John Ingram Brandenburg Jr. and Keith Lavell Bibbs were two young murder victims formerly known as the Newton County John Does whose remains were discovered by mushroom foragers in Lake Village, Newton County, Indiana, on October 18 and 19, 1983. Both victims were discovered alongside two other murder victims whose bodies were identified within months of their discovery. All four were victims of serial killer Larry Eyler.
Numerous efforts were made to discover the identity of these decedents, including forensic genealogy and forensic facial reconstructions generated by a forensic anthropologist which depicted how each decedent may have appeared in life. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also created detailed composite drawings of the decedents, who were individually known as Adam and Brad; names given by Newton County coroner Scott McCord decades after their murders in an effort to individualize and humanize the victims.
In April 2021, Brad was identified as Brandenburg Jr., a Kentucky native who disappeared from Chicago in 1983. Adam was identified in July 2023 as Bibbs who, like Brandenburg, had resided in Chicago at the time of his murder.
Brandenburg and Bibbs were collectively known as the "Newton County John Does" due to the name of the county in which their bodies were discovered.
Discovery
On October 18, 1983, a middle-aged couple gathering wild mushrooms discovered two partially buried human skulls alongside an oak tree close to an abandoned farmhouse in Lake Village, Indiana. The couple immediately reported their discovery to authorities.
Investigators discovered the partially decomposed bodies of four murder victims at this location. Each victim had been deceased for several months, and all four decedents had been partially buried, face upwards, with sections of the body of each victim remaining exposed above ground and loosely covered with leaves and soil, suggesting the murderer had made only rudimentary efforts to conceal each victim.
Three of these victims were buried at one side of the tree, three feet apart, with their heads facing north. The fourth decedent was buried at the other side of this tree. All four victims had been bound and stabbed more than two dozen times, and the trousers and underwear of each victim were discovered around their ankles. Furthermore, the body of one victim had been dismembered after death.
All four murders were almost immediately linked to the collective manhunt for a serial killer known as the "Interstate Killer" and the "Highway Killer", who at the time of the discovery of these bodies was believed to have already murdered up to nineteen young males across several Midwestern States. The level of decomposition of each victim and the clothing discovered upon each body suggested several weeks or months had elapsed between each murder. One victim had worn a parka, whereas the other three victims had worn clothing suggesting they had been murdered in the spring or summer. In addition, evidence retrieved from the farmhouse would lead investigators to conclude the murderer had evidently used this location as a site to restrain and torture these victims before burying their bodies alongside the oak tree.
By December 29, 1983, two of these four murder victims had been identified via dental records as Michael Bauer and John Bartlett; both of whom had been murdered by the Highway Killer in early March 1983. Contemporary investigators were unable to identify the third and fourth victims recovered at the site.
Perpetrator's confession
Eyler confessed to these four murders in a statement posthumously released by his attorney, Kathleen Zellner, following his death due to AIDS-related complications in March 1994 while incarcerated on death row at the Pontiac Correctional Center. His posthumous confession specifically states the two victims unidentified at the time of his death found at this abandoned farmhouse were the third and fourth victims he had murdered at this location.
According to his posthumous confession, Adam was a hitchhiker who agreed to submit to a sexual act for $75; Brad was an individual whom Eyler claimed to have been introduced to by his alleged accomplice, Robert David Little, at his Terre Haute residence. He was unaware of either of their actual identities. In addition, he is known to have disposed of any forms of identification that he would find on his victims' possession.