Elmer Henley

Victims

6 CONVICTIONS, all six carried through a retrial: convicted in 1974, the conviction overturned on appeal in 1978 over the change of venue, and reconvicted on the same six counts in 1979. He admitted involvement in more of the twenty-eight killings in the Corll series and was never charged with them. He also shot Corll himself, which a grand jury treated as self-defence and for which no charge was brought, so that death is not among the six

Years active

1972 - 1973

Location

Houston, Harris County, Texas, USA

Method

Strangulation / Shooting

Status

Surrendered on August 8, 1973 after shooting Dean Corll, and led police to the burial sites. Convicted at San Antonio on July 16, 1974 of six counts of murder and sentenced to six consecutive terms of ninety-nine years. THAT CONVICTION WAS OVERTURNED ON APPEAL in December 1978 on the ground that the trial should not have been moved from Houston, and he was RETRIED AND CONVICTED AGAIN at Corpus Christi in June 1979, receiving the same six consecutive ninety-nine-year terms. He has been refused parole repeatedly, most recently in 2025 with his next review set for 2030, and has served more than fifty years. He gave a series of prison interviews and has sold paintings, and he told one interviewer that he was as guilty as Corll of the six he was tried for. NO CHARGE WAS EVER BROUGHT over the shooting of Corll, which a grand jury treated as self-defence.

Elmer Wayne Henley junior was born in Houston on May 9, 1956, to a violent alcoholic father, and left school at fifteen to work and help support his mother and brothers. He was introduced to Dean Corll by David Brooks in 1971, when he was fifteen, and was offered two hundred dollars for every boy he brought.

He brought a great many, most of them from his own street and his own circle in the Houston Heights, including friends and the brothers of friends. He also took part directly in the assaults and killings, which he admitted. At least twenty-eight boys and young men died between 1970 and 1973.

The boys he was convicted of killing were Frank Aguirre, eighteen; Johnny Delone, sixteen; Billy Ray Larence, fifteen; Homer Garcia, fifteen; Charles Cobble, seventeen; and Marty Ray Jones, eighteen.

On August 8, 1973, he arrived at Corll's house in Pasadena with a girl, Rhonda Williams, and another boy, Timothy Kerley. Corll was enraged that he had brought a girl and handcuffed all three at gunpoint, telling Henley he was going to kill him too. Henley talked him round, was released, and then picked up Corll's .22 pistol and shot him six times. He telephoned the police himself, waited, and then told them about the boat shed on Silver Bell Street.

He was convicted in July 1974 of six murders and given six ninety-nine-year sentences. The conviction was overturned on a venue point and he was retried at Corpus Christi in 1979 and convicted again. He has been denied parole every time it has come up and is held in Texas. He gives occasional interviews and sells paintings from prison, and has said consistently that he was fifteen, that Corll would have killed him, and that none of that excuses what he did.