Larry William Eyler (December 21, 1952 – March 6, 1994) 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.

His 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.

[45] On December 30, a 22-year-old Yale University graduate named David Block disappeared from the Illinois suburb of Highland Park, having told his family of his intentions to visit a friend in the nearby city of Highwood.

With assistance from members of the gay community and the family of one murder victim, the editors of the newspaper offered a reward of $1,500 for any information obtained leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer.

Shortly thereafter, investigators in Kentucky contacted the task force reporting that a 29-year-old Lexington resident named Jay Reynolds had been discovered stabbed to death in Madison County on March 22, and that his body had likely been transported to the site of its discovery.

[62] Furthermore, the FBI predicted that upon completion of a murder, the offender would symbolically erase the act by making a rudimentary effort to cover his victim with leaves or soil,[7] and that this individual likely had a middle-aged, middle-class, and markedly more intelligent accomplice in several of his initial homicides.

[67] Lake County investigators quickly linked this murder to the stabbing deaths of two other young men whose bodies had been discovered close to this decedent earlier in 1983 (Ervin Gibson and Gustavo Herrera).

[68] In early September, a Chicago-based reporter for WLS-TV named Gera-Lind Kolarik noted similarities between the August 31 murder of Calise and the two earlier deaths of young males within Lake County.

This search was conducted at dawn on October 2 and revealed further circumstantial evidence, such as credit card receipts, indicating Eyler's presence in jurisdictions within both Illinois and Indiana on dates identified victims linked to the Highway Murderer had been killed.

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

[89] These revelations led a member of the Indiana task force named Cathy Berner to remark to her colleagues that if Eyler were not the murderer they were seeking, he was following the actual killer on a daily basis.

[101] With the approval of his mother, as well as Little and Dobrovolskis, a criminal defense attorney named David Schippers was appointed to replace Kenneth Ditkowsky as Eyler's legal representative on November 12.

[105] A further hearing to determine whether defense motions to suppress the physical and circumstantial evidence retrieved by investigators between September 30 and November 22 and to quash and nullify various warrants authorizing these searches and the seizure of property was scheduled for January 23, 1984.

Following four days of testimony, Judge Block adjourned the hearing until January 27 to consider his ruling, informing the Assistant State's Attorney and David Schippers that sufficient precedents existed for both admitting and suppressing the evidence.

[105] Bridges had been a close acquaintance of victim Ervin Gibson, and is known to have been wary of Eyler, whom he had described to an NBC reporter (commissioned to film a documentary focusing on child exploitation in America two months before his murder) as a "real freak" who was well known to the male prostitutes of Uptown.

[122] Numerous traces of blood later determined to belong to Daniel Bridges were also discovered upon a mattress, the seat of a chair, a leather belt, a sofa within this room, and beneath the floorboards of the doorway to the bathroom.

Stein described the extensive torture and mutilation inflicted upon Bridges before and after his death as being "one of the worst cases" he had ever seen, adding the pattern and depth of the serrations discovered upon the decedent's body precisely matched the hacksaw blades recovered from Eyler's apartment.

Upon cross-examination, Stein admitted to Tom Allen he had discovered traces of alcohol and cocaine in the victim's blood, suggesting a possibility he had not been kidnapped and had willingly entered Eyler's apartment.

[132] Supporting the prosecution's contention Eyler had lured Bridges to his home not to engage in sexual relations but simply to torture and murder the youth a forensic technician named Marion Caporusso testified on July 8 that no semen was found upon or within the victim's body.

Deputy Prosecutor Rick Stock delivered the state's closing argument on behalf of the prosecution, outlining the injuries Bridges had received before his death, referencing the premeditated nature of the murder and Eyler's efforts to conceal all evidence of the crime.

[136] Following Stock's closing argument, David Schippers began his own presentation before the jury, promising to "talk sense" regarding the case and the felony charges against his client, before stating: "Where is the evidence Danny Bridges was kidnapped by anyone?"

Schippers closed his argument before Judge Urso by emphasizing the existence of mitigating factors[13] regarding Eyler's culpability in the actual act of homicide before requesting his client's sentence be life imprisonment.

[144] Emphasizing his decision had been difficult for him to reach due to his religious beliefs, Urso explained: "The senseless and barbaric murder of a 16-year-old boy, a killing which was so brutal it defies description, shows me your complete disregard for human life.

[146] In May 1988, 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.

[8] According to Zellner, her client had been an emotionally insecure individual who had viewed Robert Little as something of the father figure he had never had in his life, and this had left Eyler vulnerable to manipulation, with Little using him as a means of facilitating his own access to young males for sexual purposes in return for the financial support he provided.

Zellner further asserted Eyler's paraphilia had inadvertently increased his penchant for violence and that Little had begun to encourage her client to project his extreme self-hatred regarding his homosexuality and the conflict between his sexual preference and his religious beliefs onto other males approximately six months before the two had abducted and murdered Steven Crockett.

[182] Emphasizing her belief in Eyler's confessions, Zellner elaborated that her client had been formally diagnosed with AIDS in March 1991 and therefore "knew when he testified at [Little's] trial in the Steven Agan murder that he was dying.

[182] Zellner stated 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.

[179] In his formal confession, Eyler claimed to have committed his murders in part as a means of relieving internal frustrations frequently triggered by fights with his lover,[191] and to his achieving a sense of relief after the act.

[196][n 14] In April 2021, one of the four victims discovered alongside an oak tree close to an abandoned farmhouse in Lake Village, Indiana on October 18 and 19, 1983 was positively identified using DNA and genetic genealogy as John Brandenburg Jr. of Chicago.