I don’t know if I still fully rule his case as not being related to Dean Corll.
Corll was only one individual amongst many operating a child pornography/trafficking ring out of the Houston Heights neighborhood.
Some of the kids Corll killed were killed to simply silence them if they had been in recent legal trouble (Mark Scott) or were going to tell the police (Waldrop brothers).
If you read the Scientist and the Serial Killer they talk to a man whose name I had forgotten who had killed Bryant Burch in the late 90s. He was one of the two accomplices for Roy Ames. He had mentioned that Burch threatened to make him disappear if he had reported the abuse or left. These were genuine drug, CP, etc peddlers and based on a lot of Corll victims this definitely rings true.
Additionally Henley talked about previously being taken to Dallas. This I doubt was in any relation to John David Norman, I think John David Norman’s role is overlooked in the Corll case. At best they knew each other through business.
With Praters relation to this neighborhood as his dad lived there and last being seen with two teen boys in Dallas by his mother that were accompanied by a hispanic man I wonder if maybe he had fallen into this same ring of sorts which might’ve been part of why he had not gone any contact for over 7 months but also was found in a random town on the side of the road? No one was really or has been able to go into detail past understanding Corlls victims which seems he was almost the go to guy for Ames ring to silence people coming forward.