Henry Lee Lucas
| Henry Lee Lucas | |
|---|---|
Police mug shot of Lucas.
|
|
| Born |
August 23, 1936 Blacksburg, Virginia |
| Died | March 12, 2001 (aged 64) Huntsville, Texas |
| Cause of death | Heart failure |
| Other names |
The Confession Killer The Highway Stalker |
| Criminal penalty | Death, commuted to Life imprisonment |
| Killings | |
| Victims | 3 confirmed; confessed to up to 3,000 (though most were found to be false confessions). |
|
Span of killings
|
1960–1983 |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | Michigan, Texas, possibly Florida |
|
Date apprehended
|
June 11, 1983 |
The Confession Killer
Henry Lee Lucas (August 23, 1936 – March 12, 2001) was a confessed American serial killer. Lucas was arrested in Texas and, on the basis of his confessions, hundreds of unsolved murders attributed to him were officially classified as cleared. Lucas was convicted of murdering 157 people and condemned to death for a single case with an unidentified victim. A newspaper exposed the improbable logistics of the confessions made by Lucas, when they were taken as a whole, and a study by the Attorney General of Texas concluded he had falsely confessed; the death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1998. Assertions by local law enforcement that in certain cases Lucas had demonstrated knowledge of unsolved crimes that only a perpetrator could have possessed added to the enigma, as did his association with Ottis Toole.
He was born on August 23, 1936 in Blacksburg, Virginia. Lucas lost an eye at age 10 after it became infected due to a fight. A friend later described him as a child who would often get attention by frighteningly strange behavior. Aside from this, Lucas' mother was a prostitute who would force him to watch her have sex with clients and cross dress in public.
In December 1949, Lucas' father, Anderson, whose legs had been severed in a railroad accident, died of hypothermia after going home drunk 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. Lucas claimed to have committed his first murder in 1951, when he strangled 17-year-old Laura Burnsley, who had 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 subsequently released on September 2, 1959.
In late 1959, Lucas traveled to Tecumseh, Michigan to live with his half-sister, Opal. Around that 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, after which they argued repeatedly during the visit about his upcoming nuptials.
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Wikipedia