A serial killer in Texas who has been on death row for more than 20 years in the murders of five young women has had his appeal to review his sentence denied by the U.S. Supreme Court after he claimed his public defender was ineffective and negligent in presenting his case.
Faryion Wardrip, 62, was convicted in 1999 in the deaths of the four women in a 16-month span, starting in Wichita Falls, in 1984. He had been free on parole after confessing to the murder of another woman.
His murdered victims were Terry Sims, 20; Toni Gibbs, 23; Debra Taylor, 25; Ellen Bau, 21, and Tina Kimbrew, 21.
The top court's decision to deny Wardrip's appeal was shared on Monday. It was the latest in a string of attempts by Wardrip to have his death penalty tossed.
Faryion Wardrip, 62 committed five murders in Texas between December 1984 and May 1986. Four of the murders happened in Wichita County and one happened in the Dallas-Fort Worth area
Allan B. Polunsky Unit in West Livingston, Texas, where Wardrip hason death row since 1999
Terry Sims, 23, a Midwestern State University student and part-time EKG specialist at what was then Bethania Hospital, was Wardrip's first victim before a series of other murders occurred in less than two years
In September 2020, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's ruling granting him a new trial on the capital punishment sentence. He petitioned for a rehearing from that court on the basis that his good conduct while in prison was not given enough consideration in the punishment phase.
The Fifth Circuit rejected his claim but granted him a rehearing by the lower court for one issue of his argument. However, instead of proceeding to federal district court, Wardrip's defense pleaded for the Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit's ruling on the first issue.
Now that the Supreme Court has rejected that appeal, Wardrip has the option to take his case to federal district court to consider the second issue.
In December 21, 1984, Wardrip's first victim, Terry Sims, 23, a Midwestern State University student and part-time EKG specialist at what was then Bethania Hospital, was at a Christmas party and then was supposed to go to a a co-worker's home to study and spend the night.
Unexpectedly, Liza Boone, the co-worker, received a call to return to the hospital to work the midnight shift. She drove Sims to her residence and gave Sims the key to her apartment, dropping her off at approximately 12:30 am.
The following morning, the co-worker found Sims lying in a pool of blood after she was sexually assaulted and stabbed several times.
It was later determined that while Boone was away at work, Sims had heard Wardrip causing a disturbance and went outside to investigate. Wardrip lunged at Sims and she ran back into the apartment and locked the door. Wardip targeted Sims for 'no apparent reason' and broke the door down after she locked him out.
At the time of the incident, though, authorities were not able to track a suspect. Little did they know that the young woman's death would be the first in a series of killings that went undiscovered for years.
Toni Gibbs, 23, and Wardrip knew each other from working at the same hospital where the serial killer was working as an orderly and she as a registered nurse. Wardrip offered Gibbs a ride before driving her in a secluded area and killing her
Gibbs disappeared on January 19, 1985, while employed at Wichita General Hospital. Wardrip came across Gibbs at about six a.m., after he had been out walking all night.
He knew Gibbs because she was a registered nurse at the same hospital where he worked as an orderly. Gibbs offered Wardrip a ride and after he got in her car, he began hurling her around and screaming at her. He then forced Gibbs to drive down an isolated dirt road to a field.
Two days after her abduction, her car was found within a few miles of the hospital. On February 15, utility workers found her naked body in a field at the southwest corner of West Jentsch Road and Highway 281 in Archer County, one mile south of the Wichita county line, a day after she would have turned 24.
Gibbs had been sexually assaulted and stabbed.
