Overnight, shotguns popped up in pick-up truck racks all over the county. It was basketball season, and post-game normally meant a gaggle of loud teenagers gathered outside the high school making plans, waiting for rides and just horsing around. Now all that changed. When the game ended, all of the kids huddled inside the building. They did not exit until parents came in and escorted them to their cars.
Rumors raced rampant throughout the area. There was a serial killer stalking southern Illinois. It must have been satanic ritual because of what was done to the mother and the baby. It had to be someone they knew and trusted— There is a killer among us, and it could be my neighbor.
AT the viewing, Anita reflected back on the short, sweet life of Peter. She smiled softly to herself as she recalled that sometimes, he called his mother “Wayne,” since that was as close as he could come to pronouncing “Elaine.” When Elaine turned thirty, Peter carried a sign around the town square and into his mother’s office at Davenport Office Supply. Anyone who knew the family laughed as soon as they read, “My mommy is 30 today. Happy Birthday Wayne!”
Anita’s eyes focused back on the tiny body in front of her and no longer could see that little boy. “He looked like a very old person who had abused his life and body to the maximum. He did not look like a three-and-a-half-year-old. Whatever [the killer] did to the child that night, he stripped him of every feeling and emotion. Whatever innocence was in that three-and-a-half-year-old was gone.”
Joann Settle remembered her former tenants as a likeable, friendly couple. They were very active in the community and in the small church, where Elaine played the piano and Keith led the singing. Her favorite memory of the family was Halloween, 1996, at the Fall Festival in Ina. One of the highlights of that celebration is the annual costume competition. The multi-talented Elaine had created a trio of costumes that year based on The Wizard of Oz. Keith was decked out as the Tin Man, Peter as the Cowardly Lion and Elaine, the Scarecrow. Her efforts were rewarded with the “Best Costume” ribbon that year.
IN the immediate aftermath of the massacre, thirty diligent local and state detectives delved into this perplexing puzzle. They interviewed hundreds of people, but a suspect never surfaced. Their tools were so limited: no money was stolen, a VCR and portable movie camera were left in plain view, no evidence pointed to a specific perpetrator; no reason existed for this quiet and conservative family to have become victims; no one who was questioned recalled anything suspicious.
All they had was a dead family. A mother and father so devoted to their little boy that they never allowed a milestone to pass without a video camera recording it for posterity. A couple so eager for the birth of their second child that they wrapped a present for Peter’s third birthday with a card attached reading: “Happy Birthday, big brother, from January 10th.”
And a baseball bat, the one Keith had bought for Peter. It had been far too big for him, but Keith knew the little boy would grow into it one day. In the meantime, he could demonstrate how to hit the ball. One day, Keith dreamed, they could play ball together.
OVER the years, Joeann Dardeen never gave up searching for the killer of her son and his family. She gathered more than 3,000 signatures in her community in 1994 and sent them to Oprah Winfrey. The producers there were not interested—the crime was too gruesome for television.
Other TV producers were reluctant to present the story when there were not enough details to assemble a profile and no suspect to pinpoint. America’s Most Wanted responded in a similar fashion that year, but in 1998, that program’s producers had a change of heart. Joeann Dardeen pinned her hopes and her heart on this show’s remarkable success record for closing cases and bringing perpetrators to justice. But the show that aired in November of that year produced no suspects, no credible leads. The waiting game continued.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WANTING to leave the area quickly, Sells took a job with a Cape Girardeau, Missouri, company, R. B. Patasnic. They were looking for men to work construction on the two-lane State Road 84 in Florida, known locally as Alligator Alley. When completed, it was renamed Interstate 75, a straight-shot highway running from the Altantic Coast to the Gulf Coast through the lonely wildness of the Everglades.
While Tommy Sells was working in Florida, William Sells, his legal father, died. His passing went unnoticed by his son. One day, hip-deep in the murky water, holding a measure rod, Sells stood breathless as a snake swam past his legs. That was it. That was not the kind of risk he was willing to take. He was out of there.
He returned to St. Louis where he was once again arrested for stealing a motor vehicle on January 13.
In September of 1988, he headed north. That same month, an 11-year-old Salem, New Hampshire, girl, Melissa Ann Trembley, disappeared. She was last seen in a convenience store parking lot talking to a dark-haired man in need of a shave, who sat in the front seat of a rusted tan van.
Her body was found face down on the railroad tracks between two trains at a Boston and Maine freight terminal in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on September 12. She’d suffered sexual assault before being stabbed to death. Footprints and blood, sixty-five feet from where her body was discovered, indicated that she’d struggled with her attacker.
To add insult to this discarded victim, a slow-moving freight train being pulled into the terminal rolled over her body, further desecrating it where she lay.
IN Salt Lake City, Utah, that fall, a woman with a 3-year-old son fell under the spell of Tommy Lynn Sells. He put them to work on the streets by his side holding a sign that said, “Homeless and hungry. Please help.” He coached the little boy to make sad faces and even sadder little smiles. After a few weeks of panhandling, it was time for a road trip. They all piled into a stolen black Dodge van and headed to Idaho to spend the night along the majestic Snake River in Gooding County. Mother and son never returned from that trip. Sells confessed that he’d killed them both and dumped their bodies in the river. He walked away, his pockets still bulging with the cash he’d accumulated from passersby who took pity on a woman and small child.
THE warmth of Tucson drew Tommy Lynn Sells south. There in mid-December he crossed paths with another homeless man, Kent Alan Lauten, a native of Phoenix who bounced back and forth between the two cities.
Sells sold Kent a bag of pot. Kent took the bag and promised to give him money later that day. When they met again, Kent hurled insults at Sells, refusing to pay for his marijuana, taunting him that there was nothing Sells could do about it.
Sells threw a punch that knocked Kent to the ground. Lauten’s friends moved in. “Chump” they called him as they threatened Sells. Nothing angered Sells more than being treated with disrespect, but, knowing he was outnumbered, he retreated. He couldn’t settle the score that moment, but he knew where Lauten slept.
That night, Sells crept up on his prey. He found him in the arms of a man. As quick as a snake strike, Sells was on top of Kent, a pocketknife in hand. The other man scurried from the scene into the darkness. Kent looked into the eyes of his killer. Then the knife stabbed again and again and streaked across his neck. Kent bled to death—homeless and alone like a dog scavenging the city dump.
With his pocketknife and his bare hands, Sells scratched a shallow indentation in the ground and rolled the body into the makeshift grave. He scattered the paltry pile of dirt from the excavation over it. Then, he piled dead leaves and other debris on top, covered it all with a tarp and tamped it down with his feet.
Sells slunk off into the night and slept.
Two days later, on December 18, a 12-year-old boy wandered into the transient camp seeking a good spot to dig sand for his grandfather. His planned chore flew from his head when he spied a human hand protruding eerily from the ground. By then, Tommy Lynn Sells was in San Bernardino, California.
SELLS was arrested on Christmas Eve for assault with a deadly weapon. Law enforcement was unable to locate the victim and had to release him.
He headed north, on Interstate
5, stopping next in Berkeley. On January 27, 1989, a dispute arose between him and a ticket agent at a BART train station. It generated a report that established Sells’ presence in the area.
Sells claimed he was responsible for the death of a 20-year-old prostitute while there. According to his story, it was a drug deal gone bad. He had originally thought he was bargaining with a man, but discovered her gender shortly before he killed her. Police found an unidentified body around that time where he claimed to have left hers, just north of Lake Tahoe in a town called Truckee.
SELLS made a side trip to Colorado in March, then continued north on Route 5 until he reached Roseburg, Oregon, a small town along the interstate, an hour south of Eugene. He worked for a mom-and-pop woodcutting business, and lived at the home of a local couple.
He spent his workdays chasing chokers up and down the mountainside and chopping the felled trees into firewood for his employer’s roadside stand.
While in the area, Sells said, he’d kidnapped a longhaired young girl in her twenties, and raped and killed her. On May 9, he met a hitchhiker who wanted to go to Washington State with him. But when she tried to steal his dope, he murdered her, too. He left both bodies in the forest where he cut trees. Later that same day, he was arrested for second-degree theft for dipping his hand in the kitty at the firewood stand and pulling out $30.
After serving fifteen days in the Roseburg jail, Tommy Lynn Sells was a free man again.
HE made a short stop in Berkeley before making his journey east to Arkansas. On August 16, 1989, he was charged with theft by receiving and arrested in North Little Rock. On the 23rd of that month, the charges were dropped and Sells was footloose once more.
He bounced back to Oakland briefly, then detoured up to Montana for a short visit with a girlfriend in Missoula.
Then, it was back to Oakland, just in time to experience the earthquake of October 17. Shortly before it struck, Sells disembarked from the commuter train and went into a restroom to shoot up heroin. He was standing just outside the facilities with a pocket rocket of Night Train pressed firmly to his lips when the tremors hit and the lights went out. He grabbed a light pole and hung on. At first, he was certain he was experiencing the negative side effects of his drug and alcohol abuse. Then, he noticed the light pole swaying back and forth and heard the sound of buildings and roads collapsing.
Sells didn’t wait for the aftershocks. He raced south to Reno. The next night, he was arrested and put into a detox center.
Once again, rehabilitation was a wasted effort. He was arrested in Carson City, Nevada, and yet another rehab center housed him for an additional thirty days. In December of that year, he overdosed on heroin and was hospitalized in Phoenix for forty-eight hours.
In January 1990, Sells returned to Salt Lake City. On the 7th, he was arrested for possession of cocaine and for vehicle burglary. When the crime lab results showed that the substance was not cocaine, he was released. He shuffled off to Wyoming. His activities there would earn him an extended stay in prison.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IN Rawlings, Wyoming, on January 12, 1990, Sells struck up a conversation with a young couple, both about 18. The woman was in the late stages of pregnancy. The tires on their truck were as bald as a baby’s head. Sells offered to help them out with their transportation problem.
He prowled around the area until he found a 1978 Dodge four-wheel-drive pick-up with the right size tires. Then, he stole it.
Bobby Daniels bolted out of his house in pursuit of his runaway vehicle. When it drove out of sight, Daniels returned to the house where he and Athena Davis lived and called 9-1-1 to report the theft.
Sells removed the tires from the stolen pick-up and put them on the desperate couple’s truck. Taking a duffle bag out of its interior, Sells abandoned the tire-stripped truck and went in search of alternate transportation.
As Bobby and Athena described the man in the green shirt and red hat they had seen shortly before the truck was stolen, Tony Selzer was protecting his pick-up from certain theft. He confronted a similarly dressed man carrying a dark duffle bag when he caught him climbing into his truck. Sells made a hasty retreat, ditching the duffle on his way.
Police spotted the young pair’s truck, with the hot, nearly new tires, in no time. They told their tale and offered yet a third, corroborating description of the truck thief.
Sells hid, four blocks from the scene of the crime, waiting for a train to glide through and give him a ride out of town. One hour after the truck theft, he ran out to jump a freight car. Officer David Anderson saw him before he made his getaway, and arrested him for public intoxication.
He was held on $10,000 bond once the car theft charge came to light. Deeming him indigent, the Carbon County judge appointed John Hoke as public defender. The case was bound over to the court for the Second Judicial District.
On February 2, Hoke filed a motion to suspend further proceeds until the accused could be examined for any mental illness or deficiency. The court complied, ordering Sells to be transported to the Wyoming State Hospital.
The medical personnel there were given thirty days to assess and evaluate Sells’ mental condition and file a written report about any mental illness or deficiency, his capacity to comprehend the nature of the proceedings and his ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.
On arrival at the Wyoming State Hospital, admitting physician Dr. Howard Winkler described him as “[ . . . ] a well-developed, well-nourished, twenty-five-year-old white male who looks very much like Charles Manson with heavy, unkempt black beard, long shoulder length brownish-black hair. [ . . . ] He looks dirty and disheveled. [ . . . ] His mood is flattened.”
He further stated that Sells’ content of thought was bizarre. “From the tattoos on his arms, he hears the bird, the wolf and the dragon talking to him, telling him to do various things.” He concluded that Sells had no recognition of his problems, and that his outlook was poor.
On March 1, Sells requested to be put back on Thor-azine, saying, “I’m having problems dealing with things and I don’t know if I can handle it.” Hospital records indicated that before his arrest he was heavily using alcohol and drugs—cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, hallucinogens and heroin, his drug of choice. He was almost continuously intoxicated on one drug or another. Total withdrawal, the records warned, could result in psychosis.
Sells had a history of mood swings over a number of years. His personality was characterized by anti-social, unpredictable and self-destructive behavior. Outbursts of temper would result from minimal provocation. He was easily frustrated and impulsive. He was unable to read and write.
Dr. Peter Heinbecker rendered a diagnosis of depressive disorder; severe opioid, amphetamine, cannabis and alcohol dependency; poly–substance abuse of barbiturates, inhalants and hallucinogens; and a personality disorder with anti-social, borderline and schizoid features. After evaluation, he was prescribed 5 mg Haldol, an anti-psychotic, and 5mg Cogentin, a medicine to control tremors.
Sells returned to the Carbon County jail in early March. In Dr. Heinbecker’s official report to Judge Lehman, he wrote, “The defendant maintains the capacity to comprehend his position, to understand the nature and object of the proceedings against him, to conduct his defense in a rational manner, and to cooperate with his counsel to the end that any available defense may be interposed.” He concluded, “[ . . . ] he is presently competent to stand trial, even though mentally ill, and will remain competent in the foreseeable future, even in the absence of any specific treatment for his mental illness.”
On March 12, Sells was rushed from jail to the emergency room. He was having shakes and reported, “I feel like I’m bouncing off the walls.” He was diagnosed with a severe anxiety attack.
An ambulance raced him to the emergency room again on March 18. Once again, he was shaking, but it was worse than before. His speech was slurred, he had spasms in various muscles and his stuttering was uncontrollable. This time,
his medications came under suspicion. They changed his prescriptions to 25 mg Elavil, an anti-depressant, and 80 mg of Inderal SR for hypertension. Later, they enhanced his pharmaceutical soup with the addition of 50, then 100 mg of Mellaril, an anti-psychotic, and 25 mg of Valium for anxiety.
In custody, Sells was a model prisoner. There were no disciplinary actions taken. He completed the 265-hour course in “Professional Barber-Styling.” He worked in the leather shop and as an outside trustee at the Wyoming Honor Conservation Camp, a forestry center. In January 1991, he was released from custody. He wandered off again, first to Colorado and then back east to Florida.
IN Marianna, Florida, on December 9, the Christmas season kicked off with the traditional annual parade. Twenty-five-year-old Teresa Hall was there with her daughter, Tiffany. The 5-year-old clapped her hands, laughed and thoroughly enjoyed the passing musicians and entertainers. Her biggest thrill was Santa Claus.
The little girl was exhausted from the excitement of the evening—ready to sleep with sugarplums dancing in her head. Her eyes were drooping by the time they reached their Village Road home in a semi-wooded rural area in the unincorporated town of Cypress. The railroad tracks that traveled from Jacksonville through the panhandle and out of the state were just one hundred feet from their door. Teresa prepared Tiffany for bed, looking forward to putting her feet up and relaxing a bit after a long day.
Then, their front door was kicked in, exploding dreams of Christmas into a shattered night of violence. The invader raged through their home, knocking obstacles out of his way. He lifted a table over his head and smashed it to the floor, splintering it, splitting it in two. He jerked a leg loose and brandished it as he approached Teresa. He bludgeoned her to death with blows that fractured her skull. Then, little Tiffany suffered the same fate. The killer fled the home still clenching the leg of the table in his balled-up fist.
Through the Window: The Terrifying True Story of Cross-Country Killer Tommy Lynn Sells (St. Martin's True Crime Library) Page 6
