Overview

Last seen: April 20, 1972 — Houston, Texas, reportedly after leaving home to spend time with neighborhood friends.

Presumed homicide: Evidence and statements from Corll’s accomplices indicate Scott was taken to Corll’s residence on Schuler Street in Houston and killed around April 20–21, 1972. Elmer Wayne Henley said Scott was strangled and buried at High Island Beach. His remains have never been located.

Main points: Scott was acquainted with Corll’s accomplices Elmer Wayne Henley and David Owen Brooks. After Scott disappeared, his family received a postcard from Austin suggesting he had found work. When Corll’s crimes were uncovered in 1973, statements from Henley and Brooks connected Scott to Corll. Remains were identified as Scott’s in the 1990s, but improved DNA testing in 2011 established they were actually those of 17-year-old Steven Kent Sickman. Scott consequently remains missing and presumed deceased.

Detailed Case Breakdown

Mark Steven Scott: The 1972 Houston Teenager Whose Remains Have Never Been Recovered

Mark Steven Scott was 17 years old when he disappeared from Houston, Texas, on April 20, 1972. More than five decades later, Scott is considered a victim of Houston serial killer Dean Corll and his accomplices, but his remains have never been recovered. His case is particularly complicated because remains once identified as Scott’s were later proven through improved DNA testing to belong to another missing teenager.

Very Brief Case Summary

Last seen: April 20, 1972 — Houston, Texas, reportedly after leaving home to spend time with neighborhood friends.

Presumed homicide: Evidence and statements from Corll’s accomplices indicate Scott was taken to Corll’s residence on Schuler Street in Houston and killed around April 20–21, 1972. Elmer Wayne Henley said Scott was strangled and buried at High Island Beach. His remains have never been located.

Main points: Scott was acquainted with Corll’s accomplices Elmer Wayne Henley and David Owen Brooks. After Scott disappeared, his family received a postcard from Austin suggesting he had found work. When Corll’s crimes were uncovered in 1973, statements from Henley and Brooks connected Scott to Corll. Remains were identified as Scott’s in the 1990s, but improved DNA testing in 2011 established they were actually those of 17-year-old Steven Kent Sickman. Scott consequently remains missing and presumed deceased.

The Disappearance of Mark Steven Scott

Scott was born July 26, 1954, according to current missing-person records. He was approximately 5 feet 11 inches to 6 feet tall, weighed about 160–175 pounds, and had brown hair and blue eyes. He was 17 when he vanished.

On April 20, 1972, Scott left his Houston home to spend time with neighborhood friends and did not return. His family subsequently received a postcard mailed from Austin. The message indicated Scott was doing well, had obtained a job paying $3 per hour and intended to return home after earning enough money to pay a lawyer who had previously assisted him. No further genuine contact from Scott is known.

A contemporary newspaper account published during the investigation into the Houston mass murders reported that Scott’s father, Walter Scott, said his son had left home with permission in April 1972 and never returned. The same account described the postcard from Austin and the family’s frustration with the response to their attempts to locate him.

Connection to Dean Corll, Elmer Wayne Henley and David Brooks

Scott’s disappearance took on a dramatically different meaning after Dean Corll’s crimes were exposed in August 1973.

Corll, aided by teenagers Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. and David Owen Brooks, abducted and murdered numerous boys and young men in the Houston area. After Corll was shot and killed by Henley on August 8, 1973, investigators began uncovering victims at multiple burial locations.

Scott was known to Henley and Brooks. Brooks told investigators that Scott was one of the youths he had seen in Corll’s company shortly before disappearing. Henley’s subsequent confession provided an even more direct connection to Scott’s death.

According to accounts based on Henley’s statements, Scott was taken to Corll’s Schuler Street residence. Henley said Scott was killed and subsequently buried at High Island Beach, one of the locations used to conceal Corll’s victims. Brooks also indicated that Scott was probably buried at High Island.

The Postcard From Austin

One of the unusual elements of Scott’s case is the postcard his parents received after he disappeared.

The postcard purported to be from Scott and claimed he was in Austin, where he had found work. Historical accounts of the Corll case state that Scott was forced to write a message to his parents claiming he had found employment there.

This detail is important because, at the time, the message could reasonably have suggested Scott had voluntarily left Houston. Only after Corll’s crimes were exposed did the alleged circumstances surrounding the postcard become apparent.

The Mistaken Identification of Mark Scott’s Remains

For years, authorities believed Scott’s remains had finally been recovered.

Testing conducted using a sample from Scott’s mother indicated a high probability that remains recovered from Corll’s boat-shed burial site belonged to someone related to her. The identification was accepted despite physical inconsistencies: the remains reportedly had dark brown hair and two extracted molars, while Scott had lighter hair and no missing teeth. Henley also insisted investigators had identified the wrong victim because he remembered Scott being buried at High Island rather than the boat shed.

The remains were released to Scott’s family, and for years his disappearance appeared to have been resolved. Contemporary reporting even described the remains as having been identified through DNA.

That conclusion ultimately proved incorrect.

DNA Testing Reveals the Remains Belonged to Steven Sickman

Forensic anthropologist Dr. Sharon Derrick of the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences revisited identifications associated with the Corll investigation years later.

After examining the evidence, Derrick questioned whether the remains attributed to Scott actually belonged to another missing Houston teenager, Steven Kent Sickman. More advanced DNA testing was ordered, with samples obtained from relatives of both families.

In 2011, testing established that the remains were Sickman’s, not Scott’s. Sickman had disappeared from Houston in July 1972 and was another victim of Corll.

The discovery resolved one family’s decades-long mystery while reopening another. Scott’s family was again left without his remains.

Where Could Mark Scott Be?

Henley’s account places Scott’s burial at High Island Beach. All six recovered victims directly associated with the Corll murders who were found at High Island were ultimately identified, meaning none of those recovered remains belonged to Scott. Investigators and researchers have consequently continued to suspect that Scott was buried elsewhere in the High Island area and simply was not discovered during the 1973 searches.

Recovering him now could be exceptionally difficult. The Charley Project reports that Hurricane Ike, which struck the Texas coast in 2008, left the portion of High Island Beach associated with the known Corll burials submerged below sea level.

Thus, unlike many of Corll’s identified victims, there is currently no confirmed set of recovered remains belonging to Scott.

Latest Publicly Available Case Information

There have been meaningful recent developments in how Scott’s case is documented, although no publicly reported recovery or identification of his remains was located in the latest records reviewed.

The Doe Network added Mark Steven Scott to its database on October 31, 2025, assigning him reference 6886DMTX.

More significantly, the current NamUs page for Scott is NamUs #MP19943 and shows a creation date of May 7, 2026. This provides a current federal missing-person record for Scott more than 54 years after his disappearance.

The current public record therefore continues to treat Scott as a missing person whose remains have not been recovered. No credible publicly available announcement located through September 2026 reports that his remains have been found or positively identified.

The continued existence of Scott’s NamUs record, together with his recent addition to the Doe Network, keeps his identity and circumstances available for comparison against unidentified remains and future forensic developments.

Why Mark Steven Scott’s Case Still Matters

Scott’s case demonstrates how an apparent identification—even one supported by the forensic technology available at the time—can later be overturned.

The 2011 DNA findings corrected the identity of Steven Sickman but simultaneously established that Scott remained missing. They also supported Henley’s longstanding assertion that Scott had not been buried at the boat-shed site.

Today, Mark Steven Scott remains one of the unusual unresolved pieces of the Houston mass-murder investigation: authorities have compelling historical evidence identifying him as a victim, but his physical remains have never been conclusively recovered.

More than half a century after he left home in Houston, the fundamental unanswered question remains the same: where is Mark Steven Scott?