Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 21, 1990 TAG: 9006210300
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LINDA LATHAM WELCH COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS LENGTH: Medium
Lucas, 54, is either one of the nation's most notorious serial killers or an equally notorious party in a massive fraud.
Seven years ago this month, the former mental patient, a native of Blacksburg, Va., became a national celebrity when - after being arrested for the slaying of an 80-year-old woman in Montague County, Texas - he confessed to murder after murder after murder.
He confessed in writing. He confessed on audio tape. He confessed on videotape.
Law officers in nearly 48 states tied him to about 360 slayings.
Among the crimes Lucas was accused of was the Halloween 1979 slaying of an unidentified woman whose body was found along Interstate 35 in Williamson County, Texas. The murder was dubbed the "orange socks case" because that is all the victim was wearing when her body was found.
Lucas was convicted of capital murder in the case and sentenced to die.
He was also convicted of nine other slayings.
In addition to his death sentence, Lucas was sentenced to six life terms, two 75-year terms and one 60-year term. With the exception of one life sentence in West Virginia, the rest are in Texas.
But just as the Lucas locomotive was reaching full steam, it jumped track in an extraordinary way.
Lucas said that he had lied - again and again.
He had killed no one, he said, except his mother in 1960 in Montgomery County, Va. - and that was an accident.
Lucas said he was encouraged to confess to crimes he didn't commit by Texas Rangers working with other law officers eager to clear unsolved slayings.
Despite Lucas' recantations, his convictions stand. The only one being appealed is the case in which he is sentenced to die.
So Lucas sits in his cell on death row.
His pompadour hairdo is streaked with gray, and there are 50 extra pounds fleshing out the lanky frame that made front pages across the country.
The gaze from his dark hazel eyes - the right one real and the other glass - is steady, and shifts only when he reaches with tobacco-stained fingers for his pack of non-filtered cigarettes.
He refuses to wear his prison-issued dentures because they hurt, he said.
With three new capital murder cases in Florida recently pinned on him, Lucas continues to maintain his innocence.
"I didn't have no choice but to tell 'em I done them murders," Lucas said last week. "I thought [Williamson County Sheriff Jim] Boutwell was my good friend and I wanted to help solve those cases."
The sheriff was a major player in the state task force of Texas Rangers and Department of Public Safety investigators appointed in November 1983 to coordinate Lucas data with agencies in other states.
Lucas said his confessions were accurate only because law officers told him all about specific cases and showed him photographs before they began their official questioning.
Sheriff Boutwell only smiled and said he "expected Henry would say that." He said he hasn't talked to Lucas since he entered the Ellis Unit in Huntsville in June 1985.
"He turned on me back then and I don't want to talk to him, but I may go down there to say hi sometime," Boutwell said. "I do want to be there at the date of his death."
Texas Rangers Capt. Bob Prince, a leader of the Lucas task force for 18 months, defended the Rangers' role.
"Nothing would have tickled me more than to get him to stop confessing," Prince said. "The Rangers had no reason to clear those cases. It was just a job we had to do. There was nothing glamorous about it.
"Our sole responsibility was to make him available to law officers from wherever, not to determine if he did [the murders] or not," Prince added.
In response to Lucas' claim that he killed only his mother, Prince replied, "I believe everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and he was proven 11 times, and only one is on appeal."
Lucas said he's angry but not bitter about the convictions.
"I'm not gonna forgive 'em unless they admit to the truth, but they won't because they got too much pride to say they done wrong," he said.
Lucas said he's not afraid of dying and never has been. "It's the start of another life," he said.
by CNB