The Real Candyman Killer of Houston, Texas
Dean Corll age 24
It was the morning of August 8th, 1973 around 8:30 am when the phone operator for the Pasadena Police, Velma Lines, answered an unusual, albeit, quick call. Where on a regular morning someone may have called to report a disturbance or at worst an accident that needed to be investigated, the call Velma received that morning would be one she, nor the police would forget.
On the other end of the line was 17-year-old Elmer Wayne Henley, Velma would barely finish asking if there was an emergency before Henley blurted out “Y’all better come here right now! I just killed a man!”
After giving Velma the address, police arrived at 2020 Lamar Drive in Pasadena. From the outside of the home, you wouldn’t have thought anything odd of the three teenagers sitting out on the porch but just a few feet away from them a .22 caliber pistol recently used to kill a man lay on the driveway.
Elmer Henley stood up between the other two teens, pointed to the door, and told the police he was the one who made the call and the man he killed in self-defense was dead in the home. Inside, the body of 33-year-old Dean Corll lay naked in the hallway, shot six times with the .22 caliber pistol, three shots in the front and three in the back.
But what appeared to be an open and shut case of a single homicide would soon reveal one of the worst serial killers in U.S. history.
PART 1 - The Birth of The Candy Man
“The world is full of monsters with friendly faces.”
Zac Brewer
Early Years
Dean Arnold Corll was born on December 24th, 1939, in Fort Wayne, Indiana to an overprotective mother, Mary Robinson, and a father, Arnold Corll, who would go on to make it clear he didn’t want children. To say Dean Corll had a difficult childhood would be an understatement. It was a childhood marred with constantly relocating, family infighting, and debilitating disease.
By the time Dean Corll was three years old, he now had a new brother, Stanley, but the frequent fighting of his parents led to a fractured family and soon divorce in 1946. After Arnold Corll was drafted into the military, Mary moved the remaining family to a trailer home in Memphis, Tennessee.
Now being the sole provider, she would often leave the two boys with an elderly couple and other babysitters while she attempted to find work. By 1950 the two boys had developed almost entirely different personalities. Where Stanley was outgoing, friendly, and could be found playing with the other children in the neighborhood; his brother Dean was quiet, described as a loner, choosing to stay inside most days.
Maybe it was the constant illnesses Dean came down with that kept him out of the spotlight, one of which was later realized to have been rheumatic fever causing permanent damage to his heart. At just eleven years old he was diagnosed with a heart murmur.
Yet this didn’t deter Dean, he developed a fondness for music, taking up the trombone in the school band meanwhile his teachers remarked positively on how polite and quiet he appeared to be. At home, his father had come back into the picture, remarrying Mary in 1950 and moving the family to Pasadena, Texas. The foundation of a happy childhood appeared to be coming into place.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last, in 1953 Arnold and Mary divorced again and Mary moved the family to the small town of Vidor, Texas. There she met and married Jake West, a traveling salesman with aspirations of opening his own business. And in 1955 he did just that, starting a small candy company out of the garage of the home, making it a family affair. And the family itself grew as Jake and Mary welcomed a daughter that same year.
The Candy Man
Dean had become an integral part of the family and business, he took on the protective role of his younger siblings, reflecting his mother, and did everything he could for the business, working every moment he wasn’t in school to help the family flourish. Part of his marketing campaign was giving out free samples of candy to the neighborhood children, earning him the nickname The Candy Man.
The nickname at the time reflected the generosity of the sweet teenage boy who watched over his siblings, performed well in school, and took his job seriously. No one could have imagined in just a little over a decade’s time, The Candy Man would rot from within.
In 1958 the family moved yet again to Houston, Texas but this time the move was predicated on good news. After the growing success of their garage candy business, the family was able to open an actual storefront, naming it “Pecan Prince”. Dean was so dedicated to the growing success of the shop, he moved out of the family home in 1962 just to move into an apartment directly above the store.
But in 1963 the family was having its own problems at home, Dean’s mother, Mary, and step-father, Jake, had grown apart, fighting over the business leading them to divorce. Luckily for Dean, Mary kept the candy shop, appointing him vice-president essentially putting him in charge of the whole operation. Unluckily for the teenage employees of the candy shop, Dean’s shell began to crack, revealing pieces of the monster he truly was inside.
Evil Reveals Itself
On one of Mary’s visits to the store, one of the teenage male employees complained to her about several instances where Dean sexually harassed him. The teenager possibly hoped Mary would do the right thing, instead, she fired the teen and never brought it up with Dean.
A year later in 1964, Dean was drafted into the military but returned with an honorable discharge ten months later under the pretense of needing to help in the family business. But the man who came back seemed different, more attuned to the evil he was becoming.
The Corll Candy Company had moved across the street from an elementary school and Dean heavily played into his Candy Man moniker giving out plenty of candy daily to the children, in particular teenage boys. Rumors began to swirl about Dean being flirtatious with the teenagers who hung out and worked in the candy shop. Unfortunately, the rumors were true.
David Brooks
In 1967, 12-year-old David Brooks walked into the candy shop, possibly tempted by the stories of free candy and the prospect of hanging out with the other kids at the pool tables that were installed at the back of the shop.
Like Dean, David was a child coming from a broken home, his parents had divorced years prior which meant David traveled a lot between the city of Beaumont where his mother lived, and Houston where his father and Dean lived. After meeting the Candy Man, David immediately befriended him.
Over the next year, Dean took advantage of David’s situation, offering his own apartment as a place where David could stay whenever he wanted to get away from his father. Dean gave him free access to all the candy he wanted, anything in his apartment, rides on his motorcycle, brought him on trips to the beach, and even gave David money on regular occasions. But eventually, Dean began to ask for sexual favors in return, something the teenager, having been groomed over the last year, wouldn’t say no to.
Around the same time the Corll Candy Company closed, Dean’s mother moved to Colorado and Dean started a job working for the Houston Lighting and Power Company giving him access to a new form of criminality, burglary, paying David to be an accomplice.
Many of the homes burglarized were located in Houston Heights, at the time a low-income neighborhood, and the reports of missing items may have warranted a much greater response from authorities if the Heights hadn’t been dealing with a much bigger problem, missing children.
Elmer Wayne Henley
By May of 1971, 5 teenage boys had disappeared in that year alone, one of the teenage boys helping with the search effort was the 15-year-old Elmer Wayne Henley who had been lifelong friends with one of the missing. As David Brooks often spent time in the neighborhood, he eventually bumped into Elmer becoming fast friends with him.
In the winter of 1971, when Elmer revealed to David his family was having financial difficulties, David had the idea to bring him to meet Dean, possibly to have him join their breaking-and-entering crew.
Elmer and Dean hit it off and the three were soon inseparable. Elmer became a frequent visitor to Dean’s apartment bringing other friends to join in on so-called parties where the main draw was sniffing glue and paint along with drinking alcohol.
Although Elmer wasn’t involved in sexual acts with Dean, he did assist in and was paid for burglarizing several addresses. With the three growing closer through their acts of crime, Dean at one point felt the need to find out how much he could trust Elmer, turning to him and asking if he would be willing to kill a person if required.
Elmer looked into Dean’s eyes and said, “Yes.”
Two years later in 1973, Elmer Wayne Henley sat in the back of a police car having just shot and killed Dean Corll.
PART 2 - The Candyman Murders
“Sometimes monsters are made, not born.”
Seanan McGuire
Too Far Gone
On September 25th, 1970, 18-year-old University of Texas student, Jeffrey Konen, was making his way home to Houston, hitchhiking his way there. Something that today may seem out of the ordinary or considered dangerous but back in the 60s and 70s hitchhiking was much more common, especially for college students without a vehicle looking to get home.
After being dropped off at the corner of Westheimer Road and South Voss Road in Houston, Jeffrey now only needed one more courteous driver to get him home to his parents. And that was when Dean Corll pulled up, offering that last ride.
It was the last time anyone would see Jeffrey Konen alive. Police were led to his body three years later by David Brooks who knew all of Dean’s dark secrets. How David became tangled in Dean’s murderous web started in December of 1970, just two months after having killed Jeffrey Konen by strangulation.
A Vile Relationship
At some point in December, David walked into Dean’s home unannounced, as he did on most days, but this time he found him naked with two boys, each strapped onto a plywood table. David immediately recognized them, 14-year-old Danny Yates and 15-year-old James Glass, both had been brought to Dean’s home by David for parties in the past.
But instead of getting them help or trying to save the boys, David kept quiet and Dean bought him a new car. Danny Yates and James Glass were both raped and murdered. David then helped Dean bury them in a rented-out boat shed.
This would then start a new vile phase in their relationship, instead of just helping him burglarize homes, Dean paid David $200 for every boy he brought him.
On January 30th, 1971 David helped Dean kidnap 13 and 15-year-old brothers Donald and Jerry Waldrop from outside a bowling alley. David was paid his $400 and left them with Dean to be raped and murdered, he only returned later to help bury the bodies at the boat shed.
From March to August, teenagers Randell Harvey, Gregory Winkle, Ruben Watson, and David Hilligiest were all taken by Dean with David’s assistance. Hilligiest was the friend Elmer Henley was looking for when he first met David.
The Poisoning of Elmer Wayne Henley
After Elmer was introduced to Dean, he was adamant about not assisting with the kidnappings, happy with simply being paid to burglarize homes but after his family’s financial situation worsened, he agreed to help kidnap teenagers for Dean. Elmer was told the kidnappings were for a white slave sex ring and was not told about the murders. Believing this lie, in February of 1972, he helped abduct 17-year-old Willard Branch.
The three then worked together to convince 18-year-old Frank Aguirre to show up at Dean Corll’s apartment for a party with drugs and alcohol. After he arrived, Frank was handcuffed and left alone with Dean. Later that same night, Elmer returned to Dean’s apartment finding him torturing and sexually assaulting Frank. Elmer questioned his actions leading Dean to lose his temper, admitting to him he had also tortured, raped, and murdered Willard Branch.
Elmer and David then helped Dean bury Frank’s body.
Henley (left) Brooks (right)
The Three Monsters
The revelation of Dean’s murderous actions did little to stop Elmer from assisting, in fact, it made the trio more dangerous. David Brooks would later tell police that after Frank’s murder, Elmer became more sadistic, something that would be evident soon enough.
The trio’s next target was 17-year-old Mark Scott on April 20th, 1972. Mark had to be taken by force as he put up a fight against the three, ending when Elmer pointed a gun at him, threatening to kill him on the spot.
On May 21st, they kidnapped 16 and 17-year-old Johnny Delone and Billy Baulch. After Dean had raped both teens, Elmer took it upon himself to strangle Billy and shoot Johnny in the head.
By the end of the year, they had killed four more victims, 17-year-old Steven Sickman, 14-year-old Wally Jay Simoneaux, 13-year-old Richard Hembree, and 19-year-old Richard Kepner.
On February 1st Dean Corll killed 17-year-old Joseph Lyles before suffering an injury that prevented him from attacking and killing any more teens for several months. But on June 4th, the trio rejoined to hunt for more victims. Elmer later stated Dean’s demeanor after his injury was one of bloodlust.
From June 4th to July 12th, the three killed another four; 15 year old’s Billy Ray Lawrence and Homer Garcia, 17-year-old John Sellars, and 20-year-old Ray Blackburn who was hitchhiking on his way to see his newborn child.
David’s Break
After these victims, David Brooks temporarily stopped helping Dean and Elmer, not because of any moral reason, he stopped so he could marry his pregnant fiancée, living out a part of life that his victims could never have.
During David’s absence, Elmer and Dean kidnapped three more victims, 15-year-old Michael Baulch who was the younger brother of Billy Baulch, Dean’s previous victim, 18-year-old Marty Jones, and 17-year-old Charles Cobble, whose wife was pregnant at the time of his murder.
On August 3rd, 1973 David returned to the group in time to help trick 13-year-old James Dreymala to enter Dean’s apartment.
It was the early morning of August 8th, 1973, around 3 am when Elmer arrived at Dean’s apartment with two more soon-to-be victims, 19-year-old Tim Kerley and 15-year-old Rhonda Williams. Both had been convinced by Elmer to join him for a drug and alcohol party at Dean’s apartment. Dean became furious when he saw Elmer brought a girl to the apartment, telling him he had, “ruined everything.”
After a little while, Elmer was able to calm Dean down enough to let them all stay and begin sniffing paint and drinking. At around 5 am, Elmer, Rhonda, and Tim all passed out.
Elmer’s Break
Three hours later Elmer awoke, ankles bound and handcuffed, looking over at Rhonda and Tim, they had both been tied up with rope and gagged. Tim had also been stripped naked. Confused and panicked, Elmer looked around for Dean, who came out of a room, waving a gun around reiterating his anger at Elmer for having brought a girl. He then announced he would rape Tim before killing all three.
Somehow Elmer was able to calm Dean down again, then he made him a deal, Dean could rape and kill Tim and Elmer would do the same to Rhonda. He would then help in disposing of the bodies. Dean agreed and freed Elmer from his handcuffs.
Both then brought Rhonda and Tim into Dean’s bedroom, strapping them onto the plywood tables to begin their assault. Dean passed a knife to Elmer so he could cut off Rhonda’s clothes but as he was doing so she woke up. Scared and confused, she could only ask “is this for real?”
Elmer replied “Yes.” Rhonda begged him to do something, pleading for her life and somehow she got through to the monster.
Elmer stood up, took the gun Dean had been waving around previously, and aimed it at him, shouting at him to stop. Dean was furious, raising up, he egged Elmer on to kill him, taunting him, daring him to shoot as he approached him. Just a few steps away from him, Elmer fired.
The first shot hit him in the forehead, Dean lurched forward before the next two shots hit him in the shoulder. Dean’s body turned around as three more shots entered his lower back. His body hit the wall, sliding lifelessly down onto the ground.
Elmer untied Rhonda and Tim, trying to have them all leave together and keep the incident a secret but Tim was able to convince him to call the police instead. The three then went out to the porch to wait for them. As they sat there, Elmer turned to Tim and said, “I could have gotten $200 for you.”
PART 3 - A Negligent Investigation
“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
When the police entered 2020 Lamar Drive in Pasadena they found exactly what the teen outside had told them, a naked and dead Dean Corll, shot six times, and then… that was the extent of their initial investigation.
Attempts at a Confession
The officers went back outside, read Elmer his Miranda rights, and brought him to the precinct for questioning. Elmer was at wit’s end, he didn’t care who knew what he had done, he admitted to the police what atrocities Dean, David, and himself had committed over the last 3 years but the police didn’t want to believe.
Not wanting to believe something more sinister was going on in the Houston Heights neighborhood was a common trait the police displayed over the last 3 years. Any time another teen went missing the families launched searches for them, rallied the neighborhood to help, and called the police.
Their response always amounted to, “the boys simply ran away.” When one heartbroken mother pointed out her son went missing with nothing but a bathing suit and a few cents in change, the police simply responded with, “children run away all the time.”
The Chief of the Houston Police Department at the time cited that running away from home wasn’t a crime and therefore claimed there was nothing the police could do.
It also didn’t help when Dean and his gang would mail fake letters to the parents supposedly written by the teens saying they had found a job somewhere and weren’t coming home. The few times they did this the parents were able to see through the façade, the handwriting didn’t match, and words the kids didn’t know were spelled perfectly, yet the police took this as cries of desperate parents.
So when Elmer Wayne Henley confessed to his crimes, the police attempted to ignore it. They believed the death of Dean Corll was just an accident that happened after the group partied too hard. But Elmer was insistent, he started to name the missing kids and even offered to take them to their bodies.
An Investigation Finally Begins
Finally, the police decided to take the claim seriously, they sent an officer to ask David Brooks to come in for questioning and sent several more officers to the home of Dean Corll to investigate.
In searching, they found the plywood torture tables, nylon straps, handcuffs, sex toys, and thick plastic sheeting. In the backyard they found a wooden crate with several air holes drilled into it, inside they found strands of human hair.
Elmer then took the police to Dean’s boatshed where even more evidence was found, bags of lime, children’s clothing, and a bike belonging to one of the missing children. And then Elmer pointed to where the children were buried. The police found 8 bodies that day, each had been covered in plastic sheeting and each had evidence of sexual abuse and torture.
Back at the police station David Brooks and his father arrived, denying everything except having knowledge that Dean Corll raped and killed two boys in 1970. The following day as Elmer led police to another 11 bodies, 2 in Lake Sam Rayburn and 9 more at the boat shed, David returned to the police station and confessed, although he still claimed to not have murdered anyone himself.
On August 10th, Elmer brought police to two more bodies at the Lake and later with David at High Island Beach led police to two bodies. On August 13th Elmer and David again returned to High Island Beach with police to find another 4 bodies. The total was now at 27, the worst mass murder spree in American History at the time encompassing the last spree of 25.
And then the police called off the search for more bodies. Elmer and David insisted there were more buried at the boat shed and the beach but the police refused to search, either because they didn’t believe the two or because they didn’t believe they would find more bodies. They were wrong.
In 1983 another body, later linked to Dean Corll, was found. Apart from that, along with the first 27 bodies, an arm bone and a pelvis bone were found buried with them and not belonging to any of the 27, meaning there could be more victims.
Forty-two teens went missing from 1970 to 1973 in the Houston Heights area; twenty-eight were victims of Dean, David, and Elmer. There’s also reason to believe Dean had begun killing prior to 1970, during his time as the vice president of the candy company, some employees claimed to have seen Dean cementing over holes, he claimed he was just burying spoiled candy.
Trials and Aftermath
In October of 1973, David Brooks was charged with four counts of murder, and Elmer Wayne Henley was charged with six counts, his killing of Dean Corll was ruled self-defense. Both teens pleaded not guilty.
Both were found guilty. Elmer was sentenced to 6 consecutive life sentences in 1974 but in 1978 following an appeal, his conviction was overturned. In 1979 he was retried and again convicted, sentenced to the same 6 consecutive life sentences. Since then he had been denied multiple attempts at being paroled, his next parole date is October 2025.
David Brooks was sentenced to life in prison in 1975. He died of COVID-19 in May 2020.
Dean Corll was thought by many to be a friendly and kind man but behind his giving personality of a candy man, lived a terrible monster that infected and recruited two teens to help him fulfill his murderous fantasies. The three are responsible for at least 28 deaths, and the families of the 28 helplessly had to endure the pain of knowing their children would never come back, taken by someone they trusted.
In the end, justice seemingly prevailed but is it truly justice when those sworn to protect the neighborhood back in the 1970s turned a blind eye to supposed runaways? One has to wonder how many would have been saved if the police would have taken the reports more seriously.
Update:
In August 2021 a non-profit search and rescue group called Texas Equusearch announced they will be working with the Pasadena Police Department using updated tools to search for any more buried victims of Dean, David, and Elmer.
Update 11/12/2021:
Equusearch founder Tim Miller announced they have completed the search in Dean Corll’s backyard and found no new evidence of victims. This is just one area the Equuesearch team is looking into and have even received information from the incarcerated Elmer Wayne Henley.
Tim Miller wrote a letter to Henley asking him for help in finding other possible burial sites that Corll may have used. According to Miller, Henley has given him a few locations to search.
We’ll be keeping an eye on any new updates and posting them on this page.
Although nothing can change the evil a man and two teens unleashed on a neighborhood, hopefully, this group and the police can help bring closure to some families still missing their boys.
