Silly Old Twit

The story of Henry Lee Lucas is interesting for one reason. ( See Henry Lee on Youtube here). It didn’t happen. Not the story as we know it today at least. And in this age of mass communication and information overload the lessons we can learn from this story are even more important than ever
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The story as told today is that Henry killed his mother and on release from custody started on a life as a drifter until he was arrested for being in possession of a gun whereupon he was charged with the murder of a woman and proceeded to confess to having killed hundreds of women. Everyone believed him , so the story goes , until he went too far with his body count at which point the story got out of hand in the media. The police had , we are told made every mistake in the book. Henry then changed his mind and claimed that he had lied. The media also changed their minds and having told one story about Henry now started to tell a quite different story , ie that Henry was not a serial killer but a serial liar. Henry died of a heart attack some years ago and the legend , or rather the story lives on.
But a story is all it is. And as someone once said , “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
Henry was born on 23 august 1936. As a child he was abused terribly by his mother. The full story is little short of a nightmare but the bare bones of it is that Henry would be forced to watch his mother ( a prostitute) having sex with several men at a time. Failure on his part to pay attention was rewarded with a severe beating. His mother also sent him to school dressed as a girl for the sole purpose of humiliating him. Henry developed a taste for violence and beastiality at this time. Henry killed his mother and was sent to prison. He had , prior to this been in borstal and prison , it’s a long convoluted story like most of Henry’s life which reads today like a horror story. Henry claims that by this stage he had already killed at least two women. There is no proof that he did but Henry lived in a culture and society where not reporting crimes , even murder was not that unusual.
While in prison for the murder of his mother ( which may ironically have been an accident) he studied – among other things he studied the prison records of all the other inmates. This may been seen as indicating how he later fooled the police when finally arrested however it also tells us something of his intelligence.
Watching Henry Lee on Youtube , which is to say , watching footage of him at the height of his fame many come to see him as a somewhat comical man , naive and bewildered by events as they unfold and out of his dept. A bit dim witted in a street wise kind of way. Playing it by ear much of the time. Some of this is true , he had a habit of letting things happen and in so far as we know never planned anything. He had a sense of humor and a vivid imagination ( claiming at one point that he and a sidekick joined a death cult) however to allow yourself to see Henry as a fool is a mistake.
After Henry was released from prison for killing his mother in (1975) he got married but soon parted from his wife and wandered around staying at different times with various members of his extended family being accused in the process of interfering sexually with most of the children he came across at this time. He had no shortage of women admirers and was a popular man in spite of the fact that he robbed just about everyone he met.
About this time Henry met a man call Ottis Toole. Toole was bisexual and developed a crush on Henry. Most of Henry’s life and his relationship with Ottis borders on the absurd. If you read it in a novel you wouldn’t believe it. If you left the awful violence out of the picture it would make a great ‘over the top’ comedy. According to Ottis they traveled all over killing and raping for the fun of it and leaving at least five or six bodies behind in every state they passed through. Ottis told his story independently of Henry after Henry was arrested , Ottis being in prison for murder himself at the time. It is now claimed that Ottis , just like Henry wanted to be famous and hence made up this story about the murders. What we do know is the Henry and Ottis travelled thousands of miles across the US robbing banks and convenience store with ever more extreme violence. Henry , who was a self taught mechanic would with Ottis drive cars until the engine fell out and pick up abandoned vehicles which they would fix until they in turn fell apart. They were rather like Thelma and Louise but not as attractive. Henry liked to pick women up on route and rape them and Ottis liked to watch Henry while he was doing this. All this is I hasten to add is just skimming the top of the story , the details are so complex and so many that I cannot deal with them here. But to suggest that these two men did not kill on their travels is patent nonsense. Many of the people Henry claimed to kill were transients and many were in transit between states and a relatively small number ( by Henry’s standards that is ) were ‘regular’ people. The actual events of Henry’s life from childhood to his final capture are remarkable well documented as is his violence and to imagine this man crossing America as he did without leaving a trail of bodies is to stretch credibility. The fact that there is no proof of the killings is not in itself significant.

There is a general perception out there that after he was arrested for the last time that he started confessing to multiple murder and that the police just believed him but that is simply not true. Henry was brought in on suspicion ( a gun was found on him) of killing a woman called Kate Rich. Shortly after being arrested he admitted to killing her and by the time the police started questioning him about the details they were notified that he had done time for killing his mother. The details of all this are told in different ways depending on which version you read but the facts are quite straightforward. The police found themselves questioning a man who they knew had killed two women and when questioned about his wife then claimed he had killed her also. He brought them to where her body was so now they were faced with a man who had killed three women. …..by now your probably quite confused….and I don’t blame you so I’ll leave this little gem of a story here….Go onto Youtube and have a look at Henry yourself….but don’t make the mistake of thinking that he was just some sort of hapless fool , because he most certainly was not.

I have just now gone over this story , as I do with anything I write before pressing the ‘publish’ button , and find that even I find it all a bit confusing and hard to follow , so do as I suggest and go to Youtube . You can follow the link at the start of this article. You’ll either have a good laugh or a good cry…..

Ian Brady ( Moors Murders) wrote about Lucas in his book on serial killers. You can read about that HERE.