Through the Window (28 page)
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 requested 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.
IN San Antonio, Texas, in the summer of 2002, the trial for the murder of Mary Bea Perez still awaited a date. Many attorneys and members of the law enforcement community speculated that it would never be tried in a courtroom. Then, at the end of July, a bench warrant brought Tommy Lynn Sells back to Bexar County to consult with his attorneys. The district attorney’s office wanted to deal. If Sells would plead guilty to capital murder, the D.A. would not pursue the death penalty.
Sells rejected their offer and the case is expected to come to trial in the spring of 2003. The defense plans to call two alibi witnesses for the day that Mary Bea Perez was abducted and murdered. One of these witnesses is Jessica Levrie, who will testify that Sells was in Del Rio on April 18, 1999.
SELLS was charged by the police department in Lexington, Kentucky, for the murder of Haley McHone. The case had not yet been presented to a grand jury.
Lieutenant Jimmy Hand of the Gibson County Sheriff’s Department does not believe Tommy Lynn Sells is their man. He doubts his confession because Sells had no motive for the crime. In response, Sells wrote, “I can tell you from A to Z about what happened to that mother and kid and Gibson County, Tennessee, but you said they don’t believe I did it. You know what I have to say. I, me, Tommy Lynn, don’t have to prove I did it, they have to prove I did not do it. And they can’t.” The small details from that home provided by Sells have convinced the Texas Rangers of his guilt.
Detective Jeffery Stone of the Metropolitan Police Department in St. Louis, Missouri, has waited for the moment Sells will agree to talk to him about the three murders in his city. He said Sells wrote that he was reluctant to discuss those crimes because he had so many family members in the area. Stone insisted that he would not charge Sells if he is the perpetrator. He just wants to close the cases that have moldered unsolved for nearly twenty years.
LT. Larry Pope of the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Department was named Texas Lawman of the Year 2001 by the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas for his work in the apprehension of Tommy Lynn Sells. About his infamous prisoner he said, “Tommy doesn’t get upset, ticked off and mad like everybody else does. He gets upset and he goes to murder.”
SHIRLEY Timmons, once Department of Public Safety secretary, had turned her drawing hobby into a promotion to forensic artist in 1998. She was presented the Medal of Merit for the twenty-four suspects identified and nineteen arrests made with the help of her drawings over the preceding
two years. Her most notable composite was the one she drew from the notes of Krystal Surles that had led to the arrest of Sells. She is only the seventeenth recipient of this honor in DPS history.
AGENT Steve Tanio with the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation was given the 2001 Agent of the Year Award in February 2002. He was cited for his two years of intense investigation on the Bobbie Lynn Wofford homicide that resulted in a suspect and a confession. Additionally, he was noted for opening thirty-seven cases, filing fifty-two charges and performing forty polygraph investigations.
SINCE the arrest and conviction of Sells, Rangers Coy Smith and Johnny Allen have both had more than enough cases to keep them busy. Still, they can’t help thinking about this one. They are haunted by the confessions that will never have resolution. The mother and child in Idaho who held up panhandling signs with Sells on the highway are still unidentified—Sells claimed he killed them and threw their bodies in the Snake River. These bodies have never been found. There was the nameless black man in Chicago whom Sells said he murdered at 48th and State Streets and then discarded in a Dumpster. Sells also bragged of bodies dumped in the alligator bayous off Interstate 10 and of a series of rest stop killings of homosexuals along the interstate in Pennsylvania. Smith and Allen badly want, but know they never will have, an accurate account of all of the victims of this one man.
