Mrs. Toole's Crash Pad

 

The Killers: Henry Lee Lucas (August 23, 1936–March 12, 2001) was an American serial killer and fabulist who was convicted of killing his own mother in 1960 after a heated argument between the two. Lucas was also convicted of the murders of 10 other victims, although he falsely confessed to approximately 600 homicides. An investigation by the Dallas Times-Herald proved it impossible for Lucas to have committed several of the murders he confessed to, and, after an investigation by the Attorney General of Texas, his death sentence was reduced to life in prison. While in prison, Lucas died of congestive heart failure.

Ottis Elwood Toole (March 5, 1947–September 15, 1996) was an American serial killer and companion to Henry Lee Lucas who was convicted of six counts of murder. Like Lucas, Toole made confessions to several murders, which he later recanted. He received two death sentences but, on appeal, these sentences were reduced to life imprisonment. Based on confessions from both Lucas and Toole, Police have attributed the 1981 murder of Adam Walsh, a child abducted from a department store in Hollywood, Florida, to Toole. While serving his sentence, Toole died in his cell from cirrhosis of the liver.

Lucas and Toole met in 1976 at a soup kitchen in Jacksonville, Florida. Lucas had spent years in prison for various crimes, and Toole was an arsonist that enjoyed mutilating dead bodies. They soon became lovers and traveled the country between 1978 and 1982. During this time, they robbed and killed many of their victims. As Toole's mother was dying in 1981, the pair relocated to Jacksonville and moved into her house. While there, the "Confession Killers" claimed that Toole had murdered Adam Walsh and hidden his remains in a refrigerator in the junk-filled backyard. Toole also claimed that a machete he used in the murder had been hidden in the house before he burned it down. 

The House:  Built in the early 1920s, the three-bedroom one-bathroom house stood next door to the Hammond Grocery Store in Jacksonville, Florida. When the house became vacant in 1976, Lucas and Toole asked about it for Toole' mother, and she moved in with her family shortly after. Lucas lived with them at the time, and he built an enclosure on the back porch so as to make a room for himself. When Toole's mother passed away in 1981, the duo moved back into the house. At that time, Lucas became a junk dealer, and he stored items in the property's backyard. After neighbors complained about the eyesore he had created, Lucas built a fence around the yard. This act did not satisfy them, as the neighbors called it a "Frankenstein" fence; a structure made with mismatching scrap wood, sheets of fiberglass, and various kinds of wire. They did not complain long, however, as Toole, while grieving the death of his mother, burned the house to the ground and had all the debris removed from the lot.

The Floor Plan:  While I able to find the location of the Toole's home, I could only find one picture taken of the side of the house. (Not a very good shot, unfortunately.) In addition, I was unable to find the house's floor plan, so I resorted to studying the floor plans of bungalows build in Jacksonville, Florida during that time. As such, I have created something that I think would represent the house very well.

Sources:

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Sarasota Herald-Tribune. "Partner Claims Toole Admitted to Killing Boy." 26 September 1996. www.news.google.com. Accessed 9 March 2025.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune. "Police Say Toole Continues To Insist Adam Walsh Was Among His Victims." 24 November 1983. www.news.google.com. Accessed 9 March 2025.

Schager, Nick. "He Confessed to Murdering 600 Women. It Was All a Lie." 2 December 2019. www.thedailybeast.com. Accessed 9 March 2025.

United Press International, Inc. "Mass Murder Suspect Sentenced to Die." 19 May 1984. www.upi.com. Accessed 9 March 2025.