Ottis Toole

Ottis Toole
Toole's 1983 mugshot
Born	Ottis Elwood Toole
Cause of death	liver failure
Criminal penalty	Death, commuted to Life
Details
Victims	4–7
Span of crimes	?–1983
Country	USA
State(s)	Florida
Date apprehended	1983

Ottis Elwood Toole (March 5, 1947 – September 15, 1996) (sometimes spelled Otis) was an American serial killer. A sometime accomplice of convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, Toole admitted to multiple counts of murder, rape, and cannibalism, and was the suspect in several unsolved murders. He recanted and restated a number of confessions. Toole was convicted of three counts of murder, and confessed to four more murder charges before dying in prison. On December 16, 2008, police announced that they had closed the murder case of Adam Walsh and positively identified Toole as the murderer after Toole's niece told the boy's father, John Walsh, that her uncle confessed on his deathbed in prison that he murdered and decapitated Adam Walsh.

Early life

Toole was born in Jacksonville, Florida. His father, Elwood Toole, abandoned the family when Toole was three or four years old, and he claimed his mother was a religious fanatic who often abused him and dressed him in girl's clothing. Toole's maternal grandmother was a satanist who exposed him to various satanic practices and rituals in his youth and gave him the nickname "Devil's Child". At school, Toole often received failing grades and was held back twice, before dropping out of high school in the ninth grade. He was often designated as being mentally retarded, with an I.Q. that had tested variously between 54 and 75. It is believed, however, that his I.Q. was probably higher and that he had received such low scores due to suffering from various learning disorders (including dyslexia and ADHD) and being illiterate. He also suffered from epilepsy, which resulted in frequent grand mal seizures. Throughout his childhood, he ran away from home often and would often sleep in abandoned houses. He was also a serial arsonist from a young age and was sexually aroused by fire.

In the documentary, Death Diploma, Toole claimed he was forced to have sex with a friend of his father's when he was 6 years old. He felt he knew he was homosexual when he was 11 years old and claimed to have had a homosexual relationship with a boy neighbor when he was 12. As a teenager, Toole explored his homosexuality by visiting gay nightclubs, and by forming a relationship with a 19-year-old male neighbor. He also claimed to have been a male prostitute during adolescence and was known to dress in drag.

Toole admitted to having committed his first murder at the age of fourteen. After being propositioned for sex by a traveling salesman, he ran over the salesman with his own car.

Toole was first arrested on August 16, 1964 at the age of seventeen on a charge of loitering.

Criminal career and imprisonment

In 1976, Toole met Henry Lee Lucas while working at a soup kitchen in Jacksonville. They developed a sexual relationship with each other. Both would later claim to have committed hundreds of murders, sometimes at the behest of a secret cult called "The Hand of Death". Lucas would later recant his confessions, saying he made such statements only to improve his living conditions in jail. Some authorities have argued there is significant doubt as to Lucas' guilt.

On October 21, 1983, Toole confessed to the murder of Adam Walsh. A few weeks after Toole made the confession, however, police investigating the case announced that they no longer considered him a suspect. John Walsh, Adam's father, continued to maintain that he believed Toole to be guilty. On December 16, 2008, Hollywood, Florida police announced Toole as the official suspect, and subsequently the murderer, and that the Adam Walsh case would be closed based on DNA evidence collected in 1983.

In 1982, Toole locked 64-year-old George Sonnenburg in his own home and set the house alight, killing him. In April 1984, Toole was convicted and sentenced to death in Jacksonville, Florida for Sonnenberg's murder. Later that year, Toole was found guilty of the 1979 murder of an unknown prostitute dubbed "Orange Socks", a murder he committed with Lucas, and received a second death sentence. He was also found guilty of the 1983 murder of 19-year-old Ada Johnson, a Tallahassee, Florida resident, and received a third death sentence; on appeal, however, all three sentences were commuted to life in prison.

Experts at his trial had testified that Toole suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. While serving his sentence, Toole briefly shared a cell with Ted Bundy in Florida's Raiford Prison. After incarceration, Toole pleaded guilty to four more murders in 1991 and received four more life sentences.

On September 15, 1996, at the age of 49, Ottis Toole died in his prison cell from liver failure. He was buried in a prison cemetery, as nobody claimed his body.

On December 16, 2008, police stated that they had found evidence that proved Toole was responsible for the abduction and murder of Adam Walsh. Toole's niece had previously told Adam's father John Walsh that her uncle confessed to killing Adam shortly before he died.

Victims

Known

• Unknown woman, October 1979
• Adam Walsh (6), July 27, 1981
• George Sonnenberg (64), January 12, 1982
• Ada Johnson (19), February 15, 1983

Possible

• Patricia Webb (24), April 18, 1974
• Sun Ok Cousin (25), September 19, 1974
• Ellen Holman (31), October 10, 1974

In popular culture

A character based on Toole was portrayed by Tom Towles in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.