The Horrors Of The Fox Hollow Farm Serial Killer

The Horrors Of The Fox Hollow Farm Serial Killer

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It began with bones in the quiet woods behind a
wealthy Indiana estate. Investigators made a grizzly discovery, scattered fragments
of human remains buried beneath the leaves, burned, broken and forgotten.
And what they uncovered in that soil would unravel the
facade of a man who, by all appearances at it

(00:21):
all a thriving business, a loving family, a mansion hidden
among the trees. But behind closed doors, something unthinkable was happening.
He was charming, respected, a devoted husband, and he was
stalking young men and dragging them into the dark. This
is not just the story of a killer. It's a
story of an entire community that wasn't heard, a survivor

(00:43):
who refused to stay silent, and the horrifying truth buried
beneath the surface of a seemingly perfect life. This is
the story of Herb Baumeister. Crime, conspiracy, celts, serial killers,
and murder, all things that I love to consume. And
I know you due to you, you sick, twisted, beautiful,
intellectually minded, free. I sounded like a burp, Sorry about that.

(01:09):
Yet today we're getting into a big case, a case
that was highly recommended. I saw dozens of comments requesting
this case. It has taken a while to get done,
but we are here. It is absolutely horrifying, So trigger
warning there, but without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts,
go mock five down the highway, slam on the brakes,

(01:29):
and buster this windshield into this horrifying case together. So.
Herbert Richard Baumeister was born in Indianapolis on April seventh,

(01:52):
nineteen forty seven, and he was the oldest of four
children in a comfortable middle class family, and his father,
doctor Herbert E. Baumeister, was an anisty theologist, and his mother, Elizabeth,
was a homemaker. So outwardly, Herb's early childhood seemed pretty normal,
but as he entered adolescence, disturbing behavior began to emerge,

(02:12):
like we see with many serial killers in their early adolescents,
just doing the most fucked up shit. So classmates and
teachers noted that young Herb developed morbid fascinations, one being
he was intensely curious about the taste of human urine. Yeah,
we're really we're really getting into it really quick with

(02:32):
this one, so you know, buckle up. And also you
guessed it had a tendency to play with dead animals.
Just we're making that serial killer stew real quick. And
in one incident, he placed a dead crow on a
teacher's desk at North Central High School. Kid was fucked
up two ways to Sunday. And on another occasion, he
urinated on his teacher's desk, just shocking his entire classroom.

(02:57):
It's like he needed that shock factor, he needed to
be the center of attention in the most morbid ways.
And such bizarre antics went far beyond typical teenage rebellion
and hinted at a deeply, deeply troubled mind. I mean,
we had some jokesters in high school, but nobody was
pissing on the teacher's desks and leaving you know, effigies

(03:19):
of dead crows there too. So it's just like a
little too much. So alarmed by his son's behavior, Herb's
father arranged for a psychiatric evaluation during Herb's teens. Good on, dad,
Usually we don't hear this. We just hear the parents
ignoring this. So that's good at least. And he was
a doctor, so that makes sense. And the doctors diagnosed
her with paranoid schizophrenia as well. As antisocial personality disorder.

(03:44):
So you know, we have nature nurture. There's both going
on here. He's got an excuse, but also not Okay,
it's not an excuse. It's not an excuse as to
it's to harming things and doing horrible things, you know.
But at least you know they nipped it in the bud. Great,
he's going to get some medication maybe and he'll be great,
right right, No, No, we wouldn't. We wouldn't be here

(04:07):
talking if if that were the case. So having these
disorders meant that HERB might suffer delusions or extreme paranoia
and had a diminished sense of empathy or regard for
social norms. So something quite literally out of his control.
So again I'm not going to give him anything, but
there is something that he can't control on his own,
at least without therapy or medication or anything like that.

(04:29):
But despite this diagnosis, there is no evidence Herb received
sustained treatment at that time, and that's the big issue
because it could have been a different story if he
actually got the real help that he needed or actually
stayed with some sort of treatment, but he did not,
and instead he was eventually just returned to school. The
kid didn't know what's going on. He's got a fucked

(04:51):
up brain, and they're just like, ah, he'll be all right.
So for a brief period, Herb's behavior improved enough to
appear socially acceptable, and he managed to graduate high school
in nineteen sixty five. However, his reputation had already been
tainted by his earlier outbursts, and mccawb interests and classmates
shunned him, remembering the boy who toyed with dead creatures

(05:13):
and caused classroom disruptions, so Herb became increasingly withdrawn and
reclusive during his late teens. You have the nature where
it's like he can't help but have this these awful
disorders that he can help. And then there's the nurture,
which is like he's clearly not being nurtured through this,
he's not being treated for this, and he's just kind

(05:35):
of being thrown to the wolves in a very vulnerable,
fucked up state. Again, I'm not I am, by no
means justifying what he's going to do in the future,
because I think he should burn in hell. But when
you're a kid, hopefully you can get that help. And
this kid did not get any meaningful help, and I'll
leave it at that. It's part of the reason why
I actually like looking into these cases, because I like

(05:58):
looking at the psychological ass and nature versus nurture and
how they were raised and what caused it and all
that kind of stuff. And sometimes there's just a shiny,
tiny little inkling of sympathy here and there when they're
like kids and they can't do anything about it, but
it's all gone when they're adults. You know, you learn
societal norms and you know you might suffer with these

(06:19):
kinds of things, but unless you get help, I don't
know what you can do. I'm not a doctor. I'm
just a stupid YouTuber. But Herb, like many other serial killers,
had those early warning signs that are almost all there
for most cases we go through, and that is obsession
with your nation or wedding the bed, and obsession with

(06:40):
death and volatile emotional outbursts. All we're missing at this
point is arsony, basically, But in the conservative nineteen sixties
such behavior was often quietly swept under the rug. Different time,
so Herb Baumeister was a troubled young man who learned
to mask his oddities when needed. A skill he would

(07:00):
later use to hide far darker impulses knowingly. And this
is where we get into the Oh, he knows what
he's doing is wrong. That's wrong, and that's terrible, and
that makes you evil. So after high school, Herb's attempts
at higher education and steady employment were checkered, and even
enroll in Indiana University in nineteen sixty five, but would

(07:22):
drop out after one semester, and he returned to IU
in nineteen sixty seven, where he would meet his future wife,
Juliana or Julie Satyr, but again left before completing a term.
So in nineteen seventy two, Herb tried taking classes at
Butler University, with similar results, quitting after a single semester.
Guy has commitment issues, and during this period, in November

(07:44):
of nineteen seventy one, twenty four year old Herb Baumeister
married Juliana Sator, who was a former high school journalism
teacher who he had courted in college. And Julie, by
all accounts, was a smart and patient woman, which you
needed to be if you were with this fuing guy,
and notably a fellow young conservative, so the two had
bonded in part over working together at the university's Young

(08:07):
Republicans club, and to Julie and others, Herb could seem
eccentric but essentially harmless. So nobody really saw those red
flags because nobody knew about these outbursts that happened when
he was younger. I mean, it was the sixties. It's
not like he was posted it online or anything. If
he was able to quite literally shove all that under
the rug. So they would settle into a home in

(08:28):
an Indianapolis suburb and would go on to have three
children together in the coming years. But Herb's personal eccentricities
did not disappear during this time, because it was only
six months into the marriage. His mental health faltered very badly,
and he became so depressed and erratic that his father
had him committed to a psychiatric hospital for about two

(08:50):
months in nineteen seventy two. Quote he was hurting and
needed help unquote. Julie later explained of that period. So again,
at least he's getting help at this point that he
really didn't get as a kid. So Herb would recover
enough to assume a normal life, that he continued to
exhibit unusual behavior and struggle to hold jobs. Similar to

(09:13):
him dropping out all the time. You just got tired
of stuff really fast, and that could be very much
a part of the disorders she already has and part
b that he just thought he was too good to
be a part of anything that was going on in society.
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(11:22):
So in the nineteen seventies, he worked as a copy
boy at the Indianapolis Star newspaper and later landed a
position at the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, which was BMV.
And at the BMV, Herb initially impressed colleagues with his
strong work ethic, but his bizarre conduct soon resurfaced because
see again, the sky didn't last long and people would

(11:43):
start to notice that Herb had a dark, offbeat sense
of humor and a tendency to flout norms. And at
one point he sent his coworkers an inappropriate Christmas card
showing himself and another man dressed in drag, which is
like today, I mean, you know, but in the nineteen
sixties psycho psychiatric prison, you know. So the prank did

(12:06):
not go over well in the conservative office environment, shockingly,
so as time went on, Herb grew domineering and aggressive
with his colleagues, started to get an ego, and the
breaking point came in nineteen eighty five when BMV officials
discovered that someone had urinated on the manager's desk. You
guessed it, issol. Herb loves pisson on shit like a dog,

(12:32):
which is what he is, just a dirty, disgusting dog,
as we will see. So Herb was caught having urinated
on a letter addressed to the governor, and it was
determined he was likely responsible for the earlier incident of
urine left on his manager's desk. So this utterly shocking
misbehavior obviously got Herb fired in nineteen eighty five, and

(12:54):
it was just a humiliating end to his government job.
And it just foreshadowed the increasing the erratic pattern of
Herb's adult life. So by his late thirties, Herb Baumeister
was outwardly a married father of three, but he was
also a man grappling with mental illnesses and concealed desires,
and unbeknownst to his wife, Herb began spending time in

(13:15):
Indianapolis's gay night life scene after losing his B and
V job. So on top of everything else, Paranoids gets
fronty of personality disorder. He's also, by all accounts gay,
but he has to internalize it, whether it's just because
of the time period, or that he's embarrassed, or because
he has a family and he's cheating on his wife
all the stuff, So he's got a lot of things

(13:38):
internally building up, which is really bad with somebody that
who tends to be violent and have outbursts. So he
would go out drinking at gay bars, likely exploring a
side of himself that he kept hidden at home. And
in nineteen eighty five and nineteen eighty six he had
two run ins with the law, one for a hit
and run while driving drunk and another for conc spise

(14:00):
to commit theft, and both charges were eventually dropped. But
these incidences just show herb skirting the edges of criminal
behavior years before his killing Spury even began, so we
already had this superiority complex building inside of himself because
he could get away with everything, you know, besides pissing
on his manager's desk or whatever. He got fired for

(14:21):
that at least, And this is when friends and family
noticed changes as well, because at home in the suburban
Steinmeyer neighborhood, neighbors found her odd and unpredictable because it
could be generous in one moment, handing out free magazines
and concert tickets to neighbor kids, and in the next
moment he'd get explosively angry over trivial things, and this

(14:42):
is this is with the personality disorder coming to head,
probably on top of the paranoid schizophrenia. And Julie later
revealed an intimate detail that spoke volumes about their marriages
because in over twenty five years together, she and Herb
had only been silly intimate only six times times, and
she had never even seen him fully nude. So this

(15:04):
lack of physical closeness suggests herbs set interests lay elsewhere
as we know, I mean he liked to go to
gay bars, I can safely assume was just using Julie
as a beard, as the kids may say nowadays, which
is basically a cover like he wanted to appear like
he had straight life, when in actuality he was gay

(15:25):
and internalizing all sorts of horrible feelings, like the violent ones.
Not that you're gay. You can be gay, that's totally fine,
But in the sixties it was a different story. So indeed,
Herb was living a closeted life, maintaining the appearance of
a straight, conservative family man while secretly engaging with men
at gay bars. So the conflict between his public persona
and private desires would only intensify in the coming years,

(15:49):
setting the stage for his double life as a serial killer.
So by the late nineteen eighties, Herbautmeister seemed to find
his footing as an entrepreneur, even as his personal oddities persisted,
and in nineteen eighty eight, with financial help from his mother,
Herb opened a thrift store called Save a Lot in Indianapolis.
It's a great name, Herb, and Herb would just pour

(16:11):
his energy into this store like he hadn't done with
any other job before, and his hard work would pay
off because Save a Lot was clean, well organized, and
stocked with quality used goods, quickly setting it apart from
other thrift shops. And it became a modest success, and
Herb's confidence would just grow from this, because it didn't

(16:32):
take much for this guy's head to just blow up
with ego. So over the next few years he expanded,
eventually operating two and by some reports three Save a
Lot thrift store location in the Indianapolis area. So with
this business boom came a significant lifestyle upgrade, and in
November of nineteen ninety one, despite recent marital strains, Herb

(16:52):
and Julie made a bold purchase which was a sprawling
eighteen acre estate in Westfield, just north of Indianapolis, and
the estate, which Herb named Fox Hollow Farm. Yeah Yeah,
this is the place, featured a one thousand plus square
meter Tudor style mansion completed with elegant features like stained

(17:13):
glass windows, multiple fireplaces, and an indoor swimming pool. And
the property was reportedly worth nearly one million dollars, which
was a testament to the outward success the Bowmeisters projected,
and too neighbors and friends. The Bowmeister's family now seemed
to be living the American dream, a booming business, country
manor home and three happy children, and Julie continued to

(17:36):
stand by Herb, working in the business and raising their
son and two daughters. So few could have guessed the
turmoil in secrets that festered behind closed doors at Fox
Hollow Farm, because despite the beautiful new home and thriving stores,
Herb's double identity was intensifying, and as coworkers and employees

(17:57):
began noticing that their boss's behavior grew more volatile in
the early nineteen nineties, because Herb would be absent from
work for long stretches during the day without any sort
of explanation. It became increasingly irritable and erratic when present
and financial problems also started to mount, and by nineteen
ninety four, the Save a Lot enterprise was faltering because

(18:19):
the second store had not replicated the success of the first,
and debts were starting to pile up and vendors were
suing for unpaid bills. Guy pulled the trigger before he
actually reached like a state of success. It was all
about image for Herb. He needed to have that manner,
to have that outward appearance of being like the perfect
American family, but in actuality was much different, and under

(18:43):
all the strain, Herb's marriage was deteriorating to say the least,
and in early nineteen ninety one, in just months before
buying Foxhall of Farm, Herb had briefly moved out of
the family home and even filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences,
which for Herb means he likes men and not women.
But yet I don't think Julie knew that, Or maybe
she did know that, I don't really know yet. He

(19:06):
and Julie reconciled later that year, deciding to give the
marriage another try. While moving into the New Westfield State.
But still the relationship remained very rocky, and Julie noticed
Herb's moods swinging wildly, and former colleagues later describe Herb
as a quote perfectionist given to sudden, unprovoked rages. Sounds

(19:28):
awful just recalling how the smallest thing could just set
him off. And these fits of anger, just combined with
Herb's secretive habits, made life at Foxhole Farm increasingly tense
for his family, and Julie would later admit that her
husband was becoming quote erratic and difficult to live with
during this period. And crucially, Herb's hidden life continued alongside

(19:50):
his family life because at night, or when his wife
and kids were out of town, Herb frequented gay bars
in downtown Indianapolis, introducing himself to strangers as Brian Smart.
Even called himself smart. He got to make up a
name for himself and he called himself smart. What a
fucking dumbass. But during this time he was living out

(20:12):
urges he could not openly acknowledge in his conservative household.
So this clandestine behavior just suggested that Herb felt he
had to compartmentalize his identity and the respectable heterosexual family
man in one compartment and the gay man seeking anonymous
encounters in another. And it is within the secret, nocturnal
world that Herb's darkest tendencies began to manifest. Because Herb's

(20:36):
ability to maintain his facade of normalcy kept suspicions at
bay for a while, because by day he was a
store owner and dad driving his kids to school, and
at night he prowled gay bars at night with the
fake name Brian Smart. So he just straddled these two worlds,
and for a time he managed to keep each from
discovering the other. And in hindsight, the contradictions in Herb

(20:57):
Baumeister's life were very stark, because he lived in a mansion,
yet his businesses were verging on bankruptcy. And he presented
as a devoted husband, yet had almost no physical intimacy
with his wife, and you know, cheated honor with the
other men. And he championed family values in public, yet
spent his free hours cruising gay clubs in secret. And

(21:19):
friends and family who knew her in the early nineties
would later struggle to reconcile the duality that they observed.
So by the early nineteen nineties, gay men in Indianapolis
were quietly vanishing without explanation, and in May of nineteen
ninety three, the trend became alarming because one by one,
young men who frequented Indianapolis gay bars were reported missing.

(21:41):
And at first these disappearances attracted little public attention because
there was no bodies immediately found, just men who went
out for the evening and never returned home. And within
the LGBTQ plus community, words spread that something was terribly wrong,
and amid this backdrop, Herb Baumeister was about to begin
his care billing spree in earnest. So investigators now believe

(22:03):
Herb's murderous activities started around the nineteen eighties, possibly as
early as the mid eighties, and then escalated in the
nineteen nineties. So authorities suspected that Baumeister may have been
an uncaught serial killer known as the I seventy Strangler,
which we've briefly talked about in one of my three
part video series. But I feel like I should do

(22:24):
like a full blown video on that person which could
have been Herb Baumeister, because throughout the nineteen eighties, between
nineteen eighty and nineteen ninety one, at least eleven men
were found strangled and dumped in rural areas near in
a state, seventy in Indiana and Ohio. And these victims
were mostly young gay men who had last been seen
at Indianapolis gay bars, and they're not clothed or partially clothed.

(22:48):
Bodies were discarded off highways, in streams or ditches, and
the killings mysteriously stopped in nineteen ninety one, the same year,
Herb purchased Foxhall of Farm, and in nineteen ninety eight,
investigators noted that once Herb had his secluded eighteen acre property,
he no longer needed to risk dumping bodies along the interstate.
That's the theory, and there's reasons why we can't confirm this,

(23:11):
but I'll get into that later. But if all true,
Herb Bowmeister's murder career had begun well before he ever
killed on his own property, and as possible, he honed
his methods on those highway killings, and then once he
had Foxhall of Farm as a private murder ground, he
brutally reached new heights. So by nineteen ninety three, Bowmeister

(23:31):
was actively hunting victims in Indianapolis. Specifically the Indianapolis gay bars,
and he typically targeted men in their teens to twenties
or even thirties, though one victim was as old as
forty six, and usually Herb's victims were white males. And
Herb's m was both cunning and predatory because he would
spend the evening cruising popular gay bars like the five

(23:54):
ozho One Club or others along Massachusetts Avenue, and he
presented himself as a friendly, fun loving man named Brian
Smart and Baumeister would single out a potential victim, often
someone who was alone, and he would strike up a
conversation and he had a practical charm and was generous

(24:14):
with free drinks as well, and eventually he'd invite the
target out to his home, mentioning the indoor pool or
promising a private after party at his estate. And the
offer must have sounded tempting a trip to a mansion
with an apparently friendly, successful man, I mean, sounds like
a dream. Right, never go to his second location with

(24:34):
the stranger, because tragically accepting the offer was a fatal
mistake for many young, unfortunate men. Because at Foxhallo Farm,
Herb had carefully prepared a killing ground that hid behind
the trappings of luxury, and the indoor swimming pool area
in his mansion was decorated with Mannikin's posed infestive positions, psychotic,

(24:59):
as if a never ending party were happening. This is
it's so disturbing to even think about. Like it sounds
made up. It sounds like a hormone, but it's real
and it's it is horrifying. In this specific detail suggests
Herb's peculiar sense of atmosphere and perhaps an attempt to
put his guest at ease or disorient them. When they

(25:21):
first walk in or close they could see maybe shadows,
and they could see that maybe there's others people in here,
So it's chill, it's fine, everything's fine, and he gets
them to put their guard down, but in actuality they're
store mannequins, and once alone with his victim, Herb would
initiate sectivity and introduce a dangerous twist because he loved erotiction.

(25:45):
Of course, of course, of course you like this, and
according to later testimony from a survivor, Herb known as Brian,
would suggest they chook each other during intimate acts to
heighten the pressure, and again if you're in a you know,
a consenting situation, and it doesn't seem that crazy. I
guess whatever you're into, I don't know. It's just it's

(26:05):
so incredibly sad for these men. I can't even imagine
the fear that would come upon them like during these acts.
It's so incredibly horrible. But this particular practice involves temporarily
cutting off oxygen for arousal, and it's a risky act
even when consensual. But for Herb, however, it was more

(26:27):
than a game. It was his means to a kill.
And he would encourage the victim to let him tighten
something around their neck, such as a pool hose or
a belt, and this was under the pretense of a
consensual kink. And then at the crucial moment, Herb would
refuse to release his scripe and he would derive gratification

(26:48):
from the act of doing this to someone until they
were dead, just exerting total control over the victim's life.
And detectives later concluded that Baumeister likely murdered his victims
right there by the pool, where the sound of struggle
would be muffled by the walls and waters acoustics, and
Herb was a very hands on killer, literally feeling the

(27:09):
life drained from his victims as part of his depsidistic satisfaction,
and after the victims stopped breathing, Bowmeister set about the
grim task of disposing of the body. And as we know,
he had eighteen acres of isolated land at his command
and he used it to its full advantage. And under
the cover of darkness, herb would take his now deceased

(27:31):
victim out into the wooded sections of his property behind
the house, and there he engaged in what investigators believe
were post mortem quote rituals to prevent identification of the
victim in case they actually were dug up, and evidence
suggests Bowmeister dismembered some victims and burned many of the bones,

(27:51):
using the farm's remote grounds as his personal dumping site.
Just an absolute fucking monster, and years later forensic teams
would find shit yards of charred bone and ash in
fire pits and scattered through the dirt, indicating attempts to
cremate the bodies in open air. But Bowmeister was thorough
and he likely crushed some of the larger bones to

(28:12):
fragments and even pulled out some of the teeth from
skulls to hinder identification, and one investigator learned through a
confidant of Herbs that he allegedly had a habit of
using particular tools to extract his victim's teeth, then tossing
the teeth down a hallway like tick tax in a
grotesque display of triumph, which is beyond words, fucked up,

(28:36):
it's vomited, ucing, it's sick. But all these details just
paint a picture of a man reveling in the aftermath
of murder, taking steps to ensure his victims became anonymous
piles of forgotten bones, and neighbors would never report anything
terribly amiss, and Bowmeister orchestrated his crimes around his family's schedule,

(28:58):
and Julie and the children were nearly always away when
the murders took place, because during summer breaks, Julie would
take the kids to visit her mother at a lake
cottage in northern Indiana, leaving Herb alone at Vauxhallo Farm
for weeks at a time, and those lonely stretches of
summer were Herb's opportunity to hunt, and investigators later determined

(29:18):
that each known victim's disappearance coincided with times when Herb's
wife and children were out of town, which again is
just so sick to know that your husband and your
father was doing this kind of stuff when you were gone.
Oh god, it just I just don't know how you
how do you even get over that? Or you probably
don't at all. And on some occasions, Herb likely also

(29:41):
exploited business trips or claimed to be working late to
cover his lethal outings. And this pattern just shows deep,
deep calculation, like murder in the first first degree, he's
always planning it out. But Baumeister just compartmentalized his life
so effectively that he could were a man to death

(30:01):
in his pool one night, then cheerfully host a family
barbecue in the same spot the next week as if
nothing happened, just no sense of remorse. So from nineteen
ninety three to nineteen ninety five, the disappearances continued uninterrupted,
and young men would vanish from downtown Indianapolis and were
never seen alive again, and no bodies were immediately found

(30:23):
as we know, so the link between these missing persons
was not obvious, but within the gay community, fear was
mounting because someone who met men in bars was preying
on them, and police seemed slow to catch on. And
although Herbs seemed to really hone in his perfect killing scheme,
mistakes were starting to be made and close calls were

(30:44):
bound to accumulate, because the more he killed, the greater
chance that eventually something or someone would blow his cover,
And by late nineteen ninety four, events were set in
motion that would lead to Herb Baumeister's downfall. So the
known victims of her Baumeister's Foxholar Farm murders were all
men who vanished in the mid nineteen nineties, leaving behind

(31:06):
distraught families and friends, and it took years for investigators
to piece together their identities from the bone fragments found
on Baumeister's property, And as of twenty twenty five, ten
victims have been positively identified and several more are suspected.
And these men's lives and tragic ends illustrate the horrific
scope of Baumeister's crimes. And I want to go over

(31:29):
these key victims and their fates as understood from the investigation.
So first we have Roger Allan Goodlett, who was thirty
three years old and was a resident of Indianapolis and
Roger was reported missing on July twenty second, nineteen ninety four,
and he was last seen leaving a downtown gay bar,
heading out with a man who introduced himself as Brian Smart.

(31:52):
And Roger's disappearance deeply alarmed his family and frustrated with
the police's slow progress, Roger's mother and friends blast the
city with missing persons posters, and Roger's case would become
pivotal because a friend of his was turned amateur sleuth
under the alias Tony Harris ultimately would help crack the mystery,
but sadly, Roger never came home, and years later, authorities

(32:15):
confirmed that some of the remains were covered at Foxhall
of Farm belonged to Roger Goodlett, and he is believed
to be one of Baumeister's victims strength on the estate
in the summer of nineteen eighty four. And then there's
Alan Wayne Broussard who's twenty eight years old, and Alan
was also from Indianapolis and had disappeared on June sixth
of nineteen ninety four, and like Roger, Allan was last

(32:36):
seen at an Indianapolis gay bar and never returned, and
Alan's mother grew concerned and also reached out for help,
and she and Roger Goodlett's mother enlisted the aid of
a private investigator because the police weren't doing shit. And
this private investigator was Virgil Vandergriff And it wasn't until
the Foxhall of Farm bones were analyzed that the truth
would emerge that Alan Broussard's remains were found among the

(32:59):
thousands of fragments, confirming he had fallen victim to the
killer as well. And then there was Johnny john Behar,
who was twenty years old and one of the youngest
identified victims. Johnny Bear was an Indianapolis man who went
missing on May twenty eighth, nineteen ninety three, and he
was reportedly working at a fast food restaurant at the time.
And Johnny said goodbye to his mother on his way

(33:21):
to work one day and then just vanished. And for
years his family heard nothing, and only a single rib
bone of Johnny's was eventually recovered at Foxhall of Farm,
found among the thousands of pieces of remains, and that
rib would be DNA match to Johnny in the late
nineteen nineties, finally giving his mother an answer, and in
a heartbreaking statement, Johnny's mother said in nineteen ninety nine,

(33:44):
one rib bone. Even though they gave me his rib
bone and we had the services, it's not real to me.
I can still see him someday coming up to the door.
And her hope for her son's return had been cruelly
destroyed by the confirmation of his death. And Johnny Bayer's
name was among the first confirmed in the investigation, and

(34:04):
he represents the many young men whose lives were cut
short just as they were starting out. And then there
was Richard A. Douglas Hamilton, who was also twenty years old.
He was also a local to Indianapolis and his last
sighting was on July thirty first in nineteen ninety three,
and little is publicly recorded about the circumstances of Richard's disappearance,
but by September nineteen ninety six, Richard Hamilton's remains had

(34:28):
been confidently identified by forensic anthropologists sorting through all the
bones found at Vauxhola farm. And then there was Stephen
Sperlin Hale who was twenty six years old and vanished
on April first, nineteen ninety four, and he was also
from Indianapolis and was working as a custodian at a
restaurant at the time, and on the night of April first,
he was last seen in Indianapolis Central Library, a known

(34:50):
a gay meetup spot. But unfortunately, his bones would also
be analyzed from Fouxholar Farm and it would be confirmed
that he had been killed on the property. And then
there was Manuel Manny Ressindez, and Manny was a bit
different from the other victims in that he was from Lafayette, Indiana,
which was about an hour north from Indiana, and he
was reported missing in early August of nineteen ninety three,

(35:12):
and for decades, Manny's fate was unknown and an a
testament to dogged work of forensic experts. Manuel's remains were
finally DNA confirmed in twenty twenty four, nearly thirty years
after he vanished, but at least his family could get
some semblance peace and knowing that he was found, but
obviously it's still horrible, but this would make headlines in

(35:34):
twenty twenty four, bringing closure to the Rasendez family after
so many years. And then there was Jeffrey Allen Jeff Jones,
and he was also an Indianapolis man who went missing
on July sixth, nineteen ninety three at the age of
thirty one, and he was suspected early on as a
possible victim of the Fox Hollow Killer via earlier identification,

(35:55):
but it wasn't until May of twenty twenty four that
Jeff's remains were conclusively identified through genetic genealogy. And then
there was Michael Frederick Mike Kern, who was forty six
years old, one of the oldest victims, and he would
go missing on March thirty first in nineteen ninety five.
And Mike's disappearance came relatively late in Bowmeister's spree, and
it suggests herb had not yet been deterred, even after

(36:17):
a suspicious incident in nineteen ninety four, and we'll say
more on that soon because it is freaked up. And
then there was Alan Livingston who was twenty seven years old,
and he was last seen getting into someone's car in
downtown Indianapolis in August of nineteen ninety three, and Sharon
Allan's mother began to suspect that he was among the
Fox Hall of Farm victims when news broke about Bowmeister

(36:38):
in nineteen ninety six, but she would continue to hold
on to hope that her son would maybe return and
she allegedly kept her home phone line connected for decades
in the hope that Allan might call, which is so
heartbreaking because this was the only number he would have
known to call. But his remains would finally be identified
in twenty twenty three. And then there was Daniel Thomas

(37:01):
Hollerin whose age is unknown. And Daniel wasn't reported missing
nor even suspected as a victim, yet his remains were
discovered amongst the bones in Foxhall of Farm. And then
there was Jerry Williams Comer who was thirty four years old,
and he would go missing on August eighth, nineteen ninety five.
And while Jerry was confirmed to have been a victim
of Baumeister, this discovery was not from the Foxhall of

(37:24):
Farm remains. His vehicle was discovered after his disappearance, and
he fit the victim profile as a young gay man
in Indianapolis. But these names, excluding Jerry, are only the
identified victims from Foxhall of Farm. In total, more than
ten thousand bone fragments were recovered on the property, which
represents an estimated twenty five or more individuals that Bawmeister

(37:48):
may have murdered, which is sickening and that means over
a dozen victims remain unidentified to this day, and their
families might still not know what became of their loved
one who disappeared in the nineteen eighties or nineteen nineties.
And among those still unnamed could be some victims of
the I seventy strangler killings that are now attributed to her.

(38:09):
Again unconfirmed, but it's it's likely, it seems, and it's
also possible Bowmeister killed additional men who remains have not
been found at all, and if you chose to dump
a body elsewhere, or if some evidence on the farm
was completely missed, but the full extent of his carnage
might never be known. But authorities firmly believe at least

(38:30):
twenty five murders can be laid on Herb Baumeister's feet,
and the impact of these murders on the Indianapolis LGBTQ
plus community was profound and traumatic because during the early
nineteen nineties, as gay men kept going missing, fear spread
that a serial killer was specifically targeting their community, and
many also felt that the police were not taking the

(38:50):
disappearances seriously enough because the victims were gay and at
the time relationships between law enforcement and LGBTQ plus citizens
were often tigined by prejudice and mistrust, and a former
publisher of a local gay magazine, Josh Thomas, voiced the
community's frustration bluntly saying, quote, if somebody were killing cheerleaders

(39:11):
at a suburban high school, nobody would rest until the
killers were found unquote, and he would tell to press
this in nineteen ninety six. But because it was only
quote only gay men, the urgency was lacking, and families
of missing gay men sometimes encountered apathy or harmful assumptions,
and police might suggest that a missing man had simply

(39:32):
run off to quote live the gay lifestyle somewhere else,
rather than treat it as a potential crime that it was.
And in Indianapolis, this dynamic led several families to take
matters into their own hands, hiring private investigator Virgil Vandergriff
to look for their loved ones, and as mentioned, Vandergriff
quickly noticed the pattern multiple gay men disappearing in the

(39:54):
same area in a short timeframe, and the Mountain community
pressure eventually forced the police to acknowledge the poss disability
of a serial killer to do their fucking job. But sadly,
by the time the case broke open, many lives had
already been lost. But the fact that the members of
the LGBTQ plus community banded together to demand action was

(40:14):
significant and it ensured that these victims were not forgotten
and helped bring a killer spree to an end. So
let's get into that. So, throughout the early nineteen nineties,
as young men vanished in and around Indianapolis, their families
grew desperate for answers and missing persons reports piled up,
but initial police response was sluggish and fragmented. And then

(40:35):
part of the challenge was that multiple jurisdictions were involved.
Some men disappeared from Indianapolis, while others from surrounding areas
or even other cities like Lafayette. In the case of
men well and without bodies or crime scenes, police departments
had little evidence to go on, and the pattern tying
the cases together wasn't immediately recognized or cared about clearly.

(40:57):
And additionally, the aforementioned fact that many vics were gay
may have contributed to a lack of urgency on the
part of the investigators, who assumed the men just might
have left town voluntarily. So nineteen ninety three turned into
nineteen ninety four, and the list of missing persons just
started to lengthen, and it became harder to ignore that
something sinister was afoot. And a major turning point in

(41:19):
the investigation came thanks to the determination of a private
investigator and a brave survivor. So former Marion County Sheriff's
detective Virgil Vandergriff had retired from law enforcement and started
a private investigation firm, and in nineteen ninety four he
was hired by the families of Roger Goodlett and Alan Hussard,
just two mothers who refused to let their sons disappearances

(41:41):
be shrugged off, and Vandergriff took their concern seriously, you know,
like the police should have. And he began comparing notes
with police and other families and realized at least eight
young men had gone missing under similar circumstances in a
short span of time. So sinsing the hallmarks of a
serial offender, Vandergriff coordinated an informal task force. He and

(42:01):
his associates visited the gay bars, distributed quote missing flyers,
and interviewed patrons to gather any clues and this grassroots
sleuthing paid off because they learned that many in the
gay community felt a predator was lurking in their midst
and one name, or rather alias would surface, and that
was Brian Dumbass I mean Smart, because some Bargoers were

(42:26):
counted encounters with a middle aged man who called himself
Brian and who was friendly, if a bit odd, and
who sometimes invited people out to his quote a state
and it sounded benign at first, but at least one
man had a terrifying story about Brian Smart, and he
lived to tell the tale. And that man is known

(42:46):
by the pseudonym Tony Harris. And in nineteen eighty four
Tony Harris approached authorities with a haunting account. He believed
he had survived an encounter with a serial killer. That
Tony was a good friend of Roger Goodlett, and after
Roger vanished, Tony grew determined to find out what happened,
So he spent time at the bars Roger used to frequent,

(43:07):
on the lookout for any information, and in the course
of this investigation of his own, Tony met a man
calling himself Brian Smart. And Brian was sociable and allegedly
said he was from out of town temporarily living at
a client's farm estate, and one night Brian invited Tony
to go for a swim at the place he was staying,

(43:28):
and Tony accepted, hoping he might learn if Brian was
involved in Roger's disappearance. Which is extremely brave but also terrifying.
But it's like a movie. It's absolutely insane, but also
like the police are doing shit. So Tony is just
like main character. He like what a guy, absolutely insane

(43:51):
but amazing at the same time, just wanting to get
justice for his friend and figure out what the fuck's
going on. But Tony Harris's decision almost cost him his
life because he would ride out with Brian out to
this unfamiliar property in the suburbs, which we know as
Foxhallo Farm, and it was dark when they arrived, but
Tony noticed that the home was large and very isolated,

(44:13):
and inside, Brian led him to the indoor pool, where
mannequins stood around as if attending an endless cocktail party
with statues. The fuck I can't even imagine just seeing
that and being like, Okay, I need to I need
to run, I need to closeline and run the out

(44:34):
of here, but he didn't. I guess Brian smart somehow
explained that away or Tony just wanted to figure out
more information, and they would swim and engage in some
consensual sble activity and Tony's accounts actually vary during this,
but this is this is like the main one that
I'm giving you right now. So Brian would offer Tony

(44:56):
a drink, which Tony switched out with when Brian wasn't
paying attention, which is so smart because he had just
a weird vibe from the whole situation. Then Brian suggested
something unexpected and he asked Tony to him to enhance
the experience as we know erotication, and Tony would go

(45:17):
along with this and Brian's eyes would light up with
excitement as he did so. And when Brian then wanted
to reciprocate to Tony because if you do this thing
where Brian or herb would let them check him first
to kind of gain that trust, and then he'd be like, Okay,
now I'll do it to you. It's like this really
psychological thing, just planning, like he's he knows what he's doing.

(45:40):
It's all part of his plan, but Tony would feel
uneasy and decline the offer, and that's when the mood shifted, because,
according to Tony's account, Brian suddenly wrapped a pool hose
around Tony's throat and began to try to strile him,
and there were allegedly multiple attempts like this throughout the evening,
and it's mentioned in a few accounts that Tony even

(46:02):
faked passing out to cause Brian to stop. But at
some point, for reasons unknown, perhaps because Tony was a
larger man than Brian which made killing him difficult, or
that Tony was not incapacitated from the drink he avoided.
Brian then drove Tony back to Indianapolis. So he was
now certain that Brian Smart was the one responsible for

(46:25):
rogers disappearance and likely many others, and Tony Harris immediately
went to the police with the story, and he provided
a description of Brian Smart and recounted the location as
best he could because he hadn't known the actual address
since he was driven there. But unfortunately, locating both Brian
and the farm proved to be very difficult because it

(46:46):
wasn't until several months later that Tony would cross paths
with Brian again, and this time he made sure to
get Brian's license plate number, which is again so smart,
and when police ran the plate, it came back registered
to Herb Bell of Westfield, Indiana, and this was the break.
They desperately needed, a concrete lead linking the pseudonyms to

(47:08):
a real individual, and at this point, Herb Baumeister, a
man with no criminal record of violence, popped up on
the radar of authorities investigating the missing men, and detectives
from Hamilton County Sheriff's Department and the Indianapolis's Police Department
quietly began looking into Herb's background, and what they found
was intriguing, to say the least, because Baumeister owned Fox

(47:31):
Hollow Farm, matching Tony's description of the estate with an
indoor pool, and Herb also had a history of mental
instability and erratic behavior, which fit the profile of a
disturbed avender. However, the police knew that suspicions were not enough.
It's circumstantial, But also they had the account of Tony
literally getting strangled by this guy. So I don't really

(47:52):
know why the can't just jump in, But what do
I know? You know, I'm not a cop. I'm just
a stupid YouTuber. But they would need evidence to serve
the Bowmeister property. So in late nineteen ninety five, they
approached her directly asking for permission to search Fox Hollow
in connection with the missing men and Bowmeiser. He was pissed,
he was outraged and very uncooperative, and he would just

(48:17):
flatly refuse the search request, just adamantly denying any involvement
and likely feigning shock at the implication or what me what? No,
I have a family, and I had a large property,
and I'm bankrupt, and i'm and I'm I'm in the closet,
and I'm very sad, and I like to kill people.
What what was that? Oh? Nothing? I trailed off, I

(48:39):
blacked out for twenty seconds. What's going on again? Just
a fun monster, just a piece of shit. So without
a warrant or consent, law enforcement was stuck because they
didn't have enough for a judge to grant a search
warrant at the time, which again I don't understand, because
they literally have a victim saying he was like attempted murder.
I don't really know why that should be a reason,

(48:59):
you know, I don't really understand that, but again, what
do I know, I'm a stupid YouTuber. During this time,
Herb surely realized that as long as he didn't allow
a search, the police had nothing concrete on him because
it was only a survivor's word versus his, So investigators
would then turn their heads over to his wife, Julie Baumeister,
in hopes of gaining an ally. So in late nineteen

(49:21):
ninety five, two detectives met with Julie and delicately informed
her that her husband was under investigation for a quote,
homosexual homicide. Why is that different than regular homicide? Why
is it called homosexual homicide? It's just freaking homicide anyway,
different time, really, not that long ago, whatever. But it
was a phrase that Julie didn't even understand it first,

(49:44):
and Julie was incredulous and certain that Herb, her husband
of over two decades, couldn't possibly be a violent killer, which, like,
you know, I'm always just like, how do you not know?
But you know, I don't know. I no, he seemed
to be very very premeditated, very calculated, and he put

(50:04):
on quite the facade, so it I feel like there
is absolutely possibility. She literally had no idea, like she
knew he was a bit crazy, but like other than that,
she was just blissfully unaware, I guess. But she would say, quote,
you're wrong, that can't be true, and she would be
extremely angry with the detectives. And it was unnatural response

(50:25):
because as far as we know, she'd only ever known
her as a quirky, difficult man, but not someone capable
of murder. And the investigators persisted describing the pattern to
missing men and the incident with quote Brian Smart, and
Julie asked them what quote homosexual homicide even meant, and
the concept that her straight laced husband might be secretly

(50:47):
gay and murdering people was almost beyond her comprehension, which
I can't even imagine, because first you find out that
your husband's been cheating on you with men, and then
you find out that he's also been murdering these men.
It's a lot to take on, you know. If she
didn't know, that's horrible. I mean, it's horrible. It's all horrible,
and you want to be like, how did you How
did you not know? You know, how did you not know?

(51:09):
But you know, some people just aren't as observant and
they're just living in their life and they're just not
not caring, I guess, but that's two blows for sure.
Can't even imagine the thought process there. So this whole
thing was just an exceedingly frustrating time for law enforcement
just explaining this to Julie. And they had a very strong,
circumstantial evidence against Herb, but no physical evidence. And meanwhile,

(51:33):
Herb surely sensed the heat, so police likely surveillanced Foxhall
of farm when they could, just hoping Herb might slip up.
But Herb kept a very low profile, and notably, no
known murders occurred after late nineteen ninety five, suggesting baw
Myser may have stopped killing once he knew he was
under suspicion, and Michael Mike Kern's disappearance in March of

(51:57):
nineteen ninety five and at Jerry Williams come in August
of nineteen ninety five are the latest victims linked to him.
But still the stalemate continued into the spring of nineteen
ninety six, and investigators periodically checked in with Julie baumeistur
gently urging her to reconsider and allow a search of
the property, but each time she declined, torn between loyalty

(52:20):
to her husband and the disturbing allegations she was hearing.
If somebody came up to me and told me that
my husband was just all this stuff, I'd be like, yeah,
check the property to rule that out, Like put my
pride away, check that shit out. There was a chance
I was living with a murderer. It just doesn't make
sense to me. But whatever, what do I know. I'm
just stupid YouTuber. I don't know anything. So then as

(52:42):
they kept contacting Julie, she recalled thinking, quote, what if
the police are right and I'm wrong. There we go, Julie,
she's getting it now, and you know, benefit of the doubt.
I can't even imagine getting that news and just like hoping,
just that hope that there it's so wrong. Guy couldn't
be him. That's all she's ever known, is this guy

(53:03):
that's been a good husband. And then I don't know,
you probably just start watching him and being like, yeah,
maybe he could be. So I'm not I'm never gonna
victim blame. And in this situation, if she didn't know
absolutely a victim in this, it's just all like looking
on it, you're like, what, but we don't know. We
weren't there, you know. So the breakthrough finally came from

(53:24):
within the Bellmeister family, and by early nineteen ninety six,
Herb and Julie's marriage had reached a breaking point and
the financial strain from the thrift stores had worsened. One
store was severely struggling, and Herb's behavior was getting more
and more erratic, and in early nineteen ninety six, after
police approached her with the allegations, Julie decided to file

(53:47):
for divorce. Nice Julie high five, Hell yeah. This was
a bold move, signaling that her faith in Herb was waiting,
and importantly, as part of the divorce and custody process,
Julie took steps that gave her more leverage over the
property because she's turning into a boss as bitch now.
So by June nineteen ninety six, Julie had found herself

(54:07):
reflecting on the detective's warnings and shared a number of
worrying incidences with her lawyer, and one in particular had
been nagging at her memory. And this is where I
go back and I'm like, how didn't you know? But again,
I'm just I'm gonna give it the benefit of the
doubt because what do I know. But it's because a
skeleton was found on the property by her son two

(54:30):
years earlier, and she knew about this incident, and she
just was like, Ah, it's probably a dog, even though
it's a human skull. I don't know. So that's where
I go back, and I'm like, well, I don't think
she I think she just really wants to be in
a nice house and maybe just not not want to
hold her husband accountable. But again, I feel like that

(54:51):
can't be possible with her, like knowing he was a murderer.
But anyway, I'm digressing deeply. Let me know what you
think in the comments. But really strange, which kid found
a human skeleton on the property, and this whole skeleton
finding incident from nineteen ninety four suddenly seemed a little
bit more sinister than I guess it did back then.

(55:12):
So the unraveling of Herb Baumeister's deadly secrets began with
a gruesome discovery at his home. And that was a
discovery that incredibly was overlooked because in the late fall
of nineteen ninety four, Herb's then thirteen year old son
was playing in a wooded area in the fox hall
of farm when he stumbled upon a human skull lying
on the ground, and not far from the skull where

(55:34):
several more bone fragments were found later on from a
human skeleton, and this boy, his son, would bring the
skull home to show his mother, and when Julie confronted
Herb about this morbid find, Herb had a ready explanation.
And this is where I'm back to. You know, he
was really good at talking Julie, like, why would Julie,

(55:55):
why would you think that your husband can do that?
You know you'd like to, So I'm back, I'm back,
I'm back with Julie. But he calmly told his wife
that the skull was an old medical specimen, likely part
of a skeleton used in anatomy study that his late father,
remember doctor Baumeister was a physician, had owned and left
among his belongings, and Herb even suggested that perhaps his

(56:18):
father's medical skeleton had been stored in their garage and
animals dragged it into the woods. So animals don't eat
bones or skulls. Usually it's left because there's no meat
on it. But okay, so it was an odd story,
but Herb delivered it earnestly and astonishingly. Julie believed him,

(56:38):
or at least accepted the explanation at the time, which
again I'm just I'm gonna keep it the benefit of
the doubt, but she later said Herb was so matter
of fact and reassuring about it that she saw no
reason to suspect otherwise, which okay, sure. And Herb then
took the skull from her and said he would dispose
of it, and likely he threw it back onto the

(56:59):
pile remains in the woods or hit it elsewhere on
the grounds, and this incident in nineteen ninety four was
perhaps the closest Herb came to being exposed during his
act of killing years and it's chilling to realize that
if things had gone differently, the case might have been
blown open then or he could have hurt his family.
So it's almost I don't know, I mean, it's so

(57:23):
many lives would have been saved if there was some
deeper thinking going on, just so horrifying and unfortunate. However,
the seed of doubt was planted, and even if Julie
didn't fully realize it, because that skull sighting effectively ended
Herb's killing spree for a time, and investigators believe Herb
was so alarmed at a Sun's discovery that he stopped

(57:45):
murdering in late nineteen ninety four at least until the
spring of nineteen ninety five, because he had come perilously
close to being caught and likely become more cautious. So
fast forward to June nineteen ninety six, Julie Baumeister, now
in the midst of divorce proceedings, was reflecting on her
life with Herb and all the peculiar unsettling moments, including

(58:06):
that skull. Meanwhile, the police were still politely knocking on
her door, armed with new urgency after hearing that Herb's
business was failing and the marriage was collapsing, stressors that
might prompt Herb to flee or destroy evidence. So Julie
finally reached a tipping point and on June twenty fourth,
nineteen ninety six, she contacted her attorney and authorities and

(58:29):
gave them the green light they'd been waiting for, and
that was permission to search Fox Hollow Farm, and critically,
she chose a moment when Herb was out of the house,
so with Herb safely away, Julie met with Hamilton County
detectives and allowed them onto the property, and one could
only imagine her dread and resolve in that moment. She
likely hoped nothing would be found, yet part of her

(58:51):
must have feared the worst, and investigators would waste no
time because now armed with consent and by extension, a
property search weren't Teams from the Hamilton County Sheriff's Affix
and the Indianapolis's Police, along with forensic anthropologists from the
University of Indianapolis, descended onto Foxhall of Farm in the
last week of June nineteen ninety six, and what they

(59:14):
found was beyond anyone's imagination because in that wooded area
near the back of the house, an officer spotted what
looked like a human leg bone just laying on the ground,
almost immediately, like bones were just laying on the property,
and upon closer inspection, the surrounding soil glinted with white

(59:35):
fragments of bone shards, and they were everywhere. And as
they ventured further, investigators found a sort of dumping ground,
just a pile of burned, charred bone pieces. He didn't
even care enough to bury them and two main clusters
of remains were identified in the woods, and another section

(59:56):
of the property to the west of the house revealed
yet more bones. The sheer volume of these bones were staggering,
and over the next several days, evidence technicians collected bone
after bone, teeth, and even personal items, and they had
covered handcuffs suggesting restraints were used on victims. They found

(01:00:16):
shell casings from a firearm, though it's not believed herb
ever shot any of his victims, so the casings might
have just been from shooting on the property. But by
the end of the two week search, more than ten
thousand human bones and fragments had been recovered, and these
remains would later be analyzed and found to represent at
least eleven distinct individuals and possibly up to seventeen more,

(01:00:38):
though only the ten that we went over earlier are
confirmed as of twenty twenty five. So for a quiet
Indianapolis suburb, this discovery was the stuff of nightmares, a
serial killer's burial pit right in their backyard, and Julie Baumeister,
who was present during some of the search, was absolutely
distraught as the evidence mounted that her husband had indeed

(01:01:00):
been killing men on their property and the realization that
she and her children had lived alongside this horror was
almost too much to bear. I can't even imagine finding
that out like how horrible. And as the news of
the find broke, Herb Baumeister got winned that the police
were searching Foxhall of Farm, and Herb's reaction was swift

(01:01:21):
and he would flee Indiana almost immediately. So on June
twenty ninth, the police formally issued a warrant for Herb's
arrest on multiple homicide charges, but they were too late,
and Baumeister had already driven north, crossing the border into Ontario, Canada.
So a multi state and international alert went out for him,
but his exact whereabouts were unknown for a few days,

(01:01:42):
which is so scary. And then on July third, nineteen
ninety six, two days after my birthday, campers in Pinery
Provincial Park, a large park on Lake Huron in Ontario,
found a man's body inside a parked car, and it
was Herb Baumeister, taking the easy way out, like the
peace shit. He is just avoiding any sort of consequences.

(01:02:03):
And Baumeister's body was discovered just as law enforcement back
home was closing in and he chose to take his
own life rather than face any sort of consequences or capture.
So Herb's taking of his own life meant that he
would never stand trial for his crimes, never answer the
questions that so many had, so many family members had. However,

(01:02:23):
he did leave behind a note, which was just a
rambling three page letter addressed mainly to his wife and children,
But in it Herb oddly apologized for quote messing up
the scenery of the Canadian park where he took his
own life, and he expressed regret over the breakup of
his marriage and the failure of his business, citing those

(01:02:46):
as reasons for his impending ending of life. And telling
lye what Herb's note did not mention was anything about
the eleven plus men whose remains had been found at
his home, and he made no confession or reference to
the murders at all. And this omission infuriated investigators and
just devastated the victim's families. Because Baumeister died without ever

(01:03:09):
acknowledging or taking responsibility for the lives he had brutally taken,
it was as if in Herb's mind those young men
simply just did not matter, and even in death, he
stuck to the narrative that he was the victim of
the circumstance with his failed marriage and business woes, and
that he was not a murderer. So police and prosecutor's

(01:03:31):
publicly voiced frustration that Baumeister's final act was one of
cowardice and silence, robbing the families of any chance at
answers or justice in court. And with herb dead, the
case moved from a manhunt to a massive forensic identification effort.
So throughout late nineteen ninety six and into nineteen ninety seven,
anthropologists and law enforcement worked tirelessly to identify the bone

(01:03:56):
fragments recovered from Foxhollow Farm, and it was painstaking work
as the burned, crushed, and intermingled bones made it extremely
challenging to match pieces to specific individuals. And still progress
was made, and by nineteen ninety nine authorities announced they
had confidently identified the remains of several men from the property,
and the identifications were done via methods like dental records

(01:04:18):
d and A comparisons with family members and personal items found,
and each identification brought a mix of sorrow and relief
to the families, sorrow to have confirmation of death, but
relief to finally know and to be able to hold funerals.
For instance, when bones belonging to Alan Bussard were identified,
his mother Sharon felt vindicated in her long held intuition

(01:04:40):
that quote, I know he's there at Fox Hollow. I
just know it. A mother always knows. And the scope
of Baumeister's crimes had fully come to light for the public,
and the case would just shock Indiana and the entire nation,
revealing that a serial killer had been active and under
the radar, targeting gay men in the heart of the Midwest.

(01:05:01):
And the search of Foxhallo Farm didn't end with Herb's death,
because over the years, additional searches were conducted as technology
improved or as new tips emerge, and remarkably, as late
as December twenty twenty two, investigators returned to Fox Hollow
with cadaver dogs and located yet another bone fragment and
several new spots of interest on the property, and the

(01:05:23):
shows that even decades later, the ground of Fox Hollow
may still hold secrets and small pieces of young men
who never made it home. And a renewed effort in
the twenty twenties spearheaded by Hamilton County corner Jeff Jellison,
has focused on using modern DNA techniques like forensic genetic
genealogy to identify the remaining unknown victims and in twenty

(01:05:43):
twenty three. In twenty twenty four, these efforts paid off
and they would identify Alan Livingstone, who had vanished in
nineteen eighty three and the aforementioned for Zendez and Jones,
and Jellison emphasized that it was quote not acceptable for
these people to remain nameless, essentially left on a shelf
in storage for years. So thanks to improved the DNA testing,

(01:06:05):
he said, quote, we need to make every effort possible
to identify these people and return them to their loved ones,
which is just amazing. It's amazing that technology has become
what has become and people are so determined to bring
family's peace. I think it's so incredible. So the case
officially remains open and an unsolved homicide investigation in the

(01:06:27):
sense that not all victims are accounted for and no
charges wherever filed due to herbs taking of his own life,
and for the detectives and scientists involved, there is a
commitment to continue working until as many of the victims,
as possible, have their names restored, and Herb Baumeister's death
marked the end of a criminal case against him, but
it did not end to the haunting questions, which is

(01:06:50):
why did he do it? And how did no one notice?
And could it have ever been stopped sooner? And these
questions have been explored in the years since through profile
documentaries and countless discussions among true crime followers. But to
understand her Bawmeister is to delve into a perplexing psyche,
one that on the surface managed a normal life, but

(01:07:12):
underneath was driven by dark compulsions. Because what could drive
a man like her Bowmeister to commit such unspeakable acts?
And we can contemplate and theorize, but at the end
of the day, we'll never know, because that piece of
shit took his own life and hopefully he's rotting in hell.
But that is Fox Hollow Farm and Herb Baumeister what

(01:07:36):
a monster, I mean, horrible, But just the community involves
and everyone stepping up, and Tony and the moms and
the private investigator and all the scientists. Now it is
quite amazing what people banding together can do. And I'm
just going to choose to remember the victims in the

(01:07:57):
situation and not the Afroman piece of shit. But let
me know what other cases you want me to deep
dive into in the comments below. I always read the comments,
and also please stay safe out there and I will
see you in the next video. Okay bye,