Henry Lee Lucas: Prolific Serial Killer or Prolific Liar?
Taking Becky
For a while, Toole's orphaned nephew and niece, Frank and Becky Powell, came with them. Lucas had started having sex with Becky when she was only 12, while they'd been rolling around on a bed, tickling each other. She seemed willing to do anything to be with him, and he later said he grew to love her. He liked that she seemed to accept everything he said.
When Toole's mother died in 1981, he started drinking and taking drugs. Around this time, on July 27, six-year-old Adam Walsh disappeared from a shopping mall. On August 10, his head was found in a canal ditch in Vero Beach. Toole later claimed to be his killer, and this murder precipitated the show, America's Most Wanted, hosted by Adam's father, John Walsh. (The assistant police chief believed him, but then later cleared him as a suspect, and he did recant this crime.)
Lucas took Becky with him in 1982, because he wanted her to himself, and Toole was so angered by their betrayal that he allegedly killed nine people in six different states in the course of 13 months. He was caught in Florida burning a building and was imprisoned with a 20-year sentence. He admitted to having set some 40 fires.
But that did not bring back his former lover or his niece. In fact, Toole would never see Becky again.