A VIRGO AND A PISCES

 

The Dynamic Duo

VirgoAug 22-Sep 23 Modest and shy Meticulous and reliable Practical and diligent Intelligent and analytical   Fussy and a worrier Overcritical and harsh Perfectionist and conservative HENRY LEE LUCAS Lucas said he attacked his mother only in self-defense. He was sentenced to between 20 and 40 years’ imprisonment for second-degree murder. He was released in June 1970 due to prison overcrowding.

PiscesFeb 20-Mar 20 Imaginative and sensitive Compassionate and kind Selfless and unworldly Intuitive and sympathetic   Escapist and idealistic Secretive and vague Weak-willed and easily led OTTIS TOOLE Toole barricaded 64-year-old George Sonnenberg in a boarding in Jacksonville. Toole set the house on fire. Sonnenberg died a week later.

 

In 1976, Ottis Toole met Henry Lee Lucas at a Jacksonville soup kitchen, and they soon developed a sexual relationship. Toole later claimed to have accompanied Lucas in 108 murders, sometimes at the behest of a cult called “The Hands of Death”.

In April 1983, Toole was arrested for an arson incident in Jacksonville. For that crime, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. While in custody, Toole confessed to killing George Sonneberg. Toole signed a confession stating that he and Sonnenberg had begun a sexual relationship and, after the two had an argument, Toole lit Sonnenberg’s home on fire.

Two months later in June, his accomplice Henry Lee Lucas was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm. It was then Lucas began boasting about the murderous rampage orchestrated by the two. At first, Toole had denied involvement but later began backing up Lucas’s confessions. Lucas also backed Toole’s confession to the murder of  Adam Walsh. Walsh was the six year old son of  the host of  ‘America’s Most Wanted’, John Walsh. Lucas had backed Toole’s confession to the Walsh murder, claiming he had been in possession of the victim’s severed head.

Journalist Hugh Aynesworth and others investigated four articles that appeared in The Dallas Times Herald. It was calculated that Lucas would have had to use his 13-year old Ford station wagon to cover 11,000 miles in one month to have committed the crimes police attributed to him. Lucas became widely regarded as a compliant interviewee who was used by police to clear up unsolved murders that he had not been involved in, aided by Toole giving false statements in collaboration.

During Toole’s trial for murdering George Sonnenberg, Toole claimed that he did not light the home on fire and only signed the confession so he would be extradited back to Jacksonville. On April 28, 1984, a jury found Toole guilty of first degree murder and sentenced him to death. Later that year, Toole was found guilty of the February 1983 strangulation murder of a 19 year-old Tallahassee, Florida woman, and received a second death sentence; on appeal, however, both sentences were commuted to life in prison.

After his incarceration, Toole pleaded guilty to four more Jacksonville murders in 1991 and received four more life sentences.

On March 13, 2001, Lucas died in prison from heart failure at age 64. He is buried at Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery in Huntsville, Texas. Lucas’ grave is currently unmarked due to incidents of vandalism or theft

On September 15, 1996, at the age of 49, Ottis Toole died at Florida State Prison of cirrhosis of the liver. As his body went unclaimed, he was buried in the Florida State Prison Cemetery.

Data gleaned and synthesized from Wikipedia