Below you will find a collection of transcripts from the trial of serial Killer, Henry Lee Lucas. Henry Lee Lucas was an American drifter and serial killer who was convicted of 11 homicides. Although he confessed to over 3,000 murders, his confessions often contained inconsistencies or were contradicted by reliable, verifiable sources.
THE STATE OF TEXAS VS.
Henry Lee Lucas
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF Clay COUNTY
NO. 053-83C
97TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF TEXAS
August
TERM, 1983
September 30, 1983
This day this cause was called for trial, and the State appeared by her District Attorney, Jack A. McGaughey, and the Defendant, Henry Lee Lucas, having been duly arraigned, appeared in person, in open court, his counsel, Donald Maxfield, also being present, and all parties announced ready for trial; and it appearing to the Court that the Defendant, his counsel, and the State's attorney have agreed in writing in open court to waive a jury in the trial of this cause and to submit this cause to the Court; and the Court having consented to the waiver of a jury herein, the indictment was read, and the Defendant entered his plea of guilty thereto, and thereupon the said Defendant was admonished by the Court of the consequences of said plea, and the said Defendant persisted in his plea; and it plainly appearing to the Court that the Defendant is sane and that he is uninfluenced in making said plea by any consideration of fear, or by any persuasion, or delusive hope of pardon prompting him to confess
his guilt, the said plea is by the Court received and here now entered of record upon the minutes of the court as the plea herein of said Defendant.
And the Court having heard all the evidence submitted for the State and the Defendant and argument of counsel is of the opinion and so finds that the said Defendant is guilty of the offense of Murder. .
And it appearing to the Court that the Defendant, his counsel, and the State's attorney have agreed in writing in open court to waive a jury and to submit the assessment of Defendant's punishment to the Court; and the Court having consented to the waiver of a jury herein, and after having heard all the evidence submitted for the State and the Defendant and argument of counsel the Court is of the opinion and so finds that the said Defendant's punishment should be by confine- ment in the Texas Department of Corrections for a term of seventy-five (75)
years, and by a fine of $___________.
IT IS THEREFORE, CONSIDERED AND ADJUDGED by the Court that the Defendant, Henry Lee Lucas, is guilty of the offense of Murder as found by the Court, and that he be punished as found by the Court, that is by confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections, for a term of 75 years, by a fine of $_____________, and that the State of Texas do have and recover of the said Defendant, all costs in this prosecution, for which execution may issue; and that the said Defendant be remanded to jail to await the further orders of the Court herein.
WHEREUPON the Court proceeded, in the presence of the said Defendant, to pronounce sentence against him as follows:
It is Ordered by the Court that the Defendant, [Off Page]
It is further Ordered by the Court that the judgment and sentence in this cause shall begin to run from and after the 11th day of June, 1983, the date the Defendant was placed in jail in this cause.
And the said Defendant is hereby remanded to jail until the directions of this sentence can be obeyed.
FRANK J. DOUTHITT
District Judge
97th Judicial District
McLENNAN COUNTY GRAND JURY
MARCH TERM, 1985
IN THE MATTER OF THE INVESTIGATION OF HENRY LEE LUCAS
TESTIMONY OF BOB AND JOYCE LEMONS
APPEARANCES:
HON. VIC FEAZELL HON. NED BUTLER
District Attorney Assistant District Atty.
Courthouse Courthouse
Waco, Texas Waco, Texas
HON. REED LOCKHOFF HON. MIKE FEAREY
Assistant Attorney General Investigator
Austin, Texas Austin, Texas
- - - -
BE IT REMEMBERED THAT on the 3rd day of May, A.D., 1985, at 9:00 a.m., in the McLennan County Courthouse, the McLennan County Grand Jury, March Term convened, there being 12 Grand Jurors present, at which time the following proceedings were had and adduced as hereinafter set forth:
MR. BUTLER: You do solemnly swear that you will not divulge either by words or signs any matters about which you may be interrogated, and that you will keep secret all proceedings of the Grand Jury which may be had in your presence, and that you will true answers make to such questions as may be propounded to you by the Grand Jury, or under its direction, so help you, God?
BOB LEMONS: Yes.
JOYCE LEMONS: Yes.
BOB LEMONS: Ladies and Gentlemen, the first thing I would like to say to you, Joyce and I have been out here almost a year, eleven months to be exact, trying to get somebody to hear us, or listen to us, to try and understand what we know about this. It's only been very recent that anybody heard us, or anybody paid attention or listened, and I will tell you what, we don't even know how to handle it, because for so many months we kept butting heads, with law enforcement, district attorneys, and nobody would talk to us, except the press was willing to talk to us, and in our particular case, we had to resort to a little bit of that in order to get anyone to talk to us. I understand the problems that Mr. Feazell is talking about when he is talking about the press, and we have some of those problems ourselves. We have to take the phone off the hook in order to go to sleep at night, and that sort of thing. I want to tell you a little bit about Joyce and I, and what has happened to us, before we actually get to Henry, if I might, because I don't think you are going to understand what we are talking about, unless we do that. All of you, I think, are aware of the fact that we are the parents of Debora Sue Williamson, who was murdered in Lubbock, Texas, on the evening of August 24th, 1975. We never had an idea who murdered Debbie. We still don't know. We don't even profess to know anything about that. What we do know is what happened to us. The day that we came home from the funeral, another nightmare began that went on for about thirty days. Our other daughters' lives were threatened. We don't know why, and we don't know by who. It came to a point where the Lubbock Police Department told us, you folks are going to have to do something different, because we just can't protect you. About the same day, and actually I think it was the day before, the school sent word that we needed to come up there, and we were told that our children couldn't go to school there anymore, because they were concerned about their safety, and the safety of their other children. We had a business in Lubbock. We owned a home in Lubbock. All our friends were in Lubbock, but within twelve hours we had packed what we could in our car, and we left. We didn't know where we were going, and we didn't know what we were going to do. We went to Gainesville, I suppose because I had a brother there, and we felt some security in his presence, but we did wind up staying in Gainesville, not without problems. We didn't have anymore problems with the threats, and the life threatening situation, but we had two girls that had more emotional problems than Henry will ever have. They had not only lost a sister, but they had to leave their friends, their home, and go to this strange place where they don't know anybody. They have all kinds of emotional problems in school that they can't tell anybody about. We can't tell anybody about. We had even our telephone service arranged by telephone security. It was like we dropped off Planet Mars, and just landed here. Our closest friends until last summer didn't know a thing about us. That is a hell of a way to live. I tell you. It was an awful way to have to live, but that wasn't good enough. Then we got Henry dumped on our back, and I want you to know, we were very thankful when Detective George White called us, and asked to talk to me, and said Bob, we found Debora's murderer. I can't remember ever feeling more relieved than that minute. But, the next day we called the girls that night, and everybody was elated with this. The next day Joyce and I go to Lubbock. We get out there, go to the D.P.S. office, and see Ranger Jackie Peoples, Detective George White, and they toss the confession in front of us, and we get about half way through it, and we are looking at each other saying, what are we talking about. We don't recognize anything here. We get through with it, and we try to talk to the officers about it, and they put a hard sell on us that they knew what they were doing, and this was real. We had to believe it. But, we said, we can't believe it. There is nothing in this confession that indicates that Henry knows anything about what happened here, and I told George White, I said, George the morning of the 25th, after Debbie was killed, you started working this case. I said you have got to know that Henry doesn't know anything about this. Every fact that he had in it was wrong, except that the girl was stabbed. So, they continue the hard sell. They finally asked us is there anything we can do to make you believe this, and we said yes. Maybe there is. We have some questions for you to ask Henry, and maybe if he answers them right, maybe we can believe that. He said, okay, we will take the questions, and we will get back to you in a week or ten days. Four weeks went by, and we hadn't heard anything from them. We started calling, and they would not accept our telephone calls. They would not return a phone call. We have not been able to talk to not one law enforcement officer in the State of Texas about this, until very recently, because they wouldn't talk to us. So, then we hear a week or so later, he had been indicted. So, we go to the D.A.'s office. One time until two weeks ago we talked to the District Attorney. After we started the investigation, and we had evidence that we felt was very good evidence, that the District Attorney should hear, we were told, no. They had a good case. They were comfortable with it, and didn't want to hear it. We weren't credible.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Bob, what is the District Attorney's name?
A. Jim Bob Darnell. I don't know that I need to go any farther into that, because I think you probably may by now understand why Joyce and I had to go do this investigation. We couldn't live knowing that somebody had been indicted for Debora's murder that we know didn't do it. We couldn't live knowing that whoever killed her, whoever tried to kill our other girls, was still on the street, and the case is closed. And by their own admission, it would never come to Court, so for all practical purposes, it was closed, and is closed. So Joyce and I set out to find out the truth. We could get nobody in law enforcement. We could get nobody in the District Attorney's office. We could get nobody from the Attorney General's office, excuse me, but it's the truth. We could not get the Governor. We could not get the people in Georgetown, and in fact all we got out of there was lies, so we fought this battle on our own, until you started hearing all of the publicity, we fought it by ourselves. It wasn't easy, and not only could we not get help, but there were road blocks thrown up in front of us by the Lubbock Police Department. For example, Trooper Fran Dixon, in Maryland, John Campbell the trooper in Pennsylvania, Lubbock Police told them namely, George White said don't talk to them people. They told us that, but I think they understood that whether they talked to us or not we were going to find out what we wanted to know, and I also think they understood what our problem was, because they couldn't understand it either, and those two Gentlemen were very helpful, very helpful, and without them we would have never been able to learn in Maryland and Pennsylvania what we did.
MRS. LEMONS: They also sent reports. John Campbell and Fran Dixon from Pennsylvania and Maryland, the State Troopers, both have sent official reports from their area to Lubbock Police, and also to the Task Force in Georgetown, stating Henry's whereabouts at this time, but both chose to ignore them. They are not in the chronology, and no one ever speaks of it.
MR. LEMONS: I think one thing we are going to have to explain to you, in order for you to understand some of this, the one time that we saw the District Attorney, he was very disgusted with us, and he was very angry with us, because we wouldn't shut up and go away. I think this was last July, about that timeframe.
GRAND JUROR: The D.A. in Georgetown?
MR. LEMONS: No, we are talking about Lubbock County now, but we did see him the one time he handed us a tape, and a tape player, and put us in a room, about like this one, and in fact it was a Grand Jury Room, is what it was, and said go in there and listen to this tape, and then you will understand, so we did go in and listen to the tape, and we were left alone. We had plenty of time. We had a note pad like this, and a pencil, and we transcribed the tape that we listened to. I can assure you that that tape said absolutely nothing that would indicate that Henry had ever even been to Lubbock, much less knew something about it.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. Okay, Mr. Lemons, let me stop you. What you are saying is, that is a taped confession that Henry Lucas had given?
A. That is the tape that was made in the automobile while he was being driven to Debbie's house.
Q. All right. I didn't think the Grand Jury knew what kind of tape you were talking about.
MRS. LEMONS: This is the tape where Henry had directed them to her house, but Henry did not say one word of direction.
A. I have a transcript of that tape, and you folks are very welcome to see, but in essence I can tell you what it amounted to. Henry never gave them one direction, never told them to go anywhere, never told them to turn anywhere. The only thing he says is, I am looking for a junk yard, and out behind the junk yard is a white, very white little farm type house with a porch on it, and he was asked what happened, and he said, I killed a woman there. Well, to start with, Debora's house was a brick house, and the rest of the house was painted a very drab olive green. They actually drove him without one direction to her house, and insisted that he had to recognize that house, to the point of even how did you get in the house. Nothing was said that would indicate that he knew anything about this. All the facts that he had, how he got in the house, what he did when he got in the house, whether he killed her in the house, whether he stole jewelry, that he raped her. All of these things were wrong. Nobody was in the house. No jewelry was taken, although there was some very expensive jewelry in the house. None was taken. The door that he said he went in was permanently sealed, by the police report that night. That is an official record in Lubbock. It says this. I guess what I am trying to impress upon you is that this tape made us understand even more so that what we thought was correct. He got very angry with us when we told him how we felt about it, so he threw her whole file at us, and said okay, go in here and read this. That is all we have got, convince yourself. That is where we found the Troopers up in Pennsylvania, and in Maryland. We found the reports that had been in there for a long time. We asked why haven't you looked at this, because what the people are saying in these reports is that they are sure that Henry was in the Maryland or Pennsylvania area from about August 23rd, 1975 on through '77. Well, we never got answers to any of those questions. So, I guess it was really at that point that we had to do it, if it was going to be done. So we set out to do an investigation. We never investigated anything, except our children to make sure they were shooting square with us. We didn't know how to do it. We didn't know where to start. We picked up the telephone and started making phone calls, and our telephone bill ever since that day has been five or six, or seven or eight hundred dollars a month. We talked with Almeda Kaizer, Henry's half sister. We talked to Opal Jennings, his half sister. We talked with Nora Crawford, his half sister. We talked to his wife who incidentally is still his wife, Betty Crawford. We talked to a lot of people on the telephone, and had lots of conversations with those folks before we ever went there, and then we went to Maryland, and personally interviewed the people that I mentioned, plus Mrs. Benjamin, that owned the Benjamin Trailer Park, where he parked his trailer, and he and Betty and the kids lived in March of 1976 until July of '77. We talked with neighbors. We talked with two of his best friends that they pal around with, and run around with, and everybody that we talk to tell us the same story. Henry was here. He never went no where. We don't understand all of this. The Trooper, Fran Dixon, I don't understand this, you know. These folks don't like Henry. They don't hate him, but they don't like him. They don't want him here. They are certainly not going to lie for him, because they are decent people, and we sit back and we say, my God, nobody, and we are told by all of these people that nobody ever talked to them before. So we sit back and say, my God, this just can't be. We have got a task force. We have got a big mass murderer down here, and has already killed at that time a hundred and some odd people that he confessed to, and nobody has ever bothered to do an investigation on this guy, to find out if he is telling the truth. They hadn't. I am telling you they hadn't. Trooper Fran Dixon, and John Campbell will tell you that. Nobody has ever talked to any of these folks. We called Jackson State Prison, and we were told by Bob Prince, and everybody else in law enforcement that there is no way to know when Henry got out of prison, because one story we got that Bob Prince told us, after five years Michigan destroys all the prison records. Another story that he told us that they had a fire up there, and it burned them up. So we get on the telephone, and we get hold of Deputy Warden Frank Eloe, at the Jackson State Prison, and ask him can you tell us when Henry got out of prison. He said well, I will have to go get the records, and it will take a few minutes. I will call you back. About twenty minutes later, he called us back, and he said yes, he went through the '70's when he got out on probation, and when he came back in and all of that, and then we got up to August 22nd of 1975. He said he left here about eight o'clock in the morning on August 22nd. We said, are you sure it was August 22nd. We were told that all of your records were destroyed. He said well, if they were, I sure don't know anything about it, and I have been here about twenty years. He said, I don't know anything about that. He said, I am reading it, so obviously they are not destroyed.
GRAND JUROR: That was the Prison Director?
A. Deputy Warden Frank Eloe at the Jackson State Prison, Jackson, Michigan. I have got a letter from them explaining what I have just said to you. So we said well, is there any way that this could have been the release date, but Henry actually left there before that, and he said no way. He said, we kept him everyday, every hour that we could keep him, before he was released. He said, he did not get out early. Are you sure. Yes, we are sure. He got out the 22nd, so we come back, and we try to talk to law enforcement about it again, and we are told that is a bunch of nonsense. Those records are phony. I am telling you the truth, that is what we were told by the Lubbock District Attorney's Office, David Hess, the Assistant District Attorney. Those records were not accurate. They were phony. They were wrote on three by five paper. Of course, what difference does it make what it was wrote on. In Texas it is going to be on microfilm, you know. Why does it have to be this size. Well, it is just not accurate. So anyway, what I can tell you about Henry, and I think that anybody that would go out and do what Joyce and I have done, and spend the time and the efforts that we have spent at it, if they are an intelligent logical person, they are going to have to come to the same conclusion we did. Henry did get out the 22nd day of August, 1975, and he did go to Maryland, probably on the 23rd he got there, and two people can remember him getting there on the 23rd. He probably stayed in Fort Deposit one or two nights with his half sister, Almeda, and then he went to Chatam, Pennsylvania.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Bob, do you recall who the people are that remember him being there?
A. Yes, Anoma Pearce, and Almeda Kaizer. Anoma is Almeda's daughter, and they went and picked Henry up at the bus station in Perryville. He went to live with Anoma and her husband, Darrell, just a couple of days after he got there, because Wade, Almeda's husband, and Henry could not get along with each other, and he got a job we found out at the Kaolin Mushroom Company, probably as near as we can determine he worked 36 hours the first week that he worked, and according to Karen Babbitt, the Personnel Manager at the Mushroom Company, they don't work overtime, so I am assuming that he had to go to work maybe the first day of September, about that, around noon maybe. We did see the work records. Trooper John Campbell in Pennsylvania has got the work records itself, and after he found it, he went and got it. His first pay day was September 8th, 1975. On September 9th, I think if any of you have seen a chronology, he gave a very accurate description of how he killed a lady over in Smith County, even to the detail that the t.v. was on, with the gas can sitting in the middle of the floor, and that sort of thing, which I think again, any logical person can only come to the conclusion that he had to see photographs of this. In this case he also said that Becky was with him, and maybe Ottis, and little Frank Powell was with him. If you will think about it for a second, Becky would have been what, seven or eight years old at that time, and Frank even younger. He never met Ottis until February of '79, we know that. How could he have known that the t.v. was on. How could he have known that this can was sitting in the middle of the floor. That the lady was shot in the face with a shotgun. How could he know this, if he hadn't seen the photographs. There is no way for him to have known it.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. And when did he get that check, September 8th?
A. September 8th. And he also worked the day of September 9th.
Q. That is what their work records reflect?
A. Yes. Darrell Pierce, Anoma Pierce's husband is where he was living. Darrell took Henry to work every morning, picked Henry up from work every night, because he didn't have a car, and he knows that he did that every day that Henry worked there, and Henry didn't miss a day for two weeks. That is all he worked there was two weeks, but he did work everyday. So all I am saying is how does he know all of this information, when he goes out to these places that we know he has never been. How does he know this stuff. He obviously has got to be told. He has got to be shown by whom, I don't know. I don't know if it's by the task force. I don't know if it's by the local law enforcement. I think I have to agree with Mr. Darnell on one thing, I find it very difficult to understand that there are really that many rough police officers in the Country, which I guess brings me back to it must have been done in Georgetown. I don't know. I am here to tell you that I just simply don't know. All I know is that we verified dates where Henry, we know, and we can prove where he was, that he was supposed to have killed somebody halfway across the Country, not possible, you know. That is just not possible. Now, the only reason that Mike, and Reed, and Mr. Feazell and his officers here, and for that matter, nobody else in law enforcement knows these things, and knows for sure that Henry did or didn't, is because nobody has never investigated him. It is just that simple. We were the first people to ever investigate Henry Lucas, and until this day, unless it has been done recently, within the last two weeks, we are still the only ones that have. We are told that we are not credible, so what we did don't make any difference. It is not something that can be used. I find that a little bit hard to understand in one way, and in the other way, I do understand it. I understand it has to be done officially, and I think that is why it is so absolutely necessary that the Attorney General's office be allowed to do this; that they are given the powers, and the money, and whatever it takes to go out once and for all, and find out the truth on this thing, and let's get it over with. We have already spent by the admission, I think of the task force, a hundred and eighty thousand dollars on a lie. I certainly thing that Joyce and I, and all of the other survivors of the victims deserve to know once and for all, you know, what really happened out here, and I certainly thing that we don't need all of these people that killed these folks running around on the streets, and that's the thing that worries me more than anything else. I can go on, and on, and on, and on, and it would take me three days, I can assure you, and I think Mike can vouch for that, and nights, for that matter, to tell you what we know about Henry Lucas, and I will spend three days and three nights with you, if that is what you want us to do, but I don't want to bore you with it. I just want to convey enough to you so that you can understand what is happening, and has happened. It doesn't make sense as Mr. Darnell told me yesterday in a telephone conversation, he said well, we are doing this investigation, and each County is just going to have to do their own. That just doesn't make any sense, because the State of Texas is going to wind up spending, how many counties do we have involved in this thing, do you know. We need it done one time by one agency that will take care of the whole thing, and to me that has to be the Attorney General's Office, D.P.S., both, or whatever. That's all I have got to say about that.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Bob, before you move on to something else, talk to the Grand Jury about your visit to Georgetown when you met with Bob Prince, and what happened there, and what you observed there?
A. Well, we touched on that a little bit.
Q. Go into detail and tell everything you know.
A. Well, last . . . I believe it was probably in October. By this time Joyce and I were well aware that there was a big problem with this thing, and we went to Georgetown and the only reason we went to Georgetown is because in our mind we thought that maybe Bob Prince, it's our understanding he is a Ranger Sergeant, is that correct?
MR. BUTLER: That's correct.
A. And here is a guy that maybe we can put some stock in. Maybe he will talk to us. Maybe he will help us. We had been to Lubbock. We went right straight from Lubbock to Georgetown, and we had an appointment with Mr. Prince. We called and got an appointment. We walked into his office. We didn't no more than get sat down, than he awared us of the fact that Ranger Jackie Peoples from Lubbock had called him, and told him all about us, and from there things didn't get any better. We asked him if he would please go in, or have somebody go in and ask Henry if he killed Debbie. He said no. He said he would not put himself, or any of his people in that position. We said well, can you just tell us when he got out of prison. He said no, and that's the story I told you a while ago. The two stories that he told us. That is when we went directly home and got on the telephone and called the prison and found out for ourself, the day he got out.
MRS. LEMONS: He did throw you out?
A. Yeah, well, he did throw me out.
Q. Tell about that?
A. Well, there is not a whole lot to tell, if you are thrown out, you are thrown out. It's either head first or you walk out. I chose to walk out.
Q. Thrown out could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
A. Well, he made it very clear to me that the best thing I could do is get my fanny out of his office, because if I didn't he was going to bodily throw me out.
Q. How did he make that clear to you?
A. Pardon me?
Q. How did he make that clear to you?
A. By saying . . .
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. Did he escort you out?
A. No, I got up and left, because I full well realized that number one, he was serious, he was going to bodily throw me out if I didn't leave, and I also realized that what I really wanted to do was kill him, and I didn't really want to do that, because I didn't want to have to stay at his jail.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAREY:
Q. What did he say to you?
A. He told me nearly as I can remember, and I am not going to tell you that this is exactly quote, because . . . but he told me, he says, our conversation is over, best you leave.
MRS. LEMONS: He said I can't have someone like you . . .
A. Yeah, he said he couldn't have someone like me in a room next to Henry, because Henry was in his office, is what he calls it, I guess, being interviewed by somebody, and he couldn't have me in that jail house with Henry in there, and he made it very clear to me that what I best do was to get up and get out of there. I am not trying to . . . people lose their tempers, and I have lost mine two times during this whole thing, which I have been condemned for, and knowing my temperament, I thought I had done pretty good really, but I guess not. I did lose it with Mr. Prince, and I did lose it with Mr. Darnell one time.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. So you were pretty excited at that particular point in time?
A. Very excited.
Q. I think more than just walking out happened, and what did you observe, you tell us?
MR. FEAZELL: And please speak up so everybody can hear.
MRS. LEMONS: Well, Bob said he wasn't going to believe this nonsense, and Prince told him they were through talking, and it best he leave, or he would help him leave, and Bob said I choose to leave on my own, and I will do so. Prince opened the door, and took him to the other door that was locked, and unlocked it, and closed it behind him, which I followed, because I thought he is kicked out, I am too, you know, and unlocked the door and Bob went out, and then he turned to me, and he said you can stay and talk if you like, I will answer any questions you have, and I went back into the room, and asked him again about the prison records, and this is when he told me the story about the fire. No longer have they been destroyed, but now they have had a fire. There was another witness there at the time. It wasn't just Bob, Prince and I. It was another lady present.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. And what was her name?
MRS. LEMONS: Carolyn Huebner. I asked him if he would allow Carolyn Huebner to go in and ask Henry in Prince's presence if he killed my daughter, so that the D.A. kept saying, we have to have an official. Your word doesn't mean anything. We have to have an official visit, so we thought what better one than Bob Prince hearing Henry say this, so he said no, he would not allow Carolyn to go in. Carolyn had visited with Henry on many many other occasions. From that time on, Carolyn Huebner was never allowed to see Henry Lucas again.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. Is that what Carolyn has told you?
A. We know that for a fact.
MRS. LEMONS: Carolyn has told us that for a fact. That's what Bob Prince told her in front of us at that time, when we went to his office.
Q. That he would not allow her to talk to him?
MRS. LEMONS: That she had screwed herself up, and would not be allowed back.
Q. Is that what he said to her exactly?
A. See, there is one other thing that none of us touched on here. Carolyn Huebner interviewed Henry while he was in Montague County, shortly after he was arrested up there, and about the time that he was confessing to all of this stuff. He made this big wild statement about I killed a 100 of them . . .
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Bob, before you go on, Sir, tell the Grand Jury who Carolyn Huebner is?
A. Carol Huebner is the President of a non profit organization called Texas Child Search. We got to know Carolyn last August, and we got to know her because an article appeared in Texas Monthly Magazine, and she saw it, and she is saying to herself, this all sounds familiar, and when she got to Debora's picture, she recognized her. She, back in the early days, when Henry was arrested, interviewed him in Montague County, while he was in jail up there on, I believe it was eight cases that she was working on. We had taken Debora's photograph to a Nicona Policeman to ask him if he couldn't take the information we had, and her photograph, and somehow or other ask the man if he knew anything about it, because Lubbock was telling us at that time, no way, he couldn't have possibly had anything to do with it. We didn't know. All we know is that they are saying here is a guy that said I killed a hundred of them, and the first thing that occurred to us, well, maybe. Anyway, Carolyn is the one that took the photograph and the information over and presented it to Henry. Henry, what he actually said about it, and she has sort of a tape of what he said, and she says to him, have you ever seen this girl before, and he looked at it, and he said no. She said well, her name is Debbie, and she's very pretty. He said no, I don't recognize her. She kind of reminds me of my stepdaughter. Well, she passed this by him two times, and two times he said no. Well, you know, she called us, she got hold of the Nicona Policeman that gave her the information, and asked how to get hold of us. This Article is kind of stating the problem we are having, so she called, and she said I am the one that showed Henry the photograph, and talked to him about your daughter. So, Carolyn, we made arrangements for Carolyn to go to Lubbock, and we went to Lubbock, and we tried to present this information to the District Attorney. We got to little David, I call him, the Assistant District Attorney, David Hess, and that is as far as we got, and we were told once more, can't you people get this through your head, we have got a good case. We are comfortable. This is done. It's over. Carolyn later that week called, and got hold of David Hess again, because Darnell would not talk to anybody about it, and she was told No, they didn't want to hear her evidence. They had no interest in it. You know, I can go on with this kind of stuff from now on, but I don't know that it's useful. I don't know that it serves a purpose. If you folks think it does.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. We just want to ask one thing, Carolyn is here today?
A. Yes.
Q. And we have had some extensive interviews with her yesterday, and Mike has talked to her several times this week. Now, before we bring her in here to this Grand Jury, I think it is important that the Grand Jury understand that some of the things she told us, we may be a little suspect about, but you say you do have a tape that she interviewed Henry back during that Date?
A. Yeah. Did I give that to you, Mike, or did we not make a copy of it?
MRS. LEMONS: We have a tape, but it's very inaudible.
A. It's not real audible, and you have got to pay good close attention to the one we have got, but the one Carolyn has in her possession is very audible.
Q. And you have heard it?
A. Oh, yes. In fact, we copied it off of her tape. The only problem about it is there is a lot of noise in it, and she was talking trying to explain to us what he was saying, and we had it on my little tiny tape.
Q. There is no question in your mind but that she actually interviewed Lucas back in June of '78?
A. Oh, I know she did.
Q. Up there at Montague, and showed him the pictures?
A. I know that. I know that because the policeman told me.
Q. I am sorry, it was June of '83?
A. Okay. I get confused on these years too.
Q. He was arrested, if you all will remember on June 11, 1983, when he was put in the Montague Jail, and about four days later is when he started confessing?
A. Yes.
Q. So it was about ten days after that that Carolyn Huebner would have had this interview with Henry Lucas?
A. Like the 27th or 28th, or something like that. I don't recall exactly. I know it was shortly after he was there.
Q. Now, you might tell the Grand Jury, if they do listen to Carolyn, I think they are going to have to understand the way she is.
A. Okay. I will tell you what I know about Carolyn. I think Carolyn is a fine lady. I think she does fine work, and I not only think it, but her work bears that out. She goes out here and finds kids that have been gone ten, or twelve years, five years, something that the police has closed the books on more or less, and she gets the cases, and she has darned good luck, very good success story at finding these kids. I think one of the reasons she is so good at it, is because she identifies with those kids, because at a very young age, she was kidnapped, and I believe held for how many years, three years, and a good part of it she spent in a closet about four by four, without light. Another part of it she spent tied to four bed posts, and the girl's mother actually resents her to this day because of the hurt that she felt because of Carolyn being kidnapped. In other words, she don't necessarily hold it against Carolyn, but when she sees her she remembers all of this hurt that she went through, and consequently it . . . well she just doesn't really care to be around her because of that.
Q. When Carolyn tells you things, and if it looks like you may not be paying attention to her, or you are not really all that impressed with it, will she tend to kind of exaggerate it?
A. Oh, yes, she will do that. When . . . if you allow Carolyn, if you ask her a question, you get the answer, and then you cut it off right there, you will get the truth, without exaggeration, without dramatization, you will just get the truth. She can very easily get off on a talking spree, and carry things to appoint where they don't belong, but Carolyn has not ever lied to me about anything, that I know anything about. I don't believe that she would intentionally lie. Like I say if you let her go, she will get her foot in her mouth, however is the best way to say it, I don't know. But we have a very good relationship with Carolyn, and we have a very good understanding, and she actually looks at Joyce and myself like a mother and a father, I think. We just sort of took her under our wing, and she reminds us so much of one of our own daughters it's pathetic, to be honest with you.
GRAND JUROR: She's a writer.
A. No.
GRAND JUROR: She operated child services?
A. Yes. She makes no money for doing this. She is not paid for doing this. She just decided a few years ago that she wanted to make a contribution to civilization, to her fellow human beings, and this was her way of doing it. She formed Texas Child Search. She went and got her a board of directors to make decisions. She has a retired Texas Ranger on the Board. She has an Attorney on the Board. She has a Doctor on the Board. She has a Businessman on the Board, and these people more or less guide her, and any one of them will tell you about the same thing that I am telling you. You have got to keep a rein on Carolyn. She is darn good at what she does, but by her own admission she is just a little loud mouth redhead, that all she knows is go get them, and bring the kids home. Somebody else has to keep her under control
MRS. LEMONS: It is funded by contributions only.
GRAND JUROR: It's a non profit organization?
A. Right.
Q. She is married to somebody, I got the impression, that is fairly well off?
A. Yes, the man is fairly well off. She don't have to work. She don't have to go out and work to help support her family, but irregardless of that, I still think it is darned admirable of her that she will go out, and devote the kind of time, and put herself into the situations that she does, and not earn a penny out of it.
Q. She also, I believe got herself certified, I believe, did she not down at Sam Houston State?
A. Yes.
Q. She not only tries to locate kids, but she handles sex abuse cases?
A. Yes.
Q. She is one of these people that has been trained to take one of these dolls, one of these anatomically correct dolls, and she has been trained to talk to these kids, and ask them can you tell me what happened, and by pointing to the doll, etc.?
A. Yes.
Q. And I think Bexar County has probably used her quite a bit?
A. They have. We had a situation, as a matter of fact, well, it was actually in Grayson County, Sherman Denison area, I don't know if any of you recall the little Meeks girl. They called Carolyn for direction, and advice on that. As it happened, she was very right. She was in Lake Texoma. I have confidence in Carolyn. I have faith in her. I believe in what she does. I am cautious in allowing her to get to dramatizing on me, and rambling on me, and if I am really wanting to know something serious I try to keep her talking about just what we want to talk about, and I think if you folks talk to her, I think that would certainly be the way to handle it, and if you do it that way, you can rest assured what you get out of her will be the truth.
MR. FEAZELL: I would like to add something here. I think she has got some valuable information. All you need to do is just consider her personality. The reason she is good at her job is because she has got a lot of sources. She is going to be very protective of giving out who some of her sources are. Is there any of you that ever used to watch Mike Hammer. In England they had to quit making them. She reminds me of a Mike Hammer personality, that sort of façade, and macho business. If you can see through that, and get past that, you will get some very valuable information.
A. I believe in Carolyn, and to be honest with you, I would go to bat for her in a minute with anybody.
GRAND JUROR: Mr. Lemons, what type of business were you in?
A. I was in the sheet metal business. I guess I need to explain a little bit. I am retired right now. I was hurt quite bad in Korea, and the fact of the matter is that I can't see you folks sitting here, unless I look down or up, or somewhere else besides that, and I made a decision about five years ago that I just had fought it as long as I could, and I was going to live on my retirement, which the V.A. has been very good to me.
GRAND JUROR: Were you in the sheet metal business in '75?
A. Yes. I had a sheet metal shop in Lubbock on Texas Avenue downtown.
GRAND JUROR: Mr. Lemons, going back to Lubbock, you mentioned a while ago that they had said that they had the case cleared, and they didn't talk to anyone up to where you folks went, and you mentioned, what we call Rangers here.
GRAND JUROR: Troopers.
GRAND JUROR: Troopers. In the file you said that is how you found the names of those troopers?
A. That is correct.
GRAND JUROR: Well, if it was in the file, how did their name get in the file? Did they talk to them at all from Lubbock, those Troopers?
A. I guess they talked to them at least one time to tell them not to talk to us.
MRS. LEMONS: They sent a letter of inquiry.
MR. FEAREY: You are inquiring as to how they had those reports in the file?
GRAND JUROR: Yes.
A. Well, that is what I was about to say. They requested information from Pennsylvania and from Maryland, and these reports were sent to them by these two Troopers that we are talking about.
GRAND JUROR: Did you gather that they had requested, or someone had told them, Henry was there, why would they know to inquire in those particular States?
A. I really don't know.
GRAND JUROR: Why not New York?
A. I don't know.
MR. FEAREY: I don't know other than another document that Carolyn has possession of, the closest thing to an original we have, when Henry was in Montague County and first started confessing to these things, he wrote out, or dictated to Ranger Ryan, a Chronology of where he was, and it is much different from what we have now. He put down some of the places that he had really been, and weaved in these '77 or '79 murders into that. It is not accurate, but it is much closer than running back and forth across the country.
MRS. LEMONS: I believe he also said he was at his sister's Almeda's house for a birthday party.
MR. LEMONS: Would you folks like to know at least, without getting into real deep detail, where we know Henry was up through 1979?
MR. LOCKHOFF: Does anybody need to take a break for about five minutes?
- - - -
McLENNAN COUNTY GRAND JURY
MARCH TERM, 1985
IN THE MATTER OF THE INVESTIGATION OF HENRY LEE LUCAS
TESTIMONY OF BOB AND JOYCE LEMONS
APPEARANCES:
HON. VIC FEAZELL HON. NED BUTLER
District Attorney Assistant District Atty.
Courthouse Courthouse
Waco, Texas Waco, Texas
HON. REED LOCKHOFF HON. MIKE FEAREY
Assistant Attorney General Investigator
Austin, Texas Austin, Texas
- - - -
BE IT REMEMBERED THAT on the 3rd day of May, A.D., 1985, at 9:00 a.m., in the McLennan County Courthouse, Waco, Texas, the McLennan County Grand Jury, March Term convened, there being 12 Grand Jurors present, at which time the following proceedings were had and adduced as hereinafter set forth:
MR. LOCKHOFF: All right, Mr. and Mrs. Lemons, you all are still under your previous Grand Jury oath, and you understand that don't you?
MR. LEMONS: Yes.
MRS. LEMONS: Yes.
MR. LEMONS: There is something else that came to my mind that I think might be important. Back in October of last year, we had Hugh Aynesworth interview Henry regarding Debora's case, and he asked him questions like well, I have a copy of all of this stuff, and if anybody wants to see anything, all they have to do is say so.
MR. LOCKHOFF: I will say this, Mr. Lemons, we would like to see all of the written materials that you have been able to gather, when you get through testifying today, and we will make copies of it, and we will give you back your original stuff, so you will have that, but we would like copies for the Grand Jury.
MR. LEMONS: Okay. He made this tape and transcribed it for me, and what Henry basically said in there is that they took him to Lubbock. He had never been to Lubbock before, and they get to Lubbock, and insisted that he had to know something about these three murders out there, so he just said yeah. There is a lot more to it than that, but that is basically what it amounts to. When we listened to the tape in the District Attorney's Office referred to earlier, it says basically, and in fact, almost precisely the same thing that he had said in the interview, and then Wednesday afternoon, when we went in and delivered some messages from the family to Henry, and talked to him, we asked him about that particular thing, and he told us the same story again. Just almost word for word, on three different occasions, well two different occasions him telling the story, and then the tape that is in the District Attorney's office, actually matches the story he tells, so I have no doubts in my mind that it is correct, and true. The fact of the matter is, the only way that we were able to find all of these people and know where to go to even look for them, was because he had told us through Hugh where they were. Some of them we found before that, but some of the hard ones we couldn't have found them, if he hadn't given us that information. There was one thing that I could not verify. He stated that he had been in a hospital in Bluefield, actually Princeton first, and then he transferred to Bluefield, and we were in the year 1978, and we finally figured out that it was 1979, so I have hopes that we will be able to verify that now.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. Let me say this. You may find that it is not in 1979 at all. We are going to check this out. I have reason to believe that it was probably 1980 when he was in Bluefield.
A. '80?
Q. Yes.
A. Well, the reason that I am saying '79 is because Brenda and Leland still live there, and they moved in '80. No, they moved in late '79.
Q. Oh, they did?
A. Yeah, so, I don't know, because I haven't had an opportunity to check it out.
Q. Who is Brenda and Leland?
A. Leland is his half sister Nora's son, and Brenda is his wife.
Q. Is that the one that beat Henry up?
A. No, Joe, Leland's brother is the one that beat him up. Okay, what I think I will do is just start, and we have already talked about it, he got out of prison on the 22nd.
Q. And he worked for two weeks at the Mushroom Factory?
A. Yeah. That is about as far as we got, wasn't it, the Mushroom Factory.
GRAND JUROR: I was just scanning the documents a few minutes ago, that he flew from Michigan to Baltimore, and then took a bus to the smaller town, is that right?
A. I believe that is right.
GRAND JUROR: So he did fly?
A. I believe so. I am not sure of that.
MRS. LEMONS: This is what Henry told us, when we visited with him . . .
MR. LEMONS: What we had been told previous to this is that he had flown from somewhere in Michigan to Baltimore, and then took a bus to Perryville where Anoma and Almeda picked him up.
Q. Did he say where he got the money from the plane?
A. He said, or I know from talking to the warden that he worked while he was in prison, and made like thirty five or fifty five cents a day, and of course, he still had all of that money. He had a hundred and someodd dollars when he got out, and I think that plane ticket cost $49.00.
GRAND JUROR: Wouldn't the airline still have records?
A. If they do, I can't get it.
MRS. LEMONS: We haven't been able to find that they keep stuff like that.
A. A good friend of mine that I mentioned the show he had been doing for 20-20, the producer for 20-20, he tried even with the resources that 20-20 have to come up with the plane ticket, and what he came up with was that the records just simply weren't available. They just don't keep them.
Q. To private individuals, or to law enforcement people?
A. Well, he has got a good friend that is not the top guy, but next to the top guy in Delta Airlines, and he went to him and talked to him about it, is what he did.
MRS. LEMONS: Of course, he is not an official, you know. We asked Henry how he was able to get a plane ticket, and the Warden had said that they give them a ticket anywhere in Michigan they wanted to go, a bus ticket, and Henry said he told them he wanted to fly, and the difference in the bus ticket and him flying was only two or three dollars, and he paid the two or three dollars difference.
Q. Oh, okay.
MRS. LEMONS: It makes sense, and whether it happened, I don't know.
A. Okay, let's just pick up and go on. We have got him into Kaolin Mushroom Plant, is that correct, is that where we left off? Okay, he worked there two weeks. He had two pay days, 9-8 was his first payday, and 9-15 was his second pay day. Then he quit there, and he remembers, and so does Anoma remember that he walked home that particular day that he got paid, the 15th. He walked home. No, I guess it was the day before, the end of the week. Then he got a job in another Mushroom Plant there called Freso Brothers, and it's another Mushroom Company, and he worked there like four or five days or something, and then went to work for Task Force Supply. This is all in Pennsylvania, where I am talking about. It's all in the Alandale, Pennsylvania area. Anyhow he worked for them, and worked one hour, and they had him lifting cement bags, and block, and he didn't like that, so he quit. Then he got a job over at a Dairy Farm, and he worked out there something less than a week. I am not absolutely sure if it was four days, or five days, but he quit that, and for a long long time he never had a job that you could really pin him to. He was selling some junk, and he was helping Wade, his brother in law in the junk yard, and this type of stuff doing odd jobs for people, and what have you, but not anything that you can actually document as such, but the point I am getting at is during this period of time between when he got home, and up around somewhere around the first part of December, he lived with Aoma and Darrell Pierce, and he lived with them, and they saw him everyday, all the time, and then about . . . as everybody remembers, about two or three weeks before him and Betty Crawford got married, he went over and lived with Betty. She lived in Northeast, Maryland which is about thirty miles from the little town in Pennsylvania.
Q. Was that Fort Deposit, Maryland?
A. No, Northeast, and anyhow he lived with her up until they got married, and then they got married on the 6th day of December, according to the marriage license, that we found in Elkton, Maryland. They lived in a little house over in Northeast until they bought this trailer house, which they moved it into Benjamin's Trailer Park up there on March 3, 1976. Now, during this period of time, we are talking about, clear up to the time they bought the trailer, Aoma and Darrell both remembers that every night Henry showed up with a quarter of a pound of hamburger, him, and Betty, and the three kids for dinner, and then he either had to spend the night, or they had to give him money for gas to get home, whichever they chose to do. There is a lot of things that happened over this period of time that he was in Maryland that they relate to it through documentation. For example they bought a piece of land up in the mountains, up in Pennsylvania, and I can't recall the name of the town right off, and they recall that Henry went with them up there when they signed the Deed to actually close the deal, and the reason they remember it so well, is because there is kind of a small pond out there, called Henry's Pond, and a big old sign on it, and they was kidding him about that. There is a lot of this kind of stuff that they use to sort of back up what they are saying, and knowing he was there. Henry stayed with Aoma and Darrell on his wedding night as a matter of fact. I believe it was in October that Wade Kaizer, his brother in law, Almeda's husband sold him this white Cadillac that he was supposed to have been driving when he came to Lubbock in August, which he didn't come to Lubbock in the first place, but he didn't even own the car. He sold it to him, it was in October, and he kept it until February, and in February, he bought a Plymouth, which I have a copy of the registration, Maryland Registration of, and bought insurance for it in Pennsylvania, and this type of stuff. Okay, they went into the Benjamin Trailer Park on March 3rd of '76. They paid rent every month on the 3rd day of the month right on through '76, and up to July of '77. Several different times Henry borrowed money from Mrs. Benjamin, and it indicates on the record we have. Borrowed twenty dollars, paid back this day, this type of thing. Visiting with the neighbors and what have you, in the trailer park, nobody don't ever remember Henry going anywhere. He was just always there. Sometimes him and his buddy, Ben Polasky would go out at night, and everybody assumed it was a midnight auto supply, or something like that.
Q. Do you all know what midnight auto supply is? You might tell them?
A. Well, that is where you go out and steal hubcaps, and tires and this kind of thing for beer money. We did interview Carol Polasky. Ben Polasky is dead, and that was Henry's best friend, and Carol and Ben Polasky, and Betty and Henry were together all the time. They were together even on the trip Henry made in '77 down to Hurst to get Betty's mother, and take her back to Maryland, the Polasky's went with them on that trip. Through the year of 1976, we came across several different things, and of course, talked to a whole lot of people that knew he was there, and never went anywhere. He was always around for dinner. That is something his sister Almeda remembered very well after they moved to the trailer park. Instead of going to Aoma and Darrell's, they came to Almeda's for dinner. This is just a little bit humorous, but I think it kind of fits. On Aoma's birthday which is the 31st day of December, in the year '75 we are talking about now, Betty and Henry brought over a little something extra that particular night. Instead of just a quarter of a pound of hamburger, they bought a box of cake mix, and brought it over so she could make her a birthday cake. I kind of got a chuckle out of that. That particular birthday Betty's girls bought Aoma a little yellow umbrella, in her words, it's the prettiest thing she ever saw, and she still has it, and she remembers very well where she got it. Aoma appears to be probably 28 or 29 years old, I suppose, and a pretty sharp young lady. She has got better recall than most of the folks that we talked to. In talking with Betty, Henry's wife she says that Henry was actually gone from the time they got married until the day they parted ways which was July of '77. She said he was gone two times overnight, and that was two nights away from home. One particular time he drove a lady in his car, they had a little blue Datsun at this time, drove her to Rhode Island, and the lady's name was Jan, I can't call her last name, but I found her anyway, and talked to her, and he drove up there okay enough, and back the next day. The other time he was gone overnight was with his brother, Elmer, yeah, his half brother Elmer down to West Virginia to see the other half brother, Harry, who has spent a great deal of his life, and I think even right now he is in a mental institution somewhere in the Hinton area, I believe. I know it is Elmer and Harry, and I am not sure which is which. I have incidentally, taped interviews, and I will just tell you what they are, so you will know where I am coming from. I have taped interviews with Betty Crawford, probably an hour and a half or two hours. I have one with Almeda Kaizer, and it's about an hour and a half or two hour interview. I have Aoma Pierce, I have a long interview with her, and one of these other tapes his Nephew, Leonard, which is Almeda's son, and Wade Kaizer, and everybody participating in it.
Q. Let me stop you right there for just a second. You mentioned Leonard Kaizer?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. Now, did Leonard ever tell you that he met Ottis Toole back in '77?
A. Yes, he did, but we figured out that Ben Polasky is who he actually saw out there. He finally figured that out.
Q. Okay.
A. Well, nobody else up there had ever seen Ottis.
Q. Okay.
A. So when he brought this up, and I asked him . . . well I don't remember if Aynesworth was talking to him, or I was but anyhow we asked him you know, are you sure about that, well, I don't know. He said I kind of think so, and then I checked further into it, and found out that it was Ben Polasky is who was with him.
Q. How did you find out?
A. Well, in the first place Wade Kaizer remembered that it was . . .
Q. Polasky?
A. Polasky, and nobody else could I find anywhere that knew anything about Ottis Toole, even the Beasleys which is their other very good friends, Henry and Betty's very good friends, and never heard of this guy, and Carol Polasky never seen or heard of him, and I feel reasonably sure that Wade is correct, that it was Ben Polasky.
Q. For the Grand Jury's information, why I am asking him this about Leonard, and why I asked him if Leonard had ever mentioned anything about Ottis, yesterday when I was talking to Hacker, and Bob Warner, and Lefty Block, they showed me a statement that they acquired from I guess either the Pennsylvania, or it might have been Dixon, they got it from . . .
MRS. LEMONS: John Campbell?
MR. LEMONS: That would have been Dixon.
Q. But anyway the statement they had gotten from Leonard Kaizer which said . . . actually I don't know if it was a statement from Kaizer come to think of it, and I don't have a copy of it. They said they were going to have to find out whether they could give it to me or not.
A. I have that on tape, Reed.
Q. I did read it, and it indicates that Leonard had identified a photograph of Ottis Toole being the person that he had seen with Ottis at the junk yard . . .
MR. BUTLER: With Henry?
Q. With Henry, but of course, they were real proud of that particular statement, because that is what they are basing their theory on, that Henry really knew Ottis prior to 1979. Now . . .
MR. FEAZELL: Did it indicate in the statement if there had been a photo lineup, or did they just show him the pictures?
MR. LOCKHOFF: I think they just showed him a picture of Ottis.
A. I can tell you that Ben Polasky and Ottis Toole, the way they both appeared was very similar. They both had hair all over them, in both of the photographs I saw, and long shaggy beards. I am not sure you could see underneath there who you were looking at, to be honest. I couldn't I know that. Okay, what I was going to say, on the tape that I have, where we interviewed Leonard and Wade, and what have you, this is mentioned on there, and as the conversation goes on, still on the tape, I think you will understand by listening to that, which Mike has got a copy of, incidentally, what I am trying to convey here. I am convinced that Ottis Toole was in Maryland one time, and that was . . .
Q. In the summer of '81?
A. That was in '81, July of '81, and Henry came up there and got arrested for having stolen that truck. John Campbell, for example, the Pennsylvania State Trooper, Henry told him, when they came down to interview him on a case in Haverty Grace, Maryland, Detective Van Gilder from Haverty Grace, and John Campbell the Trooper in Pennsylvania came down together, and the reason they came from two separate states was because the girl was from Haverty Grace, and he was supposed to have killed her in Pennsylvania. He says that he don't believe that there was any way that could be. He said Henry had told him that Ottis worked at this Mushroom Plant with him in Kaolin as a matter of fact. He said there were work records for Henry, but he couldn't find anything on Ottis, or anybody that had ever heard of him, or ever saw him, or anything else.
Q. Or that could identify the photographs of him?
A. Yeah, Fran Dixon said the same thing, the Maryland State Trooper. Okay, '76, like I say, all through '76, and up through July of '77, Betty said he was gone one time. I have the taped interviews that I personally did with her . . . no, I think Aynesworth was with me. Almeda and Betty, I think. Anyway both of us talked to them. But she says very candidly that she has no love for Henry, she don't want to ever see Henry again. She don't wish him any harm. She don't wish him any good. She just don't care. That's the attitude she has got. Through this period of time we came up with several documents that showed that Henry was in that area, you know, right along. The investigation that John Campbell and Fran Dixon did, they came to the same conclusion that we did, that he definitely was there. As a matter of fact he was there until well . . . in October of '77, and this was after he and Betty had separated now, and Henry went to live with Nora at that time.
Q. Let me stop you just right now. You said October of 1977?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. One of the people that Henry has confessed to here in McLennan County, is a man by the name of Parks. He claims that Ottis shot him. He claims that he was with Ottis, they were in the car together, and that this particular killing took place on October 22, 1977. Now, we know unless the Jacksonville Jail Records, are totally wrong that Ottis Toole was in jail at that period. Now, have you any idea about where Henry might have been around October 22nd?
A. Yeah, he was living with his sister, Nora, and he was working for Leland, which is his Nephew, Nora's son. Leland and Brenda lived in a trailer house that is about 75 foot out the back door of Nora's house, parked on her property, and they were laying carpet together, working together laying carpet for Carpet World, I believe is the name of it, in Delaware. Now, all of this stuff we are talking about is in three states here, and it is all like, Dallas, Fort Worth, the area we are talking about.
Q. Did you make tapes of those conversations with Leland and Brenda?
A. Oh, Yeah. In about . . .
QUESTIONS BY MR. BUTLER:
Q. Do they have any records as to how he got paid, or the hours he worked, or anything like that?
A. No. They got paid by the job, and split the money. Leland had the contract with the company to lay the carpet, but Leland remembers that he definitely was there working for him, and Brenda remembers, and Nora remembers. All of these people remember stuff. I have . . . I would have a hard time understanding, seeing how these people don't ever see each other any more, I have a hard time understanding how they all could tell the same story, and haven't talked to each other in five or six, or seven or eight years probably. Right after Christmas, this is the way . . . well Leland and Brenda don't remember if it's just before or right after Christmas. Henry remembers it was the day after Christmas. December 26h, and the reason he remembered it was because he remembers buying Christmas presents for Betty's kids. They all decided they were going to go to Hinton, West Virginia, and they did, and about the first of January, I think a day or two before the first of January, actually, Henry met Rhonda Nuckols, a girl that he lived with for about three months down in Hinton. They rent an old . . . well actually what they did, there was this old house that was really run down bad, and Henry made a deal with a guy that owned it to fix the house up for free rent. They lived there maybe three or four weeks, and Rhonda said she couldn't handle that. The water was pouring through the roof, and half the floor was out of it, and so they went up into town on the highway and rented a mobile home. They lived there until about the first part of March, sometime, and it could have even been as late as the middle of March, but early March sometime. They got crosswise, and Henry left. Okay, then Rhonda, they had bought some furniture and carpet. They were laying carpet down there for a company in Beckley, West Virginia, so Rhonda sold the furniture that they had bought, and the carpet that they had bought, and Joe, Leland's brother again, Nora's son had co-signed for Henry when he bought this stuff.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. Did you ever find that note?
A. I didn't even look for it. It didn't seem important to me at the time, but anyhow he co-signed this note with the carpet company, I believe, if I am not mistaken, to guarantee Henry would pay for this stuff, but Rhonda left, and Henry left, and went back to Maryland to Opal's house, his other half sister, Opal Jennings, and he kind of bounced between Almeda and Opal there for a while. Well, in May, we are into 1978, now, is where we are. May of 1978. Donna, which is Opal's granddaughter came to live with her. Well, Henry was staying with Almeda at the time, and Almeda's son, Randy decided he liked Donna, and the story we get from them up there, is that Henry liked Donna too, and they had a squabble about it, but Randy started taking her out, and actually married her, but anyway Henry went back to Opal's, because he wanted to be around Donna, so he went back and spent some time with Opal again, and apparently in the year of '78, spent at least three or four months over there, staying with Opal. Okay, then Leonard, we are back to Leonard, and this is a hard thing to follow people, and don't feel bad about stopping me anywhere because I have had a long time to learn all of this.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Bob, I would like to interject, I got in a little late, and I don't know if you told everybody, the documents that Bob does have, will be copied in my office and be made as exhibits to his testimony.
A. Okay, Leonard, Almeda's son got a divorce from his wife, Edna. Okay, on Almeda's property over here they had a trailer house that they were living in. Well, when they got a divorce, Henry moved into the trailer house. Now, I wasn't . . . I didn't have the time to go get this document, and see just when all of this happened, but from what Fran Dixon told me, and Almeda and everybody told me, we are talking about probably August, right around that time somewhere, which that would be easy to check on.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. When the divorce happened, you mean?
A. Yeah, and when the separation, when it was filed and all of that stuff. But anyway, Henry moved into the trailer. Well, he lived in that trailer then for the rest of his duration in Maryland. He worked in the junk yard for Wade, and Wade remembers it, and Almeda remembers it, and everybody remembers that Henry worked in the junk yard and lived there in the trailer on Almeda and Wade's property. Then on somewhere in early February, and here is the only date that I have got that is really good.
QUESTIONS BY MR. BUTLER:
Q. If I could interrupt, I think we just covered the day that the Salazar girl was killed out south of town.
MR. LOCKHOFF: We did. November 5th, 1978.
A. He was definitely working for Leland for the carpet company, Carpet World over at Bloomington, Delaware up there.
Q. Was that when he was living in the trailer park?
A. He was living with Nora at that time.
Q. No.
A. He was living at the trailer at that time. He was working with Wade. When you stop me, I have got to start over here.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. Let's stop for a second, and take a deep breath. You got us to August of 1977 . . . excuse me, August of 1978, when Leonard and his wife got a divorce. Is that correct?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. At that point, Henry moved into the trailer, the mobile home with Leonard?
A. No, Leonard moved out and lived with his mother then.
Q. So Henry was just by himself in the trailer?
A. He lived in the trailer.
Q. And at that point he started working with Wade and Leonard at the wrecking yard?
A. Right. Actually it was Wade and Randy that owned this thing.
MRS. LEMONS: Randy is another son. They had a trailer house there too.
A. Randy is the one that married Donna.
GRAND JUROR: How long did you all stay up there and check this?
A. I was up there eight days, and 7 days, and 15 days, I guess.
GRAND JUROR: You were busy.
MR. LOCKHOFF: And that is just Maryland he is talking about, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
MRS. LEMONS: I was up there another six days.
MR. LEMONS: 7 days.
MRS. LEMONS: But this whole thing takes place in the middle of a junk yard. I mean a junk yard, and here sits a house, and two trailers, and one of them belong to Randy, and one of them belong to Leonard.
Q. And what Wade and Almeda, and Leonard all told you was that Henry stayed and worked for them all during that period of 1978?
A. Correct.
Q. Including November?
A. That's correct.
Q. And he didn't go anywhere?
A. That's correct.
QUESTIONS BY MR. BUTLER:
Q. Let me ask you something else. You first met Henry last week, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Monday of this week?
A. Tuesday afternoon late.
Q. That is the first time you have ever met Henry?
A. Right.
Q. And you all spent several hours talking?
A. Yes, we did.
Q. Since these people have spent several hours talking to Henry, would you compare Henry, and talking to Henry to the people that you interviewed up in that part of the country that are his kinfolks?
A. Pretty much so for the most part.
MRS. LEMONS: He fits right in.
Q. They are the same kind of people?
A. Right. The only one that I met that is very different than Henry is Anoma. Anoma is a very sharp girl, and I knew Henry before I ever met Henry. What you have got to remember is I had a lot of insight, because I know all of his relatives, his friends, his neighbors, the people he did business with. I knew Henry before I ever met him. The fact of the matter is, I know more about Henry than Henry knows about Henry, and I know I have got the dates down better than he has them. I think he would be the first to admit that to you. He is trying to tell me he got married on January 12th, and I know it was December 6th, because I have got a copy of the marriage license. I also went to the Chapel where he got married, which is right across the street from the courthouse. He definitely, from everything I can find out, and everybody that I talk to remembered that he was definitely living in the trailer house on Almeda's property, and he stayed there until . . . okay this truck was reported stolen. I will get in to explaining this to you in a minute, on February 9th, of 1979. The story I heard was that it was Randy's truck, but then I find out through some verification that it was actually Wade's truck, and it was Wade's name, Randy's dad, okay. All right, they didn't turn the truck in the day it was taken. They thought Henry was going to bring it back. The way they knew he was gone, Henry was down there, drinking coffee all the time. They would work up in the junk yard a while, and they would come down and drink coffee for an hour or two, and Henry didn't show up for coffee, so he sent Leonard looking for him. Leonard started looking for him, and couldn't find him. He came back, and Wade said he was worried about Henry, he said, so he sent him back looking for him again, and at this time he discovered the truck was gone, so as near was what I could determine from talking to these people, this was very probably like the 6th or 7th of February, 1979, and I think the truck was found in Jacksonville, well right near Jacksonville, what three or four or five days later or something?
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. About February 10th?
A. Yeah. It seems like it might have been the next day, or the day after. The 9th is the day the report was filed.
MRS. LEMONS: But Henry turned that in. He got the truck stuck and went and told the Sheriff I stole this truck and it's stuck over here.
A. Okay. Now, he left and he went to Florida, and he met a girl down there by the name of Barbara Hendricks, and he was only down there like a week or two, or something. By early March anyway, Barbara and Henry came back to Hinton, West Virginia. This is when Joe broke his jaw.
Q. And that is where Leland and . . . Brenda lived. Well, Joe also lived there, but he went to Leland and Brenda's house. They remember very well that this girl had a nervous problem, and the way they explained it to me is that she went this way all the time. They said her feet were bleeding when they came in, because they had walked so far, and Brenda said she could see right off that this young girl had no business traveling around the country with Henry, because in Brenda's words her elevator just didn't quite go all the way to the top. Anyhow, Brenda called her grandmother in Jacksonville, Florida, and her grandmother wired the money to Beckley, West Virginia where Brenda went and picked it up for a bus ticket for this girl to go back to Florida.
QUESTIONS BY MR. BUTLER:
Q. You mean Brenda called Barbara's grandmother?
A. Yes. She took her to the bus station and put her on the bus back to Jacksonville, Florida. Henry went back to Florida as soon as he got out of the hospital.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. Now which hospital is that?
A. Bluefield, West Virginia.
Q. Was he in another hospital earlier?
A. Princeton, West Virginia.
MRS. LEMONS: He went in there as a John Doe.
A. Well, he went in both of them as a John Doe, but they figured him out.
Q. Did you check the Bluefield Hospital?
A. I checked both of them, and I didn't find anything when I checked, and the reason I didn't find anything is because I had the wrong darn year.
Q. Okay.
A. But I feel rather confident that now I have got the total information that I can go back and verify all of that without any big problem. Finding Rhonda, I tell you what, that was a chore. I finally found her in White Sulphur. She works at the . . . what is the big fancy resort over there where Eisenhower used to play golf all the time.
GRAND JUROR: Green Briar?
A. Green Briar. She was a chamber maid at the Green Briar. The old Chief of Police up there was very cooperative with us in that. Okay, Henry went on back to Florida, and this is when he went to work for Southeast.
QUESTIONS BY MR. BUTLER:
Q. Did you find out why Joe broke Henry's jaw?
A. Yeah, because he ran off and left Joe stuck with the bill on the furniture and stuff that he co-signed for him, and Joe was mad, so he just came over and beat the hell out of him.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. And is that what Joe told you?
A. Yeah.
Q. So you talked to Joe?
A. Yeah. Joe and Leland, all of them remember, and Brenda, all of them remember it the same way.
MRS. LEMONS: There was a friend of Leland's that he had stole some jewelry from, so he was mad at him too, so he got in a few licks.
MR. LOCKHOFF: Did you talk to the friend?
MRS. LEMONS: No, we didn't.
A. No. I know who the friend is, but I didn't bother going to him, because you know when you spend a week looking for some of these people, you get what you need, and my money was getting kind of limited by then.
Q. Do you have his name though, so you can give it to Mike Fearey?
A. Yeah. I have got his name. I have got it, and it's wrote down.
GRAND JUROR: Let me ask a question, is this Applachian Country?
MRS. LEMONS: You have to be a mountain goat to go to these places.
GRAND JUROR: These are mountaineers?
A. Yes.
MRS. LEMONS: And they all live in a junk yard or next to one. That's why Henry is always looking for a junk yard.
A. I always thought I knew something about poverty, you know, but in this Country we don't know anything about poverty. You get on up there in the part of Maryland that they live in, and West Virginia, the mountains up there, you will learn what poverty is when people are living in tents, and houses with all dirt floors, and this kind of thing.
MRS. LEMONS: You will come back feeling very fortunate.
A. Anyhow, Henry went on back to Florida, and went to work for Southeast, the Roofing Company down there . . .
Q. Let me stop you for a second, and I hate to keep interrupting you, do you know whether he worked for Southeast Roofing a week or two before he ever went to . . .
A. Yeah, he did.
Q. Before he ever went back up to West Virginia?
A. Yeah.
Q. Because he got one or two pay checks?
A. Yeah, he drew one pay check, and he went and picked up what he had, a week back pay coming, and he went and picked that up, and I don't know why in the devil he went back up there, I really never did figure that out, but he for one reason or another chose to.
Q. Is that where he met Ottis Toole?
A. Yeah, in Florida, in Jacksonville. He met him down at the Mission down on Louie Street, I believe.
Q. Okay, now let's stop for a second. What we are talking about is 1979 when Henry took the truck, and they found the truck in Jacksonville, Florida, and it was at that point, was it not, that Henry probably met Ottis Toole?
MRS. LEMONS: Yeah, he met him on the first trip.
Q. Now, that's what Henry told us, but haven't you found out from other people that was probably correct?
MRS. LEMONS: Yeah, that is when he got food stamps and stuff, and was living at Ottis' house. He was living at his house.
Q. Now, is that what you verified, or is that what Henry has told you?
MRS. LEMONS: That is what his neighbors say. That is also what Ottis' wife says.
A. I don't know anything about Ottis.
MRS. LEMONS: We didn't get too involved in Ottis.
Q. But Ottis was supposedly with Henry when your daughter was killed?
A. But he wasn't, and we know that, and we knew it a long time ago. Ottis just wasn't of interest to us.
MRS. LEMONS: We didn't get too deep into him, because we knew he didn't come along until '79, you know.
A. But anyway, he did work for Southeast Color Coding, and that is the longest I ever found him anywhere, and he worked there I think a year and a month, if I remember right. I have got a work record on it.
Q. Now, let's talk about that. Did you talk to the foremen, Calder and Ellis that worked with Henry?
A. No, Aynesworth did that. He made the trip down there and talked to Mr. Reaves, that owns the Company, and the Foremen, and some of the people that he worked with, the old man's grocery store, Birank's Grocery Store where he cashed his checks. I don't know. I think he might have even talked to Ottis' wife. I am not sure about that.
Q. Okay.
A. We are in an area right now where I am not nearly as well versed on as I am up to February of '79, and the reason I am not is probably two fold. Number one, this is part of the time that wasn't terribly important to us, and the other reason is what I know about it, is information that Aynesworth and I shared through this thing. I give him information up there in Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and he would give me information from Florida, and this kind of thing.
Q. Okay, so you yourself have not been to Florida?
A. Not for the sake of checking on Henry.
Q. Do you have any other years that you can tell us about?
A. Well, there is another period of time that I know about, but I think it's public knowledge and that is that he went back with Ottis to . . . well actually went to Wilmington, Delaware first, and I don't know why in the devil he did that, but this was in July of '81, and Henry . . . let me see, I think they took a car that belonged to Ottis' family, or something, and Ottis went on back to Florida, and Henry stayed up there.
Q. Henry got arrested, didn't he?
A. Yeah, we went over to Pikesville, he was hitchhiking over there, and they stopped him for hitchhiking, and they ran him through the computer, and found out he was wanted for that truck theft.
Q. Which one?
A. The one he stole from the Kaizers that he went to Florida in in February of '79. So he was arrested and taken to Cecil County Jail, and I have got the actual records there from the Maryland State Police that tells me the dates on it, and it seems to me like it was July of '81, that he was actually sentenced. July 21st or 22nd, or something, and he served . . . well he got 89 days, and he got out October 26th, according to their records.
QUESTIONS BY MR. BUTLER:
Q. What was the 89 days for?
A. Well, he served 89 days of whatever sentence he got, which I don't honestly remember if it was three years, or four years, or what it was, for the auto theft, and he served the 89 days, and then he was paroled out, and hotfooted it back to Florida when he got out.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. I believe what I have got here is that he was released October 7th of '81.
A. Well, that may be correct, because he had a few days, and now the letter I have from Maryland State Police shows the release date as October 26th, but they maybe didn't count the good time.
Q. But you are aware that people are released earlier than what the release date is?
A. Yeah. That is just the release date that I have.
Q. Do you also realize that is probably what the D.P.S. is saying about what happened to Henry back in '75?
A. I certainly do realize that, but I also know that it's not true.
Q. That is based on what the warden told you?
A. All right, but let's go farther than that. Going back to this release date, talking with the Michigan Highway Patrol, and I am not sure what they call themselves, but they are not D.P.S., but highway patrol, I guess. They say that when a prisoner is released from the State Prison, that they send a letter to them, stating when he got out, and that he is back on the street again. Okay, the letter that they got from Jackson State Prison says that Henry got out on the 22nd, and they received the letter on the 26th. They say it normally takes four to six days from the release date until they get that letter. Now, I have a man up in Detroit that says he even has some more documentation, and I don't know what it is. I haven't asked for it, but he says it is available if we want it.
MRS. LEMONS: He says that there are two letters sent out. One goes to the State Highway Patrol, and the other one goes to the County or City where the person is sent to prison from, which would have been Adrian, Michigan at that time. He said Adrian received theirs on the 26th or the 28th, and the State Highway Patrol received theirs on the 26th.
A. I don't think there could possibly be any questions about when Henry got out of prison.
Q. I really don't either, but I wanted to make sure that you understood that that possibility might exist, and if you had some explanation for it, and I think you just told the Grand Jury that you have done more than just rely on the Warden's word, and I am glad to hear that.
MRS. LEMONS: There is also, I believe, another way, well two other ways, this could be checked at the prison itself, and one of them they had to release money to Henry when he left, so he had to sign for that.
Q. Right, so they should have his signature?
MRS. LEMONS: Right. Another is before I believe about two months, maybe, before he left prison he was actually on a prison farm. He wasn't at the Jackson Prison itself. He was working on a farm just two or three miles away, but it's a different barracks type thing. When he was released he was sent back to prison, and prepared for release.
A. And also a couple of days before he got out, he called Almeda collect and said he was going to get out in a couple of days, and that all checks out, I understand. Fran Dixon was up on that.
Q. So he has got phone records probably?
A. Yeah. She told me that she had the bills, but it was late at night, and she didn't feel like looking for them, and quite honestly, I didn't feel like waiting for them.
MRS. LEMONS: And also, all through this whole period up to late '79, Henry used to call Almeda quite often, stranded somewhere, car broke down, couldn't get a ride anymore, his feet were sore and tired of walking. He called her all the time for money, or come get me, and Almeda and Leonard went and picked him up many times at places where he was stranded.
A. It was three or four, I don't recall how many, Fran was telling me where he had actually been picked up, and what do you call it, you run a guy through the computer and check it.
Q. Do you know what it is called Ned, NIC, or NICI?
MR. BUTLER: TCIC, and NCIC.
MRS. LEMONS: NCIC is the one we kept hearing all the time. And also one day he got a ticket for not having a dog on a leash.
GRAND JUROR: What year was that?
MRS. LEMONS: That was '81, I believe.
QUESTIONS BY MR. BUTLER:
Q. Now, when you are talking about her having to come pick him up, how far was she having to go?
A. Not very far.
MRS. LEMONS: Not too far, sometimes over in . . . Henry didn't go very far. You know, he was supposed to have been this world traveler, but for years you can track him within fifty miles, you know, just in a circle. One particular time that he had to call, and Almeda and Leonard both went to pick him up. He was on his way with Wade to Shreveport, Louisiana, and dropped off there, and he met some guy, an antique dealer of some sort, and he was going to bum with him for a little while, so he took him to some bridge or something.
A. It was the old ferry going across the Ptomac, and I can't remember the name of the highway, and I can't think of the name of the ferry.
MRS. LEMONS: They had some out or something, but anyway the guy took off without Henry, and Henry called Almeda to come get him.
A. Henry got afraid of him.
MRS. LEMONS: This is also the date of a murder.
A. Okay, what really happened here, what really happened, Wade was going to a family reunion down in West Virginia. Henry was going with him. They pulled up here to the ferry, and they were waiting to get the cars on, and this old Cadillac pulled along beside them, and Henry and this guy got to talking, and then they got on across the ferry, and they stopped, and continued the conversation, and this guy wanted Henry to go with him and help him transport some cars, which according to Wade, and Almeda, and according to Henry too, he found out that these were stolen cars, and he didn't want any part of that, and the more he got to know about this guy, the more he got to be afraid of him, so this guy went out to go somewhere, and he just went out of the Motel and hotfooted it to Maryland. He got up in Knoxville, Tennessee, and he was flat broke, and didn't have nothing to eat, and he called Almeda collect from Knoxville, which we can verify on that, and she told me that she had it, so just like I say, it was very late, and cock roaches were crawling up my leg, and I was eager to get home. Anyhow, that is verifiable. And this is the time, you were talking about the one time they went over to Virginia, he got in as far as I am thinking it was Waynesboro, or somewhere up there, and called them, and her and Leonard went over and picked him up.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOFF:
Q. Do you remember what year that was, that Knoxville thing?
A. Yeah.
Q. Was it '77 or '78?
A. Let me think about it a minute. I think it might have been . . . it was the summer of '78, and it was while he was living in that trailer, or just prior to him moving into the trailer.
Q. It was just prior to him moving into the trailer, wasn't it?
A. Yeah.
Q. Because you had told me that, whoever got that darned divorce.
A. Leonard?
Q. Leonard?
MRS. LEMONS: Randy got one in here sometime too, and he gets in the story.
A. Leonard and Almeda went down to get him, and here is what they remember about it. They said he called them and told them where he would be, at a McDonald's, you know, and they drove up there and they couldn't see him anywhere, and they got out and looked around, and just about decided to go off and leave him, and here he comes out a little . . . I know what they are talking about, because I was there, like a little creek that runs along there, kind of a gulley thing, and Henry was down underneath the bridge taking a nap, and they said he was the filthiest looking thing they ever saw in your life, and they made him throw his shirt away before they would even let him in the car. They can remember enough detail about this that you can understand what they are saying is correct, and you would never think of them making up stuff like that, and they wouldn't do that anyway, I am convinced of that. They have no reason to. They have nothing to lose, and nothing to gain. Almeda, Opal, Nora, and all of these people will tell you, Henry was just a pain in the butt. That is just what he was. He was always there. He was always in the way. He always needed to be fed. He always needed some money. He always needed something, and he was just a pain in the rear, but the reason they always put up with it, is that just before their mother died, these girls all made her a promise that they would look after Henry. As they tell the story, they were all out in the corn field, and this was over in Michigan. They all lived over there. They were all out in the corn field gathering corn, and Henry's mother told the girls now Henry is going to spend most of his life in jail, but she says, I want you girls to promise me that you will take care of him, and do the best for him you can, and they all made her that promise, and it was that night that she died.
Q. Do you know how she died?
A. A heart attack, according to the autopsy.
Q. Was she stabbed?
A. No, she wasn't stabbed.
MRS. LEMONS: There wasn't a wound on her body.
A. She died of a heart attack. Henry scared her to death. What happened, they had been out drinking, and in fact all of them, the girls and Henry and his mother, and Opal had a house in town as well as they had a farm out in the country. Well, Henry wanted to marry Stella Keith, but his mother insisted that he was not going to stay there and marry Stella. He was going on back to West Virginia with her, and he was going to leave like the next day, and they had been fighting about this all night, and Henry left the bar and went on home.
Q. Now, this is what the sisters are telling you?
A. Yes, this is what the sisters said.
Q. I wanted to be sure this is the sisters, and not Henry telling you this.
A. This is what the sisters said. Opal is the one telling the story.
MRS. LEMONS: Opal was there drinking, and her husband.
A. Henry went on home and went to bed. Well then his mother comes in, and he wakes up apparently, as she is about to beat him to damn death with the broom, and he jumps out of bed, and he was sound asleep, I guess, from the story I got, and he jumped up out of bed, and took a swing at her. Now, the story was that there was a scratch on her neck, that was just a surface like thing, like you scratch with a fingernail, or something like that, but the autopsy shows that the lady died with a heart attack. Henry was tried for second degree murder. Well in Michigan, second degree murder kind of comes like manslaughter here, as I understand it. That is kind of the category it falls in.
Q. Involuntary manslaughter?
A. Yeah. That is what he was tried for, and convicted of.
GRAND JUROR: Question. The autopsy said she died of a heart attack, but he hit her, or supposedly maybe, hit her or scratched, what sent him up?
MRS. LEMONS: Henry swung at her with his fists, but he doesn't remember having a knife. Now, the sister that found her body says there was a little spot of blood on the floor. The other sister that she called, and came right over, just a few hours later, that there was a spot about the size of a quarter on the floor, and they are not sure if it was blood or tobacco that run out of her mouth.
Q. Do you all have a copy of that autopsy report?
A. No, but it is very available. We were told we could have one, and I think you have to send them five bucks or something.
GRAND JUROR: So he goes up for her having a heart attack.
MRS. LEMONS: Well he scared her to death. They said she wouldn't have died probably if he hadn't swung at her.
GRAND JUROR: How old was Henry at the time, do you know?
A. Well, this was 1960, and he is what, 48 years old now. We are talking about 25 years ago. He would have been about 23 years old.
MRS. LEMONS: See, he had just gotten out of prison not very long before that.
A. As near as what I can figure out Henry has been kicked around by family, and by police officers, and what have you, all of his life. Joyce and I became thoroughly convinced, probably four or five or six months ago that Henry probably really never killed anybody unless it was Mrs. Rich and Becky. I said a few months ago. We were convinced a few months ago that this was probably right. Well, then Joyce became totally convinced that Henry never killed anybody. I wasn't. I still said well, maybe Mrs. Rich, and maybe Becky, but I am going to be perfectly truthful with you, and I think what you are going to have to understand when I make this statement is that I have got a lot of insight into Henry from having talked with all of these folks of his. I don't believe Henry ever killed anybody. I really don't believe he is capable of killing anybody, and I never found one person in all of these people that I talked to, that could believe he could kill anybody. I honestly believe that I am more capable of murder than Henry Lucas is.
MRS. LEMONS: You couldn't get Henry in a fight.
A. That may lend a little discredit to what I have been saying to you folks, but I am just being honest with you and telling you how I feel about it, and having seen all of the information that Aynesworth has come up with, and having done all the research that we have done on it, and having met all of the family, like Almeda, her grandkids, and knowing all of them people by name, whose kids is who, and what the birthdays are. We know about as much about his family as we do our own, and I just don't see any of that.
GRAND JUROR: Most of those people up there are pretty peace loving?
A. Oh, yes, very.
MRS. LEMONS: They are just old country folks.
A. Everybody will tell you that Henry never messed with anybody. He was never in a fight.
MRS. LEMONS: He never went nowhere.
A. He was just to himself sort of a guy, and never caused no trouble.
MRS. LEMONS: Even when Joe beat him up, he just took it. He didn't fight back.
A. That is what Leland and Brenda both told me that after both of these guys, Joe, and I can't call this other guy's name beat the dickens out of him, and they walked off and left him laying there, and he got up and staggered out, and I think Leland wound up taking him down to Beckley, and he apparently got picked up and taken to Princeton Hospital.
GRAND JUROR: Was Becky's body ever found, or did it ever show up?
A. I don't think, the way I understand it now, and I certainly would want you to understand that I am not speaking authoritative on this on some of the stuff that I am talking about to you, but the way that I understand it, they brought Henry over to Denton County, and when Henry came over there, they took him out to this field out here where already there was little red flags around, and bones sticking up where they had found a body out there. To my knowledge, they have not ever proven that some of the bones, just the bones only, the skeleton [possible missing text] would be about five three, and by the time you added [possible missing text] the flesh and the muscle, you are going to have someone [possible missing text] about five four or five five, and they apparently, according to Truman did find a skull, and on the skull was some blonde hair. Some of the identifying teeth in the front were missing, and the reason I say identifying teeth is because Becky apparently didn't have a proper gap or something on her two front teeth, and those teeth were missing, according to the Pathologist, so they weren't able to identify anything from any dental records, but Becky had brown hair, she didn't have blonde hair, and the Pathologist, according to Truman, Becky was only about four foot eight, I think, or four foot nine.
A. Four foot eight, I believe.
Q. She was a short girl, and I think they found one of the skeletal remains of a foot, but the Pathologist did not remember what size that foot was, but, you know a four foot girl is going to have a much smaller foot than a five foot four girl is going to have.
A. I believe, according to the Attorney, the shoe that foot would have taken was about three sizes bigger than what Becky would have taken. Now, I don't know the sizes either.
Q. Is that Henry's Attorney you are talking about?
Pages 44-47 missing, starting back up on page 48:
was involved with your daughter?
A. Yeah. His birthday is the same day mine is.
Q. Henry's birthday?
A. Yes. August 23rd.
Q. To your knowledge, did Olvera get along with Kate all right?
A. I don't know that anybody ever had any real problem with Kate Rich. She was just a good old woman, and ever since I can remember she was an old woman. She had a whole lot of good looking daughters, I remember that.
Q. The reason I asked that is because Jack and Olvera Smart are saying that when Henry was out in California, that he stayed with him the whole time period, and there wasn't any way Henry could have been traveling to these spots killing folks.
A. They said they picked him up on the highway, they were going home to Hemet, and he was somewhere between San Diego, and I don't recall exactly, and they picked him and Becky up hitchhiking out there, and they took them home with them.
Q. Have you talked to them?
A. I talked to them one time.
Q. By telephone?
A. Yeah. Well, I was out there, but I never did go up and actually talk to them, because I didn't see any point in it. Like I say, the thing you have got to remember is the time frame that I was specifically interested in, I never got interested in all of the rest of this stuff until I full well realized that this whole thing is so ludicrous, and so far fetched, my curiosity got the best of me, I guess. I had the hardest time trying to digest, you know, how in the world did this ever happen. How can it be that commonly . . . I know all about this, because my mother still lives in Montague County, and I go there, and he dogged him to death for eight or nine, or ten months, you know, and finally got him on a phony weapons possession, charge.
Q. Now, you are kind of speculating on that, aren't you?
A. No, not really. They never had a gun. You go try to find that gun. It don't exist. Yeah, it does exist, and I will tell you where it's at, Ruben Moore has got it.
MRS. LEMONS: Henry didn't have it on him.
A. He did buy some bullets over at Stoneberg for it, and the old man over at the store has got the records as to what date it was. That is when you had to sign for it.
Q. You said Henry bought some bullets?
A. Yeah, but he actually the way I understand this, this comes from Ruben, he bought them for him.
MRS. LEMONS: See Ringo and Montague, and Nicona, are all little bitty towns.
A. And Stoneberg.
Q. And that is right close to Bowie and Decatur?
A. Right.
MRS. LEMONS: And they are all old people. I mean you can't hardly find a younger person in any of these towns. But these old ladies like to talk. From the day Henry hit town, we heard about Henry. Henry and this little girl living with Mrs. Rich, sent down from California. We knew all about Henry before we even knew Henry had done anything. We knew Conway was dogging him. These old ladies talk. They get on the phone and they talk all day. Hey, do you know about so and so.
GRAND JUROR: What about this Jack Smart, is he a California native?
A. No, he's not. I think he's from Arizona, if I remember right. A native of Arizona. They live in Hemet, California, and they have lived there for a good long time. I don't remember just how long. I just remember that many many years ago Alvera married somebody from Arizona, and I think that is who it was. Anyway to make a long story short, if police officers have got a body, and Henry can get somebody to take him out there, he can tell them this is where I did it. But if they don't have a body, or haven't found it, there isn't any point in taking Henry there, because he hasn't yet led anybody to one, and I would bet all of the tea in China that he never will, because he never did kill anybody, I don't think. Where I had all of the problems is, and I was talking with the District Attorney in Lubbock yesterday, and he was telling me, I have got a lot of trouble with all of these police officers around the country are corrupt, and I told him I said well, I understand what you are saying, because we went past that point a few months ago ourself, and it was a pretty hard pill to swallow. I finally came to the conclusion that I really don't think all of the police officers in the country are corrupt, and I think you are absolutely right, they are not, so what does that tell us. He thought for a minute, and he said, do you mean to tell me that you think the task force was telling him all this stuff, and I said well, what do you think? He said, I don't want to talk about it.
GRAND JUROR: Did you say the D.A. in Lubbock?
A. Yeah, Jim Bob Darnell.
GRAND JUROR: You talked to him yesterday?
A. Uh-huh. On the phone.
GRAND JUROR: I thought he was the one that wouldn't talk to you?
A. He was the one that wouldn't talk to me, and we talked to him one time up until two weeks ago, a week ago last Monday, or Tuesday.
GRAND JUROR: This is the D.A. in Lubbock?
A. Right. We had talked to him one time up to that point, and then we talked to him then, and he called . . . well Joyce called for him yesterday morning, and the reason she called was because Associated Press had a wire release, I believe on Wednesday that said he had made the statement that he was more convinced than ever that Henry had killed Debora, and we called out there, about to go down his throat again, and he reassured me that he was still investigating, and he did tell me now that he is convinced that Henry got out of prison on the 22nd. He did tell me that.
MRS. LEMONS: He finally put an investigator on it about two weeks ago, to investigate our allegations.
A. My attorney told me day before yesterday that the investigator that the District Attorney assigned to it told him that he is convinced that Henry didn't have anything to do with it.
MRS. LEMONS: He said that everything he has been able to come up with is exactly what we have been trying to tell him.
A. Well, there isn't anyway that anybody, and I don't care if it is Mike or Reed, or Ned, or whoever. You go out here you are going to come to the same conclusions we did, because you have got to go to the same place, and you have got to talk to the same people. You have got to look at the same documents. Now, I am not going to tell you that there is not more documents that you fellows can come up with, because I know there is. But, what I am saying is, any intelligent man has got to understand and realize that this is where Henry was. That is just the long and the short of it.
MRS. LEMONS: For one thing, Henry always had a car, and I know of just one time that he didn't have that car insured. So, you know you can trace him down by his car.
Q. Have you got some of those insurance policies and whatnot?
A. I have some, and some of the titles, a copy of the titles.
MRS. LEMONS: A driver's license in Pennsylvania, and Virginia, West Virginia.
A. He had a Pennsylvania driver's license. Okay, now I have got the driver's license number, but I can't find out another darned thing about it. I never could understand. John Campbell, the Trooper up there run this thing through the computer, and it came back zilch, but the reason for that is because it's an expired driver's license, and the computer don't recognize the number, so it won't tell you nothing. As near as what I can understand Henry probably got that driver's license late August, or very early September, and I say that because . . .
MR. BUTLER: What year?
A. The year '75, and I say that because Aoma made a statement to me that he couldn't drive a car, they wouldn't let him drive a car, because he didn't have a driver's license, and they made him go get a driver's license, and then as I understand it, he was driving a truck over at the Kaolin Mushroom plant.
MR. BUTLER: So this would have been very shortly after he got out of the penitentiary?
A. Right.
MRS. LEMONS: One of the two things he did was get a driver's license, and open a bank account.
A. This bank account . . .
MRS. LEMONS: We haven't been able to find it.
A. Well, I think I can find it now. I had the wrong town. It's 12th and Pennsylvania.
MRS. LEMONS: And we were looking what in Avondale?
A. Oxford.
Q. Are you very conversant with '81? Have you done any real checking as far as '81 is concerned?
A. No, not really. Like I said . . .
MRS. LEMONS: What month?
MR. LOCKHOFF: January.
A. He was in Florida. Aynesworth knows more about this for sure than we do. I can tell you this, the Jacksonville Police made the statement that they have known for 16 months that this was all a bunch of malarkey.
Q. Okay.
A. I will tell you something else, the FBI people have been such a pain in the neck down here in San Antonio. They also made the statement that they have always known this was a hoax.
Q. Who did you hear make that statement?
A. I didn't hear it, Carolyn heard it.
GRAND JUROR: When you talked to the D.A. yesterday from Lubbock, did he know that you were going to testify before this Grand Jury?
A. I don't guess he did. I would give anything in the world if the Grand Jury had that file from up there to look at it, and to hear this tape that I have been telling you about, and that sort of thing. See, we had a real problem with the District Attorney up there, and it went a lot farther than what we have been talking about. See, he accused us of having the murder weapon for nine years, publicly, from four different reporters that I know of, and he causes us some real problems, because these people were looking at us like, what in the heck is going on here. What's the deal. I stood over at a restaurant in the Hilton Hotel in Lubbock, both of us for an hour and a half trying to explain to David Hanner of the Dallas Morning News that we didn't know nothing about no murder weapon. He was very upset about that when he found us over there. These people lied to us. They lied about us. It was just a . . .
GRAND JUROR: Was it the same District Attorney, or have they changed out there?
A. No.
MRS. LEMONS: It was a different one than when Debora was murdered, but it's the same one that took Lucas' indictment.
MR. BUTLER: The old District Attorney is John Momford, who is now a State Senator.
A. Even the old one is Griffin, who was there when Debbie was killed, and Darnell has been there since Lucas became involved in this thing.
Q. So he is the one that said it was Lucas?
A. Yeah.
GRAND JUROR: How many times have you spoken with Lucas?
A. Two times.
GRAND JUROR: But that was just recent?
A. Wednesday and Tuesday, this week. See, Hugh Aynesworth was the only living human being that could go down and talk privately with Henry for a good long time, and the reason for this is when he started writing this book, on the onset, he went to Col. Adams, and got special permission to be able to converse with Henry, so he could write his book, and do it alone. Mr. Prince and Boutwell were very upset about that, but Col. Adams did tell him he could do it.
Q. Is that what Aynesworth has told you, that Boutwell and Prince were real upset because he had given him permission?
A. That's correct.
GRAND JUROR: What percent of your research were you able to really verify with Lucas?
A. Well, like I was telling you a little while ago. He was the guy that told me where to go find all this stuff through Aynesworth. He told us where to find all of this stuff.
GRAND JUROR: I mean through this meeting that you have had with him?
A. Oh, it's still the same story.
MR. BUTLER: I think his question was that all of the information that you got in your independent investigation, how much of that did Lucas tell you, and that's what you had already found out?
MRS. LEMONS: All of it.
MR. BUTLER: In other words, how much truth did Lucas tell you . . .
A. He never lied to me about anything.
MRS. LEMONS: All of it, except he had a few dates wrong, and we had a few dates wrong. You know, like he thought he got married in January, which he got married in December.
A. If you look at what we found out, though, and then you look at what Henry says, and it is just almost the identical same. Then you go back to these interviews Aynesworth did, and they are the same. Like Rhonda, I would have never known how to find that girl, but he says . . .
Q. Rhonda Nuckols?
A. Rhonda Nuckols he lived with her in Hinton, West Virginia.
Q. Remember, she is the one that sold the furniture out from under Henry, and Joe beat him up for it.
A. See, where she was over at White Sulphur working at Greenbriar, that must be 200 miles across the mountain from Hinton. Of course, I knew about Hinton, and went there, and I found out where Leland and Brenda were, and then I met a guy named Ted Barr, that is a County Commissioner in Cobble County, West Virginia, and he had a few police friends, because he is a retired policeman, so he starts asking these people to start checking, and find this girl, Rhonda. Well, they come up with what they thought was her over in White Sulphur, and sure enough it was, and as it turned out he happened to know, the old police chief over there, when we went over there he just took us right to her house, and we sit down and did an interview with her.
GRAND JUROR: What do those people up there think about all of this stuff?
A. The same thing, asinine.
MRS. LEMONS: They say that is not the person they knew if he did all this up here. They can't believe he did.
A. In the first place, like all of the relatives, and friends and neighbors, and these people that he knew up there, says I just don't understand. How could he have done all this stuff all over the Country, and never left here. He was always here. We can always remember Henry, because he was always a pain in the butt. He needed something. He had to have food. He had to have dollars for gas. He had to have something all the time. They didn't understand that. Then the policeman up there that we talked to, which was Detective Van Gilder from Hafferty Grace, from John Campbell in Pennsylvania and Fran Dixon in Maryland, they said, you know, we don't understand. What is going on down here. We don't understand either. That is why we are here. He said well, he said he did 18 here, and we can't verify none of that. He was here. We can't verify any of this stuff. What in the world is going on down there, and I said well, I don't know. All I know is I have got a problem and I need some help. I guess that it was because of that conversation that Fran Dixon has gone really out of his way to help us, and assist us.
MR. BUTLER: Wasn't he one of those Officers that was interviewed on Channel 8?
A. Yeah.
MR. BUTLER: Okay, I saw two officers.
MRS. LEMONS: Dixon and Campbell, and Van Gilder was on there also one day.
MR. BUTLER: On Nationwide T.V. they said he was up there, and they didn't think he had anything to do with any of this?
A. I have a video in my car of a lot of this stuff, if any of these folks are interested.
MRS. LEMONS: It's a lot of footage from Maryland, if you would like to see the living quarters.
A. It could give you some insight as to what we have been talking about, if you are interested in it. Any of these tapes that I have, I would be more than happy to go get them and play any one of them, or all of them for you.
Q. Has Mike seen all of them?
A. Mike has got a copy of the tapes. He doesn't have a copy of the video.
MRS. LEMONS: He has seen the video.
MR. LOCKHOFF: I don't know if the Grand Jury wants to?
GRAND JURY FOREMAN: Our time won't permit us to. As long as the investigators have the information.
A. That's why I didn't bring it.
(Further discussion was held off the record.)
- -- - -
THE STATE OF TEXAS
COUNTY OF McLELLAN
I, KAY SMITH, Official Reporter for the 54th District Court, Waco, McLennan County, Texas, having been duly sworn in as Grand Jury Reporter, hereby certify that the foregoing pages constitute a full, true, and correct transcript of a portion of the proceedings had and testimony adduced in the foregoing cause at the time and place as heretofore set forth; that the questions and answers thereto by the witness were taken down by me in shorthand and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me.
WITNESS MY HAND AND SEAL OF OFFICE on this the 17th day of May, A.D., 1985.
Kay Smith, Official Reporter
54th District Court
Courthouse, Waco, Texas,
757-5051, Certificate No. 116
Expiration date of 12-31-86
McLENNAN COUNTY GRAND JURY, MARCH TERM, 1985
IN THE MATTER OF THE INVESTIGATION OF HENRY LEE LUCAS
TESTIMONY OF BOB WERNER
____________________
APPEARANCES:
Vic Feazell, District Attorney
Waco, Texas (only appeared through a short portion of the testimony)
Ned Butler (only appeared through a short portion of the testimony)
_ _ _ _
Mr. Reed Lockhoof, Mr. Michael Hodge, and Mr. Mike Feary
Attorney General Jim Mattox
_ _ _ _
BE IT REMEMBERED THAT on the 14th day of June, A.D., 1985, at 9:00 a.m., in the McLennan County Courthouse, Waco, Texas, the McLennan County Grand Jury, March Term, 1985 convened, there being 12 Grand Jurors present, at which time the following proceedings were had and adduced as hereinafter set forth:
[jumps to page 22]
credibility to that task force, because it appeared to be that task force was coming under question. Is that right?
A. That would be a true statement, yes, sir.
MR. HODGE: Is this the time you want the D.A. back in?
MR. MATTOX: Yes, I think so.
A. It really was a two-fold purpose, and that was one reason to come to Georgetown to take care of the operation of the task force, and secondly, Sgt. Prince had been away from home for about 18 months. He lives here in Waco, and he was commuting, and when he would come into Georgetown like on a Sunday night, he would not leave again until Friday night. We felt like that if he wanted to keep his home life intact that it would be wise to get him back more in Waco, and spend some time with his family.
Q. Would you describe for us the general circumstances that you found when you arrived on the scene there in Georgetown, had you been supervising that on a regular basis any way?
A. I have been over there on numerous occasions, since the conception of it in November of '83. I tried to get over at least once or twice a month, just so I can visit, and observe the operation back then, and so it was not new to me. I knew how the task force was set up, and how it was designed to set it up, and of course, after getting over there and working with it, it worked, or continued to work like it had prior to the time I came over.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Did you find anything unusual or disappointing, or particularly rewarding, or anything that you can describe to us about the nature?
A. I was very impressed with the method that was set up. Ranger Clayton Smith was assigned to the task, any time there was a mail in of a homicide in some other place, some other locale, the mail was sent in. Clayton Smith was one that interviewed Lucas on those mail ins. They kept it where he had more or less all of the interviews on the mail ins, to give that responsibility to one individual. In addition to that, he traveled with Lucas quite a bit. Primarily for security reasons. Bobby Prince at that time was coordinating the outside agencies, calling in, trying to get a time frame where they could come down and visit with Lucas, and working the calendar and updating the travel log.
Q. What was Sheriff Boutwell's role in this matter?
A. Sheriff Boutwell, I think it has kind of been a misconception. Sheriff Boutwell is not really a member of the task force. He came to Col. Adams back in November of '83, and asked him that we establish a task force. We visited with Sheriff Boutwell on numerous occasions, but as far as him coming down and really becoming involved, after I came on board, he was not that much involved with the task force. He did make some trips with him, I understand.
Q. Did he read the mail in cases, review those?
A. No, sir. All of the mail in cases came directly into our office, and then they were handled by Clayton Smith. It could have been that prior to that time, due to the fact that they were shorthanded, that possibly the Sheriff did interview them, I don't know that to be a fact.
Q. One of the things that of course, I am going to be leaving shortly, and I may do a little skipping around, and they are going to continue to talk with you. Something I know that disturbs this Grand Jury, and know disturbs us is that there are certain cases that Lucas was taken out on, and any number, and I don't know the exact number, because I don't know if you all kept a list of them. But there were a number of cases that Lucas was taken out on, and it was described that Lucas, knew only facts that the killer would know. The cases were cleared. They were ultimately uncleared, or taken off of the cleared list, because it was obvious that Lucas could not have committed the crime, or it was highly unlikely that he committed the crime. Some cases that you all were certain he didn't commit the crime. I would like to have some explanation for how Lucas was able to get the facts that allowed him to corroborate his confessions in those cases where he theoretically had facts that only the killer would know.
A. My only explanation for that, and that would be that he had an accomplice, and of course I mentioned Toole, which I can do in here. We are under a gag order in Williamson County not to mention the word Ottis Toole, and the name Ottis Toole, but I am sure that Ottis might have committed some of these offenses, and then tremendous recall, and tremendous memory that Lucas has, and incidentally, that is the only thing I respect about that individual, is his recall, and his tremendous memory, but if Toole told him about the homicide, and how he killed a victim, this somewhere I think would stick back in Lucas' brain where he could remember it, and bring it out later on, and we don't know, we feel like there might have been other running mates that Lucas might have had, but we really don't know any except Ottis Toole. An example in Galveston, unless Sgt. Prince cited it yesterday to you . . .
Q. He cited it yesterday, but the thing, as an experienced law enforcement man, I am sure that you have some real questions about whether or not Ottis Toole telling him about these things, are really very good explanations for how he could have given that information. Let me tell you one other example. I think this Cervenka case out here, where Lucas theoretically led this task force and Sheriff Bootwell on a chase all around that end of the country, and all the way out to Laredo, and everything else on the case. It is pretty obvious that you all must have believed what he was telling you, or you wouldn't have been out there traipsing around. You wouldn't do it for your health?
A. I think that is quite true, because he had led them up to that time, to a number of homicides.
Q. But the fact is he theoretically had facts about the woman, and about the vehicle, car everything that quote, only the killer could know. I think everybody pretty well agrees, he didn't kill her. Absolutely, I agree with that. Someway he got a bunch of facts, didn't he?
A. And again, I have no explanation for it. I don't know how, how he acquired them. There has been several cases like that, that have come to light, that we have no explanation for.
Q. And that is what concerns us, and based on the Attorney General's Office's investigation into some of the objective and empirical type evidence that we have reviewed, that in looking at employment records, food stamp records, school records, and other matters such as that, we are pretty well convinced that Lucas was not at the scene of a great number of these . . . he was not the person that committed a great number of these crimes, and yet he was able to give facts, that only the killer would know, and I keep using that phrase, because it has become so popular to try to clear these cases when you have got nothing but a confession and the guy has theoretically given his own corroboration. Now, it leads us to get to the bottom line question. If we are pretty certain that he did not commit these crimes, and I think there are more of them than what Ottis could have told him about. Even if we accepted the explanation, it leads us to ask the question how he was getting the information. We wonder whether somebody was intentionally giving him the information, that is perhaps when the mail in cases were coming in. They were being shown to him, and letting him review them, in an effort not to try to get him to confess to crimes he didn't commit, but to get him to be able to pick out the crimes he did commit. Just trying to help him find his cases, or whether it was done inadvertently by the means of questioning where he was so uncanny about reading you, and understanding what you were trying to get him to say, and say well, we have got a case in Louisiana, in Baton Rouge, and do you have a murder case down there, anywhere around there, and he says well, I think I may have. Yeah, I am pretty sure I do, and I killed her with a . . . cut her throat, well, maybe it was with a gun. I can't hardly remember. What case are you talking about. That kind of role. We would like to have some kind of . . . let me tell you, you have been in law enforcement a lot longer than I have, and I am trying to get some explanation, a reasonable explanation for how this Grand Jury could reconcile these cases, and I am trying to figure it out. We know you went in there to look at it.
A. Well, I am sure that Sgt. Prince yesterday told you how our task force operated. I am sure he went into our briefing with the visiting officers, and we briefed them, and asked that they not lead Lucas on any type of information. Now, we even asked them to video tape their interview with Lucas.
Q. We have looked at a number of those videos, and we are convinced that a great number of them that Lucas was led to the extent . . .
A. Have you looked at any that we have videoed in Georgetown, Texas?
Q. No, I have not.
A. We did not retain a copy of those videos, we have those available to us, from the Agencies, which we can get back. It was not our practice to sit in on the interview, when visiting officers came in to visit Lucas.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. That interview room in Georgetown, does it have a two way mirror or video camera where you can watch?
A. No, there is not. I asked that question, there is not. The only thing we have is a VCR camera set up in there.
Q. So when the video tape was being made, was there a set, a receiving set somewhere where you could watch the interview that was going on?
A. No, sir. They don't have that fancy equipment in Georgetown, Texas. Now the mail ins, the mail ins all went to Ranger Smith. We did not video tape, because of the expense that would be imposed upon the Department. However, he did audio tape his interview with Lucas, and then he would take that audio tape, along with the information they had sent, and send that back to the Agency that mailed it in. Now, as far as again, I have never sat in on one of Ranger Smith's interviews, but I consider Clayton Smith to be above reproach as far as any type of leading Lucas. He is probably as strong a Christian Ranger as we have anywhere in the State of Texas, any place. I will put him up against anybody, and it was not his method of operation.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. I think most of us are not going to believe that anybody is intentionally attempting to lead Lucas into confessing to crimes that he didn't commit. There may be some of these officers that we have got a question about, such as up in Virginia, and places like that, that perhaps had some other motivations involved. But, if you interview a man on about two thousand cases, it may be possible for him to clear about 200 of them, just by dreaming a good bit, and by how . . . the fact is, we know of cases that he didn't commit, and we know he has got facts about those cases. Now, he either in an uncanny way, you know, and he has described to us how he did it. He has described to us how he has got the capabilities of doing it. And he doesn't allege that people on purpose told him things. I mean, he says that is not how it happened. But, he had the facts, and what we are trying to figure out is, were we just that careless, or is Henry Lucas such a good liar?
A. I don't think it was carelessness at all on the part of the task force, because I believe that you all were told yesterday, how this task force operated. We were not an investigative body, so to speak. All we did was coordinate for other agencies coming in, and taking Lucas to their respective territories.
Q. But you all did clear about 25 per cent of the cases in Texas yourselves?
A. Roughly a quarter of them, yes, sir. But now, again, let me say that the Rangers' role in these, the Rangers' involvement is quite unique, they do not enter a case unless they have been asked to do so, to assist by a Sheriff or a Chief of Police, or by one of their representatives. I know that this is misleading in a number of Ranger cases cleared by authority of an individual Ranger. Most of these, and in fact, I don't know any that wasn't cleared without working with a Sheriff, or Chief of Police, or whatever, in that respective county or city. But again, we maintained a travel log, and we tried to update this on a daily or a weekly basis. As soon as we would get information that we could confirm, this was put in our travel log, and if an Agency had a case, they would come down here to interview Lucas, if there was any conflict on that date, that was the first thing we showed them was a travel log, so here it is in black and white. He was in the Stoneberg jail in Stoneberg, Texas, on this particular date, and then we could eliminate that, and they could go about their business and save them a lot of time. But, the problem we had was not having this information, like on these junk yard records . . .
Q. The fact is now though, that we have records that under most investigative circumstances we would generally believe as being valid and true, and capable of exonerating a Defendant.
A. Now, we have his scrap metal records, I think it was 116 of them total, now I am a layman in latent prints, not in latent prints, but in handwriting. I am not an expert in handwriting, but I have gone through there, and I can show you at least 20 that are not Henry's signature.
Q. That's right.
A. And again . . . when I was a Ranger Captain in Lubbock, we had a commercial metals company in Lubbock, and it was not uncommon up there, and not a common practice when a person brings in metal, for them to I.D. or show I.D. when they brought it in. All they did was say my name is so and so.
Q. Let me tell you, we have sent our investigators down there to that metal company, and we think if you will look at those signatures, you are probably going to find Becky Powell signed a number of them . . .
A. And Frank signed one, and Toole signed one.
Q. But what I am saying is, I am just saying that between the objective evidence we have got, it would lead us to believe that he did not commit a great number of these crimes. Based on the crimes that we know he didn't commit, because he couldn't have done it, and those cases where he had those facts that he shouldn't have known, and we know he didn't do the crime, and based on the fact that we are pretty confident he could not have committed a great number of these other crimes, because he just probably wasn't there, there has got to be some reasonable explanation for how he got that information. Now, again, that is what has got this Grand Jury profoundly disturbed.
A. Well, it disturbs us too, when you get a man that has this capability, and I can't give you an answer for it. I don't know.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. Could I ask you a question?
A. All right.
Q. Have you made any efforts to take a look at any of the video tapes made on cases where he confessed to, and he knew the details, specific enough to allow the agency to clear the case, which it was later determined that he could not have committed?
A. No, sir, we have not gotten into it that far.
Q. We have looked at a few of those tapes, and I think it's our observation that Lucas is an expert at waiting out the interrogator, until he is able to get enough facts from him to later give them back to the officer doing the interview.
MR. MATTOX: Or to another officer that may come in to conduct the interview.
Q. Or to a subsequent officer who could come in at a later date. You recognize that he has an extremely good memory.
A. Sure do.
Q. Is there a word that describes that, hypernesia?
A. Well hypernesia would be the opposite of amnesia.
Q. Do you think he has that ability?
A. Yes.
MR. MATTOX: I apologize, I have to leave.
Q. Let me say this, at least one of the cases we have here in McLennan County, was that he was interviewed in depth and details by officers, and subsequently interviewed about the facts by another officer, who wasn't aware of the first interview.
A. I have not seen those videos, and we were not involved in that.
Q. We understand how the task force was working, and we are not trying to cast any dispersion on any of the task force, and maybe it was probably a mistake, wouldn't you say to call this a task force, because that implies investigative?
A. Well, I don't know of a better word that we could call it. They have established other task forces now, at least one other that I know of across the nation.
GRAND JUROR: Is that the one in Florida?
A. Yes, and we feel like if we had this years ago, we would have been a lot better off.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Let me ask you this question. Have you all made any kind of a record . . . Henry spent a long time up in Montague, what was it eight or nine months before the task force was ever formed?
A. He was arrested in June, I believe of '83, and the task force was organized in November of '83.
Q. So we are talking about June, July, August, September, October, November. We are talking about nearly six months?
A. A lot of that time he was in Denton, when he was awaiting trial up there.
Q. But you are aware of the fact that a lot of jurisdictions at that time were coming to Henry, and interviewing him, because Henry got real popular with law enforcement about that time.
A. Yes, sir. We had a hard time believing . . . you know, he came out and said he killed a hundred people, and then all of a sudden he raised it to 150. Now, I was skeptical in Austin, being one of Ranger Ryan's supervisors. We probably didn't give Ryan any help, and in fact, I know we didn't give him any help in Montague County, and he was getting phone calls, sometimes he was spending as many as 22 hours a day down in Montague County Jail, trying to interview Henry, or talking on the telephone, and writing on the wall, and of course, he just couldn't keep up. A lot of the things . . . I am not saying we did not make mistakes with Lucas and this task force, but they were honest mistakes. The mistakes that were made at first were that we didn't anticipate the volume that was going to get involved with here, and it has been a tremendous job, even after Sgt. Prince came on as the Coordinator, for a while we left Sgt. Prince there at Georgetown by himself. Later on we put Clayton Smith with him, and then we gave him a parttime secretary, 20 hours a week, and then when I came on board in January, it was still extremely busy, and the phone ringing constantly, and three lines coming in, and two people answering two telephones. It has been a hard job, and like I say, I am not going to say we have not made some mistakes, but they were honest mistakes.
Q. The point I want to make, and get across to the Grand Jury, and also to you, was that Henry was interviewed about a lot of cases, and was talked to about a lot of cases, did you commit these Henry, and that is when he was still in Montague and Denton, and Henry would either say no, I didn't do them, or yes I did do them. Two cases for example that we know that he denied when he was up in Montague, was the Debora Sue Williams case in Lubbock, and the Cervenka case in Williamson County. We also know that Henry subsequently said yeah, I did them. I mean I know you are familiar with those two cases, and so . . . and you have also admitted that Henry has a terrific memory?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. I wish I had it, like you said. What I want the task force to be aware of is that what we have come across in our investigation is that a lot of times Henry will be asked about a case, and say, I didn't have anything to do with it. I don't believe that is mine, and it's apparent that what the officer did at that point, said Henry, let me tell you a little bit more about it to make sure, and Henry said no, that is not mine. I am pretty sure that is not mine. Then, at a subsequent point in time, maybe months down the line, something would happen, and he might even be with a completely different bunch of law enforcement officers, and he would say, you know, I believe I did that. I did something right over there, and those officers would say, well, Henry, I don't know what you are talking about, and of course, they wouldn't have any idea. All of a sudden, he said such and so forth was like this, and they could get to checking, and sure enough the facts that he was giving them were absolutely correct. Only the killer ought to have known those. It turns out, however, that he was interviewed and previously denied any connection with those particular cases, or that case, and I contend to you, that with his memory, and doing it like that, and if he had a concerted effort to want to embarrass law enforcement, that that is how he was able to do some of these.
A. Well, that's possible.
Q. For example, I know you are pretty proud of some of the Georgia cases, I say proud, but you think that Georgia was one of the unusual circumstances for you, but I don't know if you are aware of it or not, but when we went through your mail in logs, and your interview logs, it became apparent that Henry was rather extensively interviewed by Georgia peace officers back in '84.
A. Absolutely, I agree with that.
Q. And since you all were not privy to what those interviews were about, you don't know exactly what cases they may have interviewed Henry on, and when Henry went to Georgia, even though you all didn't know what they were, Henry was saying things that sounded really great to you. It's highly possible that he may already have known that. I know that you don’t think that is what happened.
A. No, sir.
Q. But I say I think that is possible as to what could have occurred, because there is one other thing that I want to point out, for example, you think Henry is good for three Decatur cases in Georgia, don't you?
A. I think he is good for more than that.
Q. Well, isn't there one or two of them that you really thought Henry . . .
A. There were three in particular that the Officers didn't even have offense reports on, and he led them to the site, and then they have to back off and find the investigating officer in this small locale that did the investigations.
Q. When did those crimes occur?
A. I don't have the dates with me, I am sorry.
Q. Do you remember whether it was before '79, after '79, before '81?
A. Gosh I don't. I didn't review those before I came over here.
Q. But I remember looking at those, a few days ago, and it appeared to me that I don't care what Henry could have done, as far as give you that information, if you look back at his footprints, he is not going to be in Georgia at that time period. In other words, I am not talking about possibilities, I am talking about probabilities. I am not talking about beyond a reasonable doubt, I am just talking about what a reasonable law enforcement officer, looking objectively at the tracks, or an investigator looking at the tracks, ought to consider, and if that's the case, then perhaps before they consider clearing those cases, they need to look in, and try to double check and make sure that Henry really couldn't have done those crimes.
A. If it deals with scrap metal records, Becky and Frank's school absentee records, and allow the 18 months that he was married to Betty Crawford, any conflict that we have come up with, that shows a conflict for an Agency, either for one of those reasons, they have been all contacted. But, now one thing about Georgia, and I wished there was ample time to bring the special agents in here, with the approval of the Grand Jury to appear before the Grand Jury. Also there was a man that came to Georgetown several months prior to that time to interview him, is one of the finest officers that I have ever known, and has called me several times and has told me that he would be glad to fly to Waco, Texas, and testify before this body, and pay their own expense coming down to let you know that there is no doubt in his mind, that these are good, sound, strong cases there. They are as sure of theirs, as you are.
Q. Don't get me wrong. I am not absolutely 100 percent positive. All I am thinking is that I have got a reasonable doubt in my mind, and if I was a prosecutor, my aims would be justice, that is what my sworn duty is.
A. I agree with you.
Q. And one of the purposes our office had, and not the Grand Jury, but our office had is we wanted some of these jurisdictions, because what our initial investigation showed was they hadn't been doing their home work, that is not the task force's fault, and it may not even be the jurisdiction's fault, but we felt like that somebody hadn't been doing their home work, and that it ought to be done, and I think you will admit you have been doing some homework yourselves?
A. Yes, sir, and one thing also, every officer that came in when I was present, and this was done prior to the time I got there, we told them that believe only what you can confirm with Henry Lee Lucas, because he does lie. He is a con artist, and there is no question about that. Most criminals that we come in contact with have a tendency to do both of these, but Lucas more so than any person that I have been around in a long time.
Q. Henry tried to confess to a lot of crimes?
A. Yes.
Q. And you discounted a lot of them?
A. Yes, sir.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. The fact is, he was confessing to murders, and you believe him to be a murderer? He was confessing to murders. He wasn't giving you alibis. He wasn't saying I didn't do it. He was saying I did it. He wasn't giving you alibi information. He was giving you murders, not alibis.
Q. One thing to consider here, most agencies, and this is true not only in Texas, but across the Nation. Law enforcement really has a hard time getting by financially. If they are convinced in their mind that Henry Lee Lucas was good for their homicide, because of some things that developed when he was taken to their location, or when they came to Texas to interview him, more than likely they did not go beyond that, and the reason for that was because of the expense. If they did not plan to prosecute, for instance, why expend five thousand dollars to go from California out to Florida, for instance to pursue this case when we know we are not going to prosecute him anyway, and I know really, they just dropped right there. I don't fault them for this. We all in law enforcement work under a real tight budget.
Q. The only thing that bothers me, and I think you will admit this, one thing about the Texas Rangers, ever since their inception, they have been a master of good public relations.
A. Try to be, yes, sir.
Q. And one of the things, and you said yourself, normally you all only come in as back up, or assistance role, but you notice that on every one of those back up roles, it wasn't the local officers that cleared the case, it was the Texas Rangers, and what has now happened, it is biting you on the hiney a little bit. Isn't that right?
A. I tell you what, I think we are going to survive.
Q. Well, I think you are too. But I think you all realize that it doesn't always pay to take credit for something, then . . .
A. Well, really I don't think this was really the case where the Ranger particularly wanted to take credit for a case. We just made a phone call to that Sheriff, or whatever, and then again, I say we are not above making mistakes at the task force, but rather than put down the agency that did the work, and the agency that cleared it, the Rangers name was put down to simplify things.
Q. Right. I am not saying that to criticize anybody, okay, but I am just saying, that has happened in the past, and it did happen. One thing I want to kind of get off on, because we haven't been asking very many questions. We have been almost having a session here in front of the Grand Jury, and we can do that just you and I some other time. One thing that I am concerned about though, it was reported to me that we met the first time back in the latter part of April, I believe, or the first part of May?
A. I imagine that is close. I won't be able to call a date. I imagine that is fairly close.
Q. The conversation that you subsequently had with Fran Dixon on the telephone, I say subsequent, was that before or after my conversation with you?
A. I have talked to Fran several times, Trooper Dixon, rather in Maryland. I talked to him the last time I guess about two weeks ago probably.
Q. Did you talk to him sometime right after my conversation with you?
A. Possibly so.
Q. Was Floyd Hacker related to you, the last conversation, or one of the last conversations, concerning your phone call to Fran Dixon?
A. Not Dixon. I believe it was Mobley that Floyd talked to me about, after your visit with Floyd.
Q. How long have you all had that report from Mobley, that written report?
A. I got the report, and I don't have it in its entirety, I don't believe. I got mine on 4-27-85.
Q. And it was shortly after that, that you met me, I believe, if memory serves me correct, because do you remember that was the date that Chief Hacker showed me the report that Mobley prepared on Leonard Kaizer, identifying the photographs of Ottis Toole?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. You and Lefty Block were in the office?
A. Right.
Q. And Mike Feary and I?
A. Right.
Q. And that is when you all showed us that saying well, this shows that Ottis was up there. Had Floyd already gotten that entire report at that time?
A. I don't know. Chief Hacker will normally not go through every report we have. That is my job to try to filter out reports. There is no need for me to do it, and then for him to do it, and the task force people doing it. I doubt very seriously if he went through the whole report.
Q. My question to you is, you sat right there that day, and had him show me that, and yet, the rest of that report seems to indicate that Ottis and Henry probably didn't know each other except for that one situation. Isn't that the case?
A. What situation, I don't know. If it's the report I am thinking about, what I was trying to do was set a time frame when they first met, when they first put them together, which was probably in July or August of 1977.
Q. Okay, but in your conversations with Richard Mobley, Fran Dixon, they have not been able to come up with that date, have they?
A. Yes, sir, I have a report here from Mobley, that says that Leonard Kaizer . . . I asked about a time frame on Lucas about July or August of '77 was the date he came up with, and he went on to explain, the reason that he could recall the approximate time was Henry Lucas had returned from Texas, and was operating a green Ford Stationwagon, and he goes on to talk about hiding that Stationwagon out in a corn field, and covering it up with Corn stalks, and so forth, to keep the general public from seeing it. This is a report that I received on 4-26-85. I don't know if that was before or after our visit with Chief Hacker.
Q. Well, it probably would have had to have been . . . you probably received the report before, because you showed me that that day. Now, I think I also told you that day, however, that I was convinced that regardless of what Leonard Kaizer had done, and if that was the first time anybody had showed me anything to the contrary, that one statement by Kaizer, Leonard Kaizer, that in fact Henry Lucas and Ottis Toole had not met each other until February of 1979. Do you remember me making that statement?
A. I remember you making that statement, but we have had other dates that came in question too, and in fact, we have had reports where people tell us they could put them together in 1976.
Q. Who has told you that?
A. I don't remember the name of the officer, but that is one of the first dates that we came up with.
Q. Outside this Leonard Kaizer, the Leonard Kaizer identification of the photograph of Ottis Toole, outside of that, has Fran Dixon or Richard Mobley found any other evidence?
A. Not a bit, no. In the Report that we have written up on Henry Lee Lucas, giving a description of him, and a picture, a little bit of his life style, a little bit of his family background, in that report it shows that they became involved together in 1976. I remember that date. If you have got a copy of it, it is going to be about the fourth or fifth page, and that was put out to Officers all over the nation.
Q. But who initially compiled that?
A. That was compiled by information obtained by Sgt. Prince, Ranger Phil Ryan. This was right after the inception of the task force back in November.
Q. And do you know where that came from?
A. The date, I have no idea where it came from.
Q. It came from Henry, didn't it?
A. Well, I am sure it did.
Q. Now, you just got through telling us earlier that Henry is going to lie to you.
A. That was a date I was going to try to either get put down as 1976, or eliminate it. That was one of my reasons for calling Mobley, and also calling Fran Dixon, was trying to establish the date.
Q. But they haven't been able to do that for you?
A. They haven't done anything yet prior to that time.
Q. Are they still looking for you?
A. I hope so.
Q. And if they find it, you will let us know?
A. Absolutely. I will be the first to apologize.
Q. We offered everything we had to you all, I know back on March 18th, I opened the books to you then.
A. I know you did.
Q. You now know, however, that the .32 caliber pistol that apparently killed a detective down in Louisiana, and killed the lady in Chambers County is no good, don't you?
A. No, sir.
Q. You don't know that?
A. No, sir.
Q. It's right here in this report, I think. You haven't read that one?
A. I don't have this report. Is this 15 pages?
Q. I have not counted them. It has the Leonard Kaizer thing in it.
A. I received this in pieces, and I have tried to compile a report from it.
Q. Let me ask you a question then, maybe I am talking to the wrong person, who did it first come to?
A. It would normally come to the task force, but a lot of times if I am out on another assignment, and it gets in, and say, Bobby opens the mail, then, we really have no filing system, like we should have there, and I will be the first to admit that. It is stuck aside, and possibly Bobby might stick it in his brief case, and I might stick something in mine, and we have gotten better, I will admit that. We have gotten a lot better.
Q. Bobby Prince wasn't aware of that one either.
A. This is the first time I have seen it.
Q. And we have been told by Richard Mobley that he sent that material to the task force. Isn't that correct, Mike?
MR. FEARY: It's my understanding, that he made a packet of information available to you similar that he said he had mailed out to almost a 100 requesting agencies, and the packet he gave me was the same.
A. I have not seen this at all. I might have seen part of it.
Q. I think you have seen parts of it, because it does have the Leonard Kaizer in there. That's the reason I knew you all didn't know about Leonard Kaizer until April. Now, I tell you what bothers me a little bit about that, and it's possible that Mobley might have fouled up, and simply skipped that out of the packet, and in other words, it may have been a careless act on his part, but he is pretty sure that he included that to you all. If he did, I will be the first to admit that I am kind of a cynically suspicious old dog, and I kind of wonder why it is that the task force appears to be editing information that is coming into it.
A. We have not had this report in its entirety. I don't see anything there that corresponds with anything that I have got.
Q. Wait a second. You haven't received any of this?
A. To my knowledge, I don't see anything, I am just thumbing through it.
Q. And you have talked to Mobley quite a few times?
A. Yes, sir, I have, and I have asked him to send me everything he has, and I have not seen that report. I have not seen any of that report. No page of that report have I seen.
Q. You have not seen that one? Is that the same one you got on Leonard Kaizer?
A. Yeah, I have seen that one page right here on Leonard Kaizer.
Q. Can I see what you have got?
A. That was brought to me by Sgt. Prince today. I have seen that right there. That was brought in by Prince, later on today.
Q. Where did he say he got it?
A. I didn't ask him. I just told him I would like to have what he has on Richard Mobley, but this is the only thing I have with me right now from Mobley.
Q. See, that is what bothers me though.
A. Well, when I talked to Mobley over the telephone, when I asked him were we supposed to receive a packet about an inch and a half thick, and I questioned him about that, and he said well, I have sent out a ton of mail, all over the State, and all over the Nation, and some to London, England, and he said I don't know what I have sent you, but I have not sent you a packet an inch and a half thick.
MR. FEARY: The London newspaper did ask for that information.
MR. LOCKHOOF: We have been at this for quite a while now, so why don't we take a short break.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Okay, back on the record. Let me go through my notes here, Bob.
MR. HODGE: Are there any questions that the Grand Jurors might want to ask?
MR. LOCKHOOF: You told me you had five questions that you would like to ask.
GRAND JUROR: Let me preface my questions by stating, and I have said it weeks ago, or months ago, really, I have a great deal of respect for the Rangers, past and present, and I have just got a couple of questions pertaining to what we have been talking about. Number one, if you had to go to that blackboard and put a date down as to when Lucas got out of prison in Michigan, what would that date be?
A. That date would be hard to put down. Lucas has told us he got out as early as the 5th, 6th, 7th of August, 1975. The Court records, not Court records, but the records at the Michigan State Penitentiary showed August 22nd. However, they destroy their master file after five years. These were some records that were found that would indicate August 22nd, but we are still looking into it, and trying to come in fact, trying to come up with some definite date if we can, and it might end up being March 22nd . . . I mean August 22nd.
GRAND JUROR: Has Ranger Peoples been up there?
A. Yes, sir, he has been to Michigan.
GRAND JUROR: Any members of the task force ever, if I can use the word, prepped other visiting agencies as they were about to interview Lucas on their cases? I mean when an agency would come in, or a group would come in, did members of the task force prep them as to how they could best ask questions of Lucas?
A. No, sir, the only thing after I came on board in January, the only thing that I asked in conjunction with Sgt. Prince, or whoever, would ask of them is to not lead Lucas in the questioning. Yes, here is a map of your State, show him the map, and if you need to, and ask him if he has anything, if he will locate the city, and I will just use Omaha, Nebraska, for an example. Okay, and ask him if he has anything in that general area, and if he has anything, he has been real respondent about giving forth of the information. He says, yes, I remember having one, and then they will start into maybe the year, and work up to a time frame as to what time of year it was, what, you know, if it was a female, and maybe show him a live photograph, color photograph, preferably of the victim, but not pictures of crime scenes. We ask that they not show him pictures of crime scenes, nor tell Lucas how the victim was killed. This was vital information that we feel like that only Lucas would know, you know, if he did it.
GRAND JUROR: Would Lucas know ahead of time by hours or days as to what agency might be coming in?
A. Yes, he would have that knowledge, he sure would.
GRAND JUROR: Like Oklahoma City was going to come in tomorrow, and they want to talk to you about several cases?
A. Yes, he would have that.
GRAND JUROR: And one member of the task force would advise him of that, right?
A. Well, yes, sir. We have a real tiny office in Georgetown, and it's real small, and you can read everything on one wall, that shows up on another. You can just stand here and read what's on the wall over there. It's that small, and we keep a calendar, which is a pretty good size calendar, and on this calendar we list what City, and State is due to interview him, and how long a period of time frame they have got, half day, full day, two days, whatever, and he could come in there, and he could look over there and see, without us even telling him when they were scheduled to come in.
GRAND JUROR: As he was being interviewed by a particular agency, let's just say a city in Texas, Dallas or Houston, and a member of the task force was not in that interview room, is it conceivable that the investigative officer, could leave that room, and let Henry be thinking about particular cases, questions or whatever, and is it conceivable that information, files, boxes of files be left in that room with Henry by himself?
A. It was our practice that anytime an Officer left the room, Henry was brought back from the interview room to our office, and left there. The only time, I think, this would come about is if the investigation officer had to go in the rest room, or that would be about the only time he would leave, but never would he leave Lucas by himself, and this was done, primarily for security reasons, and other reasons in mind, too, but primarily security reasons, because he could very easily step out, and go right down the hall and be gone.
GRAND JUROR: The security room only had a one door entrance?
A. Yes, sir, right.
GRAND JUROR: Did it have windows in it?
A. No, sir.
GRAND JUROR: So in other words if someone stepped outside that door, security was pretty good?
A. Yes, sir, absolutely.
GRAND JUROR: So if an investigative officer decided to go to the rest room, he could leave Henry in there?
A. Well, no, sir. I don't know of it happening. It could have happened, and I am not going to say it hasn't, but I would have hoped they would let us know, because if he went to the restroom across the hall, and Henry was there by himself, because we didn't leave a guard right outside the door. We were in our next office.
GRAND JUROR: I want to say too, that I admire you very much for saying that the task force and Rangers make mistakes.
A. I appreciate that.
GRAND JUROR: Every group, and every human all make mistakes, and I think you are one of the first that has totally admitted that you all do make mistakes, even though you are Rangers, you make mistakes, and I appreciate that.
A. Thank you.
GRAND JUROR: Just a couple more. On the Cervenka deal, back to that, in that was so unbelievable, didn't that bother you a little bit?
A. Which case was that?
GRAND JUROR: The Cervenka, that everybody believed he was linked with that, and all of a sudden you even admit now that he had nothing to do with it, as to how Henry obtained all of that information. Doesn't that puzzle you?
A. It really does.
GRAND JUROR: Doesn't that puzzle you as a law enforcement agent?
A. It does, it is a big concern of mine, and I will be the last to ever say that I ever thought a person was psychic, but there has been a few things, and he has done some painting up there in jail, and here oh, several months back, three or four months ago, he painted a landscape with a lake out there, and the water narrowed down, and it broadened out into a lake, and hills behind it, and mountains behind that. We take him to Dallas a few days later, and he had never been to Dallas, to this Psychiatrist, walked in the waiting room, and in the Psychiatrist's office, and there is a big picture, beautiful picture of an identical landscape, and it might have been something that he had seen in a picture, I don't know. But the trees were right there, the mountains were right there, and the whole thing was there. It's weird.
GRAND JUROR: Last question. Why do you think, and just your opinion, there has been a gag order on Toole?
A. Judge Lott in Georgetown imposed this back during the time that Lucas was fixing to be tried in Williamson County, well, it was in San Angelo for the homicide in Williamson County, and it's never been lifted, and Judge Lott still is very forceful in imposing that. In fact, if somebody writes something in West Virginia, you know that mentions Toole's name, and he reads it, he kind of chastises the task force. Of course, they put his name in the paper as related to Lucas, as a companion.
GRAND JUROR: Why don't you think he released that gag order?
A. I don't know. We have never approached him to release it. It hasn't been a problem for us. Every once in a while we have to catch ourselves, or we will blurt out the name of Ottis Toole, and we try to refrain from it, but it's like a curse word or something like that.
GRAND JUROR: Thank you very much.
GRAND JUROR: I just have one question. You have reviewed so many of these cases, that I would like your opinion as to the orange socks case?
A. Of course, we did not make the investigation. Jim Boutwell, Sheriff Boutwell made the investigation. He and his officers made the investigation. Now I hate to preface this statement, information that only the killer would know. Lucas on the way back from Denton did point out the location. When they came in to Williamson County, they came in from Waco on 35, he pointed out a culvert, and Lucas was riding along and said, that is where I threw the body. About every culvert you see, they all look alike, and how he could pick that one out, I don't know, but there are a number of other things that really do tie in on that case.
GRAND JUROR: How do you feel about it?
A. I feel very confident about it, I sure do.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. When you briefed the officers that were going to interview Lucas, did you tell them not to let Lucas know if they thought he was lying?
A. Yes, sir, sure did.
Q. What was the reason for that?
A. Well, the reason for all of that, if Lucas . . . if an Officer would call him a liar that automatically cut the interview at that particular time. Lucas has a very high stout ego, and he feels like that if a person calls him a liar, he is just not going to talk to them, and in fact, in some cases he has even refused to talk to anybody from that State. If one person in the State calls him a liar, he won't talk to anybody else in that State. He puts that in his mind, that the whole State is bad, and he is not going to talk to them. That is true.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. I would like to say one thing. We have not experienced that with Henry at all.
A. Well, I guess . . .
Q: I am not saying that didn't happen, but I do want you to know, and you haven't had an opportunity, obviously, to talk to Henry since you have been here?
A. No.
Q. But I am sure you all had surmised that we have grilled Henry at great length.
A. I would think so, yes, sir.
Q. And there have been times when he has told us things, and we will just back up and say, Henry, you lied to us about that. Let's start over, and he will kind of grin at you, and he will start over, but he has never thrown any temper tantrums, or done anything like that.
A. I am not going to necessarily call it a temper tantrum, he just refuses to talk to them, and that is when we stop.
Q. Right. Anyway, you would admit, I think that at this point in time, that there are no fire arms to link Henry Lucas, and I know you have not had a chance to see this .32 caliber report.
A. I have not.
Q. But assuming I am correct about that report, you have no firearms that directly link Henry to any of the killings that he has confessed to?
A. Not to my knowledge, no.
Q. You don't have any knives, from stabbing deaths, that would directly link Henry to those deaths?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. There was reportedly, again, coincidentally enough, coming from Louisiana you have got hair samples?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And once again the same Detective that handled the .32 caliber situation, Ed McGeehee, is that correct?
A. I would have to look back on the report, Reed, I don't remember.
Q. I think if you will look, you will find that it was Ed McGeehee that found the hair samples but that's the only hair sample I think you all found?
A. I don't know. I don't know the break down on physical evidence. I do know that we have some pubic hairs and head hair.
Q. Do you know the pubic hairs, what cases . . .
A. No, sir, I don’t know.
Q. But from a forensic standpoint you can't actually say that a head of hair came from a particular person, can you?
A. No, sir.
Q. You can say that hair matches the physical characteristics of that individual?
A. Absolutely.
Q. So that is not really the best evidence. It is better than no evidence?
A. Yes. Of course, in El Paso, we have two witnesses out there that . . . document witnesses out in El Paso on a homicide out there, where Lucas approached them the following day after the homicide, and attempted to sell them some of the property, and the Officers out there have a lot of stolen property recovered. They have got the eye witnesses, and they have identified Lucas by a mug lineup.
Q. That would have been the one that occurred on May 26 1983, correct?
A. I believe that is correct.
Q. Of course, Henry was also allegedly killing somebody on May 25, 1983, in Louisiana, wasn't he?
A. That's true.
Q. So he would have to drive pretty fast to get to El Paso?
A. Well, it's about 1200 miles. I don't remember the exact distance, but Lucas was the type of individual that did not take much sleep. He was constantly on the road. He could drive for long periods of time without any sleep.
Q. How do you know that?
A. By his own admission.
Q. Because that is what Henry has told you, isn't it?
A. Yes, and of course, as I say, he is a real good liar, but I am firmly convinced of that, and also his Psychiatric reports they talk about how he would drive for long periods of time. I don't know if I offered you a copy of those reports or not, but we have those and they are available. They came out of Detroit, from a newspaper reporter from the Detroit News.
Q. Henry didn't sleep particularly well when he was in Georgetown, did he?
A. I think he slept exceptionally well.
Q. He didn't sleep short periods of time while he was in Georgetown?
A. Well, he might not have right before his capital murder trial in San Angelo.
Q. I had been led to believe that Henry . . . again, from Henry, that he would only sleep for two or three hours a night, and wake up and be restless, and then he might go back to sleep, or he might not, and he did that habitually on a periodic basis.
A. Well, really since I came on board over there, I don't know. I have talked to him as a rule, just a simple question, hi, how did you sleep last night, and it has not been a thing where he constantly complained about not sleeping.
Q. No fingerprints on Henry?
A. The only latents I think that were obtained, of course, they have a copy of the report where they did compare, and they did match up, but it's my understanding that they were lost.
Q. Okay, that is Ed McGeehee again?
A. Right.
Q. So Ed McGeehee on one case has fingerprints, hair and a pistol that he thought . . .
A. Out of all of the murders that Henry has committed, that he has confessed to, we have got one where we have got some theoretically some evidence.
MR. FEARY: I believe those related to more than one case. They were just all through the investigation of Ed McGeehee.
Q. Actually that's right. The .32 would have been the police detectives. Excuse me, I didn't mean to mislead the Grand Jury, and the head of hair would have been the lady whose head was chopped off, I believe. Does that sound right?
A. That sounds right.
Q. I am not sure where the fingerprint came from, do you know? I mean it was Ed McGeehee's case?
A. I don't remember the case, no, sir.
Q. Okay, but that fingerprint does now appear to be missing?
A. Well, yes, sir, they can't find it. It appears to be missing.
Q. Okay. I know what question I want to ask. You, I believe it was you and Phil Ryan, and Weldon, or Waldon, and Clayton Smith went up to Denton in February of this year?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. To do some investigation?
A. Well, it wasn't investigation. It was recovery, that was our purpose for going up there, primarily, to attempt to recover a notebook that Lucas claimed that he threw out when he chopped up Becky Powell, and that's a discovery, more than any type of investigation.
Q. Okay. What was the purpose of trying to find that book?
A. Lucas said he had a bunch of phone numbers, addresses, and names that he felt like would be a big help to us in law enforcement to be able to find that book.
Q. But you didn't find it?
A. No, sir, we found a cellophane picture holder, billfold size with some pictures, one picture of Becky, or Freda Powell, and a couple of other pictures in there.
Q. And that of course, was right out there where the murder scene was?
A. Very close to the murder scene, and he had put the notebook in a bank bag, and I assume that the bank bag was probably found, and it was discarded some place other than the crime scene.
Q. Did you go through the material that Montague County had up there, to try to find out if it was in that stack of material?
A. I have not been through the material, no, sir.
Q. Okay. It seems like that would have been a logical place to go. Have you ever seen the statement that Bill and Debora Smith made back in 1982 to Montague County?
A. No, sir, I have not.
Q. You all do have a tape however, on that?
A. I have not heard the tape.
Q. Okay, but you know who they are?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. Is the tape that they have, a tape of the interview?
MR. LOCKHOOF: I believe it is a tape of a different interview that was made. Isn't that correct?
A. I don't know.
Q. A tape that was made by the Missouri Police?
MR. LOCKHOOF: Right.
Q. And the statement that was made was given to the Texas authorities?
MR. LOCKHOOF: That is my understanding. It's my understanding from Mr. Prince last Friday, that he was reluctant to let me have a copy of the tape, until we had permission from Missouri Authorities.
A. I see.
MR. LOCKHOOF: And we agreed to that, and of course, he also generously agreed to let us hear it, and we had to decline because we were trying to get ready for Grand Jury.
A. Sure.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Do you have any kind of relationship with Mike Cox?
A. No, sir, I know Mike. In fact, he is working for our Department now, in our PO up there.
Q. Public information officer?
A. Yes. I don't know much about Mike. I have only known him about four or five months.
Q. Was he ever up at the task force office and spend a great length of time?
A. I have seen him about twice up three is all. He still worked for the American Statesman.
Q. I think I had already asked you this, but you were aware that Georgia law enforcement officials had already interviewed Henry about several cases?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know how many times Lucas and Toole had been allowed to communicate with each other since Henry's arrest?
A. No, sir, I don't. I really have no idea.
Q. Do you think that is a good idea, them be allowed to communicate with each other?
A. I see nothing wrong with it.
Q. How many times has Bobby Prince been passed over for Captain?
A. Gollilee, I have no idea. I don't know why that would have any bearing on this Grand Jury. I really don't know.
Q. Have you ever heard him say that as a result of his work on the task force, that that would probably assure him of getting the next Captain's spot?
A. I have never heard that. A person does not make Captain because of one episode or whatever. It takes a number of years.
Q. Do you know who Johnny Dodd is?
A. I know he is a Deputy Constable. I don't know him personally.
Q. Do you know he has got a book contract with Henry?
A. I have heard that. I have not seen the contract.
Q. Well, didn't you and Floyd Hacker kind of have a talk with Bobby?
A. No, sir, I did not. Chief Hacker and Captain Wilson did, and Captain Block, but I was not present.
Q. What is confabulation? Do you know?
A. I sure don't.
Q. And you don't have any training in hypnosis, do you?
A. No, sir, I am not a hypnotist.
Q. Bobby Prince is though?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You don't think he ever hypnotized Henry, do you?
A. No, sir, I sure don't.
Q. Do you know what affect Thorazine has on a person?
A. Yes, sir, I think it's more or less used as a anti depressant. I have even heard it could be used to cure hiccups. I don't know if it's true or not.
Q. Do you know if Henry was given Thorazine while he was in Georgetown?
A. Yes, sir, in talking to Sheriff Boutwell, and of course, he is prepared to answer that too. He was given Thorazine upon Dr. Benolt's request from the latter part of January '84 to April of '84, about a three month period that he took Thorazine.
Q. Did you all ever offer to give Henry a polygraph test?
A. I never have personally, and I have not heard anybody offer to give one in my presence.
Q. What is your professional opinion of a polygraph?
A. I think polygraph is a wonderful machine. I think it's the operator in many cases that has a tendency to lack something that is desired. I think the polygraph is a good tool, and should only be used as a tool in law enforcement. I also think that the polygraph should be used if there is a fear of discovery, where in Lucas' case there was no fear of discovery. I further think and this is strictly my opinion, that the polygraph on a suspect that is accused of a number of homicides, and one that has, in my opinion, no conscience such as Lucas would be of little or no benefit at all.
Q. What about . . . you are aware that the two polygraph examinations is what he was given in Tarrant County, are you not?
A. Yes, sir, I think that is when he was still in jail in Montague County, I believe.
Q. And you are aware that he did flunk those?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. In other words, it indicates two things, that he is a reactor on polygraph, doesn't it?
A. Yes, sir, it should.
Q. And it also indicates that the polygraph operator, since he is a reactor, be able to spot deception. Would that be a fair statement?
A. I think that would be a fair statement, yes, sir.
Q. Have you ever heard anybody on the task force ever tell somebody that Lucas was too smart for a polygraph test?
A. Was what, too smart?
Q. Yes.
A. No, sir.
Q. Okay. You have already answered this in all of the mail in cases.
A. Right.
Q. That Clayton Smith did those?
A. Right.
Q. We have already talked about Mobley, Dixon, and I didn't ask you about John Campbell, but I assume . . .
A. We have a report from John Campbell. I don't have it with me. But, we have a report from John Campbell.
Q. Do we have a full report from John Campbell?
MR. FEARY: I am not sure we have got his entire report. He was involved in another investigation when I was up there, and his report I received from Trooper Dixon.
Q. You have no objection to you and Mike comparing reports, would you?
A. No, definitely not. I think it's a must.
Q. Okay. Does the Grand Jury have any further questions for Bob?
GRAND JUROR: I would just like to know if he has anything he would like to say?
A. Let me get Mike's question first.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. Did any agencies coming down to Georgetown, who spent the money to come down without having at least some idea of whether or not Lucas had committed it?
A. Yes, sir. I can't give you a figure on that, and I don't know how many, but some of them did come down. Of course, they had a bunch of unsolved homicides. I would like to address this Grand Jury and say to you that I really feel like it is an honor to have been asked to appear before you all. I think that you all are doing an outstanding job, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be with you today.
MR. HODGE: Thank you for coming.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Vic, do you have any questions you would like to ask Bob?
MR. FEAZELL: I just walked in, so I don't know what was asked.
MR. LOCKHOOF: I am sorry.
_ _ _ _
THE STATE OF TEXAS
COUNTY OF McLENNAN
I, KAY SMITH, Official Reporter, 54th Judicial District Court, Waco, McLennan County, Texas, having been duly sworn in as Grand Jury Reporter, hereby certify that the foregoing pages is a full, true, and correct transcript of a portion of the proceedings had and testimony adduced in the foregoing cause at the time and place as heretofore set forth; that the questions and answers thereto by the witness were taken down by me in shorthand and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me.
WITNESS MY HAND AND SEAL OF OFFICE on this the 24th day of June, A.D., 1985.
______________________________________
Kay Smith, Official Reporter, 54th
District Court, Waco, Texas 757-5051,
Certificate No. 116, expiration date of 12-31-86
McLennan County Grand Jury
March Term, 1985
IN THE MATTER OF THE INVESTIGATION OF HENRY LEE LUCAS
TESTIMONY OF BOBBY PRINCE
____________________
APPEARANCES:
HON. VIC FEAZELL
District Attorney
Waco, Texas
HON. NED BUTLER
Assistant District Attorney
Waco, Texas
HON. JIM MATTOX
HON. REED LOCKHOOF
HON. MICHAEL HODGE
HON. MIKE FEARY
Austin, Texas
_ _ _ _
BE IT REMEMBERED THAT on the 13th and 19th day of June, 1985, at 9:00 a.m. in the McLennan County Courthouse, Waco, Texas, the McLennan County Grand Jury, March Term convened, there being 12 Grand Jurors present, at which time the following proceedings were had and adduced as hereinafter set forth:
TESTIMONY OF SGT. BOB PRINCE
MR. LOCKHOOF: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Grand Jury, this is Sgt. Bob Prince, Texas Ranger, Company F?
A. Yes.
MR. LOCKHOOF: He is here today, and you are here voluntarily, is that correct?
A. That's correct.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Hold up your right hand, please, sir. Do you solemnly swear that you will not divulge either by words or signs any matter about which you may be interrogated, and that you will keep secret all proceedings of the Grand Jury which may be had in your presence, and that you will true answers make to such questions as may be propounded to you by the Grand Jury, or under its direction, so help you God?
A. I do.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Have a seat, please, sir.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Bob, let me start off by saying that you are not the subject of an investigation by this Grand Jury.
A. Okay.
Q. In other words, you are not a suspect, as far as this Grand Jury is concerned in any acts of wrongdoing, and for that reason, I am not going to give you any Miranda warnings, as a result of that. In other words, you are a volunteer witness up here, and primarily what we have got is the Grand Jury is looking into three McLennan County cases, because of the periods of time we are involved, and some of the things the Attorney General's Office has ran across during our investigation, we had some questions that we thought maybe you might be able to clear up for us, and of course, I will say this, you took an oath, and you know what that means?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you understand that if you were to lie to us, that would subject you to possible criminal charges.
A. Sure.
Q. Now, then before we start asking you any questions, we talked last Friday, and I told you if you had any kind of statements that you would like to make to this Grand Jury, that we want to afford you an opportunity to do it, to make any comments that you would like to make, and I would like to give you a chance to do that at this time.
A. Okay, thank you. Well, I do appreciate the opportunity to come before you. I know this has been a long session for you, but I do appreciate the opportunity to come before you, and tell you that the reason that I do want to come is maybe to try to answer some of the misinformation that has been publicly made through different sources, and different people. I would like to candidly answer any questions that I possibly can, and first of all, if I may, I would like to tell you the role of our task force, what it has been, and we were organized in late 1983, Sheriff . . . of course, all of you know that Lucas was arrested sometime in mid June of 1983, in Montague County.
MR. HODGE: Can everybody hear?
GRAND JUROR: Not very well.
A. As you know, Lucas was arrested sometime in mid 1983, in Montague County, and there was a lot of publicity. After he was completed there, he went to Denton County, where he was tried there, and received a lot of publicity, and then he was transferred to Williamson County. After he arrived in Williamson County, there was an onslaught, you might say, of officers wanting to personally interview Lucas, or they wanted cases, where they couldn't come, cases that had been mailed in, and they wanted those to be interviewed. Sheriff Jim Boutwell, whose custody he was in, in Williamson County, did go to the Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, and ask for assistance in handling the mass influx of officers that wanted to come in and talk to Lucas. As a result of Sheriff Boutwell's request to Col. Adams, who is Director of the Department of Public Safety, for assistance, they decided to set up a task force, or a little mini task force, to assist Sheriff Boutwell. We were organized in late November of 1983, myself, and Clayton Smith, of the Rangers were directed to go down and assist Sheriff Boutwell. When we arrived down there, we had a large volume of calls to return, and what we decided to do was just to set up a calendar, we got a large calendar, and then as we returned the calls, we would ask the officers how long do you want to talk with Lucas, this sort of thing, and then as I would call them back, I would put them on a calendar, and we built up several months ahead calendar, just more as a booking officer, booking agent is what it boiled down to, like a doctor's office, you might say. An officer would come in and interview Lucas, and after we had been there a very short time, I saw the need to obtain a synopsis on officers coming in to interview Lucas, and where we could have information on the cases that had been cleared, and there also had been a little mini travel log been built, concerning Lucas' whereabouts, and as information would come in to us, we would put it on a travel log for want of a better term, of known or suspected locations of Lucas, and Toole, as that information was made available. Okay, when officers would come in, if they had a need for what information we had, we would freely share it to them, any synopsis that we had, had already obtained, we would give it back to the officers for their information, and also the travel log. The purpose of the synopsis, it turned out to be quite useful, was if an officer came in later on, and had a similar M.O. from a previous homicide, the two agencies could get together. In one particular case, in Chambers County, Texas, they had a homicide where a .32 caliber revolver was used. Later on, a Louisiana officer came in, and they had a homicide where a .32 caliber revolver was used. Those Agencies got together to compare ballistics, and it was learned that they suspected, or they believe the weapons that were used in that had been uncovered in Maryland, and on one of those cases, a weapon was taken from the victim that was killed, and through the synopsis that we had been keeping, we learned that that weapon is believed to have been used in a homicide in Oklahoma, and that weapon has been recovered as a result of the synopsis information, and have been able to get the three different agencies together, so it just evolved from that. We were learning as we went along, we tried to give suggestions to officers when they would come in, I know there are some of them that we missed, but we tried to give suggestions to officers when they would come in, that you believe what you can confirm when Henry Lucas says it. We also tried to suggest to them that he would tell you lots of things that maybe you couldn't confirm. Whether or not it was a lie, or whether or not it was his confusement, we didn't know, but we asked them to listen to Lucas, because he had lots of valuable information, and he also had lots of information that has never been confirmed, and we asked the officers to go ahead and listen to him, because there is a possibility that he would be talking to them about a homicide, and the officers may have known it didn't happen in their area, but it may have happened somewhere else, and the best example I can think of that, is when we were in California last summer on a trip with Lucas, Lucas described to the Long Beach California officers, a homicide that had occurred there. The Long Beach officers were not familiar with that particular case. It wasn't until months later that the Long Beach officers were put in touch with Seal Beach officers that learned the homicide that Lucas had described, I think it was in Long Beach actually did happen in Seal Beach, and this is the best example I can think of. We have asked the officers to go ahead and listen to what Lucas had to say, even though it might not pertain to their area, and Lucas would be telling them that it pertained to their area. Lucas would give lots and lots of homicide information to officers that came in. I know when Florida State officers came in, he gave him details of over a 100 homicides. There is only a very very small amount of homicides confirmed by Lucas in Florida. When New York officers came in, he stated that he had committed around fifty homicides in New York, well, they have one confirmed there in New York that he is involved in. Whether or not there are anymore, we don't know. When Canada officers came in, he gave them details of in excess of twenty homicides, they don't have any confirmed involved in Canada. They don't have him eliminated as being involved in homicides in Canada, but they don't have him matched up as yet, and it's this way all over the nation when officers come in. We have had somewhere in the ballpark vicinity of 800 to 1000 officers come in to talk with Lucas over the 18 or 19 month period. So he has been interviewed on several thousand homicides, how many we just don't know. How many they will ask him about, we don't know, and then how man he has in turn volunteered information to them, we don't know. It has been a very frustrating type experience to deal with Lucas, because you never know whether he is telling the truth, until it is confirmed. This has been known all along. He has given some very accurate information on homicides that he just could not have done. An example of this, we were in Galveston some months back, and he had confirmed or pointed out some homicides down there, and at the end of the day we were in the homicide division of the police department, and the question was asked, have you done anything else here in Galveston. He said, yes, I have, and then he described a homicide of a lady in an apartment. None of the officers knew anything about that particular homicide, and so I suggested to them Henry if you know where it is, why don't you, or can you show it to us, and he said that he could, so we got in the car, and he directed the officers to an area, and then he did point out a garage apartment scene, and stated that woman had been killed there. One of the officers said he could vaguely remember when he was a new rookie officer, uniformed officer, a homicide occurring over there, but he knew absolutely no details. Lucas also described that he had stolen a t.v. out of a house. It wasn't until the next morning that the officers were able to pull the records, and sure enough there had been a homicide that had occurred at that residence, and a t.v. had been taken, and so Lucas was asked to describe the t.v., as a black and white portable, black or white in color, and they did happen to have a picture of the t.v., and it was just as he described it. Then we looked at the date on it, and it was somewhere around the ballpark of 16 months before Lucas got out of the penitentiary the first time. This happened, I believe, if I am not mistaken, in January of 1970. So this is one that he absolutely could not have done, but yet he knew the details. None of the officers that were with us knew the details of the homicide. Another example like that would be another time we were in Galveston County, and the police chief, as best I recall was at Texas City, and stated that he had a homicide of two young girls that had been killed, and we went out to the area, and Lucas could not point out the homicide scene, so the police chief went up to the scene, and said okay, right here is where it is, does it ring any kind of bell, and Lucas said no, I don't have one here. I have got two of them around here somewhere, but this is not it. Then we looked at the date on it, and he couldn't have been responsible for that anyway. That night we went over into another county, if I am not mistaken, Brazoria County, and when we got over there, they were interviewing him concerning some homicides in their county. I was separately talking to the sheriff, and the sheriff told me about the homicide where two young girls had been killed, so I told him the earlier conversation in the day, that Lucas has stated he did have two young female homicides in that area of the state, so the sheriff went into the interview room, and talked to Lucas about the case, and Lucas seemed to have vague knowledge of it. In order to determine, we went out to the scene late that night, and when we got to the scene, it was in a rural area, and when we got to the driveway that goes into an oil field area, the sheriff was led to that area, and when we got to that area Lucas said okay, there is a fork in the road, and we will turn to the right, and we went down that, and when we started down that, and he said okay, down at the end there will be a large turn around, and we went some distance, maybe a mile, or something like that, and back in there when we got there, sure enough there was a large turn around. As we started the turn around, he said this looks like where it happened. Okay, and this was where they had found the body. There was an oil well there, and Lucas said, but I don't recall the oil well. I don't believe it was here. The sheriff did separately state that the bodies had been found out there, and it was just skeletal remains had been found by some oil field workers, so the oil well would not have been there at the time. Okay, at that time, I hadn't looked at the date earlier, but at that time we did look at the date, that one of the girls had disappeared, and they were not the type that would have probably been a runaway, but Lucas was in the penitentiary when this occurred. Once again, he knew the details of it, and how he knew the details, this is unexplainable to us. In asking Lucas how he could have known the details of either one of those cases, he stated that if he didn't do it, obviously this is one that Toole had done, and told him about, and carried him back to the scene. He stated that they did at times go back and mentally relive or verbally relive the crimes that they had committed. There are some more of these that we don't have explanations for, but that's just an example of two. If you want to hear more, I will be glad to tell you about another one. Numerous cases have been, the local officers have called them cleared, and then they have been changed from cleared to uncleared well before this publicity broke. This has been the case. In the Florida case where a large number were cleared in Jacksonville, Florida, we did have this on hour task force records, one day we were talking with our analyst when we were making sure our records were the same. Our analyst had a different number in Jacksonville than we did. He had one or two less, or one or two more. I believe it was one or two less, so I called the supervisor, one of the supervisors at the sheriff's office in Jacksonville, and asked him what homicides that they now considered still cleared by Lucas, and they said, because we don't know what to believe when he says it, we are eliminating all of them, so at that time we did take quite a number off, and I don't remember the number, maybe six or eight off the cleared list. We have had another example, something like that from Nevada, where the state officer from Nevada had been in to talk to Lucas about a case, and gave us information, or another officer, I am not sure it was a state officer, but another officer had been in to talk with Lucas, and give us information to clear it, and went back, and the sheriff of that county decided he didn't want it cleared until Lucas could be brought to that state, and called it confirmed. This is another one that has been cleared, and then taken off. I believe there is two like that from Nevada. We have some more like that in Colorado. We have another one like that in Mississippi, where the officers came down, and talked to Lucas, and they did consider the offense as cleared, and then later when we saw there was a conflict on a travel log, some information we had received, call the officer in Mississippi, and as a result of the call, we did take the information off on the Mississippi case. The role of the task force has been to coordinate just like this. Our primary role has not been to be the authority for the clearance of the case, or the authority for actually the investigation of the case. We have . . . I say we, mainly Clayton Smith has interviewed Lucas on numerous, a large number of cases that has been mailed to us. The majority of these have been tape recorded, and the information sent back to the requesting agency, whether in state or out of state, and let them make the determination of whether or not they wanted to clear that particular offense. Even on the ones mailed to us, we did interview him, but we were not the authority for clearing it. The clearance would be made, and there are several that had been cleared that way, it would be after they sent the interview back, then the officers came in and talked with Lucas. Mr. Lockhoof earlier had asked me for a list of the ones where we had received a mail in case, and interviewed Lucas, we had interviewed Lucas and then later on the case was cleared. We do have that list, and Clayton will be bringing that in. I think there is in the neighborhood of about 17 of these. And the question was asked, was there any of them from California, and our records do not indicate that we had any mail ins from California that had been cleared. I would hate to positively say on any of this that we didn't, because our records are subject to error.
Q. Let me stop you there for just a second. You are saying that to the best of your knowledge, none of the California cases that were subsequently cleared and confirmed out there in California, none of those places ever sent you all any mail ins, any crime packets?
A. Not to my knowledge. I would really hate to say I know there has not, and the reason for that is, early on we did not keep a record of the cases that were mailed to us. They would come in, and we would interview them, and we would mail them back, and we didn't start our log of the ones that came in, until later on. When we got started we thought this would last two or three months. I was temporarily assigned down there, I lived here in Waco, and I was temporarily assigned down there for what we thought was going to be a short duration, and of course, it didn't. It would keep snowballing, and we have had a large number of officers come in, and we still do have a large number of officers that have never got in to see Lucas. We have traveled with Lucas on many occasions in state, and a few times out of state, and we still do have some requests in state, for Lucas to be brought there, and we still have 15 to 17 different states that request that he be brought there to point out crime scenes where possibly he is involved, and possibly he is not involved on cases. Some of them that are already cleared. Some of them they have interviewed him, and feel like he is involved, but they want him to point out the scene. We do have, of the ones we have been to, I don't want to be pinned down on a certain number, but we do have in excess of 100 different times that he has pointed out crime scenes to the local officers, when he has been taken back to a particular area. Some of the states we have been to in our travels is West Virginia, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, California. I feel like I am forgetting a state, but that's the states I can recall right off hand that we have been to.
Q. Georgia?
A. Yes, Georgia. As a matter of fact, talking about the Georgia trip, we did do some extensive videoing and audioing of the interviews there in Georgia. I do have some tape, or a tape from Georgia, if at any time you all would like to see possibly the Henry Lucas we knew, the information, the way he would give it to the particular officers, and if you all are interested in looking at that, that will be available to you, whenever you want it, and we have about a 45 minute tape that you can listen to. Also, for your information we do have officers from quite a number of locations throughout the nation that have volunteered to come and appear before you, and to bring whatever information available, if you are interested in listening to the positive side of the interviews with Lucas, and to speak as to the credibility of why their cases were cleared. We do have one from Pennsylvania that has volunteered to come at his own expense. The rest of them haven't volunteered at their own expense.
Q. Who is that?
A. Tom Gallagher.
Q. Bob, I don't know if the Grand Jury is going to want to look at those, but you don't have any objection to the Attorney General's Office looking at those?
A. Certainly not.
Q. And you would be willing to give us the names of all of those officers you are talking about?
A. Correct.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Let me ask one question. A moment ago you made reference to a Mississippi case?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Excuse my hoarseness, I have a cold. You made reference to a Mississippi case, where the case had been cleared, and when you all checked the chronology, you determined it was not possible for Lucas to have committed that crime. Had he confessed to another crime on the same day somewhere else?
A. No. On the Mississippi information, on the same date, we believe he was in a rescue mission in West Virginia, in Bluefield, West Virginia. We believe he was there. How accurate that information is, I don't know, but I did make that information available to the Mississippi officer.
Q. And they took the case off the cleared list?
A. That's correct.
Q. Do you have information, specifically on what information Lucas had given that particular officer, to cause him to clear that case?
A. No, sir, I do not. Now, I have a synopsis, but what he told the officer, I don't know. I didn't sit in on interviews, as I did not, on nearly every interview, I didn't sit in.
Q. It was generally you all's practice not to sit in on interviews?
A. That is correct. That was our practice. We had normally a two man operation there. We had a constant . . . we were constantly on the telephone, officers calling in wanting information, wanting schedules, this sort of thing. There were very very few times that we actually sat in on the interviews.
Q. Do you have a listing, or can you provide us with a listing of the number of cases that were theoretically cleared by officers that were then taken off of the cleared list as a result of you all's determination that it was likely that Lucas was someplace else, or he confessed to other crimes?
A. This could be available. I am not sure many of them actually got on the list. Most of the time we could head them off before the interview, because we would look at the dates of the homicide, and they would tell us over the phone and dates of their homicide, and we could look at the travel log, and say well, we believe he was at this location, or this and this location at that particular date. Another example of one that was cleared, would be in New Orleans, I don't recall the name of the case, but on a trip to Louisiana, Lucas spontaneously gave information concerning a case, and I am sorry, I don't know all of the details, but he did also point out the scene. He pointed out the scene where the lady's car was taken to after she was killed, and then he pointed out the house. This was during the week. When they returned from the trip in Louisiana, let me back up just a little bit, before the officers returned from Louisiana, the sheriff in Louisiana did call a press conference, and announce that among several other cases that were cleared. When the officers returned from Louisiana, it was Sheriff Boutwell, and Clayton Smith, when they started to put this down on the books, Clayton noticed that he was in custody in Montague County at the time of that homicide, so he did contact the officers there, and so actually it was never on our books, although it was announced cleared by the officers down there, it would have been on our books, had we not noticed that on that particular date.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Where was that in Louisiana?
A. It was in New Orleans.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. You all are still finding out information, are you not, about where Lucas was at different times in his career?
A. Yes. Of course, most of the information we are finding out now is from the Attorney General's Office. Their information has been made available. This is the way it has been from the inception. We have really been the receiving end of the sources, or the receiving end of the information concerning where Lucas was, due to the size of our operation it certainly wasn't practical, and it certainly wasn't within our . . . well, let me say it wasn't practical for us to go and try to determine where Lucas was. Lucas not giving us any alibi information. There was a few alibi information, or a little alibi information developed, but Lucas was not giving us alibi information. Now then that he has given alibi information, you know, certainly it needs to be checked, but we were not made aware of the scrap iron records until it was furnished us by the Attorney General's Office. We were not aware of any of the food stamp records, until it was made available to us.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Is all of that information, would you all have been interested in having that information?
A. Certainly. We would have been interested in that from the inception. We are certainly not embarrassed that anyone would have that information, and we don't have it. We solicit this information from whatever source.
Q. Here is what I want to make clear, Bob, and that is from the beginning, we had some serious questions about our two cases here, and started looking into them, and found just by accident some serious questions about some other cases that Lucas has cleared.
A. If I might answer, or do you want to go ahead and finish. If I might answer something here, had we been made aware of any of these conflicts we would have contacted the agency that was responsible for clearing the case, and let them determine whether or not he was at the alibi location. We didn't feel like that was our responsibility.
Q. Let me tell you what has happened. I am afraid there has been some real ill feelings, well, I am sure there has been some real ill feelings generated.
A. Well, I am going to have to agree with that.
Q. Between you and me, and our different organizations. I think it could have been avoided by me doing things differently, and by your people doing things differently. Shortly into this thing we contacted somebody with D.P.S. and he now denies it, but me and two of my people were there in the meeting. It was he who suggested to us that we go to the Attorney General's Office, rather than going to your people. Also, Bob, I want you to know that on May 8th I had a meeting with Col. Adams, and asked Col. Adams, you know, was he interested in this information, and he said sure, if somebody else gave it to him, but he would not put anybody on trying to find it. Mr. Mattox and I felt it was somebody's problem, and somebody had to do it, and it had to be coordinated somewhere, if not by Col. Adams, and I still wish that is where it would have been, by somebody, because just local jurisdictions acting independently with each other could not have done that, and from everything I am hearing you saying today, it sounds like we are in agreement. That is the main thing that concerns me. I hope that the entire situation can eventually be resolved, and I am just real sorry that it has gotten out of hand. I am not going to accept one hundred percent responsibility, because I think it is several sides involved.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Vic, let me ask you a question. Who is the individual that you talked to?
MR. FEAZELL: Ron Boyter.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Okay, and when did you talk to him?
MR. FEAZELL: I don't remember the exact date. Ned may have some information along that line. It was either late December, or early January.
MR. MATTOX: It was prior to the time you visited with us, and you visited us on January 8th?
MR. FEAZELL: Yes. By the time we got to General Mattox's office, Col. Adams already knew we were on our way there.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Let me ask along the lines I asked before. In my personal discussions with Lucas, he indicated that he endeavored as much as possible, and with as much assistance as he could garner from Sheriff Boutwell, and I don't remember specifically if he said any of you all, any of the Rangers, but that he attempted to attempt to use you all's chronology, and you all's listing of times and places, in an effort to do the best that he could to keep from confessing to some crimes where he could not have committed them, and also resisted efforts to try to get him to confess to crimes where he knew that it would pose some obvious conflicts. Would you comment on what assistance he might have had in that area, and what evidence you might have seen of him either attempting to keep from confessing, or did you find that he was confessing to crimes that it was obvious that in hindsight he could not have committed, because it was in direct conflicts with other dates, and things like that. Would you just talk about that general area?
A. Well, let me go back to one of the original statements that I made. You believe what you can confirm when Henry Lucas says it. I certainly have no idea, because he wasn't made, he wasn't given a copy of our travel log. He wasn't given a copy of any of our reports. I am going to be very surprised if officers when they came in and talked with him, would give him a date. The suggestions we would give officers when they came in would be, don't show Lucas any photographs. Show Lucas only a live photo of the victim. Don't tell Lucas how the particular person was killed. Let him tell you how the person was killed, if he recognizes the picture. Don't tell him whether or not this was a store clerk, would happen in a store, don't let him know it was a hitchhiker, and don't let him know whether or not this was a housewife, or whatever, because if Lucas can provide you with that information, and draw you a map of how you get to that particular location, we believe this is corroborative type information. As far as him knowing the dates, I can't tell you what officers, what dates they gave him when they went in. I just can't answer that. Each case is going to have to stand on its own merit. He certainly didn't have our travel log available to him.
Q. I don't mean a specific travel log, but he didn't have any general reference materials that he kept, or you all kept, that he had access to?
A. Not that I am aware.
Q. Your estimation of cases that he was able to clear, where he clearly could not have accomplished those activities, and of course, we have come across others that we are relatively certain that he could not have committed, and we questioned him extensively about how he could have gotten the information to corroborate these kinds of confessions that he has given. Of course, he has told us that he was talked to about so many different cases by so many different people, that by the time, particularly when we use our brother in law type system, then in law enforcement where I talk about your case, and you talk about somebody else's case. There was an assortment of reasons why he described those different kinds of overriding type capabilities. Have you gotten any real explanation for how he was able to confess to some of those cases, when you feel certain that he did not commit them?
A. I do not have any explanation at all. You know, you talk about a head scratcher, it's a head scratcher, like the case in Galveston. I have no idea how he could have got the information. If it's determined later on that he is at a site physically selling scrap iron on a date when a case happened all the way across the nation, there is no way I could explain this. I am not sure anyone can. I am not sure Lucas can. I have no answer.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Bob, is what you are saying is that you don't have any idea how he would have gotten very specific information, say like in the Galveston case . . .
A. Like in the what?
Q. The Galveston case, the New Orleans case, one more that you mentioned, where he gave the police very specific information?
A. Brazoria County, right.
Q. Under normal circumstances had you not found out later that he was incarcerated, actually incarcerated at the time, those would have been considered confirmed by corroborating evidence, would they not?
A. That's right.
Q. There is no explanation for that?
A. I would think that all four, the one in Galveston, the two in Brazoria County, or it might have been three. It seems like there were two little girls, and a boy, maybe, those and the ones in New Orleans, yes, they would be on the cleared list right know, because the local officers, the investigating officers that knew about the case, every one of them felt like he was involved in it.
Q. I can understand.
A. But, when it came down to actual documentation, there is no way he could have been there, and possibly, I have no idea, but it possibly may be the same way on the Lubbock case, the Debora Sue Williamson case. There is no way that I can explain that. Because, I don't know that anyone knows an actual walk out date from the penitentiary.
Q. Yeah.
A. I don't believe he got out on the 22nd.
Q. On the three that you described, where he describes the television set, where he went down the road, and was able to tell you to turn around, before you even got there?
A. Right.
Q. And about the oil well. He was getting a lot of things very absolutely right?
A. That's right.
Q. Whereas in the Debora Sue Williamson case, he got a lot of things absolutely wrong, did he not?
A. I would think on every one of these cases, yes, he got some wrong.
MR. HODGE: He got some of the things wrong?
A. Sure he got some of the things wrong, and I would think that is when we need to worry is when he goes up and something happened five, or six or seven years ago, and he gets everything exactly right, right down the line. Because, if we are going to provide him with information, we are not going to feed him wrong information. We are going to feed him right information.
Q. I understand.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. I may not have listened close enough, but I want to ask you again, if I can. You give us that Mississippi case, where there was some obvious conflict in the travel log information. Did you all make, or do you have a listing or can you give us a listing of the cases where he confessed, and there were obvious conflicts, and you all later called back and told the officers of the problem there?
A. These are the only ones I can think of, because I think before we were able to head them off, either before the interview or whatever. Our analyst in Austin can possibly give us that information. I don't have it anymore.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. I would like to ask you more about the analyst, you said originally the task force was made up of you, and Clayton Smith, and Sheriff Boutwell, is that right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. There was also some backup support from D.P.S.?
A. Right. Now, how you consider someone a member of the task force, I don't really know, but we had some other support. We had a secretary in April or May of '84, we were able to hire for twenty hours a week. We had analyst at the crime analysis service in the Department of Public Safety. There are two of them that worked with us extensively, and of course, they had other work to do also, but anytime we would get any information, we would feed to these particular analysts, Don Overstreet, and Betty Krezensky.
Q. And what exactly does a crime analyst do?
A. Well, they are more of a central depository for our information. They were the ones that were actually . . . we would forward any documentation that we would get, we would forward into them where it would be in one central spot. They were building the travel log, printing up the travel log to be distributed to different officers, which we have learned certainly was a mistake for us to do, because by the time you get one printed up, and distributed out to anyone, it is completely outdated, and so we found out it is much better to work off of just one master booklet travel log, and disseminate information off of that.
Q. Was this document here, that I am showing you, is this the kind of thing that the crime analyst put together?
A. Right. This would be in a booklet form. This is what we would call our master list, and we actually had three of them, well four, now that the Attorney General has one. We would have one page for each month. In other words, this is opened up to October of 1979, for Lucas. The next page would be October '79, Toole. There is a different page for each month for each individual. Now they would keep this, and anytime I get any information I would call it in to our crime analysis, and also the Senior Captain's Office, and they would put it in their master book, or if the crime analysis got information, he would call me, and we would put it in ours. He would print up from time to time, and I have made that available to you all, this in a condensed form. This in a very condensed form, and then update it every few months. By the time any officer got that, and of course, it would take a while to print it up, but anytime they got that, if they received it a month after it was printed, they would be a month behind time, because this is updated daily, or as we get information, and so the ones that were printed up, and the ones that obviously the Dallas Times Herald has been printing is way outdated. This one is already outdated now. I went by and was supposed to pick up one yesterday afternoon, and I just couldn't get by there before five and get it.
Q. This starts in 1960 when Lucas admitted to murdering his mother?
A. Right.
Q. And goes up through, I assume the time that he was arrested?
A. That's correct.
Q. And what primarily is the source of the information that you have on these?
A. Well, the source of the information, this is where Don Overstreet, our analyst could help us, because he knows the source of the information. I could probably pick any page, and tell you the source of some of the information.
Q. You got information from Lucas?
A. Not information so much after we got started. A lot of the information where it says supposedly in Muscle Beach, California, or supposed traveling in the East Coast that week, that would have been from Lucas from his debriefing by Phil Ryan, early on after his arrest. If it's blood bank records, that means someone has checked at the blood bank in Houston, or in New Orleans, or wherever, and we have him down here as selling blood in Del Rio, or whatever that particular day. That, rather than Lucas information, but the crime analysis would have the documentation for each of these dates, as many as they have.
Q. When you first got down to Georgetown, the situation that you met with was a number of people wanting to come down there and talk to Lucas?
A. Yes.
Q. And in fact, a back log, is that right?
A. Right.
Q. And you felt at that time the primary job was to make arrangements for these people to come in?
A. That's correct.
Q. Was it primarily to help out Sheriff Boutwell?
A. Well, I really don't know whether you could classify help him, my task was there, or my responsibilities was to go down there and be the coordinator, or the supervisor of the task force. Of course, Sheriff Boutwell doesn't answer to me, and I don't answer to him, and he really didn't take part in the scheduling, because he had a Sheriff's Department to run. My full time duties were to be working down there, and Clayton Smith's full time duties were to be working down there. Whenever we would make trips sometimes Sheriff Boutwell would go with us.
Q. Did Sheriff Boutwell have any duties with respect to questioning Lucas about the cases?
A. No. He interviewed him on certainly his cases in that county. Probably a very minute number he interviewed, I don't know whether to say mail in, or some other cases. He would have to answer to that. I can't tell you what cases he has interviewed him on, but I think it was a very minute number.
Q. If he interviewed him on the mail in cases, his name would be indicated on the mail in log?
A. I wouldn't think so. The only ones I can think of, and I just don't know of anymore, but he may have, is where very early on, before we was even keeping the log, Lucas saw a picture of a girl on his desk, and said, I killed that girl. That case was a missing girl out of Midland or Odessa, and her name was Christy Booth, if I remember correctly. He gave Sheriff Boutwell some information on it, and Sheriff Boutwell took a statement. As it turned out, a private investigator had been in earlier, we understand, to give Lucas information on the case, and also had shown him a photograph, and this was information being parroted back by Lucas, because when Lucas was taken out there, he could not pick out the scene where the girl had disappeared from. This is the only one that I can specifically remember him interviewed on from out of county.
Q. Okay, you got things organized, you got a mail in log going . . .
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Before you go into that, would you mind just amplify for a minute more about that last transaction you talked about, about the investigators, about what happened.
A. Okay, my understanding is there was a . . .
Q. Let me ask you a question if I might. Mr. Prince, and I want to make sure I understood you right. Now back, I know in Lucas' trial in San Angelo, they provided some rather extensive information, the defense attorney provided some rather extensive information as it related to Lucas' work records. Are you telling me that at no time during the course that the task force was in operation that Lucas did not provide alibi information to you all, or to any of your analysts, or any of the other people that were interviewing him, to try to say well, you know I am going to confess to these crimes, but I didn't do it because I was someplace else, and the way you can check that out is because of my selling scrap metal, or I was getting food stamps, or I was going to the dentist, or school records, or any of those other things?
A. We were not furnished that information by him at no time that I am aware of that he ever stated I could not have done any cases that has been cleared previously, because I was selling scrap metal or whatever. To my knowledge, we were not aware of the scrap metal records.
Q. How about the food stamp records?
A. We, to my knowledge we were not aware of the food stamp records. I think this is an excellent idea that your office came up with on this information, on the food stamps.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. How about the Florida work records?
A. Yes, we are and were aware of those.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. Can you tell me when you became aware of those work records?
A. No, I can't, because the work records came up during an investigation of the Williamson County case. This case was already well into the investigation before I got involved in the task force. This was Clayton Smith did go to Williamson County, is one of the counties that he normally works, but he did go to Florida with, I think on two different occasions to do some investigation on the work records. Lucas, to my understanding did tell the investigators there in Williamson County that the work records in Florida, generally were false, because they had a foreman, and he could remember his first name as Mike, or Mack, as taking payoff from Lucas and Toole to show him present when he was indeed not there. Now, as a result of that, they did go to Florida and did do some interviewing, and did find some corroboration for that, and this was presented at the trial in San Angelo. There was a gag order by the judge when I got down there, that we could not discuss that case with Lucas, so certainly it never was discussed with me, and it probably wouldn't have been anyway, because that wasn't one that I would have any knowledge, directly knowledge or interest in. I shouldn't say interest, that's a misnomer.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. How about the cashing of the checks, and the handwriting analysis of that, and the corroboration?
A. I am sorry. That's going to have to be addressed by someone else. The District Attorney's Office, and the investigators from Williamson County handle that, and I was not involved in that investigation. I just don't know.
Q. Were you aware that those checks were available?
A. Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, they are in the District Attorney's Office there in Williamson County now.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. Bob, did you ever see the D.P.S. lab report on the checks?
A. No, sir, I have not. Not to my knowledge.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Would it surprise you to know that apparently all of the signatures except the one, according to the D.P.S. lab analyst indicate that they are Henry's signature that was on the back of the check when it was endorsed?
A. It wouldn't surprise me.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. Wasn't there some of this information available as early as the time Henry was in Montague County?
A. This I can't answer.
Q. Did you receive any information or logs or schedules from Ranger Ryan when you went down to Williamson County?
A. This information was put . . . any information that Phil Ryan had gotten was put into the travel log that the crime analysis service made available. Whether or not I got it directly from Phil Ryan, I am sorry, I can't answer that. I may or may not have. But anyway the schedule we alluded to was the one that was made available by crime analysis.
Q. Phil Ryan had, as early as the time he was in Montague County, begun to put together a travel log of Henry Lucas and Ottis Toole, had he not?
A. Yes, sir, that's correct.
Q. And included places where he had worked, cars that he had driven?
A. That's correct.
Q. When he got out of prison?
A. That's correct.
Q. And in fact, there for a period of time there was some conflict on when he got out of prison. Are you all pretty much convinced that he got out of prison on August 22, 1975?
A. I don't know. I am not aware of any of our people that are prepared to say that they know he got out on a particular date.
Q. What is the best evidence of the day he got out?
A. I think if you had to pin down to say where more things point to a particular date, it would point to the 22nd. When he got out, I do not know. We have sent a ranger to Michigan to interview him there, and he still does not have a . . . he's not comfortable with a very definite date. Certainly things appear that it's the 22nd, but the way the records are, they just do not have a walk out date.
Q. Didn't Ranger Ryan, or the Sheriff's Department in Montague County obtain the work records from Florida?
A. Someone did, but who did, I am sorry, I don't know.
Q. Those work records were available as early as the time that he was there in Montague County, on those two cases up there?
A. Well, I would have to say again, I don't know. I don't know when they were made available.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. On that Michigan reference, when was that checked out, and when was it most recently checked out on that getting out of the Michigan penitentiary?
A. I am going to say within the last month. Ranger Jackie Peoples from Lubbock went to Michigan.
Q. Now, there in Michigan, they have got a sign out procedure very similar to the procedure we have got in Texas, isn't that right?
A. I am sorry, I don't know what they have in Texas.
Q. Are you familiar with what they have in Michigan?
A. I have seen the card, and I have seen the clothing form. That's the only thing I am aware of that they have.
Q. That procedure they use, those records all show that he got out on the 22nd. Is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. There is no conflict in any way, and that is the normal business practice. At one time we were told that well it could be maybe anywhere from two weeks off, or something like that, but there is no evidence found that could in any way indicate that it was anything other than the 22nd. Isn't that right?
A. I am not sure that's right, Mr. Mattox.
Q. If there is anything that you can tell us that indicates it's not right, I just wish you would tell us?
A. I certainly don't know firsthand, but according to Jackie Peoples' report the prison record there states that they have several different dates that he could have got out, but it appears that he probably got out on the 22nd. I think there is a code at the top of the card, and I will make the card available for you all, but there is a code at the top of the card that gives, if it's A, he would have served half of his parole sentence, and I am just using that for an example, I don't know. I really don't know what I am talking about, but anyway there is different codes up there that gives different times that he could have gotten out. On the back of the card where it says 8‑22‑75, this very obviously appears to be in the same writing of some earlier dates. I don't know whether or not, and I am not sure they can tell you whether or not this is the date that they put down when he left, or this is the date that they put down when they projected he would leave. The most convincing thing I have seen for the 22nd, the card, the way it is explained to me is certainly not convincing that he got out on the 22nd. The most convincing thing that I have seen is where the clothing shows to be turned in on the 22nd. That, to me if there is anything that indicates he was released on the 22nd, would be that. Now, whether or not that is when his clothing finally got in or not, I can't answer that, or whether this is the date Lucas handed it to them.
Q. The only reason that we think it's some other date than the 22nd is because Lucas at one point said that it was a day earlier than the 22nd. Is that correct?
A. That's correct. Lucas told me, and I understand that he told another investigator, and I am not sure which one it was, that he got out on the 5th, and as a matter of fact, that is penciled in the log that I gave you all several months ago, from what he told me.
Q. But another date that he gave to Ranger Ryan when he started the log up there is the 22nd?
A. If I am not mistaken . . .
Q. So the first date that he gave was the 22nd?
A. That's correct. And if you had to put a probability on the 22nd, or some other date, I think by far your highest probably if you were having to rank it, would be the 22nd.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. So Bob, have you changed your opinion about that since you talked to Bob Lemons in Georgetown?
A. I don't know what you mean by that.
Q. Well, you spoke with Bob Lemons in Georgetown, do you recall that meeting?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. At that time, you were convinced were you not, that he had not gotten out on the 22nd, but on an earlier date?
A. If I recall that conversation, I said we do not know what date he got out. I don't believe I have ever taken, to the best of my knowledge, I don't recall ever taking the position that I know that he got out on any specific date.
Q. You take the position that the prison records were inaccurate?
A. No, not necessarily. I have never known what date he got out. When I talked to them down there, I had not been involved in that investigation in any shape, form or fashion. I knew very very little details, other than what was on the synopsis on that case. I did not go to Lubbock when Lucas was taken to Lubbock, and pointed out the scene.
Q. Were the prison records in your . . . did you have copies of them at the time?
A. I did not.
Q. Had you been given an indication that they had been destroyed in a fire?
A. Sounds like I have heard that somewhere down the line.
Q. Did you tell Bob Lemons that they had been destroyed in a fire?
A. I can't answer that. I don't know. I can't answer that. I have heard that down the line. They were either destroyed after five years, or there was a fire that destroyed them. I do recall hearing that.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Let me ask you a few questions.
A. All right.
Q. Ron Boyter, is it Boyter, or Border?
A. B-o-y-t-e-r, I believe it's Boyter.
Q. Do you know Ron Boyter?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How long have you known him?
A. We went through highway patrol school together in 1964, and that was probably the first time.
Q. So approximately twenty years, or twenty one years?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, I asked Vic a little while ago, when he thought he had that conversation with Ron Boyter, he and Ned Butler, and Truman Simons, and he said it was probably early January, 1985, or sometime in December of '84. Did Ron Boyter ever go to Georgetown, or when you might have been up here talk to you subsequent to that conversation about that?
A. Yes, sir, he did.
Q. What did he tell you?
A. Oh, something to the effect that the District Attorney's Office, and Hugh Aynesworth were trying to do a hatchet job on us, and that he believed the reason for my involvement in the case down there was for me to make Captain. That they were saying that also I had a book contract, or I was involved in a book contract, just general information like this.
Q. Excuse me, when was that conversation?
A. Late December of '84.
Q. Okay, what did you say to him when he told you that?
A. I suggested that he contact our supervisors as soon as possible.
Q. Would that have been Captain Mitchell?
A. Well, contact his supervisor.
Q. That would have been . . .
A. Probably Dub Cowan, I am not sure who he went to see. This is something that could embarrass the Department, and we had absolutely nothing whatsoever to hide. I did not and have not had any type of book contract.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. What explanation did Ron Boyter give you for how you obtained this information?
A. From this conversation with you all.
Q. So he did admit having a conversation with us?
A. That is correct.
Q. Did he tell you why the District Attorney's Office would have wanted to talk to somebody within D.P.S. about any concerns over the Lucas case?
A. I am sorry I can't remember. I am just going to have to generalize our conversation, but something to the effect that you all didn't trust our internal affairs section, and didn't know who to go to, and . . . He stated at the beginning of the conversation that you all asked him if he would like to become famous, and he didn't know what you were talking about, and so the conversation from there went help me take down . . . you all's statement was help me take down the Texas Rangers, and you can become famous.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Prior to that conversation with Ron Boyter, were you aware of any animosity that the District Attorney's Office might have had against the Texas Rangers?
A. I wasn't aware of any.
Q. You certainly had no bad feeling for them prior to this occasion, did you?
A. Prior to that, I did not.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Did it make sense to you, Bob, that if that was the situation we could call somebody in from D.P.S. and say that to them?
A. I don't know I can comment on that where it would make sense. I certainly have confidence in him and what he told me that I believe is factual.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. So, let me ask you, it was your belief at the time that what he told you, was the conversation with the District Attorney. You believed what he told you?
A. Certainly.
Q. And it didn't seem to be strange that the District Attorney would have been talking to somebody within the D.P.S., would have in effect been saying that didn't set off any alarms with you at the time in any way?
A. I am not sure I really understand all of your question there, but no I certainly believe he gave me factual information, and I wasn't surprised at all that one of the persons involved in the conversation Truman Simons, that he would have animosity toward D.P.S.
Q. Why would that be?
A. Well, I understand that he has made some complaints concerning D.P.S. personnel before, that he didn't get satisfactory results out of.
Q. So at the time you took it to mean that the District Attorney's Office very well may be wanting to go after the Texas Rangers?
A. Certainly.
Q. After you had that conversation with Boyter, and you suggested to him that the thing he better do is to tell . . . had he already told anybody higher up in the D.P.S. at that time, or were you all the first contact that he made?
A. I can't answer if that was the first contact, whether I was the first contact or not. I do know that he made a trip to Austin later on to talk with them about it, but whether or not he . . .
Q. To talk to Col. Adams about it?
A. I don't know who all he contacted. I didn't go with him.
Q. Would you describe briefly, or the best way you can, what was said about you all's investigative procedure, and what was actually said about Lucas and the case, from what you recall that Boyter told you?
A. Something to the effect that members of the D.A.'s office stated that we were feeding information to Lucas, where he would clear a large number of cases. It was suggested that Lucas or me was getting paid money for each case that was cleared, this sort of information.
Q. Did he say that it was the belief of the District Attorney that virtually all of these cases were just made up cases that weren't true, or that part of them were, or anything of that nature?
A. I don't believe that I recall a conversation about that. He did state that he believed that the D.A.'s Office didn't believe that Lucas was involved in the cases here in Waco, and as a result of that, believed that the killer would have been turned loose, and it was also brought up about a case in Arkansas, where the D.A. was upset because there was a killer that had been turned loose in Arkansas.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Boyter brought that case up in particular?
A. That's right.
Q. You do remember that?
A. Yes, and that you all and Aynesworth had been in contact, I said you all, the D.A.'s Office and Aynesworth, Hugh Aynesworth had been in contact.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Based upon that conversation, did you all at that time change your investigative type procedure?
A. We did not.
Q. Didn't change anything?
A. Didn't change anything, because I don't know of anything that we could have changed at the time that would have, or could have been different. As a result of this, later on, although it wasn't changing our procedure, Assistant Chief of Criminal Law Enforcement, Bob Werner joined us down there at the task force, for one thing, I had been down there long enough where I was getting completely burned out dealing with Lucas every day. It was a very high pressure type situation. You are just constantly on the phone, any time you travel, you are very security conscious. You are concerned with whether or not there is going to be an assassination attempt or an escape attempt or whatever. It's a high stress type situation. Chief Werner came in, I think to add supervision and credibility to the operation.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Was that after January 8th?
A. Yes, this was sometime in the middle of January, I am not sure when.
Q. Are you aware of when I had a conversation with Col. Adams?
A. No, sir, not the date. I am aware that you did have.
Q. You were told that I did have a conversation?
A. Yes.
Q. And I tell you that would have been about the 8th of January. As a result of that conversation, what were you told, do you recall?
A. Just that you all had had a conversation and in making no notes, it would be very very difficult for me to state.
Q. Do you recall the nature of the thing being that my office had been reviewing some of these cases, independent of the District Attorney's Office, and we were concerned about some of the things we might be finding, and that I warned Col. Adams at that time that I thought it might be appropriate to review what has taken place, and perhaps have the Rangers back away some from this entire Lucas investigation process?
A. I don't know that all of that was passed on to me. I think the general conversation, yes, but certainly not all of it.
Q. Well, after that conversation, based on that kind of warning that I gave you, was any action taken that you are aware of to alter the type of investigation techniques or anything else of that nature?
A. No, sir.
Q. Nothing was changed?
A. Nothing was changed that I can think of whatsoever.
Q. But, what was the name of the individual that came down there?
A. Bob Werner. If you know Floyd Hacker, he is Floyd Hacker's assistant. His title is Assistant Chief Criminal Law Enforcement.
Q. So he came in down at that time?
A. Right.
Q. And what was his role now?
A. I don't know that you can say a role. He didn't have a different role than any of the rest of us. He was just there to help be a coordinator, and scheduler, and he did go, I know he made the Georgia trip. It seems like he may have gone on some other trips too, but had the same role there that I had been having, which kind of had a co-role.
Q. So it was three of you there that had the primary role?
A. Right. Clayton was able to pull back some, and not be there quite as much, and I was able to pull back some, and not be there quite as much. After he got there, I tried to spend at least one day a week here in Waco. My family is still here in Waco, and I was commuting back and forth just on the weekend, so I would try to stay in the office on Monday if I could, and sometimes on Friday, but anyway it did relieve me from having to be down there quite so much.
Q. A while ago you said that he was assigned down there also perhaps to give, I think you said, credibility?
A. The appearance of credibility, that is correct.
Q. What did you mean by that?
A. Well, I certainly felt like our credibility was being attacked by your office, and by the District Attorney's Office, and felt like it would be attacked by the newspaper, and felt like that if we have a higher supervisor rank down there, because if there was an appearance by anyone that is shown . . . well, I am not wording this correctly. Anyway if it would appear that we were doing anything improper, the higher rank there of supervisor would certainly be able to detect it. We didn't change our instructions to the officers. We didn't change our procedure at all. We didn't know anything to change. A peace officer, about all we have is our name, and I can see where personally my name is and has been attacked, and I highly resent that, and I think every one of us involved down there, highly resent this. It's been publicly attacked, and anything that we can do to re-establish our credibility, I feel like this needs to be done, and I think this is one thing, one step that was made by putting a higher supervisory rank there with the task force, and also, if you will recall in March of '85, we made the offer to a member, I say we, not me personally, but made an offer to a member of your staff, to sit in on the interviews, if you had a question concerning the credibility of the way it was handled. Also, they were requested to go with us on any trips to see . . .
Q. Do you know who that offer was made to?
A. Yes, sir, Mike Feary. If I understand it right, it was by Bob Werner, and also by Jim Boutwell, during our conversation during March of 1985. Later on when I didn't know anything about the Grand Jury on April 12th, I personally made the offer to Mike Feary. We had a trip lied up to go to, I believe it was Fort Worth, and I called Mike Feary to ask him to go and observe as a neutral observer, and then told him about other trips that we had lined up in San Antonio, and in Nevada, to go and observe. If your office has questions about whether or not officers were feeding him information, go along as a neutral observer to see how this is being done.
Q. Do you know how many cases were cleared after the January 8th date, the conversation with Col. Adams?
A. It would be very easy to find out. I don't know that offhand, but our analysis service would know. I know all of the cases in Georgia were cleared after that. We had two more cleared in Arkansas after that. The San Antonio trip after that, I mean the San Antonio cases after that. I just can't speak to all of them, but that is the ones on the top of my head that I can think of.
Q. Bob, is there a chronology that puts in order the way cases were cleared?
A. The synopsis that I get, and write up, that is generally the way that they are received by us. In other words, they . . .
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. The synopsis for instance, that you gave us?
A. Yes. I think all of them probably all of them on that last report, the report number 28 or 18, whatever it was, I think it was 28, and all of those probably were cleared or confirmed after January.
Q. You mentioned earlier, and I would like to go into it a little bit about what the procedures were over in Georgetown at the task force, in the way you handled this information when it came in.
A. Okay.
Q. You indicated that there was an appointment log. Is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. Did we get a copy of that?
A. No, that's a calendar.
Q. Oh, it's a calendar that is kept somewhere?
A. Yes, sir. I did make that offer to you all, and you said you didn't need it.
Q. What other kind of logs or books were kept?
A. Okay, when an officer would come in to interview Lucas, and I know we missed a bunch of them, but we had a sheet of paper in a book where the officers would sign in, the dates they came in, their name, and agency, and times they were in there. If they cleared any cases, we asked them to put the number of cases they cleared, and any comments over to the side.
Q. Did that log also go with you on trips?
A. Not necessarily the log. I would try to record the information, and put it on the log when I would get back, but I didn't try to haul the log around with us the whole time. Sometimes I would take some sheets of paper with me, and get them to sign it, and then put it in the log later on.
Q. But information on cases and officers that interviewed him on trips would be included on the log?
A. Generally.
Q. And what else would be on those logs?
A. Okay, we would have a different log, and whenever someone would call in and would want an interview with Lucas, and we couldn't put him on the calendar, we learned the hard way, that you don't schedule three or four months ahead of time with a given date. We just scheduled about four to six weeks ahead of time, and when we would get calls, we would put them on a chronological log that they wanted an interview with Lucas. After a week had gone by, then we would take the top four or five or six people off the log, call them, and put them on the calendar. We had another log that we kept that was called, we called it the mail in log, and whenever we did receive cases, and we did receive several hundred cases, mail in cases, after and we didn't do this in the beginning, but after a while we began recording the information on that log, such as the date it came in, who it came from, who the victims were, and we would have a notation over there for when we interviewed, and the results of the interview.
Q. Is this stuff that you inherited when you went into the office down there?
A. No, we didn't have anything like this when I started. This is something we developed as we went along.
Q. But you had a bunch of cases that were mailed in already?
A. Yes, we did have several cases mailed in.
Q. When you had mail in cases, how did the people know what to mail in?
A. A lot of times we would get information in without having any contact with the officers. If officers called in, we would ask them to send us a synopsis along with a live photograph, and if they wanted to send crime scene photographs, fine, but when we talked to them on the phone, we would ask for a live photograph, and a synopsis, and the synopsis we would get in, sometimes it would be fifty to a hundred pages long, and other times it would be two sentences, so we got very varying type information after it was mailed in.
Q. Where were these kept?
A. These were kept, we had a drawer in the secretary's desk where we kept them.
Q. Did you have a special office in the jail area?
A. The task force office was a very small office. It had previously been used by one of the State Officers, Alcohol and Beverage Commission men, then when the task force started, the Sheriff did make other arrangements for him, and we moved in there, and the Sheriff put an extra telephone instrument in there. We had two telephones, and I think originally we had one desk in there, and later on we had a second desk moved in.
Q. A file cabinet?
A. Not, it wasn’t until real late that we got a file cabinet. Anyway, after . . . this is where we had our task force office, and next door was an interview room, where we had a video instrument set up, and a desk in there that was used for officers when they came in for an interview, or normally for our mail in cases.
Q. What then would be . . . what area . . . where would the officers interview Henry when they came in to talk with him?
A. In the interview room next door.
Q. Would the files be kept in that room?
A. Would our files be kept in there?
Q. Yes.
A. No, not at all.
Q. Did Henry have access to the room that was the task force office?
A. He came in there quite often, but as far as him having access to the files, absolutely not.
Q. Was he interviewed in the task force office on occasion?
A. On occasion. On occasion, and I can only think of a rare occasion, and on the one I can think of, is one time when I interviewed him on a mail in, interviewed him in my office, and there have been times when an officer has called in, and they want to talk to him on the telephone, and I would put him in there where they could interview him over the telephone about different information, but it would be extremely rare for him to be interviewed in the task force office.
Q. Were you there most of the time in the task force office?
A. I would say the majority of the eight to five hours I was there. Some days I wasn't, but when we were on trips, generally I went with him, probably more than fifty percent of the time I went with him on trips.
Q. Who else had access to the task force office?
A. Well, of course, the secretary, and Clayton, and certainly the sheriff would have a key to it. I am not sure whether any other officers had a key to it or not, but I know the sheriff had a key to it.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Did you ever go into the task force office and see perhaps some files just laying around loose on the desk when Henry Lee would be in there, in the task force office?
A. Henry was never in the task force office by himself.
Q. Okay, what about if Clayton was interviewing him, or some other law enforcement officer was interviewing him, nonetheless, did you ever go in there from time to time for whatever reason, and observe that offense reports, or photographs, or crime scene photographs may be laying out?
A. I would think that on every occasion that he would be interviewed yes, there would be a file out, but as far as loose files laying out, no. On occasion when we would have a file out, they would be in an envelope, in whatever packet they were mailed in. That is what they would be in. As far as when he was interviewed, certainly the officers would have their file out.
Q. But what I am specifically asking, if you ever observed, did you ever observe, though, say if this was a photograph, and it would just be laying here, and if this was an offense report, it might be laying right here beside it, and maybe some synopsis would be here, and Henry would be standing up around the table, just kind of looking at all of it?
A. I am not aware of that. I am not aware of that.
Q. You never did see it?
A. No.
Q. Okay.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Let me ask, do you recall Henry ever actually looking, or did you ever have any suspicion that Henry was looking at any files in the office in any way, reviewing it himself, seeing the information, reading it?
A. Absolutely not. There is one time that I really had a fear that he had. One day Lucas was brought down from his cell, and stuck his head in the office, and said I just happened to think of a couple of officers that I killed. I said, okay, let's talk about it, so Clayton Smith went into the interview room with him, and Clayton was bringing him down, and I don't know if it was the mail in interviews or what, but he was bringing him down, and so he went in and stated I killed an officer in Kentucky, handcuffed him, and shot him with his own gun, and that was all he could remember about it. He said, I killed an officer in West Virginia, on a lovers lane just off Interstate 64 or 65, whatever runs through there. I forgot the interstate number. He said that either happened in 1975, or 1976.
Q. Were you in there at the time he said those things?
A. No, I was not.
Q. That is what was repeated to you?
A. Yes.
Q. Was there a tape made of that?
A. No, there were written notes made.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. By Clayton?
A. By Clayton, right. He brought the notes back in to me, and I looked at it, and then called the Kentucky State Police, and asked if they had an offense where an officer was killed with his own gun, and handcuffed, and they said they did not have. I contacted the West Virginia State Police, and said, do you have an offense where an officer was killed, shot, and I believe he stated he was shot several times, but he was shot just off Interstate 64 or 65, whatever it was, on lovers lane, either in 1975, or 1976. The trooper I talked to wasn't aware of any, but I understand he did send a letter to all of his troops, or troop headquarters up and down that interstate in West Virginia. Several days, or a couple of weeks later, I was contacted by an officer from Huntington, West Virginia, and says, we do have an officer killed on a lovers lane, just off of the interstate, whatever interstate that was, on August, if I remember the date right, August 3, 1976. He said, but he was handcuffed, and shot with his own gun. Well, if you put the two cases together, the one he had talked about in Kentucky, and the one he had talked about in West Virginia, then would match the case they had in West Virginia. He said the only problem we have, this was ruled a suicide, so I said well, I have no way of knowing whether or not he committed the murder, but you are welcome to come and talk with him, and due to the circumstances, you are welcome to go to the front of the line, and go down, and talk to him just as soon as you get here. The next day, or the day after that, they did come down to talk with him, and videotaped their interview, and felt fairly confident that Lucas was involved with their homicide. He was getting some information incorrect, but basically he got the information correct. He still did not say anything about handcuffed, and shot with his own gun. He was still saying it was on Lovers Lane, just off of the Interstate Highway, 75 or 76, but he drew a diagram on the bulletin board, or on the chalk board that pretty well described where the offense occurred. A month or so later, we did go to West Virginia, and he did point out the particular crime scene, where the officer had been killed, and it had been ruled a suicide. I really worried about that case, because I had received a packet from the FBI of every officer that had been killed in the United States, since I believe it was about 1974, and at one time I had that sitting on my desk. It was up in an area, where you couldn't see it, but anyway it was in an area, and I got concerned about that particular case. Maybe someday I had that open when he was standing there, and could have looked at it. So I went back and pulled all of the cases, all of the officers that were killed, and looked through there, and I was very relieved to find out that case was not even listed, because it had been ruled a suicide. But that is the only one that I have had any concern about, because I knew that I had had that on my desk, and that had not had a cover over it.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Prior to the time Henry came down and stuck his head in the door that day, somebody had interviewed him about officers that had been killed, or he had been asked, Henry did you ever kill any police officers, and he had said no, hadn't he?
A. That's correct.
Q. And then after he had said no, I never killed any police officers, he came down subsequent to that time, and stuck his head in the door, and said yeah, I did kill two officers.
A. You are not getting the sequence exactly right there. In the beginning he did tell us that he had never killed a peace officer, and some officers came to talk with him, and when I put him in the room with them, and introduced him, he was still saying he had never killed a police officer, and then when the interview was over, he had described every detail of the officer that they had that was killed, and they did confirm that particular homicide.
Q. Which case is that?
A. That is the one in Covington, Louisiana. But the background on that one . . .
MR. LOCKHOOF: Is that Clemmie?
A. No, sir, Clemmie Curtis is the first one I described in West Virginia. This one is Louis Waggoner. Okay, my understanding on this, and this is the one, if you all are interested, all of this is on video, and this is one of the officers that have volunteered to come and appear before you.
QUESITONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. Who is the officer?
A. There is two of them. One is Jay Vie, and the other one is Ed McGeehee. Okay, Jay Vie, I understand in December of 1983, was talking to Lucas, and the question was brought up, have you ever been stopped by a police officer after you committed a homicide, and Lucas said well, yeah, I have killed an old lady there close to Monroe, and then was stopped by an officer, and I don't know what all he described, but he described an off duty officer in a black pickup. Okay, he didn't say anything about killing the officer though. A couple of months later, Jay Vie, the officer that has this on video tape, a couple of months later, Jay Vie had made the presentation at a conference in Tennessee, and at the end of the conference, Ed McGeehee came up, and said, has he ever talked about killing an officer. During that conversation, when he gave some details that my officer that was killed was in an off duty, and had a pickup truck, or something. Jay Vie said just a minute, I have . . . he talked to me about being stopped by an officer, but he didn't say he killed him, and he had his video tapes with him, and they went to the headquarter of ROCIC that afternoon, or that night, and watched the video, and felt very confident that Lucas described that particular officer that stopped him, the way he described the pickup, the way he described the man, and this sort of thing, so as a result of that Jay Vie and Ed McGeehee got together, and they came and interviewed Lucas. This is when I said when I brought him down, he wanted to know who was there, what they wanted to talk to him about, and I said well, these guys are from Louisiana, and they want to talk to you about a police officer that was killed. He said well, I told you I have never killed a police officer. I said well, okay, just as a courtesy, why don't you go ahead and talk to them, they have traveled a long ways, and they turned the video tape on, and I didn't sit in on the interview, but I understand he very very accurately described the homicide that occurred. We did later on go to Louisiana, and he did point out the scene where the homicide occurred, and also the scene where they took the pickup to, and did quite a bit of damage on it.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Have you seen the tapes?
A. No, sir, I haven't seen the tapes.
Q. An then after confessing to that homicide . . .
A. That is the first officer that we are aware of that he may have been involved with.
Q. And then after that, did he come by and stick his head in and say . . .
A. Let me follow the sequence after that. This was, and I am not even going to try to guess the month, but it was sometime in early '84. In August of '84, while we were in California, he did state that he had killed some officers. On the plane trip back he told me again that he had killed some officers, and I got my pad out, and I said okay, let's talk about them. He said well, really I can't think of any details now, let me think about them, and I said okay, anytime you think about them, let me know, and we will discuss them. So, that was in August, and then either in September or October, probably October, is when he stated that about Kentucky and the West Virginia cases. Now, he had also told me about some more, and this is the reason I had this whole file of peace officers from the FBI. He had described some police officer killings that we could never locate. He described one in Pennsylvania, and he described another one in, I believe Michigan, and these we could never locate. We couldn't find any matching information whatsoever. He described another one in Dallas that hasn't matched up at all. He described another one in Houston, of a night watchman. I contacted the ranger office down there, and they did some research, and could not find one that matched that. I looked . . . he told me a time period, and he told me it was an old man, that he beat over the head, I believe he said in a warehouse type situation, and I forgot the time period. I believe he said that either happened in '77 or '78, or '76 or '77, so I looked through the police officers that had been killed during that time period to see if there was any matching what he said. I did find one in Bebe, Arkansas, that had some similarities. I contacted a trooper up there that had done the investigation in Bebe, Arkansas, and he talked with him on the phone, and then later on told me on the phone, that he has quite a bit of details concerning our case. He said he described the area there. Later on, as a matter of fact, just before he was bench warranted up here, the Arkansas authorities did come down and talk to Lucas about that case, and he was very confident that he was involved in that particular homicide, and have cleared that one.
Q. When did that case occur?
A. Ballpark of '77.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. And he claims that Toole was with him?
A. Yes, I believe he did. That might have been '78. I am not real sure, '77 or '78.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Do you know whether other officers talked to him specifically about homicides of peace officers or anything else, and may have interviewed him, and related certain circumstances or events that caused him to have any thought that he could describe some of the killings?
A. I am not aware of any. There is certainly no way I am going to sit here and say I know it couldn't happen. I am not aware of any. He has been interviewed by many many officers.
Q. He was talked to by so many different people, and I know that one officer would talk to him about another killing that he was not investigating specifically, one he may have heard about, but you really don't know that that happened?
A. No, I am not aware of that happening. I know someone from, I can think of one in Washington, Washington State came down and brought his cases, that they wanted to talk to Lucas about, and also another part of the state, but generally folks would just bring cases concerning their particular jurisdiction.
Q. When you got in the mail in information on those cases, who specifically talked to Lucas about those mail in cases, did you do it, or Clayton Smith do it?
A. Normally Clayton Smith did it. This was pretty much his designative role.
Q. Well, would he show Lucas any of those pictures, or how was that done, do you know?
A. Well, he's here, and he will be glad to describe that to you. I didn't sit in on the way he did it, and I would rather him describe that. I would be glad to give you an overview, but if you want the specifics, well . . .
Q. He was the one that primarily handled those?
A. Primarily, yes.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Bob, you were . . . you mentioned earlier that the task force, any information you put down, that you all weren't the source of it yourself. In other words, it came from other sources?
A. Normally this is correct, yes.
Q. Now then, did you all ever make any judgment calls, of what information you were going to put down, or did you just put down all of the information that came in?
A. Normally, let me give you an example. If you were an investigator from whatever city or town, you have the details on the case. You privately interviewed Lucas, and when you got through, you are satisfied he was involved in one of your twenty homicides, or two of your forty, or whatever. Okay, if you give me a synopsis on that homicide, you tell me when it happened, and how it happened, and this is why you consider it to be cleared, yes, certainly I would make a judgment call. I can't think really of any that I have made a judgment call on, but this is the way it happened.
Q. Let me stop you here. That is not what I am really referring to. For example, you know who Fran Dixon is?
A. I don't know him.
Q. But you know who he is?
A. I know of him.
Q. Okay, and where is he from?
A. Maryland or Pennsylvania, I am not sure.
Q. He is a state trooper, is that your understanding?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. And how about Mobley, or Mobley?
A. I believe he is with the County in Maryland or Pennsylvania.
Q. All right, sir, so that is another peace officer?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Is there a John Campbell?
A. Yes, I know him personally.
Q. And where is he from?
A. Pennsylvania, state trooper.
Q. Did these people send in packets to you all, detailing the results of their various investigations of Henry Lee Lucas?
A. We have got some information at different times. Very lately we have gotten some information from Campbell concerning Lucas being employed at a mushroom farm, I believe. Okay, this information, as a matter of fact, I put Campbell and the ranger together that had a conflicting date with that time. We have received some information from him.
Q. What I am particularly referring to, let's say that Mobley, what is Mobley's first name, do you know, Mike?
MR. FEARY: Not off the top of my head. He's a lieutenant.
A. Richard Mobley, I believe.
Q. A lieutenant where?
MR. FEARY: Cecil County, Richard Mobley, Cecil County, Maryland.
Q. He was the gentleman that ran some tests for you all on that .32 revolver that Henry had given to his relatives, wasn't he?
A. When you say you all, not for me personally. I understand that he did run some for Chambers County, Texas, and for Tammany Parish, Louisiana.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. Those were the two areas you were able to match up the use of .32, based on the synopsis?
A. Now, the information concerning the .32 being used, yes. It's my understanding that they do feel pretty confident that the same weapon was used, although I don't have a definite match due to the worn rifling in the barrel.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Have you ever seen this particular report before that was allegedly sent to the task force?
A. If I have ever seen this, I don't recall it. I am not aware that I have ever seen this.
Q. Okay, when things come into the task force, who normally handles that mail?
A. If anything like this would come in, we would review it and forward it on the crime analysis.
Q. Who would review it, all three of you?
A. No, not necessarily.
Q. Well, continue looking through that please, if you would, because something might jog our memory.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Mike, when was your understanding this was sent in to the task force?
MR. FEARY: Probably toward the end of '84. What is the date on the report? It would have been sometime considerably after.
MR. LOCKHOOF: It was given to you on 5-14-85?
MR. FEARY: Right.
A. This was submitted in June of '83.
MR. FEARY: That was prepared much earlier than when I got it. It was my understanding from Mobley that it was forwarded in '84.
MR. LOCKHOOF: To the task force?
MR. FEARY: Yes, sir.
A. Well, I certainly would hate to dispute his word, but I am not aware of this. I don't recall this at all.
Q. Now, you remember we had a conversation with you last Friday about that .32 caliber pistol?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And it was your understanding at that time that the .32 caliber, that the reason they hadn't been able to get a real good match on that is because the rifling was too worn?
A. That was my understanding, yes, sir.
Q. Did somebody tell you that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who told you that?
A. One of two people. It would be Fred Dodd, with Chambers County, and/or Ed McGeehee with Saint Tammany Parish, Louisiana.
Q. Okay, so it was either Fred Dodd, or Ed McGeehee that told you that they couldn't quite get that match because of that?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. The reason I am asking you that is because when we related that information to Mike Feary, our investigator, he happened to remember that he had read a report from Mobley that does not square with what you have said to us, so we wanted . . . I asked to take a look at it, and that is what he showed me. Of course, you will see that thing where it's flagged right there has the deal about the .32 caliber?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. And do you ever remember seeing anything like that before?
A. No, I am not aware of this at all.
Q. The reason I am saying that is the way I read that report, it indicates that .32 caliber pistol could not have been used?
A. It sure does.
Q. And you are telling the Grand Jury that you have never seen that report . . .
A. No, I am saying I don't recall ever seeing it.
Q. But I would think certainly since you were familiar with a .32 caliber, and the fact of the service revolver that was taken from the dead detective in Louisiana, that you would have some memory of this report if you had seen it before?
A. I see here he alludes talking to Detective McGeehee, I am not sure whether or not he forwarded this report on to McGeehee or not, but I don't recall any of these reports. Some of them are written up into '84.
Q. I understand. But, it concerns me that Mr. Mobley had said that he had sent that report to the task force, and somehow or another that information that was sent to the task force, for which part of your function was to, and when I say you, I am talking about the generic you, as the task force, was supposed to put that information down in your primary log, and yet somehow it just didn't happen?
A. I don't recall ever getting that report.
Q. Would you do me a favor, and the Grand Jury a favor, and try to ascertain whether or not that report was ever sent to the task force, and when it was received.
A. Yes.
Q. Certainly our office would like to find out when it was received.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. Bob, were you privy to the entire file of the ROCIC?
A. If I had asked for anything I am sure I would have been.
Q. Are you saying they did not send you on a regular basis the information . . .
A. Right. We share information back and forth on the telephone. They were interested in keeping a chronology and synopsis also. Whenever we would receive information on a confirmed date, or confirmed synopsis, we would forward this information on to them by telephone. They would do the same thing for us, whenever they would get information. Normally they would get information concerning Toole from the officers that interviewed Toole out there, and we did have a free flow of information back and forth.
Q. Did they send you copies of any information they would compile?
A. No, I am not sure that I got any copies from them. What I would mainly get from them, sometimes they would get a synopsis from some of their member agencies, and they would forward that synopsis on to us, or that report for us to interview Lucas concerning mail in cases. We were not routinely on their mailing list. I think they are selective as to who they send their reports out to. They have some very strenuous guidelines. I think D.P.S. gets that . . .
Q. Is D.P.S. a member of that organization?
A. Yes, D.P.S. is. The intelligence section is.
Q. So the intelligence section of D.P.S. should be receiving on a regular basis the mail outs that ROCIC mailed to the other member agencies?
A. I think probably so.
GRAND JUROR: What is ROCIC.
Mr. FEARY: Regional Organized Crime Information Center.
GRAND JUROR: Where is it?
MR. FEARY: I believe they are in . . .
A. Nashville.
GRAND JUROR: It's national?
A. If I understand there are several organizations like this, three or four in the nation. They are federally funded, and it's to coordinate information between different agencies.
Q. Out of the Covington, Louisiana, you mentioned the officer's service revolver, there was one taken from the officer, the investigation showed, and reportedly that weapon was recovered in Layton, Oklahoma. What tied that weapon recovered in Layton, Oklahoma, to the officer that was killed in Covington, Louisiana?
A. The information we received was from Ed McGeehee, and we had made Ed McGeehee aware of that, because the sheriff from Garwin, Oklahoma, had come down and talked with Lucas concerning a case. That particular weapon either was in, or there was one found there at the scene, a left handed basket weave, police type holster.
Q. Okay, was there ever any identification, other than it was in a left handed basket weave police holster, tying that to the officer in Covington, Louisiana?
A. This information would have to come from the St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, authorities.
Q. You are not aware of any serial number, or anything like that, that would tie the gun to the officer?
A. No, no. I am personally not aware of that.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Okay, so a lot of times things you might have put down, you were really relying on the credibility of the people that were giving you that information?
A. Certainly.
Q. And if you were assuming they were telling you the truth, then you would relay that as being truthful?
A. But, if you will recall on the reports that we would write up, we would put a disclaimer on there, that I can't tell it verbatim, but that we do not . . . help me with the wording. Something to the effect that we cannot guarantee the authenticity of the information contained in this report, because it has been obtained from outside agencies.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. One more question regarding sharing the information, did the Jacksonville Sheriff's office ever send you computer runs on their chronologies of Lucas?
A. Yes, somewhere early on we have received that, or our crime analysis service has.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Are they continuing to do that?
A. No. As a matter of fact, I was trying to think where I got that. I don't believe I got that from Jacksonville, Florida. I got that from another source.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. Okay, but you were aware that they were entering information into a computer in Jacksonville, regarding Lucas?
A. I am not aware of anything they are doing now. I personally have not had contact with them in quite some time.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Okay, we talked about Officer Mobley, and now then, Fran Dixon, is a Maryland State Trooper, did he do an extensive investigation up in there for some crimes that Henry may have allegedly committed in the Maryland area, and then he also talked to several Henry relatives, in the last couple of years?
A. I never had contact with Fran Dixon. I have seen one of his reports that he has sent to the officers in Lubbock, but I have not personally talked to Fran Dixon.
Q. Did he ever send you any . . . when I say . . . did he ever personally send you any reports, or did he ever send the task force any reports concerning his investigation?
A. I have some reports from him. I don't know whether he sent them, or they are the ones you brought. We do have some reports from him. I would think the ones we have are the ones that were sent to Lubbock officers. I don't know that we have received any direct from him.
Q. Who read those reports? Did you read those reports?
A. I can't tell you who all read those reports.
Q. Excuse me, after that task force got them, did you read that report personally?
A. I have scan read that. I don't know that I have read it in detail.
Q. Okay, do you know whether Sheriff Boutwell read it?
A. I can't answer that.
Q. Do you know whether Clayton Smith read it?
A. I can't answer that.
Q. That is the only three members of the task force that we have got, right?
A. No, I guess we would have to include Chief Werner, a secretary probably, also.
Q. Okay.
A. I guess loosely so, Don Overstreet, and Betty Frenski.
Q. How about Floyd Hacker?
A. If he wanted to be considered part of the task force, I am sure.
Q. But he is the overall chief?
A. He is the overall chief of criminal law enforcement.
Q. Now, were you familiar with a statement that Fran Dixon sent in, where a Leonard Kaizer ha identified a photograph of Ottis Toole as being the person that was up there in the Maryland, Pennsylvania area back in '77?
A. Yes, sir, I am aware of that.
Q. Have you seen that report?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was that the only thing that came with that sheet of paper, or did that come attached to the whole report?
A. I wish I had known that the question was going to be asked ahead of time, and I would have brought what we had. I don't recall what's in that report. I don't recall . . .
Q. Do you know who first found that statement, or pointed it out that it had any significance as far as Ottis Toole is concerned with Henry Lucas. Do you understand my question?
A. Yes, I understand your question. I am trying to think.
Q. Okay.
A. I don't know who pointed it out to me. I do recall a conversation about it. I do recall seeing it in writing.
Q. Is that . . . let me ask you, is there any evidence that Ottis Toole, and Henry Lee Lucas knew each other prior to February of 1979?
A. Evidence, that would probably be the only form of evidence that I know of, we do have several cases cleared where both of them allegedly were involved.
Q. But has any local jurisdiction, where they had cleared or confirmed cases, ever given you any information that would put Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole together, prove that they had been together from 1975 up to February of 1979?
A. As far as proof, are you talking about physical proof, or work records or . . .
Q. Yes, that they had been together or whatever?
A. No, about the only proof that I could allude to would be proof where both of them on video tape had talked about the same offense, prior to 1979.
Q. In other words, somebody had interviewed Henry and Henry would say yeah, I did it, and he would describe how he did it, and subsequently somebody would go talk to Ottis, and Ottis would say yeah, we did it together, and this is how we did it?
A. That's right.
Q. Because of those stories dovetailing, it would appear that they had known each other for that time period?
A. That's correct, and also both of them picking the same photos out of lineups.
Q. How many times did that occur?
A. The one that I am referring to is the one that occurred in Huntington, West Virginia, in 1976.
Q. That was a 1976 case, isn't that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Was there anything unusual about that photograph that would have stood out from the other photographs that he was shown in that lineup?
A. I don't know about that. If I recall right some of the officers in uniform, and some of the officers were out of uniform.
Q. Okay. They were all live photographs?
A. Yes.
Q. It's my understanding that the photograph of that officer was the only one that had any thumb tack holes in it, do you know anything about that?
A. I can't answer that. I didn't see the original photo lineup. This was all done on video tape, if anyone cared to look at that video tape. There is another set of officers that have volunteered to come down and appear before the Grand Jury, and bring their video tapes, and discuss the credibility of that case, plus there was a civilian observer that went along when Lucas led officers back to the scene. I felt very confident this would be a controversial case, since this was earlier ruled as a suicide.
Q. Let's get back to Fran Dixon.
A. Okay.
Q. I believe he sent you all a report, a rather extensive report of the investigations that he had made up there in Maryland, Pennsylvania area, but trying to run down footprints on Henry Lee Lucas, during that time period between '75, and 1978. It's also my belief that within that report, the only thing that he had was that one piece of paper where Leonard Kaizer had identified Henry Lucas, and everything else in that report said to the contrary that Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas did not know each other, and had never met each other up in that area.
A. Okay.
Q. First off, I would like for you to check and see when that report came in. Secondly, when you look at it, see if you can remember ever reading that report.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. I would like to bring up a couple of points here. Dixon's report was probably sent to Jackie Peoples in Lubbock, Texas. Mobley's report, I believe was sent to the task force in Lubbock, but I am not positive.
MR. LOCKHOOF: That's Mobley's now?
MR. FEARY: That's correct.
Q. Mobley's report is the one that contains the information regarding Leonard Kaizer identifying a picture of Ottis Toole, but Dixon has a copy of that, and has in fact sent part of Mobley's report with his to back up the information that he had developed.
Q. Okay, who did Fran say that he had sent his to, though?
MR. FEARY: Jackie Peoples and/or George White in Lubbock, who was working on the Debora Sue Williamson case.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Let me ask you this then, Sergeant, did any of the individuals . . . there were quite a few rangers all across the State of Texas that have worked Henry Lee Lucas cases?
A. Yes.
Q. Did they not have any instructions as a result of this task force being formed, if they received any information they were supposed to immediately forward it to you all, so you all could compile that information?
A. I can't answer what instructions they have had.
Q. Wouldn't that seem to be a logical thing?
A. Logically the folks would send the information to us, and I am not aware of any that had not been forwarded until . . . I do know that it was quite later on, where we received anything from Lubbock.
Q. So it may be possible then that Fran Dixon had this in his possession up in Lubbock, and you all would have no way of knowing about it?
A. That's possible.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. Did you ever ask Ranger Peoples for the information he had developed in his investigation, that might help the overall picture of the task force?
A. No, I wouldn't think that I specifically asked that question.
Q. That is one of the things that has concerned us, in that it appears since you all were supposed to be reporting information that came in, that information was coming in to somebody, and not getting put down on your major master copy?
A. Right.
Q. Such as this report on this .32, because it is going to involve not only the Louisiana case, but the Chambers County case. Would you agree to that?
A. I agree.
Q. And it may affect even the Oklahoma case, as a result of that?
A. I don't know that it affects the Oklahoma case.
Q. It may or may not.
A. Okay.
Q. By the way, a couple of quick questions that I know you can answer quickly. You all have found no firearms that you can tie directly to Henry Lee Lucas, is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. You have found a lot of firearms that murders occurred, that you found no independent evidence that would link Henry to that firearm?
A. That's correct.
Q. Except maybe to the .32?
A. Yes. There are a few more weapons in custody, but as far as ballistics, linking them to a particular case, that's correct. We have a very small amount of physical evidence.
Q. Are you aware of any jurisdiction where stabbing deaths occurred, that any of the knives used and recovered have any of those knives ever been linked to Henry Lee Lucas?
A. Now, when you say linked, by him saying yes, that's my knife?
Q. Other than him saying yes, that's my knife?
A. No. I am not aware how you can trace a knife.
Q. Well, in case there might be fingerprints for example?
A. No, we don't have any fingerprints on them.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. I am not sure Reed clearly made the point that he was trying to make a moment ago. On the report for instance that indicated that Toole had been in Maryland in 1975 . . .
MR. LOCKHOOF: 1977.
Q. '77, selling junk up there, which would put it previous to the 1979 date that would indicate that might be the first time they met, the question is, does that report contain a wide range of information that clearly indicated that the officers up there believed that Lucas was there, and did not leave the area, and that Toole was not there, and did not accompany him, nor participate in the crime, and yet none of that information ended up in any of your synopsis there, was that one piece of information that would in effect Toole was there, rather than all of the exculpatory information that would indicate that he didn't commit all of these crimes. Now, is there an explanation for why all of that stuff is not put down some place, or some notation of it some place, or do you know?
A. To the best of my knowledge, we weren't aware of the information until very recent weeks.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. Bob, what concerns everyone here just to make it a little more succinctly, you were aware of the information regarding Leonard Kaizer's identification of a picture?
A. I have been aware of that about two weeks, is what I have been aware of it.
Q. That information was provided to us by Chief Hacker more than two weeks ago?
A. Okay.
MR. LOCKHOOF: In fact, Bob Werner had given it to him.
A. Now, how long are we talking about, two to three weeks, somewhere in that range?
MR. LOCKHOOF: Into April, I think.
Q. In April, and he did say, to the best of my knowledge that Bob Werner gave offense report, or investigation report to him. That page that we were shown in Chief Hacker's office is in fact part of an investigation report prepared by Detective Mobley.
A. Okay.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. And what I am trying to find out, is you have got one page that would show one side of the story, why is it the rest of that story was not shown in this process any place?
A. I am not sure what you are talking about, Mr. Attorney General, because the information that has been made available to us, we have tried to put this in the travel log, which had been prepared by the crime analysis service. You are talking about the last of April this was made available to us, according to my calculations this would be no more than about two weeks ago. Even say a month ago.
Q. Well, the thing I guess I am trying to figure out, and maybe you are answering the question, and I may not understand the answer. In this crime analysis that you all have done, have you all indicated both aspects of that report to show that there are questions?
A. Sure. As a matter of fact, we have sent letters out to agencies that tell them the relatives . . . if we have a confirmed case somewhere and there is a . . . we do have statement, or you all have statements, whoever has statements, along as they are made available to us, yes, we have already notified these people by letter that have confirmed cases that wife, or whoever states that Lucas didn't leave that particular location. It's up to them to determine whether or not he's at the alibi location or at their homicide location. Yes, we have already mailed this out.
Q. The question is, and I am trying to find out. To the best of your knowledge, when did the task force get this report, and when did you notify any other jurisdictions about that, was that in the last two weeks, tell me that, and that is what I am trying to find out?
A. I would say it was within the last two weeks. Since this has been made available to us, we have sent out a letter to the different agencies on information where work records have been made available to you all, or to us through you all. The food stamp records, yes. We have notified all of the different agencies, and it does so reflect in our travel log.
Q. So based on the information you have gotten from the Attorney General's Office, you have already notified a number of these local authorities?
A. Yes.
Q. The cases that may be questioned?
A. Right.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. I have discovered one thing while I was talking to Mike up there, Sgt. Prince is correct. Apparently, because at least on the statement concerning Leonard Kaizer, the photograph, that report was only typed upon on 4-17-85, that would have been April l7th, so they would have gotten that more than likely sometime in the latter part of April, and that may very well be when they got the whole packet. Is it your understanding the whole packet was sent at that time?
MR. FEARY: Yes, it is.
Q. Okay, so you would have probably received that in the latter part of April. I guess what I would still want to know, is even if you got it in the latter part of April, I am not sure that I have seen that come up in any of your latest, any of this information come up in any of your later stuff that you have given us.
A. Maybe you didn't hear my conversation with Mr. Mattox over here, just stating that we were notifying all of these agencies.
Q. Okay.
A. And if you would care, or any of your people cared to go down to pick up the latest travel log, it would be so reflected in there.
Q. I see.
A. I was supposed to pick up that yesterday afternoon, but I was in conference until well in the night, and I didn't get to pick it up.
Q. I did want to clear that up with you, that that didn't come in until April 17th. I mean even typed up until April 17th of this year.
A. Okay.
Q. So when Mobley sent it in, whoever received it would have gotten it in the latter part of April, and you could not have obviously, unless some other information from Mobley had come in at an earlier point, then obviously the task force could not have recorded that information.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. Would that have been the job of the crime analyst to evaluate that, and place it on the report, or would it have been your job, or the task force to evaluate it?
A. To put it on the report, it would have been the job of the crime analysis. To notice the people, this has been our job. Chief Werner has taken the responsibility of notifying all the different affected agencies. He has sent letters, and also quite a number of them he has called, and also sent letters.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Could I ask you another question that is not related to this, could you tell me when, or what kind of discussions you all had concerning the possible polygraphing of Lucas or Toole?
A. Okay, my understanding was early on when Lucas was considered a suspect in Montague County, he was polygraphed on two different occasions. After he has been brought to our location, I say our location, Williamson County, he has not been polygraphed. To our understanding on polygraphs, these are valid when someone has a fear of detection, since he is already detected, and already admitting to these things, we haven't felt like that this would be a valid tool to use. If he was denying something that we felt very confident that he did, you know, possibly this would have been a tool that we would have considered using. But, he was admitting to things we felt like he was doing. On the things that he was admitting to that he wasn't doing, we didn't know whether or not he was actually lying on this, or whether he was actually getting his areas confused. Polygraph was never considered by us as to feeling like we needed to polygraph him concerning any particular case that I am aware of.
Q. Are you telling me that you all didn't sit down and specifically discuss whether or not he should be polygraphed, or should not be?
A. I am not aware of any specific conversation along that line. I do know that this was brought up when Ron Boyter talked to me, he asked me if we had ever polygraphed him, and I told him no. I did not feel like that Lucas would be any type of subject, from what little I know about the polygraph that would be a subject that would react properly on the polygraph.
Q. You all didn't discuss it, you just individually thought that out?
A. I don't recall any conversation about that.
Q. You use the polygraph on both sides of cases where a fellow confesses, and you think he did it, and on the side of the case where he said he didn't do it, you use it on both sides of the cases?
A. Sure.
Q. That is a common investigative tool?
A. Right, common investigative tool when you think you can get a reaction for someone that has fear of detection.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. What was your understanding about the two polygraphs that were given to him up in Tarrant County?
A. My understanding on those is that he did fail both of those.
Q. Does that indicate to you that he is a reactor on polygraphs?
A. Yes, but go back to the original basic theory of the polygraph, and that is fear of detection, and this was before he was detected as being involved in that particular homicide.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. In that line then if he was telling lies in his confessions in wanting people to believe that, would he not have a fear of detection if we found out that wasn't true?
A. I would think you would need to talk to someone who is well versed on polygraph. I am not a polygraph expert in any shape, form or fashion.
Q. Because of the fact he was confessing to crimes as opposed to denying it, is that one reason you decided not to polygraph him?
A. I would think that is the reason I didn't consider it.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Have you ever heard a tape that was made from an interview of Olvera Smart?
A. No.
Q. Are you aware that one has been made?
A. I am aware that one has been made, but I have never listened to it.
Q. Do you know of anybody on the task force that has ever listened to it?
A. I believe Clayton Smith has indicated that he had. I may be incorrect on that.
Q. Okay. How about Sheriff Boutwell?
A. I can't answer that.
Q. Bob Werner?
A. I can't answer that.
Q. Okay, and you know you haven't?
A. I know I haven't.
Q. Did anybody ever tell you what was on that tape?
A. I don't recall anyone telling me what was on it, no.
Q. Do you know whether or not either the crime analyst, or anyone from the task force ever gave you information that would have been included on the daily log, concerning that tape, that had been obtained from her?
A. I believe there is something in our log, if I remember correctly, and I don't know whether it came from the tape, or it came from a report. I do know some California officers interviewed the Smarts, but what information is on there, I can't answer that.
Q. Do you think that information was turned over to your analyst?
A. Are you talking about the tape or are you talking about the information off of the tape?
Q. Well . . .
A. There is some information on our travel log concerning the Smarts, and what it is, I am sorry, I can't allude to.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Mike, what is your understanding of that tape? Was that tape given to Sheriff Conway?
MR. FEARY: On the interview log there is mention of that tape, I believe by Clayton Smith. That was 12-23-83.
Q. I do recall Ed Alvis stating that he did interview the Smarts. I don't recall anything about that notation. That is not my handwriting.
Q. Is that Clayton's?
A. It appears to be Clayton's.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. To your knowledge, do you all still have that tape?
A. To my knowledge, we do.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. You wouldn't have any objections to us listening to it, would you?
A. Oh, no. Now, that tape right now . . . it will be in our lab. I started to say we did give it to the District Attorney from El Paso, and he was carrying it straight down to our lab to have a copy made for him to have a copy.
Q. How many fingerprints that tie Henry into murders, or crimes that he has confessed to, how many fingerprints do we have?
A. To my knowledge, there is two. One where there is not a full . . . enough for a full comparison in Abilene, and then one which mysteriously disappeared in St. Tammany Parish but we do have a report from the expert that examined it, that it does match.
Q. Your understanding is that the expert says it matches?
A. Yes, sir.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Do you have a written report of that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Would you make that available?
A. Yes, sir.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. You might make a notation of that to yourself. You have been asked so much, it will be easy for you to forget it.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. You indicated one in Abilene?
A. Yes. I don't know that they have a definite match. My understanding is that they only have five points on that, and their expert up there feels like there ought to be eight points before you can make a positive match.
Q. What does D.P.S. say, fingerprint expert say?
A. I believe D.P.S. says eight. I think there is getting to be a difference of opinion among experts now. If I am not mistaken the FBI does not have a point number now. They just go whenever the expert feels like it does match, that is when they will call a match. I believe D.P.S. still does call it eight, if I am not mistaken.
MR. FEAZELL: Which case are you talking about?
A. Lynn Hall Gray, or Lynn Gray Hall, if I am not mistaken. It's at a savings and loan.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. You went with Henry out to California, did you not?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And did you on a day to day basis, were you always there escorting Henry with the California police authorities?
A. Not always. Most of the time I was there.
Q. All right, sir.
A. Either in the van with him, or in a trail vehicle. I think about one full day or one half day, I did pull off from them. We were out there approximately twelve days.
Q. Did you feel like your primary role at that particular time, was that being the escort, making sure everything . . .
A. Well, and security.
Q. Did you ever make any suggestions to any of these peace officers out there as to how they ought to be questioning Henry, or what not to say to him?
A. I had very little contact with the officers that actually interviewed him. Our contact, we worked with the Attorney General's Office there in California. They were the coordinators. They set the trip up. They made the schedule, and it was through their contacts, they were the lead officers. It was through their contacts that they would go to meet the local officers, and then interviews would be conducted. I don't know that I had all that much contact with the local officers, other than just visiting.
Q. Who was Fred Saragasso?
A. He was an analyst from the Attorney General's office that accompanied them.
Q. Was he the primary person that would interview Henry when they would go from jurisdiction to jurisdiction?
A. No, sir. You are getting me on names now. There was one named Charlie, and one named John.
Q. Okay.
A. They were actually the two lead officers, and had the close contact. One of them drove Lucas on the right front. John was driving, and Charlie was sitting behind with the tape recorder taping everything.
Q. They would go to the various crime scenes?
A. They would go to the various crime scenes and also en route from one to the other whenever they would just be talking. I mean they had hours and hours of tape. Whenever we would get to a crime scene, it did have another van along with the technicians, and they would videotape at the particular crime scene. We went to fifty or sixty different crime scenes.
Q. Fred did participate in some of those interviews, though didn't he?
A. On a very limited basis.
Q. Were you aware of any of the times he might have irritated any of the local authorities that actually had the case by the way he would question Henry?
A. No, sir, I am not aware of that.
Q. Okay.
A. John Smoot was also along. He was the supervisor or the ranking officer with the Attorney General's Office that was along. He didn't ride in the van with them. He rode in one of the tail cars, and he actually called the shots.
Q. Fred was with you all when you went out to Pomona, wasn't he?
A. I believe he was with us everywhere.
Q. Okay. Who was the captain out at Pomona, Mike?
MR. FEARY: I believe that was Blair.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Captain Blair?
MR. FEARY: I believe that is right.
Q. Was the one where she was stabbed and raped?
MR. FEARY: I just don't recall.
Q. I know what the victim was. Do you remember meeting a Captain Blair in Pomona?
A. I don't recall.
Q. Do you ever recall when they went back to the stations, did they ever go back to the stations, the local authority’s place, and conduct interviews of Henry?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you recall whether that happened in Pomona or not?
A. I don't even remember Pomona. I am sorry. We went to lots of locations there in a very condensed time.
Q. Well, it was reported to us that at this particular location Henry started out by saying the victim was stabbed, and by the time Fred got through questioning Henry on that case, Henry had managed to learn that not only was the victim not stabbed, that it was a gun shot, and managed to learn what kind of gun it was, and from there managed to kind of start giving details?
A. Well, I think that is the beauty of the audio tapes that were taken. If any of you have a question, you can contact the Attorney General's Office out there, and possibly they would make those tapes available to you, or you can go out and listen to them. I can't allude to any specific case what was said, but all of them were audio taped.
Q. The reason I am asking you particularly about that one, when I asked Captain Blair if he had any comments to make about any of the members of the task force, and he had nothing but good things to say about you all. When I asked him about the interview that was conducted, and he said primarily if they asked a question, Fred would restructure the question, and then ask Henry himself, and I asked Fred about why that was going on, and he said well, I know how Henry operates. You have to speak to Henry in a certain way, and so I asked him, was any of the task force members there when this interview was being conducted, and he told me that you all were there, and you all were at the same arm’s length distance from Henry, that Fred Saragasso, and Captain Blair himself was. It turns out in this particular locale that they decided not to confirm the case on him.
A. I guess that is why I don't remember it then.
Q. Do you have any memory of when he was out in California, that California authorities may have been a little lax in the way they interviewed Henry?
A. No, I didn't detect that at all. It was very professionally handled. From the time we got there until the time we left, and any of them you have a question about, every one of them that he was interviewed on, it was audio taped. When we got to the crime scene it was videotaped.
Q. Let me ask you about one more.
A. All right.
Q. This is Hemet, California. When you all arrived there, I think you all might have arrived late at night, do you remember you and a deputy sheriff named Rush, and the Fred Saragasso, and some other criminal justice person going around Hemet that night in the van, looking at various places, and seeing whether or not Henry could locate a potential crime scene?
A. I wasn't in the van. I do know they drove around, but I wasn't in the van.
Q. Did you see Sheriff Boutwell in that van?
A. I can't answer that.
Q. Where were you when this was occurring?
A. In that particular town, I am sure I was in one of the trail cars. I don't recall being in the van, during the interview.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. If you were traveling with Lucas, was someone from the task force, or from Texas required to maintain custody of Lucas?
A. No. You are talking about one of us . . .
Q. Yes.
A. No. In the beginning one of us stayed in there all the time. After he became comfortable with the California officers, because the same, John and Charles, and I am sorry, I can't remember their last name. He became very comfortable with them, and kind of transferred the security blanket over to them where we could get away from him for a while.
Q. Okay.
A. We had extremely long days for 12 days. We would start early and quit anywhere from ten to midnight every night. We drove in the vicinity of around four thousand miles while we were there.
Q. Do you have any independent recollection about that Hemet, California, case, and whether or not Henry was able to pick out the right house, where the victim was killed?
A. Let's see, if it was the one I am thinking about, this is where an elderly lady, and I say elderly, she may have been my age, but a lady, a housewife was killed in a house, is that the one you are referring to?
Q. Yes.
A. If I am not mistaken he picked out, I think in the beginning he picked out the wrong house. The house next door or in front of it, or to the side, where the crime actually occurred, if I remember correctly.
Q. It's my understanding that the next day when the homicide detective tried to see if he could locate the scene, Henry didn't have any problem picking it out. In other words, the way it has been related to us, some of the officers out there told us that the night before the Department of Justice people, along with this deputy sheriff who was driving, and either you or Sheriff Boutwell went out and located the house. Quite frankly what the deputy sheriff said was that Henry was given a lot of help in trying to do that, and I say given a lot of help, I am fully aware that Henry Lucas has the ability to drag information out of police officers, and I am not saying it was deliberately done. I am not trying to infer that, but anyway as a result of that, what happened that night, when the next day nobody told the homicide detective that that had occurred, and Henry subsequently pointed the house out, and do you know anything about that happening?
A. Once again let me refer you to the officers out there. The coordinators from California maybe can answer that question for you, or listen to the audio tape. I have very little recollection of that. I remember the town, and I do recall him picking out the wrong house first, and as a matter of fact, the way he was talking about it, that night I thought it was the correct house, and I assume all of the officers did.
Q. Do you know whether or not any of those officers told that homicide detective that Henry had already been out to the scene?
A. No, I didn't hear the conversation.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Let me ask you . . .
A. Excuse me, let me finish answering this. As a matter of fact, the next morning I recall now, we met them back there, because one of the detectives, Charlie, and Sheriff Boutwell and I took another car, and we separated from the group to go to a leather company, Bianca Leather Company, there in one of the towns several miles away. We escaped from them for a while.
Q. I know the question has come up in some of the previous Grand Jury stuff, who paid for the trips in state, who paid for the trips out of state, would you describe that for me?
A. Okay. Whenever we would go out of state, the requesting state would pay for the physical . . . would provide for the physical transportation, and also pay our expenses.
Q. Pay your travel?
A. Travel and meals and lodging expenses.
Q. Did you all fly commercial?
A. No, there are two different ways we flew, and we would just have to pick a state where we went to tell you how we flew. When we went to California, one county, you know they have extremely large counties there, one county has a twin engine plane, and came and picked us up. When we came back from California, another county had a twin engine plane, and they brought us back. When we went to . . .
Q. Say Georgia.
A. When we went to Georgia, I didn't go to Georgia, but I don't know whether it was a charter, or a state plane, but anyway Georgia made arrangements on that.
Q. Does D.P.S. fly out of state?
A. The only time they flew out of state was when we went to Florida. I believe the D.P.S. plane has gone twice to Florida. One time to pick up Toole, and another time to take Lucas there to be interviewed, plus Clayton Smith had some interviews to do there in Florida, I think on the work records.
Q. Do you all have any kind of jet plane?
A. No, sir. The only jet I can think of either when they went to Georgia, or when they went to Louisiana, and I didn't go on one of the trips to Louisiana. One of those whey went on a jet. It seems like it was Georgia, they went on a jet.
Q. Whose jet was that?
A. I assume it was the state's.
Q. Their state?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. It was describing they were flying around in a jet, and that is why I was asking.
A. I didn't go on that trip. The only jet that I am aware of and I believe it was the Georgia trip, I assume it was a state plane.
Q. So basically they came and got you, or they paid your expenses, paid all of your travel expenses?
A. Yes, except for that isolated situation in Florida where we had a need to go to Florida, or our people had a need to go to Florida.
Q. Did they ever kick any kind of expense money, or anything besides that, actual expenses?
A. No.
Q. Did they contribute money towards the keeping of Henry there in the Williamson County Jail?
A. No.
Q. They didn't contribute . . .
A. Now, you are talking about other states?
Q. Yes.
A. No.
Q. They didn't contribute to his upkeep in any way?
A. Not that I am aware of at all.
Q. We thought that there had perhaps been some contributions perhaps from Georgia towards Henry's upkeep there in the jail?
A. Not that I am aware of, no.
Q. Was there a reason why Sheriff Boutwell would travel outside of the state with you all, instead of staying there in Williamson County?
A. Well, whenever we would travel we preferred to have two officers along, because you can get awful tired of Henry Lee Lucas on an all day basis, and this is more for our you know, to keep us from getting burned out, more than anything else. We wanted to travel with two officers. Sheriff Boutwell had very good rapport with Lucas. Boutwell had probably a better rapport with Lucas than any of us. Lucas wasn't an easy person to deal with. He gets . . . I don't know how you all's relation has been but he gets upset quite easy. Sheriff Boutwell is a very soothing type person, and Lucas has an awful lot of confidence in him, and this would be the main reason, when we did go out of state, we preferred him to go along also.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. I have got a question here, and I may have to have Mike Feary help me ask it. Why are their logs with the same date of origination with different case numbers. Now, I think what he is referring to is one set of synopsis that you all had done earlier, the numbers were a certain way like Case 132, 118, etc.
A. Okay.
Q. At a later point in time, when you came out with a new synopsis, all of a sudden cases were styled with different numbers, was there a reason why that happened?
A. Yes, sir. In February or March, we learned the information that Jacksonville, Florida, didn't want to show any of their cases cleared.
Q. Okay.
A. Any longer, and I think we also got some other information on some more, so rather than going through and having blank numbers, because each synopsis has a number. Rather than going through and having blank numbers, it was determined that it would probably work out better for us to go through and renumber everything, and just blank out where we had the Georgia cases before, go ahead and blank those out, and rather than skipping from two to twelve, or whatever, it's now chronological order.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. When you updated that, did you reflect a new date for that synopsis?
A. No.
Q. You used the date of the original . . .
A. Actually we didn't re-do . . . the only thing we did on the synopsis, we would go through and white out that particular case, and then re-Xerox it.
A. You would cut out the case that was removed, and moved the rest of them up, and redo the numbers?
A. Right.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. I have got another question here. It has been said that the task force only reported responses from jurisdictions when they said things were cleared up and confirmed, and then my question is, what about cases from Walker County?
A. Okay, Walker County interviewed Lucas very early on, December of '83, or January of '84. They came and interviewed him on Saturday, and after they got through interviewing him, when I was back the next week, I called Walker County officers, and asked them when they stated they did believe Lucas was responsible for that case, so I asked them to send me a synopsis, and photographs of the case, if I could. I didn't get them. Later on, I called them again. I said, we would like the information on that case. We would like the synopsis, but let me back up just a little bit first.
Q. Okay.
A. Prior to Walker County coming and talking with Lucas, Lucas had described having a homicide of a female along Interstate 45 around Buffalo or Centerville. So Lucas was taken over to Centerville and Buffalo, and met the ranger and the sheriff over there. They went up and down the interstate with Lucas trying to determine where that homicide had occurred. They couldn't find it. So he was brought back to Williamson County, and later on, how much later I don't know, maybe a month later, two weeks later, or something like that, Walker County came and interviewed Lucas. Okay, and then they had the type homicide, and with the basic description that Lucas had said that he had in Leon County, and after they interviewed him, back what I said a while ago, when I called them, they said, I believe that it was Ted Pierce that I called, if I remember correctly. I called them, and they stated that they did believe he was responsible for that case, so I asked for a synopsis to be sent, and they never did sent it. I called them later on, and he said he would send it. If I recall right, I called him the third time, I know that I called him twice, and it seems like I called him the third time, and I still never did get him, so I called the ranger down there. I said would you get the synopsis information on the unidentified female that had been described to him. So he got that information for me, and I wrote a synopsis as to that case being cleared, and then of course, we were swamped with other work, and he forgot about it. It wasn't until very recently that we read in the paper where Walker County officials state that they never considered Lucas a suspect in that case. The D.A. might not ever have, but the officer that I talked to did state that he felt like Lucas was involved in the case, coupled with the fact that he had described that earlier, thinking it was in Leon County, which is two counties, or the second county up from Walker County, and wasn't very confident that was it. Also, another time when we were in that area Lucas described some business close to where the girl had been found, which further corroborated that Lucas was involved in that case. Okay, we have extremely poor working relationships with the sheriff in Walker County. The ranger down there, well, you probably know the problems that have existed for quite some time there, but there is a very poor working relationship. The . . . I hate to call a name, but I believe it was Ted Pierce, has refused to return my phone calls to the ranger captain down there, who wanted to talk to him concerning that case.
Q. That was the one that initially told you that he thought it was a good case?
A. Right. Naturally since then we have removed that from the confirmed list.
Q. Okay. You know who Clemmie Schroeder is, don't you?
A. Well . . .
Q. Sister Clemmie?
A. Oh, yes, if you had said Sister Clemmie I would know.
Q. There is another Clemmie that you are aware of. On Sister Clemmie, let's talk a little bit about her. When Henry was in Georgetown with the task force, did you or Sheriff Boutwell ever try to use Clemmie to get Henry to cooperate with you all?
A. Sure.
Q. And in what way did you all try to use her to do that?
A. When Henry would get, for want of a better terminology, bent out of shape, or whatever, you know, we would ask her to use her rapport with him to . . .
Q. Straighten up?
A. I don't know if that was the terminology used, but calm him down or whatever. It was very difficult, very difficult. He was a very difficult personality to deal with.
Q. Did you yourself ever tell her that if Henry didn't start cooperating with you all again, that the task force would have to be disbanded, and he would have to be sent down to death row?
A. I don't recall that statement at all. Certainly that would be what would happen, and this would be the easy thing for us to have done, long ago, sent him on to death row, and me come back to my family, and get back to my normal duties. Certainly that would be the obvious thing that would happen, because if he is not going to cooperate why would we want to continue to have him there.
Q. All right. And I can assume that you have had conversations with Sister Clemmie since Henry has been up here in McLennan County?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What has Clemmie told you about Henry's stay up here?
A. I haven't had a personal conversation with her in a long while. I am trying to think of the last time I had any conversation with her. Most of my information concerning her comes from Sheriff Boutwell. I have very little contact with her. I did see her . . . if I recall right I have seen her twice. One day I was in the office down there when she was in her jail ministry, and stopped by the office on her way in, and another time was after the first few nights she had been up here, I saw her down there.
Q. Let's go back to that time that you are talking about. Was that the time that Clemmie said she thought that Henry's rights were being violated?
A. Yes.
Q. Who was present when she made that statement?
A. Okay, I wasn't there for the initial . . . I wasn't there initially at all. I didn't get there until later on at night when she came back in to repeat. Chief Hacker, Senior Ranger Captain Block, Assistance Senior Ranger Captain Maurice Cook, Sheriff Boutwell, Ed Walsh. I am talking about them coming in at different times, but I think they were all there.
Q. Col. Adams wasn't there that night?
A. No. She and her daughter, if I remember correctly, came in.
Q. Is that when she made a tape recording?
A. Yes, she had already made that when I was there.
Q. What is your understanding of who was present when she made the tape recording?
A. Sheriff Boutwell, now this is second hand information.
Q. I understand.
A. Sheriff Boutwell, Chief Werner, two men from the Attorney General's Office in California, the John whose name I can't remember, and also John Smoot. They had come there to interview Lucas. They were scheduled to interview him, and they made a wasted trip.
Q. Okay.
A. I might also add that they did make a trip from California, and did attempt to interview him here at the McLennan County Jail, and were denied access to hi.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Say that again. I missed that.
A. I am sorry. They did come from California to interview Lucas because they were on the schedule to interview him. They did attempt to interview him here, and were denied access.
Q. The people from California?
A. Yes. John Smoot.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Do you know who first decided that what Clemmie was saying should be reported to the FBI?
A. No, sir, I do not.
Q. Do you know who the first federal authorities were that were contacted?
A. No, I do not. I know who first arrived.
Q. Who was that?
A. Jan Patterson.
Q. From Austin?
A. I don't know where she lives. She is an Assistant U.S. Attorney.
Q. And she arrived that night?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know whether or not she was the one that subsequently ordered the FBI come up here and try to talk with Henry?
A. I can't answer that. I would assume. Well, I can't answer that, I just don't know.
Q. Okay. Do you say you knew who called her, or did not know who called her?
A. No, sir, I do not.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. You don't know who actually called her?
A. No, sir, I do not. I didn't hear any of the conversation.
Q. Was the decision to call her cleared by Col. Adams?
A. I am sorry, I can't answer that.
Q. You don't know?
A. No, sir.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Let me ask you a couple more things about the people from California. They themselves came up here to Waco?
A. They called up here, and talked to someone from the Sheriff's Department. John Smoot called, and I was present when he called.
Q. Do you know who he talked to?
A. No, sir, I don't. If I am not mistaken, he wrote it down. I know he asked the name anyway, and I believe he wrote it down.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
MR. LOCKHOOF: Do you have any other questions you want to ask about Sister Clemmie, as far as Sergeant Prince is concerned?
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Were any of the FBI agents present that night in Georgetown?
A. No, sir.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Have you had a conversation with Sister Clemmie since then, where she has indicated to you that she now believes that Henry did not commit all of the crimes that he was confessing to?
A. No, sir, I haven't.
Q. Okay. Let's go on to another subject then. Do you believe Henry Lee Lucas has hypernesia?
A. I am not real sure I understand what hypernesia is. I have been told that hypernesia supposedly is, if I am not mistaken is a term that is an antonym for amnesia, an opposite of amnesia. Someone that has the ability to have almost total recall. If I am not mistaken a psychiatrist has described this, that Lucas has this ability.
Q. And certainly you have seen him indicate that he has quite a bit of recall about facts and circumstances?
A. Well, yes, and then when you . . . he does have very good ability to recall. However, I think any one of us in here that have been involved in any type . . . and of course, all of us have been involved in major type situations, you can think back and you can remember. You might not remember every detail, but you can remember the substance of it, I guess the word I am looking for, on many occasions. It might take something to spur my or your memory back to that, but I am not a hundred percent sure that he has any more ability to recall information than any average person would. If you just start zeroing in on some major things that you have been involved in, you can remember the overall information about it.
Q. One of the things you told me one time is, that if you told Henry, the difference between Henry and the average person is, if you ask the average person what he wore six months ago, his first reaction would be gee, I don't remember. However, Henry will try to give you an answer.
A. Well, I think that I have stated several times that if you ask Henry a question, he will give you an answer. This is a problem as far as I am concerned. I would prefer someone to say I don't know, or I don't remember.
Q. Rather than to just give you an answer?
A. Right. If you ask him, where were you on December 1977, he is going to tell you. What were you driving, he is going to tell you. Well, this is information that is very very difficult to corroborate, so you don't know if that is accurate or not.
GRAND JUROR: That is just his nature to do that?
A. That is just his nature to do that. But, when you get to a crime scene information, he does have very good ability to recall, but I am not sure that would be a whole lot . . . that this would be more ability than I would have, or that you would have, or something like that. I can think back about a traumatic type arrest and shooting I was involved in. Of course, I can remember the overall details. I couldn't tell you the type of clothing everybody had on, but I could tell you the details, and I could tell you where everybody was standing, and I think all of us could do this, but . . .
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. But some of these killings, he has described clothing, colors . . .
MR. HODGE: Pictures on the wall.
Q. Pictures on the wall, dents in the car. He has even described, for instance this Cervenka case out here, a person we are pretty well convinced he didn't have anything to do with.
A. I think everyone is.
Q. And yet he is able to describe everything about her, everything about the car, and everything else?
A. Right.
Q. Now, it's hard for most of us to believe that somebody didn't talk to him pretty extensively and give him that information.
A. Okay.
Q. As a long time investigating type officer, would you generally agree with that?
A. Well, I didn't ever interview him on the Cervenka case. I can't tell you firsthand what he said. Sheriff Boutwell is out there, and he will be glad to talk with you about it. I didn't ever interview him about that case, and I never did talk with him about that particular case.
Q. You understand that before they ever found her, he had given out a heck of a lot of information?
A. Right. And another scary thing on that is, he said she was in water.
Q. He said a whole lot of different things though?
A. Oh, yeah. He said lots of things. As a matter of fact he carried the officers down to Laredo one time, and said she is down there, but he also in one of his statements said she will be within thirty minutes of Round Rock in water. She was thirty minutes from Round Rock in water.
Q. Well, you know, you think of places where bodies are hidden and everything else, it's not unusual to think they might be close to home in a pool of water. It's hard to believe that Henry was questioned so much on that case that he managed to pull out some information?
A. Sure, I don't think there is any doubt about it. He obviously pulled some information from different people. There is a lots of things about Henry Lucas that I know I will go to my grave that I will never be able to understand.
Q. Do you think he's psychic?
A. No. I don't know what psychic is really.
GRAND JUROR: What is a psychic?
MR. MATTOX: It's a kind of person that doesn't have any connection at all with the event, but can tell you all about it through some kind of mental telepathy.
Q. There is two ways to get information. Somebody either told it to you, or you had a vision about it. I don't believe in visions.
GRAND JUROR: Well, you know this guy up there in Dallas has been able to find four or five cases of missing children.
MR. MATTOX: I know him, and he doesn't have any visions I can assure you of that. I am positive of it. I knew him after he ran for J.P. up there in Dallas. He hasn't got any more visions now than what he had then I can tell you.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Bob, who was responsible back when Henry was at the task force for setting up appointments to see Henry?
A. I was in charge of that, primarily. Of course, if I wasn't there, and you called in, then anyone that was on the task force could go ahead and put you down on schedule, but primarily that was one of my functions.
Q. I want to hit you with another name now, and I don't know that you will remember it off of the top of your head. Do you know who Russ Hunt is, the trial lawyer here?
A. Yes.
Q. In Waco?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you remember him getting an appointment to see Henry back in April of this year?
A. No, I don't believe he has ever seen Henry, to my knowledge.
Q. No, I didn't say that he saw Henry. Do you remember him getting an appointment to see Henry in April of this year?
A. Not to my knowledge.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. The appointment book would not reflect if he had an appointment?
A. If he had an appointment to see him, I have still got that calendar I guess, but I don't recall him ever calling down there wanting to see him.
Q. Would you check that for us, because he indicated to us that he thought he had an appointment on April 18th?
A. I believe he was still in trial, I mean Lucas was still in trial at that time, wasn't he?
Q. I mean April 18 of '85?
A. Oh, no, no.
Q. You don't think he ever had that appointment?
A. Not to my knowledge at all.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. When did we get Henry?
A. April 12th.
Q. Okay, so the appointment would have been made actually prior to the bench warrant from here coming down to get Henry. He said he thought he had an appointment that was set for April 18th.
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. Would you check that for us?
A. Sure. If it was April 18th, I can tell you for sure that we don't have it on the calendar as him coming down there.
MR. FEAZELL: He said it was the 16th, 17th, or 18th, or something like that.
Q. Did you keep a calendar of appointments that were to see Henry?
A. Yes. I made that available to you, the call in log.
Q. That was the call in log?
A. Yes, sir. But we have a calendar page where when we take them off of the call in log, and put them up there on the calendar we keep both. Now, I don't recall, I don't recall him ever calling and asking for an appointment.
Q. Can you ever recall Johnny Dodd calling and asking to get an appointment for Russ Hunt?
A. No.
Q. Did Johnny Dodd ever call you sometime in March to see if he could have an appointment to see him?
A. Not that I recall at all.
Q. I think we talked about this last Friday, those tapes that we didn't see, but you said we could hear?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. Those were tapes on Bill and Debora Smith, weren't they?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, let me ask you this, did you ever . . . are you aware of this document right here, that was obtained back in '82, I am sorry, it was in '82?
A. I have never seen the document before, no.
Q. So you don't have any memory of seeing that document?
A. No, sir. This would be a full year before I got involved.
Q. But I thought maybe the thing had been submitted to the task force?
A. I don't recall that document at all.
Q. Would it be possible that either the crime analyst, or Sheriff Boutwell might have had it, and you just never did see it?
A. Sure it is possible. I am not familiar with that.
Q. For the purposes of identification, what I showed Sergeant Prince was a statement made on 10-18-82, by Bill and Debora Smith. The officers who took that statement or made the report was Jessie Ramos, or Ramos. Do you remember back on February 21st of this year, you and Phil Ryan, and Weldon Lucas, and Clayton Smith and Bob Werner going up to Denton?
A. No, sir, I didn't go.
Q. You did not go?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did they go?
A. I can't tell you a date. They did go to Denton.
Q. Do you know why they went?
A. They went up there to go out to the area where the body . . . Becky Powell's body had been found to attempt to locate Lucas thought he had a book buried there, that would indicate some contract killings that he had been involved in.
Q. Contract killings?
A. That is what he stated.
Q. And was there anything else supposedly in that address book that was supposed to aid you all in some way, or was it just on the contract killings?
A. All I recall supposedly it was just going to be information on the contract killings, but we didn't expect to find it, and we didn't find it.
Q. Okay.
A. I say we, the officers that went up there.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Did you find anything?
A. We did find some old photographs that Lucas indicated belonged to Becky.
Q. Where did you find the photographs?
A. Up there close to, I am repeating information. Clayton Smith was along, and he is available and you can ask him. I mean he will be coming in here. It was within an area where Becky Powell's body had been found.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. On top of the ground, under the ground?
A. I am sorry, I can't answer that.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Was there anything about those photographs that indicated that they were Becky's? Was she in them or anything?
A. I don't think so. I don't think there was anything that would really be corroborative. You know, lots of time has passed since then, and it's kind of a dump area.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. You don't have any kind of relationship with Mike Cox, do you? Do you know Mike Cox?
A. I know him.
Q. Is he a reporter?
A. No. He's a former reporter, but now he's the Assistant P.I.O. at the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Q. Public Information Officer?
A. Right.
Q. And what is their function?
A. Their function is really a liaison with the news media between the Texas Department of Public Safety and the media.
Q. Was he present at that task force meeting when Chief Hacker, and Bob Werner, and you and Sheriff Boutwell, and Ed Walsh were there that night?
A. No, sir.
Q. How many times and under what circumstances were Lucas and Toole allowed to communicate with each other? That's either by phone, or directly, let's take directly first?
A. Personally?
Q. Uh-huh.
A. In December of '83, Lucas was taken to Florida, and Lucas and Toole got together and had a video tape interview, conversation.
Q. Were they allowed to talk outside the presence of the video tape?
A. Not to my knowledge. That's a trip I didn't go on, but I . . .
Q. Who did go on that trip?
A. Clayton Smith, Sheriff Boutwell, and our pilots, and I don't recall anyone else going. They may have, but I don't recall anyone else going.
Q. But recollect that they said that the only time Henry and Ottis were allowed to get together was when the tape was rolling?
A. I don't know that that was ever said, or that was just an understanding. It certainly would be supervised anytime they get together.
Q. You would have made that assumption at any rate?
A. Sure, and I am going to make the assumption that every time they were together, it was recorded someway.
Q. Recorded or monitored in some fashion?
A. Yes.
Q. How about telephone conversations?
A. To my knowledge they have had two telephone conversations . . . let me finish up on this. They did personally get together again after Lucas finished his trial, and I may miss a month here, but I think it was in April of '84.
Q. Okay.
A. Toole had been brought to Georgetown, Texas, and when Lucas got back I understand that Sheriff Boutwell allowed them to get together to visit a while.
Q. Okay, what about the two telephone conversations?
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. You said allowed them to get together, are you talking about . . .
A. Well, let me clarify that a little bit. Allowed them to visit together, supervised.
Q. You think they were in cells next to each other?
A. I can't answer that. I wasn’t present.
Q. So you don't know . . .
A. They video taped it, so it would have to be in our interview room.
Q. On that occasion, but they were in adjoining cells perhaps that night, do you know?
A. No, they were on different floors. Toole, if I remember correctly was on the first floor . . . I better not speak to where their cells were. I know their cells wouldn't be together. I know Lucas was moved upstairs, but I don't know whether it was at that time, or he was still on the downstairs level. That is the two personal times they got together. The two telephone times, one of them was in November of '83, and another time was within the last few months, and I can't even start to tell you.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Sometime in '85?
A. I would think '85, it might have been late '84, but I think it would be early '85.
Q. I am just going to put early '85, or late '84. And were those conversations taped?
A. Yes, sir.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Were they taped with their knowledge they were being taped?
A. Yes, as a matter of fact on one of them Lucas' attorney was on the extension, plus it was taped.
Q. Did that include one of the conversations that the Japanese taped, video taped?
A. Are you asking me?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. I guess you would ask me. I don't know about that. I am not aware that they did video taped conversations between them. I wasn't present when the Japanese did any video taping.
Q. So there may have been at least one other phone call then that you are not aware of?
A. It's possible. That's the only two that I am aware of. The one in '83, and early '85.
Q. Do you remember when the Japanese were doing that taping, and all I am asking for now is an approximate date. Was it in '83 or '84?
A. I think it would be '84, probably. I am going to say summer or fall of '84.
Q. Okay, we can find out.
A. I was aware that they were going to come in on the weekend and do some taping, and interview, and I met them I assume on Friday, but I didn't have any reason to come back for the weekend interview.
Q. Tell us what confabulation is?
A. Well, I think that would be making up information.
Q. And when does confabulation occur, when you are questioning people? When is confabulation most likely to occur, or most probably going to occur?
A. Well, it's either when someone is trying to give you additional information, or trying to keep information from you.
Q. Is it more likely to happen when a person is on any kind of medication?
A. That, I can't answer.
Q. You have never had any training in that?
A. No, sir.
Q. Nobody has ever lectured to you during your D.P.S. schools concerning the fact that when a person is on medication, that would have some effect on his mental state, that he might be more inclined to confabulate?
A. I don't have any recollection of that. I hate to say that I never have heard that, but I am not aware of any lectures, or whatever.
Q. Do you know Duke Bodish?
A. I know of him. I don't know that I have ever met him, but I know of him.
Q. Has he ever instructed you in any courses at the D.P.S.?
A. Not that I recall.
Q. How about Travis McPherson?
A. Not me personally, that I recall.
Q. Okay, when I say Travis McPherson, I guess what I am asking is, have you met him . . .
A. I have met him.
Q. Do you know whether or not you have been in any classes that he has conducted for D.P.S.?
A. I don't recall ever being in any classes. I know he has conducted some down there, but I think if I recall right, the classes that he conducted I wasn't able to attend.
Q. Okay, what kind of classes do those people usually conduct?
A. I think they are hypnosis instructors.
Q. Okay. What kind of hypnosis are we talking about?
A. Forensic hypnosis.
Q. And what is forensic hypnosis, or hypnotist?
A. They are one that would be involved in the hypnosis of the witnesses, or victims of crimes. It would be for law enforcement purposes.
Q. Okay, are you a forensic hypnotist?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you ever hypnotize Henry?
A. No, sir.
Q. When a person is forensically hypnotized, what kind of state are they in, mental state?
A. They call it an altered state of consciousness, more aware of what's occurred in the past, more aware of their surroundings, and this sort of thing.
Q. Is that what is called being in the alpha state?
A. I can't answer that. I am a practitioner. I certainly wouldn't consider myself an expert on theory or whatever. I am just a practitioner.
Q. You have never heard the term before the alpha state?
A. I am not familiar with it. I am not going to say I never heard it, but I am not familiar with it.
Q. What training have you had in forensic hypnosis?
A. I went to the basic school, I believe in 1979. I went to an advanced school after that, and I have requested that I be removed off the list of hypnotists, so I am really not a certified hypnotist with D.P.S. now, because I haven't been able to make the retraining schools, and just have not been able to continue the necessary practice sessions, or sessions that you need to have. We are supposed to have so many sessions a year, whether it be practice or actual real sessions, and that is not really the word I am looking for, but actual sessions, but I am deleted off of the approved list anyway.
Q. When you were undergoing training originally for being a forensic hypnotist, were you not ever told that particularly when a person is taking medication, that alters his mental state that you have got to be very careful about the way you examine him or her?
A. Well, we would not hypnotize anyone that was under medication or psychiatric care.
Q. Okay, but were you not also told, though, when you had those classes that a person on medication of that type would put them in that altered state, whether you actually hypnotize them at all, that they would be inclined to confabulate. Aren't you aware of that?
A. You are trying to pick my memory from six years ago in training, and it is something I haven't used in quite some time. I don't recall that. It's very very possible that was part of the training, but like I say, I am more of a practitioner, and I don't recall that type information.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. What kind of special accommodations did Lucas get there in the Williamson County Jail, special treatment? He got to see Sister Clemmie about as often as he wanted to, I suppose?
A. Yes, he got that, and I would . . .
Q. He got pretty free access to the telephone?
A. To call her, yes. He did use the phone occasionally, but you know when you are talking about special privileges, I am not sure that he got any more than really anyone else got, anyone that had their own t.v., got to watch their own t.v. Sister Clemmie visited with . . .
Q. He had his own t.v.?
A. Yes.
Q. Other people have their own t.v.?
A. Some of them do. How many, I can't answer that, but I do know that some of them do.
Q. I think I may have been quoted sometime as saying, and I don't know whether I said it or not, had a carpeted cell. Did he have that?
A. No.
Q. Did he have any other special privileges. Did he have a special account that money was put into?
A. Not that I am aware of.
Q. Did he have cigarettes or anything like that?
A. He, like any other prisoner there, they have their sack, or their account, or whatever they call it.
Q. Really what I was getting at, is whether or not, let's say the State of Georgia, or some of the others may have in effect contributed a little money to give Henry some extra rations or anything else.
A. If this occurred, I am not aware of it. As far as any kind of special account being set up different from other prisoners, I certainly wouldn't know anything like this.
Q. He didn't get any special compensation or anything from somebody coming to interview him, before he would agree to the interview, or anything like that?
A. No, you are talking about pay him X number of dollars, or whatever?
Q. Yes.
A. No.
Q. When you go see a prisoner, sometimes you . . .
A. You take cigarettes.
Q. Or can you leave me ten dollars for my account?
A. No, no.
Q. Or twenty-five dollars?
A. No. And I am responsible for a lot of this, when an officer would come, if you can put it in your expense account or whatever, it would be proper if you can buy him a carton of cigarettes, that sure would help, because if you don't, I furnish them out of my own pocket. So when officers come in, yes, we would ask them if they wanted to, if they wanted to buy him some cigarettes, that would be fine.
Q. It didn't really go far beyond the cigarettes, though?
A. Certainly not.
Q. What kind of cigarettes did he smoke, do you recall?
A. Pall Malls.
MR. MATTOX: That's all.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Henry at one point, in the latter part of '84, apparently designated on a Georgia map that he had committed about eleven killings. Do you remember that?
A. Yes. I vaguely remember that. This was to a Georgia state officer that came down and interviewed him.
Q. Do you remember who that was? Was it Boyett?
A. If I am not mistaken it was Bob Ingram.
Q. Bob Ingram?
A. If I am not mistaken, sir.
Q. Is he the GBI, Georgia Bureau Investigation Chief, or chief investigator?
A. No, he's an agent, I believe.
Q. He is a special agent?
A. Yes.
Q. He one named Ellis, is he the chief investigator?
A. There is an Ellis. I don't recall his title. I would call him Ellis.
Q. Do you remember whether or not the one they interviewed Henry about at that time, did they subsequently turn out to subsequently be the ones he went to Georgia on?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. So on the locations he picked out in Georgia, he had been interviewed prior to that in Georgetown?
A. Yes, I didn't sit in on the interview. I can't tell you what they interviewed him on, but I do know they interviewed him, and whether or not it was video taped, I can't answer that, but I do know they had an interview with him, and later on, as a matter of fact in April, I believe it was of this year, he was taken to Georgia.
Q. And that was when he was able to go to locations, and that was when Clayton Smith and Bob Werner were with him?
A. Right. And this was also video taped, and I have it available, if you all care to see it.
Q. Okay, I would like to.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. How many pre-interviews were there before he went to Georgia?
A. You mean how many officers from Georgia came in at first?
Q. No, sir, I am wondering how many interviews there were in Georgetown, concerning the Georgia cases before Henry went to Georgia, or how many days, or how many weeks?
A. I am not sure I am understanding your question. We had several officers from Georgia come in at different times to interview Lucas. We had one or two sets of State officers that came in and interviewed Lucas, which would be no different from any other place we took him. They would come in normally first.
Q. And did these interviews concern some of the cases that he took on his trip to Georgia?
A. Yes, I am sure they did.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. Do you know how many he claimed credit for, and how many that he said Ottis Toole committed?
A. No, sir, I can't answer that.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. I don't believe I ever asked this question, but prior to him going to California, did the Department of Justice people from California come out and interview Henry on a lot of those cases?
MR. HODGE: That has been asked.
MR. LOCKHOOF: I don't think specifically that question.
A. Talking about, I think the question I addressed before, was on mail in cases.
Q. Right.
A. Was there any that had been mailed to us that was subsequently cleared there. I don't recall meeting . . . I feel very certain no one from California Department of Justice came to California, I mean came to Williamson County before we went to California. Now, some officers had.
Q. Some local officers?
A. Yes, local officers.
Q. Is it possible that . . . when you all escorted Henry out to California, did the Bureau of Justice people, did they interview Henry there for a day or two, before he started going to the various locations?
A. No, sir. When we landed in California, we were met by the Department of Justice authorities, and if I recall right, it was Imperial County deputies, and we went straight to the scene. Straight to the first scene.
Q. Okay.
A. Which was miles away, but anyway, we drove straight there.
Q. Back in the fall of '84, at any time did Hugh Aynesworth try to tell you that he suspected that Henry Lee Lucas was not a serial killer?
A. Hugh Aynesworth has never to my recollection told or indicated to me that Lucas was not responsible for homicides.
Q. Okay. Do you know if he ever said that to Sheriff Boutwell?
A. Sheriff Boutwell would have to answer that.
Q. Sheriff Boutwell has never related that to you?
A. No.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. You said not responsible for homicides?
A. Not responsible . . . I was trying to answer the question the best I could, that have been confirmed on Lucas. In other words, I believe Aynesworth's article says that he is good for three homicides, okay, Aynesworth has never indicated that to me. Quite the contrary, we did get a . . . Col. Adams did get a letter that we took as a pretty complimentary letter in the fall of '84 from Aynesworth, as to the coordination of our activities.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. In September of '84, were you present when Henry was taken out to West Texas to the Midland Odessa area, the Pecos area?
A. No, sir.
Q. Who from the task force was with Henry at that time?
A. Clayton Smith was if I remember correctly.
Q. All right. When was Henry first questioned about the case in El Paso, have you been told by Clayton on that? Did it occur in Pecos? The victim's name was Appadocca, that is the way I pronounce it.
A. Okay, this is the one that he he is charged with in El Paso.
Q. The axe murder?
A. Okay. I don't believe . . . I can't answer that with any certainty. To the best of my recollection he wasn't interviewed until he was taken to . . . no, I would rather not answer that, because I don't know.
Q. Because you weren't there?
A. No, I wasn't there, and I am sorry, I just don't know.
Q. And to your knowledge, nobody from El Paso would interview Henry prior to that case about that case?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. The officers out there, I noticed in one of the logs that you had given us, was . . . their last name was the same last name of the victim. Jim Appadocca, and Santiago Appadocca, were they related to the victim in any fashion?
A. I understand one of them is. How, I can't answer that.
Q. Okay.
A. To my recollection I have never met them.
Q. I have got one last question, and that is, we were talking last Friday, I asked you if you would find out for me, if you could, when Henry was up there at that Bluefield Hospital, it had been mentioned to us, Mike Feary and us either by you, and by maybe Chief Hacker that a check had been cashed from Southeast Color Code when Henry was up in Bluefield. Have you been able to ascertain where that check was cashed, was it passed in Bluefield, or was it passed in Jacksonville when he was in Bluefield?
A. I did not do any further checking. I do not recall.
Q. Would you do that for us, please, sir.
A. Okay. Do you recall that date?
Q. The Bluefield would have been . . .
A. '81?
Q. The Bluefield would have been 1979, March of 1979, because he had been in Jacksonville and worked for a few weeks, and went up to West Virginia. This is when he was up there, we had been told by you, and some other officers that a check was cashed, and that most likely it was Henry who cashed it.
A. Okay.
MR. HODGE: Col. Adams had told us that. There was a check cashed while Henry was in Bluefield at the hospital, or while he was in West Virginia.
A. I have that probably in my car.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. I want to ask you just a few questions that may be a little sensitive, but I think they ought to be asked anyway. You know when that U.S. Attorney insisted on jumping out of San Antonio, and coming all the way up here to Waco, to get Lucas and carry him down there, and to in effect investigate the Attorney General, and the District Attorney up here, I must admit I was a little offended by that, and I was concerned that was a bit of retaliatory action that had taken place, and in the recent weeks I have become . . . I have had a couple of discussions with some of the D.P.S. commissioners, because of what I thought might be some kind of a retaliatory investigation that was taking place up here in McLennan County, concerning the District Attorney, and I am just wondering what you know about that kind of action. When did it start?
A. That I cannot answer.
Q. You do not know when it started?
A. I do not know. I am not involved in that particular investigation, and everything that I know about, that is strictly hearsay, and I would like to request to not discuss that, because I don't have any first hand knowledge in any shape, form or fashion.
Q. I am not going to press you too hard on it, but do you know whether or not that investigation started before the time we started this Lucas inquiry?
A. No, sir, I cannot answer that. I do not know. I have no idea when it started.
Q. Are you familiar with Charles Duncan from Channel 8?
A. I am familiar with him. I have never talked to him, and I have never met him.
Q. Has he attempted to interview you?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you know whether . . .
A. I say he has never attempted, not to my knowledge, he has never attempted. I never had a message to call him, or a message to see him. To my knowledge, I have never met him.
Q. Do you know whether he is working in conjunction with anybody from the D.P.S.?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. In the course of this investigation of us, the A.G., and the District Attorney, down in San Antonio, whose idea was that to get the feds involved in that investigation?
A. That I cannot answer. I just do not know.
Q. You were not present when that decision was made to get them involved?
A. I do know that Floyd Hacker made a call, and whether or not he is the one that called them or not, or whose idea it was, I just cannot answer that. I know that doesn't very candidly answer it for you, but I just do not know.
Q. Well, I am sure you understand what I am getting at. It concerns us if we are attempting to just get to the bottom of all of this, if somebody is attempting to retaliate against us in some form. I am sure you can understand what I am talking about. But you say you, yourself personally, you are not participating in any kind of investigation of the District Attorney up here now?
A. That is correct.
Q. Can you tell me who is, what the names are?
A. No, sir, I do not know.
Q. It is taking place within the D.P.S., and you don't even know the names?
A. I do know that Ron Boyter is the only name that I know. If there is anyone else, I am not aware of it.
Q. And he's at . . .
A. D.P.S.
Q. And that is the same Ron Boyter that originally related to you this conversation?
A. That is correct, yes, sir.
Q. And is he in the intelligence section or what?
A. He's in the intelligence section, Department of Public Safety Criminal Intelligence Service.
Q. Do you know from the investigation point of view of the Attorney General's Office, I am not willing to shut the door on the investigation it is still going on, and it has been going on a while, and we are going to keep looking into this thing. I think it's pretty obvious to us that first, it is probably going to be impossible for us to determine how many killings Lucas actually engaged in, whether it be rightfully, or wrongfully so, he has now passed a couple of lie detector tests that we have conducted. I think it's also pretty evident to us that there are a great number of killings that have been cleared, that perhaps it is a strong likelihood Lucas did not do. I don't think that any of us involved in law enforcement want to do anything that is going to hurt the name of law enforcement, or anything else, and I would just like your impression of what perhaps ought to be done now, when we feel . . . I am sure you are aware, we have asked Col. Adams to have the D.P.S. and the Rangers participate in some kind of joint investigation, and that has been declined. We don't want to be in any kind of antagonistic situation, and yet at the same time we want to get the matter resolved. We want to try to show as many of those that were committed, and those that were not. We don't want any of these District Attorneys around here trying any more cases that I am ultimately going to have to defend in federal court, if we are pretty certain that he did not commit those crimes. You have lived through this thing, and I know that you have thought a lot about it. I would just like your honest impression about what ought to be done, if anything, and if you would give us the benefit of that recommendation, and if you would prefer not to . . .
A. I certainly don't have any objection at all. I think this is going to be our position from the very beginning, if any information is made available to us, regardless of the source, and we are not embarrassed by any source it comes from, that there is a conflict on a particular case, make the investigating agency aware of that case, and it should be their determination as to whether or not Lucas was involved in a homicide in Sacramento, California, not the Texas Rangers’ responsibility. If an alibi is in Jacksonville, Florida, and a homicide occurred in Sacramento, California, I don't believe it's our duty or our responsibility to do anything but make whatever information known to them that we know, and this has been our position at the beginning, and I can't see where our position ought to change from that. The same way in Texas. The ultimate responsibility is the local authorities. There are some cases, probably a fourth, or fifth of the Texas in cases we do have a ranger involved in a major role in the investigation on the cases cleared in Texas. And certainly we felt like a responsibility I am speaking of the ranger service now, not the task force, to go ahead and pursue every investigative lead that there is concerning that case, resolve it one way or another. There is probably not a homicide that has ever been, a major homicide that has ever occurred where there is not some doubt on it. The Kennedy assassination. You can sit back after it's over with and pick apart pros and cons, and these cases are no different. I don't believe it's the Texas Rangers' role, or the task force's role to determine, to make our determination of whether or not Lucas was involved in a case in Jacksonville, Florida, or Pennsylvania, or wherever. If we obtain information of an alibi, sure, we are certainly duty bound to make that information known to them. That's the only recommendation I have.
Q. You all have gone a little beyond that role though, particularly since the question of the task force activities had come up, and you all have actually been out investigating yourselves, alibi possibilities, alibi facts, such as the matters that relate to the Michigan Penitentiary?
A. Sure, not the task force. The ranger that has . . . he has a conflict on his case in Lubbock. He went and has tried to make the determination whether Lucas was at the alibi location, or in Lubbock, Texas. The task force role we are a very small unit. We are a coordinating unit. We are not basically set up as an investigative unit.
Q. But you all are not going to allow thirty different officers from around the State of Texas to all conduct their own investigation, are you, on those alibi facts, are you?
A. Are we going to allow it?
Q. Your own rangers?
A. Certainly not.
Q. So if he make the determination and checked out that fact, you are going to coordinate that investigation for the Rangers?
A. Certainly. We will make any information known to any responsible agency, if we have it. If we don't have it, we can't make it available. There is some information in the Dallas Times Herald now concerning metal records that has been furnished to us by your agency, and whether or not the Dallas Times Herald records are correct, I have no idea. Since that involves some Texas cases, the Rangers will attempt to determine whether or not if there is any more metal records, showing Lucas coordinated with you all, and if you feel like it is necessary to do additional information the Rangers will, not the task force.
Q. Can you tell me what other investigative type activities you have engaged in besides the Michigan trip?
A. Are you talking about the task force?
Q. The task force or a specific ranger that you have been made aware of in the last period of time since this Grand Jury has been operating?
A. I am not aware of them going to any other locations. We have . . . or I say we, Col. Adams has requested that there be a re-examination of the cases where the Rangers have played a major role in the fifth, or a fourth of the cases cleared in Texas, to see if there are any stones left unturned whatsoever.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. What is the difference between a major and a minor role?
A. A major role is where they were an investigator, or a minor role, where possibly we just provided security transportation to a scene, coordinate the trip. In other words maybe the ranger in Houston would only coordinate the dates and location, but not participate really in the investigation. The major role is where they were possibly there from the very beginning of the homicide investigation all the way through. Normally this would be in your smaller areas.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. You are not aware of going to Florida, or going to California, or any place else to check out alibis, or anything else?
A. Not that I am aware of that has been done.
Q. Have you had a chance to review the information that has been provided to you all from the Attorney General's Office?
A. Bulk of it.
Q. What is your impression of that information, does it lead you to have strong doubts about some of these cases that have been cleared?
A. Well, it certainly leads us to show some unexplainable, I believe we have got some unexplainable conflicts. What they are, I don't know. Like on the metal records, if it shows that he was selling junk metal in Jacksonville, Florida, on the same day that he supposedly was in Odessa, Texas, or Richmond, Texas, this I cannot answer, and I don't know that we will ever be able to resolve that. You can always look at it from both sides. You can say yes, we know he was in Jacksonville, Florida, on that date, because you have got his signature there, but was it actually signed on that date, or was it one that was signed up ahead of time, and I think you need to look at the invoice numbers of the other persons that sold metal on that day, before and after, to see if it fits in the sequence, and this sort of thing. We don't have that information available.
Q. Is that something you all are going to look at?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Commercial metals is not a fly by night company?
A. I understand that.
Q. They are out of Dallas up there.
MR. FEARY: I support that, because any documentation we come up with, we want to establish the validity or lack of validity, but I think that would be a good idea from my experiences in Florida. I think the manager of that operation out there, would be more than cooperative, and allow you to do that, or anyone to do it, and if you see how the operation is . . .
A. But, by the same token, whatever information is gained, it still would be fed to the local ranger, if he is the major investigator, or the investigating agency to let them make the determination.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEARY:
Q. Did anybody monitor Lucas' reading material in Williamson County Jail?
A. I don't believe that is legally possible.
Q. Not necessarily letters, but we have been told by him, that he had managed to get hold of True Detective magazines, and some publications of that nature that may have given him base information for some confessions?
A. I have I believe two True Detective magazines in my office where he has write-ups in there, but now if he has access to any more, I am certainly not aware of it.
GRAND JUROR: Has he seen the magazines that you have?
A. I think probably he has. But once again, you can believe what you can confirm of what Henry Lucas tells you. If he says he got it from there, I am not sure I believe him unless I can confirm it.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. He's not talking about getting actual cases, he's talking about just getting some ideas for certain confessions.
A. Okay.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. There were a couple of questions that frankly I forgot to ask you, and we might as well get it out of the way, because it's one of the things that you feel like has probably hurt you to some extent, because of what has been written about it, and that involves Johnny Dodd, and the book contract.
A. Okay.
Q. Did you introduce Johnny Dodd to Henry Lucas?
A. Yes. Let me add a little bit more. As I do to anyone that comes down there, and wants an interview.
Q. Is Johnny Dodd a personal friend of yours?
A. Yes, he is.
Q. And on the date that Johnny Dodd got his book contract, was his lawyer accompanying him that day, did his lawyer come with him that day?
A. I believe he did, yes, sir.
Q. Okay, and did they already have the contract written up?
A. I can't answer that.
Q. You weren't present when they were discussing the book contract?
A. No, sir, I was not.
Q. How long have you known Johnny Dodd?
A. Since '79.
Q. Okay, do you have any kind of business dealings with him?
A. None, whatsoever.
Q. Do you have any kind of a personal relationship with him, in other words . . .
A. He's my friend.
Q. He's just a friend?
A. Yes.
Q. In other words, you don't have . . . so you will understand what I am talking about, he's not an in-law, or you don't have an in-law, or a brother that is married to a sister of his, or anything like that?
A. No, sir.
Q. It's just pure friendship?
A. Right.
Q. And were you going to receive any kind of a financial reward if Johnny Dodd got that book contract with Henry Lucas, as a result of your introducing him?
A. I have not received anything. I do not plan to ever receive anything in any shape, form or fashion, whether they make one movie, or a hundred movies. We have absolutely no contract understanding, verbal, written, or whatever, and by the same token, I might add, I have no interest, or plans to write a book myself. If you had seen my English grade, you would understand what I was talking about. That is not in my plan. I hate to say that I never will, but it's not contemplated with me in any shape, form, or fashion.
Q. Did you know that Johnny Dodd wanted to try to get a book contract with Henry when you introduced them?
A. Probably the first time I did. Johnny Dodd brought this to my attention . . . not book contract, no. He never mentioned book contract. He stated that he would like to get a contact in Hollywood, and make a movie, I don't know that book contract was ever mentioned.
Q. He was talking about movies at that time?
A. Right.
Q. And it was pure assumption that was what they were going to talk about when you introduced them that day?
A. Well, no, they were introduced before that. The first contact that I recall with Johnny Dodd, and there may be an earlier one, but the first contact that I recall was a law enforcement contact with Johnny Dodd, and Henry Lucas and myself. This is whenever we traveled with Lucas, it's not really good policy to travel by yourself.
Q. Right.
A. Because of heart attack, or car wreck, or whatever. The first contact I believe he had with him, was a law enforcement contact, when he was on duty as a peace officer, I got him to escort me from . . . when I was taking Lucas from Waco back to Georgetown. He rode with me, and someone else followed in his car from Waco to the Bell County line, and there was a highway patrol picked me up, and we were followed on into Georgetown, which is pretty well our policy, if we don't have two officers at least we at least have an escort that goes with us.
Q. Was that during one of the trips that you told Henry it was 59 miles from the Texaco truck stop to Georgetown?
A. No, I have never told him that.
Q. You have never told him that?
A. Not to my knowledge. Let me re-clarify that. I know this has been discussed after the case was cleared. The first mileage that was brought up that I can recall when a T.V. crew out of Houston was talking to Lucas about a case there in Georgetown, and he said up the highway here 59 miles or 60 miles, I believe he says I have got a girl up there on the highway. Okay, from that point it is 59 miles.
Q. Okay.
A. But at that time that case had not been listed as cleared. That is the Rita Salazar case, I believe.
Q. Okay.
A. That is the first conversation about mileage that I am aware of.
Q. What time of day was it that Johnny Dodd and his lawyer got to see Henry?
A. No way in the world I could tell you.
Q. Do you remember if it was in the morning, or in the afternoon, or was it at night?
A. That . . . it was daylight hours, but I can't answer the time.
Q. Was it during the normal visiting time periods, or was it outside the normal visiting time periods for Henry to get to see visitors?
A. I assume it would be the normal visiting hours. I can't recall the time. We are talking about a long time ago.
Q. Did Sheriff Boutwell get irritated with you about Johnny Dodd being let in to seen Henry on that?
A. Not to my knowledge, at all.
Q. Okay. You were never told that he was trying to get Henry to go with Mike Cox?
A. No, sir. I do know that Mike Cox's name was brought up in a conversation as wanting to see Lucas about a book.
Q. Okay. Cox is a personal friend of Sheriff Boutwell's, isn't he?
A. Yes.
Q. All right, I have just a couple of more questions.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. I have got one. Is Col. Adams aware that Cox has got the idea about writing this book, and is he still a public information officer for D.P.S.?
A. I believe that would be something you would need to ask Col. Adams about. He will be here this afternoon.
Q. Was Cox terminated from that paper where he was working?
A. That I cannot answer. I have only talked to Cox one time since he left the paper, which was two or three days ago, I called down there to the PIO office, and he's the one I talked to.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. How long have you been a sergeant with the Rangers?
A. Since January of '79.
Q. And have you been up for promotion for captain's spot anytime since that time?
A. Well, I assume yes, because you are eligible any time after you have been a sergeant two years, but there is no competitive exam, just the recommendation by the senior ranger captain.
Q. To your knowledge have you ever been passed over for that promotion to the captain's spot, or to a captain's spot?
A. Sure, because they have had captain vacancies since I had two years almost, and I assume that every time they have had one, and someone else got it, I would be passed over.
Q. Okay. Do you remember telling anybody here in Waco that as a result of your duties with the task force, that would ensure you of getting the next captain's slot?
A. Absolutely not.
Q. You have never told anybody in Waco that?
A. No.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Bob, do you know who did the psychiatric, and the psychological testing on Lucas at Baylor Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas?
A. Not off the top of my head I couldn't tell you at all.
Q. Do you recall when that testing was?
A. February or March.
Q. Was there a report given to the task force of the testing that was done?
A. Not from the doctors. A Jewel Norris, I am not sure of his title, whether it's a doctor or not. He's a psychologist was going to prepare a report, and I understand that it has come in the task force office within the last few days. I haven't seen it. I do know there was quite a number of tests done there. This was set up in December, and we were postponed due to some bad weather, and another time we were set to go, and the doctor that was coordinating for us passed away, and they had several cancellations.
Q. Were you given a verbal report, an oral report?
A. The verbal report I got was that they could not find anything in the brain waves test, and I am sorry, I don't know the name of it that would show any abnormalities in the . . . not psychiatry . . . in the tests, I don't know what they were.
Q. Anything else that you can recall about that?
A. Nothing else I can recall. There wasn't anything that was unusual.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. Did they diagnose him as a schizophrenic?
A. No, that wasn't the time test that he went there for. He was there for my physiological and medical testing.
Q. That would show.
A. Okay.
Q. They didn't diagnose him in any way as having any kind of problems?
A. I haven't seen the report. I am not sure I would understand it when I do see it, but I haven't seen the report. This report was supposedly going to be in the June or July issue of Psychology Today magazine.
Q. Bob, did you think that Lucas did the Little Rock case?
A. This has never been listed as a confirmed case on our records, or anyone's records that I am aware of. I have no idea whether or not Lucas committed that Betty Thornton case in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was interviewed about that case before the task force was even formed by some officers that came in from Arkansas. The District Attorney's Office in Arkansas came in, and interviewed him, and another set came in early in '84 and interviewed him. I don't know whether or not they knew whether or not he was involved. I don't know that anyone has ever said I know he was involved in this case.
Q. When you took him, you did accompany him on that trip, did you not?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When you took him up to Little Rock, who were you taking him up there for? Who actually requested his presence?
A. Well, it was twofold. The state police there had requested him to come and accompany them to different parts of the state for crime scenes. He was also subpoenaed by the defense attorney.
Q. Scotty Scott?
A. Right, Scotty Scott. They had been down to interview him. Scotty Scott’s lawyer had been down to interview him, and before we would allow the interview to take place, through our contact in Arkansas, the state police, they did contact the District Attorney's office in Little Rock, and they asked if we would sit in and monitor the interview with the defense attorney so they couldn't . . . and tape record, because they didn't want the accusations, or anyone feeding, or the defense attorney to be feeding Lucas information. We asked them to put that in written form, because it is quite unusual, first of all for a defense attorney to allow it, and we had never been put in this position before, so we asked them if they would put that in letter form for the District Attorney's Office that we sit in on the interview. It wasn't time for the letter to come in, so I asked them to send it on a teletype. They did teletype the request that we sit in on the interview with the defense attorney, and then they followed up with a written letter. Clayton Smith did sit in with the interview, tape recorded it, and then sent the tape to the proper authorities, I don’t know whether it was the State Police or the District Attorney's Office in Arkansas.
Q. Were there any other cases in the Little Rock area that he was in Little Rock for?
A. Yes, there was a case there where Elizabeth Taylor, that name is easy to remember, may have thought Lucas was involved in the Elizabeth Taylor case there, and also while we were there he did point out the location where that occurred. I think they already had that one cleared, but that was just as a reconfirmation.
Q. So then did the Arkansas State Police pick up the tab for Lucas being brought to Little Rock?
A. Right. They came and picked us up on their state plane.
Q. Was there any other defense lawyers that talked with Lucas, other than his own, of course, while he was in Georgetown, that you are aware of, or investigators for defense lawyers?
A. Yes. There were some out of Delaware. There were some out of Louisiana.
MR. FEARY: Colorado?
A. Colorado, right. That is the only ones I recall off the top of my head.
Q. Do you recall what kind of arrangements were made before the defense lawyers talked to Lucas, whether the D.A.'s office was contacted?
A. Whenever the request was made, we would ask them to have . . . another one from Louisiana. We would ask them to have someone from the investigating agency accompany them for the interview. On the one from Louisiana came and brought a captain with the Shreveport Police, I believe. One from Colorado. I do know that the police and the defense attorneys had conversations back and forth. They didn't come together. They came at separate times. The ones from Delaware on the case where the man had already been convicted twice up there, they were first advised that they have to have someone from the investigating agency present. Okay, this went on for several months, and finally they said their rapport was such, that they just could not cooperate, or coordinate with the responsible investigating authorities, so before we allowed the defense team from Delaware to come down, I did clear this with our legal office at Department of Public Safety, and Chief Floyd Hacker, and so we did allow the defense team to come in and interview Lucas. However, the suggestions I gave them when they came down, I said, I know this is going to be a controversial case, so the only thing I am going to insist upon is that every word be recorded, and they brought a video tape, and they set up their video tape machine, and as a backup, I said I would also like you to use my tape recorder, because I didn't want a word missed, so their entire interview, whatever it was, because I was not present was audio, and video taped, with two different instruments.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Did the prosecutor in Delaware, to your knowledge, communicate to you, or any of the task force members the desire that the defense lawyers not talk to Lucas?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. Now, you told the Grand Jury that you were not aware of Russ Hunt having an appointment with Lucas in mid-April?
A. I am not aware of it. I would hate to say a hundred percent sure that he didn't, but I personally don't have knowledge that he had an appointment.
Q. Even if his name does not show up on the calendar, is it possible that he could have arranged for an appointment and I believe his appointment was going to be in the evening hours?
A. He did not go through me, and the other task force members are here, and you might can ask them.
Q. All right. If he had an appointment, would it have been standard procedure to contact the District Attorney's Office up here?
A. It's according to what it was about.
Q. If it was concerning the Lake Waco triple murders and regarding two death penalties?
A. I doubt that if I would have contacted you, or your office, but I would contact the investigating authority.
Q. The police department?
A. That's right.
Q. Why wouldn't you have contacted my office?
A. Well, of course, this is a hypothetical situation, but to my understanding, they were the investigators on the homicide, but since it didn't happen.
Q. I understand that is your understanding, but that's not the case in fact. So what you are telling me is that Russ Hunt could have come in there with somebody like say, Marvin Horton, and have an interview with Lucas, and us not even know it until we read it in the paper?
A. I am sure that's possible. As long as we had an investigator from that agency present, yes, we would have allowed it. But, this did not happen, that I am aware of.
Q. And there wouldn't have been any way you could have known that the police department had already closed that case, and it was re-opened when I came into office, and was solved by a special task force with assistance from the P.D. You would not have known that unless the P.D. or Russ Hunt had volunteered that to you?
A. I guess that is correct.
Q. Okay.
A. You know we are taking a hypothetical situation there.
Q. I understand.
A. It may have been two or three other different ways we would have handled it, but that's just off the top of my head.
Q. Now, you had been a witness in both capital murder cases. David Spence and . . .
A. When you say witness, I had done or attempted a hypnosis session with . . .
Q. I mean you had been called to the stand?
A. Yes.
Q. So you were aware that the case had been solved, and there had been convictions?
A. Oh, sure.
Q. But you are still telling the Grand Jury that you would not have contacted my office?
A. I am quite certain that I would not, because of the distrust that you obviously had for me, and the feelings that we had between our agencies. I am quite sure I would not have contacted you personally.
Q. You mean based on what Ron Boyter had told you?
A. We heard other rumors also.
Q. So even though my office had successfully prosecuted these cases to a conclusion, we would not have been contacted about a defense lawyer going down there and interviewing somebody?
A. Once again, Mr. Feazell, we are talking about a hypothetical situation that did not, and has not happened. Now . . .
Q. I am just wondering what your procedure is, and how you would have handled it?
A. Well, we would like from the very beginning, on all of the cases where defense attorneys come to have someone from the proper investigating authority along. It didn't work out that way every time. What it would have been in your case, I have no idea how it would have worked out, but on the top of my head, I would say probably contact someone with the Waco Police Department.
Q. Have you had any contact personal or by phone in the past two months with George Merillian?
A. No.
Q. Earlier in response to a question by Attorney General Mattox, you said you had not been contacted by Charles Duncan, concerning this investigation. Have you been contacted by anybody else with Channel 8 concerning their investigation?
A. No, sir. I had a telephone call from someone from Channel 8 about three days ago that I didn't return. That's the only Channel 8 contact that I had since months ago.
MR. FEAZELL: I think that is all I have.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Would any member of the Grand Jury have any questions they would like to ask Sergeant Prince?
GRAND JUROR: I have one quick question. On the Cervenka case, do you think Lucas did that?
A. I don't have any information on that. I don't have any feelings that he was responsible for that murder. Now you are talking about Cervenka, the missing girl. At one time I did, but the highway patrol, and the investigators when they found the body felt confident that she probably just ran off the road, and possibly died of natural causes, had a seizure, drove off of the road, and either died of natural causes, or drowned. She was in quite a decomposed state when she was found. This had been probably two years or so, but prior to that, yes, we did feel like that he was responsible for that. Although, I wasn't . . . I didn't interview him on it, because there was someone that had the facts of the case readily available to interview him at any time, but you know . . . it caused a little doubts there in the beginning when she was found in water, and she was found 20 or 30 miles from where she disappeared from, which is one of the many stories he said about where she would be. At one time they had flown a helicopter for a long period of time over different mounds of water trying to find something, but during the drought last summer the water level did go down, and we saw the top of the car.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. Is there a record of any interviews by law enforcement officers, prior to when Henry was in Montague County, or prior to the establishment of the task force?
A. Not that I have. Now, it's very possible that Phil Ryan knows who talked to him up there, but what records he kept, I don't know.
QUESTIONS BY MR. FEAZELL:
Q. Bob, are you aware of any interviews conducted with Lucas by Sheriff Boutwell, after hours, at night on mail ins?
A. No. I am not aware of any. I would be very surprised if he interviewed on any mail ins.
Q. Were there two separate boxes in the task force office one was a box that had envelopes in it for Boutwell, or mail in cases, and another one for Clayton Smith?
A. No, sir, they were all together.
Q. Now a while ago you mentioned something about rumors about my office that caused you to . . . even if there had been this appointment with Russ Hunt, and you know about it, you said you probably wouldn't have called. Do you know any facts at all, or are you talking about rumors?
A. I am talking about rumors.
Q. When did you start hearing them, Bob?
A. Oh, Mr. Feazell, I guess I have heard rumors on you for several months.
Q. Several months?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Several months meaning since January or February?
A. I would hate to be pinned to a certain month. I can't tell you when I first heard rumors on you, but you know, since I am not involved in any of the investigation.
Q. Well, to the best of your knowledge, January, February, March, December?
A. I just don't believe I could say to the best of my knowledge.
Q. So you can several months, less than six?
A. No, I am not going to pin down. I don't know how many months for certain, but several months.
Q. Did some of these rumors also come from Ron Boyter?
A. Ron Boyter, and I yes, have talked about you, but I don't know . . . it's really tough to pin down where you hear rumors, but I have heard some information from Ron Boyter.
Q. Has Boyter been coming to you and briefing you on the results of his recent investigation?
A. Mr. Feazell, quite frankly I would rather not answer questions concerning that investigation, and you know, Mr. Foreman of the Grand Jury, if you feel like or Mr. Feazell feels like I should answer the, I would request to talk with the judge.
Q. I think I will withdraw that.
GRAND JURY FOREMAN: I don't think that we are conducting a fishing expedition in this Grand Jury. I know the District Attorney has great concern, but I think discussing rumors, and reports of rumors, and what somebody else said, and I am not interested unless the Grand Jury is.
MR. MATTOX: We are going to have Ron Boyter in a minute.
Q. Well, let me just ask you one last question. If somebody in D.P.S. wanted to check on the status of their retirement, and see if there I some way they could buy more vesting, because of past military or something. Would there be a written record of that, to your knowledge?
A. To just check on it?
Q. Yes, sir, to see if they could get early retirement?
A. I have no earthly idea. I would think probably the retirement board would keep records of who they correspond with. I can't answer that.
MR. FEAZELL: I believe that is all.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. To your knowledge, is there any unsolved murder cases in Williamson County, presently existing that Sheriff Boutwell did not try to get Henry Lee Lucas to accept?
A. I am not sure he tried to get him to accept any homicides.
Q. Well, let me detail some for you, we have got Mildred McKinney.
A. Okay.
Q. We have got Frank Kee and Rita Salazar.
A. Okay.
Q. We have got Cervenka.
A. Okay.
Q. And we have got Orange Socks.
A. Okay.
Q. Are you aware of any other unsolved murders that were existing in Williamson County the last seven or eight years . . .
A. That were unsolved?
Q. Besides those?
A. I am personally not aware of any.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Okay, thank you.
QUESTIONS BY MR. MATTOX:
Q. One last question. Is there any circumstance, or was there any situation where you believed that either a defense attorney, a member of law enforcement from out of state, or a member of your task force, or Sheriff Boutwell, anybody else associated with Henry Lucas has actually provided him with information to purposely give him the opportunity to confess, and to help corroborate his confession. Are you aware of any situation where that occurred?
A. I am not aware . . . any . . . I am not aware of any case where a peace officer or anyone has come and purposely tried to get Lucas to take a case.
Q. Do you think it has happened, or do you know?
A. I am not aware of it happening.
Q. Have you suspected this happened?
A. I don't know that I suspect that it happened, but I am certainly not aware of it. I would like to believe the best of any police officer that comes in there.
Q. I understand, I would too.
A. But I am not aware, and I don't suspect that it's happened. There was one case that has been removed, and a newspaper report had gone, and I don't know whether he interviewed the officers, or listened to the tape, and during that interview the reporter said they fed Lucas information, or told him about a crime, and said did you do it, and Lucas said, yes, I did it, and that us is one that at one time was one that was listed as cleared.
Q. Which case was that?
A. That was a case in Mississippi. Now, that is not firsthand information whatsoever.
Q. I don't have any other questions for you, I think you are aware of this, but I just want to caution you about it. The Grand Jury may be continuing to question a number of witnesses. When you came in this morning, you took an oath not to divulge any information that you had given to this Grand Jury, or the line of questioning that we have gone into. I know that you understand that, but I am telling you that, because sometimes we raise our hands, and don't pay much attention to what is in there, but I wish you would understand you are not to do that, and of course, we would ask you not to do it, and abide by that oath, and thank you very much for your cooperation. I am sure this has caused you a lot of concern, and it has caused a lot of us a lot of concern, and we hope to be able to get it resolved as quickly as possible, and appreciate your cooperation.
A. Okay, sir.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. I have one further thing. Bob, based on the things you are going to be trying to get, the Grand Jury will be meeting next Wednesday, and we would ask you to come back next Wednesday morning and bring that stuff to us.
A. Okay. What you want is the date we got the Mobley report?
Q. Any of the reports from any of the police officers that have investigated Henry Lee Lucas, primarily Fran Dixon, John Campbell, Mobley. Any other ones that we are aware of?
MR. FEARY: No, I believe that is it.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Jacksonville.
MR. FEARY: I don't believe Jacksonville has furnished any reports.
MR. LOCKHOOF: As far as where Henry was in Jacksonville? Those would be the three. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
(The following proceedings took place on June 19, 1985.)
TESTIMONY OF BOBBY PRINCE
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. State your name for the record, please, sir?
A. Bob Prince.
Q. Are you the same Bob Prince that testified before this Grand Jury last Thursday?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. And you realize you are still under oath?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Bob, we asked you to bring some things to the Grand Jury this coming Wednesday, were you able to get those things for us?
A. Yes, sir, I was.
Q. Okay.
A. One of the things you requested was a fingerprint from St. Tammany Parish. This is a report from a fingerprint examiner with the St. Tammany Parish Louisiana Sheriff's Department, comparative fingerprint from a crime scene, and compared it to a known print of Henry Lucas.
Q. Okay, is this the print that has now been lost?
A. Yes, sir, it is. To the best of my knowledge, it is.
Q. Okay, did you bring this so we could keep this copy?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. All righty, thank you. What was the next thing?
A. The next thing was a check that was cashed in 1979.
Q. By Ed Wright, when he was up in Bluefield?
A. Right. Number one is a check that was shown to be deposited. It was a check dated March, or issued March 15, 1979, and shows to be deposited on March 19, 1979, and I assume it had been cashed in Jacksonville, Florida.
Q. Do you know whether your fingerprint expert ascertained whether or not they thought that was Henry's signature or not.
MR. FEARY: Handwriting expert.
MR. LOCKHOOF: What did I say, fingerprint?
MR. FEARY: Fingerprint.
A. To the best of my knowledge, it has not been compared. Okay, the next one is the check that was issued on March 21, 1979, which was a date he was in Bluefield, allegedly in Bluefield in the hospital . . . not the hospital.
Q. But the halfway house, or wherever they sent him.
A. Not the Salvation Army either.
Q. Some kind of mission house?
A. Right. Rescue mission.
Q. This was cashed on the 19th, and this one was cashed on March 30th, is that right?
A. The one that is deposited.
Q. One was March 21, 1979, and one was issued March 15th.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. Is that allegedly when he was in Bluefield?
A. Yes, allegedly in the hospital in Bluefield, and this one was when he was allegedly in the rescue mission in Bluefield. Next you showed me a copy of a letter stating that .32 caliber weapon would not fire.
Q. Uh-huh.
A. I do have a copy of a flier that was sent out by Howard County Maryland, stating they did test fire the firearm that they have in their possession, and that they received from the Lucas' relative, Smith and Wesson .32 caliber rim fire revolver. It has been test fired on 11-16-83, at Baltimore Police Department, listing five lands and grooves with a right twist. They did fire five projectiles, and five shell casings.
Q. That was all rim fires that they fired in those particular instances. Is that correct?
A. Yes, sir, that is what the report states, and anyway, we do have a picture of the firearm. We do have a report from the FBI lab first where they had submitted three fired projectiles taken from the body of Betty Shoate in Chambers County, and they did identify these three projectiles as coming from a .32, barrel of a .32 caliber that had five grooves with a right twist.
Q. Okay. Our lab, the D.P.S. lab did attempt to make a comparison with the projectile from Maryland, and the projectiles taken out of the body, and they could not make a positive comparison due to lack of sufficient unique pattern marks that are common with evidence, and common to the test-fired bullets.
Q. Okay, is it okay if I keep this?
A. Yes. Okay, then you asked for reports from the Richard Mobley, Campbell, and Dixon. I don't remember the first names. I do have ones from Maryland, which would include Dixon and Mobley. I do have one, or I do have some from Campbell which would be the ones from Pennsylvania, and you had before asked me, you didn't ask me to bring it this time, but you did before ask me for anything we had from Michigan, and I did find some. These are the reports from Michigan.
Q. Okay. Let me ask you this question. On these, can you tell, like on this stuff here, were they all sent in at one time?
A. No, sir, they were not.
Q. They were like sent on separate occasions then?
A. Yes, unless there is a notation up at the top of it, on there where it was received, I could not tell you when it came in. This went to Lubbock in June of '84, and this one was received by us on April 26th of '85. Some of them are not very legible since the documents concerning the automobile titles are not legible. I feel like you will have a copy of everything that we do, but if not, there it is.
Q. Is that all we had asked for?
A. Yes.
Q. That was enough.
MR. HODGE: Thank you for bringing that.
Q. Yes, we do appreciate it. Have you had an opportunity to talk to Henry since he has been back in Georgetown?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. Does he want to talk to you all or what?
A. He didn't indicate that he didn't want to talk, I asked him how he was doing, and small talk like that, and I told him that we were ready to go back to work when he was, and that has been it. I told him to let us know, if he decided he wanted to. He said that if he did want to talk to us, he would let us know, or me.
Q. You didn't go to Georgetown on Friday night, did you?
A. No, sir.
Q. Have you been in Georgetown since Friday?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did they finally get Henry's air conditioner fixed?
A. I understand they have.
Q. What was the problem with the air conditioner?
A. I am sorry, I don't know.
Q. One question that I wanted to cover with you is, we have had members of the task force, one specific member that did indicate that early on in the investigation that because of the room, and the space situation, that you all kind of did have files pretty much all over that task force office, in boxes, on the desk, and just kind of all over the place. Do you want to comment on that, or is that right. Is that your recollection or not?
A. We didn't have a file cabinet, but we did have our drawers full, and we have had some reports on the desk, but as far as having them out all over the place, I don't believe that would be a correct statement.
Q. You did have them in some cardboard boxes, didn't you?
A. I am sure we had some of them in cardboard boxes.
Q. Some of them are in Clayton's car, as a matter of fact, aren't they?
A. That, I can't answer. I am sure I have had some in my car at different times, because I have had some reports come in to our Waco office, and we have had them come in through the Austin office.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Does the Grand Jury at this time have any further questions for Sgt. Prince? Vic, do you have any questions you would like to ask? Mike? Sergeant, I can't think of anything else right now, I would just ask, and I anticipate the Grand Jury is going to be folding it's tent up within the next week or so, and I just hope when we do, you will continue to cooperate with our office on trying to finish our report, on our investigation into this matter, and can we expect that cooperation?
A. Surely. As a matter of fact, I think you know, and everyone else should know, if they don't know, we have wanted to cooperate from the very beginning. I think our people have made it very clear that they would cooperate in any way, and also I would like to restate that your investigator was invited to go with us, and sit in on interviews, and go with us on trips early on. We certainly do not, and have not had anything whatsoever to hide. We are very proud of the operation, and the cooperation that has been there. I think it has been a very cooperative effort for law enforcement throughout the United States, and it has been a lot of hard work, and it certainly has not been a pleasant assignment. I have been away from home now, nearly 19 months, and the easy thing for us to have done in the very beginning was to take Lucas on to the penitentiary as soon as he got his first conviction, and us go about our normal duties, because of the need to know that law enforcement has, and the families of these victims have, I think a very valuable service has been performed down there, by officers from throughout the nation, and there is . . . I haven't seen anything at all that we should make apologies concerning what we have done. I know there is a lot of mistakes we have made. There is absolutely no hiding the fact that I have made lots of mistakes, and I think all of us have, because we are human, but there hasn't been any intentional mistakes or errors made. If you all have any interest in any input from me concerning the Waco cases, I will be more than happy to state what involvement I know concerning me personally in the Waco cases.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Oh, okay, I don't know that we ever asked you that last week.
A. No, you didn't.
Q. You didn't actually sit in on any interviews with Henry on those cases, did you?
A. That is correct. I did not.
Q. So what was your involvement with the Waco cases?
A. I transported Lucas to Waco for him to be interviewed up here.
Q. And you didn't know any facts about the Waco cases to begin with?
A. That's correct.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGE:
Q. Did you ride when Henry went out to the scene of any of those murders?
A. No, sir, I did not, and the only reason I didn't, I was busy on other things, but I did bring him up here.
Q. That is your only connection with any of the cases that occurred in McLennan County?
A. That is correct.
Q. You transported him from Williamson County to Waco?
A. That is correct.
QUESTIONS BY MR. LOCKHOOF:
Q. Now, recognizing that you don't appreciate, and I don't know that I blame you, but recognizing that you don't appreciate what has been put in the media, you would admit, though would you not, that through our investigation we had come up with some rather significant information on Henry, would you not?
A. I certainly would, and we are not embarrassed by that fact, and we solicit any information concerning Lucas. Whether or not it conflicts with a date of a confirmed homicide, if it does, we notify the agency that has a confirmed date, and let them make the determination whether or not he was involved in their homicide, or whether or not he was at the alibi location. We solicit this information, whether it be from a newspaper, or attorney general, or whatever source. We are glad to have it. Sitting there in a coordinating role, it has been our duty and responsibility to forward this information on, and we are glad to get it . . .
GRAND JUROR: Excuse me, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I needed to ask you a question. How long is it going to take for Henry Lee Lucas to go to Huntsville?
A. This is not a decision for me to make. I would think in all probability, if Lucas continues to decide that he does not want to talk with us, and this is a right he has, either to talk, or not to talk, but if he continues to decide that he doesn't want to talk, in all probability, we will take him to the penitentiary Friday.
GRAND JUROR: This week?
A. Yes, sir, this week. But like I say, this is not a decision I make, but I will be one of the ones transporting him there, probably, unless something else comes up. If he decides he wants to talk, then certainly we are obligated to listen.
Q. Have you had any further contact with El Paso?
A. Not in the last several days.
Q. I understood they were going around to the various Texas jurisdictions, and checking out the cases that Henry has confessed to, and they are just trying to find out what cases they think Henry might be good for, from the standpoint that they want to use them on punishment?
A. Yes, sir, I understand that is right. I believe I probably talked to them since I visited you in Austin. I haven't talked with them since I was in the Grand Jury, but they are in Louisiana today. Yes, you are right, they are going to different locations, looking at the evidence, to use testimony from that, in like offenses.
Q. Is that local investigators, or is that rangers doing that?
A. There is the District Attorney himself, and one of the assistants, and I don't know if it's the First Assistant or what, but anyway, one of the assistants. The Chief Criminal Investigator of the D.A.'s Office, and the Texas Ranger, four of them are together.
QUESTIONS BY MR. HODGGE:
Q. Is there a ranger assigned to that case full time?
A. Well, I can't answer that. I understand that he is with them right now on their tour, and whether he is with them full time, aside from this tour, I can't answer that, I am sorry.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Any other questions from Sgt. Prince, he was kind enough to bring this stuff back to us, and I don't want to hold him up.
MR. FEARY: I wanted to give him what I had of Lt. Mobley's report. I don't know if it is going to be any different from what you already have. I think at a later date, when we have time, we need to compare our entire file on that information with yours.
A. Fine.
MR. LOCKHOOF: We still don't know what we have got. AS soon as we get it collected, we will try to get it to you as soon as we can get it together, and it will be turned over to you.
GRAND JURY FOREMAN: I would like to thank Sgt. Prince for coming up here.
SGT. PRINCE: I do appreciate it, and I hope you know that I want to answer any question that you have, and I certainly appreciate you all's time. You all are the ones under the gun here, and away from business.
MR. LOCKHOOF: I don't know if we told you this, but so you will know, and we told Clayton Smith this, there has been no allegations in this Grand Jury that you have done anything wrong. I am telling you that, and I don't expect you to go out there and be telling the press that, or anything, and it doesn't make any difference, but what I am saying is, I want you to feel comfortable with the idea that we are not . . . that we don't think you did anything of an illegal nature.
SGT. PRINCE: Well, I would be surprised if there had been any allegation, because I am comfortable that I know what has happened down there, and . . .
MR. LOCKHOOF: And I don't know if I ever told you this, but I think you also should be advised of this. That had there been any that had come up, that you had committed any illegal act, we would have asked this Grand Jury to recess, and we would have reported it to Col. Adams, and then he would have conducted his own investigation.
SGT. PRINCE: There is one thing more that I would like to add, I believe the other day that I stated that I was aware of some offenses that he had described, but he could not have been involved in.
MR. LOCKHOOF: Yes, sir.
SGT. PRINCE: I don't want to cause any conflict with any testimony that I testified to in Arkansas in July of '84, and at that time, I was unaware of him giving information on cases that he could not have been involved in. That was in July of '84, up in Arkansas. The first case I had any dealings with up there that he stated he was involved in the case. He gave the details of the case, and he could not have been involved. We received that information the latter, or middle part of August 1984. I just didn't want there to be any conflict upon my testimony here, and in Arkansas.
MR. LOCKHOOF: I appreciate that.
- - - -
THE STATE OF TEXAS
COUNTY OF MCLENNAN
I, KAY SMITH, a Certified Shorthand Reporter, and Notary Public in and for the County of McLennan, State of Texas, and Official Reporter for the 54th District Court, hereby certify that the foregoing pages constitute a full, true, and correct transcript of a portion of the proceedings had and testimony adduced in the foregoing cause at the time and place as heretofore set forth; that the questions and answers thereto by the witness were taken down by me in shorthand and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me.
WITNESS MY HAND this the 20th day of June, A.D., 1985.
_______________________________
Kay Smith, Official Reporter
54th District Court, Courthouse
Waco, Texas, 757-5051, Certificate NO. 116, expiration date of 12-31-86
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