Henry Lee Lucas
Henry Lee Lucas was a serial killer who teamed up with fellow serial killer Ottis Toole in the 1980s to kill an unknown number of people of all ages and sexes. Lucas was accused of killing up to 3,000 murders, and eventually confessed to 600 murders, but is believed to have committed between three and twelve murders.Channel 12: The Tag Team from Hell: The connection of Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas (December 16, 2008)
Biography of Henry Lee Lucas
Henry Lee Lucas spent most of his youth in and out of correctional institutes. In January, 1960, he stabbed his mother to death and confessed that he raped her corpse. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, where he was diagnosed as a suicidal psychopath, sadist and sexual deviant. He was released in 1970.Channel 12: The Tag Team from Hell: The connection of Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas (December 16, 2008)2
In 1978, Lucas met Ottis Toole, and together they picked up hitchhikers and killed them, sometimes eating the victims, sometimes just running them over. It was in July 1981 that six-year-old Adam Walsh disappeared, and Lucas's lover Ottis Toole confessed that he killed him, although he later recanted. In 1981, Lucas and Toole broke up, because Lucas ran off with Toole's niece Becky Powell, then 12. Lucas and Powell lived for a time in a Texas Pentacostal commune called the House of Prayer. Lucas said that he and Becky argued on August 24, 1982, and Lucas killed her and then raped her corpse.TruTv: The Henry Lee Lucas Story: Some Bad Things1
Lucas was arrested in 1983 for a minor weapons charge, and confessed to murdering Becky Powell and 82-year-old Kate Rich. He led detectives to where Powell's body was strewn over an agricultural field. He was sentenced to life in prison, and began a second career confessing to murders.Channel 12: The Tag Team from Hell: The connection of Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas (December 16, 2008)2
Detectives from 40 states came to see him, and Lucas toured the country looking for evidence of his murders, although little additional evidence was found. Lucas was eventually sentenced to death for the murder of a woman in Texas known to investigators only as "Orange Socks." Overwhelming evidence convinced prosecutors that he had not, in fact, killed Orange Socks, and then-governor George W. Bush commuted his sentence.Channel 12: The Tag Team from Hell: The connection of Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas (December 16, 2008)2
Lucas became a born-again Christian in prison, and died there, of heart failure, in 2001.Channel 12: The Tag Team from Hell: The connection of Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas (December 16, 2008)
True Confessions?
In addition to confessing to hundreds of murders he probably did not commit, Lucas confessed that he had sex with the bodies of the people he and Toole killed, and with the slain carcasses of dogs and sheep. He said that he'd had sex with his siblings and murdered his 78-year-old mother and had sex with her dead body. He confessed that his first murder happened just before his 15th birthday in 1951. He confessed that he and Toole had eaten some of their victims. The truth of many of these confessions has been questioned but cannot be determined.TruTv: The Henry Lee Lucas Story: Some Bad Things
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Ottis Toole
Ottis Toole was convicted of two murders in 1984 and plead guilty to another four killings in 1991. For several years, Toole traveled with fellow killer Henry Lee Lucas and corroborated Lucas' story that he was an accomplice in up to 108 murders.Biography.com: Notorious: Crime Files: Ottis Toole2 However, since Lucas was a notorious liar and Toole later recanted some of his confessions, it is unclear how many murders Lucas and Toole actually committed.TruTV Crime Library: Serial Killers: Henry Lee Lucas: Final Words
Toole twice confessed to the murder of Adam Walsh, the son of America's Most Wanted host John Walsh, but later recanted. On December 16, 2008, authorities announced that the Walsh murder case had been officially closed and named Toole as the murderer.CNN: Police: Drifter killed Adam Walsh in 1981(December 16, 2008)
Walsh Murder
While in prison, Toole twice confessed to murdering six-year-old Adam Walsh, but later recanted both confessions. Although Toole successfully identified the areas at which Walsh was last seen and where his head was found, investigators did not find Walsh's body where Toole reported he had buried it. Further complicating matters were allegations that Toole was fed inside information about the case by a detective and the fact that Toole had a history of confessing to crimes he did not commit.CNN: Police: Drifter killed Adam Walsh in 1981 (December 16, 2008)5 Florida Sun-Sentinel: Adam Walsh case to be declared solved today (December 16, 2008)
Despite officials' doubts, Adam Walsh's father, John Walsh, told the Miami Herald in 2001: "I believe Ottis Toole killed Adam."Miami Herald: Hollywood police to close Adam Walsh murder case (December 16, 2008)6 On December 16, 2008, during a scheduled press conference, officials announced that the investigation into Walsh's murder had been closed and named Toole as the murderer.
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