Faces of Remorseless Evil: A Courtroom Chronicle

Prologue: The Eyes of Hatred

“I am hatred. When you look at me, you look at hate. When you look at me, you know what hate is.”

The words echoed through the courtroom, chilling every soul present. The man who spoke them sat shackled, his gaze cold and empty. There was no regret in his voice, no tremor of remorse—only a chilling certainty, an unapologetic embrace of the darkness within.

Courtrooms are supposed to be places of justice, of closure, of reckoning. But sometimes, they become theaters for evil—where the worst among us reveal themselves without shame, and the world is forced to confront the reality that some people are truly beyond redemption.

This is the story of four such faces. Four killers, four trials, and four unforgettable moments when the world stared into the eyes of unrepentant evil.

 

 

Part I: Tommy Lynn Sells—The Coast to Coast Killer

Childhood Shadows

Tommy Lynn Sells was born in Oakland, Texas, in June 1964. His mother, Nina, was unmarried, and Tommy’s arrival into the world was already marked by tragedy—his twin sister died of meningitis before they were nine months old. The loss haunted the family, but it was only the beginning of Tommy’s descent into darkness.

By the time he was eight, Tommy was molested by a man with his mother’s consent. The trauma was compounded by neglect; Nina drifted in and out of her children’s lives, leaving Tommy to fend for himself. By ten, he was already using drugs. By fourteen, he was abandoned by the rest of his family, living as a permanent drifter, sleeping under bridges and in abandoned cars.

Tommy’s attempts to seek help at mental health institutions failed. He turned to alcohol, and by 1982, he was arrested for public drunkenness in St. Louis, Missouri. The world had already given up on him, and Tommy had given up on the world.

The Rush of Violence

Tommy Sells confessed that he committed his first murder at fifteen. The act, he later said, gave him a rush—an intoxicating high that rivaled the best drugs he’d ever tried.

“The first time I did a shot of dope, it was the best feeling I ever had in my life. And the first time I killed somebody, it was such a rush. Every time I did it, it was that rush again. And I started chasing that high.”

Tommy’s crimes escalated quickly—from theft to assault to driving under the influence. In 1983, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he unapologetically killed a woman and her daughter with a baseball bat.

He went on a killing spree that defied belief: raping women, mutilating their bodies, killing children, and assaulting the corpses of his victims. He liked to use a knife—“A gun is too noisy,” he said. “A knife just fits my hand well.”

From Stephanie Strow, whom he strangled and dumped in the desert, to Keith Darden, whom he shot in the head after Darden had offered him a ride, Sells killed without mercy.

“I like to watch the eyes fade—the people fade. It’s just like setting their soul free.”

He decimated Darden’s family, killing his son Peter and attacking his wife Elaine, who was pregnant. The beatings Elaine received were so severe that she went into premature labor and gave birth to a daughter. Sells killed the newborn baby, raped the mother, mutilated her breasts, and eventually killed her. He then sexually assaulted her corpse with the same baseball bat he used to murder her.

The Arrest and the Courtroom

Sells was also responsible for the attempted murder of Fabian Witherspoon and Kayleen Harris—survivors who provided crucial information that helped the police track down and arrest Sells in early 2000.

In a murderous career that spanned five states and lasted for decades, Sells killed more than 15 confirmed people and confessed to several unconfirmed killings.

“I didn’t want them to live through the pain I lived through,” Sells said.

Dubbed the “Coast to Coast Killer,” Sells received the death penalty. In court, he declined to make any final statements or show remorse.

“I suffer more here than I’ll ever suffer in that grave. I have to live with it every day. When they kill me, at least I’ll be free.”

On April 3, 2014, a lethal dose of pentobarbital was given to him. Thirteen minutes later, he was pronounced dead.

The courtroom was silent. There were no tears, no apologies, no last-minute confessions. Only the echo of his chilling words: “I am hatred.”

Part II: Michael Swanson—The Smiling Teenager

A Troubled Child

Michael Swanson was born on May 11, 1993. From the beginning, his mother knew something was wrong. Michael had trouble sleeping, struggled to interact with other children, and was often aggressive toward his mother. By eleven, his psychiatrist had given up on him.

At seventeen, Michael traveled from Minnesota to Iowa to rob a store. He shot and killed Vicki Bowman Hall, an innocent store clerk. But Michael wasn’t finished. He went to another county and shot Sheila Myers, another innocent clerk.

The Courtroom Smirk

When Michael was asked to recount what happened, he smirked. He described the half gasp and half scream Sheila Myers made when he pulled the trigger, confessing that it made him feel powerful.

Michael showed no remorse from the arrest to the trial, casually replying to the policeman who arrested him, “Yeah, I guess some people just get shot.”

When asked how he felt after the shooting, Michael shrugged. His lawyers tried to convince the court that he had a mental illness, but the judge was unmoved.

“A doctor who puts in his report that without antipsychotic medication, he’s going to rob people, he’s going to use weapons and commit violent acts—yet they let him out without any kind of medication. Cold-blooded murder, young man. And your counsel wants us to believe that you lack the capacity, that you were insane. I don’t buy it. You are dangerous. You are unpredictable. And there is no place for you in an open, law-abiding society. Prison for the rest of your life is the only alternative.”

When the sentence was being read, Michael was seen smiling and laughing. This was not the behavior of someone remorseful.

According to Michael’s warped philosophy, killing someone was like pouring a bucket of water on someone entering a pool. People are going to die anyway, so it makes no difference if they die at eighty or thirty.

While in prison, Michael attempted to kill a fellow inmate. Although the inmate survived, he needed stitches to close more than thirteen lacerations. This earned Michael an additional twenty-five years in prison.

The Unrepentant Smile

In court, Michael’s smile became infamous—a symbol of cold, remorseless evil. Family members of his victims wept, but Michael only grinned.

The judge looked at him, searching for some flicker of humanity. There was none.

Part III: William MacDonald—The Mutilator

The Jack the Ripper of Australia

William MacDonald, born as Allen Ginsberg on June 17, 1924, in Liverpool, United Kingdom, was considered the Jack the Ripper of Australia. He terrorized New South Wales and Queensland, earning the nickname “The Mutilator.”

MacDonald joined the army at nineteen. He was sexually assaulted by one of his corporals, a trauma that haunted him until his death in 1947. He was discharged and sent to a mental asylum, diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Before 1960, he changed his name and moved to Australia.

The Killing Spree

In 1961, MacDonald killed Amos Hugh Hearst, a 63-year-old man with whom he’d befriended and gone on a drinking session. They went to the man’s house from the local pub and had more alcohol. MacDonald strangled Hearst, laid him on his bed, and left the apartment. Hearst was reported to have died accidentally, and MacDonald was in the clear.

By mid-1961, MacDonald claimed his second victim, Alfred Reginald Greenfield, 41. MacDonald met Greenfield in Green Park, offered him alcohol, lured him away, and waited till he fell asleep before stabbing him thirty times and severing his genitals.

MacDonald used a similar method to murder his third and fourth victims—Ernest William Cobbin and Frank Gladstone McLean—severing their genitals.

His method earned him the nickname “The Mutilator.”

In June 1962, MacDonald killed his fifth victim, Patrick Joseph Hackett.

The Trial

Following investigations by Melbourne police, MacDonald was identified and arrested. He did not deny the killings. Instead, he chalked the murders down to an unquenchable urge to kill.

MacDonald claimed that the voices in his head told him that the people he killed were the corporal who raped him as a teenager.

His trial began in September 1963. He was charged with four counts of murder.

MacDonald pleaded not guilty, claiming insanity.

During the trial, he testified in gory detail how he murdered those men in cold blood. The courtroom was stunned—not just by the brutality of his crimes, but by his utter lack of remorse.

He described the killings with a clinical detachment, as if recounting a mundane routine.

“I had to do it. The urge was too strong.”

Family members of the victims sat in horror, unable to comprehend the evil before them.

Part IV: Thomas Michael Lane—The School Shooter

A Tragic Morning

Thomas Michael Lane was born in September 1994. At seventeen, he walked into Chardon High School in Ohio with a .22 caliber handgun.

It was February 2012. At 7:30 in the morning, Thomas started shooting randomly at students in the cafeteria. He shot five male students and a female student before trying to escape. He was pursued and subdued by Frank Hall, a school coach, with help from Joseph Rizzi, a teacher.

The affected students were quickly taken to the hospital, but three did not survive.

The Killer’s Mockery

Lane was arrested. His trial was swift, and he was convicted. But his behavior and lack of remorse in court raised an uproar.

Weeks before the murders, Lane posted about killing people on his Facebook page. No location was given, and nobody took the warning seriously.

On the day of the murders, he came to school in a sweatshirt with the word “KILLER” emblazoned on it. He replicated this sick sense of humor during his trial, coming to court in a white shirt with the word “KILLER” scrawled on it.

He recounted disrespectfully how he killed his victims, mocked the family members, and gave them the middle finger. He treated the whole trial as a joke—laughing and cursing the court.

He was given three life sentences, one for each student he killed.

Escape and Return

In September 2014, Lane and two other inmates escaped from Allen Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio, where he was serving his sentence. The Chardon High School was shut down as a safety precaution. Less than twenty-four hours later, Lane and his cohorts were recaptured.

Lane is now an inmate of Warren Correctional Institution in Youngstown, Ohio—a supermax prison. There, he will see out the rest of his sentence in absolute confinement and isolation until his name is called to meet the judicial system’s most unforgiving penalty—judicial execution.

The Courtroom Spectacle

Lane’s trial became a spectacle—a horrifying theater in which the killer reveled in his notoriety. He laughed at his victims’ families, cursed the judge, and showed no regret.

The world watched in disbelief. How could anyone be so cold? So remorseless?

Part V: The Faces of Evil

A Gallery of Remorselessness

Four killers. Four courtrooms. Four moments when evil revealed itself without shame.

Tommy Lynn Sells, the Coast to Coast Killer, who embraced hatred and welcomed death as freedom.

Michael Swanson, the smiling teenager, who treated murder as a trivial act and laughed at his victims.

William MacDonald, the Mutilator, who described his killings with clinical detachment and claimed insanity as his shield.

Thomas Michael Lane, the school shooter, who mocked the pain he caused and reveled in his notoriety.

In each case, the courtroom became a battleground—not just for justice, but for the soul of humanity. Judges searched for remorse, for regret, for some sign that these men understood the gravity of their actions.

They found nothing.

The Impact on Families

For the families of the victims, the lack of remorse was a second wound—a deep, unhealing scar. They came to the courtroom hoping for closure, for apologies, for some acknowledgment of their suffering.

Instead, they found only coldness.

Vicki Bowman Hall’s family watched Michael Swanson grin as he was sentenced to life in prison. Sheila Myers’ children wept as Swanson shrugged off their pain.

The families of MacDonald’s victims listened in horror as he described the mutilations, his voice devoid of emotion.

The parents of Chardon High’s murdered students sat in shock as Lane laughed, cursed, and gave them the middle finger.

The Question of Evil

What makes a person truly evil? Is it the act itself, or the absence of remorse? Is it possible for someone to be so broken, so lost, that they no longer recognize the humanity of others?

Psychologists and criminologists debate the nature of evil. Some say it is born of trauma, of abuse, of mental illness. Others argue that evil is a choice—a conscious rejection of empathy, of morality, of the bonds that tie us together.

In these courtrooms, the question was not academic. It was real. It was urgent. It was terrifying.

 

Part VI: The Justice System’s Reckoning

Sentencing and Reflection

The judges in these cases faced an impossible task. They had to weigh the evidence, the law, and the character of the accused. They had to decide not just on punishment, but on the future—on whether these men could ever be allowed to walk free.

In each case, the answer was clear.

Tommy Lynn Sells was sentenced to death. He welcomed it.

Michael Swanson was sentenced to life in prison, with an additional twenty-five years for attempted murder.

William MacDonald was declared insane and confined to a mental institution for the rest of his life.

Thomas Michael Lane was given three life sentences and confined to a supermax prison.

But the sentences could not erase the horror of their crimes. Nor could they heal the wounds inflicted on the families, the communities, the world.

The Role of the Courtroom

The courtroom is supposed to be a place of justice—a place where truth is revealed, where wrongs are righted, where closure is found.

But in these cases, the courtroom became a mirror—a reflection of the darkest parts of humanity.

The judges, the lawyers, the families, and the public were forced to confront the reality that some people are truly beyond redemption.

Part VII: The Aftermath

Life in Prison

For Sells, Swanson, MacDonald, and Lane, life in prison became a new kind of hell. Isolation, confinement, and the knowledge that they would never walk free.

But for the families of their victims, the pain never truly ended. Every anniversary, every holiday, every memory was tinged with loss.

Some found solace in the justice system. Others found only emptiness.

Society’s Response

Society responded with outrage, with fear, with demands for change. Laws were passed, mental health programs expanded, security measures increased.

But the question remained: How do we prevent evil? How do we recognize it before it strikes? How do we protect ourselves from those who feel nothing?

Epilogue: The Weight of Remorse

In the end, the most disturbing thing about these killers was not their crimes, but their lack of remorse.

The world expects evil to hide, to regret, to beg for forgiveness. But when evil stands up and smiles, when it laughs in the face of justice, when it embraces its own darkness, we are forced to confront the reality that some wounds never heal.

The courtrooms are silent now. The killers are gone, locked away or dead. But their words, their smiles, their coldness remain—a chilling reminder that evil is real, and that justice, though necessary, is never enough.

Reflection

Which of these murderers was the most shocking?

Let us know in the comments.

Because sometimes, the most disturbing thing isn’t the crime itself.

It’s the face of evil, staring back at us, unrepentant and unafraid.