Prolific Serial Killer's Teen Accomplice Speaks Out In New Prison Interview

One of the two teenage accomplices of a serial killer dubbed "The Candyman Killer" is speaking out from behind bars in a new documentary.

Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. (above left) was just a 15-year-old kid working at a gas station when he was introduced to Dean Corll (above right), a man whose family owned a candy store in Houston Heights, Texas. From 1970 until 1973 -- when Henley Jr. killed Corll after nearly becoming one of his victims -- the pair and fellow teen accomplice David Brooks killed at least 29 victims, all young boys aged 13-20.

Many of the boys had been lured to Corll's home by the two teens, before Corll sexually assaulted them -- sometimes chaining them to boards and torturing them for days -- before Henley Jr. and Brooks allegedly strangled many of them to death. Though Henely Jr. would later confess to participating in the murders, Brooks only admitted to helping abduct boys and burying them. They claimed they were initially paid $200 per boy, believing the victims were being sold to a sex ring referred to as the Syndicate and would end up in California as "house boys," not killed.

It's Henley Jr. who revealed the depth of the killer's depraved deeds, coming clean to police about the victims and where their bodies were buried in 1973, after fatally shooting Corll. Now, more than 50 years later, Henley Jr. gave new insight into his experience on the new ID true crime doc The Serial Killer's Apprentice, where he spoke with Dr. Katherine Ramsland for 60 hours while in prison for life.

"I think I've come to a point in my life that I'm willing to accept that's a period of my life that I may never clearly have an understanding of," he told her in the doc, now streaming on HBO Max. "Any time I tried to talk about it, if I didn't just sit up and say, 'Yep, I'm a killer and I'm evil,' they didn't want to hear anything else. I've never been allowed to further the storyline."

He first gave insight into his childhood, saying he remembered it being "happy." He, however, acknowledged his mother calling his father an abusive alcoholic, before recalling a time he confronted his dad for abusing his mom and grandmother. His parents then got divorced and his father left, before his teenage years began with him rocking long hair and smoking weed in the Heights.

"I was having problems dealing with my parents' divorce and the doctor put me on Valium when I was in ninth grade," he told Ramsland. "I had to redo the ninth grade, which was probably the worst possible thing they could have done to me. I was bored to tears."

In the early 1970s, young boys in the area began going missing, with one of the first being 13-year-old David Hilligiest. Though Henley Jr. said he's "not sure kids paid attention" to the disappearances at the time, he recalled growing up with Hilligiest, remembering that "when he went missing, I helped put flyers out for him."

He then met Brooks in 1971, as they bonded over both skipping school. Henley Jr. said Brooks took him to a local pool hall, which is where he met Corll for the first time.

"Let me tell you the first thing Dean ever said to me other than hello, he said, 'Do you want to hear a joke,' It was a dirty joke and I thought that was cool,'" recalled Henley Jr., adding that Brooks had first met Corll when he was just 12, at the candy store. As Henley Jr. noticed Brooks always had money, despite not having a job or coming from a wealthy family, he asked where it was coming from -- learning of "some criminal enterprise with Dean."

He recalled going to Corll's home for the first time, claiming Corll came toward him with a knife -- before Brooks interrupted, asking whether anyone knew he was there. Henley Jr. said his mother did, a move he now believes saved his life.

"I think if I gave any other answer, I would have been killed," he told Ramsland. "So here's what sticks with me, what hurts me, I believe that I was originally taken over to Dean's as a victim. What scares me is, did Dean recognize another fellow psychopath?"

At first, Henley Jr. said he thought they were just going to rob homes together, but Corll "could never find the place he thought was ideal to burglarize." It's then Corll allegedly told him, "It's too bad there's not a market in people. They're everywhere, they're just everywhere'" -- before mentioning The Syndicate and claiming Hilligiest was living as a pool boy in California. Henley Jr. told Ramsland he then thought he could be "a hero" and "bring David home," citing his "hero complex" as one reason why he stayed with Corll.

He then recalled them picking up a hitchhiker, taking him to Corll's home, where the boy was tied up. Henley Jr. claimed that, at that point, Brooks took him away because he "couldn't be there when the Syndicate comes to pick up the boy." The next instance, however, hit closer to home -- as the victim, Frank Aguirre, was one of Henley Jr.'s friends.

"I took Frank back to the apartment to smoke a joint and Dean jumped him. And I did not know he was going to. He tied him up, he says, 'I have your friend, I'm not going to let him go.' The next morning, Frank was dead," Corll recalled. "I was horrified. This is a friend, not an acquaintance, this is a friend. And he told me what he had been doing and what I was hooked up in. He told me, he says, 'You are already involved in murder. I raped and murdered the last person you helped me with.'"

Corll said he didn't know what to do, thinking he should have done more and should have gone to the police. But the threat of the Syndicate and his own involvement kept him from talking. "If the police do believe me, then the Syndicate is going to kill me," he said, " I don't think people are aware of how big a role the Syndicate played. Because it believed it wholeheartedly."

Then, he said, Corll insisted "that I kill someone," before revealing how he became involved in the murder of Mark Scott, 17.

"The thing is, Dean goaded me and pushed me, that I needed to kill to be a man. It was push, push, push, you gotta do this. For some reason, Dean was really adamant that he needed to get rid of Mark," he said, before recalling how Corll burned Scott with incense cones and sexually assaulted him.

"That night Dean was asleep on the bed, Mark was on the floor. I had ended up sleeping across Mark's legs. Mark had gotten a knife. He waited 'til Dean got up and when Dean leaned over him, he slashed at Dean. That's when I woke up," he told Ramsland. "And they were struggling and David was standing over him with a pipe or something, hitting him in the back. I was punching him in the lower body."

Scott was shot and strangled, before his body was buried at a beach nearby.

"I originally thought Dean was trying to teach me I'd be capable of killing my father. If I could learn how to kill somebody, I could kill my father. Dean became my father figure and in doing so, he was able to absolve me of guilt," said Henley Jr. "If I was doing something he wanted me to do, there was no guilt. Then he would tell me he was proud of me. Being with Dean was exciting. Dean made it exciting. It was adventure, Spy vs. Spy, Mission: Impossible and I did things with Dean that I thought I would never do before."

After Scott's death, he said he "basically gave in and tried to become what Dean wanted me to be," believing there was no stopping Corll.

"When Dean worried that somebody was going to cause him problems, he'd want to kill them. He'd handcuff me when he was mad at me, [if] I wasn't doing what he wanted me to do. He burnt me with a cigarette. His intent was to scare me back in line," said Henley Jr., confirming that Corll even made him wear his victims' clothing after the murders.

"I think it was a pair of boots. This is something I've kept secret all these years, because it embarrassed me. I think it's such a gross thing," Henley Jr. told Ramsland, admitting that he never protested or said no to Corll at the time. "I had kind of lost a lot of hope. I couldn't talk to no one. No one heard me. I was not able to control anything. I couldn't get away. Maybe I got to the point where I was just, 'This is it. I just can't do it anymore.'"

Then came the night that put an end to the killing spree, on August 8, 1973.

Henley Jr. said he had already been trying to leave Corll's clutches at the time, believing Corll himself was concerned he was losing his grasp on him. That evening, he was getting high with friend Tim Kerley, when they decided to go to Corll's apartment to huff, picking up a teen girl named Rhonda Louise Williams on the way.

"Dean had seen Tim, and he wanted Tim. I knew he wanted Tim. I told myself I would never let Dean kill another friend," said Henley Jr., who said that after huffing and drinking together, the three teens passed out. When they awoke, their hands and feet had been tied together by Corll, who was "pissed" they brought a girl to the home.

"All I knew was if he didn't untie me, I was gonna die. Dean had me tied up, he had other people tied up and he was pissed. It wasn't like, 'I'm just mad at you,' this is the Dean in Dean mode. He was mad because Rhonda was there," he told Ramsland. "He wanted Tim, he thought I brought Rhonda to keep him from doing Tim. He had just made up his mind, I had pushed too far."

Henley Jr., however, was able to convince Corll to untie him.

"And when he untied me, Dean had laid his gun down. Dean told me to cut Rhonda's clothes off. Tim is in full panic mode. Rhonda is crying, she's scared but she's not blubbering," he recalled. "I'm cutting her clothes off and first she said, 'You don't have to do this.' And I'm like, 'Yes, I do.' She says, 'Is this for real? Is he for real?' And then she said, 'Are you going to do anything about it?' I told her, 'Yes, I'm going to do something about it.' And that was when I picked up the gun."

"I said to Dean, 'Get up, untie these two, we're going to leave.' He said, "What are you doing?' I said, 'Untie these two, we're going to leave.' And then, I had the gun pointed and he said, 'You won't shoot me.' And ran at me," he added. It's then he fatally shot Corll to death, his dead, naked body being found in the hallway by police.

Henley Jr. then began telling police about all the other victims, showing authorities where many of the bodies had been buried at the beach and Corll's boat warehouse. "I remember shock because they found so many bodies," he told Ramsland, adding that he "didn't want to be there" when he accompanied police to the shed.

"I did not implicate myself immediately. Somewhere along the line there, I just decided it was better to be honest about it," he added, saying that going to prison was never a concern. "No, that was never a thought. It didn't matter. It was never in my mind. I was doing exactly what I needed to do."

In 1975, nude photos of a number of Corll's victims were found in pornographic magazines, while a nationwide sex ring was also uncovered, lending some credibility to the Syndicate claims. "I breathe a little bit easier every time we hear something new," Henley Jr. said when confronted with the possibility some of the Syndicate claims could have been true.

27 victims have been identified, a potential 28th hasn't been identified, though it's believed there could be many other victims. While Henley Jr., now 69, is still serving a life sentence for six murders, Brooks was convicted for only killing one -- and died in prison from Covid complications at 65 in May 2020.

The Serial Killer's Apprentice is streaming now on HBO Max.