LEAGUE CITY, Texas — A movie based on the unsolved Calder Road and Interstate 45 corridor murders will begin filming in April in Louisiana, Variety, a film industry trade magazine, reported.
Tim Miller, founder of the Dickinson-based Texas EquuSearch, a group dedicated to finding missing people, said he hopes the movie will spark interest in the unsolved homicides.
"I’m a little disappointed they didn’t contact me — only so I can contact some of the families to let them know about the movie," Miller said.
Since 1971, 21 women and girls have been reported missing along the Interstate 45 corridor in Galveston County in cases that remain unsolved. Police have recovered the remains of 14 from fields, parks and bodies of water. Their killers remain at large.
The other seven are missing, their fates unknown.
Jessica Cain, Krystal Jean Baker, Suzanne Rene Richerson, Sandra Romber, Jo Ann Sendejas and Shelley Sikes were among the many women who went missing or were found dead along or near the I-45 corridor.
Miller’s daughter, Laura, disappeared in 1984. Her body was found in a field off Calder Road with the bodies of three other women. Miller also is working on a movie about the Calder Road and I-45 murders with a group of filmmakers and producers in California, who are not affiliated with the film that will begin shooting in April. "I can’t talk much about it, right now," Miller said.
The movie that will be shot in Louisiana was initially named, "The Texas Killing Fields" and was changed to "The Fields." It is slated to be released in 2012 and will be produced by Michael Mann and directed by his daughter, Ami Canaan Mann, according to Variety.
"The Fields" screenplay was written by Donald F. Ferrarone, a former U.S Drug Enforcement Agency agent, Variety reported.
Michael Mann, who directed and produced 2009’s "Public Enemies" also directed and produced "The Last of the Mohicans," "Heat," "The Insider," "Ali" and "Collateral."
Lt. Tommy Hansen of the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office, who worked on some of the I-45 corridor homicide cases, said he didn’t know what to think about a Hollywood portrayal of the unsolved homicides.
"There’s been a lot of fanfare by the media because someone is supposedly stalking I-45," Hansen said. "I don’t know if it’s true there’s a connection between these murders. A lot of these murders were wrong-time and wrong-place types of situations."
"The Fields," will star Sam Worthington, who starred in "Avatar," and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who starred in 2009’s comic book movie "Watchmen."
Variety’s Dave McNary reported: "Morgan will star as a detective transplanted from New York, while the ‘Avatar’ thesp will portray a local investigator probing a series of unsolved murders in industrial wastelands surrounding Gulf Coast refineries, whereas many as 70 bodies have turned up over the past two decades. Together they wage a war against the unknown assailants."
