WESTFIELD, Ind.–Twenty-six years ago Herb Baumeister, a grocery store owner, shot and killed himself in a park in Ontario, Canada. The note he left behind said nothing of the remains that were found on his property in Westfield at “Fox Hollow Farm”. Sunday cadaver dogs and a private search crew were back out at the farm after several years hoping to find and identify more victims.
“Our office didn’t quite have the manpower to do that,” said Hamilton County Coroner-elect Jeff Jellison. He was speaking to our newsgathering partners at WISH TV about the efforts to identify people with more advanced DNA technology than was available in 1996.
Though authorities at the time found skeletal remains of 11 men, eight of whom were identified, the people who have pushed for the new search believe Baumeister may have left behind even more victims.
The man who was known as a prankster with a quick temper by his co-workers at the Indiana BMV, was believed to convince men at an Indianapolis bar to return home with him, where he would strangle them in the pool or while having sex with them. Though the bones and bone fragments, more than 10,000 of them, were found in the woods, some appeared not to have been buried, but rather left to the animals and nature for disposal.
People who have revived interest in the case believe more families who are missing someone, and have been for a long time, might have the answers after a more thorough search of the woods at “Fox Hollow Farm”.
“I tell people these people were forgotten, but they’re not forgotten any longer,” said Jellison.
