Boy’s Body Found; Paroled Killer Held in Kidnaping

KANKAKEE, Ill. —  Sheriff’s officers searching the woods Tuesday found the body of a 10-year-old boy who had allegedly been kidnaped by a paroled child killer.

The youngster, Christopher Meyer, vanished Aug. 7 while playing near a boat launch in Aroma Park, a small community 20 miles from the park where the body was found.

Two officers discovered the decomposed body in a shallow grave partially covered by a sheet of plywood. Underwear apparently belonging to the boy had been found earlier about 2 1/2 miles away.

Christopher was apparently stabbed to death, said Will County Coroner Pat O’Neil, who used dental records to help identify the body.

Kidnaping charges already have been filed against Timothy Buss, 27, who was paroled in 1993 after serving 12 years of a 25-year prison sentence for killing a 5-year-old girl when he was only 13. Buss was arrested in the kidnaping last week.

Christopher had been spending the summer with his mother in Aroma Park. He lived with his father in Walla Walla, Wash.

“Hold your children,” said his father, James Meyer, near tears after the body was found. “If you let them out of your sight, people like this will take them.”

Authorities will try to match the soil from the grave with soil found on a pair of boots seized from Buss. Tests were also being done on blood found in his car trunk.

The discovery ended an eight-day search by hundreds of investigators and volunteers.

Tuesday evening, hundreds of people turned out for a candlelight vigil in Aroma Park. Christopher’s mother, Mika Moulton, thanked everyone for their support and brought the crowd to tears when she eulogized her son.

“God loaned me 10 1/2 years of twinkling blue eyes, dimples and joy. It is time now to lift up Chris and ask God to use this child as our special angel,” she said.

Residents had tied blue ribbons and bows to mailboxes, trees and lamp posts.

“I can’t even come through town without crying,” Kris Varboncouer, a mother of three, said outside a coin laundry. “Things like this don’t happen here.”