Speaker 1: Don't take candy from strangers. It's one of the first
Speaker 1: things you learn as a kid. Well, what if the
Speaker 1: man handing out sweets actually made them himself. Well, families
Speaker 1: would most likely think that this is a kind of
Speaker 1: a Willy Wonka type figure who was just doing business.
Speaker 1: But as it turned out, this man was Dean Coral,
Speaker 1: a man who between nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy three
Speaker 1: killed upwards of twenty eight boys age between thirteen and twenty.
Speaker 1: This is the case of Dean Coral, the candy Man.
Speaker 2: Oh, the candyman.
Speaker 1: Can't hey nice one? We harmonized and a joke. This
Speaker 1: case is truly disturbing. Before we get into today's episode,
Speaker 1: I'd like to warn listeners with a rather massive, massive warning.
Speaker 1: This case involves the abuse of children, torture, rape, and
Speaker 1: more extremely heavy themes. This is all a brief version
Speaker 1: of the case. There is a lot of further reading
Speaker 1: that I've actually chosen not to talk about here. But
Speaker 1: if anyone wants to read anything further about Dean Coral,
Speaker 1: and that's c O r R l ol.
Speaker 2: R r L chorl No, there's only one valain.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Choral choral sounds a bit like our pigeon cool
Speaker 1: ch Chral. It's how Americans say carl chorl oh, yeah, Chral.
Speaker 2: I was just getting confused about what the night. It
Speaker 2: really has only got one valaince.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's either one. I know it's one R and two.
Speaker 2: L's choral coral chorl Yeah, it's like in love. Actually,
Speaker 2: when Laurel.
Speaker 1: Chral chral, let me just double check that's how you
Speaker 1: spell his name there, Dean chral be very funny if yeah,
Speaker 1: Dean Chral c o r l ol.
Speaker 3: That's really strange. I feel like that started him out
Speaker 3: poorly in life.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, quarrel coral gral. Awesome, it's awesome. Today's serial killer
Speaker 1: is often referred to as the candy man or the
Speaker 1: pied Piper.
Speaker 2: I don't like either of those.
Speaker 3: I don't like the candy man, especially because I really
Speaker 3: desperately want to sing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe at the end you could sing term singers
Speaker 1: out if you feel like. The Pied Piper of Hamlet
Speaker 1: is a legendary figure from a German folk tale about
Speaker 1: a piper in colorful clothes who rids the town of
Speaker 1: rats by luring them away with music. But when the
Speaker 1: townsfolk refuse to pay him. He takes revenge by charming
Speaker 1: their children away, leading them in to a mountain where
Speaker 1: they disappear. I'd also like to go into the term candy.
Speaker 1: Candy is an American term. In the UK, they're referred
Speaker 1: to as sweeties or confectionery, and in Australia we often
Speaker 1: call them lollies.
Speaker 3: You know that in the UK, so we call in
Speaker 3: Australia our term lollies. Yeap refers to like hard boiled sweets,
Speaker 3: like jelly lollies, like in snakes stuff, the jelly lollies.
Speaker 2: In the UK, they're.
Speaker 3: Called harrabo harribo, which Harabou is as a brand, but
Speaker 3: they just call.
Speaker 2: All like jelly sweets, harrabos.
Speaker 1: Oh harrabos. They call it yeah, and they just say
Speaker 1: sweets as well. That's a big thing in the UK
Speaker 1: they say sweets. Lollies is kind of my favorite australianism.
Speaker 1: I used to be absolutely obsessed with lollies. And here's
Speaker 1: a quick definition I found of lollies. Lollies is the
Speaker 1: common term for what Americans call candy and British people
Speaker 1: call sweets, referring to any sugar based confectionery like chocolates, gummies,
Speaker 1: or hard candies. It's a general term for treats when
Speaker 1: a lolly when a lolly singular is often just one piece,
Speaker 1: though a lollipop sweet on a stick is still called
Speaker 1: a lollipop. The word has been around since the eighteen fifties,
Speaker 1: and in slang, lolly can also mean money or losing
Speaker 1: your temper to your lolly. Yeah, do loly? I think
Speaker 1: it's a British term, do you lolly.
Speaker 3: I'm also obsessed with the fact that when we sat
Speaker 3: down to record this, you said, if you need a
Speaker 3: break anytime, let me know, because it's a.
Speaker 2: Really long episode and you've gone.
Speaker 1: Into a deep deep I looked into the phrase don't
Speaker 1: take candy from strangers. It likely originated from the famous
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four kidnapping of Charles Charlie Ross, America's first
Speaker 1: recorded ransom kidnapping, Oh My God, where a young boy
Speaker 1: was lured into a carriage by men offering candy and fireworks.
Speaker 2: Charlie and the lollly factor.
Speaker 1: Charlie the loly factor, that's right, leading to his disappearance
Speaker 1: and creating a powerful cautionary tale that became a common
Speaker 1: saying that is very very relevant here. The case captured
Speaker 1: nation national attention and highlighted the dangers of trusting unknown individuals,
Speaker 1: solidifying the warning in popular culture today.
Speaker 2: You just realized your iPad was upside down. I've been
Speaker 2: looking at it the whole time. It's embarrassing to say anything.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you noticed. So this case was in America, in.
Speaker 1: The America seventies.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's correct, in that it's not called the lollly Man.
Speaker 1: That's correct. In nineteen seventy three Houston, Texas, a boy
Speaker 1: by the name of Alma Wayne Henley, who often was
Speaker 1: referred to as just Wayne, led detectives to a series
Speaker 1: of industrial boat storage units and walked to number eleven.
Speaker 1: Detectives removed the padlock with bolt cutters after getting permission
Speaker 1: from the owner of the storage units. There they found
Speaker 1: sacks of lime, a car boxes, water, garbage containers, carpet
Speaker 1: and a child's yellow bicycle, a bag with children's clothing,
Speaker 1: an unconnected telephone, and lots and lots of bits and pieces.
Speaker 1: Alma Wayne Henley was the first to walk into the shed.
Speaker 1: He took a step inside and his face turned ashen.
Speaker 1: He tried to get himself together. There was something inside
Speaker 1: this shed that they hadn't seen already. Two more detectives
Speaker 1: soon arrived. Detectives at this point had no idea that
Speaker 1: this boy was leading them to the dumping ground of
Speaker 1: one of America's most notorious serial killers, Dean Coral. Digging
Speaker 1: began body after body close to midnight. They discovered a
Speaker 1: mass grave and would soon discover over twenty eight victims.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, so who was Dean Coral? Dean Arnold
Speaker 1: Corel was born on Christmas Eve in nineteen thirty nine
Speaker 1: in Indiana, just down the road.
Speaker 2: Was that avan this story?
Speaker 1: When you were regent CHRISTI it was Yeah. He was
Speaker 1: the eldest son of Mary Roberson, which is robo n
Speaker 1: It's not Robinson.
Speaker 2: So many missing letters in these people's.
Speaker 1: Names, and Arnold Edwin Corel. His mother was described as
Speaker 1: very loving and very kind to Dean, but the father
Speaker 1: was the distant one in the household. He later went
Speaker 1: on to state that he never even liked children. He
Speaker 1: was incredibly strict with his son, and he wasn't so
Speaker 1: loving or nurturing with either of their children. They later
Speaker 1: had a boy by the name of Stanley for the
Speaker 1: smallest infraction, Arnold will beat the children, and this drove
Speaker 1: a huge wedge between Mary and Arnold. They started arguing
Speaker 1: and finding more and more when Mary, you know, just
Speaker 1: became extremely protective of her two sons.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 1: The parents ended up divorcing after living an extremely fractured
Speaker 1: and volatile situation in nineteen forty six, when Dean was
Speaker 1: seven and his younger brother, Stanley was only four years old.
Speaker 1: Now I've also read that they divorced in nineteen forty two,
Speaker 1: but for math's purposes, I think nineteen forty six makes
Speaker 1: more sense to me.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm really good at mass.
Speaker 1: I know you are your to stepan. Do any of them,
Speaker 1: I'll call you in.
Speaker 2: I couldn't even think of the word of quite.
Speaker 1: After divorcing, the family home was sold so the pair
Speaker 1: could properly split and start new lives without each other.
Speaker 1: Mary was extremely happy to bear away from her abusive part, Arnold, Mary, Stanley,
Speaker 1: and Arlold moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Arnold was drafted into
Speaker 1: the Air Force, and they moved so they could stay
Speaker 1: closer to their father, so decided to be stationed there
Speaker 1: basically so they could still be close to Arnold. Even
Speaker 1: though he didn't really like or want children. Mary had
Speaker 1: custody of the kids, but she wanted them to have
Speaker 1: some kind of relationship with Arnold. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: since he always didn't like kids, but Mary and Arnold
Speaker 1: did try and reconcile their marriage, but the pair rarely
Speaker 1: got along. Dean was shy, anxious, and quiet as a kid.
Speaker 1: He didn't go out of his way to talk to
Speaker 1: people and didn't enjoy being in the spotlight. He was
Speaker 1: not ever known to socialize with other children at all
Speaker 1: as a child, who was also known as really sensitive
Speaker 1: who would look out and had empathy for others, something
Speaker 1: that is hard to believe as we get into the story.
Speaker 1: At the age of seven, Dean contracted rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever,
Speaker 1: known as ARF, is a serious inflammatory ill illness and
Speaker 1: can develop after an untreated strep, throat or skin infection,
Speaker 1: causing the immune system to mistakenly attack the body, particularly
Speaker 1: the heart, joints, brain, and skin. I've got got into
Speaker 1: the key symptoms here, but basically, if it's not diagnosed,
Speaker 1: you can have massive the massive repercussions of that, and
Speaker 1: he ended up having a heart murmur for life. Because
Speaker 1: he was neglected to have this treated, so he didn't
Speaker 1: find out for four years. So we had this for
Speaker 1: four years. So he started treatment when he was eleven
Speaker 1: years old. The way they found out was Dean had
Speaker 1: now had a heart condition and a heart murmur, which
Speaker 1: was from a long time of neglect. Because of this condition,
Speaker 1: he couldn't join in with a lot of activities with
Speaker 1: the kids, especially sports. Well, the rest of the kids
Speaker 1: were playing and having fun, Dean had to watch from
Speaker 1: the sidelines. I watched from the sidelines, but not for
Speaker 1: the last choice for dad.
Speaker 2: He just did cheerleader.
Speaker 1: I'm a cheerleader.
Speaker 2: He just wanted cheers.
Speaker 1: I just want to cheer. Fineteen fifty Mary and Arnold
Speaker 1: tried to get back together again and moved to California,
Speaker 1: but it only lasted another three years, falling apart again.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty three, they divorced again. The divorce was amicable, remarried,
Speaker 1: and they remarried each time.
Speaker 3: That's interesting, like if you got divorced once, yeah, maybe
Speaker 3: remind yourself.
Speaker 1: Of why exactly. But they kept trying to get back together,
Speaker 1: and I feel like maybe in that time they would
Speaker 1: always go for the kids.
Speaker 3: Oh, of course, I mean you say that now as well,
Speaker 3: and you know that can be an admirable thing if.
Speaker 2: You're trying to make it work for the kids.
Speaker 3: If Arnold had you know, changed his ways and become better, yeah,
Speaker 3: it could be seen as admirable.
Speaker 2: But sure, I know, maybe I find.
Speaker 3: It even more interesting in those days that because I
Speaker 3: think divorce was a bigger thing in terms of it
Speaker 3: wasn't as common to divorce, but then get actually remarried.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty big. The divorce was amicable this time, so
Speaker 1: the boys were able to still have contact with Arnold. Now.
Speaker 1: The weird thing about is there's not a lot of
Speaker 1: information about Arnold. I don't know what happened to him,
Speaker 1: but I don't think there was a lot of contact.
Speaker 1: Dean certainly didn't have contact with him as he grew older,
Speaker 1: and you don't really hear about Stanley at all. Mary
Speaker 1: moved the boys then to vid Or, Texas vid vital
Speaker 1: v I d O r min.
Speaker 2: At least there's two vows that's actually true.
Speaker 1: You're happy with that one. I remember with that one,
Speaker 1: except please proceed with caution anytime like I does anytime
Speaker 1: I'd like to be driving. She was teaching me how
Speaker 1: to drive and she go proceed with caution Texas, where
Speaker 1: she met a traveling clock salesman by the name of
Speaker 1: James West.
Speaker 2: This is awesoing Jake West, traveling clock salesman. It feels
Speaker 2: very willy Wonka.
Speaker 1: It does. It's a very very different time. It feels unreal,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. They married soon after and had a baby
Speaker 1: girl by the name of Joyce. Mary and Jake, the
Speaker 1: ex clock salesman, decided to venture out with their own business,
Speaker 1: p com Prince, a candy making company. Oh oh, Dean
Speaker 1: and his brother Stanley would operate the machinery and help
Speaker 1: make candy.
Speaker 2: Oh this feels like yucky for shadowing.
Speaker 1: Foreshadowing. Yeah. In high school, Dean's only interest that I
Speaker 1: could find was the brass band he played in instrument?
Speaker 2: Did he play?
Speaker 1: Come on, he played the brass brass band you were
Speaker 1: what did you play?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: I started out playing the euphonium, which is like a
Speaker 3: smaller tuber And if this is this sums me up
Speaker 3: better than anything else. So when I started at a
Speaker 3: new school in grade five, I'd gone to a public
Speaker 3: primary school and then in grade five I went to
Speaker 3: a private school and they had a music school as
Speaker 3: part of it. So when I was doing the tour
Speaker 3: on the first day, I was like, what do you
Speaker 3: mean a music school and they said, well, you can
Speaker 3: choose an instrument like any of the instruments we've got,
Speaker 3: and you can.
Speaker 1: Instrument chooses you.
Speaker 3: Now I was like what, And I said, in grade five,
Speaker 3: is there any Is there any instrument that no one
Speaker 3: in the school?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, from prep to your twelve play And the teacher said, yes,
Speaker 3: the euphonium, And I said, I'll do that one. I
Speaker 3: like that bleave, but that's not a brass like it's
Speaker 3: a brass instrument, but it's not a very brass band instrument.
Speaker 2: That one I played in this symphony orchestra.
Speaker 3: The Schools Symphony Orchestra, not like the Melbourne the Symphony Orchestra.
Speaker 3: But then I decided in grade ten the euphonium wasn't cool,
Speaker 3: so I upgraded to the trombone.
Speaker 2: Oh, very cool, very cool, And that's what I played
Speaker 2: in the brass band. Continue please with caution.
Speaker 1: Proceed with cautioned. He never socialized as he grew older,
Speaker 1: but he maintained really good grades. He continued to make
Speaker 1: no friends and was always a bit of a loner,
Speaker 1: spending his time helping his mum and stepfather with their
Speaker 1: candy store.
Speaker 2: He must have played the euphonium if.
Speaker 1: After his graduation his family moved to Houston, Texas. They
Speaker 1: moved their candy operations into a new shop. His stepdad
Speaker 1: would go out selling the money, changing from clocks to candy,
Speaker 1: and his mum would make the candy in the store.
Speaker 2: Selling the money. You said he'd go out selling the.
Speaker 1: Money, changing from clocks to candy. Yeah, I don't say
Speaker 1: selling the money. I did. Yeah, yeah, he candy, selling
Speaker 1: the candy, making the money.
Speaker 2: I got it.
Speaker 1: A couple of years out of high school, Dean moved
Speaker 1: to Indiana to live with his grandmother.
Speaker 2: Gosh, there's a lot of movement, a lot of movement
Speaker 2: by this age.
Speaker 1: He stayed there for around two years. He met a
Speaker 1: girl and soon they were in a relationship. It fell
Speaker 1: apart pretty quickly, and she asked him to marry her,
Speaker 1: but he said no. Oh oh wow, he said no.
Speaker 1: He ended up moving back to Houston after a couple
Speaker 1: of years. He started helping with the family candy business
Speaker 1: and took it a bit more seriously. In nineteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: seeing this as a career pathway. He lived with them
Speaker 1: briefly and then ended up living with his mum and
Speaker 1: stepdad Jake, and then ended up renting his owner part
Speaker 1: above the candy shop. His stepfather, Jake at one point
Speaker 1: noticed some things about Dean and took Mary aside to
Speaker 1: tell her that he suspected Dean was gay. She got
Speaker 1: offended and insisted he wasn't. Mary was extremely homophobic and
Speaker 1: thought that gay people were disgusting. There was her words, disgusting.
Speaker 2: You know who's disgusting, Mary, Mary, Yeah, Robertson, Mary Roberson,
Speaker 2: get an inn in your name.
Speaker 1: For once, she thought of her son as loyal, obedient, helpful,
Speaker 1: loving and a good and normal boy. That's how she is.
Speaker 2: He's all of those things, those things.
Speaker 1: Knowing this from the intro.
Speaker 2: I don't think he is those things.
Speaker 1: But that's not no, no, no, I think we're describing a
Speaker 1: gay person.
Speaker 3: Yes that I was like, yeah, yes, he was to
Speaker 3: do with that, But then I remembered we're talking about
Speaker 3: a serial man.
Speaker 1: Knowing this about his mum, Dean never felt comfortable enough
Speaker 1: to talk about his sexuality with his mum or his stepfather.
Speaker 1: It's unclear really what this relationship was with his biological father,
Speaker 1: Arnold was well, but at this point all we'd really know,
Speaker 1: and I don't really think there was a relationship salvaged
Speaker 1: there at all. In nineteen sixty three, his mother divorced
Speaker 1: her husband and then opened up her own candy business,
Speaker 1: the Coral Candy Company, and made Dean the vice president.
Speaker 1: Now it was a store. I found it very funny
Speaker 1: that he was a vice president still have a store.
Speaker 1: And also at this time I did read something that
Speaker 1: was like they were still living together at the time
Speaker 1: she started the store. So there was two candy companies
Speaker 1: running out of the same place.
Speaker 2: Oh dear, okay, yeap.
Speaker 1: Not long into the business, a teen male employee came
Speaker 1: forward and accused Dean of trying to proposition him. Nothing happened,
Speaker 1: The young boy was just fired. Sorry, so he was
Speaker 1: married to have a conversation. They said, no, you know,
Speaker 1: oh God, And no one took the time to investigate.
Speaker 2: And howld was Dean now like twenties.
Speaker 1: Twenties Yeah, Mary did not believe that her son would
Speaker 1: do something like that. Dean was drafted into the US
Speaker 1: Army in August nineteen sixty four. US operations in Vietnam
Speaker 1: were expanding at the time, and Dean was sent to
Speaker 1: Louisiana for basic training, then on to Georgia. Hey that's
Speaker 1: my name, it's your name, and then a permanent assignment
Speaker 1: in Texas. He worked as a radio repairman. During this time.
Speaker 1: He absolutely hated military training and applied for a hardship
Speaker 1: discharge using the excuse that he had to be home
Speaker 1: with his family to run the family business vice president.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course, he was only in there for
Speaker 1: about ten months and got out in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a long time to be doing something you really.
Speaker 1: Have Absolutely, during this time in the army, Dean first
Speaker 1: realized that he was homosexual. He actually told people in
Speaker 1: the army that he thought that he was. He got
Speaker 1: out of the army and resumed his position as vice president.
Speaker 1: As vice president at the Coral Candy Company, the main
Speaker 1: competition at this point was Dean's stepdad, Jake's candy business.
Speaker 1: That's so weird, So weird. Dean was working crazy hours
Speaker 1: at this point and they were trying hard to make
Speaker 1: it work and meet the supplier and demand, the supply
Speaker 1: and demand of the local Houston. Late in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: the family business moved the location of the company across
Speaker 1: the road from Helm's elementary school. A lot of the
Speaker 1: kids would obviously stop by the store, and Dean would
Speaker 1: hand out a lot of free sweets to the kids,
Speaker 1: luring them into the shop to entice them to buy more.
Speaker 1: This is where he started to earn the nickname the
Speaker 1: candy Man. Never say it three times. Some people started
Speaker 1: calling Dean the pied Piper. He was giving out free
Speaker 1: candy to local children and luring them away from their school.
Speaker 1: While all of this seemed innocent on the outside, there
Speaker 1: was a very dark part of Dean's mind that was
Speaker 1: brewing away. He favored teen boys, and there happened to
Speaker 1: be quite a few now working the candy company. Many
Speaker 1: of the boys found him to be incredibly creepy. Nobody
Speaker 1: did anything about his behavior time and time again. He
Speaker 1: was also known to bury defective candy at night outside.
Speaker 1: Not in the bins he bury it. He'd actually dig
Speaker 1: up and bury candy.
Speaker 2: That's so weird. Also, what is defective candy?
Speaker 1: Well, I guess candy that doesn't look perfect. I'm guessing.
Speaker 1: But some have speculated that his killings could have become
Speaker 1: a lot earlier. Yeah, oh, yeah, so he said he
Speaker 1: was just burying candy out at night, so he had
Speaker 1: an excuse. But people have since said his victim count
Speaker 1: was actually a lot higher and he started a lot earlier.
Speaker 3: Like there's nothing funny about this, but for want of
Speaker 3: a better term, it is a bit funny to me
Speaker 3: to think that he said, Oh, there's candy that that
Speaker 3: can't be sold, so I've just been burying in my
Speaker 3: garden kids.
Speaker 2: I'm sure the people go, Okay.
Speaker 1: Yes, also going. I could have it. Dean cleared out
Speaker 1: of back room of the store and installed a pool
Speaker 1: table so boys would want to come and hang out
Speaker 1: with him.
Speaker 2: Sad.
Speaker 1: This is when he made friends with a twelve year
Speaker 1: old boy and a very important person in this case,
Speaker 1: a boy by the name of David Brooks. He was
Speaker 1: one of the kids who would show up, get free
Speaker 1: candy and play Paul. He would give that he would
Speaker 1: give more free candy to the boys around around the
Speaker 1: neighborhood and bring them into the store. This would become
Speaker 1: a very important hangout spot, free candy and Paul for
Speaker 1: everyone who wanted to come in. This is exactly what
Speaker 1: Dean wanted. David said at the time that Dean was
Speaker 1: the only person who didn't make fun of his glasses.
Speaker 1: Isn't that's sad? He had big glasses and Dean with
Speaker 1: young didn't make fun of him. He had a friend
Speaker 1: in Dean, and he treated him well. David Brooks started
Speaker 1: to see Dean as somewhat of a surrogate dad. Dean
Speaker 1: would give him money and take him everywhere with him.
Speaker 1: David would come home or David came from a home
Speaker 1: sorry where his parents weren't together, and seemed like he
Speaker 1: was seeking some kind of big brother, big sister vibe.
Speaker 1: David saw the factory as his second home. Anytime he
Speaker 1: needed money, he would walk over and get some from Dean.
Speaker 1: So Dean would just give him money anytime we want it.
Speaker 1: Dean would take some of the boys on trips. He'd
Speaker 1: take them to the beach all the time, and it
Speaker 1: didn't seem to raise any suspicion at the time. Dean
Speaker 1: was the big, friendly, kookie Willy Wonka type figure who
Speaker 1: seemed to be kind of a big kid himself. Often
Speaker 1: Dean would ride his motorcycle with David on the back,
Speaker 1: and would even let David drive it when they were
Speaker 1: alone together. In nineteen sixty six, Mary got married a
Speaker 1: third time. The name was suppressed, so I'll call him
Speaker 1: Merchant Seaman because that was his job.
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, Why was the name suppressed?
Speaker 1: I don't know him quite a violent and awful person,
Speaker 1: so I think Merchant Seamen. I don't know why. They
Speaker 1: met on some kind of matchmaking service back then. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it was, but some sort of you know, plenty.
Speaker 2: Of sixty eight.
Speaker 1: They met on some kind of matchmaking service and rushed
Speaker 1: to get married. Mary was at the time fifty years old.
Speaker 1: On their honeymoon, Mary was shocked to see how violent
Speaker 1: and angry her new husband was. At a taxi driver
Speaker 1: what's her husband's name, Merchant Seamen wrecked. He bragged how
Speaker 1: crewmen would actually walk off his ship if they found
Speaker 1: out he was working. Yeah, he was not a nice man.
Speaker 1: Merchant's ex wife actually took her own life, but Mary
Speaker 1: was suspicious about this. When he told her about it,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, she went to see the coroner's report
Speaker 1: to actually see how she died.
Speaker 2: Oh dear.
Speaker 1: Soon after, they annulled the marriage. A few weeks later,
Speaker 1: they remarried and moved in together.
Speaker 2: Stopped doing this Mary.
Speaker 1: He was an extremely jealous person. When offshore, he phoned Mary,
Speaker 1: but if she didn't pick up, he would fly straight
Speaker 1: back to Houston to see if she'd fallen in love
Speaker 1: with another.
Speaker 2: Man Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: One time he pretended he was away and staked outside
Speaker 1: her house for two knights to keep an eye on her.
Speaker 1: Oh gross Merchant Seamen never liked Dean, much like Mary's
Speaker 1: ex husband Jake West. The friction between Merchant and Dean
Speaker 1: grew and grew that were not involved in each other's
Speaker 1: lives at all. Mary and Merchant would continually fight, break up,
Speaker 1: and then move back in together. One time he bought
Speaker 1: her the most beautiful flowers and told her that if
Speaker 1: she died, he would throw the most beautiful funeral for her.
Speaker 1: That is so fucked up, especially if he killed her.
Speaker 2: He's said that.
Speaker 1: Yep, it's lovely, Merchant.
Speaker 2: There's not many good people in this story.
Speaker 1: Merchant would also openly cheat on Mary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, were no shit. The jealous ones was due.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty seven. Dean was still handing out care
Speaker 1: and to all the kids, and the relationship between him
Speaker 1: and David Brooks was growing. More trips to the beach,
Speaker 1: more riding on his motorcycle. The Coral Family Candy Company
Speaker 1: closed in nineteen sixty eight. Dean's mother couldn't run the
Speaker 1: store anymore. It just wasn't making.
Speaker 2: Any money because the VP was giving away everything.
Speaker 1: And is he we don't know. And of course Merchant
Speaker 1: and Mary began threatening to have each other committed to
Speaker 1: a psychiatric facility. A Merchant was actually committed.
Speaker 2: He was, of course.
Speaker 1: In this relationship. He was released after being under surveillance
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours. He then went on to threaten
Speaker 1: Mary to commit her, that he was going to commit
Speaker 1: her permanently and that he would pay to do so,
Speaker 1: making sure that she would undergo intense shock therapy. Mary
Speaker 1: was terrified and slept in her office for six weeks
Speaker 1: and ended up getting a restraining order against Merchant, but
Speaker 1: he didn't listen. Merchant would continually break into the factory
Speaker 1: and make threats, calling Dean a derogatory name for homosexual.
Speaker 1: Mary encouraged Dean to go out and kill merchants.
Speaker 2: When he was at the door Day's family man.
Speaker 1: Dean instead gave her some bricks to throw at him
Speaker 1: out the window, and she did okay. Mary later said
Speaker 1: about Dean, so how could people say now that Dean
Speaker 1: is a murderer. Why if Dean was ever going to
Speaker 1: be a problem to anyone, it would have been to Merchant.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so yeah, no, that totally checks out.
Speaker 1: I asked him to kill anyone.
Speaker 2: If he was going to kill anyone, it would have
Speaker 2: been my ex husband. But he didn't do that.
Speaker 3: So all of these bodies that have been found that
Speaker 3: are linked to it can't be him. I don't like Mary.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Mary was, of course, completely blind to what Dean was
Speaker 1: actually doing. Mary eventually divorced Merchant Seamen. She and her
Speaker 1: thirteen year old Joyce ended up moving away, while Dean
Speaker 1: decided to stay in Houston, Texas. This would be the
Speaker 1: last time he would ever see his mother, but continued
Speaker 1: talking to her over the phone. By night, he would
Speaker 1: make candy to keep up with a few orders they
Speaker 1: still had.
Speaker 2: Wasn't the business dead?
Speaker 1: The business was dead, but there was a couple of orders,
Speaker 1: And he did that for a little bit of time, right,
Speaker 1: But then he.
Speaker 2: Just clebe the business was kind of still going.
Speaker 1: But the shop was a shop, wasn't Yeah. Mary Robertson
Speaker 1: eventually set up a new Candy Factor in a new hometown.
Speaker 1: My god, no, while just even how many, how many
Speaker 1: different companies they had in this short amount of time,
Speaker 1: it isn't and moving on? So many of them failed.
Speaker 3: Stually in those days as well, I know, in the
Speaker 3: earlier days, moving across the country so often, like so
Speaker 3: many times, as I know, it was like that was more.
Speaker 2: Rare as well.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, But with no job and no finances, Dean got
Speaker 1: a job as an electrician at the Houston Lighting and
Speaker 1: Power company. He'd experienced. He had experience in the Armies,
Speaker 1: in the Armies, experience in the Army, not all of
Speaker 1: the Armies. He stayed in his apartment above the candy
Speaker 1: store and ended up meeting a single mother named Betty Hawk.
Speaker 1: He also such a sixties isn't it Bettie Hawkins. He
Speaker 1: also formed a much closer relationship now with David Brooks.
Speaker 1: With his mother out of town, he was able to
Speaker 1: meet people his own age as well, so that he
Speaker 1: was sexually attracted to and without having to keep up
Speaker 1: the facade of being an innocent and good candy maker.
Speaker 1: More people found him creepy and quick to completely change
Speaker 1: his demeanor.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm sorry, So what was the relationship with Betty Hawkins.
Speaker 1: So there was his girlfriend.
Speaker 2: But while he was with the girlfriend, he found it
Speaker 2: was easy.
Speaker 1: To so it was also a lot more than that. Yes, yep,
Speaker 1: did she know that? No, she was unaware of all
Speaker 1: of this. When David was fifteen years old, he dropped
Speaker 1: out of his David Brooks sorry, he dropped out of
Speaker 1: high school and went to live with his mother. So
Speaker 1: she and her husband split. She moved away, I think
Speaker 1: to a place called Beaumont or something still in Texas.
Speaker 1: And then he would go back and forth from his
Speaker 1: dad and his mum. Okay, anytime he would come back
Speaker 1: to visit his dad in Houston, he would visit Dean
Speaker 1: at his apartment. Dean would bring day but on his
Speaker 1: dates with his girlfriend and told him that he ever
Speaker 1: needed a place to stay, that he could just stay
Speaker 1: with him. One time, when David was staying with Dean,
Speaker 1: Dean started urging him to experiment with his sexuality. It
Speaker 1: didn't take long to convince him. Dean paid him some
Speaker 1: money to let Dean perform for Latio on him, and
Speaker 1: they kept it a secrete.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think thirteen actually yeah? What yeah. On September twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy Jeffrey Conan had been hitchhiking with a friend
Speaker 1: of his. The driver dropped them off in Houston. This
Speaker 1: was the last time he was ever seen alive. Dean
Speaker 1: lived in his apartment and likely spotted him offering him
Speaker 1: a ride to his parents' house. So he was kind
Speaker 1: of I think on it like an intersection sort of place,
Speaker 1: and he saw.
Speaker 2: Room he could see I just saw someone being dropped off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to get Jeffrey. Jeffrey was I think Jeffrey
Speaker 1: was eighteen years old on September twenty fifth. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: won't do that again. I see him then bound and
Speaker 1: gagged Jeffrey before taking him to an undisclosed location to
Speaker 1: rape him.
Speaker 3: Oh God, Sam, when you I thought you were going
Speaker 3: to say, like, they don't know what happened, though it
Speaker 3: was never seen again and we don't really know what happened.
Speaker 2: I wasn't expecting details.
Speaker 1: When he was through, he placed his hands around Jeffrey's
Speaker 1: neck and manually strangled him.
Speaker 2: So this seemingly has come out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Well, we don't really know, but this is the first
Speaker 1: that's known. Yes, he wrapped Jeffrey's body in plastic sheets,
Speaker 1: drove him out to a beach and buried him in
Speaker 1: a shallow grave. Before he buried him, he dumped limes
Speaker 1: in with him to try and hide the smell.
Speaker 3: Ah okay, I was wondering why line, he's a bag
Speaker 3: of limes.
Speaker 1: At the start, it got worse and worse. One night,
Speaker 1: when David Brooks was stopping by Dean's apartment, he heard
Speaker 1: strange noises coming from inside. When he walked in the door,
Speaker 1: he spotted Dean assaulting two boys strapped to his bed.
Speaker 1: Dean jumped up and said, I'm just having some fun.
Speaker 1: Dean had made a device himself to strap them there,
Speaker 1: known later as the torture board.
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus.
Speaker 1: It was a slab of plywood that he drilled holes
Speaker 1: into so he could tie them there. He used this
Speaker 1: device in almost all of his murders and rapes. He
Speaker 1: would tie them up, sometimes leaving them there for days
Speaker 1: at a time. He would always gag them so they
Speaker 1: wouldn't be heard in his apartment. David Brooks later said,
Speaker 1: once they were on the board, they were as good
Speaker 1: as dead. It was all over, but the shouting and crying.
Speaker 3: Oh Da booked in on him with two victims. Once
Speaker 3: Yes and seemingly said nothing at the time to anyone else.
Speaker 1: And it gets worse. I don't want it to David
Speaker 1: wasn't sure if he was disgusted or intrigued. Dean ran
Speaker 1: over to David and bribed him with a car in
Speaker 1: exchange for silence about what he saw. Oh God, David agreed.
Speaker 1: Soon after, Dean brought David a green Chevy Corvette and
Speaker 1: told him he ended up killing the boys that night.
Speaker 2: Oh but here is a car.
Speaker 1: So is a car?
Speaker 2: Get over it well.
Speaker 1: Dean then promised David two hundred dollars for every boy
Speaker 1: he could bring to him. David immediately got to work.
Speaker 3: Oh no.
Speaker 1: On December fifteenth, nineteen seventy, David lured two fourteen year
Speaker 1: old boys, James Glass and Danny Yates, to the apartment.
Speaker 1: He promised it was just to hang out and have
Speaker 1: a few beers. Both fourteen year old boys were tied
Speaker 1: to the bed and the same thing happened again, raped, strangled,
Speaker 1: and then taken to the place where we were burying
Speaker 1: most of his bodies, a boat shed the he had
Speaker 1: hired exactly for that purpose. He then waited for six
Speaker 1: weeks to attack again. The Age Ranger boys was thirteen
Speaker 1: to twenty years old. He had a very specific target.
Speaker 1: All these victims would come from the town that Dean
Speaker 1: lived in, Houston High. It was a low socioeconomic neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Dean liked to get his victims into his car by
Speaker 1: telling them that there was a party. He would also
Speaker 1: get them into his car by telling them that he
Speaker 1: would give them a lift home or take them wherever
Speaker 1: they needed to go. He would pump the kids full
Speaker 1: of drugs and alcohol or play a game with them
Speaker 1: involving handcuffs designed to get these in place so that
Speaker 1: they were restricted. Other times he would forcibly put handcuffs
Speaker 1: on them. He would then tie them to his bed
Speaker 1: or torture board and that he hung up on the wall.
Speaker 1: He would violate his victims and then he would strangle
Speaker 1: them or shoot them with his twenty two caliber. He
Speaker 1: put a lot of these bodies in plastic sheets and
Speaker 1: place them in the rented boat shed or bury them
Speaker 1: on the beach. He would also get his victims to
Speaker 1: call or write to their parents to let them know
Speaker 1: that they were Okay.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's so like that. Obviously all of this is
Speaker 3: messed up, But that is just nat That's.
Speaker 1: What our David and Catherine Bernie did as well. Yeah, remember,
Speaker 1: just so nobody would be getting suspicious knowing that he
Speaker 1: would that then he would kill them. Like a lot
Speaker 1: of serial killers. He would collect trophies, often the keys
Speaker 1: from the victims, so the set of keys for the house. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, if a man was pulling up to you
Speaker 1: in his van offering you candy, you would run away screaming, stranger, danger.
Speaker 1: But because of another kid kind of at their age,
Speaker 1: David Brooks, he was able to gain their trust. On
Speaker 1: January thirty, nineteen seventy one, Dean and David spotted two boys,
Speaker 1: fifteen year old Donnie and thirteen year old Jerry Waldrop,
Speaker 1: walking from church to the Balling Alley Brothers. Brothers. They
Speaker 1: promised the two boys weed and beer if they got
Speaker 1: into the van. It was a white van, later known
Speaker 1: as a torture van. It's not very creative in all
Speaker 1: of this, Like the boards called the torture board, the
Speaker 1: van's called the departments called the torture apartment, but it
Speaker 1: seemed to be where he would pick up oh yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's not clear if the torture van was actually
Speaker 1: used to torture and kill victims. But he yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, but he definitely transported them in this car.
Speaker 1: David Brooks later said that Dean did go out to
Speaker 1: California quite a bit, but no one really knows what
Speaker 1: he was doing out there, so it's likely he might
Speaker 1: have picked up even more boys and tortured them in
Speaker 1: that van. This would mean that the number of boys
Speaker 1: would be even higher than what we know already. Dean
Speaker 1: drove the boys back to his new spot, a new
Speaker 1: apartment place one apartment, where he raped, tortured, and strangled
Speaker 1: both boys to death. This time, David watched in the corner,
Speaker 1: and then David helped transport the bodies into the van
Speaker 1: and then into the boat shed where they were buried.
Speaker 2: So this is the first time we know that he's
Speaker 2: actually been here.
Speaker 1: So he has watched before, but yeah, this is the
Speaker 1: first time that he was actually involved that we know of.
Speaker 1: Even though the home was very close to where the
Speaker 1: last two boys have been abducted, the police still didn't
Speaker 1: investigate what. Yeah, the boy's father, Everett, filed two missing
Speaker 1: person reports for both of his sons. At the time,
Speaker 1: there were no missing There was not a missing person's
Speaker 1: unit in the Houston Police Department. So the paperwork was buried.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: So it was just part of normal everyday police work.
Speaker 3: Is that if there was someone reported missing, just any
Speaker 3: cop on the beat, if.
Speaker 2: They had time to get around to it, would look
Speaker 2: into it.
Speaker 1: Ye'll put on the pile. Everett showed up to the
Speaker 1: police station every day for eight months straight, desperately urging
Speaker 1: the police to do something about his missing sons. He
Speaker 1: told the Houston Chronicle, I was there about as much
Speaker 1: as the chief was. The police continually asked him why
Speaker 1: he was there, that his two boys would iss runaways.
Speaker 1: Everett even told the police that a man by the
Speaker 1: name of Dean Coral was bearing bodies at a boat shed.
Speaker 1: What what was it? Police didn't seem to believe it.
Speaker 1: It was just a rumor, and that all of these
Speaker 1: boys were runaways.
Speaker 2: Had they looked into this quote unquote, they.
Speaker 1: Had once gone there that I think I go into.
Speaker 1: But they didn't find anything, and it was just they
Speaker 1: looked outside the boat shed. Oh sorr. He police did
Speaker 1: conduct a search around the boat shed but found it
Speaker 1: was all a hoax. We don't really know what happened now.
Speaker 1: Dean soon realized he wasn't going to get caught. David
Speaker 1: did begin to have a guilty conscience, was too scared
Speaker 1: to do anything about it. I'm he's very young.
Speaker 3: He's obviously been groomed. I'm not putting that aside at all. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it is also incredibly hard to uh not be
Speaker 3: angry at someone else being involved and not doing anything
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: Also, if you're watching the YouTube right now, I've got
Speaker 1: the itchiest nose.
Speaker 2: And I have a cat. I have a T shirt with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got a beautiful cat top one. David did
Speaker 1: begin to have a guilty conscience, Like I said, was
Speaker 1: too scared to do anything about it. Plus he was
Speaker 1: earning money and saw Dean as a father figure.
Speaker 2: Yeah he's been in incredibly groomed.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: On March ninth, nineteen seventy one, Dean and David drove
Speaker 1: around looking for their next victim. Randal Harvey was returning
Speaker 1: from his job at a gas station and was never
Speaker 1: seen again. David actually knew Randall and called out to
Speaker 1: him to give him a lift home. The same thing
Speaker 1: has happened before, but instead of strangling Randall, it turned
Speaker 1: out that he shot him in the head and buried
Speaker 1: him in the boat shed. He wasn't identified until two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, what thirty seven years later that he
Speaker 1: was actually a victim of the candyman. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be too long before they were searching for
Speaker 1: their next victim. On May twenty ninth, fourteen year old
Speaker 1: David Hiltergeist and oh hille guy sorry, and sixteen year
Speaker 1: old Mally Winkle Malley used to work at the candy shop.
Speaker 3: Mallie Mellywinkle who worked did a candy shop? Shut it,
Speaker 3: mell winle that is a cartoon character, and I will
Speaker 3: not let you tell me anything bad happened to him.
Speaker 1: David Hillegeis had visited at the candy shop as well,
Speaker 1: and spent so long there once that his mother had
Speaker 1: to actually go and collect him. Both boys were brought
Speaker 1: back to Dean's apartment and the exact same thing laid
Speaker 1: out as before. After the murders, officers heard that Mally
Speaker 1: had made a phone call to his mother, Selma just
Speaker 1: before he was taken, saying that he was out swimming
Speaker 1: with his friends.
Speaker 2: No and his mom's men was selm car with this story.
Speaker 1: He was last seen getting into a white fan. Police
Speaker 1: again thought the boys were runaways, but their parents insisted
Speaker 1: that the police search for them and do their job.
Speaker 1: They knew that their children would not just run off
Speaker 1: without saying anything. They went searching themselves and printed off
Speaker 1: posters and a one thousand dollar reward for any information.
Speaker 2: So there's like we're talking kind of a dozen ish
Speaker 2: by my.
Speaker 3: Just memory calculations here boys around the same age who've
Speaker 3: gone missing in the same neighborhood, it's the same state,
Speaker 3: and the police just keep saying every single one of
Speaker 3: them is a runaway and.
Speaker 2: We'll not look into it anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god, I'm so angry, so angry. And
Speaker 1: imagine these parents, like they're coming to the police station
Speaker 1: every day, please look, please look. And there are also
Speaker 1: rumors about Dean Coral at the time. They then took
Speaker 1: out a loan to hire a private investigator, he believed,
Speaker 1: and also saying before this is a low socioeconomic neighborhood,
Speaker 1: so they're taking it a loan and offering up one
Speaker 1: thousand dollars of their own money back then, Yeah, he
Speaker 1: believed that their boys can be taken by a man
Speaker 1: by the name of Chicken Joe isn't it crazy that name?
Speaker 1: I had to look it up six times. Chicken Joe.
Speaker 2: Chicken chicken Joe, is like he was a guy they.
Speaker 1: Called cold Chicken Joe. That's chicken Joe who provided male
Speaker 1: sex workers to clients, and their son might have been
Speaker 1: sold to a sex trafficking ring. The boys' parents ended
Speaker 1: up driving out to the Montrose Era and parked outside
Speaker 1: a gay bar called the Silver Dollar Saloon. They watched
Speaker 1: the door all night, hoping to see their son being
Speaker 1: taken in and out, in or out. Yeah, but chicken Joe.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that chicken Joe. I don't know
Speaker 1: about that chicken Joe.
Speaker 2: I don't know about that chicken Joe. Did you look
Speaker 2: into him?
Speaker 1: And in the end, what's your I think you love
Speaker 1: that chop? I think he just loved eat that chop.
Speaker 1: He loved that chop, loved that fried chop. What do
Speaker 1: you think?
Speaker 2: I think that he was a big old woose.
Speaker 1: Oh, big chicken, big chok, big chook. Let's look it
Speaker 1: up and we'll do it in the show notes, I
Speaker 1: can find anything.
Speaker 2: Yep, Chicken chicken Joe, that chicken Joe.
Speaker 1: The parents called the police station every day even telling
Speaker 1: the police about specific details that they should be looking into. Dorothy.
Speaker 1: One of the boys mothers even took down a license
Speaker 1: plate t MF seven two four that had been spotted
Speaker 1: with a mysterious man sitting in the driver's side.
Speaker 2: The parents are out doing doing the police.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. A fifteen year old neighborhood boy, Alma Wayne
Speaker 1: Henley Junior remember this name, yeah, called by the Hiller
Speaker 1: guysed house to ask about David who had gone missing.
Speaker 1: He was a good friend of David's and only lived
Speaker 1: a block away.
Speaker 2: Alma was friends of David Hiller guys.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, He got some posters from his mum
Speaker 1: to hang out around town. Alma was supposed to be
Speaker 1: a victim, but Dean thought that Alma could be another
Speaker 1: person like David Brooks who would lure kids in for him.
Speaker 1: He offered him the same deal two hundred dollars for
Speaker 1: any boy that was brought to him.
Speaker 2: And how did he come into contact with Dean?
Speaker 1: So he was friends with David.
Speaker 2: Brooks as well and David Hiller guys.
Speaker 1: Yes yeah. A lot of the parents who met Dean
Speaker 1: thought he was a lovely, pleasant man. He knew how
Speaker 1: to disguise himself when he went over to Alma's house.
Speaker 1: His mother invited him in for an Eastern lunch.
Speaker 2: Why did he go over to his house?
Speaker 1: Well, he went to fix his car, so I went
Speaker 1: to fix so yeah, the mum's car. Even Dean's girlfriend, Betty,
Speaker 1: who he'd been dating for three years, didn't know the
Speaker 1: real Dean.
Speaker 2: Like hope, no, if she was still dating him?
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, exactly. She claimed that he was never
Speaker 1: sexually aggressive with her. The only thing she noticed out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary was once when they were having sex
Speaker 1: he stopped because he wasn't feeling into it. To her,
Speaker 1: he was an upstanding citizen who she was intent on
Speaker 1: settling down with. She even ignored that he brought the
Speaker 1: two boys, David and Alma with him on some of
Speaker 1: their dates, so creepy. Alma hadn't seen the real Dean
Speaker 1: by this point, only David Brooks. Dean promised Alma that
Speaker 1: if he brought boys to him that he could help
Speaker 1: him help his family with some money. He explained that
Speaker 1: he sold the boys to an underground sex trafficking ring.
Speaker 2: Sorry, who did he explain that to Alma? And Alma
Speaker 2: was like okay, cool.
Speaker 1: Okay, cool. The sex trafficking ring has been something that
Speaker 1: has come up quite a lot in researching this case.
Speaker 1: Dean's monstrous hirade came to an end in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: I found the following information about the sex trafficking of boys.
Speaker 1: In February nineteen seventy five, during a routine inquiry, the
Speaker 1: Houston Police Department uncovered an extensive collection of illegal photographs
Speaker 1: and films depicting underage boys, some as young as eight,
Speaker 1: many of whom were from the Houston Heights area where
Speaker 1: Dean Coral resided. Sixteen individuals were identifiable in the material.
Speaker 1: Eleven appeared to match victims already attributed to Dean at
Speaker 1: the time. The remaining individuals had been miners when the
Speaker 1: images were created, but were adult by the time authorities
Speaker 1: discovered the material and interviewed them, indicating that the collection
Speaker 1: had been assembled over a prolonged period. The discovery raised
Speaker 1: troubling questions about Dean's claim to both Henley and Brooks
Speaker 1: that he was connected to a Dallas space group that
Speaker 1: trafficked boys. In the aftermath of the Houston discovery, five
Speaker 1: individuals were arrested in Santa Clara California, including a man
Speaker 1: by the name of Roy Ames, the owner of the
Speaker 1: warehouse whether material had been stored, and a known producer
Speaker 1: of child sexual abuse material. Ames's name was found on
Speaker 1: a card in Dean Coral's wallet. Despite this, police did
Speaker 1: not establish a direct connection between Coral and those arrested,
Speaker 1: what so they didn't know if he was actually a
Speaker 1: part of the sex trafficking ring. Police officials later stated
Speaker 1: they chose not to investigate any possible link to the murders,
Speaker 1: believing the victims' families had already endured sufficient trauma so
Speaker 1: to find out if they were sex trafficked or not.
Speaker 2: Yep, surely the I don't know how to respond to that.
Speaker 3: I understand if they're going okay, their parents know that
Speaker 3: they've met a horrible, untimely death. That's enough trauma for
Speaker 3: the parents to deal with. But it also is like,
Speaker 3: in the name of justice and making sure other people
Speaker 3: weren't involved, you can't just go we don't want to
Speaker 3: put the parents through any no anymore, So we just
Speaker 3: won't investigate this sex trafficking ring.
Speaker 2: That there's lots of quote unquote rumors about there is
Speaker 2: a lot in this case.
Speaker 3: All the children involved, Like what if there are other
Speaker 3: victims that that is messed up?
Speaker 1: We'll go into it later, but there's a lot in
Speaker 1: this case. Were just like what happened there? Like why
Speaker 1: did they stop at one point? They actually stopped looking
Speaker 1: for victims because they didn't want the number to go
Speaker 1: up any higher. Jesus Christ, that's why there's so many.
Speaker 1: That's why the number we're not sure what the number
Speaker 1: actually is, because it would have been the biggest serial
Speaker 1: killer in Texas history, and then it would.
Speaker 2: Have wanted it to be like what the hell?
Speaker 1: Early on August fifteen, nineteen seventy three, two days after
Speaker 1: investigators located the final bodies initially associated with what they
Speaker 1: called the Houston mass murders, Dallas authorities uncovered and a
Speaker 1: nationwide exploitation network opened by John David Norman. The raid
Speaker 1: resulted in the seizure of a card index containing as
Speaker 1: many as ten thousand names lots from across the country,
Speaker 1: along with detailed records of teenage boys victimized by this operation.
Speaker 1: No definitive evidence has emerged to show that Dean cor
Speaker 1: recruited his victims through such an organization. This is partly
Speaker 1: due to the department's decision not to pursue that line
Speaker 1: of inquiry. Oh and partly because neither Brooks nor Henley
Speaker 1: ever reported encountering anyone connected to the alleged group, only
Speaker 1: Dean Coral. Both also stated they never witnessed victims being photographed, filmed,
Speaker 1: or released after being restrained. However, the Santa Clara arrests
Speaker 1: lends some credibility to David Brooks's claims that Dean had
Speaker 1: told him his earliest vicarvictims were buried in California. So
Speaker 1: now Dean had two boys luring others to him. Alma
Speaker 1: again trusted Dean like a father. In nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: Alma spotted a teenager and asked if they wanted to
Speaker 1: get in their van. Before long, Dean was back at
Speaker 1: a new apartment he moved frequently. Alma didn't know at
Speaker 1: that point the Dean was actually torturing the boys himself.
Speaker 1: He thought he was sending them off to a sex
Speaker 1: trafficking ring, but he soon learnt very different, and that.
Speaker 2: Was okay with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as long as my friend's not doing it, I'll
Speaker 3: supply these victims for someone else.
Speaker 1: That's right. Now, I'm going to get rially graphic here,
Speaker 1: so warning if you'd like to skip ahead thirty seconds
Speaker 1: to a minute here. Alma had no idea at this point.
Speaker 1: The Dean would use plies to rip out puper cares
Speaker 1: one by one. Then he would take glass rods and
Speaker 1: insert them into their urethras before shattering them while inside
Speaker 1: the victim's penises. Dean would then keep a small trinket
Speaker 1: like a house key, which some have stated wasn't just
Speaker 1: a trophy but a way for him to burglarize the
Speaker 1: victims and further traumatize the families. He would often also
Speaker 1: take bites of the boys' penises and testicles, sometimes ripping
Speaker 1: them off. Once Alma found out what Dean was really doing,
Speaker 1: he didn't stop. He felt protected and close to Dean.
Speaker 1: While there. There's been a lot of pointing fingers at
Speaker 1: both Alma and David Brooks for their involvement in this.
Speaker 1: And when you're a teenager you certainly know the difference
Speaker 1: between right and wrong. I would like to make it
Speaker 1: clear how manipulative Dean was and how he could change
Speaker 1: his personality to get what he wanted. Now, not only
Speaker 1: was he a master manipulator, but he also rewarded the
Speaker 1: boys financially and told them that he would always be
Speaker 1: there for them. Dean, I find is not too dissimilar
Speaker 1: from serial killers Dennis Nilssen and Jeffrey Dahmer.
Speaker 3: I was really thinking of I've been thinking, like kind
Speaker 3: of planning to say about Jeffrey Dahmer, why is he
Speaker 3: and just talking about American ones as well? Why is he?
Speaker 3: He's so much more well known informers. I guess there
Speaker 3: are fewer victims.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think the kind I know, I think
Speaker 1: he dismembered them, and I think he.
Speaker 3: Just feels like this one is so much more awful
Speaker 3: that people just don't talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the details and everything, and there are
Speaker 1: so so many details. They targeted young, vulnerable boys who
Speaker 1: were often runaways, so the idea was that no one
Speaker 1: will go looking for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's exactly what made me think of Darma.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Dennis Nelson as well. Frank Kageary was the
Speaker 1: next victim. Alma and he worked at Long John Silver's. Together.
Speaker 1: Alma waited for him after their shift to hang out.
Speaker 1: Alma led him straight to Dean, and once they arrived,
Speaker 1: Dean would want to play his handcuff game. Dean would
Speaker 1: put them on someone's wrist and or his wrist and
Speaker 1: kind of showed that he could get out of them,
Speaker 1: and then he would put them on them and he
Speaker 1: could have the key. Yeah, And that was basically something
Speaker 1: that maybe inspired John Wayne Gacy, because John Wayne Gacy
Speaker 1: did that exact same thing. It's possibly where he got
Speaker 1: his inspiration. Frank Ga Geary was engaged to be married
Speaker 1: to a woman by the name of Roonda Williams. Remember
Speaker 1: that name. I'm not going to go through all the
Speaker 1: victims here. I will read their names at the end.
Speaker 1: But the torture continued and continued, and I have not
Speaker 1: said the worst of it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: There was a young boy who escaped, a boy by
Speaker 1: the name of Billy reininger Ryaning. I think he was
Speaker 1: tied to the torture board. David begged Dean to let
Speaker 1: him go, which he did. Why we don't know. We
Speaker 1: don't know why. But Billy fled the house and they
Speaker 1: worried that he was going to say something. Alma was
Speaker 1: furious that they let him go, and Alma knocked David
Speaker 1: Brooks unconscious when he came back to the house. Dean
Speaker 1: then tortured him.
Speaker 2: Alma David A David.
Speaker 1: Yeah, David thought that he deserved it. At this point,
Speaker 1: Dean now believed that Alma was even more loyal than David.
Speaker 1: Dean would move quickly from apartment apartment, like I said,
Speaker 1: apartment to apartments sorry, like I said, that was fune
Speaker 1: to say, seemingly wororthy was going to get caught each time.
Speaker 1: He'd stay in a place like for a couple of
Speaker 1: months and then move again. The trio were now a
Speaker 1: well oiled machine, and it seemed as though they would
Speaker 1: stop at nothing. One boy disappeared after the next, and
Speaker 1: police didn't seem to be investigating them investigating them as linked.
Speaker 1: Alma and David went out on October nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: and they came across Wally Simminow and Richard Henry. They
Speaker 1: started walking towards Richard's house. They were able to point Oh.
Speaker 1: They were able to get him into David's both of
Speaker 1: the boys into David's corvette and take them to Dean's apartment.
Speaker 1: At some point in the night, while he was a
Speaker 1: to call his mother from Dean's apartment, but it cut
Speaker 1: off very quickly. The only word he was able to
Speaker 1: get out was Mama. The next day, Alma accidentally shot
Speaker 1: Richard in the mouth. What they were strangled to death
Speaker 1: and buried in the boat shed, like the majority of
Speaker 1: the other victims. Four days later, Alma had talked to
Speaker 1: a boy by the name of Timothy Curly into going
Speaker 1: over to Dean's apartment, but they weren't alone. Ronda Williams
Speaker 1: was the fiance of Frank A. Geary. She wanted to
Speaker 1: get away from home that day because her dad was
Speaker 1: drunk and hurting her. She ended up with Timothy, and
Speaker 1: when Alba was trying to get Timothy back to Dean's place,
Speaker 1: Ronda went to Alma had told them that they were
Speaker 1: just going to a party. When they arrived at his house,
Speaker 1: Dean was mad because Ronda was there too, and that
Speaker 1: wasn't part of a plan. It was going to mess
Speaker 1: up his plans. They started partying anyway. Dean was formed
Speaker 1: emulating a plan while the teens were partying. After a
Speaker 1: little while, the teens fell asleep. Alma woke up to
Speaker 1: find himself gagged and handcuffed as well, and so too
Speaker 1: were tim and Ronda. He had just waited for them
Speaker 1: to fall asleep, so he could bind them all.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think they had just fallen asleep.
Speaker 3: If he's gagged like you'd wake up earlier than that.
Speaker 3: It feels like there was.
Speaker 1: That's right, there's some sort of Dean told them that
Speaker 1: they were all going to diet because they brought Ronda
Speaker 1: with him with them. Yeah. Alma started pleading to let
Speaker 1: him go, saying that if Dean let him go, he
Speaker 1: would help him kill the other two. Dean agreed to
Speaker 1: that plan. They dragged Ronda and Tim to the bedroom
Speaker 1: put them on the torture board. Dean handed Alma and
Speaker 1: knife and said, you're going to cut the clothes off
Speaker 1: of Ronda. You're going to rape her and then kill her. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Dean was going to do the same to Tim. Alma
Speaker 1: asked Dean if he could take Ronda to another room.
Speaker 1: All of this escalated into Alma getting Dean's gun, pointing
Speaker 1: it at Dean and saying, this is too much for me. Wow.
Speaker 1: Dean did not think he was serious and urged him
Speaker 1: to shoot him. Alma shot him in the forehead, but
Speaker 1: it does not but it did not penetrate his skull.
Speaker 1: Oh what Dean was still up shooting Dean three times
Speaker 1: in the back and killing him. Wait, sol Alma killed Dean?
Speaker 1: He did? Yep.
Speaker 3: Oh so this motherfucker's never actually had to pay for
Speaker 3: her Oh no, no, I'm done with the story canceled.
Speaker 1: They called the police. Alma explained what happened when he
Speaker 1: woke up, saying that he and the other two were
Speaker 1: tied up. He explained that he told Dean he would
Speaker 1: help him if he let him go. Ronda later said
Speaker 1: that Alma saved her and Timothy's lives, saying he killed
Speaker 1: the devil. This is a phone call from Alma, who
Speaker 1: went by the middle name Wayne, tweets my about directly
Speaker 1: after he killed.
Speaker 2: You're gonna play it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Oh wonderfu. Wayne was a seventeen year
Speaker 2: old kid. He's never been on a camera before.
Speaker 3: One of the media people comes in and says, I
Speaker 3: have a carphone.
Speaker 2: You want to call your mother, Mama.
Speaker 1: It's Wayne, Mama.
Speaker 3: I killed thee Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yess s, it's all right if that were I seek.
Speaker 1: Can I come out here? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yes, she can't.
Speaker 1: No, you can't come I wort the police. Mama.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Oh that's really disturbing.
Speaker 1: That's so disturbing. He did not admit right away to
Speaker 1: his rule. Police found the torture board, which had handcuffs,
Speaker 1: a large dildo, and plastic covering the carpet. It was
Speaker 1: a room just designed for torture. They also found a
Speaker 1: crate with air holes where he would keep someone confined.
Speaker 1: Alma told his side of the story, but at some
Speaker 1: point the police became very skeptical of him. He then
Speaker 1: admitted to serving as someone that lured people. Fourteen I
Speaker 1: helped him pick them, he said. He then gave the
Speaker 1: name of David Brooks, saying that he had the same
Speaker 1: role as him.
Speaker 2: Where was David in all in this?
Speaker 1: So after kind of everything happened with you know, when
Speaker 1: he was punished for what he did, he ended up
Speaker 1: moving away, like he was, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: involved in this anymore, moved away, got a girlfriend, was
Speaker 1: going to be married. Oh yeah, So he moved on
Speaker 1: and moved further away, and Alma was then the person
Speaker 1: the dean was relying on. Over the next few days,
Speaker 1: Alma spilt everything about his part. He would then lead
Speaker 1: police to where many of the victims were buried, the
Speaker 1: rented boat shed. In the boat shed, police recovered the
Speaker 1: bodies of seventeen boys the Dean had tortured and murdered.
Speaker 1: Ten more were found at other burial sites, some on
Speaker 1: the beach, some in the woods. Always many believed that
Speaker 1: there were many, many more victims. This took place over
Speaker 1: just a couple of years. They would see that some
Speaker 1: of these boys had instruments inserted into them, like we
Speaker 1: spoke about before, some were carstrated. The torture they discovered
Speaker 1: just went on and on. I won't go on and
Speaker 1: explain everything, but these were there were many more horrific
Speaker 1: acts and the cruelty is absolutely monstrous. This is also
Speaker 1: where I mean I was saying before that police just
Speaker 1: stop searching at some point as well, Like there was
Speaker 1: all these and all these unconnected people. So if you
Speaker 1: do any more reading on Dean Coral, you'll find out
Speaker 1: there are so many unconnected people that people actually believe
Speaker 1: where people they.
Speaker 3: Just couldn't connect like that, they couldn't link them to
Speaker 3: him directly.
Speaker 2: That's right, but it seems like it could be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll another we'll jok a top up on anything.
Speaker 2: You mind, Just stop from it because I feel sick.
Speaker 1: David Brooks went on trial in Houston before judge William
Speaker 1: Hatton on February twenty seventh, nineteen seventy five. Although he
Speaker 1: had been indicted for four murders committed between nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: and June nineteen seventy three, prosecutors elected to try him
Speaker 1: solely for the June nineteen seventy three killing a fifteen
Speaker 1: year old William Lawrence. Well, they couldn't. They didn't have
Speaker 1: enough on him to try first. I was like, let's
Speaker 1: get him on the one that we can actually prove, okay,
Speaker 1: David Brooks. Attorney Jim Skelton maintained that his client had
Speaker 1: not personally committed any murders, instead asserting that Dean Coral and,
Speaker 1: to a lesser extent, Henley were responsible for carrying out
Speaker 1: the killings. Assistant District Attorney Tommy Dunn forcefully rejected this argument,
Speaker 1: telling the jury at one point, was he an innocent bystander?
Speaker 1: This defendant was in on this killing, this murderous rampage,
Speaker 1: from the very beginning. He tells you he was a cheerleader,
Speaker 1: if nothing else. That's what he was telling you about
Speaker 1: his presence. You know he was in on it.
Speaker 3: We've discussed this so many times before on the pod
Speaker 3: I remember Fred and Rosemary West is one that we
Speaker 3: spoke about it because after Fred West died, Rosemary was
Speaker 3: the one, the only one on trial, and so her
Speaker 3: defense was, you know, she didn't actually kill them, You're
Speaker 3: just wanting to make me culpable because he's not here anymore.
Speaker 3: And I remember the judge in that actually said it
Speaker 3: does not matter who pulled the trigger or.
Speaker 2: Who you know cast the knife.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you are that involved, then you are just
Speaker 3: as imployers and you were just as guilty of murder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thing exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, murder doesn't have to be found guilty or be
Speaker 3: guilty of murder. Doesn't mean you have to have been
Speaker 3: the one that's actually no into the person's life.
Speaker 1: Directly unicomplice and you're aware of it. Yeah. In his
Speaker 1: forty minute closing arguments, Skeleton stress that the prosecutions are
Speaker 1: case relied entirely on circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't mean they can't be found.
Speaker 1: Guilty, no, and argue that the States had demonstrated only
Speaker 1: that Brooks was an accessory, not a principal offender. He stated,
Speaker 1: the state has proven David Owen Brooks of being an
Speaker 1: accessory to murder the state has not established a murder, Hanks.
Speaker 1: They have proved accessory to murder, not murder. Before you convict,
Speaker 1: you've got to find an act to punish. The trial
Speaker 1: concluded in under a week. After deliberating for approximately ninety minutes,
Speaker 1: the DURA returned to a guilty verdict. On March four,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: That's so quick.
Speaker 1: David Brooks was convicted of Lawrence's murder and sentenced to
Speaker 1: life in prison. He displayed no visible reaction as a
Speaker 1: sentence was announced, though his wife became visibly distraught, so
Speaker 1: he was actually married at this point. David Brooks later
Speaker 1: pealed the conviction, arguing that his sign confessions had been
Speaker 1: obtained without proper advice of his legal rights. However, the
Speaker 1: appeal was rejected in nineteen.
Speaker 2: Seventy nine, a bit late to be claiming.
Speaker 1: That absolutely after the trial, Alma and David were prosecuted
Speaker 1: separately for their involvement in the murders. Henley's trial began
Speaker 1: on July one, nineteen seven four, before a judge Preston
Speaker 1: Dial in San Antonio. He was charged with six murders
Speaker 1: committed between March nineteen seventy two and July nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3: I'm interested to know how and why they chose, like
Speaker 3: the six for him and then the one for David Brooks,
Speaker 3: Like why there.
Speaker 2: I wonder if he so many more? I wonder how
Speaker 2: and why?
Speaker 1: Yeah, ones, Yeah, probably he transported a few there as well.
Speaker 1: Maybe they found a little bit more evidence for him.
Speaker 1: It's hard to know. Yeah, Acting on the advice of
Speaker 1: his attorneys, Henley chose not to testify. He led counsel.
Speaker 1: His lead council, sorry William gray Cross, examined several prosecution witnesses,
Speaker 1: but did not present any witnesses or expert testimony for
Speaker 1: the defense. The prosecution presented testimony from twenty four witnesses,
Speaker 1: including Ronda Williams.
Speaker 3: So essentially, you're saying there was like no defense, no defense.
Speaker 3: The defense brought nothing. They just guilty, brought.
Speaker 1: Witnesses and submitted eighty two exhibits into evidence. These included
Speaker 1: Dean Coral's torture board and one of the storage boxes
Speaker 1: used to transport victims. Investigators testified that hair recovered from
Speaker 1: the box was consistent with that of two of the
Speaker 1: victims and also Henley. The defense again declined to call
Speaker 1: any witnesses so weird. Among the prosecution witnesses was Detective
Speaker 1: David Macmullikem, who read portions of Henley's written statements detailing
Speaker 1: his role in the crimes. In these statements, Henley described
Speaker 1: how he had lured two victims called Cobble and Jones,
Speaker 1: to Dean Coral's Pasadena home. He recounted that both youths
Speaker 1: were restrained following their arrival and subjected to prolonged abuse.
Speaker 1: Henley stated that Dean Coral forced the victims to fight
Speaker 1: each other under the promise that one would be spared.
Speaker 1: After several hours, Jones was restrained and compelled to witness
Speaker 1: further abuse inflicted upon Cobble, who was ultimately killed. Jones
Speaker 1: was later killed as well. Cobble and Jones were murdered
Speaker 1: on July twenty seven, nineteen seventy three, two days after
Speaker 1: being reported missing. The testimony describing these events were so
Speaker 1: distressing that several victims family members left the courtroom to
Speaker 1: regain their composure. Closing arguments were delivered on the on
Speaker 1: July fifteenth, nineteen seventy four. The prosecution sought life imprisonment,
Speaker 1: while the offense argued for acquittal. In addressing the jury.
Speaker 1: District Attorney Carol Vans apologized for his inability to seek
Speaker 1: the death penalty, describing the case as the most extreme
Speaker 1: example of man's inhumanity to man I've ever seen. After
Speaker 1: deliberating for ninety two minutes, the jury found Henley guilty
Speaker 1: on all six counts. More sentencing proceedings began the following day,
Speaker 1: July sixteenth. On August eight, Judge Dial sentenced Henley to
Speaker 1: six consecutive ninety nine year prison terms totaling five hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety four years, and Henley was transferred to the
Speaker 1: Huntsville Unit to begin serving his sentence.
Speaker 2: So how old will he be when he's released?
Speaker 1: Oh, you're the one that's good at maths. Probably about
Speaker 1: nine hundred and something. No, it wouldn't be that much.
Speaker 1: For it'd be about what six six, six hundred and
Speaker 1: something years?
Speaker 2: So what year will that be?
Speaker 1: We should yeah, Henley, I thank you. Henley appealed both
Speaker 1: his conviction and sentence, arguing that the judge had not
Speaker 1: been sequestered, that objections to media presence in the courtroom
Speaker 1: had been denied, and that the court had improperly rejected
Speaker 1: motions to move the trial from San Antonio. The appeal
Speaker 1: was successful and a retrial was granted in December nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight.
Speaker 2: Poor victims family, Thank god.
Speaker 1: But the retrial commenced on June eighteen, nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: in Corpus Christi, with Henley again represented by William Gray,
Speaker 1: joined by another attorney, Edwin Pigelow. The defense renewed its
Speaker 1: efforts to suppress Henley's written statements, but Judge Noah Kennedy
Speaker 1: ruled that August nine, nineteen seventy three statements were admissible
Speaker 1: on our defense council further argued that the physical evidence
Speaker 1: introduced by the state belonged to Dean Coral, not Elma
Speaker 1: Wayne Henley.
Speaker 2: So they finally brought a defense to one.
Speaker 1: Defense on June twenty seven, nineteen seventy nine, and after
Speaker 1: more than two hours of deliberation, the jury once again
Speaker 1: convicted Henley on all six counts. He was sentenced to
Speaker 1: six ninety nine year prison terms, this time to be
Speaker 1: served concurrently rather than consecutively.
Speaker 3: Oh so the date's difference, so he'll be out in
Speaker 3: ninety nine years.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm going to now read the victims. Jeffrey Allan
Speaker 1: Conan eighteen years old, James Dremahler thirteen, Timothy Lewis Curley
Speaker 1: twenty one years old, Mark Scott seventeen, Charles Odam fourteen,
Speaker 1: David Hillard thirteen, Gregory Malley seventeen, Donald Waldrop fifteen, Jerry
Speaker 1: Joe Waldrop fifteen, Richard Sturviant fourteen, Edward C. Watkins fourteen,
Speaker 1: Mark W. Tiller sixteen, Fred Cherry seventeen, James Vernon Dremeller thirteen,
Speaker 1: Reuben rene Gaza fifteen, Wallace Eugene Anderson nineteen, Mark Kent
Speaker 1: Scott seventeen, James Clayton Clay Henley fifteen, Stephen Mark Waldrop fifteen,
Speaker 1: Joseph Allen Lyles seventeen, Donald Glen Waldrop fifteen, Billy Rindinger fourteen,
Speaker 1: Mark Done seventeen, Gregory Jean Malley seventeen, William Ray Lawrence fifteen,
Speaker 1: James Langham seventeen, Curtis Jones fifteen, Charles Cobble seventeen. Authorities
Speaker 1: believe at least twenty eight victims were identified, with the
Speaker 1: possibility of additional unidentified victims. In twenty twenty one, police
Speaker 1: dug up the backyard of a place Dean Coral resided
Speaker 1: as they believed he could have buried more than twenty
Speaker 1: further boys there. What year, sorry in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what sad that the search was not successful,
Speaker 1: but they are continuing to search to this day. Dean
Speaker 1: Coral was killed on August. Dean Coral was killed in
Speaker 1: August nineteen seventy three before he could be arrested or
Speaker 1: tried for his crimes. The families of Dean Coral's victims
Speaker 1: and he's a complices have spoken out extensively over the decades,
Speaker 1: particularly during parole hearings and in recent documentaries as well.
Speaker 1: They kind of go into a lot there. Their statements
Speaker 1: highlight the enduring trauma and their fight for justice. A
Speaker 1: family member who remains anonymous of one of the victims
Speaker 1: of Dean Coral spoke out which I'd like to leave
Speaker 1: you with today. The worst part wasn't even learning how
Speaker 1: my son died. It was knowing that for years people
Speaker 1: had information and chose not to act. We lost our
Speaker 1: child once, but we were forced to relive that loss
Speaker 1: over and over again because the truth was ignored. Families
Speaker 1: of Dean Coral's victims repeatedly emphasized institutional failure, silence, and
Speaker 1: the long lasting harm caused not by the murders themselves,
Speaker 1: but by the delayed investigations and the lack of accountability afterward.
Speaker 1: And that g is the story of the candy Man,
Speaker 1: the Pied Piper, and the monster that was Dean Coral.
Speaker 2: There's absolutely nothing that I liked about the last hour
Speaker 2: and a half.
Speaker 3: So thanks for giving me a week off writing the story.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a positive. That's one positive.
Speaker 2: And for having me over at your house today.
Speaker 1: GiB your wine and a mango.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I didn't finish the wine because I started
Speaker 3: feeling sick about halfway through that.
Speaker 2: I did finish the manga, but that was before I
Speaker 2: knew this story. Okay, it's about all I have to say. Okay, bye, oh.
Speaker 3: I just like there's not there's nothing. There's nothing good
Speaker 3: about that at all. Like I think that David and Alma,
Speaker 3: maybe particularly David, in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Were very much groomed.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but them were also.
Speaker 2: Complicit in all of this. I don't know what the
Speaker 2: kind of how much one outweighs the other.
Speaker 1: I think the sentencing is interesting because it's like that's
Speaker 1: kind of in a way because Dean was killed. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, I think the victims' families wanted something and
Speaker 1: that you know, that kind of makes sense in that sense.
Speaker 1: It's so sad that they were never able to convict Dean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the only positive about that is that he was
Speaker 3: never able to try to argue any defense.
Speaker 1: No, that's true.
Speaker 2: They had to sit.
Speaker 3: Through him trying to say why he wasn't guilty or
Speaker 3: you know, what their sons had done wrong in his
Speaker 3: eyes or anything like that. That's the only silver lining
Speaker 3: in a very dark cloud of that. I feel so
Speaker 3: yuck about the whole thing. I feel yuck about David
Speaker 3: and Almos's involvement then, like as in yuck towards him
Speaker 3: about that, but then somewhat yuck for them in how
Speaker 3: groomed they were, yeah, manipulated, And it's just I really
Speaker 3: hated that.
Speaker 1: Thanks good, Thanks, Hey, we'll be back after this with
Speaker 1: the mailbag.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 1: Oh, I do think. I think it's so sad, Like
Speaker 1: you know, I read and watched so much good about it,
Speaker 1: and it is so so heartbreaking because you know, you
Speaker 1: see that he was kind of he didn't have a
Speaker 1: good life, and then you know, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it was like, yeah, he's living with his horrible he had,
Speaker 1: you know, these horrible stepfathers as well, and then he
Speaker 1: was just an awful, awful person that was also rejected
Speaker 1: by his mum. And you look at the whole life
Speaker 1: and you go nothing good ever, Like there's nothing. He
Speaker 1: became a monster. Then he was grooming kids. He had
Speaker 1: an inn with that through the candy shop, and it's
Speaker 1: just I don't know, there's so much in there that
Speaker 1: he's going, Oh, it's all.
Speaker 2: It's going to look like I want to quickly look up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just it's it's all so so awful and
Speaker 1: like you said, get.
Speaker 2: Some vowels, get some vowels in your name, Get.
Speaker 1: Some vowels in your name. But yeah, it was just
Speaker 1: such a such a horrendous and proper use of the
Speaker 1: word horrendous case to look into.
Speaker 2: There's not many pictures of him. It looks like a
Speaker 2: very kind of I mean generic man.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, because there wasn't like I mean, is
Speaker 1: it's such a such a strange case that I haven't
Speaker 1: heard of before.
Speaker 2: I've heard of the candy Man, like the killer.
Speaker 1: I've heard of the candy Man, but I haven't heard
Speaker 1: the life of Dean Corral before.
Speaker 2: Probably why because it's so awful.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but there's so many cases like that that sadly,
Speaker 1: you know, people say, oh, it's a run away to
Speaker 1: run away, and I think that was the saddest thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely awful. Okay, I've decided next week I'm going
Speaker 2: to do one that's.
Speaker 3: More out of the box. I mean, we always do crimes,
Speaker 3: so they're always awful, but I'm gonna do something a
Speaker 3: bit more, I don't know, maybe less depressing, just for
Speaker 3: a little change.
Speaker 2: I love you and I appreciate you. And I'm being
Speaker 2: very mean in not thanking you for that story. Thank
Speaker 2: you for that story, Sammy Peterson. I just I feel
Speaker 2: really lucky.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, we'll be back after the after this still
Speaker 1: break and then a mail bags. Feel better.
Speaker 2: Thanks,