Krystal's Courage

In the early morning hours of December 31, 1999, 10-year-old Krystal Surles and her friend Kaylene Harris, 13, were brutally attacked by a knife-wielding intruder, who slashed their throats. Kaylene died, but Krystal walked to a neighbor's house for help, and survived. Despite her injuries, she helped police identify the killer.

Two days after the crime, police arrested a 35-year-old drifter named Tommy Lynn Sells. During questioning, Sells told police that he had committed dozens of murders over the past 20 years. An eighth-grade dropout who often made money as a carnie, he said he had committed his first murder in Hollywood, Calif., in a street fight. Sells said that he had killed people all over the country, from California to West Virginia. Harold Dow reports on a man who for 20 years got away with murder in a big way and the child whose courage put an end to the killings.

I think the magnitude sometimes of what's happened is overwhelming," says Coy Smith, a Texas Ranger who questioned Sells. "To think that an individual could have done some of the things that he's done."

Sells told police that he killed people when they angered him: "I lose it. I lose control of my thoughts, I lose control of my emotions. When you're not in control, bad things happen."

Sells told police that he had never left a witness alive before Surles. Asked why he had been caught, Sells said: "'Cause I left someone alive."

According to Sells, he had a rough upbringing. "I grew up in a crooked family to begin with." Sells mother abandoned him when he was 18 months old. He claims he was sexually abused as a child by a man in the neighborhood. Sells began roaming the country when he was 13.

He served strethes in prison in a variety of states, for a variety of offenses, including assault and auto theft.

On Sept. 12, 2000, Sells was put on trial for killing Kaylene. The charge was first-degree murder, which can warrant the death penalty. The key witness was Krystal, who was then 11.

Sells was not hopeful. Asked about a tattoo on his wrist, the number "13 ½," he said: "Twelve jurors, one judge, and a half-assed chance."

Could a child's testimony bring a killer to justice?

Find out how the trial turned out in Part II.