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A review by bubblewombat
The Serial Killer's Apprentice by Katherine Ramsland
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I had no idea what I was in for when I picked up this book. It was disturbing on so many levels that I felt like throwing up. The authors don't shy away from describing exactly what these poor boys went through and it was really hard to listen to at times.
I've never heard of this case before, which is kind of surprising considering the scope of the murders. John Wayne Gacy is far more well known, and yet the Houston Mass Murders happened BEFORE Gacy was caught. Really blows my mind.
What's really interesting here is that Dean Corll had two teenage boys he groomed into helping him procure victims. They were also involved in the murders of several, and knew where the bodies were buried. One of them eventually killed Corll, and manged to save some other potential victims, but that doesn't undo the bad he's done.
The first half focused more on this crime, and the second on some other serial killers who had helpers, and how they got them involved, bit by bit. I feel like we got a good idea about HOW it can happen, but I'm not sure I understand the WHY.
Like, it's one thing you go and steal something or sell drugs for someone because you want their approval, it's a completely different thing to walk in on them raping children and then agreeing on bringing them more, knowing exactly what's going to happen to them when you do.
I know it's easy for me on the outside to say "well I'D never do that", but...Brooks and Henley were both victims and perpetrators, they're right where they belong (one in prison, the other one passed away a few years ago). And I mean, I do believe them when they said that, without Corll, they wouldn't have done things like this 100%, but you can't bring those dead boys back to their families so...
The book is extremely well researched, which I appreciate, and I didn't even mind the super long chapters that much (I'm used to it by now). But I agree with someone who said true crime books should have slightly shorter chapters, because this whole book had only eight chapters and the audio was 11 or 12 hours long, I don't remember now. I felt like there were okay places to end the chapters to make them more digestible throughout.
Something that also stands out to me is how useless the police was (what else is new?), and how no one decided to investigate the link Corll had to a child trafficking ring...did no one really care about those poor kids? Clearly not.
Anyway, I'd recommend this book, I learned a lot from it.
I've never heard of this case before, which is kind of surprising considering the scope of the murders. John Wayne Gacy is far more well known, and yet the Houston Mass Murders happened BEFORE Gacy was caught. Really blows my mind.
What's really interesting here is that Dean Corll had two teenage boys he groomed into helping him procure victims. They were also involved in the murders of several, and knew where the bodies were buried. One of them eventually killed Corll, and manged to save some other potential victims, but that doesn't undo the bad he's done.
The first half focused more on this crime, and the second on some other serial killers who had helpers, and how they got them involved, bit by bit. I feel like we got a good idea about HOW it can happen, but I'm not sure I understand the WHY.
Like, it's one thing you go and steal something or sell drugs for someone because you want their approval, it's a completely different thing to walk in on them raping children and then agreeing on bringing them more, knowing exactly what's going to happen to them when you do.
I know it's easy for me on the outside to say "well I'D never do that", but...Brooks and Henley were both victims and perpetrators, they're right where they belong (one in prison, the other one passed away a few years ago). And I mean, I do believe them when they said that, without Corll, they wouldn't have done things like this 100%, but you can't bring those dead boys back to their families so...
The book is extremely well researched, which I appreciate, and I didn't even mind the super long chapters that much (I'm used to it by now). But I agree with someone who said true crime books should have slightly shorter chapters, because this whole book had only eight chapters and the audio was 11 or 12 hours long, I don't remember now. I felt like there were okay places to end the chapters to make them more digestible throughout.
Something that also stands out to me is how useless the police was (what else is new?), and how no one decided to investigate the link Corll had to a child trafficking ring...did no one really care about those poor kids? Clearly not.
Anyway, I'd recommend this book, I learned a lot from it.