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

Author:Jack Rosewood [Rosewood, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-09-09T20:00:00+00:00

Pure failure on the part of police

At the time of the boys’ disappearances, about 1 million young people a year went missing.

Many were headed to California or other locations to join communes or become part of the hippie movement, which essentially began on the road.

And while some eventually came back home, stories of their adventures set to tell, others were never heard from again.

“About 99.9 percent of the runaways today turn out to be alive and well and happy wherever they want to be,” said Captain R. L. Horton, head of Houston’s Missing Persons Detail in the early 1970s.

“But those other few— they’re the ones who turn up in shallow graves.”

Although not all of the parents whose boys disappeared from Houston during the first years of the 1970s reported the disappearances to police, those who did were horrified that authorities weren’t investigating the disappearances of their sons, especially those who had vanished with little more than a swimsuit and a handful of change.

“All parents of children who have been gone longer than twenty-four hours will tell you that their boys were victims of violence,” said Horton. “The real reasons are varied— sometimes arguments inside the family. It is extremely difficult for some young people to adjust to today's society. What are they led to believe? Leading a decent, honorable lawful life can seem dull compared to the ‘exciting’ life of those violating the law.”

Because police felt confident they weren’t dealing with a crime – or where comfortable dismissing the concerns of parents living in a somewhat shabby part of town - they failed to investigate many of the tips that came across their desks during the three years when Houston boys were disappearing.

“The area that most of these persons came from is not one of the highest crime incident areas at all. We could have no way of seeing in a period of time of three years or more anything to indicate a pattern,” said Houston Police Chief Herman Short. “We don't have responsibility by law nor the authority to make criminal cases out of runaways.

“We do everything we can in this particular type of situation. But there will never be enough staff to check out constantly and consistently each and every one of these cases,” he added. “That doesn't mean that each case doesn't get an investigation.”

Short then turned much of the blame back to the grieving parents.

“Unfortunately, many times parents will not even tell us the truth about these things. They know why the runaways have left but they won't tell us this information,” he said. “We do know that some of the parents are not exactly discharging their own responsibility as far as runaways are concerned and as far as raising and disciplining their children.”

It was a brutal blow to parents who spent sleepless nights waiting fruitlessly for the door to open and their son to return home again.

“I think the police did something,” said Dorothy Hilligiest, whose son David was among Corll’s victims, in an interview with the Associated Press.

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