August 8, 1973, 8:24 a.m.,
Houston, Texas. An emergency telephone operator named Velma Lines picks up a call.
She hears what sounds like a young man say, “Y'all better come here right now! I just killed a man!”
Not long after, cops arrive at 2020 Lamar Drive. There they find the body of Dean Corll,
a well-respected man known for once being the Vice President of the much-loved Corll Candy Company.
What police don’t know is that this man lying dead on the floor will become known as one of
the most depraved and prolific serial killers in history. He is the thing of nightmares,
a real-life boogeyman whose crimes were so sick they were beyond sadistic.
That young man who made the call and did indeed pull the trigger was 17-year old Elmer Wayne
Henley, a poor kid who’d spent much of his youth huffing solvents and getting into trouble. He’d
had a wretched existence, but he never knew dark until he met the guy everyone in the neighborhood
affectionately called the “Candy Man.” Henley, still shaken, told police he’d
killed Corll because of what had been happening over the last few years,
something he’d played a big part in himself. That was to lure mostly disenfranchised teens into
Corll’s lair. Henley showed police what Corll had called his “torture board”, an eight by two-foot
piece of plywood which victims were held to by hooks. He showed them a set of tools, part of
Corll’s abominable and well-stocked “torture kit”. The police couldn’t believe it when this young man
described in lurid detail what Corll would do to his victims, sometimes for days, before they
were eventually slaughtered on the board. The cops certainly thought the kid was a nut when he told
them there had been dozens of victims tortured and killed by the dead maniac lying on the floor. That
would make him the worst serial killer ever. Henley wasn’t lying. He hadn’t even
gotten started. Before we get to
the absolute horrors that happened at the hands of Corll, let’s rewind a bit.
Dean Corll was a kid with health problems and so he wasn’t exactly the sociable kind,
but he found his footing as a teenager when he started working with his mother and her
second husband making candies. He just loved tinkering around with the candy-making machines,
watching those colorful, sugary balls of goodness come out of the other end.
His mother later spread her wings when she opened the Corll Candy Company in Houston Heights.
She made Dean, then just in his early 20s, the Vice President. In those days,
what was just called “The Heights” was a rundown area populated by mostly poor white families.
Kids ran around in the streets causing trouble, some of them literally with no place to go.
In short, it wasn’t far from being a slum. That’s one reason why young folks loved to
hang out at the candy company. It was a bit of color among the drab buildings. It provided them
with just a little bit of happiness. Every day almost on the dot, Corll would come out,
his hands filled with broken candies that couldn’t be sold. He’d then give them to
the waiting kids who stood there grinning with outstretched hands. Corll was loved for this act
of kindness, by the kids and their parents. Things were not as they seemed, though.
Psychologically, Dean Corll had issues. He’d always been a loner and never had any real
friends. It didn’t make matters easier for him that he was struggling with his homosexuality,
something he kept hidden due to the rampant homophobia back then.
It wasn’t until he was drafted into the US Army in 1964 that he really was sure about his sexuality.
It was during this short stint in the army that he had his first intimate experience with a man.
Still, when he returned to the candy company he was not open about how he felt.
People around him remarked how he flirted with young guys in the factory and they noticed how
animated he became when young guys would turn up to take the free candies he offered every
day. They followed him around as if he was some kind of savior,
hence he got another nickname, “The Pied Piper.” What the adults didn’t know is that like the tale
of the Pied Piper which has a much darker version, Dean Corll had something terrible growing inside
him. He was going to do the unspeakable, and he was in the ideal place to do it.
That’s because the Heights neighborhood was renowned for being home to what some
people called “white trash”, and this was in a city that in the 50s was called “Murder City”
because it was so violent. If you wanted to make people go missing in Houston Heights back then,
let’s just say that another petty criminal vanishing off the streets
didn’t exactly mean a lot to the police. The time was ripe for Corll, who knew very
well that cops took little notice when a kid known for petty theft and inhaling paint thinners went
missing. These kinds of kids were to be Corll’s prey, and there were plenty of them around.
At first, he just hung out with them. He installed a pool table at the candy company where they could
play. He was surrounded by these young street urchins almost every evening after work. He didn’t
complain when they drank booze or smoked weed. To onlookers, the vice president was harmless.
He was always well-dressed, well-spoken, and even though quiet, he was friendly enough. He was also
wealthy, and plenty of cash in your pocket can often give a person immunity to scrutiny.
This is what a mother of one of the murdered kids later said about him:
“He was crazy about children. He’d let them walk all over him. He worked awfully hard. He was like
a man that had nothing on his mind but success.” It was when the factory closed that things turned
bad. According to serial killer author Peter Vronsky in his book “American Serial Killers”
that was when Corll went out in search of victims. Because young men in the
neighborhood had grown up taking sweets from the Candy Man, they all trusted him implicitly.
So, when Corll drove around in his car or his white van and after pulling over, said,
“Get in, I have booze and weed”, people did just that. At his house, he’d throw crazy parties.
Young folks were handed all the booze and drugs they wanted and music blared for hours on end.
Except someone would always pass out. It was then they woke up hanging by hooks
on the torture board with Corll standing next to them holding something from his “torture kit.”
We’d be demonetized if we described what he did to some of his victim’s bodies,
and to be honest, it’s just too sick to describe. Let’s just say Dean Corll may
have read the Marquis de Sade. That’s where the word sadist comes from if you didn’t already know.
After he’d had his fun, which could take days, he would strangle or shoot them and then bury them
under boat storage that he was paying rent for or in some remote area near the beach.
Other times he’d torture his victims in the van itself. He’d fitted it out to be soundproof so
no one could hear the screams of his victims. He didn’t have his board in the van, but he
did have steel hooks attached to the inside. Some of the victims used to work at the candy
company, so they may not have thought twice about going back to his house of horrors or
getting in the van. But many of the victims ended up there because of the guy we mentioned,
Elmer Wayne Henley, along with another teen, David Owen Brooks.
They told other guys in the street that free booze and weed were to be had if they wanted it.
In a statement to police, Henley later said he was paid $200 from Corll for every victim,
but he said he did not stay around for the torture at first. What he saw was Corll handcuff
the kid and then gag him. When the victim was taken to the backroom, Henley was dismissed.
At first, Henley said he wasn’t sure if the victims were killed, but later he certainly
knew because he sometimes helped to bury the bodies. Brooks also later testified,
saying one time he saw Henley take part in one of the murders and he knew exactly what happened
on the torture board. What’s even worse, some of the victims were Henley and Brooks’ friends.
Henley said that he thought he was trapped and he was scared something bad might happen to him.
He told investigators that he tried to join the navy, but it didn’t work out. He also said this:
“I couldn’t go anyway. If I wasn’t around, I knew Dean would go after one of my little
brothers, who he always liked a little too much.” When Corll moved to 2020 Lamar Drive the frequency
in which he asked Brooks and Henley for new boys increased, as did the brutality of the torture.
You’d think someone would have said something, or at least pointed the finger at Corll. After all,
it was clear he only hung out with teen boys and it was clear teen boys kept going missing…Such
is the power of money and a nice suit. Corll was still admired in the neighborhood.
Who could say anything bad about Candy Man? Now we will introduce Rhonda Williams to the
story. She was an attractive teenager who was engaged to an 18-year old named Frank Aguirre.
He was not into crime or drinking like some other kids and held down a good job,
and then one day, he just went missing. Williams looked high and low for him
but he never turned up. Then one day her cool neighbor, a guy named Wayne Henley, informed
her that Frank had been murdered by the mafia. Of course, Henley had delivered Frank to Corll,
like all those other boys whose faces were now on missing persons posters all over the place.
Williams and Henley became friends, often smoking weed and downing beers while talking about the
tough lives they lived. One thing they didn’t talk about, though, was Henley’s dark secret.
One day they were out on their bicycles when she got a flat tire. As they stood there in
the street, a white van pulled up alongside them. The friendly driver was the Candy Man,
whom Williams had heard of, but she didn’t have a clue Henley supplied him with torture victims.
In a cordial tone, Corll said put your bikes in the back of the van and I’ll take you home.
They did just that, with Williams wondering why the van looked like some kind of cage.
But in the end, Corll actually did do what he said he’d do and Williams arrived
home safely. He had no interest in girls. A few weeks later and the date was August
7. In the evening that day, Williams had a huge fight with her hot-tempered father.
She was so scared she had to bolt the door to the room where she was hiding from him.
Her neighbor, Henley, turned up to help. In tow, he had 17-year old Tim Kerley,
who Williams had never met. Williams told them she
had to get away from the house or else her father might do something crazy,
so Henley told her that he knew of a place where they could all go and everything would be alright.
Things were about to get very, very weird, at least for two people in this threesome.
When they got to Corll’s house things weren’t alright at all. With a room door closed so the
other two kids couldn’t hear, Corll shouted at Henley, “You’ve ruined everything by bringing
that girl.” What he meant was he had $200 ready to pay Henley for his next victim,
the unassuming Kerley. How could Corll do his wicked business with the girl there?
Henley told him about the violent father, after which, Corll seemed to calm down a bit. He grabbed
some weed and put it down on the table in front of the teens. Then he came back from the kitchen
with a tin of solvent and three rags and said it was time to have what he called a “huffing party.”
The next thing Henley knew he was waking from a state of unconsciousness with his hands handcuffed
behind him. The other two were tied up and gagged. Obviously, they had no idea what was happening,
but Henley knew exactly how things were going to turn out, maybe for all three of them.
He saw himself losing his manhood on the torture board while the creepiest man in
the world breathed obscenities into his ear. Corll then put a .22 into Henley’s stomach and
again shouted, “You ruined everything!” The other two teens nervously laughed under their gags,
thinking this was some kind of outrageous prank. With the gun at Henley’s head now, Corll said
he would have the boy, but for ruining things Henley had to torture and kill the girl. Henley
nodded his head and Corll removed the cuffs. The other two still thought it was some kind of game.
Williams and Kerley only started to understand the gravity of the situation when Corll removed
all of his clothes. He proceeded to walk over to the now wriggling body of Kerley.
At that moment, William’s gag came loose, and still kind of smiling,
she whispered to Henley, “Is this for real?” She looked for cracks at the side of his mouth
when he said in a deadly serious voice, “Yes, this is for real.”
Henley shouted over to Corll just as he was beginning his cycle of depravity and said,
“Hey Dean, why don’t you let me take the chick outta here. She don’t wanna see that.”
Corll just carried on. Henley, seeing an opportunity,
leaped to the side and picked up the gun. He pointed it at Corll and shouted, “Back off. Stop!”
Corll, thinking Henley was his ever-obedient helper, returned the threat with, “Go ahead
shoot. You won’t do it.” BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG.
With six bullets in him, Corll tried to move but collapsed dead in the hallway, his bloodied
stark naked body slumped against a wall. Henley then made that call, “Y'all better
come here right now! I just killed a man!” After he’d untied Williams and Kerley he
told them the truth, showing them the torture tools, the board, even admitting that if Kerley
had been killed he would have gotten $200. When the cops came, Henley was read his
Miranda rights, to which he shouted back in the cop’s face, “I don't care who knows
about it! I have to get it off my chest!” 27 bodies were found in all, many showing
the marks of the days of the obscene torture they had endured before they died. There was likely at
least another victim, too. Even though movies and documentaries seem to mostly ignore Dean Corll,
at the time, this body count made him the worst US serial killer in history. Even now he’s virtually
unheard of, which is strange when you consider the plethora of movies and documentaries about
less demented and less prolific killers. Henley is still in prison today,
not for killing Corll, but for everything else he did. The prosecutor said the crimes
were the “most extreme example of man's inhumanity to man I have ever seen.”
Henley might get out in 2025 and if he does, he’ll be 65. Brooks died in 2020 while still in prison.
Kerley and Williams naturally never got over the trauma of that day. Kerley had mental issues
throughout his life and was an alcoholic for most of it. In 2008, he died from a heart attack.
Williams was equally traumatized, but she didn’t fall prey to alcoholism. She said all her life
after that incident she wasn’t sure how she felt about Henley. On the one hand, he had led teens
towards perhaps the most horrific death possible, and on the other hand, he had saved her life.
In 2005, she turned up to the prison where Henley was incarcerated and decided to try
and understand just how bad he was. He told her in no uncertain terms that on that day
he’d almost shot her instead of Corll, and so saved himself from police capture.
He would no doubt have also got $200 for doing it. That was all she needed to know. She walked
out of the prison gates and told herself this dark chapter in her life was over.