Tommy Lynn Sells

Tommy Lynn Sells (June 28, 1964 – April 3, 2014) was an American serial killer who became known as the Coast to Coast Killer. Although he was convicted of only two murders, one of which led to his being sentenced to death and eventual execution, Sells claimed to have killed up to 70 victims in various states. Investigators have been able to conclusively implicate Sells in at least 22 cases.

Early life Sells was born in Oakland, California, on June 28, 1964, as one of five children to an unwed mother. Sells's presumed biological father, Joe Lovins, died when Sells was 11.

Sells and his twin sister, Tammy Jean, contracted meningitis when they were 18 months old; Tammy died from the illness. Shortly thereafter Sells was sent to live with his aunt, Bonnie Walpole, in Holcomb, Missouri. When he was five he was returned to his mother after she discovered that Walpole wanted to adopt him.

At the age of seven Sells began regularly drinking alcohol obtained from a supply stash belonging to his maternal grandfather. Within a year he was socializing with an adult man named Willis Clark, who Sells alleged began molesting him. Sells also claimed his mother encouraged the relationship, which traumatized him greatly. Sells said he would later relive those experiences while committing his crimes.

At age ten Sells started using narcotics. Three years later he entered his grandmother's bed nude while she was sleeping, leading to him being banned from the house. Shortly after that his mother and siblings abandoned him by abruptly leaving town. A few days later, in a fit of rage, he shot a woman and assaulted her, although she survived. Sells began living as a nomad permanently in 1978 at the age of 14. When Sells visited family in Little Rock, Arkansas, in May 1981, his mother threw him out after he tried to molest her in the shower. Thereafter he failed to receive mental health assistance and his drinking worsened, ultimately leading to his first arrest in 1982 for public intoxication.

Criminal history and psychology Homeless, Sells hitchhiked and train-hopped across the United States from 1978 to 1999, committing various crimes along the way. He held several very short-term manual labor and barber jobs. He drank heavily, abused drugs, and was imprisoned several times. In 1990, Sells stole a truck in Wyoming and was sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment. He was diagnosed with personality disorders, addictions, and psychosis. a 19-year-old woman in Charleston, West Virginia, was driving when she saw Sells panhandling under an overpass with a sign that said, "I will work for food."

Murders Police investigators believe Sells murdered at least 22 people. Retired Texas Ranger John Allen said: "We did confirm 22 ... I know there's more. I know there's a lot more. Obviously, we won't ever know." Sells said he committed his first murder at age 15 in Mississippi after breaking into a house. Sells claimed that, while in the house, he discovered a man performing fellatio on a boy and killed the man in a fit of rage. This confessed crime has not been confirmed. Sells further claimed that he killed a man in 1980 with an ice pick near a Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles, which has also never been confirmed.

Nonetheless, Sells has either been linked to or has confessed to a number of murders and other violent crimes. July 5, 1979, Port Gibson, Mississippi: John Cade, 39, was killed with a .32 caliber pistol during a home invasion. Near the crime scene, a man who resembled Sells was observed. He may have been in the area around this period, according to investigators. April 27, 1982, St. Louis, Missouri: In November 2015, Melissa DeBoer contacted police after watching an episode of Crime Watch Daily which featured Sells. In 1982, DeBoer's mother, JoAnne Tate, 35, was murdered in her St. Louis home; Melissa DeBoer's testimony as a seven-year-old assaulted in the sexual attack helped identify Rodney Lincoln as the killer. However, DeBoer came to believe Sells, not Lincoln, murdered her mother in 1982. In 2018, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens commuted Lincoln's sentence to time served and he was released from prison. July 31, 1983, St. Louis, Missouri: Tiffany Gill, 4, and Colleen Gill, 33, were discovered at their house on Washington Terrace in the West End neighbourhood. They had both been battered to death with a blunt weapon. A man matching Sells's description was seen leaving the crime scene. Sells, who at the time of the double homicide resided in the 3300 block of Edmundson Road in Breckenbridge Hills, had relatives who lived in the St. Louis region. July 26, 1985, Springfield, Missouri: In July 1985, 21-year-old Sells worked at a Forsyth carnival, where he met 28-year-old Ena Cordt and her four-year-old son Rory Cordt. Cordt invited Sells to her home that evening. According to Sells, he had sex with her, fell asleep, and awoke to find her stealing from his backpack. He proceeded to beat Cordt to death with her son's baseball bat. He then murdered her son because the child was a potential witness. The bludgeoned bodies were found three days later, by which time Sells had left town. He said he picked her up while she was hitchhiking after he offered her a ride to Reno, Nevada. They took LSD together, then he strangled her in Lovelock, covered her body in concrete, and dumped it in a hot spring. Her body was never found. November 17, 1987, Ina, Illinois: Sells confessed to the murders of four members of the Dardeen family. The body of Keith Dardeen, 29, while originally thought to be the suspect, was found in a nearby field. Dardeen's body had three gunshots to the head and had been emasculated. Keith's three-year-old son, Peter Dardeen, was bludgeoned to death and Sells also attacked Elaine Dardeen, Keith's 30-year-old pregnant wife. It was such a severe beating, she went into labor and gave birth to her daughter; Sells beat the newborn to death. December 18, 1988, Tucson, Arizona: Kent Alan Lauten, 51, was stabbed and buried in a shallow grave near a homeless camp. Sells claimed he killed Lauten because he refused to pay for drugs. His body was found two days later. December 9, 1991, Marianna, Florida: Teresa Hall, 25, and her daughter, five-year-old Tiffany Hall, were both bludgeoned to death with a wooden table leg in their home. The killer had kicked the front door in, smashed a wooden table to pieces, and used one of the legs as a murder weapon. Serial killer Ángel Maturino Reséndiz was suspected of the crime originally but Sells later confessed to the double murder. October 13, 1997, Lawrenceville, Illinois: ten-year-old Joel Kirkpatrick was stabbed to death in his bedroom while he was sleeping at night. His mother, Julie Rea-Harper, ran to her son's bedroom, encountered an intruder wearing a ski mask, and then fought off the intruder before fleeing. The murder weapon, a steak knife from Rea's kitchen, had been left on the floor outside Joel's bedroom. She was convicted of Joel's murder, but was eventually exonerated. October 15, 1997, Springfield, Missouri: 13-year-old Stephanie Mahaney was found in 1997 in a farm pond west of Springfield. According to Sells, he pulled her from her bed in her home at night, drove her to a field, injected her with cocaine, raped her, and strangled her to death. December 14, 1997, Las Vegas, Nevada: 19-year-old Yvette Sophia Mueller was last seen in an RV park in Las Vegas. Sells claimed to have raped and killed a blonde-haired woman in Las Vegas, chopped her body up with an axe, and buried her next to the Snake River. The body was never found because it had been swept away by a landslide, but officials suspect Sells was referring to Mueller. April 15, 1998, San Antonio, Texas: Thomas Brose, 40, was a carnival worker who was shot to death in his motorhome. He was seen with a man matching Sells's description. Sells initially confessed to the crime but later recanted it. nine-year-old Mary Beatrice Perez was kidnapped from a market festival, driven to a stockyard, raped, and strangled to death with her T-shirt. Her body was found in a creek ten days later. Sells was convicted of the murder in 2003 and sentenced to life. May 23, 1999, Lexington, Kentucky: Haley McHone, 13, was raped and strangled by Sells. Her body was found ten days later. Sells was arrested in the area for public intoxication and released the next day. July 5, 1999, Kingfisher, Oklahoma: Bobbie Lynn Wofford, 14, was picked up from a Love's Convenience Store by Sells, who drove her to a secluded area, sexually assaulted her, struck her repeatedly with a hatchet, and finally shot her in the head with a large calibre revolver when she tried to escape. He dumped her body off the side of the road and kept two of her earrings. December 31, 1999, Del Rio, Texas: Kaylene Harris, 13, was sexually assaulted, stabbed sixteen times and her throat slashed by Sells after he broke into her trailer. Sells also attacked Krystal Surles, 10, who was at the same property, but she ultimately survived.

Arrest and confessions

On December 31, 1999, in the Guajia Bay subdivision west of Del Rio, Texas, Sells sexually assaulted, stabbed and killed 13-year-old Kaylene "Katy" Harris before slitting the throat of ten-year-old Krystal Surles. Krystal survived and received help from the neighbors after traveling to their home with a severed trachea.

In 2004, Sells confessed that on October 13, 1997, he broke into a home, took a knife from a butcher block in the kitchen, stabbed a little boy to death, and scuffled with a woman. Those details corroborated the account of Julie Rea Harper, who was initially convicted for the murder of her son, and then acquitted in 2006.

Over time, police came to suspect him of "working the system" by confessing to murders he had not committed. Sells confessed to a number of crimes and supposed murders which were never able to be corroborated. Sells said he and an accomplice kidnapped a woman in 1982 in Little Rock, Arkansas, who Sells raped, tortured, and killed, then dumped her body in a quarry. Law enforcement chose not to explore the deep quarry lake Sells led them to due to financial concerns. Sells also revealed that, in 1986, while he was working for Atlas Towing in St. Louis, he received a call from a prostitute whose car had broken down. When he arrived at the vehicle, he suggested sex in lieu of paying for the towing cost. When she declined, Sells said he shot her and threw her body in a river. Sells claimed that, in 1988, he met a woman and her son in Salt Lake City, Utah, and then travelled with them to go on a camping trip. Sells said he killed her and her son by an unclear method and dumped both of their bodies in the Snake River in Gooding County, Idaho. Sells told investigators that he had also killed a black man and dumped his body in a dumpster in Chicago. He named the specific street intersection where this allegedly occurred, but no such murder was ever discovered. Investigators wanted to bring Sells to Illinois to resolve their doubts, but Texas refused, due to its law forbidding death-row prisoners from leaving the state.

Execution On January 3, 2014, a Del Rio judge set Sells's execution date for April 3, 2014.

Sells's death sentence was carried out at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. When asked if he would like to make a final statement, Sells replied, "No". As a lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered, he took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes, and began to snore. Less than a minute later, he stopped moving. Thirteen minutes later, at 6:27 p.m. (CDT), he was pronounced dead. Krystal Surles and members of both the Harris and Perez families attended the execution. Stone also analyzed Sells's case in his 2009 book The Anatomy of Evil, where Stone narrates how he suffered from nightmares following his interview with Sells during his visit to Texas State Penitentiary.

ABC News created a 10-minute mini-documentary Tommy Lynn Sells – The Mind of a Psychopath.

In 2021, A&E Networks original show I Survived A Serial Killer made an episode about the Fabienne Witherspoon story. The 48 Hours episode "Krystal's Courage", originally aired on September 4, 2010, recounts Sells's arrest and conviction, thanks in large part to the testimony of 10-year-old Krystal Surles, who survived his attack.