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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Love Turned Toxic

by Women in Crime Ink

Announcing today’s release of Women In Crime Ink author Diane Fanning’s ninth true crime book, A POISONED PASSION: The True Story of a Young Mother, Her War Hero Husband and the Marriage that Ended in Murder, from St. Martin’s Press.

Michael Severance was a 24-year-old native of Maine, stationed in Abilene, Texas, where he served in the Air Force as a C-130 crew chief. He survived five tours of duty in the Middle East and then he married Wendi Davidson.

Wendi, a native of San Angelo, Texas, was a graduate of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M, setting up a new practice in her hometown.

Wendi and Michael exchanged vows the same month that their son was born. But till death do us part had a very short shelf life. In less than five months, Michael was missing under very suspicious circumstances. It took nearly two months to find his body in pond in the middle of an isolated ranch.

A POISONED PASSION goes beyond the crime itself, exploring the people and events that transformed an excellent student raised in a rural environment into an inmate serving twenty-five years in a Texas prison for the murder of her husband.

Did Wendi’s controlling mother, who despised her new son-in-law, influence the tragic events? Did the location of the area have an impact on Wendi’s actions? And how did her profession create the groundwork for murder?

In her review, domestic violence expert, Susan Murphy-Milano wrote: "In my 20-plus years working with crimes of passion, I am always interested in the mind of the person behind the crime. For me, it is a learning tool to save lives. Very few writers have the insight and gift to take a true story and make it one hell of a page turner. In my opinion, Diane Fanning does just that in A POISONED PASSION."

Fanning followed the investigation from its beginnings as a deserter investigation by Air Force personnel to its evolution into a full scale murder investigation by several law enforcement agencies including the Texas Rangers. The story culminates with Wendi’s collapse in the courtroom and an ugly child custody battle where local sensibilities appeared to have a greater influence on the outcome than the best interests of a child.

While Fanning was writing the book, Wendi’s father, Lloyd Davidson urged the author: “Do your best to sift lies from the truth.” Fanning worked to honor that request, looking at every facet of the story from the forensics of the case to the lives of all those impacted by this senseless crime.

The two people who stirred her heart the most were the two youngest harmed by the murder—Tristan Davidson and Shane Severance. Tristan, Wendi’s oldest son, had never had a father in his life until Michael Severance walked into his life. Tristan was only three years old when he lost Michael to death and his mother first went to jail on charges related to Michael’s murder. Shane, Michael and Wendi’s son, was only five months old when his life was turned upside down.

No matter the forces that conspired to create this situation, the end result is the same. Michael Severance, a young man who served his country well and grabbed life with both hands is dead. A family in Maine staggers under the loss. Tristan, a sweet little boy, lost the only father he had ever known and now has to grow up without a mother. And Shane, the most innocent victim of them all, will never clutch his father’s hand in his own, will never hear his words of encouragement and praise, and will never grow and mature in the light of his guidance. Instead, he is spending much of his life in the home of people who despise his father and make excuses for his father’s killer.

That, by any measure, is not justice.

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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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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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