Lucas was born on August 23, 1936, in Blacksburg, Virginia. He described his mother, Viola Lucas, as a violent prostitute.
His father, Anderson Lucas, was an alcoholic and former railroad employee who had lost his legs in a train accident, and who suffered from Viola's wrath as often as his son. Lucas reports that Viola regularly beat him and his half-brother, often for no reason. He once spent three days in a coma when his mother hit his head with a plank of wood, and on many occasions he was forced by his mother to watch her have sex with men. Lucas described an incident when he was given a mule as a gift by his father's friends, only to see his mother shoot and kill it.
When he was a teenager, Lucas claimed to have been introduced to bestiality and killing animals for pleasure (zoosadism)—the latter a common trait among sociopaths, especially those who become serial killers—as well as receiving convictions for petty theft. Lucas had also damaged an eye during a fight with his half-brother. His mother ignored the injury for three days, and subsequently the eye grew infected and had to be replaced by a glass eye.
Lucas claimed to have first murdered in 1951, when he strangled a girl who refused his sexual advances. Like most of his confessions, he later retracted this claim.
In 1954, Lucas was convicted on several counts of burglary in and around Richmond, Virginia, and was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He escaped, was recaptured, and was released in September 1959.
In late 1959, Lucas moved to Tecumseh, Michigan to live with his half-sister, Opal. Lucas was engaged to marry when his mother visited Michigan for Christmas. She disapproved of her son's fiancee and insisted he move back to Virginia. He refused, and they argued repeatedly about his upcoming nuptials.
Lucas kills his mother
On January 12, 1960, Lucas killed his mother, stabbing her with a knife. He claimed to have returned home from a night of drinking and gone to bed, only to be later woken by his mother, who beat him with a broom. After killing her, Lucas fled in a stolen car, returned to Virginia, then says he decided to drive back to Michigan, but was arrested in Ohio on the outstanding Michigan warrant.
Lucas claimed to have attacked his mother only in self-defense, but his claim was rejected, and he was sentenced to between 20 and 40 years' imprisonment in Michigan for second-degree murder. He served fifteen years and was released on August 22, 1975.
Lucas drifted around the American South, working a number of mostly short-term jobs. In Florida, he made the acquaintance of Ottis Toole sometime between 1976 and 1978 (sources disagree) and claims to have had a romantic affair with Toole's pubescent niece, Frieda Powell, who had escaped from a juvenile detention facility. Lucas and Toole both called Powell "Becky" sometimes, partly to disguise her identity and because Powell preferred it over her given name.
Lucas and Toole were also reportedly lovers. Lucas would later claim that during this period he had killed hundreds of people, sometimes as Toole's partner. The trio left Florida and eventually settled in Stoneburg, Texas, at a religious commune called "The House of Prayer." Ruben Moore, the commune owner and minister, found Lucas a job as a roofer, and allowed Lucas and Powell to live in a small apartment on the commune.
Powell became homesick, so Lucas agreed to move to Florida with her. Lucas said they argued at a Bowie, Texas truck stop and claimed that Powell left with a trucker. According to Shellady, a waitress at the truck stop supported Lucas's account in court.
1983 arrest and multiple confessions
Lucas was arrested in June 1983, initially on a firearms violation. He was later charged with killing 82-year-old Kate Rich in Ringgold, Texas, and was also charged with Powell's murder. Lucas claimed that police stripped him naked, denied him cigarettes and bedding, held him in a cold cell, and did not allow him to contact an attorney. After four days of this treatment, Lucas claimed he decided to confess to the crimes in a desperate bid to improve his treatment.
Lucas confessed to the murders but claimed to be unable to take police to the victims' bodies. He closed out his confession with a hand-written addendum that read: "I am not allowed to contact any one I'm in here by myself and still can't talk to a lawyer on this I have no rights so what can I do to convince you about all this" (sic). When he was finally allowed counsel, Lucas's lawyer described his client's treatment as "inhumane" and "calculated solely to require the defendant to confess guilt, whether innocent or guilty."
The forensic evidence in the Powell and Rich cases has been criticized as inconclusive. A single bone fragment recovered from a wood-burning stove was said to be Rich's, and a mostly-complete skeleton roughly matched Powell's age and size, but Shelladay reports that the coroner stopped short of positively identifying either remains. As with most of his alleged crimes, Lucas has confessed to these murders only to later deny involvement, but the general consensus seems to be that Lucas did indeed murder Powell and Rich.
Lucas's supposed confederate, Ottis Toole, died in September 1996 from cirrhosis of the liver. He was serving six life sentences in a Florida prison.
In 1998, the Texas Board of Pardon and Parole voted to recommend commuting Lucas's death sentence to life imprisonment. Then-Governor George W. Bush agreed to the commutation, the only time he commuted a sentence in his entire tenure as governor. On March 13, 2001, the 64-year-old Lucas died in prison from heart failure.
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