Serial Killers: Tommy Lynn Sells

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Serial killers commit a lot of crimes during their active years. Previously it was rather difficult to catch them because professionals were not focused on their psychology and did not realize the values of profiling. Still, with the course of time, they started to identify similarities in victims and the way they were killed as well as resorted to the improved technologies, which enhanced this process greatly. Among those serial killers who were caught in the period of rapid development of the forensic science was Tommy Lynn Sells. He was also widely known as Cost to Cost Killer, who was active for about 20 years starting from 1979.

Tommy was born along with his twin sister in 1964. The girl died from meningitis being less than 2 years old, and their mother, Nina, sent Sells to live with his aunt, Bonnie. His father remains unknown even though it is supposed that he could have been William Sells or Joe Levins. However, when Bonnie started the adoption process after taking care of a child for 3 years, Tommy’s mother took him away (Contributor).

Nina was indifferent and did not care about her son much, so he turned into a troublemaker. She allowed him to live with Willis Clark, a man who groomed him, when he was only 8 years old. The man molested him, which affected Tommy negatively. In the future, he referred to his abusive experiences and used them on his victims. Being just 11 years old, he already consumed alcohol and drugs, tried to rape his mother and consulted a psychiatrist. In three years, he left home. Sells was arrested several times and jailed, but his real crimes became known only in 2000.

Sells killed his first victim being only 15 years old. Having seen a man sexually abusing a boy, he became mad and murdered him out of rage (Whitney). Such behavior could be explained by his personal experience. Still, he did not stop killing. A lot of his victims remained unknown, but the identities of some of them were revealed.

In 1985, Tommy lived in Missouri. He was working at a carnival where he met Ena Courdt and her little son. That night he beat them to death with a baseball bat. According to Sells, the woman invited him to her house and tried to rob him after having sex, which made him very angry. However, it seemed that he followed them, raped Ena, and then killed both.

In two years, Tommy moved to Illinois. There, he broke into the house of Keith and Elaine Dardeen (Gauen). The man was shot in a field. His genital was mutilated, which can be explained by Sells’s perception of men who abuse children. Elaine and her two kids were found in bed. They all were beaten to death. In addition to that, the woman was raped. What is more critical, she was pregnant and gave birth to the girl in the presence of Tommy. It is still not clear how he managed to get into the family’s house.

In 1992, Sells was found in Virginia. He raped a woman who had obviously considered him to be a simple homeless individual and wanted to take him home to feed him. Tommy stabbed and beat her with a piano stool when she managed to take a knife and hurt him. The man left as he thought that she was dead, but she survived and described him to the police. As a result, he was arrested and imprisoned for almost 4 years.

Living behind bars, Sells was able to get married. His wife, Nora Price, started living with him since 1997. Being occupied in odd jobs, Tommy would leave the town rather often and abandoned Nora in less than a year. It is believed that in October of the same year he killed a 13-year-old girl in Missouri and moved to Texas.

Working for a carnival, Sells met his new wife. Even though he had never divorced, the man lived with Jessica Lavrie and her four children (Sherwood and Effron). However, family life did not change him. Tommy continued to travel to various states throughout the USA, abuse drugs and kill people. It is not proved, but the police claimed that Jessica had no idea of these things.

In 1999, Sells killed a woman and her daughter in Tennessee. The girl was stabbed, and her mother was raped before that. Several days later, he kidnapped a girl from a music festival in Texas. It was found out that she was molested before death. Her body was dumped in a creek. In a couple of weeks, he raped a girl in Kentucky and strangled her. In fact, Tommy was arrested that day but just for public intoxication, so he was released the following morning. Soon, he raped and shot another girl.

As Sells moved to Texas again, he started attending the Grace Community Church, where he met Terry and Crystal Harris who had three children. Tommy and Terry became friends. On December 31, 1999, the father of the family was going to be out for some time, so Sells broke into his house through the window in the boy’s room (“Tommy Lynn Sells”). However, Tommy left the kid untouched, as he did not pay attention to the noise. The man targeted one of his sisters, Katy. He entered her room and woke her up as he laid beside. Sells started molesting her, but the girl yelled, so he slit her throat twice and then stabbed her more than 15 times. He also slit her friends’, Krystal, throat. She was in the room at that time but was too scared to move. After Sells left, Krystal went to the neighbors and asked for help even though she was severely wounded and could not speak. Katy did not survive, but her friend identified the criminal. Finally, Tommy was arrested and sentenced in 2000 (Montaldo).

When analyzing Sells’ crimes, it can be concluded that he started with beating his victims to death but, in the majority of cases, stabbed them or slit their throats. In general, he targeted at young women and their children. Sells might have associated them with his mother and him, as he blamed her for not taking care of him properly and for the inability to protect him. Tommy would break in people’s homes and molest them before taking their lives. He got his nickname due to the fact that he operated in different states, including Missouri, Texas, and Illinois, etc. All in all, Sells murdered more than 20 people. The majority of this information became known when he was caught by the police. It happened in Texas on December 31, 1999. Tommy spent 14 years in prison, being pleaded guilty for his last crime, and he was executed in 2014 at the Texas State Penitentiary.

Works Cited

Contributor. “Biography of Serial Killer Tommy Lynn Sells.” Itchy Fish. 2010. Web.

Gauen, Pat. “Gruesome Illinois mystery appears to end with Texas execution.” STL Today. 2014. Web.

Montaldo, Charles. “Tommy Lynn Sells.” About News. 2016. Web.

Sherwood, Roxanna, and Lauren Effron. “Convicted serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells executed in Texas.”ADC News. 2014. Web.

“Tommy Lynn Sells.”Clark Prosecutor, 2014. Web.

Whitney, Heather. “Victims of Tommy Lynn Sells.” Serial Killers. 2010. Web.

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Serial Killers: Tommy Lynn Sells

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