Dardeen family homicides

News of the killings made area residents even more fearful than they had already been. Many residents began going about their daily business with shotguns visible in their vehicles' gun racks. After high school basketball games, students would wait in the school building for their parents to come in and accompany them to the parking lot for their ride home instead of socializing outside as they normally did.[2]

Early reports from police about the crime were limited, and sometimes contradictory, allowing rumors to spread. The two counties' respective coroners differed on whether Keith had died of a head injury or being shot; among those who reported the former, it was said that it had been inflicted when he was dragged from a car. The circumstances under which Elaine gave birth, perhaps posthumously, to her short-lived daughter, gave rise to stories that Casey (as the family called her) had been ripped from her mother's womb. Along with the mutilation of Keith's genitals, this supported speculation that Satanists were active in the area and had performed a ritual sacrifice of the family. The crime was also posited to be the work, along with three other local unsolved murders, of a regional serial killer.[8]

Dr. Richard Garretson, a family physician who doubled as the Jefferson County coroner, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in early December that many of his patients talked to him about the case and how it had disturbed them. One man who said he lived a half-mile (900 m) from the Dardeens' trailer told Garretson he was having difficulty sleeping and had lost 14 pounds (6.4 kg) as a result of the stress.[8] Also unable to sleep was the Dardeens' landlords' daughter, who told her parents years later that she kept her bedroom light on and read all night out of fear.[9]

Robert Lewis, the Franklin County coroner, felt much of the fear was unjustified. "I don't think there is a rational basis for the near hysteria," he told the newspaper, "The people are frightening each other." People were so afraid, he said, that if someone ran out of gas in the county he would not seek assistance in any nearby homes but would instead walk to the nearest highway and hitch a ride.[8]

Determining the motive of the assailant(s) was a particularly difficult part of the case. The back door had been left open; there was no evidence of forced entry. A VCR and portable camera were in plain sight in the living room. Elsewhere in the house equally accessible cash and jewelry remained. These facts argued against robbery as the motive. Elaine had not been raped or sexually assaulted.[10]

Police also found no evidence of any extramarital affairs involving either Keith or Elaine that might have motivated the other party to a jealous rage. A stack of papers with sports scores found in the house led them to wonder whether Keith might have incurred gambling debts. However, Joeann Dardeen told police her son was so frugal that he raised money for his young son's college fund by reselling 50-cent cans of soda at work for a small profit.[9]

Despite the widespread fear the case engendered, Lewis, the Franklin County coroner, did not believe the Dardeens were randomly chosen. "I believe it was a very personal, deliberate thing," he told the Post-Dispatch.[8] A police expert on cults told the newspaper that the rumor that Satanists were responsible was untrue, since such groups often would mutilate bodies more extensively, harvest organs, and leave symbols and lit candles at the scene of their crimes. None of these indications had been found at the Dardeen's trailer.[11]

Police did allow, however, for the possibility that, while the Dardeens were chosen purposely, it may have been a case of mistaken identity by the killer or killers. Joeann Dardeen said later that she had considered other motives someone might have had for killing her son and his family. "I think someone wanted Keith to sell drugs and he refused," she said in 1997. "Or there's a possibility someone liked Elaine and she wouldn't accept his advances and he took out his rage on both of them ... We just don't know."[10]

Eventually, the police exhausted all leads and had to start working other cases. Two FBI profilers came to the area to review the evidence. They were able to make some suggestions, but generally found that the crime defied their typical analytic methods.[10]

Joeann Dardeen worked to keep the public from completely losing interest. Throughout the 1990s, she regularly called the one detective still assigned to the case, offering possible leads she had learned of or asking for any new information he could share.[10] She gathered 3,000 signatures from area residents on a petition to The Oprah Winfrey Show, asking producers to do a segment on the killings of her son and his family. They turned her down, saying the crime was too brutal for daytime television. America's Most Wanted had a similar reaction at first, but then changed its mind and ran a segment in 1998. The show did not generate any new leads.[2]

Police were briefly interested in serial killer Ángel Maturino Reséndiz, then known by his alias Rafael Resendes Ramirez, after he surrendered to authorities in Texas in 1999. He often traveled around the country by hopping freight trains, choosing his victims near the tracks they traveled and often beating them to death. While those elements suggested the Dardeen killings, authorities in Illinois were never able to connect him to the crime.[12]

To some investigators, Sells' 2014 execution by Texas was justice for the Dardeens as well. He was never charged with their murders, but, "he remains the No. 1 suspect," Jefferson County state's attorney Douglas Hoffman said, a week after the execution. Sheriff Roger Mulch agreed. The county deputy sheriff who interviewed Sells in his Texas cell says he knew details of the crime that had been kept confidential.[1]

But even they agree that Sells may have added details to his story, as he was known to do, something that has left considerable doubt about many of the killings he confessed to. Other investigators are less sure. While Sells' account is consistent with the general facts of the case, they say, most of what he told them had previously been reported publicly.[1]

When Sells was asked about some information that has been withheld from media accounts of the killing, he seemed less reliable. His claim as to which seat of Keith's Plymouth he was shot in is belied by the evidence. And when asked how Elaine's body was positioned, he at first answered incorrectly, then correctly, which may merely have been a lucky guess.[1]

"I know people got their doubts," Sells said in his 2010 interview with The Southern Illinoisan. He responded to some of them: "They say there's no physical evidence tying me to Dardeens, but there wasn't for any of them because they wasn't looking for me. I moved. I was always a transient."[3]

Police in Texas confirmed Sells was responsible for 22 murders, but came to believe that, in conscious imitation of another Texas serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas, he was trying to avoid the death penalty by confessing to crimes he had not committed and taking advantage of the judicial system's gratitude.[13] Their counterparts in Illinois thus wanted to take Sells to Ina so they could see how well he knew the area and the locations relevant to the crimes; he claimed he could lead them to missing evidence. However, Texas law does not allow prisoners on death row to be taken out of state,[7] and authorities there were unwilling to find a way to make an exception. So Duncan declined to file murder charges for lack of sufficient evidence.[1]

Doubts about Sells' confession are not limited to local law enforcement. Friends and family have issues with some of his claims. For one, they doubt that Keith would have invited home someone from out of town whom he had just met to even have dinner with the family, especially given the heightened fear in the area after all the killings over the preceding two years. "If he wouldn't let a young girl in to use the phone, he wouldn't let a 22-year-old man in," said a friend, referring to Sells' age at that time.[6]

They also find Sells' claim that Keith made a homosexual advance to him unlikely. They had never perceived him as even possibly having an interest in his own sex, and police did not find any evidence of that during their initial investigation.[4] The detectives who interviewed Sells believe that if he did kill the Dardeens, he invented that detail to make the crime seem more justified;[3] in confessing to other crimes, he often included similar stories to make it seem like the victims had provoked him.[13][9]

Joeann Dardeen's position on Sells' guilt has evolved. In 2000, when the confession was first reported, she told the Chicago Tribune that she was as certain as the police that he was the suspect. She believed only talking to him could clear up any lingering doubts. "I have always wanted to know every detail," she said. "Some people may think that's gory. But when someone does something to (my family), I want to know why."[6]

Seven years later, on the 20th anniversary of the killings, a year after Sells' initial execution date had been stayed so a federal appeals court could consider a question about his mental state, she said she was "99 percent sure," and expressed again her interest in possibly talking to Sells. "There's just a little bit of doubt there. Not that he didn't do it; I'm wondering if maybe somebody helped him."[14]

In his 2010 interview, Sells was skeptical of what such a conversation might accomplish. "Joeann wants to talk to me. If she wants to come here and talk to me, scream at me, yell, kick me, hit me, she should have that right," he said. But he said that no apology he could make could possibly give her closure. "[S]orry ain't gonna cut it. So what is there to say? I could tell her sorry every day the rest of my life. It's not going to stop her pain, and one thing I do know about is pain, and it don't go away."[3]

The two never did talk. By the time of Sells' 2014 execution, Joeann had come to believe he was not the man who killed her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. "I wanted him to stay alive until I know positively he didn't do it," she told the Associated Press shortly afterward. "[T]he things he said do not match up with what I know about Keith," she told Pat Gauen, the Post-Dispatch reporter who had originally covered the case in 1987. "A lot of people think it's done and over with, but to me it's not."[7]