1. Police discovery of 10,000 bones at Herbert Baumeister’s Fox Hollow Farm
2. Identifying missing gay men decades after police find 10,000 bones at Fox Hollow Farm.
Accident – Death – Obituary News :
Jonny Bayer was only 20 years old when he bid farewell to his mother and headed off to his shift at a fast-food restaurant in Indiana back in 1993.
Little did he know that it would be the last time he would ever see his family again.
Warning: This article contains distressing content that may not be suitable for all readers.
It wasn’t until more than five years later that investigators discovered a single rib among the 10,000 fragments of human remains scattered across a property owned by a suspected serial killer.
Authorities now claim to have identified additional victims of Herbert Baumeister, who passed away before facing any charges.
The meticulous owner of an expansive estate
Fox Hollow Farm is a vast 18-acre estate located in Westfield, Indiana.
Nestled in the heart of the property is a 1,021 square metre home featuring four bedrooms, a five-car garage, two libraries, stained glass windows, and an indoor pool.
In 1994, the estate was under the ownership of businessman Herbert Baumeister.
Baumeister, then in his late 40s, grew up in the state’s capital of Indianapolis and crossed paths with his wife, Julie, at Indiana University in 1967.
The couple tied the knot in 1971, with Baumeister working at the State Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
Former colleagues later described him as “a perfectionist, prone to sudden, unprovoked outbursts,” according to People magazine.
Following his departure from the bureau, he delved into the world of second-hand shops, launching the first of three “Sav-A-Lots” in 1989.
However, initial success waned, and financial woes began to mount.
By 1991, strains in the marriage emerged, leading Baumeister to move out of the residence and file for divorce, though the couple reconciled shortly after.
(Indianapolis Police Department)
In November of that same year, the family acquired Fox Hollow Farm.
By May 1993, reports emerged of gay men vanishing in Indianapolis.
Disappearance of men, discovery of human remains
Virgil Vandagriff, a former police detective turned private investigator, was tasked with investigating the disappearances of Allen Wayne Broussard and Roger Allen Goodlet by their families.
“I dispatched investigators to the gay bars to gather information and distribute wanted posters,” he recounted to WRTV news station in 2022.
“It quickly became apparent that there were numerous missing gay individuals in Indianapolis and the surrounding Indiana area.”
Community members expressed frustration, alleging that law enforcement did not take the cases seriously due to the victims’ sexual orientation.
Former magazine publisher Josh Thomas later suggested that homophobia and strained relations with the police hindered progress in the investigation.
“If someone were targeting cheerleaders at a suburban high school in Dayton, authorities would spare no effort in apprehending the perpetrators,” he remarked to Dayton Daily News in 1996.
In the middle of 1994, the Baumeister family’s 13-year-old son stumbled upon a human skull in the woods near their residence.
Herb Baumeister informed his family that the skull, along with a pile of other bones, belonged to a medical school skeleton that his anaesthesiologist father had brought home.
Meanwhile, authorities continued to probe the multiple disappearances.
A witness came forward and recounted an encounter with a man named Brian, who took him to an expansive estate and attempted to strangle him during a sexual encounter.
The witness provided a licence plate number linked to Herb Baumeister.
Baumeister adamantly refused to allow authorities to search the estate, leaving investigators to spend five months in 1995 trying to convince Julie Baumeister of their suspicions.
“I was livid,” she later recalled. “I said, ‘you’re mistaken. That can’t be true’.”
As the police persisted in their inquiries, she began to question herself: “What if the authorities are correct, and I am mistaken?”
On June 24, 1996, she relented and permitted a search of the estate while Baumeister was away.
Before he could be apprehended, Baumeister fled to Canada and took his own life in an Ontario park, leaving behind a three-page suicide note.
In the note, he expressed regret for disrupting the tranquility of the park, damaging his marriage, and causing financial distress to his businesses.
Notably absent, according to officials at the time, was any reference to the human remains scattered throughout his property.
Authorities have since identified at least 10 alleged victims who all vanished between 1993 and 1995.
There is also suspicion that Baumeister may have been an unidentified serial killer known as the I-70 Strangler, responsible for the deaths of a dozen boys and men from 1980 to 1991.
Curiously, the discovery of bodies along Interstate 70 ceased when the Baumeister family acquired Fox Hollow Farm.
‘I know that man got him, I just know it’
In 1993, Allen Livingston disappeared just a month before his 28th birthday.
His mother, Sharon Livingston, maintained her landline for nearly four decades in the hope that her son would reach out.
“When Allen went missing, landlines were the only means of communication,” she shared with the media in 2022.
“That was the only number he knew since cell phones weren’t prevalent back then.
“He was always cheerful and never had a negative word to say about anyone. He was an exceptional individual.
“I am convinced. I just know it in my heart. I feel it. I know that man was responsible. I just know.”
Authorities recently confirmed Allen’s remains, along with those of 34-year-old Manuel Resendez, among the bones recovered at Fox Hollow Farm.
These identifications were part of a “reinvigorated” investigation initiated by the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office.
More recently, the name Jeffrey A Jones, who also vanished in 1993, was added to the list of identified individuals.
