The water continued to rise, forcing the children out of the back room. It did not stop rising in the house until it reached the crest of Virginia’s hip. Then it rapidly receded, leaving wet and muck in its wake. Virginia’s bed sat high and in its center was an oasis of dry. The children lay down there to go to sleep. Exhausted, Virginia collapsed on the soggy sofa and instantly drifted into dreams. Tommy, Jessica and Virginia’s 90-year-old father found spots on the soggy floor and settled down in an uneasy peace.
The next morning, the water began to recede, bringing hope to the besieged neighborhood. But around 4 o’clock the next afternoon, Border Patrol went door-to-door, knocking and warning all remaining residents that more water was coming. They transported the sodden survivors to the high school gym. But this shelter was not the refuge they thought it would be. The water rose there as well. All the refugees were evacuated and moved to higher ground at the civic center. Virginia, her father and her daughter’s family remained there for two weeks. Authorities then moved the displaced family to the Siesta Motel for a couple of days.
“Then they moved us again. They moved us all over the place,” recalled Virginia Blanco.
The flood was a traumatic experience for the whole community. This family was no exception. Looking back on the experience, Sells said, “When I was carrying the kids out of the flood that Jessica and I was in, I knew then nothing, never would be the same again.”
Finally, Sells, Jessica and the children found a more permanent place to dwell in a trailer at the American Campgrounds, about ten miles west of Del Rio out past the lake. Soon after they settled in, Tommy and Jessica were driving down Route 90. Tommy abruptly pulled to the side of the road.
“What’s wrong, Tommy?” she asked.
“Will you marry me?” he blurted out.
She looked at him in disbelief. He asked her again.
“Are you serious?”
He repeated, “Will you marry me?”
At first she just nodded her head. Then she turned, put a hand on either side of his face and delicately kissed his lips. “Yes, Tommy, I will.”
Plans for their wedding raced forward. Jessica Levrie and Tommy Lynn Sells were united in marriage in a Del Rio church on October 22, 1998. Tommy smiled broadly in his rented tux. Jessica beamed in her new burgundy dress. Virginia Blanco, Jessica’s brother, her four children and her father were there to share the wedding cake.
In late 1998, Sells worked for several months at Ram Country as a midline mechanic. The aftereffects of the stress from the flood bore down on the newlyweds. Again, Sells was abusing drugs and alcohol, and his working hours became erratic. To Jessica, this behavior was intolerable. Her nagging turned to mutual squabbling. The squabbling escalated to fierce fights. “What Jessica forgot about was, I was doing all this [drinking and drugs] before we met. I just tried to slow down for her. And that was one of our troubles. I should have been doing it for me. I was able to talk to Jessica. She made me feel not afraid. We done everything together when I was at home. Nothing was too good for each other,” Sells said.
On February 22, 1999, he left Del Rio. By March 5, he was in Pensacola, Florida. After a phone call to Jessica, he was soon on his way home to Del Rio. He got his job back at Ram Country. But on March 28, she threw him out again, demanding he clean up before he returned. Sells hit the road, hauling a big load of pent-up violence.
CHAPTER TWENTY
JAMIE and Debbie Harris and Debbie’s 8-year-old daughter, Ambria Halliburton, moved into a rented trailer in Gibson County, Tennessee in the beginning of January 1999. Their new home was situated in the Caraway Hills area, a sparsely populated community where thick clusters of trees separate neighbors and provide privacy.
By the end of February, marital difficulties drove Jamie and Debbie to separation. All three moved out of the trailer. Jamie moved to the town of Gibson. Debbie thought she had another place to live, but when it did not pan out, she turned to her former landlady, Dawn Patterson. Debbie wanted to move back into the trailer, but she did not have enough money. Dawn agreed to accept her deposit money and allow her to pay the rent a week later. Debbie and Ambria settled back in on March 15.
Dawn last saw Debbie on Monday March 29, when she brought by her rent payment. Debbie was still $25 short and Dawn granted her a few more days. Debbie thanked her and left, saying she was going out for an interview for a second job.
TOMMY Lynn Sells related the events of that night to the Texas Rangers. He said he took a twenty-mile detour north off Route 40 when he reached Jackson, Tennessee. Near midnight on March 30, he approached the quiet trailer. He knocked on the door and it creaked open a crack. He slipped inside. On the counter of the kitchen were a stack of cheerful watermelon-design plates. From the drawer below, he extracted a knife. He slunk down the hallway into Debbie’s bedroom. At the sight of him, a calico cat leaped off the bed and scurried into a hiding place.
He squeezed past the dresser were he was amused to find a price tag bearing the brand name “Tommy.” Sitting next to the bed was a makeshift nightstand—an overturned bucket, with an alarm clock and a picture propped on top. He eased himself into the bed and put the blade of the kitchen knife to Debbie’s throat.
She did not resist. She did not make a noise. She knew the safety of her daughter depended on this man not knowing Ambria was there. After raping her unresponsive body, Sells stabbed her over and over again.
He stepped across the hallway and into the bathroom, clutching the knife. Setting it down beside the sink, he picked up a bar of soap from a little mouse soap dish and cleaned the blood off his hands and arms.
He turned and looked in the hall. Ambria stood there silently, her face twisted in confusion. He lunged at her and chased her into the living room. When he caught her, he slammed the knife into her small body with the full force of his fury—a thrust with so much power, it lifted her up off her feet. He stabbed her again. She went limp in his grip. He shoved the knife into her again, loosened his grip and she slumped to the floor.
He thought he heard a noise from Debbie’s direction, so he returned to the bedroom to make sure she was dead. He thrust the knife into her chest one more time and left it there.
FOR days, neighbors noticed that Debbie Harris’ blue Chevrolet Beretta appeared to be sitting in the driveway more than usual. The landlady decided not to hassle her tenant when she did not show up with the rest of the rent on Friday, as promised. It was Easter weekend, after all. Holidays often put regular schedules out of whack.
On Easter Sunday, a friend paying a visit to Debbie’s trailer opened the door to a strong stench of decomposition. The decay was in such an advanced state, it forced the arriving investigators to tack up a Day-Glo orange sign on the door that read, “Danger. Biohazard.”
At 2 A.M. Monday, agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation arrived to process the scene, working until mid-morning to harvest every piece of potential evidence. They found no suspicious fingerprints, no DNA, no forensic evidence at all pointing to the identity of the perpetrator. The bodies were then sent to Memphis for autopsy.
On Thursday, Debbie and Ambria were laid to rest in the Salem Church Cemetery in Gadsden, about fifteen miles southwest of Milan.
Governor Don Sundquist authorized a $2,500 reward per victim for information leading to the apprehension, indictment and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murder of the 28-year-old woman and her daughter, a second-grader at the school in Medina.
The Gibson County Sheriff’s Department, with assistance from both the state investigators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, considered more than twenty suspects before rejecting them.
BEFORE the bodies were found, Sells was states away. He hired on with a carnival in Greensboro, North Carolina. Soon that job would take him to San Antonio, where a 9-year-old girl would face his rage.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FIESTA, a ten-day, citywide celebration, erupted on the streets of San Antonio as usual
in April 1999. Each one of the 150 events raised money for charitable programs, but for most area residents and tourists, it is simply an excuse for an extended party.
The event was a parade lovers’ paradise: three different opportunities to cozy up with masses of spectators, to get vicarious pleasure from the beaming faces of children and to celebrate life with loud music, colorful costumes and waving dignitaries.
Fiesta festivities kicked off one story below street level, down on the Riverwalk. Any place the narrow walkway broadened enough, chairs were placed and tickets were sold. At the Arenson River Theatre, an outdoor facility carved into the bank, spectators squeezed into the long tiers of grass-topped benches cut into the hill. Faces poked out of every window on the upper stories of the buildings lining the San Antonio River. The Texas Cavaliers rode on literal floats that glided down the waterway through a cheering crowd of 225,000.
Midway through Fiesta, the Battle of Flowers Parade high-stepped its way through downtown San Antonio. Floats festooned with flowers and numerous marching high school bands dominated the festivities. They wended their way through the streets, issuing a siren call to one and all. Then, like a platoon of pied pipers, they led the spectators to Alamo Stadium where 3,600 high school band members competed for glory.
The rousing procession that finished the week-and-a- half-long event was the Fiesta Flambeau Parade. Onlookers lined the nighttime streets for the largest illuminated parade in the nation. Torches held aloft, twirling batons with twin flames in their tips and lights in every shape and color bedazzled the crowd. Oohs, ahs and gasps ricocheted through the jostling bodies. And Fiesta came to a dramatic end in an explosion of lights.
But Fiesta is much more than parades; it’s a boisterous multi-cultural bash. At the Taste of New Orleans in the Sunken Gardens, taste buds were tantalized with the spicy piquancy of the heaping mounds of red rice and beans, alligator-on-a-stick and other Creole delights—all devoured to the accompaniment of Cajun music. Participants also experienced a little bit of the old country at Fiesta Gartenfest, an oompah-blaring blend of loud polka music, sausage and dark German beer.
The queen of all the events was NIOSA—Night in Old San Antonio—a four-day party in La Villita, the spot of the city’s original settlement. Crowds milled through a rabbit warren of narrow, pedestrian-only streets that wove between buildings built of adobe or stone. It was a cascading cacophony of music, intoxicating aromas and shoulder-to-shoulder partiers. Walking through was like twisting a radio dial and hitting a multitude of stations broadcasting everything from mariachi music to an Irish jig, from a rousing polka to a country and western ballad. The 240 food booths kept the mobs moving with unsatisfied hunger to sample one ethnic flavor after another—potato specialties in the Irish section, escargot and champagne from the French, tacos, gorditas and fajitas in the Mexican area and turkey legs and “armadillo eggs” for a taste of Texas. And everywhere you went, there was beer—lots and lots of beer—served in plastic NIOSA souvenir cups. Hardcore revelers balanced a small tower of empties as they made their way to more.
For regal pageantry, there was a decades-old coronation ceremony inducting the Queen and her Duchesses bedecked in their elaborate hand-beaded dresses and heavy, trailing trains. As a counterpoint, laughs abound at the Corny-nation, a satire that mocked the traditions, politicians and life of San Antonio.
Present at every event, every day, were the cascarones, colorful confetti-filled eggs created for revelers to break over one another’s heads for good luck and a fun fiesta. Scraps of painted egg shells and bits of paper stuck to the soles of everyone’s shoes.
Of course, no big event like this one would be complete without the rides, games of chance and flashing lights of a carnival. Working there in April 1999 was Tommy Lynn Sells.
ONE of the largest free celebrations was Fiesta del Mercado, running daily from late morning until midnight. In downtown’s historic Market Square, or El Mercado, six stages featured live entertainment from folkloric dancers to jazz, tejano, conjunto and country and western music. The air was redolent with tempting offerings—spicy Mexican specialties, Cajun shrimp and funnel cakes drenched in mountains of powdered sugar.
On April 18, Mary Bea Perez, an excited 9-year-old, went to El Mercado with her extended family. Like all Fiesta events, this one is heavily patrolled by police officers on foot, on bicycle and mounted on horseback. It was considered a safe, family-friendly venue.
Around 10 o’clock that night, Mary Bea followed her uncle to a booth where he bought a round of beer for the adults in the family. He did not realize that she trailed behind him. When he returned to the group, the tiny third-grader was no longer following.
IN the midst of the swirling sounds of music, the heady aromas of tasty food and an ever-moving crowd of bustling bodies, Sells snatched Mary Bea and spirited her away. He hustled the terrified child into his truck. “We’re going to take a little ride,” he said. He then forced her down on the floorboard, where she huddled, shivering with fear.
A mile and a half from El Mercado, just west of the downtown area, they came to a stop near the stockyards. Sells pulled Mary Bea out of his vehicle and through a hole in the fence. In an isolated, trash-strewn spot near a creek, he laid her down on a queen-size mattress. The bedding had already been used many times by illicit couples in search of secret trysts since the day it was dumped there by its original owner. On this soiled surface, Sells forcibly undressed her as she pummeled him with powerless fists, scratching futilely at her attacker with pink-polished fingernails.
When he finished his assault on her body, he wrapped her Mickey Mouse tee shirt around her neck and slowly strangled her to death.
AT El Mercado, her family was frantic. For two hours they searched Market Square for little Mary Bea. Then they walked home, hoping they would find her there, safe and sound. But she was not, and they called the police to report her disappearance.
The whole city was alarmed. This kind of thing just does not happen at Fiesta. A pall settled over the annual celebration. Families with small children thought twice before taking them to any event. Prayers for Mary Bea’s safe return flowed from pulpits and households all over town.
In the middle of their pleas, a heavy rain fell. Unnoticed, the child’s abandoned body was washed downstream from the place it was discarded.
Ten days after that fateful night in El Mercado, the prayers stopped. A man fishing with his son found the partially clothed, badly decomposed body of Mary Bea Perez in Azalan Creek.
MARY Bea’s death was the tragic ending of a sad little life. While living with her mother, Patricia Guerrero, Mary Bea and her little brother, Gabriel, grew up without security, comfort or a sense of being loved. She did not have their father, Alejandro Perez, in her life—he had been shot to death on a sidewalk outside of a tavern when Mary Bea was only two.
The children seldom seemed to be supervised by their mother. They often wandered around the neighborhood hungry. Mary Bea was known to knock on a door, proclaiming that the resident must be a wonderful cook because the meal she was preparing smelled so good. Compassionate women took pity on the two and invited them in for a meal. Other times, they would respond to Mary Bea’s pathetic pleas for some food for Joey, her little kitten. Despite the maternal care she witnessed at home, the 9-year-old was very solicitous of her pet and her baby brother.
Everyone heard the loud noises from the frequent conflicts between mother and daughter. From time to time, someone became concerned enough to call in the authorities. Police officers and Child Protective Service caseworkers beat a weary path to their door in the Nob Hill Apartment complex on the northwest side of town. Often, they left with Mary Bea in tow.
At the time of her disappearance and death, Mary Bea was living in the home of her paternal grandmother, Juanita Perez.
A concerned community rallied to form the Mary B warning system. When given word by law enforcement, every radio station in the area broadcasts a bulletin to alert everyone t
hat a child is missing.
The plight of the young girl touched the hearts of three Southside DJs, Juan Sequin, Fernando Perez and Noel Sanchez. They heard that the grandparents were having difficulty paying for Mary Bea’s burial.
“We had children of our own. We wanted to help. It could have been our family,” Noel Sanchez said. He worked as a DJ at night. During the day, he was the working co-owner of Patriot Express Auto Glass.
“Little kids are our future,” said Fred Hernandez, a plumber for the city of San Antonio. “The way I feel for my son made it easy to put myself in Mary Bea’s family’s shoes. We watched the news and we were touched. And when her body was found, we wanted her to have what she deserved—a quiet place to rest.”
In one week’s time, Sanchez, Perez and Sequin pulled together a special event at Southway Ford on May 1. In addition to providing space for the barbecue and DJ equipment, the car dealership rounded up bicycles, toys from Toys “R” Us and other items for a raffle.
Sequin was also a caterer, so he was in charge of the food preparation. Perez and Sanchez kept the music rolling out of the sound system all day. The funds they raised paid for Mary Bea’s headstone and for the balance due on her cemetery plot. The remaining money raised, about $1,600, was donated to the Heidi Search Center. This non-profit organization has been instrumental in the search efforts for many missing persons. They had coordinated the volunteer task force that attempted to find Mary Bea before her body was discovered in the creek bed.
Through the Window: The Terrifying True Story of Cross-Country Killer Tommy Lynn Sells (St. Martin's True Crime Library) Page 9