The Man With Candy (20 page)

“What was scary?” Tucker asked.

“When I woke up this morning, there was four, five cops outside the cell peeping in at me, and some of ’em was talking nasty. I didn’t know what they was gonna do; it scairt me half to death.”

“Well, did they do anything to you?”

“No. The sergeant come over and he was super-nice.”

In Tucker’s office, the two sat in silence for several minutes. Then the detective said, “You told me you’d tell me the whole truth today.”

“I know,” Brooks said, “but I’d like to wait for my daddy first.”

For a moment, Tucker was afraid the confession might be slipping away. “Well, now listen,” he said, “you said yesterday you
were gonna tell me all about this today, and I
want
you to tell me all about it.”

“I’m going to!” Brooks said emphatically. “But I’d just like to wait till my daddy gets here.”

“Are you gonna make a statement?”

“Yes, I planned on it.”

“Well, look, it’s gonna take us two, three hours. So why don’t we type it now, and anything you say, even if it’s reduced to writing, it can’t be used against you unless you sign it.” Tucker was stretching the truth, but the district attorney was pressing for the confession.

Brooks pondered the suggestion, and at last agreed. Shortly after the process had begun, Alton Brooks knocked and entered. “I want you to tell ’em the truth!” he instructed his son in front of Tucker. “We’re gonna undo this thang, and we’re gonna try to identify all those boys we kin, and get this straightened out.” He left, and David resumed talking. He said that Corll engaged in homosexual activities with “a large number” of people, and always played the active role. “He liked oral sex,” the boy said, “and he’d pay boys to come over and let him do it to them. That was his sex life. There was some boys that was involved with him for a long time; they kept coming back for more, and he kept paying ’em. But every once in a while he’d take a kid by force, and then he’d do oral sex and rectal sex and all kind of other things, and he’d wind up killing ‘em.”

Brooks said that the plywood board was used to hold the boys in position while Corll abused and murdered them. “Once they went on the board, they were as good as dead,” the young man said. “It was all over but the shouting and the crying. Most of the boys weren’t good boys. This is probably a cruel way to put it, it probably sounds terrible, but most of ’em wasn’t no great loss. They was in trouble all the time, dope fiends and one thing or another. I remember one kid, we all agreed after he was dead that
he was a super-bad kid, and his people wasn’t gonna miss him no way.”

The talk went on for several hours, and gradually “Ol’ Fastfingers” produced several pages of typed confession. “I want you to read this carefully before you sign it,” Tucker said. “If there’s anything I got twisted up or backwards or anything, you just tell me, and we’ll correct it. But if it’s right, I want you to sign right here.”

Brooks picked up the pages and read :

The first killing that I remember happened when Dean was living at the Yorktown town house. There were two boys there and I left before they were killed. But Dean told me that he had killed them afterwards. I don’t know where they were buried or what their names were. The first few that Dean killed were supposed to have been sent off somewhere in California.

The first killing that I remember being present at was on 6363 San Felipe. That boy was Ruben Haney (Watson). Dean and I were the only people involved in that one. But Dean did the killing, and I was just present when it happened.

I also remember two boys who were killed at the Place One apartments on Mangum. They were brothers and their father worked next door where they were building some more apartments. I was present when Dean killed them by strangling them but again I did not participate. I believe that I was present when they were buried, but I don’t remember where they were buried. The youngest of these two boys is the youngest that was killed I think.

I remember one boy who was killed on Columbia at Dean’s house. This was just before Wayne Henley came into the picture. Dean kept this boy around the house for about four days before he killed him. I don’t remember his name but we picked him up on Eleventh and Rutland. I think I helped bury this boy also, but I don’t remember where it was. This was about two years ago. It really upset Dean to have to kill this boy because he really liked him.

A boy by the name of Glass was also killed at the Columbia address. I had taken him home one time, but he wouldn’t get out because he wanted to go back to Dean’s. I took him back and Dean ended up killing him.

Now that I think about it I’m not sure whether it was Glass that I took home or another boy. But I believe that it was Glass.

It was during the time that we were living on Columbia Street that Wayne Henley got involved. Wayne took part in getting the boys at first and then later he took an active part in the killings. Wayne seemed to enjoy causing pain and he was especially sadistic at the Schuler address.

Most of the killings that occurred after Wayne came into the picture involved all three of us. I still did not take part in the actual killing but nearly always all three of us were there.

I was present when Mark Scott was killed at the Schuler street address. I had told yesterday in my witness statement about Mark Scott being at the Schuler house but I did not say that I was present, which I was. Mark had a knife and he tried to get Dean. He swung at him with a knife and caught Dean’s shirt and barely broke the skin. He still had one hand tied and Dean grabbed the hand with the knife. Wayne ran out of the room and got a pistol, and Mark just gave up. Wayne killed Mark Scott and I think that he strangled him. Mark was either buried at the beach or the boathouse.

There was another boy killed at the Schuler house, actually there were two at this time. A boy named Billy Baulch and a Johnny and I think that his last name was Malone. Wayne strangled Billy and he said “Hey Johnny” and when Johnny looked up Wayne shot him in the forehead with a .22 automatic. The bullet came out of his ear and he raised up and about three minutes later he said, “Wayne, please don’t.” Then Wayne strangled him, and Dean helped.

It was while we were living on Schuler that Wayne and Dean got me down and started to kill me. I begged Dean not to kill me and he finally let me go. I told about this in my witness statement and that part of my statement was absolutely true. It was also at this address that they got Billy Ridinger and what I said in my witness statement was true about him. I took care of him while he was there and I believe the only reason he is alive now is because I begged them not to kill him.

Wayne and Dean got one boy by themselves while we were on Schuler. It was a tall, skinny guy. I just happened to walk in the house and there he was. I left before they killed this one.

In the first apartment we lived in at Westcott Towers I think that
there were two boys killed. These were both young boys from The Heights area but I don’t know their names. Wayne accidentally shot one of them. This was about seven A.M. I was in the other room asleep when this happened. Dean told me that Wayne had just come in waving the .22 and accidentally shot one of the boys in the jaw. The bullet just went in a little and then it was just under the skin. They didn’t kill the boy right then. They killed these two boys later on that day.

Dean moved to the Princessa Apartments on Wirt and I remember him getting one boy there by himself. He wanted me to help him but I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t want to mess with this one because I had someplace I wanted to go so I tried to get him mad so he would leave but he wanted to stay.

Dean grabbed the boy and within three minutes of when he grabbed him I was gone. At that time I was using Dean’s car so I was in and out all the time. After the Princessa Apartments Dean moved to Pasadena. I know of two that were killed there. One was from Baton Rouge and one was a small blond boy from South Houston. I saw the boy from South Houston for about forty-five minutes. I took him a pizza and then I left and he wanted me to come back. I wasn’t there when either of these two boys were killed. I did come in just after Dean had killed the boy from Baton Rouge, that one was a different day from the blond boy.

In all, I guess there were between twenty-five and thirty boys killed and they were buried in three different places.

I was present and helped bury many of them but not all of them. Most of them were buried at the boat stall. There were three or four buried at Sam Rayburn, I think, I am sure that there are two up there. On the first one at Sam Rayburn I helped bury them. Then the next one we took to Sam Rayburn when we got there Dean and Wayne found that the first one had come to the surface and either a foot or a hand was above the ground. When they buried this one the second time they put some type of sheet on top of him to keep him down.

The third place that they were buried was on the beach at High Island. This was right off the Winnie exit where the road goes to the beach. You turn east on the beach road and go till the pavement changes which is about a quarter or a half of a mile and the bodies are on the right-hand side of the highway about fifteen or twenty yards off
of the road. I never actually buried one here but I always drove the car. I know that one of the graves had a large rock on top of it. I think that there were five or more bodies buried at this location.

The bodies at the beach are in a row down the beach for perhaps half a mile or so. I am willing to show officers where this location is and I will try to locate as many of the graves as possible.

I regret that this happened and I’m sorry for the kids’ families.

Brooks finished reading and put the statement down unsigned. “What’s the matter?” Tucker asked. “Did I get it wrong?”

“No,” the boy said. “I’d just like to talk to my father first.”

The detective ushered Alton Brooks into the room and left the two alone. After a few minutes, the father came out and said to Tucker, “I’m gonna tell you what I asked mah son, and he’s assured me. I’ve tole him to cooperate, and the only thang I wanted him to do was tell me he hadn’t taken a human life.” Tears formed in the man’s eyes and his voice broke. “He’s assured me that he hasn’t, and I believe he’s tellin’ me the truth.”

The two men walked back into the office, and with the father as a witness, David signed the statement. Alton’s shoulders began to shake. “It’s all right, Daddy,” the boy said.

“No,” Alton Brooks said, “it’s not all right, son. I wouldn’t blame some of them parents if they come up here and shot me.” David tried to offer comfort, but his father cried on.

At their motel in the small town of San Augustine, the visiting Houston detectives were roused from their beds at 6:30
A.M.
by the county sheriff. “Boy, they sure git up early around here!” Willie Young complained. He had scribbled the last word of his notes barely four hours earlier.

In the town square, the detectives found a posse of ten or twelve deputies drinking coffee from thermos jugs and waiting for full daylight. Wayne Henley was eager to go, refreshed by his night of barbiturated sleep. “Hey,” he said to Willie Young, “yew ’member
when I called for a doctor last evenin’? Well, I was jes’ kiddin’. I felt fine all the time. I jes’ wanted to see if y’all’d git one for me.”

The boy’s hot dark eyes glowered from under rumpled hair that covered his head in squiggly rat’s tails. The group piled into cars and pickup trucks and drove to the Angelina National Forest and the tall pines, serene and aromatic. Crickets and cicadas whirred in the weeds, and somewhere in the distance a rooster cued the dawn. Two more bodies were found, numbers twenty and twenty-one of the case, teen-age boys like the others.

Wayne Henley waited in the back of an unmarked police car, his arms on his knees, his head resting on his arms and moving rhythmically up and down, as though he were sobbing to himself. By this time Willie Young and his fellow officers had become accustomed to the young prisoner’s mood swings, and they let him cry himself out. After the bodies had been removed to hearses and dispatched to the county medical examiner’s office, reporters demanded interviews with the young killer. A sheriff’s deputy conferred with Henley and then beckoned for silence. “He’s perfectly willing to attempt to answer your questions,” the deputy said. “Please don’t crowd in. Take your time. Give him a little time to answer you, and don’t shoot any pictures right in his face. This is his request.”

The newsmen imploded on the car, and Henley, his eyes red and his face still damp, answered their questions in a singsong voice. It was plain that he was contemptuous of the whole process and eager to cut it short.

“Wayne, what happened here?” a reporter asked.

“Boys were buried,” Henley snapped, as if to say that the question barely deserved an answer.

“Why were they buried here?”

“Dean Corll decided he wanted to have sex with ’em. They wouldn’t let him, so he kilt ’em and brought ’em out here and buried ’em.”

“Why here, Wayne?”

“His folks had a place out here. He said his boat storage place was full.”

“How many more bodies do we have out here, Wayne?”

“None.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“I’m
not
sure. None to mah knowledge.”

“Were you aware what was going on for the last couple of years?”

“A year ago last winter.”

“How many people did Dean tell you that he killed?”

“I cain’t total it. Twenty-four, I believe.”

“Did he pay you to bring the boys over to his house?”

“Suppose to have,” Henley said disgustedly.

“Did he ever pay you?”

“No.”

“Two hundred dollars?”

“That was the beginnin’ price.”

“Did he pay you
any?”

“Some,” the boy said, contradicting himself.

“How did you meet Dean?”

“David Brooks.”

“Who else is involved that we could talk to that might shed some light on this?”

“No names anymore,” the boy said with the hauteur of a superior.

“Do you know where the bodies might be buried on High Island?”