Henry Lee Lucas

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Henry Lee Lucas (August 23, 1936 – March 12, 2001) was an American serial killer whose crimes spanned from 1960 to 1983.

He was convicted of murdering eleven people and condemned to death for the murder of Debra Jackson, although his sentence would be commuted to life in prison in 1998.

Lucas rose to infamy after confessing to more than 100 murders to the Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officials while in prison.

An investigation by the Dallas Times-Herald newspaper later discredited many of Lucas's murder confessions and resulted in a follow-up investigation by the Attorney General of Texas.

The investigation concluded that Lucas was a fabulist who had falsely confessed.

Lucas himself recanted the confessions as a hoax.

Lucas's case resulted in a re-evaluation in police techniques and greater awareness of false confessions.

Investigators did not consider that the petty privileges – fancy steak dinners, milkshakes, TV privileges – granted by the "confession" interviews would prompt further confessions.

Investigators also allowed Lucas to see case files to "refresh his memory," giving him access to knowledge only the perpetrator(s) would know. He died of congestive heart failure in 2001.

Early life

Henry Lee Lucas was born in a one-room log cabin in Blacksburg, Virginia. He lost an eye at age 10, after it became infected subsequent to a fight with his brother. A friend later described Lucas as a child who would often get attention by displaying frighteningly strange behavior. His mother, Viola, was a prostitute who would force her son to watch her engaging in sex with clients, and who would make him cross-dress in public, purportedly so she could later pimp him out to men and women alike. Eventually, Lucas' schoolteachers complained about the cross-dressing, and a court order put an end to it.

In December 1949, Lucas' alcoholic father, Anderson Lucas, died of hypothermia after drinking to intoxication and collapsing outside during a blizzard. Shortly thereafter, while in the sixth grade, Lucas dropped out of school and ran away from home, drifting around Virginia. He claimed to have committed his first murder in 1951, when he said he strangled 17-year-old Laura Burnsley after she refused his sexual advances. As with most of his confessions, Lucas 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 subsequently released on September 2, 1959.

In late 1959, Lucas traveled to Tecumseh, Michigan, to live with his half-sister, Opal. Around this time, he was engaged to marry a pen pal with whom he had corresponded while incarcerated. When Lucas' mother visited him for Christmas, she disapproved of her son's fiancée and insisted he move back to Blacksburg to take care of her as she grew older. When he refused, they argued repeatedly. These arguments escalated until January 11, 1960, when, according to Lucas, she struck him over the head with a broom, at which point he stabbed her in the neck. Lucas then fled the scene. He subsequently said:

Opal returned later and discovered their mother alive, but in a pool of blood. She called an ambulance, but it arrived too late. The official police report stated that Lucas' mother died of a heart attack precipitated by the assault. Lucas was soon arrested in Ohio on the outstanding Michigan warrant. He claimed to have killed his mother in self-defense, but his claim was rejected and he was sentenced to up to 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.

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