Through the Window: The Terrifying True Story of Cross-Country Killer Tommy Lynn Sells (St. Martin's True Crime Library)

by Diane Fanning

  Krystal mimed a writing pen. Marlene stepped into the kitchen area for a pen and pad of paper. Herb hung up the phone.

  When they both turned back to Krystal, she had lain down on the kitchen floor. She told them later that she was worried she would get blood on their “nice carpet.”

  Marlene handed the pen and paper to Krystal. Herb knelt by her side. He held her hand. He stroked her hair, trying to get it out of the blood caked on her face.

  The young girl scrawled: “The Harrises are hurt.”

  “An ambulance is coming,” Herb responded.

  “Where do you live?” Marlene asked.

  “Kansas,” she wrote.

  “Who did this to you?”

  “This guy,” scratched across the paper.

  Marlene wanted to ask more, but stopped. Krystal looked so frail, so close to death.

  The phone rang and Marlene grabbed it, giving directions to the dispatcher.

  Krystal wrote, “Tell them to hurry.”

  Still on the phone, Marlene relayed a message to Herb. “They say you need to stop the bleeding.”

  He pulled a kitchen towel out of a drawer and moved it toward Krystal’s throat. Showing the first break in her calm demeanor, Krystal frantically waved it away. She knew the towel would cover her windpipe and cut off her only supply of air.

  Marlene hung up the phone and opened the blinds on the window facing out to the lake and to the highway. Just then, an ambulance and a sheriff’s vehicle raced past their turnoff, lights flashing, sirens shrieking.

  Marlene jerked the phone off the wall and dialed 9-1-1. “Tell them to turn around. They drove right by.”

  The dispatcher told her to go out to the highway and flag them down. Marlene knew she could never get out that far in time. So, she picked up the flashlight and, standing on the porch, streaked its beam across the sky. She swung it back and forth, until she saw the emergency vehicles race past in the opposite direction, back up, then turn off and drive through the stone arch leading to Guajia Bay.

  Krystal wrote, “Will I live?”

  Herb bent down, kissed her on the forehead and said, “Everything will be all right.” But he did not believe it. He felt certain that he was watching her die on his vinyl floor. He turned away to hide his tears. Krystal’s body began shaking with escalating violence.

  AT 5:12 A.M., the wailing whine of the approaching sirens halted at the Betzes’ door. Emergency medical personnel entered first, racing to the side of the wounded child. Deputies Manuel Pena and Ramiro Reyes were right on their heels. They were not prepared for what they found. They’d thought dispatcher Jim Saavedra had sent them to the Betz home in reference to a young girl involved in a motor vehicle accident. The girl was reported to have a cut in her neck area. It was a far more traumatic wound than they had anticipated.

  After talking to paramedic Lori Martinez, the deputies told the dispatcher that the girl was bleeding very heavily and was going into convulsions. “There is a cut to the front of her neck and a lot of blood on her shirt and on the floor of the kitchen.”

  Herb took the deputies out on his porch and, pointing to the Harris home, told them that more people were hurt there. The night was so dark, the house on the hill was not visible. The men jumped into their car and drove off to face the unknown a quarter mile away.

  The emergency medical attendants attempted to insert a trach down Krystal’s throat, but she gagged and was unable to breathe. They stabilized her as best they could and loaded her into the ambulance.

  A courageous child clutched at a tenuous thread of life as she was whisked to the heliport at the local hospital and airlifted to University Hospital in San Antonio.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AT the Harris home, Pena and Reyes explored the perimeter of the double-wide trailer overlooking Lake Amistad. They avoided the growling rottweiler, but gave even wider berth to the fenced-in alligator in the backyard. They noted a damaged window blind, and that the front door was ajar eight to ten inches.

  Del Rio police officers Fred Knoll and Charles Saints, their back-up, arrived, and the four men entered, opening the screen door and carefully pushing the unlocked front door open. Shining their flashlights inside, they saw living room walls decorated with African weapons and masks. In the kitchen beyond, festive Christmas accessories sparkled in the beam of the searching lights. Reyes shouted, “Sheriff’s office!” three times.

  Within seconds, Crystal Harris and her daughter, Lori, emerged from the west-end bedroom to confront the men in her home. Simultaneously, Pena and Reyes fired a question at her.

  “Is everyone okay?”

  “Is anyone on the east side of the residence?”

  Pointing toward that end of the house, Crystal said, “My other daughter is in her room. What’s going on?” Tears streamed down her face.

  Deputies Pena and Reyes and Officer Saints left the living room to search the home. Officer Knoll remained there attempting to calm Crystal, but she demanded answers that he just did not have. She protectively clutched Lori to her side and mindlessly ran her hands over her daughter’s hair. The tension etched furrows in her face.

  WHEN Pena turned on the light in Katy’s bedroom, they saw her sprawled on the floor. Blood oozed from her lifeless form. Brilliant red spatter covered all four walls. Stains marred the bedding and etched themselves into the frame on both the upper and lower bunks of the bed.

  Katy was nude from the waist down. The cut in her neck gaped and her windpipe stuck out obscenely. Her pink shorts and panties lay on the floor by the door. Deputy Pena could not find a pulse. Officer Saints checked, too, ruefully shaking his head at his failure to find one.

  Checking another room, they found Justin, Crystal’s blind son. The perpetrator had entered this house through the open window in his room. Justin was unharmed.

  In the next bedroom, they found 7-year-old Marque Surles, adrift in bliss, unaware of the fragility of her life that night.

  When the officers stepped across the threshold of the master bedroom door, they heard stealthy sounds of movement. Their hands automatically hefted their guns. Carefully, one arm stretched toward the light switch, flicked it on and revealed the secrets of the room. All six eyes riveted on the source of the noise—a small zoo of caged snakes, including a few rattlesnakes whose raised tails now added back-up percussion to the sandpaper slither of many coiling bodies. Keeping their distance from the reptiles, they checked the room thoroughly, finding no one.

  They sealed Katy’s bedroom and called dispatch to request the presence of Lieutenants Skelton, Pope and Sun-derland. Pena reported, “I’ve got a DOA, and need a justice of the peace, too.”

  EMS attendants Dexter Tooke, Susie Jo Chow and Jack Howley raced into the house and checked on Katy. Dexter cut her shirt to attach three pads with leads to monitor her heart. It was a useless attempt.

  Hearing the activity on the scanner, Texas Ranger Johnny Allen called Pope and offered his assistance. Pope told him that he wasn’t exactly sure what he had on his hands, but he’d be glad to have some help.

  CRYSTAL, Lori and Justin were escorted from the house and into patrol units outside. Little Marque Surles was left in bed asleep, dreaming sweet dreams while she still could.

  After he arrived, Ranger Allen called for a DPS crime-scene team. Then, he sat next to Crystal in the back of the cruiser and asked her the most sensitive and worrisome question on their minds: “Where is your husband, Terry Harris?”

  Crystal answered without hesitation. He’d left Del Rio about 6 P.M. on December 30 with Shawn Harris, his son from a previous marriage, along with Doug Luker, Pam Surles’ boyfriend, and his two sons, Jarrett and Matthew. They had traveled to Kansas to help Pam pack and move to Del Rio.

  Pope reached Terry Harris on his cell phone. After asking where he was, he instructed Harris to proceed to the nearest law enforcement office. When he did, Harris’ location in Kansas was confirmed. Doubt was raised about their first suspicions, and they had no clue of wh
ere to look next.

  The investigators protected the exterior of the scene and waited for the forensic specialists to arrive. After a few hours, a team consisting of a photographer, a person responsible for trace evidence, an individual assigned to DNA and a latent print examiner arrived on the scene. They gathered evidence that day until after dark.

  When they had finished, Deputy Larry Stamps called the funeral home. They transported Katy Harris to the autopsy table in San Antonio. Krystal Surles was already in the San Antonio hospital, desperately clinging to life. Against all odds, doctors there struggled to prevent her from joining her friend.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  UPON arrival at University Hospital, Krystal was rushed into surgery. The knife wound had nicked the sheath on her carotid artery, but the artery itself was uncut. Del Rio medical personnel had intubated her prior to her arrival in San Antonio. Now, the most urgent task for the staff here was to maintain her airway. Massive swelling and distortion in the area complicated their objective. Untreated, this swelling would have caused her to suffocate slowly.

  Their second concern was the blood draining into her lungs. Although the five-inch slice spared her carotid artery, it did sever many other vessels in the area. She could have drowned in her own blood from this seepage.

  Finally, they labored to repair her severed larynx. They had saved her life, but would not know for days whether their efforts had been completely successful—they would not know until little Krystal could talk again.

  AT 5 A.M. on New Year’s Day, Allen and Pope left Del Rio. Texas Ranger Coy Smith from Uvalde joined them in San Antonio. At the side of Dr. Jan Garavaglia, they viewed the autopsy of Katy Harris at the Bexar County Forensic Center. Her carotid artery had been severed, as had her jugular vein. The wound to her neck went all the way down to her vertebrae. In addition to having her throat cut, she had suffered sixteen stab wounds—three of them going all the way through her body and exiting on the other side.

  THE moment she regained consciousness, 10-year-old Krystal sought justice. Determined to put her attacker behind bars, her hands and arms scribed stubborn, nearly violent gestures in the air to indicate her demand for a pen and paper.

  A call came from the hospital to the forensic center. Dr. Cynthia Beamer informed Val Verde Sheriff’s Department Lieutenant Larry Pope, “Krystal wants to talk.”

  “Krystal’s talking?”

  “No, she’s writing.” And she wanted investigators there right away.

  POPE and Allen rushed to University Hospital. In the intensive care unit, they attempted to gently ease their young witness into the questioning about the night’s events. Krys-tal would have none of that—she wanted to get straight to the point, scrawling out vivid details on her notepad. She started writing with her right hand, then she shifted to her left—forming words as easily with one hand as with the other.

  She had seen her attacker and remembered what he looked like. Unbelievable, the two men thought. Ranger Allen grabbed a telephone and called the Department of Public Safety’s forensic artist, Shirley Timmons, at her home in Midland. Without hesitation, she cut her holiday weekend short, grabbed her supplies and flew down to San Antonio.

  KRYSTAL’S mother, Pam, was at her daughter’s side as the girl communicated the harrowing experience. Pam and Doug Luker had driven thirteen hours from Kansas to the hospital the day before, arriving just in time to ring in the New Year. Before the artist arrived, the investigators asked Luker about a likely suspect. Krystal’s written description reminded him of a man he and Terry Harris had talked to at the convenience store next to Ram Country on the evening they left for Kansas.

  AFTER introducing Shirley Timmons and Krystal Surles, the investigators left the two alone. Timmons’ work was interrupted by the young girl’s exhaustion. She would drift into a short nap, then wake and work with the artist again. When they were finished, they had a detailed drawing of the bearded, long-haired man in question.

  By this time, Luker was nearly in Del Rio. Contacting him by cell phone, Allen made arrangements to meet him in Uvalde. When shown the artist sketch, he was certain the drawing looked like the man they had seen at the Pico Convenience Store parking lot as they prepared to leave town on December 30. He thought that the man’s name was Tom or Tommy and that he worked at Amigo Auto Sales.

  From the Uvalde DPS office, Ranger Allen called Bill Hughes, the owner of the dealership. Hughes would not give him a name. As soon as he hung up the phone, though, Hughes dialed the number for the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Department and talked to Sheriff D’Wayne Jernigan. “The man you’re looking for,” he said, “is Tommy Lynn Sells.”

  At the same time, Terry Harris was driving around Del Rio in his pick-up truck with a rifle by his side. Vowing revenge, he told all who would listen that he was going to kill the man who’d murdered his adopted daughter, Katy. Many believe without doubt that he’d known all along who that man was. Yet, he would tell the name to no one. And although he knew where the man lived, he never confronted him at his home.

  ONCE Sheriff Jernigan gave them a name, Texas Rangers needed a six-pack of driver’s license photos to lay down for Krystal. Ranger Coy Smith was now at the hospital, too. He hated to disturb the DPS analyst, Alice Buchanon, at night on a holiday weekend, but he placed the call. Like Timmons, Buchanon did not hesitate for a moment. Reluctant to make the trip alone, she swung by and picked up her daughter to give her company on the more-than-fifty-mile drive from Thorndale to the headquarters in Austin.

  At headquarters, she faced an additional challenge. It was January 1, 2000, and Y2K concerns permeated nearly every office in America—the Texas Department of Public Safety was no exception. The entire computer system had been shut down as a safety precaution. Buchanon fired up the computers, hoped for the best and performed the state agency’s first post-Y2K system check.

  In short time, she had the photos ready for San Antonio. The only shot she found of Tommy Lynn Sells was beardless. It would have to do. Austin-based Texas Ranger Jim Denman rushed the line-up down seventy-five miles of interstate 35 to the DPS office in San Antonio where he was met by Rangers Allen and Smith.

  ALLEN and Pope laid the photo spread of six beardless men in front of their young survivor. She studied each photo, her brow furrowed, her eyes intense. Then, when she had completed her survey, she prodded the photo of Tommy Lynn Sells.

  At that revelation, Allen and Pope wanted to caper around the hospital room, exchanging high fives. Instead, they maintained professional composure, not giving Krystal the slightest signal. They asked her again to look at the pictures and be certain she’d picked the right man.

  Her chin jutted out like the prow of a boat. She slammed her finger into Sells’ picture and glared at the officers. When questioned again, she pounded her finger into the photo again. And again. And again. Krystal Surles had no doubts. The I.D. was positive.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  EVERY member of law enforcement in Del Rio was on high alert. Edginess sometimes overcame good police procedure. Deputy Larry Stamps prowled the streets and the back roads of the surrounding countryside looking for anything suspicious. At one trailer, he thought he saw someone— maybe Tommy Lynn Sells—lurking outside a window. Inside the home, a slumber party for a group of young girls was in full swing. Stamps pulled his gun and crept around the perimeter. When he turned the final corner, he looked straight into the barrels of a shotgun and sweated at the sound of a cocked lever.

  The homeowner was taking no chances. Hearing stealthy movements outside, he was prepared. He did not lower his sights until he was convinced of Stamps’ official identity.

  Meanwhile, serious preparations for the apprehension of Tommy Lynn Sells proceeded. He was located five miles from the Harris house in a trailer at the American Campgrounds and Mobile Park where he lived with his wife, Jessica, and his stepchildren.

  Before six A.M., on January 2, 2000, law enforcement surrounded the modest home. In the early morning hours, they
assumed their positions quietly—but not quietly enough for the dogs tied in front of the house. Sells stepped out on the front porch to hush them.

  Lieutenant Pope and Deputy Stamps met Sells at his front door. “Have you been having trouble with your mother-in-law?” Pope asked. “Well, I got a call, same old thing—bitching and complaining. Can I come in and talk to you?”

  Sells held the door open. Once inside, Pope said, “I’m placing you under arrest. Turn around and put your hands on the counter.” Sells complied without argument as he was frisked and cuffed. He was no stranger to the procedure. Pope asked him if he knew why they were there.

  “No,” he answered.

  “It’s for murder, Tommy.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged his shoulders.

  Sells agreed to a voluntary search. He was unaware that an armed team in camouflage surrounded the house. Behind the trailer, one of those men streaked across the back, waving a gun. Sells spotted him out the window and poked his head out the back door. For a moment, Pope thought he was going to run for it, and that they would have to shoot him. Sells pulled his head back in, but now he was ticked off. He indicated he might withdraw his permission for the search.

  The juvenile investigator, brought along because of the children in the home, blurted out, “We’ll just get a search warrant, then.” Sells became angry at this retort and withdrew his permission. Then, he relented and gave his approval, but once a search warrant had been threatened, it had to be produced. They all waited for it to be delivered.

  THEY found the clothes Sells had worn at the Harris home wadded up in a dirty clothesbasket. Jessica confirmed they were his. Where they lay, they were not visibly stained with blood. Later in the lab, though, the blood would be found and extracted. DNA tests would prove it was the blood of Katy Harris and Krystal Surles. The investigators also took a pair of tennis shoes to see if DPS could match them to a bloody footprint found on the linoleum in the Harris house. They did not match.