Allegedly, after carrying out further unsavory tasks for the death cult, Henry was told to go back home for a vacation and wait for further instructions. Ottis decide to stay on and join Henry later. If the cult did in fact exist and if Lucas was paid handsomely for the crimes he committed on their behalf, there was no evidence of his new found wealth when he returned to Jacksonville.

Shortly after his return, Lucas took Becky and their meager belongings and headed for California, telling her that they were going to get set-up as husband and wife. It was the first time they had been alone for an extended period and Henry soon realized that, even though he enjoyed her company, she could be petulant and demanding. Leaving with no money meant that they had to commit numerous petty thefts on the way to pay for the trip.

According to Lucas, up to this time, he had never had sexual relations with Becky, but as the trip progressed she became more demanding in that department and brooded when Lucas refused her requests. Henry insists that he resisted because he was torn between lust and a "fatherly devotion" for Becky. In the past, if he had wanted sex, he would rape to satisfy his sexual cravings. It meant no more to him than stealing when he was broke. As for killing, that was different, murder was just pure fun.

At one stage, after Lucas refused to make love to her, she became angry and accused Henry of being homosexual. He denied the accusations and calmed her with a promise to buy her clothes and gifts. Later that night when Becky was asleep, Lucas left the motel and drove to a truck stop. He claims that he picked up a woman and after driving her to an isolated spot, raped her and slit her throat. After cleaning himself up, he was back in the motel before Becky woke.

As the trip progressed, Lucas insists that he contacted Meteric and was given the job of killing a man in Beaumont, Texas. The target was supposedly a lawyer who was about to give police information regarding the cult. After reaching the town and setting Becky up in a motel, Lucas tracked down his victim and followed him, waiting for the opportunity to kill him. Henry told police how he struck up a friendship with the man and lured him to a quiet spot with the promise of sharing a bottle of booze.

The story took on a familiar ring when he related how, when the lawyer tipped his head back to take a swig, Lucas slit his throat with one swipe. He would later brag to Ottis in front of police, that he had cut the man so deep and fast that, "the liquor just ran out the bottom of his head."

Switching cars, Lucas took the body out of town and dumped it in a shallow grave. He then drove the man’s car back to the motel. After picking up Becky, he returned to the burial site and, with Becky’s help, dug up the corpse, decapitated it and buried the parts separately. They left the man's feet sticking up out of the ground so that he would be found. That way, Lucas reasoned, Meteric would get to hear about it and know that he had done the job and pay him for it. Lucas insists that the grisly task sexually excited Becky to the point that he relented and let her fondle him in bed later that night.

After three months on the road, Henry and Becky finally reached California, tired, hungry and broke. The money for the "hit" did not transpire so they drifted through the state robbing for food and working odd jobs. Eventually the truck broke down and they started hitchhiking. Becky was disillusioned and unhappy. Life on the road with Henry wasn’t what she thought it would be. She began complaining incessantly, demanding that they return to Florida.

They drifted north to Oregon and later Washington, where Lucas continued raping, killing and stealing cars. At one point, while travelling through the Seattle area, Lucas read about the spate of killings near the Green River and insisted that he then went out and killed several prostitutes and left their bodies the same as the ones reported in the newspaper so that someone else would be blamed for them. Police would later dismiss the claims after Lucas was proven to be elsewhere at the time of the murders.