Toni Gibbs’s brother was equally elated. “I’m happy about it,” Jeff Gibbs said. “It’s on your mind every day, even though it’s been fourteen years. It never goes away. It just gets a little bit easier with time.”
Area law-enforcement officials who had worked on the Sims, Gibbs, and Blau cases were shocked. They had never suspected any of the four Wichita Falls women’s slayings were connected. Sheriff Callahan, a deputy at the time of the Blau slaying, told reporters Wardrip had never been a suspect.
“His name never came up in the Blau investigation,” Callahan said. “This is one of the things that is troubling.”
It was equally disturbing to those on the Wichita Falls police force, who had passed on information in 1986 when he was arrested for the murder of Tina Kimbrew, that Wardrip had admitted knowing Blau. They wondered why the sheriff’s department failed to interview Wardrip then. It was easier to understand why the sheriff failed to acknowledge the reference fifteen years later, after Wardrip’s apprehension.
Although other law-enforcement agencies had doubted that one man could have been responsible for the three killings, Barry Macha had always suspected that one person, or related persons, may have been involved. Macha had driven by the house where Terry Sims had been murdered, the street where Toni Gibbs’s car was abandoned, and an apartment where Ellen Blau had lived. Because the three locations had been in a relatively confined area, Macha had long believed the murderer had some connection to that part of Wichita Falls. Finally, his suspicions were validated. And at last, he would have the chance to vindicate the deaths of three innocent women.
As dumbfounded as authorities seemed over Wardrip’s arrest and confession, the people of Olney were overwhelmed.
“I feel shocked. He’s been an excellent worker for us, and did a good job. He seemed like a heck of a nice guy,” Brad Duncan, the president of Olney Door and Screen said in reaction to Wardrip’s arrest.
Duncan, his parents, Fred and Betty Duncan, owners of the factory, as well as Dave Collard and others at Olney Door and Screen, had no reason not to believe Wardrip when he told them he had been in prison for vehicular manslaughter. They’d had no idea Wardrip was a convicted killer until word of his arrest hit the news.
The Duncans continued to stand by their decision to give Wardrip a chance.
“We knew he was an ex-con, but he seemed to be a model employee and model citizen. I don’t ever recall seeing him get angry, and he always had a smile on his face. He always did what he was told.
“If he is acquitted of these murders, he’s got a job waiting here,” Duncan said. “I can’t believe he’s the same person as the one they are saying murdered and raped all those young women. He has certainly changed, or else he’s a very good actor and should be in Hollywood.
“However, if he really did what they say, he needs to be hung out to dry. He must pay the consequences if he’s guilty.”
Dave Collard was heartsick. How could he have misjudged Faryion Wardrip so completely? Wardrip had seemed more like a son than an employee.
Dave walked to the pole barn and the wooden shelf that had served as a chest-high desk for Wardrip as he calculated purchase orders. The color drained from Dave’s face as he stared at a crudely drawn figure of a knife with blood dripping from the blade. He felt nauseated. The childish prank by a fellow employee pierced his heart.
News of Wardrip’s arrest spread through Wichita Falls, then on to Colorado where Danny Laughlin’s mother had continued to cling to the hope that someday the real killer of Toni Gibbs would be found. The news of Wardrip’s confession was like a two-edged sword. She was elated that at long last her son had been exonerated for the murder of Toni Gibbs, and furious that Danny’s life had been made wretched because of suspicion and innuendo.
Wilma Hooker received a letter from Roger Williams, Danny’s former defense attorney, telling her of Danny’s decisive exoneration. But the letter from Williams was not enough for Danny’s mother. She wanted more. She wanted the state to formally apologize for the living hell they had put her son through. She wanted Cody, Danny’s son, to be able to read the letter and know beyond a doubt that his father wasn’t a killer.
“It was different back then [in the 1980s],” District Attorney Tim Cole of Archer County said. “There wasn’t the technology. There are times in a case like this where you form an opinion about suspects. It’s unfortunate those things happen. Sometimes it takes twelve people to make that decision. Keep in mind, he wasn’t convicted. The system didn’t convict him.”
That wasn’t enough for Wilma Hooker. The jury may not have convicted Danny, but they hadn’t acquitted him either. She wanted full vindication for her son. He’d lived with a cloud of suspicion over his head for years. Hooker wanted his name cleared so he could finally rest in peace.
Hooker didn’t get a letter of apology or any formal statement clearing Danny of murder. She would have to settle for knowing that the DNA technology that cleared her son was the same science that put the real killer behind bars. A killer who had coincidentally shared a multicell section of the Wichita County Jail with her son while Wardrip was confined on a misdemeanor charge.
“Danny’s purpose may have been for Faryion Wardrip to get caught,” Hooker said, trying to find a reason for her son’s persecution and untimely death.
Heartsick, George and Diana Wardrip faced the fact that their oldest son was guilty of not one, but five vicious murders. The headline of their Olney weekly newspaper read SUSPECT IN MURDERS ARRESTED, with a two-by-four-inch, red-etched box declaring in bold red headlines FLASH: HE CONFESSES.
The ailing older Wardrip and his wife refused any further interviews. They sought seclusion in their small apartment, eventually fleeing to Florida and the temporary refuge of their daughter’s home.
Faryion Wardrip was on his own. If he was to defend himself against four counts of capital murder, he would have to rely on the public defender’s office for help. George Wardrip’s belief in his son was gone, destroyed by lies and half-truths.
Assistant District Attorney Jerry Taylor worked closely with investigators Little and Smith from the beginning of the inquiry into the murders of Sims and Gibbs. As pleased as he was that their own cases against Wardrip were rapidly developing, it was with great pleasure that he called the Fort Worth Police Department.
“We’ve got your guy,” Taylor told FWPD detectives. The same words Wichita Falls authorities had heard from Galveston police fifteen years earlier.
The day after Wardrip’s confession, Sergeant Dave Loftis, an investigator assigned to the Debra Taylor murder in 1985, and Lieutenant Mark Krey, a supervisor with the Fort Worth Police Department’s Violent Crimes Unit, made the trip to Wichita Falls to talk with Wardrip and possibly clear the cold case file.
Like Wichita Falls, Fort Worth had experienced a rash of female homicides in a nine-month period that started in September 1984. Ten of the unsolved murders were around the time Wardrip claimed to have killed Debra Taylor.
Although the term “serial killer” was not widely used at the time, Wardrip fit the standard FBI definition of a killer who hunts human beings for the sexual thrill it gives him and who will do it over and over again, believing he can outsmart the police and never expecting to be caught. It was believed Faryion Wardrip was one such body hunter.
Fort Worth and Wichita County authorities alike were concerned that there was a gap of time between the killing of Ellen Blau and Tina Kimbrew. Time that could have been filled by more killings, more bodies.
Wardrip talked with Loftis and Krey matter-of-factly about the night he killed Debra Taylor. He told them about going to the bar, meeting Taylor, dancing, and making a sexual advance in the parking lot.
“She rejected him, slapped him,” Krey later reported. “He has a very volatile temper that sets him off.... He ended up strangling her.”
For the time being, Loftis and Krey were pleased that information derived from Wardrip gave them enough to charge Wardri
p with Taylor’s murder. Although they were unable to link Wardrip with any of the other unsolved murders in their area, it was a break Fort Worth law officials never anticipated.
“I was surprised that somebody would come forward in this type of circumstance. It’s not common to come forward and give voluntary statements,” Lieutenant Krey said. “Hopefully, it will give Taylor’s family some sense of peace.”
In fact, it had been bittersweet news for Ken Taylor. Relief and shock flooded over him. For fourteen years, he had lived knowing Debra’s family blamed him for her murder. He was finally absolved, but the price he had paid for Wardrip’s years of silence had been too great.
On February 17, 1999, four days after his arrest, Faryion Wardrip faced the Wichita County grand jury. District Attorney Barry Macha presented the evidence against Wardrip, which included fingerprint comparisons, DNA testing, and Wardrip’s own oral confession.
The jury returned two indictments. One for the murder of Terry Sims, the other for Toni Gibbs. Faryion Wardrip was bound over for trial and Public Defender John Curry was appointed as his counsel. The process of filing briefs with the court and preparing a defense began.
For nine months, Wardrip languished in the Wichita County Jail awaiting trial. Visits from his wife lifted his spirits momentarily, but he was plunged into the depths of depression each time she left.
Initially, Wardrip took Prozac, hoping it would help control the crying and intense feeling of despondency, but he decided the antidepressant drug was not helping, so he stopped taking it. “I put my faith in Him,” Wardrip said, referring to God and His healing powers.
Reverend Scott Clark helped Wardrip stay connected to his faith by visiting him weekly at the Wichita County Jail.
Wardrip had to rely on God and John Curry in preparing for his murder trial. The state had already announced they intended to seek the death penalty.
Part IV
Chapter Nineteen
The indictment of Faryion Wardrip for the 1980s murders of Terry Sims, Toni Gibbs, and Ellen Blau became the talk of the town in local coffee shops, beauty salons, radio broadcasts, and on the nightly television news in Wichita Falls. The defense was convinced the court would be hard-pressed to find a prospective juror who hadn’t heard of Faryion Wardrip and the brutal rapes and murders of the young North Texas women.
Carroll Wilson, editor for the Times-Record News, reminded everyone in his February 19, 1999, editorial that anyone accused of a crime in Texas is assumed innocent until proven guilty, even if the accused hands over a confession. Wilson reminded his readers that until a judge or jury determined Wardrip guilty, he must be presumed innocent.
“Working under the assumption that the public does not yet have all the details of the cases being developed both by the prosecutors and the defense counsel, and acknowledging that the law-enforcement agencies working on these cases have been wrong in the past, we might be premature in offering congratulations to the agents and agencies involved,” Wilson wrote.
The editor went on to applaud the teamwork of 97th District Attorney Tim Cole, who pursued DNA testing; John Little, investigator for Wichita County District Attorney Barry Macha; Paul Smith, investigator in Cole’s office; and District Attorney Barry Macha, who worked hand in hand with Cole.
Wilson ended his editorial with “Now, let justice be done.”
Certain that his client couldn’t get the justice Wilson wrote about in Wichita Falls, John Curry petitioned Judge Bob Brotherton of the 30th District Court for a change of venue. As a practicing attorney, Brotherton had represented Danny Laughlin in his plea bargain with the state on perjury charges and had represented Johnna Wardrip during her divorce from Faryion fifteen years earlier. Now that he was a presiding judge, Brotherton was slated to officiate the capital murder trial of Faryion Wardrip. The district judge agreed with Curry and ruled that the trial be held in Denton, Texas, about one hundred miles southeast of Wichita Falls.
Much preparation was necessary before the trial could take place. The move to Denton meant that Wardrip would have to be housed in the Denton County Jail and that prosecutors, defense attorneys, and court personnel would have to lodge in a Denton hotel.
Denton, about thirty miles from both Dallas and Fort Worth, was part of the North Texas region known as “the Golden Triangle.” Ranked as one of the fastest-growing counties in the country, Denton’s population had spiraled from seventy-five thousand in 1970 to over two hundred thousand in 1990. Alliance Airport and Texas Motor Speedway, one of the largest sports and entertainment facilities in the world, had helped the southern portion of the county prosper, while the northern region remained centered on horse ranches and farming. The University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University made the city a major center for higher education.
Wardrip’s trial would be held in the two-year-old Denton County courthouse. Unlike the historical Wichita County courthouse, the Denton courthouse was ultra modern with concrete walls, chrome banisters, and glass partitions. The up-to-date building replaced the 1896 brick courthouse built in the center of the town square, which had been transformed into the Denton County museum.
The court staff was happy to be headed for a building with the latest in courtroom innovations, including a separate viewing room for the media. It was a far cry from the days of Denton’s meager beginnings of the early 1900s, when court was held under a large oak tree.
Judge Brotherton scheduled the capital murder trial of Faryion Wardrip to begin October 4, 1999, nearly nine months after the accused killer’s capture.
As Faryion Wardrip waited in the Wichita County Jail for his day in court, investigators continued to build their case against him.
After several weeks of careful analysis by the Department of Public Service lab in Austin, it was determined that the second set of fingerprints taken from Wardrip after his arrest matched the print taken from the shoe of Terry Sims.
“It wasn’t a standard print you would get when you’re printed in jail,” Little explained. The print on the shoe was of a lower finger joint or partial palm print. Little claimed that was why the print taken from Sims’s shoe was never compared to Wardrip’s fingerprints from his 1986 conviction for the murder of Tina Kimbrew.
The news of a serial killer’s apprehension in Wichita Falls set off a flurry of calls from police agencies from across Texas. Little was bombarded from officers who wanted to find out if Wardrip could be tied to any of their cold cases.
“You should look through your cases for any DNA evidence and send it to Gene Screen,” Little told them.
As other agencies contacted Wichita Falls authorities, Fort Worth continued to investigate their own nine unsolved female homicides, utilizing their city’s crime lab for possible matches to Wardrip.
While Little fielded inquiries about Wardrip and his possible link to other murders across the state, Wardrip’s public defender was petitioning the court to have his client’s confession ruled inadmissible.
In a hearing held August 27, 1999, John Curry asked detention officer Paul Martinez about the day he escorted Wardrip back to his jail cell on February 16, three days after his arrest in connection with the slaying of Terry Sims.
“He wanted to talk to the DA guy, John, ‘before I change my mind. Tell him to hurry before I change my mind,’ ” Martinez told the court.
Curry then asked John Little about Wardrip’s demeanor during their conversation and if Wardrip appeared to have been under the influence of any drugs.
“He seemed upset, but didn’t seem to be under the influence of medication or lack of medication,” Little said.
Little further explained that after eating his lunch and getting an insulin shot for his diabetes, Wardrip drove with Little and Smith to the locations of Sims’s and Gibbs’s murders.
“He offered to show us where each of the murders had occurred,” Little testified.
Nine relatives of three of Wardrip’s victims sat silently in the courtroom as Little recalled t
he day Wardrip had taken them to the murder sites. Debra Taylor’s daughter clung tightly to her husband’s hand. Terry Sims’s two sisters wiped tears from their eyes. Tina Kimbrew’s father, mother, and a close friend sat stone-faced, staring at the killer. Marsha Bridgens, Terry Sims’s mother, a tattoo on her right shoulder that read IN LOVING MEMORY OF TERRY, rocked gently in her seat.
The relatives of the victims were relieved and Curry was not surprised when Judge Brotherton ruled the confession admissible.
“They seemed to have done what the law required them to do,” Curry said. Although he accepted the ruling, Curry knew that the video and audio tapes of Faryion Wardrip confessing to killing four women in the mid-1980s would have a devastating impact on the jury, and his client.
Chapter Twenty
On the morning of October 4, 1999, Wichita County Sheriff’s deputies transported Faryion Wardrip from the Denton County Jail to the Denton courthouse for the first day of jury selection. Wardrip walked briskly into the courtroom, clad in a light blue, button-down-collar shirt and Dockers. He sported a short haircut, with a touch of gray at the temples. He was clean shaven. For the first time in his various court appearances, Wardrip wore glasses. Except for the white plastic identification band on his left wrist, Wardrip more closely resembled the Sunday school teacher from Olney than the accused Wichita Falls killer. He appeared healthy, rested, and ready for the first day of what would be a long process of jury selection.
Wardrip took his place behind the defense table, his public defender sitting at the opposite end. John Curry was a large man. He rested with his arms folded over his massive stomach, his body pouring over each side of his blue upholstered chair. The young, dark-haired attorney, who could be heard breathing heavily from the back of the courtroom, didn’t speak to his client. Curry and Wardrip waited in silence for Judge Brotherton to enter the courtroom and begin the proceedings.
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