File:Theres something about Henry.doc

 Article  by Dave McGowan dated June 2000

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Subjects: Serial killers, Henry Lee Lucas, George W. Bush
Source: Unknown

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There's Something About Henry

By David McGowan - June 2000

Contents

• Part I: Sympathy for the Devil (Portrait of an MK-ULTRA Assassin?)
• Part II: The Myth of the Serial Killer
• Part III: Seven Degrees of Henry Lee
  • Lax treatment afforded America's serial killers
• Part IV: Seven More Degrees of Henry Lee
  • The suspicious deaths of key players during the trials of various killers & the suspicious deaths of the killers themselves.
• Part V: The Mind (Control) of a Serial Killer

Part I: Sympathy for the Devil (first few paragraphs)

"Henry is an unusual prisoner. He's been given a high security cell and a few special amenities ..."---Jim Boutwell, Sheriff of Williamson County, Texas

On June 30th of 1998, Henry Lee Lucas, arguably the most prolific and certainly one of the most sadistic serial killers in the annals of crime was scheduled for execution by the state of Texas. Given the advocacy of the death penalty by Governor George W. Bush, things clearly weren't looking good for Henry at that time.

Bush had not granted clemency to any condemned man in his tenure as governor. In fact, no governor of any state in the entire history of the country has carried out more judicial executions than has Governor George. At last count, the state of Texas had dispatched 130 inmates on Bush's watch.

So Texas was definitely not the place to be for a man in Henry's position. And considering the nature of Henry's crimes, it seemed a certainty that nothing would stand in the way of Henry's scheduled execution. There weren't likely to be any high-profile supporters, a la Karla Faye Tucker (though even personal appeals to Bush from the likes of Pat Robertson failed to dissuade the governor from proceeding on schedule with Miss Tucker's execution). Not likely because Henry's crimes were of a particularly brutal nature, involving rape, torture, mutilation, dismemberment, necrophilia, cannibalism, and pedophilia, with the number of victims running as high as 300-600 by some accounts - including Henry's own, at times - though this figure is likely inflated.

By all accounts though, Lucas, frequently working with partner Ottis Toole - a self described arsonist and cannibal - savagely murdered literally scores of victims of all ages, races, and genders. All indications were then that this was pretty much of a no-brainer for America's premier hanging governor. But then a most remarkable thing happened. On June 18, just twelve days before Henry's scheduled demise, Governor Bush asked the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, whose members are appointed by Bush himself, to review Henry's case. Strangely enough, eight days later the Board uncharacteristically recommended that Henry's execution not take place.

The very next day, just three days short of Henry's scheduled exit from this world, Lucas became the first - and to date only - recipient of Governor Bush's compassionate conservatism. The official rationale for this act of mercy was, apparently, that the evidence on which Lucas was sentenced did not support his conviction. There was a possibility that Henry was in fact innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. Never mind that many of the 130 death row inmates who did not get special gubernatorial attention prior to their executions had credible claims of innocence that were met with by nothing but scorn and mockery

References