Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. (born May 9, 1956) is a convicted American serial killer incarcerated in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) system. Henley was convicted in 1974 for his role as a participant in a series of murders known colloquially as the Houston Mass Murders in which a minimum of 28 teenage boys and young men were abducted, tortured, raped and murdered by Dean Corll between 1970 and 1973. Henley and David Owen Brooks (Corll's other teenage accomplice), together and individually, lured many of the victims to Corll's home. Henley, then 17 years old, shot Corll dead on August 8, 1973.
Henley is serving six consecutive terms of 99 years for his involvement in the Houston Mass Murders, which at the time were characterized as "the deadliest case of serial murders in American history". As a result of Henley killing Corll and Brooks dying in prison in 2020 from COVID-19, Henley is the only one of the trio still alive.
Early life
Henley was born May 9, 1956, in Houston, Texas, the eldest of four sons born to Elmer Wayne Henley Sr. (September 21, 1938 – June 18, 1986) and Mary Pauline Henley (née Weed) (born May 4, 1937). His father was an alcoholic who physically assaulted his wife and sons. Despite the abuse, Mary Henley tried to ensure that her children received a good education and stayed out of trouble. The couple divorced in 1970 when Henley was 14. Henley's mother—who worked as a cashier at a parking lot—retained custody of her four sons.
Initially, Henley was an excellent student at school; but after his parents' divorce he took a series of menial part-time jobs to help his mother with household finances, and his grades dropped sharply. At the age of 15, Henley dropped out of high school. He would later develop a minor criminal record, being arrested for assault with a deadly weapon in 1971 and burglary one year later.
Prior to his leaving high school, Henley became acquainted with a youth one year his senior named David Brooks. The two became friends and often played truant together. Through his acquaintance with Brooks, Henley became aware that his friend spent a lot of his free time in the company of an older man with whom he himself gradually became a casual acquaintance: Dean Corll. Initially, Henley was oblivious to the true extent of Corll's and Brooks' relationship. He later stated that though he admired Corll because he worked hard, he also suspected that Corll was homosexual, and concluded that Brooks was "hustling himself a queer."
Nonetheless, in late 1971, Henley also began spending time in Corll's company. Corll told Henley that he was involved in organized theft, and he, Brooks and Henley burgled several addresses, for which Henley was paid small sums of money. On one occasion, in an apparent test of character, Corll asked Henley if he would be willing to kill if required, to which Henley replied, "Yes."
The same year, Henley became aware of an insidious pattern of disappearances in his neighborhood: since the previous December, a minimum of eight boys ages 13 to 17 had disappeared from Houston Heights. Henley was friends with two of the youths, David Hilligiest and Gregory Malley Winkle, who had disappeared on May 29, 1971, on their way to a local swimming pool. Henley himself had actively participated in the search for them.
Introduction to Dean Corll
In the winter of 1971, when he was 15, Wayne Henley was again taken by David Brooks to meet Corll. In his confession given almost two years later, Henley told detectives Brooks lured him to Corll's home on the promise he could participate in "a deal where I could make some money." At Corll's home (where he was possibly taken as an intended victim), the youth was told by Corll that he belonged to an organization based in Dallas which recruited young boys for a child sex slavery ring. Henley was offered the same fee as Brooks ($200) for any boy whom he could bring to Corll.