HENRY LEE LUCAS : CONFESSIONS OF A SERIAL KILLER (ITV, 1993) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:05death row huntsville texas
2. 0:08inside awaiting execution is the world's
3. 0:11most notorious serial killer
4. 0:13his name is henry lee lucas
5. 0:17like say i'm the biggest mass murderer
6. 0:19in the united states and everywhere else
7. 0:21you know
8. 0:23i'm not
9. 0:24[Music]
10. 0:26today eight years after confessing to
11. 0:29more than 300 murders lucas says he made
12. 0:32it all up
13. 0:34is henry lee lucas the greatest serial
14. 0:36killer of all time or has he perpetrated
15. 0:39the most extraordinary fraud in american
16. 0:41legal history
17. 0:45[Music]
18. 1:05i took her i used her bra off
19. 1:09i had sex running for
20. 1:13well after that i cut her
21. 1:15up in little teeny pieces
22. 1:17[Music]
23. 1:21in 1983 a penniless drifter named henry
24. 1:24lee lucas was arrested in stoneburg
25. 1:27texas on suspicion of murdering an
26. 1:29eighty-year-old widow
27. 1:32what lucas had to say shocked
28. 1:33investigators not only did he confess to
29. 1:36the murder of the old woman he also
30. 1:38claimed he'd killed 60 other people
31. 1:41[Music]
32. 1:42it was the beginning of a confession
33. 1:44spree that would make lucas the most
34. 1:46notorious killer in america
35. 1:48[Music]
36. 1:51it's like being a movie star
37. 1:55you're just playing the part
38. 1:57you know
39. 1:59you don't think of it you just play it
40. 2:03make out that you're the worst
41. 2:06serial killer in the history of the
42. 2:08united states
43. 2:10and that's what i did
44. 2:12i was at home one saturday morning back
45. 2:14in june of 1983.
46. 2:19i had a call from the sheriff in
47. 2:21montague county he called me and said
48. 2:24jim
49. 2:26i've got an old boy in jail up here that
50. 2:28you might want to talk to
51. 2:31he has
52. 2:32confessed to killing two people
53. 2:36close to here and has also said that
54. 2:39he's killed a lot of other people
55. 2:43all over the country
56. 2:46stunned by lucas's dramatic revelations
57. 2:48sheriff botwell called in the texas
58. 2:50rangers one of america's oldest and
59. 2:53proudest police forces
60. 2:55a special task force was formed to
61. 2:57coordinate nationwide investigations
62. 2:59into the killings
63. 3:01[Music]
64. 3:04texas ranger bob prince was assigned to
65. 3:06head the new force
66. 3:09[Music]
67. 3:12we were absolutely deluged
68. 3:15the first day that we opened the task
69. 3:17force doors
70. 3:19we had 70
71. 3:22telephone calls long distance telephone
72. 3:24calls to return
73. 3:26and when we started returning them we
74. 3:29were receiving calls all the time and we
75. 3:32began booking interviews with agencies
76. 3:34to come and interview lucas
77. 3:39i walked across the courthouse and
78. 3:42i told the judge that committed these 60
79. 3:44murders you know
80. 3:46and when i did it seemed like the house
81. 3:48fell in because
82. 3:50i never seen as many helicopters and and
83. 3:53reporters and cars and police cars and
84. 3:57things that started to come in there a
85. 4:00videotaped confession by admitted killer
86. 4:02henry lee lucas
87. 4:04lucas who claims to have killed over 150
88. 4:06women was brought into an area in an
89. 4:08undisclosed location confirmed his
90. 4:10involvement in more than 200 murders and
91. 4:1320 we show him uh
92. 4:16he cleared a murder
93. 4:17of a white female in norfolk virginia
94. 4:21on the 9th
95. 4:23lucas took phone calls from policemen
96. 4:25all over the country
97. 4:29under the stewardship of the texas
98. 4:31rangers he provided details of the
99. 4:33hundreds of murders he claimed to have
100. 4:35committed
101. 4:40task force investigators began compiling
102. 4:43a log which gave the locations of the
103. 4:45murders being attributed to lucas
104. 4:48[Music]
105. 4:52piece by piece the task force built up a
106. 4:54picture of lucas's life on the road
107. 4:56roaming the interstates in search of a
108. 4:58place to call home
109. 5:01[Music]
110. 5:02for more than eight years lucas drifted
111. 5:05from town to town going nowhere and
112. 5:07achieving nothing
113. 5:09except perhaps
114. 5:10hundreds of murders
115. 5:15i gave him a number which uh i gave him
116. 5:18a long time ago that it was 150 nobody
117. 5:20didn't believe it
118. 5:22and
119. 5:23after i passed 150 people began to
120. 5:25wonder
121. 5:27and i told him it's going to be way over
122. 5:28360.
123. 5:29[Music]
124. 5:34[Applause]
125. 5:36in tape recorded confessions lucas
126. 5:38provided gruesome details of his
127. 5:40eight-year orgy of killing
128. 5:42i was killed by strangulation i've
129. 5:44killed the knives i've killed the hit
130. 5:46and runs
131. 5:47shootings
132. 5:49robberies
133. 5:51hangings
134. 5:53whatever
135. 5:55every type of crime i've done it
136. 6:02every case i would go out on for for
137. 6:05them you know
138. 6:06they would automatically pick up the
139. 6:08telephone and call the news media tell
140. 6:10them that i'd solve four or five cases
141. 6:12that day
142. 6:14so the news media would come running you
143. 6:16know
144. 6:17how you feel
145. 6:27it was interview after interview
146. 6:29i mean i couldn't turn around unless it
147. 6:31was an interview
148. 6:32and i started staying on tv 24 hours a
149. 6:35day
150. 6:37i mean it changed me
151. 6:40and i got so that i thought i was the
152. 6:42biggest movie star in this country
153. 6:48[Music]
154. 6:59thank you
155. 7:01goodbye
156. 7:03lucas did become a movie star
157. 7:06the cult film henry portrait of a serial
158. 7:09killer was a fictionalized account of
159. 7:11his life
160. 7:15[Music]
161. 7:19ebless pressly was supposed to be the
162. 7:22biggest shot but i think i even beat
163. 7:23elvis presley
164. 7:27and i think i even beat uh what's his
165. 7:29name adolf hitler
166. 7:31seemed like i was going to beat him
167. 7:34because it seemed like every time they
168. 7:36would bring a murder case in i would
169. 7:38accept it no matter what it was
170. 7:42the henry lee lucas roadshow was in full
171. 7:44swing
172. 7:46and lucas who had lived all his life as
173. 7:48a bum was basking in his new career as a
174. 7:51serial killer
175. 7:54i was a king
176. 7:55[Music]
177. 7:56i had everything i wanted
178. 7:58everything possible
179. 8:01that a man could want
180. 8:03i had i had money i didn't have before
181. 8:07i had a colored television i didn't have
182. 8:09before i had cable tv and i didn't have
183. 8:12that before
184. 8:14i had all kinds of food
185. 8:16even stacks of cigarettes and cartons in
186. 8:19my house
187. 8:21that's coming from nothing
188. 8:24the relationship between lucas and his
189. 8:26task force supervisors was becoming
190. 8:28increasingly intimate
191. 8:31i was real close to chair by well we
192. 8:33were like father and son
193. 8:37me and friends were like brothers
194. 8:40you know
195. 8:41we go places we do things we do i mean
196. 8:44anything anytime no matter what time it
197. 8:47was
198. 8:48day or night
199. 8:50for prince and botwell the hard work was
200. 8:53bringing dividends
201. 8:55they were making a name for themselves
202. 8:57as the lawmen responsible for clearing
203. 8:59up more than 200 unsolved murders
204. 9:01[Music]
205. 9:04but their credibility was about to be
206. 9:05called into question
207. 9:10eighteen-year-old deborah sue williamson
208. 9:13had been murdered back in august
209. 9:15nineteen seventy five
210. 9:17she'd been married only a few months
211. 9:21in one of his confessions lucas claimed
212. 9:23he had broken into her home and stabbed
213. 9:25her several times
214. 9:28when deborah's parents joyce and bob
215. 9:30lemons learned that their daughter's
216. 9:32murder had been solved they thought
217. 9:33their ordeal was over
218. 9:37we had a
219. 9:38call from a detective in lubbock
220. 9:41um told us that
221. 9:44the case had been solved
222. 9:46that henry lucas had done the crime
223. 9:49and
224. 9:51we said okay we'll be there monday
225. 9:54morning to see what you have
226. 9:58when the lemons got to hear lucas's tape
227. 10:00recorded confession they were astonished
228. 10:03i think we both sort of simultaneously
229. 10:05realized this is a joke you know he knew
230. 10:09that she was stabbed
231. 10:11he knew that part but everything else
232. 10:13was totally wrong
233. 10:15uh everything
234. 10:18in his confession lucas said he
235. 10:20remembered the white house where he'd
236. 10:22killed the girl
237. 10:23but at the time of the murder the house
238. 10:25was green
239. 10:27lucas claimed he'd broken in through the
240. 10:28patio door to murder deborah at the time
241. 10:32the door was sealed shut
242. 10:34finally lucas said he'd killed the girl
243. 10:36in her bedroom in fact deborah was
244. 10:39murdered outside the house
245. 10:42the lemons were convinced that deborah's
246. 10:43murderer was still free
247. 10:47they began their own investigation
248. 10:50talking to lucas's relatives
249. 10:51[Music]
250. 10:55they discovered that on the day deborah
251. 10:57was murdered in lubbock texas lucas was
252. 11:00with his half-sister in maryland nearly
253. 11:03two thousand miles away
254. 11:06i mean let's face it uh even jesus
255. 11:09christ couldn't be in two places at one
256. 11:11time
257. 11:12uh and henry is certainly no jesus
258. 11:15christ
259. 11:17the lemons visited task force
260. 11:19headquarters
261. 11:20they told jim botwell and bob prince
262. 11:23they got the wrong man
263. 11:24we went you know pleading with him to
264. 11:27just listen to this just hear this
265. 11:29[Music]
266. 11:31they were not receptive to
267. 11:34that at all
268. 11:36the fact of the matter is
269. 11:38bob france gave me the alternative by
270. 11:41either leave on your own power or we'll
271. 11:43throw you out
272. 11:45what did you think of their
273. 11:46investigation
274. 11:48of the lemons well i don't even know
275. 11:50comment about the lemons
276. 11:51they're
277. 11:52well they've invested
278. 11:54years of their life looking into the
279. 11:55lucas case
280. 12:01i have no interest in that
281. 12:06in waco texas district attorney vic
282. 12:09fazel was also having doubts about the
283. 12:12lucas confessions
284. 12:14he was preparing to prosecute three
285. 12:16murder cases for which lucas had already
286. 12:18claimed responsibility
287. 12:22but the deeper fazel got into the case
288. 12:24the more worried he became by the lack
289. 12:26of any corroborating evidence
290. 12:29all there are is confessions
291. 12:31that means just henry's word that he
292. 12:33killed these people no fingerprints
293. 12:36no hair samples
294. 12:38no eyewitnesses no blood samples no
295. 12:42forensic evidence at all
296. 12:45i don't know if in england you know who
297. 12:47freddy krueger is a nightmare on elm
298. 12:50street i'm telling you freddie krueger
299. 12:52couldn't have committed these murders
300. 12:54without leaving some kind of clue
301. 12:56[Music]
302. 12:59fazel and his investigators pieced
303. 13:01together documentary evidence from
304. 13:03lucas's former life as a drifter
305. 13:06paychecks work records applications for
306. 13:09food stamps traffic violations
307. 13:12[Music]
308. 13:13but much of the evidence they unearthed
309. 13:15conflicted with the task force log
310. 13:19in case after case fazel's investigators
311. 13:22put lucas in other parts of the country
312. 13:24on the days the murders were committed
313. 13:27on two occasions he was actually in
314. 13:29prison
315. 13:30you cannot be
316. 13:33in jail in maryland
317. 13:36and be committing a murder in california
318. 13:38at the same time
319. 13:39you cannot be getting a traffic ticket
320. 13:41in florida and committing a murder in
321. 13:43texas at the same time
322. 13:47when we started finding this information
323. 13:49suddenly in our office
324. 13:51uh we gave henry the nickname of rocket
325. 13:53man because he had had to have had a
326. 13:56rocket to get around the us
327. 13:59to to commit these kinds of murders like
328. 14:02he was doing there's just no way that it
329. 14:04was physically possible
330. 14:06[Music]
331. 14:08task force records had lucas killing
332. 14:10estella montoya in corpus christi texas
333. 14:13on march the 5th 1981
334. 14:18but on the same day
335. 14:19lucas was 1200 miles away selling scrap
336. 14:22metal in florida
337. 14:24do you think it's feasible that he could
338. 14:26have been 1200 miles away
339. 14:30in jacksonville
340. 14:32and killed in corpus christi texas on
341. 14:35the same day
342. 14:38no sure
343. 14:39no
344. 14:40no i do not
345. 14:44so how do you explain the discrepancy
346. 14:47uh i can't explain that one
347. 14:53there are many other discrepancies
348. 14:55lucas was supposed to have strangled
349. 14:57cora carrillo in douglas county nevada
350. 15:00in fact he was more than two thousand
351. 15:02miles away in jacksonville florida
352. 15:05buying insurance for his car
353. 15:09diana underwood was supposedly shot by
354. 15:12lucas in baytown texas but lucas was 750
355. 15:16miles away in florida selling scrap
356. 15:18metal
357. 15:18[Music]
358. 15:23hermine dufour was murdered in louisiana
359. 15:26but on the day she was killed lucas was
360. 15:29in jail in texas
361. 15:31why do you think that lucas confessed to
362. 15:33the murder of hermione dufour in
363. 15:35louisiana
364. 15:37when he was in fact in jail in texas on
365. 15:39the day she was killed
366. 15:41uh i have no idea
367. 15:46mr white because like i say i don't
368. 15:48recall the name her mind before i
369. 15:52i just don't know
370. 15:56during 1979 lucas cashed 43 weekly
371. 16:00paychecks at the by right grocery store
372. 16:02in jacksonville florida
373. 16:05but in the same period the task force
374. 16:08log has lucas killing on 46 occasions in
375. 16:1116 different states
376. 16:14could lucas have managed all these
377. 16:16murders and still made it back to
378. 16:18jacksonville
379. 16:19in florida at the end of every week to
380. 16:21cash his paycheck
381. 16:22does it make sense well certainly that
382. 16:24that would make sense if he's the one
383. 16:26application of paychecks
384. 16:28uh let's look at each individual
385. 16:31case but
386. 16:32from your experience as an investigator
387. 16:35does that seem likely that someone would
388. 16:37go
389. 16:37on this tour of the united states and
390. 16:40every week
391. 16:41wind up back in jacksonville florida
392. 16:43let's look at each individual case and
393. 16:45let the individual agency determine was
394. 16:48he there or was he at the work side or
395. 16:50was he at a
396. 16:51was he cash the check that's impressive
397. 16:53not me
398. 16:54i'm not making a point about the
399. 16:56individual cases
400. 16:58the amount of travel that lucas is
401. 17:01supposed to have done during this period
402. 17:03we're getting nowhere do you think that
403. 17:05it's breaking nowhere incredible that he
404. 17:06could have traveled that much and and
405. 17:08coming through that many murders we're
406. 17:09we're getting nowhere
407. 17:11i'm sorry
408. 17:14i'm sorry they just saw a whole and our
409. 17:16office is closed seriously energy points
410. 17:18about the travel that lucas was supposed
411. 17:20to have made as soon as you get your
412. 17:23the ice water
413. 17:26okay
414. 17:29and i was really hoping this would be an
415. 17:31objective interview
416. 17:32but i could say it's not
417. 17:35the range's case was being destroyed by
418. 17:37their rival vic fazell okay whenever you
419. 17:40can get your stuff out well
420. 17:42fazel and his team visited lucas in jail
421. 17:45to present him with their evidence
422. 17:48they sat in the room talked to me
423. 17:50they said now we know you didn't do
424. 17:51these cases
425. 17:53so look at this
426. 17:54and they had a great big
427. 17:56double page
428. 17:59newspaper i think i'm not sure that
429. 18:02but every place i had been
430. 18:04every case that i had confessed to
431. 18:08and where i was at
432. 18:11what time the crime happened and what
433. 18:13time i was here
434. 18:15they had that laid out there on deaths
435. 18:17and now we know you didn't do it
436. 18:19when confronted with this information
437. 18:22he
438. 18:23looked at us he smiled he said i was
439. 18:26wondering when somebody was going to get
440. 18:28wise to this
441. 18:29[Music]
442. 18:31lucas began to recount
443. 18:34but if lucas's confessions were all
444. 18:37phony
445. 18:38how had he conned so many investigators
446. 18:40for so long
447. 18:42lucas had shown a remarkably detailed
448. 18:44knowledge of the murders
449. 18:46details it was thought only the killer
450. 18:48could have known
451. 18:49she started to run i grabbed
452. 18:53and i put 22 on her i told her i said
453. 18:55now you do what i want or i'm gonna
454. 18:57shoot you but before investigating
455. 18:59officers could interrogate lucas they
456. 19:01had to send in their murder reports to
457. 19:03the task force
458. 19:05i believe the rangers in particular
459. 19:08prince and bout well we're purposefully
460. 19:11tutoring and coaching henry on what to
461. 19:14say
462. 19:15uh letting him read these
463. 19:18offense reports that contained all the
464. 19:20facts
465. 19:21i didn't go to them said now look i got
466. 19:23a murder case down the road here
467. 19:26you know let me tell you about it it
468. 19:27didn't happen that way
469. 19:32they would bring it to me
470. 19:35and tell me about it that's an outright
471. 19:37lie
472. 19:39as i said earlier the task force was set
473. 19:41up to make him available to other
474. 19:43officers
475. 19:45we did not feed him information
476. 19:48[Music]
477. 19:54victor zell's allegation of task force
478. 19:56misconduct brought him into direct
479. 19:58conflict with the forces heads jim
480. 20:00bottwell and bob prince
481. 20:05only days after speaking out publicly
482. 20:07fazel became the target of an fbi
483. 20:09corruption investigation
484. 20:11he believes the rangers were behind it
485. 20:15as a result of what i said about the
486. 20:17task force about prince and bout well
487. 20:21they got together with their friends in
488. 20:23the state police
489. 20:25who had ties strong ties with the fbi
490. 20:29and they started an investigation of me
491. 20:34my house was searched
492. 20:37i was accused of burglaries i was
493. 20:39accused of homicides i was accused of
494. 20:42bribery i was accused of being a
495. 20:43racketeer i was investigated for
496. 20:46everything
497. 20:48i was handcuffed and dragged through the
498. 20:50streets in public view in front of the
499. 20:53tv cameras and everything else but my
500. 20:55four-year-old son sitting at home seeing
501. 20:58it all on tv as it happened
502. 21:1080 years in jail
503. 21:13he defended himself against the charges
504. 21:15and was acquitted
505. 21:18he went on to sue the dallas tv station
506. 21:21which had repeated the ranger fbi
507. 21:23allegations
508. 21:25in that case the jury were convinced
509. 21:27that the rangers had set out to frame
510. 21:29vic fazel
511. 21:31they awarded him 58 million dollars the
512. 21:33largest libel payment in american
513. 21:36history
514. 21:38all this happened because i spoke out
515. 21:40against the texas rangers
516. 21:43i stepped on the wrong toes
517. 21:46they didn't like it
518. 21:50with fazel's victory the credibility of
519. 21:52the task force was finally destroyed
520. 21:56but before he recanted his confessions
521. 21:58lucas had been convicted on 10 counts of
522. 22:00murder
523. 22:03he's on death row awaiting his appeal
524. 22:09vic fazel is now his attorney
525. 22:13henry
526. 22:14just may be put to death
527. 22:16still
528. 22:17in spite of the evidence
529. 22:20in spite of there being no
530. 22:22physical evidence no witnesses nothing
531. 22:26to tie henry to these crimes except what
532. 22:28came out of his own mouth
533. 22:30which
534. 22:31was fed to him that he just regurgitated
535. 22:33back out
536. 22:36henry will probably be put to death for
537. 22:38something he didn't do
538. 22:42[Music]
539. 22:44if my appeal is denied
540. 22:46i won't stand a chance to stand alive
541. 22:49[Music]
542. 22:51this is
543. 22:52texas and whatever happens in texas
544. 22:56no matter what it is
545. 23:00they gonna have their way
546. 23:03[Music]
547. 23:05and i'm trying to fight a legend you
548. 23:08know that don't you
549. 23:10the texas rangers is a legend
550. 23:13[Laughter]
551. 23:16without his confessions there's no
552. 23:19convincing evidence that henry lucas
553. 23:21committed a single murder
554. 23:23if that's true hundreds of killers are
555. 23:26today walking free
556. 23:28and the legacy of lucas's gigantic hoax
557. 23:31is a trail of suffering
558. 23:34you lie to the police you lie to the
559. 23:36families
560. 23:37[Music]
561. 23:39you've done nothing but lie it ain't
562. 23:41worth it
563. 23:45i've
564. 23:47i know that a lot of people
565. 23:50unless they put their self in the
566. 23:53type of life i lived
567. 23:56wouldn't understand
568. 24:01do you feel ashamed of what you've done
569. 24:17i do
570. 24:18[Music]
571. 24:30[Music]
572. 24:37[Music]
573. 24:42oh
574. 24:44[Music]
575. 24:52[Music]
576. 24:59you