The horrific crimes of Killer Clown and the Candy Man – and why ‘nobody cared’ about many victims
They are two of the most notorious serial killers in US history after murdering more than 60 young men and boys between them.
The horrific crimes of Dean Corll and John Wayne Gacy shocked America in the 1970s – but how closely they were linked has only recently been discovered.
Corll tortured, raped and murdered at least 28 victims in Texas after luring them to his home with the help of two teenagers.
The Clown And The Candyman documentary investigates the killers’ links to a wider conspiracy. Pic: Cineflix
The 33-year-old was dubbed the Candy Man because he gave children free sweets from his family’s confectionery business.
His brutal killings – known as the Houston Mass Murders – were only uncovered when he was shot dead by his accomplice Elmer Wayne Henley in 1973.
A year earlier, more than 1,000 miles away, Gacy had murdered his first known victim.
The builder from a suburb of Chicago lured victims to his home by pretending to be a police officer or by promising them work.
He became known as the Killer Clown after performing as Pogo the clown at fundraising events and hospitals throughout the years of his murders.
Police mugshots of Gacy. Pic: Cineflix
Gacy as Pogo the clown. Pic: Cineflix
Gacy was later convicted of killing 33 young men and boys between 1972 and 1978 and was executed in 1994.
Now, a documentary, The Clown And The Candyman, has examined the two killers’ connection to a wider criminal conspiracy.
The four-part series identifies “a link” between the murderers and a network of paedophiles operating in the US at the time, according to its director.
And documentary maker Jacqueline Bynon believes there is “no question” there are more victims of the pair who are yet to be discovered.
She tells Sky News that Corll and Gacy are the most shocking serial killers in US history “because they operated for so long in big cities in plain sight and nobody noticed”.
Corll murdered at least 28 young men and boys. Pic: AP/Houston Chronicle
Many of their victims – who were all boys and young men – would go missing and “nobody cared”.
“The interesting thing looking back from our perspective today is nobody cared about boys then,” Bynon says.
“They called them runaways. They didn’t matter.
“In one high school in one little area, 11 boys were missing and nobody noticed.
“Remember in the early 70s, it was just after Easy Rider; doing your own thing; marijuana – the counter-culture was there. Boys were doing that. And some of them were going to the Vietnam War and not coming back.
Sheriff deputies display Corll’s torture board. Pic: AP
“So when the seats were empty in the classroom, nobody noticed.
“If they had been girls, as one cop said to me, this would have been different.
“If a girl had gone missing, they would have put a lot of time into it.”
After shooting dead Corll in 1973, Henley and fellow accomplice David Owen Brooks confessed to helping the serial killer commit his crimes.
Seventeen bodies were found in a boat shed, four were discovered in woodland by a lake, and the other seven known victims were buried at beaches.
Workers search for more bodies of Corll’s victims. Pic: AP
Bynon visited the Texas cities of Pasadena and Houston where Corll carried out his killings and she says the impact is still being felt.
“For some people, it was like the murders occurred two weeks ago,” she tells Sky News.
“They were still raw over it. They are still almost haunted by it.”
Both of Corll’s accomplices received life prison sentences, with Brooks reportedly dying with COVID last year while still behind bars.
Henley – now aged 65 – remains in prison and Bynon spoke to him several times about doing an interview for the documentary.
Corll’s accomplice Elmer Wayne Henley. Pic: Cineflix
“The problem was COVID hit,” she says.
“Unlike most lifers, he liked being communicated to by journalists. But he always wanted something.
“He was friendly but he was also cautious. When I asked him about certain things, he would go: ‘I don’t know anything about’.
“That’s the one thing I regret – that I never got to sit opposite him… he may have opened up.”
The crawl space inside Gacy’s home. Pic: Cineflix
Gacy claimed all of his killings were committed inside his house in Chicago. Twenty-six bodies were found in his crawl space, three others were buried elsewhere at his property and four victims were dumped in a river.
Eight of his victims were buried without being identified – six still haven’t been named.
After being convicted of 33 murders – then the most homicides by one person in US legal history – Gacy was sentenced to death in 1980, but it would be another 14 years until he was executed by lethal injection.
“His final words when he was executed were: ‘Kiss my ass,'” says Bynon.
Gacy was sentenced to death for his crimes. Pic: AP
The filmmaker says she was given recordings of conversations Gacy had during his time in prison – which feature in the documentary – with a man called Randy White who was “fascinated by serial killers”.
White recorded his talks with Gacy over two years and spoke to the murderer the day before he was executed.
Police recover bodies from Gacy’s home. Pic: AP
Bynon believes some people’s fear of clowns originates from the Gacy case.
“They’re supposed to make you laugh but that’s the way he lured people in,” she says.
“He did it with innocence to cover up.”
The Clown And The Candyman begins airing on Sky Crime at 9pm on Sunday.
America’s vaccine-sceptic health secretary has announced $500m (£375.8m) worth of cuts to their development in the country.
The US health department is cancelling contracts and pulling funding for jabs to fight viruses like COVID-19 and the flu, it was announced on Tuesday.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, known as RFK Jr, said 22 projects developing mRNA vaccines will be halted. It is the latest in a series of decisions to reduce US vaccine programmes.
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The health secretary has fired the panel that makes vaccine recommendations, reduced recommendations for COVID-19 shots, and refused to endorse vaccines despite a worsening measles outbreak.
RFK Jr claims the US will now prioritise “safer, broader vaccine strategies, like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms that don’t collapse when viruses mutate”.
Responding to the announcement of cuts, Mike Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases and pandemic preparations, said: “I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business.”
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Dr Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said RFK Jr’s move was short-sighted and that mRNA vaccines “certainly saved millions of lives”, including during the pandemic.
MRNA vaccines work by delivering a snippet of genetic code into the body that triggers an immune response, rather than introducing a real version of the virus.
According to the UK Health Security Agency, the “leading advantage of mRNA vaccines is that they can be designed and produced more quickly than traditional vaccines”.
Moderna, which was studying a combo mRNA shot that can tackle COVID and flu for the US health department, previously said it believed mRNA could speed up production of flu jabs compared with traditional vaccines.
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A COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic. File pic: PA
Scientists are also exploring how mRNA could be used in cancer immunotherapies and in other illnesses.
At the White House earlier this year, billionaire tech entrepreneur Larry Ellison praised mRNA for its potential to treat cancer.
RFK Jr touts ‘effective’ alternative
The health department said the abandoned mRNA projects signal a “shift in vaccine development priorities.”
“Let me be absolutely clear, HHS supports safe, effective vaccines for every American who wants them,” Mr Kennedy said in a statement.
Later, he said work is underway on an alternative – a “universal vaccine” that mimics “natural immunity”.
“It could be effective – we believe it’s going to be effective – against not only coronaviruses, but also flu,” he said.
The US House Oversight Committee has issued subpoenas for depositions with former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton relating to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
The Republican-controlled committee also subpoenaed the Justice Department for files relating to the paedophile financier, as well as eight former top law enforcement officials.
Donald Trump has denied prior knowledge of Epstein‘s crimes, claiming he ended their relationship a long time ago.
Mr Trump and Mr Epstein at a party together in 1992. Pic: NBC News
The US president has repeatedly tried to draw a line under the Justice Department’s decision not to release a full accounting of the investigation, but politicians from both major political parties, as well as many in Mr Trump’s political base, have refused to drop their interest in the Epstein files.
Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, and since then, conspiracy theories have swirled about what information investigators gathered on him and who else may have been involved in his crimes.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee initiated the subpoenas for the Clintons last month, as well as demanding all communications between former president Joe Biden’s Democrat administration and the Justice Department about Epstein.
The committee previously issued a subpoena for an interview with Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who had been serving a prison sentence in Florida for luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. She was recently transferred to another facility in Texas.
Mr Clinton was among those acquainted with Epstein before the criminal investigation against him in Florida became public two decades ago. He has never been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them.
Mr Clinton previously said, through a spokesperson, that while he travelled on Epstein’s jet, he never visited his homes and had no knowledge of his crimes.
Read more:
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The subpoenas give the Justice Department until 19 August to hand over the requested records.
The committee is also asking the former officials to appear for depositions throughout August, September and October, concluding with Hillary Clinton on 9 October and Bill Clinton on 14 October.
Although several former presidents, including Mr Trump, have been issued congressional subpoenas, none has ever appeared before members under compulsion.
Last month, Mr Trump instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to release information presented to the grand jury that indicted Maxwell for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been in contact with Donald Trump about a pardon, a source close to the rapper’s legal team has told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.
A White House spokesperson said it “will not comment on the existence or nonexistence of any clemency request”.
On Tuesday, the rapper was denied bail ahead of his sentencing in October, when he could face up to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of prostitution-related offences.
The sentence will likely be much shorter than that, however.
In July, he was found guilty of two counts of transportation for prostitution – but cleared of more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking, which carried potential life sentences.
During an interview with news channel Newsmax last Friday, Mr Trump said “they have talked to me about Sean” but did not announce any decision.
Read more:
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Combs reacts after the verdicts are read out in court. File pic: Reuters
The president seemed to cast doubt that he would grant a pardon, however.
“You know, I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great. And seemed like a nice guy, I didn’t know him well,” Trump said. “But when I ran for office, he was very hostile.”
“I don’t know,” Trump said. “It makes it more – I’m being honest, it makes it more difficult to do.”
Trump was then asked, “more likely a ‘no’ for Combs?”
Trump responded: “I would say so.”
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Combs, who co-founded Bad Boy Records and launched the career of the late Notorious BIG, was for decades a huge figure in pop culture, as well as a Grammy-winning hip-hop artist and business entrepreneur, who presided over an empire ranging from fashion to reality TV.
Now, as well as the criminal conviction, he is also facing several civil lawsuits.
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