Murders of Rhonda Johnson and Sharon Shaw

In May 1972, a tip was received from Glenn Price, a Galveston city councilman, to look into Michael Lloyd Self, a local gas station attendant and sex offender. Police visited Self at his workplace and he voluntarily went to the police station the following day for questioning.[6] When shown photos of Shaw and Johnson, Self admitted to recognizing the girls, but stated that he did not know them.

According to Self, Police Chief Michael Morris held him in confinement for hours, remarking that Self would not leave until he had made a confession. Self also stated that he was held against a wall, hit with a nightstick, and taunted by Morris with his pistol, who threatened to kill Self if he did not confess.[6] Self eventually agreed, and he was forced by Morris to handwrite a confession to the murders of Shaw and Johnson. Morris allegedly forced Self to rewrite the confession several times.[6] Dave Coburn, a local investigator, corroborated Self's story by claiming to have witnessed Morris treat a prisoner exactly the same way a year prior.[6]

The final signed confession by Self contained several discrepancies. Self stated he had dumped Shaw's and Johnson's bodies in El Lago, which was over twenty miles from the marsh where police discovered the remains. Self also wrote that he had strangled both girls to death, though reports from the medical examiner showed no evidence of strangulation.[6]

Three days after his confession, on June 23, 1972, Self provided further "details" to police in an oral confession that conflicted with his initial written confession. In an interview with Deputy Sheriff W.A. Turner and Deputy Sheriff Frank Beamer, Self claimed that he had picked up Shaw and Johnson from a Sizzler steakhouse and that they had driven around El Lago and gotten food from a local Jack in the Box restaurant.[7] According to Beamer, Self said he then pulled over into a secluded area, struck the girls over the head with a Coca-Cola bottle,[7] stripped their clothes off, and thrown the clothes onto the highway. (This last claim conflicted with the fact that the girls' clothing was discovered with their remains.)[6] Self then claimed to have thrown the girls' bodies in a culvert on Choate Road.[7]

Two weeks later, sheriff's deputies checked Self out of jail and drove him to the various locations mentioned in his confession and photographed him at each of the locations. These photos would later be presented in court, though Self's attorney said the taking of the photos was illegal.

Self's trial began on May 15, 1973, and concluded on September 18, 1974. He was convicted of the first-degree murder of Shaw and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was not convicted of Johnson's murder.[6] An October 9, 1974, appeal of the case was denied.[7]

Three years later, in 1976, Morris and Deputy Tommy Deal, both of whom had worked on Self's case, were arrested and charged with multiple bank robberies dating back to 1972.[6] Morris was sentenced to 55 years in prison, and Deal was sentenced to 30 years.[6]

Self was denied parole numerous times, and he unsuccessfully appealed his conviction over the course of his sentence. In a September 22, 1992, written petition for appeal, reference to coercion in his confession was made, reading:

The district court acknowledged that the state court had twice found that no force or threats were used against Self to obtain his June 9 confession. Nevertheless, it found that the confession was so obtained and not freely given, despite Miranda warnings having been given. This finding is influenced by its earlier, unwarranted, sua sponte illegal arrest ruling, as well as by credibility choices contrary to those made by the state trial judge, who had an opportunity to observe the witnesses' demeanor, and whose province included weighing conflicting testimony.[8]

Self was refused a new trial by the United States Supreme Court in 1993, thus exhausting his appeals. He died in prison of cancer in 2000.[6] In 2011, the Houston Chronicle published an article in which Self's attorneys stated their belief that he was wrongly accused and coerced into making a false confession. The article also noted that two investigators, a Galveston police officer and a former Harris County prosecutor, also believed Self had been wrongly convicted.[9]

In 1998, Edward Harold Bell wrote multiple letters to prosecutors in Galveston and Harris counties, confessing to the murders of numerous young women.[9] At the time, Bell was serving a seventy-year sentence for the 1978 murder of a 26-year-old Pasadena resident[10] who had attempted to stop him from publicly masturbating in front of a group of teenage girls.[9]

In August 2015, Bell admitted to murdering a total of eleven girls, whom he referred to as the "eleven that went to Heaven," and claimed to have been brainwashed and forced to kill by a secret organization.[2] He named Shaw and Johnson among the girls he admitted to murdering; however, Bell was never charged in the murders of either Shaw or Johnson.[2] On April 20, 2019, Bell died in prison at the age of 82.[11]