Ottis Toole and Henry Lucas murderers

Ottis Toole

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Ottis Toole
Ottis Toole.jpg
Toole's 1983 mugshot

Background information

Born
March 5, 1947
Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.
Died
September 15, 1996 (aged 49)
Cause of death
Liver failure
Sentence
Death, commuted to life in prison
Killings

Number of victims
at least six
Country
United States
State(s)
Florida and Texas
Date apprehended
April 1983
Ottis Elwood Toole (March 5, 1947 – September 15, 1996) (sometimes misspelled Otis) was an American who was convicted of six counts of murder and at one time admitted to four more murder charges. However, he recanted and restated a number of confessions during his time in prison. Police believe he was responsible for the murder of Adam Walsh in 1981.
Toole received two death sentences but on appeal they were commuted to life in prison. He died in his cell from liver disease.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Early life
2 Murders and imprisonment
3 Murder of Adam Walsh
4 Film depiction
5 Notes
Early life[edit]
Toole was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. Toole's mother was a religious fanatic; Toole later claimed that she abused him, including dressing him in girls' clothing and calling him Susan.[1] His father was an alcoholic who abandoned him.[1] As a young child, Toole was a victim of sexual assault and incest at the hands of many close relatives and acquaintances, including his older sister and next door neighbor. He claimed that his maternal grandmother was a Satanist, who exposed him to various Satanic practices and rituals in his youth, including self-mutilation and graverobbing, and dubbed him "Devil's Child". Toole claimed this abuse began when he came out as gay to his family.[1]
He was often designated as suffering from mild mental retardation, with an I.Q. of 75.[1] He also suffered from epilepsy, which resulted in frequent grand mal seizures. Throughout his childhood, he ran away from home often and often slept in abandoned houses. He was a serial arsonist from a young age and was sexually aroused by fire.[1]
In the documentary Death Diploma, Toole claimed he was forced to have sex with a friend of his father's when he was five years old. He felt he knew he was gay when he was 10, and claimed to have had a sexual relationship with a neighborhood boy when he was 12. Toole dropped out of school in the ninth grade and began visiting gay bars. He also claimed to have been a male prostitute as a teenager, and became obsessed with gay pornography.[1] Toole claimed to have committed his first murder at the age of 14, when after being propositioned for sex by a traveling salesman, Toole ran over the salesman with his own car.[1] Toole was first arrested at the age of 17 in August 1964 for loitering.
Much information on Toole between 1966–73 is unclear, but it is believed that he began drifting around the Southwestern United States and that he supported himself by prostitution and panhandling. While living in Nebraska, Toole was one of the prime suspects in the 1974 murder of 24-year-old Patricia Webb. Shortly after, he left Nebraska and briefly settled in Boulder, Colorado. One month later, he became a prime suspect in the murder of 31-year-old Ellen Holman, who was murdered on October 14, 1974. With many accusations against him, Toole left Boulder and headed back to Jacksonville.
In early 1975, Toole returned to Jacksonville after drifting and hitch-hiking through the American South. On January 14, 1976, he married a woman 25 years his senior. She left him after three days, after discovering his homosexuality. Toole said during an interview his marriage was a tactic meant to conceal his true sexuality.[1]
Murders and imprisonment[edit]



 Photograph of Lucas and Toole together
In 1976, Toole met Henry Lee Lucas at a Jacksonville soup kitchen,[1] and they soon developed a sexual relationship.[2] Toole later claimed to have accompanied Lucas in 108 murders, sometimes at the behest of a cult called "The Hands of Death". Lucas later recanted his confessions, saying he made such statements only to improve his living conditions in jail.
In April 1983, Toole was arrested on an arson charge in Jacksonville. Two months later in June his accomplice Henry Lee Lucas was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm. It was then Lucas began boasting about the murderous rampage orchestrated by the two. At first, Toole had denied involvement but later began backing up Lucas's confessions.
On October 21, 1983, he confessed to the 1981 murder of 6-year-old Adam Walsh.[3] A few weeks after Toole made the confession, however, police investigating the case announced that they had lost Toole's impounded car and machete. John Walsh, Adam's father, continued to maintain that he believed Toole to be guilty.[4] On December 16, 2008, Hollywood, Florida, police announced Toole as the murderer, and the Adam Walsh case was closed. The police did not reveal any new physical evidence and pointed out that they still had no DNA evidence.[5][6] Toole confessed that on that same day he ambushed and killed 46-year-old Joana Holter in her home while she was attending to groceries with the same machete which he used to decapitate Adam Walsh.
On January 12, 1982, Toole barricaded 64-year-old George Sonnenberg in his own home and set the house alight, killing him. In April 1984, Toole was convicted and sentenced to death in Jacksonville, Florida for Sonnenberg's murder. Later that year, Toole was found guilty of the February 1983 strangulation murder of 19-year-old Silvia Rogers, a Tallahassee, Florida, resident, and received a second death sentence; on appeal, however, both sentences were commuted to life in prison.
Experts at his trial had testified that Toole suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. While serving his sentence, Toole briefly stayed in the cell adjacent to serial killer Ted Bundy in Florida's Raiford Prison.[3] After his incarceration, Toole pleaded guilty to four more Jacksonville murders in 1991 and received four more life sentences.
In 1984, Toole confessed to two unsolved northwest Florida slayings, including one of the I-10 murders. During an interview, he admitted to killing 18-year-old David Schallart, a hitchhiker he picked up east of Pensacola. Schallart's body, bearing five gunshot wounds in the left side of the head, was found on February 6, 1980, approximately 125 feet off I-10's eastbound lane, five miles east of Chipley. The second confession involved the death of 20-year-old Ada Johnson. Toole confessed that he shot her in the head on a road outside of Fort Walton Beach after kidnapping her at gunpoint at a Tallahassee nightclub.[7] Psychiatrists Dr. Urbina and Dr. Sanches, testified at Toole's 1984 Florida Supreme Court appeal that he was extremely impulsive and exhibited antisocial behavior as a result of a personality disorder and that he was a pyromaniac.[8] The court found sufficient evidence that Toole was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.[8]
On September 15, 1996, at the age of 49, Ottis Toole died in his prison cell from liver failure.[9] He was buried in a prison cemetery, because no one claimed his body.
Murder of Adam Walsh[edit]
Twenty-seven years after the 1981 murder of Adam Walsh, authorities officially named Toole as the likely killer.[5][10]
Toole claimed to have picked Walsh up in a Sears mall parking lot. Toole said he offered him candy and toys and that Walsh came willingly. Walsh soon wanted to go home and began crying. Toole said he then punched him in the face. Walsh started crying more, and, according to Toole, he began to "wallop" Walsh, knocking him out. Toole eventually pulled over in a rural area and decapitated Walsh with a machete. He drove around for several days with Walsh's head, forgot about it, and, once rediscovering it, tossed it into a nearby canal. Police somehow lost his impounded car and machete, hindering their ability to proceed with the investigation.
Hollywood, Florida Police Chief Chadwick Wagner said Ottis Toole had been the prime suspect all along, but went on to admit that although Toole's case was weak, he could have been charged during the original investigation.[10] Wagner acknowledged that many mistakes were made by the department and apologized to the Walsh family. Public critics of the indictment argue that lack of new (public) evidence, and the inability of the defendant to defend himself of the allegations, leaves no definitive claim to his guilt. To this Wagner has stated, "If you're looking for that magic wand, that one piece of evidence, it's not there." However, by reexamining previously uncorrelated evidence, police and the Walsh family are satisfied with the new report and existing evidence that points only to Ottis Toole.
In response to the naming of his son's alleged murderer, John Walsh stated, "We can now move forward knowing positively who killed our beautiful little boy."[11]
The decision was finally reached once Toole's niece told John Walsh that her uncle confessed on his deathbed in prison that he had murdered and decapitated Adam Walsh.[4]
Film depiction[edit]
A character based on Toole was portrayed by Tom Towles in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
Notes[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Ramsland, Katherine. "Henry Lee Lucas, prolific serial killer or prolific liar?". Crime Library. Retrieved 2008-12-17.
2.Jump up ^ "The Twisted Life of Serial Killer Ottis Elwood Toole". Fox News. December 16, 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-17. "Toole met Lucas in 1978, and the two "joined forces as a homosexual crime team, criss-crossing the country from 1978-1983," according to America's Most Wanted, started by Adam Walsh's father John Walsh."
3.^ Jump up to: a b Rule, Ann (2000-09-28). The Stranger Beside Me. W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-05029-7.
4.^ Jump up to: a b Did Dahmer Kill "Most Wanted" Host's Son? CBS News.com. February 8, 2007.
5.^ Jump up to: a b Almanzar, Yolanne (December 16, 2008). "Police Expected to Close Adam Walsh Case". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-16. "In October 1983, Mr. Toole told the police that he had abducted Adam from the mall. Adam soon wanted to leave and began crying. Toole claimed he punched him in the face. Adam started crying more and according to Toole he then started "walloping" Adam. He drove for about an hour to an isolated dirt road where he decapitated Adam. Investigators lifted bloodstained carpet from Mr. Toole’s white Cadillac. But DNA testing then was not as advanced as it is now, and investigators could not tell if the blood was Adam’s."
6.Jump up ^ Police: '81 murder of Adam Walsh solved MSNBC.com, December 16, 2008.
7.Jump up ^ "Toole admits to 2 Panhandle killings." Playground Daily News, Fort Walton Beach, Florida, November 11, 1984, p. 1A.
8.^ Jump up to: a b Florida Supreme Court
9.Jump up ^ Otis Toole. CarpeNoctem.tv.
10.^ Jump up to: a b John Holland (December 17, 2008). "Adam Walsh case is closed after 27 years". Los Angeles Times. "Police simply took another look at 27 years of evidence, psychic revelations, often-botched police work and Toole's chilling admissions and Hollywood Police Chief Chad Wagner said Ottis Toole had been the prime suspect all along."
11.Jump up ^ "Adam Walsh Murder Case Closed". America's Most Wanted. 2008-12-17. Retrieved 2009-09-29.

Authority control
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Henry Lee Lucas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2012) 

Henry Lee Lucas
Henry Lee Lucas.jpg
Mug shot of Henry Lee Lucas.

Background information

Birth name
Henry Lee Lucas
Also known as
The Confession Killer
Born
August 23, 1936
Blacksburg, Virginia
Died
March 13, 2001 (aged 64)
Cause of death
Heart failure
Penalty
Death, commuted to Life imprisonment
Killings

Number of victims
11; confessed to more than 600
Country
United States
State(s)
Michigan, Texas, possibly Florida
Date apprehended
June 11, 1983
Henry Lee Lucas (August 23, 1936[1] – March 13, 2001)[2] was an American criminal, convicted of murder in 11 different cases. He had claimed to have committed a number of murders (shortly after his arrest he confessed to having killed 60 people, a number he raised to 100 while in court, and outside of court he claimed to have committed up to 3000 murders[3]) although he later recanted the confessions. He received a death sentence for the murder of an unidentified woman in Texas, but the penalty was commuted to life imprisonment on the basis of evidence that he was likely in Florida on the date of that murder.[4]
While Lucas became known in the press as America's most prolific serial killer, he later recanted his confessions, and flatly stated "I am not a serial killer" in a letter to researcher Brad Shellady.[5] Lucas confessed to involvement in about 600 murders, but a more widely circulated total of 350 is based on confessions deemed "believable" by a Texas-based Lucas Task Force, a group which was later criticized by then-Attorney General of Texas, Jim Mattox, and others for sloppy police work and taking part in an extended "hoax".[6]
Beyond his recantation, some of Lucas's confessions have been challenged as inaccurate by a number of critics, including law enforcement and court officials. Lucas claimed to have been initially subjected to having been left naked in a cell with the air conditioner turned on and coercive interrogation tactics while in police custody, and to have confessed to murders in an effort to improve his living conditions.[3] Amnesty International reported "the belief of two former state Attorneys General that Lucas was in all likelihood innocent of the crime for which he was sentenced to death".[7]
Lucas's sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1998 by Governor George W. Bush. It was the first successful commutation of a death sentence in Texas since the re-institution of the death penalty in Texas in 1982. Lucas died in prison of natural causes. Lucas still maintains a reputation, in the words of author Sarah L. Knox, "as one of the world's worst serial killers – even after the debunking of the majority of his confessions by the Attorney General of Texas".[8]

Contents
  [hide] 1 Early life
2 First known murder
3 Drifter 3.1 "The Lucas Report" confessions and controversy
4 Orange Socks murder
5 Clemency and death
6 Differing opinions
7 Media
8 See also
9 References
10 Further reading
11 External links
Early life[edit]

 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2012) 
Lucas was born in a one-room log cabin in Blacksburg, Virginia, the youngest of nine children to Viola Dixon Waugh and Anderson Lucas.
Lucas claimed that he and his brother[citation needed] were regularly beaten by Viola, often for no reason. He once spent three days in a coma after his mother struck him with a wooden plank, and on many occasions he was forced by his mother to watch her having sex with men. Lucas also claimed that his mother would often dress him in girls' clothing. His sister Almeda Lucas supports his story, and she claims that she once had two pictures of Henry as a toddler dressed in girls' clothing. Lucas described an incident when he was given a mule as a gift by his uncle, only to see his mother shoot and kill it. Lucas also claimed that, at the age of eight, he was given a teddy bear by one of his teachers, and was then beaten by his mother for accepting charity.
When Lucas was 10, his brother[citation needed] accidentally stabbed him in the left eye while they were fighting. His mother ignored the injury for four days, and subsequently the eye grew infected and had to be replaced by a glass eye. Lucas was bullied by his peers for his glass eye, and later mentions mass social rejection as a cause for his hatred of people.[9]
In December 1949, Anderson Lucas died of hypothermia, after going home drunk and collapsing outside during a blizzard. Shortly after, Henry dropped out of school in the sixth grade and ran away from home, drifting around Virginia. Lucas claimed to have committed his first murder in 1951, when he strangled 17-year-old Laura Burnsley, who refused his sexual advances. As with most of his confessions, he later retracted this claim. On June 10, 1954, Lucas was convicted on over a dozen counts of burglary in and around Richmond, Virginia, and was sentenced to four years in prison. He escaped in 1957, was recaptured three days later, and was released on September 2, 1959.
In late 1959, Lucas traveled to Tecumseh, Michigan to live with his half-sister, Opal. Around this time, Lucas was engaged to marry a pen pal with whom he had corresponded while incarcerated. When his mother visited him for Christmas, she disapproved of her son's fiancée and insisted he move back to Blacksburg. He refused, and they argued repeatedly about his upcoming nuptials.
First known murder[edit]
On January 11, 1960, in Tecumseh, Michigan, Lucas killed his mother during the course of an ongoing argument regarding whether or not he should return home to his mother's house to care for her as she grew older. He claimed she struck him over the head with a broom, at which point he struck her on the neck and she fell. Lucas then fled the scene. He subsequently said,
“
All I remember was slapping her alongside the neck, but after I did that I saw her fall and decided to grab her. But she fell to the floor and when I went back to pick her up, I realized she was dead. Then I noticed that I had my knife in my hand and she had been cut.[this quote needs a citation]
 ”
She was not in fact dead, and when Lucas's half-sister Opal (with whom he was staying) returned later, she discovered their mother alive in a pool of blood. She called an ambulance, but it turned out to be too late to save Viola Lucas's life. The official police report stated she died of a heart attack precipitated by the assault. Lucas returned to Virginia, then says he decided to drive back to Michigan, but was arrested in Ohio on the outstanding Michigan warrant.
Lucas claimed to have attacked his mother only in self-defense, but his claim was rejected, and he was sentenced to between 20 and 40 years' imprisonment in Michigan for second-degree murder. After serving 10 years in prison, he was released in June 1970 due to prison overcrowding.



 Lucas and Ottis Toole.[10]
Drifter[edit]
Lucas drifted around the American South, working a number of mostly short-term jobs. In Florida, he made the acquaintance of Ottis Toole and his niece Frieda Powell in 1976. Lucas and Toole both called Powell "Becky," partly to disguise her identity and because Powell preferred it over her given name. In 1978, Lucas and Toole formed what has been called a "homosexual crime team" and embarked on a cross-country murder spree.[11] Lucas would later claim that during this period he had killed hundreds of people, with Toole assisting him in 108 murders. The trio left Florida and eventually settled in Stoneburg, Texas, at a religious commune called "The House of Prayer." Ruben Moore, the commune owner and minister, found Lucas a job as a roofer and allowed Lucas and Powell to live in a small apartment on the commune.
Powell became homesick, so Lucas agreed to move to Florida with her. Lucas said they argued at a Bowie, Texas truck stop and claimed that Powell left with a trucker. Lucas would eventually be charged with Powell's murder, although a waitress at the truck stop supported Lucas's account in court.[6] Lucas allegedly carried out many of his later murders with Toole as an accomplice.
"The Lucas Report" confessions and controversy[edit]
Lucas was arrested on June 11, 1983 by Texas Ranger Phil Ryan.[12] He was later charged with killing 82-year-old Kate Rich in Ringgold, Texas, and was also charged with Powell's murder. Lucas claimed that police stripped him naked, denied him cigarettes and bedding, held him in a cold cell, and did not allow him to contact an attorney. After four days of this treatment, Lucas claimed he decided to confess to the crimes in a desperate bid to improve his treatment. Lucas confessed to the murders but claimed to be unable to take police to the victims' bodies. He closed out his confession with a hand-written addendum that read:[13] "I am not aloud [sic] to contact any one I'm in here by myself and still can't talk to a lawyer on this I have no rights so what can I do to convince you about all this." When he was finally allowed counsel, Lucas's lawyer described his client's treatment as "inhumane" and "calculated solely to require the defendant to confess guilt, whether innocent or guilty".[13]
The forensic evidence in the Powell and Rich cases has been criticized as inconclusive.[14] A single bone fragment recovered from a wood-burning stove was said to be Rich's, and a mostly complete skeleton roughly matched Powell's age and size, but Shellady reports that the coroner stopped short of positively identifying either remains. As with most of his alleged crimes, Lucas has confessed to these murders only to deny involvement later, but the consensus seems to be that Lucas did indeed murder Powell and Rich. Lucas pleaded guilty to the charges, and in open court stated he had "killed about a hundred more women" as well. This was an unexpected confession, and Lucas later claimed to have been despondent over being suspected in Powell's disappearance. Shellady reports that Lucas said, "If they were going to make me confess to one I didn't do, then I was going to confess to everything."[6] These claims were quickly seized upon by the press, and Lucas, accompanied by Texas Rangers, was soon flown from state to state, to meet with various police agencies in an effort to resolve a number of unsolved murders.
In November 1983, Lucas was transferred to a jail in Williamson County, Texas, where the Lucas Task Force was soon established. While in Williamson County, he was interviewed by then-Sheriff Jim Boutwell. Boutwell is said to have played an important role early in the task force as well as Bob Prince of the Texas Rangers. Shellady describes the task force as "a veritable clearinghouse of unsolved murder." Police officially "cleared" 213 previously unsolved murders via Lucas's confessions. Lucas reported that he confessed to murders only because doing so improved his living conditions, and that he received preferential treatment rarely offered to convicts. Others have offered accounts that seem to support Lucas's claims, for example, that Lucas was rarely handcuffed when in custody or being transported, that he was often allowed to wander police stations and jails at will – including knowing the security codes for computerized doors – and that he was frequently taken to restaurants and cafés. It was later learned that Boutwell and other task force agents purposely fed Lucas information about other unsolved murders so that Lucas would make "credible" confessions. Lucas was also granted favors while incarcerated that other inmates never received.[15] On one occasion, in Huntington, West Virginia, Lucas confessed to killing a man whose death had originally been ruled a suicide. The man's widow received a large life insurance settlement that had been denied after the initial suicide verdict.
Texas Ranger Phil Ryan reports that Lucas became so accustomed to such treatment that he began "dictating orders" that were often obeyed by Rangers. Ryan also reported that he became concerned about the veracity of most of Lucas's confessions, feeling confident in the accuracy of two of Lucas's confessions, and further stated to the Houston Chronicle that "I wouldn't bet a paycheck on any of the others."[16] Shellady reports that in order to expose Lucas's claims, Ryan invented utterly fictional crimes, to which Lucas would generally "confess" involvement, a tactic also employed by Dallas detective Linda Erwin. Ryan reports the manner in which Lucas typically confessed to a number of unsolved murders: If a police agency suspected Lucas, and if Lucas admitted involvement – and his total of some 3,000 confessions suggests he rarely denied complicity – they would send the Lucas Task Force a case file with information pertaining to the unsolved crime. Lucas would be questioned at length and sometimes even allowed to read police reports, thus learning any number of details previously known only to police, which he could then use during interviews.
The same Houston Chronicle article reports that Erwin interviewed Lucas after he confessed to 13 murders in Houston. Erwin reports that "when I heard it got to be hundreds and hundreds (of confessions), it was unbelievable to me." Erwin further reports that, like Ryan, she assembled an utterly fictional crime: She "fabricated a case using random photographs from old murders long since solved and details pulled from her imagination ... He claimed credit for the phony crime, and his confession, containing facts she had dribbled out to him, probably could have convinced a jury to convict him, she said." Erwin admitted she was uncomfortable fabricating a crime, but felt it necessary in order to settle questions of Lucas's reliability. Lucas was not charged with any of the crimes he confessed to committing in Dallas.
Lucas's claims gradually became criticized as outlandish and less likely: He claimed to have been part of a cannibalistic, satanic cult called "The Hand of Death",[8] to have taken part in snuff films, to have killed Jimmy Hoffa, and to have delivered poison to cult leader Jim Jones in Jonestown prior to the notorious mass murder/suicide of Jones' group. In response to these claims, and to reports of the Lucas Task Force's questionable investigative methodology, the Texas Attorney General's office issued a study (sometimes called "The Lucas Report") in 1986.[17] The bulk of the Lucas Report was devoted to a detailed timeline of Lucas's claimed murders. The report compared Lucas's claims to reliable, verifiable sources for his whereabouts; the results often contradicted his confessions, and thus cast doubt on most of the crimes in which he was implicated. Attorney General Jim Mattox wrote that "when Lucas was confessing to hundreds of murders, those with custody of Lucas did nothing to bring an end to this hoax," and "We have found information that would lead us to believe that some officials 'cleared cases' just to get them off the books."[13]
Orange Socks murder[edit]
Ultimately, Lucas was convicted of 11 homicides. He was sentenced to death for the murder of an unidentified woman dubbed "Orange Socks," as those were the only items of clothing found on her. Her body was discovered in Williamson County, Texas, on Halloween 1979.
Dan Morales, Mattox's successor as Texas Attorney General, concluded that it was "highly unlikely" that Lucas was guilty in the "Orange Socks" case.[18] Though initially skeptical of the Lucas Report, he came generally to support its findings.
Williamson County prosecutor Cecil Kuykendall discounted Lucas as a suspect in the "Orange Socks" case and has stated his opinion that Lucas's confession drew attention from a far more viable suspect, further noting evidence that Lucas was in Florida, working as a roofer, during the time that "Orange Socks" was killed. As cited in an Amnesty International report, Mattox stated that during the time "Orange Socks" was killed, there were "work records, check cashing evidence, all information indicating Lucas was somewhere else. We found nothing tying [Lucas] with the crime he confessed to and was convicted of."[19] Mattox's office decided not to intervene, so certain they were that the state appeals court would overturn Lucas's conviction in the "Orange Socks" case.
Lucas told Shellady that he confessed to the murder in an effort at "legal suicide," and that he "just wanted to die." Lucas expressed what Shellady describes as "deep regret and sorrow" for offering false confessions, stating that he "was not aware how crooked they [Texas authorities] were until it was too late." The Houston Chronicle article also notes that Lucas offered various motives for his confession spree: Improving his conditions, a desire to embarrass police, and feeling guilt over killing Powell and Rich.
Adding to the confusion, however, was Lucas's habit of making confessions, recanting them, then offering more confessions, and again recanting them. Mattox, wary of Lucas's many false confessions, suggested in 1999 that, in the case of Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, "I hope they don't start pinning on him every crime that happens near a railroad track."[20]
Clemency and death[edit]
Lucas's supposed confidant, Ottis Toole, died on September 15, 1996, from cirrhosis of the liver. He was serving six life sentences in a Florida prison. In 1998, the Texas Board of Pardon and Parole voted to commute Lucas's death sentence to life imprisonment, in accordance with Governor George W. Bush's request. It remains one of only two successful commutations of a death sentence in Texas since the restoration of the death penalty after Gregg v. Georgia in 1976, the other being Kenneth Foster in 2007 who was controversially convicted under Texas' law of parties statute. On March 13, 2001, Lucas died in prison from heart failure at age 64.
Differing opinions[edit]
Lucas was a diagnosed psychopath.[21] Several authorities and interested parties remained sure of his guilt in a number of murders, regardless of his recantations and the controversy surrounding his many confessions. Jim Lawson, a sheriff's department investigator in Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska, questioned Lucas in September 1984 regarding the unsolved 1978 murder of schoolteacher Stella McLean. Lawson says he asked deceptive questions to test Lucas, but insists Lucas offered compelling testimony to support his claims of killing McLean.[22]
Texas General Land Office Commissioner Garry Mauro, then standing for election of Governor of Texas, stated his opinion that, "There is no doubt in my mind that Henry Lee Lucas is guilty enough of the murders he confessed to that he earned the death penalty."[23]
The Houston Chronicle article quotes Harold Murphy of Marianna, Florida, who remained convinced that Lucas killed his daughter Jerilyn in 1981.
As cited in the above Houston Chronicle article, Texas Ranger Phil Ryan – while strongly criticizing the Lucas Task Force for their questionable methods, and while rejecting the vast majority of Lucas's confessions – concluded that Lucas was a strong suspect in two cases (those of his 15-year-old traveling companion, Becky Powell, and Kate Rich), and thought Lucas was "at most ... responsible for 15 murders." This was still a considerable total, qualifying Lucas as a serial killer according to the FBI's definitions, but well below Lucas's claims. Eric W. Hickey cites an unnamed "investigator" who interviewed Lucas several times, and who concluded Lucas had probably killed about 40 people.[24]
Media[edit]
A film, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, loosely based on Lucas's crimes and further confessions, was released in 1990. It starred Michael Rooker as Henry. The 1985 film Confessions of a Serial Killer, also based on Lucas, preceded it.
See also[edit]
List of serial killers by number of victims
List of horror film serial killers
Thomas Quick, a Swedish "serial killer" whose confessions are now believed to be fabricated
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Henry Lee Lucas by Bonnie Bobit". Crimemagazine.com. Archived from the original on June 19, 2008. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
2.Jump up ^ "Henry Lee Lucas Dies in Prison — ABC News". Abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
3.^ Jump up to: a b Gudjonsson, Gisli H. (2003-05-27). The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions: A Handbook. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 557–. ISBN 9780470857946. Retrieved 28 December 2012.
4.Jump up ^ Strand, Ginger Gail (2012-04-15). Killer on the Road: Violence and the American Interstate. University of Texas Press. pp. 157–. ISBN 9780292726376. Retrieved 28 December 2012.
5.Jump up ^ Brad Shellady, "Henry: Fabrication of a Serial Killer", included in Everything You Know Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies, 2002; Russ Kick, editor.
6.^ Jump up to: a b c Shellady, 2002.
7.Jump up ^ "USA: Failing the future: Death penalty developments, March 1998 – March 2000 | Amnesty International". Web.amnesty.org. 2000-03-31. Archived from the original on October 15, 2007. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
8.^ Jump up to: a b Knox, Sara L. (2001). The Productive Power of Confessions of Cruelty. Jefferson.village.virginia.edu. Retrieved 2010-07-12,22 June 2012.
9.Jump up ^ Scott, Shirley Lynn. "What Makes Serial Killers Tick?". truTV.com. Retrieved 2013-01-10.
10.Jump up ^ Ramsland, Katherine. "Henry Lee Lucas, prolific serial killer or prolific liar?". Crime Library. Retrieved 2008-12-17.
11.Jump up ^ "The Twisted Life of Serial Killer Ottis Elwood Toole". Fox News. December 16, 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-17. "Toole met Lucas in 1978, and the two "joined forces as a homosexual crime team, criss-crossing the country from 1978-1983""
12.Jump up ^ Ivey, Darren L. (2010-04-23). The Texas Rangers: A Registry and History. McFarland. pp. 195–. ISBN 9780786448135. Retrieved 28 December 2012.
13.^ Jump up to: a b c quoted in Shellady, 2002
14.Jump up ^ see Shellady, 2002
15.Jump up ^ http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/scanned/archive/2009/8145.pdf
16.Jump up ^ Henry Lee Lucas able to confuse authorities and then beat death[dead link]
17.Jump up ^ "Publication Date April 1986, by Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-07-12.
18.Jump up ^ "[06-24-98] Michael A. Kroll, Condemned in Texas — When Innocence Doesn't Matter". Pacificnews.org. 1998. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
19.Jump up ^ "USA: The death penalty in Texas: lethal injustice | Amnesty International". Web.amnesty.org. 1998-03-01. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
20.Jump up ^ "Today's Headlines — Friday, June 25, 1999". Ble.org. 1999-06-25. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
21.Jump up ^ Robert D. Hare. Without Conscience. The Guildford Press, 1999, p. 23. ISBN 978-1-57230-451-2.
22.Jump up ^ "Henry Lee Lucas". Carpenoctem.tv. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
23.Jump up ^ "USA: Fatal flaws: Innocence and the death penalty in the USA | Amnesty International". Web.amnesty.org. 1998-11-12. Archived from the original on October 16, 2007. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
24.Jump up ^ Hickey, Eric W., Serial Murderers And Their Victims, Wadsworth Pub Co. 2005; ISBN 0-495-05887-4
Further reading[edit]
Brad Shellady, "Henry: Fabrication of a Serial Killer", included in Everything You Know Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies, 2002; Russ Kick, editor.
Henderson, Jim (1998-06-28). "Henry Lee Lucas able to confuse authorities and then beat death". Houston Chronicle (Section A, Page 1, 2 STAR Edition).
Nelson, Melissa (2007). "Sheriff's wife among 4 dead in shooting". MSNBC.com. Associated Press.
External links[edit]
Biography of Henry Lee Lucas at Courtroom Television Network's Crime Library

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­WorldCat·
 ­VIAF: 21103830·
 ­LCCN: n85038016
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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