The Serial Killer Nobody Talks About - Real Life "Candy Man"

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  Drve. 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 Drve 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.