Police Connect C’ville Man to 2nd Victim

by Randy Brameier

Newton County Coroner David Dennis has identified the second of four bodies found in Lake Village as a Pennsylvania man who was living with his sister in Chicago. Dennis identified the victim as John Bartlett, 19, from Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Dennis, a Kentland dentist, said he identified the body Wednesday morning through dental records from Bartlett ‘s dentist in Pennsylvania. Two mushroom hunters found three of the bodies October 18 in a remote field south of the Newton Lake County line near U.S. 41.

Police found the fourth body the next morning. Bartlett disappeared March 7 from his sister’s Chicago residence, the coroner said. Indiana State Police say evidence links Bartlett with Larry W. Eyler. 31 of Chicago, a suspect in 15 similar killings. An oil company credit card receipt found in Eyler’s Terre Haute home and telephone records place him in the Lake Village area on the day Bartlett was last seen, ISP Detective Sgt. Ted Knorr said Wednesday. Knorr heads the special state unit investigating the 19 deaths. Police have charged Eyler, a native of Crawfordsville, with the victim murder of Ralph Calise, 28, of Chicago.

Authorities found Calise August 3 in a field in northeastern Illinois. Knorr said the murders occurred within approximately four days of each other. “As part of the paper trail, we can circumstantially place Eyler in this area on that date,” he said. Autopsies show that the 19 victims died from multiple stab wounds. Police found most of the victims with their trousers pulled down to their ankles in shallow graves along major state or interstate roads in Illinois or Indiana. Dennis said he expects the announcement of Bartlett’s identification to spur families of other missing men to call or send dental records so identities of the other two bodies might be discovered.

He has started sorting through X-rays from as far away as New Mexico and New Jersey. Autopsies showed that the victims died at different times during the past year, he added. One of the victims had several socks on one foot. Dennis said it appears that the killer took the socks off one victim and put them on this body. If Dennis encounters trouble identifying the remaining three bodies including one discovered in a shallow Jasper County grave October 15, ISP may use an artist trained to draw faces based on bone structure to identify the bodies, Knorr said earlier.