Soul mates - so called themselves Henry Lucas and Ottis Tool, one of the most famous serial killers that existed in America. Crazy lovers who jointly committed so many crimes that they even changed existing laws because of them. However, some consider them not monsters at all, but simply bad liars who lied recklessly. In particular, the number of victims. According to the couple, there were more than a thousand. This article talks about the victims of Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Thule, as well as their vivid but monstrous criminal history.
Childhood
According to existing information, Ottis Tool was born March 5, 1947 in a small town in the state of Florida - Jacksonville. Like many serial killers, all his problems come from childhood. The boy was raised by a single mother, since his father left the family. She was a very powerful person and greatly suppressed her son, forcing him to wear women's clothing, because she wanted to have a girl. In addition to this, his grandmother, who was a very religious lady, also took part in his upbringing. There is also evidence that, before age 10, Ottis was often sexually assaulted by his older sister and neighbor. All this led to the fact that the boy began to lag behind in development and he had to drop out of school.
First kill
As you know, the names of Henry Lucas and Ottis Thule are inextricably linked in forensics. But they committed their first killings separately. The first victim of Ottis was a traveling salesman. The boy was then 14 years old, and this man tried to rape him. Fleeing from a maniac, Ottis crushed a man in his own car. From that time on, the thirst for murder began to haunt the child. For some time he managed to suppress such a passion with arson. It is not known for certain whether he committed murders during that period and how many victims were on his conscience if the answer was yes.
Fateful meeting
As mentioned earlier, Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Tool were not mere accomplices in crimes, but real lovers who considered themselves destined for each other. They met in 1976. In principle, their meeting and so can be considered truly fateful. Relations between men developed at an incredibly fast pace. Already the first night after the meeting, they spent in the same bed in the house of Tula. After that, they often stayed together, despite the fact that in 1977 Ottis Tool married a girl. However, they did not live together for a long time, because she could not bear the fact that her husband had ongoing homosexual relations.
The Story of Henry Lucas
Now, let's take a closer look at the story of the second half of Ottis Tula. Their stories are quite similar: both were brought up by strict mothers who instead of sons wanted girls, and therefore constantly changed their clothes in women's clothing. Lucas also had several psychological injuries of a sexual nature. By the time he met Ottis, he was also a killer, who cut short the life of his own mother. He spent ten years in prison for this crime. As a reason for the murder, he indicated the fact that his mother, working as a prostitute, forced him, as a small child, to watch how the customer service was going. She was guilty of the fact that he lost one eye in childhood, because he simply did not take the child to the hospital when the problem started. Lucas himself admitted that already during puberty his psyche was so distorted that he sexually molested his own brother and constantly tormented animals.
Bloody bacchanalia
By the early 1980s, Ottis Tool and Henry Lee Lucas began to travel around the country. In total, they visited 26 states, simultaneously killing migrant workers, prostitutes and hitchhikers in quiet places. The number of their victims was great, but even at present they were never installed. They themselves later admitted that it was through the killings that they could establish their connection as a young couple in love. Lucas admitted that in some cases he even trained Ottis Thule himself for the best methods of killing and the subsequent disposal of evidence. They spilled rivers of blood, because their crimes were truly terrible. Quite often they raped their victims, then mutilated them and only after bullying did they kill them. The presence of serious psychological problems during this period of their life cannot be denied, since the couple did not experience emotions during the commission of the crimes. As Lucas subsequently claimed, he crossed two state borders with a severed head that lay in the back seat of the car.
Cannibalism
Looking at the photo of Ottis Tula, it is difficult to imagine that this person first of all positioned himself precisely as a cannibal. True, there is no evidence for this, with the exception of his words. Like the facts that the couple were members of the satanic cult "Hand of Death." Together with this group, according to the testimonies of Ottis and Henry, they brought more than one sacrifice, constantly committed cult killings. These words were eavesdropped in a private conversation on a prison phone during dates. Then in court, Ottis also revealed his preferred crime scenario: rape, murder with a hammer or knife, necrophilia, cutting into pieces and cooking.
Breakup relationship
By 1982, their couple broke up. Ottis Tula's niece, Becky Powell, who by that time was only 12 years old, contributed to this end. Lucas desired the girl. Later, he himself declared that it was her youth that attracted him. He wanted to make his girlfriend a girl. Moreover, she had traveled with them several times before, and Ottis gradually accustomed her to a criminal way of life.
Everything broke off at one moment, because Lucas abducted her and fled from Thule. According to Ottis himself, after such a betrayal, he was so upset that he killed nine more people. This helped him calm down. However, Becky did not spend much time with Lucas. The girl first lived a little with him on a ranch in the Texas town of Ringgold. Then they had a great fight. The man dismembered the child on the field, scattering pieces of her flesh over it. On the same day, he committed another murder. This time the victim was a woman who is the owner of a neighboring ranch. Soon after, Lucas was arrested.
Last crime
Alone, Ottis continued his criminal activities, although it also did not last long. In January 1982, he set fire to his hometown, which killed a 64-year-old man living in the house. Ottis was caught in about a year. By that time, the arson charge was supplemented by several other similar cases, as well as a confession in the murder of nineteen-year-old Ada Johnson.
Disclosure
It is impossible to establish the number of victims of Ottis Tula, since the couple caught admitted to more than a thousand murders. Henry Lucas simply boasted of his crimes, telling about them to any person who only agreed to listen to him. Thule was more silent. He started talking only after Henry gave the police a tour of the killings. It should be recognized that law enforcement authorities had practically no evidence that most of these killings were committed by this crazy couple. However, the investigating authorities tried to quickly close the hangs, so the confessions of Ottis and Henry were accepted. In total, the police closed 213 cases during this period.
The assassination of Adam Walsh
However, the most resonant affair that Ottis Tool took over was the killing of a six-year-old boy, Adam Walsh. He disappeared from a shopping center in Hollywood in July 1981, and two weeks later his head was discovered in a channel. The body was never found. The child's father, John Walsh, attracted the attention of the public and the media to the search for children, which led to the emergence of the famous program "Most Wanted in America." Initially, Tule was not formally charged, since there was no evidence of a crime other than his words. Moreover, there was another suspect - Jeffrey Damer. The direct accusation overtook him only in 2008, when the case, which lasted for 27 years, was officially closed. By then, Thule was long dead.
Accusation and death
At first, Ottis Tool was convicted of arson with a fatal outcome. At first, the court determined the death penalty as punishment for the accused, but then it was replaced with life imprisonment. In addition to this, in 1991 he was charged with five murders, which lengthened the serving of his sentence by another five life sentences. Thule died in a Florida prison at the age of 49 on September 15, 1996. As the examination showed, death came from cirrhosis of the liver. His partner passed away in 2001. So finally ended their bloody story.
