AUSTIN, Texas — It happened in a ranch-style home on a quiet street in Pasadena, Texas in the early 1970’s.
The man who lived there, Dean Corll, murdered dozens of teenage boys who had been lured to his house with the promise of beer and marijuana. He was dubbed “The Candyman” because he once owned a candy store.
Corll’s two accomplices – Elmer Wayne Henley and David Owen Brooks – would get paid for finding the young victims and bringing them to Corll where they would be sexually assaulted, tortured and killed.
Eventually, Henley turned on Corll and killed him during an argument, then confessed to police about the murders.
In the summer of 1973, Henley led police to the bodies of his victims who Corll buried on the beach between Galveston and Port Arthur, to a boat shed in Pasadena, and to the Angelina National Forest in East Texas.
Authorities recovered the bodies of 28 teenage boys and young men who had been tortured and murdered between 1970 and 1973.
Henley and Brooks were convicted of murder in 1974 for their role in some of Corll’s killings. Brooks died of COVID-19 while in prison in 2020. Henley’s parole hearing is scheduled to take place in 2025.