said he did not set out to kill her, but the situation got out of hand. He said he did not have sex with her, although he tried to.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/3838470/detail.html

The state of Texas will execute an admitted serial killer. A jury in Houston has convicted and sentenced Anthony Shore for strangling Maria del Carmen Estrada as well as two teenagers and a 9-year-old girl between 1986 and 1995. All of his victims were strangled and assaulted.

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Dana Sanchez, 16 - Disappeared, Murdered 06 July 1995 - Anthony Allen Shore Victim

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July 6, 1995, 16-year-old Dana Sanchez disappeared while hitchhiking to see her boyfriend. Eight days later, an anonymous caller contacted a local TV station’s TIPS line and reported that a serial killer was on the loose and that there was a body in the field of a commercial property development. The reporter who took the call was convinced that it was made by someone tapping the telephone line. Dana’s body was so badly decomposed when it was found that the medical examiner said that without the garrote of a toothbrush and the yellow nylon rope left around her neck, he would not have been able to determine the cause of death. (Shore later confessed to making the phone calls while he was working for a phone company).

Dana Sanchez, 16, was talking on a payphone at West Cavalcade at Airline. On July 14, her body was found on North View Park. Shore confessed to the murder of Sanchez. As he detailed each murder, he provided “excuses” for why he had to kill each.

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Diana Rebollar, 9 - 08/07/1994 - Heights Area, Houston, TX

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Shore was charged with Diana's murder. She had been strangled with a tourniquet when her body was discovered in August, 1984. She was abducted on her way to a convenience store on Main around the 6600 block of Main in the Heights area of Houston.

October 19, 2003

One day in August 1995, Piedra wanted to make agua de sandia - watermelon juice - but realized she didn't have sugar.

"My daughter told me she would run to the store and get it," Piedra recalls. Diana never came back.

Virginia Piedra always hoped police might someday capture the man who raped and killed her 9-year-old daughter in 1964 so she could finally end the years of lingering uncertainty.

"I'd like to talk to (the suspect), to ask him what he was thinking when he killed my daughter - my little girl," Piedra said in Spanish during a sometimes tearful interview in her northeast Houston home Tuesday. "But I know he couldn't answer."

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Anthony Allen Shore Confessed to the Murder of Diana Rebollar. "Too young. Not developed. That was an opportunity, a freaky thing that I don't know why I did that. I remember seeing this girl walking alone. North Main somewhere around 21st to 26th. I know there is a parking lot and I pulled in and I talked to her and... I just picked her up, put her in the van. I just threw her in initially and I told her to be quiet and that it was a kidnapping and that she wasn't gonna get hurt, this and that. She fought and fought and I don't recall what type of cord or strand, a piece of wire or something. And the same thing. I knew I was *advertiser censored***d and I don't know why the s**t kept happening. I couldn't stop it."

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The family of Terressa Vanegas, a 16-year-old girl from Bayview, Texas, has been living a horrific nightmare for the last two-and-a-half years. Teresa's mother, Jeanette Vanegas, wakes up every morning to the realization that her daughter's killer is still living his life without paying the consequence for stealing the teen's precious life.

The mystery of this case began on Nov. 3, 2006, when a man riding a dirt bike stumbled upon Terressa's body some 200 yards behind a high school in Dickinson, Texas. According to a source close to the investigation, Terressa was found lying in a shallow drainage ditch. Her shirt had been ripped off, and her pants were pulled down to her knees. A belt had allegedly been wrapped tightly around her neck. Terressa's shoes were missing, and to date they have not been found.

Jeanette was not allowed to view the body for positive identification; however, when presented with a photo taken by the medical examiner's office, she was able to confirm her daughter's identity. When viewing the photo, she also made a mental note of her daughter's face, which she says appeared to be bruised and swollen.

An autopsy conducted by the Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office later confirmed that Terressa's death was a homicide; however, officials would not comment on a cause of death.

During Terressa's funeral, her casket was kept closed, but prior to burial her father requested to view her body. When the casket was opened, he too observed the bruising to her face and also made note of cuts on her hands.

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On March 5, 1996, Krystal Jean Baker left her grandmother's house at approximately 1:20 p.m. With no word from her by that evening, her grandmother reported her missing. Two weeks later her body was found under the I-10 bridge over the Trinity River is Texas City. She had been strangled.

DNA linked a Louisiana man, Kevin Edison Smith, 45, to Krystal's murder. He was arrested and charged in September, 2010.

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TEXAS CITY — The mother of a girl found slain under a Chambers County bridge in 1996 said Friday a suspect’s arrest and murder charge in the cold case was a miracle.

Kevin Edison Smith, 45, of Louisiana, was arrested Wednesday at his refinery job in Groves on a Chambers County Sheriff’s Office warrant, charging him with murder in the killing of Krystal Jean Baker, Texas City Police Chief Robert Burby said.

DNA gathered from the case and processed through the Texas Department of Public Safety led to an arrest, Burby said.

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She said, "I wish I could wake up out of this nightmare and hold my little girl in my arms."
Adding to her grief was the fact that her daughter's killer was never brought to justice. On the run all these years -- until now. DNA evidence led authorities to arrest 45-year-old Kevin Edison Smith of Louisiana. He was taken into custody at a job site in Chambers County where he'd been working as a welder.

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