WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:11.039 You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking 2 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:14.160 killers in true crime history and the authors that have 3 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:21.519 written about them. Gaesy Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK. Every 4 00:00:21.559 --> 00:00:25.280 week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and 5 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:29.559 infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your 6 00:00:29.559 --> 00:00:33.359 host journalist and author Dan Zufanski. 7 00:00:39.640 --> 00:00:44.799 Good Evening, the true story of how one dedicated forensic 8 00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:49.399 scientist restored the long lost identities of the teenage victims 9 00:00:49.439 --> 00:00:56.399 of the Candyman, one of America's most prolific serial killers. Houston, 10 00:00:56.439 --> 00:01:01.200 Texas in the early nineteen seventies was an exciting place, 11 00:01:01.759 --> 00:01:05.120 the home of NASA, the City of the Future, but 12 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:08.480 a string of more than two dozen missing boys hinted 13 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:11.359 at a dark undercurrent that would go ignored for far 14 00:01:11.439 --> 00:01:15.120 too long. While their siblings and friends wondered where they 15 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:19.680 had gone, the Houston Police Department dismissed them as runaways 16 00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:24.879 fleeing the Vietnam Draft or conservative parents likely looking to 17 00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:29.400 get high and join the counter culture. Was only after 18 00:01:29.439 --> 00:01:32.480 their killer, Dean Coral, was murdered by an accomplice that 19 00:01:32.519 --> 00:01:36.000 many of those boys bodies were discovered in mass graves. 20 00:01:36.799 --> 00:01:40.200 Coral known as the Candyman, was a local sweet shop 21 00:01:40.239 --> 00:01:43.400 owner who had enlisted two teens to lure their friends 22 00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:48.200 to parties where they would be tortured and killed. All 23 00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:52.799 of Coral's victims' bodies were badly decomposed, some were only skeletal, 24 00:01:53.519 --> 00:01:57.599 known collectively as the Lost Boys, Many were never identified, 25 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:03.799 and some remained undiscovered decades later. When forensic anthropologist Sharon 26 00:02:03.879 --> 00:02:06.480 Derek discovered a box of remains marked with the year 27 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:11.560 nineteen seventy three in the Harris County Medical Examiner's office, 28 00:02:11.639 --> 00:02:15.400 she recalled the horrifying crimes from her own childhood and 29 00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:19.879 knew she had to act. It would take prison interviews 30 00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:25.360 with Choral's accomplices, advanced scientific techniques, and years of tireless 31 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:31.599 effort to identify these young men. Investigative journalist Lisa Olsen 32 00:02:32.080 --> 00:02:34.400 brings to life the teens who were hunted by a 33 00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:38.639 killer hiding in plain sight, and the extraordinary woman who 34 00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:42.719 would finally give these unknown victims back their names and 35 00:02:42.800 --> 00:02:47.439 their dignity. With newly uncovered information about the case, the 36 00:02:47.479 --> 00:02:52.199 scientist and the serial killer immerses readers in an astonishing 37 00:02:52.280 --> 00:02:58.240 story and reveals why these horrific events remain relevant decades later. 38 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:03.360 The book that we're featuring this evening is The Scientist 39 00:03:03.639 --> 00:03:07.520 and the serial Killer, The Search for Houston's Lost Boys, 40 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:14.639 with my special guest, investigative reporter, editor, and author Lisa Olson. 41 00:03:15.479 --> 00:03:17.759 Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for 42 00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:19.639 this interview. Lisa Olson. 43 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:23.159 Well, thanks Stan for having me. I look forward to 44 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:24.759 speaking to you about my new book. 45 00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:29.439 And congratulations on that book, The Scientist and the serial Killer. 46 00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:31.039 Thank you. 47 00:03:32.479 --> 00:03:37.199 Let's start with the origins of this book project, how 48 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:41.240 you became involved in your connection to this area. 49 00:03:43.039 --> 00:03:45.919 I learned about this story when I first moved to Houston. 50 00:03:45.960 --> 00:03:49.919 I had already written about unidentified people who had been 51 00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:52.879 victims of a serial killer in Seattle called the Green 52 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:56.319 River Killer, and I was aware of the fact that 53 00:03:56.439 --> 00:04:01.599 Houston had something like four hundred unidentified people. So one 54 00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:05.639 of the first people I looked for was the anthropologist, 55 00:04:05.719 --> 00:04:09.560 the forensic anthropologist in Harris County, because I was interested 56 00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:13.719 in writing more about these cases. In Seattle, I'd done 57 00:04:13.719 --> 00:04:16.000 some work on cases like this that had resulted in 58 00:04:16.120 --> 00:04:19.920 the identifications of several people, including a mother and child 59 00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:22.519 murder victim, so I knew it was an area where 60 00:04:22.519 --> 00:04:26.279 investigative reporting could make a difference and where there was 61 00:04:26.319 --> 00:04:30.439 a huge human rights issue in terms of unidentified people 62 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:33.879 all across the United States, there's something like forty thousand. 63 00:04:34.839 --> 00:04:39.480 But I learned about this particular case after meeting forensic 64 00:04:39.480 --> 00:04:43.800 anthropologist Sharon Derrek, who had already when I first moved 65 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:47.959 to Houston, sort of started to dig into the fact 66 00:04:48.040 --> 00:04:51.000 that around a third of one of the most famous 67 00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:55.600 or infamous Houston serial killing cases, about a third of 68 00:04:55.639 --> 00:05:00.160 those victims remained unidentified twenty or thirty years after the 69 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:03.519 discovery of those crimes in nineteen seventy three. This was 70 00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:07.000 the serial killings linked to Dingy Coral, who is known 71 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:11.000 in Houston as the candy Man, who with two teenage accomplices, 72 00:05:11.839 --> 00:05:15.399 murdered at least twenty seven people known to authorities in 73 00:05:15.480 --> 00:05:17.560 nineteen seventy three. It turned out there were even more 74 00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:17.959 than that. 75 00:05:19.759 --> 00:05:23.399 So tell us a little bit about Sharon Derek's background 76 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:26.839 and how she came to be involved in this case. 77 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:30.319 Sharon Derek had raised three children when she went back 78 00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:36.480 to school to become initially a cultural anthropologist studying ancient peoples, 79 00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:39.959 and then she really decided that she'd rather use their 80 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:44.000 skills in a very modern way and look into forensic cases. 81 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:46.399 She learned about the field of forensic anthropology and she 82 00:05:46.560 --> 00:05:51.279 trained in that specialty area, first working on child death 83 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:55.040 cases in Harris County and then transitioning to identifications, and 84 00:05:55.120 --> 00:05:58.160 over the years she worked with another forensic anthropologist and 85 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:02.519 Harris County doctor, Jennifer Love to really develop a specialty 86 00:06:02.600 --> 00:06:06.040 in this area and became quite an authority in Texas 87 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:11.199 in identifications, and these cases in particular were of both 88 00:06:11.279 --> 00:06:15.600 personal and professional interest to her. Sharon remembered after finding 89 00:06:15.639 --> 00:06:19.680 these bones in storage in the Harris County Medical Examiner's 90 00:06:19.720 --> 00:06:22.560 office that she had heard about these crimes when she 91 00:06:22.639 --> 00:06:26.680 was a teenager in Austin, Texas. They had made national 92 00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:31.800 and international news. There had been searches that were televised 93 00:06:31.839 --> 00:06:35.879 internationally of these digs, the kind of hasty digs for 94 00:06:35.959 --> 00:06:39.480 these remains in three different places in Texas, in Houston, 95 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:43.800 in East Texas, on in a woodland area, and also 96 00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:46.839 on a beach called High Island. And Sharon remembered those 97 00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:50.720 stories and she took this really personally, partly because she 98 00:06:50.839 --> 00:06:53.639 had cousins who were around the same age of these 99 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:57.160 boys who had been hunted and killed by Dean Coral, 100 00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:01.319 and many of them came from the same neighborhoods in Houston, 101 00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:05.000 a really historic neighborhood called the Houston Heights, and other 102 00:07:05.040 --> 00:07:08.879 neighborhoods around that. Sharon was very familiar with those neighborhoods. 103 00:07:08.920 --> 00:07:11.759 Her grandparents had lived there, her parents had met at 104 00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:14.759 a church there. And she thought, how is it possible 105 00:07:15.319 --> 00:07:19.519 that seven or eight boys from these neighborhoods, these long 106 00:07:19.839 --> 00:07:23.519 historic neighborhoods in Houston, could still be missing all this 107 00:07:23.639 --> 00:07:27.000 time later and never be identified. How is that possible? 108 00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:30.680 She felt a personal and professional connection to the case. 109 00:07:32.519 --> 00:07:37.920 You righte that in preparation, she took homicide reports and 110 00:07:38.120 --> 00:07:41.319 took them home, and she looked at typewritten passages, and 111 00:07:41.399 --> 00:07:45.680 she made notes and began identifying clues right away. 112 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:49.839 She absolutely did. She obtained records through the DA's office 113 00:07:49.959 --> 00:07:52.759 of the original homicide reports, and they're kind of hard 114 00:07:52.759 --> 00:07:57.879 to read. They're like mimeographed on old typewriters, fuzzy, And 115 00:07:57.959 --> 00:08:00.800 she began looking for names of boys that had not 116 00:08:00.959 --> 00:08:04.199 been identified in the seventies but who were listed as missing. 117 00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:06.920 And she came up with a list of names and 118 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:11.319 possible dresses, but they were from, you know, nineteen seventy three. 119 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:13.600 One of the names that popped out at her right 120 00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:17.480 away was Randy Harvey, who was a boy who had 121 00:08:17.519 --> 00:08:20.079 gotten on his bike to ride to a gas station. 122 00:08:20.199 --> 00:08:22.680 In those days, it was really common for kids in Houston, 123 00:08:22.759 --> 00:08:25.160 and I think all over the country to ride their 124 00:08:25.199 --> 00:08:28.079 bikes or walks in their neighborhoods. People didn't think much 125 00:08:28.079 --> 00:08:30.360 of it. It was just a couple of miles to 126 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:34.039 his workplace, but it turned out he had never gotten 127 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:36.360 there at all. His mother didn't know that. She just 128 00:08:36.440 --> 00:08:39.679 knew that he didn't come home. She worried, but in 129 00:08:39.679 --> 00:08:41.759 those days, you know, there was no cell phone, there 130 00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:44.679 was no pager. They didn't actually have a phone at 131 00:08:44.679 --> 00:08:47.480 the house, and so she really had no way to 132 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:50.639 figure out where Randy was, and she reported a missing 133 00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:54.279 to the police. Sharon found that report described Randy, it 134 00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:58.759 described his bicycle, and that was the end. She also discovered, 135 00:08:58.840 --> 00:09:02.240 hidden in some older file two notes that really made 136 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:04.919 her think there must be someone still looking for Randy. 137 00:09:05.279 --> 00:09:09.919 There were notes from his little sister, Leonore, showing that 138 00:09:10.039 --> 00:09:12.960 Leonore had called the work herself twice and asked to 139 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:15.600 come visit to look for her brother, but had been 140 00:09:15.639 --> 00:09:18.639 told she was too young to come, So that was 141 00:09:18.679 --> 00:09:22.399 one of the first names Sharon tried to research, thinking, 142 00:09:22.759 --> 00:09:25.960 what if one of these boxes of bones is really 143 00:09:26.120 --> 00:09:29.559 Randy Harvey. I need to know and to answer that question, 144 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:32.279 she needed to both analyze the bones herself and then 145 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:34.159 also try to see if she could find any of 146 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:38.000 his family. Both of those things were tasks she took 147 00:09:38.039 --> 00:09:42.519 on almost simultaneously. She did a full new analysis using 148 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:47.440 updated forensic anthropology techniques to measure the bones that were 149 00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:50.759 in those box and to make new calculations using new 150 00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:54.000 databases that are based on research in places like the 151 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:57.200 Body Farm in Nashville, Tennessee, which you might have heard about, 152 00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:01.919 that allow modern day anthropologists to anthropologists to make better 153 00:10:02.080 --> 00:10:07.000 estimates of possible ages and weights and not weight sorry, 154 00:10:07.519 --> 00:10:10.600 ages and heights of victims. Weight is really impossible to 155 00:10:10.639 --> 00:10:13.879 tell from bones. She was able to then determine that 156 00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:19.320 Randy Harvey was likely taller and younger I mean, not 157 00:10:19.399 --> 00:10:21.960 Randy Harvey. These bones that she first picked out were 158 00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:25.559 likely from a taller and younger boy than had originally 159 00:10:25.639 --> 00:10:29.840 been identified in nineteen seventy three in old autopsy reports, 160 00:10:29.840 --> 00:10:33.759 so this unknown one of the first boxes she identifies, 161 00:10:33.799 --> 00:10:36.919 she realizes that these bones are of a boy of 162 00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:41.480 fifteen who are who is around six feet tall. Originally, 163 00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:46.960 in nineteen seventy three, the pathologist had guessed that this 164 00:10:47.039 --> 00:10:51.480 boy was older and was shorter, and so with her 165 00:10:51.519 --> 00:10:55.320 new calculations, it turned out that this boy was actually 166 00:10:55.399 --> 00:10:59.200 a better match for missing person Randy Harvey than anyone 167 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:02.240 had thought in seven He might have been ruled out 168 00:11:02.360 --> 00:11:06.000 because of the age determination as a older boy, and 169 00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:09.000 because there was sort of an assumption that Randy was 170 00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:11.480 shorter than six feet tall, but he was. He was 171 00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:14.080 six feet and the bones were six feet and she 172 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:19.480 ends up eventually finding his sisters and verifying that that 173 00:11:20.519 --> 00:11:23.039 DNA in a relatively short period of time. It took 174 00:11:23.080 --> 00:11:26.600 her about a year and a half, and given all 175 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:31.879 the obstacles she had, you know, years decades of no progress, 176 00:11:32.559 --> 00:11:36.559 no DNA tests, no names for the next of well, 177 00:11:36.639 --> 00:11:40.120 names for the next of ken, but no addresses, no 178 00:11:40.240 --> 00:11:45.039 phone numbers, no idea if the little girl listed as 179 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:49.600 Leonora Harvey was still named Harvey or something else. She 180 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:53.279 was able to find you know, the siblings and get 181 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:55.720 a match within a fairly short amount of time, which 182 00:11:55.759 --> 00:11:58.080 really excited her. Made her think, well, the rest of 183 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:01.799 this case should be easy to solve. Author didn't turn 184 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:02.200 out to be. 185 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:08.039 So you chronicle the efforts and all of the technological 186 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:11.919 advances that occur in the ensuing years. But she also 187 00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:14.639 some of the people that she teams up with, and 188 00:12:14.679 --> 00:12:18.080 you had mentioned doctor Jennifer Love, So tell us about 189 00:12:18.159 --> 00:12:21.759 doctor Jennifer Love and an unexpected breakthrough. 190 00:12:23.519 --> 00:12:28.200 So doctor Love was brought into the Medical Examiner's office. 191 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:30.840 She had studied at the University of Tennessee at the 192 00:12:30.879 --> 00:12:33.960 famous Body Farm facility. She was kind of a hot 193 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:36.799 shot and at first Sharon thought, uh, oh, you know, 194 00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:39.279 she's going to want to take over these cases from me, 195 00:12:39.360 --> 00:12:41.279 But it didn't turn out that way. They kind of 196 00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:44.080 teamed up and doctor Love said, hey, you know you 197 00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:48.039 have those cases. They had gotten a grant together, working 198 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:51.120 together from the Departments of Justice to look at more 199 00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:54.159 of these unidentified and they had picked a certain number 200 00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:57.440 of cases to do DNA testing because DNA testing is expensive, 201 00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:00.840 and they had chosen you know, the Loss Boys cases 202 00:13:00.879 --> 00:13:04.480 and also some other murder victims from that backlog of 203 00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:09.440 four hundred bodies unidentified bodies. They had, and so doctor 204 00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:12.000 Love decided, well, I'll take some of these more mysterious 205 00:13:12.399 --> 00:13:14.399 cases that don't seem to have anything to do with 206 00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:17.639 the seventies murders and let Sharon take those on, because 207 00:13:17.639 --> 00:13:21.240 she already had this knowledge from you know, really basically 208 00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:25.840 memorizing the HBD police reports and essentially you know, having 209 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.919 gone through a lot of hoops to find Randy Harvey, 210 00:13:29.399 --> 00:13:32.960 figuring out things about how to find people from seventies records, 211 00:13:33.279 --> 00:13:37.399 using ancestry dot com, using old public records, and so 212 00:13:37.799 --> 00:13:39.759 they split it up that way. Well, so then one 213 00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:43.000 day doctor Love gets her own box of bones out, 214 00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:46.679 and this is a really cryptic one. All it says, 215 00:13:46.679 --> 00:13:50.639 the sort of antiquities. She starts doing the analysis and 216 00:13:51.399 --> 00:13:54.639 she sort of shocked because when she looks at these bones, 217 00:13:54.679 --> 00:13:58.120 she says, you know, there's really nothing in this box 218 00:13:58.120 --> 00:14:02.159 that makes me think that this is a historic body. 219 00:14:02.200 --> 00:14:05.799 There's no you know, relics of you know, caskets that 220 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:10.840 were used in pioneer days. These bones don't seem to 221 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:14.440 be from a Native American person. It seems like this 222 00:14:14.559 --> 00:14:17.840 might be a modern murder case. So she's kind of 223 00:14:17.919 --> 00:14:21.200 mystified by that. Turns out the box was miss labeled. 224 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:25.320 She goes ahead and gets the DNA testing done, thinking, well, 225 00:14:25.360 --> 00:14:27.519 you know it's worth it because it doesn't look like 226 00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:31.799 it's really an ancient being who wouldn't have any modern 227 00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:37.159 family necessarily living, and so she's astonished when she gets 228 00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:39.799 the DNA it results back. Turns out this is yet 229 00:14:39.799 --> 00:14:44.440 another victim of Dean Coral. It is a After the 230 00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:47.320 first identifications, Sharon gets a lot of calls from other 231 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:50.759 families who have missing persons from the seventies. One of 232 00:14:50.799 --> 00:14:53.360 them is a woman named Donna Taylor, whose brother Alan 233 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:57.320 was missing for many, many years, and it turns out 234 00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:00.559 that the DNA from this mysterious box of n antiquities 235 00:15:00.679 --> 00:15:09.159 matches Allen's sister and other family. So the second identification 236 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:12.440 comes from this partnership in that office. And I want 237 00:15:12.480 --> 00:15:14.399 to say that, you know, Harris County is one of 238 00:15:14.440 --> 00:15:17.600 the few counties in the United States that has forensic 239 00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:22.240 anthropologists on staff, and they were certainly very unusual in 240 00:15:22.279 --> 00:15:26.480 the two thousands and having a team of forensic anthropologists. 241 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:30.519 They actually had at different times three or four forensic anthropologists, 242 00:15:30.559 --> 00:15:33.840 all kind of committed to trying to both handle modern 243 00:15:33.960 --> 00:15:37.799 cases where there's really only bone evidence, and so their 244 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:41.279 expertise is needed as well as these older backlog cases. 245 00:15:41.919 --> 00:15:44.840 So they were really forging some new territory in terms 246 00:15:44.919 --> 00:15:48.440 of making identifications and kind of leading the way along 247 00:15:48.440 --> 00:15:51.840 with them people in Seattle who had worked on the 248 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:55.080 Green River cases, and of course New York City where 249 00:15:55.399 --> 00:15:58.600 forensic anthropologists were very involved in trying to help identify 250 00:15:58.720 --> 00:16:03.679 the victims of the eleven terrorist attacks. 251 00:16:04.840 --> 00:16:07.000 Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear 252 00:16:07.080 --> 00:16:12.799 these messages. Now, you also chronicle all of the people 253 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:17.840 that Sharon Derek. She reads reports back from nineteen seventy 254 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:22.240 three we already mentioned that, and familiarizes herself with this 255 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:27.279 case completely, but there are people that she gets to 256 00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:32.639 speak to that she tracks down that offer some very 257 00:16:32.720 --> 00:16:37.799 illuminating information and add to the identification of some of 258 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:43.039 these people. You also mentioned you spoke to Nita Bottaford 259 00:16:43.240 --> 00:16:43.799 as well. 260 00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:51.559 It really was, especially after both Randy and Allen were identified. 261 00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:55.080 You know, there were really a lot of people whose 262 00:16:55.200 --> 00:17:00.279 lives had been really forever altered by these murders. And 263 00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:04.480 Sharon started getting a lot of phone calls and a 264 00:17:04.519 --> 00:17:07.279 lot of emails, and a lot of them were from 265 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:11.680 people who had known different missing persons, and there were 266 00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:15.880 also people who had been friends of the murder victims 267 00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:18.279 who were identified in nineteen seventy three who wanted to 268 00:17:18.319 --> 00:17:23.720 offer additional information. Some of them just had cryptic stories 269 00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:29.720 about remembering some school chom who suddenly disappeared, And sometimes 270 00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:32.119 what she'd find out is, well, that person just moved 271 00:17:32.160 --> 00:17:35.880 away and they're alive and well and living in another state. 272 00:17:36.839 --> 00:17:39.920 But other times she would find out that a story 273 00:17:40.039 --> 00:17:42.799 about a missing person that then would prove to be 274 00:17:43.559 --> 00:17:47.160 young man or young woman, young man mainly who then 275 00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:51.519 disappeared entirely from the records. And there were lots and 276 00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:55.920 lots of stories too that came from people who started 277 00:17:55.960 --> 00:18:02.359 talking about Dean Coral being more than a sexual, sexually 278 00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:11.240 motivated serial killer. Dean Coral systematically captured, tortured, raped, and 279 00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:15.279 murdered these thirty some victims. It turned out there were 280 00:18:15.319 --> 00:18:19.119 more than twenty seven. Sharon found out along the way 281 00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:24.279 he had alliances with different people, both teenagers, who he 282 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:29.000 used as accomplices, but also he had other criminal activities. 283 00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:33.000 So some of the people Sharon was hearing from was 284 00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:37.000 telling her about Dean Coral being involved in other kinds 285 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:41.359 of crime, Dean Coral being involved in a porn ring, 286 00:18:41.599 --> 00:18:46.720 Dean Coral being involved in selling stolen goods. And these 287 00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:49.200 were stories too that people started to tell me. When 288 00:18:49.240 --> 00:18:52.680 I began to write this book, I really started looking 289 00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:57.039 because Sharon's mission was to identify these boys. Her a 290 00:18:57.079 --> 00:19:00.720 mission wasn't to figure out what happened to all of 291 00:19:00.759 --> 00:19:04.359 them and how Dean Coral learned lured all of them in. 292 00:19:05.359 --> 00:19:07.640 When I started writing my book, I decided I wanted 293 00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:10.680 to not only tell the story of her identifications of 294 00:19:10.799 --> 00:19:14.119 in these eight cases, but also show the reader what 295 00:19:14.400 --> 00:19:20.799 those cases revealed to us about this crazy murder case 296 00:19:20.839 --> 00:19:24.720 in the seventies, about how Korl managed to get away 297 00:19:24.799 --> 00:19:28.799 with kidnapping, killing, and murdering so many young boys and 298 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:31.920 the police never really raising any alarm. How did he 299 00:19:32.039 --> 00:19:35.480 do that, what tools did he use? What who else 300 00:19:35.599 --> 00:19:40.279 was involved? Were there other adults involved? And the answers 301 00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:44.359 I started learning to those questions really came from a 302 00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:48.640 lot of the friends and family of these eight boys 303 00:19:48.680 --> 00:19:51.720 who were never identified in the seventies because no one 304 00:19:51.720 --> 00:19:54.920 had ever talked to them, and in fact, in many cases, 305 00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:57.039 no one had talked to the siblings of the boys 306 00:19:57.079 --> 00:20:00.920 who had been identified the authorities large. He had interviewed 307 00:20:01.319 --> 00:20:04.160 the two accomplices of Dean Coral who were sent to 308 00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:07.480 prison for these crimes with him, Elmer, Wayne Henley and 309 00:20:07.559 --> 00:20:10.920 David Brooks, but they didn't necessarily try to interview a 310 00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:15.200 lot of other young people about who else Coral had 311 00:20:15.200 --> 00:20:19.640 associated with or what else who else might have been involved. 312 00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:22.759 And so when I started talking to other people, I 313 00:20:22.799 --> 00:20:27.599 hear stories. For example, you mentioned Nita Bodaford, who dated 314 00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:31.160 one of the boys that Sharon Derek identified, whose name 315 00:20:31.240 --> 00:20:35.079 was Michael Balch, and she's told me that Michael Balch 316 00:20:35.160 --> 00:20:37.279 was one of the last murder victims. He was killed 317 00:20:37.279 --> 00:20:39.559 in the summer of nineteen seventy three, about a month 318 00:20:39.599 --> 00:20:43.400 before Coral died at the hands of one of his accomplices. 319 00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:48.680 So Nita Bodaford tells me a story that Michael was 320 00:20:48.960 --> 00:20:50.920 one of the last time the last time she ever 321 00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:54.160 saw him was eating in a local hangout in the 322 00:20:54.200 --> 00:20:57.359 Heights and made a remark that he knew who had 323 00:20:57.359 --> 00:21:01.839 done this to his brother, because Michael Balch's brother, Billy, 324 00:21:02.200 --> 00:21:04.799 was a murder victim and he had already been missing 325 00:21:05.400 --> 00:21:09.599 for a couple of years. When Michael went missing. So 326 00:21:09.640 --> 00:21:13.400 she hears him talk about she knows what's he knows 327 00:21:13.440 --> 00:21:16.559 what's happening, he knows who took his brother, and he's 328 00:21:16.599 --> 00:21:19.720 going to do something about it. And so that kind 329 00:21:19.799 --> 00:21:24.039 of those kind of stories that I accumulate helped paint 330 00:21:24.079 --> 00:21:28.119 the picture of how within the teenage world in Houston, 331 00:21:28.279 --> 00:21:32.880 some people knew that there was there was a group 332 00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:35.519 out there, there was a killer out there who were 333 00:21:35.599 --> 00:21:39.039 doing things to young boys who were that too many 334 00:21:39.079 --> 00:21:43.200 people were going missing, there were too many kids that 335 00:21:43.319 --> 00:21:48.880 just disappeared from school, and some kids suspected that Dean 336 00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:53.000 Coral was involved. It's just the authorities didn't seem to 337 00:21:53.039 --> 00:21:56.519 have talk to most of these kids. And so that 338 00:21:56.519 --> 00:22:00.440 that opened up in this book a chance to tell 339 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:02.799 the rest of the story of these crimes and how 340 00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:07.960 many different ways Coral tricked and lurd and young teens 341 00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:11.559 and then was able to kill them in ways that 342 00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:15.839 I think are relevant today because we still have human 343 00:22:15.880 --> 00:22:19.000 trafficking ringks Kral was involved with the group of people 344 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:23.599 who took erotic photos of young men and sold them internationally. 345 00:22:24.559 --> 00:22:26.359 So to me was that was part of the story 346 00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:29.319 that was completely unknown in the seventies. That made this 347 00:22:29.519 --> 00:22:35.119 murder really really relevant today because there were the same 348 00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:38.640 kinds of conditions that we see now in the seventies, 349 00:22:38.640 --> 00:22:40.680 and no one was doing anything about it. There were 350 00:22:40.720 --> 00:22:43.799 no laws really protecting teenage boys. A lot of times, 351 00:22:43.799 --> 00:22:47.359 if teenage boys were sexually assaulted, it was viewed as 352 00:22:47.480 --> 00:22:50.720 not a crime. It was viewed as something that just happened, 353 00:22:50.759 --> 00:22:52.559 and maybe even the boy's fault. And there was a 354 00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:56.079 lot of homophobia, and so the odds of these boys 355 00:22:56.119 --> 00:22:58.839 coming forward or seeking help or telling anyone what was 356 00:22:58.880 --> 00:23:02.559 going on were really low. And of course that wasn't 357 00:23:02.599 --> 00:23:05.559 the only way Dean Coral was luring people to his home. 358 00:23:05.640 --> 00:23:08.799 He was also using teenagers just to throw parties and 359 00:23:08.839 --> 00:23:13.240 invite people, and he was getting them to grab people 360 00:23:13.359 --> 00:23:16.440 essentially off the street. But he was also paying kids 361 00:23:16.759 --> 00:23:18.720 to take their photos, and that was a part of 362 00:23:18.759 --> 00:23:21.599 the story that was really hidden in the seventies. 363 00:23:23.960 --> 00:23:26.160 You talk about people that you got to speak to, 364 00:23:26.799 --> 00:23:29.559 and Bernie Milligan's story. 365 00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:33.640 Well, that was the other part that was really eye opening. 366 00:23:33.680 --> 00:23:36.200 When I started to speak to people who had known 367 00:23:36.279 --> 00:23:40.119 murder victims, who could create the world of nineteen seventy one, 368 00:23:40.160 --> 00:23:43.640 seventy two and seventy three when in Houston, Dean Coral 369 00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:46.720 was driving different kinds of kind of muscle cars around 370 00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:51.200 and approaching kids, initially alone and then later with two 371 00:23:51.200 --> 00:23:54.400 other teens that he recruited. I ended up finding a 372 00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:58.480 number of people who told me stories about being either 373 00:23:58.680 --> 00:24:01.480 invited to go to party with Dean Coral or the 374 00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:05.359 other kids who were associated with Coral, or who were 375 00:24:05.480 --> 00:24:08.039 chased by Dean Coral. And one of the most scary 376 00:24:08.119 --> 00:24:11.680 stories I heard was from Bernie Milligan. And Bernie Milligan 377 00:24:11.799 --> 00:24:14.880 was very good friends with the known murder victim, a 378 00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:17.720 kid who was killed by Dean Coral whose name was 379 00:24:17.759 --> 00:24:22.599 Franka Gary. And Franka Gary was a really well known 380 00:24:22.640 --> 00:24:24.799 teen in the Houston Heights. You know, he was somebody 381 00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:27.559 everyone liked. He was a good kid. He went to 382 00:24:27.640 --> 00:24:33.319 Waltrip High School, he was close to graduating, and then 383 00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:37.680 he just suddenly disappeared. And Bernie Milligan was one of 384 00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:40.079 his friends, one of his close friends. So Bernie lived 385 00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:45.279 in the same area there were other murder victims had disappeared, 386 00:24:45.400 --> 00:24:48.400 and he happened to be in the wrong place at 387 00:24:48.400 --> 00:24:51.480 the wrong time and encountered Dean Coral. He was working 388 00:24:51.559 --> 00:24:56.119 late at night at a ice cream store, kind of 389 00:24:56.119 --> 00:24:59.039 place a lot of us get our first teenage jobs, right. 390 00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:02.599 He cleaning it because they had a health inspection coming 391 00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:05.559 the next day, so he was working lad. He's just 392 00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:09.640 really tired and hot, sweating, covered with all kind of 393 00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:12.720 sticky ice cream that he washes off before he goes 394 00:25:12.759 --> 00:25:14.480 out of the store, but he just can't wait to 395 00:25:14.519 --> 00:25:17.640 get home. And a block or so from the ice 396 00:25:17.640 --> 00:25:20.960 cream store, which still exists, just a different business today, 397 00:25:21.759 --> 00:25:24.640 he stops at a gas station which also still exists 398 00:25:24.680 --> 00:25:27.240 and is quite a nice little cafe in the heights 399 00:25:27.279 --> 00:25:30.880 to get a soda, and he's plunking his change into 400 00:25:30.920 --> 00:25:34.799 one of those old fashioned machines where the bottles clunk down, 401 00:25:35.160 --> 00:25:39.039