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