The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (25 page)

neglected as her husband showered his affection on the The first to die was 78-year-old Eileen Emms, stran-children—eight in all—who were the living images of gled in her home during the first week of April 1987. A her lamented predecessor.

month later, Janet Crockett, age 67, was killed in identi-Over time the jealousy gave way to envy, then to cal fashion. The stalker rebounded with a doubleheader hatred. During June of 1913, Ellen launched her plan to on June 28, claiming 84-year-old Valentine Gleime and thin the herd, employing poison to eliminate a pair of 94-year-old Zbignew Stabrawa in separate incidents.

the offensive children. Two more died on October 2, William Carmen, age 84, was strangled in early July.

but the coincidence was too extreme. Authorities were Two weeks later, 74-year-old William Downes and 80-curious, and poison was found in postmortem tests. In
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EYLER, Larry W.

custody, the second Mrs. Etheridge confessed her crimes victed two weeks later, he was sentenced to a term of and drew a term of life imprisonment.

life imprisonment, required to serve a minimum of 25

See also “BLACK WIDOWS”

years before he would be eligible for parole.

EVANS, Wesley Gareth

EYLER, Larry W.

Slow-witted and hyperactive, Canadian Wesley Evans A native of Crawfordsville, Indiana, born December 21, missed long months of schooling due to erratic behavior 1952, Eyler was the youngest of four children born to that made attendance impossible. Hit by a train at age parents who divorced when he was young. Dropping nine, he suffered severe head injuries that left him out of high school in his senior year, he worked odd comatose for eight days, with temporary paralysis on jobs for a couple of years before earning his GED. Spo-his left side after he regained consciousness. Released radic enrollment in college between 1974 and 1978 left from the hospital after four months of therapy, Evans Eyler without a degree, and he finally pulled up stakes, thereafter walked with a pronounced limp, communi-making the move to Chicago.

cating with slurred speech. Eighteen months later, he Unknown to friends and relatives, Larry Eyler was a was burned over 20 percent of his body while playing young man at war with himself, struggling to cope with with a cigarette lighter. He grew up obsessed with the homosexual tendencies that simultaneously fascinated notion that girls—and later, women—were laughing at and repelled him. Like JOHN GACY and a host of others, his scars. In time, his hidden rage would reach a lethal he would learn to take his sex where he could find it, boiling point.

forcefully, and then eliminate the evidence of his abid-On November 24, 1984, 27-year-old Lavonne

ing shame.

Willems was found dead in a Vancouver home she was On March 22, 1982, Jay Reynolds was found,

watching for friends, then on vacation overseas. She stabbed to death on the outskirts of Lexington, Ken-had been murdered in the bedroom, stabbed a total of tucky. Nine months later, on October 3, 14-year-old 25 times, her pants unbuckled and open at the waist.

Delvoyd Baker was strangled, his body dumped on the Detectives theorized a sexual motive, but they had no roadside north of Indianapolis. Steven Crockett, age 19, suspect in the case.

was the victim on October 23, stabbed 32 times with On March 31, 1985, realtor Beverly Seto, 39, hosted four wounds in the head, and discarded outside Lowell, an open house for potential customers in Matsqui, a Indiana. The killer moved into Illinois on November 6, Vancouver suburb. When she failed to come home for leaving Robert Foley in a field northwest of Joliet.

supper, her husband dropped by the vacant house and Police were slow to see the pattern forming, unaware found her car outside, the door ajar. Inside the house, a that they had already spoken with one survivor.

light was burning in the kitchen, though the guests had Drugged and beaten near Lowell on November 4, 21-long since departed. Moving through the silent rooms, year-old Craig Townsend had escaped from the hospital he found his wife in the bedroom, her throat slashed, before detectives completed their investigation of the skirt bunched up around her waist. The coroner unprovoked assault.

reported that Seto had been raped, then stabbed a mini-The transient slayer celebrated Christmas 1982 by mum of 20 times.

dumping 25-year-old John Johnson’s body in a field In late July, police received a tip that named a young outside Belshaw, Indiana. Three days later, it was a man from the Matsqui neighborhood as Seto’s killer. He doubleheader, with 21-year-old John Roach discovered was held for questioning in early August 1985, but offi-near Belleville and the trussed-up body of Steven Agan, cers found nothing to connect him with the murder.

a Terre Haute native, discarded north of Newport, Seeking further information on their suspect, they Indiana.

detained one of his friends, 21-year-old Wesley Evans, The grim toll continued to rise through the spring of on marijuana charges, hoping they could pressure him 1983, with most of the action shifting to Illinois. By for details on the suspect’s movements. What they got, July 2, the body count stood at 12, with the latter vic-instead, was a surprise confession to the crime.

tims mutilated after death, a few disemboweled. Ralph In custody, the prisoner admitted killing Seto and Calise made unlucky 13 on August 31, dumped in a went on to offer details of the Willems murder. Homi-field near Lake Forest, Illinois. He had been dead less cide investigators checked their street maps, startled to than 12 hours when he was discovered, bound with find that Evans lived a short four blocks from the loca-clothesline and surgical tape, stabbed 17 times, his tion of the Seto slaying and barely eight blocks from the pants pulled down around his ankles.

house where Willems died. The opening remarks of On September 30, 1983, an Indiana highway patrol-Wesley’s trial were heard on January 16, 1986. Con-man spotted a pickup truck parked along Interstate 65,
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EYLER, Larry W.

victim had been decapitated, and all had their pants pulled down, indicating a sexual motive in the slayings.

Another “John Doe” was recovered on December 5

near Effingham, Illinois, and the body count jumped again, two days later, when Richard Wayne and an unidentified male were found dead near Indianapolis.

By that time, police had focused their full attention on Larry Eyler. Survivor Craig Townsend had been traced to Chicago after fleeing the Indiana hospital, and he grudgingly identified photographs of Eyler. Another survivor chimed in with similar testimony, but investigators wanted their man for murder, and the circumstantial case was still incomplete.

Facing constant surveillance in Chicago, Eyler filed a civil lawsuit against the Lake County sheriff’s office, accusing officers of mounting a “psychological warfare” campaign to unhinge his mind. His claim for a half-million dollars was denied, and as he left the courtroom, Eyler was arrested for the Ralph Calise murder and held in lieu of $1 million bond. Police were jubilant until a pretrial hearing on February 5, 1984, led to exclusion of all the evidence recovered from Eyler’s truck. Released on bail, the killer went about his business while investigators scrambled to salvage their failing case.

On May 7, 1984, 22-year-old David Block was

found murdered near Zion, Illinois, his wounds conforming to the pattern of his predecessors, but nothing at the scene clearly linked Eyler to the murder. Police got a break three months later, on August 21, when a janitor’s skittish dog led his master to examine Eyler’s Larry Eyler (Author’s collection)

garbage, in Chicago. Police were swiftly summoned to claim the remains of 15-year-old Danny Bridges, a homosexual street hustler whose dismembered body with two men moving toward a nearby stand of trees.

had been neatly bagged for disposal.

One appeared to be bound, and the officer went to Eyler’s arrogance had finally undone him. Experts investigate, identifying Larry Eyler as the owner of the noted that the Bridges mutilations were a carbon copy truck. His young companion accused Eyler of making of the Derrick Hansen case outside Kenosha in October homosexual propositions, then asking permission to 1983. Convicted of the Bridges slaying on July 9, 1986, tie him up. A search of the pickup revealed surgical Eyler was sentenced to die. By that time, Mother tape, nylon clothesline, and a hunting knife stained Nature had already passed her own death sentence on with human blood. Forensics experts noted that the Eyler: he was infected with AIDS and his days were blood type matched Ralph Calise’s, while tire tracks numbered.

and imprints of Eyler’s boots made a fair match with In November 1990, bargaining to save himself from tracks from the field where Calise was discovered.

execution, Eyler agreed to help Indiana authorities Police held Eyler but released him when the search was solve a number of his crimes if they would intervene to ruled illegal.

get him off death row. He confessed to the Agan tor-While the investigation continued, with Eyler still at ture-slaying and surprised investigators by naming an liberty, the murders likewise kept pace. On October 4, alleged accomplice, 53-year-old Robert David Little, 1983, 14-year-old Derrick Hansen was found dismem-chairman of the Department of Library Science at Indi-bered near Kenosha, Wisconsin. Eleven days later, a ana State University, in Terre Haute. According to young “John Doe” was discovered near Rensselaer, Eyler, Little snapped photos and masturbated while Indiana. October 18 yielded four bodies in Newton Larry disemboweled the victim. Based on his confes-County, dumped together on an abandoned farm; one sion, Eyler received a 60-year prison sentence, and Lit-70

EYLER, Larry W.

tle was arrested on murder charges. That case went to tion of his sentence to life imprisonment, but state trial at Terre Haute, and in the absence of physical evi-authorities refused. He died of AIDS on March 6, dence to support Eyler’s statement, Little was acquitted 1994, after confessing 21 murders to his attorney of all charges on April 17, 1991. Back in Illinois, Eyler (including four committed with an accomplice who offered to clear 20 murders in exchange for commuta-remains at large).

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F

FALLING, Christine Laverne Slaughter

Christine moved on to Lakeland, and two months Christine Falling was born in Perry, Florida, on March after her arrival, four-year-old Jeffrey Davis “stopped 12, 1963, the second child of a 65-year-old father and breathing” in her care. An autopsy revealed symptoms his 16-year-old wife. Reared in poverty, obese and dull-of myocarditis, a heart inflammation rarely fatal in witted, she required regular doses of medication to con-itself. Three days later, while the family attended Jef-trol her epileptic seizures. As a child, she showed her frey’s funeral, Falling was retained to sit with two-year-

“love” for cats by strangling them and dropping them old Joseph Spring, a cousin of the deceased. Joseph died from lethal heights in order to “test their nine lives.” At in his crib that afternoon while “napping,” and physi-age nine, Christine and her sister were removed for a cians noted evidence of a viral infection, suggesting it year to a children’s refuge following domestic battles might have killed Jeffrey, as well.

that resulted in police being summoned to their home.

Christine was back in Perry—and back in business—

In September 1977, at age 14, Christine was married by July of 1981. She had received a clean bill of health to a man in his twenties. Their chaotic relationship from the doctors in Lakeland, but her bad luck was lasted six weeks and was punctuated by violence, Chris-holding. She tried her hand at housekeeping, but 77-tine once hurling a 25-pound stereo at her husband in year-old William Swindle died in his kitchen her first the heat of battle. With the collapse of her marriage, day on the job. A short time later, Falling accompanied Falling lapsed into a bizarre hypochondriacal phase, her stepsister to the doctor’s office, where an eight-logging 50 trips to the hospital in the space of two month-old niece, Jennifer Daniels, received some stan-years. She complained of ailments ranging from “red dard childhood vaccinations. Stopping by the market spots” to vaginal bleeding to snakebites, but physicians on her way home, the stepsister left Christine in the car rarely found any treatable symptoms.

with her child, returning to find that the baby had sim-Rendered virtually unemployable by her appearance ply “stopped breathing.”