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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. It was August eight and the bullet
Speaker 1: riddled nude body of Dean Coral, age thirty three, was
Speaker 1: stretched out along the baseboard of a hallway in his
Speaker 1: home in Pasadena, Texas, a city within the Greater Houston
Speaker 1: metropolitan area. He fell facing the wall. He had been
Speaker 1: shot six times with a twenty two caliber pistol, and
Speaker 1: he was dead before he even hit the floor. The
Speaker 1: young man who pulled the trigger, Elmer Wayne Henley, aged seventeen,
Speaker 1: was also the one who called the authorities almost immediately
Speaker 1: to tell them that he had just killed a man.
Speaker 1: He and two other teenagers, Tim Curley and Ronda Williams
Speaker 1: then waited for the Pasadena police on the front porch
Speaker 1: of the small home. They knew they had some explaining
Speaker 1: to do, especially the shooter. When the police arrived, the
Speaker 1: three teams were placed in the back of the police
Speaker 1: car and the officers went inside to confirm the shooting
Speaker 1: victim was indeed dead. Dean Coral was dead all right,
Speaker 1: and the three of them were taken into custody and
Speaker 1: questioned about the shooting. Henley, the trigger man, claimed it
Speaker 1: was justifiable homicide, a case of self defense. His story
Speaker 1: was eventually verified, and much later that's the way it
Speaker 1: would be ruled in court too. He would not be
Speaker 1: charged for the shooting of Dean Coral in self defense.
Speaker 1: But as the authorities inspected Dean Coral's home on that day,
Speaker 1: they knew almost immediately there was far more to the story.
Speaker 1: In particular, the items they found in the bedroom troubled
Speaker 1: the most. They pointed to something sinister happening in the
Speaker 1: home on Lamar Drive. The police said, questions, lots of questions.
Speaker 1: The homeowner was dead. He wasn't much help. But beginning
Speaker 1: the same afternoon, due to the guilty conscious of the
Speaker 1: pistol wielding teenager that remained in custody, they would have
Speaker 1: all the answers they were looking for, as he told
Speaker 1: them everything over the next several days, The story that
Speaker 1: Henley told and the grizzly evidence that was quickly being
Speaker 1: unearthed under the watchful eye of the media both captivated
Speaker 1: and sickened not only the entire state of Texas, but
Speaker 1: the rest of the country and even the world. So
Speaker 1: what really led to the early morning murder on August
Speaker 1: Why was Dean Coral shot dead in his own home?
Speaker 1: The authorities in Pasadena, Texas, We're going to learn every detail.
Speaker 1: It was an appalling story that none of them wanted
Speaker 1: to hear, and one that none of them would ever forget.
Speaker 1: I'm Scott Benjamin, and everything I'm about to tell you
Speaker 1: is real. This is insomniac. In late nineteen the entire
Speaker 1: state of Texas watched as a real life horror story
Speaker 1: unfolded right in front of their eyes in print and
Speaker 1: on Tell Vision. But it wasn't just Texas that was watching.
Speaker 1: The entire country and soon the world was gripped by
Speaker 1: the daily reports of what was happening in the Houston area.
Speaker 1: There were cameras there to capture the aftermath of the killings.
Speaker 1: It would soon come to be known as the Houston
Speaker 1: mass murders, and the name Dean Coral would be well known,
Speaker 1: but for all the wrong reasons. Well, he's the main
Speaker 1: focus of our attention. He'll quickly understand why there's simply
Speaker 1: no way to tell this story without including two other
Speaker 1: critical characters, David Owen Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley, two
Speaker 1: teenagers from a suburb of Houston, Texas that somehow found
Speaker 1: themselves in a bad situation, one that only got worse
Speaker 1: as the years passed. Let's begin by introducing you to
Speaker 1: the man at the heart of our story. Dean Coral,
Speaker 1: also known as the Handyman. Dean Coral, was born on
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He and his young brother,
Speaker 1: Stanley had an unhappy childhood, with their parents constantly fighting.
Speaker 1: They divorced in nineteen when Dean was just seven years old,
Speaker 1: but later patch things up and remarried in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: That's when the family of four moved to Pasadena, Texas.
Speaker 1: The second marriage didn't last long, however, and by nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three, Dean Coral's parents were divorced once again. His
Speaker 1: mother married soon after, and by nineteen fifty five, Dean
Speaker 1: and Stanley had a half sister named Joyce. His mother
Speaker 1: made candies at home, pecan pralines, and apparently they were
Speaker 1: good enough that a friend of the family, a pecan
Speaker 1: nuts salesman, encouraged her and her new husband to start
Speaker 1: their own small business, selling them as a way to
Speaker 1: help support the family. The family operated company, Pecan Prince,
Speaker 1: was initially operated out of the family's garage. Dean's days
Speaker 1: were spent at high school, where he was an average
Speaker 1: and well behaved student, and during the evenings he worked
Speaker 1: in the candy shop, running the candy making machines and
Speaker 1: packaging the finished product. He graduated from high school in
Speaker 1: ninety and his family moved to the edge of Houston,
Speaker 1: where most of their candy was sold. In nineteen sixty,
Speaker 1: Dean's mother asked him to move to Indiana to live
Speaker 1: with his widowed grandmother, but he was home again in
Speaker 1: Houston by nineteen sixty two. Dean's mother and stepfather divorced
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three, and she started a new candy
Speaker 1: making business, the Coral Candy Company. Dean was vice president
Speaker 1: and his younger brother, Stanley was secretary treasurer. The first
Speaker 1: year in business, a teenage male employee of the Coral
Speaker 1: Candy Company said that Dean had made sexual advances toward him.
Speaker 1: Dean's mother fired the team in the summer of nineteen
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty four, Dean was drafted into
Speaker 1: the United States Army. He hated it. Just ten months later,
Speaker 1: he requested and was granted a hardship discharge, stating that
Speaker 1: he needed to return home to help his mother with
Speaker 1: the family candy business. It was during his brief time
Speaker 1: of service, during his training at Fort Benning, Georgia, the
Speaker 1: Dean realized that he was a homosexual. This was a
Speaker 1: secret he guard and fiercely he kept that part of
Speaker 1: his life well hidden from nearly everyone, or at least
Speaker 1: he thought he did. In the Coral Candy company moved again.
Speaker 1: This time he was directly across the street from Helms
Speaker 1: Elementary School in Houston Heights, and Dean soon became well
Speaker 1: known as the candy Man, the neighborhood candy maker that
Speaker 1: would give free samples to all the school children, especially
Speaker 1: the young boys. In fact, a lot of people began
Speaker 1: to notice how fon Dean was of being in the
Speaker 1: company of young boys, but allowed it to happen without question.
Speaker 1: At the time, he was a trusted member of the community,
Speaker 1: just a good guy who liked doing nice things for
Speaker 1: the children. In fact, he encouraged his teenage employees, along
Speaker 1: with their young friends to use the back area of
Speaker 1: the candy factory as a hangout. Even installed the pool
Speaker 1: table to make the offer more attractive. This was how
Speaker 1: he came to meet David Owen Brooks, a twelve year
Speaker 1: old from the neighborhood. Dean was known to be a
Speaker 1: little too flirty with the candy company's male employees, but
Speaker 1: there was something that was even stranger about Dean Coral's behavior.
Speaker 1: Sometimes Dean could be seen digging at night near the
Speaker 1: candy shop. He always claimed he was disposing of the
Speaker 1: spoiled candy. Almost every one of Dean Coral's murders involves
Speaker 1: a common feature, his torture board. It's fairly easy to
Speaker 1: find photos of Dean's torture board using a simple online search,
Speaker 1: and when you do, if you look closely, you'll notice
Speaker 1: that he had built more than one of these devices.
Speaker 1: The board shown in some police evidence photos is eight
Speaker 1: ft long and three ft wide, while the board shown
Speaker 1: in other photos appears to be slightly wider yet shorter
Speaker 1: in length, maybe just under six ft long if I
Speaker 1: had to guess based on the county sheriff's deputy standing
Speaker 1: next to it. Dean always kept a torture board close
Speaker 1: at hand in every house he lived in. He hung
Speaker 1: it up on the wall when it wasn't in use.
Speaker 1: It was a simple design, nothing more than a piece
Speaker 1: ofp ply wood with holes drilled in each of the
Speaker 1: four corners. Nylon rope was tied through each of the holes,
Speaker 1: and handcuffs were attached to the nylon rope at one
Speaker 1: end to secure his victim's hands, while the ropes at
Speaker 1: the other end were used to secure their feet. As
Speaker 1: soon as a drunk or drugged teenage boy passed out,
Speaker 1: he was stripped, naked and bound to the torture board.
Speaker 1: At this point, the captive was already as good as dead,
Speaker 1: but Dean made damn sure that didn't happen too fast
Speaker 1: since he knew they wouldn't be able to escape. He
Speaker 1: enjoyed the luxury of time and spent literally days molesting, torturing,
Speaker 1: and eventually killing his helpless victims. In the end, Dean
Speaker 1: Coral's victims were all killed either by gunshot or strangulation.
Speaker 1: I imagine some, if not all, of his young victims
Speaker 1: actually welcomed their own death as a form of relief
Speaker 1: after having endured day after day of excruciating pain and
Speaker 1: violent sexual assault. All Well strapped a Dean Coral's torture board.
Speaker 1: But Dean Coral and his torture board are only part
Speaker 1: of the story. There were other monsters in this nightmare too.
Speaker 1: It was nineteen sixty seven when David Owen Brooks first
Speaker 1: met Dean Coral. Brooks was in the sixth grade and
Speaker 1: he was one of the many many young boys that
Speaker 1: used coral Candy Company as a hangout, but the two
Speaker 1: quickly became friends. Brooks looked up to Coral as a
Speaker 1: father figure, and Coral well, he had other ideas. They
Speaker 1: were an unlikely pair a twelve year old and year old,
Speaker 1: but for a while the two seemed to be inseparable.
Speaker 1: In fact, at one pot around David Brooks even moved
Speaker 1: in with Dean Coral. It was later discovered that from
Speaker 1: the age of just twelve, bro would allow Coral to
Speaker 1: perform oral sex on him in exchange for gifts or cash.
Speaker 1: The Coral's obsession with hanging around with young teen boys
Speaker 1: didn't end with his friend David Brooks. In fact, he
Speaker 1: found a comforting to have young boys around a lot.
Speaker 1: He often picked up hitchhikers, and in late nineteen he
Speaker 1: began a downward spiral that wouldn't end until the summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy three. About a month before the Thanksgiving holiday,
Speaker 1: Dean Coral committed his first known murder. It was a
Speaker 1: University of Texas student named Jeffrey Conan. He was an
Speaker 1: eighteen year old freshman and he was last seen on
Speaker 1: September as he was hitchhiking home to Houston. He was
Speaker 1: picked up by Coral, who took him to his apartment,
Speaker 1: bound his hands and feet, gagged him, and then sodomized
Speaker 1: him before killing him and dumping his body. The area
Speaker 1: that Coral lived in had a lot of teens, so
Speaker 1: there were plenty of potential victims for him to choose from,
Speaker 1: and luring them to his place was easy. All it
Speaker 1: really took in most cases was the promise of a party,
Speaker 1: which included paint sniffing, glue sniffing, pot smoking, and alcohol,
Speaker 1: usually to the point of blacking out, and that's when
Speaker 1: Coral would attack. But this tactic wasn't always necessary to
Speaker 1: get what he wanted. A lot of the boys that
Speaker 1: Coral had to his place were desperate for money, like
Speaker 1: David Brooks, that allow him to perform Oral sex on
Speaker 1: them for five dollars. The real problem again when oral
Speaker 1: sex wasn't enough for Dean Coral. He wanted penetration, but
Speaker 1: a lot of the teens refused that, and those were
Speaker 1: the ones that ended up dead. One of the stories
Speaker 1: that Brooks would later tell the police involved Dean Coral
Speaker 1: caught in a very compromising position with a couple of
Speaker 1: young teens. It was and Brooks had gone to Dean's
Speaker 1: of Parpin without calling a head. When he arrived, Dean
Speaker 1: was walking through the house naked and he was furious
Speaker 1: with Brooks. Brooks was a little confused, but on his
Speaker 1: way out he caught a glance of what was going on.
Speaker 1: In the bedroom. He could see two young boys naked
Speaker 1: and tied to Dean's bed. The next time Dean saw Brooks,
Speaker 1: he explained that he was part of a group of
Speaker 1: men that's old and traded young boys, a sexual slavery
Speaker 1: ring based out of Dallas. This was never proven to
Speaker 1: be true. Later, Brooks would learn that both of the
Speaker 1: boys were killed and their bodies dumped. In an attempt
Speaker 1: to buy Brooks's silence regarding the rape and murder of
Speaker 1: the boys, Coral promised to buy Brooks, who was now
Speaker 1: only a few months shy of sixteen years old, a
Speaker 1: new car, and he made good on that promise, buying
Speaker 1: Brooks a green Chevrolet Corvette. But the Corvette served a
Speaker 1: dual purpose. Coral and Brooks would be able to cruise
Speaker 1: the streets together in a car that would attract the
Speaker 1: attention of teen boys. They used it in their search
Speaker 1: for new victims. In the winter of David Brooks brought
Speaker 1: another team with him to Dean Coral's home, potentially as
Speaker 1: another victim, but the boy impressed Coral and he felt
Speaker 1: that the team might be an asset to his operation.
Speaker 1: That boy was Elmer Wayne Henley, aged fifteen, a year
Speaker 1: younger than David Brooks. The three quickly became good friends
Speaker 1: and even committed some break ins together as a test
Speaker 1: of Henley's loyalty to the other two. Henley never told
Speaker 1: anyone about their shared crimes, and after he had proven himself,
Speaker 1: Coral asked him if he'd be willing to kill for him.
Speaker 1: Henley said yes. When the crime scene investigators first called
Speaker 1: to the home at Lamar Drive in Pasadena, even as
Speaker 1: Dean Coral's body was still laying in the hallway, they
Speaker 1: knew there was going to be a lot more to
Speaker 1: the story than just a self defense shooting death. They
Speaker 1: quickly discovered Coral's bedroom was set up as his own
Speaker 1: private torture chamber. In his room, they found the plywood
Speaker 1: torture board. It was stretched out on top of a
Speaker 1: thick sheet of plastic that covered the entire floor. He
Speaker 1: also had several tools he used for his various torture techniques,
Speaker 1: more than a toolbox full, including the players he used
Speaker 1: to plug out his victims public cares. One by one,
Speaker 1: the authorities found lengths of rope, rolls of tape, a
Speaker 1: large hunting knife, and spools of thick, clear plastic, the
Speaker 1: same plastic used to protect the carpet. They also found
Speaker 1: eight pairs of handcuffs, an electric motor with the wires
Speaker 1: attached that was used to shock the victims genitals, and
Speaker 1: an assortment of dildos and glass rods, lots of glass rods.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you more about those later, but I will
Speaker 1: tell you this right now. Dean Coral's use of those
Speaker 1: glass rods is easily one of the most horrific, most painful,
Speaker 1: and cruelest prolonged torture tactics. I've ever heard of, and
Speaker 1: judging by the number of broken glass rods they found
Speaker 1: on his floor, it was also one of his preferred methods.
Speaker 1: But it seems that Dean didn't always require tools to
Speaker 1: torture the teens. One of his victims angered him so
Speaker 1: much the Dean bit off his genitals while he was
Speaker 1: secured to the torture board. Later, when that particular victims
Speaker 1: remains were exhumed, they found his penis and testicles in
Speaker 1: a plastic bag separate from the body. The forensic researchers
Speaker 1: soon discovered that, based on the size and the shape
Speaker 1: of the wound, the boy was emasculated by a single
Speaker 1: violent bite from his attacker. Dean Coral's bedroom was a
Speaker 1: scene of so many horrifying crimes, and if you were
Speaker 1: a teenage boy living in Pasadena, Texas in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have made it out of their live. Dean
Speaker 1: Coral was going to offer as two young apprentices a
Speaker 1: perverse and sadistic business opportunity. What exactly was this deadly
Speaker 1: trio up to between December of nineteen in August of
Speaker 1: ninety and what awful secrets will be revealed in the Aftermath,
Speaker 1: Next Time One. Insomniac Yeah. 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 Thine. 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