Death Row Inmate’s Death May Solve Several Unsolved Slayings

CHICAGO (AP) _ Carmen Pauli hopes the death of a suspected serial killer will allow others to finally explain her son’s 1983 slaying and help her accept his brutal demise.

″Up to this up time, I have not been able to cry for my son or grieve in the proper way because it just doesn’t go away. Maybe now it will go away,″ Pauli said Monday.

Larry Eyler, 41, died of AIDS Sunday on death row at the Pontiac Correctional Center. Police suspected him in the slayings of at least 20 Midwestern men, including Pauli’s 28-year-old son, Ralph Calise, who was found in a field with 19 stab wounds.

A murder charge against Eyler was eventually dropped after a judge said evidence was obtained illegally and could not be used. Authorities say they still believe he was Calise’s killer.

Eyler’s attorney, Kathleen Zellner, scheduled a Tuesday news conference to discuss his crimes. Pauli and relatives of at least one other potential Eyler victim planned to attend.

Lake County Sheriff’s Detective Dan Colin said Zellner told him she would confirm Eyler’s involvement in Calise’s death. Colin said authorities hope Zellner will help them close the books on three other unsolved slayings.

Eyler was sentenced to death for the 1984 slaying of 15-year-old prostitute Daniel Bridges, whose dismembered body was found in trash bags near Eyler’s Chicago home. Eyler also pleaded guilty in 1990 to participating in the 1982 stabbing death of Stephen Agan in Terre Haute, Ind., and was sentenced to a 60-year prison term.

Eyler denied killing Bridges, but offered in 1991 to confess to 20 murders in Indiana and Illinois in exchange for commuting his death sentence to life in prison. The offer was rejected.