small workforce, and he was seen to behave flirtatiously toward several teenage male employees. Corll is also known to have installed a pool table at the rear of the candy factory where employees and local youths would congregate. Friendship with David Brooks In 1967, Corll befriended 12-year-old David Owen Brooks, then a bespectacled sixth grade student and one of the many children to whom he gave free candy. Brooks initially became one of Corll's many youthful close companions, regularly socializing with Corll and various teenage boys who congregated at the rear of the candy factory. He also joined Corll on the regular trips he took to South Texas beaches in the company of various youths, and later commented that Corll was the first adult male who did not mock his appearance. Whenever Brooks told Corll he needed cash, Corll gave him money, and the youth began to view Corll as a father figure. Upon Corll's urging, a sexual relationship gradually developed between the two. Beginning in 1969, Corll paid Brooks in cash or with gifts to allow him to perform fellatio on the youth. Brooks' parents were divorced; his father lived in Houston and his mother had relocated to Beaumont, a city east of Houston. In 1970, when he was 15, Brooks dropped out of Waltrip High School and moved to Beaumont to live with his mother. Whenever he visited his father in Houston, he also visited Corll, who allowed him to stay at his apartment if he wished. Later the same year, Brooks moved back to Houston. By his own later admission, Brooks began regarding Corll's apartment as his second home. By the time Brooks dropped out of high school, Corll's mother and his half-sister, Joyce, had moved to Colorado after the failure of her third marriage and the closure of Corll Candy Company in June 1968. Although she often talked to her eldest son on the telephone, his mother never saw him again. Following the closure of the candy company, Corll took a job as an electrician at the Houston Lighting and Power Company (HL&P), where he tested electrical relay systems. He worked in this employment until the day of his death. Murders Between 1970 and 1973, Corll is known to have killed a minimum of 28 victims. All of his victims were males aged 13 to 20, the majority of whom were in their mid-teens. Most victims