Little explained to the jury that Macha had requested that he take the cold case files of Sims, Gibbs, and Blau and study them. He had driven to locations important to the case and read and reread each of the files, knowing that the Sims and Gibbs cases were connected because of DNA testing and suspecting that Blau’s murder was linked as well.
Two weeks later, Little determined that he wanted to talk to Faryion Wardrip. Little had read a report in the file that Lieutenant Callahan had been informed that Wardrip knew Ellen Blau. Then, he read a report from Janie Ball, linking Faryion Wardrip to her apartment house. Callahan had even taken a photo to Janie Ball, which she recognized as Faryion Wardrip, a man living in the same building across the hall.
Little had further connected the slain women with Wardrip when he checked employment records at Wichita General Hospital. The work records indicated that Wardrip was employed at the hospital during the time of the murders of Sims on December 21, 1984, and Gibbs, less than a month later.
City water service accounts from the apartment house on Bell Street indicated that water service was initiated in apartment A, Wardrip’s unit, on October 12, 1984, and cut off for nonpayment on April 18, 1985. During that time period both Sims and Gibbs were murdered.
“The decision to locate Faryion Wardrip and get a saliva sample to be used in DNA testing was made,” Little testified.
“I located Faryion Wardrip in Olney, Texas, at an apartment complex on Mockingbird. I went to Olney on February 1, 1999. Originally, just to see where he went during the day. Where he lived. Where he worked. I followed him around town.”
“Can you point Faryion Wardrip out for the jury and describe him?” Macha asked.
“Right there at the end of the table,” Little said, pointing to the defendant. “He’s six-foot, six inches tall and weighs about two hundred pounds. He worked at the Olney Door and Screen Company.”
Little explained how he watched Waldrip from his car and how he would change cars so the defendant wouldn’t notice he was under surveillance.
“I watched Wardrip from the laundry across the street from his work. I’d go in and watch through the plate-glass window. On February 5, 1999, I was watching from the laundry. He would go in and out of the yard and drive a forklift.
“A little after nine o’clock A.M., Faryion was loading a trailer. He then walked from the yard to the main building. He was in the building five minutes. His wife and a small child drove up to the west of the gate in front of the building. Faryion came out with a coffee cup and a package of cheese crackers. He opened the gate, then closed it, holding the cheese crackers in his mouth.
“Faryion sat in the passenger seat. I watched him eat and drink for about fifteen minutes. He got out, sat the cup on top of the car, opened one side of the gate, then walked to a green, fifty-five-gallon drum and pitched the cup into the can. He then opened the gate fully.”
John Little then told the jury the story everyone in the courtroom had read about or heard on the news.
“I walked over and asked Faryion if he had a cup—a spit cup. We walked over to the trash can and got a cup. It had cracker crumbs on the rim,” Little said regarding retrieval of the State’s primary piece of evidence.
Little explained that he then labeled and packaged the cup, completed his paperwork, and took the cup to Judy Floyd at Gene Screen for testing.
As Little testified to the events that led to the apprehension of Faryion, Glenda Wardrip arrived at court. Forty-five minutes late, she took her seat behind Faryion. He scribbled on a piece of paper, folded it, and handed it to his wife. The note read “I love you.”
The coffee cup Little rescued from the trash, photos of the cup, barrel, and Wardrip’s workplace were all admitted into evidence.
Little described the fax he had received from Judy Floyd stating that Faryion Wardrip couldn’t be excluded as a donor for the DNA found on the oral swab in the Sims case. He told the jury that an arrest warrant had been issued on February 12, 1999, for the offense of capital murder. The warrant authorized the gathering of a blood sample and fingerprints from Faryion to be compared to evidence found at the scene of the Sims murder.
“On February 12, 1999, we interviewed Faryion Wardrip, advising him of his rights. We asked about the case of Ellen Blau because we had DNA for Sims and Gibbs. We wanted to talk about Ellen because of the lack of physical evidence in the case,” Little said.
“I object, Your Honor,” John Curry said loudly from his seat. “I object to this line of questioning.”
“Overruled,” Judge Brotherton responded.
“Did he deny knowing Ellen Blau or having anything to do with her death?” Macha asked.
“Yes, he did,” Little answered.
Little informed the jury that he arrested Wardrip for the capital murder of Terry Sims. He obtained a blood sample, and again Little submitted Wardrip’s blood to Judy Floyd at Gene Screen. Little had also obtained a second search warrant for an additional set of prints.
“Judy called and said she was able to collect saliva from the cup for DNA testing,” Little said.
Glenda Wardrip sat quietly in her place behind Faryion. Her face red and splotchy, Glenda appeared to have spent the night crying. The trial was hard on her. She found it difficult to listen to testimony that described a man she’d thought she knew. A man she loved.
Macha told the court he had no further questions for John Little, but would be recalling him later. He then called Judy Floyd to the stand.
“I would like the record to reflect my objection to this testimony based on evidence collected by the search warrant,” Curry stated.
“The record will so reflect,” Judge Brotherton responded.
Judy Floyd approached the court dressed in a dark gray suit, her frosted brown hair neatly shaped. Floyd was a professional, having testified more than two hundred times in court for matters concerning DNA evidence.
Floyd began her testimony in the Wardrip case by discussing Terry Sims. In a report dated February 12, 1999, Floyd said that DNA tests she ran showed that the saliva from the coffee cup provided by John Little matched the sperm from the oral swab taken from Sims.
“The frequency of occurrence is one in every one billion, two hundred million,” Floyd said. Meaning that only one person out of one billion, two hundred million people could be a possible match. That made the odds of the sperm being Wardrip’s nearly certain.
In the Toni Gibbs case, Floyd stated that the genetic profile of the vaginal swab and the saliva were a match.
Then Floyd referred to a report she had prepared on May 13, 1999.
“I compared the oral swabs to the paper cup with saliva and blood that had been drawn from Faryion Wardrip. There were a total of ten markers on each item of evidence,” Floyd said.
“Did he have unusual genetic markers?” Macha asked.
“Yes. Mr. Wardrip had several uncommon high numbers for frequency of occurrence,” Floyd answered. “The frequency for the North American Caucasian population was one in 3.23 quadrillion. The sperm from the oral swab is unique in only the individual who could have left the sperm.”
Floyd told the jury that the results were the same in her official report for the Sims case. In that case, she had tested the oral swab and blood from Wardrip.
“Is it most likely that the sperm deposited in Toni Gibbs was deposited by the defendant?” Macha asked.
“Yes.”
Macha had successfully connected the saliva-traced cup taken by John Little from the Olney Door and Screen Factory to the sperm found in the bodies of Sims and Gibbs. He dismissed his witness.
There was no cross-examination by the defense.
“The State calls Glen Unnasch,” Macha said.
“I object, Your Honor,” Curry announced. “This witness is going to testify to matters I have previously objected to. I would like the record to so reflect.”
“Your objection is so noted and overruled,” Judge Brotherton responded.
Unnasch, a supervisor with the Latent Fingerprint Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety, testified that he had been asked to examine a pair of shoes submitted to him by the Wichita County DA’s office.
“I used a dye-staining technique,” Unnasch said. “When the amino dye came in contact with the blood, it turned a reddish brown or black to enhance it. I photographed the print first, then took additional photos of the print after it was stained. Then I began the comparisons.”
Unnasch pointed out the fingerprint on the left side of the heel of Sims’s left shoe as the print he tested.
“Did you take prints from a man on March 12, 1999?” Macha asked.
“Yes, from the man at the end of the table in the light blue shirt,” Unnasch answered.
“Did you compare those prints to the tennis shoe print?” Macha inquired.
“Yes. After comparing the latent print of the shoe and Mr. Wardrip’s prints, I determined he was the only one who could have left that print,” Unnasch said.
“Was the print left in blood?” Macha asked.
“Yes, what appeared to be blood from the amino black testing,” Unnasch responded.
The DPS fingerprint examiner then told the jury that he had compared the various ridges of Wardrip’s print and the print from the shoe.
“I’m one hundred percent sure the print was left by Faryion Wardrip. His left middle finger, the third joint,” Unnasch stated.
Macha then had his witness stand before the jury and show them where the fingerprint had been left on Sims’s shoe. He indicated the location by pointing to Macha’s shoe as the district attorney held his leg in the air.
As with the DNA evidence, Macha had successfully linked the bloody fingerprint on Sims’s shoe to the defendant.
Neither Curry nor Glickman had any questions for the expert witness.
Chapter Twenty-six
John Little was called to return to the stand.
“After the arrest of Faryion Wardrip, did you file a probable cause affidavit with the appropriate court?” Macha asked his investigator.
“Yes.”
Macha had Little tell the jury that the local media had been given a copy of the affidavit, which included DNA evidence that linked Wardrip to Sims. The information had been subsequently released to the public.
“On February 16, 1999, did you receive a call from Captain Foster at the jail annex?” Macha questioned.
“Yes. I was in my office. Captain Foster advised me that a couple of jailers said when they were escorting Wardrip to his cell he told them he wanted to speak to ‘John, the DA guy.’ He also said, ‘He better get out here before I change my mind,’ ” Little testified.
Little related how he and Paul Smith had driven south of Wichita Falls to the jail annex to talk with Wardrip. As they met in the jail library, Wardrip told them he had talked to his wife that morning, then decided he wanted to talk to them. Little advised him of his Miranda rights and asked if he wanted an attorney. When Wardrip waived his right to an attorney, Little had again given him the Miranda Warning. He then recorded the interview on audio tape.
“Were all the statements given without inducement?” Macha asked.
Little shot a quick glance to Wardrip, then answered, “Yes.”
“Did he knowingly and voluntarily waive his rights?” Macha queried.
“Yes.”
Macha asked that State’s Exhibit Number 133-A, the audio confession, and State’s Exhibit Number 134, a written transcript of the audio confession, be admitted into evidence.
The usually quiet Curry once again objected to the admission of the evidence for the record. Judge Brotherton acknowledged the objection, but again overruled the defense.
John Little remained in the witness chair facing the jury with a copy of the transcribed confession in his hands. Across from him sat Barry Macha with another copy of the transcript. Hearts of the victims’ families raced as they anticipated the reading of Faryion Wardrip’s statement. They had been reliving the events of their loved ones’ deaths for the past three days. Now, with John Little and Barry Macha reading the confession to the jury, they would have to endure the horrors again, through Wardrip’s own words.
“ ‘Okay. Faryion, what I would like to do is just kind of go back to the beginning in your own words and start the events surrounding December 21 of 1984, if you would. This would be in reference to the death of Terry Sims,’ ” Little read his own words to the jury.
Macha responded by reading Wardrip’s words from the confession. “ ‘I don’t recall the dates to be exact. I do know at that time I was under heavy drugs. Intravenous drugs caused a lot of dysfunctional activities in my life. All it did was create hate in my heart and I was out walking, actually walking home, and I had been in a fight with my ex-wife. Drugs had just totally taken control of my life and as I was walking, she was at her door. I went up to the door and forced my way in. Well, just ransacked her, just slung her all over the house in a violent rage. Stripped her down and murdered her.’ ”
Tears welled in the eyes of Terry Sims’s sisters while anger grew in their hearts as they heard the words of their sister’s killer. The courtroom was silent. No one talked. No one moved. It was as though the spectators were riveted to their seats by the steely cold words of the defendant.
For the first time since his brother’s arrest, Bryce Wardrip learned that Faryion had given the investigators a confession on his own. For more than nine months, Bryce had lived with the regret that he had been responsible for his brother’s confession falling into the hands of the district attorney.
He’d believed that Faryion’s phone call from the Wichita County Jail in which he told Bryce that he had indeed killed five women in the Wichita Falls area had been taped. With the reading of Faryion’s confession, a burden of guilt was lifted from Bryce.
However, Bryce Wardrip’s feelings of relief quickly turned to rage and resentment when he heard his brother imply that his family hated him. There had been nothing but loving support from their parents, even when he had been arrested and imprisoned for the murder of Tina Kimbrew. Bryce couldn’t speak out. He could only sit and listen to the lies his brother had told Little and Smith.
In the pew-style bench in front of Bryce and Tina Wardrip sat the parents of Johnna Wardrip, Faryion Wardrip’s first wife. Paulette and Floyd Jackson wept as their former son-in-law’s words ripped at their hearts. They had done everything possible to help Faryion and Johnna while they were married, but Wardrip’s drug use had stripped the couple of everything the Jacksons had given them. Although he had been abusive with Johnna on a couple of occasions, he had never raped Johnna or forced himself on her in any way. The person they heard described in court was not the one they had known. The only similarity was the blame he placed on others for his own wrongdoing.
Little continued to read passages from the transcript. He read where he turned the Wardrip interview over to Investigator Smith for questions concerning Toni Jean Gibbs. Smith had asked Wardrip if he remembered the incident.
“ ‘Yeah. Again I was out walking all night. Somehow I was downtown. It was about six o’clock in the morning. Just walking. And I started walking home, it was starting to get daylight and I was walking up towards the hospital, and Toni knew me and she asked me if I wanted a ride.’ ” Macha continued to read Wardrip’s confessing.
Tears fell from Jeff Gibbs’s eyes. It was no comfort to know that Faryion Wardrip had only happened on his sister. Toni was showing her usual compassion by giving Wardrip a lift in the rain. He had repaid her by stripping away her vibrant life.
The confession moved from the death of Toni Gibbs to the murder of Ellen Blau as Little read questions asked of Wardrip during his disclosure.
The faces on the jury reflected the stress felt by everyone in the courtroom. It had been an exhausting, burdensome three days for the jury. Photos of dead bodies, emotionally damaged friends and families, and now the words of the killer himself were all weighing heavily on t
he hearts and minds of the jurors.
Luckily, Ken Taylor wasn’t present in court the day Wardrip’s confession was read. The stark reality of Wardrip’s matter-of-fact confession may have been too much for him to endure.
Little and Macha continued to read from the transcript, pinning down the time frame in which each of the young victims had been slain. Then Macha reached a point in the confession that emotionally stirred everyone in the courtroom.
“ ‘My parents don’t deserve this, my wife doesn’t deserve this, my children don’t deserve this, my brothers and sisters. It’s because of those damn drugs and the hatred that I had in my heart. And I caused so much pain to the victims’ families—but I don’t want to burn in hell. God told me that, you think I’m kidding you, but He revealed why He gave my wife to me like He did for a couple of months. I asked her today to forgive me. I told her what I was going to do, not in so many words, because I know they listen, but I just asked her to forgive me. She said, for what? I said for all the lies, the lies that I told you. She said, what lies? I said because I brought you into my life knowing that this very well could happen. I didn’t care, I knew I’d never get away with it. I did know that. I knew this day would happen,’ ” Macha read.
Emotion overcame Faryion Wardrip as he dropped his head on the defense table and cried. His shoulders shook with each gut-wrenching sob. He covered his face with his hands, trying to hold back the flood of tears. His sobs could be heard across the courtroom and his head could be seen bobbing up and down with each painful breath he took in.
A female juror wiped tears from her eyes several times during Wardrip’s torrid confession of apparent regret. A male juror covered his mouth with his hand and another stared at Faryion questioningly.
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