Indiana Serial Killer’s 18-acre Property Found With 10,000 Human Remains Still Holds Unsolved Mysteries

The property of an Indiana serial killer was littered with 10,000 “burnt and crushed” skeletal parts of his victims. For decades, many of his victims did not have faces.

From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, Herb Baumeister is thought to have killed at least 25 people. He was a wealthy businessman, married, and had three children.

He mostly went after gay men in Westfield, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. This is where he lived on Fox Hollow Farm, an 18-acre farm.

Even after 40 years, the government is still finding secrets under the huge land. The Hamilton County Coroner’s Office recently found Jeffrey A. Jones, who had been missing since 1993. He was the most recent victim to be named.

The Hamilton County Coroner, Jeff Jellison, reopened the investigation into the thousands of bodies that police found on Baumeister’s farm after he died in 1996.

As of today, four more DNA profiles haven’t been recognized. This brings the total number of bodies linked to Baumeister to 12.

“This investigation is very difficult because many of the bodies were found burned and crushed,” the county coroner said in a statement. “However, the team of law enforcement and forensic specialists working the case remain committed.”

This is the third person the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office has named as Baumeister’s victim in the past six months.

In December 2023, the coroner’s office named Allen Livingston and Manuel Resendez. Allen Livingston was 27 years old when he went missing in August 1993. In 1996, Resendez seemed to have disappeared. He was 34 years old.

He moved his family into the famous $1 million house in Indiana in May 1988.

He used the large area and the nearby trail to hide thousands of dead bodies, charred bone pieces, and Baumeister’s teenage son’s discovery of a human skull, which he then showed to Baumeister’s wife.

That was the start of the end of Baumeister’s scary rule.

At first, Baumeister’s wife wouldn’t let police search their land, but as it became clearer that Herb was a wanted killer, they finally got a divorce.

While Baumeister wasn’t home, the police searched the land and found the bodies of several people who had been killed.

It was possible to get him arrested in 1996, so he ran away to Ontario and killed himself there. He died at the age of 49.

No one ever charged him with the killings, and in his suicide note, he didn’t say anything bad about what he did.

According to an FBI report from 2005, Baumeister had two different lives while he was living. This is something that many serial killers do.

He used to be a normal husband and dad in a past life. He worked and came back home.

Police say Baumeister gave himself the fake name “Brian Smart” and mostly went after young gay men he met in bars in his secret life.

A study from the FBI in 2005 says, “The majority of serial killers are not social outcasts who live alone.” It’s possible that they don’t look scary or weird. A lot of serial killers hide out in plain sight in the areas where they live.

“Repeated killers usually have families and homes, jobs, and seem like normal people in the community.” “Several serial killers are so good at hiding their identities that police and the public often miss them,” the study says.

The body parts are still being looked through by the Hamilton County coroner’s office.

The remains were identified with the help of the FBI, the Indiana State Police Laboratory, Dr. Krista Latham of the Biology and Anthropology Department at the University of Indianapolis, and DNA experts from the Othram Lab in Texas.

The Hamilton County Coroner’s Office and Othram, the biggest forensic genetic genealogy lab in the country, worked together last year to help Baumeister’s victims find peace.

“Othram scientists developed a comprehensive DNA profile for the unknown man using Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing.” Othram said in a press release. “After successfully completing the process, the DNA profile was delivered to the FBI’s forensic genetic genealogy team and the FBI team performed the necessary genealogical research to generate new investigative leads in the case.”