01x08 - Henry Louis Wallace: Bad Henry

[bunniefuu]

It was like, you know,
the switch was flipped

and I was choking her

- [Reporter] m*rder after
m*rder after m*rder.

Police never suspected
that all the women were

k*lled by the same man.

- Serial K*llers have an
ability to be very charismatic,

and Henry Louis Wallace was
very good at what he did

because he'd be your friend.

- You don't expect
to lose your life

at the hands of
someone that you trust.

- Even after the first m*rder,

there was a need to go
out and keep doing it

over and over again because
bad Henry doesn't go away.

- There's the good
Henry and the bad Henry,

and

So, I felt invincible.

- In the late '80s,
beginning '90s,

Charlotte was a small
city growing very fast.

You have your neighborhoods
that are thriving,

but you go two streets over

and that community
is in very bad shape.

Crime was rampant.
Robberies were rampant.

Crack had just hit.

- [Officer] All the way.
Stay down, stay down.

- The murders went
up to the hundreds.

- They had a limited
number of homicide detectives

and record homicide rates.

As a police reporter, I found
myself run into a homicide

probably at least once a week.

- Rozzelles Ferry Road,

six or seven miles from
the center of the city.

It's an industrial area.

Usually there's only
trucks traveling that area.

The Charlotte road
workers were mowing

the side of the road and they
discovered skeletal remains.

Not a lotta clothes and
not a lot of tissue.

And what we do, we
call it a grid search.

You search all around the body
for any potential evidence.

But few pieces of
evidence were collected.

They determined that
it would be a homicide

because of the injuries they saw

in the skull area of the victim.

Autopsy determined
that the victim died

from blunt force trauma.

It tells you that it was a
fight and it was aggressive.

Through dental records,
the victim was identified

as a black female by the
name of Sharon Nance.

We start going through the file,

and so I said, "I
know this person."

Sharon Nance was a mom,
a very vibrant woman,

and she was just
providing for her family.

And she was well-known
as a lady of the evening.

Sharon was doing something
that I did not approve of,

but me and Sharon
became friends.

During my freshman
year in college,

I would often see this young
lady around the bus station,

and we talked every
time I got on the bus.

It became a joke because
I was a college kid

that turned cop, and she would
always say, "You're my cop."

- Tragically, Sharon
left behind a young son.

The last time her family saw
her, she was going out dancing.

- It had been a week since
she'd left home and was missing.

Her family had filed
a police report.

- Once you get the
timeline established,

you see if you have anyone that
remembers seeing her there.

Did she get into a fight?

Is it somebody that she knows?

What really is going on?

- Henry Wallace was
born to a single mother.

Henry's father
essentially leaves her

because she becomes pregnant.

From then on, there was a
kind of a constant resentment

of Henry, that he
was essentially

the cause of this abandonment.

The arguments, the fights,
that's what I was used to.

- Henry was never shown
love from his mother.

He was beaten and he was
always trying to win her love,

but he was always
being rejected.

There was a whole
bunch of older guys

and there was a girl and
she was probably about 16.

They took her into the woods

and I followed them
into the woods.

It was like five or
six guys

And I got turned on by it.

- It's almost impossible to
believe that this particular

experience didn't leave a
mark in terms of the fantasies

he would go on to
develop about domination,

violence towards
women over time.

- In Sharon's case, detectives
determine that her aunt

was the last person
to see her alive.

And during that conversation,

Sharon had actually told
her that she was going out

with some friends that evening,

and Sharon had not
been seen since.

- Rozzelles Ferry Road
was in an area of town

where there was
always lots of crime.

People especially
involved in those areas

don't tend to cooperate
with the police.

Homicide detectives
did their due diligence

and talked to people that they
knew and her family members.

They were not able to find
a suspect at that time.

After Sharon Nance's
body is found,

police are alerted that
Caroline Love is missing.

- It was one of
these calls that,

"Hey, can you go out
and talk to this family

because this young
lady's been missing?"

- Caroline Love
was 20 years old,

just starting out on her own,

going to school and working
in fast food restaurants

to make ends meet.

And she just disappeared.

Her family checks, and nothing's
amiss in her apartment,

but she's left things
behind that if she'd run off

she would've taken with
her, and she's just gone.

- He was one of the
person that we questioned

because he was the last
person to see her alive.

"Did you get into a fight?
Did you have an argument?

Can you tell me more?"

When I saw him, he wouldn't
look me into my eyes,

and he didn't come
to the funeral.

Why he didn't come
to the funeral?

That created some suspicion,

so we have to take that
lead and investigate it.

- Caroline Love, a
young woman who worked

in the fast food restaurants
around Eastland Mall,

just disappeared.

- Her cousin was
considered suspect.

He was the last person known
to have seen her alive,

and he said he gave
her a ride home.

- His vehicle was searched,

but we didn't have anything
that could link him

to any foul play
because we didn't have

a crime or a crime scene.

All we have is a missing person.

- We've had a break
without any activity

when Shawna Hawk, another
young woman, is found m*rder*d.

- She was just a college
student going through life,

making her way.

The family came home
and found Shawna

inside of a bathtub
filled with water.

Could she have drowned?

Could she have taken some pills?

We had no idea.

Autopsy later determined
that she was strangled.

So, then we knew that
we had a homicide.

We didn't have any forced
entry to the house,

and the house was
really not disturbed

like it was a burglary.

It was what we called
a neat crime scene.

They were very comfortable
being in the home.

And so, is it somebody
that she knew?

- Henry Wallace at age
16 was a pretty popular,

charming young man who was
a cheerleader at school.

- Henry would be just
mimicking what he saw

and trying to be normal because
he always felt different.

- People at school are
seeing a likable young man,

but in private he
suddenly shows the bad

or dark side of himself.

- There are a lot more
people that wanna mix

sexual pleasure and violence,

but they don't do it
because of the taboo.

But if you have enough of
that kind of p*rn*graphy,

there are some who
look for someone

to replace their fantasies.

They need a real person
and an event to satisfy

this mixture of sexual
pleasure and violence.

and I remember one morning
she was going to school.

I saw her walking and I
left and I picked her up

and I took her to this
wooded area near the school.

I asked her to have sex with
me first and she said no.

I started touching her on her
legs and thighs and stuff,

but she was still saying no.

That's when I tried to
force myself on her,

but no r*pe occurred.

- Henry Wallace is
coming to master the art

of having parts of himself
that are tucked away somewhere

while harboring terrible
unresolved feelings

that date back to
when he was a child,

feelings of emasculation
and self-loathing

that are being processed

through increasingly
violent fantasies.

- How many victimized
black women do we have?

We have several, and we have
no leads on any of them.

- We investigated
all these cases

on top of the hundred
murders that we were working.

- Police started seeing
more dead Black women.

Audrey Spain, Valencia Jumper,

and a month later,
Michelle Stinson,

all found dead in
their apartments.

- [Reporter] m*rder after
m*rder after m*rder.

- Police now have three
more young women dead

associated with violence
and with strangulation.

- These women had a reputation
of being a good person,

a responsible person.

There was nothing
that would indicate

that they would fall
into bad company

or end up doing anything that
would cause their demise.

- We've had a break from
September to February

without any activity, but
this escalated fairly quickly

with another young woman found
m*rder*d in her apartment,

and her baby was there with her.

- The grandmother had
come to her apartment.

She finds that the door is ajar.

She goes in, she finds the
four-month-old unattended

and Vanessa Mack on the bed,
and she calls the police.

She allowed whoever
attacked her into the home,

and all of a sudden
people were really afraid.

There was someone k*lling
young Black women,

but they had no suspects.

All of a sudden a sense of
imminent danger was there

for young African
American women like me.

- We would see the
use of strangulation.

Very, very unusual to find
those in m*rder cases.

We also have these
really neat crime scenes.

Everything's wiped down.

Everything's put back.

There's no sign that
there's a break in.

- We didn't have any
evidence, any leads,

and we were worried
that we would have

more and more cases.

Emotionally, we
were up and down.

This person was
capitalizing on us

as detectives being overworked.

- Again, very similar scene.

Vanessa Mack, she
is r*ped, strangled,

but in this case, her
baby was there with her.

The baby is fine, but
this was horrifying.

The detectives track that, and
there's been use on her card,

so he pulled up the ATM video.

You can't really see the face
very well, but you can see

this gold Christian cross
earring very clearly.

- The number one question on
their mind is who and why?

- At age 22, we see
Henry in the Navy

with excellent reviews.

In a sense, he's escaped
the horrific childhood

that he had come from,
but we have somebody who

by day is this high-functioning
member of the Navy,

but then by night, when at
a port is starting to engage

in rough sex with sex workers.

- A lotta rough sex.

Most of the time it
was intentionally

with women smaller than me.

- He has now gotten a taste
for domination and control,

needing more and more and
more to achieve that feeling.

A couple of us guys
went down to the room.

She wouldn't let anybody in,

but she knew me,
so she let me in.

I took the rings from her
and I made her get undressed

- I think that this stage
in his life in many ways

sets the stage for
the next chapter,

giving the total vent to
the so-called bad Henry.

- Like a lot of people who
commit sexual violence,

men like this will
describe themselves

as being fragmented into
a good self and a bad self

where one part of
the self is healthy,

while the other part of
the self is harboring

all of this terrible unresolved
anger and frustration

and misogyny and other
feelings of emasculation

that long to be
righted or acted out.

So, I felt invincible.

- We had an unusual

amount of Black females

becoming missing
and also m*rder*d.

They did not receive
the media attention

that other cases got
during that time.

- These were people
who were doing

what you and I do
on a daily basis.

You make friends,
you go to work,

you take care of your
kids, and you don't expect

that one of those friends
could end up m*rder*d.

Her boyfriend comes
home and finds Brandi

dead from strangulation.

The boyfriend finds the
10-month-old son in his crib

and he's got a towel
tied around his throat,

choking, trying to get air.

The police have another woman

in their apartment strangled

by an object from
their apartment.

No signs of forced
entry, no fingerprints.

- In the same apartment complex

where they found Brandi
Henderson, the very next day,

they find a woman named
Betty Baucum dead.

- And her death is ruled
also ligature strangulation.

We found two within one day.

It was a horrible nightmare.

With Betty Baucum,
her car was missing.

- So we're looking for
Betty Jean Baucum's car,

and eventually we found it
in a vacant parking lot.

We take it downtown
and process the car.

- The perpetrator has always
wiped everything down,

but this time he
leaves a palm print

on the trunk of her car.

Here's this k*lling
spree all occurring

with a very narrow
geographic footprint.

There's no forensic
evidence to take,

but he leaves a palm print
on the trunk of Betty's car.

- We ran those fingerprints
and they came back

to Henry Louis Wallace.

He's just the average thief
committing small petty crimes.

- They pull up one
of his photographs

and he is wearing
a cross earring.

The detective goes,
"Wait a minute,"

and goes back to the ATM video
from Vanessa Mack's ATM card.

And they're like, whoa.

- The police are able to
notice this signature earring

in Henry Louis Wallace's photo.

- For the first time,
they have his name,

and they have evidence
that it was him.

- We don't have
this violent person

that committed
r*pes and robberies.

So, who is Henry Louis Wallace?

- While he was a
member of the Navy,

Henry ended up marrying
his high school sweetheart,

and she and her daughter
were given benefits

that come along with
the armed services.

- He gets to be the
dad he didn't have.

We start to see
a downward spiral

that seems to begin
with getting caught

committing some burglaries
while in the Navy.

He is permitted to be
honorably discharged.

This requires him to
go home to his wife,

and there's some trouble
in paradise in the sense that

this desire for rough
aggressive sexual activity

is starting to spill
over into the lovemaking

between him and his wife.

- She told me that
when we had sex,

that it reminded her
of when she was r*ped.

- She ended the
sexual relationship

because she didn't like
his style of lovemaking.

- My wife didn't wanna
be with me anymore.

And I was very hurt.

- Men who've had mothers
that have been cruel to them,

what can happen is in a
development

of a kind of a
terrible,

cynical attitude toward
women in general.

So, after the
marriage breaks apart,

he feels duped that he
actually fell for the idea

that some relationships
can be real.

- The r*pes of the prostit*tes

started occurring very
shortly after we broke up.

I grew to hate her very much.

- He thought he could
bank on his wife

to undo all the terrible
feelings of rejection,

emasculation from his mother.

She becomes a focus
of all of his rage.

- People deal with crisis
in life in different ways.

I absorbed the pain from
the breakup of the marriage,

the pain from my childhood,
all that stuff was absorbed,

but never let out in any way.

- After linking the
palm print on the trunk

of Betty Baucum's car
to Henry Louis Wallace,

they put out an APB.

- This was a huge turning point.

Now that they could work back,

they saw Henry Louis Wallace
everywhere they looked.

Somebody's roommate dated him,

somebody else's sister or
friend or the victim themselves

worked with him at a
fast food restaurant.

- This was clearly
someone who was known

either as a coworker or
as a neighbor or friend

who is going to steal from you,

r*pe you, and then
strangle you to death.

- [Reporter] A single
brutal k*lling is enough

to shock a neighborhood,

but when it happens again
and again and again,

an entire city can
be traumatized.

- Here's this k*lling spree,

and Henry Wallace is
the number one suspect.

- So, is this our serial k*ller?

In the '90s, most serial
K*llers were white males

living with their
mothers, middle aged,

and he fit none of
the FBI profile.

- According to investigators,

the k*ller is out
there somewhere

and they feel certain
he could strike again.

- We get the arrest warrant,

we go out to the residence in
the area that he frequents,

but Henry is
running from the law

and people are still dying.

Debra Slaughter was found
strangled and stabbed

inside of her home.

- This was horrifying.

Three people
basically in two days,

Brandi Henderson, Betty Baucum,

and Debra Ann Slaughter.

- Tonight, police aren't
taking any chances at all.

They're setting up perimeters

all around the Lake Apartments,

checking license plates as
people come in and go out.

- A couple of
friends had started

to put two and two together.

One of Henry Wallace's
friends turned him in

and they found him hiding.

Well, he was arrested.

He was disheveled.

He just really looked
like he had lost his mind.

Henry Louis Wallace
was like the first time

that the Black community
came to grips with the fact

that this is a Black man
who is a serial k*ller,

because that was
really something

that we didn't feel happened
in the Black community.

- We got him down to the station

and began our marathon
interview with him.

- [Officer] Mr. Wallace, you've
been advised of your rights.

- He wasn't vulgar,
didn't talk loud,

didn't use any
profanity, very polite,

and he was seen to
be a very honest guy.

- Henry asked for
a sheet of paper,

and then he wrote a list
of names

and a
question mark.

And he basically turned
it around and says,

"These are the people
that I'm responsible for."

And so now we're
trying to determine

what did this list mean?

Is this list valid?

We started comparing the
list with our homicide board.

That's when I realized
Carolina Love is not

on our homicide board because
she is a missing person.

And so now we're
trying to determine

what's the question mark?

And he said he remembered
dumping the body

on Rozzelles Ferry Road
and we only had one body

dumped into that
site, Sharon Nance.

We believed that he just
didn't start in Charlotte.

Charlotte was his
second hunting ground.

Henry Louis Wallace also
confessed to Shonda Bethay

in Barnwell, South Carolina,

and the m*rder of Miss Bethay

was Henry Louis
Wallace' first m*rder.

- Just before the
transition into m*rder,

Henry has become involved
with a young female.

- Tashonda Bethea.

She was 18, so I was 25.

It was a nonverbal agreement
that we were seeing each other.

There was a lot of
kissing and touching,

And now I'm thinking,
well, she just used me.

- Uh huh.
Now I'm getting angry,

- Uh huh.
and I gotta find

someplace to put this anger.

I just got on the street,

and all of a sudden I saw
her walking by herself

and I picked her up, and it
was like I felt that rush.

And I took her out
of the city limits

and I turned off into
this wooded area,

and I got out and went
into the trunk of the car

and got the .357
- Uh huh.

and opened her door

and told her to get out.
- Mm hmm.

- Uh huh.

and I told her to get undressed.

She got undressed

and I laid her on the
hood of the car

- You have somebody who
is filled with fury,

misogynistic anger,
feelings of disappointment

and abandonment, and
he's with somebody

that he can play
out all of that rage

because something
takes him over.

- I grabbed her by her neck.

I could hear her
gasping for air.

And I knew that it
was gonna happen,

but I couldn't prevent
it from happening.

That's when the
switch was flipped

and I just started choking

and just choking and
choking and choking.

And I couldn't stop.

Tashonda Bethea.

I felt she used me and I could
feel the anger and the rage.

And I told her to get dressed,

and she turned around
to pick up her pants

and her panties off the ground.

That's when I put the choke
hold on and she passed out.

I put her into back
seat of the car.

We drove further outta
town where they had

this little pond
called Anderson's Pond.

I had a utility knife
and I cut her throat

and I cut her wrists.

She was gasping for air.

I rolled her over
into the pond.

She sunk right away.

I could hear the bubbles,
she was trying to breathe.

- In this first m*rder,
we see the culmination

of a very long,
decades old resentment,

feelings of rejection and
emasculation from his mother.

Tashonda becomes a
focus of all of his rage

because she seems to
him to be what happens

when you foolishly trust
and then are burned.

This is someone who used
serial sexual homicide

as an expression of control
and domination and power

to right some wrong that they
feel they have experienced.

The trouble, of course, is that
even after the first m*rder,

bad Henry doesn't go away.

So, there is a need to
go out and keep doing it

over and over again
with different women.

- He was very good
at what he did

because he'd be your friend.

Serial K*llers
generally have an ability

to be very charming
and very charismatic,

and Henry Louis Wallace
is no different.

- The confession of
Henry Louis Wallace

lasted maybe two days.

To get somebody into the box
and really get a confession

is the ultimate joy
that you could ever have

because you're gonna
bring the family closure.

He told us things
that we did not know.

He wanted to point out that
he was a very smart guy.

How he covered the evidence,

he made his victims
shower and redress,

and that deletes a lot of the
evidence away from the body.

He put the items
that he wasn't sure

that he touched or wiped in
an oven and turned it on warm

because it evaporated
the fingerprints.

All of this is how he
manipulated the crime scene,

took us off of his
tracks of catching him.

- A lot of experts weighed in

about what might
have created this,

but the jurors didn't care.

Lots of people have backgrounds
where mama's whooped 'em.

Lots of kids have unfortunate
first sexual experiences,

but they don't make choices

that lead to harming
other people.

- When Henry Wallace says
that there's bad Henry

and good Henry and now bad
Henry is given total control,

it's what most people mean when
they talk about the impulses

being let out to
play, but ultimately,

he is in control of himself.

- I really believe that
serial murderers are made,

they're not born.

Childhood trauma, sexual
abuse, physical abuse,

extreme poverty, malnourishment,

all of those things,
they will impact a child.

And that's the story
of Henry Louis Wallace.

- Henry Louis Wallace
knew each of his victims.

All of his victims
would consider him

a good associate
or even a friend.

I remember talking to
Carolina Love's family,

and Henry was sitting
there listening to us

talk to the family, and it
is said that he may have

even attended the funerals
of couple of the victims.

You're k*lling your friends,
and it absolutely makes me mad.

- That was the scariest part,

that idea that the devil
could live amongst you.

The devil could be someone
right here in the room with you.