Luda May Hewitt is the tertiary antagonist of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. She is the mother of Charlie Hewitt and the adoptive mother of Thomas Hewitt.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre[]
Luda May is working at the Cele Community Center off Route 17, which was a gas station and general store. On August 18th, a group of five youths came into the store in a state of duress.
A man named Kemper informed the old woman that a teenage girl had committed suicide in the back of their van. Luda May declared that "when something like this comes along", she said, "...it makes you realize how crazy the world is at times".
Kemper asked her to dial the local sheriff and she told him that doing so would cost him 10 cents.
Using the telephone behind the counter, she called whom the others believed to be the sheriff, but it was Charlie Hewitt.
She gave him the location of the incident as told to her by Kemper, which occurred some five miles west of their location.
After hanging up, she told Kemper and his friends that the sheriff would be tied up for the next two hours and that he asked if they wouldn't mind driving the body to the Old Crawford Mill.
Kemper was flabbergasted and his friend Morgan made some sarcastically rude comments in the woman's direction. Kemper angrily stated that he was not going to drive around town with a dead girl in the back of his van which she replied, "Young man, what you do is your own business". Frustrated, the men left the store.
Later that evening, Henrietta Hewitt visited the general store and brought with her a recently abducted child.
Luda May and Charlie cooed over the blonde-haired girl, at which point, a truck driver named Big Rig Bob came to the front door of the store exclaiming that he just picked up a hysterical woman caked in blood. Luda May stayed at the front to address the man, while Charlie went outside.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning[]
In July of 1939, Luda May Hewitt was found scrambling around bare foot near the Lee Bros. Meat Processing Plant scrounging for food. While picking through a dumpster, she heard a baby crying.
She recovered an infant from the adjoining dumpster which suffered from severe birth defects.
Taking the child as her own, she brought him back to the Hewitt residence and presented him to Charlie Hewitt who declared that it was the "ugliest damn thing" he had ever seen.
Luda May thought that he was beautiful however. She named him Thomas and raised him as her own son.
On July 9th 1958, a school teacher named Mister Hansen comes to the Hewitt household to speak with Luda May.
He told her that the town school that Tommy attended was being shut down due to budget concerns and that the students were being transferred to a school in Lynchfield.
His main concern though was Thomas himself. He told Luda May that Tommy's physical and mental handicaps make him a target for ridicule and he felt that his diminished capacity for learning would be better served at a special school.
He said that he became aware of Tommy's predilection towards trapping and skinning small animals. Luda May listened quietly, but insisted that there was nothing wrong with her boy.
If Tommy's behavior seemed irrational, she states, it was because of those who tormented him.
Hansen told Luda May that he felt Tommy was dangerous and that he intended to file a report with the city. As he turned to leave, Luda May picked up a shovel and dashes him across the back of the head, killing him.
Afterwards, Tommy and Charlie returned to the house. Luda May didn't say a word about the dead teacher, but simply told the two to wash up for supper.