February 7, 2024 • 40 mins
CW: Violence and serial murder.
For the season five finale, a special LIVE episode recorded during Strange Escapes at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, NH. Nestled in America's Heartland, Fox Hollow Farm is the former home of serial killer Herb Baumeister. It's unclear how many people fell victim to Baumeister, but 10,000 bone fragments were found on this property alone. It's no surprise, the farmhouse is very, very haunted.
Special Guest: Richard Estep, with an introduction by Aaron Mahnke.
If you want to join the waiting list for the Paranormal Circle, head to amybruni.com and submit your information today
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I know many of you out there are hungry for
more paranormal content these days. What if I told you
there is about to be a community just for fans
of ghosts and hauntings like us. For months, I've been
working on something incredible and I am so thrilled to
be releasing it into the wild. I'd like to be
(00:32):
the first to welcome you to the Paranormal Circle. Imagine
a place where you can access weekly live chats and
roundtable discussions about all things supernatural. Watch twenty four to
seven webcams positioned inside some of your favorite haunted locations.
In addition to that, you'll be able to watch and
assist during live streaming investigations with me and some of
(00:56):
my friends who you may recognize. You'll also be granted
access to an archive of evidence from these investigations, and
you can upload your own evidence for all of us
to weigh in on. Even more, you will be on
the list for private in person meetups plus dedicated Paranormal
Circle meetups at your favorite paranormal conventions. Strange escapes, retreats,
(01:18):
and comic cons. We've also worked with many of these
events and your favorite paranormal retailers to offer Paranormal Circle
only discounts. All of this, plus dedicated merchandise and swag
giveaways amounts to one really cool space for all of
us to enjoy together. If this sounds right up your
dark alley, then I'd like to personally invite you to
(01:39):
be one of the first to join the Paranormal Circle.
If you'd like to join the waiting list to be
one of the founding members of the Circle, head to
Amybrunie dot com and get on the list asap. We'll
be opening up membership this spring, and those on the
waiting list get first access. Again, all of this is
only accessible to Paranormal Circle members, so head to Amy
(02:02):
Bruney dot com and join the waiting list today.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Hello everyone, Hello, I'm not Amy Bruney. By the way,
I don't know if you know this because I'm not
drinking wine. That's the only defining factor right there. So Amy,
being the MC for this entire event, gets to introduce
all these different great sessions, but this one is her session,
and so it felt kind of appropriate for me to
(02:29):
get up here and say a couple of things. So
I loved this morning's talk from Amanda talking about how
important it was to understand sort of the history behind
the stories that we hear, because it's really helpful in
bringing those stories to life.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I talked about this with a lot of people yesterday
that when you if you just say there's the ghost
of a woman who gets seen in this room, always
walking through, it's spooky, but it's not the full story.
If you are first told, oh, by the way, the
wife of the guy who built the used to walk
through here all the time, or she had dinner in
here all the time, and this is the room that
she died in. I'm just making this up, by the way.
(03:05):
Then when you hear that there's always a woman seeing
in period clothing, it starts to come to life.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
So that was the conversation that Amy and I were
having years ago, and we were talking about what kind
of a show could she have as a podcast? And
what I felt was this unbalanced history of lots and
lots of ghost hunting reporting, which is amazing and fine,
but it was like half of the story was going
(03:32):
into a place and having an experience with nothing in
history to anchor it to. And I said, you have
a much more emotional approach to these stories, and you're
connected to them more deeply. Wouldn't it be great if
there was a show where the first half of it
was basically teaching you the history of this location, the
people that were there, the lives that lived and loved
and were lost in all of that, and then shift
(03:54):
over to now, let's talk to somebody who's been there,
and you start to see the connections in those conversations.
So that's where Haunted Road was born. And so today
you get the joy of watching one of those live
Haunted Road shows that people talk about with Amy and Richard.
So let's bring Amy on up.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Thank you, Aaron, full circle. I love this. Welcome everyone. Now,
just a quick warning. We are recording, so you know
you're going to be recorded in infamy if you yell
out anything inappropriate. That's not common on the champagne that's
sitting in front of me. Thank you, ladies. But I
(04:38):
do want to give a content warning because today's case
this is pretty heavy. So I just want to let
you know we're dealing with serial killers, murder, really, really
awful stuff. So, without further ado, let's get started. In
the early nineteen nineties, a news story ran on a
local affiliate in Indiana. A gentleman had brought to light
(05:00):
something he felt was unjust and unfair, and he wanted
the world to know. You see, he and his son
had watched a truck belonging to the Indiana State Highway
Department striping the side of the road with yellow lines.
To his apparent horror, there was a roadkill on the
side of the road, a hapless raccoon, and what do
(05:22):
you know, that truck striped right over it. The man
happened to have a polaroid camera with him, so he
took photos of the raccoon that was now apparently one
with the roadway. Then he proceeded to contact the Highway
Department and the local news on camera. During a beautiful
sunny day, this man stood in front of his property,
(05:45):
telling the local reporter that the raccoon deserved better. How
dare that little fella end up with such a fate?
In turn, the Highway Department was interviewed, acknowledging their terrible
mistake and saying it was an icelated incident. The irony here, however,
is strong. The man in the interview, his name was
(06:07):
Herb Baumeister, and behind him on that property at the
very moment he lamented the fate of that poor raccoon,
where the rotting remains of at least eleven men he
had killed, dismembered and tried to hide. This is the
story of fox Hollow Farm. I'm Amy Bruney, and this
is Haunted Road. The main house at fox Hollow Farm
(06:38):
looks like anything but a farmhouse. The stately Tudor style manner,
with white walls and brown trim, is surrounded on every
side by trees. Visitors can book tours or rent it
as a wedding venue for an elegant country affair. Although
developers are building new houses nearby, the home fields secluded
thanks to its long driveway and fences. Inside, the wood
(07:02):
walls and ceilings are warm and inviting. Brightly colored rugs
carry guests past plush furniture. Up the stairs, visitors can
find the library, stained glass lined study, and master bedroom.
Sunlight streams in through the big windows, which hold a
view of the woods out back. Thanks to the new
construction projects, you can see the neighboring houses peeking through
(07:25):
the trees, but a few decades ago it would have
been easy to feel like the house was alone in
a dense forest. The bottom floor has a pool surrounded
by even more windows. Guests can enjoy a drink from
the wet bar while admiring the view of the tree
filled backyard. The idyllic Fox Hollow Farm is nestled in Westfield, Indiana,
(07:46):
which is just about a half hour north of Indianapolis. Honestly,
this small city sounds a bit like Paradise. For most
of its existence, it was a rural farming community, but
in the nineteen nineties the population exploded thanks to its
great reputation. In a history of Westfield, Indiana, author Tom
Rumor notes that Westfield was known for its great career opportunities,
(08:10):
athletic facilities, and a generally high quality of life. Around
the same time, nearby Indianapolis was a hub for gay
culture in the Midwest. Residents and visitors could find safety
and support in the twelve gay bars that got at
the city, but homophobia was still very common in the
nineteen nineties, even in gay friendly communities like Indianapolis. So
(08:33):
when numerous gay men disappeared in rapid succession, the police
barely paid any attention. Sarah Murrell noted in The Hunter
of Fox Hollow that at least ten gay men were
reported missing between nineteen ninety three and nineteen ninety four.
They all were adults who were thirty five or younger,
were last seen in bars, and had what she called
(08:54):
a clean cut, preppy look. Then, Roger Allan Goodlett and
Alan Wayne Brossard went missing in the summer of nineteen
ninety four. Their families weren't content to wait around for
the police to take the case seriously. They hired a
private detective, Virgil Vandergriff to dig into the mystery. Later
that year, Virgil found a major clue that the police
(09:16):
had missed a survivor with a harrowing story that hinted
at what might have become of the missing men. The
witness's name was Mark Goodyear, and he told Virgil he
went home with a man calling himself Brian Smart after
meeting him at a bar. According to Vic Reichhardt's reporting
on WRTV, Mark State took him to a nice home
(09:39):
in the suburbs that had its own swimming pool. The
pair sat by the pool, enjoying drinks from the wet bar,
but Mark was stricken by the strange decor choices. Sarah Murels,
the hunter at Fox Hollow, notes that Mark told the
PI the house was filled with boxes and the pool
was surrounded by clothed Mannikins, but this was far from
(10:00):
the eerious detail from his date. After Mark and Brian
did some drugs, Brian suggested the experiment with erotic asphyxiation. However,
once he wrapped a swimming pool hose around Mark's neck,
the play grew too rough for Mark. Brian refused to
let go of the hose until Mark pretended to pass
out from a lack of oxygen. Later, when Mark opened
(10:21):
his eyes and acted like he was just waking up,
he noticed that Brian seemed nervous and uncomfortable. Somehow, he
convinced Brian to take him back home, which was very lucky.
Mark may not have realized it then, but his partner
had a history of strangling other dates to death. This
wasn't Mark's only bout of good luck. A year later,
in nineteen ninety five, he spotted Brian at a bar.
(10:44):
He immediately recognized his old attacker and figured out which
car he'd driven there, except when detectives ran the license
plate number, they found the vehicle didn't belong to Brian Smart.
The man had given Mark a fake name. His real
identity was Herbert Baumer, and he and his wife lived
in a large suburban house outside of town on an
(11:05):
acreage known as Fox Hollow Farm. It was a perfect
match for the residence Mark had described to Virgil Vandergriff.
When police confronted Herbert and asked to search his property,
he flat out refused to let them in. Once it
was clear he wouldn't cooperate, the police had tried to
convince Herbert's wife, Julie, to let them search her house instead.
(11:27):
Initially Julie was resistant, but eventually she agreed to cooperate.
This was likely because her marriage to Herbert was crumbling.
Their sex life was nonexistent. Courtney Hardwick's article within magazine
notes that Julie and Herbert had only had sex a
handful of times in their twenty five years of marriage.
As the pair navigated their split, Herbert moved out of
(11:48):
the main house but continued living in a small apartment
over the garage. Julie secured full custody of their three children,
and took out a restraining order against her husband, perhaps
because of his history of violent faith of anger. She
also knew Herbert had mental health struggles, as he'd spent
more than a month committed to a psychiatric facilities soon
after their wedding. Throughout their marriage, Herbert had bounced from
(12:11):
job to job. His erratic tendencies made coworkers uneasy and
often got him in trouble. According to a J. Wiseman
writing for crime Beat, at some point he was diagnosed
with schizophrenia and a personality disorder, but it doesn't seem
that this led to a viable treatment or any significant
improvement in his behavior. Still, Julie had never imagined Herbert
(12:34):
would cheat on her with men, let alone kill his
extramarital partners. Even when their son had found a human
skull behind their home and Herbert told the bizarre story
to explain its presence, she hadn't suspected anything now, though
she realized he had ample opportunity to kill, as she
and the children often took lengthy trips in the summer,
(12:57):
leaving Herbert alone at home, and when she learned of
all the evidence the homicide detectives had against her husband,
Julie was willing to cooperate with her permission. Police searched
Fox Hollow Farm on June twenty fourth, nineteen ninety six.
They found the setup was exactly like what Mark Goodyear
had described to the Private Eye. The house was filled
(13:18):
with boxes, while clothed mannequins stood around the indoor swimming
pool with a wet bar nearby. And in the yard
and the woods that surrounded the house, they uncovered roughly
ten thousand human bone fragments. That's not counting the impact
bones they unearthed as well. Some appear to be burnt.
(13:38):
In WRTV Vick Reichert's report, he says Herbert disposed of
his victims by immolating their bodies, then smashing their bones
and scattering all that remained across the farm. He also
may have incorporated bits of broken bone into the gravel
he used to landscape the yard. But the horrific scene
(13:58):
at Fox Hollow Farm it may not have been all
Herbert's handiwork. Richard Estepp and Robert Graves wrote in the
Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm, Unraveling the History and Hauntings
of a serial killer's home, that wild animals may have
also been to blame in some cases. After he killed
his victims, Herbert would hide their bodies in an outdoor
pile of mulch. Then scavengers from the nearby woodlands would
(14:21):
tear apart the decomposing corpses. Investigators found eleven different left thumbbones,
so we know Herbert had at least that many victims
in his yard. Most estimates put the kill count closer
to twenty five, though it's hard to be too specific
as many of the skeleton's police were covered were incomplete.
By nineteen ninety nine, the officials managed to identify eight
(14:44):
of Herbert's victims, all had gone missing between nineteen ninety
three and nineteen ninety five. He's also a top suspect
in numerous other missing person cases and unsolved murders, including
of nine individuals who were killed before Herbert moved to
wa ust Field, but people are still finding evidence on
the property today. A new bone was recently discovered in
(15:07):
December twenty twenty two, and another victim was confirmed just
this past October. As for Herbert Baumeister, he fled the
country as soon as he learned about the detective's successful search.
He was never arrested or brought to formal justice, but
Herbert did not remain free for long. On July third,
nineteen ninety six, a week and a half after the
(15:28):
remains were discovered, he killed himself in Canada. Before his death,
a witness saw Herbert in his car with a box
of VHS tapes, tapes that have gone missing since his suicide.
It's impossible to say what footage they contained, but police
believe he filmed some of his murders. It's thought he
destroyed the tapes before taking his own life. When his
(15:51):
body was found, he laid near an altar made of sand,
which was decorated with dead birds. According to private investigator
Virgil Vandergriff, Herbert left a suicide note that closed by
saying I AM going to eat a peanut butter sandwich
and go to sleep. However, if rumors are to be believed,
he did not rest in peace afterward. It said Herbert
(16:13):
still haunts the Fox Hollow Farm. His spirit, as well
as a shadow figure, had been spotted peering out the
upstairs bathroom window or lurking near the pool pump room,
and many visitors get an uneasy feeling or perceive a
presence with them in the pool room and the master bedroom.
It's been said that when Herbert lived at Fox Hollow Farm,
he often locked himself out and knocked on the door
(16:36):
late at night so his wife or children would hear
and open it for him. Since his death, at least
one resident, Joe LeBlanc, reported he often heard knocking on
the door, always at one forty five in the morning,
and always seven knocks in short succession. Joe also describes
one unnerving incident where he stepped into the kitchen only
(16:56):
to find all his knives had been pulled out and
set on the counter. Afterward, he found new cut marks
on the walls. Another time, Joe felt hands clasped his
neck while he was swimming in the pool. It's understandable
that the pool would be a hotbed for spiritual activity.
This is where Herbert attacked Mark Goodyear according to his
testimony to the PI, and police believe Herbert strangled numerous
(17:19):
other victims there too, so it's understandable that their restless
spirits still remain near its waters. When visitors take a dip,
they may hear someone knocking on the door, but when
they answer, there's no one there, and a recent homeowner
was trying to vacuum in the pool room, only for
the plug to keep yanking out of the outlet, even
though the cord was loose and she wasn't tugging on it. Additionally,
(17:41):
a man in a red t shirt has been spotted
on the farm numerous times. He often walks into the woods,
only visible from the waist up. Joe LeBlanc said on
one occasion, his dog chased the man in red deeper
into the forest, only for the figure to vanish then
reappear in a new location. There are also reports of
a frightened man running for his life through the apartment.
(18:03):
When Joe LeBlanc looked at a photo of one of
Herbert's victims, he was stricken by how similar the picture
was to that fleeing spirit. Besides these apparitions, paranormal investigators
at Fox Hollow Farm pick up EVPs and hear voices,
footsteps and bangs. Electrical equipment tends to die quickly on
the property, and lights flicker while doors open and close
(18:24):
on their own. But some of these incidents may have
nothing to do with Herbert Baumeister and his murders. Many
guests have described a figure in the woods, darting from
tree to tree that's believed to be an inhuman spirit.
In their book The Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm, Richard
Estep and Robert Graves described this entity as blacker than black,
(18:44):
and on multiple occasions psychic said they'd made contact with
an anonymous figure. This being, whoever or whatever it is,
reportedly pretends to be the ghost of Herbert Baumeister, but
according to these mediums, his actual spirit isn't anywhere near
Fox Hollow Farm. In light of this, it's safe to
say there's far more to this property than meets the eye. Today,
(19:08):
I just happened to have the perfect guest to speak
on this case. We are joined by my good friend
Richard Estep, who has investigated and studied fox Hellow Farm
for quite some time and actually has a book on
it which I've quoted a couple of times. Mister Estep, welcome,
(19:29):
come on down. Hello, Hi, there is this on, Yes
it is. I'm so excited to have you here. I
don't normally, sorry, like I don't normally get to have
someone who's actually written a book on the location on
(19:51):
haunted Roads. I'm very excited. I am horrified that I
did not really know about this case before people started
talking about investigating there, Like, why do you I mean, obviously,
I think the obvious is why that happened, But like,
how do you think that affects the activity there overall?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
How do I think the activity is affected by the
fact that it's not very well known. It's surprising, right
because if you log onto Netflix or any of the
streaming services, you know, it seems so many serial killers
have their TV series, their many series, their stories are told.
Fox Hollow seems to have flown under the radar for
so long.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
It's wild to me. And like I was when so
you showed me that YouTube video of this gentleman of
Herbert like on the news, and he has this almost grin,
like he knows he's doing something, he knows what he's doing,
Like what do you think was going on in his
head at that moment.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Having interviewed people that knew her about mystet and were
close to him, gave me some insight into his state
of mind, and someone who knew him very well said,
he is absolutely getting his jollies on the fact that
look at my left hand. Here, look at this pay
attention to this board deadon and slyly enjoying the fact
that right behind him in those trees that you can
see just out of camera shop are the remains of
(21:07):
these poor men that he's murdered. He's the only one
that knows this, and the rest of us are all
fools for paying attention to the raccoon.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I mean, it's just it is. If you get a chance,
people listening, look up that video, because it's absolutely haunting
knowing what this man did and how he's really playing
to like this poor raccoon. It's bizarre. But on that note,
just kind of the activity that happens there. What is
going on there now? Like I know there's a development
going in. What are people like, what's happening on that property?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Well, Foxhlo had after I left and finished the book,
Foxhollow quietened down. I was really happy to hear that
because the idea of these poor men, these poor souls.
I could care less about Herbert Baumeister, but those poor men,
you know, not getting a traditional burial really disturbed me.
And so the idea that the activity was starting to
(21:58):
wind down I thought was one of the you know,
maybe some pieces at last coming to that location. And
then the land or a portion of the land was
sold for development. So now property development is happening on
Fox Hollow Farmer. As we all know, that can be
a catalyst for paranormal activity to ramp up again.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
So what kind of activity are people experiencing there? I
touched on it a little bit, but just kind of
can you go into more detail of what happens there
and how often?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Absolutely so, the house sat vacant after Herb Baumeister's family
moved out. The only occupants, ironically were raccoons in the attic.
Oh gosh. And so a couple called Rob and Vicki
brook Graves and their children bought the house. They had
to be okay with the fact that all those murders
had happened there, and they were the very rational people.
(22:47):
Rob is a coroner to give you an idea, and
Vicky also works in the medical field as a scientist.
And Vicki was actually the first person to see the
young man in the red shirt disappear into the woods
and later identified him from news real footage as one
of the victims, and the same victim Jola Blank had
seen in the woods also, so we had corroboration there.
So that's how things started. Jola Blank, the lodger when
(23:11):
he moved in, was of the same age as many
of Baumeister's preferred victims, and so that is a great
catalyst for the haunting to kick off and to high gear.
Joe has since moved out, and that may be a
factor in why things have in fact calmed down at Foxhollow.
But the whole gamut of paranormal activity, from the phantom footsteps,
(23:31):
the voices, apparitions, anything in the Paranormal Investigators playbook has
happened at that farm at some point since the death
of Herb Baumeister.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Now are they allowing investigations or is this just kind
of like a special thing that you were allowed in there,
Like it's I imagine it's not like a commercial endeavor
of theirs.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
I mean no, no, it's you can't rent Fox Hollow
Farm and investigate there. There was a time when it
was opened to paranormal investigators. There were some objections on
the part of the local government, the city, and I
totally understand why most serial killer locations where the murders
took place, you know, thinking about like Dama's apartment or
wherever they are quite rightly pulled down and demolished because
(24:11):
who wants them to be a shrine to something ghoulish?
But Fox Hollow is still a working family residence. It's beautiful,
and I rather like the idea that a family can
take this horrible, negative energy and replace it with good,
you know.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, I mean I've talked about that in the past.
How kind of unfairly sometimes locations become defined by terrible
things that happened there. We're talking about homes, hotels, you know,
national landmarks. You know, something terrible happens and it kind of,
in our minds anyway, negates every bit of good that
ever happened there. So I do like the idea of it,
(24:48):
you know, becoming something else and that energy overtaking what
happened there over the years.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah. We just saw this at your Strange Escapes Bendngettysburg,
which was awesome by the way, with the orphanage, which
you know, there are stories of terrible mistreatment of children there,
but that's a small percentage of that building's history. You
have many years of people being happy there at being
a museum. Fox Hollow now is a family home and
although there is I believe still paranormal activity taking place.
(25:15):
The Graves family and their children bring all this kind
of love and light and joy. I hope that stain
can be erased.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Now it's fairly recent. I mean, this is a pretty
recent case. How do you think that the relatives of
the victims feel about this potentially being a place where
there's paranormal activity.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
This is probably the book I've agonized most about writing
and came closest never to writing, simply because I was
concerned with these murders taking place in the eighties and
the nineties. The interstate murders Bameister did were in the eighties,
and I really agonized over it, and I came to
the conclusion that these poor men, many of them are unnamed.
(25:56):
We have some of the names only because these are
gay men that disappeared from Indianapolis bars around that time,
and we're never seen again, and so their stories were
always going to be untold. They were always they were
going to be allowed to be forgotten, and sadly some
of them are. And some of these men are sitting
in boxes in storage as opposed to being buried. So
(26:19):
the activity would not have gone away had I not
written the book. The last thing I wanted to do
was upset any of the family members of those victims,
but I felt the story needed to be told, if
only so that we can keep an eye out for
the next Herb Baumeister and maybe see some of the
warning signs.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, that's very fair. Actually I didn't because you know,
many times when we're investigating a location, kind of the
solution for spirits is acknowledgment or you know, resolution in
some way figuring out what happened or why they're there,
or who they are. And so I guess there is
something to be said for that that, you know, acknowledging
them in this book and really getting that story out
(26:57):
there could over time help the level panormal activity there. Now,
what do you think about these new houses? What do
you think is going to happen there? I'm very curious.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I am too, to tell you the truth, because as
you pointed out, you know, the bones were spread far
and wide. This is kind of an odd thing to say,
but in December, I'm having a dental procedure done. A
piece of cadaver bone is being implanted into my gum,
which was great until I move in the same circles
as you guys. Right. So one of my friends to
call of three seconds to say you're going to have
(27:28):
a haunted mouth, you know, And I thought about it
for a second, and I'm like, that's awful, but it
makes me wonder because the remains were spread so far
and wide by the nocturnal critters of Fox Hollow, I
would be surprised if that disturbance didn't cause some effect.
That being said, though the land has been has been blessed,
(27:50):
you know, there are people that have gone out there
to try and mitigate the activity as best as possible.
We're just going to have to wait and see.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I know, I'm very curious. And also, how did you
get a cadaver out? Like? Pig bone in my jaw?
So I'm haunted by a pig?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I can request the change?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yes, well I'm vegetarians. I was very conflicted. But anyways,
ex I know that's it. I'm done, okay now. Because
many of these victims remain nameless, I do worry and
wonder if over time they are going to become more
kind of especially like you know, now that they know
(28:28):
that they can be heard. I wonder if over time
that activity is going to ramp up in any way
you know, in addition obviously to building things like, what
else do you think could trigger this to kind of
ramp up again, or you know, kind of put these
people in these new houses or in the farm at
risk of experiencing more extreme activity.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
It's a great question, and one thing is attention. So
for example, a case I worked in the UK, the
Black Monk of Pontifract case, was a Poltic guiz case
dating back to the sixties, which was national news. All
died down in the twenty tens. They made a movie
about it called When the Lights Went Out. Interest in
the House exploded. It is now the most requested paranormal
(29:07):
rental venue in the United Kingdom. And that's sixty years
after the initial Poltergeist outbreak, right, And.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
I mean, I think that's just it. People come in,
they start talking about it and bringing it up, and
I feel like that wakes up something, you know, Like
I kind of drawing on another case, I think of Maplecroft,
which is what you know, Elizabeth Lizzie Borden bought that
house and now a family lives there and supposely it's
not haunted at all. But when we were all investigating it,
Elizabeth was very much like, hey, let's talk, you know.
(29:35):
So it makes me wonder like if people start paying
more attention to this, if it's going to draw out
some type of activity, well.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
And it also may not be what it appears to be, because,
as you know, being a very seasoned investigator, egre goals
are a thing, thought forms are a thing, and sometimes
these stories take on a life of their own. I
think for any paranormal investigator, there is a danger in
assuming that what we're being told is in fact the
truth the techniques we use, no matter how how you
attempt spirit communication with EVPs or whatever it may be.
(30:03):
It's the equivalent of a nineteen nineties Yahoo Internet chat room. Right,
you only have their word that they are who they
say they are. There's no verification method.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
That is very fair. Now, do you think there is
at some point a chance that some of these unidentified
victims might be identified through paranormal evidence or investigation.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
I know that there are people out there that flatly
refuse to accept that that can happen if we can
get names. That's something I don't like the idea that
these men are nameless, so many of them, and we
don't have an accurate number, and we can't have an
accurate number. We only have a minimum count because of
the number of unique thumb bones that were discovered at
(30:47):
Fox the number could be grossly higher. So if we
can just get names that can be validated, that would
be a huge start.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Right, I mean, I'm hoping that with DNA and everything
that they can start really gets into these bones and
figuring out who these poor people are. You actually investigated there, correct, Now,
what would you say was the most kind of disturbing
type of activity or more at most, I don't want
to say disturbing, but like the most kind of thought
(31:16):
provoking bit of paranormal activity you experienced while there.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
There were several things. Actually, one of the more memorable
is the pool. Now, the ball at Fox Hollow Farm
is freezing. As I tell you about it, I can
I'm getting the shivers, not the fact that so many
men died in it, but of how cold it was.
Because I was there in November, I believe it was.
And the owner of the farm, Rob said he liked you, Richard.
I like you, but it cost me hundreds of dollars
(31:40):
to heat this pool, and it takes a few weeks,
and I don't like you that much, so you can
go in and I will roll back the pool cover.
But the bull's going to be cold. And so I
got into the pool. It was freezing cold. My teeth
were chattering. We recorded the sound of a growl in
the pool area, and more concerningly was a whispered EVP
(32:02):
one word. And I should tell you that as we
were in there, I'd been told by someone who knew
her very well his favorite song was Blue by You
by Linda Ronstack. So we played that song and I
was swimming in the pool feeling very self conscious, and
played back the audio afterwards, and just a single whispered word,
and that word was Laura, which is my wife's name.
(32:27):
And there is no Laura connected with Fox Hollow. There
was no Laura present at the time. My wife's far
too smart to go swim in haunted pools. And so
that felt very personal to me, almost as if hey,
I know things about your nearest and dearest.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
That's I mean, that's the beginning of a horror movie
right there. To be honest, you know, you swimming in
this freezing cold, haunted pool and the ghost is telling
you the name of your wife's back at home. So
that makes me wonder, do you think that's Herb or
do you think that that's I mean, who is that?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Who? That's a great question, isn't it. And I think
it would be an assumption to say that it was Herb.
I do not know who it was one of the
other aspects. Because the ball and the kind of woods
outside are the ground zero for the haunting, it makes
sense that's where most of the lives were taken. I'd
heard that Rob had brought a friend home from work
one day, and he had a young son, and so,
(33:22):
you know, it was just showing him around the place. Now,
you don't tell young children we're going to the place
where all the men were murdered, right, you don't. So
they were wandering around the pool and this young kid
is like, it's a cool, it's a bool, it's cool.
And there is a pump room. And I happened to
know that Herb had used that room to lay out
the bodies of his victims once they were dead, before
he disposed of them. And so Rob and his friend
(33:45):
were walking around the pool. They passed the open pump
room door and the little boy just said, sh the
man's sleeping in there. So Rob's colleague was like, we're
leaving and thanks and goodbye. Wow, off they go. So
I go to instigate the pump room with some of
my friends. We sit in there. It's noisy, you know,
as you would imagine with all this machinery. I'm wearing
(34:06):
a T shirt because I've gone back and it's now summer,
and I can feel it now as we're talking, Amy,
I felt fingertips just stroke my bear tricep in a
very a caressing kind of way that just turns my stomach.
I know what I felt absolutely wasn't a spider or
a cobweb or anything of that nature. I don't know
(34:28):
what it was, but it felt very much like fingertips
a caress.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Okay, now, okay, Jens, is the house does it look
like it looked then? Have they changed anything?
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Almost nothing? It's almost identical, identical to how it was.
Then Herb's desk is there, his library is there. Herb
was a landrover, a ficionado. So there are land rover
owner's manuals, Haynes manuals with handwritten notes by Herb in
that library. You know, Rob the uses Herb's bathroom sleeps
(35:02):
in herb's bed, like it's almost a.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Time whin it's an actual bed.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
I do believe so. Yeah, the hose, the pullhose that's
hanging in the pump room is the original one, which
means that was actually the murder weapon in a number
of cases, was never taken into evidence. It's still there.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
I find that alarming, you know, I feel like I
would want to I wouldn't want to share anything with
this person, like, and he's not the first person to
do that either, right, Like it's changed hands a couple
of times. Why do you think that is that? I'm
not I mean no disrespect of this person. I'm sure
they're lovely, But why is my question?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Why keep things the way that they are? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Why keep his belongings or keep like why have any
evidence of this horrible thing that happened there? And I
feel like that might even, you know, affect the haunting
in some way.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
You know, Rubs an interesting man, and I definitely count
him as a friend. I had wanted to ask him,
how do you live? Him? Man? How do you live
in this house? I slept down in that but I couldn't.
I could not live there. As beautiful as it is.
I would be at the foot of the stairs by
the pool, looking up to the kitchen, and I would
just think how many men came down these stairs and
never came back up. I couldn't get past that. Rob
(36:12):
has his own little bubble, and to this day, at
least the last time I spoke to him, does not
believe in ghosts. His wife totally convinced. She's the lady
who had the vacuum flex pulled out multiple times, you know.
So I asked him, Rob, how do you live here?
And he said, ah, you know, I kind of mind
my own business, and I see things out of the
corner of my eyes sometimes. His wife, on the other hand,
(36:33):
is like, oh no, I see young men with no
legs in the woods. I'm sold. I believe wow. And
he's that's just his view on the world and it
doesn't bother him. And maybe it's the fact that, you know,
Rob does work in the coroner's field and has callouses
that some people just don't. I don't mean that in
a bad way, No, that's fair.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, I mean I just feel like I would not
have a problem living in a house like that, but
I would want to change things. I would not want
to look at an area and think this was the
last thing a number of people saw, you know, and
I would probably obsess a little too much about what
happened there. And so maybe that's why the activity isn't so,
you know, kind of off the charts. It's because there
(37:13):
is someone living there who is not kind of dwelling
on it and not you know, hashing it out all
the time.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
And I hope that it brings some stability. I mean,
talk about brave people for a moment. When the Graves
go on vacation, they have a house sitter. I don't
know how much they pay her, but I don't think
it's enough.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Probably not. I mean, does everyone know what happened? Everyone
local has to know.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
In fact, locally there was some resentment that the house
still stands, and I understand this. There was some hope
that they could put money together and in fact just
demolish the house. They see it as a stain on
the area, and I get that one hundred percent. I
really really do. People sometimes come to that area just
for to come by the gate of Fox Hollow, the
wooden sign that was there doing the Baumeister ownership Fox
(38:00):
Olive Farm. It's now iconic is still there, and so
people will stop, they'll pose with pictures, all those kind
of things. You can't go down the drive, nor should
you try. You should not trespass there. But this is
an area of interest for so many people, and I
don't think that's ever going to go away, and I
do understand why.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
People don't like it, right right, Okay, well, very fair,
Well Richard, I want to thank you. Now tell me
we'll tell everybody, like, how can people find you? I'm
very familiar with your work, but please tell tell the
world what you do and where to find mister Estep.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Absolutely thanks for listening everyone. You can find me online
at Richard Estep dot net, Facebook, Richard Deestep, author, Twitter,
Stepa and I like to find cases like this, investigate
them and try and tell their stories, and I hope
some of you will choose to join me on that journey.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, Richard is a writing machine. His books are amazing,
and I think you are bringing some very important stories
to light. So I really enjoy you and I want
to thank you for coming, so thank you so much.
The story of Herbert Baumeister is a tragedy, not only
because of the lives he took, but also because he
got away with it for so long. Who knows how
(39:11):
many people would have been saved if the police had
taken the pattern of missing persons. More seriously, we can
never give the victims their lives back or restore the
years they lost at Herb's hands, but by telling their
story now, we hope to honor their loss and show
our respect to their spirits. I'm Amy Bruney and this
(39:33):
was Haunted Road. Thank you, guys. Haunted Road is hosted
(39:54):
and written by me Amy Bruney, with additional research by
Cassandra de Alba. This show is edited and produced by
Rima Alkali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers
Aaron Menke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Haunted Road is
a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaronmanke.
(40:15):
Learn more about this show over at Grimandmild dot com,
and for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I know many of you out there are hungry for
more paranormal content these days. What if I told you
there is about to be a community just for fans
of ghosts and hauntings like us. For months, I've been
working on something incredible and I am so thrilled to
be releasing it into the wild. I'd like to be
(00:32):
the first to welcome you to the Paranormal Circle. Imagine
a place where you can access weekly live chats and
roundtable discussions about all things supernatural. Watch twenty four to
seven webcams positioned inside some of your favorite haunted locations.
In addition to that, you'll be able to watch and
assist during live streaming investigations with me and some of
(00:56):
my friends who you may recognize. You'll also be granted
access to an archive of evidence from these investigations, and
you can upload your own evidence for all of us
to weigh in on. Even more, you will be on
the list for private in person meetups plus dedicated Paranormal
Circle meetups at your favorite paranormal conventions. Strange escapes, retreats,
(01:18):
and comic cons. We've also worked with many of these
events and your favorite paranormal retailers to offer Paranormal Circle
only discounts. All of this, plus dedicated merchandise and swag
giveaways amounts to one really cool space for all of
us to enjoy together. If this sounds right up your
dark alley, then I'd like to personally invite you to
(01:39):
be one of the first to join the Paranormal Circle.
If you'd like to join the waiting list to be
one of the founding members of the Circle, head to
Amybrunie dot com and get on the list asap. We'll
be opening up membership this spring, and those on the
waiting list get first access. Again, all of this is
only accessible to Paranormal Circle members, so head to Amy
(02:02):
Bruney dot com and join the waiting list today.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Hello everyone, Hello, I'm not Amy Bruney. By the way,
I don't know if you know this because I'm not
drinking wine. That's the only defining factor right there. So Amy,
being the MC for this entire event, gets to introduce
all these different great sessions, but this one is her session,
and so it felt kind of appropriate for me to
(02:29):
get up here and say a couple of things. So
I loved this morning's talk from Amanda talking about how
important it was to understand sort of the history behind
the stories that we hear, because it's really helpful in
bringing those stories to life.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I talked about this with a lot of people yesterday
that when you if you just say there's the ghost
of a woman who gets seen in this room, always
walking through, it's spooky, but it's not the full story.
If you are first told, oh, by the way, the
wife of the guy who built the used to walk
through here all the time, or she had dinner in
here all the time, and this is the room that
she died in. I'm just making this up, by the way.
(03:05):
Then when you hear that there's always a woman seeing
in period clothing, it starts to come to life.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
So that was the conversation that Amy and I were
having years ago, and we were talking about what kind
of a show could she have as a podcast? And
what I felt was this unbalanced history of lots and
lots of ghost hunting reporting, which is amazing and fine,
but it was like half of the story was going
(03:32):
into a place and having an experience with nothing in
history to anchor it to. And I said, you have
a much more emotional approach to these stories, and you're
connected to them more deeply. Wouldn't it be great if
there was a show where the first half of it
was basically teaching you the history of this location, the
people that were there, the lives that lived and loved
and were lost in all of that, and then shift
(03:54):
over to now, let's talk to somebody who's been there,
and you start to see the connections in those conversations.
So that's where Haunted Road was born. And so today
you get the joy of watching one of those live
Haunted Road shows that people talk about with Amy and Richard.
So let's bring Amy on up.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Thank you, Aaron, full circle. I love this. Welcome everyone. Now,
just a quick warning. We are recording, so you know
you're going to be recorded in infamy if you yell
out anything inappropriate. That's not common on the champagne that's
sitting in front of me. Thank you, ladies. But I
(04:38):
do want to give a content warning because today's case
this is pretty heavy. So I just want to let
you know we're dealing with serial killers, murder, really, really
awful stuff. So, without further ado, let's get started. In
the early nineteen nineties, a news story ran on a
local affiliate in Indiana. A gentleman had brought to light
(05:00):
something he felt was unjust and unfair, and he wanted
the world to know. You see, he and his son
had watched a truck belonging to the Indiana State Highway
Department striping the side of the road with yellow lines.
To his apparent horror, there was a roadkill on the
side of the road, a hapless raccoon, and what do
(05:22):
you know, that truck striped right over it. The man
happened to have a polaroid camera with him, so he
took photos of the raccoon that was now apparently one
with the roadway. Then he proceeded to contact the Highway
Department and the local news on camera. During a beautiful
sunny day, this man stood in front of his property,
(05:45):
telling the local reporter that the raccoon deserved better. How
dare that little fella end up with such a fate?
In turn, the Highway Department was interviewed, acknowledging their terrible
mistake and saying it was an icelated incident. The irony here, however,
is strong. The man in the interview, his name was
(06:07):
Herb Baumeister, and behind him on that property at the
very moment he lamented the fate of that poor raccoon,
where the rotting remains of at least eleven men he
had killed, dismembered and tried to hide. This is the
story of fox Hollow Farm. I'm Amy Bruney, and this
is Haunted Road. The main house at fox Hollow Farm
(06:38):
looks like anything but a farmhouse. The stately Tudor style manner,
with white walls and brown trim, is surrounded on every
side by trees. Visitors can book tours or rent it
as a wedding venue for an elegant country affair. Although
developers are building new houses nearby, the home fields secluded
thanks to its long driveway and fences. Inside, the wood
(07:02):
walls and ceilings are warm and inviting. Brightly colored rugs
carry guests past plush furniture. Up the stairs, visitors can
find the library, stained glass lined study, and master bedroom.
Sunlight streams in through the big windows, which hold a
view of the woods out back. Thanks to the new
construction projects, you can see the neighboring houses peeking through
(07:25):
the trees, but a few decades ago it would have
been easy to feel like the house was alone in
a dense forest. The bottom floor has a pool surrounded
by even more windows. Guests can enjoy a drink from
the wet bar while admiring the view of the tree
filled backyard. The idyllic Fox Hollow Farm is nestled in Westfield, Indiana,
(07:46):
which is just about a half hour north of Indianapolis. Honestly,
this small city sounds a bit like Paradise. For most
of its existence, it was a rural farming community, but
in the nineteen nineties the population exploded thanks to its
great reputation. In a history of Westfield, Indiana, author Tom
Rumor notes that Westfield was known for its great career opportunities,
(08:10):
athletic facilities, and a generally high quality of life. Around
the same time, nearby Indianapolis was a hub for gay
culture in the Midwest. Residents and visitors could find safety
and support in the twelve gay bars that got at
the city, but homophobia was still very common in the
nineteen nineties, even in gay friendly communities like Indianapolis. So
(08:33):
when numerous gay men disappeared in rapid succession, the police
barely paid any attention. Sarah Murrell noted in The Hunter
of Fox Hollow that at least ten gay men were
reported missing between nineteen ninety three and nineteen ninety four.
They all were adults who were thirty five or younger,
were last seen in bars, and had what she called
(08:54):
a clean cut, preppy look. Then, Roger Allan Goodlett and
Alan Wayne Brossard went missing in the summer of nineteen
ninety four. Their families weren't content to wait around for
the police to take the case seriously. They hired a
private detective, Virgil Vandergriff to dig into the mystery. Later
that year, Virgil found a major clue that the police
(09:16):
had missed a survivor with a harrowing story that hinted
at what might have become of the missing men. The
witness's name was Mark Goodyear, and he told Virgil he
went home with a man calling himself Brian Smart after
meeting him at a bar. According to Vic Reichhardt's reporting
on WRTV, Mark State took him to a nice home
(09:39):
in the suburbs that had its own swimming pool. The
pair sat by the pool, enjoying drinks from the wet bar,
but Mark was stricken by the strange decor choices. Sarah Murels,
the hunter at Fox Hollow, notes that Mark told the
PI the house was filled with boxes and the pool
was surrounded by clothed Mannikins, but this was far from
(10:00):
the eerious detail from his date. After Mark and Brian
did some drugs, Brian suggested the experiment with erotic asphyxiation. However,
once he wrapped a swimming pool hose around Mark's neck,
the play grew too rough for Mark. Brian refused to
let go of the hose until Mark pretended to pass
out from a lack of oxygen. Later, when Mark opened
(10:21):
his eyes and acted like he was just waking up,
he noticed that Brian seemed nervous and uncomfortable. Somehow, he
convinced Brian to take him back home, which was very lucky.
Mark may not have realized it then, but his partner
had a history of strangling other dates to death. This
wasn't Mark's only bout of good luck. A year later,
in nineteen ninety five, he spotted Brian at a bar.
(10:44):
He immediately recognized his old attacker and figured out which
car he'd driven there, except when detectives ran the license
plate number, they found the vehicle didn't belong to Brian Smart.
The man had given Mark a fake name. His real
identity was Herbert Baumer, and he and his wife lived
in a large suburban house outside of town on an
(11:05):
acreage known as Fox Hollow Farm. It was a perfect
match for the residence Mark had described to Virgil Vandergriff.
When police confronted Herbert and asked to search his property,
he flat out refused to let them in. Once it
was clear he wouldn't cooperate, the police had tried to
convince Herbert's wife, Julie, to let them search her house instead.
(11:27):
Initially Julie was resistant, but eventually she agreed to cooperate.
This was likely because her marriage to Herbert was crumbling.
Their sex life was nonexistent. Courtney Hardwick's article within magazine
notes that Julie and Herbert had only had sex a
handful of times in their twenty five years of marriage.
As the pair navigated their split, Herbert moved out of
(11:48):
the main house but continued living in a small apartment
over the garage. Julie secured full custody of their three children,
and took out a restraining order against her husband, perhaps
because of his history of violent faith of anger. She
also knew Herbert had mental health struggles, as he'd spent
more than a month committed to a psychiatric facilities soon
after their wedding. Throughout their marriage, Herbert had bounced from
(12:11):
job to job. His erratic tendencies made coworkers uneasy and
often got him in trouble. According to a J. Wiseman
writing for crime Beat, at some point he was diagnosed
with schizophrenia and a personality disorder, but it doesn't seem
that this led to a viable treatment or any significant
improvement in his behavior. Still, Julie had never imagined Herbert
(12:34):
would cheat on her with men, let alone kill his
extramarital partners. Even when their son had found a human
skull behind their home and Herbert told the bizarre story
to explain its presence, she hadn't suspected anything now, though
she realized he had ample opportunity to kill, as she
and the children often took lengthy trips in the summer,
(12:57):
leaving Herbert alone at home, and when she learned of
all the evidence the homicide detectives had against her husband,
Julie was willing to cooperate with her permission. Police searched
Fox Hollow Farm on June twenty fourth, nineteen ninety six.
They found the setup was exactly like what Mark Goodyear
had described to the Private Eye. The house was filled
(13:18):
with boxes, while clothed mannequins stood around the indoor swimming
pool with a wet bar nearby. And in the yard
and the woods that surrounded the house, they uncovered roughly
ten thousand human bone fragments. That's not counting the impact
bones they unearthed as well. Some appear to be burnt.
(13:38):
In WRTV Vick Reichert's report, he says Herbert disposed of
his victims by immolating their bodies, then smashing their bones
and scattering all that remained across the farm. He also
may have incorporated bits of broken bone into the gravel
he used to landscape the yard. But the horrific scene
(13:58):
at Fox Hollow Farm it may not have been all
Herbert's handiwork. Richard Estepp and Robert Graves wrote in the
Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm, Unraveling the History and Hauntings
of a serial killer's home, that wild animals may have
also been to blame in some cases. After he killed
his victims, Herbert would hide their bodies in an outdoor
pile of mulch. Then scavengers from the nearby woodlands would
(14:21):
tear apart the decomposing corpses. Investigators found eleven different left thumbbones,
so we know Herbert had at least that many victims
in his yard. Most estimates put the kill count closer
to twenty five, though it's hard to be too specific
as many of the skeleton's police were covered were incomplete.
By nineteen ninety nine, the officials managed to identify eight
(14:44):
of Herbert's victims, all had gone missing between nineteen ninety
three and nineteen ninety five. He's also a top suspect
in numerous other missing person cases and unsolved murders, including
of nine individuals who were killed before Herbert moved to
wa ust Field, but people are still finding evidence on
the property today. A new bone was recently discovered in
(15:07):
December twenty twenty two, and another victim was confirmed just
this past October. As for Herbert Baumeister, he fled the
country as soon as he learned about the detective's successful search.
He was never arrested or brought to formal justice, but
Herbert did not remain free for long. On July third,
nineteen ninety six, a week and a half after the
(15:28):
remains were discovered, he killed himself in Canada. Before his death,
a witness saw Herbert in his car with a box
of VHS tapes, tapes that have gone missing since his suicide.
It's impossible to say what footage they contained, but police
believe he filmed some of his murders. It's thought he
destroyed the tapes before taking his own life. When his
(15:51):
body was found, he laid near an altar made of sand,
which was decorated with dead birds. According to private investigator
Virgil Vandergriff, Herbert left a suicide note that closed by
saying I AM going to eat a peanut butter sandwich
and go to sleep. However, if rumors are to be believed,
he did not rest in peace afterward. It said Herbert
(16:13):
still haunts the Fox Hollow Farm. His spirit, as well
as a shadow figure, had been spotted peering out the
upstairs bathroom window or lurking near the pool pump room,
and many visitors get an uneasy feeling or perceive a
presence with them in the pool room and the master bedroom.
It's been said that when Herbert lived at Fox Hollow Farm,
he often locked himself out and knocked on the door
(16:36):
late at night so his wife or children would hear
and open it for him. Since his death, at least
one resident, Joe LeBlanc, reported he often heard knocking on
the door, always at one forty five in the morning,
and always seven knocks in short succession. Joe also describes
one unnerving incident where he stepped into the kitchen only
(16:56):
to find all his knives had been pulled out and
set on the counter. Afterward, he found new cut marks
on the walls. Another time, Joe felt hands clasped his
neck while he was swimming in the pool. It's understandable
that the pool would be a hotbed for spiritual activity.
This is where Herbert attacked Mark Goodyear according to his
testimony to the PI, and police believe Herbert strangled numerous
(17:19):
other victims there too, so it's understandable that their restless
spirits still remain near its waters. When visitors take a dip,
they may hear someone knocking on the door, but when
they answer, there's no one there, and a recent homeowner
was trying to vacuum in the pool room, only for
the plug to keep yanking out of the outlet, even
though the cord was loose and she wasn't tugging on it. Additionally,
(17:41):
a man in a red t shirt has been spotted
on the farm numerous times. He often walks into the woods,
only visible from the waist up. Joe LeBlanc said on
one occasion, his dog chased the man in red deeper
into the forest, only for the figure to vanish then
reappear in a new location. There are also reports of
a frightened man running for his life through the apartment.
(18:03):
When Joe LeBlanc looked at a photo of one of
Herbert's victims, he was stricken by how similar the picture
was to that fleeing spirit. Besides these apparitions, paranormal investigators
at Fox Hollow Farm pick up EVPs and hear voices,
footsteps and bangs. Electrical equipment tends to die quickly on
the property, and lights flicker while doors open and close
(18:24):
on their own. But some of these incidents may have
nothing to do with Herbert Baumeister and his murders. Many
guests have described a figure in the woods, darting from
tree to tree that's believed to be an inhuman spirit.
In their book The Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm, Richard
Estep and Robert Graves described this entity as blacker than black,
(18:44):
and on multiple occasions psychic said they'd made contact with
an anonymous figure. This being, whoever or whatever it is,
reportedly pretends to be the ghost of Herbert Baumeister, but
according to these mediums, his actual spirit isn't anywhere near
Fox Hollow Farm. In light of this, it's safe to
say there's far more to this property than meets the eye. Today,
(19:08):
I just happened to have the perfect guest to speak
on this case. We are joined by my good friend
Richard Estep, who has investigated and studied fox Hellow Farm
for quite some time and actually has a book on
it which I've quoted a couple of times. Mister Estep, welcome,
(19:29):
come on down. Hello, Hi, there is this on, Yes
it is. I'm so excited to have you here. I
don't normally, sorry, like I don't normally get to have
someone who's actually written a book on the location on
(19:51):
haunted Roads. I'm very excited. I am horrified that I
did not really know about this case before people started
talking about investigating there, Like, why do you I mean, obviously,
I think the obvious is why that happened, But like,
how do you think that affects the activity there overall?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
How do I think the activity is affected by the
fact that it's not very well known. It's surprising, right
because if you log onto Netflix or any of the
streaming services, you know, it seems so many serial killers
have their TV series, their many series, their stories are told.
Fox Hollow seems to have flown under the radar for
so long.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
It's wild to me. And like I was when so
you showed me that YouTube video of this gentleman of
Herbert like on the news, and he has this almost grin,
like he knows he's doing something, he knows what he's doing,
Like what do you think was going on in his
head at that moment.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Having interviewed people that knew her about mystet and were
close to him, gave me some insight into his state
of mind, and someone who knew him very well said,
he is absolutely getting his jollies on the fact that
look at my left hand. Here, look at this pay
attention to this board deadon and slyly enjoying the fact
that right behind him in those trees that you can
see just out of camera shop are the remains of
(21:07):
these poor men that he's murdered. He's the only one
that knows this, and the rest of us are all
fools for paying attention to the raccoon.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I mean, it's just it is. If you get a chance,
people listening, look up that video, because it's absolutely haunting
knowing what this man did and how he's really playing
to like this poor raccoon. It's bizarre. But on that note,
just kind of the activity that happens there. What is
going on there now? Like I know there's a development
going in. What are people like, what's happening on that property?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Well, Foxhlo had after I left and finished the book,
Foxhollow quietened down. I was really happy to hear that
because the idea of these poor men, these poor souls.
I could care less about Herbert Baumeister, but those poor men,
you know, not getting a traditional burial really disturbed me.
And so the idea that the activity was starting to
(21:58):
wind down I thought was one of the you know,
maybe some pieces at last coming to that location. And
then the land or a portion of the land was
sold for development. So now property development is happening on
Fox Hollow Farmer. As we all know, that can be
a catalyst for paranormal activity to ramp up again.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
So what kind of activity are people experiencing there? I
touched on it a little bit, but just kind of
can you go into more detail of what happens there
and how often?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Absolutely so, the house sat vacant after Herb Baumeister's family
moved out. The only occupants, ironically were raccoons in the attic.
Oh gosh. And so a couple called Rob and Vicki
brook Graves and their children bought the house. They had
to be okay with the fact that all those murders
had happened there, and they were the very rational people.
(22:47):
Rob is a coroner to give you an idea, and
Vicky also works in the medical field as a scientist.
And Vicki was actually the first person to see the
young man in the red shirt disappear into the woods
and later identified him from news real footage as one
of the victims, and the same victim Jola Blank had
seen in the woods also, so we had corroboration there.
So that's how things started. Jola Blank, the lodger when
(23:11):
he moved in, was of the same age as many
of Baumeister's preferred victims, and so that is a great
catalyst for the haunting to kick off and to high gear.
Joe has since moved out, and that may be a
factor in why things have in fact calmed down at Foxhollow.
But the whole gamut of paranormal activity, from the phantom footsteps,
(23:31):
the voices, apparitions, anything in the Paranormal Investigators playbook has
happened at that farm at some point since the death
of Herb Baumeister.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Now are they allowing investigations or is this just kind
of like a special thing that you were allowed in there,
Like it's I imagine it's not like a commercial endeavor
of theirs.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
I mean no, no, it's you can't rent Fox Hollow
Farm and investigate there. There was a time when it
was opened to paranormal investigators. There were some objections on
the part of the local government, the city, and I
totally understand why most serial killer locations where the murders
took place, you know, thinking about like Dama's apartment or
wherever they are quite rightly pulled down and demolished because
(24:11):
who wants them to be a shrine to something ghoulish?
But Fox Hollow is still a working family residence. It's beautiful,
and I rather like the idea that a family can
take this horrible, negative energy and replace it with good,
you know.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, I mean I've talked about that in the past.
How kind of unfairly sometimes locations become defined by terrible
things that happened there. We're talking about homes, hotels, you know,
national landmarks. You know, something terrible happens and it kind of,
in our minds anyway, negates every bit of good that
ever happened there. So I do like the idea of it,
(24:48):
you know, becoming something else and that energy overtaking what
happened there over the years.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah. We just saw this at your Strange Escapes Bendngettysburg,
which was awesome by the way, with the orphanage, which
you know, there are stories of terrible mistreatment of children there,
but that's a small percentage of that building's history. You
have many years of people being happy there at being
a museum. Fox Hollow now is a family home and
although there is I believe still paranormal activity taking place.
(25:15):
The Graves family and their children bring all this kind
of love and light and joy. I hope that stain
can be erased.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Now it's fairly recent. I mean, this is a pretty
recent case. How do you think that the relatives of
the victims feel about this potentially being a place where
there's paranormal activity.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
This is probably the book I've agonized most about writing
and came closest never to writing, simply because I was
concerned with these murders taking place in the eighties and
the nineties. The interstate murders Bameister did were in the eighties,
and I really agonized over it, and I came to
the conclusion that these poor men, many of them are unnamed.
(25:56):
We have some of the names only because these are
gay men that disappeared from Indianapolis bars around that time,
and we're never seen again, and so their stories were
always going to be untold. They were always they were
going to be allowed to be forgotten, and sadly some
of them are. And some of these men are sitting
in boxes in storage as opposed to being buried. So
(26:19):
the activity would not have gone away had I not
written the book. The last thing I wanted to do
was upset any of the family members of those victims,
but I felt the story needed to be told, if
only so that we can keep an eye out for
the next Herb Baumeister and maybe see some of the
warning signs.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, that's very fair. Actually I didn't because you know,
many times when we're investigating a location, kind of the
solution for spirits is acknowledgment or you know, resolution in
some way figuring out what happened or why they're there,
or who they are. And so I guess there is
something to be said for that that, you know, acknowledging
them in this book and really getting that story out
(26:57):
there could over time help the level panormal activity there. Now,
what do you think about these new houses? What do
you think is going to happen there? I'm very curious.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I am too, to tell you the truth, because as
you pointed out, you know, the bones were spread far
and wide. This is kind of an odd thing to say,
but in December, I'm having a dental procedure done. A
piece of cadaver bone is being implanted into my gum,
which was great until I move in the same circles
as you guys. Right. So one of my friends to
call of three seconds to say you're going to have
(27:28):
a haunted mouth, you know, And I thought about it
for a second, and I'm like, that's awful, but it
makes me wonder because the remains were spread so far
and wide by the nocturnal critters of Fox Hollow, I
would be surprised if that disturbance didn't cause some effect.
That being said, though the land has been has been blessed,
(27:50):
you know, there are people that have gone out there
to try and mitigate the activity as best as possible.
We're just going to have to wait and see.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I know, I'm very curious. And also, how did you
get a cadaver out? Like? Pig bone in my jaw?
So I'm haunted by a pig?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I can request the change?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yes, well I'm vegetarians. I was very conflicted. But anyways,
ex I know that's it. I'm done, okay now. Because
many of these victims remain nameless, I do worry and
wonder if over time they are going to become more
kind of especially like you know, now that they know
(28:28):
that they can be heard. I wonder if over time
that activity is going to ramp up in any way
you know, in addition obviously to building things like, what
else do you think could trigger this to kind of
ramp up again, or you know, kind of put these
people in these new houses or in the farm at
risk of experiencing more extreme activity.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
It's a great question, and one thing is attention. So
for example, a case I worked in the UK, the
Black Monk of Pontifract case, was a Poltic guiz case
dating back to the sixties, which was national news. All
died down in the twenty tens. They made a movie
about it called When the Lights Went Out. Interest in
the House exploded. It is now the most requested paranormal
(29:07):
rental venue in the United Kingdom. And that's sixty years
after the initial Poltergeist outbreak, right, And.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
I mean, I think that's just it. People come in,
they start talking about it and bringing it up, and
I feel like that wakes up something, you know, Like
I kind of drawing on another case, I think of Maplecroft,
which is what you know, Elizabeth Lizzie Borden bought that
house and now a family lives there and supposely it's
not haunted at all. But when we were all investigating it,
Elizabeth was very much like, hey, let's talk, you know.
(29:35):
So it makes me wonder like if people start paying
more attention to this, if it's going to draw out
some type of activity, well.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
And it also may not be what it appears to be, because,
as you know, being a very seasoned investigator, egre goals
are a thing, thought forms are a thing, and sometimes
these stories take on a life of their own. I
think for any paranormal investigator, there is a danger in
assuming that what we're being told is in fact the
truth the techniques we use, no matter how how you
attempt spirit communication with EVPs or whatever it may be.
(30:03):
It's the equivalent of a nineteen nineties Yahoo Internet chat room. Right,
you only have their word that they are who they
say they are. There's no verification method.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
That is very fair. Now, do you think there is
at some point a chance that some of these unidentified
victims might be identified through paranormal evidence or investigation.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
I know that there are people out there that flatly
refuse to accept that that can happen if we can
get names. That's something I don't like the idea that
these men are nameless, so many of them, and we
don't have an accurate number, and we can't have an
accurate number. We only have a minimum count because of
the number of unique thumb bones that were discovered at
(30:47):
Fox the number could be grossly higher. So if we
can just get names that can be validated, that would
be a huge start.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Right, I mean, I'm hoping that with DNA and everything
that they can start really gets into these bones and
figuring out who these poor people are. You actually investigated there, correct, Now,
what would you say was the most kind of disturbing
type of activity or more at most, I don't want
to say disturbing, but like the most kind of thought
(31:16):
provoking bit of paranormal activity you experienced while there.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
There were several things. Actually, one of the more memorable
is the pool. Now, the ball at Fox Hollow Farm
is freezing. As I tell you about it, I can
I'm getting the shivers, not the fact that so many
men died in it, but of how cold it was.
Because I was there in November, I believe it was.
And the owner of the farm, Rob said he liked you, Richard.
I like you, but it cost me hundreds of dollars
(31:40):
to heat this pool, and it takes a few weeks,
and I don't like you that much, so you can
go in and I will roll back the pool cover.
But the bull's going to be cold. And so I
got into the pool. It was freezing cold. My teeth
were chattering. We recorded the sound of a growl in
the pool area, and more concerningly was a whispered EVP
(32:02):
one word. And I should tell you that as we
were in there, I'd been told by someone who knew
her very well his favorite song was Blue by You
by Linda Ronstack. So we played that song and I
was swimming in the pool feeling very self conscious, and
played back the audio afterwards, and just a single whispered word,
and that word was Laura, which is my wife's name.
(32:27):
And there is no Laura connected with Fox Hollow. There
was no Laura present at the time. My wife's far
too smart to go swim in haunted pools. And so
that felt very personal to me, almost as if hey,
I know things about your nearest and dearest.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
That's I mean, that's the beginning of a horror movie
right there. To be honest, you know, you swimming in
this freezing cold, haunted pool and the ghost is telling
you the name of your wife's back at home. So
that makes me wonder, do you think that's Herb or
do you think that that's I mean, who is that?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Who? That's a great question, isn't it. And I think
it would be an assumption to say that it was Herb.
I do not know who it was one of the
other aspects. Because the ball and the kind of woods
outside are the ground zero for the haunting, it makes
sense that's where most of the lives were taken. I'd
heard that Rob had brought a friend home from work
one day, and he had a young son, and so,
(33:22):
you know, it was just showing him around the place. Now,
you don't tell young children we're going to the place
where all the men were murdered, right, you don't. So
they were wandering around the pool and this young kid
is like, it's a cool, it's a bool, it's cool.
And there is a pump room. And I happened to
know that Herb had used that room to lay out
the bodies of his victims once they were dead, before
he disposed of them. And so Rob and his friend
(33:45):
were walking around the pool. They passed the open pump
room door and the little boy just said, sh the
man's sleeping in there. So Rob's colleague was like, we're
leaving and thanks and goodbye. Wow, off they go. So
I go to instigate the pump room with some of
my friends. We sit in there. It's noisy, you know,
as you would imagine with all this machinery. I'm wearing
(34:06):
a T shirt because I've gone back and it's now summer,
and I can feel it now as we're talking, Amy,
I felt fingertips just stroke my bear tricep in a
very a caressing kind of way that just turns my stomach.
I know what I felt absolutely wasn't a spider or
a cobweb or anything of that nature. I don't know
(34:28):
what it was, but it felt very much like fingertips
a caress.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Okay, now, okay, Jens, is the house does it look
like it looked then? Have they changed anything?
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Almost nothing? It's almost identical, identical to how it was.
Then Herb's desk is there, his library is there. Herb
was a landrover, a ficionado. So there are land rover
owner's manuals, Haynes manuals with handwritten notes by Herb in
that library. You know, Rob the uses Herb's bathroom sleeps
(35:02):
in herb's bed, like it's almost a.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Time whin it's an actual bed.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
I do believe so. Yeah, the hose, the pullhose that's
hanging in the pump room is the original one, which
means that was actually the murder weapon in a number
of cases, was never taken into evidence. It's still there.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
I find that alarming, you know, I feel like I
would want to I wouldn't want to share anything with
this person, like, and he's not the first person to
do that either, right, Like it's changed hands a couple
of times. Why do you think that is that? I'm
not I mean no disrespect of this person. I'm sure
they're lovely, But why is my question?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Why keep things the way that they are? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Why keep his belongings or keep like why have any
evidence of this horrible thing that happened there? And I
feel like that might even, you know, affect the haunting
in some way.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
You know, Rubs an interesting man, and I definitely count
him as a friend. I had wanted to ask him,
how do you live? Him? Man? How do you live
in this house? I slept down in that but I couldn't.
I could not live there. As beautiful as it is.
I would be at the foot of the stairs by
the pool, looking up to the kitchen, and I would
just think how many men came down these stairs and
never came back up. I couldn't get past that. Rob
(36:12):
has his own little bubble, and to this day, at
least the last time I spoke to him, does not
believe in ghosts. His wife totally convinced. She's the lady
who had the vacuum flex pulled out multiple times, you know.
So I asked him, Rob, how do you live here?
And he said, ah, you know, I kind of mind
my own business, and I see things out of the
corner of my eyes sometimes. His wife, on the other hand,
(36:33):
is like, oh no, I see young men with no
legs in the woods. I'm sold. I believe wow. And
he's that's just his view on the world and it
doesn't bother him. And maybe it's the fact that, you know,
Rob does work in the coroner's field and has callouses
that some people just don't. I don't mean that in
a bad way, No, that's fair.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, I mean I just feel like I would not
have a problem living in a house like that, but
I would want to change things. I would not want
to look at an area and think this was the
last thing a number of people saw, you know, and
I would probably obsess a little too much about what
happened there. And so maybe that's why the activity isn't so,
you know, kind of off the charts. It's because there
(37:13):
is someone living there who is not kind of dwelling
on it and not you know, hashing it out all
the time.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
And I hope that it brings some stability. I mean,
talk about brave people for a moment. When the Graves
go on vacation, they have a house sitter. I don't
know how much they pay her, but I don't think
it's enough.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Probably not. I mean, does everyone know what happened? Everyone
local has to know.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
In fact, locally there was some resentment that the house
still stands, and I understand this. There was some hope
that they could put money together and in fact just
demolish the house. They see it as a stain on
the area, and I get that one hundred percent. I
really really do. People sometimes come to that area just
for to come by the gate of Fox Hollow, the
wooden sign that was there doing the Baumeister ownership Fox
(38:00):
Olive Farm. It's now iconic is still there, and so
people will stop, they'll pose with pictures, all those kind
of things. You can't go down the drive, nor should
you try. You should not trespass there. But this is
an area of interest for so many people, and I
don't think that's ever going to go away, and I
do understand why.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
People don't like it, right right, Okay, well, very fair,
Well Richard, I want to thank you. Now tell me
we'll tell everybody, like, how can people find you? I'm
very familiar with your work, but please tell tell the
world what you do and where to find mister Estep.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Absolutely thanks for listening everyone. You can find me online
at Richard Estep dot net, Facebook, Richard Deestep, author, Twitter,
Stepa and I like to find cases like this, investigate
them and try and tell their stories, and I hope
some of you will choose to join me on that journey.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, Richard is a writing machine. His books are amazing,
and I think you are bringing some very important stories
to light. So I really enjoy you and I want
to thank you for coming, so thank you so much.
The story of Herbert Baumeister is a tragedy, not only
because of the lives he took, but also because he
got away with it for so long. Who knows how
(39:11):
many people would have been saved if the police had
taken the pattern of missing persons. More seriously, we can
never give the victims their lives back or restore the
years they lost at Herb's hands, but by telling their
story now, we hope to honor their loss and show
our respect to their spirits. I'm Amy Bruney and this
(39:33):
was Haunted Road. Thank you, guys. Haunted Road is hosted
(39:54):
and written by me Amy Bruney, with additional research by
Cassandra de Alba. This show is edited and produced by
Rima Alkali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers
Aaron Menke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Haunted Road is
a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaronmanke.
(40:15):
Learn more about this show over at Grimandmild dot com,
and for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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