Henry Lee Lucas

Henry Lee Lucas (August 23, 1936–March 13, 2001) was an American criminal, convicted of murder and once listed as America's most prolific serial killer. However, he later recanted his confessions. He once flatly stated "I am not a serial killer" in a letter to researcher Brad Shellady.

1983 arrest and multiple confessions

Lucas was arrested in June 1983, initially on a firearms violation. He was later charged with killing 82-year-old Kate Rich in Ringgold, Texas, and was also charged with Powell's murder. Lucas claimed that police stripped him naked, denied him cigarettes and bedding, held him in a cold cell, and did not allow him to contact an attorney. After four days of this treatment, Lucas claimed he decided to confess to the crimes in a desperate bid to improve his treatment.

Related Topics:
1983 - Firearm - Ringgold - Cigarette - Attorney

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Lucas confessed to the murders but claimed to be unable to take police to the victims' bodies. He closed out his confession with a hand-written addendum that read: "I am not aloud to contact any one I'm in here by myself and still can't talk to a lawyer on this I have no rights so what can I do to convince you about all this" (sic). When he was finally allowed counsel, Lucas' lawyer described his client's treatment as "inhumane" and "calculated solely to require the defendant to confess guilt, whether innocent or guilty."

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The forensic evidence in the Powell and Rich cases has been criticized as inconclusive. A single bone fragment recovered from a wood-burning stove was said to be Rich's, and a mostly-complete skeleton roughly matched Powell's age and size, but Shelladay reports that the coroner stopped short of positively identifying either remains. As with most of his alleged crimes, Lucas has confessed and recanted to these murders, but the general consensus seems to be that Lucas did indeed murder Powell and Rich.

Related Topics:
Forensic - Skeleton - Coroner

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Lucas pled guilty to the charges, and in open court stated he had "killed about a hundred more women" as well. This was an unexpected confession, and Lucas later claimed to have been despondent over being suspected in Powell's disappearance. Shelladay reports that Lucas said, "If they were going to make me confess to one I didn't do, then I was going to confess to everything." These claims were quickly seized upon by the press, and Lucas, accompanied by Texas Rangers, was soon flown from state to state, to meet with various police agencies in an effort to resolve a number of unsolved murders.

Related Topics:
Press - Texas Rangers

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In November 1983, Lucas was transferred to a jail in Williamson County, Texas, where the Lucas Task Force was soon established. Shelladay describes the task force as "a veritable clearinghouse of unsolved murder, courtesy of the Texas Rangers." They officially "cleared" 213 previously unsolved murders via Lucas' confessions.

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Lucas reported that he confessed to murders only because doing so improved his living conditions, and that he received preferential treatment rarely offered to convicts. Others have offered accounts that seem to support Lucas' claims, for example, that Lucas was rarely handcuffed when in custody or being transported, that he was often allowed to wander police stations and jails at will—including knowing the security codes for computerized doors—and that he was frequently taken to restaurants and cafes. On one occasion, in Huntington, West Virginia, Lucas confessed to killing a man whose death had originally been ruled a suicide. The man's widow received a large life insurance settlement that had been denied after the initial suicide verdict, and the Texas Rangers hosted a party at a Holiday Inn, spending $3,000 on drinks and prostitutes. It has been suggested that such treatment demonstrates that the Lucas Task Force did not consider Lucas a threat.

Related Topics:
Handcuffed - Huntington - West Virginia - Life insurance - Holiday Inn - Prostitutes

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Texas Ranger Phil Ryan reports that Lucas became so accustomed to such treatment that he began "dictating orders" which were often obeyed by Rangers. Ryan also reported that he became concerned about the veracity of most of Lucas' confessions, feeling confident in the accuracy of two of Lucas' confessions, and further stated to the Houston Chronicle that "I wouldn't bet a paycheck on any of the others." http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/page1/98/06/28/lucas.html Shellady reports that Ryan invented utterly fictional crimes, to which Lucas would generally "confess" involvement, a tactic also employed by Dallas detective Linda Erwin.

Related Topics:
Houston Chronicle - Dallas

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The same Houston Chronicle article reports that Erwin interviewed Lucas after he confessed to 13 murders in Houston. Erwin reports that "when I heard it got to be hundreds and hundreds (of confessions), it was unbelievable to me." Erwin further reports that, like Ryan, she assembled an utterly fictional crime: She

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:fabricated a case using random photographs from old murders long since solved and details pulled from her imagination ... He claimed credit for the phony crime, and his confession, containing facts she had dribbled out to him, probably could have convinced a jury to convict him, she said. Erwin admitted she was uncomfortable fabricating a crime, but felt it necessary in order to settle questions of Lucas' reliability. Lucas was not charged with any of the crimes he confessed to committing in Dallas.

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Ryan reports the manner in which Lucas typically confessed to a number of unsolved murders: If a police agency suspected Lucas, and if Lucas admitted involvement—and his total of some 3,000 confessions suggests he rarely denied complicity—they would send the Lucas Task Force a case file with information pertaining to the unsolved crime. Lucas would be questioned at length and sometimes even allowed to read police reports, thus learning any number of details previously known only to police, which he could then regurgitate at will.

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