The Search for Houston's Lost Boys
THE SCIENTIST AND THE SERIAL KILLER
Out now from Random House. Click any link to order.
Houston in the early 1970s was an exciting place - the home of NASA, the city of the future. But a string of disappearances of more than two dozen teenagers hinted at a dark undercurrent that would go ignored for too long. While their siblings and friends searched, Houston police dismissed them as runaways.
It was only after their killer, Dean Corll, was murdered by a teenaged accomplice that more than 27 sets of remains were discovered in unmarked graves. Corll, a former shop owner known as the "Candy Man," had enlisted two teens to lure others to his home, where they'd been tortured and killed. The shocking crimes made international news
The mystery became: who had Corll killed? All of the victims' bodies were badly decomposed; some were only skeletal. Known collectively as the Lost Boys, nearly a third of his victims remained unidentified or undiscovered. Decades later, forensic anthropologist Sharon Derrick was shocked to find boxes of bones marked "1973 Murders" stored in the Harris County Medical Examiner's office. She recalled the horrifying crime from her own childhood, and knew she had to act.
Investigative journalist Lise Olsen brings to life the teens who were hunted by a killer hiding in plain sight and the extraordinary woman who helped his unknown victims recover their identities. Filled with new information about the case, The Scientist and the Serial Killer immerses readers in an astonishing story and reveals secrets about these crimes that remain relevant today.
Advance Praise
"The Scientist and the Serial Killer" is a masterwork of crime writing. Lise Olsen has taken a 50-year-old story and made it new and fresh and terrifyingly real. I hate to use the old cliché, but for anyone interested in crime narratives this is a must read. Her brilliantly organized pages turn themselves."
"Lise Olsen's story of Houston's Lost Boys gripped me from the first page. In raw detail, she describes the battle between a dead serial killer who targeted teenaged boys and a forensic scientist who sought to identify the victims—a battle between evil and science, and science wins. Olsen is vivid writer, finely drawing the victims and their families, the police and the scientists, and mainly, the obsessed murderer and the equally obsessed forensic heroine. This is a triumph of investigative reporting."
"A murder mystery in reverse, The Scientist and the Serial Killer traces the hunt for an essential type of justice: identity. This is the story of a scientist's obsession to bring that justice to the families of a killer's unknown victims...No surprise that Olsen, who has devoted much of her celebrated career in journalism to the missing, delivers a fascinating history of forensic science. But the most poignant aspect of this impressive work is its portrait of the secret lives of teen boys in the early 1970s, a time before the term "serial killer" had been coined, when kids roved unsupervised, the counterculture was criminalized, and America was pivoting, for better or worse, between a post-war idyl and the wiser, less innocent world we live in today"
The Spider and The Fly.
"A fascinating, in-depth examination of one of the most horrific serial killing sprees in U.S. history... highly recommended"
"A master class in uncovering long-buried truths, this book illuminates one of Houston's darkest murder cases. Olsen's account of Sharon Derrick's journey to restore the identity of these victims is revelatory and redemptive, with a page-turning narrative thrill."
Book Launch at Murder by the Book
Media appearances/Press
"The Scientist and the Serial Killer: Cracking the case of Houston's Lost Boys"-- Book excerpt in the Texas Observer.
Wicked Words, March 27, 2025, a True Crime Podcast with Author Kate Winkler Dawson on the Scientist and the Serial Killer. Listen.
True Murder podcast episode on The Scientist and the Serial Killer interview with host Dan Zupansky March 31.
Citycast Houston episode on the Scientist and the Serial Killer with Lise Olsen and Dr. Sharon Derrick. Watch video.
Houston Chronicle: Why this Serial Murder Case was Too Much even for the Crown Prince of Crime-- Truman Capote by Lise Olsen, essay in the Houston Chronicle.
Texas Public Media's The Source - live interview with host David Martin Davies on March 31st.
"A satisfying read for true-crime aficionados."
Read
Kirkus review.
"Why Dean Corll, the 'Candyman' killer, should still give you nightmares." Read Lise's article in the Houston Chronicle opinion pages.
On writing about crime- in conversation with Daniel Chacón, Words on a Wire, KTEP
Texas Killing Fields and other true crime stories with podcaster Misti Gaither
Podcast
Interview with Michael Hagarty, Houston Matters, Houston Public Media.
Interview with Guy Lambert, March 26, 2025, Fox 5 Live Zone DC in advance of book reading with Lise Olsen and Sharon Derrick, April 4th appearance at Politics & Prose - Wharf location in Washington, D.C.
For book release/sale info, book events - online or in-person or if you are a journalist/critic interested in a review copy, please contact liseolseninvestigates@gmail.com
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| The Lost Boys | |||
| Below are the boys in order of disappearance. Listed in red are recent Identifications and corrections made through the efforts of Sharon Derrick.
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| Year 1970 | Name | Age | Date |
| 1 | Jeffery Alan Konen | 18 | 9/28 |
| 2 | Danny Michael Yates | 14 | 12/13 |
| 3 | Jimmy Glass (James Eugene) | 14 | 12/13 |
| Year 1971 | |||
| 4 & 5 | Donald Waldrop | 15 | 1/30 |
| 4 & 5 | Jerry Lynn Waldrop | 13 | 1/30 |
| 6 | Randell Lee Harvey | 15 | 3/9 |
| 7&8 | Malley Winkle (Gregory Malley) | 16 | 5/29 |
| 7&8 | David William Hilligiest | 13 | 5/29 |
| 9 | Identified in 2017 (partial remains) | 17 | 7/1 |
| 10 | Ruben Williford Watson (Haney) | 17 | 8/17 |
| 11 | Identification unconfirmed | unknown | unknown |
| Year 1972 | |||
| 12 | Frank Anthony Aguirre | 17 | 3/24 |
| 13 | Mark Scott - confirmed victim, body unrecovered |
17 | 4/20 |
| 14 & 15 | Billy Gene Baulch, Jr. | 17 | 5/21 |
| 14 & 15 | Johnny Ray Delome | 16 | 5/21 |
| 16 | Steven Kent Ferdig Sickman | 17 | 7/20 |
| 17 | Roy "Ikie" Bunton | 19 | 8/21 |
| 18 & 19 | Wally Jay Simoneaux | 14 | 10/4 |
| 18 & 19 | Richard Edward Hembree | 13 | 10/4 |
| 20 | Richard Alan Kepner | 20 | 11/15 |
| Year 1973 | |||
| 21 | Joseph Allen Lyles | 17 | 2/1 |
| 22 | Billy Lawrence (William Ray) | 15 | 6/4 |
| 23 | Raymond Stanley "Ray" Blackburn | 20 | 6/15 |
| 24 | Homer Louis Garcia | 15 | 7/7 |
| 25 | Michael Anthony "Tony" Baulch | 15 | 7/18 |
| 26 | John Manning "Johnny" Sellars | 18 | 7/12 |
| 27 & 28 | Marty Ray Jones | 18 | 7/25 |
| 27 & 28 | Charles Cobble | 17 | 7/25 |
| 29 | James Stanton Dreymala | 13 | 8/3 |