Behind the Yellow Tape: On the Road With Some of America's Hardest Working Crime Scene Investigators (6 page)

Sevier County’s Detective Mark Turner and Cocke County’s Detective Derrick Woods
escort John Wayne Blair from the woods upon capture.
PHOTO BY SERGEANT DAVID ROBERTSON, COURTESY OF
SEVIER COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE, TENNESSEE

When Blair finished eating his food, the investigators interrogated him. He again started with the crazy act, sitting in the corner, looking wild-eyed all around the room, talking to himself. They continued to question him about Kelly Sellers. Blair never asked for an attorney, but he never admitted to killing Kelly either. He repeated the story he’d told Sergeant Hodges days earlier, that he’d been with her that Friday night and then had taken her home. But, as would become a theme, Blair accused Tommy Humphries of being the culprit, claiming that
he
was the one who had killed Kelly.

Indeed, Tommy did seem to know a lot of details about Kelly’s disappearance, not to mention where she had been buried. Later, after Blair’s arrest and subsequent incarceration, a jailhouse snitch informed the CSIs that Blair had told him that Humphries had killed Kelly, going into great detail, even saying that she had miraculously sat up in the back of Humphries’s truck as he drove her body up the mountain to bury her. Tommy Humphries, however, to the chagrin of the defense, passed a lie detector test with flying colors, scoring as high as one possibly can on the truth scale when questions about Kelly’s death were asked. But killers typically talk about their deeds—they cannot help it—and Blair’s statements to the snitch seemed very truthful. He probably portrayed how the events of Kelly’s death unfolded accurately, with one major omission: He left out the part where he was the culprit, not Tommy.

At one point during Blair’s interrogation, Matt and Jeff went back into a “good cop/bad cop” routine, showing Blair a picture of Kelly as she had been alive. The picture that they used was her driver’s license photo. It had been inexplicably mailed to them, from an anonymous source, while they were hunting for Blair. They asked him if that was Kelly in the picture, and he answered, “Yes, she’s my friend.” Then they showed a picture of her lying dead and bloody in the tarp, and asked him why he had done that to her. He tore up the second picture, threw it down on the floor, and called them all crazy. That’s when he finally decided to ask for an attorney. He paused just enough from his insanity act to realize that he was in trouble.

Once Blair was behind bars, the CSIs got to work on their case for court, submitting the evidence that they had collected to the lab for analysis. The investigators wanted to match the hairs found in Kelly’s hand to John Blair. Unfortunately, there were no roots attached to the shafts of hair she had pulled out. Therefore, the only test the lab could run was a mitochondrial DNA profile and not a full comparison. Although a full DNA profile could have narrowed the sample down to one particular person, the mitochondrial profile can narrow the population down significantly only to a familial DNA type on a mother’s side of the family. The results that came back from the lab could not say that the hairs in Kelly’s hand were specifically John Blair’s, but they did show that the hairs definitely came from someone in John’s immediate family (his mother or brother), which certainly helped whittle down the field of suspects.

Laboratory analysis also confirmed that all of the blood found at Blair’s house—the blood on the bucket, the door, the carpet, and the back of the truck bed—was indeed Kelly Sellers’s blood. The investigators also matched the tire tracks found at the burial scene to the tires on Blair’s truck, but they could only say it was the same tread and not the exact same tire. The tires were too new to have any distinguishing characteristics of wear. With the totality of the physical evidence; the suspect’s having fled, armed, into the mountains; and the previous similar case Blair had been convicted of in Florida, all signs seemed to point to John Wayne Blair as Kelly Sellers’s killer. But it would ultimately be up to a jury to decide.

The prosecution was convinced that the physical evidence, particularly the mitochondrial DNA evidence, would stand on its own in court, proving beyond a reasonable doubt to the jury that John Blair had killed Kelly Sellers. The defense’s main argument for Blair’s innocence was that while incarcerated, John had told a fellow inmate and a jailer what he claimed was the
real
story of what happened on the night Kelly was murdered. Blair’s story, of course, continued to be that Tommy Humphries was responsible for Kelly’s death, though he now offered many more details, including that he and Humphries had both been high on hallucinogens, and that they had both had sex with Kelly. But he also continued to claim no involvement with her death. And although evidence showed that Kelly had been sexually assaulted, no bodily fluids or fingerprints were found on her body to single out either man. The only evidence implicating another person was the hairs she had clenched in her hand.

The prosecution used the FBI’s mitochondrial laboratory to have the hair evidence analyzed and presented in court. The analysis stretched the protocol of mitochondrial analysis beyond the bounds of the traditional testing. It would be not only the first time that mitochondrial evidence was ever admitted in a Sevier County courtroom, but the first time that this advanced type of analysis had ever been admitted as evidence in any courtroom anywhere.

The totality of the evidence against Blair convinced the twelve-person jury that he was guilty of first-degree murder for the rape, torture, and death of Kelly Sellers. They deliberated for only four hours. If not for the painstaking care the crime scene investigators had taken looking for the evidence at the scene, the case might not have turned out the same. Circumstantial evidence can take a case only so far, and eyewitness testimony would have ended with two English Mountaineers pointing fingers at one another. In the age of the CSI Effect, jurors have come to expect hard evidence and scientific analysis to connect a suspect to a crime scene. The Sevier County investigators gave the jury just that.

After John Blair’s conviction, the jury still had to decide on what sentence he would serve for his horrific crime. Throughout the trial, doctors informed the jury about Blair’s mental condition, placing his IQ at or below seventy—the score of someone considered to have mild retardation. His mother also testified in court about the abuse he had endured when he was a child. Included in her testimony were tales of beatings by his father, a Ku Klux Klan member who forbade John to attend church or school. John Wayne Blair had only a third-grade education. The jury was also informed of Blair’s previous conviction in Florida for sexual battery and the fact that he was a registered sex offender. The sentencing testimony ended with Blair’s mother in tears, begging the jury to spare her son’s life.

After just a short time, the jury brought back a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, sparing Blair’s life. In a very unusual act, Blair addressed the jury, thanking them for not giving him the death penalty and further saying “I know I’m not going to hell for killing anybody; I didn’t.” On March 17, 2007, Blair was moved from the Sevier County Jail to the Brushy Mountain Correctional Complex—the same facility where the infamous James Earl Ray, assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., remained until his death. Within four days of being admitted to his new residence, he was assaulted, supposedly for a comment he made about another inmate’s girlfriend—proof yet again that there is at least some honor among thieves.

Today, a small wooden cross marks the place where Kelly Sellers’s body was found. It’s a simple monument, two sticks tied together with a small piece of brown twine, in remembrance of where Kelly was removed from her earthen tomb. A sun-faded soft drink can marks the top of the trailhead leading down to the rudimentary memorial. When we visited the site, with the sun permeating magnificently through the trees, it marked the one-year anniversary of Kelly Sellers’s murder. The experience was sobering, to say the least.

Seeing that setting on English Mountain up close was a truly remarkable experience. And even though it had been a year since they had dug up Kelly Sellers, you could still smell a hint of death in the air. That smell never, ever completely dissipates. A distinctly somber mood hung over us as we walked down to the roots of that overturned tree. There was an unplanned and unrehearsed moment when no one spoke and no one moved. Eventually we began speaking again, and we talked at length about the case, all of us wondering aloud how Blair must have felt as he drove his truck over the ragged terrain exactly 2.1 miles from his house, nostrils still filled with the stench of bleach and—given his story—at one point probably seeing Kelly sit up in the back of his truck bed in his rear-view mirror. How she must have felt as he dragged her probably live and very battered body over that uprooted tree as she bled out into the tarp, spending her last few minutes on earth buried alive. And how did he do it? There were no drag marks to be found. Did he throw Kelly over his shoulder and carry her down there by himself? John Wayne Blair is not a big man. Did he have help burying her? We may never fully know. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a killer will confess to everything but the “how.” So far, Blair has admitted to nothing. Nevertheless, the conversation gave us all a chill as we considered just how cruel people can really be.

When we started back up the hill to leave, the CSIs began reminiscing about their time at the academy and telling tall tales exaggerated by time. They told us they wouldn’t trade their experiences for anything. These people truly epitomize what it means to be a “good ol’ boy”—a gender-neutral term, of course. It means that you work hard, you play hard, and you help others when you can. Yes, these guys can be rambunctious, but they are some of our closest friends and greatest allies. It doesn’t matter what we ask for; anything we ask, they will do it for us. And even though it’s been a few years since Sevier County had a CSI come through the program, a mysterious mason jar filled to the brim with a clear liquid always seems to make it to an academy class—even if for medicinal purposes only.

BOONE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE, KENTUCKY

Boone County is the northernmost county in the state of Kentucky, and it sits right on the bank of the Ohio River. Founded in 1798, it is currently one of the fastest growing counties in the country. Boone County was named after Daniel Boone, a frontiersman from Tennessee. The county seat is Burlington. Though Boone County has the feel of a small town, it can have the crime of a large metropolitan area because Cincinnati is directly across the river. In fact, the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport sits right in the heart of Boone. The Boone County Sheriff’s Office is the second-largest agency in the state and one of only two sheriff’s offices in Kentucky accredited by the KACP (Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police). The average time it takes Boone County detectives to make an arrest is less than sixteen hours. The crime scene investigation team consists of one forensic technician, one detective, and two patrol officers.

I
want the truth!” a crazed Tom Cruise yelled at Jack Nicholson in the classic military courtroom drama
A Few Good Men
. The movie is filled with rich theatricality and poignant drama, not unlike many courtrooms across the country. Somewhere, every day, a prosecutor is working on a case, studying the facts, trying to put a criminal behind bars. And at the same time, a defense attorney somewhere is trying to poke holes through an argument for putting a criminal behind bars. The American judicial concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is geared almost entirely to the rights of defendants—their state of mind and their actions. Unfortunately, the victim often gets lost in the mix, buried under six feet of dirt and forty feet of briefs. But there are pockets all across the country where justice still means punishing people for the bad things they have done. We were fortunate enough to find one of those pockets in Boone County, Kentucky.

“There’s a lot of stuff we know should be here but it’s missing—not just a murder weapon.” This is how prosecutor Linda Tally Smith of Boone County, Kentucky, began her closing argument in the Beckham hotel murder case. It is not unusual for Linda to turn her back to the judge and begin a vigorous, tear-filled rant not only about why the defendant should be brought to justice but also about why the family of the victim should be brought peace. She sometimes falls to her knees, like a Church of God parishioner overcome with the Holy Spirit about to speak in tongues. An old southern Kentucky gentleman prosecutor once told her to do that when she could, almost certainly guaranteeing a victory when performed just right. Not every judge puts up with the teary closing, though the Supreme Court has determined that lawyers are human (a sometimes disputable point) and are therefore allowed to show emotion in the courtroom. But—to use a local southern expression—that dog sometimes doesn’t hunt in Kentucky, and Linda’s been warned by more than one judge about crying in the courtroom (she refers to this as the perils of being a “chick prosecutor”). She just turns her back to the judge, flips a mental bird and, though
verklempt
, continues pressing on with her argument just waiting for the prime opportunity to fall to her knees.