August 4, 1971, Galveston, Texas. After spending the day at the beach, 14-year-old Rhonda

Renee Johnson and 13-year-old Sharon Shaw failed to return home and their skeletal remains are found

in a Bayou months later. A suspect named Michael Lloyd-Self is eventually taken into custody

confesses to the murders, but even though he maintains that the confession was coerced and he is

innocent, he is still convicted of the crime. Decades later, another convicted murderer named Edward

Harold Bell becomes an alternate suspect after he sends confession letters to the authorities.

Bell claims he was responsible for the murders of 11 female victims in Texas during the 1970s

and refers to them as the 11 who went to heaven. But none of those cases are conclusively solved.

After that, the trail went cold.

Hello everyone and welcome to a very special milestone for the trail went cold, our 7-year

anniversary show. I'm your host Robin Warder and to commemorate this special occasion,

our podcast will be releasing a two-part series of episodes and it will be covering a very

convoluted story involving 11 murder victims. This is the saga of the 11 who went to heaven.

That voice you just heard narrating our intro was Amy Harbor, the latest winner of our most

recent trail went cold listener voiceover contest so thank you very much Amy. This is a recurring

monthly contest which you've been carrying on for five and a half years now, so if you'd like

to enter and haven't already done so, I will be providing instructions near the end of this episode.

Anyway, the 11 murders will be profiling in this series of episodes involve female victims

between the ages of 12 and 19 and these crimes all took place within the same three county area

of Texas during the 1970s. The 11 who went to heaven is a phrase which was used by a convicted

murderer named Edward Harold Bell who claimed that he was responsible for killing all these victims.

Now if you're an unsolved mysteries fan, you're probably familiar with the name Edward Harold

...