“Candy Man” Killer Dean Corll’s Accomplice Breaks Silence on Murders

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The quest to understand what makes serial killers tick is a whole industry.

But what about someone like Elmer Wayne Henley Jr.? While he’s a convicted serial killer, it’s impossible to know if he ever would have committed murder on his own if he hadn’t crossed paths with “Candy Man” Dean Corll, who tortured and murdered at least 27 boys and young men in the Houston area between 1970 and 1973.

“I’m willing to accept that’s a period of my life I may never have an understanding of,” Henley told Dr. Katherine Ramsland in a prison interview heard in the new Investigation Discovery documentary The Serial Killer’s Apprentice, premiering Aug. 17. “I have never been allowed to further that storyline.”

But Ramsland wanted to know more about how Henley, who was still a teenager himself, ended up killing alongside Corll—before, that is, he shot Corll to death on Aug. 8, 1973, and then told police where they could find the bodies of more than two dozen victims.

As Ramsland and journalist Tracy Ullman wrote in the introduction to their documentary-inspiring 2024 book of the same name, “He’s the only known accomplice to have killed the predator who lured him into a team killer arrangement.”

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Henley told Ramsland that he believed Corll originally intended to kill him too, but wondered if, instead, “Did he recognize a fellow psychopath?”

After he killed Corll, the then-17-year-old told police, per Ramsland’s book, that he had tried to tell his mother “two or three times about this stuff,” but she didn’t believe him. “I even wrote a confession one time and hid it,” he said, “hoping that Dean would kill me because the thing was bothering me so bad. I gave the confession to my mother and told her if I was gone for a certain length of time to turn it in.”

Whether or not Henley’s road from troubled teen to murderer can ever really be understood, here’s what to know about the disturbing case of the “Candy Man” killer and his apprentice:

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Who was “Candy Man” killer Dean Corll?

Born in 1939, Dean Corll served briefly in the U.S. Army before settling in Texas in 1965, working for his mother and stepfather’s candy-making business in Houston Heights.

Kids affectionally called Corll “Candy Man” because he handed out sweets at the playground.

Corll was working as an electrician for the Houston Lighting and Power Company when he moved into his father’s former home in Pasadena, Texas, in the spring of 1973. He had never been arrested or charged with any crime.

It wasn’t until after Corll died that August that police connected the 33-year-old to the murders of 27 teenage boys. Investigators dug up 17 bodies in a boat storage shed in Houston, another six in High Island and four by Lake Sam Rayburn.

Courtesy of Investigation Discovery

Who were Dean Corll’s victims?

Corll’s known victims ranged in age from 13 to 19, all of them shot and/or strangled.

Jeffrey Alan Konen, an 18-year-old student at University of Texas, Austin, disappeared while hitchhiking on Sept. 25, 1970. The first missing teen linked to Corll, his body was found buried on High Island.

Over the years, Corll killed two sets of brothers. Jerry Waldrop, 13, and Donald Waldrop, 15, both disappeared on Jan. 30, 1971, and were found buried together in the boat shed.

Billy Gene Baulch Jr.—a former Corll Candy Co. employee—was 17 when he went missing on May 21, 1972. He was buried at High Island Beach. Michael Anthony Baulch, 15, disappeared on July 19, 1973, and his remains were found at Lake Sam Rayburn.

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Corll’s last known victim was 13-year-old James Stanton Dreymala, who was abducted on Aug. 3, 1973. Five days later, Corll died and the bodies of Dreymala and 16 others were unearthed from Stall No. 11 at Southwest Boat Storage.

Even once the remains were uncovered, it took years to identify all the victims. Roy Eugene Bunton, 19, who disappeared Aug. 21, 1972, was misidentified as another young man after his body was dug up from the boat shed. He wasn’t positively ID’d until 2011, according to the Houston Chronicle.

According to the 2025 Investigation Discovery documentary The Serial Killer’s Apprentice, forensic researchers are trying to identify the remains of a potential 28th victim.

Courtesy of Investigation Discovery

How did serial killer Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. end up murdering boys with Dean Corll?

Elmer Wayne Henley Jr., born in 1956, had been cutting class and drinking in the wake of his parents’ divorce. Forced to repeat the ninth grade, he was “bored to tears,” as he recalled to criminologist Dr. Katherine Ramsland in a prison interview played in the ID documentary.

He first met Corll through fellow middle-schooler David Owen Brooks. (Brooks confessed to helping Corll abduct victims and dispose of their bodies, but denied killing anyone himself. He was convicted of the June 1973 murder of 15-year-old Billy Ray Lawrence and spent the rest of his life in prison, dying in 2020.)

Courtesy of ID

Calling Corll “a vampire of the worst sort,” Ramsland said in the doc, “Wayne Henley was shattered in who he was, and remade and groomed by a predator that he had no resources to handle.”

Courtesy of Investigation Discovery

Henley maintained he didn’t know what Corll was up to until he killed 18-year-old Frank Aguirre—a friend of Henley’s—on March 24, 1972.

“I was horrified,” Henley told Ramsland. “I knew right from wrong, I should’ve gone to the police.”

But Henley then helped Corll kill 17-year-old Mark Scott, who disappeared on April 20, 1972.

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What happened to serial killer Dean Corll?

On Aug. 8, 1973, Henley killed Corll at his Pasadena home.

As he told police at the time, the teen had brought two friends to party at Corll’s house. At some point the trio passed out and, when they woke up, they were all tied up. Henley convinced Corll to untie him, promising to help him kill the others. But when Corll put his gun down, Henley picked it up and shot him three times.

That same day, he led police to the boat shed and also told them about the other two burial sites.

“I did not implicate myself immediately,” Henley told Ramsland. “Somewhere along the line there I just decided it was better to be honest about everything.”

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Where is Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. now?

Henley pleaded not guilty but was convicted in 1974 of six of the murders linked to Corll. He was sentenced to six 99-year prison terms, to be served consecutively.

His conviction was thrown out on appeal in 1978, the court ruling that a change of venue should have been granted to avoid a biased jury pool. But, Henley was convicted again in 1979 and resentenced, but to six 99-year terms to be served concurrently. Now 69, Henley remains incarcerated at Telford Unit, a state prison in Bowie County, Texas.

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He has been denied parole multiple times and, though the parents of most of his victims are dead, the ones still alive remain committed to ensuring Henley is never released.

“You might as well prepare for it mentally, but what are you going to say?” James Dreymala, whose son Stanton was the killers’ last victim, told NBC affiliate KPRC in June 2025 as Henley’s case came up for review again. “What are you gonna do? You’re going to tell the parole board exactly how you feel.”

Added his wife Elaine Dreymala, “I don’t feel he deserves to ever be free.”

The Serial Killer’s Apprentice premieres Sunday, Aug. 17, at 9/8c on ID and will be available to stream on HBO Max.