Texas EquuSearch founder hoping for charges in daughter's 35-year-old murder

HOUSTON, Texas - Houstonian Tim Miller, the founder of Texas Equusearch, is grabbing national headlines by offering new details about who he suspects murdered his daughter 35 years ago.

That tragedy led to Miller doing decades of work for Texas families and helping to find hundreds of missing people alive.

But he now hopes the spotlight will help him go back to solving the case that started it all. He opened up exclusively to FOX 25’s Randy Wallace about the ongoing mystery.

For more than 30 years, Miller said he’s had no double 64-year-old Clyde Hedrick raped and murdered his daughter, Laura, on Sept. 10, 1984.

“I suspected it was Clyde Hedrick back in 1986,” he said.

Sharing that with an international news outlet has thrust his suspicions back in the headlines.

“I certainly didn’t anticipate that it was going to blow up this big,” said Miller with a laugh.

In 2013, Hedrick was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the death of Ellen Beason. It took 30 years for him to be arrested in that murder case.

Miller said Hedrick also confessed to murdering his daughter, Laura.

“Clyde actually admitted to three cellmates when he was in jail, waiting to go to trial on Ellen Beason, that he had sex with Laura before he murdered her, that he murdered Heidi Fye and how he murdered Ellen Beason,” Miller said.

Miller said Hedrick lived two doors down from him when Laura was murdered.

Miller also suspects that Hedrick killed a fourth woman whose remains were found in an area known as “the killing field.” To this day, she remains a Jane Doe.

“There’s one thing worse than having a murdered child and that’s knowing they’re dead out there somewhere and never being able to say goodbye. I want to find out who Jane Doe is so we can get her to her family,” Miller said.

Just last week, Miller said he met with the FBI about a new lead on Jane Doe’s identity.

Hedrick has repeatedly denied killing Laura and the other two women, but that hasn’t stopped Miller from filing a wrongful death lawsuit against him.

Miller hopes that the lawsuit will finally lead to murder charges against Hedrick.

“Can I forgive it? I can,” he said. "Can I forget it? No, I’m not forgetting Clyde. I’m not going to forget.”

Miller said his daughter didn’t die in vain. It was her murder that lead him to form the non-profit EquuSearch. That charity has helped find more than 400 missing people alive and recovered 238 bodies.