Ottis Toole
Shortly after returning, Betty Crawford accused Lucas of molesting her daughters. Henry denied the charges but told her that he had decided to leave anyway. On July 7th, Lucas packed his few belongings and headed towards Florida. On the way south, he stopped off in Tecumseh, Michigan to stay with Opal. Less than a month later, Henry and his brother-in-law, Wade Kiser, travelled to West Virginia for a family reunion. On the way, while caught in heavy traffic, Henry struck up a conversation with another man and shortly after, left Kiser to team up with the stranger for a trip to Shreveport, Louisiana.
After a brief stop over in Virginia, to visit his half-brother Harry Waugh, Lucas arrived at his destination. While in Shreveport, Henry was offered the job of driving a car to Los Angeles but declined after he became convinced that he would be working for the Mafia. Lucas left Louisiana and went back to Port Deposit. He didn’t stay long and moved on to Wilmington, Delaware where a relative, Leland Crawford gave him work in a carpet store. That lasted for several months until he returned to Port Deposit to spend Christmas with another relative, Nora Crawford. The following January, he left Nora and moved to Hinton, West Virginia and went to work for Joe Crawford, who was not only a relative, but also owned a carpet store.
While in Hinton, he met a woman called Rhonda Knuckles and lived with her until March 1978 until he tired of the relationship and returned once more to Port Deposit. He moved back with Opal. Lucas stayed for a short time until his sister Almeda offered him lodgings and a job in her husbands wrecking yard. Henry seemed settled until Almeda accused him of sexually molesting her grand daughter. Again he denied the accusation. The next morning he told the Kiser’s that he needed their truck and tools to collect a couple of wrecked cars for the yard. When Lucas didn’t return that night or the following day, the Kisers reported the car as stolen. The vehicle was later recovered outside Jacksonville, Florida in an undrivable condition.
Lucas reached Jacksonville with no money and nowhere to stay. He soon learned of a mission that provided both food and shelter. While he was waiting in a line to be fed, a man named Ottis Toole approached him. They entered into a conversation and soon after Ottis invited Henry to come back to his home in Springfield, a suburb of Jacksonville.
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Ottis Toole |
At the time, Ottis was sharing a house with his mother Sarah and her husband Robert. Ottis’s wife, Novella, a nephew, Frank Powell Jr. and Frieda Powell, Ottis’s eleven-year-old niece, also lived in the house. The Toole family was quite used to Ottis bringing home strange men from the mission. Sarah Pierce, a one time house guest later told police that Ottis, a known bisexual, often picked up men to bring home for sexual purposes. As well as his homosexual tendencies, Ottis also enjoyed watching his male guests have sex with his wife, Pierce and the under-aged Frieda. Henry adapted to his new "home" and was soon sharing the main bedroom with Ottis after Novella was sent to stay with neighbors. |
Ottis got a job for Henry in the paint factory where he worked, but Henry only lasted a month before he quit and headed north. While on his trip, he was allegedly beaten up by a member of his family and spent several weeks in hospital. When he was well enough to travel, he returned to Jacksonville and resumed his old job. Later, Ottis’s mother Sarah bought a house and moved her extended "family" into it. Henry quit his job again and went into the scrap metal business, soon filling the backyard of the new house with wrecked vehicles and parts. Now that Henry was working from home, Frieda, or "Becky" as Lucas called her, started to spend more time with him and a "relationship" developed. The "family" seemed relatively happy for over a year until May 1981 when Sarah died.
After her death, Ottis and Henry took Frank and Becky and set out to travel to California. Initially, the children saw the trip as an adventure but after reaching Arizona they became homesick so Henry and Ottis decided to cancel the trip. After selling the truck, they hopped a freight train as far as Houston then hitchhiked the rest of the way back to Jacksonville. Not long after their return, they stole a pickup truck from one of Ottis’s relatives and drove it to Wilmington, Delaware where they abandoned it.
When Toole was later hospitalized for an illness, Lucas and the children travelled on to Maryland where he was arrested for the theft of the Kiser’s vehicle and jailed. Frank and "Becky" were returned to their natural mother, Drucilla Carr. Henry was held in jail from July 22nd until October 6th when he was released on parole and returned to Jacksonville.
 Frieda "Becky" Powell |
In December 1981, after Drucilla Carr committed suicide, Frank and "Becky" were sent to a children’s shelter in Bartow, Florida. The following January, "Becky" ran away from the shelter. Shortly after her escape, police circulated a "pickup" order for "Becky" and Lucas as they believed that he was responsible for transporting her from the home in Bartow back to Jacksonville. |
After leaving hospital, Ottis Toole returned home to Jacksonville where he lived with his wife until May 1982 when they left to travel to California. On the way, they picked up a hitchhiker in Texas to share the driving. The man would later smash the car, causing Toole and his wife to be hospitalized for a time. Eventually after recovering, they returned to Jacksonville.
According to police records, shortly after Lucas and Toole met, they spent their "leisure time," drinking and cruising the highways looking for "fun." Apparently, their idea of fun was to rob small convenience stores and, on the odd occasion, banks. They stole money, food and beer and took obvious delight in terrorizing the staff.
The pair became bolder and more violent with every crime. Eventually their crimes became more brutal, to the point where, if a store clerk or bank teller resisted in the slightest way, they were gunned down and left in a pool of blood. Lucas would later relate one such incident to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
 Henry Lee Lucas |
He told police that he and Ottis robbed a small convenience store in western Georgia. Lucas walked to the front counter and produced a .22 calibre handgun and held it to the temple of the female clerk. After binding the terrified woman with rope, he dragged her to the back of the store while Toole rifled the till. The woman began to scream and struggle to get loose. |
Lucas told her, "I you don’t keep quiet, I’m gonna have to shoot ya." Fearing for her life, the woman obeyed. As they were dividing the money, Lucas noticed that the woman was trying to loosen the ropes. Casually he walked to the back of the store and shot her through the temple. Afterwards, while Henry loaded cases of beer into their car, Toole had sex with the woman’s body. At the conclusion of the admission, Lucas told police, "Now see, that’s the difference between me and Ottis. He just kills ‘em when he feels like it. At least I warn ‘em first."
