Buried at Fox Hollow: The Disturbing Crimes of Herbert Baumeister

Herbert Baumeister: The Man Who Buried His Secrets

The House That Knew Too Much

There’s a certain kind of house that just looks like it’s hiding something. You know the type—overgrown weeds, windows dark like empty eye sockets, the kind of place that makes you lock your car doors even if you’re just driving by.

Fox Hollow Farm is one of those places. And if you’ve ever passed an abandoned property and thought, “Yeah, I bet some weird stuff went down there,” congratulations. You might have investigative instincts, or at the very least, an understandable distrust of men with unfinished basements.

The 1990s: A Dangerous Time to Disappear

Now, let’s rewind to the early ‘90s. A time when grunge was in, the internet wasn’t, and police departments—specifically the ones in Indianapolis—were really good at not looking too hard into missing gay men. Not because the disappearances weren’t piling up, but because, frankly, no one in power cared enough to connect the dots.

But the dots were there. Young men, similar height, weight, and age. All last seen in the same part of town. And then… nothing. No bodies. No leads. Just an ever-growing list of faces on missing posters.

Police Suspect a Serial Killer—But Without a Name

For years, law enforcement quietly acknowledged the likelihood that a predator was hunting in Indianapolis. The pattern was too strong to ignore, even if the response was underwhelming.

But without a suspect, the case remained nothing more than a whisper between detectives and a growing fear within the LGBTQ+ community.

The police had a problem. They just didn’t have a name.

Not yet.

The First Break in the Case

A Friend Who Refused to Stay Silent

For years, men had been disappearing from Indianapolis, and no one seemed to have answers—until one man decided he wasn’t going to let his friend’s disappearance become just another cold case.

His name was Tony Harris, and in the summer of 1992, his friend Roger Goodlet vanished. Just gone. No explanation, no sign of struggle, just another face added to the growing stack of missing persons cases.

But Tony wasn’t buying it. He knew something was wrong.

A Man Named Brian Smart

Determined to find out what happened, Tony started paying attention—especially at the bars where Roger had last been seen. That’s when he noticed a man who stood out. Not just because he was there frequently, but because he was interested in Roger’s disappearance. Too interested. Asking questions. Watching people’s reactions.

The man introduced himself as Brian Smart, a well-dressed, charismatic guy who seemed to know just the right amount to make Tony uneasy.

And then, one night, Brian invited Tony back to a house for a few drinks.

A Close Call With a Killer

What happened next? It’s the kind of thing that feels ripped from a horror movie, except no one yelled cut.

Brian led Tony to a massive home in the suburbs, where the vibe shifted from friendly to something else entirely.

Drinks were poured. Conversations turned strange. And at some point, Brian produced a pool hose—not for the pool, but for asphyxiation play.

Tony went along at first, until he realized something terrifying: Brian wasn’t stopping.

Panic surged. Tony fought back. And somehow, miraculously, he got away.

The Problem With Brian Smart

Tony sprinted to the police with his story. He told them about Roger’s disappearance. He told them about Brian Smart. He told them about the pool hose and how he’d almost been killed.

And for the first time, police had a lead.

But there was just one problem.

Brian Smart didn’t exist.

The Hunt for Brian Smart

Three years passed. No new leads, no arrests, no answers. It was as if Brian Smart had disappeared just as easily as the men he preyed on.

Then, one night, Tony saw him again. Same face, same smug confidence. But this time, Tony was ready. He followed him out of the bar, kept his distance, and when the man got into his car, Tony wrote down the license plate number.

He went straight to the police. And this time, they had something to work with. The plate was registered to a man named Herbert Baumeister.

So who was Herbert?

On paper, he was everything you wouldn’t expect from a serial killer. A well-off businessman. A husband. A father. A guy who owned a successful thrift store chain and lived in an upscale house with his wife and kids.

But there was another side to Herbert. One his family didn’t see.

A history of bizarre, antisocial behavior stretching all the way back to childhood. A deep fascination with death. A growing list of men who had gone missing after crossing his path.

And a home where some of those men had gone—never to be seen again.

Who Was Herbert Baumeister?

A Childhood of Red Flags

There’s no official record of childhood trauma in Herbert Baumeister’s life. No major event that would explain why he grew into the kind of man who kept human remains on his property like they were landscaping choices. But what he did have was a collection of behaviors that should have sent up every red flag imaginable.

For starters, he had an obsession with urine. And not in a haha, kids do weird stuff kind of way. He was fascinated by it, talked about it, and at one point, even wondered out loud what it would be like to drink it. If that’s not unsettling enough, he also developed a habit of urinating on his teachers’ desks—which is less of a prank and more of a “we should call someone” situation.

Then there was his fixation on death and decay. Other kids played with action figures. Herbert preferred dead animals.

At some point, his father—who happened to be a well-respected anesthesiologist—realized that his son’s behavior wasn’t just quirky. Herbert was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorder.

And then… nothing. No real treatment, no long-term psychiatric care. Just a kid with unchecked mental illness and a growing list of reasons to be avoided.

Marriage, Family, and the Illusion of Normalcy

In 1971, Herbert Baumeister married Juliana, and for anyone looking in from the outside, it seemed like he had pulled off the classic American dream. A wife, three kids, a successful business, and a big house in the suburbs.

But beneath that white-picket-fence image, things were far from normal.

Just six months into their marriage, Herbert was committed to a mental hospital. Not for a quick check-up. Not for a weekend stay. He was there for an extended period, which, in any healthy relationship, would be a pretty serious red flag.

Then there was the matter of their sex life—specifically, the almost total lack of one. Juliana later revealed that in twenty-five years of marriage, they had sex less than ten times. That’s not just a dry spell—that’s a quarter-century of avoidance.

Herbert’s behavior wasn’t just distant. It was strange. He would go through bursts of energy and obsession with work, followed by long periods of being completely withdrawn. He had a way of making people uncomfortable, even when he wasn’t trying to.

Juliana chalked it up to stress, eccentricity, maybe even past trauma she didn’t know about. But the reality was something much darker. While she was busy raising their kids and keeping up appearances, her husband was leading a very different life—one that would eventually unravel in the most horrifying way possible.

The Investigation Closes In

For years, Herbert Baumeister had managed to keep his secrets buried—literally. But by the mid-90s, the cracks in his carefully constructed double life were beginning to show.

Police wanted to search Fox Hollow Farm, the sprawling 18-acre property where Herbert lived with his wife and kids. They had enough suspicions to know something was off, but suspicions don’t get you a search warrant.

Herbert didn’t hesitate. Absolutely not, he told them. And, incredibly, Juliana backed him up.

No warrant, no search. No search, no evidence.

For a while, that was the end of it. But Herbert wasn’t exactly a man who handled pressure well. He became more erratic, more unpredictable. Juliana had spent years excusing his behavior, but now? Now, she had had enough.

She wanted out. She wanted a divorce. And most importantly, she wanted him out of her life.

And just like that, she did what she should have done years earlier.

She let the police in.

The Horrifying Discovery

The Secret Buried Beneath Fox Hollow Farm

The moment investigators stepped onto the property, they knew they weren’t just chasing a hunch.

Eleven sets of human remains were uncovered across the property. Bones, scattered and burned. Some were so decomposed they couldn’t even be identified.

Then came a disturbing revelation. One of those bodies? It had already been discovered years earlier—by Herbert’s own son.

Sometime in 1994, his teenage son had stumbled upon a human skull in the backyard. Most parents would panic. Maybe call the police. Herbert? He shrugged it off. Told his kid it was a medical skeleton his father—an anesthesiologist—had given him.

Then he reburied it.

And somehow, that explanation worked.

But now, there was no more hiding. The bones told the truth Herbert never would.

A warrant was issued for his arrest. But Herbert, knowing he was caught, wasn’t about to stick around to face justice.

Instead, he fled to Canada, checked into a park near Lake Huron, and put a bullet in his own head.

He left behind a three-page suicide note—a final message to the world.

And in all those pages, not a single mention of the eleven bodies found on his land. Not a word about his victims, their families, or the lives he stole.

Instead, he rambled about his failing business and his collapsing marriage, as if those were the real tragedies of his life.

Was Herbert Baumeister the I-70 Strangler?

Now that police knew Herbert was capable of murder, another question surfaced.

Was this really his first time?

The timeline was suspicious. Throughout the 80s and early 90s, bodies had been turning up along Interstate 70—young men and teenage boys, strangled to death and dumped in ditches.

Then, in 1991, the killings stopped.

That also happened to be the exact year Herbert bought Fox Hollow Farm.

Instead of leaving bodies in public, where they might be found, he now had his own private 18-acre burial ground.

At least eleven victims from the I-70 murders matched his known M.O.

Two other men, Allen Livingston and Jerry Williams-Comer, disappeared under eerily similar circumstances, though their bodies were never recovered.

If Herbert was the I-70 Strangler, his true victim count could be much higher than anyone realizes.

The Farm Still Holds Secrets

2022 Update: More Bodies, More Questions

You’d think that after discovering eleven victims, Fox Hollow Farm would have been fully excavated, every inch of it searched.

Nope.

In 2022, investigators returned to the property and found even more human remains.

At least twenty other locations on the property could still hold bodies.

Which raises the real question:

How many victims did Herbert Baumeister leave behind?

Final Thoughts: The Legacy of a Killer Who Never Confessed

Herbert Baumeister died without ever admitting to a single murder.

His victims’ families never got closure.

And somewhere, beneath the soil at Fox Hollow Farm, there may still be more untold stories.