INDIANAPOLIS — The man who owned a sprawling estate known as Fox Hollow Farm was a respected businessman, a husband, and a father of three. By night, authorities now confirm, Herbert Baumeister was a predator who lured young men to their deaths in one of the most disturbing double lives in modern American criminal history.
The case, which has haunted the Indianapolis area for decades, has taken a dark turn as investigators continue to unearth remains from the property. Baumeister, who died by suicide in 1996 in a Canadian park, is believed to have killed as many as two dozen men, making him one of the most prolific serial killers the Midwest has ever seen.
The story begins on July 22, 1994, when 33-year-old Roger Goodlet left his mother’s home for a night out at a gay bar on 16th Street. He never returned. His family reported him missing, but police were slow to act, a pattern that had repeated itself for years as young men, many of them gay, vanished without a trace from the city.
Authorities had long suspected a predator was operating in the shadows. But the cases were often dismissed, with some in law enforcement and the community believing the victims had simply moved away to live more openly in liberal cities. The rights of gay men were not as respected then, and many were happy to see them leave, no matter the circumstances.
The investigation finally broke open in 1994 when a man named Tony Harris came forward. He told police he had met a terrifying individual who called himself Brian Smart at the 501 Club in downtown Indianapolis. Harris approached him, and Smart said he was a landscaper from Ohio preparing a house on the outskirts of the city for a family moving in soon.
Smart invited Harris to the house for a cocktail and a swim. They drove to an elegant estate with a farm out back, parking in the garage. Smart led Harris through a dark basement to an indoor pool area, where Harris saw several mannequins in various poses around the water.
Some sat in chairs, others lay on towels as if sunbathing.
When Harris looked shocked, Smart said, “I feel lonely here. They keep me company.” Harris refused a drink, staying sober.
Smart stepped away for a moment and returned seeming calmer and happier, and Harris believed he had taken a 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔. They continued talking, and eventually began skinny dipping.
Then things turned dark. Smart said he had learned a new trick and wanted to try it with Harris, mentioning autoerotic asphyxiation. He said it was unbelievably satisfying.
Smart laid down on a foldout couch and called Harris to his side, instructing him to cut off his air supply with a hose while Smart pleasured himself.
When it was Harris’s turn, Smart squeezed his neck too hard. Harris quickly could not breathe and started to black out. He cleverly faked passing out, closing his eyes and relaxing his body.
The trick worked. Smart whispered Harris’s name, and Harris opened his eyes. Smart acted surprised, saying accidents happen, and apologized.
Harris convinced Smart to drive him back to the city. The near-death experience left him traumatized and convinced Smart was a deadly predator. He told police he believed his friend Roger Goodlet, who had gone missing earlier that summer, may have had a similar encounter but was not lucky enough to escape.
With this lead, investigators intensified their efforts. They had a name, Brian Smart, but nothing in their database matched. It took more than six months for Harris to see Smart again in August 1995.
He followed his car and noted the license plate number, allowing police to finally identify him as 48-year-old Herbert Richard Baumeister.
The revelation shocked everyone. Baumeister was not just a respected businessman, the owner of two successful Save-A-Lot thrift stores. He was not gay.
He had been happily married to his wife Julie since 1977, and together they had three children. But looks were deeply deceiving. Baumeister was living a double life as a psychopathic killer.
Born in Indianapolis on April 7, 1947, into a well-off family where his father was a successful anesthesiologist, Baumeister’s childhood seemed uneventful. But he showed disturbing antisocial behaviors from a young age. He had a strange obsession with bodily fluids and enjoyed thinking about tasting human urine, acting out these desires on several occasions.
He got in trouble in school for urinating on his teacher’s desk. Like many serial killers, Baumeister demonstrated cruelty towards animals, finding pleasure in playing with dead creatures and posing them in unnatural positions, just like his mannequins by the pool. His father secretly had him undergo mental evaluations.
The diagnoses were alarming: paranoid schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorder. Despite this, Baumeister never received proper psychiatric treatment. He shoved his deviations down and pretended to be something he was not, which is why he was so good at living a double life.
He became an outsider at North Central High School, spending long hours alone.
After a failed attempt at college, Baumeister struggled through various jobs. His inappropriate behavior often got in the way. While working at the DMV, he urinated on a letter addressed to the state governor.
This act cost him his job. He then found work at a local secondhand store, staying for three years before opening his own business.
The first Save-A-Lot store was born, and things began to improve. Baumeister learned to hide his dark side well. The sales were good, and he and his wife Julie decided to expand by opening a second branch.
With that money, the family bought an impressive dream property, Fox Hollow Farms, in May 1988.
The mansion was a real estate gem, built in 1978 and situated on over 18 acres of wooded rolling grounds with a private pond. It featured four bedrooms, ten luxurious bathrooms, and 11,572 square feet of living space. The estate boasted an indoor swimming pool, a fully equipped bar, and a detached five-car garage with a second-floor terrace.
With so much space, Baumeister’s wife and kids could be in one part of the home completely unaware of what was happening in another section. It was perfect for his secret life. But prosperity was short-lived.
Mismanagement caused the business to crack, and financial difficulties created tension in the marriage.
Julie began spending weekends at her mother-in-law’s apartment to escape the situation while her husband stayed behind, claiming he needed to attend to the stores. What she did not know was that during this free time, Baumeister was going to gay bars in the city. There he met and enjoyed himself with gentlemen, dancing under neon lights.
He would choose victims typically between the ages of 20 and 35. Being a successful and more experienced man, he would seduce them with promises, convincing them to come back to his luxurious home with a pool to continue the party. Few refused his invitations.
Once the victim entered the grounds, their fate was sealed.
Upon arrival, Baumeister would invite them to relax and offer them a drink. While preparing it, he secretly spiked their drinks with drugs. As his unsuspecting victims became defenseless, he showed his true intentions.
Using a hose most often, though sometimes his hands, he ruthlessly strangled them.
After the killings, especially when his wife and kids were away, he burned the bodies to erase evidence. He then buried the charred remains across the vast grounds of his property, where his children used to play in the afternoons. They were undoubtedly walking over the remains of these young men.
This was Baumeister’s modus operandi, which he had been refining for years. He was not always this clean about it, but he did not always have Fox Hollow Farms. By now, he felt untouchable and impossible to catch, which may be why he let Tony Harris go that night in 1994 and drove him back to the city.
By mid-1996, the house of cards Baumeister had built was collapsing. Following Harris’s lead and verifying the license plate registration, police arrived at Fox Hollow Farms. Julie answered the door, and they requested permission to conduct a thorough search of the property.
They wanted to see the pool area, the mannequins, perhaps the hose.
The couple adamantly refused. Since the police did not have solid evidence, they also did not have a warrant. They left, but not before warning Julie about the possibility of her husband being a serial killer.
Initially, Julie dismissed the accusation entirely. She could not believe the man she had built a family with could be capable of such a thing.
But the idea began to take hold. She thought about a disturbing memory from a couple of years earlier. Her young son came home after playing in the woods with a human skull in his hand.
Baumeister tried to calm the family down with an unusual explanation, claiming the skeleton was part of an anatomical display belonging to his father.
Julie accepted this explanation reluctantly at the time. But now, doubts about her husband’s true nature started to bother her. She also realized that in over 25 years of being together, she could literally count on both hands how many times they had been intimate.
Tension filled the household.
At the police station, detectives looked into Baumeister’s past. Their suspicions grew stronger. They found out about his mental disorders, the urination, and a brief stint in a facility shortly after getting married.
But they still lacked the evidence needed to get a search warrant. Tense weeks passed.
Finally, in June 1996, an unexpected turn of events occurred. Julie abruptly filed for divorce and then called the police to search their home. Baumeister was not there at the time.
He had gone on vacation to clear his mind. Julie wanted to know the truth.
On June 24, 1996, investigators conducted a thorough search of Fox Hollow Farm. They uncovered a gruesome killing field. Fragments of human bones belonging to at least 11 individuals were unearthed.
The remains included charred bones, fragments, and body parts. The discovery horrified the locals.
To date, 12 victims have been officially identified, each with a personal story violently cut short. Among them was Jeffrey Jones, 31, who was reported missing in August 1993. Jones was identified through advances in forensic genetic genealogy, bringing closure to his long search for his family.
Other identified victims included Alan Livingston, 27, and Emanuel Rendezvous, 34, both missing in 1993 in the Indianapolis area. Also identified were 20-year-old Johnny Bayer, Richard Hamilton Jr. , 28, Steven Hail, 28, and Alan Broussard.
Roger Goodlet was also discovered, along with 45-year-old Michael Kern, 34-year-old Jerry Williams, and others.
All these men shared similar physical characteristics and lifestyles that ultimately made them targets of this serial predator. But these men were just a small part of Baumeister’s potential victims. He had a whole other life before he purchased the farm at the age of 41.
As the investigation into the disappearances and murders of young men in the Indianapolis area progressed, police started to find unsettling connections with other crimes that had occurred nearby years earlier. The patterns and methods used by the so-called I-70 Strangler seemed to match the crimes now being uncovered.
For over a decade, this unidentified predator had stalked in the shadows of the city, carefully choosing his victims from among the young and vulnerable men who frequented gay bars. His crimes were brutal. He lured his victims in a similar way, promising drinks or drugs, taking advantage of their needs, and subjecting them to death by strangulation.
The mutilated bodies were then discarded in rural areas along Interstate 70, earning the killer the chilling nickname of the I-70 Strangler. The first victim was Michael Petri, a 15-year-old boy whose naked body was found in remote Hamilton County in June 1980.
Then Maurice Taylor, a 23-year-old homeless man, was discovered lifeless at Weasel Creek in July 1982. Soon after, 22-year-old Mick Riley’s body was located in a ditch after he was last seen leaving a gay nightclub with a mysterious companion. In total, at least nine more young men were found in the area.
The I-70 Strangler’s total reached at least a dozen confirmed victims. Authorities searched for clues about the identity of this ruthless killer. When they found the bodies at Fox Hollow, the similarities were too much to ignore.
A key witness who was shown Baumeister’s photo claimed to have seen him with victim Michael Riley just before his disappearance in 1983.
Furthermore, the murders attributed to the I-70 Strangler seemed to have ceased around 1991, the same year Baumeister established Fox Hollow Farm. It appeared he had simply changed the location to dispose of the bodies. However, the case of the I-70 Strangler is still open, with no clear proof that Baumeister was behind these awful crimes.
When Baumeister found out what the police had discovered on his land, he knew he had finally been caught. Faced with arrest and the chance of being charged for his awful crimes, he decided to run to Ontario, Canada, in July 1996. There, at Pretty Penny Provincial Park on Lake Huron, he pulled out his .
357 Magnum pistol and took his own life.
In his three-page note written on a yellow legal pad, Baumeister expressed regret for ruining the park and failing at his marriage. He described mundane details of the journey, like his last meal, a peanut butter sandwich. He also mentioned finding the right place to end this story.
However, he never admitted to his crimes or mentioned any of his victims.
He avoided that altogether, just as he had done in his life, without ever having to admit to the evil side that lay within him. Even though Baumeister is gone for good, efforts to bring closure to the victims’ families continue to this day. His property was sprawling, so who really knows what lay underneath its grounds.
Today, it remains an active investigation site. Recently, on May 21, 2024, the Hamilton County coroner’s office announced a major breakthrough in identifying some more victims who had been unknown until then. It was through this effort that Jeffrey Jones was finally identified as one of the victims.
There are also four more DNA profiles that have not been identified yet, making the total presumed victims 12 at the farm. What is worse, authorities have found over 20 spots on the property that might have more human remains, adding to the 10,000 bones and fragments they already have.
How many more men fell victim to Baumeister’s twisted desires? Maybe time will tell, but maybe not. There is a good chance that out there, no one will ever find a thing, no matter how long they look.
This is a truly tragic tale of what this man did, but it should serve as a cautionary story to all of us.
He was a true monster who hid behind respectability, showing us that appearances can be deceiving and that real demons very much walk among us every single day. They could be your coworker, your neighbor, your friend, even your spouse. Do not let it get you down, just be aware that the next time your instincts tell you something, you should probably listen.
