Lessons from Henry Lee Lucas: Don’t take ’em all seriously. Verify first.
The tall drink of water with the Texas Ranger badge walked into the interrogation room. He sat across the table from the unassuming little man who lived to please anyone he perceived as an alpha. The media dubbed him, “the Confession Killer.”
Unlike some of the small-town detectives who made the trip from out of state to talk to his prisoner, Texas Rangers know bullshit when they smell it. Henry Lee Lucas reeked of it.
The Confession Killer was a violent vagabond, a drifter with zero propensity to control any impulse he felt. He definitively killed three people. He was also definitively a compulsive liar and braggart, confessing to hundreds of murders.
Basically, if a detective or prisoner asked him about an unsolved murder he would admit to it in a pathetic effort to reinforce his ego and be liked. He was not all that intelligent either, but he likely enjoyed the stupid jurisdictional games his vapid false confessions would force law enforcement to play.
It is for this reason that we should be very skeptical when a murderer is caught on a single crime and then admits to a bevy of criminal activity.
We should not be skeptical just because of Lucas’s example — though that does mean we have seen this tired dog and pony show before. We should be skeptical because that kind of confession could very well mean a mind that is not competent to stand trial for the crimes that are real. How can a person assist in their own defense while confessing to a legion of homicides that we know for a fact (or are reasonably sure) that the person did not commit? Such was the case with the Confession Killer and such is also way too often the case with false confessions as a whole.
Henry Lee Lucas. Source: Newsweek
Sean Lannon. Source: CNN
Which brings us to the timeliness of reminding you, Dear Reader, of the Confession Killer. The man who was the subject of a multi-state manhunt because of a single murder charge in New Jersey and charges connecting him to three more deaths in New Mexico after bodies were found near an airport runway, is now saying he is a prolific serial killer with 16 bodies to his credit. He was arrested earlier this month in Missouri.
47-year-old Sean Lannon allegedly killed Michael Dabkowski with a claw hammer in East Greenwich, NJ after breaking into his house and staging a burglary. Lannon alleges sexual abuse from Dabkowski as the motive. This allegation may be parlayed into a claim of self-defense according to his lawyer.
Lannon confessed to 15 other counts of murder in New Mexico, including that of his estranged wife Jennifer who was one of the airport bodies.
Is there any veracity to Lannon’s allegations? Time will tell. It will also give us a sharper behavioral picture of the suspect in learning more details about the actual crimes themselves.
In the meantime, take a lesson from Henry Lee Lucas and don’t buy it without evidence proving it.
Wess Haubrich is a freelance writer and journalist specializing in true crime and film, the former contributing editor of London’s award-winning The 405 Film, staff writer at Citizen Truth, and ½ of the weekly true crime podcast Real Monsters. Follow him on Twitter here or email him here.
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