Corll
Henley
Corll's Pasadena Residence
Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on Christmas Eve of 1939, is born into a family (Mary Emma Robinson and Arnold Edwin Corll) that will disintegrate into divorce through constant quarreling (twice). Growing up, Corll spends time in Fort Wayne, Memphis, Tennessee, Pasadena, Texas, Vidor, Texas, and Houston Heights, Texas. Young, he is shy and serious, and seldom socializes with other children (part of the problem comes from having rheumatic fever and not being allowed to participate in P.E. classes). Mother married for a third time to a traveling clock salesman named Jake West, Corll throws himself into two activities ... playing trombone in his high school's brass band, and in between classes both day and night, helping run the candy company West and his mother create (making a treat called "Pecan Prince" that West sells on the road, and after Mary divorces West in 1963, for the new candy company, the "Corll Candy Company") in the family garage (her son will be the company's first vice-president). At the company, the first warning signal is raised when a male teenage worker accuses Corll of unwanted sexual advances ... an accusation that results in Mary firing the teenager. Drafted into the U.S. Army on August 10, 1964, Corll receives his basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, serves at Fort Benning, Georgia as a radio repairman, and after ten months, takes a honorable discharge to go back to helping his mother run the candy company.
Youngster
Corll - 24
Back in Texas, Corll goes right back to helping run the candy company, and becomes popular with the children in the area (especially male teenagers) for handing out free candy (and sometimes money) when the manufacturing effort shifts to across the street from Helms Elementary School, and for the parties and pool games that take place at the rear of the company. Competition with his father-in-law and hard times though eventually close the candy company in 1968 and Corll will be employed as an electrician testing relay systems with the Houston Lighting and Power Company for the rest of his life, but not before he meets 12-year-old David Owen Brooks while giving out treats in the neighborhood. Gradually, going on outings to south Texas beaches, partying in Houston, staying in Corll's apartment after his parents divorce and his father moves to Beaumont, and taking money to run errands for Corll, a sexual relationship develops between the two that morphs into Brooks procuring other youngsters for Corll, and then, helping Corll become a serial killer.
Brooks
The vanishings of young men and male teenagers begins in 1970 and lasts until 1973, a time period in which Corll, assisted by first by Brooks, and later, by Elmer Wayne Henley, murders at least 28 individuals ranging in age from 13 to 20. Usually lured into either a Ford Ecoline van, a Plymouth GTX (both owned by Corll), or a 1969 Chevrolet Corvette on the pretense of giving a youth a ride or with the lure of partying, liquor, and drugs, the victims are usually taken from a low-income area northwest of downtown Houston called Houston Heights. Conveyed to Corll's home, booze, drugs, magic tricks, or plain force get the chosen victim into handcuffs, stripped, tied up in the killer's bed or held to a torture board the candy man creates. Bound, the youngsters are beaten, tortured, and sexually assaulted (sometimes for days), before Corll tires of his fun and kills the men by strangulation or bullets from a .22-caliber pistol. Remains wrapped in plastic lining, the bodies are then placed in one of four different burial grounds ... a rented pool shed, a beach on Bolivar Peninsula, the woodland at Lake Sam Rayburn (where Corll's family had owned a cabin), and a beach in Jefferson County. As with many serial killers, Corll likes keeping souvenirs of his vicious conquests and likes keeping the keys of those he murders. And through it all, when concerned parents actually do contact the police about their vanished children, it is all put down to just being young folks looking to explore life without their parents knowledge or okay.
Torture Board & Bondage Items
Crime Scene
Unidentified Victim
It is unknown what sets off Corll to murder, but on September 25, 1970, he kills for the first time, strangling to death Jeffrey Konen as the 18-year-old youth is hitchhiking home to his parents' place in Houston from the University of Texas at Austin. At around the same time as the disappearance of Konen takes place, Brooks walks into Corll's home and interrupts the killer sexually savaging two teenagers tied to his bed, and after being told later that his friend murdered the boys, takes on the job of finding more victims for the candyman for booze, drugs, and $200 service charge! And so it goes in Houston ... Konena first, then there is James Eugene Glass (14, lured away from an evangelical rally), Danny Michael Yates (14, taken with his friend Glass), Donald Wayne Waldrop (15, targeted after visiting their contractor father at his latest build site, an apartment next t Corll's home), Jerry Lynn Waldrop (13, vanished with his brother), Randell Lee Harvey (15, taken on his way home from his job as a gas station attendant), David William Hilligiest (13, last seen with Winkle walking to a local swimming pool), Gregory Mallory Winkle (16, a former Corll Candy employee, last seen with Hilligiest walking to the same pool as his friend), and Ruben Willfard Watson Haney (17, taken on his way to a local movie theater).
Konen
Donald & Jerry Waldrop
Introduced to Corll by Brooks as his next victim, Elmer Wayne Henley is instead spared by the killer and becomes one of his procurement acolytes. Helped by his associates, in 1972, Corll vanishes at least 10 more Houston youths ... Frank Anthony Aguirre (18), Mark Steven Scott (17, a friend of both Brooks and Henley), Johnny Ray Delome (16, last seen walking to a local store in the Heights), Billy Gene Baulch Jr. (17), a former Corll Candy employee), Steven Kent Sickman (17), Roy Eugene Bunton (19, disappeared on his way to work at a local shoe store), Wally Jay Simoneaux (14, lured into Brooks' Corvette with party promises), Richard Edward Hembree (13, last seen with his friend Simoneaux outside a grocery store), Willard Karmon Branch Jr. (18, son of a Houston police officer who dies of a heart attack while searching for his missing son), and Richard Alan Kepner (19, he goes missing on his way to call his fiance from a pay phone). And in 1973, Corll takes out nine Texas youths before being stopped by Henley on 8/8 ... Joseph Allen Lyles (17, an acquaintance of Corll's that lives on Brooks' street), William Ray Lawrence (15, a friend of Henley), Raymond Stanley Blackburn (20, a married man who makes the mistake of trying to hitch a ride to visit his wife in Baton Rouge), Homer Luis Garcia (15, mets Henley while going to a Bellairie driving school), John Manning Sellars (17, killed two days before his eighteenth birthday), Marty Ray Jones (18, last seen walking with his friend Cobble and Henley), Charles Cary Cobble (17, with Jones when they both vanish), and James Stanton Dreymata (13, last seen riding his bike in Pasadena).
Marty Jones
Murderer murdered by Henley, the teenager calls police at 8:24 in the morning, then waits with the other two teens on the porch of Corll's home for the authorities to arrive, which they do a few minutes later. Finding Corll's body inside his home, the police investigation keeps expanding (an initial search of Corll's home finds a room covered in thick plastic sheeting, a plywood torture board measuring 8 feet by 3 feet that has handcuffs or nylon straps attached to its four corners, a large blood stained hunting knife, sheets of plastic wrapping, a portable radio attached to a battery cell enabling its sound to be amplified beyond the manufacturer's maximum setting, an electric motor prepped for giving out jolts of juice to those unfortunate enough to be strapped to the devilish device, eight pairs of handcuffs, an assortment of dildos, various pre-cut lengths of rope, and in the backyard, a wooden crate with air holes drilled in its sides that contains human hair fibers. And the van parked in the driveway has its rear windows covered by opaque blue curtains, contains a coil of rope, a portion of beige rug covered in soil, another wooden containment crate with air holes, and pegboard walls built into the back of the vehicle featuring numerous rings and hooks for tying down items) until the story of the Candyman killings engulfs first Houston, the Texas, then the country, and finally, becomes an international tale of horror and tragedy.
Corll's Body
Dead Candyman
Big Story
Henley and Brooks arrested, bodies dug up, the two Corll associates are indicted by a grand jury after six hours of testimony (bond is set at $100,000 for each of the youths) and go on trial separately for their role in the killings in 1974 and 1975. Henley's trial begins on July 1, 1974 in San Antonio ... a slam dunk that sees the prosecution introduce 82 pieces of evidence and the jury deliberate for only 92 minutes, the youth is found guilty of six murders and is sentenced by Judge Preston Dial to spend 99 years beyond bars consecutively for each of the killings (that's 594 years for those that don't care for math). Conviction appealed, Henley gets a retrial in 1979 (for the first jury not being sequestered), and in his second trial the jury takes a little over two hours to come up with the same verdict, and the same sentencing. Brooks goes on trial on February 27, 1975 for four murders. His appearance in court lasts less than one week and his jury only takes 90 minutes to find the teenager guilty of murder, with a sentence of life in prison for each of his killings ... his appeal for a second trial is denied in May of 1979. Guilty as charged, Henley is serving his sentence at the Mark W. Michael Unit in Anderson County, Texas, while Brooks spends his time behind bars at the Terrell Unit near Rosharon, Texas until he dies in a Galveston hospital on May 28, 2020 at the age of 65 due to exposure to COVID-19.
Henley In Custody
Brooks
Digging Up Victims
Gruesome humanity at it's worst.
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