Send us a text

The shadowy corners of American true crime history hold stories that still have the power to shock us decades later. Among these, few are as disturbing as the case of Dean Corll—a name that deserves to be as infamous as Bundy or Gacy, yet somehow faded from our collective memory.

In the early 1970s, Houston's Heights neighborhood was terrorized by a predator hiding behind the most disarming façade imaginable. Dean Corll, who earned the nickname "The Candy Man" from his work at his mother's candy shop near an elementary school, methodically lured, tortured, and murdered at least 28 young boys between the ages of 13 and 19. His reign of terror went undiscovered not because he was particularly clever, but because society failed these children—dismissing them as "runaways" when they disappeared without a trace.

What makes this case particularly haunting is how Corll manipulated not just his victims, but teenage accomplices Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. and David Brooks, who he paid to bring him fresh victims. The psychological manipulation was so complete that it took years before Henley finally snapped, shooting Corll dead in August 1973 and revealing the horrifying truth to authorities. The discovery of mass graves at a boat shed and various beaches around Houston shocked the nation, though the story was quickly overshadowed by other high-profile crime cases of the era.

Perhaps most disturbing is the revelation that Corll's crimes weren't isolated incidents, but potentially connected to John Wayne Gacy and a nationwide pedophile ring operated by John David Norman—a chilling reminder that even in the pre-internet age, predators found ways to network and share their depravity.

Join us as we examine this forgotten chapter in American crime history, paying respect to "The Lost Boys of Houston" whose stories deserve to be remembered, and whose tragic fates remind us of the vital importance of taking missing children's cases seriously, regardless of assumptions about them being "runaways."

https://archive.org/details/DeanCorllAutopsyReports

Sources:

Ep. 1: “The Candyman” – The inside story of Dean Corll from The Clown and the Candyman on Amazon Music.
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/

By Emma Henderson Vaughan
08-07-2023
https://www.missingkids.org/blog/2023/candy-man-victim


Aayush Sharma
Tue, December 12, 2023
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/candy-man-killer-dean-corll-085614977.html


By William DeLong | Edited By Jaclyn Anglis
Published January 17, 2022
Updated December 27, 2022
https://allthatsinteresting.com/dean-corll-candy-man-killer