Serial Killers, Serial Liars | Death and Texas | 3

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It's October 10th, 1983, in the Duval County Jail in Jacksonville, Florida.

Detective Steve Kendrick takes a seat in the sterile chamber.

Like most interview rooms, this one's stark.

There's a metal table, a couple of chairs, and a heavy door.

The door opens, and a handcuffed prisoner shuffles inside.

It's 36-year-old Ottis Toole.

Ottis takes a seat.

Steve considers the man he's just driven over two hours to speak to about a homicide.

Ottis is serving a 15-year sentence already and is awaiting trial for a separate murder charge.

Now Steve's wondering if he might have had anything to do with an unsolved case down in Brevard County.

Given Ottis' sketchy past, he's not someone Steve exactly trusts, but he knows that he's got to chase down every lead, even the far-fetched ones.

So he starts his tape recorder and asks his questions.

From the jump, Ottis seems almost desperate to talk to Steve.

He freely admits that he's taken part in something like 65 murders, shrugging his shoulders like it's nothing, like he wants to impress.

But when Steve asks about his cold case at Cocoa Beach, Ottis has got nothing.

It's disappointing, but Steve figures that this is at least one more option he can cross off his list.

He thanks Ottis for his time, stops the tape recorder and stands to leave.

But then Ottis fixes him with a stare and asks if Steve is from Fort Lauderdale, which is in Broward County.

Steve is from Broward County, so it's an easy mistake to make.

Still, something about the way Ottis asks the question piques Steve's interest.

Compared to the casual way Ottis admitted to being a prolific serial killer just a few minutes earlier, he seems visibly distressed now.

His gaze flicks around the room and he can't sit still.

To Steve, it looks like the behavior of a man is dealing with something to confess, something he needs to speak about or he'll lose his mind.

So Steve sits down and asks Ottis about Fort Lauderdale, and Ottis tells him all about the little boy he saw at a Sears down that way, how he lured him to his Cadillac with the promise of candy, how he planned on taking the kid home to keep him as a son, how it went badly so, so quickly, and how it ended, with the boy in pieces and a head in a canal.

The more Ottis talks, the more familiar the story sounds to Steve.

It all sounds eerily like the case of Adam Walsh from a couple years back.

Steve doesn't know all the details of the story, but he remembers the broad strokes, and everything Ottis is saying lines up with that picture.

At the very least, Ottis knows a hell of a lot more about Adam Walsh than the case Steve came all this way to speak with him about.

So Steve thinks as he leaves the interview room later that afternoon, he might not have gotten what he came for, but maybe he's just solved one of the biggest mysteries in recent memory.

From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

In 1979, Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole reconnected in Jacksonville, Florida.

Their friendship blossomed as the pair lived with Ottis' family, worked odd jobs around town, and spent time with Ottis' niece and nephew.

Even now, their relationship is difficult to categorize.

Lovers, brothers, partners in crime, whatever you want to call them, there's no doubting that Henry and Ottis were well suited to each other.

And if you believe everything the guys ever said, they spent their two years together crisscrossing the country with the kids in tow, killing just about anyone who crossed their path.

When they split up back in 1981, Henry ended up in a Maryland jail for auto theft, and Ottis made his way back to Florida, where he kidnapped and murdered six-year-old Adam Walsh.

The crime was one that changed the way America responded to missing children cases, even as investigators struggled to figure out who was responsible.

All the while, Ottis Toole was sitting on that secret, just waiting for the right moment to tell the story.

When that time finally came, he took his cue from Henry, who was telling plenty of stories of his own by that stage.

And in all the confusion over what was truth, what was fiction, what was corruption, one question hovered over everything.

Are we really going to believe these guys?

This is episode 3 in our 4-part series on Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole, Death and Texas.

It's the afternoon of November 6, 1981.

Betty Thornton is working the register at a gas station near Interstate 30 in Little Rock, Arkansas.

It's a Friday afternoon, so it's been pretty busy.

Plenty of people filling up their cars before the weekend or stopping off for a snack on their way home from school.

But around 430, a man walks into the store during a rare quiet moment.

He approaches Betty, points a gun at her, and demands all the money in the register.

When Betty doesn't move fast enough for his liking, the gunman squeezes the trigger three times, hitting Betty twice in the abdomen and once in the shoulder.

She slumps to the ground while the shooter hops the counter and opens the register himself.

Just then, another customer walks in to pay for their gas.

Thinking quickly, Betty's attacker hides his gun and takes the customer's five bucks with a smile.

Once the coast is clear, the shooter steps over Betty and makes his escape.

Just a few days later, a 23-year-old local man, the son of a retired state trooper, is arrested for murdering Betty and goes to jail to await trial.

It seems like a neat ending to a tragic story, but there's a twist in this tale coming, one that nobody expected.

While prosecutors in Arkansas prepare their case against Betty Thornton's alleged killer, a different pair of criminals have reunited across the country in Florida.

Henry Lee Lucas had been cooling his heels in a Maryland jail for stealing a truck, but when the charges were dropped, he came back to Jacksonville to find his partner, Ottis Toole.

Henry explains that he was in jail and that he didn't really run off with Ottis' niece, Becky, like Ottis thought.

That's all it takes to patch things up between the two men, and they pick up right where they left off.

Ever since he murdered Adam Walsh in July of this year, Ottis has been living in a Jacksonville boarding house.

Once Henry arrives, the two move in to a different room together, and for a while, everything's good.

On January 4th, 1982, though, Ottis decides he's had enough of the status quo.

Late that evening, Ottis and Henry enter a two-story boarding house in downtown Jacksonville.

Henry's pretty sure his friends peeve that some of the guys who live in the house have knocked back Ottis' sexual advances, and this is his way of getting back at them.

Then again, Ottis is always like watching fires, so it's just as likely that's the main reason they're here.

Either way, while Henry watches on, Ottis enters one of the bedrooms and sets fire to a foam mattress.

The flames catch quickly, so the guys have to make a hasty exit.

Then they spend the next few minutes driving around the block, watching the fires spread every time they drive past.

Inside the house, a couple of the residents wake up when they realize what's happening.

One of them burns his hands when he tries to get through a door that's already on fire, and another breaks his leg jumping from an upstairs window.

George Sonnenberg is the worst affected.

He doesn't wake up when the fire takes over the bedroom next to his, and firefighters eventually pull him out of the house with second and third degree burns covering most of his body.

By the time the ambulance arrives to help the injured men, Ottis and Henry are long gone.

They don't see the people they've hurt, and they don't pay attention to the news reports about George Sonnenberg's condition.

The 65-year-old remains in the hospital for a week, then dies on January 11th.

Luckily for Ottis and Henry, the fire marshals rule the blaze in accident, so George's death is chalked up as a tragic outcome of the fire, and the matter is laid to rest.

But their lives are about to get complicated in a different way.

Not long after the fire, Becky Powell, Ottis' 14-year-old niece, runs away from her foster home a few hours away from Jacksonville.

She tracks down Ottis and Henry, seemingly delighted to be back with them.

Of course, by now, Child Protective Services know all about Becky's past with her uncle and his friend, and start nosing around Jacksonville looking for the runaway.

But by that stage, Becky is long gone.

She and Henry have skipped town, leaving Ottis all alone once again.

Henry takes Becky west, wanting to put as much distance between them and the Florida authorities as possible.

A little later that same month, the pair are hitchhiking near Beaumont in Southern California.

Jack Smart stops to pick them up, assuming that the raggedy looking couple are husband and wife despite the 30 year age gap.

After driving with them for a while, Jack takes pity on Henry and Becky.

They're clearly tired and hungry and could use some help.

So he offers Henry some work at his furniture restoration business.

For a few months, things look like they're working out for Henry in California.

Then, in May of 1982, Jack comes to him with a suggestion that will set the course for the rest of Henry's life.

Jack's mother-in-law, Kate Rich, lives alone in the small town of Ringgold, Texas.

Kate's a popular woman in town.

She was a community midwife for 30 years.

Now, she's a mother to 9, grandmother to 31, and great-grandmother to 27.

But Kate lives alone, and at the age of 79, her kids figure she could use a little extra help around the house.

Some companionship wouldn't hurt either.

So, Jack offers Henry a gig as Kate's live-in handyman.

He and Becky can stay with Kate, do odd jobs, pick up groceries, maybe even do some cooking.

It sounds like a pretty sweet deal to Henry, so he says yes, and he and Becky board a bus bound for Texas.

They arrive in Ringgold in mid-May 1982, and their presence in the town is noticed pretty quickly thanks to some reckless spending.

When Henry hands over two $25 checks to pay for several bags full of junk food, the store owner notices Kate's name on the checks.

Everyone in town knows that Kate only gets a couple hundred bucks a month to live on, so it seems odd that she'd give so much of it to strangers to spend on snacks and cigarettes.

So the guy calls one of Kate's daughters to let her know what's up, and she decides to pay her mom a visit.

When she arrives with one of her sisters a couple of days later, the house is filthy, and it's clear that Henry and Becky aren't doing anything to help Kate at all.

In fact, it seems like she's the one looking after them, taking care of their laundry while they lays in bed.

Kate's daughters approach Henry and tell him that he should leave, making up an excuse about Kate's social security checks being in danger with extra people in the house.

Hearing that, Henry agrees to leave, and the women give him and Becky a ride to the highway so they can hitch a ride to a bigger town.

That's how Henry and Becky meet Ruben Moore, a roofing contractor and preacher.

He picks them up from the side of the road and brings them back to his commune about 12 miles down the highway.

Like in California, Henry and Becky are content to stay put for a while at the house of prayer.

They play the role of a couple, letting everyone else at the commune think they're married.

People notice that the pair act more like father and daughter than lovers, but Henry's not bothered by what people think so long as they leave him be.

And he's manipulated Becky so well that she's content for things to carry on for a while.

But by August, the teenager has had enough of her adventure with Henry Lee Lucas.

She misses her family and needles him constantly to take her home to Florida.

Eventually, he relents and agrees to go with her.

On August 24th, the pair tell their friends at the House of Prayer that they're leaving.

They pack up their few belongings and start hitchhiking toward Florida.

They don't make it far though.

By the time they reach Denton, a college town not far from Dallas, it's too late at night for them to keep going.

So, they try and fail to find a motel room.

That leaves them no other option but to sleep rough.

So they take the pillows and blankets they've got with them into a field beside I-35 and figure they'll bed down there.

By this stage, it's the early hours of the morning and it's hot and muggy and both of them are tired and irritable.

Henry decides to pick a fight he knows he'll lose, trying to entice Becky to return to the House of Prayer.

But she's determined to make it back to Florida.

Telling the story later, Henry will remember that Becky hit him first.

Whether that's true or not, his response is swift and brutal.

Ever since his years in prison, Henry's liked to carry a blade with him for protection.

He tells people he was stabbed several times by other prisoners and won't be caught unarmed again.

Now though, when a 14-year-old girl hits him, Henry grabs the large knife he's brought from the commune and stabs Becky in the chest.

After Becky's dead, Henry has sex with her, dismembers her body and scatters the pieces around the field.

The sound of cars rushing down the highway just feet away.

Then he gets rid of their luggage and washes his hands in a creek.

From there, Henry heads back to the House of Prayer.

He tells his friends that Becky ran off with some trucker, thoroughly breaking his heart in the process.

To really sell the story, he occasionally announces that he's going to go out searching for her, only to return dejected and alone every time.

No one at the commune finds the story that hard to believe.

After all, Becky did seem an awful lot younger than Henry, so it's not surprising that their relationship would end so abruptly.

But Henry's still devastated and he's lonely.

So a few weeks after he returns to the commune, he borrows a car and says that he's going to visit Kate Rich down the highway in Ringgold.

Maybe Kate reminds him of the time he spent at her house with Becky.

Or maybe something about her makes Henry think of his own mother, who he murdered 20 years ago.

And maybe he just wants to relive that night all over again.

Henry knocks on Kate's door on the evening of September 16th and invites her to go for a drive.

He can help her run some errands, or maybe they can go to church together, he says.

Kate's happy for a chance to get out of the house, so she grabs her purse and allows Henry to lead her to the car.

It's not the peaceful night that Henry promised though.

While he's driving, he takes out his knife and stabs Kate to death.

He then pulls the car off the road, opens the passenger door and lets her body fall to the ground.

From there, Henry drags Kate down an embankment, strips her naked and pushes her into a wide drainage pipe.

When he's done, Henry cleans himself up, gets as much blood out of the car as he can, and heads back to the house of prayer like nothing's happened.

It's Henry Lee Lucas' second murder in less than a month.

But when he's finally cornered by the police, he'll reveal that that's not the half of it.

If Henry Lee Lucas is to be believed, he's been a very, very busy man.

It's October 18th, 1982, a month after Henry Lee Lucas murdered 80-year-old Kate Rich.

In Stoneburg, Texas, the House of Prayer commune sits on the site of a former chicken ranch.

That's where police find Henry early in the morning.

He comes to the door of the small shack he's crashing in, unshaven, unshowered and unbothered.

Texas Ranger Phil Ryan and William Conway, the sheriff from Montague County, have been investigating Kate's disappearance for a few weeks now.

When they ask Henry if he'll speak to them about her, he's only too happy to go with them to the local police station to answer some questions.

In the interview room, the cops tell him that Kate's house burned down last night.

Henry doesn't seem surprised to hear it.

The cops also point out that it was just yesterday that Henry returned to Stoneburg.

He shrugs, ignoring the implicit accusation.

After killing Kate, he left the area for a while, tossing Kate's purse out the window of his borrowed car on the way.

He was oblivious to the investigation and to Kate's disappearance, totally unaware that he was becoming a chief suspect.

During their inquiries, Phil and William have heard all about the missing girl, Becky Powell, and after speaking to people who knew her in Florida, they've discovered that she's only 15, far younger than most people at the House of Prayer believed her to be.

If nothing else, that information tells the cops that Henry Lee Lucas is a predator.

But in front of them, he's all smiles, showing off his rotting teeth between drags on an unending stream of cigarettes.

Henry's breath is fetid, and the smell of the rest of him is even worse.

But Phil and William don't complain.

They're sure Henry had something to do with Kate Rich's disappearance, and probably with Becky's too, despite his claim that the teen ran off with a trucker.

If Henry knows they're on to him, he doesn't show it.

He'll happily answer questions and agrees to give blood samples and submit to a polygraph.

He acts for all the world like someone with nothing to hide.

But the polygraph indicates that Henry's lying, about Kate and about Becky.

The cops have got enough on Henry to hold him for a while, so they put him in a cell in the local jail while they keep digging.

In early November, about two weeks after he was picked up, Henry's released from custody and returns to the House of Prayer.

Despite their best efforts, the cops haven't found anything that means they can keep Henry longer.

No new evidence has turned up, no new witnesses have come forward.

So, as 1982 ends, the investigation into the disappearance of Kate Rich is growing colder and colder.

Things don't warm up much in the new year.

Kate's purse is found beneath an overpass, but that's the biggest development in the case since Henry's polygraph results, and it doesn't lead to anything.

Meanwhile, Henry drifts in and out of the commune, keeping up the charade that he's looking for his child bride, Becky.

Then, during one of his absences, on June 2nd, 1983, Henry calls Reuben Moore, the preacher and founder of the House of Prayer.

Henry tells Reuben that he's in New Mexico and he's found Becky and Kate.

It's a miracle.

Unfortunately, his car is broken down and he can't get back to Texas without a little help.

Now, by this stage, no one at the House of Prayer really trusts Henry anymore, so Reuben calls the local cops to let them know what's up.

He tells them that he's gonna go fetch Henry himself and bring him back to Stoneburg.

But when Reuben arrives in New Mexico, Henry's all alone.

Acting distraught, he tells Reuben that both Kate and Becky were just kidnapped.

If Henry didn't already stank, everyone would soon enough be smelling a rat.

Still, Reuben keeps his promise to bring Henry back to Texas.

On June 11th, 1983, the day after Henry makes it back to the House of Prayer, the police show up at the commune again.

They've heard Henry's been carrying a firearm, which he's prohibited from doing because he's got a felony conviction to his name.

So they use that as an excuse to keep him locked up while they keep looking for proof that Henry knows more than he's letting on.

Of course, it's been almost a year since anyone saw Becky or Kate, and investigators have made very little progress.

They know that unless Henry starts talking, they're probably not going to get much further.

But they've tried extensive interrogation, and the polygraph didn't nudge any confessions out of him.

So, they've figured that maybe they'll just leave Henry to stew in solitary for a while.

He's always seemed like such a chatty guy that maybe starving him of some attention will make him more desperate to spill his secrets.

It proves to be a winning strategy.

On June 15th, after about four days alone in a cold jail cell, Henry passes a note to one of the guards.

He's ready to talk.

That afternoon, Sheriff William Conway and Texas Ranger Phil Ryan sit down with Henry in an interrogation room.

They already know what he wants to talk about, and it's more than they ever expected.

In his note to the guard, Henry wrote that he's been killing people for the past decade.

Becky Powell, the only woman he ever loved, he says, was just one of many.

So was Kate Rich.

Over the next few hours, Henry makes a long, long confession.

He explains how he killed Becky and scattered the pieces of her body, how he killed Kate Rich and hid her body, how he went back a few months later to retrieve Kate's remains and incinerated them in a wood-burning stove at the House of Prayer.

Those are the two crimes he goes into detail about.

He alludes to others, but offers little else.

But by the time Henry's led back to his lonely cell in the early hours of the next morning, he's said more than enough.

It's close to 2 a.m.

when Phil and another officer drive out to the spot Henry says he killed Kate.

They find the drainpipe he described leaving her in, the 2x4 he used to push the body out of sight, a pair of broken ladies' glasses by the side of the road, and a pair of women's underwear washed out onto the damp ground.

It's early days, but it certainly seems like Henry's telling the truth.

A few hours later, cops show up to the House of Prayer and collect the ashes from a wood-burning stove.

They find what look like charred pieces of bone and chunks of flesh that escape the flames.

After that, Henry leads Phil to the bridge he threw Kate's purse from a few months ago.

It's the same bridge where cops found it.

They know now there's no way he could be making this up.

A little later, Henry takes another group of investigators to the field where he killed Becky.

Walking around the grassy space, he leads the cops to each piece of the teen's dismembered body.

He only buried one of her limbs, so the rest have been exposed to the elements for close to a year.

Even still, there are clothes and some flesh that remain attached to Becky's bones.

At this point, it seems like 46-year-old Henry Lee Lucas has sealed his own fate.

He's admitted to killing two people and led police to the evidence of his crimes.

Murder charges are on the horizon for the lifelong criminal, and he's not the only one incriminating himself.

Over a thousand miles away in Jacksonville, Henry's friend and former paramour Ottis Toole has also found himself in the crosshairs of the law.

After Henry abandoned him for Ottis' teenage niece, Ottis continued his unruly behavior.

He befriended a couple of guys who were younger than he and introduced them to the joys of setting things on fire.

But when those kids were arrested for arson, they ratted Ottis out to the cops.

Now, Ottis is in custody and he freely admits to setting dozens of fires in Jacksonville over the past 20 years.

Mostly empty buildings, he qualifies.

He doesn't want him to think he's some kind of monster.

But nothing that Ottis says wins him any fans.

His sexual fascination with fire seems peculiar enough.

Then, when he tells a psychologist that he also likes to hang around with kids and hears voices and is gay, it's enough to discuss most of the cops working the case.

It's the psychologist's opinion that Ottis is extremely disturbed and that he exhibits signs of borderline character disorder.

He recommends that Ottis receive treatment for psychosexual conflicts, pyromania, alcoholism and drug dependency.

But after all that, the doctor still says that Ottis is competent to stand trial for his crimes.

So, just like his pal Henry, Ottis' tendency to talk earns him a date with the judge.

Thanks to his confession, Ottis is convicted of setting two fires in his home neighborhood of Springfield, and he's sentenced to 15 years behind bars.

That shuts him up for a while.

But over in Texas, Henry's still running his mouth to anyone who'll listen.

On June 18th, 1983, Jim Boutwell gets a call from his colleagues in Montague County, where Kate Rich was murdered a year ago.

Jim's the sheriff of Williamson County, some 200 miles away, just south of Waco, Texas.

Sheriff William Conway tells Jim that he's got a prisoner who says he's killed plenty of people in the last 10 years, and maybe he could help Jim close some of his cases.

Now, this is music to Jim Boutwell's ears.

There's been a string of killings along I-35 between Austin and Dallas.

People like Sandra Mae Dubs, who was abducted and killed after her car broke down.

Harry and Molly Schlesinger, who were killed in their book and liquor store.

And Deborah Louise Jackson, whose body was found nude except for a pair of orange socks.

Jim's been worried there's a serial killer at work along I-35.

Maybe now he thinks he can get some answers.

When Jim arrives at the Montague County Jail to speak with Henry, he brings with him a stack of photographs from Unsolved Crimes.

Henry tells Jim, sure, he's done some murders down in Williamson.

And when Jim shows him the photos, he picks some out.

One of the photos is of Deborah in her orange socks.

Looking at the photo, Henry says that he strangled Deborah to death and left her naked in the dirt.

Within hours of Jim arriving, Henry signed a confession to the murder of the case everyone knows as Orange Socks, ending a years-long search for the killer.

But Henry's not done yet.

On June 21st, Henry appears in the Montague County Courthouse for an arraignment to hear the charges read against him in the murder of Kate Rich.

It's around 5 p.m.

when Henry's led into the courtroom.

There are a few newspaper journalists in the gallery, along with one or two photographers and a television news crew.

Kate's disappearance had been a compelling story for the locals, so it makes sense that there are a few reporters present to hear the facts of the case.

They get a lot more than they expected though.

When the judge asks Henry if he understands the charges, Henry says ever so casually that he does.

Then, without missing a beat, he shrugs and says one murder is nothing.

He's got about a hundred others under his belt already.

It's the morning of June 22nd, 1983 at the Montague County Courthouse in Texas.

Ordinarily, this is a relatively quiet town, and legal proceedings go by with little fanfare.

But today, the large brick building with its white columns and manicured lawns is surrounded by journalists.

Helicopters can be heard in the distance as reporters from nearby cities descend on Montague to get the goods on America's newest serial killer.

Less than 24 hours ago, Henry Lee Lucas claimed in open court that he's killed at least 100 people in his life.

As the news hit the airwaves across the country, the district attorney told reporters that investigators have discussed seven murders with Henry so far, but wouldn't say any more than that.

Everyone is talking about Henry's shocking announcement.

They want to know exactly what he's done and to who.

Henry loves all this attention.

Detectives and sheriffs from surrounding counties are soon bringing him their stalled murder cases to ask whether he was behind them.

And most of the time, Henry happily cops to them.

He even draws pictures of women he says he's murdered with descriptions of their clothing and how he killed them.

Then, Texas Ranger Phil Ryan sends copies of the sketches out to surrounding police departments to see if they match any unsolved cases.

One of the earliest Henry claims responsibility for is Sandra Mae Dubs, detailing how he saw her broken down car and pulled over to pretend to help her.

Jim Boutwell is sheriff of the county where Sandra was murdered and takes Henry on the road to get more details about what he did.

According to Jim's account of the day, Henry directs him to the exact field where Sandra's body was found.

Then, when driving back to jail, Henry points at a building and describes how he shot Harry and Molly Schlesinger there just days after killing Sandra.

In the months after his court admission, Henry goes on trial for the two murders that started this whole thing.

In September, Henry's found guilty of murdering Kate Rich and is sentenced to 75 years behind bars.

Soon after, he's found guilty of murdering Becky Powell, too, a crime that earns him a life sentence.

Once those two cases are finished with, Jim Boutwell takes custody of Henry and brings himself to Williamson County to stand trial for the murder of Deborah Louise Jackson, also known as Orange Sox.

Once Henry is in Williamson, Jim goes to the Texas Department of Public Safety, or DPS, to ask them to set up an operational task force.

Plenty of investigators are eager to speak to Henry about unsolved cases, and having a system in place to organize interviews will take a lot of responsibility off Jim's shoulders now that Henry is under his watch.

The head of the DPS thinks this is a good idea and OK's funding for the task force.

Crucially, the task force won't be investigative.

It's merely going to provide administrative support so that cops from around the state and maybe even further afield can come to Williamson and close their cases.

The Texas Rangers, a division of the DPS, will take charge of the logistics and document any of the confessions Henry might make.

Jim will be the key contact person for Henry, while Texas Ranger Bob Prince is tapped to oversee the task force.

Once that structure is in place in November of 83, Jim Boutwell and the Texas Rangers start proudly inviting investigators to a small office in the county jail.

Roll up, roll up, come see our pet serial killer.

Cops who want to speak to Henry call ahead to book a block of time, and pretty soon, Henry's calendar is full.

Usually, people will get several hours to ask their questions, though when things get really hectic, some meetings are as short as 20 minutes, which isn't a lot of time to clear up a murder investigation.

But Henry Lee Lucas, who's never had so much attention in his life, is only too happy to perform, no matter what's asked of him.

In one of their sessions, Jim Boutwell puts Henry on the phone with an officer from Little Rock, Arkansas.

The cop tells Henry all about the 1981 murder of Betty Thornton, who was killed in a convenience store holdup gone wrong.

A retired state trooper's son is sitting in jail for the crime, and the local cops would rather that wasn't the case, since the kid insists that he's innocent.

He asks Henry if he can help them out.

And you know what?

Henry says that, yeah, he probably killed Betty Thornton.

That confession leads an Arkansas judge to grant Betty's alleged killer a new trial, though no one does much to investigate whether Henry's claim is true.

Eventually, the cop's son will be exonerated of the murder thanks to an eyewitness who admits they made a mistake.

Not every cop who hears a spontaneous confession believes it though, and sometimes that's a problem.

While Henry's racking up a long list of murders to his name in Texas, Ottis Toole is doing a little more confessing of his own.

Like Henry, he's been convicted of murder.

After admitting that he set the boarding house fire that killed George Sonnenberg in 1982, he's been charged, convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.

So when a cop from Florida South comes to talk to him about an unsolved case, Ottis has got nothing to lose.

During that meeting, Ottis tells the detective all about how he abducted Adam Walsh from Hollywood, then killed him in a wooded area off the freeway.

He offers up details of the crime that no one could know except the killer.

After the surprise confession, investigators from the Hollywood PD bundle Ottis into a van and drive him around town.

He retraces his steps from July 27, 1981, directing the cops to the Sears where he snatched Adam, then down the service road and into the scrub where he killed him.

From there, he leads them to the spot where he threw Adam's remains into the canal, which matches the spot where they were found a couple of weeks later.

It should be enough for investigators to close the case.

But the lead detective just doesn't like Ottis for the crime.

He's got his eye on someone else.

And when Ottis changes his mind and recants his confession shortly after the excursion, it sets the tone for a dance that will continue for years.

In Texas, Henry Lee Lucas isn't recanting his confessions.

Not yet anyway.

And the more he talks, the more eager his handlers are to find out about his dynamic with Ottis Toole.

According to Henry's stories, the two of them drove across the country for a couple of years, killing with abandon and getting away with it every time.

When Henry went on trial for killing Ottis' niece, Henry wrote Ottis a letter to tell him what he did and how much he loved Becky.

In the same letter, Henry explained that he'd been confessing to a lot of murders, and gently encouraged his friend to do the same.

A little later, Henry's allowed to call Ottis, and takes the chance to talk about the murders they committed together.

They riff on horrific details, like eating their victims' ribs.

It's enough to turn anyone's stomach, but it keeps Sheriff Jim Boutwell and Texas Ranger Bob Prince thoroughly invested in the story.

So after the phone call, Henry's flown back to Jacksonville to see Ottis in person.

Perhaps the investigators hope that if the two killers are re-ignited, it will jog their memories and there will be even more confessions, even more cases closed.

There will certainly be more confessions coming, but whether they're truthful or not is a whole other question.

From Airship, this is episode 3 in our series on Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole.

On the next episode, Henry Lee Lucas wins Renown as America's most prolific serial killer.

But not everyone's so sure he's as guilty as he says he is.

We use many different sources while preparing this episode.

A couple we can recommend are Bringing Adam Home by Les Standiford and Joe Matthews, and The confessions of Henry Lee Lucas by Mike Cox.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details, and while in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

audio editing by Mahabat Shazi.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan, managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson, and Lindsey Graham for Airship.