All language subtitles for The.Confession.Killer.S01E01.720p.WEB.sdh

[tense music plays]

[Henry] I've killed them
in every way there is except poison.

There's been strangulations.

There's been knife wounds.
There's been shootings.

There's been hit-and-runs.

[reporter] Henry Lee Lucas
says he has killed 100 women.

[reporter 2] Lucas claims
to have killed over 150 women.

[reporter 3] Henry Lee Lucas
killed at least 360 people

during an eight-year spree

that only ended when Texas authorities
caught him last year.

[reporter 4] One policeman said
he makes Charles Manson

sound like Tom Sawyer.

[woman] Henry Lee Lucas
murdered my sister, Laura Jean Donez.

[woman 2] Henry Lee Lucas
murdered my mother, Joan Gilmore.

[woman 3] Henry Lee Lucas
killed my sister, Rita Salazar.

[man] The last person he killed

meant no more to him
than the last cigarette that he smoked.

[Hugh] This is a bad guy.

Everyone's perfect serial killer.

And yet,

things just didn't add up.

[man 2] You can't kill 200 people

and never leave
a single shred of evidence.

Nothing. Zero.

[Henry] I just grabbed her around her neck
and started choking her.

You talk about being conned,
he was playing them like a violin.

[Vic] I thought the powers-that-be
would welcome the truth.

I was wrong.

[Parker] The really sad thing about this,

the real tragedy is

someone got away with murder.

[man 3] Either they found
the world's worst serial killer...

or it was the biggest hoax
in American criminal justice history.

[siren wailing]

[Phil] Montague County

was, uh, almost like
stepping back in time.

People were laid-back.

Mainly farmers, very little industry.

The sheriff's office
and the police departments

were all real small, understaffed.

I became a ranger in 1979.

Texas Rangers usually work
a lot of high-profile cases:

murders, rapes, robberies,
organized crime.

They put them in the area to be of benefit
to the local law enforcement.

I had been a ranger two years,

and I got a call
from the Montague County sheriff

saying that they needed some help
on a missing woman named Kate Rich.

Kate was 82 years old, lived by herself.

The family member told the sheriff

that there was a suspect in her mind
of Henry Lee Lucas

and he was living with Kate for a while.

We did a lot of searching for the body.

We found Kate's purse
thrown over a bridge.

So, you know,
that pretty well told me that

the body was probably
still in the vicinity.

After about a month of working this case,

I realized that we also got
a 15-year-old girl missing.

She went by "Becky,"

but her name was Frieda Lorraine Powell.

She was Henry's girlfriend.

Becky's missing, Kate's missing.

Henry's the common denominator.

He was a pretty good suspect.

Henry was probably
in his mid to late forties.

He was a scruffy-looking skinny guy,
you know,

and had a bad eye.

We'd done a lot of background on him.

We learned that Henry went to prison
in 1960 for killing his mother.

Did some time in the "P&N,"
the, uh, psychiatric ward.

For a period of time,
my theory was that...

he killed Becky,

and then, Kate...

figured it out,
and that's why he killed Kate.

[camera shutters clicking]

He'd come up
to the sheriff's office with us,

friendly enough,

act like he was sincere,

but there was nothing
we could hold him on.

He was pretty impressed
that we had already gathered

a lot of information on him.

He said, "I guess since you found
all that out about me,

you... you know about that warrant on me."

I said, "Praise the Lord"
in the back of my mind.

I said, "That's out of Florida, isn't it?"
I started looking for it in my papers.

He said, "No, Michigan." [chuckles]

I said, "That's right. That's right."
[chuckles]

And, uh, I said, "What...
What was that for?"

He said,
"Well, it's originally for stealing a car,

but the warrant's
for probation violation."

So I got the warrant number,

and then when he come back,
we put him in jail.

I had to keep him up in cigarettes.

He drank coffee 24/7.

- He just loved talking.
- [Henry speaking indistinctly]

Well, I talked to him day and night,

and, I-I mean,

I just couldn't get him
to give me anything.

I could prove he was lying,

but I just couldn't get a confession,
and so...

I finally told the sheriff, I said, "Look,

let's just put him in jail
and just... not talk to him.

Tell your people not to talk to him.

I ain't gonna come up here and talk to him
like he's used to me doing."

And the sheriff said, "Well, I got
some ploughing to do anyway."

And, uh, so we stuck him in jail and...

didn't talk to him.

Wednesday night, I get a call.

He's passed a note to the jailer.

He told me what he did to Kate.

He just, uh, stuck the knife in her chest,

and then he got out and went around
and dragged her down into the ditch.

Had sex with her.

Well, when he takes me back out there
at daylight the next morning,

the stuff he described is...
is still there.

Parts of her glasses
that had been run over quite a bit.

We found some of her clothing,

and then we went to...

his old apartment

and, uh, he showed us the stove
that he burned her in.

I could see some...

what I thought was bone fragments,

but we collected them as evidence
just to prove that, uh,

they were human bones.

He said,
"I'll have to show you where Becky is,

but it's not a pretty sight."

He said, "If you'll dig right there,

you'll find a pillowcase
with part of her."

"The legs are out thataway."

Uh...

"Her head's thisaway."

And then I brought him back to Denton PD
to be interrogated.

We kept arguing...

cussing each other and...

that was when I...
when I hit her with the knife.

Okay, and... and after...
after that part happened,

uh, do you recall what you did next?

Yes. I took her panties
and her bra off and, uh...

I had sexual intercourse with her.

It's one of those things that, uh...

I guess it got to be a...

part of my life.

Having sexual intercourse with the dead.

Okay.

Uh...

After...

After she's dead...

and after you had sex with her,

what happened next?

Well, after that, I cut her... uh...

- up in little teeny pieces.
- Mm.

You know, he told me,
"I killed the only girl I've ever loved."

At least it bothered him a little bit
that he killed Becky.

After that, there's a, uh...

an arraignment for Kate's murder.

And there was
a couple of local newspapers there,

and the reporter
from the Austin Statesman

was following it.

The judge asked him, "Do you understand
that you're being charged with murder?"

I'm sitting there in open court, um...

you know, casually listening,

and all of a sudden,
Lucas just blurts out,

"Well, Judge,

what are we gonna do
about these other 100 women I killed?"

What did he say?

[Phil] From that point,
it went to hell in a handbasket quick.

[indistinct chattering]

[reporter] Mr. Lucas, in the hearing,
you said you killed over a hundred women.

Is that true?

[newscaster] Investigators
in Montague, Texas,

are looking into a former
mental patient's claim

that he has killed about 100 women.

[newscaster 2] Lucas claims
a cross-country mass murder spree

the last eight years.

That immediately brought
a flood of inquiries

from law enforcement authorities
in several other states.

[Phil] I started getting calls
from law enforcement all over.

Nineteen different states,
I believe, was the last count.

There's no way of keeping up with it
at this point. It's gotten out of hand.

It was a nightmare.

[reporter] Local authorities revealed
that he was a suspect in several killings.

They say he could be a mass murderer.

[Phil] Wherever Henry was,
the media was there.

It was a circus that would not leave town.

[reporter 2] In this trial,
the 47-year-old former drifter

was his own worst witness.

First, he videotaped a confession
to the 1982 crime.

- [weeping]
- Then he broke down on the witness stand,

admitting regret
at having killed Becky Powell.

Lucas said Becky hit him in the face.

And the next thing Lucas remembers
is seeing Becky with a knife in her chest.

The jury did not buy Lucas' attorney's
argument of voluntary manslaughter.

We, the jury, find the defendant
Henry Lee Lucas guilty

of the offense of murder
as it lays in the indictment.

[newscaster] In Denton, Texas,
the professed mass murderer

Henry Lee Lucas

was sentenced today to life in prison

for murdering and dismembering
15-year-old Becky Powell.

[newscaster 2] Lucas has also
confessed to more than 150 other murders,

and he makes Charles Manson
sound like Tom Sawyer.

[newscaster 3] Investigators say
the Lucas stories are so gruesome

that even the interrogation process
is difficult.

Yes, I've had days where I just...

had to make myself go in there.

I didn't feel up to it.

I've had days when I...
when I've cut it short.

[Phil] I was the one
that was tasked with...

with getting information from him,
uh, about other murders.

I would just give him
a, uh, pencil and say,

"If you think of anything, write it down,"

because we're covering so many murders
that it's ridiculous.

He would sit there and draw pictures,

and in the sides would describe
how they were killed,

what they were wearing.

Oh, it... it turned your stomach,

and it was hard to be decent with him
and, um...

So sort of a...

self-protection, I guess.

I... I went through a period of time
where I didn't believe anything he said.

I don't know, I, uh...

I was ready to do some fence-cutting
and goat-stealing cases.

I was sick of murders.

We would send pictures out to, uh,
the, uh, agency

that we believed would be responsible

for investigating that murder.

One of the, uh, Texas sheriffs
that we, uh, contacted

was Sheriff Boutwell.

I was at home one Saturday morning

back in, uh, June of, uh, 1983,

I had a call from the, uh, sheriff
in Montague County.

He called me and said, uh, "Jim, uh...

we got an old boy in jail up here
that you might want to talk to."

[Phil] Sheriff Boutwell had been
actively investigating a string of murders

up and down I-35
between Dallas and Austin.

We had several bodies out here
on Interstate 35.

And, uh, we weren't having any luck
on solving or clearing those cases.

[Phil] He felt like
it was a single serial killer,

and he thought that, uh, Henry very well
could have been the one doing that.

Sheriff Boutwell got a bench warrant
and picked Henry up

right after he was sentenced
in Denton County,

carried him straight to his jail there
in Georgetown.

And then, from that point on,
you never saw Henry without Boutwell.

Jim Boutwell was a legend
in Texas law enforcement.

If you run the clock back a few years...

[gunshot]

...to that sniper
on the tower of the University of Texas,

who killed quite a number of people
and wounded many more,

Jim got in his plane

and flew up and radioed
the location where the shooter was,

and he got several bullet holes
in his aircraft,

but he did quite a heroic job.

After Lucas was in the custody
of Sheriff Boutwell,

he, uh, went to the director of DPS,
Colonel Jim Adams,

to see if they would set up a task force
to coordinate these Lucas investigations.

Lucas, uh...

is in a tight security cell.

[Phil] Being a popular sheriff,

he was... he had the political clout
to get a task force put together.

So the more we can learn
about the mentality,

the modus operandi,

uh, the traveling habits,

the public is going
to ultimately be more secure.

[Bob] Colonel Adams
wanted a Texas Ranger officer in charge,

and I was assigned to that.

[Phil] Sergeant Prince
was a Ranger's Ranger.

He'd come from a family
of law enforcement.

A straight-up honest guy.

[telephone ringing]

[Bob] The task force was set up
in a small office in the county jail.

We were not an investigative task force.

We were a coordinating task force.

Our role was to, uh,
allow access to officers

wanting to talk with Lucas
from all over the nation.

We had an interview room set up,

we had a videotape set up.

[officer] This statement is being
tape-recorded on a Panasonic machine.

[Bob] When they were ready
for the interview, we'd bring Lucas down,

tape it,

and then when they were through,
we'd debrief him.

"Was there any cases that you believe
you were responsible for?"

Okay, then what happened?

I hit her with a knife.

Yeah, I had sex with her already
before I shot her.

I hit her,
but I think I hit her with my fist.

I ain't sure, but I think I did.

[Bob] I'd set it up
like a doctor's office.

If they need four hours,
I'd give them from eight to twelve.

We may have to schedule it for a month
or two months ahead of time.

We had such a backlog.

That's probably in the neighborhood
of a thousand officers

that signed in to talk to Lucas.

As a peace officer,
that's a satisfying feeling,

knowing that you've taken
killers like, uh, Lucas off the street.

Maybe bringing closure to some families.

Jack, I talked to, uh, Henry.

He says that he did own a two-tone...

[Nan] The task force seemed innovative,

because the task force was an attempt

to have
all of these law enforcement people

come into a central location,

so that people were sharing information,

and at the time, this was brand new.

[newscaster] Since Lucas was arrested,
authorities from all over the country

have been to see him
about unsolved murders.

They say it may be years

before a full construction of his crimes
is complete.

[newscaster 2] None of the known
serial murderers approaches the record

of Henry Lee Lucas.

[newscaster 3] Lucas was a drifter
who murdered at random across America.

[newscaster 4] A drifter with
no conscience and a compulsion to kill.

He cruised the interstates
and the back roads...

looking for that woman in a jam.

Yes, many of his killings, uh,
exhibited a lot of violence and overkill.

Very, very violent.

Very cruel in many cases.

I heard that this man up in North Texas

had said he'd killed hundreds of people.

[reporter on TV] Now in jail,
just a few miles from...

[Hugh] I had just spent four years

interviewing Ted Bundy.

But Bundy only killed about 30 people.

Here's a guy
who says he's killed a hundred.

I really had to go talk to him
and find out.

Sheriff Jim Boutwell
had read my Bundy book.

And he said, "Well, you come down
and talk to Henry anytime you want to."

Well, I started doing it quite often.

[indistinct chattering]

I've never had quite as good access,
even with... with Bundy.

I could go any day of the week,

any time of the day, generally.

My first impression was

Lucas was just a dirtball.

I was horrified by the smell.

He was one-eyed and his other eye dripped.

He had three, maybe four teeth.

He was
a pitiful looking gentleman, really.

[indistinct chattering]

Y'all want a cigarette?

[Hugh] I was able to bring in
a Japanese film crew,

and Sheriff Boutwell
thought that was exciting.

They were from Japan,
and my goodness,

of course, we'll... we'll take the day
and we'll... we'll show 'em a good time.

We appreciate the... the opportunity
to show the people of your country, uh...

[speaking Japanese]

...some of the things that go on here.

I, uh...

I'm sorry they have to be such bad things.

[speaking Japanese]

The Japanese were just thrilled to death,

and stunned, I might say.

[man] Sister Clemmie!

- Hi.
- Yeah.

Nice to meet you.

[speaks indistinctly]

And Yoichi Aoki. Nice to meet you, sir.

Oh. They brought you a present from Japan.
A painting set.

Please.

[speaks Japanese]

- [Clemmie] Open it.
- It's a watercolor set.

[speaks Japanese]

I hope you enjoy it.

[Clemmie] Open it, Henry.

[Yoichi] In Japan, you're becoming
really famous in Japan too.

Yeah.

Look, nobody had ever

paid that much attention
to Henry Lee Lucas.

Uh, we understand you were born
in Blacksburg, in Virginia,

and if you can tell us
a little bit about your background?

I had a family that, uh...

[exhales] was...

I guess what you'd say a poor family.

They didn't have anything, and, uh...

My mother was, uh, a prostitute,
and, uh...

[Jim] Your mother would bring people home

and she would have sex with them
in front of you kids?

Right, yeah.

Sometimes I was forced to watch her.

What was your dad doing?

[exhales] Laying up drunk sometimes.

Uh, sometimes he'd just
go on out of the house

because he didn't want to be in there.

[birds chirping]

[Hugh] Henry Lucas grew up
in rural Virginia

in a dilapidated little house.

He only went till the fourth grade.

He was trouble all the way.

His dad had lost his legs

in a railroad accident,

and so he was on a mat
and he sold pencils on the street.

His mother would beat him.

She would ridicule him incessantly.

[Yoichi] Your mother
was really hard on you.

Did you ever think that
"Someday I'm gonna kill her"?

Yeah, I told somebody I was.

Uh...

So here comes Mom in, uh, drunk, and...

and during the argument with her,

and her striking me over the head
with a broom handle,

I swung at her with a knife.

And, uh...

Uh...

I just turned and walked
right on out of the room.

And, uh...

It's as though...

she didn't exist.

[Hugh] Well, I believe you told,
uh, Sheriff Boutwell that...

when you'd kill,
you'd get this cold feeling.

Well, it's like being in an icebox.

You get just as cold, uh...

No feelings, uh...

You don't have no feelings for...

the actual human itself, you just...

It's as though it's not there.

But yet, uh, it's...

You know, something takes its place,

and, uh...

- [Jim] An inanimate object, almost.
- [Henry] Yeah.

- [Jim] A thing, not a person.
- [Henry] Right.

You know, most normal people

can still have a terrible background

and there's still
some kind of a firewall there

that prevents them
from moving off into killing people.

You know, that firewall
did not exist for Lucas.

[Nan] When you talked to him,
he was cooperative.

He was polite.

But during the interview, I was terrified.

Who wouldn't be scared?

I mean, I certainly had read
about who this was

and I'd never, ever been in the vicinity
of someone like that.

The editor said to me,

"Life magazine is doing a feature

on the phenomenon of serial killing."

Within a week,

I was in Henry's interview room.

His "office," he called it.

[newscaster] According to an article
in the current issue of Life magazine,

5,000 Americans
were murdered by serial killers

in 1983 alone.

There was this national interest

in the whole idea of serial killing.

[newscaster 2]
Motiveless, random killings,

sometimes thousands of miles apart.

They're known as "serial killers,"

and according
to law enforcement officials,

there are at least 35 of them
roaming the country now, stalking victims.

[Nan] People were just beginning
to try to understand

how something like that could happen.

The psychologist I worked with
had developed what he called

a serial killer profile.

And in that profile,

there were distinctive characteristics.

The person usually hadn't married
and didn't have children.

There was usually a controlling parent.

There was a history of the child
visiting emergency rooms repeatedly.

And then psychological issues
like suicidal tendencies,

cruelty to animals.

I had, uh...

been taught sexual relation
by a man that lived at, uh...

with my mother.

What did he tell you
about having sex with animals?

Did he teach you to kill 'em?

Yeah, he taught, uh...

you know, to kill animals
and have sex with them. Uh...

What kind of animals? Goats?

Anything, it didn't matter. Uh...

Any kind of animal.

[Nan] You could see the way Henry

fit into the profile that we had created.

Henry's mother was violent.

Several times,
he went to the emergency room.

Once, when he was six,

she hit him over the head
with a two-by-four,

and he says he was unconscious
for 30 to 36 hours.

He talked about the fact
that whenever he had a pet,

she would kill it.

That's Henry's brain.

Here, there's frontal lobe damage,

these little white spots.

The doctor said
it looked like a head trauma

that happened
between the ages of five and ten.

They found some temporal lobe damage,
some frontal lobe damage.

The combination is supposed to be
the worst that it can be.

Temporal lobe means...

uh...

no control over impulse.

Frontal lobe
is lack of compassion, empathy.

You put those together,

it looks to me
like you have a serial killer.

[indistinct chatter]

[Hugh] Well, I don't understand
how this thing progressed, Henry.

You started out killing your mother
in '60, then it really escalated.

[Henry] Uh-huh.

[Hugh] Was this...
What was in your mind then?

- What... what made it just get so...
- [Henry exhales]

Did it get easier as you went on?

Oh, yeah. Uh...

It just didn't matter no more. Uh...

There was no, uh...

[inhales deeply]

It just become...

After '79,

it become an impulse.

And then, by me meeting Ottis Toole,

uh, that didn't help so good, you know,

'cause me and him started running around
killing together too.

[Bob] Ottis Toole
was Henry Lucas' running buddy,

and...

probably had some, uh, murders together.

Uh, Toole was a homosexual,

and, uh...

Lucas apparently was on the receiving end
of that time, but, uh...

He was a...

very much of a vicious, vicious person.

Very low IQ.

[Hugh] Toole would dress
up like a woman

and go pick up people in bars and...

get money for sex.

This was a huge, big man.

He was about six-three or four,

and he was muscular,

and yet he talked very softly.

They became good friends.

We picked up lots of hitchhikers
and all, you know.

Henry mostly killed all the women,
you know, himself, you know.

Some of them
would be shot in the head and...

in the chest and...

Some of them would be, uh,
choked to death and...

some of them would be, uh...

beaten in the head with a tire tool.

[Phil] They made a lot of trips, you know,

from Florida to California
and back and around.

I think all they did was just drive,
and drive, and drive, and drive,

and camp out at parks
and wherever they could.

And he was a walking Rand McNally.

He knew this country.

You know, little tiny roads
and freeways and...

And you just don't learn that much
about roads

unless you've spent a lot of time
on the road.

[newscaster] Roaming murderers like Lucas
create enormous problems for the police.

They could do two in Texas
and be in Arizona or New Mexico

and do one, uh, again in ten hours,

and then go from there to California
and do them,

so, uh, they're very hard to track.

[Bob] A serial killer is probably

the hardest person to detect and identify

uh, because they'd have no connection
with the victim.

Probably a whole lot of serial killers
have been out there in years past

that weren't ever recognized

because there'd be no connection made

between a murder that happened in Texas

and in the panhandle of Florida.

Lucas got away with it
for quite a number of years.

And that's why we set up the task force.

[indistinct chattering]

[Nan] Sheriff Boutwell
called a conference together

where he invited people
from across the country to come

and try to see if

they could make any discoveries
pertinent to the Lucas information.

Maybe we can come up with Lucas and Toole

as being a suspect
in your particular area.

[newscaster] Lawmen met to compare notes

and piece together
the Lucas-Toole trail of terror.

[newscaster 2] Police now link
at least Lucas

to scores of murders in 17 states,

stretching from coast to coast.

I don't know whether it's me or...

whether I looked trusted or what,
I don't know,

but, uh, they'd get in the car.

And...

I'd go up and knock on people's doors,

and tell them I'm hungry,
tell them I want a drink of water,

they'd invite me right in their house.

They'd say,
"Come on in," you know? "Come on."

[man] Mm-hmm.

Which is the worst mistake they make.

I think that was the secret
of his success,

because he acts low-key, harmless.

Uh...

You know,
somebody'd climb in a car with him.

If they could stand the smell,
they'd say,

"Oh, this old boy wouldn't hurt anybody."

[indistinct chattering]

[Hugh] But what causes you
to grab a woman or kill one?

I mean, just... just...

It's just, uh...
I don't like women, you know?

- You know, at the time, I didn't like 'em.
- Yeah.

And every time I'd see a woman,

whether they was walking down the road,
walking down the street, uh...

wherever I seen that woman,
I was gonna pick her up.

- [Hugh] Yeah.
- Uh, I just hate them.

[Hugh] Well, that's a feeling.
That's a pretty strong feeling.

Didn't any woman
ever treat you really good?

Clemmie has been the only woman
that has actually ever treated me good.

Uh...

She has gone completely
out of her way, uh, to help me.

[Clemmie] I had been visiting the jails.

They said,

"Oh, Sister Clemmie, we have a..."

New inmate, and he's a serial killer.

"Be careful."

You know, all of the jailers,

"Sister, please be careful."

It was, uh, right before Christmas,
and I was, uh...

taking, uh, Bibles
and handing them out to prisoners,

and I had one left, and, um...

I was going to take the Bible home,
and... and I said,

"Uh, Lord, did I forget someone?
Should this Bible go to someone?"

[Henry] And she says,
"If I give you this Bible,

you won't tear it up, will you?

You'll read it?"

I said, "Yeah."

"I have given you my Holy Spirit
to live in you and to help you."

What does that mean to you, Henry?

That means living a clean life.

Living according to God.

[Henry] She's become
a very, very good friend.

She's taught me...

- the Bible...
- [man] Mm-hmm.

And she's taught me how to care,

uh, about others.

After about the fourth visit,
I baptized him

and I had a love for him
that I couldn't explain, you know?

[Clemmie] He said that this is
the first time in his life

that he has ever felt good about himself.

He's able to see beauty
in things all around him.

He enjoys oil painting.

And he's one of the most
gentle persons I know,

and it's like...

he was never capable of loving before,

and it's like
he has a deep brotherly love for me.

[Henry] God himself sent her to me.

[newscaster] Lucas says God told him
to start telling what he'd done.

Uh... [exhales]

It's an experience I had with a light,
uh, that came in my cell.

Jesus Christ himself came in
and asked me to accept Him

as my personal savior.

And I said then, I says, "I can't, uh...

clear up the cases
because I can't remember 'em."

And He says, "I will take care of that."

From that day on,
I've been able to go back to the bodies,

I've been able to tell where they're at
and everything else.

[newscaster] Authorities say
he has an incredible recall

for names, dates, and details
of his crimes and crime scenes.

[newscaster 2] Lucas was relaxed,
and he even lit a cigarette,

after he led deputies down a road

where he allegedly killed
one of the women.

[Clayton] Being able to direct persons

ten, 15 years after the offenses occurred
is sort of frightening.

There's just so many things
that would lead you to believe

that he was there.

That's the... That's the door
I came out of right there.

- The one in the front?
- Yeah.

[Jim] I recall, uh,
one particular murder case where...

a, uh, Playboy magazine
was found by the, uh, victim.

Henry told the officers,

uh, that... that they would have found
that magazine there

and even told them the year and the month
the magazine was issued.

[officer] I think this one is a better one
right there.

[Henry] All I have to do,
if I've ever killed a person,

is they can show me a live photograph
of that person

and I can look at the picture
and I can tell you if I've killed her.

And if I've killed her,
I tell you how and where.

Uh...

He's, uh, confessing
to all of his crimes,

and he's bringing forth the bodies
so they can have Christian burials.

Receiving letters
from his victims' families

are very moving and touching to him.

[Henry] There's people out there
in this world today

that's lost their loved ones,

and they wanna know who done it.

Why should I hide my face,
saying I'm a coward, you know?

Uh... I want them to know who I am.

He feels like he's doing the will of God

and this is the first time
that he has any inner... inner peace.

[Nan] Clemmie was his spiritual advisor,

but she also cooked his dinners.

I did an interview with Henry

during one of those dinners.

He was not in handcuffs.

Clemmie was cutting his meat...

[small laugh]

And cantaloupe,

and handing him the plate,

and we were interviewing him
while that was happening.

She also cut his hair.

I couldn't believe that he was
right next to a pair of barber scissors,

smiling at everyone,

and Clemmie not really understanding

how dangerous that was.

They created a community.

It almost seemed like a family.

Sheriff Boutwell and Bob Prince,
especially, would talk about

maintaining Henry's mood
so he would continue to cooperate.

We've gained his confidence
and we need to keep his confidence.

Um...

Uh...

You know, if he doesn't have
our confidence, he could...

um, he could either quit talking or...

or, uh, tell us some things that...
that were not true.

[indistinct chattering]

[Hugh] He had free rein in Georgetown.

He got drinks
out of the soft-drink machine.

He wandered around without handcuffs.

[Henry] I consider Georgetown my home.

It's a little hard to say,
you know, being a jail,

- but, uh, it's home.
- [woman laughs]

[newscaster] There is an easy-going,
relaxed feeling

between lawman and killer.

[Henry] Being friendly towards each other,

and, uh, I joke a lot with Bob,
kid with him,

and I do the Sheriff the same way,
or Clayton Smith.

Henry was so happy

being at the jail.

They didn't treat him as a killer,

but as a friend
that they would be working with.

[Nan] It was...

making him feel
as though he was contributing

by helping to solve the cases,

because the families needed him
to do that.

[Henry] I was trying,
like I'm doing right now,

just to get, uh, the cases solved,
you know?

But, uh, there's nobody else
gonna solve them except me.

[Hugh] As I started talking
to Henry, things just...

didn't add up.

[Henry] Uh...

There's hundreds of 'em.

[Hugh]
One of the Japanese guys said, uh,

"Well, you've just been all over."
And he...

Henry said, "Yes,

I got some in your country."

[speaking Japanese]

He's going to be caught by the police.

Because it's a small country.

Make you a bet.

[laughs]

I've been in your country, too. [laughs]

Somebody asked him,
"Well, how did you get there?"

And he said, "Well, I drove, of course."

- [interviewer] To where?
- To Japan.

[Hugh] The task force
was doing very, very well.

Boutwell was thrilled.
He wanted everybody to know that...

in his jail, they had this task force,
and that...

they were... they were clearing
all these murders.

Hey, let's face it,
everybody wants to solve murders.

Families were pleased.

You know, you have a member
of your family killed,

you want to find out the perpetrator.

And so many of them slept better

because they felt they had found the perp.

This is a bad guy.

Everyone's perfect serial killer.

And yet, I had interviewed
a lot of murderers over the years,

and this was...

this was so far out of the norm.

- Thank you very much.
- Thank you.

F[Hugh] I knew I had
to keep questioning, checking.

When there was nobody around
but me and Henry,

he'd say, "Well,
I didn't really do all them things."

He said, "I'm just making this up.

I'll talk to you later."

[mid-tempo music plays]

♪ If these lies don't make it right ♪

♪ Can we pretend enough is true ♪

♪ And if the highway calls at night ♪

♪ Well, these bars still make me blue ♪

♪ Can a lie told enough ♪

♪ Become true? ♪

♪ Can a lie told enough ♪

♪ Become enough for you? ♪