The Confession Killer: series review

The real sad thing about this is that someone got away with murder.

Image shows the two Texas rangers most involved with the task force: Jim Boutweil (back left) and Bob Prince (back right). Henry Lee Lucas is in front.

Series description: “Henry Lee Lucas was known as America's most prolific serial killer, admitting to hundreds of murders, but, as DNA results contradict his confessions, will they expose the biggest criminal justice hoax in U.S. history?”

My comfort indulgence is true crime, especially documentaries and Dateline podcasts. As the bad guys usually get caught, it’s a way to feel the world makes sense. However, The Confession Killer is not comfortable. It may even sicken you when you watch the incompetence and corruption of the hallowed Texas Rangers. You know, the guys who wear the white hats and who are supposed to be the good guys.

As this series is a documentary, based on real events, there will be spoilers. Now, documentaries don’t all have the same respect for the truth. Some are biased. Some contain mistakes. Some promote wild theories. But this one feels accurate, partly because real data has come out, and partly because probabilities, psychology and logic line up with the conclusions of the Netflix series and not what the Texas Rangers were saying.

The production relies on footage from the past – sometimes kind of blurry – and more recent interviews (a revelation to see how people age). We see Henry Lee Lucas, and Jim Boutweil, but also other Texas Rangers, journalists, investigators.

Warning: Spoilers starting in earnest! First, let’s summarize. Henry Lee Lucas was arrested in 1983 on suspicion of the deaths of two women. There’s no question but that he murdered these two women. Also, he had killed before – his own mother! – although she seems to have been an absolutely wretched, and it was after she had attacked him. However, while in court, Lucas said something provocative: "What about the hundred other women I killed?"

This question seems to have been volunteered by Lucas. Naturally it got the local sheriff, Jim Boutweil, thinking. Was Lucas responsible for other murders? It was reasonable for this Texas Ranger to start a task force to investigate. It might even be the chance to clear some unsolved cases and to give families closure.

Forensics in the early 1980s were far different than what they are today. DNA was not analyzed. Surveillance cameras were rare. Coordination between police departments in different jurisdictions was rare, because there was virtually no internet. Just matching a fingerprint took many hours of tedious effort. These things all meant that confessions were highly prized.

Moreover, people were just starting to understand serial killers and Lucas had some of the characteristics. His mother was violent, so bad that Lucas, as a child, had many trips to the emergency room (he sustained brain damage, which seems to have affected his personality, and one beating made him lose an eye). He was not married (he married briefly but the woman divorced him when he molested her daughters). Now, he apparently did not torture and kill animals, which is a sign of a person who is a budding serial killer, but his mother killed the pets he brought home.

So, the Texas Rangers organizing a task force to examine the claims of Lucas and to bring in officers from other jurisdictions to investigate open cases was reasonable. In many respects the coordination was innovative.

But this investigation went off the rails, thanks to the personalities and egos of two men: Jim Boutweil and Henry Lee Lucas. The sheriff liked being the hero in the white hat, facilitating the resolution of so many cases around the country. Also, he could not admit he was wrong. Lucas loved being the center of attention, and for his cooperation he got many small rewards: coffee, cigarettes, steak dinners and many strawberry milkshakes. These things may seem trivial but to Lucas, whose life had been very hard, they were not.

However, as the “closed case” number went up, doubts among the thinking crept in. In the series, a professional profiler explains that serial killers tend to use the same method every time, and tend to stick to a particular area that they know well. Lucas claimed to kill people with all methods (except poison), which is simply not how serial killers operate. Moreover, serial killers tend to stick to one region, at least at a time. The murders to which Lucas “confessed” was in the hundreds, all around the country. Getting to them all would have required insane amounts of driving. It simply was not mathematically possible.

Linda Erwin, a homicide detective from Dallas, also had doubts. She created – with the assistance of her department – a murder case that was completely bogus. Lucas confessed to that as well, even though he could not have done a murder that never happened.

The family of a victim were first relieved that Lucas had confessed. But when they saw the confession, they realized it made no sense. They did some investigation on their own and proved that Lucas could not have done it, because at the time of the murder, he was somewhere else. Although Henry Lee Lucas was most often described as a drifter, there were periods of his life when he was not, as proved by his work and insurance history.

The Texas Rangers, instead of questioning themselves and working to correct their errors, tried to cover up their deeds. A journalist who was investigating the Henry Lee Lucas phenomenon – his home was broken into and some of his recordings with Lucas were stolen. The journalist did not report the break-in to the police but later Boutwell taunted the journalist about it. The journalist later published a damning piece in the Dallas paper (Sorry the image is blurry; it was the only one I could find.)

Even worse, a district attorney decided that the crimes Lucas had confessed to were impossible. In the episode titled "War in Waco,” we see the extent the Texas Rangers, led by Jim Boutweil but with the cooperation of far too many others in law enforcement, cook up charges against district attorney Vic Feazell and tries to lock him up for eighty years. It’s important to watch this episode to see how corrupt the Texas Rangers were and how ready to fall in line so many others were. Fortunately, the jury was not, but the ordeal still cost Feazell a lot.

Title musings: The Confession Killer is the title of the series, and it’s reasonable. There are five episodes. "Everything But Poison" (Lucas’ claim to different types of murder); "Make It Strawberry" (how little treats kept Lucas happy and confessing); "War in Waco" (important to see weaponization of justice and enough to make you suspicious of everyone in law enforcement); "All the Damn Lies" (Lucas takes the lying he learned from Boutweil and turns it to his own advantage); "Not One Shred of Evidence" (most of the cases to which Lucas confessed).

Bits and pieces

The Texas Rangers credited Henry Lee Lucas with 200 murders. No evidence tied him to these murders. 20 of those murders (at the time of the documentary, which is 2019) have now been solved. The police in other places are not bothering. Perhaps they reason that after 40 years, the real killers are probably dead, and resources are limited.

Jim Boutwell, the Texas Ranger who was really behind much of this, did some great things in earlier years, risking his life during a shooting on a Texas college campus by flying a plane. He had an aura that few would question or cross.

I’m no fan of George W. Bush, because he invaded Iraq on information so obviously bogus. However, as governor of Texas, he stopped Henry Lee Lewis from getting executed for crimes he did not commit. I admit I was surprised, especially as it angered some victims’ family members.

Apparently Lucas smelled very bad.

Oh, the cigarettes back then! Everywhere!

Some of the hairstyles were hard to take and brought back terrible memories of my own hair at the time.

Another series I reviewed, The Murdaugh Murders, had Alex Murdaugh also counting on a good old boy network and privilege to get him through everything. The Murdaughs also had a long history of using law enforcement for themselves.

Quotes

Phil Ryan (retired Texas ranger, not dirty compared to the other Texas rangers): It’s definitely a learning curve for law enforcement. But if you conduct your cases the way you’re supposed to, you shouldn’t be afraid of the light.

Hugh Aynesworth (journalist who wrote the story above): I heard that this man up in North Texas said he had killed hundreds of people. I had just spent four years interviewing Ted Bundy. But Bundy only killed about 30 people.

Victim’s daughter: Law enforcement has access to the information, if they had cared to know. But they don’t seem to have cared to know. They would rather have a murder off their books than to actually tell me what happened to my mom.

Nan Cuba: This is a story about human nature, and how all of us saw in Henry what we wanted to see.

Overall rating

Four out of four white hats to Netflix for this documentary, which is important and also really interesting, with several unexpected twists.

Victoria Grossack loves math, birds, Greek mythology, Jane Austen and great storytelling in many forms.