When I wrote that message, I thought that Henley was basing his opinion on some facts that he did not want to disclose.
Keep in mind that in interviews available for the public (especially when they're not part of a book), you don't always get the whole picture since it's often just a brief glimpse that isn't fully expanded on, leaving room for open questions. I do know that there's a lot Henley told Ramsland that wasn't mentioned in the book, she spent a very long-time interviewing him and even taped some of their conversations. So it might look like he's basing his opinion on facts that he hasn't disclosed, when in fact he has disclosed them (and not just to Ramsland), just not to the general public.
I understood these hints about the other guys possibly being Corll's accomplices to mean that Henley knew more than he was telling Ramsland. I don't understand why it would be said like that by Henley. But, of course, it can all just be chatter.
Well, you're not that far off. I do know for a fact that Henley disclosed details about the suspected accomplices to Ramsland which she didn't publish but afaik they were mostly just anecdotes (with a few exceptions). I don't think Henley knows anything truly useful about the suspected accomplices, just tangible hints, because it was in Corll's best interest to not share such information and keep his cards close to the chest. Brooks almost definitely knew about other accomplices (if there were in fact any) but he was much more submissive and easily controlled than Henley, and it still would've been risky for Corll to share everything with him due to fears of mutiny and etc. Besides, both Henley and Brooks described Corll as being secretive (and reading between the lines, paranoid), so anything either could offer is really just part of a larger picture. And the fact that Henley only recognized a lot of things regarding the crimes in hindsight speaks volumes about how much he didn't know of back then.
Secondly, I got the impression that he might not have taken part, but he knew about other crimes. This is partly because some other missing persons cases happened at that time. Corll or Brooks could have mentioned this, as we know from Henley himself that they sometimes talked about past crimes, including where bodies were buried. Memory can return even in prison, especially when he is not drinking or taking drugs as much.
I have no doubt that a lot of the missing boys from the 1970-1973 timespan vanished because of Corll, but hitchhiking and running away was common in those days, so the pattern wasn't hard to dismiss. Corll was also pretty savvy in his approach at procurement, he didn't make the dissappearances look blatantly connected when he killed kids that were either connected to him, each other or both. Billy Baulch and Malley Winkle both worked for him, so there's an obvious link, but they each dissappeared long after the other was gone, so you could've chalked it up to a coincidence at the time. He would also pick kids who were affiliated with one another in his double murders, so the police would've had an easier time saying they just ran away together. Additionally, Corll kept both his helpers high on drugs and alcohol, which could excuse not linking all the missing boys in that timespan to the HMM. Steven Sickman lived close to where the Brooks family resided, but Corll killed him alone and I'm pretty confident that Brooks didn't even know the kid's name. David Hilligiest was Henley's childhood friend and neighbor but Henley had absolutely nothing to do with his murder. All this taken into account, I can understand Henley not knowing more than he's revealed about additional victims, specifically in private, as I know for a fact that there are things he has said to multiple people in regards to helping with the case (LEOs, Sharon Derrick, FBI), that isn't public knowledge.
The stuff Corll and Brooks did reveal to Henley about past crimes in specific terms were regarding Malley Winkle, David Hilligiest, Ruben Haney and etc. Kids he would've likely linked to them as he either vaguely knew them or had heard of their affiliation with Corll and Brooks. Telling Henley about these kids was basically a necessity. Beyond that, they only shared bits and pieces with him, and were often vague (mentioned in Ramsland's book). Henley didn't even know how many bodies were in the boatshed, he was clearly surprised by the body count as per Jack Olsen's book. He told a reporter during the initial searches that there were 24 bodies in all (going off by what Corll told him), and he was clearly wrong. So I think it's evident that Corll kept a lot of things from him. A lot of his insights are tangential because of that.
( You can also mention the publicity that followed the identification of several victims. And statements (I don't remember who, alas) that new murder cases should be opened) One of the things that led me to this idea was that Henley did not recognize "lost boys" whose sketches Derrick showed, although from my memory one of them was well known to him.
None of the previously unidentified Lost Boys were known to him, although he knew and tried to help with what he thought were misidentifications. He didn't participate in those murders and a couple were complete strangers to him (like Sickman). I think he was loosely linked to Randall Harvey as they went to the same school but that boy was killed before his involvement and something like this doesn't really equal a connection. The Heights was one of Corll's preferred hunting ground and it wasn't exactly a large community so the victim pool is bound to overlap, even if the accomplices didn't know the kids at all or were somewhat acquainted. Even the types of kids EWH and Brooks lured and the places they went looking for them were things Corll advised them on. In other words, a large amount of the overlap is because of Corll, not his accomplices (although they did sometimes take initiative).
I think the kid you may be referring to is Rusty Branch, who I believe was (incorrectly) identified prior to the 2000s and this was later corrected in 2021. According to his sister Susan McLemore, he and Henley were friends, Henley introduced him to Corll, and Henley was the last person to be seen with him before his dissappearance. However, there are issues with this. This openly contradicts her own claims of being at Corll's parties with Branch well before Henley even met Corll (just compare her words with the timeline), she claimed almost all of the victims and kids at the parties were friends of both accomplices (incorrect), and Henley has said privately to Burns and Ramsland that he didn't know Branch at all, much less helped kill him. McLemore was very young when this all happened, there was substance abuse at these parties and she had to undergo therapy to unlock some of her memories, which doesn't make for a particularly reliable witness. The victims relatives are also somewhat known for making dubious claims. I'm not saying that they're necessarily outright lying, but it all happened a long time ago and was obviously a traumatic experience, which can cloud one's perception. There's also the issue that Henley became the public face of the crimes, so his involvement tends to get severely overstated, which can lead to witnesses having a bias and coming to the wrong conclusions about what they saw (or didn't see).
Case in point: There were two stories of suspicious Galveston beach burial sightings in March and May of 1973. Given how slipshod the police work was on this I don't really trust the reports, they state the witnesses identified DC/DB & EWH burying plastic bundles, though Henley was away from Houston in early 1973 and neither him nor Brooks ever mentioned Galveston as a burial spot. The photos used to ID them were also atrocious btw. And we know for a fact that police reports were doctored. There's a publicly available one by Paul Gale where he talks about his encounter with Corll and the possibility he was involved in the dissappearance of a girl. The police report mentions that thus either happened in 1970 or 1971 and that Gale said Henley was somehow involved but in Lise Olsen's book Gale clarifies that this all happened in 1969 (before the involvement of either boy). He told the cops about Brooks not Henley (although neither could've been involved). Even aside from that, LEOs were known to feed the public and victims families false information (for reasons unknown).
Sidenote: It doesn't appear to be well-known but even before getting involved in the killings, DB and EWH would brings boys (and girls) over to Corll's place, or ride in his van as he cruised for boys, before they were aware of the danger he posed (which is the story behind that chilling comment Greg Hilligiest made abt Henley and Corll wanting to take him fishing). But Brooks was more a part of that whole thing than Henley. I only mention this because it clarifies that not every single time they were out with Corll were they personally doing anything sinister.
