Through the Window (16 page)

“And I’m Tommy Sells. They put me under arrest for a murder we just talked about.”

“You’ve been read your rights once tonight already and I want to take this opportunity to read them to you again,” Pope began.

“I understand that, and I waived all my rights,” Sells said.

“Well, let me read them to you,” Pope said and continued on with the standard recitation.

Sells seemed distracted, fiddling with the watchband on his arm.

Pope warned him, “If there’s something you don’t want to talk about, you should not lie about it. You should just say, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ It’s your right. Now I advise you, if you lie about it, if it came out, it would just make you look bad.”

“I understand.”

The preliminaries finished, the questioning and official
recorded confession began. “Tommy, you were arrested for the murder of . . .” Pope said.

“I don’t know,” Sells interrupted.

“You don’t know her first name? You know her nick-name—what they call her by? You don’t know who she is? You know she’s the Harris girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Terry Harris’ first girl?” Pope clarified.

“Right.”

“We know her as Kathleen or Kathy . . .” Pope began.

“Kaylene,” Allen corrected.

“Kaylene, excuse me, or Katy, and there was another girl there also. You were also arrested for attempted murder on her. Do you know that girl’s name or anything?”

“No.”

Pope and Allen established the identity of the second girl as Krystal Surles and confirmed that Sells agreed to talk about what happened.

Sells said, “I was going to do a lawyer today. I was wanting to kill a lawyer.”

“What lawyer?” Allen asked.

“Lives across the street.”

“From the campgrounds?”

“Yeah, across the street from the campgrounds.”

“What for?” Allen queried.

“Well, I guess . . .”

Pope interrupted, “When were you going to kill him?”

“Her,” Sells clarified.

“Her.”

“Just . . . How can I explain this to make any sense? She stepped over my foot somewhere and I didn’t like it. I was going to get revenge on her.”

After a break to light cigarettes and adjust the volume control on the microphone, Pope continued, “The point we agreed to start on, I believe, was the evening of December 30, 1999, when you meet in Del Rio some place with Terry Harris.”

“Uh, okay.”

“Tell me, who-all was there and where did you meet?”

“We met at Pico’s station—I think it’s Pico’s, it’s . . .”

Allen interjected, “It might be Shamrock or something?”

“It’s right by Ram Country. Me and my wife were in there, I was buying a pack of cigarettes. Terry pulls up. Me and Terry went inside. I stopped to make a phone call, that’s the reason I was there. Uh, me and Terry goes inside for a little while—less than five minutes—We talked for less than five minutes. We came back out and he told me he was going to Kansas. I asked him when he was going to pay me my money. He said his buddy had hit a deer with his car and he was going up to Kansas to get his truck or something.”

“Did he owe you money?” Allen asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, how much money did he owe you?”

“Less than five thousand dollars,” Sells said.

“Why would he have owed you that?”

“Cocaine,” he said.

“Coke?” Pope asked.

“Yeah, I guess coke fronted to me and I fronted to him. He never made payments since then.”

“This is all five thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine at one time or over a period of time, how did that accumulate?”

“No, it was just one time.”

“One time?” Allen asked. “You gave him five thousand dollars’ worth at one time?”

“Actually, I owed three thousand dollars on it and I charged him five.”

“Okay.”

“I had to make some money for me.”

“Yeah, I understand business,” Allen responded. “How long ago?”

“Oh, uh, two months ago.”

“Two months ago?”

“Yeah, give or take.” Sells shrugged his shoulders and
leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“All right. And he didn’t—did he or didn’t he—pay you that night?” Pope asked.

“No.”

“Okay. And what was your general consensus? What did you think? Was he handling it? Was he going to pay you something, or what? What was your opinion?”

Sells shook his head. “It didn’t strike me then. It didn’t strike me.”

“Well, did it upset you or anything?”

“I didn’t give it much thought.”

“Okay,” Pope conceded.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t remember. I said, ‘I’ll see you later.’ “

“Okay.”

“And me and the wife went on and once there, we got into an argument and I went to the bar and got drunker than hell. And when I left the bar, I started, I stopped down at that there flea market a little up above the campgrounds.”

Pope shook his head, “Yes. The one down in that hole.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Where the road goes way down?”

“I stopped down there and ate some deer meat or something they had in the refrigerator back there. And then, it was just like a bell went off in my head. It’s just like it said, ‘That’s what you can do.’ “

“Meaning what?” Allen asked. “What do you mean when you said, ‘That’s what I can do’?”

“Go down to Terry’s place. I didn’t go down there to kill. I didn’t go down there to rape. I didn’t go down there—I just say—go down there. It wasn’t premeditated, you know. It’s like that girl in Kentucky, you know. I didn’t premeditate it. It just happened. And I went through the window where the little blind boy used to sleep. He said . . .”

Pope broke in, “Let’s back up first. You talked a little earlier about, uh, the weapon that you chose to take.”

“Well, it wasn’t chosen. It was what I had with me.”

“When you left your house—Did you take anything with you when you left your house?” Allen asked.

“Yeah, the knife.”

“And, it was . . .”

Sells held up his hands to demonstrate the length of the knife. “About that long.”

“Handle and blade and all?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Allen said. “A little bit over twelve inches. What kind of blade did it have on it?”

“A thin one, long one, with a little tip.”

“So you eat deer meat and say, ‘That’s what I can do.’ So, where’d you go? What happened?”

“Well, I go down to Terry’s house. I fuck around with the dog a little bit outside, then I figure out how to get in the trailer. I’m so drunk,” Sells said with a smile, “I’m surprised I didn’t wake up half of Del Rio, I’m so drunk. It’s like a blur. I finally figured out a way to get in the trailer.”

“How did you get in?” Allen asked.

“I tried to jimmy the back door at first. I tried to get into the back door to begin with and I was too drunk. I screwed that up.” Sells’ body language relaxed. His tone of voice became jocular. It was as if he were describing a high school prank. “I couldn’t get in there. And then I tried a window by the living room by the back side of the trailer. Couldn’t get in and actually I was walking around to leave and I noticed a window up. That’s by where the water tank was.”

“On the back? Front? What?” The edginess in Allen’s voice reflected his discomfort.

“The front.” Sells reacted to Allen’s tone and straightened in his seat.

“I wondered, did you know whose window it was?”

“I didn’t at the time. When I got in, I did. It was the little blind one.”

“It was whose room?” Allen asked again.

“Their little boy—the blind little boy.”

“Okay. That’s where the water tank is?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you get through that window?”

“It was open. I took the screen off, but the window was open.”

“Okay.”

“I climbed in and went to . . .”

Allen interrupted, “When you climbed in, did the little boy say anything?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I woke him up when I climbed in. He said, ‘I wish you all would stop coming in my room,’ and I walked on out of the room and stood.”

“By that, you think he thought it was maybe his sisters in there?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t think he thought it was you.”

“No,” Sells shook his head.

“Okay, you walk out of that room and where do you go?”

“Into the dining room. There’s the dining room, the kitchen and the front room. I stood in that room for a few minutes and said, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ And now, it’s like, at the point where you’re all pumped up, you know? It’s bad circumstances. I thought about doing them all.”

He described his exploration of the bedrooms as he nervously played with his fingers. “I know it seems kind of bizarre that there’s no plan-out. It was on the spur.” He said that then he thought about raping the mother, but was too drunk to act upon it.

When his description reached Kaylene’s bedroom, Pope asked, “First time you cut her or you stabbed her . . . ?”

“I stabbed her, in the arm, I think. She started to say something and I poked the knife at her and I said, ‘Shut up.’ And she made some kind of comment like, ‘You didn’t have to cut me.’ And I said, ‘Shut the hell up.’ And she told that little girl to go get her mom.”

“Does that little girl know you?” Allen asked. “Has she ever seen you before?”

“Yeah, yeah, not the one on the top bunk, I don’t think.”

“But the one standing by the bed?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Allen responded.

“And, I, uh, cut her to shut her up,” Sells added.

“Where did you cut her the next time?” Pope asked.

“In the stomach,” Sells tossed off as casually as someone else would state the dressing preference for his salad.

“With a lot of force?”

“That damn knife was so sharp, it just didn’t take a lot of force. No, sir. I heard somebody say that I cut her fingers and shit off, but if I did, I didn’t mean to do that. I just slit her throat.”

“Well, there’s an awful lot of rumors going on about everything,” Allen explained. “Now you said you cut her throat. Was she facing you? Was she away from you? Can you remember anything? If you’re not sure about something, you’re not sure. I understand that—a lot of things went fast.”

“I just reached out and went
psssht
.” His face was devoid of every emotion but boredom. “That’s how sharp that knife was.”

“Which hand would you have had the knife in?” Allen asked.

“I believe it was this one,” he said wriggling the appropriate wrist.

“The right hand?”

“Yes.”

“She’s in front of you?”

“Uh-hunh. As me and you are looking at each other. I took the knife and it was dealt with. And she fell down and I . . .”

“Stuck her?” Pope interjected.

“No. Cut her some more again till I was sure it was all the way—It was a done deal.”

“Was there much fighting in the area?”

“Nah.”

“Not really? All right. Okay. As long as that’s the best you remember.”

“And the little girl in the top bunk was petrified. And I done dropped the first one and I started to walk out of the room. Then, I walked back over to the top bunk and I just
psssht
,” he said, making a slicing motion with his hand. “And I thought I killed her.”

“She’s in the top bunk, did you reach up, jump up or crawl up on the bed?”

“No, it was simple. I just reached over.”

“How was she laying down? How was she in the bed?” Allen asked.

“I believe she was on her back.”

“Just not moving—petrified?”

“Yeah.”

“Was she saying anything?” Allen continued.

“Not a word. She didn’t scream. She didn’t do nothing, nothing,” he answered. “I’m sorry for giving you all so much hassle.”

The officers assured him that they were just doing their job. They then proceeded to question him about what happened after he left Kaylene’s room.

“I walked out of the room. I go to the back door,” he said.

“Did you close the door or leave the door open?” Pope asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Still had the knife in your hand?”

“Yeah,” he said. Then he added, “I still got the knife. Well, in a roundabout way, I know where it’s at. I don’t know why I didn’t throw that into the lake. But when I left, I just walked through the house and I think I went back to her mom’s room for a brief moment. And I was, like, ‘Just get out of here,’ you know? I think I was getting panicky. And then I just walked out the back door.”

“You said, ‘I don’t know why I didn’t throw that knife in the lake,’ “ Allen said. “Did you throw something else in the lake?”

“When I went out the back door, I know I took the screens off. The back one, I grabbed it and walked back around to the front. I, like, don’t think you found any of my prints out there, you might’ve, but I doubt it. I was pretty careful about that.”

“Were you careful about not touching something, or did you wipe them off?”

“Wipe them off.”

After Pope and Allen elicited all the details they could about the disposal of the screens, Allen asked, “You said you were in the van?”

“Yeah.”

“Which van is that?”

In response, Sells’ face expressed the first sign of genuine concern during the confession. “My wife’s van. It’s all she’s got. Please don’t take it from her.”

“Back up a minute, Tommy,” Allen said. “What reason would there have been to cut that girl’s underwear?”

“Just to make it look like that.”

“Look like what?”

“Like a rape scene or something, I don’t know, like . . .”

Allen interrupted. “Was there ever any attempt at any kind of sexual assault?”

“No,” Sells insisted. “I didn’t touch her or nothing. I’m telling you I done it right? That’s the way it happened. I didn’t try to screw her or nothing. I didn’t.”

“It’s like I told you,” Pope said. “All I want is the truth. If you get some part of it you don’t want to answer, just say, ‘I don’t want to answer that.’ “

“I’ll tell you, I don’t mind. I’m glad it’s over with.”

“Why are you glad it’s over with?” Allen asked.

“Hurting people ain’t good.”

“Do you think, Tommy, you would have continued?”

“I know without a doubt, I wouldn’t have stopped.”