For years, a peaceful million-dollar farm in Indiana hid a dark secret — it was a serial killer’s playground.
When cops finally raided Herb Baumeister’s 18-acre property in Westfield, north of Indianapolis, they uncovered some 10,000 pieces of human remains — mostly crushed and burned skeletal fragments of the teenager boys and young men whom he had abducted and murdered in the 1980s and 90s.
Nearly 30 years after Baumeister killed himself while on the run from police, authorities are still sifting through the remains and identifying victims.
The Hamilton County Coroner announced last month that human remains recovered from Herb Baumeister’s Fox Hollow Farm in 1996 were positively identified as belonging to Jeffrey A. Jones, who went missing in 1993.
Jones is the third victim to be identified in recent months.
There are an additional four DNA profiles found at Baumeister’s property that have not been identified, bringing the total number of his victims to 12, Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison said.
“Because many of the remains were found burnt and crushed, this investigation is extremely challenging; however, the team of law enforcement and forensic specialists working the case remain committed,” Jellison said.
Baumeister, a businessman and married father of three, hunted gay teens and men in central Indiana beginning in at least 1980. He’s believed to have killed at least 25 people, Fox News Digital reported.
He reportedly used the fake name “Brian Smart” and targeted young gay men he met at bars.
Jones was the third victim identified by the coroner’s office in the last six months. Before him, officials identified Allen Livingston, who was 27 when he went missing in August 1993, and Manuel Resendez, who was 34 when he vanished in 1996.
Baumeister, who moved into the farmstead with his family in 1988, used its sprawling yard and adjacent trail to hide thousands of decomposed remains until his teenage son discovered a human skull and brought it to his mother.
His wife, who initially blocked law enforcement from searching their property, later divorced her husband as more evidence began to pile up against him.
Authorities eventually searched the property while Baumeister wasn’t home and found the bodies of several victims.
Baumeister, who was 49 at the time, fled to Ontario, Canada in 1996 after a warrant was put out for his arrest and fatally shot himself.
He was never charged with the murders and he did not admit to any of the crimes in his suicide note.
The remaining unidentified bones and bone fragments had been sitting in storage until Jellison decided it was time to reopen the case in 1996, according to WRTV.
The Hamilton County coroner’s office along with the FBI, Indiana State Police Laboratory, Dr. Krista Latham of the Biology & Anthropology Department at the University of Indianapolis and DNA experts from Texas-based Othram Lab, are all working to identify the additional remains.
