0:00

Hey, you, and welcome. My name

0:02

is Mike. And in this old podcast, can

0:04

you imagine if I intro ed my podcasts

0:06

or videos like any other way? At this point,

0:09

it's unthinkable. And in this episode,

0:11

I'm gonna tell you the story of a guy.

0:13

Here's a guy. A guy I've actually

0:15

spoken about before, albeit

0:17

briefly. The cross country

0:19

killer, or the coast to coast

0:22

killer, more like you, should that shit down from

0:24

coast to coast? little bit back, right,

0:26

I could heard the story of Ashley Freeman and

0:28

Laura Bible. To go through it like like real

0:30

quick, there were two best friends

0:32

in school in Oklahoma just after

0:34

Christmas, 98999 Laura

0:37

Bible went to have a sleepover at her best friend,

0:39

Ashley's home. The next day,

0:41

the Freeman home, a trailer, was found

0:43

burned to the ground and the bodies

0:46

of Ashley's parents inside shut

0:48

to death. The two girls they

0:50

were missing and this this this a great case

0:52

like the investigation, the whole thing

0:54

it went on for years until it

0:56

was it was finally revealed not terribly

0:59

long ago that the two girls they had been

1:01

kidnapped have used, killed,

1:03

and then thrown in a mineshaft. Now

1:06

to date, Laura Bible and Ashley

1:08

Freeman, they still have not been

1:10

found, and the tree men responsible for

1:12

that, well, two of them are dead.

1:15

I his emperor, TLD or on will

1:17

be most disturbing cases I've ever covered.

1:20

But, right, during the investigation into

1:22

what happened to those missing girls

1:25

A fella named Tommy Lynn Sells.

1:27

He he tried to take responsibility for

1:29

it. Now, okay, it turned out he was one

1:32

of the few who didn't actually have anything to

1:34

do with it. He was just, you know, gonna take responsibility

1:36

because he, you know, he he fancied

1:38

some nicer food and extra visitation privileges.

1:41

But when he did try to

1:43

take responsibility for it, it was believable,

1:46

you know, at the time. Because my

1:48

friend, Tommy did a lot.

1:51

And I mean a lot worse.

1:54

What a piece of shit? Tommy

1:56

Lynn sells but I guarantee see you, you don't

1:58

wanna buy jack shit from this goon.

2:00

You know, by the way, what is it with serial

2:03

killers and like these shoutbags having

2:05

tree names? It's always something something something.

2:07

I'll just give him one name. FOCO.

2:10

Before we get into it folks, if I could ask anything,

2:12

it would be that, you know, if you wouldn't mind rating

2:14

and reviewing the podcast, it helps

2:16

out so so so so

2:18

much. And now, that's not

2:20

faffing a bit. Let's give it a goo.

2:34

Tommy Lin cells was born on June

2:36

twenty eight, nineteen sixty four in Oakland,

2:38

California to Nina and William

2:40

cells, or At least that's

2:43

what it says on his birth certificate. Now

2:45

the couple already had two boys,

2:47

Timothy Lee and Terry Joe.

2:49

And Tommy would later claim that their

2:51

real father was a man named

2:53

Joe Lovens who wasn't

2:56

quite so Loven. And that William cells

2:58

had only taken on, you know, legal responsibility

3:01

for Tommy, the two older boys

3:03

and his mother to repay a

3:05

Ep7. To Joe. They all

3:07

you know, you owe me so many so sticking with

3:09

the kids gag. You see William,

3:11

he had solid unemployment with benefits

3:13

that covered his legal spouse and offspring.

3:16

Though it's never been a hundred percent confirmed,

3:19

Nina cells never denied. Tommy's

3:21

claims. So who is real that is,

3:23

is kind of open the year. Now

3:26

Nina and William cells who go on to have

3:28

another set of twins, Jerry Kevin

3:30

and Jimmy Keith, and later another boy.

3:33

Randy Jean, that's like five

3:35

boys in this family. And as with Tommy

3:37

Lee Children's actual biological

3:39

parentage was kind of uncertain. It's

3:42

likely that most, if not all of the siblings

3:44

were actually more likely father by

3:46

Joe. As I said, William Cells was

3:49

just getting stuck with the bill.

3:51

I guess. William Cells, though I guess

3:53

he had enough of raising five Boys

3:56

while his wife was off, Bang and Joe, so

3:58

he left a family not long after Randy

4:00

Jean was born. I mean, the debt

4:02

was paid, I guess. He was sick of getting bombs

4:04

dropped on on the left right and said there's any bans.

4:06

What a guy? You know, my job here is

4:09

done. Now, tragedy hit

4:11

Tommy at a very early age.

4:13

Tommy was actually born a twin, but

4:15

he and his sister, Tommy Gene, they

4:17

both contracted spinal meningitis.

4:20

That was misdiagnosed as pneumonia

4:23

when the twins were just eighteen months

4:25

old. Tommy, she succumbed

4:27

to the illness. Tommy, he suffered badly

4:29

with fever, but he made it true.

4:32

Not long after the death of his sister

4:34

and the Tommy's own brush with

4:36

death, he was sent to live in Holcomb,

4:38

Missouri with his aunt Bonnie. Now,

4:41

Tommy later said this was the happiest he

4:44

ever had been and was. Somewhere

4:46

you know he felt safe and accepted.

4:48

Along with Zac Bonny, his two cousins,

4:51

Sandy and Kathy, they they absolutely just

4:53

don't hit on Tommy. He was their

4:55

special little guy. It was a very

4:58

different atmosphere to the home life, you know,

5:00

he had been used to before.

5:02

By the time he was five years old, Bonnie,

5:05

she was so fond of she actually looked

5:07

into adopting him. But

5:09

booty time, as soon as Nina found out, she

5:11

was like, uh-uh, she demanded Tommy

5:13

return home. I mean, like, What

5:17

a malignant person? Like she'd rather rather

5:19

have her son live in a shitty and unstable home

5:21

than give him any sort of chance

5:24

to be happy. Missouri loves

5:26

a company. So with

5:28

little legal recourse and not wanting to

5:30

cause trouble for him, funny returned

5:32

Tommy to his mother back. To

5:34

the unstable environment that

5:37

he'd been so close to

5:38

escaping, that he'd almost made

5:40

it. And do you know who knows

5:42

how things would have turned out or tell me if things had

5:44

gone another way? But

5:46

they didn't and a lot of people

5:48

had liver the consequences of that

5:51

It wouldn't take long for the happy memories

5:53

of his time with aunt Bonnie to fade

5:55

away. And aged just seven

5:57

years old, Tommy began sneaking alcohol,

6:00

from under his grandfather's truck seat

6:02

having a little sniffer every

6:04

now and then. And that would be the

6:07

the beginning. Of a long ass future

6:09

of drug and alcohol dependence. Like Tommy,

6:11

he began using hair ass drugs from

6:13

ten years old. But he thought

6:16

he was a rucks there. Like, he was a

6:18

case of out of the frying pan is the fire, though,

6:20

for Tommy. When a year later,

6:22

he'd meet a man named Willis Clark from

6:24

frisbee, Mizuhre. Tommy,

6:27

said Clark would buy him gifts and

6:29

take him for days out, which I

6:31

do not like where this is going when an older

6:33

man starts Bucking taking

6:35

an eleven year old boy under his wing.

6:38

This doesn't usually end well.

6:40

Now tell me, of course, though, he he was being,

6:43

I guess, what do you call groomed, loved

6:45

bonding, he loved having money to spend, and he

6:47

enjoyed the attention and the praise. But

6:50

as it I mean, I guess seemingly always

6:53

the case with Tommy Boy. The good times

6:55

didn't last, and what a surprise Clark

6:57

started sexually abusing him.

7:00

Seemingly with Nina's consent.

7:04

I'm guessing fucking Clark

7:06

was paying Nina off and

7:08

I don't know what she could do. Well, she couldn't

7:10

fucking stopped it, but I mean, you know, it was one

7:12

of those cases where she would turn a blind

7:14

eye to it because he provided. Mother

7:17

of the year strikes again. Well, I mean, as

7:19

much as I told you about Nina, none of it

7:21

has been good. So this isn't exactly

7:23

a shocker for how big of a piece of shit she

7:25

also was. Tommy

7:28

even ended up living with the man full time,

7:30

and he spiraled further into dependence on

7:32

drugs. But he

7:34

was He was yet to discover the addiction

7:36

that would define his life.

7:39

It wasn't far away though. By

7:43

the way, this Willis Clark went interviewed later

7:46

on. He would deny everything he would say

7:48

he never abused. Tell me, although, I

7:50

mean, come on, what's he gonna say? Admit it. Treasury

7:52

revisited Tommy when his biological father?

7:55

Question mark, Joe died

7:57

when he was just eleven years old.

8:00

There's absolutely no doubt that Tommy's your

8:02

childhood shaped his violent and chaotic

8:04

future. It's, you know, he was

8:06

If he was raised in that environment, I mean, good fucking

8:09

luck to him having any sort of normal life.

8:11

But that's not an excuse because

8:13

when we get into what he will eventually doing,

8:16

You won't feel any sympathy for him, my friends,

8:18

but at least you can kind of see where it's coming

8:21

from. I mean, how much of it was responsible

8:23

for Tommy's psychopathy and how much

8:25

you know, simply the way he was born,

8:28

that's for smarter people to

8:30

work out. I'm just a storyteller. Right?

8:32

I'm not a I'm not a psychologist. The,

8:34

you know, born that way nature versus nurture

8:36

thing. But I will diagnose Tommy

8:39

if if I may. Doctor Mike here putting

8:41

on the glasses, I would say he's definitely got a

8:43

little disease, I like to call, psychoidus.

8:46

And I mean, there's simply no way that the

8:48

huge men of loss and manhood and abuse

8:51

that Tommy experienced From

8:53

such an early age in his life, like that obviously

8:56

contributed to the savage trail he

8:58

would later cut and carve, across

9:00

the USA coast to

9:02

coast. Next

9:04

he did was pretty effed up. I

9:08

You can insert me saying that phrase every

9:10

couple of minutes because it just gets worse

9:12

from here on it. While staying overnight

9:14

at his grandmother's, Thirteen year old Tommy,

9:16

he climbed into her bed, naked

9:19

in the middle of the night. Now she was quick

9:21

to get the fuck out of here. And when

9:23

Tommy went home few days later, went

9:25

back to his mother Nina, he found his empty

9:28

and his entire family gone.

9:30

Yet again, Tommy hadn't been left

9:32

behind, and this time he was

9:34

completely alone. He

9:38

first hit the road less than a year later,

9:40

aged fourteen. And so

9:42

from nineteen seventy eight, Tommy lived

9:44

a chaotic, nomadic life, from

9:46

then until his final arrest over

9:49

twenty two years

9:51

later. Now he would work very

9:53

small jobs when he stole to survive.

9:55

He wasn't exactly a career man. Right? Well,

9:58

he was a career killer All the while,

10:00

he was adding consistently to his body

10:02

count, becoming more and more excessively

10:05

brutal in his methods with each

10:08

murder and that is the

10:10

truth. He you will see the

10:12

escalation and abuse, you know, that was inflicted

10:14

on him. He'll use the old bounce

10:16

back. Method. Like his

10:18

mother, if it happened to me, it's gonna

10:20

happen to you. Sorry, misery. Who

10:22

loves company? Tummy claimed

10:24

to have first killed a man in nineteen seventy

10:26

nine when he was only fifteen or sixteen

10:28

years old. He said, he caught

10:30

the man in the act of abusing a

10:33

boy after he'd broken into the

10:35

man's home to commit a burglary. Now

10:37

just how true Tommy's account of this incident

10:39

is, Well, shaky

10:44

shaky. Yeah. Like he just randomly

10:46

broke into a house to steal shit. I found a guy abusing

10:48

a kid. I became a hero are a good

10:51

guy. You know, we did right thing here

10:53

by murdering somebody, question mark.

10:56

I mean, he's clearly trying to paint himself as someone

10:59

hero here. Press x to doubt.

11:01

Like you'll hear the words Tommy claimed

11:04

a lot during this story. Like most

11:06

psychopaths, Tommy Land cells had a very flexible

11:08

relationship with the truth. And

11:11

he said he'd flown into blind rage

11:13

and shot the man. But like with a

11:15

lot of crimes something he confessed to before any

11:17

evidence was presented, Authorities haven't

11:19

been able to confirm the crime that Tommy

11:21

described. Now that of course doesn't mean the crime

11:23

didn't happen, Tommy could have easily remembered

11:26

key information or even deliberately withheld

11:28

details on purpose. That

11:30

would bring more attention after all, and that's what Tommy

11:32

loved more than anything. The worst thing to Tommy

11:35

to be ignored and left behind like he'd been

11:37

throughout his entire life. So

11:39

that's when he said he first killed a man.

11:41

When he found and when he broke new letters and found

11:43

a guy, I'd be using a boy, and there's no proof that ever

11:46

happened. So question mark on

11:48

that one. He went

11:50

on to claim that on July fifth nineteen

11:52

seventy nine, he was responsible for the shooting

11:54

death of John Kate senior

11:57

in Port Gibson, Missouri. After

11:59

Kate had caught Tommy breaking into his

12:01

home, Kate's wife Kathleen,

12:03

she'd been disturbed in the night by what

12:05

she thought in the moment was a car

12:07

backfiring. Her husband's

12:10

and then stumbled into the bedroom, turned

12:12

on the light and mummeled to her, that

12:14

he was bleeding. He then went

12:16

into the couple bathroom and began

12:18

washing his hands. Second

12:21

later, he collapsed on the floor in a heap.

12:24

Dead. As his wife had two

12:26

sons, Richard, I John Jr. Wash

12:28

John, terrified. Now

12:31

when this, you know, case began, when

12:33

John was bleeding, washed his hands and collapsed

12:36

dead. Like, the the investigators had

12:38

no clue what was going on. Nothing was stolen, and

12:40

there was no sign of an intruder. Kathleen,

12:43

she passed the polygraph and was eventually cleared.

12:45

But until Tommy's confession years

12:47

later, they simply had no idea

12:50

why anyone would want to hurt the thirty nine year

12:52

old chairman of the church board.

12:56

The first time I did a shot at dope,

12:59

it was the best feeling I ever had

13:01

in my life. And the

13:03

first time I killed somebody, it

13:05

was such a rush.

13:06

And

13:09

It was just like that shot of dope.

13:11

Every time I

13:13

did it,

13:15

it was that rush again. And

13:17

I started chasing that high. How

13:20

many people have you killed? Lord,

13:23

I don't

13:23

know.

13:26

I don't know. Ten? Yeah.

13:30

Twenty? Probably. Sunny?

13:34

It's up there. Fifty. To

13:36

see. I'm

13:38

not nearly the kid making

13:40

notches on on my my

13:43

hoster,

13:44

soul. I know it's been

13:46

a lot. Then

13:48

in early nineteen eighty, in Oakland, California,

13:51

Tommy killed a man in self defense with

13:53

an ice pick after the two men

13:55

got into a fight. Tommy was

13:57

stopped as well during the fight required hospitalization,

14:00

but fled the hospital after a nurse attempted

14:02

to cathedralize him. Cells hitchhiked

14:04

back to where his mother was staying at the time

14:06

and Saint Louis, which is quite a bit away,

14:09

and helped nurse him back to

14:11

health. He didn't stay along with

14:13

his mother however, I mean she wasn't a great one,

14:16

setting it on the road as soon as he was

14:18

healed up. He settled

14:20

in with girlfriend for a short time in a

14:22

little rock before in May nineteen

14:24

eighty one, finding his way back to

14:26

to reconnect with Nina and his family,

14:28

his sibling. The family

14:30

reunion though turned very

14:33

quickly after Tommy got

14:36

into well,

14:39

I mean, kind of a tribute to his earlier inappropriate

14:42

behavior that caused his mother to take his siblings

14:44

and leave him, you know, when he tried

14:46

to climb into his grandmother's bed,

14:49

naked. Well, this time,

14:51

when he was a grown ass man, he climbed into the

14:53

shower with his mother and try

14:56

well, Yeah.

15:01

Nina, not too keen on

15:03

that and well, she kicked him out

15:05

of the house once again and that would

15:07

finally shut the door on Tommy

15:09

and his family. Tommy and the fam.

15:12

After a stay at a community mental

15:14

health clinic in Jonesboro for the attempted

15:17

attack, On his own mother, Tommy

15:19

began canceling sessions, but

15:21

he stopped attending after just five meetings.

15:24

But during them, he confessed who haven't killed

15:26

two men during this time.

15:29

Only one of those has been confirmed.

15:32

Then on March twenty seven, nineteen

15:34

eighty two, he was arrested again in a little

15:36

rock for public intoxication. At that

15:38

time, he had managed to land a job in a

15:40

shoe store, but Like everything

15:43

in Tommy's life, it didn't last long.

15:46

Ep7, well, you know, killing. That

15:48

year, he also fathered boy with a woman

15:50

named Cindy Hanna. Cindy

15:53

was his first love, but the two

15:55

had been kept apart by her father. You

15:57

know how it's like Romeo and Juliet over here,

16:00

After Tommy, the reason why their dad kept him apart

16:02

was Tommy had robbed the church that Hana,

16:04

the Hana's, the Hana family attended. Which

16:07

is, man, you'd definitely go to hell

16:09

for that one. So after the shit

16:11

show that was his brief visit home

16:13

to Tommy set back out on the road again

16:15

and by nineteen eighty three, he

16:17

had reached St. Louis, Missouri.

16:20

There, Tommy said he beat a woman and

16:22

her young daughter to death with baseball

16:25

bat. That would become

16:27

a trademark of Tommy's.

16:29

He was a little slugger.

16:33

By that time, Pammi had set up shop in

16:35

St. Louis. And on July

16:37

thirty one, a man named Thomas Gil

16:40

he was returning to his home on Washington

16:42

Terrace from from a beauty salon

16:44

he co owned with his wife Colette.

16:47

As he was walking towards his house, he

16:49

saw Tommy or at least a man matching

16:51

Tommy's description leaving

16:54

the house leaving his own house.

16:56

So Thomas, thinking this was fucking

16:59

weird, went inside and

17:01

inside the home, he found the bloody battered

17:03

bodies of his wife, Colette, and their

17:05

four year old daughter. Upstairs,

17:08

he found their one year old son, Sean,

17:10

asleep peacefully in the crib.

17:13

As with the previous John Kate

17:15

senior murder, detectives couldn't understand

17:17

why someone would want to harm Colette and

17:20

their daughter, like at first, you know, The

17:22

usual thing you immediately go

17:24

to, robbery gone wrong, as there

17:26

had been several break ins in

17:28

the area, but Colette's

17:31

diamond wedding ring was still on her

17:33

finger and nothing else appeared

17:35

to have been taken. They briefly

17:37

considered Thomas as the killer as he had

17:39

what were taken out a new six hundred thousand

17:42

dollars life insurance policy not long before.

17:44

But no other evidence linked

17:46

him and the timing just just didn't

17:48

work. As we

17:50

will say again and again what Tommy Lynn

17:52

sells, robbery wasn't always

17:54

the motive, murder. Was

17:57

the motive in itself. He would break into these

17:59

houses and brutally murder

18:01

and not take a dime.

18:03

And I like to watch the ass flake

18:06

the people fade.

18:08

What do you like about that?

18:11

It it's just like sitting

18:13

there so free. In September

18:15

nineteen eighty four, Pammi was given two

18:18

years in prison after being convicted of stealing

18:20

a Ford Mustang in Benton,

18:22

Missouri on May eighth. He

18:24

was released on parole on the eighteenth of

18:26

February nineteen eighty five, but quickly

18:29

broke his parole and was returned to prison

18:31

to serve the rest of his sentence. During

18:33

his sentence, a girlfriend of Tommy's, Nicole

18:36

Snow, would give birth to his second

18:38

child, a daughter. After

18:40

that, Tommy, he went into a court mandated

18:42

rehab center in VICI, Missouri, but

18:45

that was a very brief stint.

18:48

Tommy left, hitched and hiked his way

18:50

to Forsyth, Missouri, and

18:52

began working at a county fair, where

18:54

on July twenty six, nineteen eighty five,

18:57

he made a small attractive, dark haired,

18:59

thirty five year old woman named Ena.

19:01

Who is at the fair with her four year old son?

19:03

Rory. Ina, she invited

19:05

Tommy back to the house and things

19:08

went seth. After

19:10

Tommy caught Ina going through his bag,

19:12

or I mean, at least that's

19:15

what Tommy said. It's just as likely she

19:17

didn't do anything at all to

19:19

trigger Tommy. He just had the intention

19:21

of what he was going to do as soon as he saw

19:23

her, and he beat Ina

19:26

to death with a baseball bat. His

19:28

signature to almost all of his crimes.

19:31

He then turned his attention to the only

19:33

witness to the crime. Four

19:35

year old Rory, Tommy

19:38

took the bats to the boy, and

19:40

their bodies were fanned three days

19:42

later. That

19:45

same year in September, Tommy

19:47

crashed a car while high and

19:49

while drunk surprise surprise. He

19:51

also had two underaged girls

19:53

in the car with him at the time and he was arrested

19:55

and sent it back to jail. He was

19:58

briefly released on parole, but that was revoked

20:00

not long after and he was returned to Booneville

20:02

Correctional Facility where he had earlier

20:04

served time, you know, for that Ford Mustang

20:06

theft. He was released in May

20:09

nineteen eighty six. That

20:11

year, Tommy was suspected of being

20:13

the one who killed nineteen year old

20:15

Michelle Xavier and twenty year

20:17

old Jennifer Dewey in Fremont, California.

20:20

Though this wasn't confirmed, and Tommy

20:22

never specifically confessed to

20:24

the crime. Nineteen

20:27

eighty seven was a particularly violent

20:30

year for Tommy Lynn sales. In

20:32

Nevada, in October, Tommy drugged

20:35

twenty year old Stephanie Kelly Stroke, a

20:37

student at Reed College, San Francisco,

20:39

and he dropped her with LSD, strangled

20:41

her to death before setting her feet in a

20:43

bucket of concrete, dangling her body

20:46

off the back of his truck overnight as the concrete

20:48

set. He then drove her out

20:50

to the desert and drew her body into

20:52

a hot spring. Stephanie.

20:54

She had just returned to America from

20:57

a for a, yeah, a ten month trip

20:59

backpacking across Europe, and she was now in

21:01

the middle of hitchhiking across the states. Something

21:03

she'd always dreamt of doing. Tommy

21:06

would say he'd picked her up, you know, in his pickup truck

21:08

and he'd given her drugs and she'd taken

21:10

them voluntarily. Then

21:13

he killed her. Stephanie's body

21:15

has never been found despite multiple searches

21:17

and authorities have never been able to confirm,

21:19

Tommy's story, but from the amount of details

21:21

he's commit with, it's very likely

21:23

that that is exactly what happened. Usually

21:26

when his stories turn out to be false, you know, he'd be much

21:29

more vague about what actually happened. With

21:31

this one, he went into the little intricacies

21:34

of the crime and the unnecessarily brutal

21:36

things he did pre and post murder.

21:38

And several witnesses would later

21:40

describe seeing a man matching Tommy's description,

21:43

driving a pickup truck and arguing with

21:45

a young woman on the road side.

21:48

Tommy then, he had at least in early

21:51

November nineteen eighty

21:53

seven, and he would later claim to have

21:55

killed Susan Court's in Amherst,

21:57

New York. Susan's remains weren't

21:59

found until eight years later, in

22:02

September nineteen ninety five. At

22:04

the base of an escarpment near

22:06

Niagara Falls. She disappeared after

22:08

she led a club alone in New York.

22:11

Tommy would confess to kill him here in two thousand

22:13

four, but, you know, this hasn't been confirmed.

22:15

But again, it's very likely given the details Tommy

22:17

knew about the crime and he was in the area.

22:19

At the very time. Late November

22:22

nineteen eighty seven, Tommy, he

22:24

was hitchhiking his way across America,

22:26

going left, going east, you know, going right, going

22:28

east, going west, going going down.

22:31

So when he was hitchhiking his way back

22:33

west towards Illinois, he was given

22:35

a ride by man named Keith Dardin.

22:37

Who offered Tommy Amiel at his home with

22:39

his family. Once they arrived,

22:42

Tommy pulled a gun shot Keith

22:44

twice in the head before mutilating his generals

22:46

and shooting him a third time in the

22:49

face. Tommy then made

22:51

his way inside the Dardin's home, where

22:54

he bludgeoned Keith's young son, Peter,

22:56

to death, and beat his pregnant wife,

22:58

Elaine, so badly she went into

23:00

spontaneous labor. He

23:03

then bludgeoned the newborn Casey

23:05

Darding to death as well. Tommy

23:09

left, but not before further

23:11

mutilating Elaine's body and posing her in

23:13

a sexually suggestive way using the

23:15

baseball bat he had just used

23:17

to murder her children. I wonder

23:19

if you could just tell me what happened

23:22

as you were killing her. Did she

23:24

did she give birth to a baby?

23:29

You know, you're pushing your look. I'm

23:31

sorry. Let's let's not

23:33

get let's not get into blood and

23:35

guts. Because because that's what

23:37

you're trying to get into. That's

23:40

probably the most intensely

23:42

disgusting and disturbing thing Tommy

23:44

did. Like, there was simply no reason for

23:46

the killing in the first place. And well, I

23:48

mean, I suppose it could set up every single one of

23:50

Tommy's crimes. But the level of brutality and

23:53

cruelty That was purely for his

23:55

own gratification. Like,

23:57

he he gained nothing. He did from the crime, he

23:59

didn't even steal or cover it up. He didn't

24:01

do anything. He simply did it because he enjoyed

24:03

doing it. It wasn't a means

24:05

to an Ep7. For Tommy, you know, the means

24:08

were the end. And over the

24:10

next five years, between nineteen

24:12

eighty seven and nineteen ninety two, Tommy

24:14

continued to roam between the states from New

24:16

Hampshire to Utah, Florida to Arizona,

24:18

and he continued to add more and more bodies

24:21

to the final tally. With a

24:23

few smaller stints in prison, along

24:25

the way. On

24:28

the thirteenth of May nineteen ninety two

24:30

in Charleston, West Virginia. Nineteen

24:32

year old Fabienne Witherspoon was driving

24:34

back from a job interview. When

24:36

she spotted Tommy on the side of the freeway,

24:38

where they will work for food

24:40

sign. And she was feeling sorry

24:42

for him, so she stopped and after he'd

24:44

spun her tail about living under

24:46

a bridge with his wife and their

24:48

treat children, she offered him a ride to

24:50

get some food and some fresh clothing. As

24:53

after driving him back to her home,

24:55

she asked him to wait outside while she went

24:57

inside and packed him up some sandwiches. After

25:00

she finished wrapping up some fruit from him,

25:02

she turned and was startled to

25:04

see he had suddenly invited himself

25:07

into her house. But

25:10

She didn't think it was all

25:12

that weird, not sensing what was

25:14

meant to happen. She then went

25:16

upstairs to get Tommy Somme clothing, unknown

25:19

to Fabienne, Tommy then went

25:21

around the house, locked the doors,

25:24

and he began climbing the stairs

25:26

after her. Cornered

25:29

in the bedroom, and Tommy now wielding

25:32

a knife he'd taken from a block in the kitchen.

25:34

She begged him not to hurt her, but Tommy

25:37

Pence stabbing at her and trying to

25:39

sexually assault the nineteen year old.

25:41

Nefebien, she was pretty drunk,

25:44

She was gonna do everything she could to

25:46

ruin Dummies' day and she fought back,

25:48

she scratched, she bit, she kicked, she

25:50

punished him, she wrestled the knife away from

25:52

him, despite being cut all over

25:55

herself. Tommy was then stabbed

25:57

several times in return, including cut

25:59

to his liver and a nice little

26:01

cut to the balls. Fabienne,

26:03

she'd been beaten, she'd been attacked

26:05

severely, but she survived. Sadly,

26:08

so was honey. He was in

26:10

a bad state, though he initially managed to flee

26:13

the area, it didn't last long, and he

26:15

ended up in the ICU. And

26:17

Tommy would land in custody after recovering

26:19

and pleading Gil duty to a charge of malicious

26:21

wounding, and he'd be sentenced to

26:23

five years for the attack. Now,

26:27

some people speculated that You

26:29

know, Tommy's encounter with Fabienne led

26:31

to him choosing more vulnerable people

26:33

to attack in the future, like, she

26:35

was a grown woman and was able to fight

26:37

back and win the fight

26:40

so. After this, Tommy would always

26:42

make sure to only attack people he knew

26:44

he could over power. Which

26:47

would weigh heavily on on her mind

26:49

in particular. Now, of course, the only

26:51

people responsible for Tommy is Tommy himself.

26:53

A grown ass piece of shit. But

26:56

after this, Tommy would specifically target

26:59

young children. He served

27:01

the full five year prison term and was

27:03

finally released in July nineteen ninety

27:05

seven. Tommy didn't

27:07

even wait a full four months before

27:09

striking again. At

27:12

four am on October thirteenth, nineteen

27:14

ninety seven. In Lawrenceville, Illinois,

27:16

Ph. D. Student Julie Ray

27:19

was woken, and the dead of night by a

27:21

blood curdling scream coming

27:23

from her son's bedroom. She

27:25

was jolted awake and she

27:27

sprinted towards his room, where

27:30

She was horrified to come

27:32

face to face with a man wearing a ski

27:34

mask and she couldn't see where her ten

27:36

year old son, Joel, was.

27:39

Julie, she went, you know, immediately into

27:41

survival mode, fighting with a man through

27:44

the whole house all the way to the garden.

27:46

There, the man punched her directly into face,

27:48

knocking her flat, and fleeing the

27:50

home. Joel,

27:53

he'd been stabbed death in his bed with a

27:55

knife that had been taken from their kitchen.

27:58

Absolutely horrific for a mother

28:01

to to experience and go true,

28:03

but that wouldn't be the Ep7. For

28:05

Julie. Not

28:08

only was her son brutally murdered,

28:10

right, you know, pretty much in front of her and her

28:12

having to fight off the killer, Authorities

28:15

focused on Julie. With

28:17

seemingly little evidence of the random

28:20

intruder she claimed was responsible. This

28:22

guy in a ski mask Julie herself

28:24

was charged and ultimately found guilty

28:26

of her son's murder. All

28:29

the way of protesting her innocence saying an

28:31

intruder was there, and no one believed

28:33

her. In fact, that's something we've seen a couple times

28:36

in the home, you know, home invasions

28:38

that Tommy Lynn sells would do. He

28:40

left little to no evidence

28:43

behind every time. Julie

28:45

will be sentenced to sixty five years

28:48

in prison. On

28:50

December thirty first, thirteen year old

28:52

Kaleen Katie Harris and

28:54

ten year old Crystal Searles were having

28:56

a sleepover. When Tommy broke into

28:58

the house where the girls were sleeping, he

29:01

sexually assaulted Kaleen and slit

29:03

her throat, killing her. He

29:05

then went after Crystal and once again

29:07

slashed her throat before he left believing

29:09

he had murdered them both. Crystal,

29:12

however, not only survived by playing

29:14

dead, She managed to get to the neighbor's

29:16

house the very next morning for help.

29:19

Surviving an entire night where her throat slit

29:21

right beside the dead body of her best friend.

29:24

Unfortunately, it was too late for Kaleem

29:26

by the time the police arrived. But

29:28

with the help of a police sketch artist, ten

29:31

year old Crystal was able to accurately describe

29:33

Tommy Lynn cells. Cells

29:35

actually knew Katelyn's adopted father, Carrie

29:38

Harris, and the police knew Tommy, and

29:40

we're to find him. Cells

29:43

was arrested on the second of January two

29:45

thousand at the trailer he was sharing with his

29:47

then wife and therefore children.

29:49

The children were step children of Tommy, not

29:51

his biological. When the police

29:54

rocked Ep7, he didn't even ask why he was being arrested.

29:57

After all, from California to Texas

29:59

to New York, Tommy Lynn cells had

30:01

left a trail of brutalized dead

30:03

bodies. And that's not counting the innumerable

30:05

petty crimes he had polled along the

30:07

way. At

30:10

this point, it didn't matter to tell me what

30:12

was being arrested for. Tommy pleaded

30:14

guilty to the charges of first degree murder

30:16

and attempted murder. He was ultimately

30:19

sentenced to death for the murder of Kaleen

30:21

Harris. Now though it was the

30:23

murder of Kaleen Harris that actually landed

30:25

him on death row, authorities estimate

30:27

Tommy Lynn sells killed approximately twenty

30:30

two, twenty four people, while Tommy himself

30:32

he claims he killed closer to seventy

30:34

people. I'd say the truth, the truth

30:37

lies somewhere in between the two. But

30:39

goddamn, that's a lot of people,

30:41

Tommy Lynn Sells, murdered all

30:44

across America. I mean, numerous

30:47

victims of his that he's confessed to haven't even

30:49

been found. So how many of those he hasn't confessed

30:52

to will never be found? And

30:54

speaking of Julie Rae, who was

30:56

convicted of murdering her own

30:58

son Joel, Tomulans cells

31:00

wasn't identified. It wasn't until

31:02

Julie had served two years of

31:04

the sixty five year sentence. When

31:06

she gave an interview to twenty twenty on

31:08

ABC, that true crime writer,

31:10

Diane Fanning, heard Julie's stories,

31:12

and she and she noted several details

31:14

that seems all too familiar. Now,

31:17

Dad Finding was already in process of finishing,

31:20

writing a book about Tommy Eland's sales.

31:22

Cells was already in prison at this time for the

31:25

crime that would see him executed the

31:27

attack on the two young girls. So

31:29

Dan, finding approached Tommy Lynn Cells

31:31

via letter about Julie's story.

31:34

And Tommy wrote back with a letter asking

31:36

if she was talking about the murder that took place

31:38

two days before he killed Thirteen

31:40

year old, Stephanie Mahaney, a crime he

31:42

was also indicted for after confessing

31:44

key details. Stephanie was murdered

31:47

on the fifteenth of October, Joel on

31:49

the thirteenth, they were talking about the same

31:51

murder. Julie would be released

31:53

in two thousand and four after evidence the police

31:55

had committed perjury, came to light,

31:58

She was retried in two thousand six

32:00

this time with an audio tape full of cell's

32:02

confession on her side. She was

32:04

finally completely exonerated of any involvement

32:06

in her son's murder. Cells,

32:08

he wasn't actually tried for the murder of

32:11

young Joel, but it's, you know, it's accepted

32:13

he Did it, he's the one in ski mask,

32:15

the one responsible. Julie

32:17

Rae went on to work as an advocate for women

32:19

claiming to have been falsely convicted.

32:22

Now, Tommy Lynn sells I've

32:24

I talked about a lot of the murders he

32:27

he committed, but I haven't I barely covered

32:29

half of them. Like, yeah, to go through

32:31

every murder Tommy Lynn cells actually committed,

32:34

we'd be here all day, and I may as well just

32:36

do a PowerPoint presentation and go through the bullet

32:38

points because because there's so there's so many

32:40

murders he committed, I don't wanna lose just how

32:42

horrific each and everyone actually was,

32:45

and how much of a monster This

32:47

guy was, you know, a person who was

32:49

abused, fair enough he was abused as

32:51

a kid. He had a horrible childhood. He was surrounded

32:54

by horrible adults who should have looked after

32:56

him and they didn't. He was abused

32:58

emotionally, physically, and sexually growing

33:00

up. But then when he was out in his own,

33:02

He was addicted to drugs, he was addicted to alcohol,

33:04

and he just began killing. Saying his

33:06

first murder was, oh, I kind of just, you know,

33:09

asked Rottie killed into my first murder by trying

33:11

to save somebody else who was also being

33:13

abused, and then he got addicted

33:16

to it. But addicted

33:18

to the murders themselves is what is the weird

33:20

thing. I mean, he was a cross country killer.

33:22

He never had to fix a boat or rarely did along,

33:24

usually staying in trailer parks with woman he managed

33:26

to convince into sleeping with

33:29

him and marrying him and whatever. But

33:31

the murders were what got him. He

33:33

rarely He would commit burglaries all the time,

33:35

but when it came to the murders, he didn't.

33:38

He didn't usually rob the people he

33:40

killed. He just killed

33:42

them. And after

33:44

one, managed to fight back, he decided to

33:46

go for more vulnerable, easier

33:48

prey Until,

33:51

well, one murder he thought he committed, he

33:53

didn't, she survived and was able to identify

33:56

him. And then in prison, he decided

33:58

to just come out with it. And say every single

34:00

thing he had done, which was

34:02

a lot. At six twenty

34:04

seven on April third twenty fifteen,

34:07

Tommy Lynn sells was put to death

34:09

by lethal injection. At the Texas

34:11

state penitentiary in Huntsville near

34:13

Livingston. He was forty nine

34:16

years old. It was

34:18

a at this point, like, I'm

34:20

not in favor really of the death penalty,

34:22

typically, but when you have a monster

34:24

like Tommy Lynn sells, What

34:26

else are you gonna do with them? Really? What

34:28

else do you Just end it.

34:31

Just end it. Tommy,

34:33

I mean, Tommy Lynn sells easily falls into

34:36

the most sadistic tier tier

34:38

of terrifying serial killers like he's right

34:40

up there. With the biggest heavy hitters

34:43

we got. The randomness of

34:45

his victims, the brutality of his crimes

34:47

from old women to

34:50

literally babies, new

34:52

born babies. Like, one of the one that women

34:54

killed was pregnant. She had a spontaneous she wanted a spontaneous

34:56

labor, and then he beat the bay, like,

34:59

my god. Tommy

35:01

described his first time murdering someone as

35:03

being like a shot of heroin. I even said

35:05

he was addicted addicted to murder. And

35:08

he basked in the notoriety of being

35:10

known as a killer. That was the

35:12

highest praise you could give Tommy Lynn

35:14

Sells. He once claimed to be the embodiment

35:16

of hatred. But he wasn't.

35:19

He wasn't anything like that. He was an impotence

35:21

piece of shit whose fear

35:23

of abandonment, led him

35:25

to wanting to lash out at others. He's

35:28

pathetic,

35:29

and he was a monster. I am

35:31

hatred. When you look at me, you

35:33

look at hate, when you look at me, you know

35:35

what hate is. And I don't know what

35:37

love is. Two words, I don't like to

35:39

use as love and sorry.

35:42

Because I'm about hate. But

35:44

what he did? What he did was horrific

35:47

like few killers will admit to enjoy killing

35:49

even though a lot of them do. Especially now

35:51

when a lot of them have killed children like Tommy did.

35:53

He once said that the reason he killed children was

35:55

so that's, quote, they don't

35:57

have to live true what he lived true.

36:00

As if he was doing them a fucking favor.

36:02

Well, the bullshit Tommy Lynn sells or

36:05

was selling, no one's buying.

36:08

Thank you so much for listening to

36:10

this old podcast on Tommy Lynn Sell,

36:12

one of the worst monsters I've covered. I hope you enjoyed

36:15

it. Really it means it means a lot

36:17

to me that you guys are sticking around and listening to this podcast.

36:19

Thank you. Thank you. If I could ask you just to

36:21

review rate podcast that helps out tremendously.

36:25

And yeah. Right. Shanae, I guess we can leave

36:27

it there. We'll leave it there, guys. Thanks for listening.

36:29

And listen. As always, please take care of each

36:31

other and your sales because Guess

36:34

what? Tell me, my game.