A former Satanist on Death Row writes

Sean Sellers was executed on February 4, 1999 for the murders he committed. In his own words and his testimony, he states that it was satanism and demons that caused him to kill. After reading this, go to the Open Letter to Satanists by Sean.

Many people have asked me for my testimony. Many wish I would write a book. One day perhaps, I shall write it all down exhaustively. But, for now, let this short form herein be enough I’ve told my story so many times, and I have always skirted much of the horror. This time I’m going to shock you. In the past it has been done mainly for Christians, so I left out the gore. This time I'm writing it for Satanists. This time it’s going to be real.

“Aren’t you afraid?,” the girl in my art class asked holding her paint brush poised to the canvas." Afraid? Babe, I AM what people fear.” I smiled wickedly. She blinked. “I mean about going to hell,’ she said questioningly, still not understanding the person she had painted beside for six months. The person she had thought was pretty cool. Weird, but cool! She still didn’t know that l was a practicing Satanist. Nah, I have a round trip ticket so I’m not worried about hell.” She backed up a couple of Steps. “Cheryl," I said grinning. “it’s still me.. Sean! You’ve known me all year. I’ve been a Satanist for nearly two years. I haven’t changed over­night or anything. She shook her bead. “How can anyone be a Satanist? I mean, why do you WANT to wor­ship the devil?” If you only knew. I thought. Look around you. What do you think about this little world we live in?” “It’s not so bad,” she said. “Girl...you’re something! Just check it out. Look around you. You’ve got dweebs like that drip over there.’ I gestured toward a kid asleep on his drawing table whom I had smoked a joint with before class. “Do you really think he enjoys life? He’s worn the same pants to school for three days. Check out miss priss over (here primping in front of the mirror. That’s right Sweetie, I'm talking about you. Oh, by the way, you missed hair number 99.” The girl tried to ignore me. I turned back to Cheryl. ‘Have you ever seen her wear anything twice? The only thing she comes in here with that we’ve seen before is that suitcase of a purse she carries her make­up in.” ‘Okay, so maybe life’s not so fair, but..” “I’m not talking about fair, Doll. No one ever promised us life would be fair. What I am talking about is God. What do you mean?” she asked. I leaned against the counter where the pain were kept. “You know the crowd Amy hangs out with. What’s that on top of her books? Bible, right? She’s a Christian and, personally she’s one of the most stuck-up ‘cherries’ I know. Oh, God has been good to her all right She’s probably got a credit card with her name on it. If I were her, I’d be a Christian too. But what the hell has your precious God ever done for me? Everything I’ve got I had to work for. Damn hard too. You see that pickup I drive Yeah, it’s a ‘73 Ford, white with a green door dented like crazy. Well, it may not be much, but it’s mine. I worked for it. My parents didn't help me.” “So?” Cheryl shrugged. “So, what I’m saying is we live in America. We work for what we get. And if your Go really cares, He has a strange way of showing it Do unto others as you would have them do unto you...and get walked on, because this world is really messed up. I say do unto other as they do unto you. Let me ask you something. If some one came up and slapped you, would you hit them back?” “Probably.” “See? I thought Christians were supposed turn the other cheek.” “I didn’t say I was a Christian,” Cheryl argued “You’re not a Christian?” I asked “Well, I don’t know...” “You’re living by an ideal of Satanism. Do you know where ‘Do unto others as they do unto you’ comes from? The Satanic bible. So you’re living an ideal of Satan and you think I’m weird because I’ve got my eyes open.

I left Cheryl confused. That night as I got off work, the conversation came up in my mind. sat in my pickup in the parking lot with the door open smoking a cigarette. Beside me lay briefcase and on top of it my knife. I picked up the double-edged boot knife and tossed it on the dash as I opened the briefcase. I sorted through the books on Ninjutsu, astral projection, witch craft, runes and picked up a blood-smeared copy of THE SATANIC BIBLE.

Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit. People are so blind, I thought. I tossed my cigarette onto the pavement and sighed. From out of my pocket I took a small vial of blood. Tilling it back and forth, I watched the bubbles snap leaving specks on the glass until I turned it over washing it crimson again. I removed the cap and touched my tongue to the top, tasting it. Then I poured it into my mouth and let the warmth of it cover my teeth. Swallowing it I thought, And people think vampires only live in the movies.” I fished in the glove box for some NO-DOZE and took out the small bottle. I poured the pills out in my hand and ate two of them with a white cross (speed). Closing the glove box, I leaned back and sighed. “Speed. Blood. Satanism. I don’t know, Sean. Maybe you are going crazy, I said to myself. God, I hate this life. How did I get so confused?”

My mind went back to 13. Always 13. Every time I questioned my life, I always started at 13. I was finally a teenager. It seemed like the proverbial unlucky number. I had been raised on country music and had begun to drift toward rock and roll. On the bus home from school, Boston’s “Smoking” would jam from the back seats where we sat followed by ”I Love Rock and Roll,” by Joan Jett. M-TV was just beginning with videos like “Jack and Diane” by John Cougar and “Words” by Missing Persons.

Beneath the few books I carried home with my football equipment was a notebook filled with Dungeons & Dragons material. I did four things. I played football, practiced Ninjutsu, collected comic books, and played D & D.

I was a Dungeon Master and I also played a character. We ran three different campaigns. I DMed in two of them and played my neutral/chaotic fighter in the third. Nobody understood the game as well as I. I read, I studied the manuals. I created new and more intense Dungeon modules. All of my spare lime in school was taken up in my study of D & D. And at home, it was Ninjutsu. The ninjama­nia craze had yet to hit the U.S., so there was not much material on it to be found. I practiced daily with my cousin, who introduced me to it. He was 18 and we would go into the yard and Spar. When he worked, I practiced nunchakus, shuriken, and bokken. At night we ”played hide and seek.” I learned how to walk quietly in leaves and sticks. I learned how to fight.

We move to Colorado and I continued to study with what had become my hobbies. After a year, football had been left behind and l joined the Civil Air Patrol (CAP). I attended special training schools became a NEAT (National Emergency Assistance Training) qualified Ranger graduating with art outstanding cadet merit. A few months later, I was the squadron cadet commander.

I continued to focus on Ninjutsu. I walked out of the movies one night disgusted after watching “Revenge of the Ninja”. All the acrobatics and costumes were foolishness. I began to ask myself “Do I really know what Ninjutsu is all about?” I began to study. I learned about the spiritual focusing of Zen meditation and began disciplining my mind even more. At night, I prepared to organize my CAP squadron, worked out punching out candle flames, and meditated. At a common trip to the library, I researched the origins and legends of dragons. The people I played D & D with were getting too cocky. Their characters needed to learn humility.! had decided. So I planned to bring to life in the game a powerful dragon from mythology that could only be defeated with a riddle. Zen had taught me that battles were won in the mind first and didn’t always have to be fought physically. I wanted to teach that to those I played with. The research on dragons led me to the Time/ Life series of books on the occult. I began reading about wizards and witches, and remen­ bering an episode when I was younger in which a baby-sitter had checked out some books on witchcraft and Satanism for me, I turned my study toward that. All day I looked through the library card catalog and shelves. I looked up demons, witches, Salem, witchcraft, evil, Satan, Satanism, voodoo, and whatever I could find. There was something that mysteriously connected all this with my study of Ninjutsu, and I resolved myself to find it. There was power in the supernatural world, and I wanted to learn how to harness and use it. It was then when I became angry with God and began to hate Him. I had met a girl and fallen in love, regardless of everyone telling me I was too young to know what love is. During a phone call one night while my parents were gone for a few days, she told me to get out of her life and leave her alone. I had met the girl a year before in church. She was my first real kiss. And now I felt dead inside. I decided to kill myself. I went to my bedroom, got my shotgun, and placed it in the middle of the living room floor. With my cleaning kit, I began to take it apart and oil it. As I did so, I began to think about how everyone would feel with my being gone. I began to miss me. And as I placed the number four shell into the newly oiled chamber and pulled the bolt back, placing the gun barrel to my chin, I said out loud, ”What, am I freaking crazy? What the hell am I doing?’ I put the gun down, called a friend, and asked him to come over. When he walked in, he saw the gun, and after hearing the story decided to stay the night. We got drunk. I had prayed to God that this girl would love me as loved her. God had failed me. He didn’t love me. I hated Him. I wanted nothing to do with God any more. It was my friends, not God, not my family, who were there when I needed them. I could depend on my friends, no one else...except myself. We moved again. Returning to Oklahoma, I was reunited with old friends, but l had changed.

I left a short-haired football player who wore Wranglers. I returned with long hair, wearing my NEAT Ranger beret, a Levi jacket and 501 ‘s, carrying a double-edged boot knife tucked in my pants at the small of my back, and NlKE high tops. When I left, I had been in a few fights and shown I could fight. Now, I carried

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