Man with Candy

The Man With The Candy was released in 1974, a year after Dean Corll was shot dead by his teenage accomplice, Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. ("Mama, I Killed Dean") This book came out before the trial and sentencing of Wayne Henley and David Brooks. By default, it is incomplete and outdated. It is not the most informative book but still an enjoyable read. Jack Olsen's style is visual and inviting. He connects with the reader on a very human level. I was pleasantly surprised by the authors use of humour that added little warm bursts to this story steeped in sadness. This book deals with the issues and errors that allowed Dean Corll to remain undetected and get away with murder. This is not a biography of a serial killer, unravelling the mysteries of their upbringing and psyche. The first 50 pages don't even mention Dean Corll. The book begins in the neighbourhood that was home to both the victims and killers. It describes the culture of Houston and the lack of protection given to working class civilians. It's about the lack of resources in law enforcement that make them ineffective and lead to corruption. It's about the misuse of freedom that gives life to the predator. This is a book about the people whose lives were ruined by a sadistic murderer. Dean Corll deserves to be forgotten and he died without a chance to tell his own story. It's a good thing he never experienced the fame and notoriety given to so many serial killers.

Well written account of a serial killer. Some interesting facts on the history of the Houston town where the murders took place.

First off, the book itself was in very excellent condition. The books content is a very somber and hideous account of one of the most tragic and horrifying murders of young kids this country has ever seen. From 1971 to 1973 many young teen-agers met the end of their lives in very torturistic ways. Any-way, This case was not widely reported back then. By todays standards of media reporting; this case would have been front page news for literaly 6 months or more. Never a more sinister serial killer than this guy, Dean Corll.(The sickest of the sick) for sure. Lanc B.

It was in the early 1970s when young pubescent boys began to disappear in and around Houston Texas and parents began to go mad with worry and grief. The police, assuming that, without evidence to the contrary, all missing children are runaways and running away from home is not a crime, refused to look. This is not uncommon. It was the same kind of problem John Walsh ran into and confronted when his son Adam went missing in 1981. It was a time before the Amber Alert, when only a desperate parent can know how crucial every minute can be. It was 1973-74 when the tortured, mutilated bodies were uncovered by police, led by David Brooks and Wayne Henley, alleged apprentices of the so called "Candy Man" Dean Corll, already murdered by Wayne Henley in "self-defense." Apparently there aren't many books on these murders. Crimelibrary.com has a good section on Dean Corll. This book is well-written, and reading between the lines one can understand why there is such an outcry against homosexuality, if this is all one knows about homosexuality. Dean Corll is described as a "Pied Piper" who was always surrounded by kids, knowing how to relate to them on an emotional level better than he related to adults, and manipulating them with candy, drugs, alcohol, and sex. I suspect these crimes were far more about homophobia and the power it has within the closeted homosexual in a world where guilt and shame hold the cards. It's how perpetrators work. They learn all your secrets -- and then they use them against you. That said, this is a well-written book, a definite page-turner. I read it in 3 days. I am now obsessed with the story, which is far from tied up neatly. The two boys are serving time for their involvement based on confessions. There was no trial. The police dug up 27 bodies and then stopped looking, even though there are many more children unaccounted for and individuals who pleaded with the police to look in suspicious areas, only to be refused. The alleged "Candy Man serial killer" is dead, so he's not talking. Did the murders then stop? I doubt it. But the case is closed.

Its always amazed me that this murder case has only inspired 2 books (Olsen's and a quickie paperback that came out in 1974 called "mass murder in Houston" Its every bit as good as this one.)Dean Corll has got to rank as one of the most horrific serial killers of the 20th century in body count and the sheer horror and suffering he submited his victims to. My Only real objection to this book is that Olsen though a talented writer doesnt do a very good job of making the sheer evil and horror of Corll's crimes felt by the reader on any visceral level.Indeed he tends to make them seem almost mundane by his detached and at times glib tone.At times he does seem to find the social and political history of Houston far more facinating then the crime and its aftermath itself.(far more facinating then the reader is likely to)such an exaustive treatice is a bit much just to put forth the simple proposition that there may have been something about Houston in 1973 that was conducive to social,economic and moral deadzones in which a Dean Corll could flourish.To be fair Houston at that time was not exactly courting journalists that wanted to cover the murders.I have seen Jack Olsen give far more penetrating and insightful effort to far less interesting true crime stories then this one.This book raises far more questions than it answers about Dean Corll,Wayne Henley and David Brooks,Corll's victims and the time and place that created them.I still feel that a wonderful and long piece of writing could be done about this case and I hope it will someday,but for now its either this book or nothing.

Dean Corll, a gay rapist and predator was responsible for the deaths of between 20-30 boys in the Houston area (a Houston neighborhood called "The Heights" was his major hunting grounds) during the early 1970s.Corll, a worker in a candy factory used candy and promises of fishing trips to lure adolescent boys into his shop. Once he gained access to the boys, he chained them to a piece of plywood and subjected them to sundry atrocities before killing them. He prided himself on being a traveling mortician; he buried most of the boys in a shed nowhere near his property. Others were buried in secluded spots.Corll's sick, twisted career is believed to have started in 1970 with the disappearance and subsequent deaths of Jerry and Donald Waldrup. Between 1970-1973 some 25 boys were discovered to have been killed by Corll. Two young men, Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr. and David Brooks were used to procure the boys for Corll. The depraved candy man even bought David a car for his efforts. Matters came to a head when Henley allegedly shot Corll to death during the summer of 1973. He claimed he shot the man in self defense. He and Brooks are currently serving time for their involvement with the candy man.