Henry Lee Lucas

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Henry Lee Lucas (born August 23, 1936 in Blacksburg , Virginia , † March 12, 2001 in Huntsville , Texas ) was an American murderer . Due to his false confessions, which made him famous and earned him a lot of attention, he is still one of the most famous murderers in the US public.

childhood

Lucas was born in the mountains of Virginia, the youngest of nine children to a poor family. The cabin he grew up in, a log cabin , consisted of only one room. His mother, Viola Dixon Waugh, was a half-Indian who was over 50 when he was born. Viola made her own schnapps , ran around with a rifle and was considered extremely irascible . In order to humiliate her youngest son, she put on Lucas girls clothes and prostituted herself in front of him. According to the authorities, the issue of sex in his family of origin was handled quite irresponsibly, including because his mother encouraged Lucas to watch their sexual practices.

He came to his glass eye because he wanted to take away his knife while playing with his older brother Andrew, whereupon Andrew, more or less accidentally, stabbed his youngest brother. The injury to the eye was only noticed by his mother after four days, which is why it became infected and had to be surgically removed.

In the sixth grade, Lucas was expelled from school but did not go home but fled and moved through Virginia. During this time, Lucas had sex with animals and killed them in order to survive. There were also thefts , because of which he ended up in various reform schools.

crime

According to his own account, Henry Lee Lucas committed his first murder in the 1950s.

After his release he moved to his sister in Michigan in 1960 . His mother Viola came to visit, both were drunk and had an argument. Lucas rammed a knife into Viola's throat, causing her to succumb to a heart attack . He hated his mother, but when asked about it, he sometimes admitted her murder, sometimes portrayed it as an accident.

The number of murders admitted by Lucas and his accomplice Ottis Toole varies widely. The true extent has not yet been established and may remain in the dark as Lucas died in custody in 2001.

With doubts about many of the murders Lucas confessed to, Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox opened a closer investigation. The results, published in the so-called Lucas Report , indicate that Lucas, in addition to the murder of his mother, is a possible culprit for two other murders, namely those of Kate Rich and Freida Powell. Only in these three cases did he reveal knowledge of the perpetrators , other evidence is missing. In all other murders, including the Orange Socks case , for which he was sentenced to death, his perpetrator can be excluded, according to this report.

The originally imposed on him death sentence in 1998 by the Governor of Texas , George W. Bush , to life imprisonment mitigated. He justified this by stating that Henry Lee Lucas could not prove a certain murder committed in Texas in 1979 because he was in Florida.

Quote from Bush:

"Henry Lee Lucas is unquestionably guilty of other despicable crimes which he has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. However, I believe there is enough doubt about this particular crime that the state of Texas should not impose its ultimate penalty by executing him. "

“Henry Lee Lucas is unquestionably guilty of other heinous crimes for which he was sentenced to the rest of his life in prison. However, I believe there is ample doubt about this particular crime that the State of Texas should not impose the maximum penalty of execution. "

Lucas died of heart failure at the age of 64.

Movies

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oliver Armknecht: Confessions of a Murderer. In: Film-Rezensions.de. December 7, 2019, accessed on January 18, 2020 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Lucas, Henry Lee
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American serial killer
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Blacksburg, Virginia
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 2001
Place of death Huntsville, Texas