Indiana Million-Dollar Farm Revealed as Serial Killer’s Playground

Herb Baumeister is suspected of killing at least 25 people.

For years, a serene million-dollar farm in Indiana concealed a dark secret: it was the hunting ground of a serial killer.

When police finally raided Herb Baumeister’s 18-acre property in Westfield, north of Indianapolis, they discovered around 10,000 pieces of human remains—mainly crushed and burned skeletal fragments of teenage boys and young men he had abducted and murdered in the 1980s and 90s.

At least 10,000 remains have been discovered on his former property.

Nearly 30 years after Baumeister killed himself while evading police, authorities continue to sift through the remains, identifying victims. Last month, the Hamilton County Coroner announced that human remains recovered from Baumeister’s Fox Hollow Farm in 1996 were positively identified as Jeffrey A. Jones, who went missing in 1993. Jones is the third victim identified in recent months.

Jones was the third victim to be identified in the past six months.

There are an additional four DNA profiles found at Baumeister’s property that have not been identified, bringing his known victim count to 12, according to Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison. “Because many of the remains were found burnt and crushed, this investigation is extremely challenging; however, the team of law enforcement and forensic specialists working the case remain committed,” Jellison said.

Baumeister, a businessman and married father of three, targeted gay teens and men in central Indiana starting in at least 1980. He is believed to have killed at least 25 people, Fox News Digital reported. He used the alias “Brian Smart” and lured young gay men he met at bars.

Manuel Resendez went missing in 1996 when he was 34.

Jones was the third victim identified by the coroner’s office in the last six months, following Allen Livingston, who was 27 when he went missing in August 1993, and Manuel Resendez, who was 34 when he vanished in 1996.

Baumeister moved to the farmstead with his family in 1988 and used its sprawling yard and adjacent trails to hide thousands of decomposed remains until his teenage son discovered a human skull and brought it to his mother. Initially, his wife blocked law enforcement from searching their property, but later divorced him as evidence mounted.

Aerial view of the property

Authorities eventually searched the property in Baumeister’s absence and found the bodies of several victims. Baumeister, 49, fled to Ontario, Canada in 1996 after a warrant was issued for his arrest and fatally shot himself. He was never charged with the murders and did not admit to any crimes in his suicide note.

The unidentified bones and bone fragments had been stored until Jellison reopened the case in 1996. The Hamilton County coroner’s office, along with the FBI, Indiana State Police Laboratory, Dr. Krista Latham of the Biology & Anthropology Department at the University of Indianapolis, and DNA experts from Texas-based Othram Lab, are working to identify the additional remains.