In the early 1990s investigators with the Marion County Sheriff’s Department and the Indianapolis Police Department began investigating the disappearances of gay men in the Indianapolis area. In 1993, investigators were contacted by a man claiming that a gay bar patron calling himself “Brian Smart” had killed a friend of his, and had attempted to kill him. The detectives told him to contact them in case he ever saw the man again. In November 1995, he called them and supplied the man’s license plate; after checking the license registry, investigators discovered that “Brian Smart” was actually Herb Baumeister.
Investigators approached Baumeister, told him he was a suspect in the disappearances, and asked to search his house. When Baumeister refused, investigators confronted his wife, Julie, who also forbade police to search the house. By June 1996, however, Julie Baumeister had become sufficiently frightened by her husband’s mood swings and erratic behavior that, after filing for divorce, she consented to a search. The search of the 18-acre estate named “Fox Hollow Farm” was conducted while Baumeister was on vacation; it turned up the remains of 11 men, only 5 of whom were never identified.
Baumeister escaped to Ontario, where he committed suicide at Pinery Provincial Park by shooting himself in the head. In his sucide note, he described his failing marriage and business as his reason for killing himself. He did not confess to the murders of the men found in his backyard.
In addition to the murders at his estate, Baumeister is also suspected of killing nine more men, the bodies of whom were found in rural areas along the corridor of Interstate 70 betweeb Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana. Julie Baumeister told authorities that her husband made as many as 100 business trips to Ohio, on what he said was store business.
The A&E Network television series The Secret Life of a Serial Killer aired an episode about Baumeister in 1997. The History Channel featured the case in their “Perfect Crimes” series. The case was also featured on The Investigators on TruTV in 2008.