Sometimes serial killers get caught, and other times they live seemingly normal lives for years. While their poor victims go undetected for years. That was the case for Herb Baumeister. For anyone looking in from the outside, he seemed to live a normal life with his family. However, this serial killer's son reveals his secret which lead police to over 10,000 bone fragments of his past victims hidden on his property.
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Serial Killer's Secret Is Revealed By His Son
PEOPLE Magazine shares that Herb Baumeister lived in "A wealthy suburb of Indianapolis." There, he "Shared a $1 million estate in Westfield, dubbed the Fox Hollow Farm, with his wife and three kids." Additionally, he owned several successful thrift shops. So he appeared to be a successful, family man with nothing out of the ordinary going on.
That is, until you took a deeper look. While he was a family and business man he was a serial killer by night. Baumeister was leading a double life! During the evening hours he would target gay men at nightclubs. Then, he would somehow lure them back to his home and murder them. Afterward, he would bury their remains around his estate.
PEOPLE shares that "He is believed to be one of the most prolific serial killers in Indiana history." So how did police discover this serial killer's secret when he was so good at living his double life? Well, his son ended up shattering his secret. In 1994 Baumeister's son, who was 13 years old at the time, found a human skull and a pile of bones in the woods near his family's property.
Police were informed of the incident but Baumeister denied any foul play. Instead, PEOPLE shares that he claimed "The bones came from a skeleton that his late father, an anesthesiologist, obtained in medical school."
Police Find Over 10,000 Bone Fragments Of Past Victims
While Baumeister may have thought that was a valid excuse, this serial killer's secret was about to be revealed. Although it would take time. Two years later police returned to the scene and found thousands of human bones and bone fragments on the property. From those remains, police were able to identify some of his victims.
PEOPLE shared that police were able to ID eight victims specifically. However, Baumeister was never taken into custody because by the time police found him, he had ended his own life. Local law enforcement found him "Dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a park in Canada." Seems like this serial killer knew his secret had been revealed and he would rather die than go to prison.
Now, the case still lives on. After all eight victims is not enough to account for over 10,000 bone fragments. So in 2022 "Jellison launched a renewed effort" to identify more victims. Now, they had more advanced technology to hopefully identify more people. By taking DNA samples from relatives of the men who vanished they hope to identify more victims from the bones and remains.
