In the sprawling, often harsh landscape of a Texas prison farm, a young man’s life was cut short in a moment of sudden violence. Leroy Oscar Martin, a male inmate of 18 years, was serving time at the Ramsey Unit in Brazoria County on August 18, 1953. That day, under the late summer sun, he was out in the fields with other inmates, the strenuous work of bailing hay a part of their daily existence. It was there, amidst the dust and labor, that an argument with a fellow prisoner erupted, and Leroy’s life came to a brutal and premature end.
His killer was John Price Hayter Jr., a 19-year-old inmate who had been sent to the Ramsey Unit after pleading guilty to automobile theft. On that Tuesday afternoon, the dispute between the two young men escalated with shocking speed. Hayter, armed with a pitchfork from his work, stabbed Leroy, killing him on the spot. The specific details of their argument have been lost to time, but the outcome was tragically clear.
For the murder of Leroy Martin, Hayter was convicted and handed a life sentence, though with the possibility of parole.
The Ramsey Unit, a sprawling agricultural prison located about fifty miles south of Houston, was known for its strict discipline and the demanding labor required of its inmates. It was a place where thousands of men were confined, their days structured around rigid schedules of head counts and work details in the surrounding fields and maintenance shops. For Leroy, this environment, intended for punishment and rehabilitation, became the setting of his death, turning a sentence for an unknown crime into a death sentence delivered by another convict.
The story of Leroy's death is inextricably linked to the long and violent criminal career of his killer. John Price Hayter Jr., born in Waco, Texas, did not end his spree of violence with Leroy's murder. After serving 21 years of his life sentence, he was granted parole. Free from prison, he soon returned to his violent ways. In 1974, he kidnapped 17-year-old Linda Ruth Pibil, a cashier, from the store where she worked. He took her to a remote area near Fort Hood, where he assaulted and shot her. Her body was discovered by two soldiers. A month later, Hayter posed as an electrician to gain entry into a woman's home, threatening her and her baby before she managed to escape during a police chase that ended in his arrest.
Convicted of Linda Pibil's murder and the abduction, Hayter received another life sentence. Incredibly, he was paroled again in June 1986. His freedom was short-lived and marked by more tragedy. On September 15, 1986, he broke into the Florida home of 80-year-old Teena Ambrose, whom he sexually assaulted and strangled with a plastic tie before stealing her car. He was later arrested in New Mexico for auto theft and, during questioning, confessed to his crimes.
Hayter was ultimately convicted for the murder of Teena Ambrose and given yet another life sentence, this time without the chance of parole that had twice before unleashed him on the public. He was a serial killer whose violent trajectory began with the death of Leroy Oscar Martin in that Texas field. Hayter died in a Florida prison on February 21, 1995, having been convicted of three murders, burglary, robbery, auto theft, and kidnapping across a criminal span of more than three decades. Leroy Oscar Martin, his first victim, remains the least known, a young man whose future was stolen from him long before his killer was permanently stopped.
