DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — The father of a slain 13-year-old girl said he hopes Tommy Lynn Sells gets the death penalty instead of a life prison sentence when the punishment phase of his murder trial begins.
"He took my baby. It's hard to explain the rage," said Terry Harris, the father of Kaylene Harris, who was killed in their home on New Year's Eve. "Hopefully he'll get what's coming to him."
A jury convicted Sells of capital murder after 70 minutes of deliberating Monday. Sentencing was set to begin Tuesday.
Sells, a 36-year-old former carnival worker, was accused of breaking into the Harris family's mobile home near Del Rio around 4:30 a.m. on Dec. 31 and slitting the necks of Kaylene and a young friend, who survived the attack.
Sells' court-appointed attorney urged the jury to convict him of murder rather than capital murder, saying the state did not prove that Sells broke in specifically to sexually assault the girl, a component that could make the crime punishable by death.