In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
You know that movie Henry? He beat his mother to death and hacked people -- including his girl, and his best friend -- to bits and packed them into suitcases and left them on the side of the road. That film was based on the exploits of Henry Lee Lucas, whose death sentence was commuted by -- you guessed it -- George W. Bush. The only convicted felon on death row who ever got a pardon during Bush's whole tenure as Governor of Texas was Henry, who might have been the most prolific serial killer in American history. No joke. Highlights from his obituary, from the New York Times:
Henry Lee Lucas, 64, Murderer Who Said He Killed Hundreds
HUNTSVILLE, Tex., March 14 -- Henry Lee Lucas, the convicted killer who 18 years ago confessed to hundreds of unsolved murders and then recanted, died in prison on Monday. He was 64.
The cause was apparently a heart attack, said a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Larry Fitzgerald. He said Mr. Lucas had been taken to the infirmary after complaining of chest pains.
Mr. Lucas was the only man spared from a Texas death sentence by George W. Bush during Mr. Bush's tenure as governor. He was condemned to die for the killing of an unidentified woman whose body was found in a ditch in 1979. The victim became known as Orange Socks because that was all she was wearing.
No witnesses or physical evidence linked Mr. Lucas to the crime, but he confessed to it four times. Later he said he had lied, and work records and a cashed paycheck indicated that he might have been in Florida at the time of the crime.
Mr. Bush agreed that there were questions about the conviction and commuted the sentence to life in prison just four days before Mr. Lucas was set to receive a lethal injection in 1998. During Mr. Bush's six years as governor, 152 people were executed in Texas.
Before being sent to prison in Texas, Mr. Lucas served 15 years in Michigan for beating his mother to death.
After his arrest in 1983, he claimed to have killed as many as 600 people around the country, and detectives from 40 states talked to him about an estimated 3,000 homicides.
In 1999, Mr. Lucas became fascinated by the case of Angel Maturino Resendiz, a drifter known as the Railroad Killer who was linked to at least eight murders in Texas, Kentucky and Illinois.
''If this was 1983, I'd claim these murders, too,'' Mr. Lucas told The Houston Chronicle. ''I made the police look stupid. I was out to wreck Texas law enforcement.''
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
- Michael 10:58 AM - [PermaLink] -
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