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4. The Candy Man
Dean Corll was a sadistic serial killer that savagely murdered dozens of small boys in the US state of Texas during the early 1970s. He was responsible for the death of a confirmed 27 children. At this time in history, the term serial killer had not yet been coined, and the case was simply known as the Houston Mass Murders. In the early 1960s, the Corll Candy Company was founded by Dean’s mother. The Corll family set up a production facility in their home and turned the garage into a candy store, which was located across the street from Heights Elementary School, in the Houston Heights area of northwest Houston, Texas. Dean became second in command of the candy business and lived in an apartment over the garage. During this time, Dean Corll became known as The Candy Man. He would routinely give out free candy to the local children, in particular teenage boys. The company had a handful of employees and Dean was in charge of hiring the staff, which consisted of teenage children.
He even installed a pool table at the rear of the factory where employees and local youths would go to hang-out and do drugs. At this time, Dean Corll befriended 12-year-old David Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley. In 1968, the Corll Candy Company closed and Dean gained work as an electrician. He killed his first known victim in 1970. Most of the children he murdered were abducted from Houston Heights. He would lure his victims into a van with an offer of a party. He used the help of two teenage boys, David Brooks and Elmer Henley, who were given $200 for every successful capture. He would overpower his victims and perform sadistic rituals. Corll would start by putting his prey on a plywood torture board. He sexually assaulted all victims and usually killed them by strangulation or shooting with a .22 caliber pistol. Upon searching his home, police found multiple wooden torture boards with handcuffs, ropes, sex toys, and plastic covering the carpeted floor. He also owned an odd wooden crate with what appeared to be air holes cut into it.
On August 8, 1973, Henley angered Dean Corll when he brought his young girlfriend over to his house with another friend, Tim Kerley. The group drank and did drugs and each fell asleep, but when they awoke Corll had handcuffed them all. Elmer Henley reportedly convinced Corll to let him go, so that he could participate in the murders. When his back was turned, Henley took the gun and shot Dean Corll six times killing him instantly. Henley then began to tell the police about the deadly rampage and specify where the children’s bodies were buried. It was the first time that the Houston police department had investigated Dean Corll or even connected the series of rash murders to one person. In a highly publicized trial, Brooks was found guilty of one murder and sentenced to life in prison. Henley was convicted of six of the murders and sentenced to six 99-year-terms.
Do Not Enter
During the years of Dean Corll’s murder spree, he is known to have frequently changed addresses in the Houston Heights area. He lived in a trailer park, several apartment buildings and rented rooms at private residences. Specifically, these locations include a metal warehouse in the 500 block of West 22nd Street, a run-down apartment building in the 800 block of Heights Boulevard, a house on North Durham and an apartment on East 7th Street. A collection of old structures in the Houston Heights area have witnessed the worst crimes known to man. Dean Corll buried his victims in one of four separate locations, a rented boatshed in southwest Houston, a beach on the Bolivar Peninsula, in woodland near a cabin on Lake Sam Rayburn (owned by his family) or on a beach in Jefferson County. A small group of people living in Houston believe that the ghost of Dean Corll and his victims haunt the city. Reports have surfaced from his grave stone, which mysteriously reads “PFC US Army.” Why he was still given this honor after death is unknown to me.
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