By Ed Dazere
Disclaimer: the confession below is invented. It is not a quotation.
It is the author’s imagining of how this man might have spoken, not a quotation, not a statement he ever made, and not evidence of anything.
DISCLAIMER: The following article is based on facts available to the author and is to an extent fictionalised and embellished. Any perceived prejudice herein does not reflect the views of the author.
Editor’s note: Tommy Lynn Sells drifted between carnival and day-labor jobs across the United States for two decades, and the archive records at least twenty-two killings. He claimed as many as seventy. Texas convicted him of the murder of thirteen-year-old Kaylene Harris in September 2000 and executed him at Huntsville on April 3, 2014. He was caught because a ten-year-old girl survived having her throat cut and told the police what he looked like.
Momma drops young Tommy at the cabin house where the man Tommy knows as Uncle Willis lives. Uncle Willis is not part of the Sells family as far as Nina Sells is concerned, but she would be the first to admit, that with her background and ways, anything is possible. Nina waits in the car as Tommy knocks on the door, standing there expectantly with his packed lunch – he’ll be here the best part of the day. The door opens to show a man in his early sixties, he is large, dressed in cheap but smart old man’s clothes, his face is time-weathered and weathered through hard-living, and to most parents’ estimation, a tapestry of libidinousness, past and present. The man – Uncle Willis – waves to Nina, smiling; Tommy looks around, his face fraught. In goes Tommy, knowing by now that whatever is about to take place cannot be repeated to his mother, for he fears her reaction, and so it must continue for what must seem like eternity.
May, 1992, Charleston WV there is a man standing beneath an overpass. He is a shabby affair to say the least; with his sign with “I WILL WORK FOR FOOD” clumsily printed, and panhandling to boot, he almost looks like a charade. But if so, there is nothing about him – or IT – that invites healthy interest; people certainly do look, but want nothing of this spectacle to permeate their consciences and work its harm – that is intuitive. No, you don’t want to think too much about that man, what made him that way in that place, because whatever his story, it is very bad. One who advertises in such a fashion should not glean any propitious attention, but there are those who know no better or are of a conscientious disposition to such a degree that their good sense is compromised. Such an unlikely person nears the man and on seeing him, feels acute pity that might be something to do with Godliness and duties therein. She stops by him and undoes the window “You sure look needy mister…I guess I could help” to which he croaks “why thankyou mam. I surely am kinda hungry and tired. Maybe you’re an angel”. Even to her, his countenance is off-putting; his face-shape is amphibian, eyes porcine, nose round and almost clownish, and he has a weird grin that that flashes wide and invitingly as his eyes come alight – he looks like he could eat a suitably small person. “Well…O.K. I guess I’ll take you home and feed you and we’ll take it from there” says the 19yr old girl, who will later be beaten, stabbed and raped in her own home by him, but for all that was one of the lucky ones.
“’The first time I did a shot of dope, it was the best feeling I ever had in my life. And…The first time I killed somebody, it was such a rush…’. That’s what I told the Doctor creep who came to interview me in death row about my heinous ways, that and a whole lot more, we even joked about how good it was there was a reinforced screen between us. So, what is it you want me to tell you sorry SOBs here? I’ll bet I can guess a part of it…How many did he kill? Ooh…I bet you’re just dying to find that out. Was it ten? Yep. Was it twenty? Yep. Was it thirty? Might have been. Look the truth is, I don’t really know. Say two, three a year, for what…twenty years – do the math.
O.K., so – omitting some of the dirtiest details - here’s how it went:
My Momma was a trailer type who could barely hold the things together with our lives, my father gone off early on. She had to spread the burden of me with my Gramma and even sent me off to this bugger whose dealings with me I won’t talk about, all so as she could work her shitty jobs. As far as violence at that age, well there likely had to be some given how I turned out didn’t there. I got that from my father who would turn up from time to time and often drunk, and he’d take it out on Mom and take it out on me with a savagery that was truly terrifying. And then there were the skunks my Mom would bring round to our little abode, as if she was trying to make something good out of the mess out of us by making acquaintances. Well, I don’t know what her criteria for picking them was, but I reckon it was more that they picked her for sex and somewhere to get loaded on drink and dope, and with those very worst sorts of people and there being so many takers, was it a surprise that I met with some terrible treatment to add to the makeup of me? My Mom was just a glutton for punishment and it got spread out generous to me. She was at best just a dumb, ruinous trashfolk woman, unable to make any sense of a way of life any better, but on balance, and although I would have been hurt bad to have heard it said of her, I think she was a whore.
I went to school, and wouldn’t you just know it, they didn’t like me much there. I was probably a dumb kid, but there were plenty of them. It was to do with my cursed family background is one, but it was likely pretty obvious that even as a kid, I was a bad person, and there were plenty of those there, but not like me – I was evil.
I reckon I was out of school by age twelve and with so much time on my hands, there was pretty much nothing to do but look for trouble. The idle mind is the Devil’s playground! Well, my mind was certainly that, whether I was idle or not. I was starting to think about sex and liquor because I could associate the two with fun, judging by what Mom and those pantysneaks were getting up to. But obviously, that isn’t the whole of the story, for when father would turn up skunked, it wasn’t fun for him and it wasn’t fun for me. But then there is what is fun for one not necessarily being fun for another. Some of those skunks who turned up for Mom, they were drunk or on something I didn’t know at the time, and having a high old time, and they weren’t mean, but were dirty, perverted with me, which I hated.
It didn’t matter, the downsides of the drink and whatever, I was a waste of humanity and hellbent on a fun-packed road to ruin – why wait. I wanted to test my burning curiosity for the stuff out, but hadn’t worked out how to get it. It was never offered to me, despite what I was forced to do, and it was hidden somewhere, likely out of height I imagined. It was after a terrible wrecking session in the main room one Friday night, loads of people all smashed up on stuff, whooping and hollering, rioting in there, mostly good tempered, some fighting talk, as I heard it from my bedroom. The next day when I thought it was safe, I went in and saw this awful mess of drunken orgy aftermath, over a dozen men and women – including my Mom – passed out, empty cans and bottles, stuff smashed and toppled, puke, condoms, titties left out on show, and I saw a half-full bottle of wine and fifth-bottle of bourbon about a quarter-full, and I found a little packet of some green chaw in and out of the pocket of a guy I’d never seen who was dead for what I could see – I took the stuff.
I was twelve and I got drunk. I went stumbling around the place, acting real strange, and Mom saw me like that and knew exactly what was with me. She hit me hard about the face and ass, asked me where I’d stole it from, and I showed her the bottle of bourbon with some in it (the wine one was empty and I’d tossed it out into the yard). Mom took the bourbon off me, told me never to steal any of her booze and drank the finger or so left in the bottle – it was the Sunday morning.
Wow, I just loved that hooch! But double, triple wow the green stuff, which was obviously pot. You already know what I told the Doctor. Anyhow, I wasn’t thinking about killing a soul then, just getting hold of more hooch and dope – anything, any amount, anyhow (within reason).
O.k., so I guess we better get things moving and to the first murder. Because that’s why we’re here aint it!
Aged about fifteen, I set off from home to get the Hell away from that sty and all the misery and badness within, leaving Mom to her sordid ways, which – although I didn’t disapprove of them – were becoming a bit rank given her getting on a bit, and starting to resemble a sorry-assed street-hooker junker (she couldn’t keep it going there without work, and she was getting ill to the point where I doubted I’d be seeing her again – whoever would turn up at her cheapass funeral, count me out). I was real excited by what I had planned for my life. It wouldn’t appeal to many, and no career would go by its name, but to me being a drifter headed far and wide, despite the hardships, was the only way I had in mind. I left shitheelville MO for the whole damn nation. I hitched south.
I hitched car, truck, train-hopped, walked, and ended up in Mississippi, some shithole nowhereville that didn’t even deserve a name, Lovell, or Raoul or something. I got busted out of the freight car and hollered off the interchange by some roughneck railman, bleary-eyed, stumbling drunk, no idea what time it was or where. It was the morning. I made for town and sobered up a good deal on the road in, which was important, since if I was going to be able to get trashed, I’d have to be sober to get the jack to do it. I was pretty sure I was presentable and fit enough to get some manual on a yard, that it wouldn’t be long before I saw signs to that effect, or saw someone who would know. I was learning a whole lot about survival on your own. If I was going to write a guide to it, I would write this chapter “WORK” and give some tips from what I soon learnt.
The work I got was about as basic as you like, just hauling mortar for a wall on a patch of land. I would earn $50 a day, free food enough for two meals, no accommodation though. I slept rough in the scrubland in a basic tarpaper tent and some sheets I stole from a line. It was mighty hard labor, but it was my first proper job, and I was chuffed. I had to get hold of hooch from one of the older men on the job, and I don’t doubt I paid over for it, since they regarded me as just some runaway kid. I had to watch the boozing so as not to be too sloppy on the job, and no drinking on the job (not for me, though the others did it). Well, it would be o.k. for a start, but you don’t do for that forever, not if you got some gumption. I needed dope and I needed more jack, and, I was thinking about taking some flesh of a woman whether she liked it or not – wasn’t paying for that.
That job was going to come to an end in a fortnight after I’d started and time was closing in. I was thinking then about more forceful ways of getting money and stuff. There was stealing of course, but that was chickenfeed around there unless you were prepared to take a risk. I was thinking of going it some more hog and either sticking someone up or burglary, but I knew that if I did that sort of thing, I better be ready to shoot sharpish. I spent my evenings walking the neighborhoods sussing out the houses and the people. I was drinking from a fifth-bottle I had in my jacket, and was looking for dope as well, on my devil-mutt rounds.
I soon saw a number of possible houses to burgle, having given the other option a bit of a miss. I made a list of say twenty in my mind, kept checking on them until I had it down to two, and would burgle one, see what happened, then the other later on, then leave town.
The best house, I saw the occupier and took him for a down and out toper who’d somehow ended up with a house he surely didn’t deserve. You could tell his life was a cesspit from all the empty hooch bottles in his front yard and the general state of the place, which looked to be going downhill, and fast. I guessed there would at least be some hooch in there, say four litre ones you could carry. There might be some dough in there, but I didn’t think so, not much, and I doubted that he had anything much of any value that you could hump let alone conceal. Well, it was the first job, so lessons to be learnt.
Yes, I was going to burgle old topey, and it was going to be Friday night (sometime in late May I think). I was going to take the back yard which you could access from a dirt trash alley, break in through the flyscreen door at the porch, cut in, then if there was another, bust open the lock if it was shut – which I somehow thought it might not be, if he was real drunk – then enter into darkness. I was going to go with a knife (which I bought from a hobo), a screwdriver, a tyre iron (got those two off the roadside). I thought about killing the owner, and I came to think I’d just do it if needs be, little excuse needed, then I’d definitely be making for the next town, one far away.
I got off work real excited about the job. It was midway to six and I was going to do some drinking in my little tent, then head off. Yes, I would need a good deal of hooch for this to take place, since I was truthfully pretty damn nervous. I went off about nine and walked all about the neighborhood, back and forth past the place, not too much though so as not to get noticed. I saw the lights were on in his mainroom and what I took to be a bedroom on the upper floor at the back. I saw him, his outline, in the mainroom twice, then left it till much later and returned to see the light in the mainroom was off, but on going to the back, the other one was on. I waited in the alley until that one was off, then snuck in, past some wire mesh that was loose by the fence post. I had drunk from my fifth-bottle slowly but steady, getting more and more ready, the nerves kept in its box, yet the fire rising. I dropped the empty bottle in the yard with all the others. I crept on up to the porch, using shading to my advantage, but no one was looking in; there were people obviously drunk, noisy, they surely couldn’t have bothered to pay any mind to me, probably not even if they knew what I was up to, it was that sort of neighborhood.
The flyscreen cut, I went for the other door. Locked. Probably had been for some time. I could see well enough with the lights from the street and other houses. I tried my screwdriver in the lock, not really sure what that would achieve, which was nothing, no matter how much I damaged it. I used the tire iron and wrenched the metal haspplate out, then into the wood, digging it out until the bolttongue was there. I was conscious of making too much noise, but I was mad to get in there, like a coyote trying to dig out a gopher, having got it good and trapped. I was no expert on this, that was for sure, but I worked it out, got the tire iron around the metal and popped the lock out. I was in – any owner would surely wish they weren’t.
It was a bit too dark in there, but I kind of liked it, since it suited my purpose, my inner darkness. I made for the mainroom, slowly, slowly, not a sound. Inside, I turned the light on, since the other room was on the otherside of the house and I guessed he was out, and with the door closed, how could he know? Nothing in there, just the leftovers from his little party, which had included some form of dope, which might have boded well.
My superexhilaration was souring and turning to anger, rage. I was in this Goddamn place on this crazy mission, feeling vulnerable, and there wasn’t any reward, and I didn’t think there would be. I had the red in my mindeyes, clouding my judgment. I was going to go and have it out with the mother up there. I would get him to tell me where the stuff was, threaten the living daylights out of him, which wouldn’t be bluff, since I was pretty much bent on killing him come what may by then. Upstairs I went, and the further up I went, the less I cared about blowing my cover.
When I got to the landing, all was still dark – but not too dark – but there was something going on in a room which had to be his bedroom. What was going on in there was obvious from the sound, but what bothered me was that I thought there was only one person here, so what the Hell was going on in there! I rushed at that door, that sound, I was enraged, unstoppable. I bust the unlocked door in and there were shouts and screams (or thereabouts), groped for the lightswitch on the wall, got it. I saw what was going on. It was him and a boy a bit younger than me. I remember seeing the look of complete horror on his face, him rigid like a jackrabbit in a headlight, hands up as if I were some kind of visitation of God himself come to punish him. I don’t remember seeing much more of the kid – he just scarpered. I don’t remember much of what happened, just a frenzy of utmost violence with knife and screwdriver. Stab, stab, stab, slash, slash, slash.
When I had stopped, there was a dead person on the bed and a ton of blood, wherever it could get, gravity no barrier. I was shocked, not by what I had done to him, but by my own capacity for violence and its effects. I had to get out, but at least I could spend ten minutes say in there, some reward for my efforts, and I hadn’t made too much noise I didn’t think. I looked through the room, the drawers, pockets, then went downstairs and checked in the little cubbyroom under the stairs, checked the eating room, kitchen, all superfast. All told, I came out with $129, three bottles of Canadian Whiskey, a kitchen knife, and a fancy metal and wood old clock the size of a cigar box. I fled like a varmint.
O.k. so how did it feel to kill someone. I don’t think I made it clear what I’d felt when I did that first one. At the time, I was too much in the passion of it to really feel the thrill in its whole. I certainly felt I was in a hugely heightened state, and I did feel elation. But it was afterwards that the true wonder of the event hit me, running down that road too far from the scene to worry much. Yes! That was when the feeling really kicked in, like the gap you get from taking a shot of dope and it hitting the bullseye. I was on fire, a mighty being all the more so for having taken the life of a person. I did have some good mindseyefootage of what I had actually done, which came to me then too, and that was like something much greater and more magical than sex, a raw, seedy electricity twanging your mind’s pleasure wires, over and over to the point where you thought it beyond the capacity of man to take, then it let off, waves dwindling till it was over except for an afterglow, and a deathnotch on a record of your achievements in your estimation. Once you’d done that, you were a different person through and through, like your mind had been turned to a new setting that was always there.
I burnt my old bloodied clothes, got my gear together and made for new pastures. On the road was my way of life, so it was with ease that I just got back into the move, like changing from one job to another. I had no idea where I was headed, which was part of the plan, if that makes any sense. I would just let chance take me where it would.
The life on the road was mostly just the hassle of getting the travel sorted out, by whatever means. I found cars were the least cooperative, trucks much better, trains a bit of a chore, since you had to break in. Although, a train doesn’t take a view of you one way or the other, whereas, a respectable family aint gonna like the looks of some hobo-drifter type with his thumb out or sign, and very few people would in the cars in general. With the truckers, they are a tougher bunch and some of them like the company, and some of them might think you are peas in a pod, can share some hooch or dope, or even go out, visit a joint together. Mostly though, the people I would meet would be just down and outs for good, or maybe some who had a bit of gumption about them but some real shit to deal with. There was a lot of drinking and drugging with some of those types, just to make life bearable while it lasted – which wasn’t going to be long for many of them given their health, and other risks like people like me – and I could get on pretty well with some of them, since we were peas in pod, at least for some of the time, and when there was the stuff to merry things up. But I sure fell out with some of them and there was trouble that I think it would be fair to say ended in some deaths at my hands, in that period since the house burglary turned murder. In truth though, while I was a drifter for sure, and a tope and dopefiend, I never really saw myself as one of those fellow rootless types, since, they just stayed put somewhere, maybe for life, or just went where the wind blew them like leaves, or where the law shoved them – no initiative, no gumption. I was going places, looking for adventure, get as much out of this life as I could squeeze, evil as it might be. I recall some book I had to read at school about some tyke who just scamps around the land doing as he pleases, Huckle something, well, I liked that fella some back then, and maybe he inspired me to go as I did. I guess I thought I was just a modern version of him, in outlook anyhow.
I ended up in L.A. by accident in 80/81. My God, that place blew me away, it was like some thousand times the little diddly-squatvilles I’d been in and through. It was a mightyville with its good neighborhoods where trashfolk daren’t wander, and mostly just junktown and construction. And there was a whole bounty of riff-raff there, like they thought it was Mecca or someplace. If I had wanted to stick around and get by and take out a bunch of those people, I needn’t have moved, but I really couldn’t stand the place and had to get out before I went crazy. Just before my planned exit, I got into a bust up at night and killed a fella. I had been wandering the bad patches of South Central, looking to score some dope. I was also hungry, having spent most of my money for that purpose, so was on the look out for garbage pickings too. I came across this Chinese joint at about midnight and went down the side alley to take a drink and check out the pails. I guess being hungry doesn’t ordinarily help when you drink too much, since I was drunker than I would have hoped, given what I’d had. I was there in the alley just kind of mooching around, swaying and probably making a holler now and then, and since there was hardly a soul around, I wasn’t too wary of my actions. Then, this badass guy comes up to me and gives me this mean, killer look and shouts “get the fuck outta… Or I’ll kill ya”. I came sober a bit and took him in and reckoned him for a serious character, and was pretty sure he was going to at least give me a beating whether I obliged or not. I just stood there, and he went nuts, coming closer, arms extended to me, shaking like he was about to strangle me. “I said the motherfuck get. Motherfucker. Get”. I wasn’t going anywhere. The rage in me built like boilersteam about to blow. I saw red and my mind got to thinking about how to take him out. I had this icepick I’d robbed from a hobo who showed it me and told me he kept it for self-defense, well, it didn’t do him any good. I had it with the handle down my trouser leg and my right hand went for the head. I yanked it out it one lightning move, and as he was so close I was almost too slow. I just swung and planted that pick point into the side of his head. He gave me a look of shock and disbelief, then he was lights out and slumped like a piece of refuse, with an icepick as a bonus. I wasn’t too worried about that one, but it was time to fly.
Not long after, I ended up in Oakland. Another big town. Same old hobos here. I did a bit of labor and got the jack for my fun, which involved a good deal more pot here since it was easier to come by and a darn sight cheaper, and I tried some other stuff I bought from some junky dealer who knew better than to bilk me. I discovered the joys of angeldust; there was meth, coke (too expensive), LSD, zoko, and other stuff I likely tried, if it was free, I stole it. There was no problem with pot unless I was already skunked on hooch, or it was a particularly potent type, and I sort of felt myself pretty invincible to most of what I took, but that one time I took something which was some seed some magic-hobo swapped for a pull on my fifth. He dared me to take it, said he bet me the whole bottle against more of the same that I wouldn’t have the bottle, which he thought was mighty funny, but I did take it and he gave me my winnings, and I took them too. He was one kooky old hippy-junker, like some wiseman, and possibly evil to boot, since he laughed at my recklessness. I took those seeds eying him as he looked at me that weird witchy way, smiling at the progress he believed would take place. Then, he wasn’t there. And then, it was like I wasn’t either. I don’t know what the Hell happened over the next interval, after which I ended up in hospital with bandages in places and a tube running into my arm. I was strapped to the bed and couldn’t move an inch. I hollered like a madman, like I was in a nightmare and trying to get out, but I couldn’t since I was awake. The nurses came and saw to me and a doctor explained how badly hurt I was, did I want to report it to the police? Now why would that be I asked. He said I’d been beaten and stabbed to near death. I said just let it go. I saw out just over a week in there when I was thinking I could bust out since I was fit enough and unshackled – just the tube in the arm. The thing that did it for me was when the doctor told two nurses to stick another tube in my pecker. I wasn’t having that, no matter I was broken and bleeding. I rose up like a vamp from his coffin, ripped the line out and scooted with the hospital clothes still on. Then I remembered I needed my stuff and returned quick as can be, a whole scene in there. I just demanded they hand over my pants and shirt and wallet. And they did.
Back on the street, I was one sick dog. I was cut up with stiches, them still healing, and I was liver sick, puking whatever hooch I tried to swallow. I could hardly move from the little carboard home I made in a nearby park where such as us were tolerated. I was shivering and shaking despite the heat. Some kindly folks came and gave me clothes and food, even a little money, Godly folks I think from the babble they gave me and the papers. I decided the only place I could go would be home to Mom, as desperate and unlikely as it seemed. It took me four days of Hell, mind and bodywise, two days in a hostel, to get ready to hitch back to Mom.
When I made it home, it was even more of a misery with her than out. I had been mistaken to think it was the thing to do. There was all the bad memories, all of what made me who I was. It was like I was returning to the lion’s den and me a lion who’d come from it. As such, my inclinations were pretty terrible in there. I tried to drown my time out with hooch, while my mind refigured what to do so I could move on. I got kicked out from Mom’s place and the reason why I could not deny it, since even by my standards, it was pretty low – I tried to rape her.
Back on the road, back up to my old tricks, I slipped back into it after the interval at Mom’s as easy as an eel. I really don’t think you want to be bothering about all the minor crimes I got up to, and that’s the ones I can even remember. If you did, this could go on for days. I think I’ll just skim over the next few years and say that, there was a lot of thieving, lot of burglary (or attempts at it), lot of drinking and doping, some horrible treatment of men and women alike, bit of murder. And it says somewhere that I met some woman called Cindy and had a kid by her, which sort of rings a bell, sometime in 83 maybe. Oh, and I burglarized a home in Little Rock Arkansas and shot the owner, but he made it, which I remember fondly because it was so well executed, the loot motherlode from that. Oh yeah, I ended up in Missouri again and got jailed for stealing a truck. Eight months in the slammer for that, then according to the judge’s order, I ended up in a rehab clinic and that was a strange place to be – no drink or dope! In rehab this cop came to me to ask about another vehicle theft. I had to get out, busted out one night, fled to far away.
So, we’ll get past that chickenfeed for now, move on to a juicier bit.
I was getting a little tired of working some of the worst jobs on offer; it was about time that I took a leaf out of my older self from my own book of tips for drifters, if it were to ever get written - WORK. I have to admit, that my appearance including attire was not conducive to getting respectable work at all, at least most of the time. I mean, you can shift lumber in a yard looking like a hobo, as long as you wear a uniform. But if you want to get the better work, where you need to impress with your looks, you need to take a care of yourself. I was getting to shave as best I could at the time and had stolen some nicer threads from various places, nothing fancy, just newish and clean. With that, it was down to speaking well before an employer. I sort of practiced everything, and so, looked for the better work when I ended up in a town. I ended up in Forsyth MO, 85.
Forsyth was just another tinpot country town that called itself a city without the least bit of irony or shame. I walked about it and soon got the measure of the place, where I’d be staying, where I might go looking for dope or trouble. I soon saw some Indian-looking fella posting bills for a carnival about town, nailing or pasting them to poles and whatnot. I looked at one of these then went to the fella and asked him about work, and he said to be at this place at this time and speak to this fella, which I did.
It was going to be a fancy affair, this carnyshow, certainly about as much excitement as Forsyth could take each year. The man seemed decent and most importantly, he seemed impressed by me. He offered me work on the carnival, various jobs, but to begin with it would be setting the thing up, $5/hr, some little stuff thrown in for sure, starting 7am next day. With that, it was time to find somewhere to set up home.
I decided on a derelict store with a well overgrown parking lot. Inside there was plenty of evidence of former use, though nothing suggested anyone was there then, though I imagined I’d likely be seeing some folk in there, and it was up to them to leave me be, or pay the price – I wasn’t scared of most anybody by then. I didn’t have much, just bedding and some stuff of no worth, any dope or booze hidden on myself or somewhere in the nearby scrub.
I was just handing out fliers for various attractions and the final show in the big tent. I was sort of guessing what sort of person would be into what and angling for them with that in mind, so a family – the main show; a young couple – the Ghost Train; a bunch of teenagers – the shooting game, etc etc. This young woman who was just about passable as attractive, I saw her and given her expression, I took her for a sort of airhead, and I thought the Tarot Cards would be right up her alley, so I made for her and handed her the flier. She took it and looked it over and you could see the lights in her eyes – yes, it was spot on, she was sold. I offered to take her to it and she was pleased with that, and on the little walk there, I was under the impression that she was taking a shine to me, which I found quite unlikely, since I was no picture of beauty, and I was a Goddamn enemy to humanity, women included, murderer, you name it, and I sort of guessed it might show. Well, she soon made it clear that she was taken with me; she asked me if I’d like to come to her place for a drink, the following evening. Yes, I would, and I did believe that “drink” did mean drink, but also there were more promising connotations in there. Her name was Ena Cordt, and she was 28.
Next evening, I set off for her place as addressed and described. It was a pretty shabby affair, and given that I was looking pretty good considering my previous incarnations, I almost felt I was trading down a bit. But I was game anyhow.
She was pretty sweet when I got in there, dressed well, made up, looked like a hooker to me, but if so, surely not charging this time. So, she gave me a nice chicken dinner and lots of cheapass wine, which I didn’t mind, though it didn’t exactly do the job with much enthusiasm, and so I was glad I had brought a full fifth of bourbon. We were eating and getting drunk, then we were sitting in the lounge area and getting even drunker, to the point where I was getting a bit worried about what she might do, what with my memories of my drunkard mother. It got so as I must have lost consciousness proper, because next thing, I remember ending up in her bed with her, waking up to take a leak. She was naked, and judging by the state of my pants, I guessed that we had been at it. I returned and went back to sleep.
When I awoke the next day for good, it was because I felt her rifling through my pockets for the wallet. I went completely berserk and battered her with all my rage and might, a pure, wild frenzy. She had to be dead after that (I later learnt that she was). When I was at that this little kid came in, who I’d no idea was in the place. He came in because of the noise his momma’s and mine, the terrible noise of violence and death. I didn’t think about it. I just killed him, so he couldn’t tell on me, that was why, and I guess to put him out of his misery, having witnessed such a scene.
Well, that was a thrill for sure, it kept me hept up and in good spirits for a while, but with that sort of thing, you just want more of it, like dope and booze. It’s called chasing the dragon or something, to do with Chinese dope. So, I was chasing the dragon, and I was just itching and busting to make another kill. But you can’t just go out and grab someone and kill them – well you can, but it won’t do your reputation no good – no, you got to either be in the right place at the right time and them the reverse, or do some planning. All good things come to those who wait (in my book, that would be under “KILLING”). O.k., so I would have to wait, and my anticipation could grow and grow, and the reward be all the more intense for it.
Hmm, let me see…Hey know something, you got some morbid thing going on if you’re still interested in this, just like those creeps from the TV. Just saying. O.k., let’s get to worst of my crimes. I just know you’re dying to find out.
So, it was more of the same as before, all over the country, rootless, up to trouble. There were a few murders, some prostitutes – one in NY state – hobos, a few burglaries resulting in a body or a badly damaged person. That takes us to 87 and my arrival in Ina Illinois. Like with most places I turned up, I had no plan to be there in particular – it was just the end of the line for my truck ride. Ina was this blue-collar town with a mean streak to it. Bad to begin with, much worse after I’d had my way there. I was just mooching around, looking for some work, sleeping rough. Again, I couldn’t make it through work, so took to theft. Again, my mind turned to burglary given the potential rewards, just one good job enough to keep me going for weeks.
The neighborhoods I went through gave me the chills, as much as I’d probably give them to a nice well-turned out type. I mean that area, it was mean, it was sick. I was much smarter when it came to assessing the pros and cons of overhauling a place, and I could see little of value in these pastures, and given the sense of threat from criminals from within or without, security looked pretty good, as if the slobs who owned their shitty little dens would put out for all that, but leave the place protected a dump, or maybe they deliberately made it look that way so no one would bother, on account of them looking so poor. The ones where there was something to arouse attention were when someone fresh had come in and not learnt the lie of the land, taken suitable precautions. I saw three of interest and would get it down to one after much research.
I didn’t think I stood out in Ina much, despite being in my disheveled phase, so I could spend the time casing without a worry. The place I settled on had a woman (pregnant or fat I thought), a kid and this man who sort of lived there, I wasn’t too sure. They were a young family I guessed, and they were one in some form of trouble I sussed from vibes I just picked up, just like the neighbors must have. The place just had that look like it was expressing the problems within like a face shows those of a troubled person’s mind. Little signals, you can’t really describe. I would hit them because I gauged the security was loose, and I reckoned there was something in there, my senses told me, just as they had when I had hit motherlode.
I chose to go for them on Wednesday (11 November). I would arrive at around 8 and take it from there, without hurry. I was armed/equipped with a good butchery knife, a smaller one, a screwdriver, a tire iron, a collection of lock picks and rapping keys (traded for pot with a drifter in Memphis who showed me how to open deadbolts and cylinder locks) and strong tape.
When the time came, I dosed up on hooch and took a bottle with me. I also took some angel dust, which I found made me all the more wild and violent, and mostly fearless too. I set off feeling buzzed up, high as a kite; not only was it such a feeling of anticipation, it was this feeling of power and authority, that I was going in there to take what I wanted and nothing could stop me. I had pretty much planned to kill anything that moved in there, but I was mostly thinking about getting a good pile of jack to get more angel and some of the crystal and some LSD. In short, if I didn’t need to kill anyone, I knew I probably would if and when the feeling took hold, if I lost even a little control.
It was raining hard. I was there, out back on the other side of the road, but it was too early when I first arrived, lights still on, so I just kept walking with my tote-bag of gear, no doubt looking pretty suspect to some people had they seen me, but given the rain, I sort of felt camouflaged. I came back at intervals say thirty minutes apart, and on my third return, it was lights out and time to go in. I went to a tree on the side of the place’s backyard and got a closer look, then when fully satisfied, just stepped over the low picket fence that couldn’t even keep a toddler in or out. I hid in the shadow of the boundary fence on my right.
I don’t know why, but out of the blue, a feeling of dread came over me and kept me from proceeding to the act. It was like I knew something terrible was going to happen, a premonition like. It was like, did I really want to do this or just turn back on it and try and just get through life without all this horror in it as well as that past. I gave it a little consideration, but really the answer was most certainly YES, I did want to do this and with that reconfirmed, I had the green light flashing brighter than ever.
The back door had been locked, it was an old-style lock which I couldn’t pick so I’d just rip it out or bust the window in. I went at it with the tire iron and the wood being rotted, it opened pretty easy up to the bolts. I had to make a bit of noise when it came to busting them, but nothing stirred within. I sensed that I had gained entry and gained authority over those within. Inside it was too dark to move quickly, and I wasn’t going to turn on any lights until I had reached the occupants who I would deal with then, then get the goods. When I crept through the house, I was bumping around in the hallways and I almost caused a calamity by knocking something like a vase off a side table. I steadied myself on the wall with my right hand, and then I felt something rested against the table and I picked it up and it was obviously a baseball bat, which was like a gift perfect for a deadly intruder like me – why did they put it there! I was just working myself up with increasing murderous intent as I neared the stairs and the bedroom where I took it to be directly above, thinking they were little pigs and I was one big, crazy-badass wolf, come to gobble them up.
At the stairwell, I took a little pause to control myself, since I was feeling like I wasn’t quite close enough to just go the whole hog and rush it and smash them. I remembered I still had the tire iron in my pocket, and with the bat, I didn’t want it, so dumped it. I went up the stairs coolly, got to the landing and I could hear voices coming from the room, so I knew exactly where they were, at least the adults – the kid didn’t interest me much. I just lost it then, all restraint, and rushed like a wild animal at its prey. And then this is what I remember:
The door slammed in as I kicked it and the top panels smashed with the bat. I hollered as loud as I could as if to stun them still. The lights went on and I saw the pair of them clothed sitting upright in the bed. The woman screamed and the man hollered, but in a youngish, womanly way. They shifted like they’d been electrified or something. Then I was at them. Battering like a woodchooper machine, like a crazed axeman but with a bat. I smashed them out cold in a near instant, smashed stuff in the room up, including the windows, and I was still hollerin, and everybody for many houses around must have heard it, and probably dove under their beds. I wasn’t going to hang around here much, not after that racket. I ransacked the bedside cabinets and, nothing in the one by the woman, but in the man’s one, I got a nice little loaded revolver and a bunch of keys. I was frantic, still a maniac, unable to call it off, so I gave the two of them more of a beating, and they both groaned, as if I had woken them from death by it. Then the kid came running in and what he expected to see and why on earth any kid would come looking for what I had brought about, I still can’t figure. I battered him and that was that. And then the woman, who I had guessed was pregnant, she gave it up, which I found hugely alarming, and I did for that straight off. I was so strange then that when the man moved, I went into a new mood as yet unimagined, in which I wanted to take him hostage, away from here, and I’d kill him anyhow – his still living after my treatment of him riled me. I dropped the bat, grabbed him by the neck and hauled him to his feet with immense power I had already and from the angel. He was speaking dumb and insensible, like he was just coming to proper. I got my knife out and held it to his neck and took him to the stairs, then threw him down, followed fast and took him up again. Then, I decided we were going to go for a ride. I led him to the front door, him totally passive, and opened it. There was no one around, no cops, which surprised me greatly. I fondled his pockets looking for the keys, but then remembered I had them and out we went. I opened the Plymouth passenger door and slung him in and put the knife in my mouth between my teeth. I got in the driverside, and we headed off. After a while, I stopped and pulled the pistol out on him. He was now quite awake, but quiet, shivering and shaking like he was in a fever. He glanced over at me with his terrified eyes, but wouldn’t look at me proper. I drove on. I was going to kill him, and he must have guessed it. A good few miles away and out in the country, I pulled up by a lake and there being not a soul around, I cocked the gun and pulled the trigger. Bang, bang, bang, got him in the head. He slumped forward onto the dash. I leapt out, went to the passenger side, opened up, pulled his dead or dying self out, and did a terrible and quite unexpected thing – I cut his pecker off. I put him and his bit back in the car, closed the door and disappeared into the night like the darkness I was.
So, after what I just told you, the ones reading here who aren’t chickenshit, haven’t you had your fill by now? I mean what more do you want me to tell you about my reign of terror? How much can you take. Look to tell the truth, you’ve read the best bits – that is if you’re into that sick shit – so what more do you want to know?
Basically, it was more of the same as earlier, but nothing quite like the Dardeen affair. I just did what I was born to do. But, as was always going to be the case, my luck with my career was running out, and my, had I gotten away with a lot.
The crime they got me for that ended the rampage was the one in Del Rio Texas, in 99. I was actually sniffing around for something to steal, but came across this house with the back door open and went in, and there were these two girls, twelve yrs old or so, sleeping in their bunks. I grabbed them, stabbed them and slit their throats. I killed one, as I had guessed then, and thought I had the other, but she made it and gave a description of me, which might have amounted to that of some of the many other drifters and hobos in town, but likely painted me as some kind of bogeyman or devilman, and that would have narrowed things down. Anyhow, I got caught, and the reason I got caught was because I was too drunk to get beat of the place as soon as I’d done the deed, and if I was gonna put that in my book, it would go under “SELF CONTROL”.
I got convicted for that one, and then while I was on the row, I gave it up about the other ones. You would have thought that someone like me would have been convicted of stuff I hadn’t done, but on the contrary, the cops wouldn’t believe me when I confessed to a whole bunch of them, in great detail. They said I was making it up, but why would I, since I was going to fry anyhow? They wanted me to go to the Dardeen place, but Texas wouldn’t let me out to show the Illinois boys what I’d done, to settle things once and for all. In the end, I got connected to around a dozen killings, and a whole lot more vaguely suspected. Hell, I kept telling them that over and over, but they had to do it by the book, one I could have put many names in, and I don’t think there are that many of them out there who come close to the toll and the pure meanness.
Well, that’s about all folks. I’m going to get the lethal pretty soon. I’ll tell you one thing though, they feed you pretty well on the row, which seems ironic given what they intend to do to you.
‘Some of the people you killed, they could be men, they could be women, they could be kids…It was like an equal opportunity?’ ‘It did not matter. Blood was blood’ ‘quite a few times it was a mother and a kid…’ ‘And I have an answer for that...And I thought hard about that…It’s been like smacked up inside up there for a long time…Uh...I know what I went through as a child, and I didn’t want them to go through it too’”
Editor's note: this piece ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is reproduced as written, including the disclaimer the author placed at the top saying the account is fictionalised and embellished. It is published in the same form as the same author's embellished Gacy, Bobby Joe Long and Dahmer pieces. The record behind it is unusually wide. Tommy Lynn Sells was convicted of two murders, sentenced to death for the killing of thirteen year old Kaylene Harris in Del Rio, Texas, and given life for the other; this archive records twenty two deaths as confirmed and up to seventy claimed by him. That gap is the point to hold on to. Sells confessed prolifically and many of those confessions were never tested, which is the same pattern the archive records for Henry Lee Lucas. Krystal Surles, who survived the Del Rio attack with her throat cut, identified him and is the reason he was caught. He was executed on 3 April 2014. Nothing in the monologue should be read as evidence.
Editor's note added Aug 2026: this is one of six pieces in the archive in which this author writes an invented monologue in a killer's voice. Four are titled as embellished confessions; the other two are his reconstructions of H. H. Holmes and Aileen Wuornos. On two of the four, including this one, the caution line at the head of the page has been supplied by the archive because the manuscript carried no disclaimer of its own. Nothing else in the article has been altered.
The point is worth stating once and plainly, since these pieces are written to be read as if the man were speaking. No words in any of them were said by the person named in the title. They are not confessions, they were not given to anybody, and they are not evidence. Where a reader wants what these men actually said, the archive holds real documents: Gacy's 1993 telephone interview with Ken Hackney, Dahmer's final court statement, the Bundy confession transcript and the Lucas and Toole phone call, all of them verbatim and all of them labelled as such.