IN IN/IL, LARRY EYLER, "The Highway Murderer" (KY/OH/WI?) Gay Serial Killer

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Larry Eyler (1952-1994)

*According to Lake County Sheriff Robert Babcox,
Eyler can be charming, soft-spoken and polite,
"but at night,
he is the macho, beer-drinking homosexual type."


I guess that was just the Sheriff's way of saying that the suspect "had a really, really dark side" back in 1984, but comes off sounding rather homophobic today.
(Especially since the term "serial killer" isn't any where in his description)



Other than being gay and drinking beer, Larry Eyler was a really, really sick guy.
He did a lot of really, really bad things.
In fact, he did so many really bad things that he was sentenced to death in 1986.

And thanks to all of the time and legal wrangling involved with Death Row, Eyler died of AIDS in 1994 before he could pay for the vicious murders of nearly 25 young men.

Larry Eyler also had an "aide" (if not full partner-in-crime) who was present at several of his murders, if not participating himself. This partner, a respected college professor, was tried for his role in the series of murders nearly a decade after Eyler's arrest and was acquitted.



Wikipedia has a short overview of the bare-basics of Eyler's crimes.
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Eyler"]Larry Eyler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Here is a fairly detailed bio of Eyler that I first saw on CourtTV's website (so it's "kind of" old) but it's still probably the best one I've found.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/eyler/kills_1.html

"Murderpedia" has a pretty good page on Eyler cobbled together from a bunch of different places (including the Crime Library bio I linked above).
http://murderpedia.org/male.E/e/eyler-larry.htm

*http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...IBAJ&dq=larry-eyler lexington&pg=7026,1543949
 
I think Eyler grabbed my attention because he was a fairly prolific and perverse serial killer that I'd never heard of. So was Herb Baumeister. And both of them were so close to my area (central KY)!

Yet even people in their 80's who rarely venture more than 10-miles from home will know at least something about who John Wayne Gacy was.
Gacy was a sick/evil man, don't get me wrong.
But there were/are a lot of people just as bad as Gacy that have been killing for their sick pleasure. As sad as it sounds, there always were. There will always be.
How did a little politics and dressing like a clown gain him so much more attention?

Another thing about Eyler that interested me was that one of his earlier "possible" victims is a man named Jay Reynolds, found dumped on the outskirts of Lexington (KY) in 1982. I was born in Lexington about 3-yrs earlier.
I never understood why (or why not?) Reynolds would have been considered a victim of Eyler, other than him being dumped on the side of a road.
I found a story that included more info about Reynolds' death than I'd seen. I can't really decide whether the new info points more toward/against Eyler being responsible. What was up with the "hunting club" and what are the details of the other murders thought related to it?
http://richmondregister.com/localnews/x892108104/Dead-but-not-forgotten
 
There are two threads on Websleuths related to known Eyler victims and several others about murders that are "possibles."

This thread relates to the dumping scene of four murder victims. Two of the victims were identified, but a white male and a black male remain nameless.
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96656&highlight=eyler

Here is another victim who doesn't have much of an online presence. He has no DoeNetwork or NamUs entry, only a few news stories (which are linked in his thread).
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116180&highlight=eyler
 
I think this guy could have possibly been a Larry Eyler victim.
Many sources for info on Eyler include Jay Reynolds (26-y/o WM, murdered 3/1982 in Lexington, Ky) as a one of his victims.
I am a little confused as there are several websites (including the Kentucky State Police) list Reynolds' murder as a cold/unsolved case.

If Larry Eyler killed Jay Reynolds (3/22/1982) it would mean that he would have been in the Lexington area in mid-late 3/1982.

That makes James Thomas Kinskey a likely (very likely in my eyes) victim of his...
He went missing 3/27/1983 after being released from jail in Lexington. Kinskey was young, slim and would hitchhike. He seems like what Eyler would look for in a victim. He also went missing from the same town and less than a week from when Eyler committed a quasi-confirmed murder.

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/k/kinskey_james.html

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/4237dmky.html

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/5629/13
 
I see that this thread hasn't had any activity in a long time, but I will post this Q anyway: Does anyone know where Eyler was between Sept. and Dec. 1979/Jan. 1980, and whether he had any friends or relatives living in the suburbs west of Columbus, particularly the Galloway area?

From what I can gather, Eyler would have been finished with college by this time , even though he didn't graduate. He was likely living with Prof. L some of the time -- or at least using the prof's residence as one home base. However, Eyler was very nomadic and I am looking for more specific information about where he was during these four months. I am wondering, for instance, if he could have stayed on and off with relatives/friends in Galloway during this time.

Thanks in advance to anyone who knows or thinks they can find something.
 
I see that this thread hasn't had any activity in a long time, but I will post this Q anyway: Does anyone know where Eyler was between Sept. and Dec. 1979/Jan. 1980, and whether he had any friends or relatives living in the suburbs west of Columbus, particularly the Galloway area?

From what I can gather, Eyler would have been finished with college by this time , even though he didn't graduate. He was likely living with Prof. L some of the time -- or at least using the prof's residence as one home base. However, Eyler was very nomadic and I am looking for more specific information about where he was during these four months. I am wondering, for instance, if he could have stayed on and off with relatives/friends in Galloway during this time.

Thanks in advance to anyone who knows or thinks they can find something.
I've been trying to find that out, myself, GBMG. There are two other related threads. The answer might be in the posts, but I haven't finished reading each one. From what I have read, his crimes date back to 1982, in four states (Ohio isn't one of them): Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Wisconsin.

IN IN - "Adam" & "Brad"- (999UMIN & 1384UMIN), Larry Eyler Victims, Oct'83 - Page 2 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

IN IN - Jasper County, WhtMale, L. Eyler victim - "Arlene" on Zippo Lighter, Nov'82 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community
 
I've been trying to find that out, myself, GBMG. There are two other related threads. The answer might be in the posts, but I haven't finished reading each one. From what I have read, his crimes date back to 1982, in four states (Ohio isn't one of them): Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Wisconsin.

IN IN - "Adam" & "Brad"- (999UMIN & 1384UMIN), Larry Eyler Victims, Oct'83 - Page 2 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

IN IN - Jasper County, WhtMale, L. Eyler victim - "Arlene" on Zippo Lighter, Nov'82 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

Hi, Bessie --

Like your new avvie :)

Thanks for that -- I feel a little less "out there" knowing you're searching too. Most accounts leave out [ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10230871&postcount=840"]the two earlier cases I posted about in the BC thread[/ame] -- (1) Mark Henry in 1978, who was molested and stabbed (and lived) in Terre Haute -- his case helped the task force ID Eyler in 1984. And (2) the unnamed 14-YO boy left drugged on the side of the road (alive) in Greencastle, IN, in 1981. (ETA1: Many also omit Deloyd Baker, but he was later -- 1982 -- killed by ligature strangulation before being dumped on a Fishers, IN, roadside. The unnamed boy and Baker were both 14.)

Something about Eyler -- his proclivities and the diversity of his methods -- makes me think he has to have been more doing more between 1978 and 81. I find the fact that these two victims were "played with" but left alive especially troubling. The two cases leave behind the same kind of feeling we have with BC -- like the early experiments of a psychopath, one who hadn't yet worked out the "kill" part. There's more they have in common ... you must sense it too or you wouldn't be looking. But I do still recognize it as a stretch.

I scanned the first thread you mentioned yesterday (bflocket lists them above too), but I haven't looked at the second one yet. I will. Nice to touch base with you :)

ETA2: Many take it as gospel that Eyler confessed everything to his lawyer before he died. I think Eyler's drug use makes that questionable, as does the fact that it took him a long time to agree to let his lawyer use that information after his death, when it could no longer hurt him. Even if he remembered everything, what might he have left out that the did not want to share? I think that's an unknown.

ETA3: Just ordered a book on him. Will post if I learn anything not written up in the copious news reports.
 
This old story has a map detailing where (some) Eyler murders happened. It also details confessions he made to his lawyer that were made public after he died of AIDS while on death row.

Death bed confession: 21 murders (The Free Lance-Star - Mar 9, 1994)

eylermap.JPG

*Sorry about the contrast/brightness (or whatever) that makes my pic hard to read. I tried to fix it, but it made it worse so I just let it be.
 
It displays perfectly on my monitor, bflocket. Thank you. :thumb:
 
Here are two articles that highlight the pain and anguish suffered by the families of Eyler's victims during his road to the executioner.
Sadly, AIDS brought them their "justice" before the courts could.

Larry Eyler's death may answer questions about unsolved (The Times of Northwest Indiana, 3/8/1994)

Carmen Pauli hopes the death of suspected serial killer
Larry Eyler will finally provide answers to her son's 1983 slaying -- and help
her accept his brutal demise.

"Up to this up time, I have not been able to cry for my son or grieve in the
proper way because it just doesn't go away. Maybe now it will go away
," the Oak
Park woman said Monday.

Eyler, suspected by police in the slayings of at least 20 young Midwestern
men, died Sunday of AIDS at the Pontiac Correctional Center. He was 41. Eyler
was on Death Row for the 1984 slaying of a 15-year-old male prostitute in
Chicago.

"I am glad that he's dead because maybe now I can die in peace (knowing
that) he isn't going to come out and kill some more
," Pauli said



Don't Make Eyler Deal, Family Says (Chicago Tribune, 1/5/1991)

The family of Daniel Bridges, the Uptown teenager whose 1984 murder put Larry Eyler on Illinois` Death Row, said Friday it wants no part of any deal that could spare the suspected serial killer from execution.

Eyler would accept life behind bars, without parole, for killing Bridges, according to Zellner`s proposal. Zellner said Eyler would also admit guilt in two Cook County murders and in other murders, perhaps 17 to 20 in all, in Lake and Kankakee Counties in Illinois and in five Indiana counties. The victims of those crimes, who were killed between 1982 and 1984, were abducted or lured to their deaths, police believe.

Wilma McNieve, whose son, Daniel McNieve, 21, was a suspected Indiana victim of Eyler in 1983, said Friday she had mixed emotions about the situation.

"I want that man (Eyler) dead," she said. "But at the same time I want to know what happened to my son. Not that I am ghoulish, or anything. I need to know."
 
[video=youtube;boFY8lcvyKI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boFY8lcvyKI[/video]
 
I feel dumb for not bookmarking it or at the very least remembering what I was reading. But I didn’t!

l was reading something about Eyler the other day and it said something about him killing four people in Kentucky (in addition to Jay Reynolds).

Has anyone else seen anything of that nature?
Or could find something that isn’t available to me (like any of the “pay” news archives).

I really want to find out about this. I wonder how close it was to me, if that is actually true.
 
Here’s a video from shortly after Eyler died.

The authorities (and victims’ families) are trying to find a way to charge his accomplice (Prof Little) with something so that he is punished in some way for helping Eyler torture/kill people. He was tried and acquitted in one of the murders and one victim’s family filed a civil suit against little due to the slow progress with any additional criminal charges. That family was actually represented by Eyler’s lawyer in the suit. Someone decided that wouldn’t be a conflict of interest, but is still a little odd. I don’t know how the suit turned out, though.

It’s basically a series produced by an Indianapolis TV station that has been edited together.
Whoever posted it to YouTube didn’t spell Eyler’s name right and I don’t like the way one of the reporters (Shapiro) pronounces his own name, but it’s actually a good video.
Oh... Shapiro turns out to be the one that put this on YouTube. I’ve still never heard anyone pronounce his name like he does but I guess he’s entitled to say it however he wants.

Eiler Investigation WXIN
WXIN Fox-59 (Indianapolis, IN)
Early 1990’s
 
Corpse found on Indiana farm in 1983 identified as victim of serial killer Larry Eyler | Daily Mail Online

"A corpse found at an abandoned Indiana farm in 1983 has finally been identified as a victim of serial killer Larry Eyler thanks to DNA technology.

John Ingram Brandenburg Jr. of Chicago had previously been identified only as 'Brad Doe' when four human bodies were discovered buried in a shallow grave on an abandoned farm in rural Lake Village in Newton County, Indiana on October 18, 1983.

Two of the other bodies, Michael Bauer and John Bartlett, were previously identified, leaving the final victim nameless, officials said in a press release.

Brandenburg, called 'Johnny' by his mother, had been drugged and killed by Eyler, who confessed to at least 20 killings before dying in an Illinois prison of AIDS in 1994.

Eyler was on death row for the 1984 murder of Danny Bridges, a 15-year-old boy, at the time of his death."
 
“While my heart breaks for this family, I’m thankful that they finally have some of the answers they’ve waited so long for, and I hope this brings them peace,” Rebecca Goddard, a Newton County prosecutor, said in a statement Sunday from the DNA Doe Project.
1983 Indiana remains ID'd as Chicago victim of serial killer

In Madison County there are 11 unsolved murders going back to 1975.

And although it has been more than 30 years since some of the murders have taken place, police are not giving up. In fact, police never give up on murders and will work to solve them no matter how long it takes, said Lt. Blake Slone, who is investigating seven of these murders for the Kentucky State Police.

Murders can be solved even after the killer is dead, he said, because murder cases never close.

This story is the first in a four-part series which will run every Monday through December 6. The cases will be profiled in chronological order from oldest to most recent, the first three cases are profiled here.

James Earl Jackson
Jay Reynolds
Monroe Brock
Dead but not forgotten
 
Corpse found on Indiana farm in 1983 identified as victim of serial killer Larry Eyler | Daily Mail Online

"A corpse found at an abandoned Indiana farm in 1983 has finally been identified as a victim of serial killer Larry Eyler thanks to DNA technology.

John Ingram Brandenburg Jr. of Chicago had previously been identified only as 'Brad Doe' when four human bodies were discovered buried in a shallow grave on an abandoned farm in rural Lake Village in Newton County, Indiana on October 18, 1983.

Two of the other bodies, Michael Bauer and John Bartlett, were previously identified, leaving the final victim nameless, officials said in a press release.

Brandenburg, called 'Johnny' by his mother, had been drugged and killed by Eyler, who confessed to at least 20 killings before dying in an Illinois prison of AIDS in 1994.

Eyler was on death row for the 1984 murder of Danny Bridges, a 15-year-old boy, at the time of his death."

Identified! - IN - Lake Village, 'Brad' 1384UMIN, Eyler victim, Oct'83 - John Ingram Brandenburg, Jr.
 

What ever became of Dr Robert David Little? He was also involved in the killings. He also made snuff films and took photos. Did he ever get charged with any of that?
 
But it was thanks to Joe Balla that one of the most notorious figures in local criminal history was taken off the streets. Janitors from neighboring buildings had seen the man who threw the bags into the dumpster, and one of them led police to the apartment of Larry Eyler. Eyler, then 31, was a housepainter who worked intermittently, a weight lifter who was fond of Marine Corps T-shirts (though he had never served in the military), a man of normal appearance who did not seem to have much of a plan for the future. In certain circles he was already well-known, a suspect in the murders of 23 young men whose bodies had turned up in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Many of the victims had links to gay communities in Indiana and Illinois.

In relatively short order, police discovered that the leg in the Hefty bag belonged to Danny Bridges, a 16-year-old prostitute from Uptown. Bridges was unusual in that he had been befriended by policemen, who had introduced him to television and newspaper reporters working on stories about the sexual abuse of children. As a result, his murder rose above the statistics; his photo, taken from a television screen, appeared in newspapers, his words were quoted, his story was told, and for at least a short time the city paid
attention.

Almost two years after the Hefty bags were opened, Mr. Balla and his colleagues took the witness stand in the Criminal Courts Building and told their stories. Larry Eyler was convicted of murder and aggravated kidnapping, and on October 3, 1986, Judge Joseph Urso pronounced sentence. Citing the "overwhelming" evidence he said, "If there ever was a person [for whom] the death penalty is appropriate, it's you. You are an evil person. You truly deserve to die for your acts."

Eyler went off to death row, and it seemed as though gay men throughout the midwest could rest a slight bit easier.

But the killings continued. In May 1985, eight months after Eyler's arrest, the body of 17-year-old Eric Allen Roettger turned up off a rural road in Preble County, Ohio. Not many dead bodies turn up in Preble County, which has a population of about 45,000, so when a second body turned up there the following year, David Lindloff, the county prosecutor's sole investigator, began to wonder what was going on.

In 1987 a body turned up in Shelby County, Indiana, just across the border from Preble County. By April 1992, 11 bodies had turned up in rural counties in Ohio and Indiana, 4 of them in Preble County, and Lindloff and investigators from Indiana had a pretty good idea of what was going on. The dead men, whose ages ranged from 15 to 32, all had links to the gay community in Indianapolis. They had been found naked or partially clothed in desolate rural areas, in creek beds, ditches, a railroad bed. Many had ligature marks on their wrists, indicating they had been tied up. Most had been strangled (the bodies of two of the victims were too decomposed to determine a cause of death).

None of the victims had been killed during the winter; it seemed the killer got the urge only during warm weather. By April of this year, when investigators realized that an 11th body--found in a creek bed in Defiance County, Ohio, in 1989--fit the strangler's pattern, it was apparent that this murderer had been dumping bodies for a decade or more.

There were some significant differences between this string of murders and the ones that Larry Eyler had been suspected of. Eyler's alleged victims were stabbed, and as many as 16 of them may have been murdered within 12 months' time. The other victims were strangled, and their killer seemed less driven, sometimes waiting more than a year between one murder and the next.

Still, the similarities were also striking. Both killers concentrated on gay victims and both dumped bodies off Interstate 70 and U.S. 40, two highways that run roughly parallel from Terre Haute to Indianapolis and east to Ohio. Several of the strangler's victims were found not far from Richmond, Indiana, where Larry Eyler's mother had lived. These facts gave rise to the theory that the murders were all connected; perhaps the stabber and the strangler were part of a team that did not retire after Larry Eyler went off to death row.

The Return of Larry Eyler



 
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