Henry Louis Wallace (born 4 November 1965), also known as the "Taco Bell Strangler", is an American serial killer who killed eleven black women in South Carolina and North Carolina from March 1990 to March 1994. He is currently awaiting execution at Central Prison in Raleigh.
Background[]
Henry Louis Wallace was born in Barnwell, South Carolina, the son of Lottie Mae Wallace. Wallace grew up with his mother working long hours as a textile worker. She was verbally abusive, criticizing her son for even the smallest mistakes. He attended Barnwell High School, where he was elected to the student council and was a cheerleader. After he graduated in 1983, Wallace became a disc jockey for a Barnwell radio station.
Wallace went to several colleges before joining the U.S. Navy in 1985. That same year, he married his high school sweetheart, the former Maretta Brabham in 1987. In 1988, Wallace was honorably discharged from the Navy.
During his time in the Navy, Wallace began using several drugs, including crack cocaine. In Washington, he was served warrants for several burglaries in and around the Seattle metro area. In January 1988, Wallace was arrested for breaking into a hardware store. That June, he pled guilty to second-degree burglary. A judge sentenced him to two years of supervised probation. According to probation officer Patrick Seaburg, Wallace did not show up for most mandatory meetings.
Modus Operandi[]
Wallace targeted black-American women and girls, typically aged in their 20s, but also as young as their teens or as old as their 30s. He originally preyed on high school students while living in Barnwell, his M.O. never being specified. When he moved to Charlotte, he first killed Sharon Nance by beating her to death when she wanted payment for being solicited. By the time Wallace's M.O. was solidified, he targeted women he had direct and indirect connections to, either through his workplaces or the women in his life. After getting a sense of their routines to find opportune times to target the women, Wallace typically attacked them in their homes, raping them and typically killing them by strangulation, but he would also stab some women. Wallace had no qualms with the women's children being at the scene, even raping Brandi June Henderson while she held her infant son and also attempting to kill her baby by strangling him. The women were either left at their apartments to be found dead, or transported their remains to outdoor locations. In the case of Valencia M. Jumper, Wallace burned her when she was dead to get rid of any evidence. He also robbed them of their possessions to pawn, but if he stole their cars, he'd ditch them once they were no longer of use to him. Wallace also attended the funerals of several of the victims to gain his own intel and to put up a ruse of sympathy and divert suspicion from himself.
Trial and Incarceration[]
Wallace's trial was delayed until 1996 to arrange the courthouse where it was held, pick the jurors, and evaluate the DNA evidence. Defense attorney Isabel Day pleaded insanity for Wallace, in response to the prosecutor, Marsha Goodnow, pressing first-degree murder charges for all the women and girls, save for Tashanda and Sharon, and arguing Wallace should be sentenced to death. Criminal psychologist Faye Sultan argued Wallace's mother's abuse of him reduced his mental capacity, so he instead deserved life without parole. Wallace was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to death, apologizing to the families of the people he attacked. In 1998, Wallace married retired prison nurse Rebecca Torrijas, with Day photographing the ceremony. Wallace's continued appeals of his death sentence have been refused, and he remains incarcerated.