The Scientist and the Serial Killer - by Lise Olsen (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Houston, Texas, in the early 1970s was an exciting place to grow up. It was the home of NASA, the city of the future. But a string of missing teenage boys, all from the same neighborhood, spoke to a dark undercurrent that would go ignored for too long. While their siblings and friends wondered where they'd gone, the Houston Police Department dismissed them as runaways, fleeing the Vietnam draft or conservative parents, looking to get high or join the counterculture. It was only after their killer, Dean Corll, was murdered by an accomplice that the boys' bodies were discovered in several mass graves around Houston. Also known as the "Candy Man," Corll was a local sweet shop owner who had enlisted two teenage boys to lure their friends to parties where they would be tortured and killed, their bodies then dumped in mass graves around Houston. But many of Corll's victims, known collectively as the Lost Boys, had never been identified. Forty years later, when forensic anthropologist Sharon Derrick discovered a box of remains marked "1973 Murders" in the Harris County Morgue, she knew she had to bring these boys home. It would take prison interviews with Corll's accomplices, advanced scientific techniques, and years of tireless effort to identify the young men whose lives had been taken. But one by one, their names were returned to them. Veteran investigative journalist Lise Olsen immerses readers in this astonishing story, simultaneously bringing to life a suburban community hunted by a silent killer and the extraordinary woman who, decades later, would finally give his victims back their dignity"--

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - The true story of how one dedicated forensic scientist restored the long-lost identities of the teenaged victims of the "Candy Man," one of America's most prolific serial killers

"A masterwork of crime writing . . . Lise Olsen has taken a fifty-year-old story and made it new and fresh and terrifyingly real."--S. C. Gwynne, New York Times bestselling author of Rebel Yell

Houston, Texas, in the early 1970s was an exciting place--the home of NASA, the city of the future. But a string of more than two dozen missing teenage boys hinted at a dark undercurrent that would go ignored for too long. While their siblings and friends wondered where they had gone, the Houston police department dismissed them as runaways, fleeing the Vietnam draft or conservative parents, likely looking to get high and join the counterculture.

It was only after their killer, Dean Corll, was murdered by an accomplice that many of those boys' bodies were discovered in mass graves. Corll, known as the "Candy Man," was a local sweet-shop owner who had enlisted two teens to lure their friends to parties, where they would be tortured and killed.

All of Corll's victims' bodies were badly decomposed; some were only skeletal. Known collectively as the Lost Boys, many were never identified and some remained undiscovered. Decades later, when forensic anthropologist Sharon Derrick discovered a box of remains marked "1973 Murders" in the Harris County Medical Examiner's office, she recalled the horrifying crime from her own childhood, and knew she had to act. It would take prison interviews with Corll's accomplices, advanced scientific techniques, and years of tireless effort to identify these young men.

Investigative journalist Lise Olsen brings to life the teens who were hunted by a killer hiding in plain sight and the extraordinary woman who would finally give his unknown victims back their names and their dignity. With newly uncovered information about the case, The Scientist and the Serial Killer immerses readers in an astonishing story and reveals why these horrific events remain relevant decades later.

Review Quotes

"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."--Barbara Bradley Hagerty, New York Times bestselling author of Bringing Ben Home

"A masterwork of crime writing . . . Lise Olsen has taken a fifty-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."--S. C. Gwynne, author of the New York Times bestseller Rebel Yell

"Lise Olsen is not only a masterful investigative reporter, she's one hell of a storyteller. Her sentences are completely dramatic, her character descriptions spot on. I felt a pit in my stomach reading this book."--Skip Hollandsworth, author of the New York Times bestseller The Midnight Assassin

"Lise Olsen has expertly crafted a fascinating, in-depth examination of one of the most horrific serial-killing sprees in U.S. history and the dedicated forensic scientist who unraveled a mystery that haunted Houston for decades. . . . A must-read for CSI and true crime fans, this book kept me up late into the night."--Kathryn Casey, author of In Plain Sight

"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."--Kirk Wallace Johnson, author of The Feather Thief

"This is essential reading, for the depth and precision of its meticulous reporting, for its gripping storytelling, and for its insistence on providing the long-overdue justice these Lost Boys never received in their own brief lives. Its elegiac power has stayed with me long after the final pages."--Ellen McGarrahan, author of Two Truths and a Lie

"It's no surprise that Olsen, who has devoted much of her celebrated career in journalism to the missing, simultaneously delivers a murder mystery in reverse and 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 1970s, when America was pivoting, for better or worse, between a postwar idyll and the wiser, less innocent world we live in today."--Claudia Rowe, author of The Spider and the Fly

"[Lise] Olsen's mystery story is impossible to put down, but the families' losses and her heroine's persistence will stay with you forever."--Mimi Swartz, author of Ticker

About the Author

Lise Olsen is an investigative reporter and editor and the award-winning author of Code of Silence and The Scientist and the Serial Killer. Her reports have contributed to the prosecutions of a former congressman and a federal judge, inspired laws and reforms, helped solve cold cases and identify murder victims, and freed wrongfully held prisoners. Her writing has appeared in the Texas Observer, NBC News, the Houston Chronicle, Texas Monthly and elsewhere. She is featured in Netflix's The Texas Killing Fields, Paramount+'s The Pillowcase Murders, CNN's The Wrong Man, and the A&E series The Eleven. She lives near Houston, Texas, where she and her husband raised two boys of their own.