Tag: brooks

by Katherine Ramsland and Tracy Ullman

A Review: WHAT WAS LEFT OUT

General Observations: [I can’t tell which author was responsible for what content, so I’m just going to say; “the authors” throughout]

• There are no source citations, other than an occasional reference within the text, and no chapter notes. The authors haven’t bothered to provide documentation for what they’ve said, am I reading conjecture and opinion throughout?
• This book is supposed to explain why the authors changed their opinions of, and perspective on, Elmer Wayne Henley and presumably why we should also. Their reasoning is comprehensible, but nothing changed for me. Reading the accounts of how they lured the victims and what was subsequently done to them, while Henley and Brooks observed or even participated, still evokes the same sense of horror and outrage in me. They will forever be “the face of true evil” for me, just as much as the Nazi Deathcamp guards.
• I appreciated the debunking of Vargas’ ‘new victim’, polaroid photo boy, with the truth about that photo.
• The recounting of how the victim’s remains were recovered, and Brooks and Henley’s accounts of what they knew about their demise, was handled well – respectfully and minimally explicit. The same goes for the mistaken and revised identifications.

False/ misleading statements, and what the authors left out:

The infamous Sgt. Ronald Kelly lie, (Head of Area 6 youth division, Chicago PD), pg. 138; “Dallas police told Sgt. Ronald Kelly, Head of Area 6 youth division, that they have information associating [John] Norman with the ring that helped transport to Texas the 27 boys murdered in Houston in 1973 in a widely publicized sex and sadism case. That case involved Dean Corll”.

NONE of the 27 victims were “transported to Texas”. With the exception of one victim originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ALL of the identified Corll victims were long-time residents of Texas. No one, not John Norman nor anyone else, “trafficked” them into Texas. They already lived there. Furthermore, none of Corll’s victims had been an Odyssey Foundation male prostitute, pimped out by Norman. This story is a blatant lie, an early attempt to falsely link John Norman to Corrl and his victims.

Here are some examples, of something annoying the authors do several times; pg. 57; “In fact, there was a widespread network of pedophiles from Houston to Dallas, with boys paid or forced into being photographed for pornography”, no source cited, so, a rumor apparently.

They have gratuitously added “or forced”, thus – boys paid or forced into pornography. There isn’t documentation that, for example, pornographer Roy Ames ever “forced” boys to participate in nude photo-shoots or sex acts on camera. The lack of documentation doesn’t stop them from assuming some boys MUST have been forced, and someone must be “hiding the truth”, so they will just proclaim that to be a fact anyway, I guess.

The claim by Houston Youth officers, that they identified 11 Corll victims in CSA images found in Ames warehouse, is understandably uncomfortable for some people, particularly family members and friends. They remember a person whom they couldn’t imagine would pose for nude photos or sex acts, for a few dollars. Certainly not voluntarily, if they were involved in pornography or prostitution they must have been coerced, extorted, forced…This was, in the 1970s, and still is, a popular opinion about any & all teen boys. Yet, there is documentation that teen boys of that era who were involved, had a lot more autonomy and self-agency than we want to credit them with, as Det. Williams (OCCK case) found, when he tracked down men who had been teen boy hustlers in the Cass area of Detroit. “Ralph” was one such, described by pedophile Richard Lawson as; “the most beautiful boy in the world, every man wanted him”. This is from Det. Williams’ investigator notes, 3-21-07; “I asked Ralph if there was someone who controlled the money or set-up the meets with the adult men. To which he stated no, he just did it on his own for the money, like every other boy in his neighborhood”

“The Syndicate in Dallas“:

• from the “Author’s Note”, pg. i, “Henley killed Corll and turned himself in. At this point, he mentioned his fear of Corll’s association with a sex trafficking ring in Dallas. Brooks, once in custody, also described the ring. The Houston police made a tepid effort to investigate the alleged connection before ultimately dismissing it. However, such a ring did exist”.
• from pg. 9; “Henley had said it: there was an organization that Corll had talked about that bought and sold boys”
• from page 12; “Dean told me he belonged to an organization out of Dallas that bought and sold boys, ran dope and stuff like that”
• and finally on pgs. 59-63, a full discussion of John Norman’s Odyssey male prostitute pimping racket, which he ran out of his apartment in Dallas. But only from May-Aug. of 1973, as Dallas PD are quoted saying; “Criminal record of alleged homosexual ring leader revealed”, Dallas Morning News, 1973; “The procurement ring has apparently been operating since May, when Norman rented the Cole Avenue apartment”

While careful not to explicitly state, that the “sex trafficking ring” Corll claimed to belong to in Dallas was John Norman’s operation, the authors nevertheless clearly want their readers to “get that”. But Norman was only ‘in operation’ in Dallas from May-Aug of 1973, and Corll started talking to his henchmen about it in 1971-72. No matter how anyone tries to weasel it, Corll coudn’t have been and wasn’t talking about John Norman. Corll never did “belong” to Norman’s ring, Dallas did not find Corll listed on any Norman client card, nor did they find any Corll victim listed as a Norman boy for hire. And yes they did investigate that; Press=Telegram, Long Beach, Ca, Aug.13, 1973, “He [Dallas PD Chief Steele] said each teenager listed would be contacted…”

Addendum: on pages 10-11, the authors say: “Too late, it’s become clear that there was a sex trafficking ring whose principal operators were based near Dean Corll. Two of these men lived and worked extensively in Houston and Dallas, with associations in California. Their network was documented as having tens of thousands of predators participating, with just as many boys being exploited…It’s improbable that Corll would have had no awareness of this ring, as pedophiles tend to share resources to indemnify each other”

I’m sorry, but whomever wrote that has neither knowledge nor understanding of the things they presume to pontificate about. Probably did see Gerald Richards’ flowchart but didn’t comprehend it at all. The genuine network, the one documented to have existed circa 1970-76 in North America, (with friends and business partners in Europe), as opposed to Corll’s personal fantasy network, wasn’t a generic “pedophiles” – “if you like kids we like you” network. Although “homosexual pedophiles” isn’t wrong, it was even more subculture specific – it was the network of the boy-lover pederasts. Just being homosexually oriented, didn’t make Corll a boy-lover. He wasn’t. He was a homosexual boy-destroyer!

I’m not even sure that “pedophile” was an accurate categorization for Corll. His orientation was Sexual Sadism and Murder! Corll didn’t fit the Gay community, he wouldn’t fit the Pederasts…there was no subculture and no network for him. Which is probably why he invented a fantasy subculture for himself, something his teen flunkies would be too naïve to immediately call bs on. But I will. There was NO “Brotherhood of Men Who Butcher Boys”!

You’re free to imagine “you don’t know that for a fact!’, if you wish, but yes – I do know that for a fact. This is MY area of expertise, I’ve been researching sex offender subcultures for 35+ years.

pg. 18; “Brooks estimated that Corll had killed twenty-five to thirty boys and young men over three years (plausible, tragically). He added that Corll had “mentioned there was a group of people in Dallas which had similar activities to his” – but that, is a steaming pile of bull dung! They would all represent such an extreme danger to each other, that they’d have to either rat all the others out in hope of being spared, or start picking each other off as clandestinely as possible. This is the murderous satanic cult fantasy, without the horns.

It’s actually very improbable, that Corll would have any knowledge of the real network. I realize, the authors fantasize that it was really a network of boy-destroyers like Corll, everyone, but I guarantee that if Corll went around proclaiming to anyone but his henchmen, that he tortures and murders boys, he’d be toast by next morning. If Corll wrote to John Norman, saying: “I’ve enjoyed torturing young teen boys to death in the past – can you set me up with some hetero virgin 15 years old boys, for me to rape and torture over a few days before strangling them? p.s. I’m not kidding, there’s a dozen dead boys in my boathouse right now”, there would be surveillance on his PO box, house, business, within the week. And no reply from Norman. But you could prove me wrong, if there were copies of Norman’s newsletters found in Corll’s home, or Hermes journal, or Better Life Monthly…