Born
18 Jan 1968, Saint Louis, St. Louis City, Missouri

Death
28 May 1983, Fishers, Hamilton County, Indiana

Tragically, Michael Riley was one of the victims of an unidentified American serial killer who killed at least eleven young boys and adult men in Indiana and Ohio between June 1980 and October 1991, dumping their bodies near Interstate 70. He was known as the “I-70 Strangler” who killed at least another 24 young men and boys. Though officially unsolved, Herb Baumeister was named the prime suspect in the case in April 1999 by law enforcement. According to investigators, bodies related to the “I-70 Strangler” case stopped being found in 1991 after Baumeister bought the Fox Hollow Farm, which he would use as a burial site for his subsequent victims.

On May 28, 1983, 22-year-old Michael Riley, disappeared after visiting ‘The Vogue Theater’, a gay nightclub in Indianapolis. He was last seen with an unidentified man, with whom he later left. In February 1998, an Indianapolis resident contacted police and claimed that Baumeister was the man last seen leaving ‘The Vogue Theater’ with Riley. Riley’s nude body was later found in a ditch in Hancock County, southeast of Greenfield, on June 5. The autopsy determined that he had been strangled, with the perpetrator likely using a towel.