The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (89 page)

but officers closed their file on the case after a brief consultation with hospital physicians.

And the deaths continued.

TOOLE, Ottis Elwood

When two-week-old Timothy died at Ellis Hospital, A native of Jacksonville, Florida, Toole was born on doctors were once more unable to determine a cause, list-March 5, 1947. His alcoholic father soon took off for
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parts unknown, leaving Toole in the care of a religious old pickup truck. Acquaintances thought nothing of it, fanatic mother and a sister who dressed him in girl’s but later evidence suggests he may have claimed at least clothes “to play.” Toole’s confusion was exacerbated by four victims in a six-month period.

his grandmother, an alleged Satanist, who branded Police suspect Toole in the death of 24-year-old Patri-Ottis “the devil’s child” and sometimes took him on the cia Webb, shot in Lincoln, Nebraska, on April 18, 1974.

graveyard runs that yielded human body parts for use Five months later, on September 19, a lone gunman in “magic” charms. Toole ran away from home repeat-invaded a massage parlor in Colorado Springs; employee edly but always drifted back again. He suffered from Yon Lee was stabbed, her throat slashed, before the seizures and derived satisfaction from torching vacant attacker moved on to rape, shoot, and stab coworker houses in his neighborhood. Questioned later about his Sun Ok Cousin. Both women were set on fire, but Lee choice of targets, Toole replied, “I just hated to see survived to describe her assailant as clean-shaven, six feet them standing there.”

two, and 195 pounds, driving a white pickup truck.

By his own admission, Toole committed his first Police, for reasons yet unclear, arrested—and ultimately murder at age 14. The victim, a traveling salesman, convicted—Park Estep, a mustachioed soldier who stood picked him up outside town and drove him into the five feet ten, tipped the scales at a mere 150 pounds, and woods for sex. Afterward, Toole “got nervous” and ran owned a red pickup truck. Meanwhile, on October 10, the man down with his own car.

31-year-old Ellen Holman was abducted from Pueblo, Classified as retarded with an IQ of 75, Toole Colorado, shot three times in the head, and dumped near dropped out of school in the eighth grade. His first the Oklahoma border. Homicide investigators now arrest, for loitering, was logged in August 1964, and believe Toole also pulled the trigger in that crime.

others followed, building up a rap sheet filled with Two years later, Toole met killer HENRY LUCAS at a counts of petty theft and lewd behavior. He married Jacksonville soup kitchen, taking him home for a night briefly, but his bride departed after three days’ time, of drinking, conversation, and sex. The men had much repulsed by Toole’s overt homosexuality. By 1974, in common, sharing memories of murder, looking for-Toole was drifting and touring the western states in an ward to a time when they might hunt together. By 1983, according to police, they had traversed the continent together several times, annihilating random victims at a dizzying pace.

On January 14, 1977, Toole startled relatives by marrying a woman 24 years his senior. The relationship was curious from day one, and Novella Toole soon found herself sharing Ottis with Henry Lucas and other strangers. “A few nights after we were married,” she said, “he told me he got nervous a lot, especially if he couldn’t get a man. He’d get angry, he said, and then he couldn’t get excited with a women.” They were separated by 1978, Lucas and Toole moving in with Toole’s mother, sharing quarters with sister Drusilla Powell and her children, Frank and Frieda.

The homicidal soul mates found work with a Jacksonville roofing company, Southeast Color Coat, but office manager Eileen Knight recalls that they disappeared frequently, sometimes for weeks at a stretch.

“Ottis would come and go,” she told Jacksonville newsmen. “We’d hire him whenever he came back because he was a good worker.” Toole’s landlord, Betty Goodyear, said of Ottis and Henry, “They went out of town, always disappearing. All [Toole] cared about was that old car. I think they were using it for robbing people because they always seemed to have a lot of money.” Along the way, Toole allegedly introduced Lucas to a satanic cult, the “Hand of Death,” that kidnapped children, practiced human sacrifice, and Ottis Toole (Author’ collection)

cranked out snuff films on a secret ranch in Mexico.

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Toole’s mother died in May 1981, following surgery, Estep was later released—on his first paroled bid—

and the loss hit him hard. Ottis haunted the cemetery, though his name was not formally cleared. The curious sometimes at night, stretching out on the ground by her display of mercy by Colorado’s parole board convinced grave, supposedly feeling the earth move beneath him.

some observers that the state accepted Toole’s guilt but A short time later, sister Drusilla died of a drug over-refused to publicly acknowledge a mistake.)

dose, considered a probable suicide, and her children On April 28, 1984, Toole was convicted in Jack-were packed off to juvenile homes. Alone for once with sonville of setting the fire that killed 64-year-old George Lucas off on his own or in jail, Toole brooded, drinking Sonnenberg in January 1982. Sentenced to death for heavily and popping pills. It was around this time—on that crime, he was indicted one month later for the July 27—that six-year-old Adam Walsh disappeared murder of 19-year-old Ada Johnson in Tallahassee, dur-from a Hollywood, Florida, shopping mall, and his sev-ing February 1983. Conviction on that charge brought ered head was later recovered from a Vero Beach canal a second death sentence, but both were commuted to on August 10.

life imprisonment on appeal. In 1991, Toole pled guilty Lucas returned in October, discharged from a Mary-to four more slayings in Florida, receiving a superfluous land jail, and together the men contrived Frieda Pow-quartet of new life sentences. Police in Hollywood, ell’s escape from a Polk County juvenile home. By Florida, were reviewing the Adam Walsh case when January 1982, authorities were looking for the girl in Toole died of cirrhosis in September 1996, and authori-Jacksonville, and she fled westward with Lucas, They ties were embarrassed to learn that all traces of critical were gone two days before Toole learned of their depar-DNA evidence had vanished from their files. The case ture, and he lapsed into “a world of his own,” pacing remains officially unsolved, though Adam’s parents the floor and muttering over Henry’s betrayal. He wan-

(and a number of police investigators) are convinced of dered to forget and killed along the way, reportedly Toole’s guilt.

claiming nine victims in six states between January Ironically, Toole’s name was seldom mentioned in 1982 and February 1983.

the controversy over Henry Lucas’s confessions and his On May 23 and 31, 1983, two houses were burned later change of heart in April 1985. No effort has been in Toole’s Jacksonville neighborhood. Teenage accom-made to challenge Toole’s involvement in at least a plices fingered Toole on June 6, and he freely confessed score of homicides from coast to coast, and it is just as to setting an estimated 40 fires over the past two well, considering his dialogue with Lucas, taped by decades. Convicted of second-degree ARSON on August Texas Rangers in November 1983.

5, he drew a term of 20 years in prison.

By that time, Lucas was singing in Texas, and Toole TOOLE: Remember that one time I said I wanted me backed his partner up with more confessions. Toole’s some ribs? Did that make me a cannibal?

statements “cleared” 25 murders in 11 states, and he LUCAS: You wasn’t a cannibal, It’s the force of the admitted participating with Lucas in another 108 homi-devil, something forced on us that we can’t
cides. A practicing cannibal, Toole also dropped hints
change. There’s no reason denying what we

about his interest in Satanism but stopped short of
become. We know what we are.

naming alleged fellow cult members.

TOOLE: Remember how I liked to pour some blood
On October 21, 1983, Toole confessed to the murder
out of them?

of Adam Walsh, startling Assistant Police Chief Leroy
LUCAS: Ottis, you and I have become something peo-Hessler with details that were “grisly beyond belief.” As ple look on as an animal. There’s no way of Hessler told the media, “There are certain details only changing what we done, but we can stop it

he could know. He did it. I’ve got details that no one and not allow other people to become what

else would know. He’s got me convinced.” In spite of we have. And the only way to do that is by that endorsement, officers reversed their stance a few honesty.

weeks later, issuing statements that Toole was “no longer a suspect” in the crime.

Another troubling case harked back to 1974 and the
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carnage in Colorado Springs. Toole confessed to the Our legal system guarantees the basic right of every massage parlor attack in September 1984, again provid-criminal, no matter how sadistic or depraved, to mount ing details of the crime, but embarrassed prosecutors a competent defense. In practice, it is only since the swiftly mounted their counterattack. After hours of 1960s, with the liberal rulings of the U.S. Supreme hostile grilling, Toole threw in the towel. “Okay,” he Court under chief Justice Earl Warren, that suspect told authorities, “If you say I didn’t kill her, maybe I rights have been enforced with any uniformity. Before didn’t.” (In a strange, unsatisfying compromise, Park that era, “third-degree” tactics were commonplace if
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not routine and clearly produced miscarriages of jus-offs, swapping reduced prison time—or complete tice, as when suspect Frank Dolezal was beaten into immunity—for a guilty plea or testimony from a crimi-confessing the crimes of Cleveland’s “MAD BUTCHER OF

nal accomplice. In San Francisco, Anthony Harris faced KINGSBURY RUN.”

prosecution on two murder counts when he turned Defending serial killers in court is an arduous, state’s evidence against his fellow “Death Angels” in the unpopular, and sometimes hazardous occupation.

notorious “ZEBRA” case in return for immunity. CHAR-While some defendants waive their right to an attorney, LENE GALLEGO drew a lenient 16-year sentence (and is in a few—like THEODORE BUNDY—exercise their egos now at liberty) for helping place her husband on death by defending themselves, most random slayers welcome row, while Linda Kasabian earned total immunity with the advice of counsel. Few are affluent enough to spring her testimony in the Mason murder trial.

for big-name talent, though famous attorneys some-Dramatic trials make headlines, but 90 percent of times attach themselves to a high-profile case for public-American felony cases are settled with negotiated plea ity’s sake. Boston attorney F. Lee Bailey inflated his bargains, and serial murders are no exception. Few citi-reputation in the 1960s by defending serial slayers zens complain when murderers are jailed for life, but Charles Schmid and ALBERT DESALVO, while across the cries of outrage are routine when a negotiated plea continent, Melvin Belli offered his services to the elusive reduces or eliminates a first-degree murder charge,

“ZODIAC” as part of a vain effort to induce the killer’s sometimes returning a compulsive killer to the street. In surrender. More often, public defenders or court-Florida, James Pough’s first homicide was booked as appointed lawyers inherit such cases, and a losing ver-manslaughter and bargained down to aggravated

dict is sometimes the least of their problems. Los assault, earning Pough five years’ probation; at the end Angeles attorney Ronald Hughes died mysteriously in of that term, his criminal record was expunged, allow-November 1970 shortly after quarreling with client ing Pough to purchase legally the firearms with which CHARLES MANSON, and some authorities still believe he he killed eight other victims. Nurse Mary Robaczynski was murdered by the drifter’s homicidal “family.” In admitted the slayings of four Maryland patients, but other cases, lawyers defending a serial killer have more prosecutors threw in the towel after a mistrial, drop-to fear from the public at large, as when New York ping all charges in return for the surrender of attorneys Frank Armani and Francis Belge were threat-Robaczynski’s nursing license. In Boston, attorney F.

ened—and Belge was assaulted on the street—while Lee Bailey negotiated a classic plea bargain for strangler defending three-time killer Robert Garrow.