Since the 1970s, over 30 young women and girls have disappeared or been found murdered in the 50-mile desolate area between Houston and Galveston - a stretch of land that some call a highway of hell."This bridge up ahead had a sign on it when you came out in this direction...it said, 'You are now entering the cruel world,'" federal agent Don Ferrarone pointed out as he drove along Interstate 45 with "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Erin Moriarty. "And it's just, you know, it's just a perfect place [for] killing somebody and getting away with it."
"If you can just imagine having one of these little girls out here...one of these young girls out here...and there's no chance for them to be rescued, to be helped. And they're on they're own," said Ferrarone.
"I looked at that and it was just tens and tens of girls that had gone missing and I have got a young sister and you know it kind of disturbed me in a way that I just said straight away, 'I wanted to be a part of this,' to get this story out and make people aware of what's gone down there will hopefully maybe shed some light on some of the disappearances and the mysteries involved," he said.
The movie was released this week, but while the mystery of the fields may be new to Hollywood, it has consumed the lives of many Texas cops for over the last four decades, including investigators Brian Goetschius and Michael Land from Texas City.
"There's a scene where your character goes in and ends up in a brawl right inside that bar," Moriarty noted to Land. "Ever happen to you?"
The other lead character in the film, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan of "Gray's Anatomy," was inspired by the more genteel Brian Goetschius.
Twenty-five years after the string of murders began, Goetschius became yet another cop to face the darkness. In March 1996, 13-year-old Krystal Baker suddenly vanished from the gritty industrial town of Texas City.
"I dream about her mostly when she was a little girl. And every once in a while when she's a teenager," she explained. "And she told me one time, she says, 'Mama, I'm just out here hangin' out with my friends. Everything OK.'" And I woke up the next day. I wished I could have stayed in that dream a little longer," she continued in tears.
Krystal was striking, says Baker, and resembled a great aunt -- Norma Jean Baker -- who became larger-than-life movie star Marilyn Monroe.
But like any teenager, Baker says Krystal had a rebellious streak and on March 5, 1996, Krystal had an argument with her grandmother and stormed off.
"No, they really didn't. They just-- kept telling me she was a runaway," she said. "So, for that to happen and -- and have -- be helpless, nobody helping you was really rough."
"It was under the radar," he replied. "It -- it was -- a runaway, a missing person. And -- and not that we didn't take it serious, but it -- it was the way it was. I mean we entered it in the computer as a runaway and you know, went about your business."
"One day, I was getting ready for work and Goetschius called me and told me that there were some pictures I needed to come down there and see," said Baker.
Krystal had been beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled. Her body was then dumped under an interstate bridge two hours away near the Louisiana border.
As it turns out, Krystal's body had actually been found the very same day she went missing, but in a different county. She was listed as a Jane Doe for two weeks... her killer unknown.
"We had a two-week window that we lost," he explained. "I mean, people can't remember who they saw at a convenience store two week ago, walking down the road, hitchhiking. It -- it just wasn't there."
"And it was so unusual for over there that -- that this couldn't happen in my neighborhood," Goetschius replied. "And-- and lo and behold, that monster is there. We know he was."
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