An Indiana serial killer's property was littered with 10,000 'burnt and crushed' skeletal remains that kept many of his victims faceless for decades. Herb Baumeister, a successful businessman who was a married father with three children, is believed to have killed at least 25 victims from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. He hunted mostly gay men in the Indianapolis suburb of Westfield, Indiana, where he lived on an 18-acre property known as Fox Hollow Farm.
Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison renewed the investigation into the thousands of human remains that law enforcement recovered from Baumeister's property after his death in 1996. Investigators have four more DNA profiles that haven't been identified yet, which brings Baumeister's body count up to 12, according to Jellison.
Baumeister's wife, who initially blocked law enforcement from searching their property, ultimately divorced Herb as it became clearer that he was a wanted killer. Authorities searched the property while Baumeister wasn't home, and dug up the remains of several victims. WOMAN WHO KILLED NETFLIX'S ‘DIRTY JOHN’ HLED HIS HEAD ‘LIKE A ZOMBIE', STABBED HIM THROUGH THE EYE By 1996, there was a warrant out for his arrest, so he fled to Ontario, where he shot himself.
While he was alive, Baumeister lived a double life, a common trait among serial killers, according to a 2005 report by the FBI. In one life, he was a seemingly ordinary husband and dad. He went to work and came home. In his secret life, law enforcement has said Baumeister went by the fake name of 'Brian Smart' and mostly targeted young, gay men whom he met in bars.