Henry Lee Lucas, Everything You Need to Know.

Table Of Contents

Henry Lee Lucas was a drifter serial killer from Virginia. He ended up being the sought after man by authorities to close unsolved murder cases on their books. He confessed to killing hundreds but was only convicted for 11 murders. In this post you will learn everything you ever need to know about this merciless and ruthless killer.

Picture of a young henry lee lucas

  • Name: Henry Lee Lucas
  • AKA: The Confession Killer / The highway Killer
  • Father: Anderson Lucas
  • Mother: Nellie Viola Dixon
  • Born: 23  August 1936 in Blacksburg, Montgomery County, Virginia
  • Convicted Crimes: 11 murders
  • Suspected number of murders: Hundreds
  • Imprisoned: San Quentin Prison in California
  • Spouse: Betty Crawford
  • Death: 12  March 2001, Huntsville prison
  • Cause of Death: Died aged 64 of natural causes

Table of Contents

Henry Lee Lucas’s Childhood

Henry Lee was born on the 23rd of August 1936 in Blacksburg, Montgomery County, Virginia. He was the youngest of nine children. They lived in a remote, dirt-floored, two-room tar-paper shack. His mother Nellie Viola Dixon known as Viola was a snuff chewing, moonshiner and prostitute with a predisposition to emotional and physical violence.

More about Henry Lee Lucas’s Father

Henry’s father Anderson was called “No Legs” by the townspeople; he was an alcoholic who lost his legs to a slow-moving freight train. For reasons no one knew he decided not to buy prostheses and would slide around the bare dirt floor of the shack, propelling himself on his stumps.

Henry’s Abusive Mother

Viola was part Cherokee Indian and ruled the household with an iron first. She made her money by being a prostitute and servicing men of the village in the shack and forced her husband to watch. She hated Henry and abused him physically and emotionally. Anderson was against the abuse and the fact that she made him watch her having sex with multiple people.

If Henry cried she would beat him unconscious with a stick. Viola also made him watch her having sex with the men. Henry mentioned his earliest memories watching his mother being a prostitute was one day when his mother finished a job with a guy she pulled a shotgun on her client and blasted him in the leg. The blood splattered on Henry and when he cried she beat him mercilessly.

A Loved pet Killed by Henry Lee Lucas’s Mother

Henry was fond of a mule they had and his mother noticed it. One day she asked him “Do you like the mule?” and he replied “Very much.” She brought the mule out and shot the mule in front of him and beat him because she had to pay to have the carcass removed.

Absolutely Horrid Living conditions and the Pimp moves in

The shack they lived in had no power and when Henry told his mother that he was hungry she would tell him not to bother her. She told him to go eat out of the rubbish bins, and because of this Henry was malnourished.

The timeline is a bit sketchy but at some point Viola had her boyfriend Bernie move in to live with the family. Bernie was also her pimp.

Most of the food Henry and his siblings had was stolen, or from neighbors. His mother offered no moral or physical support and treated her children as servants.

Henry said he often had weird experiences where he felt he was floating out of his body after a beating and said he heard disembodied voices. His mother made sure his blond hair grew long and would often dress him up as a girl while she made him watch her having sex with her pimp Bernie.

Henry is tormented even further by his mother

In the year 1942, Henry’s had his first day of school and his mother curled his long blond hair with an iron tong and made him wear a dress while being barefoot.

Malnourished and looking like a girl one teacher felt sorry for Henry and bought him school shoes. As a result of this, his mother beat him terribly for accepting charity.

At school, the children teased him and he was a loner. When he did not go to school in a dress his clothes were dirty and ragged. A teacher who saw he had a difficult time cut his long hair and gave him normal school clothes, his mother was so enraged that she went to school and had a terrible row with the teacher.

Henry said his mother destroyed any normal human affection he had and he was called the dog of the family, he did things that no human being would want to do.

How Henry Lee Lucas sustained a brain injury and lost his eye.

According to the records Henry already had brain damage after all the physical abused he had to endure and in 1943 when he was 10 years old his half-brother accidentally sliced his left eye with a knife. His mother ignored him when he told her he struggled with vision and pain and for months he walked around with pain until one day a teacher swiped him over his eye with a steel-tipped ruler and his eyeball burst, it had to be surgically removed and he received a glass eye. The children at school bullied him even more after he got his glass eye.

By the age of 10, he was an alcoholic and his mother, her boyfriend, and his father, gave him moonshine to sell, it was one of his household chores. The moonshine got sold at 4 pounds a pint as it was Viola’s main source of income. He got used to the alcohol and started drinking to forget his horrible life.

A very young Henry with his eye already gone.

Bernie once took Henry to the hills and slit a calf’s throat and had intercourse with the dead carcass and told Henry to do the same and Henry obeyed him. For Henry, blood, suffering, death and sexual gratification was burned into his damaged mind as one and the same thing.

One day his mother beat him with a piece of log that she split his head open and his skull was exposed, he was unconscious for the rest of the day and eventually, Bernie took him to the hospital. At the hospital his mother told the doctors he fell from a ladder and he had to back her story as he was scared that she will beat him if he did not agree with her story.

The day Henry’s dad died

Sometime in 1950, Anderson just couldn’t take it anymore and dragged himself outside in the cold and laid there in the snow covered landscape for a week after which and died of pneumonia.

Now, that Henry’s father was gone his mother focused all her rage on him.He was 14 years when his father died, and became bitter and angry and dreamed of leaving the life of torment and wanted to run away.

Henry Lee Lucas commits his first murder.

Henry claimed his first human kill was a female school teacher after she rejected his advances.He has now become infatuated with sex and would often capture small animals and performs sexual acts on them before killing them.

Henry Drops out of school and runs away, commits another murder

In the sixth grade, Henry dropped out of school. He ran away from home and mostly drifted in the streets of Virginia.

While on the street one night in March 1952, Henry claimed he had his first human sexual experience with a 17-year-old Laura Burnsley. He said he abducted her from a bus stop, beat her unconscious, raped and strangled her to death.

Henry said he buried her body in the woods near Harrisburg and said that it was not his intention to kill her and felt bad about it, however, there is no record that it ever happened.

While Henry was a drifter his brother went to the Navy and Henry was arrested for breaking and entering an appliance store.

The first time Henry Lee Lucas is incarcerated

Mugshot of a very young Henry lee Lucas

Since he was still a minor he was sent to Beaumont Training School for Boys in Virginia. In the records, it showed that he could be calm and rational and the next minute violent and uncontrollable.

Henry remained at Beaumont for a year where he bragged that at age 12, he raped his niece, he also made a friend, and the officials later described their relationship as sexual. He said Beaumont was luxurious as they had running water and electricity which was much more than he was used to at the shack.

Henry Lee Lucas Adult life

Henry gets arrested and is sent to prison as an adult

After being released he worked as a farmhand where he picked up some life skills. Not long after though, he was arrested for breaking and entering again. By now he was an adult and was sentenced to prison for 4 years in Virginia State Penitentiary.

In prison, he had the job of cleaning the highways and in March 1956, while out cleaning the streets he escaped by stealing a car. During the time on the run, he met Stella Curtis and fell in love with her. He was free for two months before he was caught and sent back to prison in Ohio for transporting stolen goods across state lines. After he served the prison term in Ohio he was returned to Virginia to complete his original sentence.

Henry Lee Lucas gets engaged and kills his Mother.

When Henry was on parole in September 1959, he met up with Stella who he became engaged to. They moved in with his half-sister Opal in Tecumseh, Michigan.  Henry’s mother came to visit one Christmas and was furious about his engagement to Stella. She wanted Henry to come back with her to Blacksburg as she was elderly and wanted him to take care of her.

On the night of the 11th of January 1960, while the family was in a bar Henry and his mother argued and Stella decided that she did not want to be part of a family feud and broke the engagement and went home.

Furious with his mother for ruining his life the second time he went after Stella and his mother followed him. Viola was intoxicated and reverts to her old ways by abusing Henry and struck him with a broom breaking the handle on his head. He started to feel like the young Henry again but this time he had the strength of a grown man and according to sources he defended himself and struck his mother in the neck with a knife. She did not die from her neck wound but, hours later had a heart attack in the hospital.

According to records she had a heart attack because of the knife wound she sustained. Henry did not see Viola as his mother, she was a monster and she destroyed his childhood and the only happiness he would ever have with Stella, and he hated her for that.

Henry claimed it was self-defense and even confessed that he sexually assaulted his mother’s corpse but recanted his statement later. He was arrested in Ohio and brought to Michigan where he was charged with second-degree murder. Henry was tried in March 1960 and was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in the State Prison of Southern Michigan at Jackson.

Back in prison and Henry attempts suicide

While Henry was in prison he claimed he heard voices and one of them was his mother’s voice, the voices taunted and bugged him. He said his mother’s voice told him to commit suicide for what he had done to her.

In a letter he wrote to his sister he said goodbye to her and told her he is going to commit suicide to rid him of the voices He attempted suicide several times by slashing his writs and stomach with a razor, but the guards kept saving him just in time.

Lucas is transferred to a Mental Hospital

Image Source: Pintrest

Henry was transferred to the Ionia State Mental Hospital, where he’s already damaged brain was further subjected to massive treatments of electric shocks, brutal behavior therapy and heavy doses of anti-depressants. The treatments made him more violent and one time he told the doctors that if he was released he would kill again. Henry spent four years at Ionia Mental Hospital before returning to prison in 1966, and he was hell-bent on revenge.

Now Henry Lee Lucas is a man on a mission

Henry would read books on police procedure and studying methods of murder during his duration in prison. He started working in the records room of the prison and learned from the mistakes of other inmates. He saw that if he committed crimes against people with whom he had no personal connection and moved on over the wide open spaces of America, the chances of getting caught was remote.

He also knew there were huge gaps in the communication between the fragmented and often competing law enforces of the USA, at city, county, state and federal level. A series of crimes committed in one jurisdiction would rarely be related to a similar series of crimes. The country was wide open for a serial killer who wanted to murder people at random and Henry was convinced he found the secret to a perfect crime including murder.

Due to an overcrowded prison system, Henry was released on the 3rd of June 1970 and told the guards of the prison he would leave a present for them at their doorstep. The present he was talking about was the 2 bodies of young women that he left on the prison doorstep who he claimed to kill within minutes of his release, although there is no evidence to prove that his statement was true.

Henry is arrested again and released yet again.

Exactly when he started killing after his release from Jackson no one knows, but he certainly tried. In December of 1971, he was charged and sentenced to four or five years in prison for attempting to abduct a 15-year-old girl at gunpoint.

He was also in violation of his probation by having a handgun in his possession. While Henry was in prison he befriended Betty Crawford a family friend and single mother. He was released from prison in August 1975, where he told the prison officials that he is ready to settle down and get a job.

After being released from prison he went to Port Deposit, Maryland, where he visits his half-sister and her daughter and moved in with his niece and her husband.

Henry gets Married

It was through his niece that he came in contact with Betty who wrote to him while he was in prison. They became good friends and started a relationship. In Pennsylvania, he worked at a mushroom farm and on the 5th of December 1975, he got married to Betty and moved in with her and her two daughters.

Henry worked for his brother in law Wade Kiser for 18 months as a salvager, wrecker, gutting and fixing cars. He would disappear from time to time for a few days, apparently on drinking sprees.

Henry struggled to keep a job and the family lived off Betty’s social security payments and the family moved from trailer park to trailer park on a regular basis. After a while, they decided to move back to Maryland and Betty and Henry’s marriage ended in 1977 when Betty accused Henry of molesting her daughters.

Henry goes on a killing spree that lasts almost two decades

Cast out of a family and home he began to drift and according to his own confession began a killing spree which lasted for 17 years across the United States raping and killing female hitchhikers.

One of the murders he confessed to during this period was the murder of Cindy. She was 16 or 17 years old, a runaway somewhere up north hitchhiking through the Southern United States to nowhere in particular.

According to Henry she was heavily made up, very sexy and well-built with a large bust, and apparently, it was enough to make him pull over and give her a ride. In the car she accepted his offer for a beer and he asked her to slide over to him and she did.

Henry touched her breast and she asked him if he liked it and he said yes. He claimed she was playing him and he asked her if they could have intercourse and she said maybe. He was going to stop and she said not yet there is still time. Henry said she shifted away from him and was thinking of jumping out of the car, he said that made him mad and he pulled her towards him again and put his arm around her neck.

Cindy lashed out hitting him as she tried to break free of his grasp, while the two of them fought the car nearly went off the road. Cindy grabbed the steering wheel and Henry got so angry he rammed a butcher’s knife into her. She fell between the seat and the dash next to the door, and after a while he pulled her out of the car as she moaned but he could not make out what she said. He dragged Cindy into a field and choked the last remnants of life out of her. He even made a sketch of her as he remembered her to illustrate his gruesome account.

Of some of the murders he confessed to there is no police record and many of the crimes he said he committed were the product of his own imagination. He claimed to dump his victims in the woods, culverts or by a deserted road.

Henry Lee Lucas meets Ottis Toole

Sheriff Boutwell, Henry Lee Lucas, and Ottis Toole

Henry went to Jacksonville, Florida in 1976, and did not know anyone, he ended up at a soup kitchen where he learned they give shelter and food to those in need. Henry met Ottis Toole at the soup kitchen and struck up a friendship with him. At the time Ottis was a 29-year-old homosexual who cared for his subnormal 13-year-old niece Frieda Powell. Ottis and Henry shared an unhealthy interest in rape and death.

Henry and Ottis moved in together with Ottis’s mother in Springfield in 1978. Ottis’s mother knew he often brought home strangers from the shelter.

Henry finds a new Love

Henry did seem different as they become travel companions and shared the same interest. Henry romantically became involved with Ottis’s niece Frieda they called her Becky she was 13 at the time. Henry said he and Becky filled each other’s lifelong need for love and respect.

Henry eventually adopted Becky and they lived strangely as husband and wife. Henry said Becky often seduced him and he resisted and at other times he claimed that they had a wonderful sexual experience. He said he would kill other people and take his lust out on them as Becky was special to him.

A short Background of Ottis Toole

Whether Henry and Ottis were serial killers together is still a mystery but according to sources, it is likely true. Ottis is well known in the crime community but, for those that do not know Ottis here is a short biography:

Ottis was an American drifter and serial killer who killed six women. His mother would dress him as a girl and called him Susan, she abused him mentally and physically.

His father was an alcoholic and abandoned him when he was still young. Ottis claimed that he was sexually abused by a lot of different family members including his older sister and next door neighbor.

Ottis’s grandmother was a Satanist and exposed him to satanic rituals including grave robbing and self-mutilation and called him the Devil’s child. As a young adult, he suffered mild mental lapses and epilepsy. Because of the abuse he frequently ran away from home and slept in abandoned houses and he was also sexually aroused by fire, he was a serial arsonist from a young age.

Ottis dropped out of school in the ninth grade and began to visit gay bars and became a male prostitute. By his own account, he committed his first murder at the age of 14 years where he ran over a salesman with a car.

In 1974, he was a suspect in a few murders in Nebraska and Colorado. With all the attention on him, he moved back to Jacksonville. He married a woman 25 years his senior on the 14th of January 1976, and after three days she left him after she discovered his sexuality. In that same year, he met Henry Lee Lucas at the soup kitchen.

Drinking Buddies Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole become Partners in Crime

They started drinking together which led to robberies of convenience stores and gas stations in Western Pennsylvania. They began to travel further into Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. If they came across people who resisted them they got shot with Ottis’s .22 semi-automatics. They would target hitchhikers or lone women stranded with a broken down car for sheer pleasure.

According to Ottis on the night of 5th November 1978, they traveled to Round Rock, North of Austin, Texas, on Interstate 35, and picked up a teenage couple whose 1974 Ford Torino had run out of petrol.

When they got both teenagers in their car they pointed a gun at the teenage boy and he gave them his wallet, Henry was driving the car and pulled off the road. Ottis opened the door and pulled the boy out and shot him, when the boy tried to run Ottis emptied his gun into him. While Ottis was driving the car, Henry went to the back of the car to the girl and raped her. It made Ottis so mad he stopped the car on a service road South of Waco where he ordered the girl out of the car and put 6 shots into her.

If their car would run out of petrol or broke down, they would kill a driver and steal the car. Henry showed no emotion or remorse for what he did and would often boast about their crimes, while no one knew what they were doing as they crossed states lines.

According to sources authorities believe that Henry and Ottis were responsible for at least 4 to 5 bodies in each state. They claim that they often killed more than one victim a day.

For a while, Henry stayed with his half-sister Almeda but, left Port Deposit in February 1979 as she threatened to report him for sexually abusing her granddaughter. In retaliation, Henry stole his nephew Randy Kiser’s pickup truck for transport.

The murder of “Orange Socks”

On his way back to Jacksonville he picked up a female victim he thought her name was June or Joanie outside Oklahoma City, hitchhiking on her way to the South of Texas. According to Henry during the night she had consented to sex at a rest stop and the next morning they had breakfast at another truck stop south of Waco. During the course of the afternoon, Henry wanted to have more sex but she refused.

They had a struggle in the car and she tried to fight him off, but he strangled her and broke her neck. Henry drove for the rest of the afternoon and by sundown, he reached Williamson County. He spotted a culvert at the side of the highway and threw her naked body out with the exception of a pair of orange socks, and pushed it over the edge. She was found the next afternoon. The victim was tall and heavy set and in spite of a long search, her identity has never been found.

She was known as “Orange Socks” as these were the only clothes on the body when she was found.

Ottis and Lucas Reunited

Once back in Jacksonville Henry made contact with Ottis again.

Henry moved in with Ottis and his wife Novella and in the adjoining house, Ottis’s mother Sarah Hartley and her husband Bob lived with Ottis’s drug-addicted Sister Drusilla Powell.

(Drusilla had two children, Frieda Lorraine was known as Becky and 10-year-old Frank. With Drusilla’s drug addiction the children were mostly looked after by their grandmother.)

Henry and Ottis worked together in a roofing company between 1979 and 1981. Henry would help Sarah take care of the children driving them around town on various errands.

Deadly Road Trip

Henry, Ottis, and Becky spent a year together on a trail of destruction. Ottis seemed to have a split personality, by day he had a reputation as a hard worker, immensely strong, not too bright but always willing to work. But by night it was a different story. He was a pyromaniac who was obsessed with setting fires after dark and the friendship with Henry gave him a new set of pleasure which was murder.

Ottis and Henry would take Becky and Frank out for drives for weeks at a time, heading north into Georgia and west toward Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Early October 1979, they were in Austin, Texas when they saw a woman by the side of the road bending over the engine of a black Dodge Diplomat sedan. On the 8th of October, the body of Sandra Mae Dubbs 34 was found in a field in Travis County, she was stabbed 37 times.

In the spring of 1980, Henry, Ottis, Becky, and Frank went to Georgia for a couple of weeks. On Interstate 95 Henry and Ottis kidnapped a 16-year-old girl and killed her and dumped her body in an artificial lake.

In Brunswick they wanted to buy beer but were turned away, Ottis returned to the store and killed the cashier out of spite.

In Savannah, they picked up a blond girl at a truck stop and somewhere in the south of the city they killed her and Ottis mutilated her body afterward.

At the YMCA parking lot of Heinzville, Henry stabbed a white middle aged woman to death and in Dublin they robbed a store where Ottis shot an unarmed bystander.

In Alabama Henry killed a white female and in Georgia in Donalsonville Ottis took a cashier of a convenience store into the bathroom of the store and killed her.

When in Douglasville they picked up a young man and drove him into the country. The young man refused to have sex with Ottis as he was too dirty; Ottis went crazy and beat him to death.

While they were on their way they broke into a store and stabbed the woman in the store to death. Just before they entered Florida they broke into a store and found a man inside which Henry stabbed to death.

According to Henry and Ottis in this time they committed over a thousand murders but, we will not know for certain.

The United States is a huge country, with endless, wide open spaces and thousands of communities large and small. In a nation where it wasn’t difficult to disappear from one place and reappear in another with a new identity without anyone knowing or caring, it is just as easy to die to the same effect. Henry earned an income through buying and selling junk, wrecked cars and auto parts on the interstate highways in 1980 and 1981.

The Kids get homesick

In May 1980, Henry, Ottis, Becky, and Frank went to Tucson, Arizona. At that stage Becky and Frank got homesick and their car broke down on their way back to Jacksonville.

They went back to Jacksonville by freight cars and hitchhiking rides on the highway. In July they were in Delaware and Virginia. For food, they would go to missions and soup kitchens and for cash, they would sell their blood.

If they wanted to drink they robbed stores and killed people. Sometimes they would kill and rape for the fun or just because of their hatred for humanity. Henry claimed he liked his women dead before he had sex with them.

According to some sources Henry and Ottis were in a homosexual relationship.

Bold Claims, Horrific murders and a Satanic Cult

During this time they committed 108 murders together. Their murders were sometimes in the order of a satanic and cannibalistic cult called “The Hands of Death.” Ottis claimed his preferred way of killing his victims were to crucify them and eat them with barbeque sauce. All though none of the known murders he confessed to were killed this way. Henry said he never took part in those murders as he did not like barbeque sauce.

In May 1981, Ottis’s mother died and on the 16th of December 1981, Drusilla committed suicide. By this time the Florida authorities put Becky and Frank in a juvenile home in Bartow. Henry could not bear to be without Becky and he and Ottis broke Becky and Frank out of the juvenile home and took them on the road again while they murdered people.

According to Henry, he killed to take revenge on society which treated him brutally. A vicious mother and a deprive upbringing left him without a conscience and other people were simply there for his pleasure, alive or dead it made no difference to him.

He abducted children and ran them into Mexico.

The children were then adopted illegally or sold into prostitution. Apparently, while he and Ottis were making the journey to Mexico with the children they would molest them at any time and as much as they like.

He then moved on to contract killing. Henry claimed that his last contract killing was in January 1982, on a male victim in Beaumont, California.

One of his bizarre claims was that he and Ottis were involved in a satanic cult between 1979 and 1982.

According to Henry, he was inducted into the cult in a remote swamp in Florida in the Everglades. He had to undergo a seven-week programme in the mountains where he became involved with sex with corpse, cannibalism, and arson.

Henry said they taught him the proper methods of murder according to the cult. The authorities did a search in the mountains where Henry said he was trained but they could not find anything, Henry told the authorities the cult went on a vacation and move around a lot.

By 20th of January 1982, they were in Houston, Texas where the child welfare authorities launched a search for Becky and Frank. Becky decided to flee with Henry to California and her brother Frank eventually wound up in a psychiatric facility after being a witness to Henry and Ottis’s murders and brutality.

Six days later Henry and Ottis raped and killed another victim on the I-20 between Abilene and Colorado City. In Scottsdale they dumped the woman’s head in the desert and after this Ottis went back to Florida alone and he never saw Becky again.

Herny & Becky starts a life without Ottis

Henry and Becky continued their journey alone where they went to Beaumont. One night while they were hitchhiking on the I-10 State Route 79, an antique dealer Jack Smart from Hemet picked them up and even gave them an apartment to live in.

In return for living in the apartment, Henry was given odd jobs to do in Jack’s shop and home. By now Becky was presenting herself as the wife of Henry and when Jacks mother Kate Rich an 80-year-old granny who is almost blind needed someone to look after her Henry and Becky was given the task of looking after her. They impressed the Smarts with their hard work and in May 1982, they took the Greyhound bus to Ringgold in Montague County to care for Kate.

By the end of the month, Henry and Becky were thrown out of the house by two of her daughters. A general store clerk alerted Kate’s daughters that Henry was forging cheques on her bank account. Her daughters found the house filthy and unkept and gave them bus fare to get out of town. Henry pocketed the money and decided that they should rather hitchhike back to California.

On their way back they were picked up by a preacher Ruben Moore who ran a small religious community The House of Prayer in Stoneburg. Ruben offered them commendation at one of the community shacks, in return, Henry worked as a roofer and general repairman. Becky also helped with the chores and became a firm believer in the Christian faith. She became homesick and wanted to go home where she could confess her sins.

Henry Lee Lucas Murders his Loved one

On Henry’s birthday the 23rd of August 1982, he gave in to her request and they packed up and went on the road again. Everything they owned fitted into three suitcases and Ruben gave them a lift to the Alvord truck stop. Becky, however, would never make it back home. They got two rides that took them to Denton and waited on the access road to the interstate but no one picked them up.

They decided to make their way into the field and undid their bedrolls and settled down to sleep. Henry decided to persuade Becky to go back to the House of Prayer as he was terrified that Becky would confess to her and his sins. Before long they were arguing furiously and Henry told Becky he made up his mind they are going back no matter what she said.

Becky screamed and hit him on the side of the head and Henry just snapped and stabbed her with a knife in her chest. Henry said she just sat there for a few seconds and then fell over. He said at first he was shocked that he killed Becky, he really loved her, but his initial shock did not last long, he then removed her undergarments and had sex with her corpse.

He then cut her up into tiny pieces and stuffed them into three pillows he had with him, except for her thighs and left her in the field. It was the first and last time in his life that he showed any remorse or guilt for the only person he ever loved. Henry said after he killed Becky he started hearing her voice in his head and she taunted him.

Henry went back to the House of Prayer and told Ruben; Becky had taken off with a truck driver heading east. Ruben believed him and offered him time and space to recover from his loss.

Henry is suspected of murder and murders again

Kate (The Lady they had cared for) who stayed in contact with Becky when they left her house could not reach her and called Henry. He agreed to drive Kate to church one Sunday and took Ruben’s car to pick her up. On their way to church she questioned Henry about the disappearance of Becky and she openly doubted his story.

When Kate persisted with her questioning Henry got mad and told her he is going to take her home, he went off the highway on to a dirt road and pulled on a piece of waste ground.

He picked up his butchers knife he always had on him and plunged it into her heart, he pulled her body from the car and mutilated it and stuffed her into a drain running under the road. This was the second time he had broken his own rule by killing someone he had personal connections with. According to sources it was perhaps his own perverse way of saying he wanted to get caught.

When Kate’s neighbors found out that she and Becky went missing so such a short period of time they became suspicious and contacted the authorities.

The Police on Henry Lee Lucas’s trail

The Sheriff had no evidence to suggest Becky or Kate was dead so Montague Sheriff Conway and Texas Ranger Phil Ryan brought Henry in for questioning about Kate’s disappearance. Henry denied all knowledge of their disappearance and was released after he passed a polygraph test.

The first thing Henry did when he was released from the interrogation was to go back to the drain where he stuffed Kate’s remains and burn it in the incinerator of House of Prayer, he then took off for Mexico.

Henry started killing and robbing again but was sloppy to cover his tracks. He eventually ran out of money, gas, and patience, and called Ruben his preacher friend to ask him for a place to stay. Ruben declined knowing the police already connected Henry to the disappearance of Kate. Ruben told Henry to call him back in a few days as he will see what he could do for him. He called Henry back and told him he had a place for him at the House of Prayer and wired him 100 dollars to get there.

Henry Lee Lucas is captured for the Final time and confess

In the meantime, the sheriff had an outstanding warrant for Henry when he stole his brother in law’s pick-up truck and thought the best course of action would be to arrest him at the House of Prayer. He was arrested but did not confess to the murders of Kate and Becky and the police had to release him.

On the 10th of June 1983, Henry was arrested on a charge of illegal gun possession in Stoneburg, and while in jail he wrote a letter to the sheriff. “I have killed for the past 10 years and no one will believe me. I cannot go on doing this. I also killed the only girl I ever loved.”

Four days later in his cell in Montague County jail, he began the long chronicle of his astounding and appalling confessions. In the months and years that followed Henry claimed to had committed over 1000 murders.

A task force is created to validate his crimes

Henry Lee Lucas showing officers of the Law around at a crime scene.

Law officers from Canada and 40 of the United States stood in line to question him on over 3000 unsolved killings on their books. As a result, police forces from more than 20 states were satisfied they had confirmed his involvement in 157 homicides and have closed files on them.

There was a Henry Lee Lucas Task Force formed to validate his crimes, lead by the Texas Rangers. Henry showed the detectives where the bodies of Kate and Becky were and said he felt remorseful for killing Becky. He went back to the field where he killed Becky to in his words to commune with the soul of his beloved.

At first, he confessed to the murders of Becky and Kate in order to escape the harsh treatments he endured from the Texas Rangers. Bone fragments were found in the stove of House of Prayer and skeletal remains with the same sex and same age as Becky was found in the field. Even with the remains, the coroner could not positively identify the remains as who he claimed it to be.

In November 1983, Henry was transferred to the Williamson County in Texas. Henry implicated his friend Ottis in many of the murders and said they were a hit squad for the satanic cult. With many hours of confessions, he said he could remember 200 murders in nearly every state he was in. Ottis did not seem to mind being implicated in the murders and offered confessions of his own, at that stage, Ottis was serving time in the Florida prison for arson.

The police and FBI doubt some of the murder claims

In Dallas two detectives were suspicious about all the murders Henry confessed to and they made up a murder and asked him if he did it and he said yes. In 1985, a Dallas newspaper publishes Henry would have had to drive 11 thousand miles in one month to commit all the murders he claimed.

The FBI was also doubtful about Henry’s claims and in an interview with a Houston agent, he asked Henry if he had committed murders in Guyana. Henry said yes he did although he did not even know if Guyana was in Louisiana or Texas. Guyana is thousands of miles away in Central America, where a cult leader Jim Jones had persuaded hundreds of his followers to commit suicide at their Jonestown settlement. Records of Henry’s employment, credit card receipts and other evidence establish that most of his confession was untrue.

In an interview with ex FBI agent Robert Ressler Henry admitted that he told lies to have fun and to highlight the stupidity of the police. Ressler wrote, “If we had the VICAP up and running at the time Henry made his first startling admission, it would have been easy to see what truth was and what was falsehood in his confession.”

Henry suffered from a condition called hypomnesia, the ability to recall events in astonishingly fine detail. It was his ability to described details only the killer would know and he convinced the police time and again that his confessions were genuine.

More cases closed and more cases confessions confirmed as a lies

In many cases, he led the police to the scene of the crime. In some cases his “gift” as it was called was used to close some of the other police force’s cases by asking him leading questions. Henry would pick up enough information this way to reassemble it, with some clever guesswork of his own into a highly plausible confession. According to sources some people claimed if Henry knew so much about the murders and he did not commit it the only other logical explanation would be is that he knew the person who committed all those murders. Alternatively, it could be a collective of people he heard from through the years when people boasted about it and he just decided to take credit.

Henry Lee Lucas maintained he was responsible for the Green River murders that took place in Washington State. When the bodies were found in July 1982, he was at the House of Prayer in Texas.

Some of the information about the murders he probably read in the newspaper and made it just utterly convincing but, there are some doubts that not all the information is untrue. It concerned the rape, sodomy, and stabbing to death, on the 4th of November 1978, of Lisa M Martinez. An attractive, dark-haired 19-year-old who lived in an apartment in Kennewick, Washington State.

Henry provided a lot of information about Lisa, her apartment and its location, the weather at the time of the killing and intimate details that were not known to the public. It seemed that he was telling the truth and he did kill her.

The other crime was the double shooting by Ottis, although Henry claims he was his accomplice. It was the shooting of Kevin Key and Rita Salazar near Interstate 35, 11 miles from Austin, Texas. Again he provided explicit details about the couple and their murders which was not published, the couple died on the 5th of November 1978, one day after Lisa Martinez murder and 2 thousand miles away by road. He would have traveled 24 hours at an average speed of 89mph in a country that had a speed limit of 55mph.

At the end of 1991, Henry was convicted of 11 murders.

A list of of victims Henry Lee Lucas was convicted for murder:

  • His victims including his mother Nellie, Becky and Kate and the following
  • The unidentified female known only as “Orange Socks”, whose body he dropped into a culvert on I-35 in Williamson County, Texas in October 1979. (He received the death penalty)
  • Linda Phillips 26 she was a teacher from Kauffman County, Texas who he stabbed to death in August 1970. (He received life in prison)
  • Clemmie E Curtiss a police officer from Cabell County, West Virginia which he shot in August 1976. (He received life in prison)
  • Lillie Pearl Darty 18, who he raped and shot in Harrison County, Texas in November 1977, (He received 77 years in prison.)
  • Diana Bryant was strangled to death in Brownfield, Texas. (He received 75 years in prison.)
  • Glenna Biggers 66 was stabbed with a 14-inch knife and a three-pronged fork in Hale County, Texas in December 1982. (He received life in prison.)
  • An unidentified female raped and strangled in Montgomery County, Texas sometime before 17 March 1983. (He received life in prison.)
  • Laura Jean Domez 16 beaten and strangled in Montgomery County, Texas on 13th of April 1983. (He received life in prison.)

More charges of murder and Henry in prison.

According to sources Henry has been charged with an additional 20 other killings, and faces trial in Florida on four more counts of murder.

In his trial, he took responsibility for 600 murders and Ottis which is on Florida death row even corroborated much of Henry’s confessions.  Henry was given the death sentence and in 1998 six days before his execution, his death sentence was commuted to life in prison by the then governor of Texas, George W Bush.

The reason for this was there were too many contradictions in his confession and not enough to re-open the cases.

In prison, he became a model prisoner and a born-again Christian and he died on the 12th of March 2001 at the age of 64 of natural causes in a Huntsville prison. It seemed almost cruel that he had such an easy death compared to what he did to his victims and their families. He was buried at Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery in Huntsville Texas. As of 2012, his grave is unmarked due to vandalism and theft.

Ottis his friend and accomplice in some of the murders was in prison since 1983, and he died from cirrhosis of the liver in Florida State prison in 1996. Ottis also killed several people and was the prime suspect in the 1981 murder case of Adam Welsh.

According to sources, there is a movie about Henry Lee Lucas called “Henry: The portrait of a serial killer”. Apparently, the movie is the most gruesome and horrific serial killer movie to date. Some people do not see Henry as a serial killer because, he was a pathological liar, but according to records he did kill more than 3 people so he is classified as a serial killer.

Henry Lee Lucas’s time in prison and death

A spokesperson for the prison Larry Fitzgerald said Henry spent most of his days working as the sewing machine operator in the factory that produces trousers for the correctional officers. Larry said “He was our best.”

Henry also like to paint and did a lot of landscapes and other artwork, apparently some of his artwork was given away for free by him and some of it was sold. Henry died as a born again Christian and was a model prisoner who was quiet and enjoyed his last living years.

According to sources Henry had a history of heart problems and was previously hospitalized. Before his death he spent a 2 night in the Huntsville Hospital, he complained of breathing problems. Although he died of natural causes they still did an autopsy and his body was transferred to the Huntsville Funeral Home where the prison officials will canvass through the list of family and friends to see if someone will come to claim the body. His body was not claimed.

A list of Important People in Henry Lee Lucas’s Life

  • Father: Anderson Lucas
  • Mother: Nellie Viola Dixon
  • Step Sister: Almeda Aomia Kiser (She still lived in Port Deposit on Main Street, the home she shared with Henry.) She commented in an interview “I don’t see how he could have committed all those murders when he was right around her when it was going on. I saw him almost daily from 1975 to 1978 when he worked for my husband at a junkyard here.”
  • Step Sister: Wanda
  • Step Sister: Opal
  • Engaged: Stella Curtis
  • Wife: Betty Crawford – She commented “They can execute and get rid of him.”
  • “Wife”: Frieda Becky Powell
  • Brother in Law: Wade Kiser
  • Nephew: Randy Kiser

Interesting facts about Henry Lee Lucas

According to sources Becky helped Henry and Ottis to lure their victims, she would look like she had trouble and people would come up to the car.

Henry’s commuted death sentence was the only sentence commuted by George W Bush during his tenure from 1995 to 2000. George oversaw 111 executions of men and 1 of a woman.

Although not limited to a specific race and color Henry preferred killing white young females.

Henry became fascinated in 1999, with the case of Angelo Maturino Recendez; he studied the case and even claimed some of the victims were his. Angelo was a drifter in and was known as the Railroad Killer, who was linked to 8 murders in Texas, Illinois, and Kentucky.

Between Henry and Ottis they helped recover 246 bodies, all people who were missing.

He enjoyed having the title in prison of the most infamous man on death row.

Henry Lee Lucas claims the police told him to strip naked and denied him bedding, cigarettes, held him in a cold cell, and he could not make contact with his attorney.

He said the inmates in prison bullied him and it is why he attempted suicide.

Even though he was convicted for 11 murders he claimed that he was not a serial killer and could not believe people labeling him as one.

When the news of Henry broke with all the crimes he committed there was a few women that idolized him and wanted to be with him, one woman even made a false statement about a crime at the station where Henry was held just so that she could see him.

A serial killer named Bobby Joe Long aka The Classified Ad Rapist killed ten women and raped fifty in Florida is currently on death row. It is said he is a distant cousin of Henry.

His case had similarities to Sture Bergwall aka Thomas Quick a Swedish man who confessed to killing 30 people that he did not.

Henry had an IQ of 84 which shows that he was below average intelligence.

Famous Quotes from Henry Lee Lucas

“I hated all my life. I hated everybody. When I first grew up and can remember, I was dressed as a girl by my mother. And I stayed that way for two or three years. And after that I was treated like what I call the dog of the family. I was beaten. I was made to do things that no human being would want to do.”

Henry Lee Lucas Quote


“When they put me out on parole, I said I’m not ready to go. I told them all, the warden, the psychologist, everybody that I was going to kill.” (This was when he was released from Ionia State Hospital after 10 years for murder.)

“My victims never knew what was going to happen to them. I’ve had shooting, kniffings, strangulations, beatings and I’ve participated in actual crucifixions of humans. All across the country, there’s people just like me, who set out to destroy life.”

“I took her bra and panties off and had sex with her. That’s one of those things I guess that got to be part of my life having sexual intercourse with the dead.”

Quote from serial killer Henry Lee Lucas

“It’s always the same and it’s always different.”

“To the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

“You have an obligation to yourself and your family to haul ass and get out of here, I’m telling you to get out now.”

“What I think is different today is the lack of political connection between the black middle class and the increasing numbers of black people who are more impoverished than ever before.”

Quote from serial killer henry lee lucas

“Under those circumstances a further cut in supply is going to lead to significant price escalation.”

“The campaign against the death penalty has been – while a powerful campaign, it participants and have been those who attend all of the vigils, a relatively small number.”

“It’s vertical, low velocity drops. Where they came from I have no idea.”

Henry Lee Lucas Quote

“It’s true that it’s within the realm of cultural politics that young people tend to work through political issues, which I think is good, although it’s not going to solve the problems.”


“They want to have answers. This is a difficult one.”

Henry Lee Lucas quote


“However, they only give us two hours because they have… a limit, so in that two hours were going to conduct some study, examination of the cabin, hopefully to look at the canopy, see any original furniture, material still there and try to conduct a couple of experiments.”

“Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it’s perhaps far more terrible than it has ever been.”

Quote from serial killer henry lee lucas

“The reason why I chose stones as the raw material for my art is the unique texture of the earthy creations burnished after tens of thousands of years. They are nature’s most refined works. And my job is to feel and bring out the life of this natural work of art.”

“Before ‘Wings’ came out, I told a few people that at the end of book one, readers should think Laurel made the right choice. Then, at the end of ‘Spells’, they should understand why Laurel made the choice she did.”

“By bringing the childlike innocence incarnated in the forms of animals, I want to create a world without wars and violence. I want to send out the message that we all have to cherish life and each other in order to live in peace, in a global village.”

“But at the same time you can’t assume that making a difference 20 years ago is going to allow you to sort of live on the Laurels of those victories for the rest of your life.”

“Their eyes are the most difficult part. It’s essential to have a pair of eyes that convey a vivid expression and spirit.”

“Well we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital.”

Quote ffom Henry Lee Lucas

“If we want to go global the focus has to be on the quality. It’s the trial and error process whose end result is an artistic creation of refine quality. Each item, no matter whether it’s for collection or personal use, has to be perfect.”

“Pipelines can be blown up, and they are so fairly easy to blow up. The day they did it, it would be great headlines in all the papers. The problem is you would have it fixed in a matter of days.”

The Mental State of Henry Lee Lucas

Henry fits the neurological, sociological and biochemical blueprint of a serial killer according to the neurological tests that was perform on him on the 28th of January 1985. He was taken to Dallas by air for examinations at the Presbyterian and Baylor Hospitals.

His tests include a blood and urine samples and a CT scan, with examinations done by a neurosurgeon and a neurologist an EEG and a MRI. These specific tests were selected by the doctors because they suspected Henry’s behavior is based on the neurological side. Doctor Phillip Williams from Presbyterian and Doctor Stephen Harms Jr at Baylor Hospital agreed to the tests because they were curious and would use this project for their own research.

Below we will look at the reports, findings, and theories done by experts in their fields. All the tests and research done was to better understand serial killers their symptoms and perhaps find a treatment or cure. The list of experts included the following:

  • Neurologists
  • Sociologists
  • Psychologists
  • Criminologists
  • Journalists
  • Geneticists
  • Attorneys
  • Biochemist

Common Serial Killer Psychology

Before we continue with all the separate findings of the experts it will be beneficial to get a better idea about serial killers as a whole as this all pertains to Henry Lee Lucas:

It is established that a serial killer is someone who kills three or more people during a period that is longer than two weeks. They believe each murder is a recapitulation of his childhood horrors, of emotions and damaged physiognomy fused by a deep rooted anxiety.

FBI statics show the body count for these murders is 5 thousand per year and half of the victims are children under 18. Since 1960, there were 135 serial killers that operated in America and the rest of the world only had 45.

The Norris Serial Killer Profile states serial killers have an average or above average IQ, they are 28 years and live alone or with family and sometimes cults. They are driven by a compulsion to kill people who they have never met.

Creative people are said to be pleasant, charming and media and police buffs. They are all drug abusers and have an unhealthy detachment to alcohol.

Not a lot of serial killers get married and have children and most of them have memory problems which results into them telling lies and causes frustration and ambiguity for those who are trying to understand them. They have compulsive personalities and keep scrap books, dairies and souvenirs from their victims. They have a high car mileage as they drove to potential murder sites.

Their families have anti-social economic levels, but serial killers are mostly isolated and unable to interact normally. Most of the serial killers are familiar with hospitals from an early age because of pregnancy and births were suffused with trauma. A lot of them were adopted and was of an offspring of drug abusers. Children who have fits and are agitated were abused and or having a negative upbringing having a violent father and a passive mother of violent mother and passive father. In some cases the mother of the child has had psychiatric treatment or have a fixation on religious believe or a dependence on the health profession, drugs or alcohol. As a result of this serial killers are almost always confuse about their sexual identities.

A large percentage of violent serial killers show symptoms of minor neurological impairment such as:

  • Hallucinations
  • Illogical thought processes
  • Paranoid idealization
  • Isolation – withdrawal
  • Excessive crying, incontinence
  • Sleep problems
  • Coordination problems
  • History of seizures
  • Reading – mathematical disabilities and headaches.
  • They also show psychiatric symptoms such as:
  • Suicidal behavior
  • Serious assault
  • Cruelty to animals
  • Setting fires

Henry Lee Lucas and his Aberrant sexual behavior

These killers have a poor diet that consists of large portions of carbohydrates such as sugar and flour, which contribute to their body chemical imbalances.

According to sources some experts believe genetic factors can make certain people susceptible for criminal behavior. Other factors can be prenatal and perinatal problems. Some neuropsychologists claimed that sensory deprivation and the absence of touching and moving an infant, can have significant changes in the biochemistry of brain cell functioning.

A Swiss psychoanalyst, Alice Miller claims a key element in the making of a murderer is the treatment he received during his childhood. She said abusing a child and telling them it is for their own good is very damaging. The child is not allowed to show his anger and he is forced to show gratitude to the parents intentions and because his anger is repressed later in his life his rage resurfaces through the form of a violent act.

The author of ‘Violence and the Brain’ Dr Mark wrote violence is a symptom of a disturbance in the brain mechanisms that control, initiate and suppress violent behavior. He said the mechanism is located in the limbic brain; it is a small and primitive section regulating emotions, and storing memory. According to Doctor Mark the disturbance is caused by a brain disease which is either genetic or caused by a head injury, lack of oxygen, chemical imbalance, viral infections or tumors. Violence might result in temporal lobe epilepsy, malfunctioning in the impulse- control area.

Diana Fishbein and Stephen Schoenthaler are Criminologists who have both separately study nutrition therapy and it’s relation to brain function and antisocial behavior. Doctor William Walsh a chemist at the Health Research Institute in Chicago had similar research. He suggests the trace element patterns signal predisposition to violence. A study he did with violent men and their nonviolent siblings he found that the violent males fell in two categories: The episodically violent where they had high copper volumes but low in sodium and potassium. The antisocial sociopathic males demonstrate the reverse pattern.

Doctor Paul New and Doctor Mark, neuroradiology’s and professors at Harvard Medical School found small contusions and tissue lost in the frontal lobe, as well as the temporal lobe abnormalities that were on the left side on Henry’s brain while they were testing him.

Doctor Mark said some brain disorders change behavior to whether he becomes aggressive under stress or runs away and brain disorders can create a sociopath. Henry has a characterological problem and he has no problem killing people.

The fact that Henry was caught telling so many lies is because he has a tendency toward sociopathy.  This is what Doctor Mark said after the test results “There are small abnormalities in the frontal lobes, temporal lobes and in the parts of the brain that are related to emotional control. The significance in Henry’s case is unknown because so many factors work together to generate human behavior, and abnormalities of that system like Henry’s could influence how an individual behaves under stress with the possible explosion of inappropriate aggressive behavior.”

Doctor Paul’s opinion was that Henry’s brain damage was the direct result of a head injury that occurred when he was the ages of 5 to 10. He said it is significant because, Henry claimed his mother smashed a piece of wood across the back of his head when he was seven. The following year he got cut in his eye and then lost his eye through another blow to the face.

Doctor Paul said regarding Doctor Mark’s theories of the temporal lobe epilepsy as a brain dysfunction. Henry told a psychiatrist in Austin that he had seizures as a child. Henry said that he had the sensation where he floats off his bed into the air. Psychiatrists have interpreted this behavior as a delusion and therefore it is schizophrenic in origin, but it can also mean that it was temporal lobe seizures.

Another symptom of temporal lobe damage can be seen through Henry’s hyper religiosity and hyper vigilant-lance on death cults and newfound Christian beliefs. His descriptions of a fluctuation in body temperature before each murder could be related to neurological dysfunction.

Other experts suggest that it could be damage to the commissural fibre’s that unite the two hemispheres of Henry’s brain. If the sections the corpus callosum, has been severed or impaired, the left side of the brain is unable to exercise control over the more primal right side. This problem is called the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome, which may result in multiple personalities. The diagnoses for Henry are that he is ambidextrous and that he hears voices. Factors of these diagnoses suggest further testing in this area.

The criminologists theories on nutritional habits on affecting antisocial behavior is Henry’s diet included on a daily basis alcohol, drugs, pots of coffee, five packs of cigarettes, peanut butter and cheese.

Doctor William, analyzed locks of Henry’s hair to determine his body chemistry. Doctor William said “His cadmium concentration is more than 30 times the population median value, and is the highest level we have ever observed in a human being out of thousands tested.” According to Doctor Williams’s research it places Henry in the sociopath group. He also said Henry has extreme personality deterioration after having alcohol.

Henry’s love hate relationship with his mother parallels with Alice’s theories. Nellie never allowed Henry to show emotion he could not even cry at his father’s funeral.  Henry admitted that he had two different emotions about his mother “At times I feel sorry for her, and at other times I feel a grudge against her because of her dirty life.” Alice theory suggest that Henry has potential for creativity, despite his normal range of intelligence, his able to manipulate a lot of people. The trauma in his childhood trained him to compensate for his decontrol by focusing his energy on survival and maintaining a healthy, integrated identity. Henry is always looking for acceptance and sanity, his primal drive has created a nature that is chameleon like and mercurial.

Because of these survival skills he has free-floating aphasia, memory problems, that would appear and disappear. For instance he could recall in detail the crimes he committed but not the victims’ names. On the day he got tested he could not even recall the names of former President Ronald Regan and former President Nixon. He is also confused about his sexuality, claiming he his heterosexual but admitted to have homosexual relations with Ottis Toole in prison.  Henry also claimed he partook in incest, bestiality, rape and necrophilia.

Henry also exhibit unusual thought processes which include grandiosity, delusions and assumption based on little information. His death cult tales is highly exaggerated as he even confesses to contract killings of several government officials, he said all the killings are recorded in a black book that is buried and but nobody can find it.

His behaviour became more controlled in prison. Serial killers often function better in prison and become bonded with their captors. Therefore one can understand that his statements vary according to the attitude of the people in charge of him at the time. Henry sees his victims as objects rather than people.

If you want to understand the mental workings of Henry one must go on the assumption that while he may be a killer, he entered the American conscience in a different role. He was theatrical beyond belief, and there was no questioning of his credibility.

Henry Lee Lucas and Insanity

Mental illness of a severe nature is that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality. They cannot conduct their affairs due to psychosis is the subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.

Insanity is distinguished from low intelligence or mental deficiency due to age or injury. If a person is showing psychotic behavior they may be confined to a medical facility for 72 hours to be examined by psychiatrist.

Henry’s actions, characteristics and demeanor had many of the qualities that he can become legally insane but he did not. His self-worth was so low and his self-hatred so high, that he would do anything to be noticed. That is the reason why he uses the insanity plea in the court for leeway of his actions. So the outcome came to he was found crazy and damaged but not insane.

According to some sources his actions was caused more by nurture than nature. There might also be a chance that there was a genetic disorder passed through his family to cause this behavior, there is no real proof.

There is proof that certain nurturing techniques and life experiences may be to blame for his lack of respect for humans and the detrimental life choices he made.

A great example is the way his mother treated him and we can see the detrimental effect it had on his life.

Henry Lee Lucas Dressed as a Girl

His mother dressed him as a girl and constantly belittled and mistreated him. The way she raised him affected him how he sees the world, and he thought that everyone was looking down at him and everyone that meets him had a negative predisposition.

This event was a scarring experience as he was bullied in school and when he grew up he was the bully.  He trusts no one as he believes that he will only get hurt and it is better for him to believe that everyone around him is a threat to him. Through this thinking he is prepared to protect himself.

Henry Lee Lucas – Alcoholic at age 10

As a child one’s brain has more neuroplasticity and needs a lot of information to piece together the world. The effects of alcohol in young children are much more severe and the effects stay with them longer. Because he was a drinker from such a young age it has caused irreversible damage to his attention span and his long and short term memory.

The white matter of the brain is damaged through alcohol and also slows down communication through the cells. That is the reason why has a low IQ, get bored easily which is not a good habit for a violent person.

Henry Lee Lucas and Animal Torture and Bestiality

A child often mimics actions and life decisions from the people they are around usually a parent or other guardian.

Henry has no respect for human life and it is clearly seen in his childhood which started with his mother having sexual relations with other men while his father watched. Later his mother’s pimp and lover took him in the bush to kill an animal and have sex with it and told Henry to do the same. So this lifestyle was the only thing he knew and since a child believes his parents he thought it was something that everyone did and did not think it was wrong.

An agent in the FBI Alan Brantly studied the connection where serial killers practiced animal abuse and said it is a rehearsal for killing human beings.

Alan states Henry’s desire to harm living creatures stem from the humiliation he had as a child. He could not retaliate against his mother for dressing him as a girl so he took his anger out on the weak and vulnerable animals and by killing the animals he had power he never had over his mother when he was young.

The link between killing the animals and later in his life killing human beings was proven, the fact that he continued killing animals made it easier for him to kill people.

Henry Lee Lucas and Viola’s Beatings

Henry suffered a blow to the head which resulted in him being in a coma for three days. Scientist at the Centre of the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy have found that serious concussion like the one Henry sustained can cause depression, sleep disorders and mental fatigue. It can also damage the brain as it can resemble Alzheimer’s disease. It also damaged the frontal lobe which affects one’s personality. Although it has never been proven on a brain scan the beatings of his mother may have changed his brain and shaped him into a murderer.

Henry Lee Lucas Films & Documentaries

In a world where we live among-st violence and in some cases where we relax in front of our television with friends and watch films about serial killers it is no wonder that the film industry is worth billions of dollars and keep us on at the edge of our seats.

If you are one of those people you who enjoy true crime then these films and documentaries is made about Henry and his life of crime, some of the films is only loosely based on his life to make the films more entertaining.

Henry Lee Lucas: The Confession Killer (1995) directed by Neal Ashford.

Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas (2009) played by Antonio Sabato JR and directed by Michael Feifer.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (2015) played by Michael Rooker and directed by John McNaughton.

Myth of a Serial Killer Documentary by BBN Films, (Published on 21 October 2001 by American Justice.)

Serial Killer Global: Henry Lee Lucas documentary American crime serial killer (Published on the 7th of April 2007.)

Henry Lee Lucas Documentary (2012)

Ottis and Henry Lee Lucas – Serial Killer Documentary published by Serial Killers Documentaries on the 2nd of December 2017.)


Profile of a Criminal Mind, How psychological profiling helps solve true crimes.

Real Life Crimes and how they were solved volume 13.

The Killer Book of True Crime by Tom Philbin and Michael Philbin.


  1. Ian Jeffery September 11, 2018
    • Cindy Visser September 11, 2018

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