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Summary: Dave's Serial Killer Home Page Book Review....
Review: An engrossing look into the life and crimes of a Texas candy factory laborer turned Serial Killer Dean Corll.
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Summary: The most sadistic serial killer in American history
Review: At a time when serial murder has become a pop culture phenomenon, when you can walk into your local Blockbuster and rent any number of cheesy movies on notorious serial killers (Ed Gein, Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Gacy, Speck, Nightstalker, etc.), many Americans have never heard of Dean Arnold Corll (aka: the Candy Man), a homosexual rapist and serial killer capable of monstrous savagery. This is surprising considering it became a media circus when news of the torture-slayings first broke in August of 1973. Even the Vatican and Izvestia, voice of the Soviet government, spoke out about the unbelievable case. Dean Corll raped, tortured, mutilated and murdered 27 young men and boys from 1970-73 around the Houston, Texas area. Some victims were kept alive for days of torture and abuse. The method of killing was usually strangulation or shooting, although a few corpses were found with their chests caved in, indicating they were probably kicked to death. Most of the butchered boys were buried in a boat shed Corll had rented (sometimes he buried their severed genitals, which were preserved in a ziplock bag, next to them). Corll held the serial killing record at the time, only to be broken by the far more infamous John Wayne Gacy in the late 1970's, who slaughtered 33 young males. Olsen speculates that other unknown victims might be buried around Corll's candy shop, but authorities showed no interest in pursuing the case any further. The book is well written, but the thick Southern dialect tends to get a bit annoying. And the other reviewers were right about the book needing pictures. Olsen also fails to go into much detail about the atrocities committed by Corll. Not that I revel in such things, but people should know just how vicious and depraved this psycho really was. There are two other books about this case, but both are hard to find as they've been out of print for some time (Mass Murder in Houston by John K. Gurwell and Harvest of Horror by David Hanna).
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Summary: Not Happy
Review: At first I was very happy with the story that was being told UNTIL the writer started to use an accent that was terrible. I mean half of the words that he was trying to make sound like an accent were just, well stupid. I know people talk that way in the south, but he did not have to use the accent in the book it made for bad reading and too much time trying to figure out what these people were trying to say. It is really too bad this could of been a really good book.
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Summary: BEWARE OF THE CANDY MAN
Review: Dean Corll, a gay rapist and predator was responsible for the deaths of between 20-30 boys in the Houston area (a Houston neighborhood called "The Heights" was his major hunting grounds) during the early 1970s. Corll, a worker in a candy factory used candy and promises of fishing trips to lure adolescent boys into his shop. Once he gained access to the boys, he chained them to a piece of plywood and subjected them to sundry atrocities before killing them. He prided himself on being a traveling mortician; he buried most of the boys in a shed nowhere near his property. Others were buried in secluded spots. Corll's sick, twisted career is believed to have started in 1970 with the disappearance and subsequent deaths of Jerry and Donald Waldrup. Between 1970-1973 some 25 boys were discovered to have been killed by Corll. Two young men, Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr. and David Brooks were used to procure the boys for Corll. The depraved candy man even bought David a car for his efforts. Matters came to a head when Henley allegedly shot Corll to death during the summer of 1973. He claimed he shot the man in self defense. He and Brooks are currently serving time for their involvement with the candy man.
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Summary: Could Have Been Interesting But...
Review: I bought this book because I found Olsen to be a good writer of True Crime. This book was terrible. His approach was from the viewpoint of the victims family and he unfortunately decided to try and spell out their Texas accents. It was comical. I am from Texas and I have never heard... "plice" for place..."Lard" for Lord..."harse" for horse...etc... Even Gomer Pyle would have been emabarrassed. It was so distracting that it made this most interesting story a tiresome read.
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Summary: Could Have Been Interesting But...
Review: I bought this book because I found Olsen to be a good writer of True Crime. This book was terrible. His approach was from the viewpoint of the victims family and he unfortunately decided to try and spell out their Texas accents. It was comical. I am from Texas and I have never heard... "plice" for place..."Lard" for Lord..."harse" for horse...etc... Even Gomer Pyle would have been emabarrassed. It was so distracting that it made this most interesting story a tiresome read.
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Summary: Texas 1973
Review: Its always amazed me that this murder case has only inspired 2 books (Olsen's and a quickie paperback that came out in 1974 called "mass murder in Houston" Its every bit as good as this one.)Dean Corll has got to rank as one of the most horrific serial killers of the 20th century in body count and the sheer horror and suffering he submited his victims to.
My Only real objection to this book is that Olsen though a talented writer doesnt do a very good job of making the sheer evil and horror of Corll's crimes felt by the reader on any visceral level.Indeed he tends to make them seem almost mundane by his detached and at times glib tone.
At times he does seem to find the social and political history of Houston far more facinating then the crime and its aftermath itself.(far more facinating then the reader is likely to)such an exaustive treatice is a bit much just to put forth the simple proposition that there may have been something about Houston in 1973 that was conducive to social,economic and moral deadzones in which a Dean Corll could flourish.
To be fair Houston at that time was not exactly courting journalists that wanted to cover the murders.
I have seen Jack Olsen give far more penetrating and insightful effort to far less interesting true crime stories then this one.
This book raises far more questions than it answers about Dean Corll,Wayne Henley and David Brooks,Corll's victims and the time and place that created them.
I still feel that a wonderful and long piece of writing could be done about this case and I hope it will someday,but for now its either this book or nothing.
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Summary: A Bit Tedious
Review: The whole time I was reading this book I was wondering what the people looked like, I would have loved to see them (sorry if that sounds sick, but most crime books do come with pics) The writing was pretty good, and the fact that this crime really happened is shocking. I would still recommend this book to any true crime fan.
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Summary: Good book, but.....................
Review: This is probably the most accurate version of the Dean Corll story I've ever read, only I think the author made a mistake by not including pictures. If there were some crime-scene photos and pictures of the killers and victims, the book would have been 100% better. The Dean Corll case is one of the scariest, most horrible cases of serial murder ever purpetrated and I find it amazing that, with all the forensic/murder shows on TV these days, NOBODY has ever devoted one program covering the Dean Corll/Wayne Henly case.
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Summary: Good book, but.....................
Review: This is probably the most accurate version of the Dean Corll story I've ever read, only I think the author made a mistake by not including pictures. If there were some crime-scene photos and pictures of the killers and victims, the book would have been 100% better. The Dean Corll case is one of the scariest, most horrible cases of serial murder ever purpetrated and I find it amazing that, with all the forensic/murder shows on TV these days, NOBODY has ever devoted one program covering the Dean Corll/Wayne Henly case.
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