It was a crisp day on July 3, 1996 in Grand Bend, Ontario. He wasn’t going back to Indianapolis. He had to run because everyone knew about his heinous secrets. His family knew. The police knew. His neighbors and business colleagues knew. The public knew. The media knew. Now he was nowhere to be found.
When he arrived at his destination, he sat in his car crying like a coward and wrote a suicide note where he talked about his failed marriage, his business failures and his mental illness. In this letter he never mentioned the men and boys he murdered in cold blood.
He held his .357 magnum and mulled over his plan. His life was over. His wife already filed for divorce and he would never see his kids again. He knew he’d be in prison for life, or worse, the death penalty. He wouldn’t make it in prison for a day, let alone the rest of his life. He had no choice. He took the gun, pressed it against his forehead and pulled the trigger.
HERB BAUMEISTER - INDIANA’S FORGOTTEN SERIAL KILLER
On June 24, 1996, police searched the woods behind the Herb Baumeister's 18 acre estate and his 11,000 square-foot Tudor house.
They had no idea that they would find more than 5,000 human bones in what one searcher later described as a scene “like a bomb went off in a people factory.” The human remains of 11 people had been burned and buried on their property.
In the fall of 1994, Baumeister’s son Erich brought his mother a human skull. When she asked where he’d found it, he said that he found it in the woods. Erich took her back to where he found the skull. She found a half-buried pile of bones—enough to make up an entire human skeleton.
Herb Baumeister was born in April 1947 in Indianapolis, Indiana. As a child he began exhibiting anti-social behavior and was obsessed with death. He gathered road kill, dead animals and birds would take them to school and put them on his teacher's desk. Another shocking moment was when he was caught urinating on his teacher’s desk. He was failing his classes and distracting other students. Something was very wrong. Really wrong. Young Herb was diagnosed with schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder. Despite the severity of his diagnoses, Herb did not receive any treatment.
In 1965 he attended Indiana University for a semester and dropped out. After his father’s angry coaxing, he studied at Butler University in Indianapolis for a year. This is when he met his future wife, Julie Saiter. They were married in November 1971.
After getting married, Baumeister had many jobs. At one point he worked for the Indiana State Bureau of Motor Vehicles and was fired when he urinated on a letter addressed to the Governor of Indiana and on his supervisor’s desk.
In the 1970s, Baumeister was committed to a psychiatric hospital by his father. His wife stated that she was supportive of Baumeister and that he was "hurting and needed help.”
On October 2, 1982, 14 year-old Delvoyd Lee Baker was found dead and semi-nude near a river in Hamilton County, Indiana. Delvoyd was last seen on the evening of October 2, 1982, in downtown Indianapolis, Delvoyd’s parents told police that he was riding his bike in and around downtown Indianapolis and called home at 10:30 p.m. to tell them he would be coming home late because he was going to see a movie.
Apparently, Delvoyd and a 16-year-old friend had been going to the Indianapolis gay bars for the last three months, and according to his friend, he and Delvoyd prostituted themselves for $20-25 per night. There were several differences in comparison with other victims. Some of the police believed his homicide was not similar because he was the youngest and the only black victim.
On May 28, 1983, 22-year-old Michael Andrew Riley disappeared after leaving the “The Vogue'' nightclub in Indianapolis. He was last seen leaving The Vogue with an unfamiliar man. Riley's nude body was found in a ditch in Hancock County, Indiana on June 5, 1983. The autopsy determined that he had been strangled with a towel or similar fabric.
On May 7, 1985, 17 year-old Eric Allen Roettger vanished and his body was found near a stream in rural Preble County, Ohio. Witnesses claimed that they saw Eric at a bus stop in the early morning and that he accepted a ride from a passing car. When he was found, he had a burn mark on his left shoulder and had been strangled with a rope.
In August, 1986, 29 year-old Michael Allen Glenn’s body was found in a ditch near Eaton, Ohio. He lived in a trailer park on the outskirts of Indianapolis and worked as a handyman. Strangulation marks from a rope were found on his neck. He was identified three years later with the help of fingerprinting.
On October 15, 1987, 21 year-old James Robbins went missing around 10:00 p.m. after leaving his mother's home in Indianapolis. He was last seen walking in a southern direction of Indianapolis. Two days later, his naked corpse was found in a ditch in rural Shelby County, Indiana near I-70 with strangulation marks around his neck.
In August 1989, 26 year-old Steven Elliot was found dead in rural Preble County, Ohio near I-70 wearing nothing but underwear. He had been strangled with a rope.
During these years Herb and Julie had 3 children and in 1988, he opened his first store called Save-a-lot thift store. It was so successful that he opened a 2nd location. Herb's business required a lot of out-of-town pickups and deliveries. He would drive to Columbus, Ohio regularly traveling on I-70 add to his collection of items for the shop.
- Three bodies were discovered in Preble County, Ohio between 1985 and 1989.
- All three men were from the Indianapolis area.
- All three men had been picked up by a stranger in Columbus, Ohio.
- A fourth body was pulled from a ditch in a nearby stretch of country road in 1990, once again, strangled and reported missing from the Indianapolis area.
These nine men would eventually be connected to the I-70 strangler, though there may be more.
The Baumeisters had serious marital problems. They only had sexual intercourse 6 times in their entire 25 years of marriage. Since they moved to Fox Hollow Herb's behavior had gotten worse. Julie was living in luxury, but was extremely unhappy. Her husband was dealing with a mental illness and other strange behaviors that was unhealthy for her and their children. He was drinking. He started petty arguments with his neighbors. He would be gone for days or weeks without contacting his family.
In the summer, Julie and the children would stay at a lake house owned by Herb Baumeister’s mother. They would stay throughout the summer and Herb drove up to visit them on the weekends when he wasn’t managing the stores.
Little did she know that Herb wasn't going to work. And when he did manage the stores, he never came home from work immediately. He was going to downtown Indianapolis' gay bars and bringing men home with him for sex in his indoor pool.
According to Baumeister’s employees at the Sav-A-Lot stores Herb became careless and neglectful of his duties during this time. They stated that most of the time he didn’t show up for work, and when he did, he was rude and belligerent. Employees quit and the stores began to deteriorate. The business took a turn for the worse.
On October 7, 1991, 42 year-old Otto Gary Becker’s body was found in a ditch in rural Henry County, Indiana. Police located several witnesses who claimed to have seen Becker in a car with two other men on I-70 near Indianapolis. According to them, one of the men was holding Becker down while the other was driving.
Tony stated that "Brian Smart" drove him to his estate. He told Tony that it wasn't his house, but that he was staying there doing construction for the owners. Smart showed Tony the pool house. Tony saw numerous mannequins around the pool and immediately felt uncomfortable. Smart offered Tony a drink, which he turned down. He then asked Tony if he had ever engaged in erotic asphyxiation before, and if he would like to try it.
At the end of August 1995, Tony saw Brian Smart at a gay bar in downtown Indianapolis. He ran outside and saw the same car he rode in with Smart that previous year. He wrote down his license plate number and investigators traced the license plate, it did not turn up Brian Smart as owner of the vehicle. It was Herb Baumeister.
According to Tony, Baumeister talked about having killed people and was confident he wouldn’t get caught because he had been operating for years without detection.
That same year police confronted Baumeister’s wife to search their property and told her that they suspected that her husband was a murderer. Julie didn’t believe it at first. But then she remembered that skull her son Erich brought her that he found in the woods. Previously, Baumeister had told Julie that the skeleton was a part of an anatomical display his father, a doctor, had kept.
During this time Herb was arrested several times. He was in a hit-and-run accident while drinking and driving. In 1986, he was charged with stealing his friend’s car. He got out of both charges and he never served any time in prison.
Before Julie filed for divorce Herb's drinking problem was out of control. He was drinking morning, noon and night. He was intoxicated at work and his employees were quitting because they were unable to stand his erratic mood swings. Herb would disappear for days or weeks on end. Julie never asked or checked where he went, she was just relieved that he wasn't around.
Julie finally allowed the police to search her home and the entire premises when Herb was gone. After an inspection of the gravel along the grass and in Baumeister’s backyard, they realized it was not gravel. It was charred, crushed up bones. Forensics confirmed that they were human. The bodies were found with, hand cuffs, clothing, and shotgun shells.
Over 5,500 bone fragments and teeth were recovered from the site. It was believed they belonged to a total of 11 men, however, only 8 were eventually identified:
John Lee Bayer, age 20
Richard Douglas Hamilton, age 20
Steven S. Hale, age 26
Allen Wayne Broussard, age 28
Jeffrey A Jones, age 31
Manuel Resendez, age 31
Roger Allen Goodlet, age 33
Michael Frederick Kiern, age 46
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The current homeowner, Rob Graves, stated that the death toll was somewhere at 17 to 20 young men and boys buried or burned on he property. He said he finds remains all the time, and that the home is active with spirits and angry souls.
Things happen here that you can’t explain,” said Graves. On YouTube you can find clips from a variety of paranormal that Graves has allowed to investigate the property.
Guests in the apartment on the property claim that the knocker on the front door becomes hot and bangs violently by itself. A family friend staying in the apartment claims to have seen a full-body apparition of a young man running from the apartment.
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