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.
