Born
30 Jul 1957, Texas

Death
29 May 1971, Houston, Harris County, Texas

Tragically, David Hilligiest was one of the victims of Houston’s serial killer and sex offender Dean Corll who abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered a minimum of twenty-eight teenage boys and young men between 1970 and 1973 in Houston and Pasadena, Texas. He was aided by two teenaged accomplices. Their crimes became known as the Houston Mass Murders, and he was known as the “The Candy Man.”

On May 29, 1071, 13-year-old David Hilligiest and 16-year-old Gregory Malley Winkle, were abducted and killed together on the afternoon of May 29, 1971. Hilligiest was last seen in the company of his friend Gregory Malley Winkle walking to a local swimming pool, before climbing into a white van. Both were murdered at an apartment Corll rented on West 11th Street. As had been the case with parents of other victims of Corll, both sets of parents launched a frantic search for their sons. One of the youths who voluntarily offered to distribute posters the parents had printed offering a monetary reward for information leading to the boys’ whereabouts was none other than Corll accomplice 15-year-old Elmer Wayne Henley, a lifelong friend of Hilligiest. The youth pinned the reward posters around the Heights and attempted to reassure Hilligiest’s parents that there might be an innocent explanation for the boys’ absence.