How a respected Indiana businessman lived a double life, killing at least 25 men before taking his own life in 1996
Herbert Richard Baumeister, a successful German-American businessman, operated one of America's most prolific killing sprees from the late 1980s until his 1996 suicide in Canada. Police discovered the remains of at least 11 men buried on his 18-acre Indiana estate, with evidence suggesting he may have killed at least 25 victims overall.
Herbert Richard "Herb" Baumeister lived a fractured existence that few in his Indianapolis community suspected. By day, he was a successful businessman and devoted family man—married with three children. By night, he became "Brian Smart," a predator who hunted gay men at central Indiana bars like the 501 Club, luring them to his home with promises of intimacy that ended in death.
Baumeister's double life spanned decades. Evidence suggests his murders began in the late 1980s and continued into the early 1990s, but investigators believe his violent history may stretch back even further. He is a prime suspect in the unsolved Interstate 70 Strangler murders—a series of 12 killings of men in Indiana and Ohio that occurred in the early 1980s and mysteriously ceased in 1991, the year Baumeister purchased Fox Hollow Farm in Westfield, Indiana.
For years, his crimes went undetected. The turning point came in 1995 when Tony Harris, a survivor, escaped an attempted strangulation and managed to note Baumeister's license plate during a second encounter. This crucial evidence sparked police suspicion after multiple young men began disappearing from the gay bars Baumeister frequented.
The real reckoning arrived in June 1996. Baumeister's marriage was collapsing, and his wife Julie had discovered something horrifying on their property—a skull and bones. As divorce proceedings loomed and suspicion closed in, Julie consented to a police search of the 18-acre estate while her husband was away on vacation. What officers unearthed would shock the nation.
In the soil of Fox Hollow Farm lay the remains of at least 11 men. The scale of destruction was staggering: thousands—possibly up to 10,000—burnt and crushed bone fragments, skulls, and teeth scattered across burn pits. Eight victims were identified immediately. Baumeister's modus operandi became horrifyingly clear: he would bring men to his home, engage them in erotic asphyxiation games, strangle them, then methodically burn and crush their bodies before burying the remains on his property.
