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Taco Bell Strangler - Henry Louis Wallace · Murder Files Unsealed

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  Speaker 1: All right, So today we're diving into a case. You
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  might have heard of him, Henry Lewis Wallace, the Taco
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  bell strangler. Oh yeah, and yeah, I mean that name
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  alone kind of sends chills down your spine, and for
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  good reason. This guy he murdered eleven black women, all
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  between nineteen ninety and nineteen ninety four.
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  Speaker 2: Tragic.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Wallace is actually he's on death row right
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  now for these murders. But there's a lot more to
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  the story. We're going to go deeper than the headlines today.
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  You know that we've got trial transcripts, we've got psychological evaluations,
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  really trying to understand like what made this guy tick,
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  Like what led to these murders and why is this
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  case still even decades later? So fascinating? What can it
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  teach us about I don't know, criminal psychology, the justice system,
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  maybe even ourselves. Yeah. Now, one of the things that
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  really struck me going through all of this is Wallace's
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  early life. It wasn't like, you know, you hear these
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  stories and it's like, oh, yeah, he was torturing animals
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  when he was a kid, But Wallace, he was like,
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  we've got his school records here, they paint a picture
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  of a pretty average kid, good grades, even involved in
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  student government. Some people even said he was kind of
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  a charmer. Hard to square that with, you know, the
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  monster he became.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's that's really the thing, right. We have
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  this idea that violent criminals are going to be these
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  you know, kind of obvious monsters from the get go.
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  But it's just not that simple, you know, It's so
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  much more complicated, and that makes it even more important
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  to look at the things that might have, you know,
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  pushed someone down that path.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So let's rewind a little bit
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  back to Wallace's younger years. I mean, it wasn't all
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  like Sunshine and Roses.
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  Speaker 2: Was it, right, Wallace, his childhood, it was it was
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  definitely troubled. His mom worked a lot, you know, so
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  he and his siblings they were often left to their
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  own devices. There were reports of verbal and use in
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  the home, just a lot of instability, lack of consistent support.
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  And while that doesn't you know, predetermine anything, those kinds
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  of adverse childhood experiences they can definitely you know, have
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  a lasting impact.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it seems like in Wallace's case, those early troubles.
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  They kind of they manifested as petty crime when he
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  was the teenager. Yeah, and then eventually, by the time
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  he's in the Navy, were talking burglaries. Do we think
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  the system like missed an opportunity to intervene there, you know,
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  early on.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, that's the question, isn't it. You know, it's
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  hard to say. I mean, the system it did encounter him.
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  You know, Wallace got probation for some of his earlier offenses,
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  but this was the late eighties and the focus then
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  was really on punishment, not so much rehabilitation. Would things
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  have been different if there were better programs in place.
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  It's hard to know for sure, you know, but it
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  definitely highlights how important it is to address the root
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  causes of criminal behavior.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And this is where things get
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  really unsettling. I think. In nineteen ninety, Wallace crosses paths
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  with a young woman named Tshonda Bethia. She was only eighteen,
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  a student at the same high school Wallace had gone to,
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  and tragically, she was sound murdered. Her body was found
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  in the lake, and even though Wallace was questioned, he
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  was never actually charged in this case. So I guess
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  my question is what's the significance of this case then,
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  especially considering he was never charged with her murder.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's never been officially linked to him, but it's
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  significant for a couple of reasons. First, it happens really
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  close to when his probation ended. And second, it's different
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  from his like his later mo okay, the later murders,
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  they all involved sexual assault, which wasn't present in Bethia's case. Interesting,
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  So it could be that, you know, his behavior was
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  starting to escalate, like his motives were changing, so maybe.
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  Speaker 1: A chilling kind of foreshadowing of what was to come.
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  And escalate it did, because in nineteen ninety one, Wallace
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  moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, a fresh start or so
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  we thought, yeah, But instead that move it marked the
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  beginning of a really really dark chapter. He gets a
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  job at you guessed, at Taco Bell, of course, and
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  that's where things take an even darker turn. Charlotte, North Carolina,
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  I mean new sitting, new job. You'd think it'd be
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  a chance for Wallace to, like, I don't know, turn
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  over a new leaf, right, but that's not what happened
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  at all. Instead, he ends up you know, taking the
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  lives of ten more women.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's really disturbing when you look at
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  the victims, right, because a lot of them he knew them.
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  Oh really, Yeah, some more acquaintances, a few worked with
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  him at Taco bell A couple even had ties to
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  his girlfriend.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, and he actually like went to some of their funerals.
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  Speaker 2: He did.
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  Speaker 1: Why would he do that?
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  Speaker 2: It's called signature behavior. Okay, it's not really about the
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  murder itself, but this need for control that like goes
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  even beyond death, you know, like like he had to
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  be a part of the narrative, even if it was
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  you know, in secret.
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  Speaker 1: God, that's chilling. That's like like something out of a
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  horror movie. And the way he killed them, I mean,
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  it just makes it that much more horrifying. Yeah, strangulation,
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  sexual assault, sometimes even robbery. What does all that tell
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  us about him? You know?
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  Speaker 2: But what he was thinking, well, strangulation, it's very personal, right,
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  It's just this like need for dominance, this very intimate
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  kind of control over the victim. This wasn't just about killing.
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  It was about power, raw power.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and it's important I think, you know, to
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  remember that these weren't just names on a police report.
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  These were real people with you know, hopes and dreams,
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  families who loved them absolutely. But Sharon Nance, for example,
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  she was one of his first victims in Charlotte, a
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  young mother, you know, just trying to make a better
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  life for her kid.
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  Speaker 2: And that's something that often gets overlooked, right, I mean
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  a lot of these women they were already facing so
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  many challenges, poverty, lack of support, and that made them
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  more vulnerable, you know, that's awful, more likely to be overlooked,
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  more likely to be dismissed.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just it's a heartbreaking reminder of how, you know,
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  these larger societal issues can play a role in these
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  kinds of tragedies. And then there's Caroline Love. She was
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  actually friends with Wallace's girlfriend.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Can you imagine, yeah, being betrayed like that by someone
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  you thought you knew, Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean the trauma of that, realizing that someone close
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  to you is capable of that kind of evil, it's unimaginable.
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  It leaves scars on everyone, not just the immediate victims.
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  Speaker 1: And then off course Shana Hawk, she actually worked with
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  Wallace at Taco Bell right, right, just trying to you know,
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  Earn a living and then her pass crosses with his.
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  It's it's just I don't know how he did it,
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  How he could like go about his day knowing what
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  he'd done.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's a hallmark of psychopathy, right, This this ability
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  to compartmentalize, to detach from their emotions.
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  Speaker 1: So they can just like function normally essentially.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's what makes them so difficult to spot. They
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  often appear completely normal, even charming.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, but surely the police somebody must have noticed.
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  Speaker 2: A pattern, right, you would think, wouldn't you. But it
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  wasn't that simple.
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  Speaker 1: So we've got this this serial killer, and nobody's putting
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  the pieces together. And what's crazy is it wasn't some
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  big break that brought him down. It was shoplifting.
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  Speaker 2: Shoplifting. Yeah, February fourth, nineteen ninety four, Wallace gets caught
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  stealing some cheap jewelry, jewelry, jewelry, and get this, They
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  book him, process him and let him go.
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  Speaker 1: Are you serious while all these murders are still unsolved, Well, all.
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  Speaker 2: These murders are still insolved. It's a huge oversight.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's put it in my ad.
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  Speaker 2: It shows you how how disconnected things were back then.
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  You know, different agencies not talking to each other, information
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  falling through the cracks. They didn't have those fancy databases
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  they have now. Right Nowadays, a guy like Wallace pops
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  up for shoplifting, alarms are going off everywhere. Back then
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  not so much.
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  Speaker 1: It makes you wonder how many lives could have been
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  saved if things were different. Yeah, because Wallace, he didn't stop.
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  Between that shoplifting arrest and when they finally caught him,
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  he killed four more women.
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  Speaker 2: Four more Vanessa Litlmack, Betty Jean Bocum, Brandy Jean Henderson, Deeburan.
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  Speaker 1: Slaughter, just senseless.
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  Speaker 2: And the way he did it, it was different this time,
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  more frenzied, like he was unraveling, knew the walls were
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  closing in exactly. It's a pattern you see sometime the
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  pressure builds and they lash out.
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  Speaker 1: It's terrifying to think about what was going on in
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  his head. But at least it finally caught up with him,
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  the evidence, the connections, it was too much to.
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  Speaker 2: Ignore, right and then he confessed to all of it.
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  Eleven murders gave the police details things only the killer
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  could have known.
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  Speaker 1: So that was it, right open and shutcase.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the defense tried to argue he was mentally ill,
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  that he didn't know what he was doing.
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  Speaker 1: And that didn't fly.
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  Speaker 2: It's a high bar to clear legally speaking, just because
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  someone has a mental illness doesn't mean they're not responsible
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  for their actions.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: The jury didn't buy it. They found him guilty on
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  nine counts of murder, sentenced him to death.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, and Wallace, what did he have to say for himself?
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  After all that?
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  Speaker 2: He made a statement said the victims they didn't deserve
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  what happened.
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  Speaker 1: Humh hard to know what to make of that. Is
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  it remorse? Is it just him trying to save face.
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  It's impossible to.
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  Speaker 2: Know, really it is. And that's what's so unsettling about
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  these cases. We can look at the facts, try to
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  understand the whys and hows, but at the end of
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  the day, we're left staring into this abyss of human cruelty,
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  trying to make sense of the senseless.
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  Speaker 1: It's disturbing, for sure, but I think it's important that
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  we do try to understand. If we don't learn from
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  these tragedies, then what was it all for?
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  Speaker 2: Exactly? We owe it to the victims to never forget
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  to keep asking the tough questions to fight for a
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  justice system that truly protects the innocent.
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  Speaker 1: That's what it comes down to, remembering the victims, learning
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  from the mistakes of the past, and never ever looking
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  away from the darkness even when it's hard, because only
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  by confronting it can we ever hope to overcome it.