In death, the despicable acts of Larry Eyler were countered by one redeeming gesture-the confession through his court-appointed attorney that he had killed 21 boys and young men in the two states in the early 1980s, picking them up at random in gay bars or while they were hitchhiking and luring them to their deaths in a spree of rage. It is important to note that Eyler's saying he was the murderer does not necessarily make it so. Nevertheless, the revelations were not a surprise to authorities in Illinois and Indiana, who-once they had gotten on Eyler's trail-had reason to suspect that he was a serial killer in the gruesome mold of a John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer.
And to the families, Eyler's word was sufficient to at last close the book. There was comfort, too, in that Eyler-though he escaped execution-was now himself dead, succumbing to AIDS-related complications Sunday at Pontiac Correctional Center. Indianapolis Police Lt. Steven Garner spoke for them all: "It's not for the police; it's for the families. When your son, your brother, has been dead for years, you want some sort of finality to it: `Just tell me the truth, no matter how grotesque it is.' All of these families can now put their children to rest."
Police and prosecutors, however, are challenged anew-obligated to attempt their own closure from the clues and details left behind by Eyler. Seven victims, for example, remain unidentified. There also is Eyler's claim that in four of the murders he had an accomplice-a disturbing assertion that must be pursued urgently. Indeed, a companion was acquitted of an Indiana murder in 1991. And there is the irony that Eyler insisted that someone else, not he, committed the one murder for which he was sentenced to die-the 1984 slaying of 15-year-old Daniel Bridges of Uptown. It is not sufficient for the office of Cook County State's Atty. Jack O'Malley to summarily dismiss this possibility. The victims and families may rest. Justice cannot.
