1983 Newton County remains ID’d as Eyler victim

Monday, April 26, 2021
Larry Eyler

KENTLAND — Human remains found at a northwestern Indiana farm have been identified as a male Chicago victim of the late serial killer Larry Eyler, authorities announced Sunday.

The Newton County Coroner’s Office in Indiana identified the victim as John Ingram Brandenburg Jr. of Chicago. No age was given. He was among four “young men” found on an abandoned farm in rural Lake Village on October 18, 1983, according to the office.

Two others, Michael Bauer and John Bartlett, have already been identified, leaving one victim nameless, according to authorities.

Brandenburg, called “Johnny” by his mother, had been drugged and killed by Eyler, who confessed to at least 20 killings before dying in an Illinois prison in 1994. Eyler was on death row for the 1984 murder of Danny Bridges, a 15-year-old, the only slaying for which he was ever convicted.

A one-time Greencastle area resident, Eyler was born in Crawfordsville and dropped out of South Putnam High School in 1970.

All of the murders attributed to Eyler, who worked as a liquor store clerk in Greencastle for several years while in the midst of his killing spree, occurred between 1982 and 1984.

Bridges’ dismembered body was discovered in a trash dumpster in the Rogers Park neighborhood on Chicago’s far North Side after an alert janitor saw Eyler place trash bags in the dumpster of an apartment building where he did not reside.

In the Newton County case, authorities worked with the nonprofit DNA Doe Project, which uses genetic genealogy, and others to find a match to a family member. That led to the positive identification earlier this month, according to the coroner’s office.

“While my heart breaks for this family, I’m thankful that they finally have some of the answers they’ve waited so long for, and I hope this brings them peace,” Rebecca Goddard, a Newton County prosecutor, said in a statement Sunday from the DNA Doe Project.

She worked on the case with Indiana State Police. The prosecutor’s office and state police didn’t return messages left Sunday.

The coroner’s office said Brandenburg’s family had been contacted and authorities would not release further information until relatives gave further permission.

Authorities believe the Eyler killing spree began with the March 22, 1982 death of Jay Reynolds, who was found stabbed to death on the outskirts of Lexington, Ky.

Nine months later the scene shifted to the north side of Indianapolis, where on Oct. 3, Delvoyd Baker, 14, was found strangled with his body dumped along the roadside.

Steven Crockett, 19, was a victim on Oct. 23, 1982, stabbed 32 times with four wounds in the head, discarded outside Lowell, Ind. The killings moved into Illinois with Robert Foley left in a field northwest of Joliet on Nov. 6, 1982.

On Christmas Day 1982, 25-year-old John Johnson’s body was discovered in Lake County in a field outside Belshaw, Ind.

Three days later, the murder spree moved into Putnam County as the body of 21-year-old John Lee Roach was discovered in a wooded area southeast of Putnamville, near the State Road 243 exit of Interstate 70.

But that wasn’t the only body found that day. Less than 50 miles northwest of where Roach was discovered with his pants pulled down around his ankles (in what would become a signature aspect of the Eyler killings), the brutally slashed body of Steven Agan, 23, Terre Haute, was found in Vermillion County.

The late Jack Hanlon, former longtime Putnamville Indiana State Police detective, described Agan’s body as “field dressed” in the manner a hunter would cut up a deer that had been shot and killed.

The connection of the Roach and Agan murders, along with a May 9, 1983 discovery of the body of Daniel Scott McNeive, 21, Indianapolis, refocused the investigation on west-central Indiana. McNieve’s body was found in a field along State Road 39 just off I-70 near the Hendricks-Morgan county line.

Just about a year after the Roach-Agan discoveries, authorities found two more bodies in a field along the north side of U.S. 40 (west of Belleville and east of Cox’s Plant Farm) on Dec. 7, 1983. Only one of those victims has been identified, Richard Wayne, 21, Indianapolis.

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  • I remember seeing this local guy. Vaguely knew some of his family.

    It is striking to me that he was right here in our midst and from what I remember, no one really said he stood out as someone having that kind of mindset. Not a hint of that bloodthirst.

    It's worth reporting about the evil that can overtake someone if left unchecked can result in twenty murders.

    Unbelievable.

    Drugs involved for sure. People around these individuals need to sound the alarm or it quickly takes control. The Police can't do it all.

    The evil one never sleeps.

    -- Posted by direstraits on Tue, Apr 27, 2021, at 7:25 AM
  • Eyler died of AIDS in prison. A small price to pay for all the murders he was responsible for.

    -- Posted by Queen53 on Tue, Apr 27, 2021, at 10:43 AM
  • Romans 1 v 24-32

    verse 32 describes our unrighteousness of our present time perfectly,

    "not only do they do them but, give approval to those who practice them"

    -- Posted by direstraits on Sat, May 1, 2021, at 10:31 AM
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