Faryion Wardrip

Faryion Wardrip
1986 mugshot
Born	Faryion Edward Wardrip (1959-03-06) March 6, 1959 Salem, Indiana, U.S.
Criminal penalty	Death (overturned), Life without parole
Conviction(s)	Murder
Killings
Victims	5
Span of killings	December 1, 1984–May 6, 1986
Country	United States
State(s)	Texas
Date apprehended	May 9, 1986 (for the murder of Tina Kimbrew); February 13, 1999 (for the murders of Terry Simms, Toni Gibbs, Ellen Blau, and Debra Taylor)

Faryion Edward Wardrip (born March 6, 1959) is an American serial killer who murdered five women in Wichita Falls, Texas, and the surrounding counties from 1984 to 1986.^[1]

Murders

Terry Sims

Terry Sims

In 1984, Terry Lee Sims, 20, a nursing student, was found stabbed and sexually assaulted at her home. She had heard him causing a disturbance outside and he lunged toward her as she went outside to investigate. Wardrip stated he targeted her for "no apparent reason" and broke her door down after she locked him out. Because of her resistance, Wardip bound the victim's hands with an electrical cord. Sims was estimated to have lived minutes after the attack was over. Police officers preserved a semen sample and a fingerprint found on Sims' shoe for future analysis. The print and semen was later positively identified to be those of Wardrip.^[2]

Sims was buried at Crestview Memorial Park in Wichita Falls.

Toni Gibbs

Toni Gibbs

Toni Jean Gibbs, 23, disappeared on January 19, 1985, while employed at Wichita General Hospital. Two days after her disappearance, her car was found within a few miles of the hospital. On February 15, her body was located in a field near Route 281, a day after she would have turned 24. Gibbs had been sexually assaulted and stabbed. Near her body, police found an abandoned bus, where her murderer likely conducted the attack. Gibbs had initially survived the assault and had managed to crawl one hundred feet before she died. Wardrip abandoned her vehicle near his residence after the attack.^[2] In 1996, Wardrip's DNA was matched to the biological evidence at the scene.

Danny Laughlin, 24, was initially suspected of Gibb's murder because he often rode his motorcycle near the area where she was killed and because he had met her at a nightclub days before she was killed. He also failed a lie detector test and he'd made suspicious statements as well. Laughlin was then tried, even though a comparison of Laughlin's DNA with DNA from the semen at the murder scene was unsuccessful and only circumstantial evidence was available. After two days of deliberation, the jury was deadlocked, which resulted in his release from custody.^[2]

Gibbs was buried at the Clayton Cemetery in New Mexico.

Debra Taylor

Debra Taylor

Months after he murdered Toni Gibbs, Wardrip traveled to Fort Worth, Texas, where he killed Debra Sue Taylor (née Huie), 25. He had met her while at a bar after her husband had left due to fatigue. He approached her and the pair danced; he then asked to drive her home. While outside, he attempted to make advances, which she rejected, and he killed her. He then left her body at a construction site, where her body was found a week later. When she failed to return home by the next morning, she was reported missing by her husband. Taylor's murder was not believed to be related to the other four cases, until Wardrip confessed to her murder during questioning after his 1999 arrest. Prior to Wardrip's confession, Taylor's husband had been believed to be the culprit. He had passed three polygraph tests but was still suspected by police. Suspicions about Taylor had "destroyed his life" as members of his own and his wife's family "turned against him".^[2]

Taylor was buried at Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Park in Fort Worth; date of death is listed as March 24, 1985.

Ellen Blau

Ellen Blau

Ellen Blau, 21, was abducted after leaving work one night in 1985. She was employed as a waitress and was also a student at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls. Wardrip forced Blau to drive to a secluded area where he eventually killed her by strangulation, although he stated in a Cold Case Files episode that he had broken her neck.^[3] He drove her car back into Wichita Falls and abandoned it along with her purse. Her blood was also discovered on the inside of the vehicle. Once her body was found, it was in a very advanced state of decomposition, to the point where she could only be identified by comparing dental information. She may have been sexually assaulted, as her underwear had been pulled downward, but the condition of her remains prevented accurate analysis. One of her friends had lived in the same apartment complex as Wardrip and had stated that she felt uncomfortable around him.^[2]

Blau was buried at Bnai Jacob Memorial Park in New Haven, Connecticut; date of death is listed as September 20, 1985.

Tina Kimbrew

Tina Kimbrew

On May 6, 1986 Wardrip killed a waitress, Tina Elizabeth Kimbrew, 21, a recent friend of his. He had gone to her apartment and suffocated her with a pillow because she "reminded him of his ex wife". Prior to the discovery of her body, neighbors told police that they had seen a tall white man with brown hair and a baseball cap leave the complex. Danny Laughlin (who had been suspected in the death of Toni Gibbs) was ruled out as a suspect because he did not match the physical traits as this man. A few days later, on May 9, Wardrip called the police across the state in Galveston, and confessed to the crime. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison. He was paroled in 1997 and he moved to Olney where he remarried and became an active supporter of the local church, gaining a good reputation. He eventually remarried and got a job at a screen door factory.^[2]

Kimbrew was buried at Wilbarger Memorial Park in Vernon.

1999 convictions

Polunsky Unit, where Wardrip is held

In 1999, a Wichita Falls detective, John Little, began a cold case investigation of the unsolved cases of Sims, Gibbs, Blau, and Taylor. Samples of DNA from the scenes where Terry Sims and Toni Gibbs were found, were later matched, indicating that both victims had been killed by the same person. Little had known Gibbs personally, as had his wife, and he had also participated in the search for her body. He began to believe that the murders of these women were linked, but such a linkage had not yet been investigated because the murders had occurred in different jurisdictions and therefore different local police departments had investigated each case. Little's investigation revealed a previously unknown link between Wardrip and Ellen Blau. One of Little's fellow officers had stated that Wardrip had admitted to knowing Blau while he was on trial for Tina Kimbrew's murder. This lead had not been investigated at the time it emerged. Wardrip himself stated that the agency would have been able to find a suspect much sooner if they had "paid a little bit more attention."^[2]

Little then found additional evidence linking Wardrip to the four unsolved murders: Ellen Blau had lived one block away from Terry Sims, and Wardrip had been employed as a custodian at the same hospital where Toni Gibbs had worked as a nurse.^[2]

At the time, police had no DNA sample from Wardrip, so Little used a simple ploy to obtain one: Wardrip had been convicted for the murder of Tina Kimbrew, but in 1997 he was paroled and was working at a factory. During Wardrip's work break, Little approached Wardrip and asked him for the paper cup from which Wardrip had been drinking, in order to spit out the tobacco that Little had been chewing. An analysis of Wardrip's DNA from the cup matched the suspect's DNA in the cases of Terry Sims and Toni Gibbs.^[2] Wardrip was arrested, and while he was in custody, he confessed to the murders of Sims, Gibbs, Blau, and Debra Taylor, 26.

In 1999, Wardrip was sentenced to death for the murder of Sims, and three life terms for the other killings. In 2008, a federal magistrate recommended that the death penalty be overturned because Wardrip received ineffective defense in his trial. On June 14, 2011, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling that ordered the State of Texas to either give Wardrip a new sentencing trial, or agree to giving him a life sentence. The case will be sent back to the U.S. District Court for reconsideration.^[4] Wardrip remains on death row at Polunsky Unit near Livingston.^[5]

In popular culture

• A true crime book based on Wardrip's crimes, Body Hunter, was written by Patricia Springer in 2001.^[6]
• Scream at the Sky, another book about Wardrip's crimes and related investigations, was written by Carlton Stowers in 2003.^[7] The title originated from Wardrip's account of Terry Sims' murder.
• A 2001 episode of The New Detectives, titled "To Kill Again", highlighted the forensics used to capture Wardrip.
• Forensic Files covered the case in 2002.^[2]
• Cold Case Files also covered the case.^[3]

See also

• List of death row inmates in the United States

References