84 Facts About Larry Eyler

Larry William Eyler was an American serial killer who is believed to have murdered a minimum of twenty-one teenage boys and young men in a series of killings committed in the Midwest between 1982 and 1984.

Larry Eyler was known as the Interstate Killer and the Highway Killer due to the fact many of his confirmed and alleged victims were discovered across several midwestern states in locations close to or accessible via the Interstate Highway System.

Larry Eyler was born on December 21,1952, in Crawfordsville, Indiana, the youngest of four children born to George Howard Eyler and Shirley Phyllis.

Larry Eyler's father was an alcoholic who is known to have physically and emotionally abused his wife and children.

Larry Eyler's parents divorced in mid-1955, and he and his sister were regularly placed in the care of babysitters, foster families, or simply left in the care of their two older siblings as their mother struggled to financially support and provide adequate care for four children, working two jobs as a waitress and in a factory on weekdays, and occasionally in a bar at weekends.

Larry Eyler's mother married for a third time in 1960, although the couple divorced four years later.

Larry Eyler was viewed by teachers as a quiet yet likable pupil, with few friends.

Larry Eyler found this experience emotionally devastating, and within weeks had tearfully persuaded his mother to allow him to return home.

Deducing these fears sourced from his home life, staff recommended Larry Eyler be temporarily placed in a Catholic boys' home in Fort Wayne.

Larry Eyler remained at this residence for six months before he returned to the care of his mother.

In part due to his lackadaisical attitude towards schooling, Larry Eyler failed to graduate from high school, although he did later obtain a General Educational Development certificate.

Shortly after leaving college, Larry Eyler obtained employment as a private security guard in the Marion County General Hospital.

Larry Eyler worked in this employment for six months before losing this position and finding alternate work within a shoe store.

Larry Eyler primarily worked as a house painter, and although never having served in the military, he was fond of wearing Marine Corps T-shirts.

Larry Eyler resided in a condominium in Terre Haute with a 38-year-old library science professor named Robert David Little, whom he had first met in 1974 while studying at the Indiana State University.

The relationship between the two men was a platonic one, with Larry Eyler viewing Little as something of a father figure.

Shortly after Long entered the pickup truck, Larry Eyler propositioned the youth, resulting in Long attempting to leave the vehicle.

Larry Eyler later stumbled to a nearby house, where the occupants summoned paramedics.

Shortly thereafter, Larry Eyler drove to the house as Long received first aid and offered the handcuff key to a sheriff's deputy, claiming he had stabbed the young man accidentally.

Larry Eyler learned on that case not to let them be alive anymore, because then.

Larry Eyler was later charged with aggravated battery, to which he agreed to plead guilty.

On this date, Larry Eyler's lawyers offered Long a check from Little for $2,500 in return for his agreeing not to press charges.

Long accepted the offer, and Larry Eyler changed his plea to not guilty.

Nonetheless, Larry Eyler constantly sought assurance he was the only man in his lover's life, and the two are known to have frequently argued over Larry Eyler's accusations of his lover's infidelity.

Occasionally, the couple's arguments were initiated by the perceptions and recriminations of Robert Little, who made no secret of his intense dislike of Dobrovolskis to Larry Eyler and resented the fact he was in a long-term relationship.

Between 1982 and 1984, Larry Eyler is known to have committed a minimum of twenty-one murders and one attempted murder.

Larry Eyler's victims were typically plied with alcohol and sedatives such as ethchlorvynol before their restraint and murder.

Several victims were disemboweled after death, and Larry Eyler is known to have dismembered the bodies of four of his victims.

Larry Eyler's victims were typically discarded in fields close to major Interstate highways with their trousers and underwear frequently discovered around their knees or ankles and their shirts and wallets missing from the crime scene.

On October 12,1982, Larry Eyler lured a 21-year-old named Craig Townsend into his vehicle in Crown Point, Indiana.

Larry Eyler's body was discovered in a cornfield in Kankakee County approximately twelve hours after his murder.

Larry Eyler's body was not discovered until March 4,1983, in a field close to Danville, Illinois.

Sometime the following month, Larry Eyler murdered a 25-year-old barman named John Johnson.

Larry Eyler's body was discovered one month later in Lowell, Indiana.

Larry Eyler was stabbed to death and buried in a field close to Rensselaer, Indiana.

Larry Eyler's body was discovered by a farmer in a field south of Illinois Route 173 on May 7,1984.

On January 24,1983, Larry Eyler abducted and murdered a 16-year-old named Ervin Gibson in Lake County, Illinois.

Between March and April 1983, Larry Eyler is believed to have killed a minimum of five further victims between the ages of 17 and 29.

Nine days later, Larry Eyler murdered a 25-year-old named Richard Bruce in Effingham, Illinois.

On June 6, a former lover of Larry Eyler's named Thomas Henderson phoned the investigation team's confidential hotline to voice his suspicions that Larry Eyler might be the killer they were seeking; he explained that his former lover had been charged with "some sort of stabbing" of a young hitchhiker in 1978, possessed a violent temper, and had a penchant for bondage.

Henderson added that Larry Eyler worked in a liquor store in Greencastle on Saturdays and lived in Terre Haute with an older male on the weekends.

Larry Eyler informed investigators that in May 1982, Eyler had drugged a 14-year-old boy, later abandoning the unconscious teenager in woodland close to Greencastle.

The boy had not been molested, and investigators theorized the reason Larry Eyler had given the boy sedatives was as a means to test the effectiveness of the drug.

Furthermore, Larry Eyler was known to regularly travel between Indianapolis and Chicago.

Larry Eyler had been stabbed seventeen times with a butcher or hunting knife, with several wounds inflicted to his abdomen causing sections of his small intestine to protrude through his body.

Larry Eyler consented to the investigators' request to conduct a forensic examination of his vehicle and agreed to allow investigators to take his mug shot, copies of his fingerprints, and to subject him to a polygraph test at a later date.

An examination of phone bills retrieved from the property revealed Larry Eyler had regularly placed collect calls to Little's home at odd hours, shortly after identified victims were believed to have been murdered.

Hospitalization records revealed Larry Eyler had received treatment for a deep cut to his hand on this date, which he claimed had been caused in a fall from his truck in which he had landed upon a glass beer bottle; receipts recovered from the property revealed he had purchased handcuffs and a knife the following day.

Larry Eyler denied the tire tracks and boot impressions recovered at the Calise murder scene belonged to him, adding that he had never met the victim.

Furthermore, the tires on Larry Eyler's vehicle were from two separate manufacturers, and the physical impressions recovered at the murder scene were determined to be from these two separate manufacturers.

Larry Eyler protested his innocence, adding in anonymous media interviews that the accusation had harmed his reputation among his family and friends, and proclaiming that, had he murdered any individual, real evidence would have existed.

Terms imposed upon Larry Eyler's bond stipulated he was unable to leave Illinois.

Four weeks after his release from custody, Larry Eyler permanently relocated to Chicago.

At his lawyers' request, Larry Eyler refused to provide John Dobrovolskis with his new address, although his lover soon discovered where Larry Eyler lived.

Larry Eyler's body was cut into eight pieces; each of which was completely drained of blood before being placed inside six separate plastic bags.

Larry Eyler's remains had been placed inside a garbage dumpster close to Eyler's apartment and within a unit not intended for usage by tenants within Eyler's apartment complex.

Receipts recovered from the property revealed Larry Eyler had recently purchased several hacksaw blades.

Larry Eyler denied any knowledge of the crime, insisting his fingerprints must have been inadvertently placed upon the bags containing Bridges' body as he had moved them aside as he had placed other garbage bags within the dumpster.

Larry Eyler was brought to trial for the aggravated kidnapping, unlawful restraint, murder, and concealment of the body of Daniel Bridges on July 1,1986.

Larry Eyler was tried in Cook County, Illinois, before Judge Joseph Urso, and chose to enter a formal plea of not guilty to the charges against him.

Larry Eyler's attorneys instructed their client not to testify on his own behalf.

Several hours later, Burdicki had witnessed Larry Eyler making three separate trips to the garbage receptacle.

Larry Eyler was found guilty of the aggravated kidnapping, unlawful restraint and murder of Daniel Bridges, in addition to the concealment of the teenager's body.

Larry Eyler's face displayed little emotion as the verdict was announced, although his hands clenched the legs of the attorneys sitting either side of him.

Larry Eyler referenced historical cases where witnesses had provided false testimony and cases where juries had incorrectly returned guilty verdicts against innocent defendants.

In May 1988, Larry Eyler filed a formal appeal against his conviction, contending that although he had dismembered Bridges' body and disposed of the remains, the actual murder itself had been committed by Robert Little in his absence, and this contention had not been rebutted by the prosecution at his trial.

In November 1990, a Vermillion County prosecutor named Larry Thomas obtained the physical evidence retrieved against Eyler in relation to the murder of Ralph Calise with the intention of presenting the evidence before an Indiana grand jury to determine whether sufficient evidence existed to charge Eyler with the December 1982 murder of Steven Agan.

Larry Eyler was tried in Vermillion County before Judge Don Darnell, and entered a formal plea of not guilty on this date.

Larry Eyler testified against his alleged accomplice at this trial, claiming he and Little had both committed the murder of Agan on December 19,1982.

Larry Eyler then drove toward an abandoned shed close to Indiana State Road 63.

When questioned as to whether he had dismembered the body of Daniel Bridges, Larry Eyler admitted that he had committed this act, although he denied responsibility for the teenager's actual murder.

Greenwell inferred Larry Eyler had nothing to personally gain by asserting Little had actively participated in this murder, adding Larry Eyler had readily admitted to physically taking the decedent's life.

Larry Eyler died in the infirmary of the Pontiac Correctional Center on March 6,1994.

Larry Eyler's death was due to AIDS-related complications; he had been seriously ill for approximately ten days prior to his death.

Zellner maintained her conviction that a conflict of interest of this magnitude would undoubtedly have resulted in Larry Eyler securing a retrial.

Furthermore, Larry Eyler had been actively encouraged, aided and abetted in all his subsequent murders by Little, who had known of all of his crimes.

Zellner stated Larry Eyler had begun compiling a list of his victims shortly after she had been appointed as his legal representative in November 1990 in an effort to obtain a plea bargain whereby his sentence would be commuted to one of life imprisonment.

Larry Eyler told me that, and I hope that can bring you some peace of mind.

Larry Eyler denied any culpability in the physical murder of Daniel Bridges, although he admitted to the dismemberment and disposal of the teenager's body.

Investigators strongly believe Larry Eyler is responsible for two further homicides committed in Wisconsin and Kentucky in 1983.

Larry Eyler's victims were hitchhikers, male prostitutes, or individuals he had generally encountered by happenstance.

Larry Eyler later returned to live with his wife, Sally, in Chicago.

Larry Eyler's firm specializes in the overturning of wrongful convictions.

Shortly after Larry Eyler confessed his guilt in twenty-one homicides to her in 1990, Zellner resolved she would never again knowingly defend another guilty individual.