A 33-year-old Houston electrician whose mass murder of boys was brought to light when he was shot dead by an accomplice.

On 8 August 1973 the 18-year-old Wayne Henley told the police that he had killed Corll in his house at Pasadena. Corll, a homosexual with sadistic tastes, had been shot 6 times with a .22 pistol. His house had a torture room in which the furniture consisted of a wooden board with handcuffs fitted at each corner.

Henley told of Corll’s dope parties, and how he sodomized boys on his torture board before killing them. Reference to the names of two boys known to be missing led the police to a boat-shed rented by Corll in Houston. The bodies of seventeen boys were recovered from under the floor of the shed, and ten more were found at two other burial sites. These corpses represented the largest mass murder in America’s history at that time.

Henley said that Corll, whom he had known for about two years, paid him $200 a head to procure boys for him. Corll loved to play with children; he took them for rides in his van and gave them candy. He was known as ‘a real good neighbour and a real good guy’.

Corll arranged children’s parties to help him and his accomplices, Henley and another youth, set up prospective victims for his torture room. He strangled and shot the boys, after indulging in sexual abuse and mutilation. But the murder mill ground to a halt in Pasadena, when Corll lost his domination over his procurers and was shot dead by Henley. Henley told how after a dope session with Corll woke up on the torture board, he talked his way out and when released, he shot Corll dead.

Wayne Henley, who admitted killing some of the victims, was tried for murder in July 1974. Found guilty, he was sentenced to six 99-year terms of imprisonment. His killing of Dean Corll was judged to be a justifiable homicide.