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Posted - 10 December 2003 : 5:19:29 PM
Drifter said to claim dozens of killings - Rangers wary of admissions
(Last updated Wednesday, Apr 26, 2000)
By John MacCormack
Express-News Staff Writer
Tommy Sells, a curly haired, talkative drifter, has admitted killing up to 50 people over the last two decades, according to his lawyer.
"He told the Rangers it should be more than 20 and less than 50, that he could have killed as many as 50 people," said Victor Garcia of Del Rio, Sells' lawyer.
Sells, 35, has been charged with one homicide in Texas and one in Kentucky, and is considered a strong suspect in nine more deaths in a half-dozen states.
He has been held in the Val Verde County Jail since early this year on charges of murdering one local girl and slashing the throat of another.
And since Day One he has been talking.
But state police are handling Sells with great caution, having learned a hard lesson more than a decade ago from another talkative drifter. Texas Rangers were badly burned by one-eyed Henry Lee Lucas, a self-proclaimed killing machine who confessed to scores of murders it was later determined he could not have committed.
"I'm not going to give you a number," Ranger John Allen said Wednesday, when asked how many killings Sells is claiming to have committed.
"There's additional homicides he's talked about, and attempts have been made to confirm them. We're at 11 that we're convinced of, and there's a few more that are possible," Allen said.
He said several of the homicides Sells is claiming are in Texas, including two linked to San Antonio, but he declined to provide details.
San Antonio police, who are investigating possible connections between Sells and the death last year during Fiesta of 9-year-old Mary Bea Perez, declined to comment on the case.
"We did send homicide detectives to Del Rio to talk to him, what we came out with we didn't discuss. We're not saying he is or is not a suspect in that case," said Sandy Gutierrez, a police spokesman.
Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety in Austin, declined to comment on Sells' reported claims of killing up to 50 people during two decades of roaming the country.
"We won't be drawn into speculating on unconfirmed homicides, but rest assured every piece of information will be investigated," Vinger said.
Over the last month, Sells and Allen have traveled to Idaho, Nevada and Arkansas to try and confirm slayings that he has confessed he committed in those states.
In one instance, they found a Sells "murder" victim alive and well.
"We went to Little Rock, Ark., and he was able to take us to a house where a burglary and shooting had occurred," Allen said.
"For 18 years he was sure he had hit the guy, but it turns out the guy just fell to the ground and lay there like he was hit," he said.
Allen declined comment on the outcome of a later trip to Idaho and Nevada, but around that time, an apparent falling out occurred, causing Sells to break off communication with the Ranger.
"He said he got burned out, constantly thinking about things. He has not talked to them that I know of for at least two weeks," Garcia said.
Allen said Wednesday that Sells is back on the job.
"I believe he was tired. He contacted us again (Tuesday), and said he's ready to go to work again," he said.
"He's just of the opinion that this is the right thing to do, and he said the families deserve and have a right to know what happened to their loved ones," Allen said.
Garcia said this willingness to come clean with authorities and help them solve old murders may be the only thing that can save Sells' life.
"My only strategy was to use this as mitigation, meaning that if he was going to be remorseful and helpful and to make amends for what he has done, he is showing some redeeming character," Garcia said.
"For Tommy Sells it boils down to the death penalty or life in prison, and if I can get him life, I've done my job, but he's not making it any easier with these statements," he said.
A pretrial hearing is set for 9 a.m. Friday in state district court before Judge George Thurmond, but a trial date has not been set.
Shy
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Posted - 10 December 2003 : 5:24:28 PM
Del Rio drifter indicted
Police say suspect admits to murders
By John MacCormack
Express-News Staff Writer
DEL RIO — Five weeks after a savage attack that left one local girl dead and a second with her throat slashed, drifter Tommy Sells was indicted Tuesday by a Val Verde County grand jury on capital murder and attempted murder charges.
Sells, 35, who is a suspect in at least a half-dozen more murders from Arizona to Arkansas, was arrested Jan. 2, two days after Kaylene Harris, 13, was killed and Krystal Surles, 10, was badly wounded. Both were attacked in their beds at the Harris family's mobile home here.
Surles, whose vocal cords were cut and could not speak, helped create a composite portrait that identified Sells as her attacker and led authorities to him.
"He said, 'I thought I killed her too,'" Texas Ranger John Allen reported Sells as saying.
Since his arrest, police say Sells has been talking about slayings he said he committed dating back almost two decades. So far, officials say, he is a suspect in at least three: one in Del Rio, one in Lexington, Ky., and one in Tucson, Ariz.
And police in Idaho, California, Missouri and Tennessee are working furiously to match Sells to killings police say he admitted committing there, or to unsolved murders authorities believe he committed but may not clearly remember because of heavy alcohol or drug use.
"Tommy continues to cooperate. The reason being he wants to clean the slate and get everything behind him," Allen said.
"He's cordial, polite and very coherent. He's told us he wants closure for himself and for the families of the victims he's killed. Closure was his word," he said.
Cautious investigators
Texas Rangers are taking extreme care with Sells. They still are smarting from their embarrassing experience more than a decade ago with another talkative drifter, Henry Lee Lucas, who eagerly owned up to homicides that — it was determined later — could not have been committed by him.
"This guy does not appear to be a Lucas," said Mike Cox, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety who wrote a book about Lucas. "He seems to be sincere, and they are finding cases."
Authorities who have interviewed Sells over the past five weeks have laid traps to see if he is lying or exaggerating about his two-decade crime spree. So far, they say, he apparently has not misled them.
As a safeguard, they also have created a time line covering the past 20 years that includes the nine years Sells spent in prison on convictions of assault and auto theft.
Some police even have found his company pleasant.
"I enjoyed talking to him. You can tell he's been around, lived on the streets most of his life, and the drugs have probably taken their toll on him, but to sit down and talk with him is like talking to anyone," said Sgt. Terry Ward of the Pulaski County, Ark., Sheriff's Office.
According to Ward, Sells has confessed to committing two murders around Little Rock in the early 1980s and has provided specific and convincing details. The problem is the police can't find any unsolved homicides to match the crimes Sells describes.
"The records from the early 1980s are not the best in the world. We're looking around 1980 to 1982. One was a burglary where he says he shot the homeowner several times; the other was a sexual assault at a rock quarry where they pushed her into the water," he said.
"He wasn't some strange, far-out type of person. He was just a normal person who loved to kill. This was probably at a time of his life when he was just starting his crime spree," Ward continued.
A wandering teen
According to police, Sells was born in Oakland, Calif., and later moved to Utah and St. Louis. At age 13 or 14, he left home to spend the next two decades riding trains, hitchhiking and driving stolen cars across the country.
He arrived in Del Rio two years ago with a carnival. He later married a local woman who had two small children but left town last year for five months, only to return in the fall to sell used cars.
"I spoke to him before (the slaying of the little girl). He was a car salesman here, and he showed me a car one day at the Amigo car lot," District Attorney Tom Lee said.
"He's a pretty distinctive-looking fellow. He's got a lot of tattoos. It wasn't that long before the murder," Lee said.
Because of the widespread interest in Sells among police with unsolved homicides, the Department of Public Safety has set up a clearinghouse in Austin to assist outside agencies and to control access to Sells.
Police from Arizona, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky and San Antonio have interviewed him in Val Verde County Jail. San Antonio police concluded Sells probably was not linked to their case, Allen said.
Others who visited say they have been more fortunate.
"Mr. Sells claims responsibility for a 1988 homicide here," said Sgt. Tom Thompson of the Pima County Sheriff's Office in Arizona. "We are in the process of putting the final touches on that case for it to go to the county attorney."
"It was a fight among transients by the railroad tracks. The detective who worked that case still works here, and we were able to send him to talk to Mr. Sells, and he seems to think the information Mr. Sells provided was correct," Thompson said.
An attempt to link Sells to two recent double-homicides in Missouri and another that occurred in the same time frame just across the border in Tennessee has proven difficult. The crimes occurred last spring.
"We have not charged him, and we're waiting for some laboratory work to come back," said Bud Cooper, an investigator with the Missouri Highway Patrol.
"He was able to give us some information we would not have known, but he wasn't real good on his dates. I plan on coming back and talking to him," Cooper said.
He said making a case with a suspect like Sells poses special problems.
"If you or I drove across the United States, we'd be fairly easy to follow. We use credit cards and telephones. But this guy takes trains, uses no credit cards, doesn't use checks. It's kind of like chasing a ghost," he said.
Authorities believe Sells is a suspect in about a half-dozen unsolved homicides beyond those he has been charged with in Texas and Kentucky and the one he is expected to be charged with in Arizona. The other cases are in Idaho, Missouri, California and Tennessee.
'A lot to talk about'
But for Sells' speaking up to police on the day of his arrest, none of this would be suspected. Sheriff's investigator Larry Pope said Sells began talking on the trip to the county jail after he was picked up.
"I didn't question him. I just put him in the car and rode to town," Pope said. "He said something like, 'We'll I guess we've got a lot to talk about.' And then he said, 'I guess you want to hear about both of them.' And I had no idea of what he was talking about."
He said he quickly learned Sells wanted to admit to the May 1999 slaying of 13-year-old Harley McCone of Lexington, Ken. He since has been charged in the crime.
Since then, Sells has talked freely with police about what pieces and fragments he recalls from two decades of an alcohol-and-drug-induced haze, authorities say.
"I said, 'You can either keep it a secret or you can let it all out. And once you tell everything you know, no one can hold anything on you,'" Pope said.
So far, said Pope, his stories have held up.
"Anyone who comes down and talks to him believes him, and we have not caught him in a lie yet, but I'm only dealing with what I can prove," he said.
Pope said Sells reacted slightly Tuesday when he heard he had been indicted for an offense that carries the death penalty.
"I could see a little twinge," he said. "I think his major concern is that he can't provide for his family here. He's very attached to them and very protective.
"He claims they are the only people who ever treated him decently."
Shy
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shy@shyscyberchamber.com
ICQ : 41364914
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Posted - 10 December 2003 : 5:23:37 PM
Drifter linked to Illinois slayings
Del Rio inmate talks to officials
By John MacCormack
Express-News Staff Writer
Tommy Sells, a talkative drifter now jailed in Del Rio and suspected of killing numerous people around the country over the past 20 years, has admitted to slaying a family of four in Illinois more than a decade ago, officials said Friday.
"He ... provided details to it that probably only the killer would know. The Texas Ranger was there at the time," said Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Illinois officials, who by state law are sharply limited by what they can say about criminal investigations, were more circumspect.
"We're not saying it is solved, but he is a viable suspect," said Capt. John Kemp of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, who traveled to Del Rio this week to interview Sells . "We've got to weigh what we obtained from Texas with what we have here in Illinois."
Sells , 35, who is being held in Val Verde County Jail in the December slaying of a 13-year-old Del Rio girl, has been charged with killings in Texas, Kentucky and Missouri.
He is suspected of at least a half-dozen more, and many more police departments are investigating him.
"There are questions about how far it goes, but I think we have a serial killer here," said Vinger, the DPS spokesman. "That's the angle that's emerging."
The unsolved Illinois case is among the most horrific. In 1987, Keith Dardeen was shot to death, and his pregnant wife, Ruby, an unborn child and 3-year-old son Peter were beaten to death with a baseball bat.
"Dardeen picked up (his attacker) at a truck stop, took him back home to his family at the trailer park, and at some point, they went out," Vinger said, "and, for whatever reason" Dardeen was shot to death.
Later at the mobile home, the deadly beatings occurred, Vinger said.
Officials said Sells was able to describe the weapons used in the Illinois slaughter, the locations of the bodies, as well as things done to the bodies that only the killer would know.
The Dardeens were residents of the small town of Ina, population 500. Their deaths traumatized a broad swath of southern Illinois.
"The whole south end of the state was affected by this, and it probably changed that small town forever," Kemp said. "I think you will find people are now very shy with strangers.
"We went through thousands of theories and we talked to thousands of people, but it was just a mystery," he said of the Dardeen slayings.
Kemp said Illinois officials heard about Sells several weeks ago and interviewed him this week. He implied that the Dardeen case might be close to a resolution.
"We were in Texas a couple of days," he said. "I feel fairly confident that the evidence we obtained in Texas will compare to what we know happened to the Dardeens.
"From what I've heard, there was no rhyme or reason to his killings, and this one looks just like it," Kemp said.
The curly-haired Sells has been talking almost nonstop since he was arrested in Del Rio on Jan. 2, two days after Kaylene Harris, 13, was killed in her bed. A friend, Krystal Surles, 10, had her throat slashed, but she survived to call police and describe the attacker.
According to police, Sells was born in Oakland, Calif., and later moved to Utah and St. Louis. At age 13 or 14, he left home to spend the next two decades riding trains, hitchhiking and driving stolen cars across the country.
Officials say Sells has told them he used drugs and alcohol heavily over the years, clouding his memory of certain events. He also spent nine years in prison for convictions on assault and car theft.
Sells arrived in Del Rio two years ago with a carnival, married a local woman and did odd jobs, including selling used cars.
But he vanished last summer for several months, and officials say he since has admitted to the May 1999 slaying of a 13-year-old girl in Lexington, Ky.
Since being arrested, officials said, Sells has had a religious conversion and has been cooperative in trying to help authorities sort out unsolved killings from around the country.
So far, his stories have held up, authorities say.
"Anyone who comes down and talks to him believes him," said Larry Pope, the Val Verde County investigator who arrested Sells two months ago.
"They say he sobbed heavily about the Illinois one," Pope said.
Sometime in the next several weeks, Texas Ranger John Allen is expected to escort Sells to Little Rock, Ark., to assist officials there.
Sells reportedly has admitted two killings there almost 20 years ago, but officials have had difficulty matching his stories to any unsolved crimes.
Shy
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I need someone really bad.... are you really bad?
shy@shyscyberchamber.com
ICQ : 41364914
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Posted - 10 December 2003 : 5:21:28 PM
Drifter, cops discuss S.A. girl's slaying
(Last updated Thursday, March 8, 2000)
By John MacCormack
Express-News Staff Writer
Two months after telling San Antonio police detectives he knew nothing about the death of Mary B. Perez last year during Fiesta, drifter Tommy Sells has started talking.
"He told us he wanted to talk about the murder of a small girl in San Antonio," Texas Ranger John Allen said Tuesday. "He's cooperating and has given specific details of the crime."
Allen said Sells , who is being held in Val Verde County Jail, gave a videotaped statement last week about the Perez killing. The tape soon will be turned over to San Antonio police, he said.
The 9-year-old child known as "Mary B." disappeared at about 10 p.m. April 18 from crowded Market Square while she was celebrating Fiesta with her family.
Her partly clad, badly decomposed body was found a week later near the stockyards, about 11/2 miles from where she had disappeared.
The slaying of the tiny third-grader in a Mickey Mouse T-shirt cast a pall that still lingers over Fiesta, San Antonio's annual - and once carefree - celebration of itself.
San Antonio police are now doing laboratory tests on evidence pertaining to the Perez killing to evaluate Sells ' statement, Allen said.
"We feel he's a viable suspect, but a lot of work needs to be done," Police Department spokeswoman Sandy Gutierrez said.
"There is no conclusive evidence to suggest he is the individual responsible for the death of Mary B," Gutierrez said.
Mary B.'s great uncle, Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez, said the family hopes answers about the tragedy are close at hand.
"As long as we don't know who did it and why, Mary B. cannot rest in peace," Vasquez y Sanchez said.
"If we don't know who did it, then everyone is a suspect, and we don't want to go on thinking that the murderer is living among us," he said.
The Perez case is the latest in nearly a score of killings across the country going back almost two decades in which Sells has become a suspect through his own admissions.
"We've got, that I know of, nine or 10 (killings) that we feel are confirmed. And there are another four or five in which he is an extremely good suspect where they are awaiting laboratory results," Allen said.
"I feel comfortable in saying there are more murders that he has committed, and as the investigations continue, more will be solved," he said.
Sells , 35, so far has been charged in murders in Texas, Kentucky and Missouri. Investigators say he has talked freely about his involvement in killings in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Illinois and several other states.
But, Allen said, despite his candor about a life of carnage, Sells is sensitive about certain matters, including his image.
"The term 'serial killer' inflames him," the Ranger said.
But for his willingness to talk, the curly-haired drifter still would be linked only with the Dec. 31 slaying in Del Rio of 13-year-old Kaylene Harris.
Another girl whose throat also was slashed and who was left for dead, survived to identify Sells . He quickly admitted his role in the Del Rio case after being arrested Jan. 2., officials said.
But Sells does not talk to everybody, as two San Antonio police detectives discovered when they interviewed him in Del Rio three days later.
"They were here Jan. 5, and I was present when they talked to him. They showed him a photo of the victim (Mary B. Perez), and he denied recognizing her," Allen said.
"For whatever reason, he wasn't ready to talk about it at that time," Allen said.
But, Allen continued, Sells kept the business cards of the two detectives, and about six weeks later, pulled them out and said, "I want to talk about this right here."
In the interviews that followed on Feb. 29 and Thursday, he provided details about the Perez case that persuaded Texas Rangers that he was being truthful.
So far, Allen said, Sells has not misled investigators.
"From the get-go, when Tommy has expressed an interest in cooperating and clearing up homicides, he hasn't lied about one of them, so we're taking him very seriously," the Ranger said.
According to a time line put together by authorities, Sells was born in Oakland, Calif., and later moved to Utah and St. Louis. At age 13 or 14, he left home to spend the next two decades riding trains, hitchhiking and driving stolen cars across the country.
He spent nine of the past 20 years in prison on assault and car theft convictions. Sells arrived in Del Rio working for a carnival about two years ago, married a local woman and worked odd jobs.
He left town last year for about five months, during which authorities believe he killed a girl in Lexington, Ky., but returned last fall to sell used cars in Del Rio.
Allen said there appeared to be little pattern to the killings that Sells has described committing over the past two decades on the road.
"I can't think of a word that would fit him other than opportunist. If an opportunity presented itself, things could go bad," he said.
"And unlike other people who have been suspected of multiple murders, there's not set pattern of the victims being a particular gender, age or hair color," he said.
"And there's no pattern to his method of murder. It goes from strangulation to slashing to shooting to beatings," Allen said.
Allen said the motivations also varied.
"Some were confrontations, some were robberies, some were pure anger, but the larger percentage were sexual assault," he said.
Staff Writer Lisa Sandberg contributed to this report.
Shy
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I need someone really bad.... are you really bad?
shy@shyscyberchamber.com
ICQ : 41364914
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