The Politics of Organised Vice - Part 2: Dean Corll and the Odyssey NetworkDuring 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: paedophilia 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 to report 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 in front of the property with two others, 20 year-old Timothy Cordell Kerley and 15 year-old Rhonda Louise Williams.
According to the three's statements, which more or less all aligned, Henley had invited the other two over to the Dean Corll's house for a paint sniffing party. They passed out and at some point Corll had tied the three of them up then started to rape and torture Kerley. Henley, who had known Corll, convinced him to untie him so he could do the same to Rhonda. After which Henley managed to get a hold of gun, which he used to shoot and kill Corll, he then untied the other two and called the police1. At the scene was found a double-ended dildo, glass rods, a hunting knife, and a plywood board with rope and handcuffs fixed to it.
After being taken into custody, Henley told police he knew of several teenagers Corll had killed and buried in a boat shed. He directed police to 4500 Silver Bell where Corll had been renting a storage shed since 1970. Inside police found two ten pound bags of lime, a garden rake, a shovel, a plastic bag full of teenage sized clothing, and an envelope containing pornographic literature2. A subsequent excavation of the site turned up the bodies of seventeen boys between the ages 13 and 19 who had gone missing in the local area over the past three years3.
Henley then confessed to having helped Corll torture, kill and bury at least other six boys over the past two years. And he told police of another two locations where bodies had been buried. Four were recovered from a wooded area near Lake Sam Rayburn where Dean Corll's family owned a cabin, while another seven were found along a stretch of beach on the Bolivar Peninsula. A total of twenty-eight known victims. All of them males aged between thirteen and twenty years. Autopsies performed on the bodies indicated these victims had been raped and tortured before being killed. The cause of death in most cases given was strangulation or gun shot wound to the head.
Boat Shed Bodies: 17
Beach Bodies: 8
Woodland Cabin Bodies: 4
All up, 28 victims reported missing between September 1970 & August 1973.
Henley then also implicated a friend of his named David Owen Brooks(18) as an accomplice. It turned out Brooks had introduced Henley to Corll two year prior. Brooks was interviewed by police and he confessed to having been involved with these murders, and detectives concluded Corll had recruited the pair of teenagers to procure victims for him, but that they had come to progressively participate in the torture, murder, and disposal of the victims themselves4.
These are the crimes of what could be categorised as a rape, torture, and murder crew that targeted male victims between the ages of thirteen and twenty. The aspects of it are it had one adult supervising two teenaged procurers. Thus, following profile can be derived:
A group consisting of one or more adults;
Supervising one or more teenagers;
Engaged in the rape, torture, and murder of males under twenty.
This profile will fit a broader pattern later established as the scope of this series expands. But for now, this is what we start with:
Dean Corll is better known as The Candyman killer. His activities have been recorded into the true crime cannon as an isolated instance of "serial killings", a categorical term popularised by behavioral psychologists at the FBI in 1974, later introduced into the public lexicon during news coverage of the Atlanta child murders in the early 1980s. A serial killer, more or less infers, an isolated instance of multiple murders over an a period of time by a single perpetrator, where the primary motive in each instance is the act itself. Which is to say the victims are more or less chosen at random, except for fitting a certain demographical profile.
However, in the case of Dean Corll, it is unreasonable to reduce this crimes to an isolated instance of random serial killings. Because to reach this conclusion, one would either have to be unaware of, ignore, or omit, multitudes of evidence pointing towards a broader network engaged in similar activities, ones from which there was to be found profit, and thus an alterer motive.
The first evidence of this is found in the confession statements given by both Wayne Henley and David Brooks on the 9th of August, the day after Dean Corll had been killed. In these confessions both teenagers stated that Corll had told them he was apart of Dallas organisation that 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'' 5. 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 organization would get me if I ever did anything to him'' 6.
Then David Brook's signed confession statement, made that the same day of August 9th, 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 to go at the end of this month'' 7.
Both confessions were made the same day, that is the 9th of August. Henley's confession was timestamped at 11.55 am and Brooks at 1.20 pm8. The two were being held and questioned at two different police stations in Houston, and spoke to two different sets of detectives. Henley had been held in custody by Pasadena police since the morning of the 8th. Brooks had turned himself in at Harris County PD on the morning of the 9th, assumedly after having heard of Corll's death through either the news or word of mouth. This meant Henley and Brooks had not communicated in the period between Henley having killed Corrll and them making corroborating statements that Corll had said he was apart of a larger organisation based in Dallas.
Further more, Rhonda Williams, the girl who had been tied up in Dean Corll's house, stated the following to police, ''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.
Dean Corll said he worked for an organisation in Dallas that bought and sold boys, also killed them —
Evidence 1.1: Signed confession of Elmer Wayne Henley, as given on the 9th of August 1973.
Evidence 1.2: Signed confession of David Owen Brooks, as given on the 9th of August 1973.
Evidence 1.3: Statement by Rhonda Williams, as recorded by police on the 16th of August 1973.
On August 13th Pasadena detectives working this case called Dallas PD to inquire about the possibility of one or more murders there connected to the Dean Corll murders in Houston10. Then, the very next day, on the 14th of August, Dallas PD raided the apartment of a 45-year-old maned named John D. Norman on a tip that he was running a child pornography and callboy service out of an apartment at 208/3716 Cole Avenue11. The tip had reportedly been received anonymously on the 10th12 from someone involved who had gotten panicky after their services had been requested by a man calling from Houston13.
When police raided 208/3716 Cole Avenue they arrested John Norman who had been found in the company of five teenaged boys. From the apartment they seized photographic equipment, child pornography, and enough documents, files, and booklets to fill a van14. Amongst the files found were an estimated 40,000 index cards with client information. And among these were the names of prominent individuals and some government employees in Washington15. But most strikingly, police also discovered the photographs of four boys with the word “kill” written on them16.
Evidence seized from the apartment linked the operation to a post office box registered in San Diego, California under the name The Odyssey Foundation. This foundation had been setup as a front for a child pornography and prostitution mail service. Men could become members by subscribing to the foundations newsletters, which was child pornography. They could then also become 'sponsors', which would have them host boys, called 'fellows', in their homes for a given period and be paid a fee to do this. Boys housed in this manner would then be made available to other members of the network. Photographs of young boys, along with other details such as age and personality quirks, were advertised like classified ads in these newsletters circulated clandestinely through the postal service. The organisations network spanned from coast to coast across the United States. Most of the boys being trafficked in this manner were runaways and out of state to where ever they were sent.
So one day after Dallas PD is contacted by detectives working the Dean Corll murders in Houston, they discover a child pornography and prostitution mail service operated by a man named John Norman, in whose apartment they discover:
— An estimated 40,000 index cards with client information.
— Four photographs of boys with the word “kill” written on them.
Dean Corll had a private post office box in Houston17, which David Brooks had stated on more than one occasion, he had used for some kind of pornographic mail service18. While inconclusive, the coincidences here are starting to pile up.
On the 8th of August police discover the bodies of 28 boys murdered in Houston by Dean Corll.
The confession of Wayne Henley, as it was given on the 9th of August 1973, stated that Dean Corll claimed to be apart of a larger organisation based in Dallas.
The confession of David Brooks, as it was given on the 9th of August 1973, stated that Dean Corll claimed to be apart of a larger organisation based in Dallas.
Rhonda Williams stated to police that Wayne Henley told her he had travelled to Dallas several times with Dean Corll, and that she could make $1500 at a warehouse in Dallas doing something illegal.
David Brooks stated to police, first on August 11th 1973, then later on September 20th 1976, that Dean Corll used a secretive pornographic mail service.
Then Houston PD contacted Dallas PD on August 13th in regards to information David Brooks had given them about Corll knowing of murders in Dallas.
Then the very next day Dallas PD raid John Norman's apartment and discover a child prostitution and porngraphy mail service, four photographs of boys with the word “Kill” written on them, and 40,000 index cards listing clients.
Strange. . .yes, but nothing conclusive. . .yet. And now things look like this:
However, the circumstances surrounding John Norman and his child porn and prostitution network in Dallas only get stranger. The 40,000 index cards that were confiscated by Dallas police, they were handed over to Henry Kissinger's State Department in Washington, who then subsequently destroyed them. This was confirmed by the State Department itself, both in an official statement given to the Chicago Tribune in 197719, and then in further detail with a lettered response to a request made by a US Senate inquiry into child exploitation held that same year20.
According to this State Department letter, just days after news broke of the Odyssey network in Dallas, one of its field agents in Los Angeles had reported the case to Washington. That was on the 17th of August. Then on the 23rd a State Department agent started to assist Dallas PD with the investigation. This was ostensibly in regards to a passport. Dallas PD mentioned to the agent that two of the names found in the index cards worked for the State Department, and this information was relayed to Washington sometime before the 5th of September 1973.
The State Department then confirmed that two of its employees had 'similar' names to the ones found on the index cards. One of these had been assigned to the US embassy in Mexico City. However no further investigation had been made into this. Then over a year later, in December of 1974, Dallas police handed over the entire collection of index cards to the State Department, who placed them in storage in January 1975, where they remained without review, until they were eventually destroyed later that year in September.
At this point it's worth mentioning that this is only one in a series of child trafficking cover-ups the US State Department has been involved in since the 1970s. To list a few without going into detail, there was the case of Laura Silsby in Haiti, Howard Gutman in Belgium, and Dyncorp in both Bosnia and Afghanistan. Both men in charge of the State Department during the period of concern here, 1973-1977, also had ties to Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who was inextricably linked to Jeffrey Epstein, who I might add, had other State Department ties through one of his planes that had been formerly registered to the Department(and also Dyncorp!) and a NY property he rented from the Department in the 1990s that had been the former Polish embassy. Henry Kissinger, who was Sec of State from September 1973 until January 1977, is credited as having introduced Lynn to Evelyn Rothschild at a Bilderberg meeting in 1999. While Cyrus Vance, who succeeded Kissinger as Secretary of State, was the senior partner at the New York law firm, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, which had hired Lynn Forester out of college in 1980. In fact, the government official who had given the Department's response to the Chicago Tribune's inquiry into the missing index cards was Matthew Nimetz, who had been brought over as a State Department attorney from that same law firm. Moreover, Vance's son, Cyrus Vance Jr, was the New York district attorney whose office attempted to downgrade Jeffrey Epstein's sex offender status. While this is all somewhat of a tangent, it fits a broader, almost fifty year pattern, of State Department officials involvement with human traffickers. Something which will be expanded upon in other articles to come.
Which put things like this:
Now let us return to the possible ties between Dean Corll and John Norman, in a letter received by Houston police from a man named Steven Dale Ahern in California. In the letter, postmarked 24th of August 1973, Ahern gave information on a child pornography ring in Houston, further more, that a number of Dean Corll's victims had been photographed there by a man named Roy Ames21.
According to the letter, Ahern had been in Houston back in 1971 after responding to an advertisement placed in an underground child pornography magazine called The Advocate. While there, he had been photographed by a man named Roy Ames who had a partner named Charles Anson, and that this Ames knew another man named Dean Corll who he used to exploit young boys. Ahern said that Ames and Corll had invited him to an S&M party at Corll's apartment when he was there. He also said he'd seen a number of Corll's victims appear in child pornography magazines circulated in California, but which had been produced in Texas22.
Houston police contacted the LAPD Vice Division regarding the information sometime between the 24th and 31st of August. Vice detectives in LA reported that thought they could identify at least one of Dean Corll's victims in a child porn magazine they had obtained called Hot Rods #323.
Then, on September 1st, the LAPD Vice Division arrested a man in Hollywood named Guy Strait for using boys aged 9-15 in pornographic films. And some of the boys used in Straits pornography had also been from Texas. At the time police told the local press that there was a possible link between Strait's operation and similiar ones in Dallas and Houston24. This is more probable than possible, as Houston PD had contacted the LA Vice division regarding Houston victims being found in child pornography only days prior to them having arrested Guy Strait.
This Guy Strait was business partners with another man named William 'Bill' Byars Jr in a Hollywood production company called Lyric Productions(or DOMLyric). Strait's arrest in September eventually led to that of Byars , along with thirteen others, some months later on the 26th October 1973, as part of an ongoing investigation into what LA Vice described as “one of the nation's biggest 'chicken movie' operations”25. Among those arrested with Byars was a photographer from Houston, named William 'Bill' Johnston26. Police stated that Byars and Johnson may have been using boys from Houston in their films27.
Bill Byars was from a wealthy and well established oil family in Texas, heir to the Humble Oil fortune. His father, Bill Byars Snr., had been good friends with J. Edgar Hoover. In fact, according to one biographer28, Byars Jr. furnished the FBI director with boys used in his pornography productions, though we'll leave this digression alone for now.
In April 1974, some months after they had been arrested; both Strait and Byars, along with Byars Houston associate William Johnson, all skipped bail and were thought to be in Europe29. Byars and Johnson had in fact fled to Europe, but Strait hadn't and was eventually picked up by police in Phoenix, Arizona later in 1976 on unrelated charges of sex with a minor30.
While in prison, Strait had told a reporter in 1977 that he knew John Norman and had written articles published in one of Norman's underground newsletters called Hermes31. Strait also later appeared before a Senate inquiry into child pornography rings and mentioned that he knew a child porngrapher in Houston by the name of Roy Ames32.
This Californian child porngraphy operation can be called DOMLyric. And it involved three principal figures:
— William Byars Jr.
— William Johnson
— Guy Strait
DOMLyric was discovered on the 1st of Sept 1973 by the LAPD vice division, after receiving a letter from an LA-based informant named Steven Ahern. This letter mentioned two key bits of information:
— That a number of Dean Corll's victims had appeared in child pornography circulated in Califronia.
— That a Houston child pornographer named Roy Ames knew Dean Corll.
Further more:
— William Byars Jr was from Tyler, Texas; and his associate William Johnson was from Houston, Texas.
— Boys used in their pornography had come from Houston and Dallas.
— They were partners in this with a man named Guy Strait, who stated he knew John Norman and had been published in one of Norman's underground newsletters.
— Guy Strait stated that he knew a child pornographer in Houston named Roy Ames.
And now things look like this: