Gisli Gudjonsson PhD " The making of a serial false confessor: The confessions of Henry Lee Lucas" (The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry) p. 417-419, 421, 425 :
"Mr Lucas also fabricated his own confessions, including his confessing to the murder of Jimmy Hoffa (former US union leader) and to being paid to assassinate President Jimmy Carter. No forensic evidence was found to link Mr Lucas with any of these offences."
"A special investigation by the Attorney-General of Texas (Mattox, 1986) into Mr Lucas’s confessions concluded that Mr Lucas was probably respons- ible ior only three murders (his mother, his juvenile girlfriend and the elderly acquaintance) and that his apparent ‘special knowledge’ of the other murders had been obtained from the police themselves.
In April 1984 Mr Lucas was convicted, solely on the basis of his confes- sions, of the murder of an unidentified female in Williamson County, Texas, in 1979 (known as the ‘orange socks’ murder due to the victim wearing orange socks at the time of her death). Mr Lucas confessed to this murder during a series of interviews with the Williamson County sheriff. He also confessed to having raped the woman, which resulted in his being convicted of a capital offence in spite of the fact that there was no physical evidence of rape. This was the only murder for which he received a death sentence. There was no forensic or circumstantial evidence to corroborate Mr Lucas’s confession. He did have a good alibi, which consisted of work records showing his being over 1,300 miles away on the day of the murder (a round- trip of about 2,700 miles) and the following day there was a record of his signing a cheque near his place of work. The alibi evidence was dismissed at the appeal on the basis that it had been available at the time of the trial."
"In early January 1996, at the request of the defence, the author went to Texas and spent 13 hours assessing Mr Lucas. In addition, he read several thousand pages of documents, listened to tape-recordings of the ‘orange socks’ con- fessions and interviewed the Texas Ranger who first interviewed Mr Lucas about the confessions. The author wrote a detailed report and was formally cross-examined on his findings by an assistant Attorney-General. The judge received the psychological testimony by way of two lengthy depositions. After having carefully considered the content and context of the ‘orange socks’ confessions, in conjunction with the psychological evaluation of Mr Lucas, the author testified that it was ‘totally unsafe’ to rely on Mr Lucas’s confessions to the crime as being a true indication of his guilt. Indeed, he believes the ‘orange socks’ confessions to be false and it is likely that Mr Lucas has made more false confessions to murder than any other criminal suspect. In an interview with the present author Mr Lucas estimated that he had made over 3,000 false confessions to murder, which is considerably higher than other estimates. He has consistently given this figure to different people over the years and in view of the massive number of records sent from hundreds of jurisdic- tions around the USA to the Lucas Task Force it appears to be a reasonable estimate, although there are no official records to confirm this.
Mr Lucas told the author that he had no regrets about the confessions, in spite of the fact that he may be executed in the near future as a result of making them. His reasoning for this view is that prior to his arrest in 1983 he was ‘nobody’, that is, he had no friends and nobody listened to him or took an interest in him. Once he began to make false confessions all that changed and he has thoroughly enjoyed his celebrity status and now has many friends."
"THE CONFESSION PROCESS
It is evident that Mr Lucas has confessed to a large number of serious crimes that he did not commit. In October 1982, when he was in jail on a warrant, he falsely confessed to a number of robberies when interviewed by a Texas Ranger. The officer investigated Mr Lucas’s confessions and found them to be false. Mr Lucas appears to have done this for short-term instrumental gains (i.e. to manipulate the police into bringing back another person from Cali- fornia so that he could be interviewed about the disappearance of Mr Lucas’s elderly acquaintance).
Mr Lucas began making confessions to murders after being left in jail on his own over a period of a few days when he was arrested on 11 June 1983. During his period of detention between 11 June and 15 June he was not inter- viewed at all by the police and told the author that he had been completely deprived of coffee and cigarettes, both of which he was addicted to. On 15 June he confessed to a jailer who then passed to Sheriff Conway a written confession to the murders of the juvenile girlfriend and the elderly acquain- tance and to 60 other unspecified murders.
Mr Lucas told the author that he had added the 60 unspecified murders to the confession in order to take his revenge on the police for having arrested him on a made-up firearm charge and kept him in custody. He also stated, unprompted, in court that he had killed about 100 people. Unknown to him there were news reporters in court, which resulted in immense subsequent media attention and a rapid increase in the number of confessions to homi- cides. The author asked Mr Lucas why he had increased the numbers to 100 when he appeared in court. Mr Lucas replied that he had done this to impress the judge.
As far as the ‘orange socks’ killing is concerned, Mr Lucas did not confess to this murder when briefly questioned about it by Texas Ranger Ryan from the Crime Analysis Bulletin around 17 June 1983, even though he was con- fessing to many other murders. Mr Lucas first confessed to the ‘orange socks’ murder when interviewed by Sheriff Boutwell on 22 June 1983."
"No doubt Mr Lucas’s confessions are an embarrassment to law enforce- ment agencies in the USA and the case should make police officers more cau- tious about accepting uncorroborated confessions and providing suspects with ‘special knowledge’ material prior to or while interviewing them.
POSTSCRIPT
In June 1998, a few days prior to Mr Lucas’s execution, the Governor of Texas and the Board of Pardons and Paroles decided to grant clemency and reduce Mr Lucas’s death sentence to life imprisonment.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is grateful for helpful comments on a previous draft of the manu- script by Mr Walter Long from Mr Lucas’s legal team and to Mr Bradley S. Shallady, private investigator, who assisted with providing some of the factual details about the case. Mr Lucas has given the author his written consent for this article to be published. Dr Gisli Gudjonsson, PhD, reader in forensicpsychology, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF"
These quotes are from my post The Mothman, The Intelligence Community, MK-ULTRA and the Gifted Program
Section 11: The Rockefellers and the MIB
David was a wandering Bishop, who was molested as a young man by a priest. Later in life David became a pedophile. He went to a Jesuit highschool in Cleveland at the age of 16. Like all of the men mentioned as MIB, David was a gifted individual.
UFO author Timothy Green Beckley stated in “The UFO Silencers” that Gray Barker was once tailed in his car all the way from Cleveland back to WV. The driver following Barker was wearing a priest’s outfit.
“AC: The Wandering Bishops had three major branches, but they all came out of New York originally. One was the Ofeish line, which was I think more Eastern Orthodox, or Middle Eastern. They stayed in New York, I think… But another branch went to Kentucky. One of the three modern branches was represented by a Kentucky priest who knew Ferrie. That puts Ferrie in the Mothman area. Suspiciously, that KY bishop, Carl Stanley, died the same month as Ferrie. Ferrie died in February of ‘67. Stanley had consecrated Ferrie into his particular order, thus giving Ferrie a little more “juice.” It gave Ferrie the ability to “wear the robe.” If you remember the JFK movie, there was a robe hanging there. Oliver Stone was making reference to the importance of the robe to Ferrie. But Ferrie was also into these monkeys. At least one witness, Judyth Baker, has come forward to say that Ferrie was experimenting on prisoners at a Louisiana prison. He was injecting them with cancerous substances. The monkeys came from “suicided” cancer researcher Mary Sherman. Baker also claims that she was dating Lee Harvey Oswald, and that Lee was also involved in that Angola cancer experimentation. Both Ferrie and Oswald were also involved in the Ochsner Clinic in Louisiana, which was doing cancer research.”
The mothman photographer, Andrew Colvin
Ferrie, Tulane University and Dr. Robert Heath.
Dr. Ochsner and Dr. Sherman Begin “The Project” he date of March 23, 1962 is important. It’s the day that Ochsner’s and Sherman’s research, trying to find a cure for a virulent cancer-causing monkey virus, morphed into a dedicated project to create a biological weapon to kill Fidel Castro.6 It was the same day Ochsner distanced himself from his longtime friend, Clay Shaw, removing him from a position at International House where Shaw had held important positions for over nine years alongside Ochsner. Shaw would thus be ready to quietly assist his old friend in Ochsner’s project to get Castro, as I would soon learn for myself. By May 1963, I had been influenced to join this team, which was compartmentalized so that I never knew the names of all who were involved. Meanwhile, Dave kept his day job with G. Wray Gill, with frequent forays to Guy Banister’s office, serving as a handy link between Banister’s FBI connections and the Mafia. Both sides wanted Castro dead. By May, 1963, Dr. Mary Sherman, Lee Harvey Oswald and I would be working together with Dave, and an array of doctors and scientists who were isolated from each other. The labs were in a ring – I saw initials in log-books, and sign-off sheets – but I never met everyone involved. Isolating us from each other was essential to keeping “The Project” secret.
Judith Baker.
Ferrie was ordained as a Bishop into the old Catholic Church, if I remember correctly. Several of the Wandering Bishops, were hypnotist experts. A lot of members are downtight associated with occult.
Ferrie was also a type of helper for Dr. Robert Heath and his MKULTRA experiments at Tulane.
I wrote the post before I read the Torbitt report or I would have come to a different conclusion.
A lot of assassins have dressed as priests for obvious reasons, and David was connected to that world. Clay Shaw testified that Fred Crispen dressed as a priest when he was on official duty.
All these men were Rockefeller henchmen.
How an alternate suspect in an alleged Lucas murder connects to the JFK assassination
(See https://cavdef.org/w/index.php?title=Serial_killers#dorothycollins for many of the references)
In late 1984, Lucas confessed to deputies of the McLennan County Sheriff's Office (in Waco) that he had killed Dorothy Collins. Collins was found murdered on January 25, 1981, after having last been seen around midnight at her apartment. She was known to be a prostitute, allegedly a self-employed sex worker rather than a trafficking victim; whether that's truly the case is unclear. One of the areas that she worked was Brown's Fine Foods aka the Sands, an after-hours nightclub whose owner was seemingly a longtime "informant" of Truman Simons. (Look up the Lake Waco murders and Juanita White murder for more on the significance of Simons + his "informants".)
The interviewing detectives were Billy Rich and Elijah Dickerson. Interestingly, Dickerson was later the responding officer in 1987 when David Koresh and his followers complained about rival Branch Davidian leader George Roden allegedly digging up a corpse. Dickerson told Koresh's group to gather evidence of this crime, which led to them storming Mount Carmel and getting into a shootout with Roden. Koresh and his followers were charged with attempted murder for this shootout, but none were convicted, and there are signs that the DA's office (led at the time by Truman Simons' good buddy Vic Feazell) threw the case. One might wonder if Koresh and his followers were puppeteered by members of local law enforcement (including Dickerson) into the shootout, then protected through a deliberately weak prosecution.
Lucas became a suspect for a very interesting reason. In Dorothy Collins' address book, which was described as a "trick book" (i.e. a log of prostitution clients), they found the name "H.L. Lucas":
Even more odd, this H.L. Lucas had an address of Abrams Hall in Washington DC. This was, at the time, the barracks of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center!
Lucas was therefore brought in for interrogation about Dorothy Collins' murder. According to Dickerson, Lucas did not necessarily have much to say about the murder at first but then:
Perhaps worth asking if any "key words" were used with Koresh or his followers as well.
Lucas went on to confess, but there is a mix of things to both support and raise doubts about it. The cops made the odd decision to show Lucas the address book, rather than seeing if he could independently confirm the information. He originally indicated that he did not see the victim in Texas, but rather in Washington DC (of course this would be after he had already been shown the "H.L. Lucas" entry in the address book). He described picking her up from a bar and murdering her out in a clearing by the interstate; yet Collins was seen back at her apartment and blood was found there, indicating the murder began at the apartment.
On the other hand, the H.L. Lucas in her address book is pretty striking. Lucas told the officers that he did indeed used to write his name that way. I need to find it among the many Lucas docs I have, but I'm fairly sure I saw examples confirming that; likely a signature on a scrap metal receipt. (It was later claimed that H.L. Lucas was identified as a different person, a black X-ray technician at Walter Reed named Harvey L. Lucas. But I'm not aware of any proof beyond unverified claims that likely came from CIA journalist Hugh Aynesworth. It also still raises the question of why someone at Walter Reed in Washington DC would appear in the address book of a Waco prostitute. Interestingly, one of Lucas's known aliases is Harvey Lee Lucas.) And Lucas did allegedly lead the sheriff's deputies to the scene of the crime without any prompting on their part.
Of course, the sheriff's deputies might be lying about Lucas's ability to lead them to the crime scene. But if they lied about that in their reports, why would they be so candid in their reports about the many aspects of Lucas's confession that blatantly didn't match the crime? Then again, that raises the questions of how the detectives could close the case on Lucas despite his confession having such egregious errors. Confessing to killing Collins at a different location from where forensic evidence shows the murder happened is hard to ignore. And it's hard to believe incompetence alone would explain that. But again, if they're trying to pass off a false confession as true, why are they so transparent about the falsehoods?
Lucas's confession to the Dorothy Collins murder is what led DA Vic Feazell to start his own investigation of Lucas. Assisting him was the aforementioned DA investigator / sheriff's deputy Truman Simons and assistant DA Ned Butler. (Feazell, Simons, and Butler had all played pivotal roles in the Lake Waco murders, where they convicted four likely-innocent men.) Feazell's investigation, which led to Lucas recanting all his murder confessions, was arguably part of a coverup effort for the Hands of Death cult. It was seemingly even synchronized to go public at the exact time Hugh Aynesworth began running his stories "debunking" Lucas's murder spree. So it's interesting that the Collins case is reportedly what got Feazell involved.
Purely speculative, but is it possible that Lucas's confession to Dorothy Collins' murder was actually engineered for that purpose? Maybe Billy Rich and Elijah Dickerson designed it to be so shoddy that it would immediately fall apart under scrutiny? The way it happened makes little sense if the purpose was to fake a case closure, but it could make more sense if the real purpose was to give Feazell an excuse to get involved. Lucas accused Feazell of working for the Hands of Death; if true, that means Feazell would have a preexisting interest in covering up the cult. His prosecution of the Lake Waco murders ignored multiple suspects (such as Tab Harper and Derwin Wilkins) who were reportedly members of a local satanic cult. He was later accused by various sources, including David Koresh, of taking bribes from meth traffickers like Donny Joel Harvey and Roy Lee Wells Jr. who were themselves close to satanic cult players.
Moreover, if Lucas really did know something about Collins' murder, and the connections were as sensitive as they appear (the H.L. Lucas at Walter Reed and her known presence at a nightclub run by a Truman Simons informant), what if the goal was to taint his confession? Violate police procedure by feeding him the address book information right away, so that anything he knows about it could be explained as him just repeating back what he's been told. Have him tell a story that doesn't match the evidence, even if parts of the truth (like his ability to lead them to the crime scene) leak out. Whether his involvement in the murder has any legitimacy or not, the nature of his confession effectively taints that forever.
Feazell and Simons, though, insisted that they had a different, better suspect:
The actual name was Joe Leaming. Leaming was arrested in October 1984 and charged with the murder of Joshlyn Annette Calvin. He was found guilty in late July 1985 and sentenced to life in prison. Both Calvin and Collins were black prostitutes in Waco, so the MO would appear to line up. Though, oddly enough, Leaming's trial raises questions about whether he even committed that murder.
The Waco DA's office presented several witnesses who connected Leaming to Calvin on the purported night of her murder, and/or indicated that her made violent statements about her. However, many of these witnesses were inmates or on parole or probation at the time. Given Truman Simons' history of getting exactly those kinds of witnesses to give false testimony in the Lake Waco and Juanita White cases, it does raise doubts here too. (And some of the stories were provably at least somewhat false. For instance: A witness named Ray Charles Stone, who claimed to have worked with Leaming for 2 weeks while painting houses, recounted an alleged confession by Leaming. But the person who hired Leaming testified that Stone lied about having worked with Leaming for the full 2 weeks.) Most egregiously, the star witness Charlene Morris, who testified to essentially witnessing Leaming murder Calvin, also testified that she and her husband saw Calvin alive the very next day!
Leaming had a prior criminal history in Philadelphia, before coming to the Waco area in the early 1970s. On February 4, 1965, he and a friend murdered a man named Irvin Brown. Brown had recently sold his New Jersey bar and was flaunting the money from the sale, which was suspected to have put a target on his back. Leaming and his accomplice posed as cops, used that as a pretense to abduct Brown, then drove him out and beat him to death.
And who was Leaming's accomplice? Leaming, aged just 22 at the time, worked with an older man named Edward Whalen (age 41). Following the murder, Whalen was caught a month later for robbing a savings-and-loan near Miami. But what was Whalen doing in the meantime?
The answer, it turns out, was meeting David Ferrie and Clay Shaw! Whalen gave a statement to Jim Garrison's investigators recounting what happened following the Irvin Brown murder:
The next day, Whalen met Ferrie at the Absinthe House, where Ferrie introduced him to Clay Shaw. They revealed that Ferrie's moneymaking opportunity was a murder for hire:
The day after that, they revealed to him that the target was Jim Garrison:
According to Whalen, he refused and left New Orleans right before Mardi Gras. Shortly after that, he wound up getting into trouble in Florida with the S&L robbery. Curiously enough, the articles on Whalen's arrest in Florida did give a brief clue confirming he had been in New Orleans during that time.
From the Palm Beach Post: "Possibility that the man might be linked with a February robbery at the DeSoto Hotel in New Orleans was seen in the fact that a passport issued to a Catholic priest which had been reported missing after the crime was in the wallet found on the beach."
From the Fort Lauderale News: "Police said a wallet containing a snapshot of the suspect was found near the cash register. They said the wallet originally belonged to an Illinois clergyman. It was stolen Feb. 28 from a New Orleans hotel safe. A hotel clerk answering Whalen's description was suspected in the theft. The wallet contained $1,200 and the clergyman's passport."
Recall from the above that Clay Shaw had reportedly promised to give Whalen a phony passport if he completed his job, which makes it a bit interesting that he had the passport of a Catholic clergyman from Illinois. Also recall that David Ferrie was himself a clergyman in unofficial Catholic orders such as the American Orthodox Catholic Church (AOCC). In fact, in the summer of 1963, he was nearly ordained by one of these groups in Kankakee, Illinois.
What are the odds that Leaming and Whalen were murder accomplices in Philadelphia in the 60s, then both end up connected to famous Texas crimes? Whalen ending up meeting key conspirators in the JFK assassination, and Leaming ending up the alternate suspect in a murder that Henry Lee Lucas confessed to. And of course, both of these cases (JFK and Lucas) are themselves connected in other ways: like Hugh Aynesworth's role as a disinformationist in both, and Vic Feazell's wife being friends with the author of the infamous William Torbitt document.
1983, Librada Apodaca
El Paso Times El Paso, Texas • Sat, Sep 22, 1984 Page 1
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/09/10/El-Paso-police-say-Lucas-may-not-have-acted-alone/8764526708800/
EL PASO, Texas -- Police testified that serial killer Henry Lee Lucas got no coaching in his confession of slaying an elderly woman but admitted there were other suspects in the case.
El Paso Detective Benito Perez testified Tuesday that blood and semen samples taken from the clothing of Librada Apodaca, 72, matched those of a Juarez, Mexico, gardener and not those of Lucas.
Perez said the gardener, identified as Geovany Valenzuela Chavez, had worked for the victim a few days before the May 27, 1983, murder.
The detective said Valenzuela Chavez was a suspect in the case, but not one they actively pursued because his alleged confession was obtained by Juarez police under duress.
El Paso Detective Jimmy Apodaca testified in a deposition last month that he was present when the two Juarez detectives applied an electric cattle prod to Valenzuela Chavez' genitals to obtain the confession that he later recanted.
The Juarez suspect told Apodaca he killed the elderly woman with a knife. She was killed with an ax.
'His story didn't fit the facts of the murder,' Perez said.
Apodaca, who is the victim's nephew, is scheduled to testify this week at the pretrial hearing before state District Judge Brunson Moore on the defense motion to quash the Lucas confession.
Yovany Valenzuela Chavez
El Paso Times El Paso, Texas • Sun, Aug 10, 1986 Page 1
(semen samples from homosexual man on raped woman body?!?)
https://eu.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2019/12/16/henry-lee-lucas-murder-charges-dropped-el-paso/4413746002/
Lucas' lawyers contend that police should focus on a Juarez homosexual who did yard work for Apodaca several days before her slaying. Family members identified Yovany Valenzuela Chavez as a suspicious character whom they distrusted.
Mexican police extracted a confession by torturing Valenzuela as two El Paso police officers watched, but Valenzuela later recanted that confession. He was found slain in Juarez this summer, and Juarez police said he was killed by a friend.
Ponton also told Moore that police should investigate one of Apodaca's nephews, whose jail record and drug addiction made him a suspect. The relative showed up at Apodaca's home the day of her killing seeking money, Ponton said.
"That indicates to me this investigation should continue. A grand jury investigation should try to find the real murderer of Librada Apodaca - not Henry Lucas, but the person who knew the victim, who knew the ax was kept hidden behind the dryer," Ponton said.
(what if real murderer - let's say... Henry Lee Lucas knew Apodaca family for some reason)
Robert M. Utley - Lone Star Lawmen
Anothes suspect missing
El Paso Times El Paso, Texas · Sunday, August 10, 1986
(San_Angelo_Standard_Times_Mon__Apr_23__1984)
It tends to be the case that these archetypal "lone nuts" are the exact opposite of alone. Lucas named several other members of the Hand of Death (beyond just Ottis Toole), and there is corroboration for at least one: Jack Smart of Hemet CA.
Officially, Lucas first met Smart in January 1982, when he picked up Lucas and Becky as hitchhikers. The two stayed at the Smarts' home until mid-May 1982, when Jack's wife Obera Smart sent them down to Texas to help out Obera's elderly mother Kate Rich. The Smarts would ultimately claim that Lucas never left their sight for even one day. Hence, any confession Lucas made to a murder during that time would clearly be false.
Yet his confession to the April 17, 1982 murder of Barbara Begley in Hobbs NM is backed up by multiple eyewitnesses. Shortly after her murder, someone reported that Barbara was in a car with someone who had a "funny eye", Lucas's defining feature. In early 1984, two locals saw Lucas's photo in the newspaper and identified him as being in town at the time of Barbara's murder. One placed him at the parking lot where she was last seen, while another placed him at the home of an oilfield worker (possibly relevant, given that Barbara's body was dumped in an oilfield). Lucas first related accurate details of this crime to an officer who wasn't familiar with the case, and later confessed to police in Hobbs.
It's basically inescapable that Lucas really did commit this murder. And therefore, Jack Smart was clearly lying to fabricate an alibi for Lucas. Why would he do so, unless he really was part of the cult with Lucas just as Lucas claimed?
Lucas's claims to the FBI include that he actually knew Smart since the late 70s. He trafficked drugs on Smart's behalf, and the two of them committed murders together, including on what evidently was the infamous Cabazon reservation. As it happens, the very earliest Texas Ranger intelligence files on Lucas back this up. Their information was that Smart had at one point visited Lucas back when he was residing in Jacksonville (late 70s or early 80s; definitely prior to their alleged first meeting in January 1982).
Beyond Jack Smart, who could be some of Lucas's other possible cult associates? It seems notable that Lucas was staying at the home of an oilfield worker and ended up committing a murder before dumping her body in an oilfield. The above article on the Begley murder mentions that his name is Bill but doesn't give a last name. More recently, I was able to get the Texas Ranger task force synopsis of the Begley murder, which gives the worker's full name and mentions other people staying at the home too.
The name of the oilfield worker who he was staying with is William Gray. And Lucas claims that he was there with Becky Powell and Ottis Toole, along with two other men: Bill Smith and Carl Jenkins. Bill Smith is a known player in the Lucas story: in late September 1982, shortly after Lucas left the House of Prayer following Kate Rich's disappearance, he and his wife Deborah Smith allegedly picked Lucas up as a hitchhiker. They traveled around the country for some time and then ultimately took Lucas back to the House of Prayer in October. If Lucas's confession is accurate, then the Smiths, as with the Smarts, are concealing the fact that they knew Lucas for much longer. That would in turn make them probable fellow cultists.
How about Carl Jenkins? I don't believe that name has ever come up before in the Lucas literature. But it's interesting that there's a Carl Elmer Jenkins who happens to be a Marine who joined the CIA and worked with anti-Castro Cubans: https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKjenkinsC.htm Could this be the same guy Lucas is talking about? Perhaps; we'd have to see what he was up to during the 1980s.
Here is the 1984 report by the California Department of Justice on their investigation into Henry Lee Lucas's crimes in California: https://archive.org/details/CaliforniaDOJ_HenryLeeLucas Lots of interesting stuff here, including specific references to alleged victims left in places like the Cabazon desert and near the Presidio military base.
One thing I find especially fascinating is on p.48: a boat builder who both Lucas and Toole worked for. Their employer was Hank McCune, a semi-famous actor and comedian who was notable for creating the first TV show with a laugh track. McCune then left the entertainment business and got into boat building in Wilmington CA (near Long Beach).
A lot of McCune's work, and apparently what Toole remembers him for, was building yachts. He was also an early pioneer in using fiberglass to construct boats, including racing boats. This calls to mind Don Aronow, a Miami speedboat builder who popularized the use of fiberglass and sold his boats to the likes of George Bush Sr., drug traffickers, and federal agencies (I guess I just said the same thing three different ways). Aronow was reportedly a CIA contractor during Iran-Contra, partnered with another spooky boat builder named Roger Moore who was the paymaster for Contra support group CMA. OKC bombing researchers should recognize Moore as a gun dealer who was clearly part of the bombing plot.
Reposting this Texas Rangers report of November 17, 1983 that I also shared in the Hand of Death thread. It's revealed that Lucas knew his cult recruiter, who we've come to know as "Don Meteric", by the name of Don Meredith. Whether or not that's a real name has yet to be determined, but at least we now have the genuine name (instead of a fake name invented by Max Call) to work with.
A bunch of documents that I received last year from Bob Prince, the head of the Texas Rangers task force. It contains criticisms of the Netflix documentary, evidence that Lucas had been coerced at the Waco jail into recanting his confessions, and outlines of many specific murder cases with compelling evidence for Lucas's guilt.
https://archive.org/details/BobPrince_Lucas_docs
Regarding Vic Feazell, the McLennan County (Waco) DA who conducted the grand jury probe allegedly proving Lucas's confessions were all false, his record is less than stellar. Here's a thread I posted last year on a very dubious prosecution he conducted in a 1982 triple murder case: https://www.programmedtokill.net/forum/general-discussions/1982-lake-waco-murders
Full chronology:
https://henrys-map.com/chronology/index.html
Henry Lee Lucas another fake serial killer http://mileswmathis.com/lucas.pdf
I also found this interesting site with some experts from an obscure book written about Toole. There are some interesting tidbits about his life and what he and Henry were up to in Jacksonville. It is all ephemeral and disjointed, but there are a few clues as well. For example, Otis's revelation that he had some work experience in roofing. Which jumped out at me because the "cult safehouse" run by Kate Rich sent Henry & Becky to a local Christian chruch compound (where Henry apparently murdered Kate Rich and Becky and stashed weapons). Keep in mind, it was Otis who had the deep satanic cult connections, not Henry. Henry and possibly Otis were employed as roofers by this church for months.
Ottis Toole’s Mother’s House (Until He Burnt It Down)
Barton: I'm Billy Bob. Is it true you eat people or that is just bullshit?
Toole: You look damn tasty. If I had me a knife I'd slit your throat and drink some blood.
Barton: They tell me you eat young boys.
Toole: I've eaten my share.
Barton: Tell me about it.
Toole: First I go out and catch me a little boy, maybe go down to a mall or shopping center and grab one there...grab him, tie him up, use a gag, put him in the trunk of my car and drive him to my place out in the swamps. Nobody to bother me way out there.
Barton: Did you rape those boys?
Toole: Yeah, I give it to 'em in the butt.
Barton: Make them scream?
Toole: Naw, they have on a gag. Can't scream.
Barton: Ever fuck little girls?
Toole: Sure. Fuck 'em in the butt same as a boy.
Barton: Yeah, why's that?
Toole: A girl 8 or 9 years old, her pussy ain't able to take a big dick. She can take it up her butt same as a boy. I prefer a boy. I make his peter get hard, a boy maybe 12 years old, I can make him shoot jizz every time while I'm up his ass. A girl, she doesn't do nothing. Ain't much fun.
Barton: You fuck 'em, then you kill 'em?
Toole: Yeah. So what? I like it.
Barton: Ever kill any adult people?
Toole: Plenty of 'em. All the time - men, women, kids.
Barton: How'd you kill them?
Toole: All kinds of ways. Strangle some with a belt. Shoot some. Cut some throats.
Barton: I read where you use a bar-b-que sauce when you eat those kids. Is that true?
Toole: Yeah, I have my own recipe.
Barton: Tell me how you cook a young boy or girl.
Toole: After the fucking then you strip them naked and hang them upside down by the ankles; then slit their throat with a knife, slit the belly and take out the guts, the liver, the heart. Cut off the head. Let the blood drain.
Barton: Do you have a big fire?
Toole: A pit. A bar-b-que pit. Charcoal so there ain't much smoke. Take down the body, put the metal spit through them. Put it into the asshole, through the body and out the neck, wire the meat to the spit, put it on the spit-holder over the coals. Damn tasty.
Barton: Just how does a little boy bar-b-que taste, Ottis?
Toole: Same as a roasted piglet. Boys and girls taste about the same when you roast them 8 to 10 years old. The flavor is a shade different when they're teenagers. The boys are gamier than the girls. Give me the roasted meat of a boy age 14 and a girl age 14 and I can tell the difference when you use a spicy sauce.
Barton: Ever kill teenagers?
Toole: Sure. Get a pair of lovers parking in the woods. Easy to catch them. Teenagers make a nice roast, I do favor a rump roast from a teen. Younger ones I think I prefer ribs. Juicy. Tasty. You ought to try some.
Barton: You're a sick fucker! Anyone ever told you that?
Toole: Sure. Plenty have told me. I got off death row because they said I'm too sick to burn on the electric chair. Nobody came around to try to cure me. They give me some pill. People eat pigs, cows, horses. I like to eat people. It's good meat, too. You ain't tried it, don't be saying it ain't tasty. You might like it.
Barton: How many people have you killed and eaten?
Toole: Just me killing them alone or the ones I killed and ate with Henry?
Barton: You were doing this with Henry Lucas, too?
Toole: Yeah, we'd mostly eat hitch hikers.
Barton: All together how many do you think?
Toole: Oh, probably about 150 or so.
Barton: Incredible! And the police never caught you?
Toole: Ain't no police out in the woods.
Barton: Henry Lee Lucas says now that he didn't kill all those people, that he was making it all up. What do you say about that?
Toole: We killed over 200 when we was roaming the country together. Maybe he killed more before he met me or after we split. I'd say around 200 for sure, I got over 100 my own self. Henry said he got about 400 all together, I don't know for sure. I really don't.
Barton: Do you recall any memorable killings?
Toole: Oh yeah, I remember Shelly.
Barton: Shelly, is that a boy or a girl?
Toole: A young woman about 20 or 25, around there.
Barton: What do you remember?
Toole: I got her when she was hitch hiking in Colorado. I had me an old pick-up truck. I picked her up, took her up into the Rocky Mountains and killed her. She was naked when I killed her. A pretty one. It was the summertime in 1974 and what was funny is that the police blamed the killing on Ted Bundy but Ted didn't get that one, I got her.
Barton: Ever hear of anyone else being blamed for killings you did?
Toole: Yeah. I got me a Chinese girl out by Colorado Springs in 1974; cut her throat and she had a friend and I stabbed her up, too. The cop got a guy named Estep for that case but I did it. Cops don't always get the right person.
Barton: Kill anyone else in Colorado?
Toole: Oh yeah, I remember a girl. Ellen, late twenties or early thirties in age, I got her down by Pueblo, Colorado, we rode East. I shot that one, shot her through the head.
Barton: Did you fuck them?
Toole: Sometimes. I fucked them the way I fuck a boy. Make them take it up the ass. I ain't into pussy but a girl's asshole is about the same as a man's.
Barton: Did you eat Patty?
Toole: No. Not her. I shot her; didn't eat her or cut off a hunk to eat later. Just left her lying dead.
Barton: Were you involved with a death cult then?
Toole: No, not then. That was around 1974. I joined the cult in the 1980's, early 80's. I was in it with Henry.
Barton: Tell me about it.
Toole: It was The Hand of Death. We were working for that cult and we'd grab little kids for the human sacrifices, grab young women for the snuff movies. We'd tie the women up and haul them to Mexico, only the ones that come out there. I liked working for The Hand of Death. They'd let me have the corpses when they were done with the films or sacrifices and I could take a prime cut. We got most on those people from Texas since it's near the border with Mexico. There were several death cults down there. I heard that a few years ago the police busted one near Matamoros. That wasn't The Hand of Death, it was a different one.
Barton: What's a human sacrifice like?
Toole: Secret rituals, I can't reveal it to anyone.
Barton: Generally. Tell me generally.
Toole: Put them on the altar and cut their throat; then make a burnt offering to the Devil. Like that generally.
Barton: Who? Women? Kids?
Toole: Virgins were preferred. Girls of teenage years.
Barton: Virgin sacrifice?
Toole: Yeah, slit the throat, collect the blood in a goblet, pass it around and drink it hot. Do chants. It's secret stuff. You aren't supposed to reveal it. They make you take an oath for secrecy.
Barton: You drank human blood from a cup?
Toole: Yeah, it's in the ritual.
Barton: What's it taste like?
Toole: Kinda salty. Not so good. I like cooked meat. I didn't mind eating the cooked parts.
Barton: Is eating human flesh part of the rituals?
Toole: Sometimes.
Barton: What parts are ritually eaten?
Toole: Well, I'm not allowed to tell about it.
Barton: Just tell a little.
Toole: We had a ritual where we ate sex parts.
Barton: Tell about that.
Toole: The women parts were the titty nipples and the hole where the dick goes in.
Barton: The vagina.
Toole: I guess. It's like a little bag of muscle.
Barton: You'd cut out their cunts?
Toole: Whatever it's called. A sex part. A hole the woman has.
Barton: What about the males?
Toole: Cut off the peter, cut off the balls.
Barton: You fry it all up?
Toole: No, it's put in like a little stew pot. The guy who cooks it makes it like a soup or stew. It's a secret recipe from about a thousand years ago.
Barton: Taste good?
Toole: Not bad. The part of the woman around the pussyhole is like lips. Sort of chewy and rubbery. The balls are damned good when fried. Use a little batter and a fryer and it's a real treat. Crispy. Like a crispy chestnut. Fresh fried balls is one of my favorites.
Barton: What's eating the sex parts supposed to do for you?
Toole: Gives you increased sexual potency. Powers.
Barton: Right. You believe that?
Toole: I don't know. I prefer to eat the ribs actually but I go along with what's being served at the ceremonies.
Barton: Where was this weird shit going down, Ottis?
Toole: Mexico, a ranch down there.
Barton: And these were all virgins you ate and cut up?
Toole: I don't know. Me and Henry would drive up to Texas and collect women. Girls. We'd just catch those we come upon.
Barton: Tell me about that part.
Toole: Certain times of the year the priests wanted virgins for the human sacrifices. They'd say to me and Henry to go up to Texas and collect some. We'd drive on up, get girls hitch hiking, pick up vans at bars. There are a lot of women just walking down the road in South Texas. Migrant workers. We'd get them, tie them up, gag them, put them in the trunk. We fill the trunk, 6 or 8 girls, then go back to Mexico. Down at the ranch the priests check them for virgins.
Barton: How did they check?
Toole: Took down their pants and looked at that hole. The hole is smaller on virgins. Something about that hole, I'm not into women. The priests took the virgins to one building and the non-virgins went to where they made snuff films.
Barton: Ever see any of these films being made?
Toole: Yeah.
Barton: What did you see?
Toole: A political movie about Paris, France, in the old days. They had a machine that cut off a woman's head.
Barton: A guillotine?
Toole: Yeah, I think so.
Barton: Tell about it.
Toole: The woman is strapped to a board. Her neck is locked in between a thing, her head is sticking out of a hole on the board. A big knife drops and cuts off her head. The head falls into a basket.
Barton: You watched?
Toole: Yeah, it was interesting. Her name was Charlotte.
Barton: You knew her name?
Toole: Her movie name, I guess. She was political. Broke some law, so they cut off her head. Blood squirted all over the place. It was an old-timey execution.
Barton: Did you sacrifice any virgins?
Toole: No, never did. Priests did all that.
Barton: You saw it?
Toole: Oh sure, we all saw it.
Barton: What did you see? Tell how a virgin is sacrificed.
Toole: The high priest is dressed in a goat costume. He stands behind the virgin. She's chained belly down to the sacrificial block with her buttocks raised and spread. There is a second high priest who has the knife. They do the chants, ceremonies, the secret things I can't tell about. Then the priest in front pulls the virgins head back by her hair and puts the knife against her throat. The one behind her steps up and puts his dick into her sex hole and when she screams the priest in front slits her throat. It's all secret rites.
Barton: How many virgins are sacrificed?
Toole: The main ceremony, once a year calls for 13 virgins. That's the big ritual. Usually it's only one virgin.
Barton: Do you really expect me to believe you saw 13 virgins sacrificed at one time? There aren't even 13 virgins left in America. Give me a fucking break, Ottis!
Toole: It's not all at once. One at a time, all night long because each ceremony, at sundown and the last, at sunrise which is about an hour. The first one is a black girl, she is sacrificed to the prince of darkness at the exact moment of sundown. During the night virgins are sacrificed to specific demons. Those virgins are usually Latinas. The last virgin, the 13th, is sacrificed to Lucifer, Son of the Morning; always a blond girl is used and her throat is cut at sunrise. She's called the Sun Princess. She has two slave-girl attendants who are sacrificed with her, they go with her into the Heart Of The Sun.
Barton: Ottis, you're crazy!
Toole: The year I first saw the Ceremonies, the Sun Princess was a teenage girl, a white-blond from Houston. Her cult name was "Taireina" which is "Morning Star". The year I saw it the Sun Princess was an American, so was the black girl, the others were Latinas. I saw the rituals. The Hands of Death are a most secret cult; I've already said too much!
Barton: You and Lucas were involved in this shit?
Toole: Yeah, but Henry wants to deny everything now because he's trying to avoid being executed. I'm too crazy for execution so I can tell you how it really was. Henry killed a lot of people. I know, I was there. I helped him do the murders.
Barton: We're running out of time Ottis. Do you have any particularly fond memories of your days together with Henry Lucas? He's the one they made the movie about, not you. He's famous, you're a nobody. A prison faggot. What's your last word?
Toole: Henry is going to be executed but I'll be alive surrounded by cute fuck-boys. I have everything I want in prison. Except I miss the freedom to drive down the highway robbing and killing from town to town. That's excitement at its best and miss being able to bar-b-que a boy when I get the urge. I did like to bar-b-que. You can write in your story that anyone who wants to write me and get a recipe for my home made sauce, I'll send it free. Just send a few stamps for the reply letter. That's all honey.
(Source: An Interview With Ottis Toole: The Cannibal Kid by Billy Bob Barton)
"Do you recall any memorable killings?"
"Oh yeah, I remember Shelly." (Shelley Robertson)
"Shelly, is that a boy or a girl?"
"A young woman about 20 or 25, around there."
"What do you remember?"
"I got her when she was hitch hiking in Colorado. I had me an old pick-up truck. I picked her up, took her up into the Rocky Mountains and killed her. She was naked when I killed her. A pretty one. It was the summertime in 1974 and what was funny is that the police blamed the killing on Ted Bundy but Ted didn't get that one, I got her."
(Source: An Interview With Ottis Toole: The Cannibal Kid by Billy Bob Barton)
- On Monday, June 29, 1975, Shelley Robertson disappeared without a trace.
Ottis Toole's house
117 E 2nd St,Jacksonville, FL
The child abuse that Henry endured was so serious it left him with permanent lesions on his brain.
The six and a half years in the Ionia State Mental Hospital were some of the most difficult prison years Lucas says he ever experienced. ‘’It was the worst six and a half years I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve seen people stoned, kicked, burned to death and everything else in prison.’’
Lucas says that he did not receive humane treatment in the Ionia mental hospital. ‘’They didn’t have any therapy here. You had to walk around on the floor and shine the floor with your feet. They put these cloth over your shoes on your feet, and you’d have to walk the floor, shine the floor. Had to. I’m not kiddin’. They’d beat your brains in if ya didn’t.’’
Lucas was medicated heavily with depressants, anti anxiety drugs, and anti hallucinogens to control his moods. ‘’They gave me Thorazine. They had me on Benadryls. They had me on Benadryl tablets and had me on liquid Thorazine for a long time. The drugs really didn’t help any. To me the Thorazine just made me feel more quiet. It didn’t keep me less active. It didn’t stop the voices at all, which is what they wanted it to do. It also made me more apt to hurt someone.’’
As scary as the drug therapy was to Lucas because it was beyond his control, he would face even worse experiences at Ionia. ‘’After the Thorazine, they gave me shock treatments. The only thing I remember about them is what I was told. They kept giving them over and over until I couldn’t do nothin’ for myself. Then they took me back to where I was just as a baby. And they had to relearn me to eat, to walk, everything. There was nothin’ I couldn’t do.’’
In fact, Lucas became a guinea pig at Ionia state. He was subjected to behavioral therapy designed to break his will and make him more compliant, drug therapy designed to alter his moods and temper his anxiety so as to make him more passive, and painful shock treatments which ultimately were supposed to make him more compliant to the system. At first, the shock treatments were administered, according to Henry, without any mediating drugs. He says that he bore the full surge of electricity which sent him into convulsions and then unconsciousness. Without the muscle relaxant sodium pentothal, the treatments were a painful experience, leaving him rigid and tremorous after each shock. Eventually, the doctors relented and by administering an anesthetic, they allowed him to escape some of the pain associated with the trauma.
Nonetheless, the types of shock treatments that were routinely performed in the early 1960s were a violent and painful form of invasive medicine that left patients disoriented and suffering from memory lapses. These crude psycho-medical procedures made Lucas mean and determined to get back at the doctors who had, in his words, ‘’tortured’’ him. ‘’I was locked up in one cell for six and a half years. Talked to the doctors once in a while. I described to them several times the things I had done in the past and what I would do if I got out of prison. I told them that if I got out I would go back killing. And that’s what I done.’'
Was Lucas the demonic agent of a ‘’thrill-kill’’ cult called The Hand of Death, committing murders to satisfy a monthly death quota and abducting little children for lives of sexual slavery, torture, and death?’
Henry’s story about The Hand of Death begins with a web of intrigue and conspiracy. He was first solicited to join the Hand of Death while he was on the road with Ottis, he once said, although the police reports said that he was driving with Wade Kiser.
They met Don Metric in the middle of the night after they’d arrived in Miami. Ottis seemed to know exactly where the meeting place was, a fact not lost on Henry, he remembered years later. It was what looked from the street to be an abandoned warehouse of Miami’s seedy waterfront. It was the type of location which in the 1980s would be a setting for drug transactions and smuggling operations. But in 1978, Miami was still a depressed city struggling under double-digit inflation, an inflated dollar that had depressed the import/export market, and a collapsing real estate market that was keeping money out of the city. Even waterfront properties were abandoned and boarded up. This warehouse was just such a property.
Henry had become an official member of The Hand of Death and had pledged his life and his life after death to darkness.
That night, however--the night that he was inducted into The Hand of Death amidst the dense swamps of the Florida Everglades--was a night that he would never forget.
Toole, it seemed, had been taught to eat flesh by the celebrants at this kind of ‘’Black Mass,’’ as they called it.
The Hand of Death training was an introduction to beliefs and practices he had only vaguely heard about in prison but had never witnessed firsthand. Most important, however, was the indoctrination.
Henry said: ‘’I seen the power of evil at work in the world and I felt it practiced through me. I came to believe my own destiny was with the power of evil. It made me do things that today I wish I could undo, but I can’t. I have to pay for what I done and confess what I done.’’
Lucas says that over the years he has returned again and again to cult ceremonies and gatherings. ‘’We had many meetings. They were more or less party meetings. Sometimes we would go down to the beach somewhere or back in some deserted area. Everyone would be high on drugs. Sometimes a member would bring a victim, either alive or dead, or sometimes would only bring a head or another part of the victim’s body. Each of us would testify about the destruction we had been part of since the last meeting. Sometimes we would use our own cult members, say, if someone was about to leave the cult, then they were as good as dead. If it were a girl, they would take the horn of a bull and ram it into her. The high priest would come in with a hooded type cloak and could get people so worked up that they could walk through fire around the altar and not even feel it. We would get higher and higher on drugs. We would rub each other’s bodies with the blood of the victim or of the animal and some members would drink each other’s urine. During all of this, someone would be chanting and praying to the Devil.
They saw children, freshly delivered from the kidnappers’ cars, processed for the dark ceremonies that took place almost every night.
Some of these children were from upstanding families where they were loved and cared for until the moment a parent turned over his or her back at a shopping mall or a department store.
Henry says that he and Ottis began their career for The Hand of Death by running kidnapped children from the United States into Mexico. There was an active market for American children of all ages, Henry told his interviewers. He was instructed to bring babies into Mexico for resale back into the US on the ‘’grey market,’’ young children for importation to European and Middle Eastern countries as sex slaves to wealthy business people and nobility, and fresh young pre-adolescent girls for parts in porno and snuff videos. As their ‘’control’’ Don Metric described it, the girls would be pampered and made up, primped and fondled for the one-time roles in movies that would have a wider audience then most Hollywood releases. Then the girls would be killed and their bodies dumped or used in rituals.
According to Metric, there were Hand of Death rituals in almost every state two or three times a year. And each ritual had to be supplied with fresh young children for the sacrifice.
On their first trip, Lucas and Toole ran babies. They were easy to find.
The Hand provides them with heroin and morphine to inject into the children to subdue them properly on the long drive.
Henry claimed to have abducted over a hundred babies during an eighteen month run while he was killing for money at the same time.
‘’When I first joined, I only did the kidnapping.’’ he says about his experiences. ‘’I only did the actual killings after a year of kidnappings and after training. Like I said before, I had killed in the past, but after I joined this cult, I started killing at many different levels. Instead of just robbing a store and killing the storekeeper, we would kidnap children, hitchhikers, prostitutes, or whoever and would slice people up and cut their heads off and take parts of their bodies to the cult meeting.’’
As a kidnapper for money, Lucas was one of the most productive members of the cut. ‘’I made over thirty-five trips into Mexico, each time taking three or four kids. And I can remember where the house in Mexico is that we brought the kids. It’s deep into Mexico and it’s a big ranch type house, and we would take the children there. The bosses of the cult would tell us how many they wanted and the ones they would give me the best money for. These were usually small children between the ages of four and eleven. We would get a thousand dollars a load.’’
He and Ottis also called themselves ‘’talent scouts’’ when they were looking for teenage girls for the snuff videos distributed through The Hand of Death.
He and Ottis became so adept at picking up children, they were almost legendary in the Hand, Henry says.
‘’It’s a great country,’’' Toole would say to Lucas when they had their car full of sleeping children and were plowing straight for the border. Police would sometimes wave as they drove by; tollbooth operators would smile at the sleeping little angels strapped in nice and tight in the back seat, and nobody even asked to see a piece of ID. Lucas said about those months on the road. It was almost getting too easy.
‘’You know,’’ Lucas said, remembering what happened to some of the children. ‘’The Mexicans themselves wanted to raise some of the kids as their own. The pretty blue-eyed ones were actually sold to rich Mexican families, and these kids are living today. You can actually go down there and see blue-eyed blonde men with Mexican names, and chances are they’d be the kids me ‘n Ottis snatched. Some of the other kids were sold into prostitution, some were used as sacrifices and were killed and cut up. Others were raised to be killers in the cult and are probably still out there killin’ and snatchin’ just like me and Ottis did.’’
To this day, Henry says, people have trouble with the cult story. He’s told it hundreds of times, and later he said he’d retract it because he was afraid that the Hand would reach out to him even behind bars. ‘’You have to believe that some group’s out there organizing a lot of killing,’’ Henry says, pointing to evidence. ‘’Because the killings of kids are too similar to be the work of different people. No one wants to believe the cult story. The TV people cut it out of interviews. The writers don’t write about it. But some of the law enforcement people in the different states are investigating it. It’s the truth, even though it’s tough to find evidence.’’
Lucas explains that anyone who studies how police work knows how to mix up the evidence to the point where the police don’t regard it as evidence. ‘’It’s all there, they just don’t know what to look for,’’ he has told police who can’t find any physical evidence of his crimes. ‘’It’s the same with the cult,’’ he says. ‘’The cult members are just like me. We were not trained not to leave evidence. If it wasn’t for me, they couldn’t find out about me. I’m the one who’s giving evidence about me. They ain’t finding nothing about me until I tell them. But if you multiply me hundreds of times, you’d have a picture of the cult.’’
He says that there are thousands of people in the United States so filled with hatred that they would do anything to vent their rage on innocent people and seek personal power through the cult.
The cult is a conspiracy, he says, with people in powerful jobs and in politically critical situations who make decisions based on what the cult tells them to do. ‘’Sometimes I think it’s an organization that wants to take over the government. They’ve already got their hands in a lot of mighty high places. Sometimes after a really good meeting we would all get together and talk about how there was going to be a war and that we were going to wipe the country out. These are people that look just like you and me, too. They live in some of the best neighborhoods, or like me they travel and live on the road. They make their money by selling drugs and selling people. People with money will hire people like me to get them kids and kill their enemies. Some cult members just do it for the fun.’’
The last time a police went into the ‘Glades to search for the cult training camp, Lucas says, ‘’they went in with a helicopter, were shot at and now are going back in a land boat.’’
Even though people may dispute his claims, Lucas says that he can always recognize the mark of the Hand of Death. ‘’I can tell because we were taught to leave a mark on the body or near the body. You can tell sometimes by the way a body is left. Each of the victims is a sacrifice to the Devil. You got different types of marks. You’ve got your blotches, you’ve got your stripe marks. You’ve got your pin marks and sometimes we would make a zig-zag with a ballpoint pen.’’
Lucas says that another clear indication of a Hand of Death murder is an upside down cross carved into the victim’s chest. ‘’That mark is The Hand of Death.’’ Lucas said.
Henry and Becky Powell pulled into Beaumont, Texas, where he located the man he was supposed to kill, a lawyer who was about to confess to the police about an individual friendly with members of The Hand of Death. Henry had to make sure the victim would be found, had to make sure the corpse was mutilated enough to throw fear into the hearts of anyone else who thought to cross a friend of the Hand of Death, and he had to make sure that the Hand of Death knew it was one of their murders and not the work of somebody else.
(Source: Henry Lee Lucas: The Shocking True Story of America’s Most Notorious Serial Killer by author/dr. Joel Norris)
Lucas told Gail Reeves, a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that he was approached by a man while he was waiting to cross a bridge in Shreveport and was asked to join the cult. ‘’He told me he had been ‘screened’ by the cult; that Ottis was already a member and that they had been watching him (Lucas),’’ Reeves said.
A Catholic lay worker who has befriended Lucas said she was aware of stories about the cult. The church worker, who was ministered to prisoners in the Williamson County Jail, said she heard of the cult from two other prisoners long before she met Lucas.
(Source: The Shreveport Journal (Shreveport, Louisiana) 27 Apr 1984, Fri Page 2)
Something else, by the way: it was noted in Jan's OP that private investigator Brad Shellady (misspelled "Shallady" in the article) worked for Lucas's defense team to clear him. It just so happens that Shellady produced, wrote, and directed a 1988 documentary about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film: https://www.rcreader.com/news/different-kind-dinner-party Interesting given the overlapping themes between the slasher flick and the Hand of Death claims.
Here is an April 30, 1985 letter from Lucas to Sister Clemmie, also during the time he was held in McLennan County. This once again gives more context behind his recantations that the MSM narrative omits. On page 3, he includes a whole message that he wants Clemmie to pass along to Jim Boutwell, in which he references his concern that "the Hands of Death is going to win".
I will be honest, I am very bad at reading cursive so this isn't the easiest for me to parse. If anyone ever has time to do a typed writeup, that would be really helpful. Parts of it are quoted on p.275-279 of Henry Lee Lucas by Dr. Joel Norris (1991) if anyone else has a copy.
An April 16, 1985 interview of Sister Clemmie, in which she describes the appallingly coercive tactics (religious brainwashing, threats, possible drugging) that Waco DA Vic Feazell reportedly used on Lucas to get him to recant his murder confessions. Is it any wonder that Lucas "suspected he had been captured by a death cult and that McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell and others were forcing him to deny the truth" (D Magazine, "THE TWO FACES OF HENRY LEE LUCAS" by Nan Cuba and Dr. Joel Norris, 1985/10)?
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1993-12-11-9312110207-story.html
Jim Boutwell [obituary]
DECEMBER 11, 1993
Boutwell, the legendary Texas lawman who tried to shoot down sniper Charles Whitman from the University of Texas bell tower in 1966, died Tuesday in Austin of cancer. He was 66. Boutwell, sheriff of Williamson County near Austin, was a reserve deputy and owner of a local airport in 1966 when Whitman started shooting people from the top of the bell tower, killing 16 people. Boutwell took to his small plane and buzzed the bell tower, exchanging gunfire with Whitman and allowing people to escape. He went on to become county sheriff, and in 1983 arrested Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to more than 360 slayings across the country but later retracted his statements.
E3f3f02fae328eea97bbb1abc39bb09a02f2244f4_Q87075_R359199_D2533805, p 138 (from https://archive.org/details/HenryLeeLucas_FBI )
The News Leader Staunton, Virginia 24 May 1954, Mon • Page 1
Early days:
https://thepylon.org/variety/true-crime-blacksburg-the-henry-lee-lucas-story/
https://apnews.com/09c42f39976c5d66cfaae589fa4a4744
Family members of convicted murderer Henry Lee Lucas say it’s impossible for him to have killed as many as 600 people in 26 states, as he has claimed.
Betty Crawford, who married Lucas in 1975 and lived with him for two years before they were separated, said her estranged husband wouldn’t have had the time to kill people across the country while he lived with her.
She also said in an interview last week that she saw him nearly every day for three years.
″They can execute and get rid of him,″ Ms. Crawford said. ″I haven’t seen him for eight years and I don’t want to see him again.″
Almeda Kiser, Lucas’ half-sister, agreed in an interview last week that Lucas’ claims are phony.
″I will not lie for him one way or another,″ said Mrs. Kiser, of Port Deposit, located near Maryland’s eastern border with Delaware. ″I don’t see how in the world he could have committed the murders when he was right around (here) when it was going on.″
Lucas has claimed to have killed as many as 600 people, and law enforcement officials nationwide currently attribute 189 slayings to him.