3 days ago
EXCLUSIVE Chilling trail of clues that uncovered depraved double life of suburban Indiana father-of-three
The name Herb Baumeister might not conjure up as much infamy and terror as the likes of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer.
But the extent of his depraved crimes and the number of victims certainly rivals the worst of the worst serial killers.
In the latest episode of Murder Maps, Daily Mail's Crime Correspondent Rachel Sharp delves into the haunting case of the Indiana serial killer thought to have taken the lives of around 25 people.
To those living in the wealthy, exclusive Westfield neighborhood close to Indianapolis, Baumeister was a family man and successful businessman. He owned two local thrift stores and lived with his wife and their three children on a vast 18-acre estate called Fox Hollow Farm.
But when a human skeleton was found in the woods of the farm in the winter of 1994, Baumeister's mask began to slip.
Eventually, when police began to search the huge family estate in summer 1996, his double life was exposed.
Investigators found a staggering 10,000 human remains and bone fragments, many burned and charred, scattered around the property.
While his family was out of town, Baumeister would visit the local gay bars in downtown Indianapolis and lure young men back to his home, before killing them.
The huge family estate where the Baumeister children would play with friends was actually their father's secret graveyard for his victims.
Quickly, eight victims were identified among the remains.
But in 1998 - after Baumeister fled to Canada and killed himself - investigators stopped seeking to identity the remaining victims and the remains were left to sit on a shelf at the University of Indianapolis for the next 25 years with no names.
That all changed in 2023 when Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison decided to launch a new probe to identify the remaining victims and reunite them with their loved ones.
Since then, two more victims have been named.
Now, the known victims are: Johnny Bayer, Jeff Jones, Richard Hamilton Jr., Steven Hale, Allen Broussard, Roger Goodlet, Mike Keirn, Manuel Resendez, Allen Livingston and Daniel Halloran.
In this new episode, out now on YouTube, Sharp maps out the case all the way from Baumeister's life growing up to the missing persons cases that had the LGBT community on edge and the chilling discoveries on the farm.
Sharp also delves into the aftermath of the case up to the present day - from the new probe to the unanswered questions that still linger about the case, including who all the victims are, the missing pieces of evidence that could hold the key to the crimes and the mystery surrounding whether Baumeister may have had an accomplice.
