Dismembered Teen Prostitute’s Sister Testifies in Eyler Trial

by Chicago (UPI)

The sister of slain teenage prostitute testified that she learned of her brother’s death when Police showed her a photograph of his severed head on a sidewalk in a pool of blood. Sharon Faught 23 testified Tuesday during the first day of the trial of Larry Eyler, 33, charged with the dismemberment slaying of her 16-year-old brother, Daniel Bridges. The trial was scheduled to resume today. Eyler, a suspect in 19 other slayings in four states, is charged with murder, aggravated kidnapping, concealment of a homicide and unlawful restraint. Faught said Police stopped her on a North Side Chicago Street and asked her if she had seen her brother.

An officer then drove her to a nearby restaurant where he showed her a photo of Bridges head lying in a pool of blood. “I went off and started beating on a cop car,” she testified before a Cock County Criminal Court Jury. “I knew it was my brother, I went hysterical.” Eyler was indicted August 23, 1984, in Bridges death, two days after a Janitor saw a human thigh sticking out of a bag in a garbage dumpster behind Eyler’s apartment. Assistant State’s Attorney Mark Rakoczy said in his opening statement that Eyler tortured bridges with an awl, puncturing his chest numerous times and then dismembered his body. Police searched Eyler’s apartment and discovered “over-whelming evidence linking Larry ‘ Eyler to this crime,” Rakoczy said.

“There was blood everywhere even though that apartment has been wiped clean to the naked eye.” He said the evidence includes an awl, a hack saw, blood-soaked clothing and other specimens of blood matching Bridges. Eyler is a suspect in at least 19 other slayings of teenage boys and young men in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin between 1982 and 1984