WARNING: GRAHPIC CONENT – Dean Corll lured dozens of teenage boys – with the help of two other teens – into his various properties in Texas before carrying out his heinous crimes
A seemingly mild-mannered electrician and army veteran hid a monstrous double life as a serial killer that would later earn him a chilling nickname.
Between 1970 and 1973 Dean Corll murdered at least 29 teenage boys in Texas, US.
He worked at his family’s candy business, handing out sweets to local kids – later being dubbed the ‘Candy Man’ killer – and would often lure his victims with alcohol or the promise of a party.
Shockingly, the sinister killer managed to acquire the help of two troubled teens – David Owen Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley – to help him entice his chosen victims to one of his many properties.
Once there, Corll would torture and rape the youngsters for days before either strangling or shooting them.
The disappearance of all the children went largely undetected for years, however, until August 8, 1973. One that day, Henley shot and killed Corll, who was aged 33, during an argument over the killing of two teens, who were friends of the accomplice.
He subsequently led the police to the shallow graves of a number of victims in boat sheds, along desolate beaches and in woods where Corll’s family had a lakeside log cabin.
The details of his boys’ final moments are stomach-churning and around a third of them remained unidentified until the 2000s even.
Authorities found some bodies with chewed genitals, plucked pubic hairs and glass rods inserted in urethras that had been smashed.
Elsewhere, objects had been inserted into rectums and one boy’s mouth was so wide open it was thought he may have screamed to death.
One victim’s severed genitals were also found beside the body inside a plastic bag.
The news of Corll’s depravity was so shocking that even the Vatican sent condolences and the Kremlin condemned the police’s “astounding inaction” at not recognising the killing spree, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Both Brooks and Henley were jailed for their parts in the deaths, each being sentenced to life in prison.
In 2020, Brooks died after contracting Covid and Henley remains the sole survivor of the mass murders. Last year, a documentary called ‘The Serial Killer’s Apprentice’ was released which shared new interviews with the now 69-year-old.
In it, the convicted murderer is questioned over the phone by Dr Katherine Ramsland, revealing his transformation from a manipulated teenager to a killer.
“I believe that I was originally taken over to Dean’s as a victim. What scares me is, did Dean recognise a fellow psychopath?” Henley admitted.
He went on to describe being groomed by Corll at 15-years-old and how the manipulation resulted in his participation in the killings. Henley has been eligible for parole since 1980 but has been denied each time, with the most recent on November 7, 2025.
A childhood friend of one of the victims, Billy Lawrence, told the Independent that Henley should “die” in prison. “They weren’t hoodlums. They weren’t out to get into trouble. They were just innocent young boys that got kidnapped,” said Debbie Stellas.
She went on: “Being murdered was one thing – but being tortured and then murdered was another,” before adding, “what was he gaining by participating in this sickness?”
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