The Candy Man of Houston

Book excerpt: Dean Corll was an electrician for Houston Power and Light, but most of Henley's friends knew him as the Candy Man, so named because he had labored for years in the candy manufacturing plant that he and his mother had once owned. Corll was famous for giving away candy to the kids. Little did they know that 'the Candy man of Houston' was in fact a sadistic, cruel, remorseless rapist and murderer. Between September 25, 1970–August 3, 1973, Corll killed at least 28 young men and boys, and the actual number of victims may have been more than thirty. They were all systematically lured into his trap and then beaten, tortured, raped and strangled to death, and most victims found bore evidence of sexual torture: pubic hairs had been plucked out, genitals had been chewed, objects had been inserted into their rectums, and glass rods had been shoved into their penis and smashed. In the aftermath, two young men, Elmer Wayne Henley and David Brooks, Corll's two main accomplices in the heinous crimes, confessed that they had been forced to participate against their will, and Corll himself – by now having been shot dead by Henley – was the lone culprit in the torturous murders. But was he? Author Brian Lee Tucker – having culled information from documented interviews, taped confessions, newspaper coverage, magazine articles, court transcripts, provides an in depth, behind the scenes look into who the real culprits were the crimes, which at the time of their discovery, the Houston Mass Murders were considered the worst example of serial murder in American history.