Feb. 9 TEXAS: Killer Conversation How do you talk to a killer? What do you ask a man condemned to die? Convicted capital murderer Tommy Lynn Sells granted the Del Rio News-Herald an interview on Friday, Feb. 3, 2006, and talked about his life, his murders and his death. Sells was back in Del Rio from his death row cell to attend a hearing in state district court during which the date of his execution was to be set. Sells asked only that the interview be conducted in the office of Val Verde Sheriffs Office's chief investigator Lt. Larry Pope, the lawman who, along with Texas Ranger Sgt. John Allen, now retired, was the lead on the local case which led to Sells death sentence. Sells has developed a liking for Pope, an odd affection, given that it was the confession Pope took from Sells that became the fulcrum on which the capital murder case against Sells turned. Also present during the interview was a St. Louis, Mo., woman who has been corresponding with Sells and whom he calls "my girlfriend." She asked me not to identify her, and I have chosen to honor that request. My conversation with Sells lasted about an hour-and-a-half. My only caution to the reader is to remember that I cannot in most cases independently verify many of the things Sells told me. I asked questions, he answered them, or attempted to answer them, and I wrote down what he said. We began by talking about his childhood. Sells said he was born in Oakland, Calif., on June 28, 1964. He said he grew up in several different cities in Missouri. What he talked about most from his childhood was the sexual abuse he passively endured from a neighbor, abuse Sells said began when he was in the 8th grade. "My dad died when I was 11, and it was kind of easy for me to just hang out at (this man)'s house," Sells said. The man was, Sells said with an ugly smile, "just your plain old neighborhood pedophile." Sells said he never told anyone about the abuse. When asked why he never told at least his mother, Sells was quick to defend her, saying, "I love my mama. Don't blame her. She done the best she could with what she had." "Bad things happen sometimes," he added with a shrug, "I slipped through the cracks." Sells also said that the man who abused him became his world. He bought me a motorcycle and gave me money so I could eat off (the school) campus. I protected him." Sells said when he was 16 he moved to St. Louis, Mo., to live with an older brother. "I started hanging around with him. He had a tow truck," Sells said, and with shining eyes described the color, year, make, model and style of the truck. "I got to where I wanted that to be my world, too." But for whatever reason, Sells hit the road about that same time, beginning the life of a drifter, a life that would, in time, bring him to Del Rio and then to death row. "California, that was my first road trip. Being on the road is kind of like being an alcoholic, kind of like doing drugs. I never thought of myself as homeless. Homeless didnt chose me, ya understand, I choosed it." Sells said when he was on the road, "I became the man in charge." "There was nobody looking over my shoulder, telling me do this, do that," he added. Sells said he hitchhiked, rode the rails and did whatever kind of work he could find. "I worked fairs, carnivals, doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. If you needed your lawn mowed or you fence patched up, I did that kind of stuff, a little bit of everything," Sells said. When I asked him if he had been afraid, he smiled and said, "I think I was too dumb to be scared." He was also 16, he said, when he first killed another person. There are 2 stories, Sells said, two recollections, and he said he wasn't sure which of those killings was his first. Today, there is a spin of righteousness on both stories, so be your own judge. Sells said a man attacked him, stabbing him in the back, and that when he got out of the hospital, he went to find that man. "I took him behind a building, and I tore him up with a 2-by-4," Sells said. "I'm not sure if I killed him or not." In the 2nd story, Sells said he was trying to burglarize a house in Mississippi and while he was stalking near the house, he said he watched "a man giving oral sex to a boy." "That night, I went in that house through a window, and I shot that man at point-blank range," Sells said. Of killing, he said, "It was like doing a shot of heroin, and I started chasing that high." Looking back, Sells said he has no idea how many murders he has confessed to. After Sells was arrested here for the Dec. 31, 1999 stabbing death of 13-year-old Kaylene Harris, the case for which he was sentenced to die, Sells began working with Allen and a coterie of other Texas Rangers on murders across the country. On Friday, though, Sells said he wanted to set the record straight about 2 of those previous confessions. "I know I got a couple of them wrong, and I need to tell you about those," he said. In Illinois, he said the sentence of a woman convicted of killing her son "was vacated partly because of my confession." "I tried to make myself believe I did it, but I know I didn't," Sells said. "There's a case out of Charleston, West Virginia, that's really bothering me too," he said. That case involved an older woman and her daughter, Sells said, and authorities there are holding someone in prison for those murders. When asked why he would confess to murders he did not commit, Sells shrugged again. "I came up with a lot of smack," he said. "I got caught up in my own little web." Sells also added that lawmen and prosecutors eager to solve unsolved murders in their jurisdictions unwittingly and unknowingly often fed him, or made available to him, information about the crimes they asked him about. "I pulled together A, B and C; things their prosecutors said, things the Rangers said, things those detectives said, and pretty soon, I knew the color of the cat," Sells said. Of the murders in Illinois and West Virginia, Sells added, "I guess recanting is the word. It's not my ballgame. I ain't told no one this yet, but I want to clear those up." Sells also talked with me about how he first came to Del Rio, and then, how he came back. "I came into Del Rio driving an 18-wheeler pulling a Ferris wheel," Sells said. "I didn't decide to stay here. I left when the carnival left, and we went to Corpus Christi." While in Del Rio, Sells said he met a woman who liked him enough to follow the carnival to Corpus. "She went down there, and she says to me, 'Are you ready to come home?" I tell ya, I just walked off and left that Ferris wheel running," he said. My conversation with Sells eventually returned to that cold early morning of New Year's Eve 1999, when Sells broke into a trailer owned by Terry and Crystal Harris in the Guajia Bay subdivision near Lake Amistad and, after breaking in, sexually assaulted and murdered the Harrises' 13-year-old daughter and tried to kill her friend and roommate that night, Krystal Surles. When I asked other people the question they would most want to ask Sells, the 1st thing they usually said is "Why?" So I asked him. "I still carry a lot of hate," Sells said. "I still carry a lot of anger, and she (Kaylene) was just a unfortunate person that came across my path. . .If there is a why, thats the best I can answer." I don't know, can never know, how much of those terrible, bloody moments Sells can actually recall. We can only ever talk about the crime in retrospect. He shook his head. "Sorry is just not good enough. I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass with sorry. It eats at me every day. I done something real bad, and Im paying for it," Sells said. Despite his words, Sells is also undeniably bitter about the death sentence he received. Of death rrow, he said simply, "It's hell." "I have to stand up and say I done wrong, and if the punishment for that is right or wrong, I here to face it head-on. I'm letting justice take its course," he said, but added, "I'm on an emotional roller coaster." "I know this is the price they want," he said of his death sentence. Sells said he is on medication for a spinal injury, but a side effect of that medication, he said, is that it helps keep him emotionally level. "I am a candidate for the death penalty, so I really can't say the death penalty is bad, because that's what society wants." Sells also expressed regret at the pain he has caused members of his family, some of whom, he said, have slowly begun communicating with him while he has been in prison. "I can't thank enough the people that support me and love me. I can only tell those people that I'm not the same man I was 5 years ago." "I don't know what else to say, Karen. Don't be my judge. Let the Lord be my judge. It's him that I have to face." (source: Del Rio News-Herald) ***************** Thrifty lawmakers get prison bargains----They defend buying the upscale furniture made by inmates for their personal use Dozens of state lawmakers have been shopping for upscale furniture at state prisons, putting prisoners' handicrafts in their homes and buying gifts at below-market prices, according to the Dallas Morning News. Texas Correctional Industries, a division of the state prison system, teaches trade skills to prisoners by having them manufacture furniture, signs, clothing and other items. The goods, made without labor costs, sell for less than their privately manufactured counterparts, and only lawmakers, department employees and board members can buy them for personal use. "Allowing lawmakers to take advantage of not having to pay what they would pay at a retail store, and using it strictly for personal use, does not look good," Suzy Woodford, Texas director of the watchdog group Common Cause, told the Morning News. The products go far beyond old-fashioned prison-made license plates. Inmates furnished a dining room and a private chapel for Democratic state Sen. Eddie Lucio, who paid $6,319. Pieces included a dining table adorned with the state seal, 10 chairs, bar stools, kneelers, altar chairs and a holy water font. Lucio's order for his South Texas mansion was the largest personal purchase in the past several years. "We're all born the same way, but we're not equal," Republican state Rep. Tony Goolsby, who bought a $1,100 replica of a historic desk for his apartment, told the Morning News. "Everybody gets perks." Many legislators spent campaign funds on barbecue grills, some in the shape of Texas, bedroom furniture and other items. John Benestante, director of Texas Correctional Industries, said he did not enact the long-standing policy of making personal sales to officials and employees, and he must follow it. His division's figures show state employees and lawmakers accounted for 1 percent of sales in 2005. Lawmakers have traditionally used the service for job-related purchases, spending campaign funds to furnish statehouse offices and buying gifts for constituents. But in 2004, Republican state Rep. Burt Solomons spent $2,135 in campaign funds on 5 prison-made wet bars decorated with the state seal. He told the Morning News the gift was to reward his staff for their hard work and not for his own use. Lucio said he has not broken any rules, but if people want to change them, he can live with it. "I liked the idea of getting things done handcrafted and by prisoners," he said of his home furniture. "That is unique. It is a subject of conversation when people come visit me. I say, 'I ordered it from our own prisoners here.'" (source: Associated Press) ********************* Sole survivor of triple murder tells story to jury The sole survivor and witness to a triple murder re-told a horrifying story in the capital murder retrial of Max Soffar. Prosecutors believe he's the one man who can keep Soffar on death row after he had his conviction overturned. It was 26 years after he was shot in the head and left for dead that Greg Garner told his story to the jury. He was only 18 back in that summer day in 1980, working in a northwest Houston bowling alley. Garner and three friends were there after hours because someone had robbed the business the day before. Garner told jurors he was bowling by himself when he saw manager Steve Simms speaking to someone he didn't know. "I got next to him and saw him holding a gun on Steven," Garner said. He said after the intruder told everyone to lie down, he heard gunshots. "I passed out. I don't remember how long I was unconscious. I stayed still for 15 seconds to make sure he was gone," Garner said. His 3 friends were dead, and Garner had a gunshot to the head. Max Soffar is on trial for this crime for the 2nd time after an appeals court threw out his conviction and death sentence. Garner, who has a glass left eye, lived to tell his tale. Prosecutors told jurors that Garner couldn't identify Soffar in a lineup in 1980, but that Soffar himself had confessed to the murder. The defense said that Soffar made the whole thing up in a bizarre attempt to get the reward money. Garner could be back on the stand when the trial resumes Thursday morning. (source: KHOU News) ****************************** Survivor center of attention in court----Defense focuses on the differences in his recollections and defendant's in 1980 triple slaying Gregory George Garner doesn't remember much about the night he was shot in the head nearly 26 years ago. Because he is the only survivor of a quadruple shooting at a northwest Houston bowling alley in 1980 - a case that sent a man to Texas' death row - his scant recall of that night drew rapt attention in a state district court Wednesday. The testimony came during a new trial for Max Alexander Soffar, 50, a former Friendswood resident convicted a quarter century ago of capital murder for the slayings discovered July 14, 1980, at the Fair Lanes Windfern Bowling Center on U.S. 290. In 2004, a 3-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, concluding that he did not receive effective legal representation during his 1981 trial. Garner's appearance in court marked the 1st time he has testified publicly about the shootings, which occurred when he was 18. The father of 4, now 44 and a mechanic for the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, was not called to testify during Soffar's 1st trial. Soffar's attorneys have focused intensely on Garner's description of the crime that night because his account differs markedly in some respects from Soffar's statements to police in 1980. Soffar claimed at that time he had participated in the shootings, but his attorneys argue that his statements did not match evidence at the crime scene or Garner's version of events. Soffar later recanted. Garner said the bowling alley had closed for the night. He and 3 others were still there when a man came into the building armed with a gun. The gunman walked into the bowling alley alone, Garner said. He said he only saw the gunman's face for a brief time before he was told to get down on the floor with the other 3 victims. Garner handed over his wallet. Then he heard 2 or 3 gunshots, he recalled Wednesday. One of the shots hit Garner in the head behind his left ear and exited through his eye socket. He briefly lost consciousness, then woke up and crawled to a phone to call his parents for help. "The next thing I remember is seeing headlights come up to the front door. I remember my dad walking in. After that, I remember nothing," Garner said Wednesday. The others who were shot - assistant manager Stephen Allen Sims, 25, employee Tommy Lee Temple, 17, and Temple's girlfriend, Arden Alane Felsher, 17 - all died. When Soffar was arrested less than a month later for riding a stolen motorcycle, he claimed to have information about the slayings, police said. He told police at that time that he had gone to the bowling alley with a friend and they took turns shooting the victims - contradicting Garner's story that the gunman walked in alone. The friend Soffar named was quickly released by police because there was no evidence linking him to the crime scene. In his testimony Wednesday, Garner could only provide a limited description of the killer. He said the gunman was white, in his mid-20s, about 5 feet 11 inches tall and of medium build. His long hair was black or dark brown, and he held the gun in his right hand, Garner recalled. Garner later helped police create 2 sketches of the gunman, both of which were shown to the jury Wednesday. Prosecutors said they will again seek the death penalty against Soffar. (source: Houston Chronicle) MISSOURI: Appeals court clarifies status of death-penalty case In St. Louis, a challenge to the constitutionality of Missouri's 3-drug lethal injection method rests with a 3-judge appeals panel, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis has ruled. The decision late Wednesday clarified the status of a case brought by death row inmate Michael Anthony Taylor against the Missouri Department of Corrections. With 1 judge dissenting, the case was returned to the appeals court's 3-judge panel. Taylor, 39, of Kansas City, claims that the 3-drug lethal injection method, if administered improperly, causes pain in violation of the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. His case has been mired in appeals, and some court observers believe it must be resolved before any more executions can be scheduled in Missouri. Missouri Supreme Court spokeswoman Beth Riggert disagreed, but said there is nothing to preclude the court from considering that or any other issue in any given death penalty case. Attorney General Jay Nixon has said he doesn't think much of Taylor's argument and doesn't expect it to succeed. His office has asked the court to handle the case quickly. Taylor's attorney is asking for a reasonable amount of time. The 3-judge panel could send the case back to U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan in Kansas City, who ruled against Taylor's claim on Jan. 30 after a 2-day, emergency telephone hearing that was closed to the public. Gaitan was under an appeals court order to rule by noon Feb. 1, but Taylor's attorney, John Simon of St. Louis, maintains he was unable to present critical witnesses under the rushed schedule. He has called Gaitan's session a "pseudo hearing" that lacked legitimacy. Taylor's appeal doesn't object to Missouri's 3-chemical sequence used in lethal injections - the short-acting anesthetic, sodium pentothal; the paralytic pancuronium bromide; and potassium chloride that burns as it courses through the veins and induces cardiac arrest - but rather the method. Simon said that if the inmate is not rendered unconscious by too little anesthetic, he can wake up to the pain of burning and heart attack and "there's no way to know it because of the paralytic." The state argued that it uses a larger-than-normal amount of the anesthetic, so it won't wear off. Simon argues what's needed is an "adequate dose of a long-acting, deep-running" anesthetic. He also objects to Missouri's injecting the chemicals through the femoral vein, which is painful and medically unnecessary unless the inmate is a drug user. Gaitan didn't buy any of those arguments in denying Taylor's appeal. Taylor had been scheduled to be executed Feb. 1 in the 1989 kidnapping, rape and murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison of Kansas City. A 3-judge appeals court panel denied Taylor's stay of execution, but the full appeals court stayed it, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to lift it. Simon wants a full hearing before Senior U.S. District Judge Scott O. Wright in Kansas City, who originally was assigned the case at random before the appeals court had the case reassigned to Gaitan. Nixon, citing other death-penalty cases, said the state has never lost the underlying issue of whether the execution method is constitutionally appropriate. (source: Associated Press) USA: Alito Busts a Moderate Move In his 1st decision as the Supreme Court's newest associate justice, Samuel Alito on Feb. 1 split with the court's most conservative members, voting to uphold a stay of execution for condemned Missouri inmate Michael Taylor. Alito, who was confirmed by the Senate (in a 58-42 vote) and sworn in the day before, sided with five of the court's justices in halting Taylor's execution in order to allow an appeals court to consider his claim that execution by lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas voted to lift the stay.) Taylor's last-minute reprieve marked the 2nd time in a week that the justices granted a stay based on a challenge to the lethal-injection method. On Jan. 25, the court granted a stay of execution for Florida inmate Clarence Hill, who argues that execution by lethal injection violates his civil rights. Hill's claim is unique in that he has raised the argument as a civil rights claim, outside of the scope of routine death-penalty appellate-review laws. As such, the high court agreed to hear Hill's case in order to consider whether the appeals court erred in ruling that Hill was legally barred from bringing the claim - their ruling in the case is expected to clarify the process by which an inmate may bring a last-minute appeal challenging the manner of execution, though, in Hill's case at least, it is unlikely that the court will rule directly on the constitutionality of lethal injection. (The court in 2004 ruled that Alabama death row inmate David Larry Nelson could pursue a similar last-minute appeal, in which Nelson argued that his collapsed veins made lethal injection a cruel and unusual form of punishment. Nelson lost the case and the Supremes subsequently declined to halt his execution.) Although the court appears poised to take on a direct challenge to the constitutionality of the 3-drug lethal-injection cocktail, they last week also declined to intervene in 2 such cases, including that of Texas death row inmate Jaime Elizalde Jr., who was executed Jan. 31. The Supremes are slated to hear oral arguments in the Hill case on April 26; a ruling is expected this summer. (source: Austin Chronicle) PENNSYLVANIA: Prosecutors seek death penalty in trooper killing Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a man charged with fatally shooting a state trooper after a high-speed chase in December. Leslie D. Mollett, 31, of Pittsburgh, is accused of killing Cpl. Joseph Pokorny on Dec. 12 after an early morning chase that ended near a hotel parking lot a few miles southwest of Pittsburgh. Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. announced the decision to seek the death penalty Thursday. Mollett's attorney, James Ecker, said it was Zappala's prerogative to seek the death penalty. Mollett remains jailed without bond. Investigators say Pokorny was shot with his own weapon in the chest and back of the head after Pokorny tried to pat down Mollett. At a hearing last month, the 2 passengers in the car Mollett was driving testified that Mollett fought with Pokorny after they crashed. They said they fled on foot leaving Mollett behind and then heard gunshots. (source: Associated Press) ****************** Damon and Affleck reunite for death-row drama Hollywood hunks Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will re-unite on the big screen to portray a pair of real-life Philadelphia lawyers who spent 15 years freeing a client from death row. Affleck will play Michael Banks and Damon will be J. Gordon Cooney in the legal drama being scripted by Chris Murphey. Sean Bailey, who partners with Affleck and Damon in LivePlanet, will produce with Amanda Stern and Fred Bodner, Moviehole.net reported Variety as saying. In the story, the lawyers manage to win 9 stays of execution for death-row inmate John Thompson and finally get him cleared of all charges. (source: New Kerala) FLORIDA: Court hears death sentence appeal in fatal Taco Bell robbery A defense attorney asked the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday to overturn the death sentence of a man convicted in the 1992 slaying of 17-year-old Michelle Van Ness during a robbery at a Taco Bell in Daytona Beach. Attorney Marie-Louise Parmer said a prosecutor improperly used the Bible in helping convince jurors to recommend the death sentence for Anthony Farina, who, along with his brother, tied up Van Ness and 3 other restaurant employees in a walk-in freezer during the robbery. Van Ness, a junior at Warner Christian Academy in South Daytona, died after being shot in the head, while the other employees survived. The argument centered on part of the case when a minister testified that Farina had become religious while in prison. That led to State Attorney John Tanner questioning the minister about the Bible and having the minister read a passage from the book of Romans about the authority of government. Tanner could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Parmer said Farina's trial attorney objected to the relevance of the Bible reading -- a point Chief Justice Barbara Pariente seized on Wednesday. "I have never seen a witness being cross-examined about the Bible," Pariente said. Senior Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Nunnelley acknowledged he wished the Bible passage had not been used, but said it should not lead to overturning the death sentence. Farina, now 32, was sentenced to death row in 1998 after the Supreme Court tossed out an earlier death sentence because of improper jury selection. Justices upheld the 2nd death sentence in 2001, but Wednesday's arguments focused on whether another Farina attorney should have raised the Bible issue during that appeal. Farina's brother, Jeffrey, also was sentenced to death in 1998, but the Supreme Court reduced that sentence to life in prison because Jeffrey Farina was 16 years old at the time of the killing. Margie Van Ness of Daytona Beach, who lost her granddaughter in the Taco Bell slaying, said Wednesday she thought both Farinas deserved to die. The latest delay in the execution of Anthony Farina has been frustrating to the family. "It's dragged on for (almost) 14 years," she said. "We think it's terrible." Justices did not rule Wednesday on Anthony Farina's new appeal and typically take months to issue decisions. (source: Daytona Beach News-Journal)
