'I panicked,' says man who shot an acquaintance and hid the body in a trunk

Jake Wayne Vigil Cross has done many bad things that were intentional.

His criminal record backs that up, he told Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Arend on Wednesday.

But fatally shooting 29-year-old Jerry Sellers 15 years ago was different, Virgil Cross said.

"I can say to Jerry's mom that what happened that night was not intentional," he told the judge.

Virgil Cross pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter as part of negotiations with prosecutors, and Arend gave him a high-end sentence of 23 years, four months in prison — which is what the defense and prosecution recommended.

That effectively will add about 10 years to a sentence Vigil Cross is serving for a different homicide, deputy prosecutor John Neeb told the court.

Officers found Sellers' body in the trunk of his 1989 Ford Thunderbird coupe on June 28, 2003, in Tacoma.

A witness said Vigil Cross hid the body in the trunk, then had the car towed to South 49th and South Prospect streets. A tip from an anonymous caller helped investigators find it.

Vigil Cross was charged last year, after cold case detectives took another look at the case.

Sellers did not deserve what happened to him, or the way he was found, Vigil Cross said in court.

"I panicked," he said. "I didn't know what else to do, so I placed him in the car."

Defense attorney Philip Thornton said Vigil Cross wanted to accept responsibility for what happened, and had instructed the lawyer not to ask for a low-end sentence.

"There was not an intent to kill somebody," Thornton said.

One witness said Vigil Cross asked Sellers to check a loose wheel, and shot him as he bent over, charging papers say.

Sellers' then-girlfriend allegedly told detectives Sellers said he was going to meet a friend and make some money, and that Sellers was involved in the methamphetamine business.

"I don't know that we're ever going to know exactly what happened," Sellers' cousin, Sandra Braedt, told the court.

After so many years, it was hard to be at the sentencing, she said.

"It's like the scab has been ripped off all over again," Braedt told the judge.

She said she expected her cousin's killer to be big and intimidating.

Seeing Vigil Cross for the first time, she said, "He's not."

Outside court, Braedt said she and Sellers grew up next door to each other, and were like siblings.

They dated each others' friends and traded band T-shirts. She still has scars from the time he shot her with a BB gun and from another when he hit her with a lawn dart.

He was a heavy metal fan who liked Metallica and Iron Maiden. But he also secretly liked Michael Jackson. Braedt caught him dancing to the singer once, when one of his songs was playing over the loudspeakers at Kmart.

Sellers mother, Charice Enos, also attended the sentencing.

She said afterward that Sellers had been a typical teenager, who liked to party with his friends. He grew up in Tacoma, studied at Wilson High School and once took three girls to a Tolo dance, Enos remembered with a laugh.

Asked about the relationship between Vigil Cross and Sellers, Enos said the men knew each other, and had once lived with each other.

"I'm glad it's all over," she said about the case.

When she spoke in court, Enos asked, "What do we have to do to stop this killing?"

"I wish I knew the answer to that," Arend told her.

The other homicide Vigil Cross is in prison for is the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Nathan Allen.

Vigil Cross and friends crashed a party in East Tacoma on Sept. 10, 2004. When asked to leave, Virgil Cross shot Allen and injured two others.

He was sentenced to 43 1/2 years in 2006 for that crime.

This story was originally published June 27, 2018 at 5:24 PM.