The Trail Went Cold - Episode 318 - The Eleven Who Went to Heaven (Part 2)

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2023

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

November 15, 1971. Galveston, Texas. 15-year old Debbie Ackerman and 15-year old Maria Johnson are seen climbing into a white van outside an ice cream shop, but they never return home. Days later, the girls’ bodies are found in a bayou and they are bound, nude from the waist down and have been shot to death. After several decades, a convicted murderer named Edward Harold Bell sends out letters in which he confesses to having killed Debbie and Maria. Bell also claims to be responsible for eleven murders which occurred in Texas during the 1970s and refers to the victims as “The Eleven Who Went to Heaven”, but no conclusive evidence ever links him to these crimes. This week, “The Trail Went Cold” releases the conclusion of our extensive two-part anniversary episode on the murders of eleven female victims known as “The Eleven Who Went to Heaven”: 15-year old Debbie Ackerman, 15-year old Maria Johnson, 14-year old Rhonda Renee Johnson, 13-year old Sharon Shaw, 13-year old Colette Wilson, 19-year old Gloria Gonzales, 12-year old Brooks Bracewell, 14-year old Georgia Geer, 14-year old Brenda Jones, 16-year old Kimberley Pitchford and 12-year old Suzanne Bowers. If you have information about any of these cases, please contact the tip line of the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office at 1-800-566-2209. Additional Reading: “The Eleven” Series on the A&E Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Harold_Bell https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Edward_Bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Rhonda_Johnson_and_Sharon_Shaw https://abc13.com/archive/8269239/ http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Some-suspect-serial-killer-in-1971-Galveston-2078025.php http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Confessions-of-a-cold-blooded-killer-2187501.php “Deliver Us: Three Decades of Murder and Redemption of the Infamous I-45/Texas Killing Fields” by Kathryn Casey https://nypost.com/2017/10/18/killer-who-claims-he-murdered-11-girls-may-have-lied-documentary/ https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-killer-s-death-leaves-unanswered-13783107.php#photo-17259855 https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/houston-matters/2019/04/22/330217/possible-serial-killer-dies-in-texas-prison/ Join us on Saturday, February 25 at 8:00pm ET for an online streaming marathon where we will be watching classic segments from “Unsolved Mysteries”. You can enter our screening room by clicking on this link. “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. “The Trail Went Cold” is doing a weekly livestream show on Vokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon UK” at the Tower Bridge, Leonardo Royal Hotel & Spa in London on June 10-11, 2023, as well as “Crimecon” at the World Center Marriott in Orlando, Florida on September 22-24, 2023. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to either event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD23”, by visiting https://www.crimecon.co.uk or https://www.crimecon.com. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	November 15th, 1971.
0:03.7	Galveston, Texas.
0:06.3	15-year-old Debbie Ackerman and 15-year-old Maria Johnson are seen climbing into a white van
0:11.8	outside an ice cream shop, but they never return home.
0:15.2	Days later, the girl's bodies are found in a bayou, and they are bound, nude from the waist down, and have been shot to death. After several decades, a convicted murder named Edward Harold Bell sends out letters in which he confesses to having killed Debbie and Maria.
0:30.0	Bell claims to be responsible for the murders of 11 female victims in Texas during the 1970s
0:35.6	and refers to them as the 11 who went to heaven, but none of these cases are conclusively solved.
0:41.6	After that, the trail went cold. Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, right, uh,
0:54.0	uh, and uh, uh, yeah.
1:03.0	Oh, uh, and uh, and uh,
1:05.0	uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
1:08.0	uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to part two of our special seven-year anniversary episode of the
1:25.2	Trail Went Cold. I'm your host Robin Warder and today I'll be picking up where we left off
1:31.2	last week and continuing our series about 11 murder victims, known as the
1:35.9	11 who went to heaven.
1:38.5	The victims in question were 11 girls between the ages of 12 and 19 who were all killed within the same
1:44.1	tri-county area of Texas during the 1970s. After a convicted murderer named
1:49.3	Edward Harold Bell confessed all these crimes decades later, he referred to them as the 11 who went to heaven.
1:56.0	On last week's episode, we focused primarily on the murders of two of these victims,
2:00.8	Ronderaney Johnson and Sharon Shaw, as a suspect named Michael Lloyd
2:05.3	Self was charged and convicted of that crime. However, self-arrest was made
2:10.1	possible by a confession which he claimed had been coerced from him by corrupt cops
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Robin Warder, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Robin Warder and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.