35 Facts About Ottis Toole

Ottis Elwood Toole was an American serial killer who was convicted of six counts of murder.

The discrediting of the case against Lucas for crimes for which Ottis 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.

Ottis Toole received two death sentences, but on appeal, they were commuted to life imprisonment.

Ottis Toole died in his cell from cirrhosis, at age 49.

Ottis Toole's father was an alcoholic who abandoned him, while his abusive mother would dress him in girls' clothing and call him Susan.

Ottis Toole stated that his maternal grandmother was a Satanist who exposed him to various Satanic practices and rituals in his youth, including graverobbing.

Ottis Toole claimed this abuse began when he revealed his homosexuality to his family.

Ottis Toole was often classified as having a mild intellectual disability, with an intelligence quotient of 75.

Ottis Toole had epilepsy, which resulted in frequent grand mal seizures.

Ottis Toole dropped out of school in the ninth grade and began visiting gay bars.

Ottis Toole stated he had been a prostitute as a teenager and that he became obsessed with gay pornography at some point.

Ottis Toole was first arrested at the age of 17 in August 1965 for loitering.

In early 1975, Ottis Toole returned to Jacksonville after drifting and hitchhiking through the American South.

Ottis Toole left him three days later, after discovering his homosexuality.

Ottis Toole later claimed to have accompanied Lucas in 108 murders, sometimes committed at the behest of a cult called "The Hands of Death".

On January 4,1982, Ottis Toole barricaded 65-year-old George Sonnenberg in a boarding house where he was living in Jacksonville and set the house on fire.

Ottis Toole confessed to the crime and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

At first, Ottis Toole had denied involvement but later began backing up Lucas's confessions.

Lucas became widely regarded as a compliant interviewee who was used by police to clear up unsolved murders that he had not been involved in, aided by Ottis Toole giving false statements in collaboration.

Later that year, Ottis Toole was found guilty of the February 1983 strangulation murder of a 19-year-old Tallahassee, Florida woman, and received a second death sentence; on appeal both sentences were later commuted to life in prison.

The murders in which Ottis Toole was ultimately convicted of were John McDaniel, Jerilyn Peoples, Brenda Burton, Ruby McCary, George Sonnenberg and Ada Johnson, all of whom were killed in Florida from 1980 to 1983.

On October 21,1983, while he was imprisoned for two unrelated murders, Ottis Toole confessed to the 1981 murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh.

Ottis Toole claimed that he picked Walsh up in a Sears mall parking lot.

Ottis Toole stated that Walsh came willingly because he offered Walsh candy and toys.

Walsh started to cry again, and according to Ottis Toole, he began to "wallop" Walsh, knocking him out.

Ottis Toole eventually pulled over in a rural area and decapitated Walsh with a machete.

Ottis Toole drove around with Walsh's head for several days, forgot about it, and, after he rediscovered it, he tossed it into a nearby canal.

Police officers inexplicably lost Ottis Toole's impounded car and its bloodstained carpeting, hindering their ability to proceed with the investigation into Adam Walsh's murder.

In 1984, Ottis Toole confessed to two unsolved northwest Florida slayings, including one of the I-10 murders.

Ottis Toole confessed that he shot her in the head on a road outside of Fort Walton Beach after kidnapping her at gunpoint at a Tallahassee nightclub.

Psychiatrists Dr Urbina and Dr Sanches testified at Ottis Toole's 1984 Florida Supreme Court appeal that he was extremely impulsive and exhibited antisocial behavior as a result of a personality disorder and that he was a pyromaniac.

The court found sufficient evidence that Ottis Toole could be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.

Hollywood, Florida Police Chief Chadwick Wagner said that Ottis Toole had been the prime suspect all along, but he went on to admit that although Ottis Toole's case was weak, he could have been charged during the original investigation of it.

Ottis Toole died of cirrhosis at the Florida State Prison on September 15,1996, at the age of 49.

Ottis Toole's body went unclaimed, and he was buried in the Florida State Prison cemetery.