Ottis Elwood Toole (March 5, 1947 – September 15, 1996) was an American serial killer who was convicted of six counts of murder.

Like his companion Henry Lee Lucas, Toole made confessions which resulted in murder convictions, and which he later recanted.

The discrediting of the case against Lucas for crimes for which Toole had offered corroborating statements created doubts as to whether either was a genuine serial killer or, as Hugh Aynesworth suggested, both were merely compliant interviewees whom police used to clear unsolved murders from the books.

Toole's father was an alcoholic who abandoned him, while his abusive mother would dress him in girls' clothing and call him Susan.

[1] He was sexually abused as a child by many close relatives and acquaintances, including his older sister and a next-door neighbor.

[citation needed] Much of the information about Toole's activities between 1966 and 1973 is unclear, but authorities believe that he began drifting around the Southwestern United States and that he supported himself by prostitution and panhandling.

[1] In 1976, Toole met Henry Lee Lucas at a Jacksonville soup kitchen,[1] and they likely developed a sexual relationship.

[4] Toole later claimed to have accompanied Lucas in 108 murders, sometimes committed at the behest of a cult called "The Hands of Death".

Lucas became widely regarded as a compliant interviewee who was used by police to clear up unsolved murders that he had not been involved in, aided by Toole giving false statements in collaboration.

[citation needed] After his incarceration, Toole pleaded guilty to four more Jacksonville murders in 1991 and received four more life sentences.

[9] The murders in which Toole was ultimately convicted of were John McDaniel, Jerilyn Peoples, Brenda Burton, Ruby McCary, George Sonnenberg and Ada Johnson, all of whom were killed in Florida from 1980 to 1983.

Police officers inexplicably lost Toole's impounded car and its bloodstained carpeting, hindering their ability to proceed with the investigation into Adam Walsh's murder.

Schallart's body, bearing five gunshot wounds in the left side of the head, was found on February 6, 1980, approximately 125 feet (38 meters) off I-10's eastbound lane, five miles (8.0 km) east of Chipley.

Toole confessed that he shot her in the head on a road outside of Fort Walton Beach after kidnapping her at gunpoint at a Tallahassee nightclub.

[18] Psychiatrists Dr. Urbina and Dr. Sanches testified at Toole's 1984 Florida Supreme Court appeal that he was extremely impulsive and exhibited antisocial behavior as a result of a personality disorder and that he was a pyromaniac.