A 10th murdered Indianapolis man was identified Tuesday in Darke County, Ohio, bringing investigators in Ohio and Indiana closer to calling the bodies victims of a serial killer. “I suppose the media would want to tack the word ‘serial’ onto it, and I suppose we would be hard pressed to argue with it,” Hancock County (Ind.) Sheriff Nick Gulling said at a news conference Tuesday.

The body of one of the 10 men, Michael Riley, 22, was found in Hancock County in 1983. The Darke County body, that of Thomas R. Clevenger, 19, of Indianapolis, was found last Wednesday lying on an abandoned railroad bed near Greenville. The cause of Clevenger’s death has not been determined, and it may never be due to the state of his body when found. Police said Clevenger was last seen leaving his mother’s Indianapolis home Sept.

5. His body was discovered a week later, and was identified late Monday by his fingerprints. Police from Indiana and Ohio will meet Friday in Greenfield to discuss the similarities in the deaths of the 10 Indianapolis residents. An FBI investigator will be in Ohio Thursday to try to develop a psychological profile of a mur- ana, and one each in Hancock and Shelby counties in Indiana and Darke County, Ohio. Hamilton, Hancock and Shelby counties all adjoin Indianapolis.

All the bodies have been found nude or partially nude, dumped in or near streams or creeks in rural areas. Two of the bodies were so badly decomposed that no cause of death was determined. The other seven have been strangled, most by a rope or a similar device. The possibility that a gay man uncomfortable with his own homosexuality is committing the murders has been discussed, police said. Except for Clevenger, all of the bodies have been men or young men who had ties with the Indianapolis gay community.

Darke County officials have not determined whether Clevenger had any connection with the gay community. They were in Indianapolis this morning investigating Clevenger’s murder and were not available for comment. The only victim with Richmond ties, former Richmond resident Clay RI Russell Boatman, 32, was reported missing Aug. 7 when he failed to appear at the Greenbriar Nursing Home in Indianapolis, where he worked as a nurse. His body was found a week later by youths playing near a bridge on Sugar Run Creek in Preble County.

His car was later discovered outside the gay bar Our Place in Indianapolis.