Herb Baumeister

What the record shows

Herbert Richard Baumeister (1947 to 1996) was an Indianapolis businessman suspected of killing men at Fox Hollow Farm, his 18-acre estate in Westfield, Hamilton County, Indiana, in the mid-1990s, and of further killings in central Indiana and western Ohio between 1980 and 1990. He was never arrested, charged or tried. In June 1996 investigators recovered thousands of burned and crushed bone fragments from his property, representing at least 11 people; he fled to Canada and shot himself on July 3, 1996. The Hamilton County coroner has said the roughly 10,000 fragments could represent 25 or more victims, and identification work continued in 2025.

Per the Wikipedia article, Marion County and Indianapolis police began investigating the disappearances of gay men in the early 1990s. The men later tied to Fox Hollow Farm vanished between May 1993 and March 1995; the eight identified by 1999, as listed by WRTV, were Johnny Bayer, Allen Wayne Broussard, Roger Allen Goodlet, Richard D. Hamilton, Steven S. Hale, Jeff Allen Jones, Michael Keirn and Manuel Resendez. Police believed Baumeister met young men at gay bars, strangled them at home, then burned the bodies and scattered the crushed bones on the farm, WRTV reported.

The break came from a survivor. In 1994 Tony Harris told police that a man calling himself "Brian Smart" had tried to strangle him and, he believed, had killed his friend Roger Goodlet, according to the Wikipedia account. In August 1995 Harris saw the man again and recorded his licence plate, which led investigators to Baumeister. He and his wife initially refused a search. WRTV reported that his wife, Juliana, filed for divorce in January 1996 and told investigators that a child had found a human skull on the farm in December 1994, which Baumeister called a medical specimen from his late father, an anesthesiologist.

In June 1996, while Baumeister was away, his wife consented to a search. Investigators recovered bone fragments from at least 11 people; the Wikipedia article dates the recovery to June 24, 1996. A warrant was issued, but Baumeister drove to Ontario and shot himself at Pinery Provincial Park on July 3, 1996, aged 49. WRTV reported that his three-page note apologised for his failing marriage and businesses but did not mention the missing men. He died before any charge was filed, so no court ever ruled on his responsibility for the deaths.

United Press International reported on April 28, 1998, that sheriffs in Indiana and Ohio had linked nine further deaths to Baumeister: men aged 15 to 29, strangled between 1980 and 1990 and left in streams or culverts in Hancock, Hamilton and Shelby counties in Indiana and Darke and Preble counties in Ohio, all within 70 miles of the farm. A friend of 1983 victim Michael Riley identified Baumeister as the last man seen with Riley outside an Indianapolis gay theater, UPI reported. CBS News reported that by 1999 authorities had linked him to at least 16 disappearances since 1980.

The case was revived in 2022 when Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison reopened the effort to name the remains, in storage for 26 years. On December 4, 2022, coroner's staff and cadaver dogs searched the property, found one more bone and flagged about 20 locations, WRTV reported. Jellison asked relatives of men missing from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s for DNA swabs; per CBS News, 44 bones went to the Indiana State Police laboratory and more than 30 families gave samples.

On October 17, 2023, Jellison announced that forensic genetic genealogy had identified Allen Lee Livingston, 27 when reported missing in August 1993, as the ninth presumed victim, CBS News reported. In January 2024 remains were matched to Manuel Resendez, missing since the same day as Livingston. On April 29, 2025, the coroner's office and Othram announced the identification of Daniel Thomas Halloran, born May 10, 1972, missing since 1994; ABC-affiliate reporting called him the tenth victim identified.

Baumeister was born in Indianapolis on April 7, 1947, the eldest of four children of an anesthesiologist. He married Juliana Saiter in November 1971; they had three children. Per the Wikipedia article, he bought Fox Hollow Farm in May 1988 and founded the Sav-A-Lot thrift stores the same year.