Has anyone looked into Tommy Lynn Sells?
He was in Reno during this time span and confessed to the murder of another Reno woman -
Stefanie Stroh that he picked up at a truck stop while she was hitchhiking.
Tommy Lynn Sells 'drifted' across Nevada (and the US) for many years and often would pick up women hitchhikers and has confessed to murdering dozens of women. His 'type' was very small petite women (or girls) that were alone.
"Bud Cooper, a Missouri police investigator, explained to a San Antonio reporter why Sells escaped detection: "If you or I drove across the United States, we'd be fairly easy to follow. We use credit cards and telephones. But this guy takes trains, uses no credit cards, doesn't use checks. It's kind of like chasing a ghost.""
"From 1978 to 1999, Sells crisscrossed the country by hopping freights, hitching rides or stealing cars. He spent time in half the states in the union, begging or working as a carny, barber, mechanic and laborer.
Evidence indicates that Sells went on a murderous rampage in the 1980's
The investigative technique for fleshing out details of these cases would go something like this: Sells would say he killed a family in the Midwest or a woman hitchhiking in the southwestern desert on an approximate date, and detectives would set out to find matches. They would then press Sells for details of the crimes, the victims and the settings for comparison to cold cases.
In the fall of 1987, Stephanie Stroh, a 20-year-old free spirit, was hitchhiking across America back home to San Francisco after a year-long trek to Europe and Asia. On October 15, she was standing beside a road with her thumb out in Winnemucca, Nev., when a roofer driving a stolen truck pulled over to offer a ride.
The roofer, who had drifted into town that summer, was Tommy Sells. By his account, he drove the young woman toward Reno on I-80, pulled off at some point, choked her to death, then dropped her body down a hot spring. Two weeks later, Sells failed to show up at work. He was on the road again. Despite a massive search, Strohs body was never found."
