Ottis Toole, Jacksonville-Born: Six Murder Convictions, No Legend

Ottis Elwood Toole was born and raised in Jacksonville. That fact matters, because the story that follows is not a story about a killer who passed through town. It is a Jacksonville story, tried in a Jacksonville courtroom, about a Jacksonville murder — and then about five more murders, all of them convictions, all of them counted here and nothing else added.

Deadly Duval’s No Legends series has one rule, and it is the rule this post follows exactly: convictions only. Toole’s name has been attached to far more killings than he was ever convicted of, in confessions that were later largely discredited and in attributions that were never charges. None of those are counted here. Six convictions are. That is the whole record, and it is enough.

The Jacksonville murder

On January 12, 1982, Toole locked 64-year-old George Sonnenberg inside his own Jacksonville home and set it on fire. Sonnenberg died of his injuries.

Toole was convicted of that murder in Duval County on April 28, 1984. He was sentenced to death for it. That sentence was later commuted to life in prison on appeal.

Start there, because the Jacksonville connection is sometimes lost in the wider, messier Toole story. A 64-year-old man, in his own home, in Jacksonville, killed in a fire set deliberately. A Duval County jury convicted the man who did it. That conviction stands on its own, without any of the later mythology.

Five more convictions

The Jacksonville murder was not Toole’s only conviction, and it was not his last.

In 1984, he was also convicted of the February 1983 strangulation murder of Ada Johnson, 19, of Tallahassee. He received a second death sentence for that murder. It, too, was commuted to life on appeal.

In 1991, Toole pleaded guilty to four more Florida murders, committed between 1980 and 1983: John McDaniel, Jerilyn Peoples, Brenda Burton, and Ruby McCary. Those guilty pleas brought four additional life sentences, plus 20 years on an arson conviction.

Counted together, that is six murder convictions: George Sonnenberg, Ada Johnson, John McDaniel, Jerilyn Peoples, Brenda Burton, and Ruby McCary. Two death sentences, both commuted. Six life sentences in total, served until his death.

What is not counted

It would be easy, and wrong, to add to that list.

In 2008, Hollywood police attributed the 1981 murder of Adam Walsh to Toole. Toole was never charged with it, and he was never convicted of it. Deadly Duval does not count it, does not list Walsh as a Toole victim, and does not treat an attribution as a conviction. The same principle applies to the hundreds of confessions Toole and Henry Lee Lucas made over the years, most of which were later discredited. A confession that was not tested in court, and a killing that was never charged, are not convictions — and this series does not pretend otherwise.

That restraint is not a technicality. In a case like Toole’s, where the true number of victims has been inflated, debated, and mythologized for decades, the only number that can be stated with certainty is the number a court actually established. Six.

The end of the story

Toole died on September 15, 1996, at Florida State Prison, at age 49, of cirrhosis and liver failure. He was buried in the prison cemetery.

He did not escape justice, and he did not become a legend. He was convicted, sentenced, and he died in prison, serving life sentences for murders a court proved he committed.

That is why he belongs in No Legends, and why the series states its rule in the same words every time: no legend, no legacy. Not because the crimes were small — they were not — but because a convicted killer’s name does not deserve to grow larger than the record. The record is six convictions. Nothing more is claimed here, and nothing more is needed.

What we know, stated exactly

• Ottis Elwood Toole was born and raised in Jacksonville.
• On January 12, 1982, he locked George Sonnenberg, 64, inside his Jacksonville home and set it on fire. Sonnenberg died of his injuries.
• Toole was convicted of Sonnenberg’s murder in Duval County on April 28, 1984.
• In 1984, he was also convicted of the February 1983 strangulation murder of Ada Johnson, 19, of Tallahassee.
• In 1991, he pleaded guilty to four more Florida murders: John McDaniel, Jerilyn Peoples, Brenda Burton, and Ruby McCary.
• Total: six murder convictions. Two death sentences, both commuted to life; four additional life sentences; plus 20 years for arson.
• Hollywood police attributed the 1981 murder of Adam Walsh to Toole in 2008. He was never charged or convicted of it, and it is not counted here.
• Toole died September 15, 1996, at Florida State Prison, age 49, and was buried in the prison cemetery.

No legend. No legacy.

— Deadly Duval