The Taco Bell Strangler: Henry Louis Wallace

After his arrest, authorities had a question for serial killer Henry Lewis Wallace.

Why do you do it?

Sitting in his orange jumpsuit, Henry answered calmly.

He said, quote, I honestly believe that there is another Henry, one that I cannot control.

There's the good Henry, and then the bad Henry.

He went on to tell researchers Ann Burgess and Robert Ressler that his good side is a chameleon who adapts to anything, any environment, any situation, and lures women in for his dark side.

But Good Henry did more than simply lure women in.

He spent years befriending very specific women, knowing they were the exact type Bad Henry might attack someday.

Bad Henry committed heinous crimes, while Good Henry ensured he was always the last person his victims would suspect.

But don't get it wrong, there was only one Henry.

This is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast.

Every Monday, we bring you the true crime stories that stand out.

I'm Janice Morgan.

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Today, we're covering Henry Louis Wallace.

Wallace took 11 victims in the 1990s, mostly in Charlotte, North Carolina.

He's nicknamed the Taco Bell Strangler because he murdered several of his Taco Bell co-workers.

But his confessions revealed much more specific targets.

This episode includes discussions of violence, sexual assault, violence against children, and murder.

Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen.

Stay with us.

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They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist.

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In late 1991, Henry Lewis Wallace needed a fresh start.

So he left his hometown and moved to Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina.

At 26, he settled in Easily and made a lot of new friends.

Henry's charisma and easygoing nature led people to trust him immediately.

For example, when Michelle Stinson was pulled over with a stalled car, Henry stopped to help her.

From then on, they were friends.

When his sister's friend Valencia Jumper started living alone after a bad roommate situation, Henry stayed at her place to help her feel safe.

They became friends too.

His charismatic attitude also helped him get hired at a local Bojangles restaurant.

Henry's coworkers were drawn to him.

He was known as someone they could rely on if they needed a favor or someone to talk to.

He eventually became friends with his fellow employees, including sisters Kathy and Caroline Love.

Outside of work, Henry became a regular fixture at cookouts with his friends and neighbors, and even DJ'd at parties.

When Henry moved on to a new job at Taco Bell, he maintained these friendships.

In fact, he hired another Bojangles employee, Shauna Hawk, to join him at Taco Bell.

He even made a good impression on Shauna's mom when she stopped by.

He also befriended his Taco Bell co-workers, like Leslie Little.

Henry and Leslie quickly bonded over rap music and pizza, and the next time they hung out, Leslie invited her sister, Vanessa Little Mac.

Henry was instantly attracted to Vanessa and often asked Leslie about her sister during their shifts at Taco Bell.

He learned Vanessa was a 25-year-old single mom, and she worked at Carolina's medical center as a patient escort.

Henry eventually took Vanessa on a date, but she preferred to remain friends.

That didn't seem to bother Henry.

He started dating a woman from Bojangles, Sadie McKnight.

Even though he spent plenty of work hours socializing, higher-ups trusted Henry.

They made him an assistant manager.

Henry's new circle only knew one side of him: good Henry, but in under a year, they became bad Henry's targets.

Around June 1992, Henry borrowed his girlfriend Sadie's apartment key and made a copy.

Then, he waited until he knew no one would be home and let himself in.

As Henry was using the bathroom, the apartment door opened.

It was Sadie's roommate and Henry's old friend from Bojangles, 20-year-old Caroline Love.

Henry announced his presence and told her he'd leave when he was done in the bathroom.

But instead of leaving, Henry found Caroline sitting on the couch and kissed her on the cheek.

Caroline wasn't happy.

She told Henry she wouldn't tell his girlfriend Sadie if he promised not to do it again.

Instead of agreeing, Henry put her in a chokehold.

Caroline tried to fight him off, but Henry choked her till she was unconscious, sexually assaulted her, and strangled her to death.

Acting quickly, Henry wrapped Caroline's body in a bedsheet, then into a large orange trash bag, and put the body in the back seat of his car.

On the way out, he stole her laundry quarters.

When Caroline didn't show up at work for the next two days, people worried.

Her boss got in touch with her sister, Kathy, another Bojangles worker, who in turn called a friend to try to find out what was going on.

That friend was Henry Wallace.

Henry put Kathy in touch with Sadie, who was clueless, but he didn't stop there.

He met met up with Kathy and even comforted her daughter, holding her in his lap and telling her Aunt Caroline would be back soon.

Then, Henry joined Sadie and Kathy on their trip to the police station to file a missing person report.

A search of Caroline and Sadie's apartment didn't turn up any evidence.

Neither did interviews.

During the investigation, Henry actually befriended one of the officers, Detective Tony Rice.

Rice had no reason to suspect Henry killed Caroline, and the case stayed open.

Sadie was left shaken by her roommate's unexplained disappearance.

She told Henry she was scared to go back to her apartment.

Ironically, she was talking to the very cause of her fear.

And she wasn't alone.

Their friend Shauna Hawk was also freaking out.

She'd known Caroline since high school and told her mom it was, quote, not like her to leave without saying anything.

But with no answers, Shauna, Sadie, and Caroline's family all had to go on with their lives.

Sadie kept dating Henry, and Shauna kept working with him at Taco Bell where he was her manager.

Over the next eight months, things settled down.

Shauna continued balancing work in college, listening to Stevie Wonder, and spending time with her mom.

One Friday, in February 1993, Shauna was home alone.

Henry stopped by and she let him in to chat.

When their conversation came to a natural end, Henry attacked.

He sexually assaulted Shauna, strangled her, and left her in a bathtub full of water.

Shauna's family found her that night, and police began a homicide investigation.

Meanwhile, Henry went back to work at that same Taco Bell.

No one suspected he killed their coworker.

Henry even attended Shauna's funeral.

He hugged her mother Dee and told her how sorry he was for her enormous loss.

Dee didn't initially suspect Henry, but she had a gut feeling that Shauna's death was somehow connected to her friend Caroline's disappearance.

She pushed the police to pursue that angle, but they didn't.

And as Dee saw it, Shauna's case was quickly forgotten.

Taking matters into her own hands, Dee started a support group for parents like her, mothers of murdered offspring.

Its goals are to support victims' families, prevent future violence, and help loved ones navigate the system as they seek justice.

They work to help cases like Shauna's get the attention they deserve.

And Dee was right.

Shauna's case wasn't properly investigated because detectives didn't have the time or resources.

1993 was Charlotte's most violent year yet.

129 people were murdered with only a handful of homicide investigators in town.

Individual murders did not get proper attention, much less serial killer theories.

Even if the Charlotte police had listened to Dee and had resources to follow through, they would have had a hard time catching Henry Lewis Wallace.

While hiding in plain sight, he made significant efforts to cover up his next few crimes.

That summer, he targeted Audrey Spain.

Audrey was another Taco Bell friend.

She and Henry often played tennis.

Henry sexually assaulted and strangled her.

Perhaps since Audrey lived alone, he left her body in her apartment.

then walked out with her keys.

Over the ensuing days, he returned to the crime scene and used the phone so it'd appear that Audrey was still alive and making calls.

He also stole and used her credit card.

Later that summer, Henry murdered his sister's friend Valencia Jumper.

Before leaving, he splashed her body with rum and put a can of beans on the stove.

He cooked it until it caught fire, then left the apartment in flames.

His plan was to make it look like Valencia died in a kitchen fire after a night of drinking, and he pulled it off.

Initial investigators didn't suspect homicide.

A month later, Henry killed his friend Michelle Stinson.

After he strangled her, he stabbed her four times, to the point where the coroner listed stabbing as the main cause of death.

In each crime, Henry took care cleaning up so he didn't leave behind any DNA evidence or fingerprints.

Sometimes he'd even force his victims to shower after he assaulted them, but before he strangled them.

So even though they were all killed in the same way by the same man, the five crime scenes appear different on the surface.

Unconnected.

Famed former FBI profiler Robert Ressler interviewed Henry later on and described him as, quote, all over the place.

Ressler pointed out that the most baffling part of his story was that he killed women he was friends with.

It was the same lead Dee had pointed out in her daughter Shauna's case.

There was a pattern, but it wasn't one investigators were looking for.

One of the officers on the case later said Henry, quote, does not fit any known profile of serial killers.

As he said, the majority of serial killers are white, middle class, and target strangers.

Henry was black, working class, and preyed on his friends.

So police didn't realize they were hunting a serial killer, and even if they had, they wouldn't have looked for Henry.

He slipped through the cracks.

For about two years, Good Henry kept bad Henry under wraps until his life went south.

Through 1993, Henry struggled with drug addiction.

He got evicted from his apartment, and in early 1994, his girlfriend Sadie left him.

Henry's friends noticed a drastic change in his appearance.

He was typically clean-shaven and well-dressed, but now he looked dirty and unkempt.

It was clear to everyone that Henry wasn't getting much sleep.

He seemed exhausted much of the time.

When he did sleep, it was often in his old apartment.

He began breaking into it at night.

Good Henry had hit rock bottom, and bad Henry fully took over.

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By early 1994, Henry Lewis Wallace had killed five of his friends and coworkers in Charlotte, North Carolina.

He'd managed to avoid police scrutiny, scrutiny, but things were about to change.

On February 20th, he called up his friend Vanessa Little Mac.

Vanessa picked up the phone.

After all, she and Henry had been friends for close to two years.

But instead of talking, Henry just hung up.

Later that day, he showed up at her apartment.

Vanessa welcomed Henry in.

Henry asked Vanessa for a drink, but when she had her back turned, he put her in a chokehold.

Henry forced Vanessa to give him her ATM card and her PIN so he could drain her bank account.

Then, he sexually assaulted and strangled her.

Once Vanessa was dead, Henry checked on her baby daughter as if he hadn't just brutally murdered the child's mother.

Then, he took the ATM card to go get cash.

But as he fed the card into different machines, he realized that Vanessa had lied to him about her PIN number.

Without it, he couldn't withdraw any money.

Henry left the ATM, but not before security cameras captured his attempts to use the machine.

He'd just been caught on camera trying to use his victim's ATM card.

However, the camera wasn't high resolution, so it was hard to identify him beyond his general appearance.

A large, dark-skinned man wearing a dangling cross earring.

The slip-up wouldn't lead anyone to Henry.

At least not yet.

Nearly three weeks later, Henry targeted Betty Bockham.

Betty was another friend from Bojangles, so when Henry asked to come inside her apartment and use her phone, Betty let him in.

Henry and Betty chatted for a while.

It's possible they talked about her engagement or her future plans, since at the time Betty was considering moving to Sanford, North Carolina to be closer to her fiancé.

Everything seemed normal, until Henry suddenly put Betty in a chokehold and said he was robbing her.

He wanted her valuables and the code to the safe at Bojangles.

When Betty gave Henry the code, he released her.

According to Henry, Betty asked, why did you do that to me?

He responded that he was sick and that he'd hurt a lot of people.

In a temporary moment of peace, Henry embraced Betty in a hug.

She told him she forgave him.

For a moment, it seemed like Henry might reconsider.

But it didn't last.

Henry attacked Betty again, sexually assaulting her and strangling her to death.

After, he walked across Betty's apartment complex.

He had other friends who lived there, specifically Lamar Woods and his 18-year-old girlfriend Brandi Henderson.

Brandy and Lamar used to invite Henry over to play cards, listen to music, and drink beer.

Henry knew Lamar had to work that night, so when he stopped by, he told Brandy he was dropping something off for him.

Naturally, Brandy let her friend in.

He attacked and killed her, just like he had Betty.

But Brandy wasn't home alone.

Her 10-month-old son was also in the apartment, and he was crying.

According to Henry's confessions, he wanted to quiet the child, so he used a bathroom towel to choke the baby.

Once the baby stopped crying, Henry stole Brandi and Lamar's valuables, then left the complex with Betty Bockham's car.

He sold the stolen goods and used the money to buy drugs.

The next day, Betty and Brandy's bodies were found in their apartment complex.

So was Brandy's baby son.

He'd survived Henry's attack.

Police interviewed Brandy's loved ones and learned that her cousin had been on the phone with her shortly before she died.

He said that while they were on the phone, she led a friend into her apartment, but the cousin didn't know who it was.

So they went to Brandi's boyfriend, Lamar, and asked for a list of their close friends who Brandi would immediately invite inside.

Lamar gave a list of names, and officers ran it through a criminal database to see if any had a record.

One name popped up, Henry Lewis Wallace.

Though Henry had covered up his murders, he had a history of arrest for robbery, as well as an armed assault of a teenage girl back in South Carolina.

The officer in charge printed Henry's mugshot and continued to investigate.

Not long after, another officer walked by and stopped cold.

They're fixated on grainy security footage that shows a man using Vanessa's ATM card.

He's wearing a single gold cross earring.

They'd been looking for a gold cross earring all day, and and there it was, on Henry's mugshot.

The officers quickly pieced together that Brandi and Vanessa had the same killer, and it was Henry Lewis Wallace.

The next lead came almost as quickly.

They found Betty Bauckham's stolen car in a local parking lot.

The interior and door handles had been wiped down, but not the lid of the trunk.

And sitting on the floor was a Pringles can full of spare change that had belonged to Brandi Henderson.

The connection was only confirmed when officers checked the trunk lid.

It had a handprint.

Henry's handprint.

But Henry remained on the lamb even as the hunt for a serial killer hit the news.

Women were scared, including Deborah Slaughter.

She'd worked at the same Bojangles as Betty, so this hit close to home.

Two days after their killings, the fear was fresh in her mind.

According to local news station WSOC, when her friend knocked at the door that evening, Deborah was thankful to have some company and protection.

But her friend was Henry Wallace.

After killing Deborah, Henry bought drugs.

He then returned to the crime scene to use them.

The next morning, March 12th, Henry went to yet another friend's apartment.

He asked to use the phone to call his ex Sadie.

Henry's friend gave him privacy in the kitchen while he had his conversation.

When he returned later, Henry was sobbing and seemed completely distraught.

Fighting back tears, he said, quote, she doesn't understand me.

No one understands me.

Henry eventually regained his composure and spent the afternoon watching wrestling on TV with some friends.

Later, he told them he wanted to get out of Charlotte and go back home to South Carolina.

Henry's friends gave him cash to catch a bus to the Greyhound station, but Henry never made it to the bus station, and he never made it back to his hometown.

Around six that evening, police showed up at Henry's friend's apartment.

They found him hiding in the bathroom.

Police were able to arrest Henry for failure to appear in court.

He ducked out on previous shoplifting charges.

They took him into custody.

There, he'd confess.

But that confession would go much deeper than killing his coworkers and reveal victims the police didn't even know were murdered.

For the first several hours he was in police custody, Henry Wallace spoke to investigators about his his background, past jobs, his stint in the Navy, even sports, but not his crimes.

Eventually, investigators confronted Henry with a frame of security camera footage showing his distinctive cross earring.

When that didn't crack him, they told him they'd matched his palm print to the one found on Betty Bockham's trunk.

Again, Henry denied responsibility.

The questioning dragged on for six more hours.

Around 5 a.m., Henry mentioned in passing that he knew a Charlotte detective named Tony Rice who'd worked on Caroline Love's disappearance back in 1992.

As you'll recall, Henry killed Caroline, then reported her missing to the police.

At this time, in 1994, Caroline was still a missing person.

Hoping for a break, officers got hold of Detective Rice and brought him into the interrogation room.

Henry felt comfortable with Rice, chatting amiably, until Rice brought up Henry's ex-girlfriend, Sadie.

Sensing an opening, Rice asked if he could lead a prayer.

He held Henry's hand and prayed about repentance and forgiveness.

Henry broke down and cried.

Rice said it was finally time to tell the truth and cleanse his soul.

And Henry finally agreed.

He said, let's do it this way, and began writing names on a piece of paper.

The investigators watched silently as Henry wrote and wrote.

They thought the list would include the four victims from the last three weeks, Deborah Slaughter, Brandi Henderson, Betty Bockham, and Vanessa Mack.

But Henry wrote down five more names.

Michelle Stinson, Valencia Jumper, Audrey Spain, Caroline Love, Toshonda Bethay,

and a question mark for one victim he hadn't known beforehand.

The revelation was shocking.

They thought Caroline Love was missing and Valencia Jumper died in an accident.

Toshonda Bethay died in another state.

But they were all Henry's victims, all chosen intentionally, even the one he couldn't name.

Each victim had reminded him of one of two people, Henry's ex-wife and his mother.

Henry explained that he'd had a difficult childhood.

His dad left before he was born.

He claimed his mom abused him.

One of his first sexual experiences was watching multiple older classmates sexually assault a girl.

When he joined the Navy as an adult, he began using drugs and enacted his violent fantasies on sex workers.

Yet, amid all this, Henry dated his high school sweetheart, married her, and had a baby.

In his early 20s, Henry started acting out his violent desires on his wife.

Henry told the police, quote, she told me that when we had sex, it reminded her of when she was raped.

She later ended the marriage.

Henry continued enacting sexual violence on sex workers, but now he described it as, I even visualized it being my wife.

He later said he would have killed his ex-wife eventually if he hadn't moved States.

Soon after, in 1990, Henry met 18-year-old Toshonda Bethay.

She went to his former high school and lived in his neighborhood.

She reminded him of his mother.

For a while, Henry and Toshonda had what he called a nonverbal agreement that they were seeing each other.

He drove her places and brought her lunch at school.

One day, Henry was driving his car when he spotted Toshonda walking alone.

He picked her up, drove her into the woods, and sexually assaulted her at gunpoint.

Then, he strangled Toshonda.

When she regained consciousness, Henry slit her wrists and throat.

Then, he threw her body into a pond.

Henry stood at the edge of the pond and watched Toshonda's body sink into the water.

to make sure she was dead.

Describing the murder, Henry denied his own agency, saying, I knew that it was going to happen, but I couldn't prevent it from happening.

Two weeks after Toshonda went missing, a young boy went fishing in that pond and discovered her body.

The authorities questioned people who knew her, including Henry Lewis Wallace, but there was no evidence to link Henry to Toshonda's murder.

This first killing in 1990 established the pattern of his future murders against young black women who reminded him of his ex and his mother.

He didn't just befriend them for easy access, he seemingly sought out certain traits.

Even the victim Henry couldn't name fit this bill.

Henry confessed that in May 1992, one month before he killed Caroline Love, he picked up a sex worker.

Instead of paying her, he beat her to death with a rock.

Later, authorities linked Henry's confession to the unsolved homicide of Sharon Nance.

Sharon was 33, black, and a mother to a young young son.

This suggests Henry would have been a killer even if he'd never made a single friend.

He might have found the same victims randomly.

He told the men in the interrogation room, I know that I'm sick.

I know that I have a problem.

Hearing Henry's bombshell confession, investigators had a major lingering question.

Where was Caroline Love?

For years, she'd been classified as missing.

Henry confessed to dumping Caroline's body in the woods the night he killed her.

Later, he returned to the gravesite to remove the orange trash bag because he feared it would attract attention.

He also said he moved her remains from their original location and into a ravine to further cover up the crime.

Sure enough, authorities uncovered Caroline's remains in the ravine on March 13, 1994.

Her family and friends finally received some closure.

They also struggled to rationalize the murders with the man they knew, their friend, boyfriend, and co-worker, the man who comforted them at funerals.

In the face of such revelations, Shawna Hawke's mother Dee continued to run Mothers of Murdered Offspring.

Her organization still helps victims' families find justice today.

Speaking of justice, Henry finally went to trial.

In 1997, he was convicted on 29 counts and handed nine death sentences, one for each first-degree murder charge.

His crimes and punishment made national news, and Henry gained the nickname the Taco Bell Strangler.

Even though the world finally saw who he truly was, Henry maintained his charismatic charm.

Within a year of going to prison, he convinced a prison nurse to quit her job so they could have a romantic relationship.

As of 2017, they were still married, and it seems Henry Louis Wallace

still has two faces.

Thank you for tuning into Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast.

We're here with a new episode every Monday.

Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast, and we'd love to hear from you.

So if you're tuning in on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts.

For more information on Henry Louis Wallace, among the many sources we used, we found contemporary reporting by the Charlotte Observer and ABC 2020 extremely helpful to our research.

Stay safe out there.

This episode was written and researched by Matt Gilligan, edited by Maggie Admire, fact-checked by Lori Siegel, and sound designed by Alex Button.

I'm your host, Janice Morgan.