Texas EquuSearch head on civil judgment: 'I am still here and I’m not going to quit until the day I die'

A state district court in Galveston County on Monday granted the founder of a 21-year-old search and rescue organization a $24 million civil settlement in his daughter’s murder, Houston NBC affiliate KPRC reported.

According to KPRC, 56th State District Court Judge Lonnie Cox awarded Texas EquuSearch founder Tim Miller the default judgment in the latter’s 2014 wrongful death lawsuit filed against Clyde Edwin Hedrick. Miller implicates Hedrick in Laura Miller’s disappearance and death in the early 1980s, the station reported.

While Hedrick hasn’t faced criminal charges, the elder Miller told KPRC that he filed suit to let him know, “I’m still here.”

“I am still here and I’m not going to quit until the day I die,” the father said, according to the station. “I want to let Clyde know that I know what you did to my daughter and I’m not going to let you rest until we have you where you need to be for the rest of your life.”

Attorney Curt Hesse, who represents Miller, said that his practice reached out to Hedrick “several times” to no avail, KPRC reported.

The station reported that Miller founded Texas EquuSearch after Laura’s remains were discovered near Calder Road in League City in an area that became known as “the Killing Fields.”

Galveston County District Attorney (DA) Jack Roady said that Hedrick could still be considered a suspect in the investigations, according to KPRC.

According to Texas EquuSearch’s website, it’s a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization governed by a volunteer board of directors that receives financial support from personal and private donations.

“Texas EquuSearch has assisted in thousands of cases throughout the U.S. and abroad giving some form of resolution to distraught families as well as closure to many criminal cases,” the group says on the website.