It was on August 8, 1973 that the Houston Police Department discovered a 33 year old male named Dean Corll shot to death at a home where he was staying in Pasadena, a Houston suburb. The police were given information that prompted them to search a shed Corll had been renting; a beach at High Island, east of Houston; and a wooded area near Sam Rayburn Reservoir. The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors find the story of the Lost Boys to be sad.
They eventually discovered the mutilated bodies of 27 boys in what the New York Times called the largest multiple murder case in the United States history. In this tragic story, Skip Hollandsworth tells of the horror inflicted by Dean Corll on the people of Houston and one familyís search for closure.
In 2009 skip Hollandsworth was part of a panel at Stephen F Austin University in Nacogdoches along with fellow Texas monthly editors Brian Sweeney and Jake Silverstein. The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors find the story of the Lost Boys to be sad.
This is where the topic was discussed the future of the media business. But before the panel got started Brian and I am with talking to the schoolís executive director of marketing and communications Bob right. He said why don’t you just story on Dean Corll? Brian and I said Cemetery release who is Dean Corll?
Right hip in a radio reported in Houston when the story broke of Corll’s murderous rampage. Over the years he had remained haunted by what he had seen taken place. The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors find the story of the Lost Boys to be sad.
After he gave us a brief outline of what happened brought in our haunted too. I was also do embarrassed that I love crime stories yet had never heard of this one. Brian stated that you have got to do that story and I thought that it was just a straight history piece spirit I am not sure what relevance it has for today something or something might pop up. Little Deborah I know just how relevant the story would become.
No, I did not start working on the story right away. I was swamped with one thing after another knock it is putting it aside. I suddenly started working on the story in September 2010. First person I called on was Barbara Gibson a Houston woman who had done some missing persons investigation over the years and who had gotten interested in the Corll case.
Sugar Land Chiropractors | Sudden Distortion Impacts
She told me about Sharon Derek a forensic anthropologist at the Harris County Institute of forensic Sciences who was working diligently attempting to identify bodies from them up you’re absolutely kidding me case was not old history it was still going on 40 years later and then Barber told me about the upcoming funeral from where the hats mother whose son had been murdered by simply showed up here it’s just like that I was on one of those stories in there that would be unforgettable. Although I worked on every story basically spent the next five months looking into the Corll case and the spell another North writing the stories.
In order to find information about the killings I went to the Houston and place in Pasadena Police Department and filed open records request asking for their original case files into the Corll murders. Files that had been looked at by just a handful of people. Barbara gave me a tip that there were more files from the original missing personís report to the autopsy of the boys at the Harris County archives. The librarians generously help me locate what I needed a one of the librarians with this pen today photocopy documents for me. I spent two days at the Houston Public Library tracking down all the old newspaper articles I could about the case. Then came the process of hunting down parents who were still alive, brothers and sisters, retired homicide detectives who worked the case, former prosecutors and making requests of the Texas Department of Corrections to visit Corll’s accomplices Wayne Henley and David Brooks. Henley said yes to me visiting him Brooks never responded to any of my letters or request. The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors find the story of the Lost Boys to be sad.
I have written gruesome stories before most notably the one about the Dallas man we called him to modern day Jack the Ripper who cut out the eyeballs of prostitutes after shooting them in the head then leaving them on the streets of South Dallas. But this one definitely was different. It struck something deep inside me. The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors find the story of the Lost Boys to be sad.
And the reason was because I focus as much on the victimís elderly parents as I did the killers. I am 50 three years old which would be around the same age of many of Chorllís victim. When I walked into the homes of the dead boyís parents who are now in their 80s I was reminded in my own parents who also are in their 80s and I couldn’t help but think what their lives would be like if I had been tortured and murdered all those years ago. The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors find the story of the Lost Boys to be sad.
What hit me the hardest was watching their parents still grieve. Their lives had never gotten back to any sort of normal. They are still stuck in 1973 at that very moment when they heard the news that their sons had been found in one of the private cemeteries. The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors find the story of the Lost Boys to be sad.
And what made all of this even more searing for me is that I am a parent of a 14 year old daughter. I could not help but realize that my life too would become forever stuck in one place if anything happened to her like things that happened to the lost boys.
Sharon Derek who had gotten to know many other families told me during one of the interviews about Mary Scott she was one of the last parents of the lost boys who was still living in the Heights. Derek told me she was looking into possibility that maybe after all these years she could help Mrs. Scott know for certain what happened to her son mark. The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors find the story of the Lost Boys to be sad.
I called miss Scott who was very fearful, yet very plot and she invited me over to her home. When our app she was walking out the door to feed her desk. Within the first 5 minutes I was with her I had the scene that led off the article in Texas monthly. I also knew she was going to be the character to take us through this story. I was going to follow her as Derek looked for her son. Again, it was pure luck that is cited to the store in 2010 rather than one of 1st heard of in 2009. Otherwise I would never have had the ending of the story that I did with Derek arriving at the Scotts home in February this year to give them the news. I am not sure I will ever get over the feeling I had when I went to see business got after she learned what Derek had discovered about her son. It is one of the saddest couple of paragraphs I have ever written.