The clues pointed toward Larry Eyler for more than a decade.
A dead man's blood was found on his boots, but the evidence was thrown out on a technicality. The day after another body was found, Eyler was treated at a hospital for a knife wound. Later that day, he bought handcuffs and a knife.So it was little surprise to prosecutors across Illinois and Indiana when a lawyer announced Tuesday that Eyler had admitted before he died of AIDS on Sunday that he killed 21 people over two years in the early 1980s.
"He was our prime suspect" in the death of a man whose body was found in 1982, said Tim Bukowski, a spokesman for the Kankakee County Sheriff's Department.
Eyler died while on death row for a murder he never admitted to. He also was serving a 60-year sentence for one of the 21 killings.
Kathleen Zellner, the lawyer who handled his appeals, said Eyler had told her over the past three years about the slayings.
Zellner couldn't reveal the confessions while Eyler was alive because of lawyer-client privilege, but she said she persuaded him to let her release his confession after his death.
His admission brought relief to the families of his victims.
"We thought for a long time that Larry did it. Now we know for a fact that he admitted to doing it, and we can maybe go on with our lives now," said Charles McNeive, whose brother Danny was found dead in Indiana in 1983.
Zellner released a list of 21 killings Eyler confessed to, along with the places and dates where victims were found between 1982 and 1984. Zellner's list gave no name for seven of the victims. Eleven were found in Indiana, nine in Illinois, and one body has never been found.
She also released a letter Eyler wrote in 1990 to former Gov. James R. Thompson offering to confess to the killings. The letter was never mailed.
Eyler was sentenced to death for killing a 15-year-old male prostitute in 1984 but never admitted he was guilty. The dismembered body was found in trash bags near his Chicago home. He pleaded guilty in 1990 to participating in a 1982 killing in Terre Haute, Ind., and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.