Reason First: The Psychology of Serial Killer Henry Lee Lucas

With their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment, serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole committed some of the most heinous crimes across three states in just over three decades.

As is often reported, Lucas experienced a terrible childhood. His prostitute mother abused him and permitted him to play with a knife resulting in him gouging out his eye. He started engaging in sexual acts with animals before the age of 14. He then moved onto human flesh with a 17-year-old Laura Burnley who attempted to fight off Lucas’ advances but became his initial murder victim.

He then went on to kill his septuagenarian mother and sexually assaulted her corpse in 1960. Authorities hauled him off to a hospital for the criminally insane and he got out in 1970. His recidivism continued as he returned to jail from 1971 to 1975.

He then teamed up with Toole and they became a couple. He also started a sexual relationship with Toole’s niece who went by the name Becky. After the 15-year-old slapped Lucas, he stabbed her to death and dismembered her with the sharp object.

After his arrest in 1983, Lucas gave word to the long list of murders he committed. Lucas and Toole would die in prison due to heart failure and liver failure, respectively.

Some say that there are two main studies in human education: astronomy, which explores the cosmos and psychology which delves into the recesses of the human mind. One is vast and ever expanding the other is mysterious still being charted like the stars. And both endeavors are always evolving. Let us deal with the latter.

The psychology of a serial killer is absolutely crucial as to why they commit such horrific acts. Lucas’ upbringing was far from ideal. But why do some people who experience unfavorable and unseemly childhoods group up to be life-loving individuals? Why do some, like lucas, devolve into being monsters?

Psychology is the main focus for why Lucas made his path so ugly. He had chosen in his own mind to do some of the worst things known to mankind. His way of dealing with the trauma of his youth was to brutalize animals and human beings including his own mother. But that’s not the case with people like Richard Pryor who channeled his rough start into a meteoric and profound and productive career as an actor and comedian. The only problem with Pryor, mostly, was his self-hatred. But unlike Lucas, he didn’t go on a killing spree.

The human mind is the most intricate and important aspect in the entire universe. It is more complex and studies every day seek to map the inner workings of what the human brain produces.

Lucas’ psychology would have been reserved for an expert. But what stands as clear even to a layman is the fact that Lucas didn’t consider himself a serial killer. He claimed, despite all of the evidence against him, that he had not taken multiple lives over a specified amount of time. Ironically, he offered false reports of other slayings that spanned anywhere from Spain to Japan.

This line of lying may have been a ploy to try to avoid capital punishment. Maybe he felt that if he could offer enough false evidence they wouldn’t believe his other misdeeds. Again, this is the psychology of someone who was anti-mind, anti-man, and anti-life.

With victims like “Orange Socks” who was so named because that’s all she had on when authorities discovered her, then governor of Texas George W. Bush still commuted Lucas’ sentence to life. This is the exact example of how a person should be put to death. Eleven confirmed convictions of murder shoud have sent Lucas to the electric chair. When there is no shadow of a doubt concerning an offender of such heinous crimes, then death is the only answer to their iniquities.