Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 568: Herb Baumeister Part I - The Bone Twins

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

This week the boys get back to blood as we break down the murderous life of American serial killer and Heavy Hitter - Herb Baumeister better known as "The I-70 Strangler", who targeted and murdered over a dozen men in Indiana from 1980 to 1995.

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It's the same as our Instagram. You already follow the Instagram. Why don't you go follow TikTok? But it's on TikTok. Yeah, because... Seal is... Believing. Yep. So just go check it out. Watch it. Go send our podcast to China. I love TikTok the Crocodile. It's my favorite TikTok. That's the only one he knows. I love TikTok the crocodile. It's my favorite. It's the only one he knows. There's no place to escape to. This is the last time. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? Oh Herbie oh herbie why'd you do it?

Herbie oh You know I've been meaning to have a long talk with you herbie. I'm hearing the men scream and I just know I can't sleep Okay, if you're gonna murder these men, Herbie, you're gonna be murdering these men. I honestly, can you keep it to in town? Can't you take it downtown? You used to do it by the highway. Now I'm just, it's all day long with the gagging and the choking and the dying and the coming. And I needed to stop there Herbie. Okay. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. Oh Herbie.

My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zabrowski. It's no, it's me, it's Julie Baumeister. Hi. That's your Indiana accent. Oh Herbie's being bad. Oh no, he tried to get to the Jackson 5, but they don't go down to the gay bars.

And of course, Ed Larson. Hello! How is everybody? And today, we're going to be returning to Heavy Hitter Territory with Herb Baumeister. Oh yeah! What a charmer! You know, it's weird. Unfortunately, I think

he might have been. He- well, no. I want to ask this question, we'll get to it, but I want to ask this question to our audience. Now, Herb Baumeister is a character. He is. Herb Baumeister was a serial killer from Indianapolis who murdered up to 35 gay men over a period of about 15 years. We do not however know a lot of specifics when it comes to Herb's killings because Herb was never actually convicted for the murders. Rather, Herb put a gun to his head in the Canadian wilderness after the cops found human remains on his property. So while he's

technically a suspected serial killer, it's a near impossibility that he didn't murder all those men whose bones were found scattered across his 18 acres of land. They were 60 feet from his house, half of them. So we are, he definitely did it. But you know, we'll see what God says. Could have been an elaborate prank. I keep saying this.

I keep saying this. You never know. You know, those bone twins, you never know what they're up to. But Herb Baumeister, what a relief to not be talking about David Icke anymore, that now we're talking about Herb Baumeister, and there's almost a smile. Like, I'm almost smiling. Well, this familiar territory, this is true crime.

This is bread and butter stuff. He's somehow more likable. He really is. He is. Herb Baumeister. At least he knows what he likes. I'd say he's responsible for less pain and destruction than David Ike. Herb Baumeister is a great example of when we cover serial killers. A lot of what we know from the serial killers is, you know, is from the mouth of the serial killers themselves the last surviving witness

Yes And then we see a phenomena a lot of times in true crime of serial killers that love to talk Yeah, and want everybody you know everything that they've done and quite often exaggerate Henry Lee Lucas Probably Ted Bundy, but also was an extremely dangerous human being but he definitely exaggerated Those people who talk, right? There's the loquacious type. But then there's this guy who is just like reminds me of Samuel Little, reminds me of these other characters, like where he probably killed more than what was found.

Mm-hmm. Than not. Like he did not, he specifically was a hidden predator. No, I mean there was no exaggeration. He never mentioned it to any living soul. Yeah, cause if he did it would be bad. Well it's also almost positive that Herb Baumeister had two phases as a serial killer. While the majority of his murders occurred on the property that he shared with his wife and three children, Herb is highly, highly suspected of also being the I-70 strangler. Which is different than the I-70 killer.

Yeah. In that series of murders, 11 men were found dumped in rivers, streams, and ditches in the rural countryside along Interstate 70 throughout the 1980s. It's thought that Herb was the perpetrator because he spent a lot of time driving on I-70 and those killings abruptly stopped when Herb bought his property in 1991. Oh Herb is not like that. That's just where his favorite steak and shake was on the highway. That's what he likes. He likes to drive. He told me, he he said oh Julie, you know what I love to do Cruisin

He's always say he's listing his rest areas from favorite to least favorite No when it comes to her bow meister's personality and modus operandi I describe him as kind of John Wayne Gacy by way of John Waters yikes See in my opinion Gacy is a little too on the nose for a John Waters character Yeah, I mean serial mom is closest to John Wayne Gacy. Maybe but not really One of my bad love the serial mom so fucking. But she didn't have an act. Gacy had an act. But to that point Waters himself said that Gacy was the worst quote the worst dressed mass murderer we've ever had. Not bad bad taste not good bad taste. And Waters

at one point actually used a John Wayne Gacy painting as a deterrent hanging one in a guest bedroom to keep certain people from staying over at his house for too long. That's awesome. That's classic Waters. Baumeister, however, was a closeted owner of a chain of shitty thrift stores, a hoarder who kept several mannequins

surrounding his indoor pool. His audience. And he filled his house with weird tchotchkes like gigantic mascara tubes and styrofoam horse heads as well as used toilet paper and that doesn't even get into the raccoon infestation. Those raccoons were gentrifying that home. And I don't know if you can really call used toilet paper like you know a keepsake. You know, this is one of those stories where you find out, you know, like one man's trash

Yeah, another man's treasure. Stay to mine, bro. You view shit as like a thing that's wasted. It's weird No, I love shit, but that's the trauma Big toilet Because they made shit be dirty. But shit... So you gotta use their toilets to get rid of it. That's what they're saying, right? That they control where all the shit goes. Where if I keep shit in my house, it's like, hey, I made it.

Don't try to take things I made from my hands. What is this, communist Russia? You know what people don't know is that you can actually take your own shit, make it into bricks and build your house out of it That's what they did in Peru I think these buckets don't fill themselves Baumeister even got fired from the DMV for pissing on his boss's desk and they do that at Christmas And this was all while he was murdering several people a year and burning their bodies in his backyard before crushing up the bones and

Scattering them across the yard. If all that doesn't say filthiest person alive. I don't fucking know what does yeah He's pretty gross now One of the things that fascinates me about true crime is why some serial killers are remembered and others are forgotten And I think John Wayne Gacy and her bowmeister are great examples of that contrast. They really are It's really like Elvis and Orion. Both murdered gay men in large numbers, almost the exact same body count in fact, and both with some exceptions kept the remains of their strangled victims on their own property. Bowmeister, according to one of his surviving victims, even set up his strangulations by asking

the victim if he wanted to see a neat trick, just like Gacy. Exactly like Gacy. And they're like 500 miles away or less from each other. Yeah, Death Plains, Illinois, yeah, Illinois and Indiana, yeah. And like killing people around the same time, right? I literally have chills going up my spine because we're also going to talk about another serial killer that was also operating at the same exact time during this time period in the exact part of the United States that this was all fucking happening.

Well, Balmeister picked up where Gacy left off. Yes. Around that, yeah, when by the time- Because he's later on, he's 90s. More like late 80s, 90s. Or actually he started in 81. Oh wow! Yeah, Balmeister started in 81. Like the, um, what was it, the guy that was, that did Buster Poindexter.

David Johansson? David Johansson started Buster Poindexter in 19, in 1981. And I'm pretty certain he might also be a serial killer as well. That might be slander and it might get sued by the Buster Poindexter family. David Johansson is not a serial killer. Do you know that for sure? Well, we'll, we'll fucking find out when we do our New York Dolls series of No Dogs in Space coming later this summer. Hey!

If you become the serial killer then that becomes Last Podcast buddy! Okay? Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Don't even fucking take material from us buddy! We'll bring you on! I've always wanted to get in between him and his wife. No, as far as why Gacy is remembered, there's obviously the clown angle, which is huge. It's packaging, marketing, in that way.

But Gacy was also a blue collar, working class Joe, a successful business owner and politician who'd once been photographed with the first lady. And you just saw, did you just see this picture for the first time recently? No. With Gacy and the first lady? I haven't. You haven't? Which lady? I have it which way do you Roslyn Carter? Fucking bitch She met Jim Jones and John Wayne Gacy in the same year. Wait a second. You just

You just said Roslyn Carter was hot like we were talking like about Elle McPherson Not seen younger pictures of her she was hot Have you not seen younger pictures of her? She was hot! I just shut down the podcast. Wow. She's fine. She's pretty cute. She's very cute.

My first thought wouldn't be in like, God, jeez. I mean 60 years ago, I'm talking about. Yeah, but there was once we had, you know the big breasts, we had other sexy people 60 years ago. Barbara Bush? Yeah! Barbara Bush is not attractive. Yeah, no, what are you talking about man? It's in her last name. Alright, John Wayne Gacy. So hot. You want to talk about breasts? Well, Gacy was a guy anyone might know. He's a local character who threw good parties. And finally, Gacy's last victim, the know. He's a local character who threw good parties. And finally, Gacy's last victim, the one that got him caught, was not a transient gay youth or a kid born from poverty like his previous victims.

Gacy killed a popular local boy, Robert Piest, which kicked off an immediate search that led police directly to Gacy and the bodies buried underneath his house. John Wayne Gacy is on, obviously, the very dark Mount Rushmore of serial killers because of this fact. I think that because he is, has these quote-unquote X-factors about him. He has the clown angle mixed with the politician angle, mixed with the, everybody loves this guy angle.

Like, he was on television. The showman. He was a business owner. And then the idea of living this extreme second life was something that blew everybody's minds because it's like in America, we really do believe that appearances tell you everything because we worship appearances in this country. But not this type of ostentatiousness does not a good serial killer make all the time. Even though John Wayne Gacy's extremely unique

in being a super predator and have this level of attention, where somebody like her Baumeister is the actual boogie man that ramble through the highways and byways of America that kill anonymously and only kill for their own self-satisfaction. They don't really care. I think because someone like John Wayne Gacy,

on some way, in someone's back of his head, knows that when I get caught, I'm gonna be like a celebrity. Oh, he's got the ego. Yes. He's got the ego. He wants to be that guy. Yes, he wants to be it.

Like he wants... Graham Marshall of the Polish Day Parade. Okay, think about it. But then Jeffrey Dahmer is an example of somebody like her Balmeister that he did have to get fucking drunk. Yeah. To do it like her. Like Jeffrey Dahmer had to get drunk to do it. I don't think Balmeister had to get drunk to do it.

I think Balmeister really liked doing it. He was he was processed, not product. Yes, he was. And then but then he when we'll get to it. I think he enjoyed the product. We'll get into it. His favorite television show was watching bodies rot in a fucking pyramid while he drank Miller's. We'll get to it. I think he enjoyed the product part. We'll get into it Television show was watching bodies rot in a fucking pyramid while he drank Miller's Bowmeister was more of a loner. He was a failed businessman with a long-suffering wife and no friends to speak of he was a weirdo and a dick

unpopular kind of gross and smart enough to stay in a marginalized victim pool gay men And this was during a time when investigating the murders of gay men was considered a little icky Yeah, they always thought they'd get like come on their badge. Yeah, especially in places like Indianapolis Oh my god, no India. I mean Milwaukee Indianapolis. I mean the We're just absolutely fucking awful in this. Let's be frank, it was the time period, because we saw the same thing when we covered Randy Kraft. It was happening in SoCal too.

It was happening in the liberal areas of the country too. There was plenty of... Miami. It was basically we're just talking about within police institutions, like going after these crimes made them feel icky so they didn't want to deal with it. And they just assumed that all gay dudes when they have sex punch and choke each other and a lot of times It's just jerking each other off while watching the Golden Girls Or like young men that are having problems at practice mm-hmm at practice yeah for whatever sport they're doing

It's always like they're at like you've been watching documentaries No, not those, but I've seen clips from them where it's like you see them and it's always some guy going like Brown my shoes are too tight and him go like oh Craig I see your pants held down man, and he says like oh no What's gonna happen now, and then he just starts getting at him sounds pretty similar to the heterosexual documentaries I feel like sometimes they I feel like they have more plots sometimes. The gay ones? No.

The straight ones. Oh yeah. I'm stuck in the laundry machine. There's a lot of fucking plot to that, huh? There's so much plot. Well basically, you know what that's all about? The problem in America that we can't fix our fucking machines, right? Yeah, that's what you talk about planned obsolescence

Fair Well Balmeister also offed himself before he was arrested and even though there was the same sort of mass Investigation of his property like Gacy's you didn't have the dramatic footage of men carrying body bags filled with goopy remains like you did at Gacy's house in Des Plaines, Illinois. But because Baumeister didn't reach star status, so to speak, only one somewhat reliable true crime paperback was written covering his life and crimes. That's our main source today, Where the Bodies Are Bur buried by Fanny Weinstein and Melinda Wilson I did read the somewhat bitchily titled. You don't know who I am

That was also about her about my sir, but it's one of those Amazon Like books it's like all filled with fake shit. Oh, yeah, you can't trust that shit Yeah, it's like the Jack Rosewood books that are just total fucking horse shit But for our other source, which will get into next episode we've got something that I've never seen Yeah, in the serial killer store. Yeah, that's what makes this one fucking good But before we get in all that let's tell the story of her bowmeister himself starting with his childhood in Indianapolis So Herbert Richard bowmeister was born to a comfortable middle-class life in So Herbert Richard Baumeister was born to a comfortable middle-class life in 1947 Indianapolis as the eldest of four children, the son of a successful anesthesiologist and a housewife.

Love it already! I wish I could be in there! When Herb was a small boy, he wasn't exactly abnormal. More accurately, Herby was just a fucking nerd. Super nerd, yeah. For example, he and a friend formed what they called the Weather Club, where they'd pick a random spot on the globe and quote, report on the weather there. Herbie would then moderate the discussion that followed. It's a bit exacting.

Um, but I knew a lot of nerds that kind of had this sort of, you know, like, you know, I had a kid to grow up that was super obsessed with the MTA. Yeah. Right, so he was super into all the buses and the trains. I think now they call that something different. And then he begged. But he also had other things where we go like I had the chess club. That was kind of nerdy. No, the chess. Yeah. I mean, chess club is fine.

But it was horny. Like that's the thing about the weather club is I wonder whether or not like, yeah, they're all talking about clouds. You said the chess club is horny. Yeah. Really? For your you were in the chess club. Yeah, buddy, and you got laid. I Got I had girlfriends your girlfriend in with it. Did you meet them through the chess club? No So what is your what are you basing the chess club being horny on? Yeah, everyone's super horny not all people some people people. Some people aren't. At 16 everyone's horny. Sometimes they're more angry.

Once Herbie reached adolescence, his behavior morphed into something more antisocial. He had a hard time fitting in with others, not because he was a nerd, but because he started saying and doing odd shit. He was jacked from the batter. Mm-hmm. You know, like he was one of those guys that was like never quite, he never fit into any social rhythm at all. Yeah. What'd he do?

His childhood friend Bill said that Herbie would ask people uncomfortable, unprompted questions. Like, hey, what do you think it'd be like to drink human urine? Honestly, I think it'd be difficult to catch, and I think a lot of it is probably I don't like yellow drinks. I feel like that's not that crazy of a question. But if you ask it again and again a lot of people... Yeah, no, you ask it once or twice. Hey, what do you think about human urine? You think it tastes like lemons?

It's the frequency. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I have some of that urine please? Also I mentioned then if you become urine boy You know how it is in high school if you do one thing that's the guy outlier Then you become that thing and then you're locked into that unless you show up at the talent show Do that lip sync that changes your entire fucking career around inside of the fucking school retrofit it That's nice. Did you do the lip sync? No, I was already way more popular. I had already been in it. I was running the talent show.

And then I was the gatekeeper. Yeah. And I had a little office. People come in there and- You had an office in high school? They'd come in the little back area and first of all, I'd be like, do you tap? And they'd go like, yeah.

And I was like, do you tap naked? Wow. Learn how to be a producer. On another occasion, I was like do you tap naked? Wow learn how to be a producer On another occasion Herbie found a dead crow hid it in his jacket brought it to school and left it on a teacher's desk It's rumored but not proven that after the crow incident and after her be got obsessed with the idea of drinking piss That his father had him committed to a mental hospital kids do that kind of stuff Rumored it's not we don't know that for sure. I knew this one kid.

He showed up to school covered in blood one day. And they were like, what happened? He's like, oh, I was whittling a stick and a raccoon jumped at me. And then I stabbed it and it bled all over me. We were like, you killed that raccoon. Yeah, you stabbed the raccoon, didn't you? Yeah, that's a long road to hoe to get to killing a raccoon.

But he lived on a farm. He was like the only person in Boca Raton that lived on a farm. OK. Yeah ho to get to killing a raccoon. But he lived on a farm. He was like the only person in Boca Raton that lived on a farm. Yeah, but still killing a raccoon is pretty rough on the way to school. It's not felling a cow to eat. It's not going through the chickens for food. You chase down a raccoon and stab it to death. Also, you know, put on your gym shorts for the day or something. Gym it and change!

People said that Herbie thought that it was like funny. Yeah. Like he was a guy that very similar to Jeffrey Dahmer that was the kook. So people thought he was funny in a way but also but most of the time people said that he was invisible. Yeah. I mean Herbie was supposedly diagnosed with schizophrenia in the mental hospital but again this claim is from fairly dubious sources that only reference each other for proof that Baumeister was actually committed as a teenager.

Yeah, nothing's on the books saying that he has schizophrenia. What we do know, however, was that Herbie's father was a strict disciplinarian who would verbally and physically abuse his son. It's the only time he's not wrong. But we can't say that. Because that's the thing, is that some of you can ask.

He created it. Yeah because that's the thing is it's not you can ask he created Yeah, that's the thing is that you that's the shit that leads to the killing I don't know man made Jermaine Jackson bring him back up man super talented Why are you so so why are you so obsessed with the Jackson family getting beat into talent cuz we're in Indiana Time you get brought up like oh oh yeah, Michael Jackson, good thing he got hit! Well, it's because I'm sad. Yeah, thank God.

I wish that somebody had cared about me so much. To beat you? But your mother did beat you. A couple times. Not hard enough. She couldn't finish the fucking job. Well, because he was abused, Herbie shut down emotionally at a young age and stopped reacting altogether when his father punished him. He also withdrew socially, choosing to go home straight after school to watch TV and eat peanut butter sandwiches and carrots

instead of playing with friends or siblings. In fact, besides the friend who remembered all the piss talk, nobody else remembered Herb Baumeister at all. Yeah, you gotta make a moment for yourself. Sure. But even though Herb's relationship with his father wasn't the best, what with the physical abuse and the mental institutions and such, Herb still wanted to emulate his father's career. So he attended Indiana University in 1965, where he majored in a very serial killer specialization. Anatomy. Yeah. where he majored in a very serial killer specialization, anatomy. Yeah, and he, this is his attempt when he was going up to being like, we see this I think a lot with serial killers, where he was like, I'm going to give being normal a shot.

Yeah. My father does this. He obviously created, his DNA created me, right? And I kind of feel weird, but maybe this is where I can go and not feel weird. I can go into this, because in anatomy, you know, like a surgeon, then you get to cut up bodies and play with fucking disposable tits

and like cut off people's butts and stuff and play with their organs. Is that what surgeons do? Yeah. That's, guys, I have surgeons in my family and they never bring that up. They all, but they get paid to do it. They get paid to go through some of the test intestines and go, Oh spaghetti, oh spaghetti.

No, sorry, I gotta go do a butt act to me. I gotta go cut off a butt this afternoon. But that is a completely responsible way to exercise these feelings. Hmm? I'll have to ask my brother in love. Herb, however, still had no idea how to fit in. But instead of being anti-social, he went too far in the other direction, accommodating people to the point where it was uncomfortable while putting on such a show of caring for

others that it became suspicious. He did it because he thought people were watching and he thought that people thought that this is what normal people do. Yeah. And it's the Midwest. Yeah. That's got a lot to do with it as well. I know, man. How many times have you been to Indiana? It's not a couple times. It's

not a friendly place. It's not a friendly place at all. Yeah. Well, they got lots of sausage. Just remember that one time when you when you had claps before the show and we couldn't do that live show in Indiana and we went to that bar in Indianapolis and then we met the covid nurse that was like super racist saying a bunch of weird stuff and then saying about how COVID didn't exist. But she had a wedding ring on, she was talking about her husband and then she started making out with another man

and a new man in him, he was like groping her and stuff and people were taking pictures and stuff and she was like laughing and then I think they went and had sex in the bathroom. Well yeah, shout out to our first responders. Yeah. Well, Herb was also a creature of contradictions. He insisted on being meticulously dressed at all times despite the fact that it was the

mid to late 60s when being a square wasn't in style. But he also drove around in a hearse outfitted with a siren, which combined with his style cut an unsettling figure. so he liked the Ghostbusters Yeah, he just was and he's an Adams family Cousin yes. Yeah, that's a great way of putting it He's one of those guys who shows up because he's just like hi everybody Hey, you know cuz he's he's immediately strange out the box and he wants to stand out But he doesn't quite know how to do it. Yeah, well, if he wanted to stand out, he should have drank the piss.

Yeah. I think he did. I think it's safe to say you don't ask. You're like, this is what piss tastes like. Well, I think I don't tell you what it tastes like piss. Maybe we were putting the wrong emphasis on the wrong word. Maybe it should have been like, what do you think piss tastes like? Because I think... I know. Because I know. But the interesting cars was how Herb first bonded with his soon to be wife, the long suffering Julie Bellmeister. I love a siren on a hearse. Because then

he... Oh, the bodies get to the cemeteries quicker, they go to sleep. So much faster. Well she put it, she liked her because they both liked cars and they were both young Republicans. And that is like such an example of being a contrary fuck. During the coolest time period to be in America. Like that was like an awesome time. It was really stressful. Yes, but to be in the counterculture, that sounded like a fucking blast. Like that was like an awesome time. It was really stressful. Yes. But to be in the counterculture, that sounded like a fucking blast. And it was like, you had total impunity to go be a part of the most amazing moment in American

youth culture. That's why all of the fucking nursing homes, all the baby boomers, all the nurses say you got to wear gloves because they all have hepatitis. Yeah. They fucked everything up. Well, Julie also liked that Herb was strange and during college she thought that he was fun and creative because he stapled hubcaps to his walls instead of putting up posters like the other kids, which shows you how low the bar for fun and creative was for the future Mrs. Baumeister. He was simply a ball of laughs. You know, sometimes he just said, he said the funniest things like his favorite color was green.

And I was like, Oh, Herbie, they broke the mold when they made you. But. He was a decorator like Wally was a decorator. Yeah, actually he did. Yeah. Very similar to Wally. He was a decorator like Wally was a decorator. Yeah, actually he did, yeah. Very similar to Wally. He was a decorator like Jeffrey McDonald was a decorator. Yeah. But when they got married in 1971, Julie discovered that strange isn't always a good thing.

For example, on their wedding night, when young lovers are supposed to be deep in the throes of passion, Herbie chose to instead read a magazine. Oh, you know how it is He likes to get his stretches in and then we we all we did a couple of rounds of making makeups on each other And then he read he read his favorite magazine, which is called wedding night magazine And I you know, I oh I don't need all the sweat No, no, no, they didn't I mean it it's the modern day equivalent of getting married and then scrolling through your phone all night. Yeah, they were, Julie is a, if obtuse was a person.

Yeah. Because I don't know whether or not we'll get to the idea of whether or not she knew or what she knew and all that kind of stuff. But what she wanted to know, I think, is the best way to put it. She had that incredible ability that only moms seem to be able to achieve of recreating history in a Stalin-like fashion, where they can just delete whole things that happened. All moms do this, apparently. Deleting errors. Errors! And ways they behaved and creating entire scenarios where they're the hero and everyone around them is an incompetent villain.

Yep. Yeah, and I don't know why. I don't know why moms have that ability and fathers just go away inside. There's him. You know, fathers just retreat to the inside. Anytime you call a mom a liar, they're like, I'm a storyteller. Yeah, like, well, that's a Zabroski trait. Well, Julie actually claimed that over the 25 years they were married they had sex half a dozen times She actually counted six times

She never actually saw her naked because those half a dozen times were in a pitch-black room and he'd always sleep in full-body Pajamas my what I kind of felt was fun about it was that I was like, oh this is how Stevie Wonder has sex Now is she counting just the vagina? Oh, yeah He didn't even put it all the way in What we called this even half in and just so I could I could get it up in my boots Yeah, and that's the thing is that he actually had I mean he was like three for six. He had three kids with her Yeah, dude. Wow He saved his cum. Yeah. No, I don't think he did. He saved his baby cum

So you think that the cum that he was having with the gay men was different from the cum that he gave you think that's Different you think you can conscious a man can consciously choose to have different types of cum that he shoots I think the unconscious is something that we don't understand I think the unconscious is something that we don't understand. And I think that if you're half of sex, maybe it's because if you know, if the swimmers know there ain't no egg, maybe the swimmers... They take the night off? Well, maybe that's where the lazy ones go. Maybe.

Interesting theory. When was the last... Sides stories LPOTL at gmail.com. When was the last time you shot baby cum? Oh, God knows. I actually think that mine are all retired. I think that they quit. Oh god knows. I actually think that mine are all retired. I think that they quit.

Oh, weed? You got weed cum. Oh yeah, I slow it down. Fly from your grave. Now while the Palmeisters outwardly appeared to be a stereotypical heterosexual white American couple complete with ostentatious national lampoon style Christmas displays every year, things were much darker behind closed doors. Much darker.

As Julie put it, her world was controlled by Herb. She had no friends, so she didn't know that almost never having sex with your husband was in any way abnormal. Oh yeah, he told me he only has six cums. He has six cums in his life. Inside of his balls. Oh, yeah, he told me only has six comes his six comes in his life Julie also had no family and therefore nowhere to go, especially after they had kids So herb controlled his wife using childish mind games in one case Shortly after they got married herb and Julie got into a fight So her moved into a room upstairs and didn't speak to his wife for a year There was one time for Christmas that Herbie he said oh, let's roleplay and I was like, oh, you know

I'm not an actress. I didn't go to drama school, you know, I'm shy, you know, but then he did this thing Christmas I dressed up as Mrs. Claus. He dressed up as Santa Claus and I was like, oh we're gonna have you maybe kiss Maybe we'll kiss, you know, and then that night I go to sleep and I wake up and downstairs he's choking this man dressed as a reindeer I was like Kirby why Christmas time? What happened to all the sugarplums? Oh and then honestly because whatever cum he was covered in that man that reindeer I guess he couldn't get pregnant either must have been on his period Continuing that behavior Herb also held grudges which would develop easily and last forever

Hinting at more of a borderline personality than schizophrenic Family members would be cut off at the smallest slight and he once didn't speak to his mother for four years simply because she said something he didn't like. Good for her. Yeah good for her way to go. Good job. Four years without the shithead. This demeanor of course made her perfect for his first career track. Medical school was definitely not in the cards for her so his father used his connections to get him a job at the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles as the director of financial operations. And you wonder why they have a bad reputation.

Yeah. It's like guys like her bowmeister in charge. Like you wonder, like the fucking road I've said it before, the roads of Indiana almost killed me. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's, it's, there's a lot of these. We think about like Dennis Rader worked as a dog catcher? Yeah, he worked as it for an HOA killed dogs for a living that is what he did for a living you look at Even jobling Casey is a contractor talk about one of the most mysterious careers that exist because Contractors the closest thing humans have to knowing ghosts because of the way they disappear they just go away yeah you

know and so god it's all these people yeah that I mean and not to besmirch all our civil service workers I know we got a lot of good mail people take the headphones out and help some people we We love the DMV. We definitely don't need any more problems at the DMV. I'm getting my driver's license soon. Dude, congratulations. He's never had it. I had it, but I got rid of it. Can you vote? Oh yeah. Oh nice. Yeah, I vote like three, four times in elections. Can you vote? Oh, yeah. Oh nice. Okay. I vote like three four times an election Now the reviews herbs co-workers gave of his behavior were mixed because at this point He was still trying to fit in the society But he was slipping one curl worker said that he was an excellent people oriented boss while another said herb gave up one of

His vacation days to drive her 140 miles to a bank when she was going through a rough divorce. At the same time though, Herbie's mental state was precarious to say the least. He would rant and rave about odd shit for no real reason then would spend hours crying alone in his house. At one point he got into a car accident that triggered a full mental breakdown and got him a stay in a mental health work, possibly a second. I have a theory where he, so during this time period, he was starting to, apparently he went through this, he always would have problems spending money, right?

You would just spend money extravagantly and we'll get more to it. But he was sort of dressing really nice. That was his first foray into, I'm normal. Guys, I'm normal. I'm a people-oriented boss. I'm the fun boss. And so for a while they were doing stuff where he was one of those tit for tat guys

that was like, look at all these nice things I did. I'm not a crazy person. I'm not a bad person. Even though he would rant and rave about nonsensical things. And unfortunately, a lot of this does sound like my style as a boss, but I do show up every day, you know, and I've never done anything to entword. No, not yet. Imagine how that long car ride and he's just like,

do you mind if I pee in this bottle? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, gotta pee. I'm like, ooh, man, I am thirsty. But no, it's like- Do you need to pee? Do you need to pee? What does your urine taste like? But my theory is that I think what happened

was that he was doing a proto practice run before he started killing where something happened in this where he picked up a hitchhiker and something happened. This wasn't a hitchhiker this was somebody that worked at the BMV with him. No I'm talking about the full mental breakdown after the car accident. I have a feeling that the father, his father, helped cover something up with Herbie where something happened that was like, uh, oh no, I've done something really bad and I've either like, I'm going to get coughed for it or someone's going to say something. I'm going to pick up a young hitchhiker. I'm going to do that thing

where it's ass grass or gas, whatever, right? We're going to talk about this. I'm going to do that thing where it's ass grass or gas, whatever, right? We're going to talk about this. I'm going to maybe try to, because he's already starting to dabble in the gay bar scene a little bit. And so it's like, maybe now, like he's, maybe we have some kind of sexual encounter. Maybe I choke a kid. Maybe I'm choking somebody and I'm doing something that will then, and then I think that he reached a breaking point and told or said something. Yeah. And then they put him into a mental asylum and then it didn't help. Yeah, certainly not a good advertisement for that mental asylum. No, that's why Reagan closed him.

He came out worse. Yeah. Like he came out even more odd. I mean, he exhibited a need for exactness that bordered on neurotic. Once when he was picking out a Christmas tree with his wife, he insisted that it had to be exactly 40 feet tall which is town square size. And I said oh you know the mayor doesn't even have a tree that big but you know Herbie yeah yeah you can't get him out of not getting something large inside of him. Where are you gonna put that tree? Bend over I'll show ya.

This tree was either a part of Herb's ostentatious outdoor display that year, or he was giving his wife an impossible task that he could use to berate her when the quest failed. And I have a bit of a theory as well that just kind of hit me about his stay in the mental

asylum. I think maybe he was trying to push down his urges to kill. Oh sure. I think he was trying to push down his urges to kill oh sure I think he was trying to push them down and it became too much yeah and then when he got out he said fuck it and then he just went for it because there's no way he wasn't already playing with autoerotic asphyxiation yeah like he was definitely playing with it because that's how it all begins with sexual curiosity and there's I guess there's really nothing wrong with autoeroticotic asphyxiation. Absolutely not I mean it's highly dangerous and I

wouldn't recommend it to anybody if you do it regularly I'd say stop. But you know what you need? A spotter. Yeah you always need a spotter. Although it did result in like one of the funniest I mean world's greatest dad. Oh yeah. Incredible. Oh yeah. Slowly but surely though, Herb's behavior turned from helpful to abrasive at work. He would brag about how his father was a successful doctor and how much his outfits cost, making sure to tell anybody who accidentally stepped on his shoes,

hey buddy, those are $300 shoes, you watch it. These shoes are worth more than your life. I just went down to another, you know listen to how it's journal all the time And there's a guy that was a whack packer named elegant Elliott often And he was like this where he would do he would come in and do the being like look at me look at me Look at my rings 24 240 thousand dollars with a jewelry on my body And I could just see her about my sir like coming in just being like take a look at the shoes

Take a look at the fucking pants these pants are made out of pure heel leather and people still didn't fucking remember him Yeah He also had an extremely shallow intellect and was unable to hold an in-depth conversation about anything People actually started to wonder how he was able to keep his job because he would regularly Disappear from work at random hours just wouldn't come back her push the envelope even further when he pissed on his boss's desk He loves peepee peepee. But that's the weird thing is that after this the peepee stops well No, okay. He he pissed on his boss's desk. He got away with that But then away with that think about then He got away with that. Think about this.

He let him continue to work. After the DMV you can't find good people. You can't... He showed up every day. He didn't show up every day. He left all the time. And you went to the Indiana Board of Fucking Motor Vehicles during this time period and asked for his superior.

That's the man you'd reach. The guy who's entirely fine being like, you know, people piss sometimes. Shut him down. Well, it was the second piss job that got him fired. He pissed on a letter to the governor of Indiana. This was my legacy. That I understand. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no.

Piss on the letter to the governor of Indiana. Yeah. For that, he was finally fired and started jumping from job to job. When he was between jobs, he'd pick up on the housework, sometimes quote unquote cooking a specialty dish he called pizza crackers. I thought you were going to say people. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He loved his urine smoothies. Pizza crackers were saltines with a dollop of tomato sauce topped with a

slice of hot dog or baloney, which for some reason just, it sounds like a dish someone from Indianapolis would come up with. It's actually the state dish. When the governor first served pizza crackers to the president of Iran, that was one of the most special days in Indiana history. I was just a little girl seeing it on the news and it was like the moon landing. Now even while Herb was working at the BMV he was also becoming an accomplished collector of junk or as my friends Chris and Joe put it on show and sell their YouTube channel about thrifting and flipping

Herb was quite the trash dragon They hoard her Yeah, like smoke trash dragon herb would troll yard sales estate sales thrift stores and dumpsters for clothes car parts and light fixtures As well as novelty items like oversized footballs, giant maple leaves, used political bumper stickers, anything that might have a smidge in the value. A used bumper sticker? Yeah, but his wife said that like he once fished like a used like vote for Nixon bumper sticker out of the trash.

Anything with Nixon on it. Yeah, they were both staunch Republicans. But along with his so-called treasures, Herb exhibited other extreme hoarding behaviors, like saving used toilet paper and other disgusting bits of human detritus. About the only whimsical thing Herb Baumeister ever did, which is still kind of sort of sinister,

was demand that his home always have a fully decorated Christmas tree year round. I love Christmas! It's amazing! Everything's in shiny papers! I love it! Boxes are not normal anymore! Boxes are not fun! And in my Ohio family, they keep the Christmas tree up too long and then they just decorate it for Valentine's Day and then Easter. It's a sign of depression. I heard about my sur... Is there a maybe like, what does this sound like to you? Getting into thrifting, getting into flipping,

is it his own way of being like, because he has no skills, he's not super smart, epitome of mediocrity, everything he touches turns to shit. What if when he goes and he goes thrifting, is there something along the lines of, oh look, like, I can make something that's not like,

I can make something that's not like, I can make something that's not like, of mediocrity, everything he touches turns to shit. What if when he goes and he goes thrifting is there something along the lines of, oh look, like I can make something out of nothing. Like, oh look, look what I can do. I'm adding value to the world in that way, which is actually I think a lot of people's impulses of doing thrifting. Or is it just like, because hoarding's about control. Oh, it's about anxiety. I think Herb Baumeister, you know, also, you know, he had a stage. I think he had massive amounts of anxiety. And this was a way to control again, like control things and just calm them down.

Some people just get that hit of dopamine from just buying something. I do that fucking buy. But, you know, when it gets to this point, those like you're just buying little tiny chachki, like just bullshit things to fill your house up with. Or he would fish them out of dumpsters. I don't know. Maybe it gave him some sense of worth. I mean, it definitely stops me from buying more t-shirts I have thousands of t-shirts and one thing that always like once I want to buy another t-shirt I just kill five or six dogs So like I kind of get that I get like where his anxiety had to go

Like I kind of get that I get like where his anxiety had to go like Now after bouncing around various low-skill jobs for years herb finally got a job at a thrift store Which is like an alcoholic working as bartender. It's fucking bad idea Yeah, but after a short period of time just working in a thrift store herb got the bright idea to open his own Herb got it into his head that he was gonna open a chain of upscale thrift stores Something that he thought was to open a chain of upscale thrift stores, something that he thought was a ticket to the American dream. Eventually Herb got his wish in 1988 when he and his wife borrowed $35,000 from Herb's mother and opened their first Savalot thrift store on 46th Street in Indianapolis.

Savalot. Savalot. It's just that they left the E off. But that's what makes it cool save money on the sign day Yeah, which automatic that's the thing you want the upscale store. I see Savalot. I know that's a cheap place See I could be funky You know when they do that like like funky is different cuz funky means it's well curated Yeah, it sounds like he didn't do that. No, he was so in the closet that he opened two closets

didn't do that no he was so in the closet that he opened two closets you know there's amazing things inside of this closet oh wow look at this coat i could kill a man in this coat now herbert his wife did surprisingly well in their first year running the store together and made enough money to open a second store in 1990. But since Herb and Julie already didn't have the best marriage, owning and running two retail stores only made matters worse. Little did Julie know, however, that Herb's private life was far darker than she could have ever imagined. Because for the previous decade, Herb Baumeister had been one of

Indiana's most prolific serial killers I mean I'm fucking making the reveal here but this entire time he's been killing dudes oh yeah when he's opening the store all of the entire time people this whole time but you know he's not definitely the I-70 killer he is it's pretty close I mean it's very strangler cuz the I-70 killer somebody else yeah... it's pretty close. I mean, it's very close. I-70 Strangler. Because the I-70 killer is somebody else. Yeah. See, it had been common knowledge in the Indianapolis gay community throughout the 80s that an increasing number of young gay men had either disappeared or turned up dead. Can I get a true crime sound bed after this when we put it in the editing?

And that's when he went down to the seedy underworld of gay sex dungeons And these bars, yeah, they're all sports Yeah, I'm like hanging out. Yeah. I remember I went to a bar in Indianapolis once and it was supposed to be like a goth night. But the kids that ran the goth night couldn't figure out how to get the P.A.

system going. So we just sat there in silence for an hour while they just fucked around. I mean, what's more goth than that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The extreme incompetent. Well, in all, the bodies of 11 teenagers and adults were discovered naked or partially clothed near Interstate 70, all of whom had been strangled to death. These men, however, were not hitchhikers, nor was the killer a trucker, like the moniker

of the I-70 Strangler suggests. I guess that's the I-70 killer. That's the trucker, right? That's the trucker. Yeah. Or they think is the trucker. They thinkiker of the i-70 strangler suggests i guess that's the i-70 killer that's the trucker that's the trucker yeah or they Think is the truck they think instead most of the victims have met their killer in popular gay bars with great fucking names Yet the vogue theater is awesome you had the broad ripple They even had a brothers My dad used to always make fun of every time we passed a brothers. He's like, I'm not going there. But you keep bringing it up, Dad. You keep bringing it up and you have this weird sort of like tinge-tense obsession with brothers. Every time we go buy it, you say that you don't want to go in there.

We're like, why would I assume you would go in there, Dad? That's a gay bar. You are though, you keep mentioning it though. Yeah, he would always say the same thing about choices, where Koonanen used to go. Interesting. The gay sake house club. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where it's being like, but you're obsessed with this, dad. It seems like you, curious. It seems like you want to go in there. You want to check it out. Cause it might be nice, cause then he'd probably make up nice conversation with other men. Yeah.

You don't always got a suck dick. Not always. My favorite thing my dad would do when we were driving around is every time we passed a strip because then he'd probably make up nice conversation with other men. Yeah. You don't always got a suck dick. Not always. My favorite thing my dad would do when we were driving around is every time we passed a strip club, he'd go, uh-oh, and then he'd say the name of the strip club. Yeah. Uh-oh, chit chat club. That's fun.

My dad, my favorite thing that my dad used to do, quote unquote favorite thing, was that if someone was crossing the streets, he'd always go like, 90 points. Oh yeah. About killing them, yeah. Yeah, yeah, my dad had that joke as well. Childbearing, that's 180 points. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My dad had that joke as well. Child Baron. It's 180 points. He's a cop, right? Yeah. Yeah. And where did it come from? Where did that sense of humor come from? Well, starting with a sex worker named Michael Petrie in 1980, Baumeister, if he was indeed the I-70 Strangler, killed at a clip of about one a year, but usually between August and

October, but sometimes as early as May. It was always during the warm months. Is that like common? It's actually showing that amount of restraint isn't common. Okay. For 10 years to like that's, usually the guys, they go more often like that because you get less of a return on the dopamine each time.

You get less of a return on the pleasure each time. So they have to, the cooling off period is shorter and shorter, but to kill one a year for 10 years is very uncommon. Or at least, that's the thing. It's uncommon amongst those who get caught. Yes, yes. And then I think that the having that space between allows enough time to go that people kind of forget. You could see that Herb Baumeister, just from already talking about all of this,

is fighting every day tooth and nail to not kill and rape. He is literally like a moment away. You think he didn't want to do it? I think that he created, what we talk about with serial killers a lot is they create circumstances in which then they can say it is now beyond my control, I had to kill. So they start slowly ramping up. It probably, that's why I think it started with

just some activity with sex workers. Usually does. And I think a lot of it probably is, is that he got his steam released by doing extreme sex with sex workers that did not involve death. That like, he probably was still just getting violently choked out and choking out somebody else

without killing them every once in a blue moon to blow off the steam. And then he would then go into a fugue state. He would become this shadow other person when he was in his sec, when he was sexually engorged and he would choke and choke and choke and choke. And then wake and be like, once he came his pants, he was like, Oh oh no And it had a deal with it didn't we we would have had more stories then right or no No, well, well, and now unless you're the less they went in the list they were happy with it There also there's a consensual something there's some of it That's probably some form of consensual and I imagine sometimes you're blackout drunk and don't remember what happened Sometimes and you also remember like this is the 80s the 90s in Indiana

Indiana is a rabidly racist and homophobic place And it's not you know So these guys aren't gonna be coming out and telling those stories one guy did we will get to later But you know most of the time what happens with guys like him this happened with Casey Is they're getting into it? You know they're doing like you know weirder and weirder and more violent like sexual shit And then they accidentally kill someone and then it's all yeah, and then after they accidentally kill someone they

Recognize the feeling that they get when they do it and they're like I've never felt anything that good in my entire life I want to do that all the time They also know that they also know that it's wrong. They know that if they do keep doing it They're gonna get caught and they're gonna go to jail Yeah, so really the earth like put tamping down the urge to not do it isn't because like oh, I don't want to do this It's because I know if I do this too much. I'm gonna get caught. Yeah, it's all I want to do. It's the opposite. He's like remember when you first made your very first cheese stick It's like that. It was I mean I never looked back Now I eat them in secret, yeah, oh my god, you're there her bowmeister

Oh my god, you're the herb Baumeister of cheese steaks. It's the I-870 cheese steaks killer. Using ropes and other objects as strangulation aids, Baumeister would murder his victims and leave them in ditches or near streams or abandoned railroad tracks. Not exactly where people would quickly find them, but definitely in places where someone would eventually find them. So the two are similar because they are process killers and not product killers. Yeah. Making things even more complicated was the fact that Herb Baumeister was not the only person murdering gay men in the region in the early 80s. Yeah dude, they were all, it was bad there man.

Yeah. Between 1982 and 1984, a man named Larry Ailer tortured and murdered at least 21 young men from Illinois and Indianapolis That's between 82 and 84. It's two fucking years That was a dangerous place in the world in time to be a twink man Yeah for like this from like the 70s to the 80s I mean, yeah Look John Wayne Gacy like he has 32 that we are 33 that we know that we know about it's likely that it's far Far more 50 to 60. He traveled around there's more of him killing people

Yeah, there's a bunch of him going on work trips and killing people. They're pretty certain that he did I think John Wayne Gacy could be like 70. Yeah, 70 80 very much So yeah, cuz I mean Gary Ridgway is something like what was it? 50! 90. No, Gary Ridgway is like something like 90 something. Yeah, because he did it... I fucked. Simply. Like, you know how Stanley Tucci makes dinner? Where like, if you see these videos on YouTube...

He took his time. Yeah, where like, it's just always like he's been like... He fucked his wife on top of it. He's always got like a little scarf on and he sits there and he's been like, you know, we had burjudo de montanantio last night and I had a little bit left and some legornio pasta and I had a little bit of teresio oil and I just whipped up. And there's something about doing it low effort and simply in a way where you're just there to fucking come in your pants by strangling somebody to death that can really allow you

to kill a lot of people. Like if your process is not super elaborate, it's actually way easier to get along without getting caught. It's like the less imagination you have, the less of a chance you are getting caught. That makes a lot of sense. But with Gacy, he's big,

he's scary, this guy's tiny looking, he doesn't look tough at all. All you gotta do is get somebody blackout drunk and put him in a vulnerable situation It's not just blackout drunk as we'll get into later. He probably had other methods For you know putting these guys under a lot like Dahmer dead Well this guy who would kill 21 between 82 and 84 Larry Ehler his signature had been to drug handcuff and disembowel his victims Then pull their pants around their ankles as a final indignation and disembowel his victims, then pull their pants around their ankles as a final indignation. He then leave them off remote highways.

But thankfully he was caught in 1984 and died of AIDS on death row 10 years later. So they got one of them. Yeah. So he got AIDS in prison. Nope. He got AIDS before. Wow. At least as far as I know.

10 years? If he died in 84? Well once he got in prison then he technically got healthcare. I mean I don't think you're going to have AIDS for 10 years back then. I mean, maybe I'm an idiot. You very much can. A AIDS like you didn't like, there's some people who actually, who got AIDS back then, who actually like survived.

I mean, very, very few. Uh, but yeah, it really affected a lot of, a lot of people in different ways. Some people would go like very quickly. Some people would linger on for a long time Okay And now you know I'm gonna end this Only just know that much more about it. So I know a fair amount. I've looked into it.

Yeah, sure. Now to be fair, there was an FBI task force born to try and find the I-70 Strangler, but they were unable to come up with even a suspect before they were forced to shut down the investigation. The bodies also stopped in 1991, but gay men continued to disappear from the gay bars of Indianapolis and of course the fucking Indianapolis PD like they all are they said at the time that they didn't have the resources to investigate the disappearances of these gay men I mean if there were fucking white cheerleaders going missing every fucking like every few months then yeah I think they might find the fucking resources but back then they killing congressmen. Yeah, but even now, I don't think that the fucking police departments would give that much of a fuck about like missing gay, especially like gay sex workers. They're not going to fucking care. No.

This is my question to the audience I wanted to pose. Sides stories LPOTL at gmail.com. We're going to, so we know that Herb Baumeister was super uncomfortable sitting in these gay bars. Like so the common theme seemed to be that he'd hang out and he'd look like he'd be at the gay bar and he would look like he did not want to be there, but he'd still go home with a guy. He'd look like a Republican at a gay bar. Yes.

Dressed nice and yeah. Well no, well like kind of whatever. It's just more so like, very much in the closet, hiding in a gay bar, but he'd still go home at night with somebody. And I'd love to know, like from our guys, from our people who got there, like go to this, like what would make somebody like fuck a weirdo? Like her bow-meister.

Same thing with Jeffrey Dahmer. Like in this period, like yeah sure, like I wonder, is it just Slim Pickens? I mean I think we'd have to, I mean if we have in our, any of our older gay listeners, Yeah I'd love to know. We'd have to ask them, it's like what was it like in like 1989? What was it a weird, what is it about like,

cause Jeffrey Dahmer was a fucking weirdo. Well you could say the same thing, plenty of like nice women go home with horrible dudes all the time. Yeah I guess. It's just like if you're persuasive enough and you're buying enough drinks, people are gonna go home with you sometimes. He wasn't charming. Like he was not.

Charming and like aggressive and like haunting you and going and like, not persistence or just waiting is a different thing. Or we're, you know, the idea. Are we gonna go home and fuck? Are we gonna go home and fuck? Well, maybe we should go home and fuck. We can go home and fuck.

Yeah. And then like eventually, they're like, fine, shut the fuck up. Or you just wait till four o'clock in the morning when the when everything's closing and then you just kind of figure out Who's the last loopy-eyed person and then you kind of convince them to go in your car and then no one sees him ever again Exactly, and it's all fucking awful. Yeah Now not so coincidentally 1991 was the same year that herb Baumeister and his family moved

to an 18 acre property called Fox Hollow Farm, which gave Herb ample room to dispose of corpses in a more private setting. Fox Hollow Farm was far above the Baumeister's budget. He always lived beyond his means. The house was a 10,000 square foot, two door style property with 15 rooms including five bathrooms But the most important part of the house for her Baumeister was the bizarre indoor swimming pool in the basement the Midwest man We've ever gone to like Zillow gone wild or any of those things where they show like accounts of like houses in the middle of fucking nowhere that are like the Midwest has the sex-filled indoor pool on lockdown.

What? They're cold for most of the year. Yes, but there's something about an indoor pool that just says, dad strangles gay prostitutes in here. There's something about, I don't know what it is. I was one of those, it's creepy, and then you think about it, it's like, I want one. No, I do too. But I don't want it.

But what will happen to us if we have one? This is the problem. It's creepy and then you think about it's like I love one. No, I do too If we have one this is the problem do we just become a herb out my stir or you get thinner from exercise Yeah, you just swim a lot I never swim for exercise. I always got a float and drink. Do you do? Yeah. Yeah It's good for you. Yeah. Yeah. It's good for you. Yeah. Well, the pool is where it's thought that Herb committed most, if not all of his murders between 1991 and 1996. In all, it's been proven that unless some other guy was dumping bodies in Herb's backyard, Baumeister murdered and disposed of 25 men in just five years at Fox Hollow Farm. And there's just no way that it's just 25. I think that is way more than that.

Just what they could even find. It's just what they found. What they even put together. They collected every bit of bone. They DNA tested all of it. And they came up with 25. Now because Herb and Julie refused to pay for a cleaning service and they were too busy running the thrift stores to clean themselves.

Yeah, no one's going to sell these pool noodles that he found in the dump. The manor at Fox Hollow Farm soon became filthy and jam-packed with junk and trash. Eventually the attic became infested with raccoons. So many that some of the ceilings in the upstairs bedrooms were visibly soaked in raccoon urine and feces. Man, can you imagine just being that raccoon in the attic? You're taking the dump like you do every night and you're watching through the hole in the ceiling

that you've created with your own acidic urine. And you're watching the guy that like, is your landlord ostensibly, like murder man after man after man in the pool. It's the raccoon. That's gotta be traumatizing. You're sitting there, like you're already gonna deal with so much. I mean, you're an unhoused animal.

You're there, you're hanging out. No, you're a housed animal. But you're squatting. You're the definition of a housed animal. Squatting. And you're sitting there, you're smoking, watching them kill people, just being like, I just wish that somebody got this guy another hobby. Because I hate watching this.

This is bumming me out. Maybe they like eating people. You don't know. I actually feel like the raccoons are extremely innocent here actually a lot of animals on the property did Eat the the remains so I'd imagine those raccoons. We're actually kind of happy did actually eat quite a few Course they did they eat anything and they were hanging out because they're getting fed how many bones are in the attic cuz they're thieves No are in the attic because they're thieves. Oh whoa, did we check? But I think raccoons eat bones. Sure, why not? I know wolverines do, but you know, who knows? Who knows what Hugh Jackman does?

Well like his home, Herb's thrift store soon became filthy as well and were piled with mountains of garbage bags full of donated clothes that Herb refused to throw away or go through because they were too dirty. Again, a man of contradictions. The problem was that Herb refused to throw away or go through because they were too dirty. Again, a man of contradictions. The problem was that Herb had chosen terrible locations for his stores in bad neighborhoods. The donations were usually from locals who tended to be poor, so his dream of opening an upscale shop wasn't happening and it therefore seemed like he was losing interest. Yeah, he thought he was going to make a consignment shop. No. And it was not happening because he does not have, I've seen consignment shops.

Normally they're lovely, they're curated by like lovely Instagram ladies, you know, and they're always like doing like a fun little video about all the fun 70s clothes they have. That's a consignment store. This is a dump. He'd again often disappear in the middle of the day telling employees he was going to the bank, then he wouldn't return for hours on end. Other times he'd show up with a quote-unquote, male friend and liquor on his breath, and the two of them would continue to drink at the shop. Oh, you know Herbie, he's got all his buddies. It's like Jesus with his disciples.

Hanging out, enjoying each other's company, having sex with each other. But out of all the quote unquote male friends that Herb Baumeister had, only one who visited the farm survived to tell the tale. And it's from this man, Tony Harris, that we get even a peek into Herb Baumeister's serial killer M.O. Well it's very similar to the one survivor of John Wayne Gacy that we had. Yep. Now Tony Harris didn't know Herb Baumeister as Herbie from the thrift store.

Instead, Tony knew him as Brian Smart, a closeted gay Indiana Republican with leathery skin who hung around a gay bar called the 501 Tavern. This just shows gay people, they'll buy new clothes. They're not going to the thrift store. They'll say, what I've seen? Yeah. Now after Tony and Herb had a brief chat one night at the 501, Herb asked if Tony wanted to go out to what he said was his employer's house for a drink and a swim. This was of course Herb's place at Fox Hollow Farm, which was empty that night because his wife and

kids had gone out of town as they often did they had to have gone out of town a Lot I mean 25 guys Yeah, that's 20. That's 25 trips out of town I think every single time his wife and kids left like that they go up to his uh His mother's place or just condo on the lake like a hundred miles north that was their vacation spot every single time They left he went picked up a guy and killed him. Yeah, and I Well, I think that he may have done it while they were in the house, too I think that he brought him downstairs. I think that this was a

blood denial that was happening in this house was at a It's just the most denial that there's ever been yeah, like besides like, you know, Michael Jackson's nanny It's like the most denial that's ever existed I put it on par with like Jerry Brudos Yeah, the amount of denial that his wife had about it. Like I mean he was killed Jerry Brudos was a Serial killer he was killing women in his garage with his man his wife with him like he was making Casts out of the breast that he had cut off of women he killed and putting them on his mantle and she was just like blank.

Not accepting it at all. Same thing. You know, I feel like predators are really, really good at reading people. They're extremely able to know who is going to fucking come at me. You're also talking this 19, this time period, which was like, there was still that like full stripe of misogyny. Like, I mean, obviously it's still embedded in the country,

but wives are supposed to listen and not question their husbands. And these women were born with that put inside of their brains. And so they were just kind of like, under this idea of like, well, if he's paying for stuff and he's not beating me,'s the bar right which is of Which is not?

Healthy, but and we need a change in this country He was awful too. You know like so she was probably happy to not be around him. Yeah, yeah absolutely I mean I think the only guy who I think like truly pulled it off like where the wife had no idea and it's like okay Like I get it was a Dennis Rader. Oh yeah. I think she had his wife had zero idea that he was BTK. He was such a meticulous control freak. Yeah. Yeah yeah he was it was his whole life was his balancing his second life and his first life. Yeah. Now Tony was well aware of the danger of going to a stranger's

secluded house especially considering how so many gay men in Indianapolis had gone missing over the last decade or so. This was 1994 and Herbert committed as many as 20 murders by this point. And that's not including the I-70 Strangler. That is including the I-70 Strangler. You think so? 94? Yeah, he'd only been at the house for a few years. Oh okay, three years. Now one of Tony's friends, Alan Goodlett, had actually been one of the men who'd gone missing but Tony nevertheless rolled the dice that night with Herb. Well aware of the risks, Tony insisted that he ride out to Herb's farm in Herb's car. So if Tony were to say go missing, his abandoned car would serve as a marker that he disappeared.

In a weird way it's like good that he did this. This person knew that they were entering into a risky situation which they might have found erotic. Some people do. You know and then you go and do a yeah but that's also if you're going to be risky erotically then do some safety measures in there. Have a spotter. Yeah phone a friend. Now once they got to the house it was completely dark. Herb said that the power was off upstairs, but the basement was fully juiced. And that's where Herb had his indoor pool. Set the scene here, Marcus. Like, you're in the middle of the fucking Indiana woods.

You've driven out in the middle, because that was the thing, right? Well, it's the suburbs. You're in the suburbs, but still, it's like a 30-minute drive. It's a huge property. Huge property. You were just in downtown Indianapolis, wherever they are, their city. Was you were hanging out, right? Normal, but gay bar. You're going to go to a second location, which we always say never do. Never go to a second location. You're out in the middle of the fucking woods. You see this mansion, this mansion, the middle of nowhere,

big land. Broken down mansion. Broken already. Disgusting looking. Yes. There was a pit, like there's things in there that are already super weird. He's got stuff just hanging out in the fucking yard, right? Like all of his treasures and his junk is all just kind of hanging out in this yard. It really is Adam's family like. It's very scary. You're driving in and then you go into his, like he takes you through his dark house. But he's saying it's not my house.

It's not my house. It's my employer's house. It's not my house. You go through this house. Reeks of piss. They say the whole place was horrifying. It's a horror time. No way. This guy? I know. But you go through this house and he's just like, well actually this is not even my... the power's out. You gotta see the pool. And then you go down to the pool and this is what you see. This inside, this like, it's all like, cheesily like done with tile and shit Yeah

The first alarming thing that Tony noticed upon descending into the pool room were all the mannequins Two were upright next to the pool one was face down and another was standing off to the side wearing only a woman's wig Four mannequins just hanging out scaring and when Tony asked hey, what's with the mannequins? That's kind of strange Herb replied that he got lonely out there and didn't like to be alone bad answer. Yes And when Tony asks, hey, what's with the mannequins? That's kind of strange. You have all these mannequins who are. Herb replied that he got lonely out there and didn't like to be alone. Bad answer, yes. And this is a weird thing to say.

Not least because Herb had said at the bar that he was only in town for a couple of weeks. And also he had also said that it was his employer's place. This meant that if you were following Herb's story, that he would have had to have brought the mannequins with him from another location for a two week stay. Well, how do you think I save 30 minutes going either way in the HOV lane?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You ever seen today's special on Nickelodeon over a kid? He leaves, they come alive, they have a great time in the pool, they come back, they're mannequins. But when Herb, since the confusion, and felt the follow-up questions coming, he changed the subject to cocaine. Yeah, it's always good.

That's a good diversion. If you don't want anybody to question your audience of mannequins, always offer cocaine. Yeah. Tony declined and played it safe with a joint. But Herb also kept pushing Tony to have a drink. Tony kept refusing, and every time Tony refused, Herb got more and more annoyed. Because guess what was in the fucking alcohol. Yeah, well, I mean who knows because to me it seems like alcohol was probably a part of Herb's MO.

That's what Jeffrey Dahmer did. Yes, either Herb counted on getting his victims drunk enough where fighting back would be difficult or he spiked their drinks. Jeffrey Dahmer used Haldol. But smartly Tony kept refusing. Eventually Herb left and that's the thing anytime anyone's pushing a drink on you, say no and go away. Just go away. Say no and leave.

You are better off in the woods. On foot. Just, you know where the main road is. Just start walking towards the main road. I gotta go to the bathroom and book it. Yeah. Eventually, Herb left and returned energized, probably because he'd done a lot of cocaine

in the other room. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know it hits you harder when you're sick of your ass. Hey, you know what I'm saying here, mannequins? Don't you come to life tonight, mannequins, because I'm busy. With such, Herb got ahead a case of the gacked out Jabberjaws and went on and on about his mom, his dad, and being gay. All while Tony politely listened.

Like my shirt? Like this shirt cost me a hundred dollars! Like these shoes? Eventually Herb convinced Tony to take a swim, but while they were in the pool, Herb asked Tony if he wanted to see a neat trick. This neat trick was autoerotic asphyxiation. And after Herb claimed that it could give a man the most intense orgasm imaginable, Tony was reluctant but intrigued. So he agreed to try it.

Taking a length of hose, Herb wrapped it around Tony's neck gently at first. But then he began tightening the hose more and more until Tony felt lightheaded. Realizing that he was in trouble, Tony pretended to pass out and fell limp into the water. After Herb relaxed, Tony jumped up and screamed that Herb was the one who'd killed his friend Alan. Who'd killed all the men who got missing. Tony then started choking Herb, who turned blue, passed out, and slipped under the water. But like a monster in a horror movie, Herb shot out of the water moments later coughing and after a bit

He smiled at Tony and said quote. This is what Tony said that Herb said wow You could have killed me, but that was so cool It was such a rush, but you're supposed to hold me above water when I lose consciousness They just fucking blanket just blanket on it. Just like oh, yeah. No, this is something happens all the time. That was great Let's, good job Great deflection to be honest with you Yeah, he was a he understood what he just did because he couldn't get him fully in and then he didn't kill him And now it's too late. I guess he could have killed him

But what's weird is I think that when he came back and choked him he was like, oh this guy's cool. Yeah When he came back and choked him, he was like, oh this guy's cool. Yeah. Like, oh this guy fucking gets it. Or is actually like stronger than him. Yeah. And not hammered. And not super hammered. Yeah, he realizes like this isn't gonna work so like let's just-

I guess we'll just have normal sex tonight. Mm-hmm. Well perhaps relaxing a bit at Herb's nonchalant attitude, Tony Listened As Herb gave specific instructions on how you're supposed to do auto-erotic asphyxiation, saying that he should see how beautiful it looks when someone's lips change color when you're doing it to them. To demonstrate in a better atmosphere, Tony and Herb got out of the pool and sat on a couch, where Herb pulled out a necktie and told Tony to choke him while he jerked off. He said, this is how you do it.

Tony obliged, then they switched. Oh! Tony pretended to fall unconscious again then started arguing once more about her possibly killing Tony's friend Alan Now since Tony had gotten a ride with her he agreed to spend the night, but faked falling asleep Can you imagine sitting in that bed where you just know that all the mannequins are awake and the raccoons are in the ceiling? And everything smells like piss and fucking reeks. I think he kept him downstairs in the basement the entire time. Yeah definitely. Definitely. Once Herb was out, Tony called his sister to tell her

that the guy he was with wasn't right. He then stayed up all night trying to work up the courage to find some trace of his friend Alan. The next morning though, Herb went out to run an errand which left Tony alone in the house to finally explore the upstairs in the light of day. What struck him, he said, was how messy and disorganized it was, but he specifically noticed how much video recording equipment

and videotapes Herb had in his possession. He thought he was a film producer of some kind. Not good! Why would he leave him there? This was the weird thing about Herb Baumaster, and we'll get into it a little bit later. He left everything everywhere He just didn't care. He just didn't care I view him in the what they talk about with psychopaths of like we took a bit. It's shallowness So there is a thing there where with psychopaths that's like one of the main issues is that they can't feel feelings.

So they are, they need excitement and they crave excitement and some form of like a red, they want to be pushed into feeling something. And so I think with him is that you see it with the I-70 Strangler murders and these murders and the way he disposed of the bodies. He did it in the most lazy way possible. And I don't think it's, it's like number one, it's because humans are not human to him. Humans are objects.

It's the only, he views everything as a 2D paper cutout. Right, like everybody, nobody has any, you don't have a soul to him. And so you're just somebody he can come on. And so he does that. And then once it's out of him, I really, the idea that he goes away, that Herb Baumeister that you know goes away The shadow herb steps forward does the thing in a fugue state comes at the end of it

He's just like that's done, and then he just sort of moves on yeah, so like all of that stuff that night I think he was just like just having a normal day met this guy I don't know this guy you know like literally just kind of I'm now gonna go put my herb mask on I'm gonna go to the Store mm-hmm finally though herb came home and offered to take Tony back to his car at the 501 club once they returned They exchanged numbers and just before leaving herb said quote. I had a really good time You really know how to play sport and then said see you later. Bye See you later. Bye! See you soon!

Now Tony definitely escaped his own death that night. Yeah. And as I said earlier, Herb had killed as many as 20 men by the time Tony had his weird night in the country. And now that I think about it, it was 94, 20 to 25. I would put that, yeah, maybe 25.

Because that's the other thing. We also have very little idea of the frequency with which he killed We just know it's 25 in five years. Yeah, that's it The question here though is if herb was no longer dumping bodies along I 70 where was he putting them? Hmm the answer quite upside down The answer quite simply was the 18 acres of property he owned but herb wasn't burying the bodies Instead herb was killing men burning off the flesh crushing the bones and scattering the remains above ground

For anyone to find and that was when herb was feeling motivated Sometimes he just leave the bodies out in the open to decompose He did it once as far as we know and he did that in the fall of 1994 when his own son far as we know, and he did that in the fall of 1994 when his own son found one of Herb's murder victims. Just about 60 feet from the back patio of their home, Herb's 13 year old son found a full human skeleton lying in the undergrowth under some trees hanging out perhaps used to finding weird shit around the house This kid took the skull and put it on a stick so he could use it to chase around his sister How old was he?

13 Oh yeah, I'm certain this kid's fine I think he's fine There's no way he's gonna have any problems If he was like 8 or 9 I'd be like oh you know I probably would have done it and not thought twice about it But 13 you should know Oh no, I I play with the human skull up to about 25 Yeah, and I had just found before now I understand like all the issues with it But if I found a human skull, I unfortunately when I was younger, I the first thing I would have done been like hey

How you doing? Jaws and stuff. Yeah now his mother Julie was horrified when she saw the skull on a stick and asked where he'd found it. Oh, I where'd you find these toys? Oh, did the cat do this? Full human skull. Yeah, Herb's son brought her to the spot where she found a full human skeleton, looking like, as she put it, as if someone had just laid down and died. Now instead of calling the police, Julie went to her husband and asked him why there was a skeleton in their backyard. I gotta ask here have you been letting skeletons sleep in the backyard? It's like and I don't have a problem with it I don't you know whatever you want to do but it seems that they're just lazy. But if you're just throwing a body in your backyard and it's decomposing to the point where it's a skeleton and you know, it had to have reeked.

Well, he was probably, what he had probably done, and this is his M.O. again and again, it's not like he just left the body, felt like, just like, killed a guy and then left the body. He would kill a guy, burn the body immediately. Okay. And then he probably dragged the body somewhere else to decompose. That's why there was no clothes on the skeleton.

Yeah, why there were no clothes. He was burning the skin as much as he could off, often the rest of it would kind of melt all the fear All the flesh so yeah Could be and then animals honestly animals took care of the rust yeah So yeah, there could have been very much like a bone a skeleton mostly picked clean now What is that like what do they got around there? I guess they got badgers and Wolverines wolves coyotes raccoons Wow, it's a whole world of cannibal raccoons,

human flesh consuming squirrels. And then like, don't tell Travis Irvine. That's his third movie. Well, when Julie asked her husband like, what the fuck, Herb casually said that it was an old anatomical skeleton of his father's that he'd stored in the garage until just recently and he decided to get rid of it by just throwing It into the tree area behind the house It's not the craziest story it's one of those lies that it's like it's so weird it's real

Cuz herb I mean he was he was a hoarder and his father was a doctor and a week later the skeleton was gone and Julie put the human skeleton that was found basically in her backyard out of mine yeah that skeleton probably got a job and moved on yeah it's like 20 years later like oh my god that skeleton no actually it was two. Well, partly, Julie was able to forget about this because life was falling apart for the Baumeisters. They were behind on their bills, the thrift stores were failing, and the Baumeister marriage was reaching its natural conclusion, although the process would be long and drawn out. They'd stay together for 25 years. Yeah.

And they got almost divorced like three or four times, and then he'd somehow keep pulling it back. I don't know if it's just because she just didn't want to go or like just scared to be, I'm straight up just scared to be single, scared of him. She had nobody. Did she have a job? No.

Well, yeah. Would you work at the thrift store? Yeah, they ran the thrift store. She co-owned the thrift stores. Like he ran one store and she ran the other one. Julie filed for divorce in 1994, and Herb moved into the in-law suite on their property. But the impending divorce freed up a lot more time

for Herb to go see his favorite band, a white guy blues outfit based out of Madison, Wisconsin called Dr. Bop and the Headliners. It is absolute garbage. Did you watch any of it? I did. I watched some, I'd go see them. It's fine. It just feels like aers. It is absolute garbage. Did you watch any of it? I watched, I watched some. I'd go see them. It's fine.

It's not garbage. It's a cover band in Indiana. It just feels like they play, I mean, it's just the type of band where they like play at like retirement homes. Yeah, yeah. Now Herb was obsessed with Dr. Bop and would drop everything to go see a Dr. Bop show.

Everyone needs a fan. Yeah, they do. And I mean, Dr. Bop was big. They were a big regional band. And they're reasonably entertaining for a regionally popular band. And to give a little more insight into Dr. Bop and perhaps her bow-meister,

Henry will now read the Dr. Bop entry from the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66, which is weird considering how this band is from Wisconsin. Hey there, cats and dogs. I get your all your ducks in a row because these pigs are about to come out of the hen house now It was the early 70s the emergence of dr Bop and the headliners was one of the surest signs that the protest era that had dominated the University of Wisconsin Campus and the national news in recent years was coming to a close It's weird that they're celebrating that so much

Oh these long hairs were packing Marsh Shapiro's nitty-gritty This is a band that violated every rule of the then current hip-ho they wore stage suits each member portrayed a likable Character they smiled they talked to the audience. They were funny Lackable character they smiled they talked to the audience. They were funny They embraced every show biz cliche in the book and they played 50s music the classic early Dr. Bob lineup was singer the white Raven Jerry Lee Larry Troy Are you serious?

No, I used to be Jerry Lee Lewis, but he ruined the name It's me! Yo, I used to be Jerry Lee Lewis, but he ruined the name! Yep, I wanted to be that, but then you got that cousin fucker playing that piano irresponsibly! We've got the ferret de Monte Cristo. Oh, it's Feray. Yeah. Pronounced Feray. And don't forget about Terry Charmel and Speedo!

And on the drums and expertly and expertly handling the duties of master of ceremonies Mike Regal aka Dr. Bob and so on and so forth. The entry is very long. Dr. Bob sounds like a superflu that would be in a Stephen King novel Yeah, yeah captain trips. Dr. Bob. Yeah Interestingly, dr. Bob just celebrated their 50th year as a touring band last like in 2021. What? They're still doing it? They're still through COVID? There was no COVID in Indiana.

Not when you make it through COVID. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That doctor who tried to help me, yeah, she was skeptical, which was not. That's because she was listening to Dr. Bob. That's the problem. My doctor is Dr. Bopp. Well that's the funny thing is that Dr. Bopp, they edged out her bowmeister's age at the time of his death

by a year. Wow! Yeah, bowmeister was 49. But as bowmeister was rocking out at Dr. Bopp performances, authorities were slowly but surely, and I do mean slowly, closing in on their suspect. I wish we could play some dr. Bopp so you can imagine her about my The person who found the first link to her was not a member of the Indianapolis police But a private detective with the perfect PI name of Virgil Vandegrift.

Yeah it's cool. Yeah. He'd been hired to investigate the disappearance of a man named Alan Broussard who'd last been seen coming out of the gay bar brothers in June of 94. This is always true for all of you to remember which we talk about people talk about we talk about the less dead people saying like sex workers getting murdered near like when they like when the police and the killers mentality is that no one's looking for these people. But that is completely not true. There is always somebody in some level,

like depending on what's going on, like these people have families, they have friends, they have social workers that they connect with a lot of times. Like there are people looking for them, and there are a lot of times people that crack the case. Yep. Virgil's big break finally came when he talked to Tony Harris the guy who'd survived his night with her Balmeister

Problem was Tony only knew him as Brian Smart and all searches Virgil made on the name Brian Smart of course turned up nothing But in the summer of 1995 Tony Harris was hanging out with some of his friends at a gay bar called varsity When who else but Brian Smart walks through the door. Hey everybody, ah, hoo, ha! Thinking fast, Tony told one of his friends to go get this guy's license plate number while Tony distracted her by asking her to show her friends how to do that chokey jerk off thing you do.

Yeah, and he's just like... That's actually great. It's very smart because now he's like showing evidence. Oh yeah, he's showing everybody. Oh no, it's very good, yes. And he was getting super uncomfortable. Like he did not know how to respond to this while he was doing this. Oh, he didn't just put on a show for everybody?

No, he's like this. Like he had taken no lessons from Dr. Bob. Yeah, yeah, alright. The friend did manage to get the license plate number, which was passed on to Detective Mary Wilson with the Indianapolis PD, who seemed to be the only person who gave a damn about all the missing men. She found that the car was registered to Herb Baumeister but the registration was still attached to the address at Herb's old house. Now is this the hearse with the lights on it?

No, this is a gray Buick. Oh okay. Yeah yeah he Oh I had one of those they're nice. Oh nice. Oh wow! I had an 82 LaSaber. I am not the bad guy You know when she started calling those, when we start calling those cars foul mice

That'd be bad. No, I don't think gray Buick's really exist anymore. Oh, yeah, buick's around. Yeah, but gray. Yeah Meanwhile Herb's life was falling apart in every way it could. Oh yeah, he was like, he was not, I don't know how to tell you this Eddie, but yeah, he wasn't ready to be a business owner. No. The Savalot stores were close to bankruptcy, divorce proceedings with his wife were on and off, and lawsuits were being filed by creditors. But Savalot is also where Detective Wilson got Herb's new address at Fox Hollow Farm

After discovering Herb she became a regular customer at the store hoping that Herb would show his face After weeks of browsing he finally showed up So Mary Wilson politely asked if she could ask him some questions about some missing persons cases cases. He agreed to talk the next day, but when Detective Wilson showed up asking about men going missing from gay bars, Herb said he'd never been to a gay bar and he wasn't gay anyway so really don't know why you're talking to me about all this. But when Detective Wilson said that his license plate was taken from a gay bar parking lot, Herb admitted, all right, you got me. I go to gay bars, but don't tell anyone because my wife doesn't know.

That however was all Herb was willing to give up. That's very common within like murder. It's like they'll always try to, it's what they do with police officers, what they do when they get you in an interrogation. The goal is to get you the small little things that will open you up to telling the entire story because our entire judicial system basically depends upon a confession. They want a confession or a murder weapon. Otherwise, circumstantial evidence, we always, you know, it's, they say no murder, nobody no murder all the time, right? We're like, it's hard to convict without the physical evidence

We're like this guy like she set it all up for him And he knew that if maybe if I cop to just being gay and say this is why I'm so shady Yeah, people then will sort of like kind of like leave me alone. Yeah, but then he just admitted that he was there Yeah, but from then on her have directed all his questions to his lawyer, a guy named James Voiles. Interestingly, Voiles had previously represented an accomplice to the gay serial killer that I mentioned earlier, Larry Ailer. So it's pretty positive that Herb knew what was coming. Yeah, if you hire the guy that just defended the newest serial killer in town, it's completely suspicious. Yeah, also, why would you hire him? He got convicted. Defended the newest serial killer in town. It's a bit suspicious.

Also, why would you hire him? He got convicted. But he knows that he won't ask a bunch of questions. Yeah. Well changing tack, Detective Wilson then asked Herb's wife Julie if she could get permission from her to search their home, telling her that they were investigating her husband in relation to quote homosexual homicide. Oh, wait a second. Homosexual homicide homicide that don't sound like my herby. Can you imagine if it did?

Like if she was like oh homosexual homicide. Yes, did you know my husband's favorite color is the lips of a dead man? It is one of his favorite things. He said something that is just so fun for him to come big when he's choking, you know? Because sometimes these guys they go to sleep and they don't get back up, but it's nice for them to be dreaming, right? Homicide! Homosexual homicide! Is that his favorite clone? Shocked, Julie again went to Herb, who said that an ex-employee was harassing him with false accusations.

There's definitely no homosexual homicide going on here this again It's a hard position. Yeah, it really is There's nothing has it got this employed. He's because he he like plays all off. It's all casuals like add that That's fucking bullshit fucking that dude that I fired two weeks ago. He's trying to get me in trouble Homosexual! Homosexual! Homicide! What a ruck! Oh my god! Leave the jokes to the comedians! I'm gonna go to the swimming pool. Excuse me, I'm gonna go out of town! This again was good enough for Julie, or at least good enough for Julie to once again avoid a horrific truth. So she also refused to search on Fox Hollow Farm.

Now while Detective Wilson hit nothing but dead ends for another two years because she couldn't she didn't have enough evidence to get a search warrant for the place. She had to have permission. Herb and Julie's relationship ebbed and flowed. First they were getting a divorce then they weren't and they were again. At certain points they sued each other and the thrift stores would open and close again and again It's just fucking chaos and turmoil constantly but for some reason the last straw came on June 20th 1996 that day Herb told Julie that he was intending to take their children to a six-week program at Culver

Military Academy he just wanted to get rid of the family. He literally was just trying to get rid of everybody out of the house. Yeah. And after this, Julie said, Fuck him. And called Detective Wilson to finally give her permission to search Fox Hollow Farm. God, it took so fucking long. Because you remember what happened with John Wayne Gacy.

I actually feel like in some ways, he was aware. Because he hired that serial killer's lawyer, and because obviously John Wayne Gacy was an extremely famous case, that I think that he saw a little bit of the patterns within John Wayne Gacy and wanted to emulate it, and saw, because you remember, once John Wayne Gacy,

then once he finally got divorced and he admitted that he was bisexual and he was doing all the stuff, he then got to really play. Yeah. Right? So I wonder if in his mind he's like, I'll get rid of the kids, my wife and I will finally divorce and then finally I can be the gay devil in here that I want to be.

Yeah. Do you think during those two years was he still killing people? He was. Oh yeah. No, he absolutely was. At that point he probably killed anywhere between six and twelve. Wow. Wow. Yeah.

Busy boy. Now at first, investigators who weren't as familiar with the cases, Detective Wilson, assumed that this was just a wife trying to get back at her husband for some reason or another, which as we know from other serial killer cases, it happens. Oh yeah. Every time they put out a call, like it happened with Son of Sam. Oh yeah. It happened with Boston Strangler.

Like a wife will call up and say, my husband did it. He's a bastard! Yeah, it's like they're assholes or something. Yeah, they're always fucking terrible. They always look into him like... No one gets accused of being the son of Sam because they're like a fun guy. But once Detective Wilson convinced them that Baumeister was the best and only suspect concerning most of the disappearances and murders of gay men over the last 15 or so years, officers began searching the property.

As soon as Detective Wilson got there, the first thing she said was, wow. Yeah. Like Owen Wilson. Oh, oh. Oh, yeah, yes. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Very quickly. Well, very quickly... You know, I don't kill. He's popular, he's popular. Why don't they just bring a police dog and like throw a tennis ball over and be like, Oh look, he came back with a ball! There he goes! That's really good! Very, very good. That's really good! That's a good way to do it! Very quickly, investigators saw that there were hundreds of bone fragments around a burn pile in the backyard, most smaller than a thumb and all charred from fire.

The bones had been shattered, and the area was also scattered with teeth! I have no idea how honestly that Julie wasn't also immediately arrested. When they arrive, and it's not, again, it's just, they're scattered in the backyard. It's not deep in the lands. It is right here. It's 60 feet from the backyard. It's visible from the home. These are obviously, these are shattered human bones.

I mean, it's not like there's a landscaper. So I imagine the grass is probably like really tall. Maybe. And it's hard to like, you're not gonna see it out the back window very true Very possible gonna go mow the grass herself because she's a sloppy woman With human bones now Marcus as a bone man sure Would you be able to tell if a human bone was all smashed up if it was a human bone or no? Absolutely not I would have I would not be able to tell in any way what so and not nobody would buy like sight teeth I feel like you could tell the

teeth I would say that looks like a man's molar yeah but but on the other hand you could all it could also be like a small like it's not like we're the only mammals with molars or incisors or like that like I mean you could possibly could say like then that looks let's check that out that's what I would say let's let's go ahead and check that out. If he's not a taxidermist, or if he's not a habitual hunter, or works for a slaughterhouse, why in the living fuck would he have a pit of just animal bones?

Raccoons, getting rid of the raccoons. They're alive and happy! They're actively roommates with the family. But there's so many raccoons, you gotta keep killing the raccoons all the time, but then more raccoons show up. Wouldn't you hear the raccoon scream? I bet you heard all kinds of shit out of that act. She was just like...

Just swiffering her one little clean spot where her butt sits. Maybe that's what he told her every time she was out of town. He's like, well, time to kill the raccoons. I gotta go up there. I'll kill as many as I can. Oh, but Herbie, it seems like there's still about 20, 25 up there, so. Yeah, but last week there was 40. Hey, Herbie, I love ya. Oh, Herbie.

Now, the captain who had thought all this was just a spat between a married couple, they kept insisting that these bones were from animals. But once forensics got ahold of them, it's just so crazy Okay, so you're killing a bunch of animals It's not even a hard case it's right there all the bones are right there you're gonna scoop it all up It's so weird how some of these cops just deny deny deny. They just don't I think you're right I think they just don't want to deal with it.

Yeah, they're so skeeved out about gay stuff. Yeah, well at this point they don't know it's gay. They don't know what it is. They just know like, oh, there's a lot of bones around here. But Mary Wilson is telling him like, yeah, it is probably gay dudes. Yeah, like these are all but these are the bones of like gay men. And they look at it and they went, wow. There you go, buddy. There you go. You there you go you got it you got the you got the genuine laughs should I call Lauren Michaels Well after searching the property further they found a larger bone area where they found a full human humorous

It soon became clear that her bow meister's property was a literal boneyard with thousands of fragments scattered across the property. Tens of thousands of fragments. To expand the investigation, the head of forensics called in two of his assistants, known to everyone as the Bone Twins. Yes! These are my twin boys! And it's I, the Bone Slicer! These are my twin boys! It is I, the bone slicer! This is my twins! They are lovely little Mrs. Herman and Merman!

They love the family business! Carving and searching! We love a bone yard! We also love a buffet! Well their job was to lay orange flags at every location where a bone was found.

Within 30 minutes they dropped 100 flags. Gotta need more flags! Just get a big one and put it in the backyard. It's kind of the whole thing. It's kind of the whole process. Whenever the sun sets you bring it down, you fold it, you bring it up, put it back up in the morning. Well according to those present, the Baumeister property soon looked like a mass disaster scene

It was like a plane crash or a terrorist attack the majority of the bone fragments However were concentrated around an area that the police were soon calling the mulch pile This pile was so named because it appeared as if herb was placing the dead bodies in this spot burning them the best he could Because it appeared as if herb was placing the dead bodies in this spot burning them the best he could then covering them with debris Animals would then pull the dead bodies apart and drag pieces down to the creek where they'd float away And then eventually he would smash up the bones and scatter them See this is where it like it's kind of cute for the animals in one way because they get to eat It's got to be fun for them and in a way those animals view this probably is like the most incredible Like spot like this is their vacation if you're a scavenger than yeah, this is gonna be I mean you are feeding your And it's gotta be fun for them. And in a way, those animals view this probably as like the most incredible spot.

Like this is their vacation home. I mean, if you're a scavenger, then yeah, this is gonna be... I mean, you are feeding... I mean, this is fucking horrible, but yeah, you're feeding the animals. That's kinda nice. Yeah, because animals... In that way... The animals will come back to a place where they're fed.

Yeah. I bet there's a bunch of vultures and stuff. Oh no, it's Indiana. I don't think you have vultures in Indiana. They've got vultures everywhere. Yeah, everywhere. Every state in America has vultures. Yeah.

Is that true? Or buzzards. Yeah. What? They're just different types of vultures everywhere. Yeah everywhere every every state in America has vultures. Yeah, that's wrong buzzards Yeah, well, they're just different types of vultures. I thought vultures are just in the desert No, I had them all the time in Florida. We had turkey vultures. I remember turkey vultures, but those aren't vultures They're not fault. Why do they have the name? They're turkeys. What turkeys are turkeys? Yeah I think turkey vultures are style of turkeys Yeah, I think turkey vultures are style of turkeys No, the hood turkey vultures are like a convertible turkey turkey vultures are a style of vulture Yeah, otherwise they'd be called vulture turkeys vulture. Not necessarily a vulture turkey would be a turkey I will be vindicated. I don't think so. I can't always help p o t l at gmail.com. I can fucking prove you wrong

I will wait. Oh my god. I'm looking. That is the fucking definition of a goddamn vulture. I'm looking forward and not looking at your propaganda. Either way, it's just they're letting the animals do the work. Yeah, I mean he is. I mean it's helpful. Well judging by the cans of Miller Genuine Drash found at the mulch pit, it seems as if Herb sat there drinking beer while watching the bodies burn, to the point where the bones became brittle enough to smash to bits. That was his favorite television show.

That's like what he'd do. He'd go outside for hours just burning bodies, drinking beers, vibes, no phones. And this had been going on for years. Man, imagine if he had a Bluetooth speaker. I'd listen to Dr. Bob. So much better. Just listen to Dr. Bob. Yeah, so much better. Nothing but Dr. Bob. Burning bodies to Dr. Bob. You think Dr. Bob ever thought about that? I bet every day he thinks I don't know if Dr. Bob knows. Unless Dr. Bob is also an intricate serial killer.

Let us not malign Dr. Bopp. I don't know. I don't want him to be suing us. I'm sure one of our listeners knows that like Dr. Bopp's my fucking grandpa. I hope he hasn't killed. No, unfortunately on stage and off he has not killed. Well, the prevailing theory is that the mulch pit was the original disposal spot, but out of laziness or arrogance Herb began placing the bodies closer and closer to the house.

By the end of it he'd been burning and leaving bodies within eye shot of the house's back porch. The inside of the house however was proving to be a nightmare for forensics. It was a classic hoarder house filled with clutter and garbage from floor to ceiling. The raccoon Infestation had essentially destroyed the upstairs bedrooms to the point where the ceiling had Collapsed in spots where the raccoon waste had soaked it so thoroughly hey guys listen I know that it's like weird to have a bunch of raccoons living in here, but let me tell you fucking man Seriously, not the weirdest shit that's going on in this house

I tell you fucking man, seriously not the weirder shit that's going on in this house. Right? Right? It's just nice to finally have a place where we can all piss and shit on top of each other. Which is honestly for us, this is a godsend for a lot of people, it's not a nice place. But we're really enjoying ourselves.

There was also the matter of the mannequins, which just sort of weirded everyone out. Yeah! What, what, the bone pit? Well it's the bone. We got to know, oh these mannequins are creepy. Meanwhile, there is a literal decomposition pit. Well, the mannequins plus the bone pit. Oh yeah. Honestly though,

I would be creeped out by the mannequins. Yeah. But I would be thinking about the bone pit. Yeah, definitely. I would have been, who cares about the mannequins? He's a hoarder. Yeah, but there's, but the way they're set up. With their wigs on there way they're set up... With their wigs on there and they're all staring at the pool where all the murders happen, obviously. Yeah. There were also hundreds of videotapes, but investigators noticed that one shelf was conspicuously missing its tapes. One group of guys were tasked to watch all of the tapes for evidence of Herb's crimes,

but when it was all said and done, the cops said there was nothing incriminating, extrapolating further by saying that they'd never watched so many episodes of Dallas in all their life. He loves Dallas. Loves Dallas. Stereotaped every episode. Herb, however, had obviously taken some extremely incriminating evidence from the scene, and by the time forensics were done with the house, they had no serial killer souvenirs or strangulation

ligatures. All they had were the bones. The bones! But he was a key new and he had plenty of time to get his shit out. Yeah now it seems as if Herb may have known what was common because he and his videotapes were during the search at his mother's lakeside condo a hundred miles north of Indianapolis. I have to go return some videotapes. Be kind please rewind. north of Indianapolis. I have to go return some video tapes. Be kind, please rewind. After three days of digging, 5,500 bones, bone fragments, and teeth were found, but

no skulls. Those had either been taken somewhere else or smashed beyond recognition. It was also possible that the skulls had been taken down to the creek and floated downstream. Maybe Watain got a hold of them. But why take the teeth out? Because that's how you identify people. Oh, OK. Yeah, that's right.

Following that lead, investigators searched a drainage ditch down the way from Fox Hollow Farm and found intact ribs, vertebrae, lower jaws, and entire spines. Later, the ditch would be dubbed Skull Creek by the local kids. Appropriate. Oh, my god. I would be in that creek every day looking for bones. Oh yeah!

Oh my god! Oh yeah! Absolutely! I would be fascinated. The entire summer would be, we're looking for bones. We're looking for human bones! Isn't this the funnest day of our lives? By this time, the news had broke that over 5,000 human bone fragments had been found on

a property in Indianapolis. And we can speculate that Herb heard about it on the news while he was in northern Indiana. So he got in his gray Buick and drove across the border to Ontario via Detroit. After crossing the border Herb pulled off underneath an underpass to sleep but was awoken by a Mountie. While the Mountie didn't have any reason to detain her just move along He did notice a large amount of videotapes and herbs backseat. Hey there, buddy. I can't help but tell I'm looking back here And if I was you the first thing I do is I take this bunch of you got to take these back to the video

Store, you know even know what they kind when you're holding on to inventory. Yeah, there's people like me. I'm waiting I've been waiting for Cool World for weeks now, and you're holding on to it, I should arrest you on the spot. It's thought that Herb filmed every murder he ever committed at Fox Hollow Farm on CCTV, and he brought the tapes with him just to get rid of the incriminating evidence and to destroy them. I have two theories. One is either he had a camera

and filmed it while it was happening, but I think that it might have been too conspicuous or he had a camera hidden maybe, but the cameras were big at the time, so a little harder to hide. My thing is I think that it happened after the deaths and that was when he was having his little bit of, maybe last night with Mary Jane style,

dressing straight. I actually think it might have been an entire production that we did not see. Also, some people are into getting videotaped while they fuck. Absolutely. Like Dennis Rader, you know, when he did his own self-photography and stuff like that,

I can kind of see a world where this was another form of trophy for her about my sir to put his secret cell phone. I guarantee the lighting was awful But after being awoken by the Mountie herb found his way to pinery provincial park along the shores of Lake Huron There at a sandy picnic area. He composed a suicide letter of Lake Huron. There at a sandy picnic area, he composed a suicide letter apologizing for leaving his family in financial ruin and for making an ugly mess in such a beautiful park. He also made sure to put all the blame for all of his problems on his wife, but never once mentioned a single murder. Finally, he ended the note by saying he was going to eat a peanut butter sandwich and go to sleep. Then, signed the note as

THE Herb Baumeister. Yes! One night only! Yes! He then put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. That was the end of Herb, who went to his grave, having never mentioned the murders to a single living person. Hold on a second. Did he have the sandwich? Or not? You know, I searched for this suicide letter for days.

I could not find the suicide letter. Most of what we know about it from what I have gathered is that it was extremely boring. And it was all just the description of this. It was just the him driving, going, sleeping under the overpass. He just described his day. Yeah. And that was it. Now today, 10,000 bone fragments

have been found at Fox Hollow Farm, and victims are still being identified as recently as last year. Which is why we're even doing this story, is because in February of this year, they found new evidence of the- Oh, shit. Yes.

Man. The current owner says that he still finds fragments to this day. And notice I say, current owner. So usually, the sites of serial killings get torn down or are abandoned completely. Especially when they're covered in raccoon piss and shit. Yes, yes! Yes! And the people who buy the property almost never want to talk about the terrible things that happen there. Yeah, it hurts the home value.

What I've always wondered is if those places are ever haunted. And in this case, the author of Horror at Fox Hollow Farm says that the answer is a resounding yes! And it's with next week's episode that we'll fully explore the intense paranormal activity that supposedly plagues her bow meisters former killing griffin Oh, I thought the second episode we were just gonna get more into the killing no No, we're gonna get into the haunting of Fox Hollow Farm But like it really is and supposedly like herb himself haunts the fucking place

This is a story this next half is like what makes us one of the more unique stories that we've covered next half is like what makes us one of the more unique stories that we've covered under like the banner of serial killers because like not only is it the paranormal activity well documented it really is like unlike other like ghost stories we've covered like if there's always something dubious in the nature of it this place I think is like it's like unbearably haunted it's like unbearably haunted. It's like wildly haunted. Yeah. Soaked with energy. Yeah. And we're going to talk about the next week. I love it, man.

We got to fucking, we got all one go. It's all of last podcast almost in one go. Yeah. If only aliens showed up and we'd be good. Involved is Herb Baumeister. That's right. All right. Well, what a, this is fucking awesome. We're going to come back next week We have a bunch of stuff. We can't even announce yet and we're not going to so we will do other we'll announce other things Sorry patreon.com slash last podcast on the left if you want to see us Yes, if you want to see the actual video of this episode go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left And there's plenty of other perks there including exclusive interviews

You guys just did an interview with the guy who made the octopus murder. Yes Documentary on Netflix. I know a lot of people are really getting into right now So you can go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left if you want to hear that and it's not expensive We actually give a lot of shit for not too much We're doing our best and then go down to tick-tok Which is hopefully gone soon at LP on the last Check that out also in the Instagram's I don't know why that's Leslieville, but that's fine And then go to twitch.tv slash LP and TV to watch all of our wares on twitch and then go to our YouTube channel

To see it after it has been aired live and finally Come see us on tour. Oh my God, I can't wait for this fucking tour. Australia in the summer, in August, can't wait to be there. It's all set, locked in. I think you're allowed to legally, I think you're allowed to enter the country. Yeah, I know, just stop bringing it up on air.

We'll figure it out. Yeah. Wanna get there? And then North America, come see us on our JK Ultra tour. Can't fucking wait. Hell yeah. Tickets are selling out. Go to lastpodguessontheleft.com

to see all of the various cities that we're coming to. Yeah. And you get those on JK Art. Denver and May, Seattle and June, DC and July and so forth. So forth. Yeah, but right here in LA, we're gonna be doing Brooklyn. We're gonna be doing King's Theater in Brooklyn. That's gonna be a fuck.

King's Theater, I'm so excited for Kings Theater. Me too. I can't even tell you. I love that place. I cannot fucking wait. Guys, this is wonderful. Hail Satan. And honestly, if you're gonna, if you're gonna, if you feel like you're gonna kill or wanna

kill, join the army. Yeah! Talk to somebody. The army. We don't want these people in the army. We want people that are those dudes that are in the army What I'm in the Navy yeah The men and women in our armed forces need to be able to fucking count on the person next to them

I don't need psychopaths in there. We need capable human being here Probably right we love our boys and in green. Yeah, go talk to somebody if you have that if you're feelings and all that Yeah better than killing and it's our get it to acting and I guarantee you turkey vultures are terrible Vultures, I'm not a fucking bird guy. Yeah. Well, I watched him eat dead animals Oh, yeah, that's cuz you're boring. I was once almost killed by a buzzard really yeah my mom was driving us down that I was like five and a buzzard flew straight into our windshield and Almost lost control sounds like that buzzard was suicidal Yeah, yeah, I guess that happens when you eat nothing, but human flesh. They love it. Yeah, was its last name bowmeister

buzzard bowman Again everyone. How's it? Hell raccoons. Yeah Yeah, was its last name Bowmeister? Hahaha, Buzzard Bowmeister. Oh cool! Hell yeah everyone! Hells it! Hell raccoons! Yeah! Yeah! Little hands!

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