Late in April 1985, a visiting minister walked out of the McLennan County jail in Waco carrying four pages of cursive in Henry Lee Lucas's hand and gave them to Sister Clemmie Schroeder. She was a lay sister who had befriended him the year before in the Williamson County jail at Georgetown, where the Texas Rangers' Lucas Task Force kept him in a carpeted cell with a color television and scheduled his meetings with the police officers who came from across the country to have him clear their unsolved murders. By then he had confessed to hundreds of killings, and in one sentence of this letter he still calls himself the world's worst killer.
That month the Dallas Times Herald published Hugh Aynesworth's investigation showing that Lucas could not have been where most of the murders he confessed to took place, and called the case a possible hoax. On April 17, Lucas testified before a McLennan County grand jury called by District Attorney Vic Feazell and Attorney General Jim Mattox, and he told reporters he had killed no one but his mother. In this letter he repeats that, then writes that he did kill some people, that he has accepted some cases that were not his, and that a cult he calls the Hands of Death is forcing him to say whatever it wants. In the middle he addresses a message to Sheriff Jim Boutwell of Williamson County.
Lucas was convicted of eleven murders. The only one that carried a death sentence was the killing of an unidentified young woman known as Orange Socks, and in 1998 Governor George W. Bush commuted it to life because the evidence suggested Lucas had been in Florida when she died. He died in prison in 2001. Most of the confessions he made to the task force are now regarded as false, and this letter is the record of him saying so, and not saying so, in his own hand.
This is a private letter, not a statement to police and not a confession. It is undated. A note written sideways in the left margin of the first page, in another hand, says it was carried out of the jail on April 29, 1985, by a reverend whose surname cannot be read, and each page carries the same initials and the date April 30, 1985, which look like the marks of whoever received it. Bob and Clayton appear to be officers on the task force whose surnames the letter does not give, and the surname read here as Games has not been matched to anyone in the record.
Nothing in the letter should be read as fact about any killing. Lucas contradicts himself within a single page, as he did throughout his life: he says he has killed no one but his mother, and three paragraphs later that he told her on his first day that he had killed some people. The Hands of Death is his name for a murder cult whose existence no investigation ever established. What the letter shows is what he was telling someone he trusted during the weeks the task force's case was falling apart.
The letter is part of the case papers of Captain Bob Prince, the Texas Ranger who led the task force, which he later gave to a researcher; a scan of all four pages is on the Internet Archive in the item "Henry Lee Lucas case docs from Bob Prince." It is reproduced here as a record from a Texas law enforcement file. Lucas died in 2001, and Sister Clemmie Schroeder is named because the letter is addressed to her and her part in the case was public.
No machine could read this handwriting, so every word was read off the page images by eye and typed. Lucas's spelling, capitals and punctuation are kept exactly: "haft", "lyer", "sholder", "mebly", "beleve" and "excepted" for accepted are his. A [?] marks a word that could be read another way, among them tryed, feal and Games. The first line of page two is cut off at the top of the scan and cannot be recovered, and where a word runs off the right edge of a page the missing letters are supplied in square brackets, as in powe[r] and mou[th]. The drawings on the last page are described in brackets, and the writing inside one of the two hearts is too faint to read and has not been guessed at. Anyone who needs a particular word to be right should check it against the scan.
Page 1
Dear Clemmiee,
Just wanted you to know that I do care more than just words about you I love you, and with out being honest with you I feel that hurt worse and worse, all my life seems to be turning before me and like the past comes out and I cant fight it off. no matter what you hear here dont let any one tell you what your hart knows is right because I cannot stop these people I haft to do like they want me to do I have been telling you this all alone but for some reason I cant seem to get through, You know when I wanted to tell them on the first TV program before I could finish they get me to say what they wanted
I'm here and have no one that I can get help from, I have even tryed[?] to make Jim and the Rangers mad at me, by telling that they gave me the Information to get them to fight but instead Bob and Clayton turns their backs and Runs. when I was in Georgetown they stood up. But since I come up here they get their Capt, to say I am only a lyer that made me feal[?] that they have betrayed me, so I went on the TV and told that I haven't killed any body except my mother, how else am
Page 2
[THE FIRST LINE OF THIS PAGE IS CUT OFF AT THE TOP EDGE OF THE SCAN. Only these fragments can be made out: "...need to ... this out I cant". The remainder of that line is not recoverable from this image.]
with out makeing it so I cant see and visit you, which means my life not to see you, when they take you away fm me how can I live my love for you is all that I want to live for, God has been my sholder so far, and I need you when you are sad and get sick with the hurt they are causing then I want better for you. Will you please under stand me, I have no choise as long as I am here but to do as they want, I cant say in words what I want because they have a way to listen to what I say to you, and they have the upper hand on me because ever one has turned their backs on me, mebly I have excepted som that are not mine but how can I say which ones I dont know. I told you the first day, when I come here that I did kill some people but how can I keep telling you over and over with out them finding out, all I ask is trust me and I ask Boutwell to trust me, instead of Games[?], do what he promase he would and ask Him if he wants the truth then come see me, He can com with the Lady he got from the F.B.I. to get me back in Georgetown if he will come wit Her then she will see for her self I hav
Page 3
[The first line begins mid-sentence, continuing from page 2.]
...t[?] it they arn't going to fight for the truth then why hold me turn me loose since I haven't killed any one like they say here. Will you give Jim this Message,
Jim you have been honest until lately Why are you not keeping your word to me, I told you the truth som time ago but you refuse to beleve me The Hands of death has more powe[r] than the police You cant even keep a prisner in your custody after I even gave you all the Information about all these killings You and the Rangers spent 2 years almost with the Worlds most Worst Killer and now the Hands of Death is going to Win. I cant beleve that from law inforceme[nt] Cant you beleve any thing when it's right before your eyes. I guess I did tell you they were going to shut my mou[th] one way or the other. Look around you.
Look at the facts the Rangers gave up aful quick even after I told you all th[at] this would happen, I knew but you dont want to beleve it they fixed things real good didn't they?
Your Friend
Henry Lee Lucas
Page 4
I wont fight here when I know the facts Your life and love means to much to me, to risk it not knowin who I can trust I hope you can make Jim under stand, but dont go on any TV about me because it could cost ever body, Because the Hands of death is near by I know.
You are safe as long as I do as they say, and I know they have power to do what they say, they have gave me false records ever where now and I cant stop it, rember lit on that ever thing is ok up here but always rember I love you Clemmie with all my hart.
And I will always.
Love and Kisses from me to you.
Love,
Henry
[a small drawing of a fish]
[two small hearts are drawn here, each containing writing. One appears to read "Love from always". The writing in the second is not legible and has not been guessed at.]
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO [a row of hand-drawn X and O characters running the width of the page]