Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
Speaker 1: those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily
Speaker 1: represent those of I Heart Media, Stuff Media, or its employees.
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised from my Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 1: Monster presents Insomniac. I'm Scott Benjamin and everything I'm about
Speaker 1: to tell you is real. This is Insomniac. Beginning in
Speaker 1: nineteen and all the way through August of nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: there was a pattern forming in the community of Houston
Speaker 1: Heights in the northwest central area of Houston, Texas. Young boys,
Speaker 1: lots of them, were disappearing, more than forty in all
Speaker 1: before it finally ended. Parents were frantic reporting the missing
Speaker 1: children to the Houston police, but the police were quick
Speaker 1: to dismiss the cases, all of them as runaways. It
Speaker 1: was a decision that they would later regret, as community
Speaker 1: backlash was intense when the real nature of the disappearances
Speaker 1: was soon uncovered. Occasionally, the parents would receive a note
Speaker 1: from their missing sons, written in their own handwriting, stating
Speaker 1: that they had moved away to find work, or they
Speaker 1: were going to stay with a friend for a while.
Speaker 1: Some even received telephone calls and their missing sons stating
Speaker 1: the same. Of course, none of that was true. The
Speaker 1: boys were forced to write those notes or to make
Speaker 1: those calls to their parents. Now that the circle of
Speaker 1: rust included Elmer Wayne Henley, Dean Coral raised the stakes
Speaker 1: in his deadly game. He offered both of his young companions,
Speaker 1: Brooks and Henley, two hundred dollars for each boy they
Speaker 1: could lure into his house as a victim. Henley waiter
Speaker 1: claimed that he ignored Coral's offer until early nine, when
Speaker 1: his family was in need of the money. The truth is,
Speaker 1: we'll never really know the first time Henley claimed his
Speaker 1: two bounty for the life of a friend, but we
Speaker 1: do know that it became a regular occurrence. Here's the
Speaker 1: way it worked. Henley and Coral came up with a
Speaker 1: plan that coincidentally was almost identical to what John Wayne
Speaker 1: Gacy was doing in Chicago at the very same time.
Speaker 1: They thought of a way to get a team to
Speaker 1: willingly wear a pair of handcuffs. It was almost like
Speaker 1: a game him to them. Henley would first wear the
Speaker 1: cuffs himself behind his back, and he would somehow escape,
Speaker 1: making it look easy. The secret was he had a
Speaker 1: key hidden in his back pocket. The teenage victim would
Speaker 1: attempt the same, but when the cuffs didn't release, Dean
Speaker 1: would pounce on the victim, quickly binding and gagging them
Speaker 1: so that no one could hear them scream. Henley claimed
Speaker 1: that's when he would leave the victim alone with Coral,
Speaker 1: believing that he was to be delivered to the Dallas
Speaker 1: based sex slavery ring. Again, there was never any evidence
Speaker 1: of Dean Coral belonging to such a group. Maybe the
Speaker 1: most chilling part of all this, at least so far,
Speaker 1: is that the teens and younger kids in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: that Brooks and Henley were delivering to Dean Coral for
Speaker 1: just two dollars each were their neighbors and childhood friends,
Speaker 1: the same kids they grew up with and the same
Speaker 1: kids they went to school with. The date was auguste
Speaker 1: and Henley, now aged seventeen, had invited a friend, Timothy Curly,
Speaker 1: aged nineteen, to a party at Dean's house. When Henley
Speaker 1: and Curly made it to Dean's house that evening, they
Speaker 1: drank alcohol, had sniffed paint fumes before leaving around midnight
Speaker 1: to buy some sandwiches David Brooks was not at Dean's
Speaker 1: house that evening. Along the way, the two teens stopped
Speaker 1: near Henley's house, and Henley walked to the home of
Speaker 1: Rhonda Williams, aged fifteen. She was a friend of Henley's
Speaker 1: and her drunk father had beaten her early in the evening.
Speaker 1: She said she wanted to get out of the house
Speaker 1: until he was sober. Henley invited her to join them
Speaker 1: at Dean Coral's home that evening, and the three teens
Speaker 1: drove to Dean's house in Pasadena. It was about three
Speaker 1: am on August eight when the three arrived at Dean's house.
Speaker 1: Dean was extremely angry with Henley for inviting a girl
Speaker 1: to his house, telling him that he had ruined everything.
Speaker 1: Henley explained the situation to Coral, and he seemed to
Speaker 1: calm down as he offered the three of them more
Speaker 1: alcohol and marijuana. As they continued to sniff paint fumes,
Speaker 1: Dean sat back and watched. After two hours, all of
Speaker 1: the teens had passed out. When Henley finally awoke, he
Speaker 1: was lying on his stomach and Dean Coral was placing
Speaker 1: handcuffs on his wrists. He already had his mouth taped
Speaker 1: shut and his ankles were bound together. Both Timothy Curly
Speaker 1: and Rohnda Williams were lying beside Henley on the floor
Speaker 1: similar to his situation. They were both gagged with tape
Speaker 1: and bound with nylon rope. Timothy Curley was already completely naked,
Speaker 1: while Ronda Williams still had her clothes on. When Dean
Speaker 1: noticed that Henley was awake, he removed his gag just
Speaker 1: long enough to tell him that he had made a
Speaker 1: fatal mistake in bringing a girl to the house. He
Speaker 1: was going to kill all three of them after he
Speaker 1: tortured Curly. Dean then shoved a twenty two caliber pistol
Speaker 1: into Henley's stomach and threatened to shoot him. Henley was
Speaker 1: able to calm Coral by telling him that he would
Speaker 1: assist him in the torture and murder of the other
Speaker 1: two teens, but he would have to release him from
Speaker 1: his restraints. Surprisingly, Dean agreed to this and untied Henley
Speaker 1: and then tied Curly and Williams to opposite sides of
Speaker 1: his torture board. Dean's plan was for Henley to rape
Speaker 1: and kill Williams while he raped and killed Curly. By
Speaker 1: now the other two teens had awakened and the reality
Speaker 1: of the situation was sinking in. Both were terrified, and Williams,
Speaker 1: whose gag was now also removed, asked Henley is this
Speaker 1: for real? Henley told her it was, and then as
Speaker 1: Dean if he could take Williams into the other room,
Speaker 1: Coral was busy violating curly and ignored Henley's request. It
Speaker 1: was at this point that Henley made a grab for
Speaker 1: Dean's pistol and began shouting a Dean that he had
Speaker 1: gone far enough. He couldn't go on any longer. He
Speaker 1: couldn't have Dean killing all of his friends. Dean shouted
Speaker 1: back defiantly and taunted Henley by yelling kill me, Wayne,
Speaker 1: and then as he moved closer to Henley, he yelled,
Speaker 1: you won't do it. That's when Henley fired the first shot,
Speaker 1: hitting Dean Coral in the forehead, but the bullet didn't
Speaker 1: go through his skull. As Dean moved even closer, Henley
Speaker 1: fired another two rounds into Coral's left shoulder. This stopped him,
Speaker 1: and Dean staggered out of the room. As Henley fired
Speaker 1: three more rounds into his lower back and shoulder, Dean
Speaker 1: was dead. Henley had killed Dean Coral and saved the
Speaker 1: lives of two of his friends as well as his own.
Speaker 1: Curly and Williams were released in the torture board by Henley,
Speaker 1: and the three of them dressed and talked about what
Speaker 1: they should do next. Henley just wanted to leave, but
Speaker 1: Curly said l they should call the police. They all
Speaker 1: agreed and Henley made the call. Aside from the Corvette
Speaker 1: that Dean Coral had purchased for David Owen Brooks, which
Speaker 1: Dean still had limited access to, he owned another flashy car,
Speaker 1: a Plymouth GTX. It wasn't a coincidence that he drove
Speaker 1: a car like this. It was fast and loud, and
Speaker 1: it seemed to attract the attention of all the teenage
Speaker 1: boys in the neighborhood, exactly what Dean wanted. Coral, along
Speaker 1: with Brooks and Henley, would cruise the neighborhood looking for
Speaker 1: potential victims and then lure the boys either into the
Speaker 1: car or to Coral's home with a promise of candy
Speaker 1: or alcohol, or even a party. But the g t
Speaker 1: X wasn't Dean's only car. He owned another vehicle that
Speaker 1: served a more useful purpose afford a con line van.
Speaker 1: This is the universal sketchy van that your parents warned
Speaker 1: you to stay away from. Prior to his killing, years,
Speaker 1: Coral would occasionally invite the neighborhood kids that lived near
Speaker 1: the candy store to picnic with him at the beach,
Speaker 1: using the van for transportation. Of course, according to those
Speaker 1: that had accepted a ride years earlier, it was much
Speaker 1: nicer at the time, carpeted and clean. However, by the
Speaker 1: time the authority sees the van immediately after Dean's death,
Speaker 1: it was just as creepy an awful inside as you
Speaker 1: might guess. By then, it was in regular use to
Speaker 1: haul dead bodies from Dean's house to one of several
Speaker 1: burial places. It was even rumored that he used this
Speaker 1: as a mobile torture van, similar to the torture room
Speaker 1: he had set up in the bedroom of his house,
Speaker 1: complete with pegboard like walls featuring drilled holes that served
Speaker 1: the same purpose as his torture board did in his home.
Speaker 1: The van's room windows were completely covered by thick blue curtains,
Speaker 1: impossible to see in and impossible to see out. The
Speaker 1: cargo area of the van was no longer neatly carpeted,
Speaker 1: but instead hold a worn out section of a beige rug.
Speaker 1: It was covered in stains. Police also found a length
Speaker 1: of rope and a handbuilt wooden crate with air holes
Speaker 1: drilled in the sides. Around the same time, police found
Speaker 1: a similar wooden crate in Dean Coral's backyard, but inside
Speaker 1: that one they also found strands of human hair, leaving
Speaker 1: little doubt that Dean used these creates to secure and
Speaker 1: transport some of his victims. The sad truth is all
Speaker 1: of the young boys that we're seeing getting into the
Speaker 1: van or car along with Dean and his two accomplices
Speaker 1: between the years of nineteen seventy in ninety three, well,
Speaker 1: they never came back. Initially, Henley was treated as a
Speaker 1: hero saving the lives of two of his friends from
Speaker 1: a real life monster, but Henley soon began to tell
Speaker 1: the authorities a lot more than they ever bargained for.
Speaker 1: He told them how he and David Brooks were in
Speaker 1: charge of finding teenage boys for Dean Coral's rape, torture
Speaker 1: and murder fantasies. He also told them he himself had
Speaker 1: assisted in several abductions and murders and helped to torture
Speaker 1: and mutilate six or eight victims before they were killed.
Speaker 1: He told them about the Southwest Houston boat storage shed
Speaker 1: that Dean Coral had rented, where most of the victims
Speaker 1: had been buried, while others were buried at High Island
Speaker 1: Beach and Lake sam Rayburn. Police didn't want to believe
Speaker 1: his stories initially, that is until he mentioned a few
Speaker 1: specific names of the boys he had helped to a
Speaker 1: Ductford Dean. All of the names he provided were listed
Speaker 1: as missing children. Later that very same day, AUGUSTE. Henley
Speaker 1: agreed to go to the Southwest Houston boat storeage shed
Speaker 1: with the authorities. He claimed he could lead them to
Speaker 1: the bodies of the missing children. When they opened the
Speaker 1: door to the enclosed boat shed, there was some sort
Speaker 1: of junk to be moved, a half stripped stolen car,
Speaker 1: a kid's bicycle, two sacks of lime, and boxes full
Speaker 1: of teenage boy's clothing. When it came time to dig,
Speaker 1: the work was done by prison trustees and the soft
Speaker 1: dirt inside the boat shed was relatively easy to move.
Speaker 1: Almost right away they uncovered the body of a young
Speaker 1: teenage boy, wrapped in clear plastic and buried beneath a
Speaker 1: layer of lime. As they continued to dig, they found
Speaker 1: several more sets of human remains, each in different stages
Speaker 1: of decomposition. Most of the bodies were wrapped in the
Speaker 1: same thick, clear plastic sheeting. Some had been strangled and
Speaker 1: the ropes were still wrapped around their neck, while others
Speaker 1: had been shot. Digging up to cane bodies in an
Speaker 1: enclosed metal shed is hard enough to imagine, but when
Speaker 1: you also consider this was Texas in August, the heat
Speaker 1: and the smell must have been unbearable. On that first day,
Speaker 1: the bodies of eight young boys were pulled from the
Speaker 1: ground in the boat shed. All of them had been sodomized,
Speaker 1: and all of them showed evidence of sexual torture, including
Speaker 1: chew genitals, objects inserted into the rectums, pubic hair is
Speaker 1: plucked out, and one other particularly sadistic treatment. Authorities learned
Speaker 1: through examining the bodies the dean coral had inserted glass
Speaker 1: rides into the boy's penises, and then he would snap
Speaker 1: them off and shatter them while they were inside. The
Speaker 1: pain that's inflicted would make a person beg to be
Speaker 1: put out of their misery. The coral would keep the
Speaker 1: teens alive for several days of this type of abuse.
Speaker 1: While conducting my research for the Dean Coral story, I
Speaker 1: kept returning to the one fact I simply couldn't wrap
Speaker 1: my mind around for the longest time, and to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, I still can't completely understand it. My
Speaker 1: question was this, why weren't the Houston police more concerned
Speaker 1: about the pattern of missing teens Over a relatively short
Speaker 1: span of time, Around two and a half years, there
Speaker 1: were approximately fortys missing from the same neighborhood. Two families
Speaker 1: had lost not just one son, but two kids each,
Speaker 1: teen brothers, all taken at separate times. What had to
Speaker 1: happen for the authorities to finally take action? What was
Speaker 1: the hesitation? Well, I think I found the answer, or
Speaker 1: at least the best explanation I've heard so far. It
Speaker 1: comes from a book written in four by a man
Speaker 1: named Jack Olsen titled The Man with the Candy The
Speaker 1: Story of the Houston mass Murders. In it, Olsen states
Speaker 1: that it was not just one factor, but rather a
Speaker 1: combination of factors that led to the oversight. First, the
Speaker 1: Houston Police Department simply lacked the resources to search for
Speaker 1: missing children's request to do so, or often declined. It's
Speaker 1: also true that teens occasionally choose to leave home in
Speaker 1: pursuit of something new, different and exciting, a perceived new
Speaker 1: life just somewhere else. It was easy for the police
Speaker 1: to tell the parents that they're missing teen was merely
Speaker 1: a runaway, easy because that's what they truly believed it happened.
Speaker 1: It's also important to remember that the term serial killer
Speaker 1: wasn't even coined until ninety Before that it was almost
Speaker 1: unimaginable that a killer of this sort was living in
Speaker 1: the same neighborhood along with the families of the kids
Speaker 1: he was killing. Unimaginable, that is until Henley shot and
Speaker 1: killed Dean Coral in the early morning hours of auguste,
Speaker 1: and the truth was then known. Any way you look
Speaker 1: at it, this was an especially dark time for the
Speaker 1: community of Houston Heights, the senseless destruction of dozens of
Speaker 1: young men, all with the rest of their lives ahead
Speaker 1: of m as they were taken far too young, being
Speaker 1: Coral's oldest victim was twenty years old, his youngest was
Speaker 1: only nine. David Brooks turned himself in at the Houston
Speaker 1: Police Station. He was accompanied by his father as He
Speaker 1: denied being involved in the murders, but stated that he
Speaker 1: did know that Coral had raped and killed two boys.
Speaker 1: In the next day, August nine, Henley accompanied the authorities
Speaker 1: to Lake sam Rayburn, where two additional bodies were found
Speaker 1: in shallow, lime covered graves. At the same time, police
Speaker 1: continued to search the boat shed, and they discovered an
Speaker 1: additional nine bodies on their second day of digging. Henley
Speaker 1: insisted there were still two more bodies inside, but they
Speaker 1: were never located. Later that evening, David Brooks finally gave
Speaker 1: a full confession, admitting to being present while some of
Speaker 1: the killings occurred and helping to bury some of the bodies.
Speaker 1: The next day, August t, Henley accompanied the authorities to
Speaker 1: Lake sam Rayburn, where they were able to find two
Speaker 1: more bodies. That same afternoon, both Henley and Brooks went
Speaker 1: with the authorities to High Island Beach and led the
Speaker 1: police to two more shallow graves. Days later, on August
Speaker 1: Hemley and Brooks returned to High Island Beach with the police,
Speaker 1: where they located four more bodies. Again, Henley insisted that
Speaker 1: there were still two additional bodies to be found on
Speaker 1: the beach, but they were never located. In total, they
Speaker 1: had uncovered twenty seven known victims, with the possibility of
Speaker 1: at least four more. According to Henley. At the time,
Speaker 1: it was the worst killing spree in American history, a
Speaker 1: grizzly record that would only stand for five more years
Speaker 1: until John Wayne Gaze he was captured in after killing
Speaker 1: thirty three young men and boys and burying them in
Speaker 1: his crawl space. In the end, Dean Coral was the
Speaker 1: only one who escaped without suffering to consequences. Maybe he
Speaker 1: paid the ultimate price, losing his life, but it was
Speaker 1: his young accomplices that eventually had to answer for all
Speaker 1: of his wrongdoings, along with her own, of course, and
Speaker 1: they're still paying for it today. In David Owen Brooks
Speaker 1: was found guilty of abduction and murder and received a
Speaker 1: life sentence. He's been up for p roll several times,
Speaker 1: but has been denied every time. His most recent chance
Speaker 1: for freedom came in two thousand and fifteen. He's still
Speaker 1: locked away. Elmer Wayne Henley is currently serving six consecutive
Speaker 1: terms of ninety nine years for a grand total of
Speaker 1: five years in prison for his role in the Houston
Speaker 1: mass murders. With no chance of parole. He'll die in prison.
Speaker 1: There's no question my entire view of the world around
Speaker 1: me has changed. When I started this journey, I wanted
Speaker 1: to know why serial killers did what they did, what
Speaker 1: motivated them, what made them tick and well. I did
Speaker 1: find some answers to those questions. I also found darkness,
Speaker 1: a lot of darkness to go along with it. I
Speaker 1: know they are good people around us, but we should
Speaker 1: also never forget. They're bad people around us too, very
Speaker 1: bad people who are capable of doing things you and
Speaker 1: I could never imagine everything I've gone through my personal life.
Speaker 1: In addition to delving into the lives of these serial killers,
Speaker 1: the sadness and death that I've read about every single
Speaker 1: day has led me to the biggest question of all.
Speaker 1: Is this healthy? We all consume violence in one way
Speaker 1: or another on a daily basis. It's on our televisions,
Speaker 1: it's on the radio, and in our podcasts. Is what
Speaker 1: drives storylines and plots? We turned to true crime as
Speaker 1: a means of enjoyment. I'm guilty of this myself. But
Speaker 1: what are the consequences, the long lasting implications on all
Speaker 1: of us as individuals, as a society. I don't know.
Speaker 1: If I'll ever be able to forget what I've seen
Speaker 1: in my third year so years a true crime infatuation.
Speaker 1: But I'm hoping some of those vivid images will begin
Speaker 1: to fade into the distance as I grow older. I
Speaker 1: haven't been able to entirely stabilize or separate my dreams
Speaker 1: from reality. I'm still working on it. For now, though
Speaker 1: I've reached the end of my fascination with true crime.
Speaker 1: It's time to take a break, and hopefully with that
Speaker 1: break the nightmares that have kept me up all night,
Speaker 1: we'll transition back into normal dreams once again. Well, today
Speaker 1: is one of those unusual days when I actually got
Speaker 1: some sleep last night, about six hours of sleep, and
Speaker 1: I feel pretty good. Um it's almost like a like
Speaker 1: a fog is lifted from my head, like I can
Speaker 1: I can think clearly. I'm kind of ready for the day,
Speaker 1: which is really pretty unusual. They's pasted a few uh
Speaker 1: well years, but um, yash, I don't know. It feels good.
Speaker 1: It feels like today might be a good day and
Speaker 1: I'm kind of looking forward to it. So not all
Speaker 1: doom and gloom all the time, um as far as
Speaker 1: sleep goes, But most of the time it is, but
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, hey, I'm having a good day.
Speaker 1: I'll talk about that too. Insomniac is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV, written and hosted by
Speaker 1: Scott Benjamin and produced by Miranda Hawkins, Alex Williams, Matt Frederick,
Speaker 1: and Josh Than. Music composed by Makeup and Vanity, Set
Speaker 1: and cover by Trevor Eisler. Follow on Twitter and Facebook
Speaker 1: at Insomniac Pod, on Instagram at Insomniac Podcast, and at
Speaker 1: our website insomniac podcast dot com. For more podcasts for
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.