The Cross Country Killer – Life of Serial Killer Tommy Lynn Sells –5.More Gruesome Murders

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More Gruesome Murders
Nothing terrible ever occurred in Ina, Illinois. The small town in the south of the state was home to a bank, gas station, store, post office, and a fire station. There were just enough trailers and houses for the 475 residents. On November 17, 1987, a deadly fear entered their hearts.

Of the four people who were at a house on the southern edge of town that evening, only Sells was left to tell the tale of what happened, and he couldn't get the story straight. He told three different versions over the years. In one, he met Keith Dardeen while he was hitchhiking and Keith brought him home. In another, he and Keith met at a pool hall and Keith invited him home. In yet a third account, he was never invited inside; he broke down their door. In the first two versions, Sells told investigators that Keith had made homosexual advances toward him. However, Keith was not known for picking up hitchhikers, and he was very protective of his family. It's unlikely that either of the first two versions is true.

Through Sells' stories and the physical evidence, the investigators pieced together the most likely path of the events that night.

Riding the rails through Illinois, Sells jumped off a train in Ina near Route 57, a major highway that ran north to south through the entire state. To the north, it passed by Champaign-Urbana and Kankakee, and then went to Chicago. From where Sells disembarked, the highway passed south through a series of small whistle-stop towns until it ended near the Kentucky state line.

Like any serial killer, Sells was constantly looking for open doors of opportunity or vulnerability in his victims. The modest trailer looked perfect to him. The 'For Sale' sign beckoned to him. The Dardeens rented the property and farmed the land near the house. They owned the trailer, but it was starting to feel too small for their growing family.

Sells sat in the dark, watching the home and waiting as he drank one beer after another. When he figured it was time, he approached the home cautiously with a gun in his hand. He'd stolen the gun in Nevada. He knocked on the door. Keith opened it and asked Sells what he wanted. Sells said he was interested in purchasing the mobile home.

Keith Dardeen had not heard a vehicle pull up, and when he looked over the stranger's shoulder, he would have seen only his vehicles in the driveway. Aware of his responsibility to his pregnant wife, Eileen, and his young son, Peter, he suppressed his desire for a sale and refused to allow Sells into the home. But as he closed the door, Sells threw his body into the open gap and pulled out his gun. He pointed it directly at Keith's head.

Sells shouted obscenities and threats as Keith backed up with his hands raised above his head. A few yards away, Eileen was clutching Peter to her side in fear. At a shout from Keith, she turned to run to the bedroom with her son. Sells was quick, and he grabbed Peter from his panicking mother. He held the gun to the three-year-old's head.

According to one of Sells' stories, he asked Keith for rope, and when Keith said he didn't have any, Sells told Keith to find something with which to tie up his wife and son.

After he had fumbled through the drawers in the kitchen, Keith found a roll of duct tape. Without moving the gun away from Peter's head, Sells bound his feet, mouth, and hands with the tape. Dragging the boy with him, he ordered Eileen Dardeen to the floor. He then repeated the process with her. This would be their last chance to see one another. Sells told Eileen that if she moved, he would kill her husband.

Sells then turned to Keith and threatened to kill his wife and child if he didn't do as he was told. With the gun to his head, Keith drove his vehicle a mile away to an empty field. When the vehicle stopped, Keith knew he had to get the gun away from Sells. If he didn't, he'd be dead. If he died, there would be no one to protect his family. He made his move, but it wasn't fast enough. Sells shot him in the cheek. Keith slumped back.

Sells dragged his body from the car and threw him down onto the ground. Keith protested weakly and tried to struggle, but it was no use. Sells unzipped Dardeen's pants and pulled out his genitals, cutting them from his body. Then he shot him twice, once in the side of his head and once in the side of his face.

Engulfed in the bloodlust of that moment, Sells jumped into Keith's car and drove back to the Dardeen home. When the door opened, Eileen's eyes looked hopeful momentarily. However, when she saw who walked through the door, her hope turned into horror.

Sells unbound her feet so that he could rape her. He used scissors to cut off her clothes, and when she struggled, he threatened to kill her son if she didn't cooperate. Instantly, she was still and accepted the assault without a sound.

As she lay on the floor, Sells roamed through the trailer. Peter was crying uncontrollably, and Sells couldn't take it any longer. He raised a baseball bat and bashed in the toddler's head. Eileen rushed Sells just as he raised the bat again to pummel her son, and he only grazed Peter's head.

He shoved Eileen back, and with her hands bound, she lost her balance and fell to the floor. He raised the bat and struck the toddler multiple times until he was sure the boy was dead. Sells then turned his attention back to Eileen, but when he raised the bat again, he saw something strange happening. Eileen had gone into labor. A small baby girl was born right before his eyes. He watched coldly.

Sells turned to Eileen, saw the desperation in her eyes, and picked up a knife. He sliced into her breasts, turned to the baby, and bludgeoned it to death with the baseball bat. Then, he turned to Eileen Dardeen and fractured her skull with the bat. As her final breaths were leaving her, he sexually assaulted her with the baseball bat and left it lodged inside of her.

With the Dardeens dead, Sells carried the bodies of Eileen, Peter, and the infant into the master bedroom and laid them in the bed very carefully. He removed the duct tape from their bodies, stuffed the pieces into his pockets, and cleaned up after himself. He wiped down surfaces for fingerprints, cleaned up the puddles of blood, and sanitized all areas where he had touched to remove any evidence. It was a slow and meticulous process.

When he knew he'd erased all evidence of his crime, he climbed into Keith's blood-spattered 1981 Plymouth and headed south on Highway 57.

When Keith did not show up for work on Wednesday, his supervisor called his home. Keith was a dependable employee, so missing work was very concerning. That evening, the supervisor called Keith's father, Don Dardeen. Don was just as confused as the supervisor, so he went over to the home of his ex-wife, Joeann.

His daughter, Anita Knapp, and her two sons had come over for pizza. Joeann knew an unexplained absence wasn't in character for Keith, so she called the sheriff's office, and Don drove to Ina to meet them with a house key.

What they found at the home sent waves of fear through the village of Ina. There was only one adult body in the bed, not two. The missing person was Keith Dardeen, and he instantly became a suspect. Many minds in the community leaped to the obvious conclusion. It was only natural considering that Keith was missing and his family was dead.

The murder also reminded the residents of Ina of something that had happened just four and half years before, only ten miles up Route 57 in Mount Vernon. Nineteen-year-old Thomas Odle had murdered his parents and his three siblings. He'd quietly ambushed them as they arrived home from work and school, and many wondered if another man had erupted into a rage and done the same thing.

~

When the doorbell rang at Joeann's house, her grandsons Robbie and Eddie ran to answer it. When they opened the door, they were looking into the muzzles of guns held by four police officers. Upon hearing the news, Joeann immediately wanted to know where Keith was.

So did the police. Officers escorted her to her bedroom and questioned her about his location. They asked her about the baby, and she insisted that there was no baby in the household. She was unaware of the brutal birth of her granddaughter.

No matter how much the pushed and accused her son, she and her family friends were adamant that Keith had done nothing. They knew it was impossible for him to have committed such a disgusting crime. They urged the police to find him, hoping he was still alive. Late the following night, hunters found Keith's body.

His vehicle was found later. It was as if the killer was taunting the community and the police. The bloodstained Plymouth was parked near the police station in Benton, about eleven miles away from the crime.

There was a basketball game at the high school that night, which usually would have meant a gaggle of teenagers making plans with each other outside afterward. Not tonight. When the game ended, all the students were kept inside the gym. They weren't allowed to leave until their parents arrived to escort them to their vehicles.

Rumors spread like wildfire through the area. There was a serial killer in southern Illinois. It had to have been a satanic ritual because of what had been done to the mother and baby. It was someone they knew and trusted. There was a killer amongst them, and it could be their neighbor.

~

In the aftermath of the murder, thirty local and state detectives were assigned to the case. They interviewed hundreds of potential witnesses, but they never found a suspect. Their clues were limited. No money had been stolen, a portable movie camera and VCR had been left in plain sight, no evidence pointed to a specific suspect, and there was no reason for this quiet family to be victims of this brutal crime. No one who had been questioned recalled anything out of the ordinary.

Their only lead was a dead family. They had a mother and father so devoted to their son that they never allowed a milestone to pass without videotaping it. They were a couple so eager for the birth of their second child that they wrapped a present for Peter's third birthday with a card that read 'Happy Birthday, big brother, from January 10th.'

Peter had received the baseball bat that birthday, even though Keith knew his son was too little for it. He believed his son would have the chance to grow into it, and he could teach Peter how to hit the ball. Keith had dreamed of the day they could play ball together.

Joeann Dardeen never gave up hope on finding the killer of her son and his family. She gathered more than three thousand signatures in her community in 1994 and sent them to the Oprah Winfrey show. The producers weren't interested because the crime was too gruesome for television.

Other shows were reluctant to present the story when there weren't enough details to assemble a profile of the suspect. America's Most Wanted was one of them, but in 1998, they had a change of heart. Joeann Dardeen pinned her hopes on the show's remarkable success at closing cases and bringing criminals to justice. The show aired in November, but it never produced a single suspect or any credible leads.