Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Serial Killer Documentary： Tommy Lynn Sells (The Coast to Coast Killer)

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Serial Killer Documentary： Tommy Lynn Sells (The Coast to Coast Killer) · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:05
Speaker 1: At four a m. On December thirty first, nineteen ninety nine,
0:09
Speaker 1: twenty hours before the turn of the millennium, a car
0:12
Speaker 1: rolled to a muted stop in the Guadier Bay subdivision
0:16
Speaker 1: west of Del Rio, Texas. A bearded man with a
0:20
Speaker 1: mullet hair cut got out and padded quietly towards a
0:24
Speaker 1: double wide trailer home of Terry and Crystal Harris and
0:27
Speaker 1: their kids. He whispered reassurance to a caged pet rottweiler
0:33
Speaker 1: in the back yard and approached the pen to allow
0:35
Speaker 1: the animal a whiff of his scent. The man used
0:39
Speaker 1: the blade he was carrying a twelve inch boning knife
0:43
Speaker 1: to try to trip the lock on the back door.
0:46
Speaker 1: That failed, and so did an attempt to enter the
0:48
Speaker 1: home through a rear window that held an air conditioner.
0:51
Speaker 1: He walked around to an open window on the front
0:54
Speaker 1: of the house. He tipped over a metal tub to
0:57
Speaker 1: use as a step, removed a screen, and hoisted himself
1:01
Speaker 1: up and in. The man found himself in the bedroom
1:05
Speaker 1: of Justin Harris, fourteen, who was blind. The boy was
1:10
Speaker 1: roused awake, but he thought the noise was his siblings
1:13
Speaker 1: horsing around. Justin called out Will y'all stop coming into
1:17
Speaker 1: my room. Then the man moved out of Justin's room
1:21
Speaker 1: to the next bedroom. He opened the door and flicked
1:24
Speaker 1: a flame to his cigarette lighter. There slept a Harris
1:28
Speaker 1: family friend, Marquees Searles, seven, in the master bedroom. He
1:34
Speaker 1: flicked his lighter again and found Crystal Harris asleep with
1:38
Speaker 1: her daughter Lorrie twelve. Finally, in the fourth bedroom, he
1:43
Speaker 1: found what he was looking for. In the bottom rack
1:46
Speaker 1: of a bunk bed lay Kayleen Katie Harris thirteen. The
1:52
Speaker 1: man lay down beside the girl and nudged her awake.
1:56
Speaker 1: She looked at him sleepily and said, what are you
1:59
Speaker 1: doing here? The man held a hand over her mouth
2:03
Speaker 1: and menaced Katie with the knife. He drew the blade
2:06
Speaker 1: down her body and deftly sliced off her shorts, panties,
2:11
Speaker 1: and bra as if he'd done that sort of thing before.
2:15
Speaker 1: When the man began fondling her, Katie wiggled free, stood up,
2:19
Speaker 1: and screamed, go get mama. Only then did the intruder
2:24
Speaker 1: realize that a second girl, Crystal Searls, ten years old
2:29
Speaker 1: and eighty pounds, was asleep on the top bunk. The
2:33
Speaker 1: man poked his knife at Katie and turned on the
2:35
Speaker 1: bedroom light. Seeing blood. The girl said, you cut me.
2:42
Speaker 1: The intruder moved in behind Katie. He had his hand
2:46
Speaker 1: over her mouth. Crystal Searls would later say she was struggling.
2:52
Speaker 1: She told me with her eyes to stay there and
2:54
Speaker 1: not move, and so I didn't. As Cristel watched, the
2:59
Speaker 1: man dragged the blade of his knife across Katie's throat
3:03
Speaker 1: once and then repeated the motion a second time. She
3:07
Speaker 1: just fell, said Cristel. And then she started making really
3:11
Speaker 1: bad noises, like she was gagging for air but couldn't
3:14
Speaker 1: get any because of the blood. The man continued his
3:18
Speaker 1: knife work. After Katie collapsed, a coroner would catalog sixteen
3:23
Speaker 1: stab wounds, three of which went all the way through
3:26
Speaker 1: her body, in addition to the two gashes to the throat.
3:30
Speaker 1: The intruder moved toward Crystal Searls. I told him I'll
3:35
Speaker 1: be quiet. I promise I won't say anything. It's Katie
3:39
Speaker 1: making the noise, she would later say. But the intruder
3:43
Speaker 1: showed no mercy. He reached over and cut my throat.
3:47
Speaker 1: She said, I just lay there and pretended I was dead.
3:51
Speaker 1: If he knew I was alive, he would come back
3:53
Speaker 1: and kill me for sure. The assailant switched off the
3:57
Speaker 1: light and walked out, leaving through the front door. After
4:02
Speaker 1: a minute, Cristel heard a car start and drive off.
4:06
Speaker 1: She put a hand to her throat and ran outdoors.
4:09
Speaker 1: Assuming that everyone in the house had been killed, she
4:13
Speaker 1: made her way to a neighbour's house a quarter mile away.
4:16
Speaker 1: There retiring herb Betts was up early to watch TV
4:20
Speaker 1: coverage of the arrival of the Millennium in Australia. He
4:24
Speaker 1: heard a door knock and peered through the peep hole.
4:28
Speaker 1: There stood Crystal Searls in a T shirt, boxer shorts
4:32
Speaker 1: and socks. She was a wash in blood. The child
4:36
Speaker 1: was unable to speak. The knife had severed her windpipe
4:40
Speaker 1: and grazed the sheathing of her carotid artery. She had
4:44
Speaker 1: come within a millimeter of Katie Harris's fate. Her little
4:48
Speaker 1: eyes were saying to me, help me, Betts told Texas
4:52
Speaker 1: journalist John McCormack. Bets dialed nine one one as she
4:57
Speaker 1: lay waiting for help. Cristel asked for fighting instruments, and
5:01
Speaker 1: she penned three brief notes. The Harrises are hurt, Tell
5:06
Speaker 1: them to hurry. Will I live. I kissed her on
5:10
Speaker 1: the forehead and told her several times she'd be all right.
5:14
Speaker 1: I didn't believe it. I thought she'd die on my
5:17
Speaker 1: kitchen floor. Medical rescuers found the girl in shock, her
5:21
Speaker 1: body convulsing. She was raced to a Del Rio hospital
5:26
Speaker 1: and then flown by helicopter to University Hospital in San Antonio,
5:30
Speaker 1: where surgeons worked for hours to repair the damage done
5:33
Speaker 1: by the five inch cut across her throat. Back at
5:37
Speaker 1: the Guagier Bay Subdivision, rescuers found Katie Harris dead, although
5:42
Speaker 1: the others in the house were unharmed. Crystal Searles awoke
5:46
Speaker 1: groggy on New Year's Day, her throat heavily bandaged. Texas
5:51
Speaker 1: rangers and County Sheriff's investigators were anxious to debrief the
5:56
Speaker 1: girl about her attacker, but they were careful to allow
5:59
Speaker 1: her time to recover. But soon after regaining consciousness, Cristel
6:04
Speaker 1: was ready to get to work. She used gestures to
6:08
Speaker 1: demand a pen and paper and began writing descriptions of
6:11
Speaker 1: her assailant. Authorities called in Shirley Timmins, a forensic artist,
6:17
Speaker 1: from her home in Midland, to work with Cristel from
6:20
Speaker 1: her San Antonio hospital bed. The first sketch showed a
6:25
Speaker 1: dark eyed, round faced man with long brown hair and
6:28
Speaker 1: a full beard. The image resembled a swarthy chuck Norris
6:33
Speaker 1: cops quickly distributed the description and image, and they pressed
6:37
Speaker 1: the Harris family to mull over friends and acquaintances for
6:40
Speaker 1: a match. Nothing was missing from the home. Law enforcers
6:45
Speaker 1: assumed the murder was motivated by sexual deviants, not robbery,
6:50
Speaker 1: and they suspected the killer was acquainted with the Harrises
6:53
Speaker 1: before climbing in the window, and that Katie Harris had
6:57
Speaker 1: been his intended target. The two Searles girls were staying
7:01
Speaker 1: with the Harrises while her mother, Pam, was moving from
7:05
Speaker 1: Kansas to del Rio over the holiday. The families had
7:09
Speaker 1: been friends in Kansas before the Harrises moved to Texas
7:12
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five, and Pam Searles and her daughters
7:16
Speaker 1: were now joining them there. A group left del Rio
7:20
Speaker 1: at six p m. December thirty for the thirteen hour
7:23
Speaker 1: drive north to collect some of the Searles belongings. Those
7:28
Speaker 1: on the trip included Terry Harris, adoptive father of the
7:32
Speaker 1: murder victim, Pam Searles, and her boyfriend Doug Luca. They
7:37
Speaker 1: turned around and rushed back to Texas when they were
7:40
Speaker 1: informed of the murder and assault. When Luca heard the
7:44
Speaker 1: description and saw the sketch, it reminded him of a
7:47
Speaker 1: man the moving group had seen at a Del Rio
7:49
Speaker 1: gas station just before they left for Kansas. He remembered
7:54
Speaker 1: the man's name as Tom or Tommy. He seemed to
7:58
Speaker 1: be a friend of Terry Harris, Luca said, and he
8:01
Speaker 1: worked as a salesman at Amigo Auto Cells. Luca shared
8:06
Speaker 1: his recollections with Texas ranger John Allan, who tracked down
8:10
Speaker 1: the owner of the car lot by foam. The man
8:13
Speaker 1: was uncooperative with Allan, but he quickly reconsidered. He phoned
8:18
Speaker 1: the Valverde County Sheriff's office and gave a friend there
8:22
Speaker 1: the name of the employee. Rangers searched state crime files
8:26
Speaker 1: and came up with a picture of the man, beardless,
8:29
Speaker 1: but it was the best they could do. They went
8:32
Speaker 1: to Cristel Searles's hospital room and showed her a photo
8:35
Speaker 1: array of six men. She studied the pictures purposefully and
8:40
Speaker 1: then pointed at one as the intruder. It was the
8:43
Speaker 1: used car salesman from Del Rio. His name was Tommy
8:47
Speaker 1: Lynne Cells. Investigators prepared an arrest warrant and paid a
8:52
Speaker 1: visit early on January second, to the trailers Cells shared
8:56
Speaker 1: with his wife, Jessica Lavre, and her four children. He
9:00
Speaker 1: went along without rancor. He didn't ask why he was
9:04
Speaker 1: being taken in, and investigators didn't offer to tell him.
9:08
Speaker 1: But during the ride to the sheriff's office, Cells turned
9:11
Speaker 1: to Valverde County Sheriff's Lieutenant Larry Pope and said, well,
9:16
Speaker 1: I guess we've got a lot to talk about. Over
9:19
Speaker 1: the next few months, Cells talked and talked about a
9:23
Speaker 1: singular life of killing. The lifelong transient admitted the murder
9:27
Speaker 1: of Katie Harris and the throat slashing of her friend.
9:31
Speaker 1: He said he killed an entire family in Illinois, a
9:34
Speaker 1: mother and daughter in Missouri, a teenage girl in Lexington, Kentucky,
9:39
Speaker 1: a drifter in Arizona, a child in San Antonio, and
9:43
Speaker 1: there were many more, a string of perhaps twenty murders
9:47
Speaker 1: across America that spanned three decades. By his account, Cells
9:52
Speaker 1: began using the nickname Coast to coast the geographic spread
9:56
Speaker 1: of his carnage. He wants to clean the slate and
10:00
Speaker 1: get everything behind him. Ranger Allen told reporters He's told
10:04
Speaker 1: us he wants closure for himself and for the families
10:08
Speaker 1: of the victims he's killed. Closure was his word. Cells
10:12
Speaker 1: Court appointed attorney Victor Garcia said he advised his client
10:17
Speaker 1: to stop talking. I said, well, I understand you've already
10:22
Speaker 1: confessed to everything but the kitchen sink, and he said, yeah,
10:26
Speaker 1: I want this over. Garcia told journalist McCormack. I suggested
10:31
Speaker 1: to him that he not talk any more, and he said,
10:35
Speaker 1: I'm not going to stop. I don't need a lawyer.
10:39
Speaker 1: Cell's nearly illiterate with an eighth grade education, spent his
10:43
Speaker 1: life as a boozy, doped up drifter, yet he managed
10:46
Speaker 1: to fly beneath the radar of law enforcement for twenty years,
10:51
Speaker 1: particularly unusual in that most of his victims were not
10:54
Speaker 1: hoboes and sex workers, who typically occupy the lowest priority
10:58
Speaker 1: slot at the back of the homae investigation file draw.
11:03
Speaker 1: He spent time in prisons for a number of other offenses,
11:06
Speaker 1: and that crime pedigree was readily available to law enforcers,
11:10
Speaker 1: but he was never even a suspect in a murder
11:13
Speaker 1: until he failed in his attempt to kill Crystal Searls.
11:16
Speaker 1: His pattern, to the extent that he had won, was simple,
11:21
Speaker 1: kill and move on. Bud Cooper, a Missouri police investigator,
11:26
Speaker 1: explained to a San Antonio reporter why Cells escaped detection.
11:32
Speaker 1: If you or I drove across the United States, we'd
11:35
Speaker 1: be fairly easy to follow. We use credit cards and telephones,
11:40
Speaker 1: but this guy takes trains, uses no credit cards, doesn't
11:44
Speaker 1: use checks. It's kind of like chasing a ghost. The
11:49
Speaker 1: American fascination with crimes and criminals often centers on the
11:52
Speaker 1: workings of the criminal mind, but Cells exhibited none of
11:57
Speaker 1: the evil genius of a Ted Bundy or Charles Manson.
12:01
Speaker 1: He wasn't some strange, far out type person, said Sergeant
12:05
Speaker 1: Terry Ward of the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department in Little Rock, Arkansas.
12:10
Speaker 1: He was just a normal person who loved to kill.
12:14
Speaker 1: If you made him mad, he'd kill. Motivation has been
12:18
Speaker 1: a muddy issue as investigators have reconstructed Cell's life of crime.
12:24
Speaker 1: Some investigators termed him an opportunist criminal who would strike
12:28
Speaker 1: when a likely victim appeared. True crime author Diane Fanning,
12:33
Speaker 1: who wrote about Cells in Through the Window, claimed that
12:36
Speaker 1: he killed with no apparent motive and no common pattern.
12:41
Speaker 1: Yet the evidence shows that Cells was a sexual predator.
12:46
Speaker 1: Many of his crimes included rape and sexual mutilation, and
12:50
Speaker 1: most of his murders began as deviant assaults, including the
12:53
Speaker 1: murder of Katie Harris. It is true that Cells killed
12:58
Speaker 1: with many implements, including nine wives, guns, a baseball bat,
13:02
Speaker 1: and various garroats, and it may be true that some
13:05
Speaker 1: of his crimes were spontaneous rather than calculated. But his
13:10
Speaker 1: sexual predatory urges became more acute over time as adolescent
13:15
Speaker 1: girls and petite women, often lonely single mothers, became his
13:19
Speaker 1: victims of choice. His body of criminal work makes one pattern,
13:24
Speaker 1: one motive all too clear. Tommy Lynn Sells was a
13:29
Speaker 1: sexual psychopath who stalked, raped, and murdered women and girls.
13:36
Speaker 1: Cells was born with a twin sister, Tammy Jean, in
13:39
Speaker 1: Oakland on June twenty eighth, nineteen sixty four. His mother, Nina,
13:44
Speaker 1: had two sons before the twins were born, and three
13:47
Speaker 1: more boys would soon follow. The children had a non
13:51
Speaker 1: traditional upbringing, including fundamental questions about parentage. Officially, an insurance
13:58
Speaker 1: agent named William Cells their father, but author Fanning said
14:02
Speaker 1: the biological father was Joe Lovins, a used car salesman.
14:08
Speaker 1: Fanning wrote that Lovins had bailed William Cells out of
14:11
Speaker 1: a financial hole, and Cells agreed to claim the children
14:15
Speaker 1: as his own in an insurance scam. Cell's job provided
14:20
Speaker 1: health insurance benefit to the children. Much later in life,
14:24
Speaker 1: Tommy Cells would credit Joe Lovins for the fatherly adage
14:28
Speaker 1: that helped him kill so many for so long, Dead
14:32
Speaker 1: men tell no tales. When twins Tommy and Tammy were
14:36
Speaker 1: eighteen months old, Nina Cells moved her troop to Saint Louis,
14:41
Speaker 1: where she had kin. There, Tammy contracted meningitis and died.
14:47
Speaker 1: Tommy exhibited the same high fever as his sister, but
14:51
Speaker 1: he survived. Nina Cells sent her son away to live
14:55
Speaker 1: with her aunt, Bonnie Walpole from ages two to five.
15:00
Speaker 1: The woman told Fanning that the mother never visited, so
15:03
Speaker 1: she inquired about adopting Tommy. The mother was furious. She
15:07
Speaker 1: took possession of the boy and refused to allow him
15:10
Speaker 1: to visit Walpole. Tommy Cells became a chronic truant at
15:15
Speaker 1: the extraordinarily early age of seven, an indication of his
15:19
Speaker 1: mother's indifference. She defended herself to Fanning by saying he
15:24
Speaker 1: was the kind of child that whatever you wanted him
15:27
Speaker 1: to do, he was going to make sure he did
15:29
Speaker 1: not do it. Going to school was one of those things.
15:34
Speaker 1: At the age of eight, young Cells was allowed to
15:37
Speaker 1: spend time with a man from a nearby town who
15:40
Speaker 1: had befriended him. He would take the boy on day trips,
15:43
Speaker 1: and the man would lavish gifts and cash on the child.
15:47
Speaker 1: Cells began to sleep at his home with increasing frequency.
15:51
Speaker 1: The man would later be identified as a predator who
15:54
Speaker 1: abused boys, including Cells, for years before he was caught.
15:58
Speaker 1: According to Fanning, every aspect of Cell's upbringing seemed tainted
16:04
Speaker 1: by his mother's neglect. Harbingers of behavioral pathologies appeared frequently.
16:09
Speaker 1: He was allowed to sample alcohol with his grandpa at
16:13
Speaker 1: age seven, He began smoking ditch weed marijuana at age ten.
16:19
Speaker 1: He crawled into bed naked with his grandma at age thirteen,
16:23
Speaker 1: and he would later undergo mental examination when he tried
16:26
Speaker 1: to rape his own mother. By age fourteen, he was
16:30
Speaker 1: off on his own, a boy, posing as a man,
16:33
Speaker 1: hopping trains, stealing and doing what he had to do
16:36
Speaker 1: to survive. From nineteen seventy eight to nineteen ninety nine,
16:41
Speaker 1: Cells crisscrossed the country by hopping freights, hitching rides, or
16:45
Speaker 1: stealing cars. He spent time in half the states in
16:49
Speaker 1: the Union, begging or working as a carne barber, mechanic,
16:53
Speaker 1: and laborer. A precise accounting of his felonies is impossible.
16:59
Speaker 1: Cells didn't keep deep a crime diary, but a murder
17:02
Speaker 1: he committed in July nineteen eighty five serves as a prototype.
17:07
Speaker 1: He was working with a carnival that had set up
17:10
Speaker 1: in Forsyth, Missouri, a town of one thousand on Table
17:14
Speaker 1: Rock Lake near Branson, then the burgeoning country music center.
17:19
Speaker 1: Among the visitors to the fair was Enna Court, thirty five,
17:24
Speaker 1: a petite divorcee who scraped by working at a car wash.
17:28
Speaker 1: She was treating her four year old son, Rory, to
17:30
Speaker 1: a night out. By Cell's account, he met Court at
17:35
Speaker 1: the fair and she invited him back to her home.
17:37
Speaker 1: Late that night. The authorities found the bludgeoned bodies of
17:41
Speaker 1: the woman and her child three days later. The way
17:45
Speaker 1: Cells tells the story, he had consensual sex with Court,
17:50
Speaker 1: then found her stealing from his backpack. He picked up
17:53
Speaker 1: her son's wooden baseball bat and beat her to death,
17:57
Speaker 1: then killed the child, a potential win witness. There is
18:01
Speaker 1: no telling what really happened. Perhaps he ogled her at
18:05
Speaker 1: the fair, stalked her home, raped and murdered her. Dead.
18:10
Speaker 1: Men tell no tales, as Lovin said, nor do women
18:14
Speaker 1: and innocent children. After his arrest in Texas, rangers and
18:19
Speaker 1: FBI agents led Cells on a series of out of
18:22
Speaker 1: state field trips to try to confirm his recollections of homicides,
18:27
Speaker 1: some of which were vague, owing perhaps to the passage
18:30
Speaker 1: of time and a haze of substance abuse, But the
18:35
Speaker 1: rangers used caution in accepting Cells as counts. The agency
18:39
Speaker 1: was stung with embarrassment over its handling of serial confessor
18:42
Speaker 1: Henry Lee Lucas. Arrested in nineteen eighty three, he claimed
18:47
Speaker 1: to have committed hundreds of homicides, and detectives from across
18:51
Speaker 1: the country rushed to Texas. In a case clearing frenzy.
18:56
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety five, the Dallas Tines Herald charged that
19:00
Speaker 1: the Lucas confessions amounted to a hoax abetted by over
19:04
Speaker 1: zealous law enforces. With Cells, the rangers were more prosnicety
19:10
Speaker 1: about confirming his claims. For example, Cells told author Fanning
19:15
Speaker 1: that he killed a man with a pistol in Mississippi
19:18
Speaker 1: during a home break in just weeks after his sixteenth birthday,
19:21
Speaker 1: and he claimed an ice pick murder in Los Angeles
19:24
Speaker 1: the following year. Police discount those claims as unconfirmed. In
19:30
Speaker 1: March two thousand, Cells took a homicide investigation field trip
19:34
Speaker 1: to Little Rock, Arkansas. He lived there in the early
19:38
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, and claimed he raped and murdered a woman
19:41
Speaker 1: near Little Rock and pitched her body into a baux
19:44
Speaker 1: site mine pit. He also claimed he shot a man
19:48
Speaker 1: during a burglary there. He led police to the mine
19:51
Speaker 1: pit and to the burgled house. It turned out his
19:55
Speaker 1: shot had missed the man, who was alive and well.
19:59
Speaker 1: The mine pit murder remains unresolved. Evidence indicates that Cells
20:04
Speaker 1: went on a murderous rampage in the late nineteen eighties.
20:08
Speaker 1: He claims to have killed a dozen people in seven
20:11
Speaker 1: states from nineteen eighty seven to nineteen eighty nine, literally
20:16
Speaker 1: coast to coast. The investigative technique for fleshing out details
20:21
Speaker 1: of these cases would go something like this. Cells would
20:25
Speaker 1: say he killed a family in the Midwest or a
20:28
Speaker 1: woman hitch hiking in the southwestern desert on an approximate date,
20:33
Speaker 1: and detectives would set out to find matches. They would
20:37
Speaker 1: then press Cells for details of the crimes, the victims,
20:41
Speaker 1: and the settings for comparison to cold cases. In the
20:45
Speaker 1: fall of nineteen eighty seven, Stephanie Strowe, a twenty year
20:49
Speaker 1: old free spirit, was hitch hiking across America back home
20:53
Speaker 1: to San Francisco after a year long trek to Europe
20:56
Speaker 1: and Asia. On October fifteen, she was standing beside a
21:01
Speaker 1: road with her thumb out in Winnemacker, Nevada, when a
21:04
Speaker 1: roofer driving a stolen truck pulled over to offer a ride.
21:08
Speaker 1: The roofer, who had drifted into town that summer, was
21:12
Speaker 1: Tommy Cells. By his account, he drove the young woman
21:16
Speaker 1: toward Reno on I eighty, pulled off at some point,
21:20
Speaker 1: choked her to death, then dropped her body down a
21:23
Speaker 1: hot spring. Two weeks later, Cells failed to show up
21:27
Speaker 1: at work he was on the road again. Despite a
21:32
Speaker 1: massive search, Stroe's body was never found. Some law enforcers
21:37
Speaker 1: believe Cell's account, others doubt he killed the woman, but
21:43
Speaker 1: everyone agrees he was responsible for one particularly depraved multiple
21:47
Speaker 1: homicide in Illinois. In the fall of nineteen eighty seven,
21:52
Speaker 1: a few days before Thanksgiving, hunters walking afield near Ina, Illinois,
21:56
Speaker 1: population five hundred eighty miles east of Saint Lewis found
22:01
Speaker 1: the body of Keith Dardine. He had been shot in
22:05
Speaker 1: the head and his genitals were mutilated. In the trailer
22:09
Speaker 1: where he lived, police found tucked in bed the bodies
22:12
Speaker 1: of Dardine's wife, Elaine and their son, three year old Pete.
22:18
Speaker 1: Each had been bludgeoned to death, and Elaine had been
22:21
Speaker 1: raped and sexually assaulted with the baseball bat the killer
22:25
Speaker 1: used as a murder weapon. Also in the bed, authorities
22:29
Speaker 1: found the body of a newborn daughter, born prematurely during
22:32
Speaker 1: or after the beating administered to a lane. The infant,
22:37
Speaker 1: too was beaten to death. The case had been unsolved
22:40
Speaker 1: for twelve years until the arrest of Cells, who claimed responsibility.
22:46
Speaker 1: The ener murders are examples of the frustrations law enforces
22:51
Speaker 1: and survivors have had in debriefing Cells. They are certain
22:56
Speaker 1: that he killed the Dardine family, but they are not
22:58
Speaker 1: certain of why or what touched off the violence. Cells
23:03
Speaker 1: claims he met Keith Dardine at a truck stop and
23:06
Speaker 1: the man invited him home. He also claims Dardine made
23:10
Speaker 1: sexual advances. Relatives say that it is unlikely that Dardine,
23:16
Speaker 1: who was fearful of crime to the point of paranoia,
23:19
Speaker 1: would have invited a stranger home, and they say the
23:22
Speaker 1: sex come on allegation is absurd. Criminals who commit heinous
23:27
Speaker 1: acts frequently concoct circumstances to explain or even mitigate their
23:32
Speaker 1: own blame. Of course, how else can someone with even
23:35
Speaker 1: a shadow of conscience rationalize the pummeling of a newborn child.
23:40
Speaker 1: Perhaps even Cells doesn't know the truth of his carmage.
23:44
Speaker 1: By nineteen eighty seven, he was a heavy drinker and
23:47
Speaker 1: drug user. He preferred heroine, but settled for just about
23:51
Speaker 1: any drug he could ingest or inhale. He would work
23:54
Speaker 1: a few days or steal something of value, then use
23:57
Speaker 1: his earnings to buy drugs and get up. He was
24:01
Speaker 1: often in a haze. Cells told investigators that his bloody
24:06
Speaker 1: binge continued in nineteen eighty eight and eighty nine. The
24:10
Speaker 1: list is numbing, he said. His victims included an adolescent
24:15
Speaker 1: girl in New Hampshire, a woman and her three year
24:18
Speaker 1: old son killed at a bridge overlook near Twin Falls, Idaho,
24:23
Speaker 1: a transient named Kent Loughton fifty one knife to death
24:27
Speaker 1: in a fight over a marijuana debt in a hobo
24:30
Speaker 1: camp near Tucson, a prostitute in Truckey, California, and a
24:35
Speaker 1: young woman hitchhiker in Oregon. By Christmas nineteen eighty nine,
24:40
Speaker 1: Tommy Cells was a doped out shell. He stumbled into Rawlings, Wyoming,
24:46
Speaker 1: and on January twelfth, nineteen ninety, crossed paths with a
24:50
Speaker 1: young couple who needed tires for their truck. Cells accommodated
24:55
Speaker 1: them by stealing a truck, removing the tires, and selling
24:58
Speaker 1: them at a deep discount. He scored with his profit,
25:02
Speaker 1: then hid out near railroad tracks planning to jump a freight.
25:07
Speaker 1: A cop happened to see his wobbly run toward a
25:09
Speaker 1: train and arrested Cells for public intoxication. He was carrying
25:15
Speaker 1: incidental items from the stolen truck, so cops brought theft
25:19
Speaker 1: charges that led to a sixteen month prison term. But
25:22
Speaker 1: Cells had a difficult time going cold Turkey off narcotics.
25:26
Speaker 1: While in jail, he was having anxiety attacks and hallucinations,
25:31
Speaker 1: among other things. He was carrying on conversations with his
25:34
Speaker 1: awful collection of splotchy self inflicted tattoos. According to author Fanning,
25:40
Speaker 1: a jail shrink ordered mental tests and Cells was diagnosed
25:44
Speaker 1: with a psychiatry textbooks worth of personality disorders, addictions, depressions,
25:50
Speaker 1: and psychoses. Medications stabilized Cells, and he did his time
25:56
Speaker 1: without incident, a free man. A year after he was arrested,
26:01
Speaker 1: Cells hit the road again, returning to his bloody work.
26:05
Speaker 1: In September nineteen ninety one, Cells told authorities he killed
26:10
Speaker 1: Margaret mac lean and her daughter Pamela in Charleston, West Virginia.
26:16
Speaker 1: Eight months later, in the same city, he attacked a
26:19
Speaker 1: twenty year old woman who took him home and offered
26:22
Speaker 1: him bags of food and clothing. After she found Cells
26:25
Speaker 1: on a street corner begging. He raped and stabbed the woman,
26:29
Speaker 1: but she managed to rest the knife from Cells and
26:32
Speaker 1: slash him repeatedly, inflicting twenty three wounds on her assailant.
26:38
Speaker 1: Cells picked up a piano stool and beat the woman
26:41
Speaker 1: into submission, leaving her for dead, but she survived. The
26:46
Speaker 1: woman helped identify Cells, who had become a familiar face
26:49
Speaker 1: around downtown Charleston, often holding a sign that read hungry
26:55
Speaker 1: Will work for food. Cells pleaded guilty to malicious wounding
27:00
Speaker 1: and a rape charge was dropped. He was sentenced in
27:03
Speaker 1: June nineteen ninety three to two to ten years in
27:07
Speaker 1: West Virginia State Prison. Two things happened during his four
27:11
Speaker 1: years behind bars. He got married and he was diagnosed
27:15
Speaker 1: as bipolar. Released in May nineteen ninety seven, Cells moved
27:20
Speaker 1: to Tennessee with his new bride nor A Price, but
27:24
Speaker 1: the marriage was not blissful. Cells abandoned the woman again
27:28
Speaker 1: and again as the peripatetic murderer set off on more
27:32
Speaker 1: cross country travels. For example, he has claimed blame for
27:36
Speaker 1: the October nineteen ninety seven strangulation death of Stephanie Mahaney, thirteen,
27:41
Speaker 1: whose remains were found in a pond west of Springfield, Missouri.
27:46
Speaker 1: In the latter months of nineteen ninety seven, Cells hooked
27:49
Speaker 1: up with the Heart of America Carnival. He operated the
27:53
Speaker 1: ferris wheel and drove the truck that hauled it from
27:56
Speaker 1: town to town. In late February nineteen ninety eight, the
28:00
Speaker 1: carnival put down stakes for an eight day stop in
28:04
Speaker 1: Del Rio, Texas, a border town of thirty five thousand
28:08
Speaker 1: on the Rio Grande just below the Amistad Reservoir Dam.
28:12
Speaker 1: There he met a lonely local woman, Jessica Levy, twenty eight,
28:17
Speaker 1: the mother of four young children. She was enraptured. Cells
28:22
Speaker 1: went away with the carnival, but she lured him back
28:25
Speaker 1: just days later. He moved into her trailer on March
28:29
Speaker 1: thirty first, just a few days before his wife, Nora,
28:33
Speaker 1: was giving birth to his son in Jonesboro, Arkansas. She
28:37
Speaker 1: gave the child up for adoption. Cells took a job
28:41
Speaker 1: maintaining and selling used cars at Amigo Auto Sales in
28:45
Speaker 1: Del Rio. He and Lavrie married in October nineteen ninety eight,
28:50
Speaker 1: although the license was invalid because he had never bothered
28:53
Speaker 1: to divorce Nora. No matter, Cells cut his beard, trimmed
28:58
Speaker 1: his mullet, and wore a res dented tucks for the
29:01
Speaker 1: big event in Del Rio. She gave him a used
29:04
Speaker 1: pickup truck as a wedding gift. He gave her a
29:07
Speaker 1: lifetime of nightmares. Beyond the polygamy, their union was a
29:12
Speaker 1: mismatch in many ways. Lavree was a born again Christian
29:17
Speaker 1: and Cells was indifferent to religion. The woman was sincere
29:22
Speaker 1: and Cells was a comm man. Cells posed as an
29:26
Speaker 1: abiding husband, but he secretly corroused at night, maintaining his
29:31
Speaker 1: well worn habit of drug and alcohol abuse. As always,
29:36
Speaker 1: Cells would disappear periodically. His road trips came frequently in
29:41
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, he would lie to Lavrie that he
29:44
Speaker 1: had business out of town or that he had to
29:47
Speaker 1: see a relative. In fact, Tommy Cells made Del Rio
29:51
Speaker 1: his home base for a furious endgame series of murders
29:55
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety nine. On April fourth, he apparently broke
30:00
Speaker 1: into the trailer home of a thirty two year old
30:03
Speaker 1: woman in Gibson County, Tennessee, seventy five miles northeast of Memphis.
30:09
Speaker 1: He raped and stabbed a woman to death, then stabbed
30:12
Speaker 1: to death her eight year old daughter. He high tailed
30:16
Speaker 1: back to Texas, landing in San Antonio two weeks later
30:20
Speaker 1: with another carnival troop for the city's huge fiesta. At
30:25
Speaker 1: ten pm on April eighteen, Mary B. Perez nine disappeared
30:30
Speaker 1: from her family's table at the Elmacado Music Fest downtown.
30:34
Speaker 1: Ten days later, the girl's body turned up in the
30:37
Speaker 1: San Antonio Creek. She had been raped and slain. The
30:43
Speaker 1: case was unsolved until Cells was arrested and accepted responsibility.
30:49
Speaker 1: Cells hurried out of San Antonio and headed back east
30:52
Speaker 1: to Lexington, Kentucky, where he bedded down at a homeless
30:56
Speaker 1: shelter and worked as a day laborer. On the thirty
31:00
Speaker 1: tenth of May, he saw thirteen year old Hayley McCone
31:03
Speaker 1: enjoying a solitary springtime ride on a swing in a
31:07
Speaker 1: Lexington park. He accosted her and forced her to a
31:11
Speaker 1: wooded section, where he stripped, raped, and choked the girl
31:16
Speaker 1: to death. He rode off on the girl's bicycle and
31:20
Speaker 1: sold it for twenty dollars in a housing project, then
31:23
Speaker 1: used the proceeds to get falling down drunk. Cells was
31:27
Speaker 1: arrested late that night for public intoxication. He was released
31:31
Speaker 1: from jail the next morning, then scooted west back to
31:35
Speaker 1: del Rio, gone long before the girl's body turned up.
31:39
Speaker 1: There may have been other murder excursions before the turn
31:42
Speaker 1: of the millennium. Cells told investigators he traveled to Kingfisher,
31:46
Speaker 1: Oklahoma in July, where he raped and shot Bobby Lynn Wofford, fourteen.
31:53
Speaker 1: In Del Rio, Cells and Lavere began attending Grace Community
31:57
Speaker 1: Church at the invitation of Cels's boss. At a mego
32:00
Speaker 1: auto sales. At the church, Cells met Terry and Crystal
32:05
Speaker 1: Harris and their children, including Katie, a girl of the
32:08
Speaker 1: right age for this sexual predator. Cells insinuated himself into
32:14
Speaker 1: their lives. He visited their double wide several times, pretending
32:18
Speaker 1: to seek Terry Harris's counseling about his marital difficulties. In fact,
32:24
Speaker 1: he was ogling Katie, her twelve year old sister Laurie,
32:28
Speaker 1: and their slender mother, Cristel. The opportunity for the crime
32:33
Speaker 1: opened up when Cells happened to cross paths with Terry
32:36
Speaker 1: Harris on December thirty first, as he gassed up his
32:40
Speaker 1: truck for his trip to Kansas. Harris was a rugged man,
32:45
Speaker 1: a former cop and nightclub bouncer. Cells's m O was
32:50
Speaker 1: to attack women and children, with only a few exceptions.
32:54
Speaker 1: He likely would not have gone to the Harris home
32:56
Speaker 1: that night had he not known that Terry Harris would
32:59
Speaker 1: be away. Cells faced trial for murder in del Rio
33:03
Speaker 1: in September two thousand. He wore a blue suit that
33:07
Speaker 1: covered his tattoos, his hair was closely trimmed, and he
33:11
Speaker 1: wore studious spectacles. Testimony revealed that Katie Harris may not
33:17
Speaker 1: have been his first choice for sexual deviance. On the
33:20
Speaker 1: night of her murder, he spent that evening at Larry's
33:24
Speaker 1: Lakeside tavern. The first witness, bartender Noel Hotchin, said Cells
33:30
Speaker 1: harassed her all night long. He was obsessed with having
33:34
Speaker 1: sex with me. That's all we talked about all night long.
33:37
Speaker 1: She testified. At the two a m. Closing, Cells was
33:41
Speaker 1: shewed away by another man, a customer looking out for Hotchin.
33:46
Speaker 1: Cristel Harris took the stand to testify that her family
33:50
Speaker 1: met Cells in church, then bought a used truck from
33:53
Speaker 1: him because they felt sorry for him. But the star
33:56
Speaker 1: witness was Cristel Searles, the child whose throat he slashed.
34:01
Speaker 1: As the trial began, Cells pleaded guilty to that assault,
34:05
Speaker 1: a well considered legal maneuver. He's attempting to save his life.
34:10
Speaker 1: His lawyer, Victor Garcia, told reporters he's trying to show
34:15
Speaker 1: the jury that he is accepting responsibility. But the trial
34:20
Speaker 1: belonged to young Crystal, who mounted the witness stand with
34:23
Speaker 1: a jagged pink scar across her neck. She bravely recounted
34:28
Speaker 1: the murder of her friend and the slashing of her
34:31
Speaker 1: own throat. She looked Cells in the eye as she testified,
34:35
Speaker 1: and she calmly pointed him out as her assailant. The
34:39
Speaker 1: girl's mother, Pam's Searles told reporters she wants him to die.
34:45
Speaker 1: That's exactly what she said. Cells did not testify, but
34:50
Speaker 1: he did appear in a videotaped walk through of the
34:52
Speaker 1: crime scene that was played for jurors during the tour.
34:56
Speaker 1: He told investigators that he had nothing in tensional on
35:00
Speaker 1: my mind when he went to the Harris home at
35:03
Speaker 1: four a m. Attorney Garcia allowed that the murder was
35:08
Speaker 1: a hellish, brutal crime, but he argued it was not
35:11
Speaker 1: capital murder, a verdict required for condemnation. The jury disagreed.
35:18
Speaker 1: It took just an hour to convict on that charge
35:21
Speaker 1: after a brief three day trial. The jury then voted
35:25
Speaker 1: for execution. Cells joined more than four hundred and fifty
35:29
Speaker 1: others on death row in Livingston, Texas, whose execution total
35:33
Speaker 1: of nearly three hundred since nineteen eighty two led the nation.
35:38
Speaker 1: No execution date for Cells was set. The average stay
35:42
Speaker 1: on Texas death row is ten and a half years,
35:45
Speaker 1: at a cost to taxpayers of fifty five dollars per day.
35:48
Speaker 1: State officials said In two thousand one, the Harris family
35:53
Speaker 1: sat for an interview with the Kansas City Star. They
35:57
Speaker 1: moved back to Kansas, unable to live in the place
36:00
Speaker 1: where Katie was murdered. It took just ten minutes for
36:04
Speaker 1: Cells to uproot our family, Harris told the paper. He
36:08
Speaker 1: stole our daughter's accomplishments, every birthday, every holiday for a
36:13
Speaker 1: whole year. Everything snowballed downhill. He stole our lifestyle. We
36:18
Speaker 1: may have to file bankruptcy. I'm not allowed to work.
36:21
Speaker 1: I have too many anger issues. The drugs were on
36:25
Speaker 1: for depression are really expensive. I don't feel like a man.
36:31
Speaker 1: Forget about sex. There's no way you can plan for
36:34
Speaker 1: something like this, he continued. It eats me up that
36:38
Speaker 1: I tried to help Tommy. I talked with him. He
36:42
Speaker 1: was a guide down on his luck that I tried
36:44
Speaker 1: to help. He repaid me by killing my daughter. While
36:49
Speaker 1: the survivors of his murders tried to cope, Cells groused
36:53
Speaker 1: about his treatment In letters posted on the internet. He
36:57
Speaker 1: complained about denial of basic hyghien, a paucity of food,
37:01
Speaker 1: and a lack of sleep. Like a number of other
37:05
Speaker 1: condemned inmates, Cells became a death row Picasso. His kindergarten
37:10
Speaker 1: quality art showed up on the Internet, including manacled preying
37:14
Speaker 1: hands and a Texas flag with the message Governor George
37:18
Speaker 1: Bush killed one hundred and thirty five and still going.
37:23
Speaker 1: Cells wrote a letter to author Fanning that was included
37:26
Speaker 1: at the end of her book Through the Window. The
37:30
Speaker 1: content of the letter was self pitying, self serving, and antisemitic.
37:36
Speaker 1: It showed precious little reflection and managed to blame everyone
37:39
Speaker 1: but himself for his predicament, including inexplicably Jews. He waxed
37:46
Speaker 1: sanctimonious about the value of human life, particularly his own.
37:51
Speaker 1: Among other things, he expressed outrage that the prosecutor in
37:54
Speaker 1: the Katie Harris murder had had the temerity to show
37:57
Speaker 1: jurors and autopsy picture of the girl. His take on
38:01
Speaker 1: this issue perhaps best exemplifies his disconnection from the reality
38:05
Speaker 1: of what he has done. Tommy Sells wrote that is
38:09
Speaker 1: what got me the guilty verdict, not evidence. I still
38:14
Speaker 1: do not get it to this day that picture had
38:16
Speaker 1: nothing to do with what happened at the Harris home.
38:20
Speaker 1: Cells had a falling out with the Texas Rangers and
38:23
Speaker 1: he stopped cooperating. As he put it, in a letter
38:27
Speaker 1: posted on the internet. I'm taking some time off from
38:30
Speaker 1: working so close with the Rangers. As a matter of fact,
38:34
Speaker 1: I've stopped for one or two reasons. Too much, too fast.
38:39
Speaker 1: They are getting on my nerves as I was getting
38:42
Speaker 1: on theirs. Them Rangers want to rip my guts out
38:46
Speaker 1: because I've wanted a break. Investigators said Cells was using
38:50
Speaker 1: his co operation shrewdly passing out details that might lead
38:55
Speaker 1: to additional field trips. He also knew that should he
38:59
Speaker 1: start talking again down the line, it might be reason
39:02
Speaker 1: enough to prompt delays of his execution. An accurate accounting
39:06
Speaker 1: of the murders committed by Tommy Lnn Cells may never
39:10
Speaker 1: be possible. In two thousand three, Cells pled guilty to
39:14
Speaker 1: capital murder for slaying nine year old Mary bay Perez
39:17
Speaker 1: at the San Antonio Fiesta. In exchange for the plea,
39:22
Speaker 1: prosecutors waived the death penalty and Cells automatically received a
39:27
Speaker 1: sentence of life in prison. Also that year, he was
39:31
Speaker 1: indicted in Missouri in the nineteen ninety seven strangulation death
39:35
Speaker 1: of Stephanie Mahiney, thirteen, near Springfield. In April two thousand four,
39:42
Speaker 1: police in Lockport, New York, officially notified survivors of a
39:46
Speaker 1: murder victim there that Cells likely was responsible. Suzanne Courch
39:51
Speaker 1: twenty eight, disappeared in May nineteen eighty seven after she
39:55
Speaker 1: stormed out of a Lockport bar following a quarrel with
39:58
Speaker 1: her boyfriend. Her skeletal remains were found eight years later
40:03
Speaker 1: at the base of an escarpment in Lockport, near Niagara Falls.
40:08
Speaker 1: The details of the homicide are unclear, but Cells confessed
40:12
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two that he was responsible for
40:14
Speaker 1: the long unsolved murder. Authorities said he gave details that
40:19
Speaker 1: led them to believe he was telling the truth, including
40:22
Speaker 1: a description of the victim. He was scrutinized in the
40:26
Speaker 1: murders of a woman and her daughter in Saint Louis
40:29
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty three and the rake and gunshot slayings
40:32
Speaker 1: of a farm wife and daughter in Portageville, Missouri, and
40:37
Speaker 1: Cells was at the center of a wrongful conviction allegation
40:40
Speaker 1: in Illinois. Julie Raya Harper was sentenced to sixty five
40:45
Speaker 1: years in prison in two thousand two following a conviction
40:49
Speaker 1: by a jury for the nineteen ninety seven stabbing death
40:52
Speaker 1: of her son, ten year old Joel Kirkpatrick. Prosecutors alleged
40:58
Speaker 1: that Raya Harper killed the boy in her home in
41:01
Speaker 1: Lawrenceville in downstate Illinois after she lost custody of him
41:06
Speaker 1: to his father as a result of a contentious divorce.
41:10
Speaker 1: In May two thousand four the Center of Wrongful Convictions
41:13
Speaker 1: at Northwestern University Law School took up the cause, saying
41:18
Speaker 1: courts should grant a new trial because Cells wrote two
41:21
Speaker 1: coy letters indicating he may know something about the case.
41:26
Speaker 1: Others have joined in the call for a new trial
41:29
Speaker 1: for the woman who continued to proclaim her innocence. Young
41:33
Speaker 1: Kirkpatrick was killed just two days before Stephanie Mahaney, and
41:37
Speaker 1: the murder scenes were less than one hundred miles apart.
41:42
Speaker 1: Julie's conviction was overturned on appeal on procedural grounds, not
41:46
Speaker 1: a full factual exoneration, she was released pending retrial. At
41:52
Speaker 1: retrial in two thousand and six, she was acquitted by
41:55
Speaker 1: a jury, so legally she was not guilty. By twenty fourteen,
42:01
Speaker 1: Cell's legal situation was essentially exhausted in the Harris case.
42:05
Speaker 1: Direct appeals failed, state relief was denied, federal petitions were denied,
42:10
Speaker 1: and no stay of execution was issued, so on January third,
42:15
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, a Del Rio judge set Cell's execution date
42:20
Speaker 1: for April third, twenty fourteen. Texas abolished the special last
42:26
Speaker 1: meal of choice tradition in twenty eleven after the Lawrence
42:29
Speaker 1: Russell Brewer case. By twenty fourteen, inmates still received a
42:35
Speaker 1: final meal, but it was no longer a customized public
42:38
Speaker 1: request system in the same way, more like a standard
42:41
Speaker 1: institutional meal, so he got that instead. Cells was executed
42:46
Speaker 1: by lethal injection on April third, twenty fourteen, at the
42:50
Speaker 1: age of forty nine. A lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered.
42:56
Speaker 1: He took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes, and
42:59
Speaker 1: began hean to snore. Thirteen minutes later, at six twenty
43:04
Speaker 1: seven p m. He was pronounced dead. Crystal Searles and
43:09
Speaker 1: members of both the Harris and Perez families attended the execution.
43:13
Speaker 1: Cells claimed to have killed up to seventy victims, but
43:16
Speaker 1: he was linked in twenty two of the cases not
43:19
Speaker 1: proven or confirmed in court. The only two legally proven
43:24
Speaker 1: were those of Kleene Harris and Mary Bay Perez.