Clyde Hedrick was first accused of “abuse of a corpse” in connection with Ellen Beason’s death, as detailed in the new docuseries, which premiered on November 29. 

Although many of the killings and disappearances depicted in Netflix’s The Texas Killing Fields are still unsolved, at least one piece of the long-running puzzle was recently resolved. 

This initial accusation first brought him to Tim Miller’s attention as a potential suspect in the death of his daughter, Laura Miller. Let’s find out more about it.

Who is Clyde Hedrick?

Not much is known about Clyde Hedrick.

The three-part original series claimed that he was actually “a good-looking man back in the day” and had great dance moves, which was just one of the reasons he “thought himself a ladies’ man.”

In reality, though, he was essentially a “Casanova conman” with a lengthy criminal record that listed a number of intricate charges against children, strangers, ex-partners, and the government. 

The latter count, in particular, is related to the disappearance of Ellen Rae Simpson Beason, 30, in 1984. She was last seen with him leaving the Texas Moon Club in League City.

What happened with Ellen Rae?

In July of the same year, Clyde became the prime suspect after the decomposing bones of Ellen were discovered beneath a broken-down sofa and other trash on a dirt road in Galveston County. 

The fact that she inadvertently drowned while swimming with a friend after a night of dancing could not be conclusively refuted at the time.

Officials were forced to rely on his account, according to which he claimed he abandoned her along the lonely route in a fit of rage out of fear of being implicated in a crime, which led to a 1996 conviction for corpse abuse.

Then, in 2012, Ellen’s body was unearthed, and a revised autopsy revealed that she had suffered skull fractures, indicating that she had been struck in the head with a blunt object before drowning.