Val Verde County Sheriff
Krystal Surles was very excited.
It was New Year’s Eve, 1999, and the 10-year-old was heading to her best friend Katy Harris’ house for a sleepover.
She couldn’t wait to eat chocolate, gossip about boys and stay up late to see in the new year with her pal.
With her little sister, Marque, in tow, Krystal was sure the seven-year-old was bound to ruin the fun.
Plus, Katy, 13, had bunk beds and Krystal didn’t want to share, so she insisted Marque sleep alone in the spare room instead.
Later that night, the young girls went to sleep in their separate rooms.
At 3.50am, a man entered the house through an open window and crept into the room where Krystal and Katy were.
Spotting Katy in the bottom bunk first, he held a 12-inch boning knife to her throat and sexually assaulted her.
Katy tried to fight back, screaming and pushing, but the mystery attacker stabbed her 16 times.
This woke Krystal, who stared down in horror at what was unfolding in front of her. Terrified, Krystal lay silently, hoping not to be seen.
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As the man was about to leave the room, she thought she’d been successful.
But when he turned back to survey his crime scene, he noticed Krystal staring back at him.
He walked towards her with the knife in his hand and she tried to scoot away from him in the bed.
‘I’ll be quiet, I promise,’ she said, trying to reason with him.
He tried to stab her like he’d done to Katy, but Krystal held her hands around her neck.
‘Move your hands,’ he hissed. As Krystal did so, he slit her throat.
Bleeding out, Krystal wanted to scream for help. But, she quickly realised, if she played dead, the man might not stab her again.
Petrified, she lay still, blood pooling on the sheets around her. Then, just as she’d hoped, the man left the room.
Once she was sure he’d fled, Krystal crawled over to Katy who lay gasping on the floor.
‘I laid next to her… rubbing her back and that’s when I realised I couldn’t talk ’cause all I wanted to say was “Everything’s going to be okay,”’ Krystal told CBS News. ‘But I couldn’t…’
When her friend stopped making noises, Krystal instinctively knew she had to move fast.
She managed to crawl to the spare room where she tried to wake Marque.
Unable to rouse her little sister, Krystal became fearful the man had slain the whole family.
With her hand to her throat, she walked barefoot to the nearest neighbour’s house, around 400 metres away, and desperately banged on the door.
Frantically, she wrote notes to explain what had happened. The police were called and she was rushed to hospital.
In one note, she’d scrawled Will I live?
Although her trachea had been slashed, doctors managed to stabilise her.
Tragically, Katy had died, but Krystal was relieved to learn that her sister and the rest of the Harris family were unharmed and had slept through the violent attack.
After surgery, she was able to help police sketch artists and investigators.
Describing the man as having long, dark, scruffy hair, a beard and mean eyes, the killer was soon identified as Tommy Lynn Sells.
The 35-year-old was known to police and had spent time in prison for theft, drugs, rape and assault.
In 1992, he’d raped Fabienne Witherspoon, 19, before stabbing her 18 times and bludgeoning her with a stool. Miraculously, she had survived.
Despite the horrific nature of the crime, he’d struck a plea deal and served just five years.
After being released, Sells was briefly married before he left his new wife and arrived in Del Rio, Texas.
Just over 48 hours after Krystal helped identify him, Sells was arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder.
In the days after, Sells told police he’d killed at least 20 people across several states, including a 13-year-old girl called Haley McHone and nine-year-old Mary Beatrice Perez. Sells was a serial killer.
Police were convinced he was telling the truth about at least half of the murders he confessed to.
Nine months after the ordeal, Krystal bravely fronted her attacker in court. Sells pleaded guilty to Katy’s murder.
But the jury had to decide if he should be sentenced to death.
Bravely, Krystal testified against him in court, describing in detail the night of Katy’s murder.
Of the moment, he attacked her, she said, ‘He reached over and cut my throat. I just lay there and pretended I was dead.
If he knew I was alive, he would have come back and killed me for sure.’
The jury took just three hours to decide Sells should be sent to death row. In 2014, he was killed by lethal injection.
Krystal is now fully recovered, and remembers Katy often.
‘I don’t ever – ever think about Tommy Lynn Sells. I don’t ever give him the time of day,’ she told CBS. ‘I’m just glad to be here.’
Tommy Lynn Sells: A Chilling Look Into the Life of a Serial Killer
Tommy Lynn Sells, known as one of the most dangerous and elusive serial killers in American history, left a trail of devastation across the United States. His crimes spanned multiple states and decades, marked by brutality, unpredictability, and a transient lifestyle that allowed him to evade capture for years. In this article, we explore the key aspects of Sells’ life and legacy—from his troubled early years to his final moments on death row.
Early Life
Tommy Lynn Sells was born on June 28, 1964, in Oakland, California. Raised in a chaotic and abusive environment, Sells faced trauma from a young age. He had a twin sister who died of meningitis when they were just 18 months old—a loss that profoundly affected him. Sells began using drugs and alcohol in his early teens and experienced periods of homelessness, often drifting across states.
Mental health professionals later diagnosed him with various disorders, including bipolar disorder and personality disorders. His unstable upbringing, combined with exposure to violence and neglect, laid a disturbing foundation for the crimes he would later commit.
Criminal History
Tommy Lynn Sells claimed responsibility for over 70 murders, though investigators officially linked him to at least 22 killings. His criminal activities began in earnest in the early 1980s and continued through the late 1990s. Sells’ modus operandi varied significantly, which made tracking his crimes incredibly difficult. He used knives, guns, and blunt objects and targeted both adults and children, often breaking into homes and attacking victims while they slept.
One of the most chilling aspects of Sells’ killing spree was the randomness of his targets. His crimes crossed multiple states, including Texas, Illinois, and Nevada, with no consistent pattern. In 1999, he murdered 13-year-old Kaylene Harris in Del Rio, Texas, and severely injured her friend Krystal Surles, who survived and later helped identify him. This marked a turning point in the investigation, ultimately leading to Sells’ arrest in January 2000.
In Media
Tommy Lynn Sells has been featured in numerous true crime documentaries, podcasts, and television specials. His case appeared on shows like 48 Hours, Cold Case Files, and The FBI Files. He was also interviewed by journalist Diane Sawyer, where he chillingly recounted his crimes with little emotion, further solidifying his infamy in the public eye.
Books such as Through the Window by Diane Fanning offer in-depth examinations of his life and the police work that finally brought him down. The case has continued to fascinate and horrify audiences due to the sheer randomness and brutality of Sells’ actions, as well as his calculated ability to blend into society.
Execution
After his arrest, Tommy Lynn Sells was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in Texas. He remained on death row for over a decade while continuing to confess to unsolved murders, many of which authorities were never able to verify conclusively.
On April 3, 2014, Sells was executed by lethal injection at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. He declined to make a final statement. His death closed the chapter on a horrifying spree of violence, but the full extent of his crimes may never be known.
