Henry Lee Lucas Essay

Henry Lee Lucas On July 11th 1983, a drifter named Henry Lee Lucas was arrested for illegal possession of a fire arm by a felon. Lucas was not at all happy about being locked up, because they were supposedly depriving him of cigarettes and coffee. After being locked up for 4 days, he admitted to one of the jailers that he had â€Å"done some bad things†. He told that he had killed for the last 10 years. He was already a suspect in 2 murders, and the offices were sure that they would soon have enough information to close these 2 cases. Lucas admitted that he had killed Kate Rich and Becky Powell. While in court for these murders, he admitted that he’d had sex with the body, cut it into pieces and burned it in a wood stove. He also said that he had killed at least a hundred more. Police started questioning Lucas about other unsolved murders all over the country. He would admit to them and tell them some details about the crime that would link him to it. Over a period of time, he started offering more information about murders that he had not even been questioned about. He said that he usually picked up hitchhikers then he would quickly kill them and have sex with the body because he preferred sexual contact with a corpse. He generally used a knife or strangulation, but said that he liked to try different methods so that he didn’t leave a pattern for the police to follow. Lucas also later confessed to killing his mother. He said that she was an alcoholic and was mean to him. Some claims say that she supported the family by bootlegging and prostitution. Lucas claimed that his mother made him watch her entertain her clients. He claims that after walking out of the room one time because he was disgusted with her actions, she found him and hit him in the head with a wooden board. He said that after that, he had dizzy spells and headaches. On January 11, 1960, Lucas and his mother got into an argument and Lucas grabbed a knife and plunged it into her neck. He was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 20 years. He served 10. Another claim that he made was that of one of his mother’s clients. He said that this man turned him on to bestiality by showing him how to have sex with the corpse of a dog or sheep. He said that he first killed someone just before he turned 15. He said that the reason was so that he could see what it felt like to have sex with a human. Lucas had a traveling companion/lover named Odis Toole. Toole supposedly assisted Lucas in these heinous crimes. Toole’s niece, Becky Powell, began to travel with them. Lucas began to fall in love with her. He decided to take Becky for himself, so he and Becky left Toole and went to TX. Toole was not happy about them leaving. He had lost his longtime lover and his niece. He supposedly killed several people over a 6 month period of time. He also confessed to kidnapping and killing a small boy named, Adam Walsh. Adam’s father was inspired after the killing of his son, to start the popular show, America’s Most Wanted. After living in TX for a while, Becky wanted to come home. Lucas resisted, but later told her to gather her things. They began to hitchhike. He continued trying to get her to change her mind. She did not. At one point, they got into an argument and she slapped him. He took his knife and stabbed her in the heart. He drug her off over and embankment and had sex with her corpse. He cut her up into 9 pieces and spread them over a field. He later returned and gathered the pieces and buried them under a tree. He then returned to where they were living in TX, and to a lady named Kate Rich. He wanted to kill again. He asked Kate if she wanted to help him look for Becky (knowing that she was dead). She agreed and went with him. He drove to the end of a dirt road and stabbed Kate in the side, puncturing her heart. He was immediately aroused. He dragged her from the car and had sex with her body. He cut her up, also, and took her back to where they were living in TX and put her in a stove to burn her remains. After much investigation, and examination of the times and places that some of the murders took place that Lucas had admitted to , police began to question whether or not he was telling the truth. They later figured out that he was lying about several of the instances, because some of them were even committed when he was locked up for other crimes that he had committed. It was also found that he was known to be in a different place when he claimed to have killed in another state many miles away. Lucas claimed to have committed over 360 murders. It was eventually claimed that the police were so interested in closing some of their open murder cases that they would show Lucas the case files to â€Å"refresh his memory†. He in turn used it to his benefit by tying himself to the murders by telling evidence that was never released to the public. The police actually cleared around 213 cases through Lucas’ confessions. He was convicted of only 11 homicides; although some criminologist say that he was responsible for between 40-50 murders. In 1998, Gov. George W. Bush of TX commuted the death penalty that Lucas was handed, to a sentence of life.