1975 Incident

In 1975, Corwin abducted a classmate at knife point in their high school parking lot while she was getting into her car. He drove her to a remote location in her own car and raped her. He then dragged her out of the car, knocked her down, slit her throat, and stabbed her in the stomach and heart. As she lay in a dirt pit bleeding, he covered her head with a board and covered it with dirt and leaves. She survived and managed to reach the road where she was eventually seen and saved. Corwin was sentenced to forty years in prison for kidnapping, rape, and attempted murder. However, due to a statewide act to alleviate the amount of Texas's prisoners, Corwin was released early after only serving nine years.^[2]

1987-1988 Sprees

In February 1987, he abducted 72-year-old Alice Martin, who was walking to her home in Normangee, Texas. He drove her to a field in Robertson County where he raped her before binding her, gagging her, and stabbing her to death.

In July 1987, he met 26-year-old Debra Lynn Ewing at her workplace in Conroe, where Corwin, a door repairman, had been called out to inspect and repair a faulty cabinet that would not close properly. That night, Corwin returned to her workplace and kidnapped her as she was leaving work. He drove Ewing to a remote wooded area of north Montgomery County and raped and killed her.^[3]

On October 31, 1987, Corwin sprung on 36-year-old Mary Carrell Risinger and her 3-year-old daughter at a car wash in Huntsville, Texas and attempted to drag her to his truck. Risinger fought back by scratching Corwin and screamed for help, which resulted in Corwin slitting her throat in front of her daughter. Though officers were quick to respond, Corwin escaped with no available evidence of his involvement, and the case went cold.^[3]

In October 1988, he abducted college student Wendy Gant in a parking lot of Kyle Field at Texas A&M University, using her car to drive them to an isolated rural area, where he bound, raped, beat, and stabbed Gant several times. Corwin then tied her upright to a tree and slit her throat. Gant pretended to be dead to fool Corwin into leaving, where she managed to untie her bound wrists and crawl to her rescue on the side of State Road 30.^[4]

Corwin was tracked down using an artist's sketch from Gant, whose throat was cut so deeply that she could not speak to describe the assailant, but described him in writing to the artist and nodded yes or no to the artist's questions about the attacker's features. A corrections officer who knew Corwin from prison immediately recognized the sketch and reported Corwin's name to the police. Police subsequently found a fingerprint from Corwin on the driver's side door of Gant's vehicle.

During his trial, Corwin confessed that he additionally raped a 13-year-old girl in Temple, Texas, in 1972. The police were notified at the time, but the victim couldn't identify her attacker.