The Battalion
TATE
Monday * June 1S,|
Execution
Continued from Page 2
While in custody, he began telling Conway and Texas
Rangers about killing people. Eleven days after his arrest,
his murder count had reached 77 as he sat down for the
first time with Jim Boutwell, the sheriff of Williamson
County, just north of Austin.
Lucas' tally doubled to 156 in his conversations with
Boutwell, including one where he told of picking up a fe
male hitchhiker in Oklahoma, having sex with her in an
off-road area, strangling her, having sex with her corpse,
then dragging the body from the car and dumping it into
a ditch along interstate 35 near Georgetown.
Boutwell, part of a task force investigating a series
of unexplained body dumpings along the Central
Texas interstate, had an open murder case: an uniden
tified woman found in a ditch along the highway on
Halloween 1979.
As Herman Conway, a Montague County constable
whose father died in 1994 and had worked on the orig
inal Lucas arrest for nine months, tells the story: "They
asked him if she had any clothes on. He told them she
had on a pair of socks. They said, 'What color?' He
said: 'Orange.'"
With his attorney objecting to his statements and a
video camera rolling, Lucas directed officers to the spot
where he said he left the body of the woman who became
known as "Orange Socks."
The glare of publicity surrounding the self-proclaimed
serial killer, whose murder count had passed 360, forced
his trial to be moved from Georgetown to San Angelo, 200
miles to the northwest, where a jury decided he should
be put to death.
It's their decision that's set to be carried out June 30.
It's all wrong, Lucas said, who contends he was in Jack
sonville, Fla., at the time Orange Socks died, working as
a roofer.
"You get to like someone as well as Sheriff Boutwell,
he was like a father, and he used me," Lucas said. "No
doubt about that."
What's wrong, according to Lucas, is that like all the
other murders he confessed to, he was coached by law en
forcement officers. Instead of leading police to the scenes
of the killings, they led him and he agreed, he said.
"One thing about it, he was sharp," Herman Con
way recalls. "They try to say he was crazy. He wasn't
crazy. He knew to hide everything. My dad, he didn't
feel like he did do all the murders, but did feel he did
a bunch of them."
As Lucas explains it, he was just being a good citizen.
And once he started talking, he wouldn't shut up.
"I don't try to do anything to anybody that would be
wrong," he said. "I've tried to help anybody that comes
along. I'd do it for free. I've always tried to be polite to
everybody. I've tried to do what 1 could to help thejn ”
Help, maybe. Hoax, probably, according to a year-long
investigation by the Texas attorney general's office in 1986
that found a "notable lack of physical evidence" to sup
port his confessions. That backed the findings of others
who discovered Lucas' claims and facts of some of mur
ders didn't add up.
The 600-plus cases d windled, but Lucas still has at least
10 murder convictions, nine of them in Texas. He plead
ed guilty to eight crimes and two juries found him guilty.
His sentences include one death penalty, five life terms,
one life without parole and 210 years in prison.
The 1986 state investigation determined there was no
attempt by law enforcement to deliberately participate in
a deception to solve murder cases.
That's not how Lucas sees it, illustrating the opposites
that make much of what he says open to question.
"I set out to break and corrupt any law enforcement of
ficer I could get," Lucas said. "I think I did a pretty good
job. I feel I've accomplished what I set out to accomplish.
"I'm not proud of it. There are 600 killers walking
around out there. That's how many cases they took off the
books. It's not a good thing. And that I'm sorry for."
Although the attorney general's investigation of the
Orange Socks slaying cast doubts on the likelihood of Lu
cas' involvement, Ed Walsh, the former district attorney
in Williamson County who won the murder conviction
and death sentence, stands by the case built by him and
Boutwell, who died a few years ago.
"I am convinced," Walsh said when asked about Lu
cas' guilt. He also said he had complete confidence in
Boutwell, who insisted Lucas disclosed aspects of the
murder only the killer would know.
"There were allegations that the sheriff fed him infor
mation," Walsh said. "But, you know, you have to have a
gut feeling about people that you know and know well and
I'm convinced Sheriff Boutwell wouldn't have done that.
"He had a great reputation. He was not the sort of
stereotype small town sheriff that you sometimes hear or
read about. He was a real sharp person, a professional guy."
And so far, all the appeals courts that have reviewed
the Orange Socks case agree and have upheld his convic
tion, leaving Lucas' attorneys with a final appeal to the
Supreme Court and a hope that Gov. George W. Bush
could intervene by commuting his sentence to life.
"She says she doesn't know what the Supreme Court
is going to do, but I shouldn't hold my hopes up for it,"
Lucas said of a conversation with his lawyer last month.
"She said our best hope is with George Bush. When she
said that, I lost all hope."
Mother and child killed in arsonist's geti (
HOUSTON (AP) — A drunk
man set fire to a bar that had re
fused him service, then sped
away with his headlights off
and killed a woman and baby in
a head-on collision, police say.
Officers said Melanie Nino,
28, and Thomas Nino, 7 months,
were killed and four other family
members were injured about 1
A.M. Saturday when a car driven
by Arthur Thomas Callahan Jr.,
28, struck their station wagon.
Callahan was charged with
two counts of intoxication
manslaughter and was being
held in the Harris County Jail
in lieu of $100,000 bond.
"Most head-on collisions
are severe and the least sur-
vivable. This is just a senseless
tragedy," Harris County Sher
iff's It. John Denholm said.
It started at a tavern called Kei
th's Place, Denholm said, where
Callahan was refused service be
cause he appeared to be drunk.
The bar is on FM 2100 in an un
incorporated area about 30 miles
northeast of downtown Houston.
"He told them that if they did
n't serve him he would burn their
place down," Denholm said.
Callahan left and returned
about two hours later, went to
his car and returned with a
gasoline can.
"He set the fire near the air
conditioner and then got in his
car and took off," Denholm said.
Driving with his headlights
off, Callahan turned onto the
highway just as Charles Nino Sr.
and his family were driving by,
Denholm said. Nino was just a
few blocks from home after
picking his wife up from work.
Callahan crossed into the
southbound lanes and slammed
head-on into the family's station
wagon, Denholm said.
The mother and infant
were taken to Hermann Hos
pital by helicopter and died
shortly after their arrival.
Also taken to Hermann
were Charles Nino Sr., 42, and
sons Charles Jr., 7, Reggie, 5,
and Jacob Sowell, 9.
The man and the 5-year-old
were upgraded from
stable condition Sunc*
tal spokesperson Leef J
Charles Jr. was in stas
tion and Jacob hadL
ed and released, iA?
Callahan, who..
jured, had a blood 2:1
el that exceeded tli-L
gal limit by "quiteij
may face motif
charges, Denholm:;:
"Because he was w
scene of an arson wejJ
see if we can possiblyd
murder charges," Denfil
Texas law allowsij
ital murder charge
slaying is committee
junction with anothe:
Callahan, who wc
for DWI in NewMecKI
had no reaction whe ^mf
vestigators that he..^,
charged in the death i au i
er and child, DenhriJ
Bar owner Keith®!
said the fire damage ^1
ited to the airconditi
the immediate areas tl
Wet T-shirts lower protection from radial^
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Wet T-shirts provide
less protection from the sun than dry ones do,
two physics professors reveal.
"We had all heard stories about T-shirts not
giving much protection when they're wet," Pro
fessor Fred Loxsom of Trinity University said. "It
was pure curiosity that drove us to it."
Using a spectroradiometer to measure radia
tion at different wavelengths, Loxsom and part
ner Richard Bartels tested the the protective
power of dry T-shirts versus wet ones against the
sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.
They converted their results to sun protection
factors, better known as the "SPF" found on bot
tles of sunscreen.
The duo found that a dry white 100-percent-
cotton T-shirt has an SPF of about 15, meaning
that its wearer could spend 15 times as long in
the sun without burning. Wet, the same shirt
had a sun protection factor of 5.
Much of the light that hits a dry white T-shirt
bounces off the cloth's fibers back ink
mosphere instead of going directlytof
But when the same shirt is wet, mores;
ation passes through.
"Instead of having particles witfu
tween so light will scatter off of the parte
reduce the effect of the particlesbyfi
air gaps with unprotected skin/Toraa
Polyester shirts worked better thancoc
a shirt that was 65 percent polyesteranc
cent cotton had an SPF of 19 dry and W
The professors also found that a I)
muslin shirt offered more protectionrM
natural cloth. A dark shirt is better
than a light one, Loxsom said, becauseili
more light. »ibi
"I wouldn't rely totally on aT-shiit!^^'
sunscreen also," Loxsom said.
The experiments were performedoo|
of Trinity's Marrs-McLean science I
miles away from any beach.
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