Dean Corll

• 1. Introduction

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  Dean Corll was the man whose death a frightened caller reported to the Pasadena Police Department at 8:24 on the morning of the 8th of August 1973. The operator who answered was named Velma Lines. The caller was a teenager, and he blurted out: "Y'all better come here right now! I just killed a man!" He gave the address as 2020 Lamar Drive, Pasadena. Before the day was out, police would begin uncovering what the dead man had done over the previous three years. That discovery raises questions this documentary will follow. Who was Corll, a man who handed out free candy and worked for a power company? How did two teenagers come to work beside him? Why did parents of missing boys spend years being told their sons had simply run away? And what happened in that house in the hours before the call?

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• 2. From Shy Boy to Candy Man

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  Dean Arnold Corll was born on the 24th of December 1939 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the first child of Mary Emma Robison and Arnold Edwin Corll. His father was strict, while his mother was protective of both her sons. The couple quarreled constantly and divorced in 1946, four years after the birth of their younger son, Stanley Wayne. Arnold was then drafted into the Air Force, and Mary moved the boys to a trailer home in Memphis, Tennessee, so they could stay close to him.

  At the age of seven, Corll caught rheumatic fever that went undiagnosed until doctors found a heart murmur in 1950. He was told to avoid physical education classes at school. He grew into a shy, serious boy who rarely socialized, yet he showed real concern for the wellbeing of others. He was also unusually sensitive to any hint of criticism or rejection.

  In 1950 his parents remarried and moved to Pasadena, Texas, a suburb of Houston. The reconciliation was short, and the couple divorced again in 1953, on amicable terms. Both boys kept regular contact with their father. Their mother then married Jake John West, a traveling clock salesman, and the family settled in the small town of Vidor, Texas, where Corll's half-sister, Joyce Jeanine, was born.

  In the garage of that Vidor home, Mary and West started a small candy company. Corll worked day and night while still in school, running the candy-making machines and packing the product alongside his younger brother. West sold the candy along his sales route, which often ran to Houston.

  From 1954 to 1958 Corll attended Vidor High School, where he was seen as a well-behaved student with satisfactory grades. He remained a loner, though he occasionally dated girls. His one major interest was the school brass band, where he played trombone. After he graduated in the summer of 1958, the family moved to the northern outskirts of Houston, closer to the city where most of their candy sold. Their new shop took its name from the product brand: Pecan Prince.

  In 1960, at his mother's request, Corll went to live with his widowed grandmother in Yoder, Indiana. A local girl grew close to him there, and in 1962 he turned down a marriage proposal from her. He returned to Houston that year to help with the family firm, by then based in Houston Heights, and took an apartment above the shop.

  In 1963 his mother divorced West and founded the Corll Candy Company. Dean became its vice president, and his brother Stanley became secretary-treasurer. West kept Pecan Prince, and the competition between the two firms was fierce. That same year, a teenage employee complained to Corll's mother that her son had made sexual advances toward him. She fired the teenager.

  On the 10th of August 1964, Corll was drafted into the United States Army. He did basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, learned radio repair at Fort Benning, Georgia, and received a permanent assignment at Fort Hood, Texas. Official records describe his service as unblemished, but he reportedly hated it. He applied for a hardship discharge, arguing that his family needed him in the business, and received an honorable discharge on the 11th of June 1965 after ten months. Some acquaintances later noticed subtle changes in his mannerisms around teenage males.

  Back in Houston Heights, Corll resumed his vice presidency and lengthened his working hours to keep up with demand. In 1965 the company moved into a bungalow on West 22nd Street, directly across from Helms Elementary School. Corll gave free candy to neighborhood children, especially teenage boys, and earned the nicknames the Candy Man and the Pied Piper. He behaved flirtatiously toward some of his teenage employees. At the rear of the factory he installed a pool table, where employees and local youths gathered in the evenings to listen to music and play pool or penny ante. The company would close its doors in June 1968.

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• 3. David Brooks

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  In 1967, Corll befriended a 12-year-old sixth grader named David Owen Brooks, one of the many children who took his free candy. Brooks became a regular among the youths who gathered behind the factory, and he joined Corll on trips to South Texas beaches with groups of boys. He later said Corll was the first adult male who did not mock his appearance. When Brooks needed cash, Corll handed it over, and the boy came to see him as a father figure. At Corll's urging, a sexual relationship developed, and from 1969 Corll paid him in cash or gifts for it.

  Brooks's parents were divorced. His father lived in Houston, and his mother had moved to Beaumont, 85 miles to the east. In 1970, at the age of 15, Brooks dropped out of Waltrip High School and went to live with his mother. Whenever he visited his father, he also visited Corll, who let him stay at his apartment. Later that year Brooks moved back to Houston, and by his own later admission he came to regard Corll's apartment as a second home.

  Corll's day job gave him a steady income and a respectable routine. Shortly before the candy company closed, he took a position as an electrician at the Houston Lighting and Power Company while still working for the family firm. He tested electrical relay systems and eventually rose to supervisor. He held the job until the day he died.

  Corll killed his first known victim on the 25th of September 1970. Jeffrey Konen, an 18-year-old college freshman, vanished while hitchhiking from the University of Texas to his parents' home in Houston. A fellow student dropped him off alone near the Uptown area of Houston at about 6:30 p.m. Corll likely offered him a lift. Konen was buried at High Island Beach, and Brooks led police to the body on the 10th of August 1973.

  Soon afterward, Brooks walked in on Corll assaulting two teenage boys who were strapped to a four-poster bed. Corll promised him a car in exchange for silence, and later bought him a green Chevrolet Corvette. Corll then told Brooks he had killed the two youths. He offered $200 for any boy Brooks could bring to his apartment.

  On the 13th of December 1970, Brooks drew two 14-year-old boys, James Glass and Danny Yates, away from a religious rally in Houston Heights. Glass was an acquaintance of Brooks. Both boys were taken to an apartment Corll had rented at 3300 Yorktown, where they were killed and buried in a boat shed Corll had rented on the 17th of November.

  On the 30th of January 1971, Brooks and Corll came upon two brothers, Donald and Jerry Waldrop, walking toward their parents' home. Their father had driven them to a friend's house to discuss forming a bowling league. Corll enticed both boys into his van, and they were killed and buried in the boat shed. Four months later, on the 29th of May, 13-year-old David Hilligiest and 16-year-old Gregory Malley Winkle were abducted together. Both sets of parents launched a frantic search and printed reward posters. Among the volunteers who pinned those posters around the Heights was 15-year-old Elmer Wayne Henley, a lifelong friend of Hilligiest.

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• 4. The Pattern

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  Between 1970 and 1973, Corll is known to have killed at least twenty-nine victims, all of them male and aged 13 to 20. Most were in their mid-teens. Most were taken from Houston Heights, then a low-income neighborhood northwest of downtown. In nearly every abduction he had help from Brooks, Henley, or both. Some victims were friends of his accomplices, and some were hitchhikers. Others were people Corll had met himself, and two, Billy Gene Baulch Jr. and Gregory Malley Winkle, had once worked for Corll Candy Company.

  A Ford Econoline van and a Plymouth GTX were the two vehicles Corll owned, and the boys were also lured into Brooks's Corvette. The bait was usually an offer of a party or a ride. At Corll's home, victims were plied with alcohol or other drugs until they passed out, tricked into putting on handcuffs, or simply grabbed. They were then bound, most often to a marine-grade plywood board that hung on a wall, and assaulted and tortured. Sometimes this went on for several days. Death came by strangulation or by shots from a .22 caliber pistol.

  Eighteen victims were buried in the rented boat shed in Southwest Houston. Four were buried in woodland near Lake Sam Rayburn, where Corll's family owned a lakeside log cabin. One was buried on a beach in Jefferson County, and at least six were buried on beaches on the Bolivar Peninsula. Bodies were wrapped in plastic sheeting first.

  In several cases, Corll forced a victim to phone or write to his parents with an excuse for his absence, hoping to calm their fears. Mark Scott, for example, was made to write that he had found a job in Austin. Corll also kept keepsakes from his victims, usually keys.

  Corll rarely stayed anywhere long. Sometimes he lived in an apartment for only a matter of weeks before moving on. Until the spring of 1973, when he moved into the Pasadena house his father had lived in for twenty-two years, he always lived in or near Houston Heights. His addresses were often close to elementary schools.

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• 5. Wayne Henley

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  In about October 1971, Brooks met Elmer Wayne Henley while the two were skipping classes at Hamilton Junior High School, and later introduced him to Corll. Henley was probably lured to Corll's address as an intended victim. Corll evidently decided the boy would make a better accomplice. He offered Henley the same $200 for every boy he could bring, and claimed to be part of a "white slavery ring" operating from Dallas.

  For several months Henley ignored the offer, though he stayed acquainted with Corll. He came to see Corll as a "brother-type person" whose work ethic he admired and in whom he could confide. In early 1972, with his family in dire financial circumstances, he accepted. By his account, the first abduction he took part in happened in February or early March 1972, while Corll lived at 925 Schuler Street. The identity of that victim remains unknown.

  On the 24th of March 1972, Henley, Brooks and Corll met Frank Aguirre, an 18-year-old acquaintance of Henley's, outside the restaurant on Yale Street where he worked. Henley invited him to drink beer and smoke marijuana at Corll's apartment. Henley later claimed he had not known Corll's true intentions. Aguirre was killed and buried at High Island Beach.

  On the 20th of April 1972, the trio abducted 17-year-old Mark Scott. According to Henley, Corll chose Scott because the boy had cheated him on a deal involving stolen property. Scott fought furiously against his captors, but gave up when he saw Henley pointing a pistol at him. His remains were never found. Brooks later called Henley "especially sadistic" in the murders at Schuler Street. Henley admitted that he grew "fascinated" with "how much stamina people have" and said he sometimes "tried to dehumanize" the victims.

  Not everyone taken to Schuler Street died. A 19-year-old named William Ridinger was held for about three days, until Brooks persuaded Corll to let him go. Ridinger would later testify before a grand jury. On another occasion Henley knocked Brooks unconscious as he entered the house, and Corll tied Brooks to the plywood board before releasing him. Brooks kept helping Corll anyway.

  In the summer of 1972, Corll killed two more victims at his Westcott Towers apartment. They were Steven Sickman, 17, and Roy Bunton, 19. Neither was named by Brooks or Henley, and both were identified as victims only in 2011. On the 3rd of October 1972, Wally Jay Simoneaux and Richard Hembree were lured to the same apartment in Brooks's Corvette. That night Simoneaux phoned his mother's home and shouted the word "Mama" before the line went dead.

  No known victims died between the 3rd of February and the 4th of June 1973. Corll had a hydrocele in early 1973, which may have contributed to the pause. Around the time of Joseph Lyles's murder, Henley also traveled to Florida with a trucker uncle and then stayed in Mount Pleasant, apparently to put distance between himself and Corll. When the killings resumed in June, both accomplices later testified that the brutality grew worse. Henley compared Corll's escalation to "like a blood lust." He said he and Brooks would sense when Corll was about to announce that he "needed to do a new boy," because he grew restless, smoked and made reflex movements.

  In July 1973, after Brooks married his pregnant fiancée, Henley briefly became Corll's only procurer of victims. Between the 19th and the 25th of July he helped abduct three Heights youths. One was 15-year-old Michael Baulch, brother of the earlier victim Billy Baulch. The other two, Charles Cobble and Marty Ray Jones, were taken together on the afternoon of the 25th. On the 3rd of August, Corll killed his last victim, 13-year-old James Stanton Dreymala, who had been riding his bike in Pasadena. Five days later Corll was dead.

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• 6. The Final Night

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  On the evening of the 7th of August 1973, Henley invited 20-year-old Timothy Cordell Kerley to a party at Corll's Pasadena house. Kerley was a casual acquaintance of Corll and was meant to be his next victim. Brooks was absent. The two youths sniffed paint fumes and drank alcohol until midnight, then left, promising to come back. They drove to Houston Heights, where Kerley parked near Henley's home.

  Commotion across the street drew Henley's attention. His 15-year-old friend Rhonda Louise Williams had been beaten by her drunken father. Nursing a sprained ankle, she had packed an overnight bag, resolved to run away, and taken temporary refuge in a nearby washateria. As the record later showed, she had once been engaged to Frank Aguirre, one of Corll's earlier victims. Henley invited her to come along, and she climbed into the back of Kerley's Volkswagen.

  At about 3:00 a.m. on the 8th of August, the three returned to Corll's house. Corll was furious that Henley had brought a girl and told him privately that he had "ruined everything." Henley explained that she had argued with her father and did not want to go home. Corll appeared to calm down and offered beer and marijuana. After about two hours, Henley, Kerley and Williams had all passed out.

  Henley woke face down with handcuffs snapping onto his wrists, his mouth taped and his ankles bound. Kerley and Williams lay beside him, tied with nylon rope and gagged with tape. Corll told Henley, "Man, you blew it bringing that girl," and then shouted: "I'm gonna kill you all! But first I'm gonna have my fun!" Corll dragged Henley into the kitchen and pressed a .22-caliber pistol against his stomach. For about thirty minutes Henley talked him down, promising to join in the torture and murder of both captives if Corll let him go.

  Corll agreed, then tied Kerley and Williams to opposite sides of his torture board. He turned a transistor radio to full volume to cover any screaming. He handed Henley an eighteen-inch hunting knife and ordered him to cut away Williams's clothes. Corll insisted that he would deal with Kerley while Henley did the same to Williams. Williams, her gag removed, asked Henley, "Is this for real?" He answered, "Yes." She asked, "Are you going to do anything about it?"

  Henley stood and paced while inhaling paint fumes. Then he grabbed the pistol Corll had put down and shouted, "You've gone far enough, Dean!" He added: "I can't go on any longer! I can't have you kill all my friends!" Corll walked toward him, saying, "Kill me, Wayne!" and then, "You won't do it!" Henley fired. The first shot hit Corll in the forehead but did not fully penetrate his skull. Two more struck his shoulder, and one lodged in his spine. Corll staggered into the hallway, where three more shots brought him down. He died there.

  Henley later recalled that his first thought was that Corll would have been proud of how he reacted. He said Corll had trained him to respond quickly and forcefully. Henley and Kerley wept, and Kerley repeatedly thanked him for saving his life. Williams at first told Henley to flee. Kerley answered, "No, we should call the police." Henley agreed and found the number for the Pasadena police in Corll's own telephone directory.

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• 7. Digging for Answers

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  Minutes after the call, a Pasadena patrol car pulled up and found Henley, Williams and Kerley sitting on the curb outside, with the .22 pistol lying on the driveway. Two of the three were weeping. Henley sat slumped forward and rocking, and Williams had an arm around his shoulder. Kerley stared blankly across the street. While Williams and Kerley waited, Henley told Kerley he had "done that (killing by shooting) four or five times." The officer read Henley his Miranda rights, and Henley shouted: "I don't care who knows about it! I have to get it off my chest!" Kerley later told detectives that, before the officer arrived, Henley had said, "If you wasn't my friend, I could have gotten $200 for you."

  In custody, Henley first described the shooting as self-defense. Kerley and Williams backed up his account, and the questioning detective believed him. Then Henley explained that for almost three years he and Brooks had helped procure teenage boys for Corll, who raped and murdered them. He said he had once believed the boys were to be sold into a Dallas organization. He admitted taking part in the torture of "six or eight" victims before their deaths. Police were skeptical, assuming the only killing was Corll's, which they thought came from a drug-fueled fight. Then Henley named three boys, Cobble, Hilligiest and Jones, and all three were already listed as missing at Houston Police Department headquarters.

  At the house, police found thick plastic sheeting on the floor of the room where the three teenagers had been tied. They also found a plywood torture board measuring 8 by 3 ft, with handcuffs and nylon ropes fixed to its corners. Other items included a large hunting knife, eight pairs of handcuffs and a portable radio rigged to dry cells for extra volume. The rear windows of Corll's van were sealed by opaque blue curtains, and its pegboard walls held rings and hooks. A wooden crate with air holes drilled in its sides sat in the van, and another stood in the backyard.

  Henley led police to the rented boat shed in Southwest Houston. Inside they found a half-stripped Chevrolet Camaro, a child's bike, a large iron drum, two sacks of lime and two shovels. Two prison trusties began digging in the soft, crushed-shell earth and soon uncovered a blond teenager encased in clear plastic beneath a layer of lime. By 11:55 p.m., eight bodies had been recovered, and the search was suspended until the next day.

  Brooks arrived at police headquarters on the evening of the 8th of August, accompanied by his father. He denied taking part in the murders. On the morning of the 9th, Henley gave a full written statement. In it he said he had personally killed about nine youths and helped Corll strangle others. That afternoon he took police to Lake Sam Rayburn, where six bodies were found over two days, and nine more bodies came out of the boat shed on the 9th. Two of those were the Waldrop brothers, identified by cards they carried.

  On the morning of the 10th, Brooks confessed that he had been present at several killings and had helped with burials, though he still denied directly committing any murder. Of Corll's torture board he said: "Once they were on the board, they were as good as dead; it was all over, but the shouting and the crying." Of the deaths themselves, he said they "didn't bother him" and added, "I saw it done many times." That afternoon both accomplices led police to High Island Beach. On the 13th, four more bodies turned up there, bringing the known total to 27.

  The crimes became known as the Houston Mass Murders. The count surpassed the 25 murders attributed to Juan Corona, arrested in California in 1971, making this the worst serial murder case in United States history at that time. John Wayne Gacy broke the record in 1978 with 33 victims. He admitted that press coverage of the Houston case had influenced him to put his victims in manacles before killing them.

  Families of the murdered boys were bitter about the Houston Police Department, which had listed the missing as runaways. Everett Waldrop said he had told police shortly after his sons vanished in 1971 that an acquaintance had seen Corll burying what looked like bodies at the boat shed. Police made a perfunctory search and dismissed the tip as a hoax. When he kept visiting the department, the police chief told him: "Why are you down here? You know your boys are runaways." Winkle's mother said you do not run away with nothing but a bathing suit and 80 cents.

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• 8. Verdicts and Aftermath

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  On the 13th of August 1973, a Harris County grand jury began hearing evidence against Henley and Brooks. The first witnesses were Williams and Kerley, followed by William Ridinger, who described his ordeal at Schuler Street. After more than six hours of testimony, the grand jury indicted Henley on three counts of murder and Brooks on one on the 14th of August, with bail set at $100,000 each. Prosecutors ruled on the 18th of September that Henley had killed Corll in self-defense. By the end of the investigation Henley faced six murder indictments and Brooks four. Both rejected offers from Assistant District Attorney Don Lambright of life sentences in exchange for guilty pleas.

  Henley's first trial opened in San Antonio on the 1st of July 1974, before Judge Preston Dial, on six murders committed between March 1972 and July 1973. He did not testify, and his attorney, William Gray, called no witnesses. The prosecution called twenty-four witnesses and introduced eighty-two pieces of evidence, including Corll's torture board and one of the boxes used to transport victims. Examiners testified that hair inside the box came from both Cobble and Henley. Detective David Mack Mullican read from Henley's written statements.

  In his closing argument, District Attorney Carol Vance apologized that he could not seek the death penalty. He called the case the "most extreme example of man's inhumanity to man I have ever seen." The jury deliberated for 92 minutes and found Henley guilty on all six counts. On the 8th of August, a year to the day after Corll's death, Judge Dial ordered six 99-year sentences to run consecutively, a total of 594 years.

  Henley appealed, arguing that the jury had not been sequestered, that news media had been allowed in the courtroom and that the trial should not have been held in San Antonio. The appeal succeeded, and he was granted a retrial in December 1978. It began on the 18th of June 1979 in Corpus Christi, before Judge Noah Kennedy, who ruled Henley's written statements admissible. The defense again called no witnesses and argued that the state's evidence "belonged to Dean Corll, not Elmer Wayne Henley." After nine days, on the 27th of June, the jury again convicted him of six murders. This time the six 99-year terms were set to run concurrently.

  Brooks went to trial before Judge William Hatten in Houston on the 27th of February 1975. Although indicted for four murders, he was tried only for the June 1973 killing of 15-year-old William Ray Lawrence. His attorney, Jim Skelton, argued that Brooks had proven at most to be an accessory, telling the jury: "Before you convict, you've got to find an act to punish." Assistant District Attorney Tommy Dunn answered that Brooks had been in on "this murderous rampage, from the very beginning." The jury took 90 minutes. On the 4th of March 1975, Brooks was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. His wife burst into tears, and Brooks showed no emotion. His appeal was dismissed in May 1979.

  By May 1974-21 of Corll's victims had been identified. Two more were identified in 1983 and 1985. They were Richard Kepner and Willard Branch. Randell Harvey's remains were identified in October 2008, Sickman and Bunton were named in 2011, and Donald Falcon was identified through DNA in 2014. Because Corll died just before the killings came to light, nobody can say how many victims he claimed. Twenty-nine is the known minimum, and the true number is suspected to be higher.

  Brooks served his sentence at the Terrell Unit near Rosharon, Texas. He died of complications of COVID-19 at a Galveston hospital on the 28th of May 2020, at the age of 65, and is buried at Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery in Walker County. Henley is held at the Mark Stiles Unit in Jefferson County. Parole applications since July 1980 have all been denied, most recently in November 2025.

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