Ottis Toole

Ottis Toole was born March 5, 1947 in Jacksonville, Florida. Toole was born into a very disturbed home life. His mother was a Christian extremist, his older sister molested him and dressed him in women’s clothing, and his grandmother was a Satanist who used him to rob graves of body parts for satanic rituals. Before his father left him, Toole was also forced to perform sexual acts for his father’s male friends. With an IQ of 75 and a lack of positive influences in his life, Toole seemed sure to head down a dark path.

When Toole reached the 9th grade he dropped out of school and began meeting men at local gay bars. He later told reporters that he knew he was gay at the age of 10. When he was 14, a local salesman asked him to perform sexual acts for him. Toole murdered the salesman by running him over with his own car. Toole then began drifting around the United States.

In his travels he met a man by the name of Henry Lee Lucas. The two became friends and lovers and ended up going on a murder spree together. Although the two were very close and usually committed their murders together, Toole was caught burning down the house of a man he claimed to be romantically involved with and was sentenced to 20 years in prison because of his multiple previous arrests. Lucas was soon caught by police for unlawful possession of a firearm and the two began to brag about their murder spree. DNA evidence linked the two to multiple murders all over the country and Toole was eventually convicted of six.

Toole was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life in prison. He died at the age of 49 on September 15, 1996. Before his death, he confessed to almost 100 murders, including the kidnapping and murder of John Walsh’s son, Adam. Walsh would later go on to create and host America’s Most Wanted in an effort to capture fugitives and prevent future tragedies.

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The Ottis Toole Biography