Last Update on the Left - Episode 13 - Henry Lee Lucas Revisited - Part I

Summary

Last Podcast On The Left: Last Update on the Left – Episode 13

Henry Lee Lucas Revisited – Part I
Release Date: May 11, 2026
Hosts: Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski

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Overview

In this special revisitation episode, the Last Podcast On The Left trio returns to Henry Lee Lucas nearly a decade after their original multi-parter. With new insights, updated research, and that signature balance of grim humor and dark history, the hosts unravel the myth versus reality of one of America’s most infamous (and deeply unreliable) serial killer confessions. This episode explores not just Lucas’s life and crimes, but the broader context—police complicity, the psychology of confessions, and the American appetite for sensational true crime.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Revisiting the Case: What’s Changed in Nine Years?

• They reflect on how perspectives shift (“Nine long years since we've covered this project” – Marcus, 01:14), and that much of what was once believed about Lucas has now been widely debunked.
  • Quote: “Welcome to the update of Henry Lee Lucas. And what do we know more of now? How full of shit he was. Packed jam full of shit.” (Ben, 02:32)
• Lucas was once credited with triple-digit (even up to 600) body counts, but evidence has stripped most of those away.

2. The Tragic Early Life of Henry Lee Lucas

• Classic “serial killer soup” upbringing: abuse, poverty, abandonment, and neglect.
  • Quote: “Having a no leg sex worker mother that gets dragged around in a cart is one of them.” (Ben, 07:29)
• Illustrates how childhood trauma and low intelligence (IQ ~87) contributed to his path.
• Details on Lucas’s family: mother (sex worker), legless father, constant abuse, extreme deprivation.

3. Crimes, Arrests, and Early Murders

• The knowns: killed his mother, Becky Powell (child bride/niece of Otis Toole), and an old woman named Kate Rich—beyond these, most other confessions are unverified or disproven.
• Frequently in and out of prison, often released early due to overcrowding.

4. The Lucas–Toole Relationship

• Lucas meets Otis Toole in prison and forms a charged, codependent, often grimly humorous partnership, both criminal and romantic.
  • Quote: “His John Lennon. If I were to make them Beatles...Otis tool is the John Lennon. And the child bride is Ringo.” (Ben, 15:00)
• Explores the “couple serial killer” trope—though their actual crime spree is more fantasy than fact.

5. Unraveling the Confessions

• Explains how Lucas confessed to hundreds of murders largely to please law enforcement, and how the Texas Rangers and various police forces colluded (intentionally or not) in making him a “super predator.”
  • Quote: “Texas Rangers are not...crushing it. That’s my review.” (Ben, 31:28)
• Details how Lucas was plied with special treatment—steaks, milkshakes, rides without handcuffs—in exchange for closing cold cases.
• The hosts stress the false closure given to families and police via Lucas’s confessions.

6. Police and Community Complicity

• Extended discussion on how and why cops “solved” cases by feeding Lucas details and taking his word for it.
• All involved were incentivized: police cleared cases; Lucas got comfort, attention, and jailhouse celebrity.

7. The Hand of Death and Satanic Panic Connections

• Lucas’s wildest claims: being part of a satanic cult called the “Hand of Death” that trained him for mass murder.
• The hosts dismiss this as an artifact of the ‘80s Satanic Panic, drawn out by religious supporters and police looking for a bigger story.
  • Quote: “Hand of Death is...absolutely the stupidest conspiracy theory on the face of the planet.” (Ben, 45:08)
• Argues that the real conspiracy was mundane—a jailhouse boys’ club, not CIA/Satanists.

8. The Real Toll & Legacy

• Only a handful (<10) of Lucas’s “murders” are provable.
• He was ultimately sentenced to death for the “Orange Socks” murder—a case later widely doubted, leading to George W. Bush commuting Lucas's sentence.
  • Quote: “He was the only one whose death sentence was commuted.” (Marcus, 51:09)
• The rest of the confessions are now largely viewed as fiction—leaving hundreds of real victims and families without answers.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Serial Killer Soup: “With serial killers, there are certain factors that come into play that create a serial killer.” (Marcus, 07:22)
• On Police Complicity: “But these aren’t big city crimes...it’s these small towns of just, like, a few hundred people, a few thousand people, where murder really means something. And these cops go crazy trying to solve it. And so they go to Henry Lee Lucas. And he absolves them.” (Marcus, 38:48)
• On the Value of Validation: “He’s not had a lot of positive validation...Maybe this is my way of making everybody smile, you know, Meanwhile, like, is. He’s just a haunted, evil child, man.” (Ben, 39:54)
• Debunking Lucas’s Reputation: “Henry Lucas killed three people for certain. And I actually do think it is more than the three people, but it is not hundreds of people.” (Ben, 42:45)
• Texas & Florida Debate: “Between Tool and him...is where Texas meets Florida.” (Henry, 52:57)
• On The Appeal of the Monster Myth: “They like the world to be a more evil place than it really is because it makes them bigger men.” (Marcus, 44:49)

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Timeline of Key Segments

• 00:20–02:40: Opening banter, reflection on nine years since first Henry Lee Lucas episode, setting the tone.
• 03:39–08:07: Deep dive into Lucas’s childhood and family pathology.
• 10:12–13:32: Lucas’s early crimes, jail releases, and the killing of his mother.
• 15:00–16:25: Lucas & Otis Toole’s partnership—both criminal and personal.
• 19:34–23:23: Relationship with Becky Powell, transition from crime to confession.
• 23:33–27:00: The start of Lucas’s confessions, details on murders he likely did commit.
• 29:10–34:15: Serial killer archetypes; comparisons with Gary Ridgeway, the psychology of sprees vs. planners.
• 36:25–39:53: Law enforcement enabling Lucas’s fantasies; the comfort and celebrity status he received in jail.
• 41:00–51:00: Tallying the confessions, exposing the procedural failures and the impact on real investigations.
• 45:08–47:00: Dissection of “Hand of Death” conspiracy and its roots in Satanic Panic.
• 51:09–52:17: George W. Bush commutes Lucas’s death sentence; speculation on why.

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Tone and Style

• Classic Last Podcast: irreverent, outrageous, darkly comedic with moments of real sincerity and sharp cultural critique.
• Frank about the failures of law enforcement, the danger of sensationalism, and the lasting harm of mythologizing monsters.
• Grounded in banter but repeatedly looping back to the real (and ongoing) damage caused by crime myths.

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Conclusion

This episode refines and updates the Henry Lee Lucas story with new skepticism and a decade’s worth of research. The hosts expose the social and institutional dynamics that created “America’s most prolific serial killer”—and emphasize that, for all the headlines, the truth is much sadder, smaller, and speaks to failures of justice as much as human depravity. Fans and newcomers alike will get both updates on cases and a richer understanding of how true crime legends are built—and ultimately, debunked.

Transcript

[Ben Kissel]

That's when the cannibalism started. Last update on the left. Rolling. Rolling. Rolling.

[Marcus Parks]

What?

[Ben Kissel]

Rolling.

[Henry Zebrowski]

When did you do the Henry Lee Lucas episode?

[Ben Kissel]

2015. Actually, I'm looking right in here. Seven. Almost. Almost 10 years ago. Yeah. Nine years a month from now. Wow. Nine years. Nine years.

[Marcus Parks]

So here we are.

[Ben Kissel]

Nine long years. Nine years. Never get them back. Never get him back. Never getting younger. Only getting older. I become a corpse to my own family. Become a corpse to my own friends. Help me. Nine long years. Podcasting ain't never gonna be the same.

[Marcus Parks]

Nine long years since we've covered this project.

[Ben Kissel]

Nine years.

[Marcus Parks]

Many years since we actually started this.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it's much longer than that.

[Marcus Parks]

It's much longer.

[Ben Kissel]

Write it. W. My wife and I's first kiss.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Was it the Henry Lee Lucas episode?

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. I actually do remember recording one of the episodes of Henry Lee Lucas after one of our first dates. Natalie was staying inside of the living room, and I was doing the episode in the other room. Oh.

[Marcus Parks]

Welcome to last update on the left, ladies and gentlemen. That's the only romantic story you're gonna hear in connection to Henry Lee Lucas, one of the most disgusting killers to ever confess to many, many crimes.

[Ben Kissel]

He made me horny. He made me horny.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Do you ever think. Do you think that he ever got a passionate kiss?

[Marcus Parks]

Henry Lee Lucas from a corpse?

[Ben Kissel]

I do. Take the oldest.

[Henry Zebrowski]

How does that happen?

[Marcus Parks]

Do you lay it on top of you?

[Ben Kissel]

Give it to me. Yeah. Now with tongue. Oh, tongue fell off.

[Marcus Parks]

I would imagine. You'd have to wait until it was. It had been dead long enough for it to really get a bunch of fluids going. And then you flop it on top of you. And the more fluids you get, the more passionate the kiss is.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Passion fruit.

[Ben Kissel]

Welcome to the update of Henry Lee Lucas. And what do we know more of now? How full of shit he was. Packed jam full of shit.

[Marcus Parks]

Exactly what I was going to say.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I can't believe I've heard this guy's name a million times. I can't believe this one pisses me off more than any of them.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is so aggravating. Well, so many people got away with murder.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. And we'll never get over the fact that he just. It's the sounds of Henry Lucas drinking the milkshakes in the documentary series. It's a lot I.

[Marcus Parks]

Fashion killer is what it was called.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. I never want to see a man with a graveyard for a mouth smiling with a mouth full of vanilla milkshake. Because it's just that look of he's like, this is good.

[Marcus Parks]

Correction, strawberry.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh yeah, I liked about the strawberry. That looks like a girl had her menage in a nice white, a nice thick period juice inside of it. Yeah, I got that one too.

[Marcus Parks]

And really, Lucas, for those of you who don't know, this guy is for many, many years like Henry Lou Lucas. When you talked about, like, biggest body counts out of all the serial killers throughout the 80s and 90s, it was always Henry Lee Lucas.

[Ben Kissel]

No one would ever top.

[Marcus Parks]

No one ever top over 100 plus is what people would always say.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So it would go up to 600.

[Marcus Parks]

Some people would say yes at some points, but it has come out in recent years and it was always rumored throughout, like anytime. I think the, the book that we used at the time, I can't remember, or the, the two books we used, one of them is still one of my true crime books ever. But the, the paperback that we use, the regular supermarket paperback, like, those would allude to the possibility that he didn't kill as many as he says that he killed. But I mean, true crime books, at least back in the 80s and 90s, like, they went for the most sensationalist, goriest story that you could possibly tell.

[Ben Kissel]

And we love them. And honestly, last podcast and left was a direct reaction to all of this material we had read all over the years about, like, and. And wanted to. And they had this tone and all had the same tone. And Henry Lee Lucas is such a great example of it. And just so you guys know, so we'll catch you up real quick, but all of you basically know who Henry Lee Lucas is. If you've gotten to this podcast already. He was an American serial killer. He was active in the 50s, 60s and 70s. They probably. I don't remember when he was arrested.

[Marcus Parks]

He was arrested for the time.

[Ben Kissel]

First.

[Marcus Parks]

First time in 1959.

[Ben Kissel]

That was the first time he was arrested.

[Marcus Parks]

1960 was the first. He committed his first murder in 1960.

[Ben Kissel]

When was he in jail?

[Marcus Parks]

He was in jail from 1960 until 1970. Then he was again thrown in jail until about 1976. He claims that his most active times were in the late 70s and the early 80s. Let's go. Let's just give a full refresher. Has been nine fucking years.

[Ben Kissel]

Nine years.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Nine years ago I went into the studio. Nine years later I came out married. Why am I like this?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Why does it continue so, like, after you and Natalie had sex for the first time?

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Were you like laying there and be like, so like, there's this guy, Henry Lucas.

[Ben Kissel]

No. Yes, probably. That was all of our first conversations.

[Henry Zebrowski]

How do you think he got Carolina so.

[Ben Kissel]

But I've never not been like, oh,

[Henry Zebrowski]

Henry Lee Lucas, a thank you.

[Ben Kissel]

Hey, Henry Lucas. Hey, thanks for helping me get with my beautiful, beautiful wife. And wherever you are in fucking hell, I hope that you can still, I guess, hear us make love.

[Marcus Parks]

Carolina didn't listen to an episode of last podcast until we moved in together. That was just a protector. Although we did have that. That is one of the first things that we did bond on was like her extreme and like conversation that we had about David Parker. Right. Yeah, yeah. About the toy box killer.

[Ben Kissel]

Great.

[Marcus Parks]

Who Turns out it's worse than this.

[Ben Kissel]

Much worse conversation than this. Than I had with Natalie.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, Far worse conversation. Yeah. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

David Parker, funny.

[Marcus Parks]

Is one of the worst.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This guy's basically just a liar.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, well, I mean, he did kill three people.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Three people.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, and it's weird to think they look at him and be like, not much, you know?

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. He expected you said he was 600. Now it's three, so. All right, continue to do the rundown. Fredd. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

So he was born 1936. We talk a lot. Actually. I think Henry Lee Lucas may have been when we coined the term serial killer soup.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

When we talked about like the. With serial killers, there are certain factors that come into play that create a serial killer.

[Ben Kissel]

Again, having a no leg sex worker mother that gets dragged around in a cart is one of them.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, his father had no legs.

[Ben Kissel]

I thought she was. Yeah, the father had no legs.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's right. I always try to look for my similarities, but that was right.

[Ben Kissel]

He was in the cart and he couldn't beat the mom because he didn't have any legs. So he couldn't get at the mom. So she. She'd leave him behind in the car.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, now what she would do is that she was a sex worker and she would bring customers home and she would have sex in front of both her legless husband and her son, Henry Lee Lucas. Extra.

[Ben Kissel]

Honestly, unfortunately, I can't complete the act, ma', am, unless your peg legged husband is in the room.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it could be less. I don't know.

[Marcus Parks]

I think it's extra to like put out in the back porch.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, yeah. All you hear is that you done, you done. He was beat.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, mercilessly. I mean, grew up in a dirt floor shack in the backwoods of Virginia and his siblings were farmed out to institutions, relatives, foster homes. Didn't get past fifth grade and famously had an IQ of about 87, which is around. It's the same IQ as. Actually, it's a higher IQ than Forrest. No, than Gary Ridgeway.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, yes. Yes. Gary Ridgeway is by far. Which we are going to redo. Gary.

[Marcus Parks]

We are going to redo Gary Ridgeway.

[Ben Kissel]

Gary. Gary. He was not the brightest bulb in the pack.

[Marcus Parks]

Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, who provably had around 80 murders.

[Ben Kissel]

Truly one. Truly the most. One of the most prolific serial killers in history.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. I think only Samuel, at least as far as America goes. Like, we don't hold a candle to the South American guy.

[Ben Kissel]

No, no, no.

[Marcus Parks]

South American guys have body counts in the hundreds.

[Ben Kissel]

That's because he was killed. And killing six kids at a time doesn't count. Okay. That's like Sammy Sosa. Technically, there should be an asterisk next to a. Those crimes, you shouldn't be allowed to get them in a group.

[Marcus Parks]

But Gary Ridgeway had. I think his IQ was 83, which I think was the same as Forest.

[Ben Kissel]

No. 75. 75. 70 points above 75. Your mother certainly does care about your education.

[Marcus Parks]

Actually, that could have been Henry Lee Lucas's mother.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Absolutely.

[Ben Kissel]

What a gentle woman.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But his father died of hypothermia in 1951 when he drunkenly fell asleep outside during a snowstorm.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, you don't want to do that, because guess what? You don't become Santa Claus.

[Marcus Parks]

At 18, Lucas was sentenced to four years in prison. Started off as a burglar. Was proved to have committed a dozen burglaries around Richmond, virginia. Escaped in 1957 because it was a lot easier to escape prison in 1957 than it is today.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, I bet. Especially if it wasn't, like, you're not in Attica or Alcatraz. You're literally, like, in some shitty, like, local prison.

[Marcus Parks]

They're in jail.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I also just can't believe how little time everyone keeps getting for murder back in the day.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, this is just four years.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Either shot you in the head or you're out in two years.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, it depends on whether or not you did it. The name of war. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, I mean, this is for burglaries, you know? Four years in prison for burglaries. A dozen burglaries. That's a.

[Ben Kissel]

That's fine.

[Marcus Parks]

That's a sentence. That's a legitimate sentence.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Got released in 1959, and within a year of being released, he had murdered his mother. Yeah. He had migrated from Virginia to Michigan to join his sister Opal, but his mother kept Calling and calling and calling and calling.

[Ben Kissel]

And he's like, mama, I'm sick of you. Keep ties on me, all right? I'm a free bad mama. I don't live with you no more.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So she literally was just calling a bunch.

[Marcus Parks]

She was calling him to say, like, come home. Take care of me. Take care of me. Come on. Come on.

[Ben Kissel]

I'll never. Yeah. I'll always rue the day my mom learned to text, because now I get like 4D guilted.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Man, that was so much better for me. I could always text a note of my mom much easier than I could say it out loud.

[Ben Kissel]

See, I love saying no out loud.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, so Henry Lucas's mother came for Christmas, immediately disapproved of Henry Lucas's fiance, a woman named Stella.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, Stella. Because if you look at Henry Lee Lucas, he looks like. This might be insulting to the man, but he's got John Kerry vibes.

[Marcus Parks]

And also, who's John Kerry?

[Ben Kissel]

You remember the politician?

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, that John Kerry.

[Ben Kissel]

He looks like if John Kerry fucked a hollowed out Jack o' Lantern and they had a baby.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But he was so tiny, too.

[Ben Kissel]

Who?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Henry Lucas.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And John Kerry's very large.

[Ben Kissel]

But I'm just saying, if you look at their faces, he's got Lincoln face.

[Marcus Parks]

Their faces do actually look very similar. Except, you know, Henry Lucas has the droopy eye. The same droopy eye that Geen had.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I feel like your insults are compliments.

[Ben Kissel]

Holy. I forgot that he died in 2001.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, right before 9. 11. Got to miss it.

[Ben Kissel]

Damn. And he would have loved it. Oh, that makes me so sad. You would have loved 911.

[Marcus Parks]

So Henry Lucas's mother, while visiting Henry and demanding that he return with her, like she stayed throughout the holidays. She stayed around until January 11th. That's when she struck Lucas over the head with a broom. He struck back and then stabbed her in the neck with a knife.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Got mommy real bad. And that was number one. And then he says, I guess after that, that kind of changed his whole brain where he just decided then kill anything that would be a quote unquote problem to him. Or. Or then he got a. He got a bit of a taste for it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But can you take anything he said seriously?

[Marcus Parks]

No, no, absolutely not.

[Ben Kissel]

But yeah, because everything he said after the fact is all just cotton's gross. But he did. Hey, he loved his child bride more than a lot of people love their child brides.

[Marcus Parks]

He did. But let's wait. We're not quite to the child bride just yet.

[Ben Kissel]

Thank you.

[Marcus Parks]

He was Found arrested. Sentenced to 40 years in prison at Jackson State Penitentiary. Unsuccessfully tried suicide many, many times.

[Ben Kissel]

He did.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

He was very emotional.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, he was a very emotional human being. Was transferred to a state hospital under which electric shock therapy, behavior therapy, and was on a lot of doses of antidepressants. But after just 10 years in prison, they released the man who murdered his mother due to prison overcrowding. And I got a feeling there's like guys who should have gotten out before him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Like someone who stole a car.

[Marcus Parks]

Arrested for like having a joint.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Bank fraud.

[Ben Kissel]

No, Be like. You probably were like, describe your mother. He's like, imagine a wolverine if it raised you. They're like, you're free, sir.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They probably let him out because as we know, he's fucking good with cops.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, it's. He, he better. He buddied up. Later on. It's a weird relationship that he had with cops. Later on we'll talk about it because he, it's, it's. He becomes childlike. I think in a way what you see is his lack of intelligence.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, I think what you also see with Henry Lee Lucas. And it's interesting considering the direction that he went with his confessions at one point. So what you reminds me of is the sorts of confessions that you got from children during the satanic panic.

[Ben Kissel]

That's what I mean. They're all. Yep, that one too. Yup.

[Marcus Parks]

And we'll get to that here in a bit. After another stint in prison, he of course got out and immediately tried abducting a 15 year old at gunpoint. He was in prison and that's where he met Otis Tool.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, his. His John Lennon. If I were to make them Beatles, I would say that he is Paul McCartney. Henry Lucas is the Paul McCartney.

[Marcus Parks]

Sure.

[Ben Kissel]

Ottis tool is the John Lennon. And the child bride is Ringo. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And the sheriff is George Harris.

[Marcus Parks]

Do you know much about Ottis Tool? Have you seen pictures of this?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, I watched the whole documentary today.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Fucking fucked up, horrible looking lackey from Florida.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you pretty much got it. He's got lazy eyes, a huge cock.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Gay as all hell. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I was gonna say, he kept like looking at them like they fucking kiss all the time.

[Ben Kissel]

Which is fine, Eddie.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Which is totally. Probably should have done more of it.

[Ben Kissel]

Guess what you did?

[Henry Zebrowski]

What?

[Ben Kissel]

You just found out something because they did kiss. Oh, yeah. Now you know. You got. Now you know what honest Tool looks like and you know what Henry Lee Lucas looks like. Now imagine them each other hardcore, dude. And that's because it ain't red Shoe diaries, man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, no.

[Ben Kissel]

Shoe Diaries. This would be like, how about you uncurl your front tail? You know, like, it's stuff like that. And be like, I don't know, Henry. I don't know if I'm ready to go yet.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it's. I don't know if they mentioned it in the documentary, but it's suspected the oddest tool was the one who murdered John Walsh's son.

[Ben Kissel]

Really oddest tool, quote, unquote, created John Walsh. But then that turned into another. That's also a weird story. I don't know if it's real or not.

[Marcus Parks]

It's a very strange story. But, yeah, you know, John Walsh, America's

[Henry Zebrowski]

most wanted, found his head. I was down in Florida with all this was going down.

[Ben Kissel]

You were. You found the head?

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, Yeah, I was there. I was like, whoa, look at his head.

[Ben Kissel]

Whoa, cool. The kid like, six, seven.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Whoa, man. Talk about, like, out of everyone, John Walsh really capitalized on their child's murder more than anyone.

[Ben Kissel]

Hey, Eric Clapton buddy. Already famous, but that gave him his fourth act.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, that was a great song. Beers in heaven.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, I love it, man.

[Marcus Parks]

That was.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm gonna rewrite it for when my dad d eyes to beers in heaven, and I'm going to sing that same exact song.

[Marcus Parks]

Would you pay my tab if I saw you in heaven? Would you buy around if I saw you

[Ben Kissel]

if I saw you.

[Marcus Parks]

So odys tool and Henry Lee Lucas, like, say whatever you want about him. I do truly believe that these men were in love with each other.

[Ben Kissel]

They. Yeah, they were special.

[Marcus Parks]

They.

[Ben Kissel]

They matched each other's freak.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

But they claimed later on that between the late 70s and early 80s that they went on a killing spree in which they murdered basically anybody who would get in the car with them or anybody that they could kidnap or anybody that just happened to be in the general vicinity, basically saying, look, it started with 100, then it went to 200, then with 400, then it went to 600.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, and if you want. If anybody's ever seen Henry Henry Portrait of a serial killer, it's kind of exactly like that. It's a wandering state of constant murder, rape and mayhem.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And it's about Henry Lee Lucas.

[Ben Kissel]

It is loosely based. It's loosely based on the idea of a serial killer like that, an opportunity killer, not somebody that is so Henry Lee Lucas. If all of what he said was real, he was. You'd be considered a like, because, you know, we have process and product Killers. And you have people that plan and stalk. BTK was someone who put a lot of time and energy into picking who he would kill. And like a lot of people do that. Or Jeffrey Dahmer, like they kind of figure out like a subset and how to get the people they kill. Henry Lucas and Otis Tool, if they are to be believed, killed everyone within sight. Yeah, anybody that they could get their hands on. And there was no way that they'd ever have time for a date. Which is honestly why they didn't last with this. Like, you know, couples go through so much that we just were so busy in the day to day life that we don't just sit and just think, be like, hey, like I love killing these hitchhikers with you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I just don't believe they would have a car that would run that way.

[Marcus Parks]

And that's the thing is that they said that they would crisscross the country and that's why they never got caught because they were so transient. By the time a body was found in Colorado, they were already in Washington state, you know, and that they could, you know, cover, you know, thousands of miles in like a matter of days.

[Ben Kissel]

Cause we run on love. This hitchhiking, murdering car chooses love.

[Marcus Parks]

It was during this time that Lucas lived with Tool and with Tool's mother and tools niece, preteen Becky Powell. The aforementioned child bride.

[Ben Kissel]

See, because I feel like he went with Becky. So like Henry Lucas began a real quote unquote relationship with Becky the child. And I think partially it had to do with almost in a way been like, you know, like proper with all this. And I do, you know, so I think that it's time for me to really settle down.

[Marcus Parks]

I think he did actually say that at one point.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. You know, all this. I love the way you plumb me and I love the way you dug me. But honestly, when it comes down to it, I know we can't get married now. The Lord. Right? So I gotta be with this child.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Apparently his honest tools penis was disturbingly large.

[Ben Kissel]

I gotta be a lot for a man to take.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know what? I could see it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, I could see it too. Like the kind that doesn't get hard all the way.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Big and loopy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a rubber. You know when, like a dog's got a leg that doesn't work. Yeah, yeah, but it's still attached.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I know that story.

[Marcus Parks]

Whoa.

[Ben Kissel]

It's like your dog's got four oddest tool dicks. Isn't that nice?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, after Odis Tool's mother died. Henry Lee Lucas claims that the three of them, Odis, Henry and Becky, the three of them started touring the country and killing anyone that they found.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

That's until they found 82 year old Katie Rich, whose family quickly kicked them out after accusing Lucas and Betty of writing CH checks from Rich's account.

[Ben Kissel]

That's a weird story. I forgot about that whole section of time where he's like living with the old lady.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

And they're all like shacking up and let's just say again, not great tenants.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And then they got picked up by like a Pentecostal minister who was like totally cool with Henry Lee Lucas. Married, like being married to. I think she was 13. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

I think child. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean that was happening back then.

[Ben Kissel]

It was not a lot, though. You.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Honestly.

[Ben Kissel]

Not a lot. I. If you look at it across the board, it's still pretty frowned upon.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it depends on what part of the country.

[Ben Kissel]

But Evan and Jerry Lee Lewis. Remember with Jerry. Jerry Lee Lewis when he went to uk and then they all like. He basically got kicked out of the UK because he showed up with his child bride.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But he was a world famous musician. We're talking about Henry Lee Lucas here.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

No one's paying attention to what Henry Lee Lucas is doing.

[Ben Kissel]

We are now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now.

[Marcus Parks]

But there's, trust me, Virginia. And that entire area of the world.

[Ben Kissel]

I will. I wonder what his opinion was on Meghan Markle. I wonder how he feels about jojo Siwa.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She probably wasn't alive when he died.

[Marcus Parks]

But while Henry Lucas was living with this minister. That's totally cool with all this shit. They had an apartment. Henry Lucas got a job as a roofer.

[Ben Kissel]

Everything was fine then.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And it was. They kind of lived at like a weird commune at this abandoned chicken ranch. But then they felt homesick for Florida and Lucas tearfully informed the minister that Becky jumped into a passing truck and left. Him and Lucas continued living on the ranch. But no one ever heard from Becky Powell ever again.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

A month after that, the old lady that Henry Lee Lucas was living with, Katie Rich, she disappeared. And authorities were of course led immediately to the weird drifter that had been accused of writing checks in her name just a few months earlier.

[Ben Kissel]

I don't know why everybody seems just now I'm some kind of suspect wanting to death. My tribe bride who's not here anymore. She moved on. She got a job on stage. She's working for NASA. Yeah. I love my wife. My child bride. She's doing so well, yeah. She went off to child bride school to learn how to take it better.

[Marcus Parks]

I thought she was working for NASA

[Henry Zebrowski]

and child bride school is just school.

[Marcus Parks]

And so on June 10, 1983, Lucas was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm. And while in jail, he began confessing. He wrote a letter to the sheriff. To whom it may concern, I, Henry Lee Lucas, to try to clear this matter up. I killed Kate Rich on September last year. I've tried to get help so long, and no one will help. I have killed for the past 10 years, and no one will believe it.

[Ben Kissel]

What do you say? I love your tone for the voice. To whom it may concern, I, Henry Leeloo Lucas. I just got to try to clear this matter up. I did kill Cad Rich. I was super sorry about it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You sounded like an AI narrator.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

I have killed for the past 10 years, and no one will believe it.

[Ben Kissel]

Why do you think that he immediately confessed? I actually do at some point. I think that life sucked.

[Marcus Parks]

I think confessing made him feel good. I think he felt. I don't think that Henry Lou Lucas is a serial killer in any way whatsoever.

[Ben Kissel]

No. I think he's a dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, mean man.

[Marcus Parks]

I think murdering people made him feel extraordinarily. I think he was extremely guilty that he had killed this old lady who had been nice to him.

[Ben Kissel]

I love this idea.

[Marcus Parks]

It's just like. That's such a. It's like, you know the story of the rattlesnake. You pick up the rattlesnake. You know, it's like. It's just he. He. An old lady was nice to him, and because she was nice to him, he killed her and fucked her corpse in a culvert.

[Ben Kissel]

See, I feel the guilty part. You see, I feel like. It's weird because, like, when did the guilty part start? It was like he killed her and then. Damn it. Why do you make me. Our whole dress slipped off while I was killing her. Well, let me just. Well, she's still warm. Maybe it don't count as dead.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Let me just kind of squeeze them a little bit.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Squeeze them.

[Ben Kissel]

Play with them a little bit. Am I feeling guilty, Henry? Are we feeling guilty?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Are you talking to him or yourself? I don't know.

[Ben Kissel]

Let me feel around a little more. Not guilty yet, maybe Certain maybe. No. All right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm not doing this act out with you.

[Ben Kissel]

No, I'm not.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm not either. There's no one else to be. She's dead.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm waiting for my improv. Who are we gonna be the dirt

[Marcus Parks]

on which this corpse is being violated.

[Ben Kissel]

You feeling guilty? Oh, honest, I didn't even know you were.

[Marcus Parks]

But after a couple of days, like, he started feeling guilty about leaving his body behind, so he got went. Well, actually, I don't know if he started feeling guilty. I think he realized that someone was going to find the body eventually, so he took it back to his apartment at the chicken farm and burned her body in a stove over the course of two days. And then after he admitted to that crime, he said he needed to get something else off his chest and admitted to killing the child bride, Becky Powell. He said they were arguing while trying to hitch a ride. She wanted to go back to Jacksonville, but he had a warrant out for his arrest in Florida, so he couldn't go back, and they decided to sleep in an empty field off the road. After arguing that night, Becky hit Lucas on the side of the head, and he retaliated by stabbing Becky in the chest. He said she sort of just sat there for a little bit and then just dropped over, you know?

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, yeah, of course.

[Henry Zebrowski]

How horrible is it with him that she wanted to go back to Jacksonville?

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. She's choosing 1988.

[Marcus Parks]

Three Jacksonville.

[Ben Kissel]

But yeah. Or it's kiss Henry Lee Lucas again. That's the thing. Do I drive to Jacksonville or do I look over at John Kerry sitting there in his black hole, sun filter, just, like, going, like. Yeah, I remember.

[Marcus Parks]

Lucas cut Becky into small pieces and stuffed her remains into pillowcases, except her legs. And Lucas returned two weeks later to bury her remains. Once again, Henry Lucas was charged with murder.

[Ben Kissel]

Murder.

[Marcus Parks]

And at his arraignment, Lucas asked the judge, what are we going to do about these other 100 women I killed?

[Ben Kissel]

And he's just like, stoop.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Fuck you.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

So it starts with this.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It really was, like, the smartest thing he ever did his whole life.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

In a weird way, I mean, that's

[Marcus Parks]

what we said about Gary Ridgeway so many years ago. Is that like, yeah, Gary Ridgeway's really bad at IQ tests. But you know what he's really good at? Killing sex workers.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, it just turns out, though, it's. It's. Unfortunately, it's how you do it. It's. And it's the method by which you do it. And it's. He just. When you're doing things spur of the moment, it's extremely difficult to catch the guys when they're doing shit spur of the moment. When they're planning. You can begin to build an mo. You can begin to build how they look at victims. You can figure kind of how to catch them in sometimes. Sometimes because you're like, oh, they're in this area. They're triangling around this. Like, kind of like when Gary Ridgeway, he was murdering people, like, in the real fashion is actually a very interesting take on this because technically, Gary Ridge Ray is the real Henry Lee Lucas. Like, so he did it. He was like a product killer. Like, essentially. No, Gary was full process killer.

[Marcus Parks]

So you like to strangle him to death.

[Ben Kissel]

You only cared about was strangling sex workers his whole life in detail. And Gars.

[Marcus Parks]

And he was like the best detailer in all of Seattle.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. And so he would just. But it was the wide area that he did it with. With. And then the very simple way that he did it. And then I guess it's like how you stay hidden.

[Marcus Parks]

It's weird. It was his simplicity. It was actually.

[Ben Kissel]

And also sex workers because they just didn't properly.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And it was all pre DNA.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, with Gary Ridgeway, that is somewhat. The irony of it is that it was his stupidity and his simplicity that kept him from getting caught.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Where people who go a little bit more complicated with it leave a much larger trail behind.

[Ben Kissel]

It's why he tries to cover it up. Yeah. It's. I didn't see things like Patrick Swayze. He wasn't that bright, but he's an incredible performer.

[Marcus Parks]

See, like the empty vessel. Yes. That you fill with water. You figure.

[Ben Kissel]

Very similar. Gary Ridgeway, Patrick Swayze, extremely similar.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What we learned from Swayze is you can't dance your way out of cancer.

[Ben Kissel]

Jesus Christ. It's the saddest thing that's been said on the show. There's a lot of people. Honestly, I want to say that there is a thing called Dance Against Cancer. I want to say that there's a whole thing and saying, yeah. Oh, dance. But it's like. It's more that the dance is a celebration of people. People give it money, but the c. The dancing itself is not going to cure the cancer.

[Marcus Parks]

It's actually called I'm a Dancer Against Cancer.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, of course. Yeah, absolutely.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That. So he had dancer, not cancer.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

On Blitzen and Cupid, we're just.

[Ben Kissel]

We're gonna take a deeper look at all this whole letter and take. We're gonna have to pop the hood open on this episode, really decide what we're keeping. And so you're welcome.

[Marcus Parks]

Serious. You asked for this. Contractually obligated. So the Texas Rangers, they're basically the ones that we can blame for all of this.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. So they kind of got. They. He sort of became a pet project for them.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. So Texas Rangers are not.

[Ben Kissel]

Not.

[Marcus Parks]

They're.

[Ben Kissel]

Don't. Please, Marcus, please, for the love of God. I cannot deal with the ire of the Texas Marshals or the. These Texas Rangers. I just don't want. I just want to be able to go through Texas. I want to be able to drive through Texas.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, they are definitely complicit.

[Ben Kissel]

I know.

[Marcus Parks]

They're very complicit. And remember how we talked about. Remember the Bonnie and Clyde story?

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

And how much the Texas Rangers were complicit in that?

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

And I think it was maybe the mob barker. No, it wasn't mob barker, but yeah, they were definitely complicit in like the Bonnie and Clyde story. They're famously a very corrupt institution.

[Ben Kissel]

They're not crushing it. Yeah, they're not crushing. That's my review.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, I'm sure.

[Ben Kissel]

Two stars.

[Marcus Parks]

Two stars. But they built a task force led by former Texas Rangers, Williamson County Sheriff Jim Boutwell and retired Texas Ranger Bob Prince. And they started actively investigating up and down the I35 interstate between Austin and. And Dallas. And so what they started doing is they started asking Henry Lee Lucas, hey, what about this murder? Did you commit this murder? And Henry go, yep, yep. Sure did.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And then the Texas Rangers would go, check.

[Ben Kissel]

All right, yeah, what about this murder? And he'd go, yep. And then he'd go, check mark. And they brought in another murder. And now this is also. I really feel like a lot of it happened with the minister too.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the. Was a big part of it.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. This woman named.

[Ben Kissel]

That's kind of really what got him in that like, kind of manic confession mode. Because this lady came because I. Now I actually see this entirely different. That's what the nine years does. Is that like. I see what you're saying was that he actually is a dim witted. He is mean spirited, but in his weird way he's a people please. Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

He actually had this thing where he felt real guilty.

[Marcus Parks]

He has a criminal psychosis.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes, he has. No, he can't control his impulses. He's got. He is the epitome of antisocial personality disorder.

[Marcus Parks]

He should be locked in a he. What they eventually did is lock him in a fucking box until he dies.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. Because he's mad at everything. He's bad at life.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He could have been a good waiter.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh. You know, honestly, I've met a lot of Sketchy waiters. Lot of sketchy waiters. But I still love them. I love each one of them.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't know, man. You got to remember a lot when you're a waiter. That's why I couldn't be every. I always got fired from waiter jobs because I couldn't remember anything.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, well, he used to remember all the weird little details.

[Ben Kissel]

He was making it up.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And he was also.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, but he was repeating back when

[Henry Zebrowski]

other people told him. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

The things. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

A waiter. They're the consigliere of the entire experience. They're coming in here, they're greeting, creating an atmosphere, welcoming. You feel like, oh, I'm a party. That's. I'm invited to a party and I'm cool for being here. And that's the person throwing the party, Right? That's the waiter. He's throwing the party and he's coming in here and he's trying to make me feel cool for being there. Right. Setting the scene, exploring, celebrating food, celebrating epicurean interests.

[Marcus Parks]

That's right. What was the use of that?

[Ben Kissel]

Well, let me get back to my original point. So he got. When he met the chapel, I think

[Marcus Parks]

that he's a woman named Clemmie, by the way. The nun.

[Ben Kissel]

The nun. When he met that man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Walking lady.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. Essentially he felt, I think that, you know, this is a full backseat psychologist. He thought about the pastor that he fucked up and he fucked up his whole life with and stuff. Now he met this religious person that is treating him with respect and kindness that he has never had before. And now he's willing to do whatever that woman tells him to do.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She's treating him like a baby.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Cutting up his food. He's cutting his hair.

[Ben Kissel]

He's like, never had a mom. And so she. In police interrogations, they specifically will key into stuff like that to. With you to get you to sort of respond like they. They know, like, if you like. There was one I just watched recently where there was a big fat idiot that they were interrogating. And the first thing. Hey, hey. But the first thing they asked him was like, do you want any cupcakes? You know, somebody just made a bunch of cupcakes. And so this guy came in, they brought him a bunch of cupcakes at the top. And he's in like, this guy, he'd killed his family. And he's like eating a cupcake. He's just being like, what he said he was. I think he said, like, daddy likes him. Like, I forget what he said. Where he Was like, ha, ha. And they're all sitting there watching, like, oh, you like that, huh? Oh, yeah. And then they slowly butter you up to get you to talk. This lady, maybe she wanted to fuck Henry Lee Lucas.

[Marcus Parks]

I think she.

[Ben Kissel]

Clemmie, wanted to get that dugout.

[Marcus Parks]

I.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She was into him for sure. She had to be. I mean, I didn't spend that much time with him.

[Marcus Parks]

I think she got off on it. I think she got off on the conversion. I mean, on, like, let's turn this guy around. Like, this is a. A horrible killer. Like, it's like getting. Getting a win.

[Ben Kissel]

I got one.

[Marcus Parks]

We got. We got one. We got a big win, a big conversion here.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like making friends with a tiger.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Yeah. And if you make friends with a tiger, then don't you feel very powerful?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Exactly.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And so an arrangement was coordinated between Henry Lee Lucas, this nun named Clemmie, Texas Ranger Jim Boutwell, and Texas Ranger Bob Prince. So Lucas could cooperate and continue to talk. And Henry was, like, genuinely happy at jail. This was the happiest he ever was. This was the best time of his life. Walked around without handcuffs on, Chummy with the staff. Gets three squares, you know. You know, three squares to cot, you know, and he's happy as.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, yeah, because he had a struggle just to get that before. And then also, they're giving him special treatment, too. He's getting hamburgers and milkshakes and lots of cigarettes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Lots of cigarettes. Like riding in the front. Front seat of the car. That made me so crazy. Walking around with no fucking. He's like, walking around with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And no handcuffs, like, joking around with people.

[Ben Kissel]

It's because he was doing my mind. Because he was doing the police's jobs for them.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Because all of a sudden, once word got out that there was a guy that claimed that he had murdered over

[Ben Kissel]

600 people or whatever, he's still at

[Marcus Parks]

100 at this point. He's saying I'd murdered 100 people, and I'd killed people in every corner of this country. Name a corner of this country, and I killed someone there. But especially, like, Texas Southwest, like, basically the south, you know, from. From Florida to Texas. And so all these detectives who had all these cold cases started coming in and asking Henry Lee Lucas about these crimes. And what they would do is they would show him photos, they would show him crime scenes. They'd show him little. They'd give him little things. Things and he'd repeat back to them little by little, you know, like He. He would pull the information out of them without them really even knowing that he was doing it. Because every time he got a gold star, every time he got like, hey, yay, you got a murder charge.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They literally said he was a good guy.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. They loved it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. They'd shake his hand, they'd pat him on his back, and thank you so much. Except, you know, because these people, these. Cause these cold cases, like, they haunt these fucking people. They haunt these cops and the families.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, because a lot of pressure is coming from the families to do something about the crime.

[Marcus Parks]

But these aren't like, big city crimes. This isn't Dallas. This isn't Houston. Like, this is Zone June or whatever. This is fucking Colorado City, Texas. You know? Like, this is. Because my dad. I mean, I told this on the Henry Lee Lucas episode, is that my dad ended up in a restaurant with Henry Lee Lucas on one of these jaunts.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, really? Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

When we were living. When I was a kid, we lived in a town called Colorado City that's just this small fucking town. And it was because they would take Henry Lee Lucas out to, like, certain sites, and dad said that he was just sitting there having lunch one day, and in walks Henry Lee Lucas and a couple of cops.

[Ben Kissel]

Hi.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hi.

[Marcus Parks]

And they just sit down and of course, nothing came of it. But it's these small towns of just, like, a few hundred people, a few thousand people, where murder really means something. Where, like, murder. Murder fucks up an entire community. And these cops go crazy trying to solve it. And so they go to Henry Lee Lucas. And he absolves them. Yes, he absolves them. These cops can go back to their hometown. They can talk to the family. They can say, hey, it was this Henry Lee Lucas guy. You know, we got him. We finally got him. Your daughter can rest now. And Henry Lee Lucas, what did he get out of it? Well, he got out of his jail cell. He'd get strawberry milkshakes. He'd get cigarettes. He'd get steaks. Oh, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Private planes. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

He got to be.

[Ben Kissel]

He got to get a. Technically a life he never got before this.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Or he ever would have gotten.

[Ben Kissel]

Ever would have gotten.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's treated like a legitimate celebrity.

[Ben Kissel]

People like. And also, I. I think people also discount, like, how good it feels to. Let's just say he's not had a lot of positive validation.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Ben Kissel]

Right. And so now he's getting celebrated. So he's, like, feeling like, like, maybe I can give back. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is my way of making Everybody smile, you know, Meanwhile, like, is. He's just a haunted, evil child, man.

[Marcus Parks]

The craziest thing I didn't know this, and this is why we do the update show, is that they wanted so many different samples from him, like saliva, fingerprints, hair. They asked for so much of his pubic hair that he ran out and they had to wait for more to grow back.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Just test it.

[Ben Kissel]

Are you gonna need a little bit more? Well, unfortunately, I'd like to give you more, but as you can see, I'm a bit of a. Suzanne Summers downstairs. Shave to the nards.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, originally, he talked.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Did you guys need any more cumming? Hey, I know you guys thinking about making some come. If you guys need some come, I'll raise some comment.

[Ben Kissel]

Honestly, just because I was already doing it. I don't if you need any spit or shit either, because that's all gonna kind of be in one cup then.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, by February 1984, the task force had tied Henry Lucas to 47 cases. And by May of the same year, that number rose to 107 and grew by another 49 by August 1984. So this guy is being not charged with but about over 150 murders, they're saying, like, yep, solved. That was Henry Lee.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So what's up with these rangers? Like, they have to be in on this. They have to know they're doing the wrong thing.

[Ben Kissel]

The.

[Marcus Parks]

The power of self deception can be very strong.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, also think about the. The optics of. We've caught this super predator. So not only like, it's. It's not that they're covering up the. I. I think they're. Who knows about covering up crimes or whatever. Whatever. But I think it's more like the more they attach to him too, not only do they get these murders off the board, but also it bolsters up all these guys hanging out with this fucking crazy serial killer that they all caught. Right. So, like, the more they build up his roster of death and his standing, it raises their standing too. It also raised Henry Lou Lucas's standing because then he gets to portray himself as this evil mastermind serial killer. And that protects him in jail, like, of later on down the fact. And it gives him power within jail. That's. That's jail political power.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I know, but it's all like. It's just drives me crazy because he's so tiny.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He wouldn't have won all these fights even if they were all just women.

[Marcus Parks]

That's what Honest Tool was there for. Because Honest Tool was what, like, six Five.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Tool was a big. A fucking horrible. And he did God knows what else. Honest Tool.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, he's the real fucking.

[Ben Kissel]

But Henry Lucas. Henry Lucas killed three people for certain. And I actually do think it is more than the three people, but it is not hundreds of people.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't think it is. I think he killed because the people that you look at like it's.

[Ben Kissel]

Everything else had a reason that he killed. They all had, like, a distinct reason why he did it.

[Marcus Parks]

Except for the old lady. The old lady didn't really have a reason.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She probably asked him for rent.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, something like that.

[Ben Kissel]

Probably at some point, just being like, I might have to call the police or like, this is getting. You're weird.

[Marcus Parks]

Because the other two murders was like some. A woman hit him and he responded by stabbing her, you know.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, that's also his story.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, that's it. But. Yeah, that is his story. That is true. But I think another big thing about this with the Rangers is that it confirms a certain worldview that I think some of these people really enjoy subscribing to it. I mean, I know this from growing up in Texas. Texas is like. It's an evil place. Like, it is. There's a reason why.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's the rush of America.

[Ben Kissel]

I still like Texas.

[Marcus Parks]

And I'm not saying that I love Texas. I'm not saying that Texans are evil. I'm saying Texas is an evil place. Because over the years, like, I would ask myself, like, why don't we cover more stories about Texas? Why don't we cover more Texas true crime? The answer is that Texas true crime is brutal and pointless.

[Ben Kissel]

And a lot of it's pretty rough.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it's. It's hard, harsh. It's brutal. It's like. It is a. It is a cruel place, you know, and it always has been. You know, there was that famous quote, is that, like, if. If I own Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in hell. Because Texas is. It can be. It's a very, very harsh place. And I think people who. And I know people who live there, some people really enjoy that reputation. Oh, of course they enjoy that reputation. And. And they like this idea that the world is a far worse place than

[Ben Kissel]

it really is because there's a reason why they exist. And they're the line between chaos and order.

[Marcus Parks]

Exactly. They like to have. They like the world to be in more evil place than it really is because it makes them bigger men.

[Ben Kissel]

That's what I'm saying. Yeah. It's this idea that you've got it's you're way necessary. You're very strong and you're very big.

[Marcus Parks]

And of course that became much larger when Henry Lee Lucas started talking about the Hand. Hand of Death.

[Ben Kissel]

Now Hand of Death is. We're just gonna get straight up right here. It is absolutely the stupidest conspiracy theory on the face of the planet. I'm saying it right now. I'm sorry, Dave McGowan, I know you're sad. It's the dumbest. Whatever. Wherever he's, he's like there are people out there that act. Yeah. I just like, I think that he's, I think that, that it's all very stupid. Except I do believe more and more that there are other Internet connected people. But the idea that the CIA trained Henry Lee Lucas, I just think feel like we trained Osama Bin Laden.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, that's trained.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. He's like, come on.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the hand.

[Ben Kissel]

All right. You think the kind of money that we put behind the CIA, we're going to get a Henry Lucas? Come on guys.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the Hand of Death was supposedly a cult that practiced human sacrifice. It's an outcropping of the Satanic Panic.

[Ben Kissel]

But they worked alongside the CIA to provide children in order for them to get their proper testing subjects for the beginnings of MK Ultra.

[Marcus Parks]

Sure. Except it happened way after MKUltra.

[Ben Kissel]

But it's because MK Ultra never ended.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And also I feel like the CIA isn't going to get rid of a perfectly good sex worker.

[Ben Kissel]

What do you mean?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, they, yeah, they'd say they take a live girl. I mean it's one of those things where I think it's. This is around the time of the Satanic panic and I think Clemmie the nun was starting to be influenced by that sort of shit. And I think that Henry, I think Henry Lucas started ping ponging ideas and it got weirder and weirder, weirder and worse and worse because I think Clemmie was starting to look for reasons behind all this because I don't think she could. I. Even though none of it was real, I don't think she could wrap her head around the concept of a man killing hundreds of women just cause.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, the only thing that it could possibly be is being in league with Satan. Well, and then the idea that you're this monster, you're literal monster. Yeah. Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

And it's also the idea of, you know, know, this, all this Satanic panic shit was going on where everyone's talking about, you know, human sacrifices and there's all these devil worshiping Cults all over the country. And. But the rational minded people kept asking, it's like, okay, where are the bodies?

[Ben Kissel]

Where's all the evidence?

[Marcus Parks]

Where's the bodies? Where are the evidence? And then now you have Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Tool also joining in on this, going, ha ha, me too.

[Ben Kissel]

It was whatever Henry says. Yeah, yeah, we know all about it. Yeah. It. And it's. They were just excited to talk. And I, I do think the idea there, it, it's just very. It's also in her mind you could see being like, if I flip this evil Satanist, I'm the world's best nun.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Maybe they'll let me be a priest.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

First I can have a hand at the little boy.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Penis.

[Marcus Parks]

But you know, Henry Lee Lucas, over years, like, you know, there's been so many murders that have been attributed to him. But then there's also been a lot of murders that he said I did that have since proved to be committed by other men. DNA testing.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's only 20. Was the number at the end of the documentary.

[Marcus Parks]

It's insane.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's out of what, 200 or something they were trying to pin on him.

[Ben Kissel]

But he got convicted for 11, so he ended up going down for 11. They, they put a couple on him, but it still, it was not Scott.

[Henry Zebrowski]

One is the most aggravating one of all of them.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The, the, the troopers kid who killed the store clerk. And then they were like, oh, you do this for us. Will you take the rap on this? And he just said, yes, of course.

[Ben Kissel]

Because he used like the cops are his buddies. He said straight up and out. He said he has a comment where he's like, the sheriff has been the nicest man to me. He makes sure he takes care of me. And apparently he looked up, he said he was like my, he was my friend. He's not a police officer. And then he also said that he was kind of like his daddy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. And then the sheriff admitted to liking him.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. And the thing is, is that how

[Henry Zebrowski]

are they not held accountable for this?

[Ben Kissel]

It's such a huge fuck up.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. I mean, but what law are they breaking? That's the, that's the problem.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like what, they got to keep being Texas Rangers.

[Marcus Parks]

They're retired now.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, dude, they. That's what allowed them, that's what allowed them to retire. Was that big guess.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But they were did it for like another, what, like 10 years after that?

[Marcus Parks]

I did it for a while.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Unfortunately, Eddie, life's not fair. I know.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I have no parents.

[Ben Kissel]

Life is very difficult, Eddie. I hate to. I hate to be break your heart. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And that was actually. There was even one. One of the most famous murders in Lubbock, you know, where I went to college, that was supposedly a Henry Lee Lucas murder. But I actually found out like there was a whole thing with that murder where they exhumed the body like a year ago, and like the sister of the woman who was murdered, she became involved with this like true crime podcast and they ended up having a falling out. It was like massive New York Times magazine article about. About it that I didn't have time to get into.

[Ben Kissel]

We should look at that. That's very interesting.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It's some weird shit. Yeah. The murder of Deborah Sue Agnew Williamson.

[Ben Kissel]

And then there's this story. Where was it the.

[Marcus Parks]

Then the.

[Ben Kissel]

The Orange Socks was trying to. The. The identified Orange sucks. The Jane Doe that was also attached to Henry Lee Lucas.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, they found out who it was eventually.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Deborah Jackson from Harris County.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Well, Orange Socks was supposedly the one that people pointed to. Is like. No, look, he's not like lying because.

[Ben Kissel]

Because he confessed to the murder.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And then he like, knew a couple of details and he said that I

[Henry Zebrowski]

always left the socks on them when I, you know, as my calling card.

[Ben Kissel]

Which is not true. He didn't have a calling card. No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Because he killed people with two by fours and ball pens, whatever he had around.

[Ben Kissel]

And so Henry Lucas then apparently then in private said he didn't kill her.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Which is. And then his stories in Jacksonville to check out because they went to go investigate and they found out that he was nowhere near. Yeah. He was nowhere near where the murder would have happened.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. And they also have on tape the fucking dudes coercing him.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep. But the weirdest thing about Henry Lee Lucas, and this is one of the ones that, you know, people point to like that. The satanic panic people.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sure.

[Marcus Parks]

And of course the ones that fold that into like government shit. Yeah. Is that he was the only person out of all the people that were killed when George W. Bush was governor of Texas, he was the only one whose death sentence was commuted.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. George W. Bush commuted his death sentence, saying that the evidence for the Orange Socks murders was not compelling enough. Like he let Carla Faye Tucker fry.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. It is weird. That is why we're like. But I think it's not. And it's because of the friends he made in the Texas Rangers. I don't think that you have to look that far for the conspiracy I don't think it's like they got. So it's not a satanic conspiracy. It's just straight, straight up. Boys Club Will. Boys Club.

[Henry Zebrowski]

George Bush was the GM of the Texas Rangers baseball team.

[Ben Kissel]

Yep. That is true. That is true.

[Marcus Parks]

And I'll never forget my. My buddy west said that he saw during the Carla Faye Tucker trial, like when she was being executed. He swears to this day that he saw a news reporter say, carla Tay fucker.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, wow.

[Marcus Parks]

Really sat on tv.

[Ben Kissel]

God damn.

[Marcus Parks]

Really, really sad.

[Ben Kissel]

And that's how we're gonna end today.

[Marcus Parks]

That's how we're gonna end today. Thank you so much for listening. The last update on the left.

[Ben Kissel]

Go check out all our shows Brighter side.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Give it a listen in the Last podcast network.

[Marcus Parks]

Patreon.com lastpodcast on the left is where you can find video episodes of this show and all last podcast on live shows.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, tell me, Sean, do they got Buck Hunter and every in Buck Hunter. They've got Buck Hunter.

[Marcus Parks]

Buck Hunter.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Thank you.

[Ben Kissel]

Would you and Evan. Hey, sudden, you know, this is like the true.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Between Tool and him. It's like it is. Is where Texas meets Florida.

[Marcus Parks]

It really is.

[Ben Kissel]

It is. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

It really, really is. And which one's worse?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, you know, just more space in Texas.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, that is true.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But they both got gators.

[Ben Kissel]

They both have gators, but only one has.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Honestly.

[Ben Kissel]

I mean, you know.

[Marcus Parks]

You know what I'll say though?

[Ben Kissel]

It's got Universal.

[Marcus Parks]

Florida. They got a sense of humor.

[Ben Kissel]

They do.

[Marcus Parks]

Texas, not big on a sense of humor.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Texas is getting Universal. That's a different podcast.

[Ben Kissel]

Texas is getting Universal.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Dallas is getting a Universal Studios.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, they. I mean, Six Flags. Say we go about Texas. Six Flags over Texas is great. Is a fantastic.

[Ben Kissel]

Except for one of those people flags. I gotta take a shit. Yeah. Thank you for enjoying the last update on the left. You can find other shows that you'll enjoy from the last podcast network on Last podcast on the left dot com. See you there.