On a Wednesday evening in the Texas Hill Country, 16-year-old Elizabeth Luella Vallance Pearson, known to her friends as Beth, was out with her friend, 18-year-old Carol Ann London. The two girls were driving near Kerrville, Texas, on September 17, 1975, when their car broke down, leaving them stranded. It was a moment of vulnerability that would end in a tragedy that remained a painful secret for nearly a year.
Two men stopped, offering to help the young women.
They were Lyle Richard Brummett, 18, and his friend, Allen Ladd Woody. Instead of providing assistance, Brummett and Woody drove Elizabeth and Carol to a remote pasture about 12 miles outside of Kerrville. In that isolated spot, both girls were assaulted and brutally strangled to death. Their bodies were left under an oak tree, hidden from sight. In the days that followed, their car was found abandoned in a parking lot, but there was no sign of the girls, and their disappearance became a mystery.
For eleven months, the families of Elizabeth and Carol were left to wonder and hope. The case broke in August 1976, not in Kerrville, but in Austin. Lyle Brummett, who had since moved and found work as an electrician, committed another murder. He broke into the home of 22-year-old Dianne Kathleen Roberts, a woman he knew, and raped and strangled her. Eyewitnesses placed Brummett at the scene, and he was arrested for her murder the very next day.
While in custody for the murder of Dianne Roberts, Brummett made a shocking confession. He admitted to the police that he and Allen Woody were responsible for the deaths of two other young women the previous year. He provided the grim details and offered to lead investigators to where he and Woody had left the bodies. In the early morning hours of August 18, 1976, police followed Brummett to the ranch outside Kerrville, where they found the decomposing remains of Elizabeth Pearson and Carol London.
The investigation revealed Brummett's escalating history of violence. Born in Kerrville, he had dropped out of high school and had a criminal record that included burglary, for which he used the alias Lyle Richard Stone. Just before he killed Elizabeth and Carol, he had been arrested for two rapes and credit card abuse, but was free after posting a $17,500 bond. His violent tendencies continued even after his final arrest; while in jail awaiting trial, he participated in the assault of another inmate.
To avoid a capital murder charge for Elizabeth's death, Lyle Brummett made a deal with prosecutors. He agreed to testify against his accomplice, Allen Ladd Woody. In his testimony, Brummett claimed Woody was the one who had raped and strangled Elizabeth Pearson, while admitting that he himself had murdered Carol London, fearing she would identify them. Based largely on Brummett's testimony, Allen Woody was convicted for Elizabeth's murder in April 1977 and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
As part of his plea agreement, the murder charge against Brummett for Elizabeth's death was dropped. However, he was tried and convicted for the murder of Carol London and received a life sentence. Five days later, he was convicted for the murder of Dianne Roberts and received a second life sentence. Lyle Richard Brummett, a serial killer responsible for the deaths of at least three women, has been serving his two life sentences at the Ramsey Unit in Rosharon, Texas. He has applied for parole on multiple occasions, but each request has been denied, with the victims' families consistently attending the hearings to advocate against his release.
