Ottis Toole

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Ottis Toole bigraphy, stories - American serial killer

Ottis Toole : biography

March 5, 1947 – September 15, 1996

Ottis Elwood Toole (March 5, 1947 – September 15, 1996) (sometimes misspelled Otis) was an American who was convicted of six counts of murder and at one time admitted to four more murder charges. However, he recanted and restated a number of confessions during his time in prison. Police believe he was responsible for the murder of Adam Walsh in 1981.

Toole received two death sentences but on appeal they were commuted to life in prison. He died in his cell from liver disease.

Film depiction

A character based on Toole was portrayed by Tom Towles in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

Notes

Category:1947 births Category:1996 deaths Category:20th-century criminals Category:American arsonists Category:American cannibals Category:American murderers of children Category:American people who died in prison custody Category:American prisoners sentenced to death Category:American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Category:American serial killers Category:Child sexual abuse Category:Crimes involving Satanism or the occult Category:Criminals from Florida Category:Deaths from cirrhosis Category:Gay men Category:LGBT people from the United States Category:People convicted of murder by Florida Category:People from Jacksonville, Florida Category:People with antisocial personality disorder Category:People with epilepsy Category:People with schizophrenia Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by Florida Category:Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Florida Category:Prisoners who died in Florida detention

Murders and imprisonment

In 1976, Toole met Henry Lee Lucas at a Jacksonville soup kitchen, and they soon developed a sexual relationship. Toole later claimed to have accompanied Lucas in 108 murders, sometimes at the behest of a cult called "The Hands of Death". Lucas later recanted his confessions, saying he made such statements only to improve his living conditions in jail.

In April 1983, Toole was arrested on an arson charge in Jacksonville. Two months later in June his accomplice Henry Lee Lucas was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm. It was then Lucas began boasting about the murderous rampage orchestrated by the two. At first, Toole had denied involvement but later began backing up Lucas’s confessions.

On October 21, 1983, he confessed to the 1981 murder of 6-year-old Adam Walsh. A few weeks after Toole made the confession, however, police investigating the case announced that they had lost Toole’s impounded car and machete. John Walsh, Adam’s father, continued to maintain that he believed Toole to be guilty. CBS News.com. February 8, 2007. On December 16, 2008, Hollywood, Florida, police announced Toole as the murderer, and the Adam Walsh case was closed. The police did not reveal any new physical evidence and pointed out that they still had no DNA evidence. MSNBC.com, December 16, 2008. Toole confessed that on that same day he ambushed and killed 46-year-old Joana Holter in her home while she was attending to groceries with the same machete he used to decapitate Adam Walsh.