INTERVIEW WITH MAX CALL: AUTHOR OF THE HAND OF DEATH

Transcribed BY SKYE ANDREWS

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(Interviewer) I mainly just start out asking about Henry Lee Lucas and if we get off on a tangent that’s fine but we will use that as a starting point, talk about his involvement with cults and how wide spread it is and the Hand of Death in particular.

How did you first get involved with Henry Lee Lucas case?

(Max Call) I’ve been involved with news stories going on over a period of months about this man who was crazy enough to admit he had killed an awful lot of people. I followed his trial when he was convicted of murdering his child bride Becky in the newspapers. He was just in the back of my mind, I was aware of it that’s all and then after he had been transferred down to Georgetown and being held in jail down there and being tried for the Orange Socks murder. I got a phone call one night from a member of this parish here, The Church of Resurrection from a lady who is the wife of a Professor at SMU and she asked me if I would be interested in writing the life story of Henry Lee Lucas and I said well not really and I asked her why she said well her sister was ministering to him while he was in jail in Georgetown and Henry wants to tell his story and wants to get it out where people will see it and get the whole story because the authorities are not allowing it out. Well that quickened my interest and I said well let me think about it and she said are you going to be home in the next 15 minutes and I said yes well I will have my sister call you. While I was waiting for her sister Clemmie to call me I talked it over with my wife and Murney said I think you should hear her out and see what she says. So when Sister Clemmie called she explained that Henry had met the Lord Jesus in his cell up in Stoneburg in the jail up there and he had been told he promised the Lord he would confess and he would identify all the people he had murdered and he wants the whole story out and Clemmie talked to me and she convinced me that I should drive down to Georgetown and meet Henry and hear what Henry had to say. So the following weekend Murney my wife, Murney and I drove down to Georgetown and I met Henry and that’s how I got involved and when I heard Henrys story how he had described how Jesus had appeared to him in that jail cell I decided well let’s hear the whole thing so over a period of a year and putting together some 40-60 hours of taped conversation with Henry I pulled together the story that is in the book.

(Interviewer) And you were convinced that his conversion to Christianity was legitimate

(Max Call) Yes

(Interviewer) And your book is based entirely on the interviews with Henry was there any outside support from anybody of the college or other news accounts. Has anyone else in the cult ever been caught?

(Max Call) Oh, yes, yes others have been caught, there weren’t identified in The Hand of Death they have done everything but that and I think the reason is Henry identified it and as a result of them knowing he was making this identification they tried to kill him three times while he was incarcerated and failed and they failed primarily because the Sheriff kept him isolated in a double cell, he couldn’t be reached and every place he went a Texas Ranger went with him and they were armed and I mean every place he went, so they simply couldn’t get to him to kill him, they tried three times.

(Interviewer) How did he find out they had tried?

(Max Call) well they tried number 1 to poison him and didn’t work cause he was having stomach trouble and didn’t eat the food that night and Sister Clemmie had to bring him food from the outside cause he couldn’t get the food his stomach would accept in jail, they didn’t know that. They tried to shoot him because his cell was faced on the side of the jail in Georgetown and there was a window across a very narrow isle there was a window that let sunlight into his cell, they shot through the window and they had a man who was arrested and incarcerated there until pending trial in the Georgetown jail and he tried to when he was given exercise time he tried to get to Henry to kill him and couldn’t

(Interviewer) So he had himself incarcerated just so he could do that

(Max Call) Yep, so Henry tried all this, they tried all this on Henry but I think that why a lot of these people involved in it weren’t identified. It was ideal that The Hand is still a viable, ongoing organisation and it’s a satanic religion, it’s a church

(Interviewer) From what information Henry gave you any kind of outside verification can pinpoint any kind of head quarters

(Max Call) Henry identified where the training camp was and that was in the Everglades, Florida. He notified the FBI of it the FBI did an over fly and flew over the area looking for the signs of the camp, Henry told them why they couldn’t spot it from the air but they would not go into the Everglades in the airboats and find it, they wouldn’t take the time to do it, I personally think they did and they found traces of where the camp had been but it had been moved because it was a portable camp, I think they had found traces of where the camp had been but it had been moved and for various reasons for which I will never understand they didn’t want to admit that such an organisation existed, this was the authorities. Henry told me that they had explained to him that he should not say anything about the Hand of Death because it would create riots among the people to know that there were 2000 adherents to this religion walking the streets of this country, killing at will. You have to understand that in the satanic church, when you become a Satanist you admit that you are already dead, as far as the world is concerned you are already dead, they cannot do anything to you therefore you can do whatever you want if they kill you all they are doing is taking nothing because you are already dead and it takes that kind of faith to believe that in order to do the things they demand you do.

Faith is a very funny thing it takes precisely the same amount of faith to believe something for it to believe in Jesus as it would to believe in Satan, takes the same measure of faith; it takes the same measure of faith to be an Agnostic as it does to be a priest. It takes the same measure to faith to be a witch as it does to be a nun. Faith is constant we have to believe in something before we can be it and if you believe there is no God that is your faith, that’s your religion.

(Interviewer) Beyond the FBI’s initial investigation of the camp in Florida to your knowledge has there been any other follow up investigation of the cult? And along those lines why do you think that the authorities haven’t pursed it as much as maybe they should have? and why didn’t more come out in the paper about it? and why did Jim Maddox have Henry recant his confessions?

(Max Call) Henry told them you know about the ranch in Mexico, he gave them a map showing the location he told them who was in charge of it he told them what they did there he described it to fine detail, to my knowledge it was never investigated, it was never investigated well number 1 it was in another country the State Department would have to have been involved some of the confessions that Henry made involved Canadian people he had killed, Spanish people he had killed, Mexicans he had killed, assassinations he had done on orders from The Hand, this also involved the State Department, would make waves that they didn’t need and didn’t want didn’t want to acknowledge so it was much easier to say that Henry was creating a story to create sympathy for himself and a reason for the vial things he did than have no basis and all the time it did, it had a very strong basis and now he is going down to Florida to face trial for two additional murders with his homosexual partner Ottis Toole

(Interviewer) I understand that Ottis, I was also led to believe that Ottis was just doing that show to reporters and it seemed like they had given Ottis an new set of teeth and they had taken away his death sentence in order to get his testimony against him, it’s gonna be Ottis and Becky’s little brother testifying against him

(Max Call) And you know that’s interesting because our noble Attorney General here in Texas told Henry at the time he recanted all his confessions in Waco that he was going to walk on all charges except perjury and that would be reduced to time so he would walk a free man if he just recanted everything. Now obviously I think Maddox did that as a smoke screen to cover and to get publicity to drown out the coming investigation of the Waco District Attorney

(Interviewer) Vic Feazell

(Max Call) Yeah, Vic Feazell for malfeasance in office the whole thing was a stage show

(Interviewer) They would let someone that had killed hundreds of people go free just for their political…

(Max Call) They never let him go free they lied to him

(Interviewer) Oh, right

(Max Call) They told him he would if he would just recant with no intention of ever going in and retrying him on the eight convictions he already had. They simply wanted to discredit him, now think about this The Hand hadn’t been able to kill him and silence him, he was talking, he had to be shut up one way or another and one way to shut someone up when they are talking is to discredit them so no one will listen and believe. Jim Maddox and Vic Feazell did that very efficiently; they did what The Hand couldn’t do, now you can take any inference you want from that, they did what The Hand couldn’t do, so Henry recanted. I spent an hour with Henry just the day before he was sent to Huntsville to death row and Henry told me then Maddox had promised him that he would walk of all charges of all convictions. And then he told me a very interesting story about the murder of Becky, in our interviews when I ask Henry, Henry described the murder of how he killed her, and I said well Henry when you went back to the church camp what did you tell the people there, why Becky wasn’t around anymore and he said I can’t remember what I told them, I was high on cocaine at the time and I can’t remember what I told them. I said well we gotta tell them something because when you went back Becky’s uncle Ottis was there and he asked about her, what did you tell him? Well I told him I had murdered her. Well what did you tell the people at the church camp who knew Becky and liked her and had converted her to Christianity, what did you tell them? He said I can’t remember. I said lets do this we need to put some reason some excuse in the book, I will put it this way that you had went back and told them that Becky had run off that you had an argument about going to Florida, which you did have and you told her you weren’t going to stay air conditioned motels on the way to Florida because you couldn’t afford it. She decided she would go to Florida on her own and she left and got a ride with a truck driver and went to Florida

(Interviewer) That’s the story I heard

(Max Call) And so Henry says yeah that’s what I think I did tell them and I said all right that what we will put in the book. Now when Maddox told Henry to recant and that we would walk on everything, Maddox got him a new attorney and everything else to defend him and to carry this out and then this attorney then informed him that they had found the truck driver that Becky left with to go to Florida and that Becky was still alive and this truck driver would come into court and testify that he took Becky away and that way you couldn’t of killed Becky, that will remove that conviction. So I ask Henry, I said hold on a minute do you mean after the entire world knows you killed Becky she couldn’t pick up a phone some place and phone and say to the District Attorney, Hey I’m Becky, Henry didn’t kill me, why wouldn’t she do that Henry? I don’t know, I said yes you do, you know why because you murdered her and her uncle cut her up and scattered the parts in that field, that’s why. And he looked down at the floor and he wouldn’t look at me after that, he wouldn’t look at me again from that point on.

(Interviewer) And you think it’s like he’s been quotes as saying that that was the death the bothered him the most was Becky

(Max Call) Yeah, that was the only one that he loved that he killed. You see I sent a copy of this book as a gift to Jim Maddox when things started to boil, Maddox read the book, he saw the excuse Henry used with Becky, not knowing it was something I had made up for him to use as an excuse and then he went to Henry and said we found the truck driver but she never left with the truck driver.

(Interviewer) Is Henry too simple minded to not be able to, has he forgotten what he has told who

(Max Call) Henry only has a fourth grade education and that’s another point the only murders that I mentioned in the book are the ones that he could clearly remember because his mind was so fogged over with the use of drugs that his memory could not be depended upon and if he couldn’t remember it and remember the details how it was done I didn’t include it in the book. Henry admits that he killed 175 women while participating in 360 murders with Ottis, now the trigger to his memory was if he was taken to the location then he could tell them where to look, that’s what triggered his memory and you have to go back to the deal Henry made when he saw Jesus in his cell in Stoneburg. He saw this light appear in his cell at night and he was freezing cause they had brung the air conditioner down to where he couldn’t stand it hardly, and he was freezing in that cell and he saw a light and he felt warm, he knew it was because he called that light the Lord and the Lord said I want you to give up the bodies of all the people you killed. Remember this is a fourth grade education telling me this, give up all the bodies of the people you have killed to help me, the light answer their prayers. Yes Lord but I can’t remember all of them; the light then said I will help you remember. Now lets say that a police officer who came down from Canada to question Henry about a murder Henry had remembered in Canada and the police officer would give him in trying to identify the area or something the police officer might accidently or inadvertently give him some details to lead him to say oh yes it happened there, on that date. Henry thought that was the way the Lord was helping him remember he wasn’t admitting anything just for the sake of admitting it but he did promise he would give them all up, he promised God he would give them all up and he didn’t want to miss any so yes he did admit to some he didn’t do that’s in the book. He did admit to some he didn’t do cause he couldn’t remember cause his mind was so fogged with drugged with habitual drug use while all these things were happening he simply couldn’t remember but he didn’t want to miss any, he promised God he would get them all. So if someone dropped a hint to him he seized on it, he thought that was Gods way of giving him information to remind him.

(Interviewer) For the first time a lot of things are kinda falling together and making sense

(Max Call) Now there was one murder that he gave them the graphic details and everything it was a murder in Houston and yet he gave them the graphic details of how she was murdered, what was taken from the house, everything and the date, the date was firmly established that was a matter of police records and after Henry had confessed and they really thought they had the guy cause he told them thing nobody would no except the murderer, they discovered Henry was in prison in Michigan when it happened couldn’t possibly have done it, that nobody can explain. But he gave them all the details so he may of heard it from someone when he was drugged and that may of triggered he may have had that in him memory

(Interviewer) Could of been another member of The Hand of Death?

(Max Call) Yeah, there is also a big thing about how did he commit all these murders at various places, these people talked to him about that, there is a lot of interchange of information you know about I did this, you know while you were doing this I did this in that drugged frame of mind a lot of those things stayed in that poor brain of Henrys yet they say he couldn’t possibly go from here to here and there to there in the time that was allowed. I know that Henry because at the Hand of Death camp in the Everglades they trained him to rob banks trained him to rob stores to rape houses for whatever was needed to serve Satan, money was no problem, he could get money whenever he needed it, just rob a store and they told him don’t leave a witness alive, don’t leave anyone who can testify against you. So when he robbed the store he killed the clerk and whoever else was in the store who possibly witnessed it. And he took great pride in the fact that he killed them all. Now here’s a man with a fourth grade education who has never been in a church service, a formal church service in his life except at that religious camp and he couldn’t stay in those services he had to get up and leave

(Interviewer) In Stoneburg?

(Max Call) In Stoneburg, that’s the only time he had ever gone he only went there three times. But here is a man with a fourth grade education, can hardly read and write and when he described the Hand of Satan religious ceremonies took place in the Everglades he described in perfect detail all of the elements of a traditional satanic black mass which follows basically except everything is reversed which follows basically the typical Roman Catholic or Anglican mass in the Christian religion. This for a man with Henrys education he couldn’t possibly have done it, to do it so accurately and explain it so well and describe it in such detail. When they prepared the host in a black mass particularly when human sacrifices are used, Henry described when they put that 5 year old boy on the alter and The Hand the high priest took the dagger and held it above the boy’s body the boy was alive, drugged but alive, brought the dagger down and cut the boys heart out then held the heart up, the beating heart, still beating, held it up in this hands and the blood run down his arms and held it up and says the body of our Lord Satan the same as an Anglican or Catholic priest elevates the host and says the body of our Lord, now a fourth grade education doesn’t provide him with that kind of information. I am firmly convinced that what he described going on in the Everglades is the truth, it actually happened, it existed and it probably exists someplace else now today and that there are people like Henry walking the streets as Henry said there was over 2000 of them, walking the streets, killing but you don’t look for those victims in the murder list. The victims of The Hand if you wanna find the names you look in the missing list because the bodies are generally destroyed they are not left laying around unless the man is travelling and he wants the news to get back to The Hand, The Master, The High Priest that one of his servants is serving him, their Lord and Master. That’s the way they continue to advise that they are still active.

(Interview) Do you think that all the people that he stayed with up in Stoneburg there, you don’t think there is any cult related activity up there? All those people are …..

(Max Call) No, they are good Christian people who took them in out of Christian charity.

(Max Call) Henry and Ottis were involved they firmly believed they couldn’t be touched, they were schooled and trained for what they did, neither one of them is smart enough to think of it by themselves. Henry has eight murder convictions in the State of Texas that have not been removed by the Attorney General. Ottis has confirmed too many of Henrys murders in those eight convictions for them ever to be removed, so all I can say is The Hand of Death is an ongoing organisation, its currently in operation, some place they are training them probably in Mexico, maybe up in the North Woods maybe up in Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii they could be any place. It is a religion that a great many people believe and act upon

(Interviewer) Do you think that the particular people apprehended in connection with the Madam Morris cult were more than just marginally related to the Hand of Death?

(Max Call) Oh yes, yes I do

(Interviewer) Do you think they are closely affiliated not The Hand of Death

(Max Call) I really do, I think the relationship is so close, when I spoke to the Texas law enforcement people a year ago about cults, after my presentation several of the police officers where there and they were there from all over the State of Texas came up to me afterwards and every one of them confirmed the fact that they saw the marks of The Hand, The Hand of Death the organisation, that I had described in my presentation, they saw evidence in a great many murders that was still on their books, all over the State

(Interviewer) Does the Hand of Death have a trademark?

(Max Call) Yeah, they always leave a mark on the victim. Henry marked victims

(Interviewer) Does he cover that in the book?

(Max Call) Yeah it’s in the book. Henry marked every victim, the mark was never the same but they always leave a clue, a clue nobody can use and that’s the clue and that’s the mark of The Hand. Henry would cut a cross on a breast around the cheeks of the fanny and on the stomach or maybe he would nip the lobe off of an ear. There was one murder where he had left the book of matches in the hand of the women he had killed in a motel and the book of matches was to a motel in Oklahoma City, that was the marking left on her. So it is never the same, the school teacher he killed when he was headed down to Florida, I think if my memory is right he cut a cross on her breast. Henry had sexual intercourse with women if they submitted and allowed him to do what he pleased with them while they were still alive, he killed them after he did it. But if they objected to it he killed them and then did it. I think Henry was bisexual, I know he had homosexual relations with Ottis, he was very reluctant to have sexual relations with Becky, but he did and he did have sexual relations with a lot of his victims. A lot of them he didn’t even touch other than to kill em

(Interviewer) I think that when Henrys move to Florida there might be a lot of renewed interest in this case and its kind of died out as far as I can tell

(Max Call) Yes, how many times can the man be convicted

(Interviewer) plus the confusion just dubbed down to 30 second sound bites on TV, but they have made a motion picture about Henry, I don’t know if you are aware of that

(Max Call) No, I haven’t

(Interviewer) there is a write up about it, I think the current Rolling Stones on the stands right now

(Max Call) Really, I will have to get it

(Interviewer) I don’t have a copy, somebody told me about it at school. I looked at it at the seven-eleven. They don’t use his last name but the name of the movie is Henry maybe that is good news to your publisher. I don’t know if its anyway based on your book now

(Max Call) Well the book is still in print and it can be obtained from the publisher. The publisher that did the Hand of Death is a branch of Huntington House which is a Christian publishing house

(Interviewer) Did you ever do a non-secular version of this book

(Max Call) No, no but we were planning to but when Henry went through the recanting the book stores lost interest in him, but everything he told me in there is true. But unfortunately the DA and Waco and the Attorney General destroyed his credibility, there are still a lot of murders marked solved because of Henrys confessions but they just wont prosecute on them but they have cleared the cases because he could tell them. If you go to such and such a place and dig up you will find a body with the hand in the mouth that’s were he marked that body, then they would go to that location and dig and find the body with the hand in the mouth, were he buried it. Now that was a murder he committed. He might say you drive down a street in such and such a town and when you come to a yellow house with a green door, I murdered the women in the upstairs bedroom there, well the house now is maybe white and the green door is now maybe yellow but when they find that it once was painted the way he described or they go to the murder records and find yes the body was up there that murder is solved. Henry killed them, now how many times do they have to go to court and spend millions of dollars to convict a man who has already been convicted.