Trial
Chikatilo stood trial in Rostov on April 14, 1992. It was necessary to keep him in an iron cage in a corner of the courtroom to protect him from attack by the many hysterical and enraged relatives of his victims. Relatives of victims regularly shouted threats and insults to Chikatilo throughout the trial, demanding that authorities release him so that they could kill him themselves. Each murder was discussed individually and, on several occasions, relatives broke down in tears when details of their relatives' murder were revealed; some even fainted.
Chikatilo regularly interrupted the trial, exposing himself, singing, and refusing to answer questions put to him by the judge. He was regularly removed from the courtroom for interrupting the proceedings. In July of 1992, Chikatilo demanded that the judge be replaced for making too many rash remarks about his guilt. His defense counsel backed the claim. The judge looked to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor backed the defense's judgment, stating that the judge had indeed made too many such remarks. The judge ruled the prosecutor be replaced instead.
Sentencing and Execution
On October 15, Chikatilo was found guilty of fifty-two of the fifty-three murders and sentenced to death for each offense. Chikatilo kicked his bench across his cage when he heard the verdict, and began shouting abuse. He was offered a final chance to make a speech in response to the verdict, but remained silent. Upon passing final sentence, Judge Leonid Akhobzyanov made the following speech: “Taking into consideration the monstrous crimes he committed, this court has no alternative but to impose the only sentence that he deserves. I therefore sentence him to death.”
On January 4, 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin refused a final appeal for clemency for Chikatilo, and ten days later he was taken to a soundproofed room in a Novocherkassk prison and executed with a single gunshot behind the right ear.
Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas
Ottis Toole (left) – The Devil’s Child Killer (Victims 766)
Henry Lee Lucas (right) – The Confession Killer (Victims 766)
Background
Ottis Toole was born on March 5, 1947 in Jacksonville, Florida. As a child, he was a victim of sexual assault, molested by family and friends according to him. He claimed that his grandmother was a Satanist who exposed him to rituals, self-mutilation, and grave robbing, and called him the “Devil’s Child.” Now, before I begin, let me just say that this murderous duo was either composed of the two biggest exaggerators in history, or the worst serial killers the world has ever seen, with killings in the hundreds between them.
I would assume that all serial killers have some kind of mental illness. As for Toole, he was diagnosed with mild retardation: an IQ of only 75, dyslexia, illiteracy, ADHD, epilepsy, and he also suffered from grand mal seizures. Ottis Toole fits the classical marks in the making of a serial killer: he was a bed-wetter, an animal killer, an arsonist, got sexually excited by fire, and all this before he was a teenager. By the time he was thirteen years old he’d dropped out of school and was working as a male prostitute in drag. At a soup kitchen in 1976, Toole met Henry Lee Lucas and the two began a sexual relationship. They later claimed that while they were together they committed 108 murders with a cult called ‘The Hands of Death.’
Henry Lee Lucas was born on August 23, 1936 in Blacksburg, Virginia, to an alcoholic father and an alcoholic/prostitute mother. Lucas is considered by law enforcement to be the worst serial killer in American history. His mother would often beat, abuse, and ignore him. When he was ten years old, he and his brother got into a fight and his brother stabbed him in the eye; his mother did not bother getting it treated and he ended up losing his sight in that eye. Henry Lucas dropped out of elementary school in the 6 grade, ran away from home, and drifted around the state of Virginia. Lucas maintained that in the beginning, when he left home, he practiced bestiality and Zoosadism, and began committing minor thefts and burglaries around the state, for which he spent five years in prison: 1954 to 1959. In January of 1960, he got into a fight with his mother and stabbed her to death. He went to prison for another ten years and was released in 1970 as the prison was overcrowded. He drifted around the southern states working menial jobs and met Ottis Toole in 1976. They formed what they called the ‘homosexual crime team,’ and began a cross-country murder bender which left at least 108 people dead in their wake.
Arrest
Ottis Toole was arrested in April, 1983 in Jacksonville, for burning down a church, and given a fifteen-year sentence. Two months later, in June, his partner in crime, Henry Lee Lucas, was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm. It was then that Lucas began boasting about the murderous storm orchestrated by the two of them. Initially, Toole denied any involvement, but later began backing up Lucas's confessions.
A task force was established in June of 1983 called ‘The Lucas Task Force.’ Police had to verify scores of killings that Lucas had admitted to committing which had been previously thought to be unconnected. In one case, a woman had even been denied a large insurance settlement after her husband’s death had been ruled a suicide, but once Lucas admitted to the killing of her husband – and could prove it – the insurance company paid her a settlement. The task force, including the Texas Rangers, was shocked at the number of names and files that were being collected and investigated. Lucas knew details in the files that only the killer would know. In another prison, Toole was spilling the same details, and more of his own individual crimes. In 1985, Toole and Lucas enjoyed a more laidback imprisonment, living in virtual comfort, purportedly receiving private meals and special accommodations in their prison cells because they were helping authorities close hundreds of cold cases. The police took them to various states, visiting the old crime scenes and burial sites of their many victims, all while enjoying a bit of sight-seeing, being outside their cells.
Sentencing and Death
Toole was sentenced to six life sentences and he died on September 15, 1996, at the age of forty-nine in his prison cell from liver failure. Nobody claimed his body and he was buried in a prison cemetery. Lucas also was sentenced to life so that authorities could try to gain more information about past crimes. Lucas died in prison from heart failure at age sixty-four on March 13, 2001.
Case Closed? Not quite.
Adam Walsh
Young Adam Walsh was only six years old, an innocent little boy, when taken from this world by a monster on July 27, 1981. It would be twenty-seven years before his mom and dad would know who killed him. On December 16, 2008, police announced that Ottis Toole killed little Adam. Because of his son’s murder, John Walsh became a campaigner for victim’s rights and assisted in forming the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Mr. Walsh became host of the FOX-TV program, America’s Most Wanted. On July 25, 2006, President George W. Bush signed into law the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. This act instituted a national database of convicted child molesters and sex offenders, and increased stiffer penalties for violence against children. In Adam’s memory, a program is in place for lost children in department stores known as, Code Adam.