[Hi, I recorded the first few minutes of this video. After I’m off screen, the story below begins.]
Daniel Lee Corwin (often called “Danny”) was born in 1958 in Garden Grove, California to Nan and Phil Corwin, the youngest of four children. They had moved several times by the time they got to Temple, Texas, because of Mr. Corwin’s work, which, from what I gathered, had to do with building boats.
The family landed in Temple about the time Danny was in the third grade.
Danny Corwin and his sister had a fight when they were children, and he killed his sister’s cat. That should have been a huge red flag for his family.
He told one of his psychiatrists during his incarceration that he began having sex with animals at a young age. Were there no signs of that? Daniel Corwin also had bedwetting issues until he was in his teens.
Unfortunately, in the 1970s, Danny’s parents would have not understood that cruelty to animals and bedwetting in one’s teenage years was a big sign declaring, “Danny ain’t right!”
Beverly—The first victim.
In 1972, at age 14, Corwin raped a 13-year-old; in this presentation, we’ll call her “Beverly.”
She was babysitting at a home next door to his. Danny sneaked into the house with a hunting knife and waited until she put the baby down in his bed, and then he came out of a dark bedroom completely naked, holding a hunting knife. He stripped her clothes off and raped her. When it was over, she grabbed her clothes and ran to the bathroom, where she locked the door. A minute later, Danny knocked on it and asked her to hand him an article of his clothing she had accidentally picked up with hers. She opened the door so he would not kick it down to get in, reasoning that she could not get away from him, anyhow, because the bathroom had no window.
When she opened the door, Danny said, “I live across town and go to another school. You don’t know me.”
Naturally, 13-year-old Beverly was in shock and somewhat believed what he had said. Based on his comment, she thought he might be a boy she knew nicknamed “Speedy” who went to another school. When the baby’s parents got home, she was horribly traumatized, of course, and nearly hysterical. They called the police, and Beverly told the investigator about her theory of it being Speedy.
As she described her attacker, the young father of the baby thought her description sounded a lot like Danny Corwin next door. Later, when she saw Danny at school, she knew she had made an error. Beverly and her parents called the police and identified Danny as her rapist, but that wasn’t enough evidence to charge him, according to the district attorney’s office, because she had made a statement to the police giving them Speedy’s name.
Other than being questioned and taking an inconclusive polygraph test, Danny suffered no consequences for Beverly’s rape. His supporters said it was a case of mistaken identity, and the Corwins put it out of their minds and gave it no weight.
Brenda – The second victim.
In 1975, Corwin’s next known victim became 16-year-old “Brenda.” She had a note to be excused from school early one afternoon to take a babysitting course. Coincidentally, her classmate, Danny Corwin, was also leaving early that day because his family was taking an out-of-town trip.
When she walked up to her car, Danny was sitting on a car next to hers.
“Hello, Daniel,” said Brenda.
“Hi,” he said.
She got into her car and leaned over to pick up an eight-track tape from her floorboard. She tried to sit up; but he was on her, and he had a knife.
“Move over.”
He slid into the driver’s seat. Corwin drove her to a secluded spot about a mile and a half away from the high school where he stripped and raped her. Next, he demanded she get out of the car, but she would not until she put her clothes back on. Corwin finally relented and told her she could dress. Brenda put on her clothes and exited the car as he told her to do; he tried to lock her in the trunk, but he could not get the trunk open. Brenda tried to talk to Danny, but he told her to shut up. He stabbed her in the arm, and they began fighting. Danny slashed her throat from side to side and her throat began pouring blood. He knocked her down and stabbed her in the stomach and between her breasts as she begged him not to do it.
When he stabbed her chest, Brenda went limp and was barely breathing. He thought she was dead and half-heartedly attempted to hide her body, putting a discarded plank on top of her face and head. He then covered her legs and body with dirt and trash. The 17-year-old rapist got behind the wheel of Brenda’s car and backed toward her, missing her head by a couple of feet.
And then Danny Corwin drove away in Brenda’s car, acting like nothing had happened.
She lay as still and limp as she possibly could with her head under that plank, willing herself to be still, even when he was about to run over her. Brenda waited until she knew he and her car were gone; she got up, thrilled to be alive, and though she was weakening from blood loss, Brenda made it to the road where someone could help her. Her clothes were covered in blood. A car stopped and the driver helped her into the car.
The driver took her to a nearby store and gas station where he called the ambulance and the police. The ambulance came quickly and took Brenda to the hospital; at the hospital, she learned that only the clasp on her bra stood between her and death that afternoon. Danny hit the bra clasp dead center with his knife; the clasp kept it from going far enough into her chest to hit her heart.
She had insisted on putting on her clothes before getting out of the car, and her clothing had saved her life.
Outside of Brenda’s personal Hell that afternoon, Danny had abandoned her car behind the auction barn and started walking. Janie, a classmate, saw him walking down the road and stopped to give him a ride. She took him to get a drink at Dairy Queen; and afterward, she dropped him off at the Dr. Pepper factory near the Ford dealership where he was to meet his father.
With the help of his mother, an investigator located Danny. He caused a bit of a chase, but the investigator finally got in front of the family car that Danny was driving and forced him to stop. That’s when Danny was taken to the jail for questioning. He was soon charged with rape and attempted murder.
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Several members in Daniel Lee Corwin’s church were in denial, just as his family was. Some, however, didn’t want Danny at the church around their families. There was a rift in the church because of Danny’s arrest; he continued to come to church, once he was bonded out of jail.
According to Bryan Burrough’s book “The Demon Next Door,” the pro-Danny team at the church went on a campaign to lessen the charges or do away with them completely. In fact, they, led by the minister, visited the assistant district attorney who was handling the case.
Bob Odom refused to be intimidated, even in the face of their threats, that they would make Brenda look like a terrible girl who lured Danny into the situation.
Odom took the threats to Brenda and her father, who said he didn’t want his daughter subjected to that, and she could not testify. Odom made an offer to the Corwin defense that if he would plead guilty, the judge could set his prison sentence as he saw fit, which might even be a hospital facility. Corwin’s defense team didn’t want to try the case in front of a jury because that would definitely, in their minds, mean a long sentence.
The judge sentenced Corwin to 40 years, devastating Danny, his family, and his support team from his church.
In jail, Danny was a model, helpful prisoner. He took a shop class while in prison, and he gladly helped with any kind of work while there. He had learned to be a better than decent carpenter, cabinetmaker, and painter. The Temple rapist was popular with his teachers, guards, and even the warden for his efficiency and work ethic while incarcerated. Danny took the advice of his father and an instructor, Ben Pruitt, who taught shop classes to the prisoners. Both told him to take college classes while doing his prison time.
When 1984 rolled around, Danny was paroled after only nine years of his 40-year sentence. He was 26 when he left and life was going well for the ex-con. His parents bought him a new brown truck. Danny also had a girlfriend, Becky Exley. Danny had been her babysitter when she was young, so Danny was older than she was. Right out of prison, Danny continued taking college courses. He wanted to prepare for acceptance at Texas A&M University. He believed if he could graduate from Texas A&M, he would be rid of all “the old problems.”
His father had helped him get maintenance work in apartment complexes in Temple and Madisonville. During that time, Danny lived with a young prison guard named Patrick Fuller in Madisonville; and a year after Danny was released from prison, he went to work for one of his old prison instructors.
Ben Pruitt, his prison shop teacher, owned a construction company that did work in and around Huntsville, and Danny was invited to come and talk to him and Pruitt’s partner about a job.
Danny met with the men at the shop a little way outside of Huntsville to discuss the work. He had been accepted by Texas A&M and he was going to be taking classes in College Station on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The men agreed to hire Danny under two conditions.
One, that he would stay out of trouble, and two, he would stay in school.
Danny agreed and moved to Huntsville. He worked for Ben Pruitt on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Danny went to class at Texas A&M.
He and Patrick Fuller, his roommate, moved to Huntsville and lived in a rental unit belonging to Ben Pruitt. The changes in Danny’s life were positive.
Eventually, Danny and Becky tapered off and just stopped seeing each other. She was going to school at the University of Texas in Austin. In their time before she left, she had caught Danny in too many lies to keep up with, so she moved on. By February, a month after starting school at Texas A&M, Danny was not making his grades.
That’s when the problems started again.
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Killing Spree – Alice, Debra, and Mary
On February 13, 1987, Danny began a killing spree that lasted for two years.
He knew how to pick victims that were some of the best and kindest women on earth.
His next victim on that February morning was the 72-year-old wife of a Madison County Commissioner named Alvin Martin. She was an adored mother of three, grandmother of eight, great-grandmother of one, beloved neighbor and retired postmistress of Normangee, member of the Assembly of God church in George, and owner of a dog who worshipped her—and Alice Martin didn’t come home after her daily three mile walk.
She took her dog every day and made the walk, weather permitting. That day, Corwin passed by Alice when she was beginning her walk. He abducted her and she evidently had to leave her dog in the car; that evening, one of her sons found the dog and knew his mother would never come home again. She would not have left her four-legged companion in the car to walk alone. Someone had taken her.
Danny drove her to a field in Robertson County where he raped, gagged and stabbed her. A few days later, she was found and laid to rest in a little cemetery by her church, just beyond where she had parked her car with her dog inside of it that morning Danny Corwin abducted her.
By May, Danny had officially flunked out of Texas A&M and received his good-bye letter from the registrar, but rather than tell his boss and family, Danny packed a backpack each day and pretended to go to classes on Tuesday and Thursday each week. No one knows where he went on those days.
In July 1987, he kidnapped Debra Lynn Ewing, 26, from her Huntsville workplace which was an optometrist’s office. He drove her to Montgomery County to a construction site, where he raped and stabbed her.
On October 31, 1987, he attempted to kidnap 36-year-old Mary Carrell Risinger at a car wash in Huntsville. Her little girl was with her, and Mary wasn’t about to leave her to go with Corwin. He stabbed Mary in the throat in front of her three-year-old daughter. The little girl got into the car and hid until the police got there. Huntsville police officer Dusty Dowgar worked to convince little Kristen to come out of the car. When she finally did, she clung to Dowgar asking him not to let the bad man get her. Police on the scene saw that her little white ballerina play dress was soaked in her mother’s blood, so much that officers on the scene had thought it was a red dress.
For a year, If Danny attacked anyone, it was never discovered, but in October 1988, he started again.
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Wendy
In October 1988, Wendy Gant, a college student at Texas A&M University, was abducted by Daniel Lee Corwin from a Kyle Field parking lot on campus. The abduction occurred around noon. Corwin forced Gant into her car and drove to Lick Creek Park, an isolated rural area. There, Corwin bound, raped, beat, and stabbed Gant multiple times, including stabbing her in the neck. He then tied her to a tree and slit her throat. Despite these injuries, Gant freed herself and went to the parking lot of the park where she would be seen and receive help, but Corwin was still there. She hid behind a tree until Corwin left and made it to the side of the road where she was found by a county employee who took her to the hospital.
Due to the severity of her throat injury, Gant could not speak. She wanted paper and a pen. Once she had them, she requested two things … emphatically—a forensic artist and that someone go feed her horse.
Karen T. Taylor came to work with her on the sketch. Wendy communicated through writing and nodding. This collaboration led to a sketch of the assailant. A corrections officer who recognized Corwin from prison identified him from the sketch, and police found Corwin’s fingerprint on Gant’s car door.
Daniel Lee Corwin, a 30-year-old ex-convict who had served only nine years of a 40-year sentence for aggravated rape, was arrested.
He was charged with aggravated sexual assault, attempted murder, and aggravated kidnapping of the 21-year-old Texas A&M student. Police had Corwin’s name since October 21, following a tip through Madison County Crime Stoppers.
His fingerprints matched those found in Gant’s abandoned Chevrolet Suburban. He was arrested for the rape and attempted murder of Wendy Gant.
Detective A.P. Merillat, an investigator in Huntsville, began visiting with Danny, being friendly, yet warning him that anything he said would be used against him to clear up any other murders. Danny liked the detective with the dark complexion.
The detective asked Danny if he was at the optometrists’ office the day that Debra Ewing was abducted. Danny didn’t deny it, but said something like, “I don’t remember much about it.”
Merillat drove Danny to the carwash where Risinger was murdered. Danny began to tell Merillat that he was in a trance when he killed Mary Risinger.
According to Danny, he just saw her and did it. He didn’t plan out the murders; he was opportunistic and spontaneous. He said when the killings happened, he couldn’t stop himself; he was in a trance and driven by violent sexual fantasies. Danny said he didn’t remember much about it when one of the episodes was over.
Danny’s psychiatrists testified that he acted on impulse and committed heinous crimes where there were high risks factors and he could be caught because he was driven to them by tortuous, violent fantasies.
I’m not impressed with Danny’s description of his trance and violent fantasies.
Another story I am writing in book form is about two murders in Austin in 1965 in which the killer said the same thing about going into a trance and not being able to stop himself. As I sift through the explanations of monsters who have stalked, raped, and killed Texas women, I have begun to think of it as the standard murderer’s excuse.
“I was in a trance. Terrible sexual fantasies pushed me into it, and I couldn’t stop myself.”
Danny confessed to Mary’s murder, Alice Martin’s murder, and Debra Ewing’s.
In December 1998, Danny Corwin was executed in Huntsville for those crimes.
To close on a positive note, we will hear from Wendy Gant again. Her outlook is amazing.
This is about Wendy Gant, the 21-year-old victim and Texas A&M student who Danny left to die in Lick Creek Park. She was interviewed in 2005 for Bryan Burrough’s book. Seventeen years had passed.
Wendy said, “I have had a great life during my 38 years and only one bad day.”
Please like and follow my channel if you liked this story!
Thanks!
B.K. Smith
If you want to know more about this story …
Listen to Bryan Burrough’s audiobook, “The Demon Next Door” on Audible. It is the primary source in my list of sources before, except for old newspapers listed.
The Forensic Files episode on Danny Corwin is where I pulled most of the pictures I’ve used in my video and website. Bryan Burrough narrated most of the Forensic Files program. You can watch the episode on Max.com, if you subscribe to Max. And there are two episodes included in a super podcast I found while researching this topic.
Take a look at “Texas 1031, a Texas True Crime Podcast” about this killer that you may want to listen to.
Just know that Bryan Burrough’s “The Demon Next Door” is the authority. Pretty much everything else is derivative.
Sources
- Bryan Burrough, guest author on the program; Dusty Dowgar, police officer in Huntsville; A.P. Merillat, Investigator in Huntsville Police Dept.; Karen Taylor, Sketch artist, March 20, 2020, Portrait of a Serial Killer, Forensic Files II; Amazon (crimesy.com/CorwinFFamz), and Max.com; Pg. 0, http://crimesy.com/CorwinFF ; Date Collected: 4/14/2025.
- Bryan Burrough, author, October 19, 2019, The Demon Next Door (audiobook), Amazon.com and Audible.com; Website; Pg. 1, crimesy.com/audbkCorwin; Date Collected: 4/15/2025.
- Jack Douglas, November 2, 1988, Police want to question rape suspect in 3 deaths, The Houston Post; Houston, Texas; Pg. 4, https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2%3A10EEA3FE61C5B8B0%40GB3NEWS-17593529AC9B8750%402447468-1758FC300A1A6108%403-1758FC300A1A6108%40; Date Collected: 4/15/2025.
- Associated Press, August 15, 1997, Serial Killer Gets Reprieve Hours Before His Execution., Austin American-Statesmen; Austin, Texas; Pg. 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/366624899/; Date Collected: 4/15/2025.
- Associated Press, October 30,1988, Man arrested in rape, knifing of A&M co-ed, San Antonio-Express; San Antonio, TX; Pg. 24, https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2%3A10EEA20F1A545758%40GB3NEWS-163F8D0FF2135B28%402447465-163E696010EFCEFA%4023-163E696010EFCEFA%40; Date Collected: 4/15/2025.
- Kate Winslow Dawson, Bryan Burrough, March 15, 2021, Bryan Burrough-The Demon Next Door, Wicked Words Podcast; Spotify.com; Pg. 0, https://open.spotify.com/show/2bWjI6CbJvfHT4WjtGLjMO; Date Collected: 4/15/2025.
- Cassie and Hannah, October 27, 2023, Halloween Episode Daniel Corwin Part 1, Texas 1031 Podcast, a Texas True Crime Podcast (http://crimesy.com/Texas1031Pod) ; Spotify.com; Pg. 1, https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/texas-10-31/episodes/Halloween-Episode-Daniel-Corwin-Part-1-e2b11lf; Date Collected: 4/16/2025.
- Cassie and Hannah, October 31, 2023, Halloween Episode Daniel Corwin Part 1, Texas 1031 Podcast, a Texas True Crime Podcast (http://crimesy.com/Texas1031Pod); Spotify.com; Pg. 1, https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/texas-10-31/episodes/Halloween-Episode-Daniel-Corwin-Part-2-e2b14ef; Date Collected: 4/16/2025.
- Note: This is a note that creators will appreciate. Burrough states in the audiobook that he used a massive amount of material collected by another author, Gary Lavergne, who did extensive research on Corwin. Later, Lavergne decided he didn’t want to write the book. He turned his research materials over to the University of Texas library where Lavergne worked as an instructor; Bryan Burrough used the Lavergne materials to compile his book. What a sweet deal!