Candidate for Bobby French
"Investigators received a tip in the mail about the decedent possibly being a boy named "Bobby French". The tip also included several photos of Bobby that bore a “striking” resemblance to facial reconstructions made of the decedent. The tip has been looked into, but none of Bobby's family members have been located. The person who sent the tip has also never been located." The package was labeled “Photographs of Bobby French, Dean Corll's eleventh Victim, Taken by David Brooks Approximately Fifteen Minutes Before His Murder”
I have yet to find these pictures published anywhere, nor do I know their contents - it's possible they include the infamous suspected victim strapped to the torture board, as it is effectively public record by now and would make sense with the 'fifteen minutes before' portion, (I suspect they were sent by somebody else investigating the case who was putting forth their theory, though somebody please let me know if these pictures are anywhere) but I digress.
In an effort to find suitable candidates for this Bobby French, I utilized Ancestry. My parameters thus far hinge on the boy being from Texas, which is not certain, and I will be expanding the area of investigation in future. As I am uncertain whether it portends to Bobby French, the torture board photograph was not a disceditor, but likeness was taken into consideration on the chance that it should be. Taking into account that “Bobby” could be short for Robert, Bob, his given name, or a middle name, and with the knowldge that limitations include French being an adopted name, I searched those who fit into the parameters. I narrowed them down by making a list and excluding all those who had a record beyond 1973. This is what I have so far:
(The boy on the right, don't mind Ancestry being weird) Bobby French, born about 1957. His picture was in the Sophmore section of the 1973 Rayburn High School Yearbook, located in Pasadena, TX. The earliest this photograph could have been taken being 1972, this would make it chronologically improbable that he was Corll eleventh victim, and he does not resemble the boy in the infamous photograph, that said it is hard to make out and again, may not even be relevent to this search. He first appears as a Freshmen in 1971:
then does not seem to be included in the 1972 yearbooks, nor the 1974, all of which are on Ancestry. As he was a Freshmen in 1971 and a Sophemore in 1973, he may have dropped out for a year, or gotten held back. Searching his name in lists of alumni, I cannot find him in any graduating year. That said, those are online lists that depend on former students adding their own names, and it’s possible that he has simply not bothered or has died of unrelated causes in the 50+ years that have elapsed.
When I investigated the other possible Bobby French's, I began with their birth record. This was different, as I had only the yearbook photo to go on, which implies that French is not his birth name, or that he was born out of state. A preliminary search turns up no Bobby French born in that year from other states, so it’s possible he was born in a state which has not had their birth indexes uploaded to Ancestry. As of now, I cannot find any reference to this particular Bobby French in the U.S, Index to Public Records, nor the Social Security Death Index. He truly does seem to drop out of public record after 1973. There was a moment when I believed I had located records of him, but this turned out to be a diffrent Bobby French born in 1957. This is by no means conclusive, I can find no birth record nor family backround which would help a lot, but it's an intruging start. I do think he does look somewhat like the recreations of Swimsuit Boy, but perhaps I want to. Either way, he could be an entirely seperate victim, or the facial reconstruction could be flawed, as it's an imperfect art. There are many potential problems with this theory; maybe Ancestary simply doesn't have the record proving he is alive past '73, perhaps I have overlooked some key detail, but he has overcome the most glaring exclusions. I do believe it's suspicious that for all of the Bobby French's I found with records after Corll's death, the person for whom I did not attended school in the area Dean would have moved to in March, 1973. A school that, upon checking with maps, is a 7 minute carride from 2020 Lamar Drive.
If this is the Bobby French supposedly murdered by Dean, he would have been killed sometime during the lull between March and June of 1973. Though Corll was suffering from Hydrocele during part of 1973, I cannot find clear refrence to how long he dealt with it, and have no doubts he procured some boys by himself during the time that Henley relocated to Mount Pleasent in early 1973.
If anyone has information excluding, or adding to the possibility that this boy was one of Dean's victims, please let me know.
. My laissez-faire about the more 'soapy' (for the lack of a better word) aspects of the book is partly fueled by the fact that i have seen/read much worse and also that i know the despair humans feel when having to endure a real 1000 page academic hard-hitter (say Luhmann's System Theory). At least this one is a page-turner.
