Animals tortured, corpses sexually violated
Montgomery County, VA (US)Incident Date: Sunday, Apr 1, 1951
County: Montgomery
Disposition: Not Charged
Person of Interest: Henry Lee Lucas
By the time he was thirteen, Henry was almost completely obsessed by sex. He began to trap animals so that he could use them in his private sexual rituals, often torturing them to death. Bestiality became normal behaviour. At about the same time he began to steal more regularly, sometimes for food but more increasingly for money. Later Henry would brag that he murdered for the first time in 1952, aged just fourteen.
Lucas told of how he had abducted a seventeen-year-old girl from a bus stop and beat her until she was unconscious. He then dragged her to a secluded spot and attempted to rape her. When the girl woke and started to scream, Henry strangled her until she lay still. He claims that he had no intention of killing the girl and told interviewers that it took him a long time to get over the "terrible thing" that he had done. To date, there is no record of such a crime having been committed.
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. References« VA State Animal Cruelty Map
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