Jack Rosewood - Dean Corll: The True Story of The Houston Mass Murders: Historical Serial Killers and Murderers (True Crime by Evil Killers Book 6)

Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on Christmas Eve, 1939, Dean Arnold Corll was the first child born to Mary Robinson and Arnold Edwin Corll.

Mary doted on her boy, and worked hard to protect her shy son from his strict father a man who didnt appreciate children, he later said. But the tension in the home was thick, and the couple eventually divorced in 1946, four years after the birth of a second son, Stanley.

Dean was a sickly boy after suffering from a bout of rheumatic fever when he was seven. He had a heart murmur that kept him from participating in gym class, and he was an easy target for his other classmates.

His weakness made him a bit of an outcast, and he was sensitive enough to the bullying that he became a loner.

Later, after years of alcohol and candy, his thin frame became a bit pudgy, and he resembled in some photos David Berkowitz, an equally well-known killer better known as the Son of Sam.

Mary still wanted the boys to be close to their father, even if the marriage had ended, so the family relocated to Memphis where father Arnold had been drafted into the Air Force. Arnold and Mary decided to reconcile, and they eventually remarried, moving to Pasadena, Texas, just outside of Houston.

The second union was short-lived, however, and within three years, they were again divorced, and Mary married a traveling clock salesman named Jake West and added a daughter, Joyce, to the family.

To make a living, the family started a small family candy company called Pecan Prince, which they operated from their garage. The boys made and packaged pralines, divinity and pecan candies after school for their stepfather to take on his sales route.

And although he still was considered a bit of a loner, during his high school years, from 1954 to 1958, Corll got good grades while attending Vidor High School, played trombone in the high school band and even dated a bit, although nothing too seriously.

With the family candy company taking off, the family moved closer to Houston, where the majority of the Pecan Prince products were sold, and now, instead of working from the garage, they were able to open a candy shop to sell their sweet wares.

Shortly after opening the new shop, Corlls mother asked her son to move to Indiana to take care of his widowed grandmother on his fathers side, which he did for two years before coming back to Houston to again help with the candy business. He lived in an apartment above the shop.

Corll quickly became known around town as the Candy Man for his habit of giving away candy to young boys in the neighborhood. He also often invited those boys over to the candy factory after work hours, which apparently caused little suspicion in the neighborhood, although inside the family, a few suspicious were raised.

Corlls stepfather didnt think the associations were appropriate, and he told his wife that he thought his stepson might be gay.

Mary, however, who was homophobic and talked openly in front of Dean about how disgusting she thought gay people were, said her son was loyal, obedient, helpful, loving, and a good normal boy. He was certainly not gay, he just wasnt interested in being too close to others, because, he had seen so many broken marriages, she said.

He would soon see another.

Mary divorced the clock salesman perhaps to silence any talk of Deans homosexuality - and opened a new business, Corll Candy Company, with Dean as vice president of operations.

Shortly after, a teenage employee told Corlls mother that her son had made sexual advances toward him, giving Mary her second hint that her precious Dean might be gay.