All language subtitles for The.Confession.Killer.S01E03.720p.WEB.sdh

[horns honking]

[reporter] On the Dallas homicide squad,

there is a detective
who will not be denied.

A super sleuth

who turns cold trails

into criminal convictions.

Twenty-seven-year veteran Linda Erwin

has put more killers in jail
in two decades

than any pulp fiction gumshoe.

In one four-year period,

she solved a remarkable 94% of her cases.

I was the first woman
in the homicide unit

in the Dallas Police Department.

[speaking indistinctly]

We made arrangements to go down
to Georgetown to talk to Henry Lucas.

I was told to bring him a carton
of Pall Mall cigarettes,

and he'd... he would...

he'd tell me what I wanted to know.

When I went down there,

he had drawn this picture,

said that this was a woman

that he had murdered
in the city of Dallas.

Here's another one.
He had drawn this little picture.

Made these little notes.

She was redheaded, medium complexion.

[Henry] His name was on the thing...

[Linda] And then I just let him talk.

[speaking indistinctly]

I think he told me about ten.

Ten murders.

He just... He just talked.

Home was in Shreveport,
which it's not no more.

- [speaking indistinctly]
- [Linda] I knew...

that anything and everything
he was telling me

didn't match up
with any unsolved murders that we had.

When I got back to Dallas,

I told my supervisors

I didn't think that Henry Lucas
had committed any murders

in the city of Dallas.

They said, "Just put together a case file",

make up some bogus forensic reports,

bogus crime scene photographs,

just a totally bogus murder file,

"and see if he will admit to this."

I did not tell the Rangers
that it was a bogus case.

And I felt very uncomfortable about that,

but, um...

we did it.

Went and talked to him again.

I kind of left the case file out
on the desk,

kind of laid some pictures out there
so he could see 'em.

And then he described how he did it,
how he broke into the house,

how he stabbed the woman,

how he took her out and dumped her body,

everything.

Drain pipe,
the way that the body was put in.

I took and buried the body after which...
And the body was never buried out there.

I just knew he was lying.

I knew he was lying.

I told my supervisors,

"This is all gonna come crashing down."

[reporter] Henry Lee Lucas says
he has killed 360 people.

[reporter 2] First he said 100 victims.
Then 300. Then 600.

[reporter 3] Easily making him
the country's most prolific

serial murderer.

[reporter 4] Lucas was confessing
to any unsolved murder

the Texas Rangers put before him.

I was a person
beyond any criminal there ever was.

And he would have even confessed

to the Lindbergh baby's death
if he had known anything about it.

Do you know
how many people you've killed?

Well, I'm gonna stick with 360
right now until I'm definitely sure of it.

But I know it's gonna be
way higher than that.

♪ These are tales of Texas Rangers ♪

♪ A band of sturdy men ♪

♪ Always on the side of justice ♪

[Vic] I would describe the Rangers

as American as baseball and apple pie.

And they were just...
They were everybody's hero.

They were my hero.

[narrator] Since 1835,
these men have captured thieves,

forgers, cattle rustlers, and murderers.

Riding along...

[Bob] Texas Rangers are part
of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

When I'd get new Rangers in, I'd tell 'em,

"There's probably not anything you can do
to enhance the reputation of the Rangers,

and don't do anything to tarnish
the reputation of the Rangers.

"You're a Ranger 24 hours a day."

♪ To enforce the law for you ♪

[Vic] And they were always the good guys,
you know?

I wa... I wanted to be
one of the good guys, too.

I thought I might can be a ranger someday.

I grew up the son of a Baptist preacher,

and I was ordained as a minister
when I was 18 years old.

Later, I worked right out of high school
at the Austin Police Department.

My sergeant told me, he said,
"Feazell, get your butt in college."

And when I graduated,

I started practicing law
basically out of the trunk of my car.

[indistinct chattering]

Until I decided
to run for district attorney.

I will continue to stand
for the young people...

And I think most of the people
in this state...

[Vic] I was elected at age 32,

the youngest district attorney

in McLennan County since 100 years ago.

We ran a good office.

We had the highest felony conviction rate
in the state of Texas

for counties over 100,000.

I eventually either wanted
to run for Governor

or United States Congress.

[Jack] Feazell was charming, charismatic,

and he was popular. He was a popular DA.

He was a Bill Clinton
before Bill Clinton.

- I don't think so.
- [Bob] Feazell was very ambitious.

Probably one of the most dangerous places
in town

would be between him and a...
and a TV camera.

[indistinct chattering]

[Vic] I would see on TV

Texas DAs with Henry Lucas
pleading guilty to cases.

And, uh, I wanted my photo-op. I did.

It was good publicity
for a district attorney

that wanted to get reelected.

[indistinct chattering]

The Rangers had Henry ready
to come to Waco and plead guilty

to three crimes in McLennan County.

But I had suspicions
about Henry's confessions.

The confessions sounded funny to me.

Then I started looking behind the curtain.

When we typed in "Henry Lee Lucas"

into the computer
for the national criminal records...

Someone did not want
other law-enforcement people

to know where Henry was

on certain dates.

It was a wake-up call.

[Hugh] I think that Feazell
was willing to put himself on the line,

like few other district attorneys

would have done at that time.

And I admired that.

And I told him I'd help him
any way I could.

[Vic] When Hugh Aynesworth
sat down with us

and showed us
what he was going to publish,

and started laying out these dates
and these murders side by side...

I realized that this whole situation
was bigger

than I ever thought it was.

[Hugh] There was a great bit
of anticipation

about the articles from the editors.

Texas Rangers were renowned
and adored by many people.

We knew that we were taking that on.

The editors once or twice
over those months said,

"Are you sure?"

[Vic] When Hugh Aynesworth's article
came out,

man, did it make a splash.

That started the fire. It really did.

My lieutenant called me,

and he said,
"Have you seen the morning paper?"

And I said, "No, I have not."

"Well, go out and get it."

There's a huge front-page story.

The Rangers were upset
because it cast criticism on them.

But everybody
in the Dallas Police Department was elated

that we had done what we had done.

Hugh Aynesworth
is reporting his investigation

to raise questions
about Lucas's confessions.

We found scores of cases
where, physically,

uh, Mr. Lucas
just could not have been there.

We got a hold of some of the confessions

and they're the most ludicrous things
you could imagine.

If all this, uh, is true, uh,

he could not have been
in these places, uh,

some 197 cases were closed
that should still be open.

Murderers still in the street,
families, uh...

uh, looking on bewildered
as to what's going on.

It really is a bizarre situation.

[Linda] Word got out
that we made a bogus Dallas case

that he had confessed to.

I'm sure the Texas Rangers
did not like me,

and I... I don't like to speak badly
of brother officers,

I just don't,

but... but some...

but some detectives or... or investigators

try so hard for something to happen

and they want so hard
for something to happen,

that they can't see the forest
for the trees.

[reporter] Sheriff Boutwell
and the Rangers

say Aynesworth got his facts wrong.

Well, the information that Aynesworth has
is probably old,

inaccurate, incomplete information.

Uh, some of these murders
that have been confirmed

uh, might show
within the month in question.

Actually, that was the month
that the body was discovered,

but the murder may have happened
months and months earlier.

You know, no one likes
to have their name and...

agency smeared,

and that's what Aynesworth
obviously was trying to do.

Aynesworth had taken advantage
of Boutwell's kindness,

let him come in and interview Lucas
and have access to him, and then...

then him...

turn on us, uh,

and show that he was
very, very anti-law enforcement and, uh...

uh, tried to show us in the worst light.

[reporter] Today in Austin,
the state's Director of Public Safety

denied reports that his office has bungled
the case of the confessed murderer.

And I feel very comfortable
and very confident

in the fact
that the task force has operated

within the charter
it was originally given.

[reporter 2] He said
that in more than 100 cases,

Lucas led officers to the scene
without any guidance from them.

What I haven't seen is,
I haven't seen any wholesale

conspiracy to just write off
a bunch of killings

as having been, uh, committed,
uh, by Lucas.

[Vic] I had decided, uh, the best way
to get to the bottom of this

was to impanel a grand jury
specifically for Henry Lee Lucas,

and let us figure out how it was

that he had confessed
to three cases in our county,

that, to us, obviously,

he had not done.

We got a warrant
to take Henry away from the Rangers

and to bring him to our jurisdiction

to testify before our grand jury.

[siren wailing]

And our sheriff drove to Georgetown
to get Henry and bring him back.

[siren wailing]

It was like an old Texas standoff there
for a while.

[indistinct chattering]

[Vic] They weren't gonna let him go.

Yes, that was a big...

major upset.

I was having a Bible study,

and the jailer came up and said,

"Sister Clemmie,
they are taking Henry to Waco."

Sheriff Boutwell said, "Who ever heard

of an investigator from Waco, Texas

coming and taking my prisoner away?

Who gave him that power?"

[Mike] I definitely saw frustration

on the part of Boutwell
and the task force.

[stammers] I think they all believed

that they were involved
in something extraordinary.

[engine turns over]

I think Feazell's goal was to...

demolish the task force.

[Clemmie] Sheriff Boutwell said to me,

"Vic will wish he never heard
the name Henry Lee Lucas."

And so, the war was on.

[Nan] After Clemmie had seen Henry
in the Waco jail,

she called me
and she was very, very upset.

She thought he was suicidal.

Uh, he was speaking in a monotone,
he was very confused.

She kept saying he's...

"He ate a sandwich with tomatoes,
and he hates tomatoes.

Something is really wrong."

And he was crying, and I saw him,

and I started crying.

He kept repeating things like,

um...

"I thought I killed people,

but maybe I didn't. Did I?"

Clemmie was telling me that...

Vic Feazell was keeping Henry
for hours at a time

and quoting scripture to him,

and was telling him that this was
the most important moment in his life,

and that God was telling him

he needed to make this transition
and finally tell the truth.

- [camera shutters clicking]
- [indistinct chattering]

[Vic] The atmosphere around the courthouse
was like a circus.

There were cameras everywhere,
media people everywhere.

[reporter] A special grand jury
met in Waco, Texas today

to hear the story
of a self-described mass murderer.

The question they want answered:
Is he really?

[reporter 2] When Henry Lee Lucas
walked into his first session

with the McLennan County grand jury,

he started
officially telling a different story

than he has been telling
over the past two years.

[indistinct chattering]

[camera shutters clicking]

My client, Henry Lee Lucas,
now would like to make a statement.

Henry.

Yes, I'd like to state
that I haven't done these crimes.

[reporter] Lucas, the most publicized
convict alive,

said officers in Texas
and across the country

made it easy for him to confess
by feeding him information.

Those are people
that wanted cases cleared,

and they'll show you pictures
of that crime,

they'll take and give you
all the information of the crime,

and all you have to do is stand there
and say, "Yeah, I did it,"

and they've been cleared that way.

This is what...
This is what's got to stop.

[reporter] After saying you committed
so many murders,

what made you decide to say
you didn't commit them?

Well, when you see the hurt
that you're causing to people

by accepting these crimes...

And all these crimes,
somebody had to kill these people.

That's leaving murderers
out there on the street.

And I can't... I just can't do that.

Henry Lee Lucas now admits
he's not just a killer, he's also a liar.

[newscaster] He has confessed
to more than 600 killings.

Now, he says
those confessions were a hoax.

Henry Lee Lucas now says he did not kill
hundreds of people, only his mother.

[reporter] Instead, he says
law enforcement officers

helped him confess to unsolved murders.

As the testimony went on,
Attorney General Mattox indicated

Lucas has been giving information
to the grand jury

that placed the confessed killer
thousands of miles away

from the scenes of crimes
police have attributed to him.

[Vic] Attorney General Mattox got mad.

I mean, Mattox hit the roof.

He put the power of his organization
behind our grand jury.

[reporter] Does this concern you, uh,
as far as, uh,

law enforcement officials
overanxious to believe this man?

Uh, I would hope that there's been
no inappropriate activity,

but... but we don't know yet.

Our purpose is not, here,
to investigate the task force.

Our purpose is to try to determine

whether or not, uh, Henry Lucas

committed some of these crimes
here in McLennan County.

[reporter] But the Rangers say...

All right, Mr. Lucas,

as you say,
over the last two years, you have...

said that you committed some 600 murders.

I have...

been admitting to crimes
that I haven't committed.

Police say that you drew detailed sketches

of the people
you were supposed to have murdered,

and you took them to locations.

Is this true?

I di... I have never
took anybody to locations.

They have took me to locations.

I don't drive the car
and I don't tell 'em which way to go.

If Lucas would kill his own mother,
I think it...

is not a surprise that he'd lie to you.

It didn't... It didn't surprise me one bit
that he would recant.

That's about the only normal thing
I saw him do.

He just wanted to please.

He wanted to please law enforcement,

and he thought taking all these cases
would make him a friend.

And then, when they got Henry away
from law enforcement,

then he...
I mean, he flipped just like that. He...

Like I say, he...
He's gonna dance with whoever brought him.

[reporter] The Texas Rangers
have not taken kindly

to recent allegations
that they did some sloppy police work.

The task force has nothing
to apologize or be...

uh, to be embarrassed about.

I do feel very definite, without a doubt,

that he is involved
in an extremely large number of homicides.

From the very beginning,
he's furnished, uh,

reliable and unreliable information.

Uh, the one thing that, uh,
the task force feels comfortable with,

uh, is the fact that, uh...

uh, any statement he may now be making

that he only killed three people...

That assertion is just patently false.

I think he's... he's being responsive
to our questions.

He is. He's being cooperative.

- [man] In terms...
- [man 2] Is he being truthful?

You'll have to ask the good lord
that question.

Well, you have been quoted as saying
that as long as you kept confessing,

you wouldn't be sent to the penitentiary
to be executed.

Did someone tell you that?

I've been told that by the Rangers,
I've been told that by the sheriff.

Bob Prince always said to me,

before this even happened,

that there would come a day
when Henry would decide he didn't...

didn't want to do this anymore
and he would change his mind.

And the reason he would do that was

because he would realize
that he was gonna have to be put to death.

Uh, maybe, uh, he's beginning to see
that, uh...

the pace is picking up a little bit
down in Huntsville

on... on executions.

[reporter] Authorities in California
have doubts about murders

Lucas claims to have committed there.

[reporter 2] Arlington police say
they are going to re-examine

two cases Lucas confessed to last year.

[reporter 3] District Attorney Darnell
is asking a judge

to dismiss the Lubbock cases
against Lucas.

We do not feel
that we have sufficient evidence

to prove that he was responsible
for the death of Debra Sue Williamson.

[Joyce] Lubbock PD said

that they had reopened her case

and were working on it.

We went to Waco to the grand jury.

It felt good to be able to tell our story

and not be ridiculed for it.

And it was very encouraging

to hear Henry tell his story,

that he did not have anything to do
with Debbie's murder.

Well, I didn't have a hard time
finding her house.

Why not?

Because he took me right to it. [chuckles]

And I says, uh, "There was a car parked
in the carport at the time,"

which the picture shows the body
laying there beside the car, you know?

- [man] So they showed you photographs?
- Yeah. And so...

[man] This is before you actually
had confirmed anything,

they showed you photographs?

Yeah. I'd already seen photographs,
you know.

And plus, they was sitting at the house,
they're showing me photographs too.

[reporter] The special grand jury
convened Thursday

at McLennan County Courthouse in Waco.

[reporter 2] What was supposed to be
an inquiry

into whether Henry Lee Lucas
killed two people near Waco

has turned into an investigation
of how those confessions were obtained.

[Vic] Henry started telling us
that it was the Rangers

that had let him look at photographs,

let him read the police reports.

Boutwell and Prince
testified before the grand jury.

They just stuck to the company line,
that Henry really was a mass murderer,

and you might find a few
that he didn't commit,

but that's not our fault.

[indistinct chattering]

[reporter] Now that special Texas Ranger
task force has come under fire,

specifically by McLennan County
District Attorney Vic Feazell,

who said the team
may have acted improperly

in eliciting what may be false confessions
from Lucas.

Uh, they don't seem to be concerned
at this point in time

with whether or not
he's confessed to crimes he didn't commit.

[Vic] Whoa.

That statement kind of sealed my fate
that they would never quit hounding me.

Vic Feazell didn't seem
to be bothered about,

in effect, coming out
against law enforcement,

which is not generally something
that a district attorney usually does.

The DA had an axe to grind
with the Rangers,

and I believe that

the sole purpose of that
was to give the Rangers a black eye.

[Bob] Feazell was stating
they were looking into the unethical

conduct of the... the task force.

That we were intentionally feeding
Lucas information.

I think that puts him on a...

uh, the same level, in my view, than...

a lot of people I put in penitentiary
for different crimes.

[Vic] I had no choice

but to go against that thin blue line.

I had no choice but to...

violate the law enforcement brotherhood.

It just wasn't right
what was going on with Henry.

I couldn't let it go.

I went to visit Colonel Jim Adams,

head of the DPS,
head of the Texas Rangers.

And I told him, I said, "If you'll just..."

Fix this, just tell me
you'll make an effort to fix this,

"I'll back off."

Jim Adams looked at me,

and he said,
"We're not reopening a single Lucas case,

but I am investigating you."

[tense music plays]

[horn blares]

Right after I met with Adams,

this reporter, Charles Duncan,

showed up in Waco.

[horn blares]

[turns on TV]

Channel 8's Charles Duncan
has the first of a series of reports

on the controversial DA.

Reports of large payments made...

[Vic] He accused me of taking bribes
to dismiss DWIs.

[Charles]...cases dropped after paying
about $3,000 to lax prosecution...

[Vic] He accused me of being involved
in drug rings.

...calls the district attorney...

[Vic] He accused me
of not prosecuting people

who had assaulted police officers.

A Waco woman
told Channel 8 News she...

[Vic] He accused me of taking money
to recommend parole for people.

...it would cost us $2,000.

[Charles] Feazell said he was currently...

[Vic] Eleven episodes
over a three-month period.

[indistinct dialogue]

Charles Duncan, Channel 8 News.

[indistinct chattering]

[Vic] Just when we thought we were going
to be able to focus on the Rangers,

the plug got pulled on our grand jury.

[camera shutters clicking]

And Boutwell took Henry
back to the Georgetown jail.

"We're getting things
back to business as usual."

That's what he said to me
when he took Henry away.

And I said, "You mean get back
to having Henry confess to more murders?"

He said, "Yeah!
Get back to business as usual."

[camera shutters clicking]

Sheriff Boutwell talked very little
to me about Vic.

But every time he would say anything,

it would be with an ugly remark, like

"His day is coming."

"His time is limited."

This is it, fellas.

Did you have the feeling
that, uh, District Attorney Feazell

was trying to embarrass you
or the Rangers?

Well, I would have to say that...

while the grand jury
was proceeding in Waco,

there were some public statements made
that were critical

of the Texas Rangers.

For instance, uh...

whether the Rangers had deliberately

fed information to Lucas

in order to, uh, clear murders.

There was no basis in fact
for such statements.

[Mike] I worked directly for Jim Adams.
Reported straight to him.

Very intelligent person,

Uh, good sense of humor.

Adams had chased Russian spies,

spoke fluent Japanese,

and really helped
to modernize the Texas Rangers.

But before then,

he had been the number two
in charge of the FBI.

[reporter] This was the FBI's day
before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Associate Deputy FBI Director James Adams

conceded there had been abuses
of constitutional rights.

. Edgar Hoover
approved a wide variety of tactics,

which included break-ins, wiretaps,

dissemination of false information.

Everything that you did...

sought to silence somebody

or frighten somebody into silence.
Now someone...

[Vic] The same dirty tricks that he used
working under. Edgar Hoover,

he could now bring in his FBI buddies
and use them on me.

[reporter] Vic Feazell
and his wife, Bernie,

say there was evidence
of an illegal wiretap

at the telephone lines behind their house.

And Mrs. Feazell says
she surprised a man back there,

who ran into a drainage tunnel.

A man she recognized.

She had recognized him as one of the men

she had seen drive by the house before.

She's also... She also recognized him

because she had seen him
in my office before,

presenting cases.

He is with...

a law enforcement agency.

[Truman] I was a detective
working with Vic.

Mysterious stuff started happening.

People's phones were being tapped.

All kinds of threats going around.

And, uh...

they killed Vic's dog.

They was putting a wiretap out there
on the phone pole behind his house

and that little dog
would bark all the time.

[Vic] We had a little Sheltie.

And one day I came home from work
and I said "Where's Spanky?"

And we went outside looking for Spanky,

and Spanky was laying on his side
with his tongue out and...

We took him to the vet immediately,

and the vet said,
"This dog's been poisoned."

[Truman] Whenever he'd leave at night
to go home,

I'd follow him home.

I thought somebody was gonna kill him.

I really did.

[Vic] I started receiving threats.

- My phone ringing at night.
- [siren wails]

People saying, "We have a bullet
with your name on it."

I could not tell
who was wearing the white hats

and who was wearing the black hats.

That's how confused I was.

On both sides, they truly believed
what they were saying.

But what was the truth?

[reporter] What everyone wants to know now

is does McLennan County
have a crooked district attorney

or are the Department of Public Safety,
the FBI, and the Justice Department

trying to teach Vic Feazell a lesson?

No, I-I don't know
of no retaliation whatever.

[reporter] How did some of the Rangers

characterize their feelings
toward Feazell?

Well, I think fairly much
the same way I did.

Uh, he had interfered with, uh,

what was an ongoing
nationwide investigation.

Uh, I didn't like it then,
I don't like it now.

[reporter] Right.

[tense music plays]

[Vic] September the 17th, 1986.

I pulled into the courthouse,

and I could hear the car tires
squealing in behind me.

Back off, please. Back off.

[Vic] I was surrounded by FBI agents

reading me my rights
and putting me in handcuffs.

The FBI and Texas Department
of Public Safety officers arrested Feazell

after an Austin Federal Grand Jury

returned a 12-count indictment
against him for accepting bribes,

racketeering, and mail fraud.

[indistinct chattering]

- [Vic] They were making a show of it.
- [reporter] Mr. Feazell!

- [Vic] Making me do the perp walk.
- [reporter 2] Excuse me.

- Are you arresting Mr. Feazell?
- [Vic] Channel 8 was in on it.

They had five cameras there.

I think y'all know what's going on.

What I said all along
and I'll still be proven right.

[Gary] They wanted to intimidate him.

And, of course, they made a mistake...

by not putting his hands behind his back,
because they didn't like that picture

where he was going like this
with the handcuffs on,

you know? [chuckles]

[reporter] FBI agent Bob Vain
took Feazell up to his office,

where agents locked the doors,

evidently to prevent any disturbance
in gathering evidence.

Feazell was taken
to the federal courthouse

by the four arresting agents.

You know what happened.
I stepped on the wrong toes here.

- Where you going?
- Slide into the center.

I have no idea.

[man] Sit right in the center.

- [reporters speaking indistinctly]
- [camera shutters clicking]

[Vic] At the same time
they were arresting me,

15 agents descended on my house.

[reporter] Federal authorities
searched the Feazells' Waco home

for much of the day.

No one knows for sure what the authorities
were looking for or what they found.

They opened all our cereal boxes,

they unwrapped everything in the freezer.

They went through my wife's underwear.

I-I-I haven't even counted them all.
They're everywhere.

They're in every room. They've...

They've tagged my snail bait.

[Vic] They searched
all my little boy's toys.

That's when they took the toy syringe
out of my son's doctor kit

and labeled that narcotics paraphernalia.

- [applause]
- [reporter] A US district judge

set a $100,000
personal recognizance bond for Feazell

and released him.

[reporter 2] Are you mad, Vic?

No, I'm not mad.

I'm disappointed these people
with an axe to grind

could use the American justice system
to do something like this.

I-I've never seen anything like it.
I believe it's retaliation.

[camera shutters clicking]

There's absolutely
no relationship whatsoever

between the Lucas investigation

and our initiation of this investigation.

The indictment speaks for itself

in alleging
that he's operated his office, uh,

in the manner of a criminal enterprise.

That's the indictment speaking, not me.

[Vic] I was looking at 80 years in prison.

People I had sent to prison for murder

would have been out before me.

[reporter] The stage is set in Austin,
where the whole story

of Feazell's tenure in office
should finally unfold.

[reporter 2] Feazell has said
the indictment was retaliation

following his grand jury investigation

which questioned confessions
by convicted murderer Henry Lee Lucas,

and that will be the core of his defense.

[reporter 3] During pre-trial hearings,
US District Judge James Allen

said he found no connection
between the Lucas investigation

and the federal investigation of Feazell.

[Gary] Judge told me,
"I don't want to hear the name Henry Lucas

one time during this trial.
Do you understand me?"

And I said, "Yes, sir, I understand you."

I brought up Henry
in my opening statement.

[laughs]

[reporter] During opening arguments today,
prosecutor Jack Frels told the court

it would see an unsavory side
of the legal system.

The whole centerpiece of the case
is the... is the bribery racketeering,

taking money to, uh...
to favorably handle cases.

It was alleged
that Feazell was soliciting those bribes

through just a very small group of lawyers
that he trusted.

[reporter] Attorney Dick Clark testified
that he paid District Attorney Vic Feazell

several thousand dollars

in exchange for favorable handling
of several DWI cases.

[reporter 2] The Waco attorney Ron Voutti
testified he gave Feazell

more than $9,000 in cash.

[reporter 3] The attorneys
Dick Kettler and Don Hall

have been described
as being inside the inner circle of greed

that revolved around Vic Feazell.

[reporter 4] Prosecutor Jack Frels asked,

"Did you make a record of money paid
to Mr. Feazell?"

[Jack] Don Hall testified
that he kept copies of the envelopes

that marked the date and the amount

provided to Vic Feazell.

[Vic] They pressured those men.

"You're gonna give us something
on Vic Feazell

or we're gonna go after your taxes.
We'll go after you."

[reporter] Feazell says that you're lying
to get out of tax trouble.

[lawyer] He's not gonna say anything
right now. We need to finish this trial.

Please let us go on with our business.

We're not gonna handle press conferences
like Gary Richardson

and... and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker
and all that business.

[Guy] The pressure was incredible.

The feds were trying to bring in
every lawyer in this town

to roll over on the district attorney.

I mean, I-I was... I was terrified.

I was afraid I was gonna be indicted.

They had me staring at two FBI agents
and an IRS agent threatening me.

Feazell never asked me for any money.

The investigators didn't appear to care.

[stammering] The investigators and I
were confident,

but we knew there were some challenges.

I would think, "Okay,
if it's between Feazell's personality",

his charisma, his charm, and me,

"I'm gonna get my rear end whipped."

[Vic] The trial lasted five weeks.

They called 65 or 70 witnesses.

And then the government rested.

[reporter] The jury
in Feazell's racketeering trial

deliberated about six hours

before returning the verdict.

[indistinct chattering]

[newscaster] Vic Feazell was found
not guilty by a federal jury in Austin

of charges he accepted bribes
from Waco attorneys.

The smoke has cleared,
the dust has settled,

and I'm still standing,
and I'm going back to Waco.

[cheering and applause]

[reporter] Prosecutor Jack Frels said
he was surprised by the verdict.

This is a failure,

and I'm gonna have to live with it,
and, uh... and go on.

[camera shutters clicking]

Vic Feazell was correct.

There were some real flaws,

as everybody now knows,
in the Henry Lee Lucas investigation.

But the theme of their defense,
that it was for revenge,

that's completely false.

[reporter] Has this, uh, damaged
your political career at all, do you feel?

I don't know if I want a political career.

We'll wait and see later on down the line.

[applause]

- Remember this?
- [laughter]

- Well, now it's all right.
- All right!

[laughter]

[birds chirping]

[Bob] After Lucas recanted,

and we told him we want to go ahead
and continue with the task force,

he said, "Well we can, but, you know,
I really didn't kill anybody."

And I said,
"Well, no use to us continuing then."

You know, he... he's not gonna talk
to the officers

that are coming to see him,

so, after that, he was taken on
to the penitentiary.

Lucas had 11 homicide convictions,

a 60-year term,

two 75-year terms,
the rest were life terms,

and, um, one death sentence.

[Henry] I'm not a mass murderer.

I did not kill the people
that they say I killed.

And no matter when or if I die,

you know,

I somehow will prove it to the public.

You know, I might say
I wouldn't do it from the grave,

but I'm gonna do it.

[Vic] I wanted to sue the Rangers.

I wanted to sue the FBI.

But when I did my research, I realized
they all had governmental immunity.

The only ones I could really sue
were Charles Duncan and Channel 8

for libel.

In my criminal case,
I had no access to their files,

to their documents,
to what they had been up to,

but after I was found not guilty
and we started the civil case,

we got to issue subpoenas.

We took depositions.

We did Freedom of Information requests.

We got a massive amount of video
from Channel 8.

And then we were able to connect the dots.

It all started when we got Henry away
from the task force.

That night, they had a meeting
in Boutwell's office.

Present was the assistant US attorney,

an FBI agent,

and DPS officer Ron Boyter,

Jim Adams' right-hand man.

A few weeks later at the Ramada Inn,

Boyter met with Charles Duncan
from Channel 8.

He gave Duncan
the stack of allegations against me,

which later became the basis
for Duncan's episodes.

Because the district attorney...

[Gary] I had Charles Duncan
on the stand for 11 days.

What we learned was that Ron Boyter
fed him all this information

about Vic that wasn't true.

[Vic] Then Boyter plays Duncan's episodes

to a federal grand jury.

They heard no witnesses,
they saw no documents.

All they did was watch
the Channel 8 reports,

and they indicted me
based only on those tapes.

I was looking at 80 years.

[tense music plays]

Who would have had the power
to orchestrate that

with Channel 8?

Who would have had the power

to have the IRS start investigating
every criminal defense lawyer in town?

Jim Adams,

head of the Texas Rangers.

We proved Charles Duncan and Channel 8

had lied, lied, lied, lied...

and had done it with malice.

Jury brought in
a 58-million-dollar verdict.

It was the largest in US history
for a libel case.

[Gary] And it's
in The Guinness Book of Records.

[Vic] My political career was over.

I didn't want any part of it.

And I resigned before the end of my term.

There are still people that say,
"Oh, well, he just had a good lawyer."

Or, "He's a good liar."

It totally destroyed the world I lived in.

My marriage ended in divorce

and my little boys had...

had a lot of trouble after that.

It wasn't right.

People still thought I was a crook.

They still thought
Henry Lucas was a serial killer.

And then something happened

that made me believe

I was gonna be able to turn it all around.

[camera shutters clicking]

Well, I was shocked
to find out I was dead.

Becky Powell,

his girlfriend who he'd supposedly killed,

and here she was,

back from the dead.

He did not cut me up...

and throw me...
throw my body parts everywhere.