I Survived A Serial Killer: The Coast to Coast Killer

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This episode contains stories involving violence against children. Listener discretion is advised.

Coast to coast killer Tommy Lynn cells have confessed to dozens of brutal murders.

He was a co-blooded, brutal killer. I won't back over here to the top, though,

and I'll just shoot.

The drifter's vagrant lifestyle helped him elude police for nearly 15 years.

The first time I killed somebody, and they was such a rush.

I think he very much was addicted to murder. He was a serial killer.

All of a sudden, I heard a noise behind me, and when I turned around, he was standing there

with a knife. For the minute, he met Fabian. His intentions were to kill her.

I remember when there was a ceramic duck, and thinking that's your only weapon,

use it, we rustled around, and I thought this is it. He's going to kill me.

Real people who faced death and lived to tell how.

This is I survived a serial killer.

My name is Fabian Witherspoon, and I survived a serial killer.

In 1992, I was 19 years old, and I was living with my fiance in Charleston, West Virginia.

In the morning of May 13th, I had decided to go downtown to get a pregnancy test.

They said it was negative, and I remember walking home from the clinic, feeling okay.

That's when I saw a man that had a cardboard sign that said,

will work for food. He appeared, unkempt, a little scruffy looking. He kind of seemed a little

desperate. I said, are you really hungry? And he said, oh, yes, I am. So I said, well,

I have a bunch of food at my house. The walk wasn't very long, maybe five to eight minutes.

There wasn't a lot of conversation. Mostly it was him telling me about him and his three children

and his wife. When we approached the house, I had him stand out on the porch. He had asked me if

anybody was home, and I did tell him, no, I went inside and proceeded to collect the food

and started putting it into bags. All of a sudden, I heard a noise behind me, and when I turned

around, he was standing there with a knife pointed at me and said, if you do what you're told,

you're not going to get hurt. Carl Hammonds is a retired detective from the Charleston,

West Virginia Police Department. This individual told Fabian that he would not hurt her,

but I think for the minute he met Fabian, his intentions were to kill her. Almost five years

before Fabian was attacked, Suzanne Courts was reported missing from Lockport, New York.

This is the voice of Tommy Lynn Cells. I lose control of my thoughts. I lose control of my emotions.

When you're not in control, bad things can happen. Rick Westfall is a retired detective

from the Charleston, West Virginia Police Department. It took eight long years to find her body.

Her body was in such a state of decomposition that the cause of death could not be determined.

Diane Fanning is the author of Through the Window. Because there was no new evidence,

the case stayed cold. He pointed the knife at me and I started crying, of course, and said, please,

please don't hurt me. He told me to start undressing. I complied and he was undressing himself as well.

He led me to the bathroom and he told me to get down on the ground and he did rape me.

The whole time I was thinking, how am I going to get out of this? Am I going to die?

I was more focused on trying to escape than what was actually going on.

After the first assault, he pushed me up over the toilet. I remember looking down and there was

a ceramic duck and I remember just looking at that duck and thinking, that's your only weapon,

use it. I just started hitting him over the head with the duck until there was nothing left in

my hand but the beak and he was still standing there. He was really upset after that.

He did assault me again and that's when he placed the knife down on the countertop by the mirrors.

So when I saw my opportunity, I grabbed the knife and he was right up on me.

I struggled and sued over the knife, Fabian gained control and stabbed this individual multiple times.

And then I started running but before I knew it, he had meat by the back of my hair

and pulled me back and he threw me into that bedroom and I just went flying.

We wrestled around the worst thing that could have happened was him getting that knife back but

he got the knife back and I thought this is it. He is going to kill me.

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prices vary based on how you buy. When he had possession of the knife again,

he took the quilt off the bed and threw it over me. I'm just terrified of what he's going to do.

I heard a speak come right up to my head and then the next thing I know,

something came down on my head. It was an antique stool and he

bashed her in the head and body with it over and over again with such force that the top of the

stool flew off. I could feel warmth, wet and warmth coming down over my head and my face.

I was like, that's my blood. That has to be my blood. I moved, um, terrified to move,

actually. I do feel like he had thought I was going to die or bleed out. I heard him start to walk

away. I heard the front door open and close, so I assumed he's gone, but I want to make sure that

he's not still in their hiding. That's when I started taking my deep breaths and saying,

five minutes, five minutes, you'll get up and call police.

On November 18, 1987, a whole family was massacred in Illinois.

In the Dardine home, the mother Elaine, who had been pregnant at the time of the attack,

was beaten with a baseball bat. She went into labor and gave birth. That baby was also beaten to death

with a baseball bat, as was her three-year-old son, Peter. The husband, Keith,

was later discovered, uh, brutally shot and he failed not far from his residence.

My daddy told me a long time ago that man tells no tell.

After this crime, rumors started to fly. Was there a serial killer? Was there some sort of satanic

cult, but nothing ever developed from any of this and the case went cold.

Once I heard that door shot, I gave myself five minutes. That's when I called police.

When I got to the scene, I could not believe the amount of blood. I was surprised that she was alive.

I tried to solicit as much information as I could from her so that we might start looking for the

perpetrator. And I said he did share his name with me while we were walking. We were having

casual conversation. He told me his name was Tommy Sals.

And as soon as she said the name, it came back to me that we had interviewed the same guy

a few days earlier. He was a panhandler and we actually stopped just to get you the conversation

with him. And we did actually get his name and a contact telephone number. I actually saved that

within four hours. We were able to trace the phone number to an address once we entered the

residence. This individual appeared to have stab wounds and also had a wound to his head.

So we summoned an ambulance and we later learned that he had a collapsed lung. His kidney was

necked and his spleen was cut. If we had not arrested Tommy Sals that evening, he would have likely

died before more. We obtained a warrants charging this individual with

less sweating and sexual assault. When I found out that he was arrested, I felt like I could

breathe a little bit better. I knew he was in jail. I knew he couldn't hurt me. But in June of

1993, a plea agreement was bargain. Tommy Sals agreed to plead to a malicious wounding

and was therefore sentenced to two to ten years in the state penitentiary. It was a

atrocious, atrocious, that he was presented with sense of light sentence.

I didn't really like the idea of the plea deal, but at the same time I thought for sure that he

would serve the max, the ten years. After the trial, I just tried to keep moving on and keep going.

I do remember having fears that he would still try to find me and get revenge,

but I knew he was in jail. I was not alerted when he was let out. They never told me.

Tommy Sals was released in May of 1997 after serving about five years.

When I learned this individual was actually released, I had my concerns about him committing other

brutal acts in the future. Between 1997 and 1999, there was a string of murders across the United

States. Investigators had no reason to believe there was a serial killer at work until December of

1999. On the morning of December 31 in Del Rio, Texas, 10-year-old Crystal Surles and 13-year-old

Katie Harris were asleep in Katie's bedroom when a man quietly broke into their home.

The man had a knife on him and went to the bedroom where the two girls were sleeping. He cut

the clothes from Katie Harris. When Katie realized what was happening, she jumped up and tried to

wake her friend up. She goes over a lot of times. They'll get mom and that's when I cut her.

The man repeatedly stabbed her and cut her throat and killed her. The other girl was watching

this happen and she was scared to death of what he was going to do. That's when he used the

boning knife to cut her throat. I walked back over to the top of her and I just, she, I thought I'd

kill you. At this point, the man left the room, gotten to his truck and he drove away.

When Crystal heard the man leave, she thought that he killed every single person in the house.

At that point, Crystal ran down to a neighboring house and those people immediately called the police.

When the police went to the Harris home, they thought they'd find a lot of dead bodies.

But the only one they found was Katie Harris. No one else was harmed at all.

After Crystal was taken to the hospital, she was able to write a description of the

perpetrator and they were able to use her to build a composite of the suspect.

Katie's father recognized him. He said, I know him from church. His name is Tommy Lynn Cells.

On January 2nd, Tommy Lynn Cells was arrested in his home.

Cells's arrest was very peaceful and when he was in the car being taken to the police station,

the first thing he said was, I guess you want to know about the others.

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Once Tommy Cells was taken into the station, he confessed to the murder of Katie Harris

and to the assault on Crystal Surles. She started to say something and I spoke to a

man like this and I said, shut up, shut up.

Cells agreed to do a walk through at the Del Rio House.

He took him to the room where Katie and Crystal were sleeping,

and he panamined killing Katie.

You know, he wanted to tell everything at that point.

I didn't pre-witate it, it just happened.

He was forthcoming about not only the Harris murder, but about other murders that he had committed.

The first time I killed somebody and it was such a rush.

He had listed 50 murders.

And when he finished, he said he was only 70 percent done.

The drifter's vagrant lifestyle helped him allude police for nearly 15 years,

as victims turned up from coast to coast.

Once the media picked up on the Cells story, they described him as the coast to coast killer,

and Cells took great pleasure in that.

When I found out he was a serial killer, it just did not seem real, unbelievable.

It was very hard to see what people before me and people after me had went through.

In September of 2000, Cells had a trial for murder and sexual assault of Katie Harris,

and for assault on Crystal Surles.

The jury found Tommy Lynn Cells guilty of capital murder,

and on September the 20th, the jury did impose the death sentence.

I've never seen a case where an individual deserved the death penalty more than Mr. Cells.

He was a cold-blooded brutal killer.

When Cells confessed to crimes, he said that he killed Mary B. Perez in 1999.

That little child had been strangled and sexually assaulted.

In 2003, Cells pled guilty to the murder of Mary B. Perez.

Cells confessed to the Dardine case, but local law enforcement could not find corroborating evidence.

With Suzanne Courts, they were pretty sure he was the perpetrator, but there were no charges

brought against him. Despite Tommy's confessions, some of the cases were never able to be cooperated.

Authorities think Cells likely committed about 20 murders, but due to the lack of evidence,

a vast number still remain open.

Tommy Lynn Cells was executed tonight and pronounced deceased at 6.27 pm.

He's gone. He can't hurt anybody anymore.

Just got to let it go. I'm thankful to be alive. I know God had a purpose for me.

Do I sometimes feel that it could have been prevented, yes, but I learned that I'm stronger than I think,

that I'm capable of more than I think, that I can get through just about anything.

At least I know I had it in me to to fight back.

I definitely did learn that about myself.

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