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During the 1970s and 80s there were a series of mass child murders in cities across the United States. These were attributed to the motiveless crimes of serial killers, that is, where the motive is murder itself; a term popularised by behavioural scientists at the FBI to make sense of a seemingly new and senseless criminal phenomenon. However, in at least four cases there was substantial evidence linking these serial killings to a nationwide paedophile network which used children for the purposes of pornography, prostitution, and much worse. Members of this network included high powered individuals, and its operations were covered up by institutions as high up as the US Department of State.
To unravel this, we begin in Houston, Texas in 1973, and with the death of a man named Dean Corll.
NOTE: pedophilia was often conflated with homosexuality by news and law enforcement agencies in the 1970s. Thus, many of the sources used, such a police reports and news articles, will characterise crimes such as the rape, torture, and murder of children as homosexual ones. The men involved in such crimes, in most instances, did not have sex with other men at the peer level. Which is to say, they were pederasts or paedophiles, not homosexuals. That said, the homophobic slant given to police reports and news articles at the time these crimes were committed, should not preclude them as evidence of the crimes themselves. As they are the only pieces of evidence we have.
On the morning of August 8th 1973, 17 year-old Elmer Wayne Henley called Pasadena PD in Houston, Texas and reported he had shot and killed a man at 2020 Lamar Drive. When police arrived at the address they discovered the bullet ridden body of 33 year-old Dean Corll lying naked in the hallway of his Pasadena bungalow. Henley had been waiting for police out front of the property with two of his friends, 20 year-old Timothy Cordell Kerley and 15 year-old Rhonda Louise Williams.
Body of Dean Corll found at the 2020 Lamar Drive.
According to the three's statements, which more or less all aligned, Henley had invited his two friends over to Dean Corll's house for a paint sniffing party. They passed out and at some point Corll had tied the three of them up and started to rape Henley’s friend Kerley. Henley had convinced Corll to untie him so he could do the same to Rhonda, after which Henley had managed to get a hold of gun he used to shoot and kill Corll. He had then untied the other two and called the police.1
Police had found sprawled across the floor of the bungalow’s living area a sheet roll of polyethylene plastic beneath and a large plywood ‘torture board’ with holes in each corner fitted with rope and handcuffs. Various sex toys and torture devices were found around the house, such as double-ended dildo, glass rods, and a hunting knife.
Upon being taken into custody and questioned, Wayne Henley told police he knew of several missing teenagers Dean Corll had killed and buried in a nearby boat shed. Henley directed police to 4500 Silverbell where Corll had rented a storage shed since 1970. Inside they discovered two ten pound bags of garden lime, a rake and shovel, plastic bags full of teenage sized boys clothing, an envelope containing pornographic literature, as well as disturbed soil beneath some carpeting. A subsequent excavation of the site turned up the bodies of seventeen boys aged between thirteen and nineteen who’d been reported missing over the past three years.2 3
Boat Shed rented by Dean Corll at 4500 Silver Bell
While initially vague in his explanation of his relationship with Dean Corll and how he’d known of the mass grave, Wayne Henley eventually confessed to having helped Corll torture, kill and bury at least six boys over the past two years. He told police of another two locations where bodies had been buried. Four more were recovered from a wooded area near Lake Sam Rayburn where Corll's family owned a cabin, while another seven were found along a stretch of beachline on the Bolivar Peninsula. A total of twenty-eight known victims who had been reported missing between September 1970 and August 1973. All of them males aged between thirteen and twenty years. Autopsies performed on the bodies indicated all had been raped and tortured before being killed, with the cause of death in most instances given as strangulation or a gunshot to the head.
During his confession Wayne Henley also implicated an eighteen year old friend of his named David Owen Brooks as a third accomplice who’d introduced him to Dean Corll two year prior. David Brooks was interviewed by police and confessed procuring victims for Corll and his involvement in some of the murders. From both their confessions detectives concluded the pair of teenagers had lived on and off with Dean Corll, who paid them to procure his victims and over time the two had progressively come to participate in the torture, murder, and disposal of victims themselves.4
Thus we have the following case profile. A murder crew consisting of one adult and two teenaged procurers engaged in the rape, torture, and murder of males under twenty buried together in a mass grave. The details of the case covered so far are more or less where the official accounting of it ends in popularised true crime. Dean Corll was nicknamed “The Candyman Killer” and the motive behind his murders was attributed to an isolated instance of serial killings. Which is to say that they were random. A case matching the precise aspects of this one would be explained away in similar fashion a few years later.
David Owen Brooks
Dean Corll
Elmer Wayne Henley
The first evidence of there having been more than meets the eyes with these killings is found in the confession statements given by both Wayne Henley and David Brooks on August 9th 1973, the day after they’d been arrested. Both teenagers stated independently that Dean Corll had told them he was part of an organisation based in Dallas which bought and sold young boys, and that members of this organisation were also murdering boys in Dallas.
Henley's signed confession, made to Detective D.M.Mullican on August 9th 1973, stated that David Brooks had introduced him to Dean Corll after he had expressed interest in making some money, ''. . .and he took me to Dean Corll. Dean told me that he belonged to an organisation out of Dallas that bought and sold boys, ran whores and dope and stuff like that. Dean told me that he would pay me $200 at least for every boy that I could bring and maybe more if they were real good looking boys''. Henley went on to say ''. . .I have come within an inch of killing him(Corll) but I just never got up enough nerve to do it until yesterday, because Dean had told me that his organisation would get me if I ever did anything to him’’.5 6
David Brook's signed confession statement made that same day, stated ''During one of our conversations Dean mentioned that there was a group of people in Dallas which had similar activities to his. He mentioned a man by the name of Art who he said had also killed some boys in Dallas. One day while I was at his house I picked up a piece of paper with the name Art on it and all of a phone number but the last number and the area code was 214. Dean also mentioned Art has a wife. Lately Dean has been wanting to go to Dallas and I believe was supose[sic] to go at the end of this month’’.7
Both confessions were made on 9th of August, with Henley's confession timestamped at 11.55 am and Brooks at 1.20 pm. The two were being held and questioned at separate police stations in Houston by two different teams of detectives. Henley had been held in police custody by Pasadena police since the morning of the 8th, while Brooks had turned himself into Harris County PD on the morning of the 9th after having heard news of Dean Corll's death. It’s unlikely the two had an opportunity to communicate, making their statements mutually corroborating evidence Dean Corll had said he belonged to an organisation based in Dallas involved in trafficking and murdering teenaged boys.8
Further more, Rhonda Williams, the female teenager who’d been tied up at Dean Corll’s house when Henley had shot him, told police that ''Wayne has told Rhonda that he had been to Dallas several times with Dean and that a warehouse was in Dallas where she could make $1500 a week doing something illegal but Wayne reportedly had never told her what it was’’.9
1: Signed confession of Elmer Wayne Henley, as given on the 9th of August 1973.
2: Signed confession of David Owen Brooks, as given on the 9th of August 1973.
3: Statement by Rhonda Williams, as recorded by police on the 16th of August 1973.
On August 11th Pasadena detectives working the case note in their report a private post office box registered to Dean Corll in Houston, which David Brooks stated Corll used to receive pornographic materials, and note this should be checked with local postal authorities.[1] Brooks would later state “that Corll had been super secretive about his mail, picking it up at a post-office box, reading it then destroying it”.[2]
[1] ''Brooks also mentioned that Dean often received sexually orientated material through the mail''
— Houston PD Supplementary Offense Report, D-68904, Progress Report - August 11th 1973.
[2] Pasadena PD Supplementary Offense Report, J-12345, 20 September 1976.”
On August 13th detectives then called Dallas PD to inform them of the possibility connection between their case and Dallas.10
The very next day, on August 14th, Dallas PD received a tip from an anonymous informant about a man running a mail-order child pornography and prostitution service out of his Dallas apartment. Acting on this, they arrested a 45 year old man named John David Norman found at the address in the company of five teenaged boys, and from inside the apartment seized photographic equipment and child pornography. In addition to this it had been filled with enough publishing stationary, files, and literature to fill an entire van, all pertaining to an organisation called “The Odyssey Foundation”. Amongst the files were thousands of index cards with names and addresses reportedly “listing clients around the country, some of them prominent people and some federal employees in Washington”.11 12 13 14 15
Mail correspondance from the apartment had been forwarded through a post office box registered in San Diego to organisation called The Odyssey Foundation. The foundation ostensibly operated as a non-profit mentorship program of adult ‘sponsors’ providing lodging and travel expenses to out of State boy ‘fellows’ for educational visits. The pornography and profiles of available boys would be listed like classified ads within the foundations literature sent to subscribers, who could then arrange for a boy they liked to come visit them for an extra fee. The operation spanned from coast to coast across the United States using mostly young runaways who’d be sent interstate, making them reliant on the men who ordered them for room and board. The service had been popular amongst child pornographers who sought an influx of ’fresh talent’ to use in their photographs and films.
“Sponsors would contact the Dallas headquarters of the foundation, which would then send a fellow to the sponsor’s home. The sponsor would notify the organization how long he wanted the fellow to stay and then pay the boy’s fare to his next assignment.”
Found within the apartment used as the nexus to facilitate this trafficking ring had been pictures of boys marked with details such as their age and personality quirks. Among these had been four with the word “kill” written on them.16
Supposedly these had also been found by the informant who’d tipped off Dallas PD. They’d heard news of murdered boys in Houston and panicked after then receiving a call from someone requesting the networks services there.
John D. Norman
To clarify the chain of events covered so far:
On August 8th Houston police discovered a mass grave of boys murdered by Dean Corll and two teenaged accomplices, Wayne Henley and David Brooks.
On August 9th both Henley and Brooks gave independent statements Dean Corll had claimed to belong to an organisation based in Dallas involved in trafficking boys and the same murderous activities.
On August 11th Houston police discovered a private post office box Dean Corll was thought to have used to ‘secretively’ receive pornography through the mail.17 18
On August 13th Houston police contacted Dallas PD regarding a possible link to their case in Dallas.
On August 14th detectives in Dallas bust an interstate boy trafficking network facilitated by a man named John David Norman using the postal service. And in his apartment they found four photographs of boys with the word “kill” written on them.
Possible links between the murders in Houston and the network in Dallas were alluded to in the press but never properly substantiated. All that was publicly known, was the tip received on the trafficking network in Dallas had come from an informant spooked by the murders in Houston. And in the apartment of the man running the network in Dallas, four photographs of boys had been found with the word ‘kill’ written on them. As it was expressed by the New York Times, “Assistant Police Chief Donald Steele reported that four pictures of young boys found in the apartment had the word “Kill” written on them. However, the police said they were told the word referred to their removal from the procurement ring's literature because they were uncooperative and did not mean they had been ordered killed.”.
Strange. . .yes. But conclusive. . .not quite.
Though it wasn’t the ‘kill’ photographs which made the nature of this trafficking network in Dallas so bizarre, it was what happened to the thousands of index cards listing clients found along with them. These were handed over to Henry Kissinger's State Department and subsequently destroyed. This was confirmed by the State Department itself, both in an official statement given to the Chicago Tribune in 1977, and then in an official lettered response to a request made by a US Senate committee inquiry into child exploitation held that same year.19 20
According to the State Department letter, on August 17th just days after news broke of the trafficking network in Dallas, one of its field agents in Los Angeles had reported the case to Washington. On August 23rd a State Department agent had then begun to assist Dallas PD with their investigation. Ostensibly, this had been with regards to the possible fraudulent use of a passport. Dallas PD mentioned to the agent that two of the names found on index cards had matched those of State Department employees, and this information had then been relayed to Washington sometime before September 5th 1973.
The State Department had confirmed that two of its employees had 'similar' names to the ones found on the index cards. One of these been assigned to the US embassy in Mexico City though no further investigation had been made into this. Then over a year later in December of 1974, Dallas PD handed over the entire collection of index cards to the State Department, who placed them in storage where they remained without review until they were eventually destroyed in September 1975. Just in time as well.
The following year the FBI launched an internal investigation into information it received that Federal employees may have been involved in Norman’s trafficking network. In response to an internal information request, a Dallas PD Lieutenant who’d arrested Norman in August 1973 advised, “that NORMAN, at the time of his arrest, had in his possession an extensive card file and numerous pieces of correspondence from individuals located throughout the United States. Lieutenant [Redacted] stated the[sic] he recalls some of the pieces of correspondence were from individuals located in the Washington, D. C. area and who were possibly employees of the Federal Government.”[1] And the Lieutenant went onto mention all evidence of this had been handed over to the State Department in 1974. With that in mind, let us now return to ties between this Dallas network and the murdered boys in Houston.
[1] FBI Freedom of Information Act Request for Documents on Phillip Paske. FOI/PA# 1352511-001 https://vault.fbi.gov/philip-paske/philip-paske-part-01/view
Which put things like this:
A letter was sent to Houston detectives, postmarked 24th of August 1973, from an informant in California named Steven Dale Ahern. Detectives checked with the LAPD CI division who told them “he was a member of the NAZI PARTY and writes letters and some of the information he comes up with is good”. Ahern claimed to have formerly worked as a male prostitute and model in pornographic films. Back in 1971 he’d responded to an advertisement he’d found in an underground newsletter called The Advocate and received a paid offer to travel to Houston for a pornography shoot. While there he’d been photographed by a man named Roy Ames who he said operated a large pornographic empire that exploited young boys. He said some of the boy victims in Houston had been photographed by Roy Ames and he’d identified one of the victims in a child porn magazine published by Roy Ames which had been circulated in California. And stated that this Roy Ames knew Dean Corll and used him to exploit young boys. The detectives contacted Steven Ahern by phone and the informant told them he’d met Dean Corll through Roy Ames who had invited him to a sadomasochist party held at an apartment Corll had rented back in 1971.21
The informant said Roy Ames was one of the largest producers of child pornography, responsible for around one third of the photographs and films produced in the country. And provided detectives with a list of child porn magazines published by Ames in Houston circulating in California.22
The LAPD vice division was contacted sometime in late August to help attain copies of these on the street to see if any victims could be identified in them. In a copy of a magazine called “Hot Rods #3” detectives identified a boy who looked similar to a 15 year old victim of Dean Corll named William Lawrence. The photo was shown to the dead boy’s father who said it wasn’t his son, though despite this detectives noted in their report it their opinion there was a good possibility it was.23
They managed to trace the publication of the magazines found circulating in LA to an address in Houston belonging to a record label called ‘Clarity Music’ owned by a music producer named Roy Ames.
Around a week after the LAPD vice division had been contacted for help on the Dean Corlll investigation in late August, a Hollywood pornographer named Guy Strait was arrested on September 1st for using underaged boys in his films, some of whom had been from Texas. It was reported “Police said they were checking with Texas authorities in Dallas and Houston to find out whether there is any connection with an alleged ring in Texas which supplied hundreds of teen-age boys as prostitues for older men across the country”.24
Guy Strait had been business partners with another child pornographer named William 'Bill' Byars Jr in a Hollywood production company called Lyric Productions. The arrest of Guy Strait in September later led to that of William Byars and thirteen others in October, in what vice detectives described as, “one of the nation's biggest 'chicken movie' operations”. Among the arrested had been a photographer from Houston and close associate of Williams Byars named William 'Bill' Johnston. Police stated that while “there had been no link discovered between the alleged Los Angeles crimes and the mass homosexual murders in Houston, uncovered Aug. 8. He said Johnson and Byars may have transported some of their "actors" from the Houston area to California for the films".25 26 27
William Byars had been from a wealthy Texan family and heir to the Humble Oil fortune. His father, Bill Byars Snr., had been a rather well established figure with friends in high places, such as J. Edgar Hoover. In fact, according to a book critical of Hoover called “Official and Confidential” by Anthony Summers, Williams Byars had furnished the FBI director with boys used in his pornography shoots during visits to his residence on Mulholland Drive.
In April 1974 both Bill Byars and William Johnston had skipped bail and fled to Europe. Guy Strait had fled California at the same time as well, but was eventually picked up in Phoenix, Arizona in 1976 after being charged for having sex with a minor. From prison Strait had told a reporter in 1977 he’d known John David Norman, and that same year appeared as a witness before a Senate inquiry into child pornography during which he testified to also knowing a child porngrapher in Houston named Roy Ames.29 30 31 32
The following statement had also been made during these senate hearings by an author of a book published in 1976, entitled, ‘For Money or Love, Boy Prostitution in America’:
“Quite recently, a man with the unlikely name of Guy Strait was sentenced to a lengthy prison term in Rockford, Illinois for using children for pornography. Mr. Strait was considered to be a big producer. His partner, Bill Byars is the heir to the Humble Oil fortune and fled the country a couple years ago to Italy. These partners produced vast amounts of pornographic films and magazines. But when Houston police arrested Roy Ames, Ames described them as small-time operators. Houston police officers tried to make a deal with Ames offering him a light sentence in exchange for information about other producers. In spite of the fact that Ames was facing a ten-year sentence, he laughed at the police and told them his operation would run just as well while he was in jail as it would if he were out. He is now serving a lengthy sentence in a federal prison.”
To clarify these chain of events.
In late August 1973 Houston detectives received a letter from an informant in California claiming a Houston child pornographer named Roy Ames had used Dean Corll to abuse boys.Houston PD then contacted vice detectives in LA to obtain copies of child porn publications circulating there, in which they then believed they may have identified one of Corll’s victims. Within a week of this a Hollywood vice squad then arrested a child pornographer named Guy Strait who owned a production company along with a wealthy Texan oil heir named Bill Byars. And this production company had used a photographer from Houston named William Johnston, and Guy Strait would later attest to having known both John David Norman and a child pornographer in Houston named Roy Ames.
And now things look like this:
So who was Roy Ames and how was he connected to the Dean Corll murders?
The answer to this may have been buried with two of the victims. Jerry and Donald Waldrop. These brothers had been found in an area of the boatshed marked gravesite #5 and were the first bodies to be identified on account of two identification cards discovered with the bodies. In addition to this, found on top of the body of Donald Waldrop had been a partially filled out Houston Police report. Which is to say, Dean Corll had for some reason buried identification cards for two of his victims with their bodies, along with a Houston PD offense report. The officer who recovered the police report had separated it from the rest of the items found with the bodies and placed it inside a lockbox back at that station. Whether anything had been written on it remains a mystery, as report is never mentioned again in the case files.33 34 35 36
On August 9th, the same day the Waldrop brother’s bodies had been found, their father Everett Waldrop had called Houston PD to inquire if any of the bodies being reported in the news belonged to his two sons, who he’d reported missing back in February 1971. After learning of their fate the father gave Houston detectives the names of two men he claimed his boys had hung around at the time of their disappearance. The names he gave were Bill Walls and Roy Ames. The father had stated this in a missing persons report filed back in 1971 when his sons first disappeared, that they’d been with a man named ‘Roy Aimes’ who, “gathers kids & takes movies”.37 38
So weeks before a Californian informant claimed Roy Ames had used Dean Corll to abuse boys, the father of two boys killed by Dean Corll claimed his boys had been involved with Roy Ames around the time of their disappearance. And he had reported this back in 1971.
Then on December 22nd 1973, a few months later into the investigation, Houston PD received information from another informant in California named Richard Van Payne, who stated “that he had been in the WAREHOUSE in Houston and had seen photographs of the dead boys in the mass murder”.39
Roy Clifton Ames
Sometime in December 1973 U.S postal inspectors had seized four tons of child pornography from a warehouse they raided in Houston that belonged to Roy Clifton Ames. Among the materials they seized had been letter correspondences between Ames and a man named Roger D. Smith, regarding the sale of hardcore child pornography films depicting children in sexual bondage. In one letter, Smith, who’d been a customer of Ames, wrote that a particular child pornography film he’d received would’ve been better if the producers had, “tossed in a stiff 14-year old”.40 41
A little over a year later in February 1975 a warehouse belonging to Roy Ames in Housron was raided by postal authorities once more and two tons of child pornography was seized. And here it is. This time authorities identified 11 of Dean Corll's victims in the pornographic materials seized As it would be reported the following year, “Ames was sentenced to a Springfield, Mo., federal prison after photographs of 11 Houston area victims of the mass murders were seized following the arrests and murder convictions of Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. and David Owen Brooks”.42
Which leave us with this:
By then however the case had been closed. Dean Corll was dead and his two accomplices, Wayne Henley and David Brooks, had both been convicted and given life sentences. The only thing left were unanswered questions, and these hadn’t been lost on those who had audited the investigation at the time. The grand jury who had indicted Wayne Henley and David Brooks in 1973, as part of their ruling lambasted the district attorney and Houston PD’s handling of the case. It reported Houston police had abandoned their investigation around September 1st leaving unexplored “the possible involvement of others and related criminal activities”. Adding “There appeared to us to be a lack of inquiry into a number of important details”, and that “Much of the problem in following up the wealth of leads was the lack of knowledge of what the district attorney’s office had or had not investigated”.44
Very little information is available on Roy Ames. He had been a Houston based music producer whose record label, Clarity Music, was entangled in various copyright lawsuits with blues musicians over the years. He did receive some kind of prison sentence from charges related to the 1975 raid on his warehouse, in which 11 of Dean Corll victims had been identified in child pornography seized. A Texas congressional hearing into the production of child pornography in 1977 provided some detail of Roy Ames operation, describing him as the major commercial dealer of child pornography in that state who recruited boys from the Houston area to use in films. It stated, “Advertisements for the products were placed in sexually oriented magazines, with requests for merchandise being sent to a New York address and a California address. Requests were then mailed from the two addresses to Houston where orders were filled, showing the return address of either of the two cities where requests were originally received. However, envelopes were postmarked in Houston. Ames plead guilty and was sentenced to twelve years in federal prison”.[1] Though by 1981 he was back on the street and arrested one again for attempting to sell 25 master copies of some type of child pornography to two undercover U.S customer officers for $20,000.[2]
[1] 'The select committee on Child Pornography: Its related causes and control', Texas House of Representatives, Sixty Sixth Legislative Session. 1977
[2] ‘Man facing Kid Porn Charges’, Waco Tribune-Herald, March 25 1981
The connection between the Roy Ames operation in Houston and one in California had be touched on in the press. Newspapers reported in 1976 comments made by one of the investigators “ ‘We knew that they were shipping kids – boy prostitutes – back and forth to the West Coast in the Ames deal,' Contreras said. . .It was some sort of shuttle service. Ames and some of his people were engaged in this. They would send California kids here and Houston kids to California’ ”.45
Both informants who’d given tips on the Roy Ames operation during the Dean Corll investigation had been from California. Steven Dale Ahern, who claimed Roy Ames used Dean Corll to abuse boys. And Richard Van Payne, who said he’d seen pornographic photos of Dean Corll’s victims in a Houston warehouse.
As early into the investigation as August 14th 1973, the New York Times published a quote from Dean Corll’s accomplice David Brooks, who stated in speaking of the victims, “the first few that Dean killed were supposed to have been sent off somewhere in California".46 47
Well, on September 1st 1973 an LAPD vice squad had busted the Lyric Productions child porn operation in Hollywood which had the aforementioned connections to Roy Ames in Houston. And September 1st is the specific date given by the grand jury of the Dean Corll murders, as when Houston PD abandoned their investigation and left unexplored, “the possible involvement of others and related criminal activities”.
And get this, the lead detective of the vice squad who busted the Lyric Productions ring back in ’73 was named Lt. Lloyd Martin. Who then in 1977 stated the following:
“Now, Lloyd Martin was talking about the kids who didn’t get out, the children in the plastic bags. There was one film reportedly making the circuit— supposedly it had been a big hit at an L.A party a few weeks before— showing a boy actually being murdered. He had been one of Dean Corll’s kids down in Texas, the story went. That had happened to a lot of Dean Corll’s kids. By the time they finished digging them up, the Houston police had come up with 27 of them. Police strongly suspected that a number of young porn stars were among Corll’s victims”
To summerise the facts so reader’s may draw their own conclusion. The bodies of 27 murdered teenagers are found in Houston. 11 are identified in child pornography found in a Houston warehouse belonging to a child pornographer named Roy Ames. Letter correspondance found in this warehouse from one of his customers expressed a desire to see a ’14 year-old stiff’ in one of his films. This Houston-based child porn ring was shuttling boys to use in films with one in LA. The one in LA was busted three weeks into the investigation into the one in Houston. A grand jury determined the investigation in Houston was abandoned prematurely at this exact time. And between the two of these had been another investigation into a man named John Norman operating an interstate child trafficking network from Dallas, found with four photographs of boys with the word “kill” written on them.
Perhaps it’s all a coincidence, and the facts as they are arranged in history books have no meaning, and when you shut your eyes the world actually does disappears.
But what if I told you John Norman’s network continued to operate well into the late 1970s. That two boys who testified against him in two other unrelated cases were both viciously murdered. And a suspect in those murders who worked for John Norman, even lived with him, had also worked for the only other known mass murderer of teenaged boys in the 1970s. Another ‘serial killer’ suspected of having two teenaged accomplices who helped them bury their victims in a mass grave. John Wayne Gacy. Would that be a coincidence as well?
Resources
The basis for much of this research comes from a data dump at cavdef.org, an excellent resource for the investigation into highly organised sex trafficking rings.
References| 1. Pasadena PD Supplementary Offense Report, J-12345, August 8th 1973. |
| 2. Houston PD Offense Report, D-68905, September 3rd 1973. |
| 3. Houston PD Offense Report, D-68904, August 9th 1973. |
| 4. Pasadena PD Supplementary Offense Report, J-12345, August 9th 1973(? - Part of report not dated, but most likely 9th). |
| 5. Elmer Wayne Henley signed confession given to Pasadena PD, August 9th 1973, 11:55am. |
| 6. Elmer Wayne Henley signed confession given to Pasadena PD, August 9th 1973, 11:55am. |
| 7. David Owen Brooks signed confession given to Harris County PD, August 9th 1973, 1:20pm. |
| 8. David Owen Brooks signed confession given to Harris County PD, August 9th 1973, 1:20pm. |
| 9. Houston PD Supplementary Offense Report, D-68904, Progress Report - August 16th 1973. |
| 10.Houston PD Supplementary Offense Report, D-68904, Progress Report - August 13th 1973. |
| 11. Dallas PD Prosecution Report, August 15 1973. |
| 12. ''The authorities said that the ring, operating under the name of the Odyssey Foundation with a San Diego, Calif., post office box, became known last Friday when a 24‐year‐old member of the organization became panicky that the police were about to strike.'' — 'Alleged Homosexual Ring Found In a Raid on Apartment in Dallas', New York Times, Aug. 16 1973. (NOTE: The last friday before August 16th 1973 was August 10th. However, the police report filed by the Dallas detective who received the tip states he received the information on August 14th.) |
| 13. ''The ring was uncovered Tuesday by Dallas police on a tip from a man who said he was involved in the ring but got scared when his services were requested by a man in Houston. The Houston man was not identified.'' — 'Police seek tie between killings, homosexual ring', Independent (Long Beach CA), 1973/08/17. |
| 14. ''The detectives raided the second‐floor apartment at 3716 Cole Avenue and seized files, pornographic literature, a camera, photo‐engraving equipment, stationery, an electric typewriter and hundreds of booklets with names and addresses. The confiscated material filled a pickup truck.'' — 'Alleged Homosexual Ring Found In a Raid on Apartment in Dallas', New York Times, Aug. 16 1973. |
| 15. '' Lt. Harold Hancock of the Dallas police arrested Norman in March, 1973, on charges of contributing to juvenile violation of state drug laws. Hancock told The Tribune he confiscated from Norman more than 30,000 index cards listing clients around the country, some of them prominent people and some federal employes in Washington. '' — 'Chicago is center of national child pornography ring', Chicago Tribune, May 16 1977. (NOTE: John D. Norman was arrested in Dallas multiple times in 1973, each time index cards had been discovered by police. Reportedly 5,000 in March, then 35,000 in August. This confusion is touched upon in a Senate hearing investigating this, where the state department confirms two of its employees were named on the 35,000 siezed in August.) |
| 16. The New York Times online digital TEXT-based archive scrubbed the word "kill" from their record of their article published on 16 August 1973: “Assistant Police Chief Donald Steele reported that four pictures of young boys found in the apartment had the word written on them. However, the police said they were told the word referred to their removal from the procurement ring's literature because they were uncooperative and did not mean they had been ordered killed.” — 'Alleged Homosexual Ring Found In a Raid on Apartment in Dallas', New York Times, Aug. 16 1973. But a scanned copy of the original printed article, hidden behind their paywall, does include the word “kill”: Viewable here Another article, published in the Independent(Long Beach, California) on August 16th 1973 also reported on the photographs with the word 'kill': Viewable here |
| 17. ''Brooks also mentioned that Dean often received sexually orientated material through the mail'' — Houston PD Supplementary Offense Report, D-68904, Progress Report - August 11th 1973. |
| 18. “(Brooks) saying that Corll had been super secretive about his mail, picking it up at a post-office box, reading it then destroying it.” — Pasadena PD Supplementary Offense Report, J-12345, 20 September 1976. |
| 19. ''The State Department confirmed to The Tribune that it had received the cards. Matthew Nimetz, a counsellor for the State Department, said officials there determined 'the cards were not relevant to any fraud case concerning a passport' and therefore destroyed them.'' — 'Chicago is center of national child pornography ring', Chicago Tribune, May 16 1977. |
| 20. Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation, Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate, Ninety-fifth Congress. Letter from Department of State Washington D.C, June 27, 1977, written by Douglas J. Bennet Jr, Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations. Copy of the letter found on Page 119 of the report. |
| 21. Houston PD Supplementary Offense Report, D-68904, August 31st 1973. |
| 22. Houston PD Supplementary Offense Report, D-68904, August 31st 1973. |
| 23. Houston PD Supplementary Offense Report, D-68904, August 31st 1973. |
| 24. ''Police said they were checking with Texas authorities in Dallas and Houston to find out whether there is any connection with an alleged ring in Texas which supplied hundreds of teenage boys as prostitutes for older men across the country'' |
| 25. ''William Byars, 37, of Hollywood, whom investigators identified as an heir to the Humble Oil fortune. He owns several motion picture companies, including Lyric Productions'' — '14 Men Indicted in Sex Movies Featuring Boys Ages 6 to 17', The Los Angeles Times, 26 October 1973 |
| 26. ''Others named in the indictment are John F Rafferty, 58, a North hollywood machine shop owner; Frank Hersey, 66, a Manhattan Beach electronics technician; George Easter, 30, a Playa del Rey building maintenance contractor and William Johnston, 55, a Houston photographer.'' — '14 Men Indicted in Sex Movies Featuring Boys Ages 6 to 17', The Los Angeles Times, 26 October 1973 |
| 27. ''Grodin said the films sold for $50 each and the magazines for $5 and $10. Many of the alleged hardcore films were produced by Lyric Film Productions, reportedly owned by Byars. A Houston, Tex., photographer, William Johnson worked for Byars and also was named in the indictment. Grodin was quick to say there had been no link discovered between the alleged Los Angeles crimes and the mass homosexual murders in Houston, uncovered Aug. 8. He said Johnson and Byars may have transported some of their "actors" from the Houston area to California for the films.'' — 'Star's son faces sex charge', Independent, Press Telegram, Long Beach, California, October 27 1993 |
| 28. Supposedly in the J. Edgar Hoover biography, "Official and Confidential" by Anthony Summers. Haven't read it though. |
| 29. “Still being sought by authorities are Bill Byars, 37, a Hollywood film producer and reported heir to the Humble Oil fortune; Bill Johnson, 55, of Houston, a photographer employed by Byars, and Guy Strait, 53, of Los Angles, a producer and distributor of so-called 'chicken gay films'. Grodin said he believes all three men are in Europe.” — '14 Men Indicted in Sex Movies Featuring Boys Ages 6 to 17', The Los Angeles Times, 26 October 1973 |
| 30. '' On May 13, 1976, Guy Strait (hereinafter "defendant") was charged with the March 3, 1972 offense of indecent liberties with a child. Steven Kavadas (hereinafter "Kavadas") was 14 years old at the time of the incident in question. '' |
| 31. '' Strait said he knows John Norman, who ran a national male prostitution ring employing young boys and helping put together a ''neater package' to attract customers '' — 'His only regret: I got caught', Chicago Tribune, May 17, 1977 |
| 32. |
| 33. Houston PD Offense Report, D-68904, August 9th 1973. Page 14. |
| 34. Houston PD Offense Report, D-68904, August 9th 1973. Page 9. |
| 35. Houston PD Offense Report, D-68904, August 9th 1973. |
| 36. Houston PD Offense Report, D-68904, August 9th 1973. Page 12 & 13. |
| 37. Houston PD Offense Report, D-68904, August 9th 1973. Page 4. |
| 38. Houston PD Missing Persons Report, Feburary 9 1971. page 10. |
| 39. Houston PD Supplementary Offense Report, D-68904, Progress Report December 22 1973. |
| 40. '' According to officials from the U.S. Postal Service, in December 1973, a search was made of a warehouse belonging to Roy Clifton Ames in Houston, Texas. Postal Inspectors seized over four tons of child pornography materials. In 1975, a second search was conducted of Ames' warehouse by Houston police officers. In this search, over two tons of child pornography were seized.'' — 598 STATE v. SMITH Feb. 1991 60 Wn. App. 592, 805 P.2d 256 '' In 1974, postal authorities in Texas arrested Roy Ames and found 4 tons of magazines and films in a Houston warehouse. Ames was charged with recruiting children off the Houston streets and paying them $5 for posing for photos and $5 for sex acts. He was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment on federal charges of sending obscene material through the mails.'' — 'Children becoming commodities in pornography world', Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1st May 1977 |
| 41. “In the letters seized during both searches, officials found correspondence from R.D. Smith, 16704 - 72nd Avenue Northeast, Bothell, WA 98011. In numerous letters that were seized, Smith described his receipt of various items of hard-core child pornography, including depictions of young boys engaging in sexual intercourse with older boys, and scenes of children in sexual bondage. In one letter, Smith wrote that he had been buying this explicit material for about five years. In another letter, Smith commented that a particular child pornography film would have been better if the manufacturers had "tossed in a stiff 14-year old." In another letter, Smith wrote that he possessed 650 slides of hard-core sexual activity involving children and "who knows how many B & W sets, all of which are enjoyably reviewed from time-to-time." Officers also recovered order forms with Smith's name and address, personal checks from Smith, and a release form signed by Smith indicating that he is not offended by sexually oriented material.” — 598 STATE v. SMITH Feb. 1991 60 Wn. App. 592, 805 P.2d 256 |
| 42. Note: This requires some piecing together as information on Roy Ames is scant and it is quite apparent, at least to the author, that his involvement was covered up. Even still, it can be proven. “Postal Inspectors seized over four tons of child pornography materials. In 1975, a second search was conducted of Ames' warehouse by Houston police officers. In this search, over two tons of child pornography were seized.” — 598 STATE v. SMITH Feb. 1991 60 Wn. App. 592, 805 P.2d 256 “Four and one quarter tons of porn and equipment were initially confiscated. Later two additional tons were seized by Houston Police Department. Roy Ames and his associate, Leonard Edward Cunningham, recruited boys from the Houston area and paid them to perform homosexual acts with each other and with adults while Ames filmed and took still photos of them in local residences and motels.” “Juvenile officers say 11 boys who were victims in the Houston mass murders case are pictured in sex material seized in what police called a homosexual ring. — 'Youths pictured in sex material', Wichita Falls Times, 28 Feb 1975. “Juvenile Lt. H.A Contreras said Detective John St. John and a partner met with officers Wednesday about the case of photographer Roy Clifton Ames, convicted in 1975 for using the mails to distribute obscene material. Ames was sentenced to a Springfield Mo., federal prison after photographs of 11 Houston area victims of the mass murders were seized following the arrests and murder convictions of Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. and David Owen Brooks. 'We knew that they were shipping kids – boy prostitutes – back forth to the West Coast in the Ames deal,' Contreras said. — 'Houston-Los Angeles Link Discussed In Mass Killings', The Napa Valley Register, 23 Sept 1976. |
| 43. Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish', Houston Press, August 28 2003. |
| 44. ''There appeared to us to be a lack of inquiry into a number of important details' the report said. 'Much of the problem in following up the wealth of leads was the lack of knowledge of what the district attorney's office had or had not investigated '' — 'Jury blasts handling of murder case', Brownwood Bulletin, 2 November 1973. |
| 45. ''We knew that they were shipping kids – boy prostitutes – back and forth to the west coast in the Ames deal,' Ltd. H.A Contreras said. 'But they just never got time to work that.' 'It was sort of a shuttle service. Ames and some of this people were engaged in this. They would send California kids here and Houston kids to California.'' — 'No link found in Texas, California Mass Murders', Tyler Morning Telegraph, 24 September, 1976. |
| 46. The first few that Dean killed were supposed to have been sent off somewhere in California,” Brooks said.” — 'Texas' Toll of Boys Rises to 27 In Nation's Biggest Slaying Case', New York Times, August 14, 1973. |
| 47.
— 'Chicago is center of national child pornography ring', Chicago Tribune, May 16 1977. |
| 8 August '73 - Dean Corll found dead |
| 8 August '73, 6:30PM - Police start dig of boat shed |
| 8 August '73, 10:45PM - Police report discovered under body #3 in gravesite #3, dig called off at 11:55Pm |
| 9 August '73, 12:05PM - Waldrop brothers and police report discoved in gravesite #5 |
| 9 August '73 - Wayne Henley & David Brooks give information Dean Corll is linked to organisation in Dallas |
| 9 August '73 - Everett Waldrop tells Houston PD his boys had been mixed up with Roy Ames |
| 13 August '73 - Houston PD contact Dallas PD about connection there |
| 14 August '73 - Dallas PD raid apartment and arrest John Norman |
| 17 August '73 - State Department takes interest in John Norman case |
| 23 August '73 - State Department assists in John Norman case |
| 24 August '73 - Steven Ahern sendd letter to Houston PD with information on Roy Ames and victims found in California child porn |
| 31 August '73 - Houston PD reports on Ahern letter, that they contacted LAPD Vice division regarding this. |
| 1 September '73 - LAPD Vice raid and arrest Guy Strait |
| 23 October '73 - William Byars Jr and William Johnson raided and arrested |
| 22 December '73 - Houston PD receive tip from Richard Van Payne about warehouse in Houston with photographs of victims |
| ? Decemeber '73 - U.S postal service rain Roy Ames Houston warehouse |
| 12 December '74 - Dallas PD give index cards to State Department |
| ? February '75 - Second raid of Roy Ames warehouse, 11 victims ID'd in pornography found |
| 27 September '75 - State Department destroys index cards |