Monday, March 28, 2011

Sean Sellers Was a Murdering, Narcissistic Douchebag, and I'm Glad He's Dead

If you don't want to read almost 4,000 words of autobiographical whining and angst, pass this one by. Seriously, things will get ugly. I really wish I knew how to do a cut in Blogger.

I don't do the angry rants often, because they make me deeply uneasy, and because I don't think they're particularly interesting to read. But this eats at me in the way that only the worst insult you can imagine from one of the people you love most in the world can, and there is nobody I can tell the story to. Nobody I can imagine who would actually sit and listen to me talk my way through it all, everything I went through and how much it hurts now.

I could just write it all down and never show it to anybody, but that won't help. I need to communicate it, and if I can't communicate it to anyone, then I'll communicate it to potentially everyone. And maybe, among the thousands who think I'm a monstrous asshole for being happy that the state of Oklahoma killed someone for a crime he committed at the age of 16, there might be one person out there who says, "I feel you, brother. That's fucked up, what you went through."

So who was Sean Sellers?

He was a guy who made national headlines in 1986 when he was sentenced to death for killing his parents and one other random dude. This was notable not only because he was 16 at the time, but also because he claimed during the trial that he was not responsible by reason of demon possession. Not only that, but the demon possession was a result of his dabbling with Satanism, for which Dungeons and Dragons had been his gateway drug. It was an incredibly sensational story and trial, and of course, it gave great impetus to the Pat Pullings of the world.

By 1986, I had stopped playing Dungeons and Dragons, but still dabbled in other roleplaying games, so at the time, Sellers was to me just a loser who was trying to spoil my good time. And if that were the only reason I hated him, I really would be like the world's biggest asshole.

And speaking of assholes, let me address the "executing a 16-year-old" thing here, right up front. In America, as a society, we acknowledge that 16-year-olds are mature enough to handle the responsibilities of life-and-death, because we license them to operate motor vehicles on public thoroughfares, where every time they drive, they are literally taking hundreds of lives in their hands in the form of every other vehicle on the road. And the liberals who oppose the death penalty so vociferously are also the folks who argue most strenuously for sex education and free birth control for teenagers, trusting that teens, given honest information and free condoms, will exercise their sexuality and the attendant life-or-death consequences responsibly. The same people also fight like grim death for the right of teenage minor girls to receive an abortion--which is not only a life-changing event for them, but also literally a life-or-death matter for the child--without any form of parental input or even parental notification.

But when a 16-year-old boy takes a pistol, walks into his mother's room while she's sleeping, and puts a bullet in her face, suddenly it's "Poor baby! He can't be held responsible! He had no idea what he was doing!" Bullshit. You should slap yourself in the face for being an idiot, and also slap your mother for raising one. Fuckwit.

But then, I'm an asshole. Also a failure. I have failed in every way a man can fail. I dropped out of college. The peak of my career, at least in terms of making my living doing what I wanted to do, was in the late 80's, in the immediate aftermath of Sellers's crimes, when I was writing for a living, reviewing movies for the biggest newspaper in the state. Professionally, everything's been downhill from there. I have been separated from my wife of twenty years for almost three years now, and she has made clear on multiple occasions that true reconciliation will never happen. I am not a man she wants to be married to.

I quit my fairly well-paying, but very dissatisfying job a couple of years ago to go into business for myself. I did almost everything wrong in the deal and got swindled out of $25,000. Employment has been sporadic and low-paying since. My car was repossessed, I'm behind on my mortgage, and I don't answer my phone anymore because 90% of the calls are from creditors. I'm currently working for barely more than minimum wage part-time at a big box retailer, and serializing a novel on-line that even my best friends aren't reading. I have few friends and rarely speak to my family. Oh, and my house is a mess. By any measure, my life is an epic FAIL.

But let's go back to Sellers. He made headlines again not long after he was sent to Death Row when he publicly claimed to have converted to Christianity. At the time, I found the timing... suspicious, like the soldier in Vietnam from the comedy routine by Christian comedian Mike Warnke, who had a bunch of chains around his neck with a cross, a Star of David, a little Buddha, a crescent and star, and some other things. Mike asked him what all that was for and the guy replied, "I believe."

Believed what? Anything that would get him out of there alive, obviously. So yeah, in 1987 and into 1988, Sean Sellers was to me just an inconvenient douchebag who had killed three people, evaded responsibility by blaming my favorite hobby and was now trying to evade punishment by claiming a foxhole conversion.

That all changed in 1988 when I started dating the woman who would become my wife. Because she, it turned out, was one of Sean Sellers's best friends.

I'm not a Christian. Among the many things I have failed at is believing in God, any God. I was raised Pentecostal, but it didn't take. For a long time, I called myself agnostic, but eventually that just seemed wishy-washy, so now I call myself an atheist. I'm not a militant, angry atheist. I don't hate Christians, nor do I believe that "Christianists" are just as bad as Islamists. You don't see any Christians trapping girls in a burning building to keep them from coming into the street with their faces uncovered. I think most Christians are reasonably good-hearted people who find comfort in certain illusions, and as a guy whose hobby is writing about superheroes, I'm sure not one to throw stones. On the other hand, I don't believe superheroes are actually real.

K, my wife, is a Christian. And she told me that she had felt led by God to contact Sean not long after she learned of his case. So she did, and they became good friends. She wrote him often and visited him in prison about once a month.

So I had a choice to make. I didn't much like Sean Sellers as a concept, but I very much liked K as a real person. And if Sean was her friend, I would have to accept it or else move on.

So I accepted it. And in time, I came to accept him. He made her happy, and he seemed supportive of our marriage. He dabbled in painting in prison, and did a couple of nice paintings for K, including a portrait of her with ghostly angel wings. We never became friends, but we did exchange a couple of letters during one of my tours in Korea.

I wasn't actually thrilled with the letters. Because although on a personal level, I appreciated the fact that he was a good friend of my wife, I really resented him in other ways. See, his high-profile trial and subsequent conversion made him a celebrity. When Geraldo Rivera did his infamous special about Satanism during the Satanic Panic of the late 80's, Sellers was a featured guest (via satellite feed from inside the prison). He also appeared on Oprah. And after his conversion, it wasn't enough for him to be a humble sinner saved by grace. He had to establish his own ministry, with a monthly newsletter in which he would purport to teach spiritual truths to folks who had somehow managed not to kill their parents and get sent to Death Row, and so might be assumed to have a generally better grasp on how to live than he did.

In 1995, while I was in the Army, Sellers got married to one of the women he had been corresponding with. I was living in Clarksville, Tennessee at the time, serving in a Military Intelligence unit at Fort Campbell. Sellers asked my wife for a favor. He wanted my wife to buy his wife a dildo. Not a vibrator--he was very specific--but a realistic artificial organ that she could pretend was his, since Oklahoma didn't allow conjugal visits for Death Row inmates. Ever the supportive husband, I went shopping with my wife for a substitute penis to send to the wife of her best friend.

Sometime during that same year, K came to me very unhappy. Life at Fort Campbell was hard for both of us. She had no job to keep her busy during the day, I was working long hours in my job (not to mention the two or three months I was gone on different exercises and training schools), and even when I was home, I was stressed out and exhausted, not to mention some other personal baggage that had arisen between us during my first deployment to Korea.

She handed me a copy of Sellers's ministry newsletter, in which he waxed rhapsodic about how much he loved his wife, how their souls seemed to be in perfect sync, how they completed each other and always knew what the other was thinking, and what a wonderful gift it was from God to have received a mate so perfect for him in every way.

K was unhappy, because the relationship Sellers was describing was the kind of relationship she wanted with me, and I wasn't delivering. The article was nonsense, of course, the kind of infatuated drivel you see from anyone experiencing the highs of a new relationship. I explained to K that after 5 years of marriage, our relationship was more mature than that. We were going through hard times, and we would need more than blissful feelings to get through them, but in the long haul, I would be there for her. We would see five years down the road if Sellers and his wife were still as blissfully, perfectly happy.

Two years later, the perfect, blissful marriage that my wife so envied was annulled. In a strange twist of coincidence, I ended up working with Sellers's ex-wife not long after, as well as the man she married almost immediately after the annulment. Apparently, she wasn't satisfied with a substitute rubber penis.

My marriage endured, but Sellers wasn't done fucking with it.

After I got out of the Army, life was hard. My wife and I had endured years of separations and tensions and hard feelings, and we were raising a young daughter as well. I was working full-time and attending school on the G.I. Bill and also writing a book about my experiences in the Army, while she was working part-time and trying to finish her Master's in Psychology. And Sellers exhausted his last appeal, which meant his execution date was now set for February 5, 1999.

That last year was miserable. My wife was working frantically with a group called Oklahomans Against the Death Penalty to stop the execution. As the supportive husband trying to help my wife through this hard time, I attended several OCADP functions with her. There were basically two distinct sets of people at these functions: the opponents of the death penalty, the most liberal of liberal idiots you ever met, and the Friends of Sean, a bunch of young single women (plus one married one, ahem) who found him charming. I didn't enjoy myself, but I went with her without complaint (with one exception which I'll detail later), because she needed this.

During the same period, Sellers was also frantically trying to complete as much work as he could. He had taken up writing and convinced several friends to publish a book of his poetry, titled Shuladore. He had also written a Christian fantasy novel about a female warrior-princess with fairy wings (I think it was actually called The Warrior Princess[ETA: actually it was The Princess Warrior according to his website]) that mixed together oddball Christianity with Bushido in much the same way he had formerly mixed together Satanism with ninjutsu.

Because here's one thing about Sellers you never read. Although he appeared on national television several times to talk about the great Satanist conspiracy, he was never part of it (probably because it didn't exist). He was not drawn into Satanism by any cult or coven. He met a girl who was into witchcraft, and he wanted to get into her pants, so he got into it with her. Then he read the Satanic Bible, and thought it was cool, and ninjutsu was cool, so he picked out all the parts he liked and became a roll-your-own-Satanic Ninja, practicing a religion unique to himself and a few younger acolytes he tried to bring along. Just like when he couldn't be just a Christian but had to have his own ministry, he had to try to lead a group as a Satanist. Lucky for the other kids, it didn't take.

After his conversion, he did the same thing, reading the Bible and picking out the parts he liked, then drawing influences from Bushido and other bullshit he thought was cool to create a roll-your-own-Christianity. My wife was part of that process, discussing all this endlessly with him through her letters and monthly visits.

So that last year was not just a frantic scramble to stop the execution, but a scramble to get all of his unfinished work finished before he died. My wife was editing and proofreading the novel, and working with Sellers's new girlfriend on typing up his massive memoirs and working with some other folks who were publishing his graphic novel. Yes, he was a comics fan as well, and wrote and drew a graphic novel titled Donjonhoefen. And in true narcissistic Sean Sellers fashion, in his editorial message, he stated that he had created this entire incredible world in the hopes that other people would continue to write adventures in it. Because it wasn't enough for Sellers to create; in his own mind, he had to inspire and lead and be followed. Hell, the very act of "creating" a world and having other people inhabit it would make him a kind of god himself, which in the end was the only thing that would do for Sean Sellers.

And no, the graphic novel wasn't very good, and no, no one ever followed his lead and continued to write adventures in the wonderful world he created, and no, I will never, ever be featuring it in Out of the Vault.

Things got more and more tense as the final date approached. One night in late November or December 1998, with the execution only a few months away, I attended a particularly excruciating meeting of the OCADP folks. There had been a clemency hearing, and Sellers's step-siblings had testified against him. He had killed their father in cold blood, and they had never accepted his so-called conversion to Christianity. The OCADP folks sat around and discussed, with typical liberal venom, what awful people Sellers's step-siblings were. They then went on to talk about what a bad mother Vonda had been, and what an asshole step-father Lee had been, and how they had pretty much deserved what they'd gotten.

I held my tongue while we were there, getting angrier and angrier at this bunch of self-righteous fuckwads, and when we were in the car, I finally unloaded on my wife. Maybe I shouldn't have--maybe I should have just made a scene right there with everybody present, or else never expressed my opinion at all--but I went off with my wife when we were alone. I talked about the rank hypocrisy of the whole Sean Sellers Fan Club, how this guy had become a celebrity by killing his parents and then making lame excuses for it, and that it was totally fucked up that this group of pricks would then sit around and bad-mouth the murder victim by implying she deserved it, which also completely forgot the third victim, who was certainly not to blame in any way.

I was honest, and as far as I was (and still am) concerned, I was right, but my wife was hurt, and it drove yet another wedge between us. The final couple of months before the execution were non-stop Sean. My wife was either heading up to the prison, or talking to interviewers, or going to hearings, or talking to OCADP or Sellers's lawyer. Once, I answered the phone, and it was Bianca Jagger (ex-wife of Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger) wanting to talk to my wife about Sellers's case.

In the end, none of it made a difference. On February 4, 1999, my wife left home to attend the execution, being one of the people invited on Sellers's guest list. She dropped our daughter off in Oklahoma City to spend the night with my mother, which my mother was thrilled to do. Alone at home, I went out and got drunk.

Sellers was executed by lethal injection a little after midnight.

The next morning, I got a call at work from my mother-in-law, who seemed shocked that I hadn't heard. When I asked her what I was supposed to have heard, she told me that my daughter had died, smothered by a pillow after falling off the bed in my mother's guest room. The bed was in the corner of the room, at an angle which left a small triangular space behind the night table. My daughter, our daughter, had somehow fallen off the bed into that small space headfirst with a pillow and become trapped. She was dead when my mother found her the next morning. She was two years and one month old.

And I'm not saying that Sean Sellers killed my daughter or anything, but the fact is that it happened on the night that my wife went to his execution, and only because she went to his execution. The furniture arrangement was a potential deathtrap, but the actual event occurred on that night and no other. Without that reason, my daughter would not have been there in the first place.

The life that I hoped would somehow return to normal after the execution never returned to what it was. My wife decided she could no longer live in the small house we'd lived in with our daughter, and convinced her mother and grandmother to sell their houses and move into one big house with us. Later that year, she became pregnant again, which meant that within another year, I was living with four generations of women in Casa Estrogen. By then, my wife and I were in marriage counseling and everything was unraveling.

It took several more years to get to the breaking point. I wanted to make things up, get right somehow, but she rejected every subtle gesture I made, and I was too proud to come right out and say what I was feeling. By the time I finally forced the conversation we had been avoiding for so long, my wife of 18 years told me that I was not a suitable husband because she needed a man who could be her best friend, who could talk to her about anything and listen to her with total interest. If only I could have been more like Sean Sellers, she said, our marriage could have worked.

And there, in a remark that was not meant in any way to hurt, was the worst goddamned insult I have ever received in my life. My wife of 18 years, with whom I had endured all the shit that 18 years can bring, told me that I was less suitable as a life partner than a man who once shot a convenience store clerk because he had decided to break all 10 commandments and wanted to watch a man die.

And I want to tell her she's wrong. I mean, of course he listened to her with total attention. He only got to see her for an hour or so once a month. He never had to go to OCADP meetings with her, never had to hold her as she cried on his shoulder over and over and over, never got nagged to mow the lawn or take out the trash or clean the bathroom, never had to deal with her periods or her pregnancies, never got to raise a daughter with her nor had to bury a daughter with her, never had to look at an empty bank account at the end of the month and know that he wasn't providing for her as he should, never had to lie next to her at night and feel her stiffen up when he tried to touch her, never had to prove himself every day worthy of her love. He was on Death Row. He had it easy.

And I want to tell her that she's wrong because, for all the myriad ways in which my life has been an epic FAIL, compared to Sean Sellers--who murdered his mother, spent half his life on Death Row, had his first marriage annulled after two years, and died at the age of 29--my life has been a huge win. I never killed my parents, stayed out of jail, lived in Los Angeles, went to movie premieres, visited foreign countries, had two beautiful daughters (one of whom is still alive), and got blow jobs from a woman who, it seems now, was in love with him the whole time. I WON, DAMN IT!

But really, it's all hollow. Somehow, this fuckwad, this murderer, this narcissistic douchebag, inspired a devotion in my wife that I never could. Even now, 12 years after his death, he wins. My wife loved him more than me.

I'm so glad that motherfucker's dead.

37 comments:

Naamah said...

Holy . . . wow. There's a lot of that I hadn't heard.

I am totally with you. Oh my god. I . . . OW. That can't have been easy to write. I can't even begin to imagine how horrible it must have been to live through. "I'm so sorry" seems pathetically inadequate, and doesn't convey any of the anger or hurt I feel on your behalf.

FWIW, I'm a rampaging liberal ass in many ways (as I am sure you know), and while there are qualifications to the following statement which I won't go into here, I will say that the death penalty? Oh, yeah. Some people really, really deserve it.

Marc Carlson said...

You know, the only problem I have with the death penalty is that its irreversible in case of mistake. OTOH, if there is no mistake, burn the f*, er, perp...

In your case, though, I agree - as bad as you see your life as being, you are far more successful than he was. And if you're ok with how you feel about his execution, I'm right there behind you.

Anonymous said...

Wow. I just now saw this post and was like "man, this explains a lot". All I can say is: you didn't do anything wrong there. I know there are always two sides in any breakup but...well, you were a lot more tolerant than I would have been.

TheyStoleFrazier'sBrain said...

Marc,

It's small and petty and awful of me to be so bitter about it, but his side of the room was pretty crowded. I may as well own my side.

Sargon,

I don't know if it explains as much as you think, but it might explain more than I realized. Which makes sense in my head, but probably not in print.

Anonymous said...

As Naamah said, "I'm sorry" is too small for this situation. But I am so sorry.

And, for what it's worth, I don't consider you a failure. I'm glad to have gotten to know you, and to be your friend.

Joe said...

Wow. I don't even know where to begin. First, I'd like to extend my condolences to you for the loss of your daughter and the disolution of your marriage. You are no failure; you are a gifted writer with a unique capacity to convey your emotional state. Not many people would have the courage to present their private pain so publicly and eloquently.I sincerely hope you find the process healing in some cathartic sense.

As for Sellers, it just so happens that from the first time I ever heard of the case way back in '86', it has haunted and - I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit- fascinated me. I remember being stunned by the notion that someone would kill a stranger 'just to see what it felt like'. The horror of his crimes, juxtaposed against his boyishly innocent looks, was disturbing.

One of the first, early interviews he'd done showed him reading one of his poems ( some syruppy love ode) in a manner that made me immediately think "what a self absorbed freak". He always seemed to be exploiting the interest in his case as an opportunity to introduce his writing to the world. He really seemed to labor under the delusion that he was destined to be a celebrated author, poet, and artist, the 3 murders something that would ultimately be forgotten as some sort of youthful indiscretion. He probably imagined that perhaps a future edition of Trivial Pursuit would stump players with the question "In 1986, famous author Sean Sellers once served time inprison for what crime?"

I heard about him now and then over the years, and then one day while driving home I heard an interview on WBAI radio in NYC with guess who? Sean Sellers. This was a few days before his clemency hearing.

That led me to his online journal detailing the last 60 days of his life. I recall initially feeling very sympathetic towards Sean, though I never bought the MPD or "the Devil made me do it" excuse. Despite the horrific nature of his crimes, the spectacle of this articulate, sensitive young man being put to death disturbed me. 

Strangely enough, I felt I could relate to Sean in some ways. Like you, I am an atheist. But I am the same age as Sean, and shared many of the same interests. I write, I draw, we even look somewhat similar. I found myself at times saying out loud "I am so sorry, Sean" as I read his journal and other writings.

As I became increasingly fascinated with the Sellers case, I started reading just about anything I could find about it online. Old news articles about the case (from '86 to '99), documentaries, videos, books, etc. Through his online journal entries and the other material, I became aware of his close friend K - your ex-wife - and read an online post of hers about the tragic death of your daughter the night of Sean's execution. It was truly heartbreaking.

I still find myself googling "Sean Sellers" sometimes, which is how I found your blog. It blew me away to realize you were K's ex-husband.

[And you thought YOU were long winded! - to be cont'd...]

Joe said...

[Longest Rant Ever, Part 3 of 3]


He was pretty good at 'non-fiction' writing (well, with Sellers, the line between fiction and non-fiction was always blurred); his journals and such. But his poems were for the most part atrocious. It probably had to do with his interrupted education. He always affected this cheesy, King James-Esque, archaic sort of writing style (lots of 'thous' and 'thees' etc.). I suspect this is because when you're 16 in English class, you are given the impression that the only good writing was done in 16th century or 17th century Britain and if it isn't littered with flowery 'thous' and 'thines' it ain't worth a damn. 

On a final note, regarding his 'Satanism', I always found his claim to have been a Satanist, or inspired to kill by Satsnism, rather dubious. For one thing, it is obvious from his writings that he never read the so-called 'Satanic Bible'.Oh sure, he may have carried it around for shock value, but he obviously never perused it very carefully, because the book is nothing like he describes it as  being. The Satanic Bible was written as a sort of satirical spoof of religion, not as a sincere homage to Satan or guide to Satanism. It contains nothing about hurting people, as Sellers claimed. The other book he claimed was so instrumental in his conversion to Satanism was also a tongue in cheek satire, the Necronomicon by H. P. Love craft. In a video Sellers made in the late 80s, when Sellers mentions the book that was supposedly so significant to him, he mispronounces the title repeatedly as "Necromicon". 

Yes buddy, you're instincts serve you well. Sean Sellers was indeed a narcissistic, megalomaniacal douchebag. Am I glad he is dead. Well, I don't know of I cam go there, but given your experience, you are certainly justified in feeling that way,

Thank you for your frank honesty and for sharing, Stop calling yourself a failure.Things will get better.Whenever it gets really bad, just remember, at least you're not Sean Sellers.

[This concludes The Longest Rant Ever. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress.]

Joe said...

[OOPS! forgot part 2 of 3 of The Longest Rant Ever! Here ' tis...]

Well, there is a punchline here. As I said, I was very sympathetic towards Sean - initially. But, being so oddly obsessed with the Sellers case as I was (and, embarrassingly, obviously still am), I started to notice disturbing discrepancies, inconsistencies, outright lies, and obscenely cruel statements amongst the writings and recorded comments of Sellers.

There are to name, but one particularly disgusting stands out (it is still on public display today on the website of his lawyer, Steve Presson, where the journal of his last 60 days can be found). Whilst purporting to be describing the depth of his remorse for his crimes, he said that worse than the knowledge that he had killed three people wasbthe knowledge that he had "sent them to hell". He was still taking digs at his victims and their families ( who he knew were following his journal online) even as he was pleading for mercy.

There were many other lies, some relatively trivial, some quite damning. For example, on the more trivial side, at one point in his journals, the ever self congratulatory Sellers expressed pride in the fact that he was acknowledged as the best painter on Death Row ( not a very impressive distinction), in part because all the other guys just copied existing works whereas his paintings were original to him. I'm sure many were original, but the striking fact is, one of the paintings that was displayed as his at his clemency hearing, depicting a little boy hugging Jesus, is a blatant copy of a fairly well known (if cheesy) painting.

In an attempt to demonstrate his integrity and sincerity, he claimed in his journal that nobody would have known that he had once tried (unsuccessfully) to kill his mother by putting arsenic in her coffee if he hadn't mentioned it, voluntarily, in his confession, posted online a few months before his death. Well, In reading old news coverage of trial in '86, I discovered that in fact this was brought out atvtrial by a witness who said Sellers had spoke openly of his attempt to poison  his mother. Another shameless lie.

He was clearly a classic, manipulative, narcissistic sociopath.

[End Part 2 of 3 of The Longest Rant Ever - See part 3 of 3 above (gee I hope this isn't a double post)]

Joe said...

PS: Sorry for all the typos and the screwed up order if posts - not to mention my long windedness. It's late, I'm tired, and I'm typing this on my new iPad 2 and I'm really not digging the keyboard just yet.

TheyStoleFrazier'sBrain said...

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Joe. I see some of the same things in Sellers's writing--from the way he complains that people need to work harder to know the real him, to the way he almost seems to brag about how cool his "Elimination" cult was, to the way he spends so much of "Confession of My Crimes" talking about how badly he was abused as a way to garner sympathy.

But ultimately, it's not worth doing any point-by-point critique for me. The damage has been done, and Sellers himself is long gone. The main point of my post was to express my own anger that has eaten at me for far too long. Now that this is out of the way, I'm hoping not to waste any more of my time on him.

Brother Raymond said...

Brother what you never seemed to get is that God can forgive a murderer like Sean as well as you. You are no better you have not won. If you have not repented and believed in Jesus you have not even began the real journey. All of you who point the finger fail to realize all of you are sinners in need of the blood and grace of Jesus and all of you are on death row. Wake up before its to late. I'd rather fellowship with a redeemed murderer than a proud, hardened sinner who despite sin destroying your life still clings to the illusion your a better person than Sean. We all fall short of God's glory. Repent and believe the gospel.

TheyStoleFrazier'sBrain said...

Oh, Brother.

I have debated long and hard about answering you, because on the one hand, your arguments aren't worth wasting time on, but on the other hand, I don't want anyone making ignorant assumptions that I don't know what I'm talking about or that I've chosen my path thoughtlessly.

"what you never seemed to get is that God can forgive a murderer like Sean as well as you"

Seriously, who cares if God can forgive? It's easy for God to forgive. He has no skin in the game. He cannot lose anything he can't replace. Even if I spot you both his existence and the "sacrifice" of his only begotten Son, he knew before it happened that Jesus would only be dead three days. It was like sending him to Hell Camp.

He cannot know the grief of those of us on Earth who lose children, parents, spouses, siblings forever. And even if you allow him the ability to feel the grief as much as us, it cannot, by definition, cripple him the way it does many of us.

It's easy to forgive when the transgression costs you nothing.

Seriously, think before you comment.

Anonymous said...

I am very sorry about your daughter. We lived across the street from Sean when he killed his parents. I never thought he was really sorry and I still don't. I read his letter to the Bellofatto family and he just seemed to make one excuse after another as to why he did what he did. None of it makes sense to me.
I lost my daughter when she was 18 mo. old. She was at a babysitters house and another kid had filled up the kiddie pool and she drown. I feel your pain, I really do. I'm sorry for your loss and I think you have every right to feel the way you feel. I am glad he dead too.

Anonymous said...

....Another thing I wanted to add...I am sorry your wife treated you that way. I don't understand girls who fall for these guys. I think it's beacuse they feel they can save them. When you wrote that she thought you needed to be more like Sean Sellers, it just stabbed me in the heart. I wish she could have been there and sat next to me on my porch and watched them carry his parents bodies out of that house. She might have never felt that way. Guys like Sean are masters at manipulation. Again, I am sorry she could not see the treasures she had right in front of her. I hope you find happiness and joy along with abounding love and peace.

TheyStoleFrazier'sBrain said...

Thank you. I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. I think burying a child is one of the worst experiences you can go through, for so many reasons that I don't need to tell you. I'm very sorry.

Anonymous said...

I'm so sorry about what happened to your daughter. I like your posts for their witty, ironic, and self effacing tone. On sellers himself, my views lie somewhere in between. I am definitely an opponent of capital punishment, but certainly not because of sellers. More than a decade ago, I watched an msnbc special on him and, even at 14 or 15, felt him to be manipulative and deceitful. Did he deserve the death penalty? In my opinion, no, but that's because no one does (again in my opinion). Would I have any hesitations about life without parole? Absolutely not, and I wouldn't have any issue sentencing a teenager to life behind bars for such atrocious crimes. The problem with making sean sellers and mumia poster children for the anti death penalty movement is that you are making heroes out of triple murderers and cop killers. A better poster child would be someone like greg wilhoit, who was also on oklahomas death row, because he was actually innocent. So should sellers have been put to death? In my opinion, no (and he wouldn't be able to now; juvenile execution was outlawed six years ago). Should he be cannonized? Absolutely not. We should not cannonize sociopathic killers.

Anonymous said...

I feel so sorry for you. Guess that is what you want to hear, heh, by writing this rant in the first place. But truly I do feel sorry for you. Anyone as bitter and ugly in their dark heart and has not written ONE word about their own RESPONSIBILIY for their own divorce or unhappiness is just another immature narcissist themselves. BTW, why could you not be with your daughter that fateful and horrible night? Could you NOT have watched her??
It is just typical for someone like yourself to hate Sean who was a killer and immature and to BLAME him for all your present day problems. Perhaps K was telling you if you were more like Sean in that you would LISTEN to her, or sincerely be interested in her interests and not just as narcissistic as you sound on this blog, and blame Sean for being. After all most people hate because they are looking at the reflection of themselves in others.
You could humble yourself, asshole that you are, and stop looking at yourself as a victim and grow up yourself and take some responsibility in your own demise.

TheyStoleFrazier'sBrain said...

I'm guessing by your attitude, where you're from, and how you found your way to my old post that you're a member of the Fan Club. Trust me, I don't blame Sean for all my problems. My wife and I talked through a lot of reasons for the divorce, and I bear my share of the blame. I'm not an entirely easy person to know.

But you do bring up an interesting point that other people in other forums who don't know me have brought up: why wasn't I watching my daughter that night?

And the answer is, no reason. My wife suggested taking her to my mother's, my mother was happy to have her, and I got to enjoy a bachelor's night. All pretty routine, except for the reason why and the outcome. But if it makes you feel better to think badly of me, perhaps it was because my wife didn't trust me to watch her myself.

Anonymous said...

do not ever ever blame yourself for your childs death, it was a terrible accident not a case of bad parenting, and i for one would also have got upset if my husband got an obsession with a woman on death row, please just try to put it all behind you and enjoy your life and all the good things the future holds........

Anonymous said...

...WOW.

For the record, I have been studying the case for the past six months but have been familiar with the generalities since I grew up during "The Satanic Panic."

I do NOT think Sellers should have died. I do think he was a liar, manipulative and a sociopath. I DO think he knew exactly what he was doing, and the "MPD" was a last ditch effort to save his life.

-Anyhow, my reasons have more to do with his age at the time of the crime(s) and the clearly unfair use of his "accomplice" making a deal and becoming a State Witness (I do not believe much of what Richard says either- But he is elusive as far as finding very much about him online-)

My take on all of this is that the "Satanic panic" was very dangerous and actually brought more mentally deficient and 'knowledge seekers' into the fold of a fictional occult (an occult created by the "Christians" which was more fantasy based than Dungeons and Dragons)which then fed upon itself.

I would like to correspond with you about some things I would rather not say in a public forum. I have some questions for you about this time period and also would like to give you my personal reasons behind this interest as I witnessed first hand what comes from "lying for jesus" and warping reality by giving "power" to something which isnt real. A "friend" of mine committed a Murder in a very similar vein to Sellers first assassination and probably never would have sought this 'path' had he not been brainwashed by the entire Satanic panic into thinking he could achieve some mystical power- This person confessed to me and I didnt believe him. A year or so later I found out that it was possibly true and contacted the FBI for my own piece of mind, described what I had heard of the murder and was told it didnt match anything they had on record (but they took my information)- The next day I was contacted by detectives from a different State and thus began an insane ordeal of becoming directly involved with (and having to travel out of State)a "Satanic" crime.

The faux "Satanists" in my area knew me (I was friends with some) and also knew I "snitched" and I was part of the testimony against one of the Murderers (the one I knew pleaded Guilty and gave a confession immediately upon arrest but the other guy I had never met, was from like 1000 miles away- He was claiming a defense similar to Richards...Fear of his life...blah...blah...)

Long story short they both got Life, my life was turned upside down (and I had nothing to do with any of this except I was the one it was confessed to-)and I have blame to place.

The blame isnt on D&D.
The blame isnt on 'heavy metal."
The blame isnt on 'demons'
-Or any other made up insanity.
The blame is upon the "Christians" who made "self styled satanism" look like there was "real power" to be gained- The media celebrity status given to these "satanist's" and the supposed lifestyle these folks were said top live (all the "drugs", "women" and "Power") which pushed people over the edge.

-Anyhow, I am mad as hell over all of this.There is much I wold like to say and ask but not here- IF you would like to correspond with me please email zombiegame@hushmail.com

-Thanks.



Doug Mesner said...

Dear Tony Frazier -- I wanted to let you know that I referenced this piece of yours about Sean Sellers in an article I have recently posted. Your personal perspective, as somebody not taken in by the superstitious hype and religious insanity surrounding this case, is very valuable. Thank you: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/21/1217873/-Sean-Sellers-The-Devil-and-Death-Row

http://www.dysgenics.com/2013/06/22/sean-sellers-the-devil-and-death-row/

http://www.process.org/discept/2013/06/21/sean-sellers-the-devil-and-death-row/

Anonymous said...

Fiction... another story in a story, first, more original than yours.. i dont believe a word.. forgeting one human or natural thing: to talk even a single time with that good friend of your wife. In other case, something its wrong with you. He stay till the end in the same mood, in the same idea, happy for finding the good way in his fatal destiny. You are a man who give up staying in the corner to take of a part, a piece of the life, didnt understanding nothing from this life....

Cheyenne said...

I just came across this and even though you wrote this in 2011 I feel as if I should say something. I realize there are two sides to every story and I can't really get perspective from the other side. But that isn't really important here. What's important is you were and maybe still are hurting very badly.

I cannot imagine having to bury a child. I cannot imagine having to watch your wife turn away from you, be more interested in a person who was a murderer.

Nothing you said is really about Sean being a Christian or not and truthfully I don't think that matters. What matters, as I said, is your pain.

I am sorry to hear you do not believe in God but I hope you don't mind if I keep sending good thoughts your way. I hope this helped you get out your pain and heal a bit. I hope you have found a way to feel better and move forward. I wish you all the best.

Anonymous said...

U no don't judge ul be juged ok nerd that was none of ur f buisnes juged ull be cast in lake of fire God rules

Unknown said...

Wow! I am so sorry those things happened to you. What in the actual effing effff would anyone see in a man like Sean??? As a woman, I can't even imagine. Someone married him? WTF???

germania said...

Sean Sellers was clearly a narcissist & a sociopath. He was lacking any empathy for humanity when he comitted his murders and as he drew his last breath. Sean was into Sean and all these mindless followers of his who see "God's miracle of redemption" in his case are delusional. I was stunned to learn of the horrific death of your inocent daughter. Your X & her sick " Un-Christian" devotion to Sean and NOT her husband & child is absolutely to blame for this, not that this helps . I guess the hypocrisy of these so called "Christians" is just as damaging to societies fabric as their " Un-Godly" enemies. My hope for humanity was lost long long ago. Stupidity & self delusion are mankinds most common traits.

Rosalie Newcombe said...

Something on Sean came up on YouTube so I decided to quickly google his name and this came up and wow, honestly I found this way more interesting and this is the stuff documentries should be made of. (I hope that didn't sound insulting.)

I'm really sorry of your loss of your daughter, and your marriage. And even on the other side of the world, there is something really pulling in about how you write to the point where I never leave comments, especially to old blog posts written by someone I don't know.

Being from Scotland it's more common for us to not be religious, so I've always not believed in god or been religious but we also don't have the death penalty and I find that to be a whole thing in its own.

Why are people on death row in the US allowed to get fanmail and get married? Surely they should be living with what they've done, alone, with nothing to do and no one caring for them.
They gave up on the world so it should be given up on them.

People in jail over here get PS4's, it's utter ridiculous.

My comment hasn't added much, and you might never read it, but I hope you still write and I hope your life is a happy one. I also hope you still play D&D! I keep meaning to try.

Don't let Sean win by having this control over your life, or your past. You are you and deserve a happy one.

Unknown said...

I was with you right up until you mentioned your two beautiful daughters right before you brought up blowjobs by their mother. I think you need some one-on-one counseling bucko

Anonymous said...

Sadly, I believe this person suffers from schizophrenia. It's obvious from his words and phrases. It starts out fairly coherent then goes into a jumbled mess of typos, words and sentences. I just wanted to point that out. I hope they're receiving the mental health care they need.

Evy said...

I'm glad that youtube doc brought me to your blog. Well, it caused me to do more research on that narcissistic psychopath. Sean Sellers was manipulating to the very end. I read that he wrote, "Why are you still harping on something that happened 13 years ago? 13 years!!!" Can you f'ing believe it? Family members lost irreplaceable loved ones by his hand and he thinks people should be over it?! Wow. Just wow. Btw, I'm very intrigued by your writing.

Unknown said...

I realize that the this is comment is very old at this point, but I can't it slide without offering my 2 cents.

1. Lose a child and see if you care what God or anybody else thinks about it.
2. Fuck Sean. It was impossible to give the guy what he deserved because the state could only kill him once. He is dead however and he ain't ever coming back, so at least there's that.
3. The next time you decide to sit in judgement of a person who has suffered as the author obviously has, try instead to sit in judgement of yourself and ask yourself if the comment you are about to make is a clear example of all that "Christ like" love you are supposed to be the living embodiment of.
4. Fuck you!!!

Travis Fisher said...

Sean Sellers affected me as a 10 year old boy . I was from a poor family and dungeon and dragons game was and still is to this day a very expensive game. So imagine my delight when our neighbor either decided out of fear he would become like Sean or that he simply never played it (most likely the latter) gave me and my older brother both the Basic and Advanced Box starter sets. We had just set it up in the kitchen And had only begun in our first adventure by About a hour which in that amount of time means we had managed to accomplish well.....not alot. My mother came home from her job as an assistant to a podiatrist and asked what were we doing . I proudly exclaimed "playing dungeons and dragons! Gary gave us both sets and said we can have them!' my mother's eyes grew wide and started grabbing the pieces off the table and chucking I to the trash as we were screaming in disbelief. "What are you doing??? Why???" My mother replied "this is a tool of the devil. U get possessed by evil thru this game. Sean Sellers who lives right here in Oklahoma (we lived in Moore a suburb of OKC) killed his parents while possessed from this game and I will not have it in my house! I will not be killed by my children from the seductive Wiles of Satan who resides in this trash!" I yelled back "that's stupid! Sean Sellers is full of it! A liar and dipshit!" I was hiked up by my arm and placed in front sink and handed the Palmolive dish soap. This was our punishment when we cussed . As I gagged from pouring soap in my mouth my brother very dry matter of fact spoke up "did u ever consider that maybe Sean Sellers more likely killed his parents cuz they unfairly took away his stuff?" My mother was livid by the calm way he said it. "Go to your room NOW!!" I think in the end I might have to be thankful. I didn't spend my weekends I. Junior and high school playing this game And actually was invited to parties, got laid a few times and experienced a pretty good overall time as a teenager. That never would have happened if u became a D&D basement nerd

Unknown said...

<3

Unknown said...

All I can say is, unbelievable. I really feel for you and wish you a much brighter future. Actually I have to applaud your candor and hope that you feel better after getting it all out. Unfortunately you can't control how your wife feels, but what I can say is that she was just wrong, on so many levels it's almost ridiculous. I too consider myself a Christian, but I'm also somewhat of a pragmatist so I would like to offer up one small piece of advice. Consider that if you were to believe in something as opposed to nothing, your life would not be an epic fail. Studies have been done showing that when you have somewhere to turn for comfort when things get hard it just makes life better. We can't always count on those closest to us for comfort. My life has been damn hard as well but I choose not to blame God and rely on his support which has gotten me through many tough times. I also take enormous comfort knowing that I will be with my child and parents and siblings in the here after because after all what else is there in life? Only the people that you love. I believe it's in Corinthians. Anyway, it's something you might want to consider. Anything that can't hurt, might help. I wish you much luck and will certainly offer up a prayer as well.

Blathering Branding said...

✓+

HomeschoolingMum said...

21 years today. I remember that day very well. And that night. Because I was one of the people who regularly wrote with Sean. Even if all you wrote was true about Sean, I saw his good side.
To me Sean was like a mentor. He helped me through teenage years by writing. And I am thankful to have known him.

I remember hearing your daughter died that same night and I was devastated. Every year, at this day, I remember both Sean and your daughter.

I am so sorry to hear about YOUR experiences with Sean.
I saw his other side and love the way he was there for me. Yes, he could be there because he was in a cell all day. I know. I understand. But still.... he was.

Be blessed

Medhba said...

After watching Dateline tonight, I googled Sean Sellars. Teenage killers, what a waste.

I vividly remember Sean Sellars because I grew up (and still live) in OK AND I was involved with a church that interviewed him a lot.

To the author: keep writing!