INFAMY: The “Confession Killer” Who Became a Cult Horror Icon

Hi everyone, before today's episode, we want to tell you about What the Fact. It's a new show from Conor Tomlinson, who you know from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum, and Carter Roy from Murder, True Crime Stories. Every week they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Conor's infectious energy will make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on Earth. Follow What the Fact, wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact is. Welcome back to Crimes of Infamy. Okay Sabrina, just like we always do, let's kick off the episode the exact same way. Great. We are going to play a quick game of two truths and a lie about today's subject Henry Lee Lucas, who if you were sitting here with us today, he would really love this game. He would. Okay, so the first one. In October of 1978, Henry Lee Lucas drove over 11,000 miles, killing at least seven victims. Number two, he confessed to killing upwards of 600 people. Geez. And number three, he was part of a cannibalistic, satanic cult called The Hands of Death, supposedly murdering and eating people. Great. Lovely. Which one's the lie? You know, you might be trying to guess which one's the lie and the truth is we're tricking you. Because they're all lies. Thank God they're not all truths. But Henry Lee Lucas did in fact state all of these as facts. And officials really did believe him for what feels like far too long, but we had to trick you because it felt very apropos for this episode and in discussing Henry Lee Lucas. And although we can't be certain of how many people were actually victims of Henry Lee Lucas, there is no doubt that he was a prolific and terrifying sociopathic killer. And today we will tell you all about this guy, Henry Lee Lucas. His many confessions and the confirmed victims whose lives were lost by his hand will also learn how his story and its confounding nature inspired the film Henry portrait of a serial killer. A movie that was so shocking, it received a rare X rating. And that was very well deserved. Yeah, you watched it. I did not. I think I'm tapping out a PG-13 these days. I might be joining you there. Welcome to Crimes of Infamy, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Wear your hosts, Sabrina Deanna Roca and Corinne Bienn. Every Tuesday we're exploring a different corner of the true crime universe examining cases that left a permanent impact on society. And this season is all about the crimes behind the world's most iconic horror movies. So make sure to hit that subscribe button to join our community so you never miss an episode. Today we're talking about Henry Lee Lucas, aka the confession killer who inspired the cult 1986 film Henry portrait of a serial killer. Let's get into it. Wear Sabrina Deanna Roca and Corinne Bienn. You can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life. This season is all about the crimes behind the world's most iconic horror movies. And today we are talking about Henry Lee Lucas, also known as the confession killer. His crimes both confirmed and alleged inspired the cult 1986 film Henry portrait of a serial killer. A warning before we begin, this episode contains descriptions of murder, sexual assault, cannibalism and the killing of children, so please listen with care. Henry Lee Lucas's story is an ever-shifting tale of fact versus fiction and really just a real, what the fuck when it comes to investigative work. He's been convicted of 11 murders, although only three of those were actually confirmed. And he's confessed to hundreds more, many of which have been discredited, thank God. And we'll get into that in a little bit. So while it isn't clear how many victims Henry actually took, we do want to say the names of the three women who have been confirmed beyond confession. His own mother, Nelly Lucas, who went by Viola, 15-year-old Frida or Becky Powell, and 82-year-old Kate Rich. Henry spent time in jail for the murder of his mother, and he even warned police that if he were released, he would leave bodies on their doorstep. Sure enough, he did keep killing when he was released. We know that he took the lives of Becky and Kate, and then once in custody Lucas confessed to hundreds of other murders from all around the country. He even went on what we're calling a murder tour, truly going crime scene to crime scene with police, buddy-buddying with the police, closing case after case, which is what earned him the nickname the confession killer. It was the uncertain nature of Henry's crimes that drew the attention of director John McNaughton. He created a heavily speculative film about the killer, and it was called Henry, a portrait of a serial killer, and the film focuses less on the hard backs of the story, and more so on the imagined life of a horrific killer without the typical glamour that is seen in most Hollywood films, and it's very disturbing of a film. Yeah, so in case you haven't seen it, here's a quick synopsis. A psychopathic drifter travels the country attacking random people that he encounters, and along the way he joins forces with an old friend coaxing this friend into a killing spree. And like his real life counterpart, the Henry we see in the movie is chillingly cold and unnervingly detached. He changes his story constantly, and he's capable of unthinkable violence. And unlike a lot of movies that we have covered so far on this show, this was not just influenced by Henry, it's a loosely based biopic, and of course in both the movie version of the story and in real life, Henry Lee Lucas lied about most of the crimes that he committed, but what is true is he was not alone for all of his crimes. Some of his later crimes were said to be committed with his co-conspirator friend, and supposed lover, Otis L. Wood Tool, and together they crossed the country on a deadly mission to leave a trail of death in their wake. It's early October 1984 in Georgetown, Texas. The Williamson County jail has become an unlikely destination. Reporters, detectives, and officers are filing in day after day, and not for a trial or a hearing, but to meet the man who sits at the center of it all. Henry Lee Lucas. Now for months, reporters and lawmen alike have come here to talk to Henry Lee Lucas. Police officers across Texas have crowded into the small visiting room, hoping that Henry might be the key to solving some of their cases that have run cold. Henry has become the jail's grim attraction. He leans back in his chair, cigarette dangling from his fingers, a cup of bitter coffee at his side. And with eerie calm, he recounts his murders. He describes, stabbing, strangling, and shooting with the same casual tone that others might use to describe making dinner. He is confident. He is comfortable. He is an animal who knows that the cage belongs to him. Today Cynthia Gourney, a journalist, sits across the table. Henry sizes her up, his eyes sharp but detached. When he speaks, he doesn't lower his voice or disguise his nature. There's no need. Murder isn't a confession for Henry. It is a fact of his life. Cynthia knows that his victims were often young women who were out alone at night. And maybe it's Henry's casual tone that urges her to ask her next question. She reminds Henry that she herself is a woman who often goes out walking alone at night. If Henry was a free man and saw her out in the world, would he kill her? Henry takes a long drag, the silence stretching. He doesn't look at her. He doesn't need to. Finally, he exhales, and with a quiet certainty, he answers, probably, yes. I picture her as Jody Foster. Ah, silence of lambs, like going heads ahead. In this case, it really just blows my mind. I mean, there's so many aspects of it that we're going to get into. I think I could talk about this for hours and hours on end. You know people do. And having a couple. psyched degrees under my belt. I will tell you that my forensics like class, this guy comes up. Oh, all the time. Right. Leading the witness, false confessions, trusting the minds of a serial killer. And I do think that there was some, I do think that there were some speculations that he was also someone who was used in the sort of like mine hunter style FBI case of understanding the profile of serial killers. Interesting. Yeah. So he wasn't like officially listed as one of the killers that were used for that. But some people speculate that he was kind of like an extra add-on. I mean, psychologically, there is a lot to unpack here. There is. And we are going to do that. By 1984, Henry Lee Lucas had become infamous amongst law enforcement. Investigators all over the country traveled the death row inmate from state to state, totalling him to various crime scenes, just bringing him along and successfully closing hundreds of cold case murders all based on Henry's confessions. At first cops and reporters were amazed at just how willing Henry was to confess. He seemed like the answer to all their prayers. And finally, their cold cases could be resolved and the countless victims and their families could finally get justice. But we're going to raise a red flag right at the top. How could one man commit a murder in Spokane, Washington on October 2nd, 1978, then drive 2,000 miles to High Island, Texas, attempt a murder on October 4th. That's two days later. Drive another 600 miles to kill in Saline, Arkansas on October 6th. Get in the car again, drive another 950 miles to kill in New Mexico on October 16th. Drive another 1,000 miles to kill Nevada on October 27th. Drive another 1,600 miles to commit another murder in Bozer City, Louisiana on October 29th. Drive another 2,100 miles to murder another random victim in Kennewick, Washington on October 30th. Drive another 2,000 miles in two days to commit another random and violent murder in Jefferson City, Missouri. If you couldn't keep track, that was kind of the point. This is based on true confessions that he made. And if these were all true, that would mean that he drove 11,000 miles in a month. Basically, like, no sleep, no eat, just murder. No eat, no eat. Yes, he had no sleep. It's not worth probably just like mine. It's just not possible. It's not. And also, like, even if this were possible, the fact that he didn't get pulled over for speeding along the way, there was no other, either he teleports or this has to be somewhat false, right? And this is the question a lot of people had because this is next to impossible. And that is why we know Henry Lucas as a big fat liar. Stamp it on his forehead. Unfortunately, though, investigators were really caught up in the whirlwind of closing all these cases. You know, like they have this case that they've been working on. They have no more clues. It's just kind of sitting here. It's a total cold case. And then suddenly this guy, a murderer comes along and is like, oh, yeah, I know some of the details of this case. I will confess to this. And suddenly your case is closed. Like that seems really great. That's really attractive for them. And so with that, they were kind of caught up in it and they weren't doing all their due diligence that was required for a very long time. And these confessions were taken as fact. But eventually, people started being like, hmm, hey, I don't think that this is possible, right? And eventually enough reporters and even Henry Lee Lucas's own defense team made it clear nobody could have committed this many crimes, even if they wanted to. So the big question here in this case is why, why would Henry Lee Lucas take credit for all of these murders that he didn't actually commit? Was it for fame, for power, to spark more fear, to prove a point, or maybe to get more strawberry milkshakes? I do. I'm motivated by strawberry milkshakes. Henry Lee Lucas was as well. In order to answer all of those questions, we're going to try to get inside of Henry Lee Lucas's head. And the best way to do that is to rewind and look at what happened in the very beginning of his life. All right. Henry's upbringing is actually really, really tragic and devastating. There's a content warning right here right now, because I even texted you and was like, I feel icky and sick about this. Yeah. It's hard to say how loud. Bro, I want to recite the content warning because there is so many acts of violence against young Henry that are so unfathomable and heinous, like it does make me think if he had a different childhood, would the outcome really be different. And I kind of believe it. I think yes. Okay. Henry Lee Lucas was born on August 23rd, 1936 in Blackburg, Virginia, to his mother, Nellie, Viola, Dixon, Lucas, and his father, Anderson, Lucas, who went by NOAA. Henry Lee Lucas was the youngest of nine children, and his mother was a violent abusive woman. His father was a double amputee having had lost both of his legs in a railroad accident, and he was also an alcoholic. So his early years were marked with a lot of violence, tension, sexual abuse. And it was said that by the time he was 10 years old, he himself was addicted to alcohol, 10. So things were really grim for Henry. And then around the age of 10, and there are some variations with this story. But there is a version that claims that Henry got into a fight with his brother that turned really, really ugly to the point that they were fighting over a knife, and that Henry's brother slashed him in the eye with it. And because of this fight, Henry had to have his left eye removed, and he wore a glass prosthetic for the rest of his life. The second iteration of this story is a lot more grim. It wasn't a knife fight between brothers, but that Henry's own mother hit him repeatedly over and over that it left permanent damage to his eye. And unfortunately, we couldn't find any hospital records or documents to verify which story is true, and Henry himself did share both iterations of this. So it is a little bit murky. But based on what we are about to share, we do have reason to believe that perhaps the second is true that his mother was responsible. Because as a child, Henry was severely abused by his mother, Viola Nelly Lucas. She regularly beat Henry and ridiculed him constantly. And according to Henry, she once beat him so violently and repeatedly with a piece of wood that he was knocked unconscious. But it was more than unconscious. He was left lying there in his own blood in a coma for over 24 hours before being taken to a hospital. And by the time he was brought to get medical attention, there was a reputable damage to his brain. I read one report that said that when he was bleeding on the ground, his parents were like, oh, he's just playing dead. This is why this one's so. Yeah. It gets worse. It gets worse, which is hard to believe, while the specifics of this attack are hard to actually verify. After Henry Lee Lucas's arrest, he did have multiple brain scans done and tests that did confirm he suffered severe brain damage to both his frontal and temporal lobes that likely did it back to ages 7 to 9, which already you can understand how that would impact a lot of his rational and decision thinking moving forward in his life. Yeah, it's all very horrific. And his mother, Nellie, was known to have these really unpredictable bouts of rage. No one was safe, not even Henry's dad, Noah, who suffered a lot of abuse from her as well. And due to his accident, he had very little ability to physically stop the abuse of his children or himself. And actually when Henry was only about 12 or 13, his father, Noah, decided to drink a fair amount of liquor, wield himself outside into the freezing snowy night and succumb to the elements he died of hypothermia. Wild. Yeah. So it's very evident that Henry's mother was just a terror to everyone. And like, terror isn't even the right word. She was a true monster. Yeah. And obviously, you know, she probably had her own demons, but that's absolutely no excuse. Nothing excuses the actions of his mother. Nothing excuses the actions of him later in life, even though he did endure all of this horrible abuse. He did have brain damage, but that doesn't excuse someone for murderous actions later in life. It is really tragic to look back and see all of this that happened. Right. And this is a really hard, a couple sentences for me to say, but his mother was said to pay the bills with sex work and often service clients in the family home with the children around. And according to Henry, she actually forced him to watch as she did this. I mean, he was a child. Yeah. And he still knew that this was wrong. But his mother would force him to watch. She would also have him wear dresses and then like would laugh at him. This kind of exposure to sex at such a young age, it's like sex and shame. Yeah. Well, exactly. It would cause such psychological damage to anyone. It makes him associate sex with domination, coercion, feelings of shame and fear. And if that's not enough, it's also believed, and again, this is according to Henry, that one of his mom's boyfriends taught him to kill and then have sex with animals, which is something that we do know and has been confirmed that Henry did continue to do in adulthood. Okay. Yeah. So has everyone feeling with a little temperature check? disturbed. We're all that very disturbed, right? Yeah. So already we understand how Henry grew up to be and become the killer that we know him to be. He was so desperate as a child to get out of this house, especially after his father Noah died. And he spent a lot of his childhood just wandering around town, which soon turned into boredom, which soon turned into him stealing from local businesses. And this was also around the time when he would commit his first murder, or so he said. And it is really important to note that this crime has never been confirmed. Allegedly, when Henry was about 14 years old, he was romantically interested in a girl named Laura Burnley. And he wanted to have sex with her, but Laura rejected him and apparently laughed at him and refused to sleep with him. And in anger, Henry allegedly stabbed her to death, or he also had told many different versions where he strangled her to death in what he called a fit of frustration. He then buried her body in a field nearby. And Henry would later say that this is the moment where killing became his passion and that the sudden explosion of fury may have been linked to the abuse he suffered from his mother. But there is one major issue with this story. There is no record of a missing person with this name. So Laura Burnley from that time just does not exist. In fact, local authorities could never even corroborate that a Laura Burnley even existed. Like he could have made up that name. Yes. Yeah. So even his first self-proclaimed murder might be a lie. And that is one amongst hundreds of confessions from him. Henry later retracted his confession to this murder. But we can tell you this. As Henry got older, he started to run into trouble with the law for stealing. He spent most of his teen years in and out of prison. After being released, 23-year-old Henry went to go visit his now aging mother at her home in Tacoma, Michigan, where she lived alone. And the details of what happened next are a little unclear. But we can tell you the consequences were deadly. It was January 11, 1960, and Henry was visiting his mother when the two of them got into a heated argument. And according to Henry, his mother struck him. The two got into a physical altercation. They were fighting. And he hit her back. She then stumbles backwards and blood begins to just pour and ooze and spray out of her neck. And that is when he realized that when he hit her, he was holding a knife at the time. So basically how'd that get there? Oopsy. He realized he stabbed his mother. And in shock, Henry then leaves. He flees the house and runs. Neighbors discovered her and took her to the hospital, and she actually did remain alive until the next day, which is wild, given the trauma that she experienced from the stabbing. But ultimately, she did succumb to her injuries and she passed away on January 12, 1960. So now Henry is on the run. And he is filled with a mix of very, very complicated emotions. He, keep in mind like his mother, had abused him his entire life. But also it's his mother. And so he's racked with guilt so much so that by January 12, he actually turns around and drives back to, to come to, to check on his mother. And he wanted to make sure she was okay. But by the time he returned, his mother was deceased and the police were investigating her murder, he was arrested. And without much pushback, he did confess to murdering his mother. He was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 20 to 40 years behind bars. And now this is one of the parts of this case that blows my mind and makes me question so much what is going on with the justice system. So due to overcrowding, Henry only served 10 years. Okay, I do have to say I kind of understand that because so far his only crimes were theft and the person he killed was not just a random person. It was his abuser from years and years and years. So he literally says to police that if he were released from prison, he will leave bodies at their door. And they're like, you know what? I don't believe them. They prevailed him in 1970. That doesn't help. And he was sentenced originally to 20 to 40 years. And he only served 10. Nevertheless, Henry was paroled. And suddenly at age 33, Henry is a free man again. But I was promised Henry did in fact murder again. It's 1970 and 33 year old Henry Lee Lucas is a free man after being released from prison a decade early after killing his own mother. And not even because of good behavior. The prison had simply been too crowded. Henry warned the police not to let him out that he would kill again if he had the chance. And today, he thinks he might just do it. Henry is in the small town of Palmyra, Michigan with a gun in his pocket and a desire to use it. As he approaches a bus stop, he sees a group of young girls. They're all alone. And Henry decides to strike. He approaches the girls and draws his weapon. As they turn to face him, Henry drinks in the fear in their eyes. It's like a drug to him. And he needs more. So he grabs one of the girls and tells them all to come with him. But instead of complying, they scream. Henry tries to run, but he doesn't get far. And before he knows it, he's in the back of a police cruiser, heading back to prison. Happy Halloween, Crime House listeners. I'm Vanessa Richardson. Did you know horror films like Abigail and Sinister were based on true stories? Join me every Sunday this month on Crime House 24/7 for Crime House of Horrors, where I dive into four stories behind some of our favorite scary movies. From Abigail, the autopsy of Jane Doe, Sinister, and the taking of Deborah Logan, you'll find one thing in common. The truth is scarier than fiction. Listen every Sunday on Crime House 24/7 or join Crime House Plus for all four right now. Add free. Subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify or at CrimeHousePlus.com. Henry spent five years in prison for this attempted kidnapping, which is wild that he spent nearly the same amount of time for an attempted kidnapping that he spent for murdering his mother. I guess that's true. And it's like why so little time again going back to the threat that bodies would be like he's committed to what he said. Yes, he would do. And so it's a little bit befuddling, but he was released in 1975 and Henry was again a free man. Despite being free, Henry felt adrift. And in prison, he kind of had this semblance of structure and stability, which is something he'd never had in his childhood. And now that he was back out into the world, it reminded him that the stable home that he so dreamed of was next to impossible for him to have. He spent the next several years moving around quite a bit, working on jobs, day labor, mechanical work, farm hand work, etc. Just whatever you pick up wherever he was, he would take. He spent some time in Florida, Maryland, Texas, Michigan. He often lived in cheap motels, abandoned buildings or with friends. So I can kind of see now why so many of his confessions that were all over the US make sense, because he was living all over the place. He probably was familiar with a lot of the places when these crimes took place. Anyway, this is the perfect segue because there was one friend who he felt very deeply connected to. And this person is deeply connected to Henry's legacy. And that is Otis Tool. So sometime between 1975 and 1977, Henry was in line at a soup kitchen in Florida when he struck up conversation with another man. This stranger introduced himself as Otis Tool, and the two of them hit it off immediately. They both came from deeply abusive and neglectful upbringing, and Henry felt this sort of kinship between them. Finally, there's someone here standing next to me who understands me, his past, his present, and his urges. And by this time, Otis himself had a miles-long rap sheet, arson, petty crimes, violence, and although not yet publicly known, he had also committed murder at this point. And together, this pair became a deadly duo. In later interviews, Henry described Otis as his companion, co-conspirator, and an occasional lover. But it wasn't Otis' looks that drew Henry to him. It was his mutual obsession with murder, rape, and violence. And this sort of shared fixation, possibly is what sparked this deadly road trip that they would embark on. Yeah. In 1979, the two decided to travel across the country together. Otis and Henry stopped to take odd jobs along the way wherever they could. And it was during this time period. So it was between 1979 and 1983. The Henry claimed he committed most of his murders. And he said Otis was right there by his side. This is all allegedly, keep in mind. Claimed, he said. He changes his stories a lot. 600 bodies, supposedly. Henry later described his constant killing as an impulse. He said that it was something that became more enjoyable and easier and easier as the more time passed. And especially when Otis was around. He said he preferred female victims, especially women who hitchhiked, but he had no traditional MO. Like it didn't matter the way in which he killed someone. He would strangle them, choke them, a straight shot to the head with a gun. It didn't seem to matter to Henry or to Otis, and Henry himself said, "I have killed them every way there is except poison." Which like this in and of itself, I can understand where he would be such an interesting case for someone who's studying the mind of a killer, because usually there is an MO, or at least like some sort of pattern between either victim or how someone is killed. But here, it's just random. It's random, the place and time is random, how they're found is random. It's the only thing, unfortunately, that seems to be the common denominator is that they are women, or sometimes girls. Yeah. Again, this is all so he says. It really is hard to know what Henry was really up to, and we'll get into that a little bit more in a bit. So during this time, we do know that while budding up with Otis, he was introduced to Otis's niece, 13-year-old Frida Powell, who went by Becky. Becky had run away from her family and was living with Otis in Jacksonville, Florida. And Henry and Becky became quickly attached to one another. Becky saw Henry as almost a protective fatherly figure, and Henry would dope on Becky. And by his own later accounts, Henry claimed to love Becky that she represented everything he had never had before, affection, companionship, and a sense of being needed. He said that he liked the way she looked up to him, which already read flags like this is not a healthy relationship, clearly. But I do think the role that Becky plays in Henry's life is really, really important when we're discussing how he's acting psychologically. Becky joined Henry and Otis on their travels, and at some point, Henry even decided to split off from Otis and go just with Becky and drive out West, just the two of them. I am so curious how that conversation went, because Otis was also, it was like his best friend and an occasional lover, and now who's saying, "Hey, you're a young, female relative. I prefer to be alone with her. It's almost like a near breakup, I feel." It does have that, but later, as we'll discuss, Otis still loves Henry and the relationship they have doesn't seem impaired in any way by this action. There's no healthy relationships all around in this episode. So in 1982, Becky and Henry Lee Lucas make their way to Texas, and they joined a religious group here called The House of Prayer. This group helped them find a job, and then the couple was hired to work on a property owned by an 82-year-old woman named Kate Rich. Remember her name. We're going to come back to her. Immediately, as soon as I hear this, my heart is pounding for Kate. Yes. They were supposed to be Kate's caretaker while they also managed her property. And for a while, Henry, Becky, and Kate got along great, but it didn't last because soon, Becky started complaining, and she's young. It makes sense. She starts complaining. She's barely a teenager. Yeah. She starts complaining about being homesick and wanting to go back home to Florida. So the pair left Kate Rich's and the House of Prayer. But they did not make it far because according to Henry, he didn't like that Becky wanted to go home. So in a fit of rage, Henry took Becky out to a field and a remote part of Texas. He then killed her, cut up her body, and scattered her remains across the barren landscape. Which is horrific, but it also does remind me a bit of his very first confession where it's like a woman rejects him for something, and he just snaps and gives them. Right. So this act of murdering the only person that he ever truly loved sent Henry into this spiral and the guilt started to eat away at him. This led to a lot of his future decisions and presumably a lot of his future lies. But before we get into that, let's talk about what happened immediately after he murdered Becky left. So he would assume that he would have been on the run again. But no, instead, he goes and he returns to Kate Rich's ranch and stays with her. But people are growing suspicious of Henry, because there are other people around the ranch and other people that are around the two of them, and they felt like he, from what they could see and perceive, he was mistreating Kate. And so they actually asked him to leave. Henry did not take too kindly to this and he didn't like being told what to do. He especially didn't like being told to leave. So again, what happens next is difficult to confirm. I feel like how many times am I saying that in this episode, but it is true. It's hard. It's also because Henry is the only one there and who is the only one alive to now tell the story. But apparently being angered by being asked to leave Henry claims that he then alert Kate away on other pretense of running errands, he then attacked and killed her and he claimed he hid Kate's body in a drainage pipe and claimed he later returned to the field, retrieved her body, took the body to an abandoned home and attempted to cremate her remains. After murdering Becky and Kate mere months apart, Henry continues to drift, living out of his car, picking up odd jobs, all while this guilt for murdering specifically Becky is festering under the surface. And for a year, Henry lives his life undetected, until 1983. On June 11th of that year, Henry Lucas was arrested for having an illegal firearm. It was a routine arrest, unrelated to any suspected murders, Texas police take Henry to a local jail where they place him in a cell and for most people, this charge would result in maybe a fine. Any a year or two of jail time, but Henry was not most people. Now behind bars, this guilt for murdering Becky reached a penultimate and Henry turns to the cops and tells them that he has something to confess, that he was actually a killer and that he had murdered at least two women, his teenage girlfriend and an elderly woman. But the more Henry talks, the more the body started adding up. And it's from this very jail cell that the myth of Henry Lee Lucas began to take shape. It's late 1983 at the Georgetown, Texas, jail, a group of police officers gather around a cluttered table, a mess of coffee cups, file folders, legal pads, ash trays, and notebooks. For months, detectives just like them have been coming here to talk to the jail's star prisoner, 47-year-old Henry Lee Lucas. By now law enforcement has fallen into a kind of agreement with Henry. They bring their cold case files to Henry, hoping he might confess to committing these murders. And in exchange for his cooperation, Henry more or less gets whatever he wants. But today, the one thing he wants more than anything else is a strawberry milkshake. The officers quickly clear space off the table so that Henry has room to set down his drink. And as they do, Henry smiles at them. Calling them like they're his old buddies. One by one, the lawmen show Henry their files, pictures, case notes, whatever information they have in the hopes of jogging Henry's memory. Photos seem to be the most helpful tool, seeing a woman's face, or even the way her body lies mangled in a crime scene photo, appears to be the best way to get Henry to talk. And almost always, Henry winds up remembering something. In fact, it's getting difficult to keep up with the growing number of murders Henry has confessed to committing. By now, police officers from all over the U.S. are dying to get a meeting with Henry, each with their own victims. The more Henry talks, the more convincing he gets. He glows to one officer saying, quote, "I've got him scattered across the country. And by the end of his confession's tour, he has confessed to about 600 murders." If I were one of the investigators, of course I can say that's all in hindsight, right? But if I were one of the investigators, it wouldn't make much sense to me that this guy would remember details of 600 plus crimes when the initial crimes that he first confessed to. It seemed like a snap decision and he was really scattered in the way that even if we look at Kate Rich, the way that he kept going back to her body and moving her and like not, he so didn't have a plan. He didn't know what he was doing. So the fact that all of these other murders, he would remember details of these 600 plus victims and probably had a lot more skill, if that's not an interesting design. To commit 600 murders. Yeah. He doesn't see it. And get away with it constantly until now he's in prison confessing to it, does feel unfathomable. But I think you have to remember not that this like excuses it, but the police and the investigators were so desperate to solve cases, especially cold cases, that I think they got caught up in the chaos of it and the two desperate parties, right? Exactly. Henry Lee Lucas is also desperate for attention and affection and given his strawberry milkshake and what's not. An obsession? Yeah. An apple pie with cheese on top. He's got TVs in all of his cells, like he was getting so much out of this. This was his stable home, right? And so we wanted to make sure he would stay there. You make sure that you spend a lifetime there. And it's also like after the fact of looking back at it, you know, even talking in that narrative scene of like the investigators and detectives are literally giving him photos. And then all of a sudden he's like, Oh, yes, I remember that woman. She had brown hair. And it's like, Wait, are you just showing it? You're leading the witness. This is why he's he comes up and friends. sick psych classes. But all of this is very, very real. Henry Lee Lucas went from a man who was arrested from illegally carrying a firearm to now being this celebrity killer that everyone talked about. He led police to Kate Rich's burned remains and became a reputable source because here he was confessing to a murder and was able to literally show them where he kept the person's remains. So now they trust him, now they believe him. Investigators all over the country got really caught up in the potential of closing cases, these cool cases that many of the investigations were very negligent in the way that they went about closing these cases and getting questions. I really recommend watching the Confessions Killer on Netflix, like the five-part series. It is wild because there is so much more in this and there's like political rivalries and FBI involvement and it gets chaotic. Everyone against this one guy who's just like also what do we want to say? Right. It's wild. I shouldn't give him that voice. He is a killer. Yeah, even though he falsely confessed to hundreds, he did kill a few people still. It is also important to remember that he has severe brain damage. His IQ, I think, was like between 70 and 80. Like it's very, very low. All of these investigators are giving this man who does have a low IQ, so much power and believing in him when like, I don't know that you really should. Right. Yeah. And he had motivations of his own to say these things and to stay where he was. And did he even understand exactly what he was confessing to? Right. We don't know. But we do know that in October of 1983, Henry was convicted of the murder of Catherine Rich and he was sentenced to 75 years behind bars. One month later, he was also convicted of killing Becky Powell and now he faced life in prison. So now with two confirmed murders under his belt, Henry Lee Lucas really did establish himself at least at first as someone whose confessions could be taken seriously. So when he confessed to another murder that was called the orange socks case, please really didn't have reason to doubt him. But here is where things really start to get messy because at this point, Henry Lee Lucas is facing life in prison. But remember, the guilt for killing Becky is really, really eating away at him. According to Henry himself, he doesn't want to live any longer because of this guilt for killing Becky. But according to his religious beliefs, if he were to die by suicide, he would not be able to join Becky's soul in heaven. So Henry Lee Lucas comes up with a plan to commit legal suicide as he called it. And he even called it that to his defense attorneys. I'm curious how you go about even getting a defense attorney for someone like him because can you imagine being a defense attorney and being like, you're coming in to try to get the best deal for someone who is committed potentially 600 murders? I think there were probably so many different cases and like different trials. Yeah, his attorneys in the documentary on Netflix, they're like, this was the hardest case because we were trying to defend someone who didn't want to be defended. But to understand all of this, and especially the legal suicide aspect of it, tells about the orange socks case, Karen. Well, it is Halloween night, October 31st, 1979, and a young woman was so unmurdered in Georgetown, Texas. There was nothing on this woman to identify her. She was completely naked except for a pair of orange socks left on her feet. And this is one of the many cases that was brought to Henry Lee Lucas. And in late 1983, he confessed to killing this woman. So this is four years after the crime took place. He gave details that seemed to match the crime scene exactly. It did help that investigator shared crime scene photos and files with him before his confession, right? Because that's how they got him to confess. Yes. You're like, oh, he just needs a little motivation. He needs a reminder of what the crime scene looks like. How convenient. Based on the confession, his confession regarding the murder of orange socks case, he was facing the death penalty, which brings us to his plan for legal suicide. As his defense attorneys attempted to defend Lucas, they found multiple pieces of evidence that placed Henry Lee Lucas 1,100 miles away from Georgetown, Texas on that day. He had clocked in for work. Again, 1,100 miles away hours before the murder took place. He cashed a check in that same place where he was 1,100 miles away and multiple witnesses claimed to see him that day. But then Otis tool Henry's buddy backed up Henry's murder claims because Otis is willing to back Henry up for anything and everything. Henry's defense attorneys remembered asking tool where he and Henry were on that day. And tool looks at them goes, well, where did Henry say we were? That's my favorite. It's like, how do you even continue with this point investigating these people? It's like, they're clearly lying. They'll say whatever you want them to say. And you would think like all this conflicting evidence, there would be a mistrial or something. But no, Henry can pass and that was enough. So he was sentenced to death. And as he left the courtroom, he left with a smile on his face. And he said, and this was a direct quote, I'm going to die for something I didn't do. But I'm happy to die. Which does like I know that he's a killer and we're not supposed to feel sorry for killers. But like this is one of the complicated cases where because of just the horror that he faces a child and his brain damage and just everything. I do feel sorry that he was so unhappy. And he just he wanted to be with Becky. There's a shift that happens in Henry Lucas's mind. I think at first it does start with this like desire to commit as he calls it legal suicide and be reunited with Becky. But then I think it shifts at a point pretty soon where he's like, Oh, given my whole life wanted to feel wanted, needed, important, safe, given all of these like loving things that he you were supposed to get from a mother and from your family. And I think he started getting that from all the police and all of the investigations that are in all these confessions that he's closing that his desire does end up shifting. And he doesn't want to die. Given that he's confessed to all of these different murders. And now he's saying I'm going to die for something I didn't do. That's a very chilling statement. But he's also basically saying, Hey, I didn't do this. Yet people still believe all of his confessions. Yeah. And now with him on death row investigators all over the country want Henry to help them close as many cold cases as possible before he said to die. So the floodgates opened. Henry continued to confess and due to his confessions law enforcement bureaus across the country closed over 200 cases. The life sentences continue to pile up in by 1985 Henry had been convicted of 11 murders in total. And I'm sure you're all wondering, how is this not a red flag or how is the red flag? Right. Well, people did. And actually the victims families did because they're like, is anyone looking at this? Like this doesn't make any sense. And just to clarify, not all of them because there are a lot of victims families who truly believed for a very long time that Henry Lee Lucas was in fact responsible. Yeah. And then because if you're not in the room when he's doing all these confessions and the police come to you and say, Hey, he knew the details of what your daughter was wearing, where she was the color of her socks, how she was killed. Obviously, like, that's the killer. You don't know that you don't know. We're feeding him all of this information. Yeah. He was just parroting back exactly what they already told him, leading the witness. So many of the families did raise alarm bells. And for instance, Henry confessed to murdering Debbie Sue Williamson on August 24, 1975, outside of her home in Lubbock, Texas. But the family reviewed Henry's confession and they were like, there are so many details that are wrong here. For example, Henry claim to have gone into the sliding glass door, but in their house at the time of this crime, that wasn't possible. And the family knew that because they had a huge hutch up against a sliding glass door, so you couldn't have entered that way. Yeah. Henry also got other basic details wrong, like how she was killed, what she was wearing, where her body was found. And the family actually went so far as to do their own investigation because the police were ignoring them. They're like, no, we caught the killer. He confessed that case clothes were done. So the family was like, well, this doesn't feel like real justice because we know that this isn't who killed our daughter. And so they went on to do their own investigation. Did you know penicillin, the drug that has saved more lives than any other in history, was discovered because a scientist forgot to clean a petri dish before going on vacation? I'm Connor Tomlinson and history is my thing has been my whole life and I'm Carter Roy and this is what the fact the history lesson you actually wished you had in high school with everything they cut for being too interesting put back in every week we take the wildest true things that ever happened and tell you the whole story behind them. I bring the history, I bring the facts, the tangents and the occasional British accent. The wildest stuff is real and the real stuff is wilder than you think. New episodes every Wednesday follow what the fact on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or subscribe on YouTube at what the fact pod. So an item of jewelry, like a watch or something that they couldn't find anywhere at home. So they thought that it had been on her body when she was murdered and that the killer took it. So that small little detail was in the police files and Henry recalled it when he was saying the confession. He's like, "Yeah, I took her watch." But then years later, the family found that watch at home. And so they were like, "Clearly, he couldn't have done it because he made up this fact." And then it also gets muddy, too, because if he's getting some of the details right and not all of them, but then you know in a broader context that this guy is confessed to so many killings, you're like, you start to rationalize with yourself. And you're like, "Okay, well, like, how could he realistically remember all of the details correctly? Maybe that was a mistake and that was someone else that he had murdered." I know. And so it is confusing. It's very confusing. But these are just two small examples among hundreds of cases that had been closed despite things not adding up. Fortunately, in 2022, investigators did identify Debbie Sue Williamson's actual murderer. And he was an active serial killer who was already in prison at the time when they did identify him through DNA. But unfortunately, for so many families, there is no justice because Henry just kept on confessing and the police kept closing cases. It wasn't until 1985 that Dallas reporters began fact-checking the timeline and showing that Henry couldn't possibly have committed as many murders as he confessed to, like, and we brought this up in the very beginning of the episode, but like driving 11,000 miles in the month of October 1978 alone. They mapped out those troubles if it were true. And in their estimate, it meant that Henry had to travel over 4,000 miles in the last day of his trip. So in order for that to make sense, he would have had to driven constantly for those four days, never stopping to eat, sleep, or rest. It was not possible. The investigators started testing Henry and they actually made up fake cases. They gave him the files and they watched him confess to these completely fictional cases. And slowly it became clear to them that Henry didn't actually murder upwards of 600 people that he claimed to have murdered. He was just giving them exactly what they were hoping for, confessions. By 1986, the Texas General's Office released an official review, nicknamed The Lucas Report, the concluded most of his confessions were false. Eventually, he told a reporter that he only truly killed three people. That was his mother, Becky Powell, and Catherine Rich. Those crimes were real, but everything else was a total fabrication. And so now when the Lucas Report comes out, obviously there's a lot of investigators who are still adamant that Henry did commit the crimes, because how embarrassing for them to have to admit that they closed hundreds of cold cases. Yeah, it's not just an accidental like 10, right hundreds, 200, so now there's like this dueling investigation that's happening. There's a group of people who are trying to reopen those cases. And then there's another group of people who are trying to prove that Henry did actually commit them, right? And it's so bad the ego of just the people who were investigating the crimes too, like the pressure from the political parties of those areas. You have the families like everybody's just coming together and there's its chaos. And so at some point during this dueling investigations happening, this woman comes forward claiming to be the supposedly murdered Becky Powell. She knows details that seem impossible for anyone to know unless they were actually Becky Powell. And one of the Netflix episodes ends with the clip of her, this woman on screen being like, it was a shock to me to hear that I was dead. It's all a hoax. This woman, Phyllis Wilcox, became infatuated with Henry after seeing everything on the media. Starts writing him love letters and the two of them become pen pals while he's in prison. Oh, so she gets bet all the information from him? He and her come up with this whole plan. He's in on it. He would give her all the details about Becky and their time together, Becky's upbringing and all this stuff. This guy just can't stop lying. But then also there's a woman for months pretends to be Becky Powell until they are about to give her a polygraph test. And then she confessed that it was all fake. She should have just taken the polygraph out. It's not really reliable. She might have passed. She seemed to be convincing herself so much of it that she might have just wild. Wild. The minds of some people and trying to understand like what motivates them. Yeah. Wow. In 1998, then Texas Governor George W. Bush commuted Henry's death sentence to life in prison based on all the flumsiness of Debra Jackson's case. Henry lived out the rest of his life behind bars and his days of confessing to crime were seemingly behind him. Instead, he acted as a model prisoner. He focused their rest of his life on religious worship. And on March 12, 2001, Henry Lee Lucas died of natural causes behind bars. And we did also want to share a little bit more information about what happened to Otis tool. And the truth is, we don't really know a lot about what happened with him or what he did when him and Henry supposedly split up and Henry and Becky went off on their own. We do know that Otis did back up a lot of Henry's lies for multiple reasons. Want to support his friend, but also probably to soak up his own fame like he sees Henry becoming this famous figure. And now he's like, I'm going to do this too. He even makes up a lie saying that he and Henry were in a satanic cult called the hands of death. And together, they trained in ritual killings, cannibalism and abduction. And I read up thing that Henry was like, yeah, yeah, Otis and I were in this cult. We got tons of tattoos like demonic satanic tattoos that when I became religious disappeared off of my body. So it's almost like it's confusing because you're like, are they just truly lying? Do they live in this world of delusion or do they together not understand the difference between like play and imagination and where that ends in the real world? I mean, I think we can definitely say their understanding of their consequences are pretty limited. And by 1985, Otis Tool was convicted of multiple murders. And he also confessed to killing six year old Adam Walsh, which everyone probably knows, especially if you're in the true crime world. This is the son of John Walsh, the host of America's most wanted. Otis Tool was sentenced to death twice in Florida, but on appeal, they were commuted to life in prison. And on September 15th, 1996, Otis Tool died of cirrhosis of the liver. The story just really blows my mind. There's so many elements of it that I was just like, like you were saying, we can hardly understand the psychology of Henry Lee Lucas, but then there's this woman Phyllis Wilcox. There's a lot of stories where women or people become so infatuated with killers that they also have their own psychology that I don't understand. There's a case that I also studied in the same forensic psych class that we looked at Henry Lee Lucas of these twins who married these killer brothers. And both of them ended up being murdered in such gruesome ways. It was just horrible to learn about, but it's like there's so many different layers. And I feel like because of how many opportunities people had to kind of get into his life, given how willing and open he was to confess to whatever or engage with anyone because he was kind of desperate for attention, love, attention, affection, stability, someone to say his name. It did allow a lot of people like that woman in and it just like kept snowballing and even like with the crimes that he did commit in and of itself, I do question how many things are true in that specific case like we also change the story so many times, so it is hard to know is real and what even like his own childhood, it's like he is two different versions of the same moment. Yeah. Anyway, it's all pretty horrific in the years following Henry Lee Lucas's death. The story of him really did change. He is no longer considered the country's most prolific killer. In fact, he's more of a true crimes greatest hoax in the 2019 Netflix series, The Confession Killer, former Texas Rangers reporters and friends of Henry Lee Lucas try to untangle fact from fiction. I really loved the series. I highly recommend watching it, it's five episodes. I wrote this really stupid line and I am regretting it, but I'm going to say it. It's the five episode series that I've had my jaw dropping to the floor more times than any 2000s dance songs say drop it to the floor. I hate myself. Now you're all going to be like, what's Sabrina's psychology? Anyway, this show does discuss the cold cases that Henry claimed to be responsible for how there was very little evidence and how desperate law enforcement agencies were trying to provide answers for grieving families and also selfishly have their own records be like, look, I've solved all these cases. The truth, the real truth was that Henry Lee Lucas had never gotten attention like this before. I believe he got caught up in it and I think there were multiple different elements. I think at first it was a desire to die by legal suicide to join Becky. I think then it became he finally was getting the attention he always so desperately wanted from his childhood. And then I think, and he said this, I don't know how much of a verbal displayed, but I think he enjoyed stirring up fear and chaos amongst the police. But that's exactly what you see in John McNaughton's 1986 film Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. This movie is so disturbing. The movie McNaughton takes a more speculative route focusing on the terror that Henry instilled in the nation, regardless of how true his statements were. and you really can feel that dread in the whole movie. It's so disturbing that it earned an X rating instead of an R for how realistic the violence was. Henry Stocks attacks and murderers his victims like it's nothing. And just like in real life, or in his lies that he told in real life, he killed at random choosing his method of murder in totally arbitrary ways. I sat through that movie and I gasped. I covered my eyes. It is so disturbing. Are you messed up from it? I think I'm already messed up in like life, but I would not recommend that movie to anyone. I think it felt very torture porn like yeah. But at the same time, I look up every movie on Rotten Tomatoes and I'm like, oh, what score does it have? And I'm pretty sure it has like a pretty good, somewhere in the 80% Rotten Tomatoes course set. But then I was like, so how does it have this? And I started doing some reading and I can't take credit for this thought because I didn't think of it. I read an article about it, but it made me appreciate the movie in a different way. Hollywood glamorizes murder in so many ways. Think about a lot of the horror movies we've talked about this season. They're can't be, they're fun. They have these characters that you're rooting for that you want to survive or you feel bad and sympathetic and have empathy for the killers. But this film is just a blatant. You should feel icky about murder movie. And I appreciate that. If that's what they meant to get across, I mean, you feel icky as heck. Yeah, I won't watch it. I've become much more careful about what I watch after I read like one Reddit post that was like, oh my God, the worst movie I've ever seen was a Serbian film. And then I watch the Serbian film. Why would you do that? You're so, because I didn't look up the extra details. I just was like, oh, they think it's f*cked up. I've seen a lot of f*cked up things. I'll be fine. I am not, I am unwell. And so I won't watch, there's my brother, and I watch a ton of horror movies. Your brother has crazy recommendations. No, but he'll tell me now. He'll tell me what something's about. And then he was like, you wouldn't like it. And then I'm like, okay, now I'm not gonna watch it. Yeah. And this is one of those. I'm not gonna watch this. I don't think you should. And I won't. Neither should you. But I do appreciate that. I left it feeling disgusted, because truly I think that's how we should all feel after talking about murder. But whether it's on screen or the pages of a newspaper, Henry's apathy towards human life is maybe one of the scariest aspects of all, and also the way he was raised. With Henry Lee Lucas, it can be impossible to separate fact from fiction. Even now, he remains the credible suspect in multiple cases. Yeah. But if any of those murders were actually his doing, we may never know for sure. Whatever knowledge Henry had, he took it with him to the grave. And even when he was alive, his lies completely outshown his truths. For the families of the victims, whose cases ran cold, and were falsely confessed to by Henry Lee Lucas, just know that we see you, and we understand the pain of a reopened wound triggered by false hope, and it's something no one should ever have to suffer. Yeah. Henry Lee Lucas did that over and over, while law enforcement entertained it. And this is why this case is so devastating. You can cage a monster, but when you feed it, it grows in strength and power. And that is exactly what happened here. Henry Lee Lucas didn't become a celebrity on his own. He was made that way. As the media and law enforcement played into his lies for their own gain, and because of that, his story shouldn't be so much of a horror film as it is a cautionary tale. Well, I also think about how many actual killers got away with murders. Oh my god, yeah. For years. Right, and families are doing their own investigative work to even catch these killers. I feel like a lot of these cases are cautionary tales, and that's the case with a lot of stories we've covered this season. There is a lot from these crimes to take away that go beyond the movies they inspired, and I feel like this was a really fitting case to end on. That's right, because this marks the end of season one, and we are diving right into season two next week with eight more episodes that dive into another realm of True Crime, one that is right up our alley. Can you imagine what it is? We are doing crimes of the paranormal. I'm so excited for this. We do are covering some truly wild stories, some that we have even covered on two girls one ghost, but we're doing a much more deep crime. True crime look at them. We cannot wait to share them with you, and we'd love for you to share what topics you want us to cover in future seasons. As always, we appreciate your support, and we'll see you next week. I feel like we have finally determined what the name. We are going to call all of you. Yes, it seems like many people are actually in support of mommies. I'm so excited. So get ready, mommies. Thank you. We'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. For your hosts, Sabrina, Deanna Roga, and Karen Vien, join us next Tuesday for the start of our new season. And if there are any cases that you would like us to cover, please let us know in the comments. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow crimes of wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. Bye, mommies. The government gets a bad reputation. But did you know that the roads under your feet, the forecast on your phone, the letter in your mailbox, that's all government, too? I'm Professor Lindsey Kormack, and I'm hosting a new podcast called "Government That Doesn't Suck," a long-side Professor Greg Jackson, who you may know from the hit podcast "History" that doesn't suck. Each episode, we dig into the surprising story of an American institution, from the origins of the internet to the National Park Service to the GI Bill, and so much more. You'll hear the stories behind them, plus a conversation with an expert who knows it inside and out. This is the real history of how we built the country under your feet, and you'll never look at any of it the same way again. Listen to and follow, government that doesn't suck, available now wherever you get your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING] Looking for your next podcast? Check out What the Fact. It's a new show from Connor Tomlinson, who you know from Netflix's "Love on the Spectrum," alongside Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What the Fact, wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pot.