Henry Lee Lucas confessed to killing over 600 people but DNA evidence caused controversy surrounding his claims. So what really happened to one of the world’s most infamous killers?
A loner with a glass eye and three teeth, America’s most prolific ‘serial killer’ Henry Lee Lucas was convicted of murdering his mother but confessed to hundreds more.
Making wedding plans with his fiance Stella – who he referred to as his ‘first true love’ – should have been a happy occasion for Lucas. But when his mum stormed into the bar in Michigan and demanded they split up, he saw red.
His girlfriend Stella later said: “When Henry was drunk, he got as mean as mean can be. That night, the old girl really upset me. He truly hated his mom and what she got, she deserved.”
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Henry marched back to his mum’s lodgings where they had a heated argument. “She picked up a broom handle and smacked me with it,” he said. “All I remember is slapping her alongside the side of her neck, but after I did that, I saw her start to fall.
“I grabbed her but she fell to the floor and when I went to pick her up I realised she was dead. Then I noticed I had my knife in my hand and she had been cut.”
His mum died on 12 January 1960 and he later confessed to two more murders – those of his friend Ottis Elwood Toole and 82-year-old Katie Pearl Rich.
Lucas rose to infamy as a claimed serial killer while imprisoned for these crimes when he falsely confessed to approximately 600 other murders to law enforcement officials. Many unsolved cases were closed based on his confessions because the murders were officially attributed to him.
But it turned out that he was a pathological liar and fantasist who only committed a fraction of those crimes. He told the lies in an attempt at notoriety and to win favour with prison officers who rewarded his confessions with steak dinners and TV privileges. His cruel lies mean the families of the victims may never know what actually happened to their loved ones.
An investigation by the Dallas Times-Herald found that it was impossible for Lucas to have committed many of the murders he confessed to. He later retracted his confessions but still admitted he murdered his mother. So how did he come to kill his own parent?
Lucas’ childhood wasn’t a happy one. His mum Viola was a prostitute who reportedly used to make him watch her have sex with men. He lived with his step-dad, mum’s pimp and half brother Andrew in a run down cabin in Virginia.
It is said that psychological and physical abuse was the norm – his mum once knocked him unconscious for three days when she hit him around the head with a wooden plank.
He lost his left eye after his brother accidentally slashed it with a knife. Lucas also claimed that his half brother introduced him to beastiality and showed him how to slit animals throats before having sex with them. At age 13, he also claimed he slept with his brother’s wife. “I hated all my life. I hated everybody,” he said about his childhood.
Henry’s confessions were plunged into doubt when journalist Hugh Aynesworth and others investigated his claims for articles that appeared in The Dallas Times Herald.
They calculated that Henry would have had to use his 13-year-old Ford station wagon to cover 11,000 miles (17,700 kilometres) in one month to he committed the crimes police attributed to him.
After the story appeared in April 1985 and revealed the flawed methods, law enforcement opinion began to sway and the authorites realised that their crimes hadn’t been solved after all.
The Confession Killer – the true story of Henry Lee Lucas – is available on Netflix now.
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