Houston has seen its share of gruesome crimes over the years, dating back to the apparent poisoning of Rice University benefactor William Marsh Rice in 1900. But the following can be counted among the most unsettling in recent history.
1970-1973 - Houston's most notorious serial killings - Elmer Wayne Henley Jr., Dean Corll and David Owen Brooks committed a series of murders in which at least 28 teenage boys and young men were abducted, tortured, raped and murdered. Many were lured to Corill's home in Pasadena where they died. Most of their bodies were recovered from Corll’s southwest Houston boat shed. Others were buried in remote areas of East Texas and at the beach. Henley, now 65 and serving six life sentences, said he shot and killed Corll self-defense. Brooks died in prison of COVID-19 last year.
Early 1970s-mid 1990s - The Texas Killing Fields - The bodies of more than 30 murder victims, mainly young girls and women, have been found within a 25-acre patch of land along the Gulf Freeway bordering the Calder Oil Field. William Reece, a convicted rapist from Oklahoma, is connected to several of the killings, but many remain unsolved. The death of one victim, Laura Miller, inspired her father, Tim, to establish Texas EquuSearch.
1974 - The Candyman Murders - On Halloween night, Ronald Clark O'Bryan, a Deer Park optician, gave poisoned pixie sticks to five children, including two of his own - eight-year-old Timothy and five-year-old Elizabeth. O'Brian had laced the candy with cyanide in order to claim $40,000 in life insurance on his children. Only Timothy died. He had distributed poisoned candy to other kids, none of whom ate it, in an attempt to cover up his crime. O'Bryan was executed in 1984.
1983 - The Malibu Grand Prix murders - Four young men were found slashed and stabbed to death on the morning of July 1 at a video arcade and racetrack on the Southwest Freeway near Westpark. Anil Varughese, Roddy Harris and brothers Arnold and Joerene Pequeno had been preparing to close when they were murdered during a robbery. Former employee Richard Wilkerson and associates Kenneth Ransom and James Randle were arrested and charged with capital murder. Wilkerson and Ransom were executed. Randle, a juvenile at the time, was sentenced to life in prison and paroled in 2019.
1986-1995 - The Tourniquet Killer - Anthony Allen Shore, responsible for the slayings of four women, was known as the "Tourniquet Killer" since he used a ligature tightened or loosened with a toothbrush or bamboo stick to control his victims. He targeted females 9-21 years old in the city's Hispanic community. Some managed to escape. The cases remained unsolved for decades, but DNA linked him to the killings when he was arrested in 2003 for the sexual assault of two young family members. He was executed in October 2017.
2001 - Five Yates kids drowned in a bathtub - Andrea Yates of Clear Lake confessed to drowning her children, age 6 months to 7 years, in her bathtub on June 20. She had been suffering from severe postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis and schizophrenia. She was convicted of capital murder, but the jury declined to impose the death penalty and sentenced her to life in prison. In a 2006 retrial, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state mental hospital.
2002 - Cheating husband run over with a Mercedes - Friendswood Dentist Clara Harris had hired private detectives to follow her husband, David, and when an investigator notified her that David and his girlfriend were at a Nassau Bay hotel, an enraged Clara confronted them. Video from the private investigator's camera showed Clara repeatedly running over David with her Mercedes Benz His teenage daughter was in the passenger seat.
2013 - The Stiletto Murder - On the Saturday night of June 9, 44-year-old Ana Trujillo, a petite mother of two, took a shoe off her foot and bashed it into her boyfriend’s head around 25 times. The victim was Stefan Andersson, 59, a biochemist and UH professor widely described as mild-mannered. Trujillo, however, contended he was violent and belligerent when drunk, and he was drunk when she killed him in self defense. A jury sentenced her to life in prison.
2016 - Mother drowns her 5- and 7-year old - Sheborah Thomas picked her two kids up from daycare, brought them home, cooked dinner for them, drew them a bath, then drowned them - one at a time - in the tub. Finally, the 30-year-old mother hid their bodies under a neighbor's home. She had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression.
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