Dean Arnold Corll (December 24, 1939 – August 8, 1973) was an American serial killer and sex offender who abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered a minimum of 28 teenage boys and young men between 1970 and 1973 in Houston and Pasadena, Texas. He was aided by two teenaged accomplices, David Owen Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley. The crimes, which became known as the Houston Mass Murders, came to light after Henley fatally shot Corll. Upon discovery, it was considered the worst example of serial murder in U.S. history. Corll's victims were typically lured with an offer of a party or a lift to one of the various addresses in which he resided between 1970 and 1973. They would then be restrained either by force or deception, and each was killed either by strangulation or shooting with a .22 caliber pistol. Corll and his accomplices buried 17 of their victims in a rented boat shed; four other victims were buried in woodland near Lake Sam Rayburn; one victim was buried on a beach in Jefferson County; and at least six victims were buried on a beach on the Bolivar Peninsula. Brooks and Henley confessed to assisting Corll in several abductions and murders; both were sentenced to life imprisonment at their subsequent trials. Corll was also known as the Candy Man and the Pied Piper, because he and his family had previously owned and operated a candy factory in Houston Heights, and he had been known to give free candy to local children. Early life Childhood Dean Arnold Corll was born on December 24, 1939, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the first child of Mary Emma Robison (1916-2010) and Arnold Edwin Corll (1916-2001). Corll's father was strict with his children, whereas his mother was markedly protective of both her sons. Their marriage was marred by frequent quarreling and the couple divorced in 1946, four years after the birth of their younger son, Stanley Wayne Corll. Mary subsequently sold the family home and relocated to a trailer home in Memphis, Tennessee, where Arnold had been drafted into the United States Air Force after the divorce, to allow her sons to remain in contact with their father. Dean Corll was a shy, serious child who rarely socialized with other children, but at the same time displayed concern for the wellbeing of others. At the age of seven, he suffered an undiagnosed case of rheumatic fever,