GALVESTON, Texas (AP) - A Southeast Texas man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for the 1984 slaying of a woman in Galveston County.
A jury in Galveston on Monday decided the penalty for 61-year-old Clyde Hedrick of San Leon. Jurors last week convicted Hedrick of involuntary manslaughter in the death of 29-year-old Ellen Beason. Her body was discovered under some trash in a Galveston field.
Defense lawyers have said Hedrick and Beason were swimming, she drowned and he panicked and dumped her body. Hedrick in 1986 was convicted of abuse of a corpse. An initial autopsy could not determine a cause of death.
Cold-case investigators reopened the case and had Beason’s body exhumed in 2012. Another review determined the woman had a skull fracture and her death was ruled a homicide.
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