Ottis Elwood Toole March 5, — September 15, was an American serial killer who was convicted of six counts of murder. Like his companion Henry Lee Lucas , Toole made confessions which resulted in murder convictions, and which he later recanted. The discrediting of the case against Lucas for crimes for which Toole had offered corroborating statements created doubts as to whether either was a genuine serial killer or, as Hugh Aynesworth suggested, both were merely compliant interviewees whom police used to clear unsolved murders from the books.
Toole received two death sentences , but on appeal, they were commuted to life imprisonment. He died in his cell from cirrhosis , at age Police attributed the murder of Adam Walsh to Toole on the basis of recanted statements. Lucas had backed Toole's confession to the Walsh murder, claiming that he had been in possession of the victim's severed head, though Lucas had a reputation for false confessions.
Ottis Toole was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. Toole's father was an alcoholic who abandoned him, while his abusive mother would dress him in girls' clothing and call him Susan. He stated that his maternal grandmother was a Satanist who exposed him to various Satanic practices and rituals in his youth, including graverobbing.
Toole was often classified as having a mild intellectual disability , with an intelligence quotient IQ of Throughout Toole's childhood, he frequently ran away from home and often slept in abandoned houses.
He was a serial arsonist from a young age and was sexually aroused by fire. In the documentary Death Diploma , Toole stated that he was forced to have sex with a friend of his father's when he was five years old. He felt he knew that he was gay when he was 10 years old and that he had a sexual relationship with a neighborhood boy when he was Toole dropped out of school in the ninth grade and began visiting gay bars. He also stated he had been a prostitute as a teenager and that he became obsessed with gay pornography at some point.
