Boone described her house as a small, two-bedroom, one-bath home on Bell Avenue.
“We got to my house close to twelve-thirty A.M.,” Boone said. “I drove Terry’s car because my car was out of gas. I was poor. My car was parked at the side of the house. There were no lights on inside. The porch light was on outside. Terry went in with my house keys. I left her there and went back to the hospital.”
Leza explained that the next morning, December 21, 1984, she got off work at 7:15. She drove home and knocked on the door because she didn’t have her keys; she had given them to Terry. There was no answer, so she went to her landlord’s house two doors down from her place to get an extra key.
“I opened the door. The living room was in disarray. I yelled Terry’s name, but there was no answer. I ran. I was scared. [I] ran back to the landlord’s. I said, ‘Something is really wrong.’ He followed me back to my house and he went in,” Leza said, a touch of fear still present in her voice.
She explained that she was hysterical. The police were called and she learned that Terry had been murdered.
Barry Macha moved the wooden easel used during jury selection closer to the jury. The large white poster board with black markings depicted a diagram of the streets around Boone’s house.
“Will you please step down here, Ms. Boone?” Macha asked.
Boone pointed out her street, her house, and a redbrick apartment house nearby.
Macha exchanged the poster with one diagramming the layout of Boone’s house. She pointed out the two bedrooms, the bath, and the combined kitchen and dining room.
Macha asked Boone to return to her seat in the witness box, then moved to his desk where he took several minutes to flip though a number of eight-by-ten photos on the table.
“Can you tell the jury what you see in these photos?” Macha asked.
“In this one, Terry’s glasses are on the floor,” Boone said as she began to flip through each of the pictures. “The keys are on the floor here. The speaker is turned over. This is the bed in the front bedroom of the house. This is a pillow in the bedroom.”
As Boone flipped to the next photo, her voice began to break. She spoke in a hushed tone. “This is an extension cord that was in the bedroom. It was yellow. It ran from the outlet to the waterbed.”
Macha took the photos from his witness and handed them to Curry for the defense’s inspection. For several minutes, Curry and Glickman reviewed the photos, as Faryion carefully looked at each one, expressionless.
Spectators sitting on the wooden, pew-style benches in the courtroom strained to see the pictures of what Boone had described. However, the photos were too small to be seen in detail.
During the lull in testimony, while Curry and Glickman reviewed the pictures numbered State’s exhibits six through thirty-five, two young student court reporters rested from the practice they were getting covering the trial. Leslie Ryan-Hash, Judge Brotherton’s official court reporter, had graduated from the Court Reporters’ School of Dallas and had invited her instructor to send a couple of students to the trial.
After the acceptance of the State’s evidence by the defense and the judge, Boone again stood next to the easel in front of the jury. She described each picture for the jury: the screen door, the wooden door, the two locks that were secured with the same key and automatically locked when the door closed, a yellow Kleenex on the coffee table, a Kleenex box on the headboard of the waterbed.
Wardrip watched Boone intently as she spoke to the jury. With each photo, she seemed more in control. Until she came to her friend’s clothes, spotted with blood, under the coffee table.
Boone’s voice was low, barely audible to the courtroom spectators as she described Terry Sims’s purse and wallet on the waterbed and the bloodstained, crumpled sheets.
“Those stains were not on there when I last saw the bed,” Boone said softly.
As Macha turned to the picture of the bloody bathroom, Boone was close to tears. Wardrip was busy writing on a legal pad as Glickman chewed on the end of her pen and Curry watched the witness closely.
“Those cleaning materials were usually under the bathroom sink. The towels were usually on the towel rack,” Boone explained.
Boone returned to the witness box as Macha gathered three brown-paper grocery bags and carried them to her. Carefully, he opened each sealed bag using a staple remover, then tugged on white latex gloves before reaching into the first bag.
Macha lifted out a pair of white leather, Nike tennis shoes. They were marred by a blue powdery substance. The strings were still tied securely.
“Are these the shoes worn by Terry Sims on December 21, 1984?” the district attorney asked.
“Yes. She wore them to work,” Boone answered.
Next Macha reached in bag number two and pulled out a pink smock with small flowers, the sleeves turned inside out.
“Do you recognize this garment?” Macha asked.
Taking a deep breath before answering, Boone said, “Yes. Terry wore that at the health-care center. She was wearing it December 21, 1984.”
Boone also identified a pink shirt with small flowers as what Terry Sims wore to work under her smock on the night before her murder. Macha held each garment so that all jurors could see it clearly.
Macha pulled from the last bag a pair of pink pants, turned inside out, with underpants rolled into them.
As Macha held up the uniform pants and panties, a reporter sitting in the gallery heaved a long, moanful “Oh.”
Again, Boone identified the garments as those worn by her friend on December 21, 1984.
Macha passed his witness.
“Mr. Curry,” Judge Brotherton said, indicating that the defense could question Boone.
“No questions,” Curry said, remaining seated.
“The State may want to recall this witness later, Your Honor,” Macha announced. Then Boone was excused.
Wardrip looked at his lead defense attorney questioningly. It was obvious he was wondering why Curry had asked no questions.
By the end of Boone’s testimony, spectators had relaxed. They seemed to understand that although the proceedings had skipped right to the penalty phase of the trial, Macha was presenting all the evidence he had scheduled prior to Wardrip’s admission of guilt. The jury would hear exactly how he had raped Terry and then killed her. In addition, the jury would hear declarations of other offenses. Testimony that would have a marked effect on them.
Joe Shephard, chief of police of Seymour, Texas, approached the witness stand as the State’s second witness. The stocky, former Wichita Falls police officer with thinning hair and thick mustache swore to tell the truth in a loud voice with a slight Texas drawl.
Shephard was assigned to the Detective Division of the Wichita Falls Police Department in December 1984, when he was dispatched to a Bell Avenue address.
“The house appeared to be ransacked,” Shephard said. He described blood found in the bedroom, the bloody Kleenex on the coffee table, a nude body found on the floor of the bathroom.
“There was blood on the floor and walls of the bathroom. The body was lying naked, hands tied behind her back. She was on her left side. A yellow cord bound her hands,” Shephard testified.
“The State would like to submit State’s exhibit number five, a video tape of the residence,” Macha said.
With no objection from the defense, Macha told the judge it would take him a few minutes to set up for the tape to be shown to the jury.
“We’ll take a morning break,” the judge announced.
Glenda Wardrip arrived late at the courthouse and sat directly behind her husband in the second row of the gallery. Wardrip smiled broadly.
Neither Glenda nor her husband was smiling as Macha asked Chief Shephard to stand in front of the jury, upon their return, and describe what they were seeing in the crime-screen video.
Some of the two dozen spectators moved to the far right of the courtroom in an effort to see the video, but their view was mostl
y obscured by the awkward position of the television set.
All twelve jury members and two alternates remained stoic as they watched the video of Leza Boone’s disheveled small house. There was no change in their expressions as the camera panned to blood that had splattered on the bathroom counter and then to the bloody, nude body of Terry Sims, her swollen hands bound behind her with the yellow electrical cord. A puddle of dark blood surrounded her body. Stab wounds were visible in her slender back. Her head was resting near the cat’s litter box and her legs were outstretched.
The jury remained controlled, but members of the spectator gallery flinched as Shephard described the murder scene as it unfolded in video for the jury. Members of the Sims family shed tears of sorrow and clung to one another for emotional support.
Once the video was completed, Macha introduced State’s exhibits numbers twenty-six through twenty-nine, still photos of the crime scene. The pictures showed blood on the edge of the bathtub and on the wall behind the tub, blood on the chest of drawers and the bathroom light switch, and blood that had run down the side of the tub. As Shephard talked about the photos, Faryion Wardrip sat staring at the open Bible in front of him. No one knew for sure if he was reading passages or making a show of faith for the jury’s benefit.
Snapping a clean pair of latex gloves on his hands, Macha pulled the electrical cord used to tie Terry Sims’s hands behind her back from another brown-paper sack. The cord, discolored from the powder used to dust it for fingerprints, was a shocking reminder of the brutality used to subdue Sims.
Glenda Wardrip’s stare never drifted to the evidence in the prosecutor’s hands. She remained stone still, her total attention directed toward her spouse.
Macha took the bloody Kleenex found on Boone’s coffee table and held it up for the jury to see. He asked Shephard what was done with the tissue. The officer stated that it had been sent to Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences for testing.
“Was a knife or other sharp instrument found at the scene?” Macha asked.
“No, sir,” Shephard answered.
“Did you look for one?” Macha asked.
“Yes, sir,” Shephard responded.
“Were oral swabs taken of Miss Sims?” Macha asked.
“Yes, sir. They were sent to Gene Screen for DNA screening,” Shephard said.
“In 1984–1985 was Faryion Wardrip ever developed as a suspect?” Macha inquired.
“No, not to my knowledge,” Shephard said.
“No arrests were made in the Sims murder prior to Faryion Wardrip?” Macha asked.
“No, not to my knowledge,” Shephard responded.
“Pass the witness, Your Honor,” Macha stated before returning to his seat.
“No questions, Your Honor,” Curry said softly.
Wardrip shot a sharp glace at Curry. He hurriedly scribbled a note and passed it to his attorney. Curry seemingly ignored his client’s message.
“The State calls Dr. Allen Stilwell,” Macha announced loudly.
The short, stocky, retired forensic pathologist walked to the front of the courtroom, a briefcase clutched in his right hand, a loud black tie with orange pumpkins around his neck.
Dr. Allen Stilwell told the court he was a graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He had done his postgraduate work in general surgery and pathology, with pathology his specialty. He had practiced in Michigan, Texas, and Alabama, was board certified in forensic pathology and anatomical pathology, and had performed more than six thousand autopsies.
From July 1, 1984 to June 30, 1985, Stilwell had worked for the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office. He had been responsible for performing the autopsy on Terry Sims.
“Miss Sims had sustained several points of injury,” Dr. Stilwell told the jury. “Eight on the front of her chest, three on the right side of her back, and an additional stab wound to the left upper arm. Plus, there were what I call defense wounds.
“She had actually gripped the knife, causing cuts on her hand. One cut was at the base of her little finger.
“She sustained blows to the facial area, the bridge of the nose, and bruises on the left side of the face and eye. Her hands had been tied together behind her back.
“There were stab wounds on her chest that varied in size. The majority were one and one-fourth inches to one and one-half inches in width. They were approximately the size of the stabbing instrument that caused the wounds. Several other smaller wounds are what I would classify as tease wounds. They just broke the skin. They weren’t deep.”
Dr. Stilwell’s testimony infuriated Wardrip. He turned to Dorie Glickman. “Look, he’s giving his personal opinion. He’s only speculating here. You aren’t going to stop this?”
“We don’t want to make the jury mad,” Glickman whispered to her client.
“Were any swabs or smears taken during the autopsy?” Macha asked Dr. Stilwell.
“Yes. A swab, or Q-tip, was used to pick up any substance from the mouth, vagina, or anus. A smear was done with a cotton swab rubbed across a slide and then sent to be viewed under a microscope,” Dr. Stilwell replied.
“Was that done for the purpose of seeing if there was the presence of semen, for example?” Macha asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Stilwell said.
“Were you able to determine the cause of death?” Macha asked.
“Miss Sims died from two items. One, at least one stab wound injured an artery of the heart. Two, stab wounds opened portions of the right and left lungs. Both lungs collapsed. She couldn’t breathe,” Dr. Stilwell explained.
Terry Sims’s sisters fought back tears as they listened to the doctor explain how Terry had bled to death alone in her friend’s house.
“Would death have been immediate?” Macha asked.
“No. There wasn’t one fatal single blow. It was a combination of bleeding and lung collapse. It took two to four minutes,” Dr. Stilwell said.
“Would she have known she was dying?” Macha asked.
“Oh, yes,” Dr. Stilwell said emotionally. “At least while fighting she would have known what was about to happen. She struggled several minutes with her assailant.”
Glenda Wardrip hung her head. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the doctor as he characterized how Terry Sims had suffered before her death.
“Dr. Stilwell, will you look at these photos and tell the jury what you see?” Macha asked.
Dr. Stilwell put on his glasses, took the eight-by-ten photos from Macha and studied them momentarily. He began to again describe the wounds to Terry Sims as he looked at each photo. A woman in the audience released a low moan as he talked about Sims’s defensive wounds, where she obviously had grabbed the knife of her assailant, trying to save her life.
After taking the photos from the doctor, Macha gave them to the defense attorneys before passing them to the jury. As Curry and Glickman shuffled through the pictures of Sims’s battered and wound-riddled body, Wardrip kept his eyes focused on the Bible before him. His wife’s eyes remained downcast.
“No objection, Your Honor,” Curry announced after reviewing the photos.
Dr. Stilwell continued his testimony regarding the wounds suffered by Terry Sims.
“On her left hand there were cuts to the middle, ring, and little fingers. They were caused when she grabbed the knife and it was jerked away,” Dr. Stilwell explained.
The detailed account of Terry Sims’s wounds and her suffering was too much for some of the jury. An older man with graying hair covered his mouth as though sickened by the doctor’s testimony. A woman dressed in blue denim wrinkled her brow and frowned at the vivid details of Sims’s death. But the gruesome description continued.
“There were eight stab wounds to her chest. The small cuts to her skin are believed to have occurred first,” Dr. Stilwell continued. “The speculation was that he did those to get her attention. And there were several wounds grouped around her breasts. That indicates some sexual activity of the killer.
&
nbsp; “I believe the wounds occurred in this order: first, the face blows, then the defensive hand wounds, stabs to the chest, and then she was rolled over and stabbed. Her arms were tied behind her when the chest and back wounds were done. There was not enough blood on the bed to be from a chest wound. Perhaps it came from her hands,” Dr. Stilwell stated.
Faryion Wardrip showed the first sorrowful response of the trial. First dabbing his cheeks with a Kleenex, then wiping tears from his eyes and glasses. Dorie Glickman reached over and put her arm around him, as though to comfort her client. The attorney knew that the gesture would show the jury that she was a petite, young woman who wasn’t afraid of Faryion Wardrip.
“From the large amount of blood on the bathtub,” Dr. Stilwell continued, “she must have been over the edge of the tub at some point. It couldn’t be all splatters. I think she was on the ledge of the tub at some time, either during the back or chest stabs.”
Dr. Stilwell pointed to a diagram of Terry Sims’s body, noting each of the stab wounds, as well as the defensive wounds of the victim.
“Can you tell what kind of weapon was used?” Macha asked.
“Someone from the Wichita Falls Police Department came to my office and asked the type of weapon used. I made a drawing, although I’m not an artist. It was my attempt to help them,” Dr. Stilwell answered.
Macha showed the jury the crude drawing made by Dr. Stilwell as he described what he believed to be the murder weapon.
“It was four inches long. Something struck the body. I believe it was a knife guard,” Dr. Stilwell said. “It was a deadly weapon.”
Macha passed the witness to the defense, who only had one question.
“Could the shallow wounds have been incurred while Sims was defending herself?” Curry asked.
Dr. Stilwell reluctantly responded, “Yes.”
Macha recalled Leza Boone to the stand and asked her how the death of her best friend had affected her.
“Terry’s dad died when she was one. Terry died at twenty. Her mother is in the courtroom and so is her sister Catie,” Boone said tearfully.
Body Hunter Page 18