Cold Case Files - I Survived A Serial Killer: The Coast to Coast Killer

Episode Date: March 28, 2026

In 1992, 19-year-old Fabienne Witherspoon was trying to help a man down on his luck when he attacked her in her own home. In this episode, Fabienne describes how she bravely waged a physical and psychological war against the man who tried to kill her and helped police apprehend Tommy Lynn Sells. However, the vagrant murderer was not easily stopped. The Coast to Coast Killer was responsible for dozens of brutal deaths across the country before his killing spree was finally brought to an end.Mint - To get the new customer offer and your new 3-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to Mintmobile.com/survivedProgressive - Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.TesterUp: Download TesterUp for free now using our link www.testerup.com/ISurvived See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode contains stories involving violence against children. Listener discretion is advised. Coast-to-coast killer Tommy Lindsells has confessed to dozens of brutal murders. He was a cold-blooded, brutal killer. I walked back over here to the top of him, and I just... The Drifter's vagrant lifestyle helped him elude police for nearly 15 years. The first time I killed somebody, and it 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 the knife. For the minute, he met Fabium. His intentions were to kill her. I remember there was a ceramic duck and thinking, that's your only weapon. Use it. We wrestled around, and I thought, this is it.

He is going to kill me. You agreed to talk to us about just how this happened? No, I'll give me the honest session. I'm glad this is over with. Hurting people ain't good. Do you think, Tom, you would have continued maybe? Oh, I know if I was out of town. He just don't die.

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 Sells. I lose control of my thoughts, lose control 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 get down on the ground, and he did rape me. The whole time I was thinking, how am I going to get out? 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. A struggle ensued over the knife, Fabium gained control, and stabbed this individual multiple times. And then I started running, But before I knew it, he had me 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's going to kill me. I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money where I can actually see it. Unfortunately, the big wireless carriers seem pretty. attached to it too. If you've been stuck paying those high monthly bills, random fees, and free extras that somehow make your total go up, it might be time to switch to Mint Mobile.

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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 his feet 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. And I was like, that's my blood. That has to be my blood. And I didn't move. 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 closed, so I assumed he's gone, but I want to make sure that he's not still in there hiding. That's when I started taking my deep breaths and saying, five minutes. Five minutes, you'll get up and call the 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 a brutally shot in a field. not far from his residence. My daddy told me a long time ago. Dad made it tell us 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 shut, 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 Sells. 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 engage in a 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 staff, 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 nicked, and his spleen was cut. If we had not arrested Tommy Sells that evening, he would have likely died before morning. We obtained warrants charging this individual with Lisholm.

swooning 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 bargained. Tommy Sells agreed to plead to a malicious wounding and was therefore sentenced to two to 10 years

in the state penitentiary. It was atrocious, atrocious. atrocious that he was presented with such a 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 10 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. Cammies 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 31st in Del Rio, Texas,

10-year-old Crystal Searles 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 Kate's When Katie Harris, when Katie realized what was happening, she jumped up and tried to wake her friend up. She told the little girl up top, go 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 there to the top of, and I just, I thought I killed him. At this point, the man left the room, got into 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.

Sheriff's office, I need an ambulance. I need 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 Sells. On January the 2nd, Tommy Lincels was arrested in his home. Sells' arrest was very peaceful. And when he was in the car being taken to the police station, the first thing he said was,

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gladiator and tv shows like Survivor sponge bob square pants the fairly odd parents and ghosts Pluto TV is always free. Hazzo! Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. Once Tommy Sells was taken into the station, he confessed to the murder of Katie Harris and to the assault on Crystal Searles. She started to say something,

and I poked the mouth like this at it, and I said, shut up. Shut up. Sell's agreed to do a walkthrough at the Del Rio House, I tried to get in this door right here. He took him to the room where Katie and Crystal were sleeping. And he pantomimed killing Katie. No. No. No.

He wanted to tell everything at that point. I didn't premeditated. 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 elude police for nearly 15 years as victims turned up from coast to coast once the media picked up on the cell's story they described him as the coast to coast killer and 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 Searles. The jury found Tommy Lynn Sells guilty of capital murder, and on September the 20th, the jury did impose the death sentence. I've never seen a case for an individual to serve the death penalty more than Mr. Sells.

He was a cold-blooded, brutal killer. When Sells 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.

against him. Despite Tommy's confessions, some of the cases were never able to be cooperated. Authorities think Sells likely committed about 20 murders, but due to the lack of evidence, a vast number still remain open. Tommy Lent Sells was executed tonight and pronounced deceased at 6.27 p.m. He's gone. He can't hurt anybody anymore. Just gotta 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 fight back. I definitely did learn that about myself.

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