I love* serial killers, but especially I loves me some Black serial killers!
This guy, Henry Louis Wallace, was one really evil dude. He terrorized young Black women around Charlotte, North Carolina during the early 1990’s. The victims were young Black women, mostly working women, good people doing well in life, often quite attractive. He knew most of these women, and like most killers, was quite popular with the ladies. They don’t call em lady killers for nothing! All of his victims let him the door. Then he killed them, usually quickly, by strangulation. He usually raped them too. The crimes started in 1992 and ended in 1994.
He was ex-Navy, with an ex-wife and a kid. No one really knows how he went wrong, but it seems that got really mad at women somewhere along the line. He also had an abusive and hateful mother, this one both verbally and physically violent. She also ordered Wallace and his sister to whip each other. This is common in guys who kill women. They usually hate their Moms.
In the 6th grade, his father, whom Wallace had never met, called Wallace and said he wanted to meet him. They set up a time. Wallace waited for him all day and he never showed up. Wallace never forgot that.
He was popular in high school and college, cheerful, polite and gregarious. He joined the Navy in 1984 at age 19. He served eight years and married in the Navy. The marriage broke up and he was left with an adopted kid. He was bitter about the breakup.
The case was famous because it seemed that the cops were not investigating it as diligently as they might if it were White women ending up raped and killed.
After his arrest in 1994, he also confessed to killing a prostitute in Charlotte. In addition, in the Navy, he had killed a woman named Tashanda Bethea in South Carolina. And there were other confessions. He may have killed up to 20 additional women while in the Navy as his ships docked in various ports of call.
He has gained weight in prison and now weighs 400 pounds, and as usual has married, this time to a prison nurse, Rebecca Torrijos. He is on death row awaiting execution.
*I mean I am fascinated by them.
8 Comments
August 21, 2009 at 7:21 am
Hi, interesting post, thank you. However, please don’t say you ‘love’ serial killers – I hope you mean you find them interesting.
August 21, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Yeah I’m fascinated by them.
August 22, 2009 at 6:27 pm
You never lied. Serial killers do have issues with women, beginning with their mothers.
La Reyna
August 22, 2009 at 6:40 pm
WB La Reyna.
Yeah, these guys do have major issues with their Moms. Too bad.
You’re the one who gave me the idea for this article. Thx!
August 23, 2009 at 10:54 am
To Robert,
You’re welcome. Take care.
La Reyna
November 5, 2009 at 8:00 pm
There’s a story about the latest serial killing in Cleveland, Ohio. Convicted sex offender Anthony Sowell was arrested for the murders of 11 women over a period of four years after he was released from jail in 2005. Here’s more to that horrific story at:
http://www.wcpn.org/WCPN/news/28503/
Gruesome, indeed.
La Reyna
November 5, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Hey La Reyna. I was hoping you would do a story on that guy. On a related issue, are you familiar with the sad story of the 7 year old White girl murdered in Florida? It’s all over the media. But at the same time apparently, a young Black child has also disappeared and apparently been molested, murdered or both. Not sure if they have found the body or not, but the case is very similar. Except no one has heard of the Black kid, and the White girl is all over the news.
Right up your alley.
November 6, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Robert Lindsay,
I’ll come around doing an essay on Anthony Sowell and the Cleveland Murders. Right now, I’m just linking articles and videos concerning the Cleveland Horror Murders on my blog. I have so much information that I have to sort them out in order to write my upcoming essay this weekend.
Thanks for asking.
La Reyna