I want you to just for a second picture the ultimate
American success story. It's let's say it's 1994.
You're in Indianapolis. OK. And you walk into
the store. It's called Savalot. It's a thrift
store. But I don't want you to picture, you know,
some dusty, disorganized basement. This is a
chain. It's clean. It's bustling. It's really
profitable. Right. It's a legitimate business
empire in its own way. Exactly. And the guy running
this whole empire is Herb. Herbert Baumeister.
He's a bit eccentric. You know, people said he
wore suits that were maybe a little too loud,
but he's the CEO. He's the guy. He's the man
in charge. And he's got it all. The beautiful
wife, three kids. And he lives on this massive,
sprawling estate in Westfield called Fox Hollow
Farm. And when I say sprawling, I mean it. We're
talking 18 acres. It's got an indoor pool, a
Tudor style mansion. dense, private woods. It
is the checklist, isn't it? Right. I mean, it
is literally everything you're supposed to aspire
to. You've got the stability, the wealth, the
privacy, respectability. Total respectability.
And if you looked at Herbert Baumeister in 1994,
that is exactly what you saw. But today, we aren't
looking at that success story. We're going to
dig into the cracks in that foundation because
beneath that thrift store empire and that perfect
family estate was a reality so dark and so violently
chaotic. That even now, and I mean literally
as we speak, in the mid -2020s, forensic scientists
are still sifting through the dirt at Fox Hollow
Farm trying to figure out exactly how many people
died there. And that is not hyperbole. I really
want to stress that for you. We are looking at
a case where the recovery of human remains isn't
measured in bodies or even skeletons. It's measured
in fragments. 10 ,000 bone fragments. Over 10
,000. It's a staggering number. That number just
stops me cold every single time I read the notes
for this deep dive. 10 ,000. It's almost impossible
to comprehend. And it completely changes the
mission of this discussion. We're not just here
to recount a crime spree that's been done. We
have to unpack the mechanics of a double life
that lasted for over a decade. How does a man
diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and antisocial
personality disorder? I mean, these are labels
that usually derail life before it even starts.
How does he manage to build a fortune, raise
a family and hunt human beings in plain sight?
And we have the full stack of sources today to
help us try and answer that. We've got the court
records. We have the police investigation timelines
from that whole I -70 strangler era. The forensic
reports from the excavation at the farm. And
crucially, the firsthand accounts of the one
man who managed to get away. So let's get into
it. The making of this normal monster. Usually
when we do these profiles, we look for that crack
in the armor during childhood. You know, the
narrative, the troubled youth where the system
fails some kid from a broken home. Right, the
classic criminological starting point. But with
Herb Baumeister, it wasn't a crack. It was like
a complete shatter. And it happened in a home
that, at least on paper, should have been perfect.
It really was a paradox from day one. Demographically,
he had every single advantage. He was born in
1947 in Indianapolis. His father, Herbert Eugene
Baumeister Sr., was a prominent anesthesiologist.
So this was an upper middle class, highly educated
household. So no poverty, no apparent external
trauma that we see in so many other cases. None
that's documented. It was, by all accounts, a
stable, wealthy home. Which makes the behavior
he exhibited as a child feel even more... I don't
know, biological or at least more innate. It's
not a reaction to something terrible happening
to him. It seems to have come from within. We
have reports of him playing with dead animals,
which is, you know, the classic Crim 101 red
flag. The McDonald triad, right? Exactly. End
of Reese's bed, wedding fire starting. And cruelty
to animals. It's the predictive triad for sociopathy
that criminologists have used for decades. Herb,
definitely check the animal cruelty box. But
there was something else in the clinical notes
from his youth that is, well, it's much more
specific and, frankly, a lot more disturbing
than just acting out. You're talking about the
urophilia. I am. An obsession with urine. And
we are not talking about a childish curiosity
here or, you know, a simple prank. This was a
documented compulsion. He would, what, urinate
on things at school? On teachers' desks, yes.
Yeah. Friends from his youth later came forward
and reported him wondering aloud about the taste
of human urine. See, that's where we move from
a behavioral problem like acting out to something
deeply pathological. That is a fetishization
of waste, of humiliation. And his father, the
doctor, he didn't just brush this off. That's
the part that really surprises me. It is surprising.
Usually in these wealthy families in the 50s
and 60s, the instinct is to hide it, protect
the family name at all costs. You're absolutely
right. The typical reaction is to sweep it under
the rug. But you have to give some credit where
it's due. In the 1960s, you know, mental health
care was often heavily stigmatized. But Dr. Baumeister
saw this behavior in his son and realized it
was not just boys being boys. So he took action.
He did. He had herbs submitted for multiple mental
examinations in his teens. And the diagnosis
they got back wasn't, you know, mild anxiety
or ADHD. It was heavy. Far from it. This is the
bombshell. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia
and antisocial personality disorder. Let's just
pause and really unpack that combination for
a minute, because those are two heavy hitters
that don't always go together. They're distinct,
but they are devastating when they're combined.
Antisocial personality disorder, what most of
us used to call sociopathy, is characterized
by a pervasive disregard for the rights of others.
There's no empathy. There's no remorse. It's
a total willingness to manipulate and exploit
for personal gain. That's the engine of the predator.
OK, so that's the I don't care who I hurt part.
Exactly. You layer paranoid schizophrenia on
top of that. That introduces delusions, a potential
break from reality, disorganized thinking, paranoia.
So you have a person who fundamentally doesn't
care about hurting people. That's the ASPD. And
that's combined with a brain that might be feeding
him a twisted version of reality where hurting
people is somehow necessary or justified. That's
the schizophrenia. It is an incredibly volatile
cocktail. and this is the part of the story that
is just it's a tragedy because the system actually
worked at first it identified him it put a label
on the problem it did but then just nothing happened
what do you mean nothing happened how do you
get a diagnosis like that and just walk away
the records we have indicate he received no significant
long -term follow -up psychiatric treatment.
No institutionalization that stuck. No heavy
medication regimen that was monitored by the
state. He was a wealthy doctor's son. So he was
effectively diagnosed and then sent back out
into the world to, quote, figure it out. That
is absolutely terrifying. It's like spotting
a massive structural failure in a bridge, writing
a very detailed report about it, and then just
opening the bridge to rush hour traffic anyway.
A perfect analogy. So he goes to college. Or
he tries to. He tries. He enrolled at Indiana
University in 1965, but he dropped out. Then
later he tried Butler University in 72. Academically,
he was just... He was flailing. He couldn't seem
to focus. But... And this is so key to his later
success. He had this relentless manic energy.
People who worked with him called it a strong
work ethic. Which is so often a mask for mania,
right? Or hypomania. Precisely. He drifted through
a bunch of jobs. He worked in media for a bit,
then for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. But he
was always moving, always scheming. And eventually...
he figured out how to channel that manic energy
into entrepreneurship. And this is where Savalot
comes from. This is it. He founded the Savalot
thrift store chain in 1988. And suddenly the
weird guy with the strange behavior becomes the
eccentric rich guy. Money has a way of washing
away a lot of social sins. Oh, it buys a whole
lot of cover. But while he's building this business,
he's also building a family. And this part of
the research, honestly, it just baffles me every
time I read it. He marries Juliana Sater Julie
in 1971. And they stay married for over 25 years.
But the details of that marriage are just bizarre.
Bizarre is a profound understatement. This is
what I call the marriage paradox. Yeah. On the
surface, they are the successful couple. Behind
closed doors, they were practically strangers
just living in the same house. Julie later revealed
that in a quarter century of marriage, they were
sexually intimate a grand total of six times.
Six. Not six times a year. Six times total. Total
in over 25 years. And she also stated she never
once saw her husband fully nude. How does that
even work? I mean, I'm serious. You are living
with someone. You're raising three children with
them. How do you maintain that level of just...
physical and emotional distance without the whole
thing imploding. Was it just a marriage of convenience?
It's hard to say for sure without being inside
their heads, but it speaks to the incredible
power of denial and probably a significant amount
of gaslighting on Herb's part. He likely framed
his complete lack of intimacy as, you know, I'm
stressed from work or just chalked it up to his
quirkiness. And the money probably helped smooth
over a lot of questions. Of course. Plus, remember
the era. Divorce was messier, more stigmatized.
They had a business to run together, and Herb
was clearly a master of compartmentalizing his
life. But there were cracks, huge cracks. Just
six months into the marriage, Herb's father committed
him again. Wait, six months in? So the honeymoon
phase is barely even over, and he's being committed
to a psychiatric hospital? Yes, for two months.
And the reason given to Julie at the time was
that he was hurting and needed help. So the wife
knew. She had to know he was deeply unstable.
You don't send your new husband away for two
months because he has the flu. She knew something
was fundamentally wrong, yes. Yeah. But again,
once he came out, the machine of their life just
kept rolling forward. The business grew, the
money poured in, and the darkness was an inside
herb. It needed an outlet. And since he was willing
it at home and he wasn't treating it with any
kind of therapy or medication. It spilled out
onto the highway. This brings us to the I -70
Strangler era. We really need to set the scene
here for you. It's the 1980s, Indianapolis. This
is such a critical period. From about June 1980
to October 1991. This is pre -Fox Hollow Farm.
This is when his hunting ground was the interstate.
During this decade, police start seeing this
terrifying pattern emerge. Young boys and adult
men are disappearing. Many of them are last seen
around the gay bar scene in Indianapolis places
like the 21st Amendment or a music venue called
The Vogue. And the bodies. They aren't being
found in the city. They're not found in alleyways
or dumpsters in Indy, which is what you might
expect. No. This is where the I -70 moniker comes
from. The killer was using the interstate as
a disposal system. He was driving the bodies
far away from where he picked them up. So the
victims would be found how? They were found strangled,
usually nude or semi -nude, and they were just
dumped in rural streams or shallow ditches right
along Interstate 70, stretching from central
Indiana all the way into Ohio. That's a specific
forensic countermeasure, isn't it? Dumping bodies,
especially crossing state lines. Oh, it is smart.
It's evil, but it's smart. By dumping bodies
in, say, Preble County, Ohio, or different jurisdictions
across Indiana, he completely fragmented the
investigation. I see. You've got the Indianapolis
PD handling the missing persons reports, but
then you have a sheriff's deputy, two counties,
overhandling the homicide of a John Doe. And
in the days before digitized shared databases,
remember this is the 80s, there's no internet,
no national DNA database, these different agencies
were just not talking to each other efficiently.
He was exploiting the seams in the system. Perfectly.
Let's talk about the victims, because for a very
long time, these were just a string of tragic,
unsolved cases. But when you look back now, the
cruelty and the pattern are so distinct. Take
the very first one linked to the series. Michael
Sean Petrie. June 1980. He was only 15 years
old. Found naked, strangled. The autopsy showed
no drugs or alcohol in his system. Which suggests
what? That lack of intoxication suggests he was
either overpowered by force or coerced through
fear. He wasn't out partying and let his guard
down. He was taken. Or he was lured under some
other false pretense that didn't involve a party
scene. He was targeted. He was targeted. And
then you look at Delvoid Lee Baker in 1982. He
was 14. This case is one of those what -if moments
in the investigation that is just... It's heartbreaking.
This is the witness sighting, right? The one
that must keep investigators up at night. Yes.
Witnesses actually saw Baker getting into a vehicle
with its killer. They described it as a blue
van and the driver, a white male with a bushy
mustache. If you look at any photograph of Herb
Baumeister from the 1980s, that mustache is practically
his logo. I mean, it is huge. It's undeniable.
It was his signature look. And guess what he
drove during that period? A blue van. The pieces
were all there. Baker had been seen near the
gay cruising spots in downtown Indy, which fits
the Predators' hunting ground perfectly. But
despite that incredible description, the van,
the Mustache Baumeister, wasn't caught. The connection
just wasn't made. The lead just went cold. It
went cold. And then there was Michael Andrew
Riley in 1983. He was last seen at the Vogue
Theater. A witness later, and this is years later,
unfortunately, positively identified a photo
of Baumeister as the man Riley left with that
night. Wow. And the geography just keeps expanding,
too. It wasn't just Indiana anymore. The bodies
started appearing in Ohio, Preble County, Eaton,
Ohio. Victims like Eric Allen Roker, Michael
Allen Glenn, Stephen Lynn Elliott. Clay Russell
Boatman, Thomas Ray Clevenger Jr. So he's driving
hours to dump these bodies. That's a significant
time investment and a huge risk. It shows the
depth of the compulsion. He was living this unbelievable
double life where he'd work at the thrift store,
go home and play the dad, and then spend his
nights driving hundreds of miles with a corpse
in his trunk or his van. Is it? Of a level of
adrenaline addiction and cold, calculated risk
-taking that is hard to comprehend. It is. But
then, in 1991, the pattern just stops. The bodies
stop appearing along I -70. The whole series
just breaks. And in criminology, when a pattern
like that breaks, you usually assume one of two
things. The guy got arrested for something else
or he died. But that's not what happened here.
Not at all. He didn't stop killing. He just changed
his real estate situation. In May of 1988, Baumeister
bought Fox Hollow Farm. So he buys this 18 acre
estate in Westfield. It's secluded. It's got
dense woods. He no longer needs to drive all
the way to Ohio to dump a body. Exactly. He can
just bring them home. Precisely. The farm gave
him total, absolute control. He didn't have to
worry about a passing motorist or a state trooper
seeing him drag a body into a ditch at 3 in the
morning. He had a private graveyard right in
his own backyard. And this transition from a
traveling killer to a territorial killer is just
terrifying because it implies a total loss of
fear. He felt completely untouchable. He felt
like a king in his castle. And that incredible
arrogance led to one of the most disturbing and
surreal anecdotes I have ever encountered in
all of true crime. It's 1994. The family is living
at the farm. This is the story with his son,
right? Yes. Herb's teenage son is out playing
in the woods behind the house, just, you know,
digging around, exploring like kids do. And he
finds something. He unearths a complete, partially
buried human skeleton. Imagine that moment. You're
a kid. You're in your own backyard, a place that's
supposed to be safe. And you pull a human skull
out of the dirt. So he runs to his dad. Dad,
dad, I found a skeleton. Now, any normal human
being, any parent on the planet calls 911 immediately.
Or Baumeister. He doesn't even blink. What is
the lie he spins? Because it has to be a masterpiece
of a lie to actually work in that situation.
It's so audacious. It's almost brilliant. He
tells his son and his wife all that. That's just
one of my father's old dissecting skeletons from
his medical practice. I buried it out there to
get rid of it. Wait, wait, wait. I buried a medical
skeleton in the woods to get rid of it? That
doesn't even make any logical sense. If it's
a medical specimen, you put it in the trash.
You donate it to a medical school. Why would
you bury it shallowly in your yard? It is completely
illogical. Yeah. But it relies on the power and
authority of the doctor -father excuse. By invoking
his father's respected profession, he completely
shuts down the inquiry. It becomes, it's medical
stuff you wouldn't understand. And the family
believed him. They bought it. But here's the
truly sinister part that proves his guilt. He
didn't call the police to come and collect this
medical specimen. He dug the rest of it up himself,
stored it in the family garage for a while, and
then he reburied it somewhere else on the property.
That is the definition of audacity. He is literally
handling the remains of a murder victim right
in front of his family, and he's gaslighting
them into thinking it's a plastic model or some
antique medical tool. It shows how confident
he was in his absolute control over them. It's
a master class in manipulation and control. He
exploited their trust and his father's professional
background to explain away the completely indefensible.
And because they bought his lie, the killing
was allowed to continue for another two years.
I have to push back on this a little bit. does
julie his wife really just accept it Or is it
more likely that she looks at her wealthy lifestyle,
her huge house, her three children, and she decides
that a plastic skeleton explanation is a much
better reality to live in than a dead body? I
think that's the million -dollar question, isn't
it? Denial is an incredibly powerful survival
mechanism. If she acknowledges that it's a real
body, her entire life, her children's lives,
everything detonates that moment. So consciously
or subconsciously, she accepts the lie. She has
to. But the clock was ticking because by the
early 90s, the police in Indianapolis were finally
starting to put the pieces together. They started
to realize that a lot of gay men, all of a similar
height, weight and age, were just vanishing.
And then a hero emerges, a man named Tony Harris.
Tony Harris is absolutely the key to breaking
this entire case. He wasn't a detective. He wasn't
law enforcement. He was a potential victim who
survived. Walk us through what happened to Tony,
because this is the moment the whole facade finally
starts to crack. So Tony meets a guy at a gay
bar in Indianapolis called the 501 Club. This
guy introduces himself as Brian Smart. Brian
Smart. OK, not exactly a master of disguise with
the naming convention there. No, it's simple.
It's forgettable. Brian Smart invites Tony back
to his place, which he describes as this huge
mansion with an indoor pool. This is Fox Hollow
Farm. While they are there, things get weird
and then they get dangerous. Brian suggests they
try erotic asphyxiation. He wants to choke Tony.
But not with a scarf or a belt. With a pool hose.
A pool hose. That is terrifyingly specific and
brutal. It implies he's done this before. It
implies he had a routine, a kit. It absolutely
does. And Tony Harris realizes this isn't a game
anymore. He feels the pressure from the hose.
He realizes his life is in actual danger. He
manages to survive the encounter. Reports vary
on whether he played it cool or fought back enough
to break the mood. But the important thing is
he gets out of there alive. Wow. But he's deeply
suspicious. He knows something is seriously wrong
with this Brian Smart character in his creepy
mansion. But he doesn't know who Brian Smart
actually is. All he has is a fake name and a
memory of a house out in the woods. Right. And
for a while. Brian Smart just disappears. But
Tony Harris is vigilant. He's on the lookout.
Then, in August of 1995, miraculously, he spots
Brian Smart again out in public. This is the
moment. This is where the whole house of cards
starts to fall. Tony doesn't confront him. He
does something much smarter. He follows him.
He trails his car. And this is the crucial detail
that breaks the case. He gets the license plate
number. He takes that plate number straight to
the police. And when they run the plates, it
doesn't come back to any Brian Smart. It comes
back to Herbert Baumeister. The wealthy thrift
store owner. The respected family man. And now
the police finally have a name. They have a prime
suspect. So they go to him, right? They confront
him at the house. They do. They show up at Fox
Hollow. They inform him he's a suspect in the
disappearances of multiple men. They ask for
his permission to search the house and the grounds.
And he refuses. Of course he refuses. But here's
the problem with the law. You need a warrant
or you need consent. Herb refuses. And initially,
his wife Julie refuses too. Why did Julie refuse?
At this point, was she still protecting him?
Or was she just protecting the house, the family
from the intrusion? It's complex. I think it's
likely a mix of deep denial, genuine fear, and
just trying to protect the sanctity of her home
and her children from what she probably saw as
a police intrusion. But the pressure starts to
mount. The police keep pushing and Herb's behavior
starts to completely spiral out of control. He's
becoming erratic. The mask is slipping off for
good. And by June 1996, Julie has had enough.
She's frightened of him. The marriage is totally
crumbling. She files for divorce. And then crucially,
while Herb is away on vacation, she finally gives
the police what they've been waiting for. She
consents to a search. This is the turning point.
June 24th, 1996. Investigators descend on Fox
Hollow Farm. And you have to remember, they are
going in there looking for evidence of maybe
one or two people based on Tony Harris's story.
They think maybe if they're lucky, they'll find
a body. They were not prepared for what they
actually found. Not at all. They started digging
in the woods in the very spot where Herb's son
had found the so -called medical skeleton two
years earlier. And they just kept finding bone
fragments and more fragments, ribs, vertebrae,
pieces of skulls. And the condition was... Horrible.
They were burned. They were crushed into small
pieces. This wasn't just a grave. It was a disposal
site, a human processing site. They eventually
recovered remains belonging to at least 11 different
people just in that initial search. Meanwhile,
Erb is on vacation. He knows the gig is up, doesn't
he? Oh, he knows. He flees. He doesn't come back
to Indiana. He flees to Canada. He crosses the
border into Ontario and drives to a place called
Pinery Provincial Park right on the shores of
Lake Huron. And this is how it ends. Not with
a trial, not with a confession in a quiet interrogation
room. No. On July 3rd, 1996, finding himself
completely cornered by the reality of what the
police were digging up in his backyard, Herb
Baumeister sat down on the shores of Lake Huron.
The reports say he ate a peanut butter sandwich,
and then he shot himself in the head with a .357
Magnum. He left a suicide note, though, and the
note is, well, it tells you everything you need
to know about his personality right to the very
end. It is the final act of a complete narcissist.
He wrote it on a piece of yellow notepaper. In
it, he apologized for messing up the park with
his suicide. He expressed regret about his failing
business and his broken marriage. But he admitted
to nothing. Nothing about the murder. Not a word.
No mention of the victims. No remorse for the
lives he took. His final thoughts were basically,
sorry about the mess and sorry my business failed.
There was also that strange detail where he mentioned
he intended to kill himself in a different spot
in the park, but he saw children playing there
and changed his mind. Yes. A very strange final
attempt to appear human or moral, maybe. Or maybe
he just didn't want to be interrupted. It's impossible
to say for sure. But what is certain is that
he died taking the secrets of the exact number
of his victims with him to the grave. But the
story doesn't end in 1996. And this is really
why we are doing this deep dive today. Because
the science has had to catch up to Urbaumeister's
profound cruelty. We need to talk about the victims
of Fox Hollow. Absolutely. The victims are the
focus now. For decades, many of those thousands
of bone fragments were... Unidentified. They
were John Doe's in an evidence box. But the revolution
in forensic genetic genealogy has changed everything.
Let's name the ones we know, the ones whose families
finally got an answer. We have Johnny Bear, Jeff
Jones, Richard Douglas Hamilton Jr. All of them
went missing in 1993 and were identified fairly
early on through dental records or other traditional
means. But then you have the recent identifications,
which are just incredible victories for forensic
science. Alan Lee Livingston. He went missing
in August of 1993. Right. And his remains weren't
identified until October of 2023. Can you imagine
that family waiting 30 years for an answer? And
Manuel Resendez, also missing in 93. His remains
were identified in January of 2024. And even
more recently, Daniel Thomas Halloran. His remains
were identified in 2025. This is absolutely cutting
-edge work. They are pulling usable DNA from...
Tiny bone fragments that were burned and then
buried in the ground for decades. Can you explain
for us why that is so incredibly hard? I mean,
we see DNA evidence solving a case in 48 hours
on TV shows. Why did it take until 2025 for Daniel
Halloran's family to get an answer? It's because
of the condition of the remains. Baumeister burned
these bodies. When bone is burned at high temperatures,
a process called calcination, the heat literally
destroys the organic material within the bone.
It destroys the collagen, which is where the
DNA lives. For a very long time, standard forensic
DNA testing just couldn't get a read on burned
bone. It would just come back as no result. So
for more than 20 years, those bones just sat
in storage in an evidence locker because the
science just wasn't there yet. Exactly. But now
labs like Othram in Texas are able to use new
techniques to extract usable DNA from minute
amounts of this degraded calcined bone. They
can build a DNA profile, upload it to genealogical
databases like GEDmatch or Family Tree DNA, and
then look for distant cousins of the victim.
That's how we're finally getting these names
back. There's also the case of Jerry Williams
Comer. He's technically considered an additional
victim, is that right? Yes, he's strongly linked.
He went missing in 1995. His remains were never
found at the farm, but his car was found abandoned
at a mall, and he fit the victim profile perfectly.
Authorities have posthumously linked his disappearance
directly to Baumeister. The scale of the forensic
challenge at Fox Hollow is something I just don't
think people can fully grasp. Right. We're not
talking about digging up full skeletons. No.
As we mentioned, in December of 2022, they did
another search of the property and found even
more bone fragments. The coroner in Hamilton
County, Jeff Jellison, is currently dealing with
roughly 10 ,000 separate fragments. It's like
a macabre jigsaw puzzle, where half the pieces
are missing and the other half are burned. And
they made a public appeal, didn't they? They
asked for DNA from the public. They did. It's
an ongoing effort. They've asked anyone who had
male relatives who went missing from the mid
-80s to the mid -90s in the Indianapolis area
to please come forward and submit a DNA sample.
Because that is the only way they're going to
be able to match these tiny fragments to a name.
It's just heartbreaking work, but it's so necessary.
You know, this case has entered pop culture in
a really weird way. There are all these ghost
hunting shows, ghost adventures, paranormal witness
that go to Fox Hollow Farm because of the whole
haunting aspect. It's a double edged sword. On
one hand, the sensationalism keeps the story
alive in the public consciousness, which is good.
But on the other hand, it really risks trivializing
the very real, very horrific crimes that happen
there. I agree. It shifts the focus away from
the victims, from Alan, from Manuel, from Daniel,
and puts it on spooky noises and EMF meters.
We have to remember that this isn't a ghost story.
It's a crime scene, a very active crime scene.
I agree completely. It has to be about the people
who were lost and the families still waiting
for answers. And it's about the failure of the
system that allowed a man like Herb Baumeister
to operate for so long. So let's try to wrap
this up. We've unpacked the life of a man who
was just a walking contradiction. A successful
CEO and a prolific serial predator. A father
who played with his kids in the yard and a monster
who buried bodies in that same dirt. It is the
ultimate terrifying thought. The banality of
evil. Baumeister wasn't some ghoul lurking in
the shadows 24 -7. He was at the board meeting.
He was at the dinner table. He was the guy you
bought your vintage coat from at Savalot. The
fragility of that normal facade is what really
stays with me. The fact that he could keep it
up for so long, so successfully. He did. And
he was definitely aided by the fact that he targeted
marginalized community gay men, sometimes sex
workers, people who society in the 80s and 90s
sadly didn't prioritize looking for when they
went missing. He knew who he was hunting and
he knew how to hide behind his wealth and privilege.
I want to leave you with one final thought. I
want you to think back to that skeleton in the
garden. The medical skeleton excuse. It sounds
completely ridiculous to us now, hearing it with
the benefit of hindsight, but it worked. It worked
because the people around him wanted it to be
true. They wanted to believe the lie because
the truth was simply too horrifying to contemplate.
And it raises that uncomfortable question, doesn't
it? What anomalies in our own lives do we overlook?
What excuses do we accept from the people we
love or work with because we just can't bear
to see what might actually be there? Right under
the surface. And with thousands of bone fragments
still being analyzed and new names like Daniel
Halloran surfacing as late as 2025, how many
more families are still out there right now waiting
for a knock on the door, waiting for forensic
science to finally reclaim a name from the soil
of Fox Hollow Farm? The ground at Fox Hollow
hasn't finished telling its story yet. That's
it for this deep dive. Stay curious, stay skeptical,
and we'll catch you on the next one. Welcome
to The Debate. Today, we are dissecting the mind
of a man who really treated the American dream
as a mask for a complete nightmare. We are talking
about Herb Baumeister, the founder of the successful
Save -A -Lot Thrift Empire, a father, and the
owner of the sprawling Fox Hollow Farm Estate
in Westfield, Indiana. To his neighbors, he was,
you know, an eccentric businessman who didn't
cut his grass often enough. To history, he is
the monster who buried at least 11 men in the
woods behind his family home. And when we say
buried, that's risking a massive understatement.
I mean, Fox Hollow wasn't a cemetery. It was
a disposal site that required an archaeological
recovery. Investigators found over 10 ,000 crushed
and burned human bone fragments scattered across
that 18 -acre property. We are seeing identifications
still rolling in as recently as 2024 and 2025.
It's a scale of carnage that just defies easy
comprehension. And frankly, it puts Baumeister
in a category all his own. It's a tragedy of
absolute devastation. But the central question
we are debating today isn't about the guilt of
the Fox Hollow killer. That is, I think, a settled
fact. The debate is about the scope of the predator.
Is Erbomeister solely responsible for the Fox
Hollow horrors of the mid -1990s, or does the
evidence point to him also being the I -70 Strangler,
the phantom who left a trail of strangled men
along the interstates of Indiana and Ohio throughout
the 1980s? I'm going to argue that we're looking
at one man, one compulsion, and a lethal evolution
of method. And I have to push back hard on that
evolution theory right out of the gate. It's...
Well, it's a seductive narrative because it wraps
up a decade of cold cases with a neat bow. But
when you look at the forensic psychology, specifically
the difference between dumping a body in a public
ditch to be found days later versus hoarding
remains in your backyard for years, you see two
fundamentally different profiles. I believe conflating
the I -70 Strangler with the Fox Hollow Killer
risks rewriting history to fit a convenient villain.
And maybe, just maybe, letting the real I -70
killer off the hook. I understand the hesitation.
I do. But let's look at the timeline. It is the
strongest piece of this puzzle. The I -70 killings
which terrorized the gay community in Indianapolis
ran from roughly, say, June 1980 to October 1991.
Then, silence. Absolute silence on the interstate.
Now look at Herb Baumeister. He buys Fox Hollow
Farm in May of 1988. By the early 90s, the family
is settled, the woods are secluded, and suddenly
the Fox Hollow disappearances begin in earnest.
The end of the public dumpings correlates perfectly
with the establishment of the private graveyard.
The killer didn't vanish, he just went indoors.
Perfectly is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
You mentioned the I -70 murder stopped in October
1991, but Baumeister bought the farm in May 1988.
That is a three -year overlap. So if the farm
was this master plan for privacy, why did victims
like Stephen Lynn Elliott in 1989 or Clay Russell
Boatman in 1990 end up in ditches in Ohio? I
mean, Baumeister had the farm. He had the privacy.
Yet the I -70 killer was still driving two hours
to dump bodies in public view. That isn't an
evolution. That's a contradiction. If the goal
was concealment, he had the means to conceal
them starting in 88. Not if you view behavior
as a progression rather than a light switch.
You don't move into a new house with your wife
and three kids and start burying bodies in the
yard the next day. It takes time to test the
boundaries, to feel secure. Those three years
were the transition period where he was perhaps
testing the waters or simply hadn't built up
the nerve to bring the violence home yet. And
look at the source of the victims. This is the
key. The I -70 Strangler hunted in a very specific
ecosystem. The gay bars of Indianapolis, specifically
within a four -block radius. Victims like Michael
Sean Petrie and Delvoid Lee Baker were pulled
from that scene. The hunting ground was the same,
yes. I won't dispute that the victims came from
the same community. Exactly. And ten years later,
Ballmeister is prowling the exact same... bars,
the 501 Club, the Varsity Lounge, picking up
men like John Lee Baer and Manuel Resendez. The
demographic is identical. The pickup location
is identical. The method of initial contact is
identical. You have two killing sprees targeting
the same marginalized group from the same street
corners in the same city. I mean, the statistical
probability of two separate prolific serial killers
operating in that same tight district, targeting
the same men and handing off the baton perfectly
in 1991, that just defies logic. It might defy
narrative logic, but it doesn't defy criminal
psychology. Let's talk about the disposal, because
you're treating it like a logistical detail,
but it's actually a psychological signature.
The I -70 killer wanted his work to be seen.
Bodies were found nude or semi -nude, often near
roadways or railroad tracks. Michael Andrew Riley,
found in 83, was left in a creek. This is discard
psychology. It says, I am done with this object
and I don't care who finds it. It's an act of
exhibitionism or at least total indifference
to the discovery. Or an act of necessity. Compare
that to Fox Hollow. That was concealment. That
was hoarding. Baumeister didn't just kill these
men. He kept them. He burned them, crushed the
bones, buried them, dug them up, and reburied
them. He was living on top of them. That speaks
to a desire for possession, a need to keep the
secret close. The I -70 killer was an extrovert
in his crime. Baumeister was an introvert. Those
are two opposing psychological rewards. You don't
just wake up one day and switch from an exhibitionist
to a hoarder. I disagree. I think you're mistaking
exhibitionism for lack of options. In the 80s,
Baumeister was living in suburban Indianapolis
houses with small yards and close neighbors.
He couldn't keep them. He had to dump them. The
display you're talking about was simply the only
way to get rid of the evidence without getting
caught by his neighbors or his wife. Fox Hollow
didn't change his psychology. It unlocked his
true desire. The farm allowed him to finally
do what he always wanted. Keep them. The I -70
dumpings were the compromise. Fox Hollow was
the goal. That assumes a level of long -term
planning that the evidence doesn't really support.
If he always wanted to keep them, why did the
I -70 killer leave so little evidence? Those
scenes were clean. Swift strangulation, body
dumped, killer gone. It was efficient. Now look
at Fox Hollow. It was chaotic. We're talking
about commingled remains, thousands of fragments.
This wasn't a mastermind finally getting his
way. This was a man spiraling into disorganization.
The I -70 killer was cold and calculated. Ballmeister
by the mid -90s was a mess. He was a mess because
he was decomposing mentally and functionally.
But let's go back to the method of killing, because
this is where the link solidifies for me. Strangulation.
The I -70 killer strangled his victims. Bowmeister
strangled his victims. We aren't talking about
a shooter or a stabber. We are talking about
a hands -on killer. Whether it was a rope in
a ditch or a pool hose in a mansion, the mechanism
of death, asphyxiation, is the constant. But
the context of that strangulation is radically
different. And this brings us to the Brian Smart
persona. We have the testimony of Tony Harris.
the man who survived Baumeister. And Harris describes
a consensual scenario erotic asphyxiation using
a pool hose during an intimate encounter. It
was a ritual, a complex staged event involving
trust and a slow buildup. Compare that to the
I -70 victims. Eric Allen Rochker, found in 85,
had a burn mark on his shoulder and was strangled
with a rope. Michael Andrew Riley was likely
strangled with a towel. These were brute force
attacks, likely opportunistic. The I -70 murders
look like predatory executions. The Fox Hollow
murders look like sexual games that turn fatal,
or were designed to be fatal from the start.
Opportunistic doesn't mean simple. The I -70
victims were often driven considerable distances.
Michael Sean Petrie was seen in a stranger's
car days before he was found. That implies a
period of captivity, or at least a long drive.
That is intimacy, however twisted. And regarding
the tool, the pool hose versus the rope, that
is purely environmental. If you're in a car,
you use what you have, a rope, a towel. If you're
at your home with an indoor pool, you use the
hose. The tool serves the environment. The killer
adapt. You're asking for the MO to remain static
for 15 years. But serial offenders evolve. They
learn. They refine. Or they devolve. And that's
what I see with Baumeister. You call it refinement.
I call it sloppiness. Let's look at how he got
caught. He let Tony Harris leave. He drove his
own car, a gray Buick, and let Harris see the
license plate. He was practically handing out
his business card. Contrast that with the I -70
killer, who was a ghost. No plates, no definitive
sightings, just a vague description of a blue
van or a red Jeep. The I -70 killer evaded the
FBI for a decade. Baumeister got clocked by a
club kid in a few months because he was reckless.
Are we really saying this is the same criminal
mastermind? The recklessness in the 90s was a
symptom of his arrogance. He had gotten away
with it for so long, 16 years by my count, that
he felt invincible. That sloppiness with Tony
Harris wasn't incompetence. It was the hubris
of a predator who thought he owned the town.
And let's not forget, the I -70 investigation
was heating up in 91. He stopped because the
heat was on. He moved the party to Fox Hollow
because he thought he could control the variables.
The fact that he eventually got lazy doesn't
negate the decade of discipline that came before.
It just shows that absolute power corrupts. I
want to touch on the heat you mentioned. The
I -70 killer stopped, yes. But if Baumeister
was the I -70 killer, avoiding heat, why did
he leave a gap? The I -70 murders stop in late
91. The first identified Fox Hollow victims,
men like Johnny Byer or Jeffrey Allen Jones,
disappear in 93. That's an 18 -month silence.
If the compulsion is the same, why the vacation?
A serial killer driven by a need to strangle
doesn't just take a sabbatical for a year and
a half. Life happens. In 91 and 92, Ballmeister
was expanding the save -a -lot business. His
wife, Julie, reported that his mood swings were
getting worse, the marriage was straining. It's
entirely possible that the pressures of life,
combined with the close calls of the I -70 investigation,
force a dormancy. Or, and this is the darker
reality, there are victims from 91 and 92 that
we simply haven't identified yet. We have 10
,000 bone fragments. We are identifying people
30 years later. To assume the gap is real is
to assume we have found everyone, and I don't
think we have. That is speculation, though. We
have to debate the evidence we have, not the
evidence we might find. And speaking of evidence,
let's talk about the end. The suicide. Pinery
Provincial Park, Ontario, July 1996. Ballmeister
knows the police are digging up his yard. He
flees. He shoots himself. He leaves a three -page
note. The final confession. But it wasn't. That's
the point. It was a three -page letter on yellow
legal pad. And it was entirely about... Well,
mundane failures. He talked about the failing
thrift store business. He lamented the divorce.
He apologized for messing up the park with his
suicide. He mentioned his last meal was a peanut
butter sandwich. But he wrote zero words, zero,
about the 11 men in his backyard. Which is exactly
what you would expect from a malignant narcissist.
But if he was this prolific I -70 killer, a man
who had terrorized the state for 16 years, Why
not claim it? Why not go out with the infamy?
The silence in that note suggests a level of
compartmentalization that is just terrifying.
He truly didn't see himself as a monster. He
saw himself as a failed businessman. No, he saw
himself as a victim. That's the key to the note.
He was feeling sorry for himself. Admitting to
the murders, Fox Hollow or I -70 would have shattered
the one thing he valued more than human life,
his image. He wanted to be remembered as the
businessman who had a bad run of luck, not the
sexual predator. The fact that he didn't mention
the fox hollow bodies, which we know were there,
proves that his silence means nothing. If he
can ignore the bones his kids were finding in
the yard, he can certainly ignore the bodies
he left in ditches 10 years prior. The omission
is an act of image management, not proof of innocence.
I grant you the narcissism, but let's look at
the physical descriptions from the I -70 era.
We have witnesses in the Delvoid -Lee Baker case
who saw a blue van. In the James Boyd Robbins
case, witnesses described a red Jeep or a Chevy
Blazer. Baumeister drove a gray Buick in the
90s. In the 80s, he had access to company cars,
sure, but there is no definitive link to these
specific vehicles. We're trying to jam a square
peg into a round hole because the timeline is
convenient. Witness testimony on car colors from
the 1980s is notoriously unreliable. Nighttime,
sodium lights, blue looks black, red looks brown.
But you know what isn't unreliable? The face.
Look at the composite sketch of the I -70 suspect.
White male, average build, distinct bushy mustache.
Now look at Harbaugh Meister's mugshot from 1986.
It is the same man. The physical resemblance
is undeniable. And regarding the cars, he was
a businessman. He had a fleet for Save -A -Lot.
He rented vehicles. A predator who uses his own
distinct car every time is a predator who gets
caught in week one. The variation in vehicles
actually supports the theory of a calculated
killer. Calculated? We just established he was
sloppy with Tony Harris. You can't have it both
ways. You can't say he was a master of disguise
in the 80s and then claim his sloppiness in the
90s was just arrogance. I think the simpler explanation
is that the I -70 killer was a transient. The
interstate profile fits a trucker, someone mobile.
Ballmeister was local. He was rooted. The I -70
crimes scream mobility. The Fox Hollow crimes
scream stagnation. But the I -70 dump sites,
Hamilton County, Preble County, these aren't
cross -country dumps. They are local dumps. They
are within a two -hour drive of Indianapolis.
A local knows the back roads. A local knows which
exits have no cameras. Otto Gary Becker, found
in 1991, was in Henry County. That is Beaumeister's
backyard. The transient theory is the one that
lets us sleep at night because it means the killer
moves on. The neighbor theory is the reality.
There is one victim that troubles your timeline,
though. Jerry Williams Comer. He went missing
in August 1995, height of the Fox Hollow era.
His car was found at a mall. He fits the profile
perfectly, but his remains were never found at
Fox Hollow. Authorities linked him to Bymeister,
but without the physical remains, It implies
that even in the 90s, the M .O. wasn't absolute.
If Bymeister was the I -70 killer, wouldn't we
expect to find at least one I -70 victim transferred
to the farm? A transitional victim, someone who
bridges the gap? We have nothing. Because the
farm wasn't ready yet. The transitional victims
are the ones in the gap, the ones we haven't
found. Or perhaps the transition was purely mental.
He decided, no more driving, no more ditches.
The lack of physical overlap is exactly what
you expect when a killer changes his methodology.
But the psychological overlap is the fingerprint.
Gay men. Strangulation. Indianapolis. The same
four blocks. If you deny the connection, you
are arguing that Herb Baumeister, a man with
a history of urophilia and dead animals, just
started killing at an expert level in 1993. That
doesn't happen. Killers practice. The I -70 murders
were his practice run. Expert level? Again, I
point to the chaos of the bone field. That isn't
expertise. It's madness. It's a frenzy. But I
will concede this. The duality of the man is
staggering. He founded a charity thrift store
while burying men in his garden. He hosted pool
parties for the community while bones were literally
surfacing in the woods 100 yards away. He was
a master of bifurcation. He was, and it creates
a very difficult shadow to peer into. But I worry
that by pinning I -70 on him, we are closing
the book on men like Eric Allen Rotger and Michael
Allen Glenn. We are offering their families a
likely answer rather than a proven one. The forensic
DNA linkage just isn't there. There were other
predators in the Midwest. There was Larry Eiler,
the highway killer, operating in a similar time
frame nearby. It wasn't just Bowmeister. The
world was dangerous, and until we have that link,
skepticism is the only respectful position. And
I worry that by separating them, we underestimate
the capacity of the man. We fail to see how a
predator adapts to survive. I look at the cessation
of I -70 in 91 and the rise of Fox Hollow in
93, and I don't see a coincidence. I see a timeline
of terror that simply changed addresses. The
Fox Hollow discovery didn't just expose a new
killer, it solved the mystery of where the old
one went. He went home. That is a chilling thought.
And perhaps you are right. But as I look at the
differences, the rope versus the hose, the ditch
versus the garden, the display versus the hoarding,
I see a chasm. A chasm that leaves room for another
monster in the dark. Whether it was one monster
or two, the devastation they left behind is singular.
Families of men like Alan Lee Livingston waited
30 years for a phone call. We are only just now
learning the names of the men Baumeister tried
to erase. And families of the I -70 victims are
still waiting. That ambiguity is the final cruelty
of these crimes. It is. Thank you for joining
The Debate. Thank you.