Victim Identified

by Houston (AP)

Harris County authorities said Friday the body of John Manning Sellars, Orange, Texas has been identified as one of the 27 Houston mass murder victims. Dr. Joseph A. Jachimczyk, county medical examiner, said the body was found in Jefferson County on the High Island Beach. It was clothed in a yellow shirt and blue jeans. The body, with four bullet wounds in the chest, was found August 13 in the second day of digging at High Island. Six of the 27 bodies still are unidentified. The Sellars youth disappeared July 12. His car was found July 13 near Starks, La. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Manning R. Sellars of Orange, plan to have the body returned to Orange for burial. Jachimczyk said young Sellars was killed with a large caliber gun.

The case broke August 8, 1973, when Elmer Wayne Henley, 18, telephoned police in suburban Pasadena and said he had shot and killed Dean Arnold Corll, 33, in self-defense. Police named Corll as mastermind in a homosexual ring which raped, tortured and murdered its victims. The bodies of the 27 teenage boys were recovered at three locations including six at High Island. Henley has been indicted on six counts of murder in the case and David Owen Brooks, 18, is charged on four counts. Police claim Henley and Brooks procured youths for Corll, joined him in the slayings and helped bury the bodies.