Mass Killer's Victims Unknown For 35 Years

Texas Serial Killer Racked Up 27 Kills, Three Bodies Remain Unidentifed

(AP)  One after another, as a steamy summer evening faded from dusk to darkness, the bodies of young boys were pulled from the dirt floor of boat stall No. 11.

By night's end on Aug. 8, 1973, eight corpses had been recovered from makeshift graves. The next day, nine more were discovered inside the corrugated metal shed in southwest Houston.

Another 10 bodies were found on remote High Island beach, 80 miles east of Houston, and in a wooded area near Lake Sam Rayburn in East Texas.

Twenty-seven dead. Some as young as 13, none older than 21. All victims of one killer, Dean Corll, and his two teenage accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley and David Owen Brooks.

The term serial killer had not yet been coined, so this unfolding horror was simply called the Houston Mass Murders - at the time, the worst in U.S. history.

Most of the bodies were badly decomposed, their identities obscured by time and elements. A few were buried with mementos that whispered of their youth and the fashions of the day: a brown fringed leather jacket, ankle-high leather boots, shorts in a tie-dyed pattern.

The condition of their bodies hinted of agony in their final minutes.

Some were wrapped in plastic, and encased by a thin layer of lime powder. Others had cords wrapped around their necks, and tape strapped around their feet and mouths. A few had been sexually mutilated. One boy was found curled in a fetal position.

All over Houston, all over the country, parents of missing boys learned of the murders and feared the worst. In the working-class Houston neighborhood where Henley and Brooks lived, where Corll had once owned a candy shop across from an elementary school, where dozens of boys had seemed to vanish over the previous three years, the dread was almost unbearable.

Were our boys, our sons, among the dead?

For some families, the answer would come swiftly. For others, it would take decades. But some have been trapped in a limbo that has stretched from the Nixon administration into the 21st century.

Three bodies remain - three young men, believed to have been 15 to 20 years old, their bodies chilled to 38 degrees in the long-term storage unit of the Harris County medical examiner's office.

The 11th and 16th bodies unearthed from Southwest Boat Storage. One of the young men found at Lake Sam Rayburn.

ML73-3349. ML73-3356. ML73-3378.

Nameless. But not forgotten.

Not by Sharon Derrick, a forensic anthropologist with the medical examiner's office. Not by the families who still contact her, seeking word of long-vanished sons and brothers.

At the coroner's office, the search for their identities has not ended. Instead, it has intensified.

Parents and other relatives are aging. Many have passed away. The window for finding family members is closing - and with it, the possibility of finding the names to match the numbers.

"We need to get the word out, because at some point before too awful long, there won't be anyone living that will have memories of them," said Derrick. "We really need to push this."

She displays three images - forensic facial approximations - that show what the three might have looked like at the time of their deaths.

One wore a navy blue jacket with red lining, and denim jeans with a 30-inch waist. He was buried with an orange plastic pocket comb. Another had cowboy boots, corduroy slacks, red, green and blue-striped swim trunks and a knotted rope bracelet popular in the 1970s.

Also found with the boys: a tie-dyed tee-shirt emblazoned with a peace sign.

"I can't quite let go of them yet. I've spent long hours with their remains and I've seen what they went through and I just want them to be taken care of," said Derrick. She speaks of the three victims with an almost maternal tenderness, her hands brushing across the images as if caressing their cheeks.

Somewhere, in the voluminous police case file of the murders, yellowed news clippings, and 12-inch stack of old missing persons reports, Derrick believes there may be some name, some incident, some clue that might lead her to the right families.

Somewhere, in the hundreds of plaintive letters written by parents trying to find lost sons, there may lie the path to the three nameless boys' identities:

"I have a son missing who was, when last heard from, 'heading toward Texas.' If he is among those found, would you please notify me?"

"Dear Officers! I am watching the terrible news from Houston ... our Dear Son is missing for a long time. He is very handsome and proud and I fear the worst."

"I know you are getting thousands of letters like this one but I just have to try to find out something. ..."

[track-vol]

The article doesn''t say he is gay. Ever. And in fact probably wasn''t even gay at all.
He was married, had two kids if I recall correctly. The abuse he waged was on other males, and of a sexual nature, but that was molestation and sexual abuse, not necessarily homosexual.

[cmp271]

This is very relevant to today. Parent''s don''t take care of their kids like they should. It would be easy to take advantage of a kid, and have this happen again. I feel such sorrow for these kids and their families who learned of their demise.

The purpose of this article is the other two who need to be identified!! Who are they? Doesn''t anyone know? Time is running out! What about class reunions from the area with classmates missing and unaccounted for?

Let''s hope they find out who they are. The killers have been punished, maybe not enough but the memory will kill them in the end. How could they do this to their friends. May they be blessed with sight and haunted by the souls and spirits of the boys they wronged for the rest of their lives in their waking hours and in their dreams!

[cat54mom]

I don''t think this article implies that homosexuals are mass murderers and child molestors, or is trying to. Although this monster did happen to be homosexual, I never related these perverts to the "typical" homosexual while reading this article. The people I know who are homosexual don''t victimize children or want to murder or torture anyone, and would be as horrified by these actions as most of us.

[darnedsocks]

THIS SERIAL KILLER, LIKE JEFFREY DAHMER WERE BOTH SEXUALLY ABUSED FROM CHILDHOOD AND WERE VERY ANGRY PEOPLE. HOMOSEXALITY / SEXUAL ABUSE CREATES THESE VIOLENT MONSTERS!

HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED THAT A LOT OF VIOLENCE IS THE RESULT OF SEXUAL SIN AND PROMISCUITY?

[usbrit-2009]

Dean Corll was shot to death on 8/8/73 (much too good for him - I agree). His 2 accomplices are still in jail in Texas, one on 6 consecutive 99 year terms, the other for life. They were spared the death penalty for co-operating with finding and identifying the victims.

[jegibbons]

I am fascinated by the modern Forensic Science that assists authorities to identify skeletal remains.

However, I believe we will have really made a SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH when we are able to identify these perpetrators before their corpse count rises to these absurd proportions.

[aldon61]

It''s too bad that Henley shot and killed Corll; it was way too merciful. I hope and pray that the identities of the remaining two are found and that their families will have closure in this life.

[passerby2]

Dean Corll did not deserve to get shot in such a way. He should have been skinned alive and thrown to the sharks. As for the other two, I hope they are getting theirs in prison. they should be restrained in the same fashion as their victims two hours a day, while the rest of the inmates have their way with them.

[jn122736]

This case is indeed solid justification for/of the death penalty, especially in extreme cases like such sd this.

[lucy-in-tx]

My heart, thoughts, sadness, and prayers go out to the families of these young boys killed at the very age where they were surely just wanting ''something to fill the summertime hours or after school hours'' with just good old fashioned fun with friends and their buddies. Instead, they became victim to something so terribly brutal, so vile, and so repulsively degrading.
Killed on the brink of young manhood for no other reason than to bring an atrocious, sadistic ''pleasure'' and the thrill of being able to torture these innocent and helpless young teen boys close to the brink of young manhood. Corll, Henley, and Brooks deserved the death penalty, without a doubt.
As articulate, as well educated and as fairly intelligent as I may be, the words just flat escape my expressing my deep, gut-retching anger, horror, and total revulsion of Corll, Henley, and Brooks, although one of them has been killed already, but when you other two die off and reach hell, I know ''people'' who will just be waiting to meet you and take ''care'' of your collective butts because of what you did to mostly innocent children, and you will only think you had it ''bad'' sitting in a Texas prison cell.
As for me, at that time in my life I would have volunteered to be your judge, jury... and executioner.