Dean Corll

Dean Corll was born on December 24, 1939 on Fort Wayne Indiana to Mary Robinson and Arnold Edwin Corll. He had a younger brother Stanley. His parents separated in 1946.

After the separation of his parents, Corll along with his mother shifted base to Memphis, Tennessee. As a child, he was shy and timid. He rarely socialized with children around but was fond of them. Corll suffered from an undiagnosed rheumatic fever that led to heart murmur.

Corll’s mother remarried Jack West in 1955. Together they started a small family candy company named ‘Pecan Prince’. Young Corll together with his brother operated the candy making machine and packed the product while his father sold them on his sales route.

From 1954 to 1958, he attended Vidor High School where his only interest was in the brass band where he played tambourine. After he graduated from Vidor High School in 1958, his family shifted near Houston. Two years later, he moved to Indiana with his widowed grandmother.

In 1962, Corll returned to Houston to help in his family’s candy business. Following year, after his parents divorced, his mother started a new candy business, Corll Candy Company, of which Corll served as the vice-president.

What turned Dean Corll into a murderer and sexual assaulter is unknown but by 1970, he had turned himself into one. His first ever victim was an 18 year old freshman Jeffrey Konen whom he caught on September 25, 1970 by offering him a drive. Konen was strapped to a plywood torture board and sexually assaulted.

After Konen, Corll did not stop his brutal assault, his next target being James Glass and Danny Yates. He picked the boys from the neighbourhood of Houston Heights and lured them into his car. He then sexually assaulted them and buried them in the boat shed. His friend and accomplice, David Brooks helped him in the process.

Corll next picked up Donald and Jerry Waldrop, the brother duo and took them to an apartment on Mangum Road. He then raped, tortured, strangled and subsequently buried them in the boat shed. By May 1971, Corll abducted and killed three more victims (Radell Harrvey, David Hilligiest and Gregory Malley Winkle). Between August and September 1971, Corll changed his address twice and abducted three more victims. The trio met with the same fate as the other boys.

During the winter of 1971, Henley was lured to Corll’s house as an intended victim by David Brooks. However, instead of victimizing the boy, Corll lured him to a deal –$200 for every boy that Henley managed to get to Corll’s apartment. Corll informed Henley that the boys were used for the white slavery ring operating from Dallas.

Henley accepted the offer and started bringing boys to Corll’s house. His first ever ‘client-victim’ was a boy Willard Branch from Houston Heights in February 1972. A month later, he lured Frank Aguirre to Corll’s apartment. It was during this time that Henley first got acquainted with Corll’s real intention. Despite knowing the fact that Corll used the boys for his lust and later murdered them, Henley did not move back and instead further helped Brooks and Corll in this vicious act.

Dean Corll was murdered by his own accomplice, Elmer Wayne Henley, on August 8, 1973. Henley who had once been a confidante of Corll had been exhausted by the latter’s brutality over young boys and finally shot down Corll.