Faryion Wardrip is a serial killer who was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for a series of murders
According to court documents Faryion Wardrip was just released from prison, where he served time for murder, when his killing spree would begin in Wichita Falls in 1984. Over the next three years Wardrip would murder five women: Terry Sims, 20; Toni Gibbs, 23; Debra Taylor, 25; Ellen Bau, 21, and Tina Kimbrew, 21.
Faryion Wardrip would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Faryion Wardrip Photos
Faryion Wardrip Now
| Name | Wardrip, Faryion Edward | |
| TDCJ Number | 999331 | |
| Date of Birth | 03/06/1959 | |
| Date Received | 11/09/1999 | |
| Age (when Received) | 40 | |
| Education Level (Highest Grade Completed) | 11 | |
| Date of Offense | 12/21/1984 | |
| Age (at the time of Offense) | 25 | |
| County | Denton (on change of venue from Wichita) | |
| Race | White | |
| Gender | Male | |
| Hair Color | Brown | |
| Height (in Feet and Inches) | 6′ 5″ | |
| Weight (in Pounds) | 202 | |
| Eye Color | Blue | |
| Native County | Washington | |
| Native State | Indiana |
Faryion Wardrip Case
A serial killer in Texas who has been on death row for more than 20 years for 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 four women in a 16-month span, starting in Wichita Falls, in 1984. He had been freed 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.
In September 2020, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s ruling granting a rehearing on the capital punishment sentence. He had petitioned for the 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 for good behavior but admitted both it and the lower court did not address one part of his argument, thus he is entitled for that issue to be settled by the lower court, and granted his petition for a rehearing.
However, instead of proceeding to federal district court, Wardrip’s defense took its case to the Supreme Court.
Now that the nation’s highest court has rejected his appeal, which was rooted in his argument that he had inept council, Faryion Wardrip has the option to take his case back to federal district court to consider his claim about good conduct
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.
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. Gibbs had a total of eight stab wounds: three to her back, three to her chest, and two defensive wounds on her left forearm and thumb.
Two months after he murdered Toni Gibbs, Wardrip traveled to Fort Worth with the intention of looking for a job. In Fort Worth he met Taylor in the early morning hours of March 24, 1985, while at a bar.
Taylor had been at the bar with her husband but he left early because he was tired.
Debra remained at the bar where Faryion Wardrip approached her and asked her to dance. She accepted his request and the two spent time together in the club.
He then asked to drive her home, which she agreed to. While outside, Wardrip attempted to make sexual advances, which were rejected by Taylor. This infuriated Wardrip and he killed Taylor, leaving her body at a construction site in east Fort Worth.
When Debra failed to return home by the next morning, she was reported missing by her husband. Her body was found by two construction workers on March 29, 1985
On September 20, 1985, Wardrip abducted Blau in Wichita Falls. The kidnapping occurred as Blau was walking alone to her vehicle after leaving her evening job as a waitress. She was also a student at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls. Wardrip forced Blau to drive to a secluded area, where he eventually killed her by strangulation before breaking her neck
Leaving her body in the secluded area, he drove her car back into Wichita Falls and abandoned it along with her purse. Her blood was also discovered on the inside of the vehicle. A county road crew employee found Blau’s body in a field in Wichita County on October 10, 1985.
On May 6, 1986, Wardrip killed Kimbrew, a waitress he had recently befriended. He went to her apartment and suffocated her with a pillow because she ‘reminded him of his ex-wife’.
Three days later, Faryion Wardrip called police in Galveston, Texas, confessing to the crime.
He was sentenced to 35 years in prison but given parole in 1997.
After his release, Wardrip moved to Olney – 142 miles northwest of Dallas – and married and was even an active member in the community’s church.
He was required to wear an ankle bracelet, allowing authorities to constantly track his location; he was restricted to movements for work, home and church.
Meanwhile, investigators had still not tied all the cases together. Barry Macha, who was was elected district attorney shortly before Sims was killed, inherited the case as well as the four others.
‘I still think about Terry and her family. It was a horrific case,’ Macha told Time Record News, adding that he still is in contact with the families of the victims.
In 1999, Macha officially reopened all the cold case murders and assigned investigator John Little to do the groundwork.
Both law enforcement officials established that the killings weren’t random and that there we some connections between the victims and Wardrip. At the time, Wardrip had known Blau, who was living near Sims. Wardrip worked at Bethania Hospital, where Gibbs was also working.
And thanks to the forensic preservations of the victim’s DNAs, Macha’s team were able to knock out some potential suspects.
Wardrip’s DNA, however, had not been collected when he became a person of interest to them.
So, Little was charged with the task to get it and he did it the most subtle way possible.
The detective went to the factory where Wardrip was recently hired, approached him during his coffee break and asked him for the paper cup he had drank out of so he could spit tobacco into it. Little kept the cup as evidence.
The DNA from the cup was later identified as a match with evidence found on Sims and Gibbs. Wardrip was arrested on Valentine’s Day in 1999.
He later confessed to killing Sims, Gibbs, Blau, before surprisingly admitting to investigators that he murdered Taylor.
Later in 1999, Wardrip was sentenced to death by lethal injection in Kimbrew’s murder and was given three life sentences for the other murders. Despite appeals, Wardrip is still on death row after 22 years.
As of Monday, no execution date for Faryion Wardrip had been set.
