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.