KAUFMAN, Texas -- Serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas pleaded guilty Thursday to the 1970 slaying of a schoolteacher who authorities believe was the first of his estimated 60 victims in Texas.
Lucas was taken by helicopter from his jail cell in Georgetown in central Texas to Kaufman, a small town 30 miles southeast of Dallas, for a quick hearing.
He admitted to the fatal stabbing of Linda Jane Phillips Aug. 9, 1970.
Lucas says he has killed 360 people nationwide since 1970 and he estimated 60 were in Texas.
He was sentenced to life in prison by state District Judge Glenn Ashworth under a plea bargain agreement with the state, said District Attorney L. William Conradt of Kaufman County.
Conradt said Lucas was cool, calm and collected in the courtroom.
'There's no question in my mind that he's sane,' the district attorney said. 'The sheriff said jokingly he would let him make bond, and Lucas said if you do I'll be out killing again.'
Miss Phillips, 26, was a schoolteacher in the Dallas suburb of Richardson when she disappeared while returning from a party to her parents' home in Kaufman.
Lucas confessed to the slaying last January and described how he forced Miss Phillips' car off the road about 2:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Lucas said he forced her into his car at gunpoint, made her disrobe and then stabbed her 26 times in the throat, chest and stomach.
The 47-year-old drifter was released June 3, 1970, from a Michigan state prison, where he served a term for killing his mother in 1960.
Lucas faces the death sentence in Texas for a 1979 murder near Georgetown. He now has been found guilty or pleaded guilty to four murders in Texas and faces murder charges in 20 other cases across the country.
