Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - The 10,000 Bones at Fox Hollow Farm

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

In the fall of 1994, a 13-year-old boy found a human skull in his backyard. Detectives later discovered thousands more bones scattered about his family's estate, a property known as Fox Hollow Farm. T...he remains belonged to the presumed victims of Herb Baumeister, an alleged serial killer active thought to be active in Indiana for more than a decade. The investigation closed in the late-‘90s without an arrest. 11 unique DNA samples were catalogued and 8 victims identified at the time, but officials suspect the remains belong to as many as 25 people. In 2022, Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison set out on a brand new investigation to put them to rest. Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at serialkillerstories@spotify.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:01 This episode includes discussions of murder, assault, and suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. For mental health support, visit Spotify.com slash resources. Is there a place near you with an especially dark past? Every time you drive by, it someone always brings up the stories. Maybe it's an old psychiatric hospital that played host to inhumane experiments. Or a section of woods where people tend to vanish into thin air. or a house where a string of gruesome murders took place.
Starting point is 00:00:40 There's a legal term for these kinds of properties. They're said to be stigmatized or psychologically affected. And in many states, when they go up for sale, the seller is required to disclose certain details of asked, like suspicious deaths and homicides. Some states even have specific language around reported hauntings and supernatural activity, all of which can affect the asking price.
Starting point is 00:01:05 It's the reason Robert and Vicky Graves could afford to buy Fox Hollow Farm, an enormous estate in Indiana with an indoor pool, two libraries, and a five-car garage. The original asking price was $2.8 million in 2004, but the Graves reached a deal a few years later for just shy of $1 million. All because, about a decade earlier, police searched the property and found human remains. a bunch of bone fragments scattered about a pocket of woods. It started with a few, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. The graves haven't gone out of their way to look for more fragments,
Starting point is 00:01:48 but every time they've stumbled on a new one, Robert has brought it to the lab at the University of Indianapolis, where they're stored for safekeeping. The remains are believed to belong to at least 12 victims of a suspected serial killer who owned Fox Hollow Farm before the graves, and who they believe still haunts the grounds. Welcome to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. I'm Janice Morgan.
Starting point is 00:02:15 You might recognize me as the voice behind the investigative docu series Broken and the true crime podcast, Fear Thy Neighbor. I'll be your host for the next few weeks, and I'm thrilled to be here. To help us tell today's story, we interviewed Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison. The man responsible for the latest investigation to identify the victims at Fox Hollow Farm.
Starting point is 00:02:36 We're so grateful for his time and expertise. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the lonely hearts killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally, everything, website design, marketing, shipping, and more. So start your business today with the best
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Starting point is 00:04:26 within the first day. And now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Killers. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Transport your senses with Solte Janado's limited edition perfume mist collection at Sephora. Sprits on lush notes of rainforest orchid and crisp seabries with hafresco Paraiso. Embrace of floral and fruity scent inspired by Rio's nude beach with chiqui bikini or capture sun-kissed bliss with limonada gelada, where zesty Brazilian lemonade accord meets coconut milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janado's limited edition perfume miscollection only at Sephora. Hi, Connor. Hello. So let's talk about what drew you into this case.
Starting point is 00:05:18 Yeah, let's talk about it. You're not from Indiana. You don't have a personal connection. Most of these crimes happened before you were even old enough to walk. So what drew you in? Well, I've been a writer and producer on serial killers for a while now. So I have news alerts set up for the types of cases we cover. And a little while back, I got this notification that a coroner in Indiana had identified more victims in this case that dates back to the 80s.
Starting point is 00:05:46 I was a little surprised that I'd never heard of it before, especially because it had such an enormous scope. I'm reading about victim numbers in the double digits, a killing spree thought to have lasted more than a decade across two states in five jurisdictions. But there was also this really small element to it. Many of the victims disappeared from the same four-block radius, a sliver of a city that was supposed to be a safe haven for them.
Starting point is 00:06:17 And it's actually a type of place I'm very familiar with. And the more I read, the more it felt like in another world, in another timeline, those victims could have been me. I think most of us connect to cases where that's true. Like Connor said, the scope of this one is really large, partly because it's many different cases. But we're going to focus in on one of them and start our story with the man responsible for the news notification Connor received. And have you yourself been to Fox Hollow? Many times.
Starting point is 00:06:56 In the middle 90s, it was, I believe, an 18-acre estate, beautiful home. Horse farm type of state, very sparsely populated area at that time. That's Jeff Jellison. He's the coroner for Hamilton County, Indiana, which is where Fox Hollow Farm is located. Today, a portion of that property has been sold off for lots. Still beautiful homes, still horse farm kind of environment, more densely populated, you know, with homes nearby. Also a very popular walking trail on this area, kind of,
Starting point is 00:07:32 runs along the complete east side of the property, which is interesting for some folks because they're walking by the home and the site of one of the most prolific serial killers in this country. It's not that surprising to hear those words come out of Jeff's mouth, one of the most prolific serial killers in the country. Pretty much everyone who comes across this case, hears the evidence, the body count, the eyewitness testimony.
Starting point is 00:08:00 They all draw the same conclusion. conclusion. Herb Baummeister is guilty of serial murder. For almost 30 years, he's been the primary suspect in countless suspicious deaths and disappearances. The reason you might not have heard his name before is because he's never been convicted or even charged, which means technically he's only a suspected serial killer. That said, let's run through some facts. Between the years 1980 and 1991, the bodies of 11 gay men were found in rural parts of Indiana and Western Ohio. All of them young. Most of them had either been dumped over bridges or left in drain pipes, found nude or partially clothed, and strangled to death. None of the resulting homicide investigations
Starting point is 00:08:47 get very far for a whole host of reasons. Blurred jurisdictional lines, a lack of witnesses, bad relations between the police and the queer community. But the bodies, suddenly stop in 1991, which happens to be the year that Herb Baumister, along with his wife and three kids, moves into Fox Hollow Farm. And that's when the disappearances start. Over the next few years, at least 10 young men in their 20s and 30s go missing from Indianapolis's so-called gay neighborhood, which at the time isn't very big. So if you're a member of the tight-knit community, you know about the disappearances. posters are hung up looking for the missing. People are warned to stay vigilant. And around this time, two important things happen. First, a man has a harrowing sexual encounter with someone who says his name is Brian Smart. The encounter happens in an indoor pool area at a massive estate and involves some really scary acts of autoerotic asphyxiation. The experience leaves the man so shaken that he reports it to the police.
Starting point is 00:09:56 And second, Herb Baumaster's 13-year-old son finds a human skull in their backyard. When he brings his mother outside to show her, they find even more remains nearby. Now, believe it or not, this news doesn't immediately reach police. That's because Herb Baumaster tells his wife that the bones likely belong to a cadaver his father once used in his medical practice. The explanation makes very little sense given his father was an anesthethor but it's enough to stave off an investigation for the moment. Eventually, though, the man who had that scary sexual encounter with another man who called
Starting point is 00:10:36 himself Brian Smart sees Brian driving around Indianapolis. Hyper aware of all the disappearances happening, the man writes down the car's license plate, gives it to police, and that's when officials learn that Brian Smart is actually her Baumeister. Soon enough, investigators are knocking on the door. to Fox Hollow Farm. They tell Herb's wife Julie that her husband is a suspect
Starting point is 00:11:01 in the disappearance of several gay men in the area, which, as you can imagine, is a lot of information to process all at once. But once again, Herb has an explanation. He says, none of it is true. He ties the accusations to an employee at his work who he says has a vendetta against him. He essentially tells Julie,
Starting point is 00:11:23 whatever you do, don't let police on the property. She listens at first, but after a while she has doubts. She and Herb stopped talking. Julie files for divorce. And then, one day, while Herbs away, she goes back to the police and invites them to search Fox Hollow Farm once and for all. And that's when they find thousands of bones and bone fragments. It's a huge break, but it comes with an equally big catch. Police don't arrest Herb.
Starting point is 00:11:59 They can't because he never returns home. Herb's body is found eight days later by some campers in a Canadian park, dead by suicide. He leaves a note behind that mentions plenty, but there's not a single word about any murders or remains. The news makes headlines all across Indiana. Here's Jeff. The Fox Hollow incident really occurred. right at the end of my law enforcement career. So I was somewhat familiar with it.
Starting point is 00:12:31 I was not involved with it at the time. Jeff gets involved 26 years later. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet
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Starting point is 00:14:43 My entire law enforcement career was spent working on the street. I was a canine hamler. I was never a detective. I just, I worked the street every day protecting the community that I worked for. Jeff left law enforcement and started his own private business, which he ran until someone at the coroner. office asked if he'd consider working for them. My business was successful and going from owning a private, successful business to working for county government. You know, I had to give some real thought to that. But I sold my business, went to work as a deputy here in the office, worked here for 10 years as a deputy, and then I made the decision to run for Coroner.
Starting point is 00:15:27 Coroner is an elected official in Indiana. They can hold office for up to eight years. two four-year terms. When Connor spoke to him at the end of 2024, Jeff was finishing up the second year of his first term. Responsibilities for the position vary depending on jurisdiction and state, but they're wide-ranging and include notifying family members of the deceased,
Starting point is 00:15:50 interviewing witnesses, testifying in court, collecting evidence, and performing autopsies. Some of the things we see here and smell, you can't unsee. There's no day that, is the same. You could start your morning out with a traffic fatality, have a suicide midday, and finish up with a child death in the evening. But above all else, the coroner has one role. Our duties are to determine cause, manner, and identification and death investigations. When did the name Fox Hollow Farm first come across your desk?
Starting point is 00:16:27 I received a phone call from Eric Pranger. The call comes in 2022, a few months into Jeff's first term. Eric tells Jeff he's the relative of Alan Livingston, who's been missing since August of 1993. The Livingstons believe that Alan is among the remains taken from Fox Hollow Farm. They're looking for someone who can help confirm or deny their suspicions. The next thing I did is kind of vetted his phone call. And everything that Eric was indicating, certainly checked out. And then I started looking at the Fox Hollow case and had no idea what we had at that time.
Starting point is 00:17:06 I knew that the remains were being stored at the University of Indianapolis in their anthropology and archaeology department. Jeff decides to give the university a call. He speaks with Krista Latham, a forensic anthropologist and professor there. She catches Jeff up to speed. She informed me that we had 10,000 bone and bone fragments. that were unidentified. You know, that's obviously a huge number. Beginning an investigation would be a monumental undertaking,
Starting point is 00:17:39 one that presented many challenges. It's a challenge that coroners prior to me had apparently chosen not to do. And the interesting part of that is by statute, the coroner is responsible to identify the deceased in his county. For Jeff, step one is to assemble a team. He says the Indiana State DNA lab comes on board first, then the FBI, then a private DNA lab called Othrum.
Starting point is 00:18:06 Even though it's the only cold case his team has, they know from the start that the investigation will be a long one. This case is 30 years old, suspect is dead. So we have to assume our position on the priority, totem pole, because law enforcement, state police lab, are trying to put bad guys in jail for crimes that are being committed today. And we understand that and we support that. An investigation like this can often involve a lot of hurry up and wait.
Starting point is 00:18:40 Even if Fox Hollow wasn't a nearly 30-year-old case, there are plenty of hurdles to cataloging and processing 10,000 remains. DNA testing is more expensive than you might think. Cost is certainly probably one of the, the biggest hurdles. Probably another hurdle is getting people to come forward. Biological relatives of missing people. Again, there's been 30 years go by since these people became missing. Some of their parents are deceased. Maybe some of their brothers, sisters, cousins have moved from the Indianapolis area. I mean, we're chasing family members from Alaska to Louisiana.
Starting point is 00:19:20 Probably the biggest hurdle in this case is time. The remains are taken from the University of Indianapolis to DNA labs and batches of about 40 at a time. Each batch takes about a quarter of a year to process. Connor set down with Jeff in November of 2024. How many of the remains have gone through lab processing? I think the last total I got was about 100. 160 out of 10,000. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:55 During the original investigation in the 90s, forensic scientists identified eight individuals from the remains found at Fox Hollow. All were subjects of the Indianapolis missing person cases we already discussed. But those eight represented just a fraction of the total number of victims. Officials believe the remains belong
Starting point is 00:20:16 to as many as 25 people. Since Jeff's team started their work, they've been able to identify a ninth victim, Alan Livingston. It's the name that set Jeff's whole investigation into motion in the first place. When you stop and think the family that initiated the phone call of me, out of 10,000 remains, the first person identified was their loved one? That's a God thing right there, you know? The reason for that phone call was time.
Starting point is 00:20:49 It was running out for Alan's mother, Sharon, who'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer. That lady was struggling for 30 years. When I sat down and talk to her, I noticed on her table next to her couch that she still had a landline phone. And I said to her, I said, Sharon, I don't often see that anymore in people's homes, a landline phone. And she looked at me and she said, that's the only number that my son has to call me at. So she had sat for 30 years waiting on that phone to ring. And obviously that in and of itself is not healthy. And she did pass just the other day.
Starting point is 00:21:30 So we were able to locate her son and bring a little bit of that closure back and return her son's remains to her before she did pass. So, you know, to me, we just won the game right there. Identifying new victims tends to attract the most media attention. Jeff says it's how a lot of people judge the success of his investigation, but it's only part of what drives him to continue. I wonder if you could put into words how you measure the success of your investigation. This investigation is very personal for me, because I've set with the family members,
Starting point is 00:22:09 and we've held hands, we've cried, we've laughed, we've prayed. My goal was to get these remains off of the shelf at the University of Indianapolis to a final resting spot. We can't leave these people there for eternity. Some of the families have chosen to receive those remains back to their care. Some have said, no, we do not want the remains returned to us. And that was another challenge. So what do we do with these remains? Why would someone deny the remains of a loved one?
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Starting point is 00:23:58 Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jalison and his team revived the investigation to identify the victims at Fox Hollow Farm in 2022. Ever since, they've been working to write some of the wrongs of the past. You mentioned earlier that you offered remains to the families of loved ones, and I'm not trying to ask you to speculate. on their reasons, but I wonder if you know why they refused their remains? Yeah, I do. I mean, you know, part of the reason goes back to the initial investigation in the 90s. I don't feel like law enforcement and the coroner at that time did the greatest job with this case in a couple areas.
Starting point is 00:24:42 When they identified these eight individuals, I mean, it was suspects dead. these are eight gay men from Indianapolis found in very conservative Hamilton County in the 90s, where this lifestyle certainly was not very well accepted. So it was game over. Abruptly, the investigation ends. And people came forward and said, hey, you've got more remains yet to be identified. And family members came forward and they said, we believe that our loved one is a part of these remains.
Starting point is 00:25:17 And at that time, Hamilton County made the decision not to fund the investigation any longer as far as identifying these remains and to put that burden on family members. So a family member that came forward that said, hey, I'm willing to give you whatever you need to see if my loved one was recovered in these remains, the county said, great, you pay for it. Now, where in this country does law enforcement and the coroner say to victims' families in a homicide case that we're going to make you pay to find out if your loved one was a victim? You don't do that. The DNA is expensive now and was very expensive back then. These people didn't have the money to do that. So conservative Hamilton County, we're done. If anybody wants any more than you can pay for it.
Starting point is 00:26:11 That's not right. Jeff says that some of the family members were given their loved ones remains back in the 90s, just not in the way you might expect. They were brought into a room, and they were handed a paper grocery sack with a raw remain inside of it, and said, here's your loved one? I mean, yeah, but we can do better. For 28 years, nobody did anything.
Starting point is 00:26:43 these people, these families, were forgotten. And I don't know if you can see over the top of my shoulder, but there's a piece of artwork back there that says no longer forgotten. And as long as I'm cornered in this county, these folks won't be forgotten again. Jeff hopes his office can take ownership of the past and rebuild trust with families. He remembers how on one occasion, a victim's sister refused her brother's remains. Jeff says she was still so hurt by the actions of officials all those years ago. She couldn't shake the memory of her mother being handed a paper bag with a raw bone inside of it.
Starting point is 00:27:24 After being told no, Jeff's team worked with a funeral home to have her brothers remains cremated at no charge. They also worked with the funeral home to donate an urn and a small plot of land in a family cemetery so they could be put to rest. So I called the lady back and I said, would you please come into my office and talk to me? And she did. And I explained to her what we had done. And after a very, very long conversation, she agreed to take the remains back. That was in November of 22. December of that year, I got a Christmas card here at my office and it was from this lady.
Starting point is 00:28:04 And I opened it up and it simply said, thank you. For the closure, I didn't know I needed. There are others who have stepped forward to support as well. An organization called He Knows Your Name has built an ossuary and a monument at a local cemetery for any remains that go unclaimed for whatever reason. The victim's names will be engraved on the monument as they're known. Meanwhile, the search for additional remains is still underway. According to Jeff, back in the 90s, the majority were found in deep.
Starting point is 00:28:38 three concentrated locations on Fox Hollow. None of the bones had been buried very deep. Most were scattered and covered in brush. Some appeared to have been burned and or smashed. Jeff doesn't believe there are any common denominators between the three locations, reasons why they might have been chosen. But he suspects that more bones are out there, dispersed even farther by animals. Jeff's team has been back on site with cadaver dogs. But he says they're not quite ready to perform another excavation. They have plenty to keep them busy. Building on the forensic work of the 90s,
Starting point is 00:29:17 Jeff and his team have now found 12 unique DNA profiles. That's 12 victims, three of whom remain unidentified as of this recording. Jeff says his plea has been the same since day one. You're the biological relative of a missing person. Please come forward. If it's unrelated to Fox Hollow Farm, we'll get you pointed towards the right agency, or we'll get a swab ourselves from you, and we'll get that entered into CODIS, because that is the most efficient way in identifying remains like this.
Starting point is 00:29:51 CODIS stands for combined DNA index system. It's a national database of profiles that helps law enforcement identify victims and suspects. When Jeff and his team got a call from a woman whose brother went missing in the 80s, they took a swab of her DNA and entered it into the system. It turned up a match on a set of remains discovered in Las Vegas, Nevada. We had a suspicion that this type of thing would happen, that we would get matches to remains, recovered, around the state, around the nation, and good.
Starting point is 00:30:29 You know, good for it, because not only are we working very hard, hard to provide closure for the families of the Fox Hollow victims, this investigation will provide closure for families completely unrelated. How distant of a relative could be useful? I mean, we're receiving swabs from second cousins, you know? I mean, certainly the closer in order in lineage, the better. but with DNA technology today and the very talented people
Starting point is 00:31:07 that work for the Indiana State Police, these people are amazing. They do amazing work. So I'll just say this. If you're a biological relative, call me. Jeff hopes to serve the maximum eight years as Hamilton County Coroner, but with thousands of remains still waiting to be tested,
Starting point is 00:31:26 he says this investigation will likely extend well beyond that. Who knows? knows how many more victims were killed on Fox Hollow Farm. And then, of course, there are the dozens of other suspicious death cases believed to have ties to Her Bailmeister. Those bodies of gay men found dumped in rural areas of Indiana and Ohio in the years before Balmeister moved in. Like we said, there's never been a criminal conviction in any case with ties to Bailmeister.
Starting point is 00:31:56 And that's partly because he was never interviewed or even detained by police, much less charged. Instead, Baumeister freely drove to Canada and effectively ended all criminal investigations himself. The circumstantial evidence feels overwhelming. In addition to everything we already covered, we also know that most, if not all of the disappearances tied to Baumeister, happened while his wife and kids were away from Fox Hollow, and he was left home alone. But to this day, no one has found the smoking gun to definitively tie him to a list of victims
Starting point is 00:32:33 that has only gotten longer. He's as prolific as a lot that we have in this country. Probably as prolific as Dahmer, Gacy, some of these other folks. They just didn't have a bad guy to walk into that courtroom in this case.
Starting point is 00:32:50 So it didn't get the attention. Could a criminal investigation posthumously solve this case? Do you think that's possible? It's an open investigation now, from my standpoint, but is the potential there for law enforcement to reopen this investigation? You know, we know that there's at least 12 people that were killed on that property. And they suspect that many of these people are,
Starting point is 00:33:16 they suspect all of them, were killed inside the home in an indoor pool area. Well, Herb was not a big man. I think he was six foot something and about 180 pounds. and I think that's probably really being generous from the photos I've seen. How does, and I do this for a living, how does someone takes a dead person and transport them 200 yards outside the house into a woods? That's not an easy job.
Starting point is 00:33:47 We do know that there were handcuffs recovered in the woods. We do know that there were shotgun shells recovered in the woods. And there is a statement in the case folder, from an individual that says he watched another man hold an individual while her Balmeister shot him. I mean, if you don't think that whoever committed these crimes had help, then I think you need to look at the case a little bit deeper because I suspect that whoever committed these crimes, whoever killed these people, because Balmeister was never convicted, so I can't say that he did. but somebody probably has some help along the way.
Starting point is 00:34:30 Without access to those case folders, we can't officially corroborate that witness account, but it's certainly interesting. While Jeff's investigation is focused on finding those who can help identify the dead, maybe there are also people out there who can bring about another resolution, who saw something that could be useful,
Starting point is 00:34:49 at Fox Hollow or elsewhere. Jeff said he hadn't had any contact with the individuals may be most likely to have seen something, the surviving Baumeister's. But something strange happened right before Conner sat down with Jeff for an interview. One of my deputies just walked into my office and said that Eric Baumaster had contacted him wanting to speak to me. Eric Balmeister is Herb's son, the same one who found that skull on Fox Hollow when he was 13.
Starting point is 00:35:22 Jeff hadn't had a chance to return Eric's call that day, but Connor followed up later. Jeff had gotten in touch with Eric and they had spoken a few times. Jeff said nothing of much substance had come up yet, but who knows what the future has in store. What memories could still be unlocked, that might just make all the unknowns snap into place. Thanks for tuning into Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast.
Starting point is 00:35:57 We'll be back Monday with another episode. For more information on the Fox Hollow Farm case, we recommend checking out the reporting done by WRTC, the Dayton Daily News, the advocate, and the New York Times. Among the many sources we used for this episode, we found them extremely helpful to our research. If you are the biological relative of a missing person and believe they may be connected to the Fox Hollow case,
Starting point is 00:36:22 reach out to the Hamilton County Coroner's Office at 317-7-770-4415. Stay safe out there. This episode was written and researched by Connor Sampson, edited by Mickey Taylor, fact-checked by Lori Siegel, video edited by Spencer Howard, and sound designed by Alex Button. I'm Janice Morgan. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again.
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