Surles broke down once during her testimony, but recovered to finish. Throughout, she kept a steady eye on the defendant. When she finished testifying, the trial was over for Tommy Sells. The rest, stretching over two days, was mere aftermath. The prosecution showed videotape of Sells doing a walk-through of the Harris trailer, complete with climbing through the unlocked window and a narration of the attacks on the two girls. "I woke this girl up. I said wake up. She jumped. I cut her throat," he said of Harris, before turning his attention to Surles in the top bunk. "She was awake. She just laid there. I walked over to her and cut this one's throat. I was getting a little nervous. I walked out the back door," he said on the tape.
Prosecutors also entered into evidence Sells' two written confessions, including one in which he acknowledges forceful sexual advances toward Kaylene. In one of his confessions, he said he had considered killing all six people in the trailer. In another, he said he had first considered raping Crystal Harris. In still another, he claimed he had gone to the trailer to collect a $5,000 drug debt from Terry Harris. Police, however, said later they found no basis for this claim, which Harris denied.
AP/Wide World
Tommy Lynn Sells--center, with beatific smile--arrives in Little Rock in March. Texas Rangers brought him there to talk to local authorities about two murders he claims to have committed.
AP/Wide World
Krystal Surles, 11, and still recovering from her knife wound, poses with her cousin, 15-year-old Nina Mangum, in January.
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In cross-examination, Garcia repeatedly sought to establish that Sells had been cooperative and had expressed remorse and responsibility for his actions.
"For Tommy Sells, it boils down to the death penalty or life. If I can get him life, I've done my job," said Garcia before trial. After deliberating for an hour, the jury found Sells guilty of capital murder.
Outside the courthouse, in a crush of reporters and television cameras, members of the Harris and Surles families embraced and expressed their relief. In a tiny, bruised voice, Crystal Harris said her daughter had not died in vain. "I believe with all my heart the reason why this man was apprehended is because it was time for God. God wanted it done," she said. "And I believe the reason whey he did not get everyone in my house killed that night is because every angel of the people he killed was put there to make sure this man was caught."
The trial quickly moved to the punishment phase, and the jury heard testimony from psychologists and others about Sells' personality and the threat he represented to society. In what sounded like hyperbole but was probably understatement, one doctor described his personality type as "antisocial at the highest level." The jury took three hours to send Sells to Death Row. Only the original Henry Lee Lucas dodged that fatal address.
Afterward, Sells declined to talk about the case with the television crew that has been covering his story all spring. A con to the end, he wanted to keep all options open. "He said I'm going to Jesus, I'm going to see my maker, and I'm thinking, you've got the directions mixed up," Pope says. "He told 48 Hours he wouldn't talk to them because he's got an appeal pending. It's like, I want to die, but I've got this appeal."
Pope says he has little doubt that several people are now living because Sells was caught, and that others will stay alive for as long as Sells is medicated behind bars. "The killings stopped. By now, at the rate he was going, he would have killed one or two more," the detective says. Even in prison, Pope says, Sells is a threat. "If this guy gets off his medication, he kills people. It's like, it's either a frontal lobotomy or the death sentence."
