Lucas reached Jacksonville with no money and nowhere to stay. He soon learned of a mission that provided both food and shelter. While he was waiting in a line to be fed, a man named Ottis Toole approached him. They entered into a conversation and soon after Ottis invited Henry to come back to his home in Springfield, a suburb of Jacksonville.

Ottis Toole (POLICE)

At the time, Ottis was sharing a house with his mother Sarah and her husband Robert. Ottis’s wife, Novella, a nephew, Frank Powell Jr. and Frieda Powell, Ottis’s eleven-year-old niece, also lived in the house. The Toole family was quite used to Ottis bringing home strange men from the mission. Sarah Pierce, a one time house guest later told police that Ottis, a known bisexual, often picked up men to bring home for sexual purposes. As well as his homosexual tendencies, Ottis also enjoyed watching his male guests have sex with his wife, Pierce and the under-aged Frieda. Henry adapted to his new "home" and was soon sharing the main bedroom with Ottis after Novella was sent to stay with neighbors.

Ottis got a job for Henry in the paint factory where he worked, but Henry only lasted a month before he quit and headed north. While on his trip, he was allegedly beaten up by a member of his family and spent several weeks in hospital. When he was well enough to travel, he returned to Jacksonville and resumed his old job. Later, Ottis’s mother Sarah bought a house and moved her extended "family" into it. Henry quit his job again and went into the scrap metal business, soon filling the backyard of the new house with wrecked vehicles and parts. Now that Henry was working from home, Frieda, or "Becky" as Lucas called her, started to spend more time with him and a "relationship" developed. The "family" seemed relatively happy for over a year until May 1981 when Sarah died.

After her death, Ottis and Henry took Frank and Becky and set out to travel to California. Initially, the children saw the trip as an adventure but after reaching Arizona they became homesick so Henry and Ottis decided to cancel the trip. After selling the truck, they hopped a freight train as far as Houston then hitchhiked the rest of the way back to Jacksonville. Not long after their return, they stole a pickup truck from one of Ottis’s relatives and drove it to Wilmington, Delaware where they abandoned it.

When Toole was later hospitalized for an illness, Lucas and the children travelled on to Maryland where he was arrested for the theft of the Kiser’s vehicle and jailed. Frank and "Becky" were returned to their natural mother, Drucilla Carr. Henry was held in jail from July 22^nd until October 6^th when he was released on parole and returned to Jacksonville.

Frieda "Becky" Powell

In December 1981, after Drucilla Carr committed suicide, Frank and "Becky" were sent to a children’s shelter in Bartow, Florida. The following January, "Becky" ran away from the shelter. Shortly after her escape, police circulated a "pickup" order for "Becky" and Lucas as they believed that he was responsible for transporting her from the home in Bartow back to Jacksonville.

After leaving hospital, Ottis Toole returned home to Jacksonville where he lived with his wife until May 1982 when they left to travel to California. On the way, they picked up a hitchhiker in Texas to share the driving. The man would later smash the car, causing Toole and his wife to be hospitalized for a time. Eventually after recovering, they returned to Jacksonville.