Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Tileka Davis
PSYC 2315

PROFILE ANALYSIS OF OTTIS ELWOOD TOOLE
Also known as “The Jacksonville Cannibal”
March 5, 1947-September 15, 1996

“First I go out and catch me a little boy, maybe go down to a mall or shopping center and grab one there…grab him, tie him up, use a gag, put him in the trunk of my car and drive him to my place out in the swamps.  Nobody to bother me way out there.”
                                                                                                                                                Ottis Elwood Toole
                                                                                                          
     Ottis Toole was an American serial killer and arsonist.  Toole is known from being an accomplice of convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas.  On December 16, 2008, Toole was identified to have murdered and decapitated Adam Walsh; John Walsh’s son of ‘America’s Most Wanted’.
     Toole was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida to a religious fanatic mother and an alcoholic father.  Toole’s father abandoned the family and his whereabouts were unknown.  Toole claimed that he was abused by his mother, and was forced by his sister to wear girl’s clothing and play as “Becky”.  Toole’s maternal grandmother was a Satanist who exposed him to satanic practices and rituals at a young age, thus adding to his dangerous behaviors.  Self-mutilation, grave robbing, and making magical charms out of stolen body parts were some of the activities he performed with his grandmother.  Toole was often referred to by his grandmother as the “devil’s child”.
     At the tender age of 5, Toole was forced to have sex with a friend of his father’s.  At age 10, he considered himself as a homosexual and developed such relationship with a neighborhood boy at the age of 12.  Toole had since dropped out of school by the 9th grade and started hanging out in local gay bars.  As a teenager, he was known to dress in drag and partake in male prostitution.  
     It is believed that Toole suffered from mild mental retardation, having an IQ of 75. He also suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, epilepsy, was illiterate, and experts suggested that Toole also suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.  As a youth, he often slept in abandoned houses due to frequently running away from home.  Being sexually aroused by fire, Toole was known as a serial arsonist who torched vacant houses in the neighborhood because he “hated to see them standing there.”
     After being propositioned for sex by a traveling salesman, Toole ran over the salesman with his own car, committing his first murder at the age of 14.  Between 1966-1973, Toole began drifting around the southwestern United States, supporting himself by prostituting and panhandling.  During his stay in Nebraska, he became one of the prime suspects in the 1974 murder of 24-year-old Patricia Webb.  One month later, while living in Boulder, Colorado, he became the prime suspect in the murder of 31-year-old Ellen Holman, who was murdered on October 14, 1974.  Toole hitchhiked back to Jacksonville to escape the allegations and later married a women 25 years his senior.  After learning of his homosexuality, Toole’s wife left him after three days of marriage.
     While in a prison soup kitchen in 1976, Toole met Henry Lee Lucas and they quickly formed a sexual relationship.  Toole later admitted to accompanying Lucas in 108 murders while under the influence of a cult called “The Hands of Death” which was secretly located on a ranch in Mexico. Toole along with other cult members would sacrifice children and virgins that they picked up while hitch hiking, in bars or just walking down the road near the Texas-Mexico boarder.  During secret cult rituals, the victims, mostly kids, women, and men from the Texas area were placed on an altar and their throats were cut.  Their blood was then collected, placed in a goblet, and pass around for all to drink while still being hot.  The areola and vaginas of women and the penis and testicles of men were cut off and either placed in a stew or soup, cooked using a secret recipe or a little batter would be added to the sex organs and placed in a fryer.   Toole claims that he and Lucas murdered over 200 women, men, boys and girls over the span of 11 states.
     Although Toole preferred boys and men, he also rapped and killed girls and women.  By all accounts, Toole would penetrate boys and girls anally; some girls were believed to be as young as 8 years old and boys as young as 10 years old.          Strangulation, shooting and slicing throats were the methods of choice for Toole.   After some sexual encounters, Toole would hang his victims upside down by their ankles, slit their throats with a knife, slit their belly and remove the guts, liver and heart.  Toole would then remove their heads and allow the blood to drain from their bodies.  After the draining process, a metal rod is inserted through the anus, which then exits the neck area.  The body is then placed on a pit-holder over charcoals to roast, as one would do when roasting a piglet.  Toole admitted to making his own barbeque sauce to place over his roasted victims.  
     In May of 1981, Toole’s encountered a hard blow with the death of his mother from surgery complications.   Some nights he would visit his mother’s grave and lay out on the ground beside her.  Soon afterwards, Toole’s sister Drusilla died of a drug overdose in which some believe to be a possible suicide.  Now in the world alone, Toole began drinking heavily and abusing pills after the death of his mother and sister.   A couple months later in July, six-year old Adam Walsh became missing from a mall in Hollywood, Florida.  Adam’s head was later found in August near a canal at Vero Beach. 
     Toole locked 64-year-old George Sonnenberg in his home and set it on fire, resulting in his death in January 1982.  Toole was convicted and received a death sentence for the murder of Sonnenberg.  He also confessed to one of three I-10 murders, which was 19 year old David Schallart whom he picked up hitchhiking in Pensacola, Florida.  Schallart’s body was later recovered near I-10 with five gunshot wounds to the left side of his head.  Toole also confessed to another unsolved murder of 19-year-old Ada Johnson who he picked up at a local nightclub in Tallahassee.  Johnson also died from a gunshot wound to the head.  Toole received another death sentence for the murder of Johnson.  Both death sentences were later appealed, resulting in him receiving life in prison.   He also pleaded guilty for four more murders in 1991 and received four more life sentences.
     In April of 1983, Toole was arrested on an arson charge in Jacksonville and he confessed to setting about 40 fires over a span of two decades.  Months after his arrest, he confessed to the 1981 murder of 6-year-old Adam Walsh.  Toole’s niece later informed John Walsh (Adam’s father) that Toole confessed to her, while on his deathbed, to murdering and decapitating Adam Walsh.
     During Toole’s stay in prison, he resided in a cell adjacent to serial killer Ted Bundy for a brief moment while in the Raiford Prison in Florida.   At the age of 49, Toole died of liver failure in his cell on September 15, 1996.  Toole’s body remained unclaimed by family members and was later buried in a prison cemetery.   Toole’s life was later depicted on film in ‘Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer’ in which Tom Towles portrayed the role of Toole.
In my opinion, the nature of Toole’s chaotic home life, low cognitive development, the toxic role modeling nurturing of his grandmother and friend Lucas all aided to his destructive behavior.  Toole is a prime example of what may occur when there is no intervention of a caring adult.
     “I got off death row because the said I’m too sick to burn on the electric chair.  Nobody came around to try to cure me.  They give me some pill.  People eat pigs, cows, and horses.  I like to eat people.  It’s good meat, too.  You ain’t tried it, don’t’ be saying it ain’t tasty.  You might like it.”
                                                                                                                                            Ottis Elwood Toole


REFERENCE PAGE

Blanco, Juan Ignacio.  Wikipedia.org.
Barton, Billy Bob.  (1996). An Interview with Ottis Toole:  The Cannibal Kid

Monday, November 19, 2012

GET 18 HOURS OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY...

...& a BS DEGREE IN PSYCH0LOGY from TARLETON STATE UNIVERSITY. SIX (6) specualized SENIOR LEVEL courses in forensic psychology authored by Professor Don Jacobs can be taken as electives in TSU's BS PSYC degree. With 18 hours of forensic psychology, students will be in position to launch MASTER'S DEGREES as more and more universities are offering online and face-to-face programs. Here's a sampling of PSY 490 courses whose special topic is forensic psychology (all are listed at TSU as PSY 490 courses): For this coming Spring, 2013: PSYCHOPATHS: CHARMING MONSTERS & SEXUAL FORENSICS Other Titles available throughout the year + summers: SERIAL KILLER "DIRTY TRICKS" TRUE PSYCHOS: FROM THE STREET TO THE CINEMA FEMALE SERIAL KILLERS JEKYLL & HYDE OF SERIAL KILLERS FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY TODAY PROFILING SERIAL KILLERS Some of the books required in these courses: Analyzing Criminal Minds (Jacobs) Talking With Serial Killers (Berry-Dee) Without Conscience (Hare) The Female Brain & The Male Brain (Brizendine) Profilers (Ed. Campbell & DeNevi) Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture (Schmid) Psychopaths: Understanding Charming Connivers, Predators, & Offenders (Jacobs) Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law & Psychology (Ewing & McCann) Violence & Psychopathy (Ed. Raine & SanMartin) Send questions and commments to Professor Jacobs at djacobs@wc.edu
THE NEW BREED of FORENSIC INVESTIGATIVE SCIENTISTS receive 26 HOURS of intensive course work in FORENSIC SCIENCE at WEATHERFORD COLLEGE, Weatherford, Texas, USA. WC is the model progam amoung Texas colleges and universities giving top students pathways into this fascinating career field...and that's before they're juniors in college. Since 2008, many of our top students have received coveted INTERNSHIPS at TARRANT COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER'S OFFICE, others have obtained MASTER'S DEGREES, and still others have received EXCELLENT JOBS as CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATORS & MEDICO-LEGAL DEATH INVESTIGATORS. Three FORENSIC SCIENCE LABS were launched in 2004 and within four years (2008), two labs received ACGM approval (Texas Co-Board's Academic Course Guide Manual of lower division acadamic courses) as academic transfer courses. FORS 2440: Introduction to Crime Scene Investitation & FORS 2450: Introduction to Forensic Psychology transfer to universities who are articulated partners of Weatherford College. Currently, WC Forensic Science students may transfer to the University of Texas, Arlington (UTA), University of North Texas (UNT), Tarleton State University (TSU), and the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO), Edmond, Oklahoma--3.5 hours away from Ft. Worth. Our new departmental BLOG--"GET OUT OF MY CRIME SCENE!!"--is dedicated to all students who have not found passion in college coursework & those who have already earned a bachelor's degree in a related discipline (such as criminal justice, anthropology, or psychology) and have been disappointed in the career choices available. We train our grads in the latest cutting-edge knowledge of criminal minds. Don Jacobs, Professor of Psychology and Forensic Investigative Science, is the architect of the FORS rubric and a special collection of courses; he is also the advisor to those seeking admission to our historic program. He is the author of Analyzing Criminal Minds: Forensic Investigative Science for the 21st Century (Praeger, 2011) and as co-author of the soon-to-be-published Psychpaths: Understanding Charming Connivers, Predators, & Offenders (December, 2012). Please feel free to post comments to our top students who will send wide-ranging essays on a variety of topics. Also, watch this blog for a short video of our progam coming in the Spring. In April, 2013 we will host an amazing Forensic Science Conference in the MINC Auditorium. Do not hesitate to email Professor Jacobs at djacobs@wc.edu to schedule an office visit. It's time to get started in the most important applied science in the 21st Century! To everyone else not trained as a forensic scientist, GET OUT OF MY CRIME SCENE!!!