HOUSTON – The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles is reviewing whether one of Houston’s most notorious killers should be granted parole.
Elmer Wayne Henley, 69, helped serial killer Dean Corll lure, torture and murder at least 28 teens and young men between 1970-1973.
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Henley was convicted of six of the murders. A third man, David Brooks, helped Henley kidnap victims for Corll. Brooks died in 2020 while serving six life sentences.
Henley and Brooks were convicted during a time the death penalty was on-hold in the United States and Texas had not yet passed life without parole as a punishment in capital murder cases. This created a cycle for families of victims periodically preparing for, and fighting against, Henley’s and Brook’s release.
“Sleepless nights, thinking, reliving things,” said Elaine Dreymala about the anxiety leading up to parole hearings.
Stanton Dreymala, 13, was Corll’s last victim and his parents are believed to be the last surviving parents of the victims of the “Houston Mass Murders.”
“You know it’s coming,” said James Dreymala. “You might as well prepare for it mentally, but what are you going to say? What are you gonna do? You’re going to tell the parole board exactly how you feel.”
The couple keeps a binder of pictures, news articles and other documents they review in preparation for protesting Henley’s potential parole.
“For Stanton we have to do it, even though it hurts. We just have to,” said Elaine Dreymala.
“And we will till the day we die,” said James Dreymala.
Head of the Victims’ Rights Office for Crime Stoppers of Houston, Andy Kahan, said Henley has come up for parole 25 times during his decades in prison.
“Henley was the one, as we like to say, who found Corll’s victims and then basically lured them to Corll’s house under pretenses of getting food, candy, beer, marijuana,” said Kahan.
Henley killed Corll during a fight in 1973 and then led police to all the bodies he helped bury. As police were excavating many of the bodies, Henley used former KPRC 2 reporter Jack Cato’s radio phone to call his mother and tell her, “Mama, I killed Dean.”
“The only reason Elmer Wayne Henley took down Dean Corll was to save his own skin, period. I mean, if you want to give yourself a pat on the back, you know, you’re more than welcome to it. But you didn’t give yourself a pat on back for 28 other young boys that you stood back silently and watched sadistic, insidious, torturous sexual abuse,” said Kahan.
The Dreymalas said Henley may have confessed to his role in the murders, but he’s never taken responsibility for his own actions.
“I think he looks at himself as a victim because he was young as well, but he had every opportunity to get out of that situation if he had wanted to,” said Elaine Dreymala. “He was liking what he was doing and had no remorse about doing it, or he would have figured a way to get away from it."
Henley applied for compassionate release in 2022 but was denied. Compassionate release can be granted to inmates with severe medical problems or other hardships. Citing privacy laws, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice would not release the basis for Henley’s request or the reason for denial.
Henley’s last parole review was in Oct. 2015. The decision to deny his parole came one month after a new state law took effect giving the parole board the option of waiting up to ten years before conducting another parole review in cases involving capital felonies.
Kahan was instrumental in getting that law passed and said Henley was the first inmate subject to the new rules.
The Dreymalas said they were informed June 3 Henley’s parole review process has started. This process takes several months, and a decision is expected in the fall.
If denied, the Dreymalas will ask the parole board to wait another ten years before considering Henley’s potential release on parole.
“I don’t feel he deserves to ever be free," said Elaine Dreymala.
