William Ray “Billy” Lawrence was a 15-year-old boy from Houston, Texas, living with his widowed father and older brother. Born on March 11, 1958, to Horace James “Jimmy” and Mary Lawrence, Billy and his brother, James, lost their mother in 1965. Their father, a single parent, did his best to provide for his sons, and the family shared a close, stable bond. Billy was a typical teenager, loved by his family, and just three months past his fifteenth birthday in the summer of 1973.
On Monday, June 4, 1973, Billy called his father with exciting news. He told him he’d been invited by "some friends" to go on a fishing trip to Lake Sam Rayburn and would be back in a few days, maybe by Thursday. His father gave his blessing, and they ended the call by saying, "I love you," not knowing it would be their last conversation. The invitation, however, was a deadly ruse. The "friend" was Elmer Wayne Henley Jr., a teenage acquaintance who, on the orders of a man named Dean Corll, was luring Billy to Corll’s Pasadena home. A week later, Billy’s father received a strange letter, postmarked June 8, claiming Billy had found a job in Austin and would be home later that summer. It was a calculated deception to conceal an unimaginable horror.
Instead of a fishing trip, Billy was taken to Corll's house, where he was held captive for three days. According to the later confessions of Corll’s accomplices, Corll "really liked" Billy, which is why his life was not taken immediately. For three days, Billy was bound to a bed and subjected to unspeakable abuse and torture. Around June 7, his ordeal ended when he was strangled to death with a cord. Corll and his other teenage accomplice, David Owen Brooks, then drove Billy’s body to Lake Sam Rayburn, the very place he had been promised a fishing trip. While Henley stood watch, they buried him in a shallow grave near a dirt road.
The truth behind Billy’s disappearance remained hidden for two months, part of a string of horrific crimes that would become known as the Houston Mass Murders. The case broke open on August 8, 1973, when Elmer Wayne Henley fatally shot Dean Corll at his Pasadena home and immediately called the police to confess. Henley’s confession, and that of David Owen Brooks who turned himself in the same evening, unraveled a story of abduction, torture, and murder involving at least 28 boys and young men between 1970 and 1973.
Following their confessions, Henley and Brooks led investigators from the Houston Police Department to multiple burial sites. On August 9, 1973, they pointed police to the grave near Lake Sam Rayburn, where the nude body of William Lawrence was recovered, wrapped in plastic sheeting and covered with lime. He was one of four victims unearthed at that location. While Brooks consistently denied participating in the actual killings, he admitted to his role in the abductions and burials.
The case was officially closed with the convictions of Corll's two accomplices. Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. was tried in 1974, convicted for his role in six of the murders, and sentenced to six consecutive 99-year terms in prison. In February 1975, David Owen Brooks stood trial, specifically for the murder of William Lawrence. Prosecutors described the unimaginable suffering Billy endured, with one asking the jury, "What kind of hell do you think he went through for three days?" On March 4, 1975, after deliberating for only 90 minutes, the jury found Brooks guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison.
Billy Lawrence was laid to rest by his grieving family, his funeral a somber bookend to a case that shocked the nation. The Houston Mass Murders remain one of the most notorious cases of serial murder in American history. David Owen Brooks died in a Galveston hospital from complications of COVID-19 on May 28, 2020, after serving 45 years of his life sentence. As of October 2025, Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. remains incarcerated in the Texas prison system.
