Larry Eyler

Larry Eyler
September 29, 1984 mugshot
Born	(1952-12-21)December 21, 1952 Crawfordsville, Indiana
Died	Pontiac, Illinois
Cause of death	complications from AIDS
Other names	The Highway Killer The Interstate Killer The Highway Murderer
Criminal penalty	Death
Conviction(s)	Murder, Aggravated Kidnapping
Killings
Victims	21-23
Span of killings	March 22, 1982–May 7, 1984
Country	United States
State(s)	Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin
Date apprehended	August 21, 1984

Larry Eyler (December 21, 1952 – March 6, 1994) was an American serial killer convicted and sentenced to death in Illinois for the 1984 murder and dismemberment of 15-year-old Daniel Bridges.

Active in the Midwest, before his death he confessed to 21 other homicides of young men and boys in the 1980s in five separate states. While awaiting execution, Eyler died in 1994 of AIDS complications. His defense attorney Kathleen Zellner released his list of victims.

Case history

Eyler, a house painter, was described by some members of the gay community in Indianapolis, Indiana as a good-looking person with a "hot temper", who "projected violence during sex acts". After being charged with the 1982 murder of Steven Agan, 23, in that city, Eyler confessed to authorities in a plea bargain.

See also: Newton County John Does

Eyler was believed to be involved in additional murders of young men during the next two years. Two of Eyler's victims, who were discovered in 1983 in Newton and Jasper counties, Indiana, are unidentified as of 2016.

Conviction in the Daniel Bridges case

Daniel Bridges was a 15-year-old boy whose dismembered body was discovered on August 21, 1984 in a garbage dumpster in the Rogers Park neighborhood on Chicago's far North Side. One of 12 children in his family, Bridges earned money as a male prostitute while still attending high school.

Eyler was charged with murder, aggravated kidnapping and unlawful restraint. He was convicted in July 1986 of Bridges' murder and sentenced to death.

At the time of Eyler's death from AIDS, he was awaiting his execution. He was represented by attorney Kathleen Zellner, who had made an appeal disputing the conviction in the Bridges' murder. This was pending in the Illinois Supreme Court. The appeal maintained that one of Eyler's trial lawyers, David Shippers, had a conflict of interest as he had received $16,875 from a prosecution witness, Robert David Little. Little and Eyler had long been associated. Eyler had claimed that Little was the one who had killed Bridges. After Eyler's death, Zellner confirmed that she would proceed with filing the appeal to clarify various legal issues.

Other potential victims

The book Freed to Kill (1990) explored Eyler's potential connection to multiple murders and missing young men in Indiana and Illinois, resulting in investigations being reopened in several jurisdictions.

After Eyler's death, his defense attorney Kathleen Zellner revealed the names of 17 males whom Eyler had confessed to murdering and four whom he said were murdered by an unidentified accomplice. That person was later revealed to be Robert David Little, an older college professor and longtime associate.

According to Zellner, Eyler had made the list of victims around three years before his death, in an effort to obtain a plea bargain. The prosecutors did not agree to the plea bargain. Later, Eyler allowed his lawyer to release the list.

See also

• List of United States death row inmates

Further reading

• Freed to Kill (1990), by editor Gera-Lind Kolarik with Wayne Klatt, is a book that linked Eyler to multiple murders (ultimately 21) in Indiana and Illinois following his brief detention by police in 1982. This influenced the re-opening of cases.

External links

• Murderpedia