Killer takes organs to his grave

January 21, 2006

BY FRANK MAIN Crime Reporter

Eva Reyes got a call Thursday from a relative with news that her son -- serial killer David Maust -- had tried to hang himself in a northwest Indiana jail cell.

Maust, 51, was brain dead but his heart was beating, Reyes was told.

"I said I would agree that someone could use his organs," she said. "If someone's life could be saved, maybe it would make up for some of what David did. . . . But I wondered, 'Who would want David's heart?' "

Her question will never be put to the test. No organs were donated.

Maust died of heart failure at St. Anthony Medical Center in Crown Point, Ind., at 7:24 a.m. Friday, said Lake County, Ind., coroner David Pastrick. He was still hooked up to life-support equipment when he died, Pastrick said.

The cause of death was asphyxia due to ligature suspension, and the manner of death was suicide, Pastrick said.

About 4 a.m. Thursday, after being told he was shipping out to the Indiana prison system to serve a life sentence for killing three teenagers in Hammond, Maust wrapped a braided bed sheet around his neck, tied it to a coat hook on the jail wall and leaned forward, authorities say.

Pastrick said his office was contacted Thursday afternoon by the Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donation Network, based in Elmhurst.

Pastrick said he told Gift of Hope that he would honor the family's wishes for donation of Maust's heart, pancreas, liver and lungs.

But for some reason -- which Pastrick, the hospital and Gift of Hope would not discuss because of confidentiality restrictions -- the organs were never removed from Maust's body.

No answers for mother

Eva Reyes said her son, Jeffrey Maust, informed her that David attempted suicide.

She claims she tried to reach the hospital Thursday but was unable to speak to anyone.

Eva Reyes would have been Maust's next of kin -- a person to give consent for an organ donation. But Pastrick and other officials would not discuss who gave consent for a donation.

"I would have been happy to do that," Reyes said of approving an organ donation. "No, it wouldn't bring David back, but he is better off where he's at than out here killing people."

Joe Dejanovic, a spokesman for St. Anthony Medical Center, would say only that the hospital followed proper procedures in contacting Gift of Hope about a potential donor in Maust.

Kim McCullough, a spokeswoman for Gift of Hope, would not discuss Maust specifically. Generally, though, the group must determine if a potential donor is clinically or medically eligible, McCullough said.

"Often individuals who are incarcerated have a medical/social history that includes high-risk behaviors," she said. "A couple of the behaviors defined as high-risk would be someone who has been an IV drug user, or sexual behaviors that would open the door to disease transmission of HIV, for example."

Gift of Hope also must obtain consent to accept a donation and must have a matching person to accept the organs, McCullough said. The group handles about 300 organ donation cases a year.

Jeffrey Maust and Reyes, who is disabled, both live out of state and said they may not be able to come to Indiana to arrange for David Maust's funeral arrangements.

"I've been told he'll get a pauper's burial," Jeffrey Maust said. "I hope that doesn't happen."

Maust was sentenced last month in the 2003 Hammond killings of Michael Dennis, Nicholas James and James Raganyi. He also was convicted in the 1974 killing of a teenager in Germany when Maust was in the Army and in the 1981 killing of a Chicago teenager in Elgin.

'I did what I could'

Reyes said David Maust's death marks the end of 51 years of suffering her son caused her.

In his suicide note, Maust said he wished his mother drowned him as a baby "because she hated me all my life."

"I did what I could," Reyes said of raising David Maust in Chicago. "I couldn't keep up with David. He was always running away and hiding from me."

Reyes said her son blamed her for his being placed in a Chicago mental institution as a child. But she said the school system actually placed him there.

"I'd visit him there and he'd steal my purse and all my money," she said. "He treated me badly. I think he called that love."

fmain@suntimes.com