Killer of 2 students in 1985 not caught for 14 years
Blake Muse | Contributor
On television dramas from CSI to Law and Order, week after week, villains from rapists to serial killers get caught in 60 minutes. The reality is that catching a serial killer can take years, even decades, as investigators in Wichita Falls learned nearly 30 years ago.
Leza Boone returned to her home at approximately 8 a.m. on the morning of Dec. 21, 1984, after a pulling a double shift at Wichita General, the hospital she worked at. After she was unable to get in the locked front door, she called her landlord who found her friend, MSU student Terry Sims, dead on the bathroom floor in a pool of her own blood.
Sims noticed Faryion Wardrip “screaming at the stars” and when her assailant, Wardrip, saw her, he rushed to her. Sims locked the door, but Wardrip broke it down and “just ransacked her, just slung her all over the house in a violent rage,” Wardrip said, according to court documents. Sims died at the age of 20.
Allen Stilwell, a forensic pathologist, performed the autopsy on Sims and testified that she had eight stab wounds in the front of her chest, three stab wounds on the right side of her back and one stab wound on her left upper arm. Cuts on Sims’ fingers and hands indicated that she tried to fight off her attacker. Stilwell also testified that Sims had “tease wounds” inflicted by Wardrip to “get her attention.”
The crimes didn’t stop there. Approximately a year later, on Feb. 15, 1985, an electrician, Charles Haynes, who had gone to check on a transformer, found the body of Toni Gibbs off Highway 281. Gibbs had been bludgeoned to death with her clothes found in a trolley car near the field where her body was found.
Police charged Danny Laughlin with her murder after he obtain information on the case that he was not supposed to have.
He was later acquitted after his DNA didn’t match that of the crime scene.
Only seven months after the body of Gibbs was found, a county worker, Don Morgan, discovered the body of 21-year-old Ellen Blau, an MSU student and waitress who had moved from Connecticut to Texas. Decomposition had made any DNA or sexual assault evidence impossible. Blau had been missing for about a month.
The “body snatcher”—as he was known—killed again on May 6, 1986. Wardrip killed Tina Kimbrew by asphyxiating her with a pillow. Three days later, Wardrip called the authorities and admitting to knowing Kimbrew, but he also claimed to know another murder victim, Ellen Blau.
His claims about Blau were not investigated for almost 15 years.
He has never confessed to the crimes.
Wardrip only served 11 of his 35 year sentence for Kimbrew’s murder and was released on parole on Dec. 11, 1997.
After 15 years, new investigator John Little was handed the case, and it didn’t take him long to see some clues. Few noticed that a man named Faryion Wardrip claimed to know murder victim Ellen Blau BS that Wardrip had also been a janitor at Wichita General Hospital, where Toni Gibbs was a nurse. Sims body had also been discovered only two blocks away from Wardrip’s apartment, where Blau had been reported missing.
Even though DNA evidence had been left at the scene, investigators had no DNA to match it with for comparison, so Little had to get creative.
Wardrip moved to Olney, Texas after his parole, got remarried, became an active member of his church, and started working at Olney Screen and Door.
Across the street on Feb. 5, 1999, Little pretended to wash his clothes at a laundromat across the street. When he saw Wardrip go on a coffee break, Little placed a pinch of tobacco in his mouth and asked if he could use Wardrip’s coffee cup for spitting. Wardrip agreed.
Little then sent the cup to Genescreen for DNA comparison. It resulted in a match.
He was called in after the match was made by his parole officer.
Wardrip thought he was meeting his parole officer, but instead investigators waited for him.
Little questioned Wardrip about the murders, but Wardrip denied even knowing the victims until three days later. Wardrip later confessed to the murders of Sims, Gibbs, Blau, and even a victim that investigators didn’t know about. Wardrip said he was unsure of her name. Debra Taylor was identified as the victim and Wardrip said the murder occurred sometime in the mid 80s.
Originally given the death penalty, Wardip later appealed his case on the grounds that he had ineffective legal counsel and is now serving three consecutive life sentences.
Television shows might be distorting the reality of how long it takes to catch these killers, even if investigators have DNA evidence.
“[It takes] about a week or so,” Jake Taylor, a sophomore in computer science, said.
Students seem to understand that these shows are mainly for entertainment value, and not so much for their accuracy.
“I watch a lot of crime shows,” Brooke Long, a senior in mass communication, said. “I love them. They’re not incredibly accurate. The court and legal process isn’t very exciting so they have to vamp it up.”
Jake Taylor, sophomore in computer science, said even though crime shows are entertaining to watch, the creators have a tendency to overdo it.
“They exaggerate the abilities of the police department,” Taylor said. “I’m pretty sure they don’t get a gun.”
At one time, the Wardrip case was three separate investigations with little communication between the different agencies, and that slowed the process down.
MSU Chief of Police Dan Williams said, “We can be territorial, and we had a good idea it was the same guy, but we didn’t have any evidence to connect them to one another.”
This evidence didn’t turn up until District Attorney Barry Macha ordered a DNA test of the two semen samples from the Sims and Gibbs case to be tested for a match in March of 1990.
Chris Green, sophomore in graphic design, said a police agency’s success “depends on their willingness to let information out. Sometimes they might be competing to solve the crime first.”
Television crime dramas also leave out that a convicted killer who confesses can sometimes escape a lifetime of imprisonment. Wardrip was released on parole in December of 1997. Having served 11 years of his 35-year sentence, he appealed and escaped the death penalty.
Williams said the criminal justice system in America “by a long shot is not perfect, but it’s one of the best in the world.” Williams said in the 80s, legislative measures had been taken that gave a vast majority of inmates the opportunity to appeal their cases and get out on parole for “good behavior.”
Long said, “I agree with the appeal. Death is too good for people who commit heinous crimes. They deserve life with as many years with as little happiness as possible.”
When it comes to the topic of the death penalty, civilians might have a different opinion than that of the officers who see these crimes throughout the span of their career.
“I’m a death penalty supporter,” Williams said. “You find that most police officers are.”
After the murders in the 80s women bought guns, started locking their doors and stopped going outside at night. Today, students still take precautions.
“I lock my car. I don’t text when I go out to my car,” Long said. “I pay attention to my surroundings and recent activity.”
Serial killers, by definition, possess the ability to commit crimes and evade justice, a fact known all too well by investigators. The case of Faryion Wardrip took 15 years to solve, but that’s just half the battle. Even if you have DNA evidence, solving a crime takes longer than what is on TV.
“That’s just not reality,” Williams said. “High profile cases will be in the courts for years, and have automatic appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court. We have to work through every piece of evidence. We can’t afford to operate on half-truths.”
On Friday, April, 5, the Northern District of Texas ordered that habeas corpus relief be granted to Wardrip’s case. This was given to him because he claims the evidence should have shown him in a better light, such as highlighting his work for the prison newspaper.
Despite the outcome of a future trial, the death penalty sentence is now off of the table.
John Helton • Jul 27, 2021 at 7:11 AM
The article is about a white man who murdered five innocent women and someone responds by stating that a wall needs to be built at the border and the Catholic Church needs to do…what? Condone birth control? Help pay for the wall? Eliminate “press on for Espanol”?
The poster was either drunk or just stupid. Or maybe both.
Ld • Aug 19, 2022 at 3:09 PM
Absolutely!!!!
Verne • Jul 26, 2021 at 6:19 PM
This man should have already been put to death. It’s ridiculous that our justice system allows this bullshit. These women never got to have their lives, and here he is an evil psychopath just costing the taxpayers more money. It’s WAY past time for his debt to be paid….
Laina Moore • Sep 26, 2020 at 11:00 AM
Encouraged here to speak my mind, I have to first say that our borders need sealed. No more influx from North or South (especially) unless they have a specific job. The Wall needs to really be completed. We have more crime than we can handle with just who we have here already. Take down public all signs in Spanish, no more ‘press on for Español’, no more making it easy for border crossers. Above all, no birthright citizenship effective immediately. Retroactively, if possible. Those in other countries need help, but it’s time for the Roman Catholic Church to step in and do it, pay for it. The countries are over populated because of the no birthcontrol policy for a few hundred years, so let them be the ones who now distribute it free.
We have enpugh here already, and law enforcement is overrun.
P. Gunter • Nov 4, 2018 at 8:32 PM
I’ll never understand how a piece of crap like this is let out of prison in the first place. Never. The whole mandatory release thing is ridiculous. The “justice” system serves the guilty not the innocent. This is evidenced in way too many cases. Life in prison is a lie as it never means natural life. Our perverted justice system needs to be redone. Start over. Reset. What we have is a joke.
D. Hanks • Apr 3, 2018 at 12:18 PM
To Ellie Garcia: He is now on Death Row as he has been since he was convicted. “…the death penalty sentence is now off of the table” is just one of the many inaccuracies in this article. Among them is the assertion that he has never confessed. His confession was the only reason they were able to charge him with Ellen Blau’s murder and the only reason they even knew about Debra Taylor’s murder.
This article is old I realize, and while the appeals mentioned in it are over, new ones have been filed in a seemingly endless process, as they often. When that happens, as is the case now, people tend to read up on the subject matter. If they are familiar with this case, as many people from this area are, and come across this article, it won’t take long to find the mistakes and start asking, “Who wrote this and have they ever heard of research?”
For Blake Muse, there are at least three books about this guy you could read and if you wanted to be really lazy there is always Wikipedia.
Come on man, who the hell ever called this guy the “body snatcher?” Don’t be a part of trying to give this piece of trash some kind of moniker.
If you want to get credit for an article using this guy as your subject, at least take the time to check your facts. Not doing so is disrespectful to the victims, including those left to live with what he has done.
Souraya • Feb 12, 2017 at 5:10 AM
So, let me get this straight, you can brutally and viciously murder several people, without remorse, but because the evidence didn’t show you in a “better light “, highlighting the supposed good things you’ve done, you believe you should get a lighter sentence versus death? None of your victims, who were actually good people, got that option though. Why should you?
Ellie Garcia • Oct 21, 2016 at 4:29 AM
Where is he now?