Henry Lee Lucas & Ottis Elwood Toole

Henry Lee Lucas (August 23, 1936 – March 12, 2001) was a self-confessed American serial killer. Lucas was arrested in Texas and, on the basis of his confessions, hundreds of unsolved murders attributed to him were officially classified as cleared up. Lucas was convicted of murdering 11 people and condemned to death for a single case with an unidentified victim. A newspaper exposed the improbable logistics of the confessions made by Lucas, when they were taken as a whole, and a study by the Attorney General of Texas concluded he had falsely confessed; the death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1998. Assertions by local law enforcement that in certain cases Lucas had demonstrated knowledge of unsolved crimes that only a perpetrator could have possessed added to the enigma, as did his association with Ottis Toole.

Ottis Elwood Toole (March 5, 1947 – September 15, 1996) was an American drifter who was convicted of six counts of murder. Like his companion Henry Lee Lucas, Toole made confessions he later recanted, but which resulted in murder convictions. The discrediting of the case against Lucas for crimes in which Toole had offered corroborating statements created doubts as to whether either was a genuine serial killer or, as Hugh Aynesworth suggested, both merely compliant interviewees who police used to clear unsolved murders from the books. Toole received two death sentences, but on appeal they were commuted to life imprisonment. He died in his cell from cirrhosis, aged 49. Police attributed the murder of Adam Walsh to Toole on the basis of recanted statements. Lucas had backed Toole's confession to the Walsh murder, claiming he had been in possession of the victim's severed head.