we begin with a major break in that
murder spree that has haunted our area's
collective memories for decades
investigators have identified two women
whose bodies were found in the so called
killing fields at the end of Calder Road
in League City that's right police
announced the names of those victims
this morning and walked us through how
they went from a sketch to knowing who
those women are channel 2 investigator
Robert Arnold has been tracking this
case now for several years he was
joining us live in League City with the
details of this major break Robert good
afternoon good afternoon Andy these
women remain unidentified from 1986 in
1991 until now let's go straight to the
identities first we have this lady this
is Audrey Lee cook she was originally
from the Tennessee area but moved to the
Houston Channelview area around 1976 and
kept in contact with family according to
detectives through letters they wired
her some money she had various jobs in
the area and then just kind of
disappeared after Christmas around
Christmas of 1985 there was an uncle who
did several years after that come to the
Houston area trying to find her when her
parents fell ill but nobody could ever
find her and unfortunately she her
remains were found in that so-called
killing fields area in 1986 and remain
unidentified
until now the second lady this is Donna
Prudhoe what we do know is that she
moved from the Beaumont Port Arthur area
to Austin around 1986 and then around
1988 moved to the Seabrook area police
don't know a lot about what brought her
to the Seabrook area that's one of the
things that they're trying to figure out
now they do know though that she was
trying to an escape an abusive
relationship matter of fact some of the
injuries that were found on her remains
when she was located in 1991 came from
that abusive relationship according to
detectives they also tell us that Donna
pooed home had two sons one son has
unfortunately passed away they did get a
chance to talk with the other son and he
said he just kind of assumed something
bad happened to his mom but he did hope
that she had just moved somewhere else
and was starting a new life trying to
start a new chapter to her life get a
fresh start somewhere pretty much that
was it with both of these families even
though there were no formal
missing-persons reports filed detectives
say it's not like the families didn't
care they did
try to find these ladies but it was a
different era we're talking about the
mid 80s early 90s people weren't as
connected as they are now and they just
kind of assumed that both of these
ladies have moved on somewhere else
tried to start for a fresh life these
names though of course now take their
place next to two names that have been
known for decades high defy in Laura
Miller these are the four ladies that
were found at that address off of Calder
Road which has been collectively
referred to as the killing fields one of
the things that police now have to do is
they have to go in backtrack and they
have to figure out everybody who may
have been in Audrey Cooke or Donna prude
Holmes life trying to get a sense of
exactly what happened to these ladies
what exactly brought them here what put
them there and also trying to figure out
if there's anything that connects these
four ladies to one another that is
another potential deal but as you'll
hear from the detective we spoke to the
lieutenant over investigations here and
he says a lot of work left to do these
names have brought up a whole new array
of possibilities but it's going to take
time in fact he says they have at least
100 interviews they still have to do I
mean we've just been you know non-stop
every day you know we're working on
these cases and we're we're conducting
interviews and we're you know we're
tracking people down and just you know
and that's we still have a regular
caseload to manage as well you
but we're working on these every day so
it goes without saying if you know
anything about either of these ladies
please call the League City Police
Department we've got information on
click2houston.com that has their cold
case hotline number as well as the email
address for League City Police
Department's cold case unit if you know
anything as police had said before don't
try and figure out if it's a in
significant or significant detail let
the detectives do that now the one thing
that lieutenant Buffington did say is
they do have several persons of interest
some of these people have been persons
of interest for decades now so they're
going to go back through now that they
have these names and see if any new
information can come to light reporting
live from the League City Police
Department robert arnold KPRC channel 2
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