Free Through the Window by Diane Fanning Page B

dreams of Christmas into a shattered night of violence. The invader raged through their home, knocking obstacles out of his way. He lifted a table over his head and smashed it to the floor, splintering it, splitting it in two. He jerked a leg loose and brandished it as he approached Teresa. He bludgeoned her to death with blows that fractured her skull. Then, little Tiffany suffered the same fate. The killer fled the home still clenching the leg of the table in his balled-up fist.
     
    TERESA did not report to work at the New Beginnings Clothing Shop in Marianna the next day. Linda Schack, owner of the store, tried to call her at home. The phone rang unanswered all day, so she called Teresa’s mother, Charlotte Mitchell.
    Angus Mitchell, Teresa’s stepfather, went to check on the family. His heart sank when he saw the damaged door. He entered with great trepidation and discovered the two battered bodies bathed in blood.
    A few minutes later, Brian Hall, Teresa’s husband and Tiffany’s father, returned home from a trip to Quitman, Georgia, where he had worked a carpet-laying job for the last two days. Once Brian’s alibi was verified, the police had no suspects and no answers for the bereaved family.
    Angel Maturino Resendiz would come under suspicion after his apprehension by Texas Rangers in 2000. Resendiz, dubbed “the Railway Killer,” had been linked to a string of murders occurring near railroad tracks across the south. Sells admitted committing the crimes; authorities, although suspicious, are uncertain.
     
    ON March 14, 1992, Tommy Lynn Sells was arrested in Charleston, South Carolina, for public drunkenness. He received a thirty-day suspended sentence. On April 2, he was arrested again on the same charge. As soon as he was released, he left town. The mountains of West Virginia would next embrace Sells. Their rugged, primitive beauty fueled his next act of violence.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    FABIENNE Witherspoon felt pretty confident of her ability to take care of herself at the age of 20. At five feet, eight inches, with a solid athletic body, she had a physical advantage many women lacked. Her attractive, oval-shaped face, with dark brown, nearly black eyes, had just enough of an edge of toughness that no one could ever accuse her of being cute. Thick, curly brown hair fell below her shoulders, its uninhibited style suggesting a streak of wildness lying just beneath the surface.
    On the 13th of May, she was house-sitting at 906 Grove Avenue in Charleston, West Virginia. It was an ordinary middle-class neighborhood where bad things normally did not happen. That day, she had only one worry on her mind as she walked a few blocks to the Women’s Health Clinic for a pregnancy test.
    On her stroll back to the house she was feeling benevolent toward the world, relieved at the negative result of her test. She saw a man in his mid-twenties with uncombed, matted hair, intriguing eyes and scruffy clothing at the corner of Washington Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. He held a sign that read, “Hungry. Will work for food.”
    He spun a tale of misery and woe in a softly beguiling voice with a barely Southern accent. Below his plea for pity lurked a scintilla of dangerous flirtation. He told her his name was Tommy Sells. He said that he and his wife lived under a bridge, and his children were so very hungry. A wave of compassion welled up in Fabienne, tinged with a drop of sexual attraction. She brought him to her home to scrounge up what she could. Once there, she grabbedtwo black trash bags. Into one, she threw graham crackers, Cheerios, scalloped potato mix, vanilla wafers and more until the bag bulged. Into the other, she stuffed folded, clean clothing. She smiled at him and asked if he needed anything else.
    “My wife really needs some underwear,” he said.
    Fabienne went into the back bedroom to find a few pair. As she turned from the chest of drawers, there he was, right behind her. And in his hand was a knife from her