Police will soon release sketches of suspects
April 23, 1997
Police have compiled a composite sketch of two of the suspects in Uri Sellers’ murder.
Ames Police Chief Dennis Ballantine said the sketch will be released soon, probably today. No arrests have been made.
“We do have a composite of a couple of suspects, but we need to confirm them with a few witnesses to see if they say they match up,” Ballantine said.
The 19-year-old Sellers, of Monroe, was killed Sunday on the front lawn of Adelante Fraternity on Welch Avenue. Sellers’ stabbing death has officially been ruled a homicide by Dr. Thomas Bennett, state medical examiner.
Bennett, who performed an autopsy on Sellers Sunday, said Sellers’ death was caused by a stab wound to the chest. The wound, Bennett said, “appeared to be made by a knife.”
Bennett declined to comment on the type or length of the knife, or what “vital areas” were ultimately severed, causing Sellers’ death. Bennett did say that it is possible for someone to be killed by a single stab wound if the heart or one of the major arteries is pierced.
Standard tests to determine if Sellers was intoxicated or on drugs at the time of his death have not yet been returned.
That information will be released with the finished autopsy report, which Bennett said he hopes to have completed within the next few days.
There was a chance, Bennett said, that if Sellers would have received immediate medical attention after being stabbed, the wound may not have been fatal.
The emergency 911 phone call alerting police and medical crews of the stabbing was received by the Ames police at 2:53 a.m.
Sellers was then transported by ambulance to Mary Greeley Medical Center and admitted at 3:19 a.m. Sellers was pronounced dead at 4:06 a.m.
Witnesses report that Sellers chased the man who stabbed him before collapsing in the fraternity’s lawn, 318 Welch Ave., where he was given first aid by friends and a member of Theta Chi Fraternity. The exact time that elapsed between the initial attack and Sellers’ collapse is still unknown.
Sellers was a student at DMACC. He lived in Altoona but was in Ames over the weekend for the Veishea celebration.
He was thinking about transferring to Iowa State to study medicine.
Sellers’ funeral is Friday at 2:30 p.m. at the First Baptist Church in Monroe, 810 South Commerce St.
In light of Sellers’ murder, ISU President Martin Jischke on Monday called for an accelerated review of this year’s Veishea celebration. Jischke said he is prepared to make changes.