Over the years, various notorious groups of murderers have gained national attention for their shocking crimes, including figures like Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. However, one killer who was equally brutal in his crimes did not receive as much national recognition as Gacy or Dahmer. He was from Indiana and his farm harbored a dark double life, ultimately claiming the lives of at least 13 men, according to investigators.
Businessman Herbert Baumeister of Westfield, Indiana, has never been convicted, but police believe he is responsible for killing those victims, mostly gay men – and potentially more – after more than 10,000 bone fragments and bones were found scattered across his Fox Hollow Farm.
To this day, nobody knows the identities of all of Baumeister’s alleged victims or how many people he may have killed. However, with new technology available today, coroner Jeff Jellison of Hamilton County has opened a new investigation into the notorious serial killer case.
As investigators dig deeper, they discover unsettling questions about possible accomplices, missing evidence, and a key witness whose story keeps changing.
HULU
“When you look at the original investigation back in the ’90s, when the search warrant was served, I don’t think we were prepared to really handle an investigation like that,” Jellison said.
The ABC Studios four-part series, “The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer,” which premieres Feb. 18 on Hulu, follows coroner Jeff Jellison and his team as they investigate the victims of Herbert Baumeister. As they delve deeper, they uncover potential accomplices, missing evidence, and a key witness whose testimony keeps changing.
Herb Baumiester in a police photo.
Indianapolis Police Department
In 1994, some families of missing gay men in Indianapolis hired a private investigator after they said police didn’t help them find their loved ones. There have been multiple reports dating back to the summer of 1993 that multiple gay men had been missing after attending local gay bars.
These men were all about the same age, all about the same size. The last place anybody could put most of them was in a number of openly gay bars within a 2-mile area.
The case took off when Mark Anthony Goodyear spoke with a private investigator about a strange encounter he said he had with a man he met while out at a bar.
Goodyear mentioned that he met a man named Brian at a gay bar in downtown Indianapolis. According to the account, Brian persuaded Goodyear to accompany him to his home, which had a pool and a bar, so they could continue to socialize.
They went down to the basement, where the pool area was located. Goodyear remembers there were mannequins around the pool and behind the bar, creating a sort of club environment.
Hamilton County Deputy Coroner Jared Privett swabs Debbie Falls for DNA to help identify her brother Richard Hamilton Jr. in the remains at Fox Hollow Farm.
ABC Studios
“I knew something was strange about him already,” Goodyear said. “I wouldn’t take a cocktail from him. He was trying to get me to drink or whatever. So, I went to the bathroom with the cocktail. Dumped it out. Rinsed the glass. Came back with a glass of water.”
They went swimming and engaged in consensual sex, according to Goodyear. And then participated in autoerotic asphyxiation, which entails the deprivation of air to a sexual partner that brings them into a euphoric state before going unconscious.
“I knew this guy wasn’t right,” Goodyear told police. “There were several different attempts there with, like I said, a tie, a belt. He had a fascination with strangulation. I, I do believe that if I had been severely under the influence that he probably would have went further with me. Leading me to believe that he has done this before. I don’t even know if he’s a murderer. My assumption is that he is.”
Goodyear then couldn’t remember much of where Brian took him, so he told multiple people to be on the lookout for a man who fit Brian’s description. During this time nobody question Goodyear story. Over the years, some individuals who met him felt he knew more than he let on.
One of those individuals was Jane Gerlach, a paranormal filmmaker, who told ABC that while interviewing Goodyear for a documentary she found his stories puzzling. She also mentioned that he wrote her a strange riddle in a letter.
“I was never attacked,” Goodyear wrote in a letter. “I am not a murderer. Exactly what am I? Tell me what I am. Not an accomplice, not a victim, never attacked. What am I?”
ABC News has confirmed that Goodyear has never been charged with any crimes related to the case. Goodyear denies any involvement with the missing persons.
When human remains are found at Fox Hollow Farm, investigators uncover how a wealthy businessman preyed on vulnerable gay men.
ABC Studios
“I never introduced anyone to Herb Baumeister,” Goodyear told ABC News. “I would introduce Herb Baumeister to persons, yes. This is your killer. Don’t leave the building with him. Don’t be alone with him. At the top of my lungs. A shrill shriek. While standing on furniture in public places. No, I never set anybody up.”
Nonetheless Goodyear, during police investigation, was a big help to leading detectives on the right path. Thanks to word of mouth, one of Goodyear’s friends spotted a person matching the description Goodyear offered and got the license plate number of the person’s vehicle. With that plate number, Indianapolis Police Department detective Mary Wilson initiated a background investigation and ran a check through the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) to find out who owned the vehicle. The investigation revealed that the car belonged to Herbert Baumeister.
Before this, Baumeister had not been on anyone’s radar. He and his wife Julie lived with their three children in Westfield, Indiana, at Fox Hollow Farms. Baumeister appeared a decent father who went to church.
But now Baumeister became a suspect, and the police wanted to check his home. This is when investigators learned from his wife that he hadn’t been living there because she had filed for divorce.
“My first impression of Mr. Baumeister when I first saw him at the store was this is a very strange man,” Wilson said. “But just, he was so very nervous. He has a wife and three children, and he said nobody in his family knew the fact that he goes into gay bars.”
In 1996, Julie Baumeister told detectives that Herbert had been acting strangely, and she wanted to leave him. She recounted an incident when her son found a human skull in the woods near their home.
Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison takes on a decades-old case: identifying victims whose remains were found at Fox Hollow Farm
ABC Studios
Julie Baumeister granted the police permission to search the Fox Hollow property, and a preliminary search was conducted in that area. During the search, detectives observed what appeared to be burnt bone fragments. The fragments looked like human bones, so the investigation needed to involve others with expertise in that area.
“We did a walk through the woods, and as I was walking through, I looked down and saw what appeared to be an articulated foot,” Cary Milligan, a former detective of the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, said. “The bones of a foot were on the ground. There was some shotgun shells found. Oh, there’s the hinged handcuffs.”
Investigators and forensic anthropologists spent weeks digging through the earth around the 18-acre estate. In total, they found more than 10,000 human remains. They were only able to identify 13 men.
Baumeister was eventually found in Canada, dead by suicide. The criminal investigation died with him, but the forensics team is committed to trying to identify as many victims as possible.
“We have 10,000 bone and bone fragments,” Jellison said. “Well, to put it into perspective, this is the second-largest number of unidentified human remains in this country. I made this big plea going public with this investigation. And attempting to identify the remains. If you have someone missing please let us know. We’ll get a DNA swab from you. We’ll get that entered into the missing person database.”