A self-employed house painter suspected in as many as 19 slayings was held without charges Wednesday in the stabbing death of a 16-year-old boy whose dismembered body was found in garbage bags near his home.

Police were questioning Larry Eyler free on bond on a murder charge in Lake County, Illinois in the death of Daniel Bridges. Eyler is a suspect in as many as 18 other homosexual-related slayings in Illinois and Indiana.

Bridges’ dismembered body was discovered Tuesday in a dumpster outside Eyler’s North Side apartment building.

While authorities awaited results of crime lab tests on numerous items from Eyler’s apartment, detectives were asking neighborhood youngsters if they ever saw Bridges and Eyler together.

Sgt John Schmidt said Bridges and Eyler an Indiana native “knew each other” but he did not know how long.

Eyler was not immediately charged but the evidence was likely to go before a Cook County grand jury later this week said Dave Devane a spokesman for the state’s attorney’s office.

Police are allowed to hold a suspect for up to 72 hours without issuing formal charges he added.

Cook County Medical Examiner Robert J Stein Wednesday conducted the autopsy on Bridges’ body which had been cut into eight pieces and stuffed in six plastic bags. A janitor Joseph Balla told police he saw Eyler put the bags in the dumpster Monday afternoon Balla called police Tuesday when body parts fell out of a broken bag as he removed the garbage.

Police lab technicians reconstructed the body took a photograph of the face and identified the victim as Bridges after show ing the photo to youths in the Uptown area The youth had been missing since Sunday Bridges’ parents Noble and Austine Bridges made a positive identification police said.

NBC News reported Wednesday night that Bridges was interviewed by the network in March as part of a program on the sexual abuse of children.

NBC reported that Bridges who was sexually abused while young by a man in his neighborhood was a child prostitute by age 12 had posed for pornographers and ran away from home repeatedly In an interview videotaped five months ago and rebroadcast by NBC Wednesday Bridges said that after he was abused he felt part of his childhood “slipping away.”

Eyler has been linked to slayings of 18 men in Illinois and Indiana between October 1982 and October 1983 He was charged with murder in the death of Ralph Calise and ordered held on $1 million bond.

But Lake County Circuit Judge William Block reduced Eyler’s bond to $10000 after ruling evidence recovered by Indiana authorities in the slaying of Ca lise 28 a Chicago electrician was inadmissible Ca lise’s body was found in a shallow grave in Lake County.

Block ruled Eyler who had been in jail since his arrest last Oct 29 had previously been detained illegally by Indiana police and his property had been seized without probable cause.

Indiana police had confiscated handcuffs a blood-stained knife tape rope and a pair of boots from Eyler’s truck.

Block noted Illinois law provides that if a motion to suppress evidence is allowed the defendant shall be released without bond unless there are reasons not to do so.

“I set some sort of bond to keep some sort of restrictions on him” Block said adding that if it weren’t for the nature of the crimes Eyler was accused of committing he would have been released without any bond.

The Lake County state’s attorney’s office has an appeal of Block’s ruling on the evidence pending with the Illinois Appellate Court.