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

by Diane Fanning

  Her next letter asked if he had had acne when he was 15, if he was driving that summer and if he remembered that July Fourth holiday weekend. He admitted that his face had had severe eruptions at that age, and not only was he driving cars, he was also stealing them. But he could not remember where he was on that particular weekend.

  She picked up her pen and wrote again, wanting to know if he remembered any of the cars he had stolen and driven around for a while. And she enclosed a copy of the forensic sketch, asking if he thought that resembled him when he was fifteen. His response mentioned a white Chevrolet that summer.

  An intermediary visited Kathleen and told her that Tommy said he had committed that murder in Mississippi. Kathleen was jubilant, but not foolish. She wanted to believe, but first Tommy had to provide her with unpublished details about the crime scene and the events of that night. She wanted to visit Sells with Mississippi lawmen at her side to record and confirm his confession. She did not want any charges filed, she assured him. She only wanted closure.

  Sells agreed to talk to her—he agreed to tell her every-thing—but she could not bring any law enforcement with her. Kathleen’s vestigial skepticism was in revival. Without a definitive piece of information, she could not be certain. She didn’t want revenge. All she wanted was the truth.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  TOMMY Lynn Sells left death row for the Bexar County Correction Center in San Antonio on February 22, 2001, to await trial there for the capital murder of Mary Bea Perez.

  There were those who criticized the district attorney for being politically motivated in her pursuit of the death penalty. Since he was already on death row, the practicality of devoting strained law enforcement resources to this case was questioned. Some thought the expenditure of $200,000– $300,000 for a capital case was a waste of taxpayers’ money.

  Sells’ attorneys made Susan Reed an offer: he would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. She consulted with the family of Mary Bea Perez. One half of them wanted her to accept the plea bargain. The other half did not. She turned down the agreement and the preparations for trial resumed.

  SELLS welcomed the positive changes resulting from his incarceration in Bexar County. He could use the telephone every day. Some of his pen pals sent their phone numbers and eagerly awaited his calls. A woman in the group turned each one into a steamy session of phone sex. After thirty days, he was allowed a television in his cell.

  But there was a downside, too. “Everyone on death row knows what they are faced with. Everyone is charged with capital murder. Every one of us has a date someplace down the line for Texas to kill us,” Sells said. “In San Antonio, you have some in there for jaywalking to capital murder. You have some young-ass kids think they are Mexican mafia, when all they are is a rat pack of punks.”

  LAW enforcement agencies continued to hound Sells for more information about old confessions and new possibilities. He told investigators in Illinois that he could take them to the gun he’d used to kill Keith Dardeen. But, in Texas, there is a law that prohibits unindicted inmates under a death sentence from leaving the state. Illinois fought that battle in court and lost.

  Their effort was not ignored by the state legislature. State Representative Pete Gallego, a Democrat from Alpine in far West Texas, introduced House Bill 1472 to overturn the law. His bill was specifically designed with Tommy Lynn Sells in mind. The bill failed, mainly because of lack of support from the governor’s office. The governor’s policy office insisted it was necessary to keep the existing law to protect the public and the will of the State of Texas. Often, other jurisdictions want to bring prisoners to their location to testify in the trials of other defendants, or to help find evidence in open cases. The original law had been written to protect the state from the possibility that a state that does not have a death penalty would not return the inmate. Texas feared that an unindicted prisoner in one of those states could be set free or placed in a low security facility where an escape was a possibility. But, they stated, if the inmate is indicted in any other state, the governor of Texas would honor extradition papers signed by any other governor in the Union.

  MORE suspicions popped up across the country. Investigators in St. Louis, Missouri, looked at Sells for three murders there in 1983. In addition to the blunt trauma deaths of 33-year-old Colleen Gill and her 4-year-old daughter, Tiffany, they also hoped he could provide details of the sexual assault and murder of an 8- to 10-year-old African-American girl. Her body was found in an abandoned building, just blocks from the Gill home on February 28. Her head was never found and her name is still not known. Sells told Texas Rangers that he’d killed a mother and child and a black female in St. Louis in two separate instances, but provided no further details. Investigators from Missouri still hoped to get something more concrete.

  Outside of Houston, a woman went jogging one morning and never returned. Days later, a man driving a tractor down the road found her, her throat cut. The Texas Ranger working in that area can find no reason for the crime and has no suspects—except one possibility, Tommy Lynn Sells. Sells has vaguely alluded to committing two murders in the Houston area, but was not willing to speak to that Ranger or to provide any details about bodies resting on Texas soil.

  Sergeant Buddy Cooper, with the Missouri Highway Patrol, questioned Sells about a double homicide in Portageville, a small town in the boot-heel section of the state. On March 28, 1998, Tony Scherer was out working in the fields of his farm. His wife Sherry Ann and his 12-year-old daughter, Megan, were at home. When Tony opened the door of his house, he was tempted by the tantalizing aroma of ribs being cooked for dinner. But his appetite vanished in the next moment. He saw his wife. She was naked, her belly resting on a footstool, her hands tied behind her back. Nearby, her daughter lay sprawled on the floor. Both were dead from gunshot wounds. Two hours later, investigators believed, the same man responsible for the double murder asked a Dyersburg, Tennessee, woman for directions. Then, he shot her with the same gun he’d used in Portageville. This woman later identified Tommy Lynn Sells as the man who shot her.

  Sells admitted to committing these crimes. According to him, he’d knocked on the door of the farmhouse to ask for some water. The woman who answered the door was rude and disrespectful to him. He flew into a rage, killing Sherry Ann and sexually assaulting her, then murdering Megan.

  Sergeant Cooper said that this case had Tommy Lynn Sells written all over it. Sells even described a spilled antifreeze stain on the driveway. There is just one thing that does not add up. DNA was recovered at the scene. It was not a match for Sells.

  IN Lawrenceville, Illinois, three years after the death of Joel Kirkpatrick, prosecutors charged Julie Rea with the murder of her son. From the start, her ex-husband, Len Kirkpatrick, reeling in grief over the loss of his son and still festering from an ugly divorce and custody battle, insisted to all who would listen that Julie was responsible.

  Investigators and prosecutors were not convinced of her version of the events. Their doubts were born on many fronts. No fingerprints, DNA or other physical evidence of an intruder was recovered from the scene. From this lack, they postulated that the intruder did not exist. But Tommy Lynn Sells and others like him often walk away from a murder scene without leaving any proof of their presence behind.

  Prosecutors believed that a stranger coming off the street with killing in his heart would bring a weapon. They could not accept that he could pull a knife from the kitchen drawer to use in commission of the crime. Sells did sometimes bring a weapon—sometimes he used what was at hand. Roaming the streets in October 1997 were others just like him.

  Finally, prosecutors were convinced that the violence of the attack and the rage it displayed was proof that the perpetrator knew the victim. Sells demonstrated the fallacy of that logic on November 18, 1987, in Ina, Illinois.

  In another major blow for the defense, Lesa Bridgett, the neighbor Julie had run to after her son’s murder, testified that something indefinable about
the defendant’s story and demeanor was not credible.

  On March 4, 2002, a jury deliberated for nearly five hours before finding Julie guilty of stabbing her son to death. On May 10, the judge sentenced her to sixty-five years in prison. Julie Rea continued to protest her innocence.

  In mid-June, 2002, Tommy Lynn Sells received a letter that read: “The other night, I was watching a story on TV about a woman who was in jail for killing her son. She claims someone broke into her house and killed him. You could say, ‘Yeah right, lady. We’ve heard that story before.’ But then you listen to the law enforcement guys and the prosecuting attorney and they are so full of stupid opinions.” The writer summarized the reasoning of the officials and concluded, “After hearing that garbage, I believe it is very possible that woman is telling the truth.”

  Sells was given no further information about the crime, not the name of the mother or the victim, not the location of their home, not the date the crime was committed.

  In response, Sells wrote, “About that woman claims someone broke into her house? Was that like maybe two days before my Springfield, Mo. murder? Maybe on the 13th?”

  Stephanie Mahaney was abducted from her home on October 15, 1997. Joel Kirkpatrick was murdered on October 13, 1997.

  In a subsequent letter, he wrote in reference to this crime, “A murder don’t always have to do with sex or any of the norms y’all may want to label me with. Maybe, someone just pissed me off and I did not want their child to be like them. That’s cold, I understand. Maybe more than just one person is in jail for the same thing.”

  IT seemed for a time that Max McCoy, a reporter for The Joplin Globe was the only one convinced of Sells’ guilt in the 1999 Freeman murders, the arson, and the abduction of Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible. Sells had told McCoy he knew where the bodies were. To another reporter he’d stated that he was uncertain whether he was still in Oklahoma or across the state line in Texas when he disposed of them. Since the thought of another trial in Texas was abhorrent to him, he refused to speak of any specifics. At another time, he said, “About that murder up north, I’m not trying to avoid your questions about nothing. I remember something bad happened. I think I remember that lady’s face. I remember small parts of what happened. But then again, there’s been so many and I get mixed up with another murder. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about this murder or any other murder—things get real crazy inside my head.”

  Then, on June 17, 2002, Tommy Lynn Sells told the Texas Rangers, the Craig County Sheriff and an officer from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that he could take them to the bodies. They returned to the prison on the following Sunday with a bench warrant.

  A well-guarded Sells took a field trip to locate the bodies. They headed northeast to Marshall, Texas, a town near the Louisiana border best known for its annual Fire Ant Festival and its local specialty, white clay pots. East of town, Sells identified the spot. Bones were found. But they were all cattle bones, seven to eight years old.

  However, the day before this exploration, he wrote, “I know this: I’m not going to go through another trial no matter what, if I can keep from it. So if I’m not helping then it’s a lot harder on them. So why do I want to cause more trouble to my life.”

  There are three possibilities then: either Sells is not involved in the Freeman crime; or his memory is faulty; or he intentionally took the officers to the wrong spot. A look at a road map demonstrates that en route from Welch, Oklahoma, to Del Rio, Texas, a side trip to Marshall would be a lengthy and illogical detour.

  Lorene Bible, mother of Lauria, one of the missing teenagers, did not believe that Sells was responsible for the murder of the Freemans and the abduction and possible death of their daughter and her own. She still believed, though, that the crime was related to the drug business in some way. “Somebody out there knows something,” she said. “There’s a fifty-thousand-dollar reward—pick up the phone and call in.”

  Sissy, the loyal rottweiler who spent the night by Danny Freeman’s side, was given to a friend of the family. She developed a bad habit of chasing chickens, and has been put to sleep.

  TOMMY Lynn Sells’ presence in Lockport, New York, on May 1, 1987, was certain. He told Ranger Coy Smith that he had killed a girl there. After checking with Lieutenant Richard Podgers of the Lockport Police Department, Smith learned that Susan Korcz had disappeared on that day.

  Podgers pulled together a packet of photos of six different women including Susan. Then he went all around the area taking photographs—some shots were connected with the crime scene, others just scenes in the community.

  Smith sat down with Sells and handed him the pictures of the women. Sells looked at them all. He dropped five photographs on the table. He held one in his hand and rubbed his thumb across the woman’s face. He stared at Smith and then stared back at the photo. The snapshot he held in his fingers was that of Susan Korcz.

  “What are you telling me, Tommy?” Smith asked.

  Sells did not say a word. He just ran his thumb across her face again and smiled.

  Smith passed the photos of the Lockport area across the table to Sells. He examined each one. Each picture that was unrelated to the crime scene, he set off to the side. When he picked up a photo connected with the incident, he’d look down at the photo, up at the Ranger, then set it down on the table directly in front of him and give it a little pat. Most telling of all was the photograph depicting the spot where Susan’s body had been found. Sells’ thumb unerringly landed on the exact location.

  “What are you telling me, Tommy?” Smith asked again.

  And again, Sells’ only response was a grin.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  SELLS returned to death row in Livingston, Texas, in time for Christmas in 2001. In his cell, he put up a Christmas tree of sorts. He used his radio for a stand. On top of the radio, there were three red and two green lights that blinked in time to the music that came through his headphone. Using his imagination, he could see a tree adorned with bright strings of lights. Beneath the tree, he laid a packet of cocoa. He drank it when he awoke on Christmas morning—his way of wishing “Merry Christmas” to Jessica, his cocoa girl.

  JESSICA filed for divorce in early 2002. She resumed the identity of Jessica Levrie, her name during her previous marriage.

  ALTHOUGH she has not seen him for years, Nora Sells is still married to her imprisoned husband and still as much in love with him as she was the day they married.

  NINA Sells had a heart attack on the day she learned of her son’s crimes. Her health has continued to deteriorate since that time. She received a phone call from the granddaughter she had never met, asking about her biological father. Nina told her that she really did not want to know. She encouraged her not to meet him, and to leave well enough alone. But Nina knows that the girl has talked to him by phone on at least one occasion. Despite her negative reaction to her granddaughter, Nina still said, “If I had the money, I’d go to see him tomorrow. He is still my son, and I love him.”

  SELLS’ appeal on his conviction and punishment was filed in March with the Court of Criminal Appeals of the State of Texas in Austin. San Antonio attorney Mark Stevens cited thirty-eight errors in the original trial. They included three errors connected with admitting evidence over the objections of the defense, three for not entering evidence submitted by the defense, fourteen for not allowing the defendant to examine potential jurors concerning the law of parole, four other errors involved in the questioning of jurors and two for insufficient evidence. The remaining nine errors were for violations of constitutional rights and included the classic reason cited in capital murder appeals that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and thus, unconstitutional under the laws of the United States and the State of Texas. The appeal ended with the request that the guilty verdict be overturned or that a new punishment phase be ordered.

  FRED Hernandez won his election and became the new district attorney of Val Verde County. He requeste
d an extension of time to file his response to the appeal.

  SELLS had a lot of time to think in those long hours in his cell. He came to the conclusion that he is not a danger to society. Society is a danger to him. Out in society, the rules are always changing. In the prison, everything stayed the same. “Prison,” he said, “is the only place I feel safe.”

  He had picked up two nicknames on death row. The Aryans call him Tommy Gun. The Mexicans call him Tom Cat. “I tell them all it’s just Tommy,” he said.

  He also developed an explanation for why he killed children. He said he did it so they would not suffer as he had. He did it because they were being mistreated or because of the trauma they suffered by witnessing the violent death of a parent. He did it to end their unhappiness and send them to a better place.

  Two psychological tests were administered to Sells in the spring of 2002: the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory (MMPI). While he had the PAI in his cell, he carefully copied down all 364 questions and his answers to them. He was not up to a repeat performance on the MMPI. When that test was in his hands, he just wrote down his answers to more than 500 questions.

  According to independent evaluators, his unsupervised possession of these tests for such a long period of time called their validity into question. Additionally, he gave an “all true response” on both tests. In other words, the tests showed him to have all possible psychological disorders. When this occurs, mental health professionals regard it as a cry for help. It is an indication of post-traumatic stress disorder, in all likelihood, in his case, the result of events in his childhood that have never been effectively addressed. Sells reported that he was receiving no medication or therapy for any psychological problems.