It is a hard thing to say that one murderer is worse than the other. There is very little to differentiate a killing from another, in terms of the actual act. However, some stand out never the less. These individuals take murder to a whole new level. One may be persuaded to think of Albert Fish, or England's infamous Dennis Nielsen when such a thought is entertained. Preposterous and vile, these are the mutilators and dismemberers of the world. The persons whose unspeakable deeds are recognized as the most hideous of all time. The man I am about to speak of ranks among them. He is a monster from the Lone Star State, and his name is Henry Lee Lucas.Lucas was brutally abused as a young child, horribly mistreated throughout his early years. He was into bestiality and the torture of animals during his early teens. He also engaged in sexual acts with his half brother at this same time. It is hard to comprehend such horrors as a child and adolescent, but Lucas dealt with them and much more. Little did anyone know that a sinister creature had manifested from this abuse, a year later all found out.
Lucas recanted that his first murder came at the tender age of fourteen. This was supposedly a seventeen-year-old girl he kidnapped from a bus stop. He claimed to have beaten her severely in the head, hauled her to an isolated area, and proceeded to attempt a rape. The girl came to and began to flail and scream. Lucas simply strangled her to death at that point. However, no incident of the sort has ever been reported. Lucas tended to lie quite often, so whether or not this story is truth is anyone's guess.
Lucas was arrested soon after this for breaking and entering. He spent a short time in a Beaumont training school for boys in Virginia. He was considered highly disruptive during his incarceration. He claims to have raped his twelve-year-old niece the day after his release. He was arrested again for breaking and entering, and was in and out of jail until his release in 1959. He moved to Tecumseh, Michigan to live with his half-sister.
Lucas killed for a second time that year, stabbing his mother in a blind rage following a family dispute. She died some fifty hours later of the wounds. He was tracked down and arrested in Toledo, Ohio. He was sentenced to 20-40 years in Southern Michigan State Prison for second-degree murder.
Sadly, over-crowding forced his release from prison in 1970. Lucas claims to have murdered two women soon after he was let loose, leaving one body close enough to the prison to see. As with his alleged first murder, no evidence was ever unearthed to support his claim. He was arrested again soon after for attempted kidnapping of a young girl and served four years before his release in 1975. This is where Henry Lee Lucas solidified himself as one of the worst of all time.
Lucas began a period of roaming, traveling everywhere from Wilmington, Delaware to Hurst, Texas. He married during this time, but was accused of molesting the woman's children and opted to leave. He seemed to move back and forth, often moving back in with Opal, until his other sister, Almeda, offered him work at her husband's wrecking yard. However, he was quickly accused of molesting her granddaughter. The next day, he deceptively asked to borrow their truck to pick up some junkers for the yard. They never saw him again. The truck left the family's driveway in Port Deposit, Maryland, and turned up in Jacksonville, Florida.
It was here that Lucas met a man named Ottis Toole. Lucas was soon living with the man and his family, sleeping with Toole and his daughter. This continued until, while on a trip in Delaware, Toole became sick and was hospitalized. Lucas took the man's children and headed for Maryland. Unfortunately for him, he was arrested there and spent approximately two months in jail. Lucas returned to Jacksonville upon his parole. Ottis' health improved and he returned to Florida as well.
Lucas and Toole were a reckless and violent tandem, stealing anything and everything. Even robbing banks occasionally. Lucas later confessed to numerous crimes during this period. One involved him shooting a convenience store clerk and watching Toole molest the corpse. This is where repetitive murdering for Lucas and Toole began. Another story shared by Toole enhanced this point. Lucas and Toole were on a Texas Interstate when they noticed a young guy and girl walking down the road. Ottis simply pulled over, stepped out of the car, and shot the boy nine times, disposing of him in a culvert. Lucas was busy fighting the girl to get her in the car. Ottis jumped in the drivers' seat and took off, while Lucas steadily and repeatedly raped the girl. Ottis stopped the car, dragged the girl out, and commenced to shoot her six times, and left her on the interstate.
The two murdered constantly, killing for a car, killing for sex, killing for fun. Anyone who drifted in their path was in danger. One girl was found completely nude in a field, the victim of stab wounds. Lucas were credited for some twenty murders in California, Michigan, Texas, and Maryland. Of course, Lucas confessed to some 600, "free lunches" as he called them.
Crazy as this may seem, it gets stranger. Lucas and Toole are approached by a man who offers them a job, contract killing. As if this does not delight the two enough, he declares they must join a satanic cult in order to be eligible for the job. They met with the cult in Miami soon after. The stranger introduced himself by name at this meeting, calling himself Don Meteric. He admitted to knowing Ottis well, which hurt Lucas, who felt betrayed. This did not stop him from pledging to the fraternity, however. He and Ottis supposedly were required to murder a man to be accepted into the cult. They were taken to the Everglades where Lucas claimed Ottis lured a man to a beach where Lucas lay in waiting with a blade. Lucas ripped his throat. He, Ottis, and the cult later cooked and ate the man in a "Black Mass" ritual. After their induction, they began kidnapping babies for sale as slaves. They kidnapped and drugged children and teenagers to star in illegal pornographic movies the cult distributed. Of course, as with a lot of Lucas' testimony, not a trace of this satanic cult was ever uncovered, leading one to believe it a hoax.
Lucas was supposedly told by the head of this cult to take some time off. Ottis stayed on after his departure. He went Jacksonville and met up with Ottis' daughter, Becky. They moved to California. They were playing the role of man and wife, but Becky, according to Lucas, wanted more than play. She apparently wanted the sexual part of a married relationship, but Lucas claimed "fatherly devotion", prevented him from that. Becky became inflamed at him, referring to him as a homosexual. Lucas resented this ludicrous accusation, and to compensate for it, raped and murdered a woman later that night while Becky slept.
Lucas then claims Meteric contacted him and offered him a job. The mark was a lawyer in Beaumont, Texas. He befriended the man and asked if he would like to go for a drink. When the man tilted his head back to take a few swallows, Lucas stated he slit the man's throat so deep that, "the liquor just spilled out the bottom of his head". He buried the body, only to dig it back up later and decapitate it, and bury the body with the limbs out of the ground so it would be discovered. They then drifted northwest, as far as Oregon and Washington, Lucas raping and killing as had become his routine. He tried to take credit for the Green River Murders, but this was proved impossible.
Lucas and Becky continued to roam, working for people and barely getting by. Everything was fine until one of the couples began converting Becky to Christianity. Lucas was immediately threatened. Not long after this, Lucas stabbed her to death in a field, raped the corpse, and chopped her up. He stuffed her into three pillowcases and left her in the field. He returned to bury her two days later.
Kate Rich, one of the individuals to have sheltered the couple, became suspicious of Lucas when she began hearing of him being around, and Becky leaving abruptly. Rich met with Lucas and questioned him. He said that she had run off with a truck driver. She immediately appeared not to believe him. That was all he needed to inspire another murder. He pulled off on an abandoned road, stabbed her, carved an inverted cross into her chest, and then dragged her out of the car. He then proceded to have sex with the dead body. He disposed of the lifeless corpse in a ditch. Later, he returned to dice her up and pack her in garbage bags. He spent the late night burning her in a wood burning stove. He departed in the early hours that same morning. This murder was a turning point in the psychopaths sick career. Family of Mrs.Rich contacted local authorities when Kate failed to answer phone calls or the door upon visits. When she turned up missing, witnesses said Lucas was the last person to see her alive. His record was drawn. To the horror of the sheriff, he had previous rape and murder charges, but this was discovered too late, Lucas was long gone.
Lucas wandered awhile, theft remaining his only source of sustenance. He was bouncing all over the country. Oklahoma, Amarillo, Texas, stealing and selling to survive. Time was getting short for Lucas. He returned to a town in California, Hemet, with the hopes of attaining a job he once had working for a man named Jack Smart. Little known to Lucas, Smart had long since caught wind of Lucas' dissaperrance the day after Kate Rich had vanished. He devised a plan on the spot. Acting as though everything was perfectly normal, Jack graciously welcomed Lucas back into his home, and phoned.his family in the hours that followed. Soon after, Lucas was taken into custody, cuffed in Jack Smart's antique shop. Unbelievingly, Lucas had to be released because of lack of tangible evidence. Back on the streets again, Lucas made tracks.
Lucas wasted no time, traveling all over continuing to kill if he felt threatened. He stayed primarily in the central states. But he made time in Illinois to abduct another woman, slash her to death, and sleep with her body. He dumped her in a grove, like so much refuse, but he made sure to clean all valuables off her first. He drove to Texas and ditched his car, then quickly began trekking back north via the thumb. But it was not to be, Lucas was running out of options. He was broke, extremely desparate for cash. He resorted to calling another ex-employer, Ruben Moore. Moore also knew he was wanted by the police in conjunction with a possible murder. For the second time, Lucas was lured. He was offered $100.00 to return to Moore's ranch and go to work for him. He arrived, and was greeted cheerfully by Moore, who had the police there to get Lucas the next morning. Presently, the only charge they could keep him for was theft of a stolen vehicle in Maryland. Authorities there would not order an extradition for Lucas, so, again, he was released. Luckily, only a short time later, Lucas was apprehended once and for all. The human nightmare was finally at bay.
Henry Lee Lucas died in his cell in 2001.
