How a Cyberstalker Terrorized a Family by Exploiting Their Tragic Encounter with a Serial Killer

Mar. 15, 2025

Tommy Lynn Sells.Photo:Val Verde County Sheriff via AP

Val Verde County Sheriff via AP

Nearly twenty years after a serial killer slit the throats of two girls in a bedroom in Texas, killing one of them, a Florida man began harassing the victim’s family and threatened to kill the surviving girl.

Tommy Lynn Sellswas convicted of the 1999 murder of 13-year-old Katy Harris as she slept in her Del Rio, Texas, home. Also in the room at the time was 10-year-old Krystal Surles,CBSreported. Sells slit the throats of both girls, but Krystal survived.

ABCreported that Sells was executed in Texas 2014, having claimed responsibility for dozens of murders across the country.

But the case would take a bizarre turn in 2016, when Alvin Willie George, a Florida man with no connection to Sells' case, began sending photos of the 1999 crime scene to the surviving victim and her siblings, who live in Idaho, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Idaho said.

George ended up pleading guilty in 2021 to cyberstalking and was sentenced to 51 months in prison. He is due to be released in 2027.

“How did it feel to watch your friend get murdered and get your throat slit???,” George wrote in one message, according to the plea agreement.

In other messages, George wrote sexually explicit threats and even revealed that he knew her home address, as well as the name of her child.

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George then began sending messages to Krystal’s siblings, including one in which he claimed he would “do worse than Tommy.”

FBI agents interviewed George at his Florida home in December 2017, and he admitted to creating the Facebook accounts and sending the threatening messages.

In addition to having to serve nearly five years in prison, George will have to pay $525.31 in restitution.

source: people.com