Dead Inmate’s Account of 21 Killings Told

NAPERVILLE, Ill. â€”  A suspected serial killer who died of complications of AIDS while on Death Row confessed to killing 21 young men in a methodical murder rampage in which he lured victims with drugs, alcohol and money, his attorney said Tuesday.

The disclosure provided some answers to a decade of haunting questions about the convicted killer, Larry Eyler, who died Sunday. Authorities had considered him the prime suspect in a string of murders across Illinois and Indiana in the early 1980s. However, he was convicted in only two killings.

“The reason I’m here is so that the families know--he did confess to the murders of your sons,� attorney Kathleen Zellner said at a news conference attended by families of Eyler’s alleged victims. “He told me that, and I hope that can bring you some peace of mind.�

Zellner, who had handled Eyler’s appeals, said he described the killings to her over the last three years and that she convinced him to let her release his confession after his death.

She released a list of 21 killings to which she said Eyler confessed, along with the places and dates where the victims were found between 1982 and 1984. It gave no name for seven of the victims.

Zellner said an accomplice helped Eyler commit four of the killings. She did not name the alleged accomplice but said she knew the person’s identity and urged others who may have been targeted as victims to come forward.

Eyler lured his victims with offers of liquor, drugs and money, Zellner said, then drove them to remote areas where they were handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded and had their feet bound. Not all of Eyler’s victims were homosexuals, Zellner said, and he never had sex during the abductions.

Eyler was sentenced to death for the 1984 slaying of a 15-year-old male prostitute whose dismembered body was found near Eyler’s Chicago home.