Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

Four High Profile American Cases 559
Lucas told me that he would not ‘take’ every case offered to him by the police
or agree with everything put to him. ‘If it didn’t sound right I wouldn’t go along
with it’. He said he was reluctant to ‘take’ murder cases involving child victims.
He tried to make each of the murder cases look more frightening and gruesome
than they appeared to be from the information he had been given about them.
‘I would put final little touches to it’, he claimed.
Lucas told me that he never thought about the long term consequences of his
confessions. He claims that what actually stopped him making false confessions
were his contacts with the families of the victims and his relationship with a
prison visitor, ‘Sister Clemmie’.
Lucas described his confessions to the murders in positive terms, although
he stated that he knew it was wrong to confess to crimes he had not actually
committed. He told me that he genuinely believed that he was providing the
police with useful insight into the murders and told me that he was able to
provide the police with details, including burial sites, that only the police knew
(he sounded boastful when describing to me how helpful he had been to the
police). The other positive consequences were all the privileges he was provided
with by the police (he claims the police gave him everything he asked for), all the
attention he got and the fact that he has made more friends than he ever had
before. He claims that if it had not been for the Orange Socks case and Sheriff
Boutwell he would not have met Sister Clemmie (Lucas spoke affectionately of
Sheriff Boutwell, treated him as a friend and expressed considerable admiration
for him).
Lucas told me that in the eyes of the media he became the biggest monster
alive and it made him feel good. He spoke proudly about going on television and
warning women against hitchhiking. Everybody was paying attention to him
whereas before making his confessions nobody took any notice of him.
As far as the Orange Socks murder is concerned, Lucas did not confess to
this murder when briefly questioned about it by Texas Ranger Ryan from the
Crime Analysis Bulletin around 17 June 1983, even though he was confessing
to many other murders. Lucas first confessed to the Orange Socks murder when
interviewed by Sheriff Boutwell on 22 June 1983. He claims that he set out to
kill himself (i.e. to commit ‘legal suicide’), although he claims this was not the
primary reason why he initially confessed to the Orange Socks murder. At the
time things were not going well for him and he felt he had nothing to live for. He
made four failed attempts to kill himself in jail and thought he might as well get
the state to execute him. He claims he had nothing to do with the Orange Socks
murder but initially confessed to it in order to please Sheriff Boutwell. He claims
that Sheriff Boutwell showed him photographs and discussed the case with him
before the formal tape recorded interview commenced on 22 June 1983, which
included a discussion of the victim having a period and wearing a ‘towel’ (Lucas
labelled this a ‘Kotex’). Once his trial approached in 1984 he no longer wanted
to ‘commit legal suicide’ (i.e. let the State execute him for murder), because
discussions with Sister Clemmie made him want to live. By this time he said
he had become fearful of Sheriff Boutwell and did not want to upset him by
fighting his case (including his fear that Sheriff Boutwell would stop Sister
Clemmie from visiting him if he stopped cooperating with the police—at this