Remains at Indiana Farm Are From 1980s Serial Killer

Human remains found buried in 1983 at an abandoned Indiana farm have been identified as those of a Chicago teenager who was a victim of the late serial killer Larry Eyler, per the AP. The remains, which were found near the remains of three young men Eyler also killed, are those of Keith Lavell Bibbs, who was 16 when he died, according to the Newton County Coroner’s Office and the DNA Doe Project. Eyler confessed to at least 20 killings before dying in 1994 at an Illinois prison, where he was on death row for the 1984 murder of 15-year-old Danny Bridges of Chicago.

In 1990, Eyler confessed to killing a Black male in July 1983 at a Newton County farm and described that male as being in his late teens or early 20s, said Pam Lauritzen, spokeswoman for the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit that works to identify cold case victims. Bibbs, who was a Chicago resident, would have been 16 at the time of his death, she said. The Newton County Coroner’s Office worked with the DNA Doe Project, Indiana State Police, and the Identify Indiana Initiative to identify Bibbs nearly 40 years after his remains were discovered.

He is the last to be positively identified of the four victims found buried in shallow graves in October 1983 at the abandoned farm in Lake Village, about 60 miles southeast of Chicago. All four had been drugged and murdered by Eyler, according to his confessions. Newton County Coroner Scott McCord said he was working Tuesday on paperwork needed to get Bibbs’ remains sent to his relatives for burial. He said the family is requesting privacy while they grieve. “Everything’s done except for getting him back home,” he said. “It’s been a long road getting all those kids identified.”

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