Robert “Bobby” Eyler Jr.

Robert Eyler, courtesy of his online obituary 

Robert Eyler’s family knew him as “Bobby.” He was born on March 18, 1969 in St. Mary’s Hospital in downstate Quincy, Illinois to Terry Silman Eyler, his beloved mother. He attended St. Mary’s Elementary and Payson Seymour High School before working as a driver for Five Star Trucking and as a handyman for Diane and Kirby Clark. He was also an avid sports fan; he loved St. Louis Cardinals baseball, was an accomplished basketball player, and had taught all of his siblings how to swim. Most of all, Bobby loved NASCAR.

When Bobby died from COVID-19 on September 20, 2020 in Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Illinois, it was just three years before his scheduled release date. He was 51 years old and was incarcerated at Jacksonville Correctional Center in Morgan County. He leaves behind four adult children – his three daughters, Alicia McClintock, Krysten Carella, and Megan Eyler, and his son, Tanner Eyler – as well as his 8-year-old granddaughter, Laniha, and two grandsons, Colton and Emmett, ages 2 and 6. Bobby is also survived by his two sisters, Amy Zornes-Rhinberger and Brenda Vahle, his brother, Timmy Eyler, and his many aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins. 

A portrait of Bobby by Mourning Our Losses volunteer, RLP.

The COVID-19 pandemic has already made the final moments of people’s lives incredibly difficult for their loved ones, as hospital visitation policies have changed following public health protocols, such that many have had to mourn the loss of their loved ones from a distance. But for people like Terry, whose loved ones are behind bars, the process of mourning and finding closure has been further hindered by the added burden of having to navigate the prison health care system of the state of Illinois. Terry told Injustice Watch that she first found out that her son had been infected with COVID-19 when one of his nurses called as a favour to Bobby, after he had already been hospitalized. No one from the facility had contacted her before Bobby was hospitalized.

Before he died, Bobby had been very close to his mother, and they usually called to speak to one another twice a day. Before he was hospitalized, Bobby had mentioned to his mother that he was short of breath and fatigued. It was their last conversation. The next day, the usual call that Terry had come to expect from her son never came. Instead, she received a call from Springfield Hospital to say that Bobby had been hospitalized and put on a ventilator.

Terry, Robert’s mother, holding her son as a child, courtesy of Injustice Watch

“They could have at least had the decency to call me to tell me that he had gone to the hospital,” she told Injustice Watch. “It’s just not right.”

Terry’s story highlights the persistent issue of Illinois prison officials failing to inform families when their loved ones are hospitalized or diagnosed with disease, despite the Illinois Department of Corrections having adopted a policy during the pandemic to direct state prison authorities to notify the closest relative of an incarcerated person when they are hospitalized or fall sick. Terry was neglected by Illinois state prison authorities and left to experience a mother’s worry and grief at the sickness of her son while unable to see him. 

Days before his hospitalization, Terry remembers Bobby complaining to her about prison guards at the Jacksonville Correctional Center who weren’t wearing masks on duty. Bobby also told her that incarcerated people were given disposable face coverings by the prison only once a week. In April, a lawsuit filed by seven incarcerated people at the facility called for stricter COVID-19 protocols at the Jacksonville prison. The suit cited unmasked guards on duty and also called for the release of medically vulnerable individuals. However, despite these efforts on behalf of incarcerated people, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker lifted the moratorium on jail transfers to state correctional facilities in July 2020, after a Logan Country judge struck down the ban, opening the doors for 2000 detainees from jails around the state to be moved into Illinois state prisons. The ban had originally been implemented to slow the spread of the virus in prisons.

When Bobby had been on a ventilator for 28 days, Terry received another call from a doctor at Springfield Hospital who told her that her son would likely die. It was then that prison officials granted Terry and her daughter permission to visit Bobby at the hospital, where they were able to spend Bobby’s final moments with him. 

Terry and Bobby, courtesy of Injustice Watch

On October 3, 2020, Bobby was buried in a NASCAR urn. Terry organized his funeral for him, surrounded by close friends and family, in his hometown of Quincy, Illinois. 

Speaking to Injustice Watch, Terry recalled a country song by Merle Haggard that played at Bobby’s funeral, and, laughing over the phone, recited the lyrics: “’Turned 21 in prison doing life without parole, no one could steer me right, but momma tried.’ And I tried for Bobby,” she said. “I really did.”

“Nobody else’s family should have to go through what I went through and what Bobby went through,” she said. “There were so many unknowns that I just don’t have any closure.”

Terry’s experiences are not unique. The lack of guidance by departments of corrections on procedures for prison officials to follow for communicating with the families of sick incarcerated people are part of a broader pattern of failure across the American carceral system, exacerbating the grief and trauma of the families and loved ones of those behind bars during this pandemic. 

We stand in solidarity with Terry and Bobby’s family, and all the families and loved ones of people incarcerated during this global pandemic, whose rights to healthcare and visitation have been systematically ignored by corrections facilities who have failed to treat them with the respect and dignity that all human beings deserve. Bobby will be dearly missed.

This memorial was written by MOL team member Ilyana Benjelloun with information from reporting by Emma Lubitsch at Injustice Watch and an online obituary posted by his family.