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Herb Baumeister

Herbert Richard Baumeister was a German-American businessman and serial killer who came under suspicion of murdering over a dozen men in the early-to-mid 1990s, most of whom were last seen at gay bars in central Indiana. Police ultimately found the remains of eleven men, eight identified, on Baumeister's property. He committed suicide after a warrant was issued for his arrest. Since his death, he has come under suspicion for the murders of twelve other men along Interstate 70 in Indiana and Ohio, which occurred from the early 1980s to the early 1990s.

Early life
Herb Baumeister was born in Indianapolis on April 7, 1947, the oldest of four children born to anesthesiologist Dr. Herbert Eugene Baumeister (d. November 12, 1986) and Elizabeth Baumeister (née Schmidt; d. April 7, 2013). Baumeister's childhood was reportedly normal, but he began exhibiting antisocial behavior by the onset of adolescence. Friends later recalled his urophilia and how he used to "ponder what it would be like to taste human urine." He also enjoyed urinating on teachers' desks and playing with dead animals. In his teens, Baumeister's behavior caused his father to have him submit to mental examinations. He was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorder, but did not receive further psychiatric treatment. In 1965, Baumeister attended Indiana University for a semester before dropping out, but returned in 1967. As an adult he drifted through a series of jobs, marked by a strong work ethic but also by increasingly bizarre behavior. Saiter later said that they had been sexually intimate only six times in over twenty-five years of marriage, and that she never saw her husband nude. Six months after his marriage, Baumeister was committed to a psychiatric hospital by his father for two months; his wife said he was "hurting and needed help." Baumeister eventually founded the successful Sav-A-Lot thrift store chain in Indianapolis in 1988. ==Murders==
Murders
I-70 Strangler The I-70 Strangler is the nickname of an unidentified American serial killer who killed at least eleven young boys and adult men in Indiana and Ohio between June 1980 and October 1991, dumping their bodies near Interstate 70. The killer met his victims in popular gay bars and other similar establishments within a four-block radius in Indianapolis. All of the victims were later found naked or partially clothed near Interstate 70, often dumped in rivers, streams and ditches in the rural countryside. Each had been strangled to death. Though officially unsolved, law enforcement officially named Baumeister as a prime suspect in the case in April 1999. According to investigators, bodies related to the Strangler case stopped being found in 1991 after Baumeister purchased Fox Hollow Farm, which he would use as a burial site for his subsequent victims. • On July 21, 1982, the topless corpse of 22-year-old Maurice Allen Taylor was found in Hamilton County's Weasel Creek. • On May 7, 1985, 17-year-old Eric Allen Roettger vanished. His shirtless body was found a few days later near a stream in rural Preble County, Ohio, east of Lewisburg. When found, Roettger had an apparent burn mark on his left shoulder and had been strangled with a rope. • On August 15, 1986, the body of 29-year-old Michael Allen "Mike" Glenn, clad only in his underwear, was found in a ditch near Eaton, Ohio. He lived separately from his parents in a trailer park located on the outskirts of Indianapolis and worked as a handyman. The exact date of his disappearance was not established. Strangulation marks, possibly from a rope, were found on his neck. He was identified three years after his discovery with the help of fingerprinting. • On August 12, 1989, the body of 26-year-old Steven Lynn Elliott, clad in his underwear, was found in Preble County, Ohio. • On September 6, 1990, 18-year-old Thomas Ray Clevenger Jr. vanished; his semi-nude corpse was later found at an abandoned railroad track near Greenville, Ohio. Fox Hollow Farm killings In May 1988, Baumeister purchased Fox Hollow Farm, an 18-acre property built in 1978 off 156th Street and the Monon Trail in Westfield, Indiana. In 1994, Baumeister's son had been playing in the family's wooded backyard when he found a complete, partially buried human skeleton. Baumeister explained to his family that it had been one of his father's dissecting skeletons; he had it stored in their garage before eventually burying it again in the garden. On June 24, 1996, investigators recovered human bone fragments belonging to at least eleven people buried in the woods at Fox Hollow Farm. A new search on December 4, 2022, found one bone and identified twenty additional locations where more may be buried. Only ten victims whose killings were directly linked to Baumeister have been identified since the initial discovery. Three additional remains are still unidentified, although they are all believed to be male and to have been victims of homicide. The Hamilton County coroner's office have appealed to the public requesting anyone with missing family members from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s in the Indianapolis area to complete a DNA test in an effort to help identify the victims' remains. As of January 2024, forensic experts continue working in an effort to identify nearly 10,000 portions of human remains recovered from an unknown number of victims at Fox Hollow Farm. • John Lee "Johnny" Bayer, aged 20, went missing on May 28, 1993. • Jeffrey Allen "Jeff" Jones, aged 31, went missing on July 6, 1993. • Richard Douglas Hamilton Jr., aged 20, went missing on July 31, 1993. • Allen Lee Livingston, aged 27, went missing on August 6, 1993. His remains were recovered in the initial search of the farm in 1996 but remained unidentified until October 2023. He was the first victim to be identified following Hamilton County's new effort to identify more than 10,000 pieces of human remains. • Daniel Thomas Halloran, aged 21 or 22, went missing sometime after March 1994. Identified in 2025 by forensic genetic genealogy. • Steven Spurlin Hale, aged 28, went missing on April 1, 1994. • Allen Wayne Broussard, aged 28, went missing on June 6, 1994. • Roger Allen Goodlet, aged 33, went missing on July 22, 1994. • Michael Frederick "Mike" Keirn, aged 45, last seen on March 31, 1995. • Manuel Resendez, aged 34, last seen at a gay bar in downtown Indianapolis on August 6, 1993, the same date that Livingston disappeared. In January 2024, the Hamilton County coroner announced the identification of remains recovered in 1996 from Fox Hollow Farm as belonging to Resendez. Additional victim Authorities have publicly and posthumously linked the unsolved disappearance of 34-year-old Jerry Williams-Comer to Baumeister. Williams-Comer was last seen in Indianapolis on August 8, 1995. After his disappearance, his vehicle was found at Castleton Square Mall. As a young gay man, Williams-Comer fit the profile of Baumeister's victims, despite the fact that his remains were never recovered from Fox Hollow Farm. ==Identification, investigation and death==
Identification, investigation and death
By the early 1990s, investigators with the Marion County Sheriff's Department and the Indianapolis Police Department began investigating the disappearances of gay men of similar age, height and weight in the Indianapolis area. In 1994, they were contacted by a man named Tony Harris, who claimed that a gay bar patron calling himself "Brian Smart" had likely killed Harris' friend, Roger Goodlet. Harris' suspicion was based on his own encounter with “Smart,” who had attempted to kill him with a pool hose during an erotic asphyxiation session inside his mansion after he had met him at the 501 Club, an Indianapolis gay bar. Harris eventually saw this man again in August 1995, following his car and noting his license plate number. Baumeister left a 3-page suicide note, written on yellow notepaper. He regretted messing up the park, he wrote, and felt bad about his broken marriage and failing business, but he did not mention the remains of his victims or admit to any crime. ==Media coverage==
Media coverage
The A&E television series Investigative Reports aired an episode about Baumeister titled The Secret Life of a Serial Killer in 1997. History featured the case in their Perfect Crimes series. The case was also featured on The Investigators on TruTV in 2008, Behind Mansion Walls on Investigation Discovery (ID), Paranormal Witness on Syfy in 2012, and Ghost Adventures in May 2014. An independent documentary film titled The Haunting of Fox Hollow Farm also explores the crimes and the possibility of hauntings on the grounds of Baumeister's former estate. ID featured the case again on the series True Nightmares, in October 2015. The Crime Junkie podcast released an episode on Baumeister on March 4, 2018. The Monster Presents: Insomniac podcast released a two-part episode about the case on June 27, 2019. The All Things Comedy Mexican podcast Leyendas Legendarias released an episode where they talked about the case on October 14, 2020. Georgia Hardstark covered the case on the podcast, My Favorite Murder, in episode 67, "Live at the Egyptian Room", during a live performance in Indianapolis. The podcast The Last Podcast on the Left covered Baumeister across a two-part series from March to April 2024. In 2025, Hulu released a four-part documentary about the case called, The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of A Serial Killer, which promoted the theory that Baumeister had an accomplice. In June 2025, the Oxygen television series Unknown Serial Killers of America aired an episode about him entitled Herb Baumeister. == See also ==
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