Serial killer possibly connected to murders in Bastrop and Wilco; law enforcement say
AUSTIN, Texas - One of the possible victims of a serial killer has been identified.
Kathy Ann Smith was murdered in Bastrop about 44-years-ago. The suspect is Henry Lee Lucas who once confessed to hundreds of murders.
While Lucas confessed to many murders and cases were cleared, many are actually unsolved because investigators said it was impossible he committed them all.
"He killed people, he raped people," Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office Sheriff Maurice Cook said.
Henry Lee Lucas confessed to hundreds of murders around the country including one in Williamson County and another in Bastrop County.
In October 1979, 23-year-old Debra Jackson was found in a concrete culvert on I-35 in Georgetown. Before being identified, she was known as ‘orange socks’ because that’s all she was wearing when she was found.
"In 1982, Henry Lee Lucas confessed to picking her up in Oklahoma and killing her along the interstate and dumping her in our county," Williamson County Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. Jereme Brinkmann said.
"On the way down bringing Lucas to Georgetown, the sheriff says Lucas pointed out to the culvert where he had dropped this girl. We ended up indicting him and trying him for capital murder," Williamson County District Attorney in 1979 Ed Walsh said.
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The District Attorney at the time said Lucas was tried for the murder, convicted, and sentenced to death.
In June 1979, 22-year-old Kathy Smith was found on the side of the road, possibly hit by a car, on 290 and FM 696 near Elgin. Lucas confessed to killing her and is the suspect in the case.
"One of his techniques was to find someone walking down the side of the highway and run into him and disable them so that he could then sexually attack them, and so that fit it, and Sergeant Miller was able to determine, that there was a connection in Austin between the Salvation Army and Henry Lee Lucas was there at the same time that Miss Smith was there," Sheriff Cook said.
In total, Lucas was convicted of 11 murders. Later he recanted almost all his confessions.
"Nobody knows how many people he killed. He certainly didn't kill everybody he claimed to have killed. I would estimate about 100 folks," Walsh said.
Lucas lived his life out in prison and died in 2001. He was not executed.