When Innocence Is Not Enough

Julie and Joel

by Diane Fanning

If your child were murdered and you were charged with committing that homicide but you knew you were not the perpetrator, how do you cope with knowing that your innocence simply was not enough to pull you out of the vortex of a criminal justice system operating in an alternative reality?

Can you imagine anything worse ever happening to a parent?  I can't.

It is what happened to Julie Rea after the murder of her ten-year-old son Joel Kirkpatrick.  She described the intruder in her home.  She suffered injuries that the emergency room doctor said could not have been self-inflicted.  She passed lie detector test.  Law enforcement did not believe her. 

Represented by an inexperienced, court-appointed attorney, she was convicted and sentenced to 65 years in prison.

Initially, I did not believe her, either.  I did not place any credibility in what was said by Julie, her friends, her family or her attorneys.   Then, I heard the prosecutor speak.  He said that there were no stranger fingerprints in the house; that no stranger would come into the house to kill a child; that the violence of the crime proved the perpetrator was someone very close to the child; and that a person does not come into someone's home without a weapon and pull a knife out of the kitchen drawer and use it to kill.

That's when I knew Julie Rea might not be guilty because I'd been interviewing serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells for my book Through the Window.  He did all those things at crime scenes.  I didn't suspect him then but thought someone just like him could have committed the crime. 

When I wrote to Sells about what the ridiculous things the prosecutor said, without any details of names, places or dates, he wrote back asking if the crime was committed a couple days before his murder of Stephanie Mahaney in Springfield, Missouri--maybe on the 13th.  That was how his confession began.  Still, I was skeptical until Bill Clutter, investigator for the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project, found corroborating testimony in the town of Lawrenceville, Illinois.



Julie Rea and Diane Fanning

From that moment on, I was convinced and was determined to do what I could to help find justice for Julie Rea.  The Center for Wrongful Convictions and an extraordinary Chicago defense attorney, Ron Safer, became involved.  Julie got a new trial and was acquitted of the crime.  Just last month, she received a Certificate of Actual Innocence from the State of Illinois. Julie handed me the Defender of the Innocent Award from the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project--definitely the highlight of my career as a crime writer.

Whenever anyone maligns the True Crime genre or is dismissive of my writing, I will always think of Julie and the role my book played in her tragic story.  It is just one example of why I think the genre makes a significant contribution and why I feel compelled to keep writing it.

But still something was missing and that was Justice for Joel.  After his murder, if the sheriff's office would have paid any attention to reports of a suspicious stranger in town, maybe deputies could have found Tommy Lynn Sells before he killed again.  But, instead, they myopically focused on proving Julie's guilt, hid some evidence from the defense and ignored anything that did not fit their theory of the case.

Today, even though the state has completely exonerated Julie Rea, the State's Attorney's Office refuses to investigate further--refuses to find Justice for Joel.

This Sunday night, on the Investigation Discovery channel, at 10 pm Eastern, On the Case with Paula Zahn presents A Mother's Nightmare, the story of Julie Rea, her son Joel and the many people including me, who stood up to find Justice for Julie and Joel.

Throughout the trial of Casey Anthony, Diane Fanning, author of Mommy's Little Girl, writes daily about the the pursuit of Justice for Caylee Anthony on her blog, Writing Is a Crime.

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Darlie Routier: Vicious Mother or Tragic Victim?

by Diane Fanning

Every time a television program involving Tommy Lynn Sells or one of his crimes is broadcast, I receive emails asking if he could have been in Rowlett, Texas, on June 6, 1996--the day seven-year-old Devon Routier and his five-year-old brother Damon died. These questions began within days of the release of my book about Sells in April 2003 and have continued unabated since then.

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The boys were murdered in the middle of the night, Sells' favored time for homicide. Someone had plunged a knife into their chests, puncturing their lungs. A weapon Sells was known to use often.

The boys' mother, Darlie, who had fallen asleep with them on the floor in front of the television, also had wounds. Although hers were not life-threatening, they were definitely beyond superficial. One cut damaged the sheath surrounding her carotid artery but did not sever that vital link to life. With a little emergency care, she was soon able to stand on the front porch in her bloody nightgown and tell her story of the events in her home.

Darlie said that she awakened when the man made physical contact with her. It was

at that moment, she realized her children had been harmed. She fought him off, he dropped his knife, he raced toward the garage. She described him as medium height, dressed in black and wearing a ball cap. After giving her statement, she was taken to the hospital. (above left)

This scenario bore a lot of similarity to the murder of 10-year-old Joel Kirkpatrick and the wounds inflicted on his mother Julie Rea Harper. As a result when an episode about Julie and Joel's case aired on Unusual Suspects, an Investigation Discovery show, a couple of weeks ago, I was deluged with dozens of emails asking once again about Sells' whereabouts.

The similarities went beyond the time of night, the viciousness of the attack, dead sons and injured mothers. In Darlie's case, two unidentified bloody fingerprints were found--one in the house, one in the garage--but prosecution witnesses testified that all the prints found belonged to Darlie or her boys. In Julie's case, investigators found a bloody footprint on a piece of cardboard in the bedroom. It was far too large to be Joel's footprint and even too large to belong to his mother. The prosecutor in Illinois concealed this evidence from the defense.

In both cases, there were items available for DNA testing. In both cases, the prosecutor fought this testing. This is a stance I cannot understand and cannot accept. I've heard all the arguments justifying this behavior, but I am not moved. If it is your mission is to uncover truth and seek justice, should you ever fight learning a fact? No. I expect more from prosecutors--much more.

Both Julie and Darlie were found guilty of murder in the death of their sons--a conviction that if wrongfully rendered was the cruelest fate that could ever befall any mother who loses a child to violence. Julie was sentenced to sixty-five years behind bars. Darlie was given the death penalty.

When Sells confessed to me that he murdered young Joel Kirkpatrick, a door was opened for Julie Rea Harper. I put it in my book and between the work of the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois at Springfield and the Center for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, Julie got a new trial. Julie was acquitted and released from jail.

I know, without the shadow of doubt and beyond any concerns, that Julie Rea Harper did not murder her son. I am strongly inclined to believe that Tommy Lynn Sells did commit this crime, just as he said.

As for Darlie, I'm not convinced of her guilt or innocence. I am certain that there are many questions that need to be answered before we can possibly put her to death with a clear conscious.

There is only one thing I know absolutely about the deaths of Devon and Damon--those murders cannot be laid at Tommy Lynn Sells' feet. He was in a penitentiary in West Virginia serving a sentence for assaulting Fabienne Witherspoon, a woman who fought back and survived his brutal knife attack.

If not Sells, then who? The obvious answer is that it could be Darlie. But that is not the only answer. As Texas Ranger Coy Smith once told me: "If you knew how many people like Sells were roaming across the country at any given time, it would blow the skirt right up over your head."

Maybe Darlie did kill her sons. Maybe it was one of those drifters Smith mentioned. Maybe.

Shouldn't that question be answered with certainty before we allow the state to take Darlie's life?

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Independence from Uncertainty

by Diane Fanning

Today is the eleventh anniversary of the murder of fourteen-year-old Bobbie Lynn Wofford from Kingfisher, Oklahoma. She was last seen at Love's Country Store at 4 a.m., July 5, 1999. Tommy Lynn Sells confessed that he was there, too. He stopped to put air in a tire with a troublesome leak.

Spotting the young blond woman on the pay phone, he offered her a ride.

In a secluded area, he forced her to perform oral sex and raped her with a ratchet. In an attempt to escape, she jerked open the door and Sells grabbed his gun. He pulled the trigger and Bobbie Lynn Wofford fell dead in the dirt on the side of the road.

Bobbie Lynn's mother, Susan, had no idea of what happened to her daughter for four long months. On November 4, men hunting quail stumbled across Bobbie Lynn's purse. Sheriff Danny Graham sent out a team to that location. They found her body decomposing in the woods, apparently killed by a gunshot to her head.

Sells (right) was arrested two months later for the murder of thirteen-year-old Katie Harris in Del Rio, Texas. Once in custody, he confessed to other homicides. During their extensive investigation, Texas Rangers John Allen and Coy Smith located a pair of earrings Sells had given to a woman in town. They matched a necklace found on the body of Bobbie Lynn Wofford.

Local law enforcement, state investigators and the FBI wanted the case to go to trial. One thing stood in their way: prosecutor Ard Gates. Gates had been burned once before by a false confession by another man arrested in Texas, Henry Lee Lucas (left). He was cautious and skeptical to a fault. He refused to move the case forward.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation was convinced of Sells' guilt. In recognizing Agent Steve Tanio with the 2001 Agent of the Year Award, they cited the detective for identifying the suspect and obtaining his confession in Bobbie Lynn's murder.

Still, in February 2002, Gates was continued to drag his feet. He spoke at a Rotary Club luncheon explaining his reluctance. Even though Susan Wofford identified the earrings as the ones matching her daughter's necklace, the prosecutor insisted that they were not a match. He dismissed Sells' story even though the serial killer was able to pick Bobbie Lynn out of a photo line-up, describe the isolated area where her body was found, and identify the correct type of weapon used to fire the fatal shot. He described it all as lies, despite knowing that law enforcement located the truck he drove that night and corroborated the leaking tire, and that witnesses had identified both Sells and his pick-up truck. Gates insisted there was no solid forensic evidence.

The case remains open. Current Kingfisher County Sheriff Dennis Banther told a reporter at The Oklahoman: "Periodically, we still receive phone calls. Whether we think it's a good lead or not, we still track it down. We investigate every lead. A day doesn't go by that we don't think about that case. We even have a Wofford room here where we can spread out all our information. Trust me, that file is not store in a basement somewhere."

Eleven years later, the same questions remain: Is the case already solved? Or was Ard Gates right and everyone else wrong? Will Bobbie Lynn Wofford ever find justice?

Bobbie Lynn is not alone in this cold pursuit. She is just one of a number of unsolved murders in small towns in Oklahoma.

In Cheyenne, 89-year-old Luella "Granny" Wright was killed in her bed on July 28, 2001. Authorities have a suspect, but he is sitting in a Mexican prison. However, even if they had him in custody, they are not certain they have sufficient evidence to convict.

Melissa Flores (left) was last seen on January 27, 2007. Her car and purse were found at an estranged boyfriend's home in Cordell. Her body has never been found. Last month, the OSBI renewed their $10,000 reward for information in her case.

Thirteen-year-old Taylor Placker and 11-year-old Skyla Whitaker were shot thirteen times with two different weapons. Their bodies were found on a dirt road, 300 yards from the Placker home. The reward fund for information in that case now stands at $160,000. A grand jury empanelled in September 2008 returned no indictments.

The body of Carol Daniels (right), pastor of Christ Holy Sanctified Church in Andarko, was found behind the altar of the sanctuary on August 23, 2009. Her knife-slashed body was arranged in the position of a crucifix.

It is likely in every case that someone has remained silent--that somebody has the knowledge to unlock these mysteries. On this long Independence Day weekend, we can only hope that one of those people will step forward and give the loved ones of these victims independence from uncertainty, and freedom from the questions that have haunted them day after day.

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Out of the Darkness

By Diane Fanning

Ten years ago this month, Krystal Surles encountered a living nightmare -- serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells. In "Live to Tell," the news-magazine 48 Hours revived that night of terror in interviews with the survivor, now 20; her family; and lead investigator John Allen, a Texas Ranger.

As I watched the show, the crime-scene photographs I'd pored over eight years ago throbbed and burned behind my eyes: The foot-long boning knife found in a field (below left) by Sells' home; the dead body of Krystal's friend, Katie Harris, bloodied and slumped on the floor. The trail of 10-year-old Krystal's blood leading out of the bedroom. The small, bloody hand prints marking her path down the hall. The dried river of red that ran out the doorway, down the steps and into the ground of the front yard. The long gravel road that led to the house, far away, where Krystal found refuge and salvation. Out of that darkness emerged an amazing young girl and a survivor in every sense of the word.

I felt thrust back in time to the cluttered room where I sat alone at a makeshift desk, flipping through one photo after another. I felt again the same horror, shock and building nausea that accompanied that two-dimensional glimpse into Krystal's nightmare.

I asked myself again: How did I manage to write that book? How did I navigate through one deadly crime scene after another? How could I look at those portraits of evil and sit for hours interviewing the man responsible -- a man Texas Ranger John Allen described as an animal in a human body?

The simple answer to both of those questions is Krystal Surles.

An urge to write this story washed over me after I watched her in the courtroom video just nine months after the crime. She walked in, head held high, past Sells and into the witness box. She looked sweet, pretty and innocent in a pink and white striped shirt. But the angry, diagonal scar the knife left across her neck made it clear that her innocence had been stolen long before she raised her finger and pointed at the monster who murdered her friend and left her for dead.

She awoke every night throughout the trial, screaming from nightmares brought on by memories of the bloody horror and her own harrowingly narrow escape. Yet she was able to do what she must to get justice for her friend Katie.

One small child, with the courage of a dozen grown women, stopped the two-decade killing spree of an evil, crafty criminal. She said she survived because Katie's soul came to her that night, giving her the will to fight for her life. No matter where her courage came from, the existence of so much of it in such a little girl took my breath away.

Now, Krystal (right) is a young woman speaking of her past but looking to her future. She possesses an abundance of poise and confidence. But the faint scar that traces a line across her neck speaks of the poignant pain and eternal grief she bears from witnessing the death of her friend.

Krystal Surles was my hero then. She is my hero now. God bless you, Krystal -- no matter where you go or what you do, may your everlasting courage serve you well all the days of your life.



Diane Fanning is author of Through the Window, the book that chronicles Tommy Lynn Sells' two-decade killing orgy ended by Krystal Surles' bravery. The book helped win a new trial and acquittal for a woman wrongfully convicted of one of Sells' murders.

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Best Woman in the World?

by Diane Fanning

I got a very unusual email last week from someone who was quite mad at me—I assume he was angry because of the careful and frequent use of capital letters in his message. Writing True Crime books opens an author up to a lot of unwarranted criticism from two divergent groups of people with dissimilar world views.

The first are those who object to the guilty verdict awarded to a perpetrator and of course, the author who doesn't call it a wrongful conviction. WRITTEN IN BLOOD created a lot of these category of critics. Michael Peterson beat his wife to death at the foot of the stairs in his Durham mansion. He received a guilty verdict, based largely on forensic evidence, and has lost his appeals in the courts.

Yet, there are a number of family, friends and others in the general public who still support his innocence. In doing so, some cling to the most outrageous theories—like the owl as killer story. Yes, they actually believe an owl flew into the home and killed Kathleen as she walked up the stairs. It doesn’t matter that the theory does not explain the presence of red neurons in Kathleen’s brain, or the blood spatter on the inside of Michael’s shorts or the fact that sixteen years earlier, another woman was found dead at the foot of a different set of stairs with the same injuries to her skull and Michael was the last person to see her alive. Nope, an owl did it—don’t confuse them with the facts!

Another group--folks in some towns who don’t think a book should be written at all. They don’t want anyone to know about a crime that happened in their backyard. These very same people often praise any media help in finding a missing person, and when the body is found they waste no time insulting newspaper staff, broadcasters and book writers who dare report on the story.

I saw a book on Amazon this past week that seemed to come under attack just because it existed—MURDER IN CONNECTICUT by Michael Benson. I don’t know Benson and can’t attest to his motivation and I haven’t read the book so have no opinion on its quality. But when I read lines from reviews like: “Amazon remove this book from your site…this is a disgusting attempt by a pathetic author and publisher to profit from a family that was tragically murdered,” or “Evil has many faces. Profiting from an unauthorized book on crime is one of these faces.”

I feel badly for Benson, whoever he is, for these unfair assaults. Do these same people criticize journalists who write for newspaper, magazines, radio or television? The police officers and detectives who get a paycheck for working the crime? For the District Attorney who prosecutes the perpetrators? Probably not. But they “profit” from the crime in the same way a true crime author does—and yet the only one criticized is poor Michael Benson.

The email I received this week, though, was quite different. It was written in the defense of Nina Sells, the mother of Tommy Lynn Sells, a serial killer residing on death row in Texas. The author of the e-mail accused me of not checking sources for my book, THROUGH THE WINDOW. He wrote that I “degraded one of the best women in the world.”

Who were my sources? Law enforcement officials and victims' family members across the country as well as to Tommy Sells and many members of his family, including Nina Sells, who didn't deny anything the others told me. I learned what she did and who she was from multiple sources.

Nina, abandoned Tommy with an aunt when he was 18 months old. She never visitied him. Yet two and a half years later, when the relatives wanted to adopt Tommy so that they could enroll him in school, Nina jerked her son out of the only home he could remember. From that point on, she wouldn't let him see those family members again.

Then when Tommy was 7 years old, she turned him over to a predatory pedophile. The writer of the email claimed that Tommy wanted to go over to his molester’s house and his mother couldn’t stop him. Really? I’m sorry as a mother, it stretches my imagination to think I could not control any of my kids when they were seven or eight years old—or that I’d let a child of mine go live with a pedophile because that’s what the child wanted.

Even after writing ten true crime books, the cruelty, depravity, arrogance and narcissism of killers still shocks me. But I have gained some understanding of how their minds work and the sociopathic personalities that allow them to commit acts of evil without a scintilla of remorse. I don’t think, though, I will ever be able to understand people who defend these killers or the neglectful and abusive parents who are sometimes responsible for the monsters in our midst.

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Conspiracy between Killers Fails

by Diane Fanning

Last week, the West Virginia Supreme Court denied the appeal of Dana December Smith. He'd been convicted in 1992 of two counts of felony murder. The jury did not recommend mercy which in the state of West Virginia was the equivalent of life without parole.

He was accused of a brutal homicide. In September 1991, Pamela Castaneda, 36, was sexually assaulted and stabbed seventeen times in her blue cinder block home in Leewood, West Virginia. Her disabled mother, 63-year-old Margaret McClain was stabbed fourteen times. Both women were found naked from the waist down.

When Smith learned he was a suspect, he hid out in the woods for four days until law enforcement tracked him down and took him into custody. It was the twenty-fourth arrest for the 25-year-old Smith.

He was not a model prisoner. He hit guards, jerked off their ties, tore their shirts, pelted them with apples and spit at them. Prosecutor Bill Forbes said, "This is the most cold-blooded killer I have seen."

Smith did not disappoint when allowed to read a statement before sentencing. He said he had no remorse and told the state's attorney, "You better pray I never get out of prison. You can take that as a threat."

The evidence at trial included the discovery of Smith's DNA at the crime scene and t-shirt found in Smith's possession that was splattered with Pamela's blood.

Unfortunately, that evidence was analyzed by Fred Zain(right), a man who worked as a Forensic Serology expert in West Virginia and Texas.

DNA analysis cleared a West Virginia prisoner in another case where Zain had testified that his "blood was identical" to that recovered from a rape victim. A forensic review of an additional fourteen randomly selected cases found something wrong in each and every one. Zain had testified about blood at a crime scene when no blood had been found there. He claimed to have conducted tests that were beyond the capability of his lab.

In 1993, the West Virginia Supreme Court discredited Zain's work saying "any testimonial or documentary evidence offered by Zain at any time in any criminal prosecution should be deemed invalid, unreliable and inadmissible."

Texas looked into his work, too. In August of 1994, Zain surrendered in Hondo, Texas on charges of aggravated perjury, evidence tampering and fabrication. Zain testified falsely in hundreds of cases--at least six individuals were wrongfully incarcerated because of his testimony. Although indicted, Zain died before he could be prosecuted.

It was just the opening Smith's attorneys needed. They wanted to retest the DNA evidence. But since the entire sample had been expended in the original analysis, attorneys appealed but that went nowhere. There was too much other evidence of his guilt, including his own admission, that he had stolen the victims' car.

Then, along came Tommy Lynn Sells(left). In the middle of the confessions after his arrest on capital murder charges in January 2000, Sells got irritated with his interrogators and decided to "jerk their chain." He told them about a dream he had about the Castaneda-McLain homicides. In reality, he was only regurgitating what he remembered hearing from Smith when they were on the same cell block in a West Virginia penitentiary.

That case wound on a list of previous crimes the prosecuting attorney submitted to court when Sells went to trial in September, 2000--even though the Texas Rangers had already concluded that the confession was not valid.

I had my first interview with Sells in 2001. From the start, he claimed that it wasn't his crime. He said he was repulsed by the sexual molestation of an older, disabled woman. "The right person is in jail for that one. Smith is a useless piece of crap."

After considering what Sells had to say and professional opinion of the Texas Rangers, I believed Sells was not responsible for that double homicide and did not include it in the original edition of THROUGH THE WINDOW.

When I was contacted by Wendy Campbell in the Public Defender's office, I agreed to ask him about the case again but he'd always told me that it was not his crime. To my surprise, this time Sells said he did do it and he was eager to speak with the female attorney. Neither Campbell nor I knew about the letter from Indiana written on behalf of Dana December Smith. The writer urged Sells to claim responsibility for the murders--since he was already sitting on death row, it wouldn't make any difference to him. Was Sells promised anything in exchange for his false confession? Probably. But Sells is not talking.

That confession landed me in West Virginia court on a cold, snowy day in January 2006. I testified at a hearing before the judge considering Smith's appeal. I did it for the victims' family members. They were terrified that Smith would get out of prison. I couldn't remain silent and allow the lie of Sells' confession make that happen.

The next month, Sells recanted. For the court, his denial was not necessary. There were several serious errors in his account of the crime. For example, he mentioned a brown couch with a black afghan in the MacLain/Castaneda home. In the evidence submitted at trial, the photograph was there, just as Sells described it--but the snapshot was taken in someone else's home and not present at the crime scene. Someone had fed him the information he needed to make a plausible confession but not enough details to ensure credibility.

Smith's state appeals are now exhausted. Of course, there is always recourse to the federal judiciary. For the sake of the victims' family, I hope that avenue is not pursued.

Dana December Smith belongs behind bars. I hope he stays there.

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Victims Matter More than Money

by Diane Fanning

Last week, a spokesman for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office in Florida said that the case is too old and the investigation would cost too much to continue. That bothers me--a lot.

I am saddened but do understand when a law enforcement agency says that they have no more leads, no suspects and nowhere to turn. Dead ends can end an investigation. But money should not block the path to justice. And in the case in question, there is a suspect.

In 1965, Nelos Sills' death was ruled a suicide. This conclusion was based on the statement of his wife Betty Sills. According to her, she and her husband were alone in their mobile home on Big Coppitt Key. They argued and Nelos pulled out a gun and shot himself--once. An autopsy was not performed.

But Nelos was in the Navy and the Naval Criminal Investigation Service had a file on the case. According to their documents, Nelos was shot twice--definitely not a typical suicide. One bullet from the pistol went through his heart, the other sliced his liver.

The current investigators wanted to exhume his body but they were told since it might be voluntary manslaughter, the statute of limitations had run out. Of course, if that assumption is wrong and Betty commited first or even second degree murder, there is not time limit. How can they determine that it was the lesser crime without an autopsy?

Also, according to the Navy, the couple was not alone. Betty's two children were there. Gary Flynn, her son, is dead. Betty's daughter, Peggy Saunders, lives in Ocala, Florida, and remembers the argument and the shooting. (Betty, Gary, Peggy, on the right) Monroe County investigators did not question her. Why? The same Sheriff's Office spokesperson said that "they just didn't have the money to fly all over the state."

Betty received life insurance after the death of Nelos--she benefited from his death.

Where is Betty now at the age of 76? You've heard her name in the news recently. She's suspected black widow, Betty Neumar. This past summer, she was arrested in North Carolina for the 1986 homicide of the fourth of her five dead husbands, Harold Gentry. Nelos Sills was her third husband.

Betty is out on a $300,000 bail bond awaiting trial for soliciting three different people to commit first-degree murder in the six weeks before Harold was found shot dead in his home. In Ohio, Betty is being investigated in the 1970 shooting death of her first husband, Clarence Malone. They are also investigating what happened to her son, Gary, whose death in 1985 was ruled a suicide. Betty collected life insurance when he died, too.

Georgia has recently closed their investigation into the death of her fifth husband, John Neumar. His family feels the closure of that case, too, was premature. And no one is looking into the death of her second husband, James Flynn. Betty told North Carolina investigators that he "died on a pier" somewhere in New York in the mid-fifties.

I ran across a similar cases while researching the murders committed by serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells. One investigator told me that he didn't see any sense in wasting taxpayer money on an investigation when the perpetrator was already sitting on death row in Texas. "If anybody'll take care of him, Texas will."

Yes, he is right. But a victim cries out for justice and a family waits on the sidelines for answers. The victim's death and the family's questions do matter.

Murder investigation--particularly in a cold case--is an expensive proposition. And time-consuming as well. But don't our law enforcement agencies owe it to the victim and their families to pursue justice until all leads have been exhausted?

I understand if law enforcement has to limit the resources and make an older, expensive investigation a lower priority. But to give up because it would cost too much? It sounds too much like putting a price tag on someone's life.

That, I will never understand.

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Out of the Closet

by Diane Fanning

Just when I thought law enforcement had forgotten Tommy Lynn Sells, along comes a former deputy with Missouri's Cape Girardeau County Sheriff’s Department asking about a long forgotten body. And once again, Sells' name was dropped as a possible suspect. I thought by now he’d been considered in every single cold case that remained open in his home state in the 1980s and 1990s. Apparently not.

Back when Sells was arrested, on January 2, 2000, investigators across the country dusted off files of cold cases eager to see if Sells was a possible perpetrator. After 48 Hours aired the show about the serial killer, Texas Rangers Johnny Allen and Coy Smith came into their offices to discover hundreds of requests from detectives all across the country wanting to know if Sells could have been in the right place at the right time to commit an unsolved murder in their jurisdiction.

The inquiries and interview requests continued to flood into Texas up to Sells' trial in September 2000, when he was convicted of the murder and sexual assault of Katie Harris and the attempted murder of Krystal Surles in Del Rio, Texas. Sells was sentenced to death.

Some law enforcement agencies no longer wanted to waste resources on looking at Sells—after all, unlike some states, Texas is very serious about the enforcement of their death penalty. Other investigators, though, who hungered to find closure for family members and satisfaction in their quest for justice, continued travelling to Texas to question Sells.

I fielded a lot of requests for information, too. I heard from detectives, family members, prosecutors, defense attorneys, private investigators, and some from uninvolved but curious true-crime buffs. Among the latter group, I received hundreds of emails about the Darlie Routier case. Although she sits on Death Row for the murder of her two sons, many people still believe in her innocence. They wanted to know if Tommy Lynn Sells was in the Dallas area at the time of that crime. While there may be doubts about Darlie’s guilt, Sells had an ironclad alibi—he sat behind bars in a West Virginia prison. There was no way he was responsible for killing those two boys.

This summer, though, as Sells approaches the eighth anniversary of his death sentence, interest in the Death Row inmate seemed to have died down. The only question most people still asked was: Have they killed him yet?

Until this month in the boot heel of Missouri, that is. Renewed interest in a 1981 homicide case raised his name again. The remains of an unknown white male, aged 20 to 40 and ranging from 5-feet-nine to five-feet-eleven inches tall, were found in a wooded area on April 6, 1981. The corpse was clothed in green pants, a short-sleeved khaki shirt (above) and a pair of black loafers adorned with a buckle. His skull, however, was missing.

Two years and one week later, a mushroom hunter found the missing head in a nearby creek. In the area, there were only three missing men who fit the description of the victim. A comparison of dental records discovered no match to any of them. So, the remains and the clothing moldered away in a basement closet archive at the Southeast Missouri State University for the next two decades. Forgotten by all but one man.

Now he’s come forward, resurrecting the case, looking for justice. Will the authorities be able to tie it to Tommy Lynn Sells? The odds are stacked against them. In 1979 and 1980, when Sells wasn’t on the road, he was in Missouri. In 1981, though, his home base was Little Rock, Arkansas and he was just 17 years old. He has confessed to committing homicide at that young age but he never mentioned this case.

If not Sells, will they be able to identify anyone as the killer? Will they even be able to give the victim a name? It sounds unlikely after 27 years but scientists make a habit of transforming the impossible into the routine every day.

Forensic Science is an amazing and rapidly expanding field. What seemed like fantasy five years ago is now common forensic investigative technique in labs across the country. Who knows what microscopic trace evidence is nestled in the folds of his shirt or on the buckle of his shoe (above), waiting for a diligent individual to uncover.

One day, the unknown man in green pants may find justice after all.

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Victoria's Secret

by Diane Fanning

“There are two people in there and one of them is kind. But once a person commits a crime, the world doesn’t want to give them a chance.”

That’s what Victoria Zubcic, a bail bondswoman from Missouri, told an Associated Press reporter about the serial killers she has known.

Oh, please. Tell Katy Harris’ family about the kind side of Tommy Lynn Sells (above left), the man who slit their 14-year-old daughter’s throat. Tell the parents of 10-year-old Jack Blake that they should give Arthur Shawcross (pictured right) another chance.

Victoria is promoting her self-published book, 13½, about serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells. She says that she and Sells are friends but she hides her true identity behind the pseudonym Tori Rivers. But I know Victoria’s secret—the fact she neglects to mention during interviews.

On November 3, 2006, Victoria walked into the courthouse in Polk County, Texas and purchased a marriage license naming Tommy Lynn Sells, Death Row resident, as her future husband. (At left, the happy couple have their first barrier-free visit at the Val Verde County Jail in February 2006.)

Although Victoria wrote a couple of chapters in this short book, most of it is a prolonged rant from Tommy Lynn Sells. She corrected his grammar and spelling but she let his potty mouth run free across every page. She allowed him to rewrite history in a disgusting manner that is inconsistent with crime-scene reports, witness statements, and forensic analysis.

She enabled Sells to spout self-serving lies that vilify his victims and blame them for his crimes. He distorted facts and twisted the truth. He used the book as a forum for petty revenge. When not imprisoned, he killed to get even for perceived slights. Now that he can’t physically attack those who angered him, he fights with the only weapon he has—lies.

He related an incident where he lost his temper with an FBI agent. He changed the story, though, making the agent an ignorant jailer who made less money than “a kid flipping burgers.” In his version, Sells battered the man until he “screamed like a bitch.” In reality, Sells was brought up short before he could do much more than bluster.

He also insulted the woman who fought back when he attacked her. She put him in the hospital for two weeks before he went to jail for five years. He claimed that the rape was consensual sex. He made derogatory remarks about her personal hygiene. He insisted he was being a nice guy when she attacked him as he emerged sparkling clean from the shower. He then said he fought for his life, slamming her head into the wall before he ran away. He doesn’t bother to mention the bloodied piano stool he broke in two when he bashed her in the head or the stab wounds he inflicted on her body.

He often bragged about having sex with women, painting himself as quite the cocksman. He claimed that even when he was sexually assaulting victims, he was giving them pleasure. Experts, however, feel that Sells had problems with performance—that he was often sexually incompetent—explaining why he often brutally raped women with objects like baseball bats and tools.

But, according to him, most of his victims enjoyed his attentions and had no moral character at all. Since they are dead, they cannot contradict him. How convenient for Tommy.

He also used this opportunity to attack the justice system, claiming that although he did murder his last victim, he did not sexually assault her and, therefore, should not have gotten the death penalty. He argued, too, that he is mentally retarded and it is illegal to execute him. He repeated many of his silly, oft-told lies about people in law enforcement, the courts, the legal profession, writers, television producers—anyone he’d encountered who didn’t present his story the way he wanted it told.

Victoria said she changed the names of the victims to protect them from further pain. She did that in all but one case—the murder of Katy Harris. Oddly, it was the only homicide story she told that actually bore a resemblance to reality. And in that case, she used everyone’s real name. I don’t think she was trying to protect victims. I think she was trying to hide the lies. Did Sells manipulate her into believing his version of reality? Or was she a willing accomplice in perpetuating his falsehoods? We may never know.

We may also never know anything about the financial arrangements between Vicki and Tommy. But what are the odds that every book sold puts money into Sells’ prison bank account?

In fact, I hesitated to write this blog because I was concerned that the publicity might encourage some people to buy the book. But then I realized, there are more of you out there who would not make a purchase if you knew of this special relationship between the brutal killer and the author.

And just for the record, I did not buy a new copy of this book. I bought a used copy and made sure it was not being shipped from Missouri. I wanted to make sure that not one penny of the price I paid went to Tommy Lynn Sells.

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Mystery Man - Bill Clutter

by Bill Clutter

In June of 2000, I was contacted by an attorney. The lawyer explained that she represented a woman who was the target of an upcoming grand jury "investigation." Her client, Julie Rea-Harper, was a graduate student and Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University. Julie had already lost her child, and now her life was threatened.

Convinced that Julie had murdered her 10-year-old son Joel, prosecutors were planning to seek the death penalty.

For three years, the case of the Joel's death had gone unsolved, but the local sheriff and Julie’s ex-husband singled her out as the only suspect. The crime happened in Lawrenceville, a small town in southern Illinois on the Indiana border.

Julie (pictured below with Joel) described being awakened at 4 a.m. by her son’s scream. She went into Joel’s room, she said, where she was beaten by the man who broke into her home and stabbed her child to death using a knife from the kitchen butcher block. She described him having a “jerky” gait as he fled.

After hearing the news of Joel’s murder that morning, a citizen of Lawrenceville rushed down to the Sheriff’s office to report he had seen a “drifter” in town who was at a local diner. The stranger had made disturbing comments to his eleven-year-old son. “I think I saw your suspect,” he told the Sheriff. The citizen described the drifter as having “real jerky” movements when he walked. But the Sheriff told the witness that he was busy with a murder investigation and disregarded the information. The Sheriff did not even take the time to write a report.

The case of Julie Rea Harper is classic tunnel vision—when police are so locked in on one suspect, in this case, the mother, that they totally disregard other evidence that may lead them to someone else. This crime, after all, happened at the very time when Boulder, Colorado police were pointing the finger at the parents of JonBenet Ramsey. We now know there was compelling evidence that an intruder committed that crime.

Julie’s attorney had been referred to me because she was in need of a private investigator with experience in capital and criminal defense. She had been informed about a new program in Illinois called the Capital Litigation Trust Fund that just went into effect. The Fund was created after private investigator Paul Ciolino uncovered evidence that exonerated Anthony Porter, who was at one time 48 hours away from execution.

Hearing the details of Julie’s description of the assailant, I told her attorney about a drifter by the name of Tommy Lynn Sells who was facing capital murder charges in Texas for killing a child after he broke into a home at 4 a.m.--his M.O. in many other crimes. I told her that Sells would be the starting point of my defense investigation. Sells was known to travel and commit murders in Southern Illinois.

A few months after this conversation, Julie was indicted by a special prosecutor, charged with a capital offense. Julie by this time was unrepresented by counsel because her Indiana attorney was not licensed to practice law in Illinois. So Julie filed a pro se motion requesting the appointment of two capital-qualified attorneys, citing new Supreme Court rules that require the appointment of two attorneys, well qualified and experienced in criminal defense, to represent anyone facing the death penalty.

Prosecutors responded by declaring that they no longer wanted the death penalty—not because they opposed capital punishment—but because their decision made it more likely that they could win a conviction. Prosecutors were willing to abandon their intent on taking Julie’s life because it made the odds of taking her liberty more likely.

Their decision meant that Julie would not have equal protection under the law. State funding that was designed to hire experts, such as my services as a private investigator, were no longer available to her. Two years later, Julie’s family contacted the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project to request our assistance. Our Project was just beginning, and depended on private donors. We had no State funding. Julie had been convicted of Joel’s murder by a jury in Fairfield County.

Although there was no direct evidence she committed the murder, her ex-husband and chief accuser gave testimony that Julie once entertained the idea of having an abortion upon hearing news that she was pregnant with Joel. It was an allegation that should never have been allowed to influence the jury’s decision, and one that Julie vigorously denied. The daughter of a Methodist minister, she was opposed to abortion based on her religious beliefs. However, her attorney did not resist or refute the testimony of her ex. The impact of this emotionally charged testimony on the jury was unfairly prejudicial. The effect it had on the jury is best demonstrated by examining the election results of the 2004 senate race between two African-American candidates: Barack Obama and Alan Keyes. A single-issue candidate, Keyes' one difference was his opposition to abortion. Keyes won Fairfield County with 72% of the popular vote--by the same margin Obama carried the entire state.

Within a year of being convicted, true-crime author Diane Fanning published a book detailing the crimes of child serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells (pictured right). In the book, Sells described killing a boy in southern Illinois after he was released from prison in 1997, as well as his struggle to get away from the child’s mother. The details of his confession mirrored the facts of Joel’s murder.

It was the investigation of our Project that corroborated Sells' confession, leading Texas Rangers to conclude that Sells’ confession was genuine. One would have expected prosecutors and police in Illinois to seek justice when presented with evidence exonerating Julie. But they persisted in trying her again after the appellate court reversed her conviction. This time, with the presentation of the new evidence, she was granted a fair trial. Julie-Rea Harper was acquitted.

In the twenty plus years I have worked as a criminal defense investigator, the greatest satisfaction is being able to witness an innocent client walk out of prison. That satisfaction overcomes the despair one feels in the years of working on these cases, when the word justice seems at odds with what is happening to your client.

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