CCG – The number of his alleged victims has increased to 13, according to a coroner’s report released on Tuesday. This is a somber development in a case that has taken decades to resolve. The endeavor to identify thousands of bones discovered at the estate of a long-deceased businessman suspected in a series of homicides has been revived.
According to Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison, four additional DNA profiles were acquired during the search for the remains. These will be forwarded to the FBI for a genetic genealogy analysis in the hopes of identifying the remains.
Herb Baumeister committed suicide in Canada in July 1996 as authorities were trying to question him over 10,000 burned bones and bone fragments discovered at his expansive home, Fox Hollow Farm. Nine men had previously been named as his alleged victims.
According to Jellison, the experts think that the bones and fragments might be the remains of a minimum of 25 individuals.
As of Tuesday, Jellison stated, “We are aware that 13 victims have been located on the Fox Hollow Farm property.”
It is believed by investigators that Baumeister, a married father of three who was a regular at homosexual bars, killed men at his estate in Westfield, approximately 16 miles north of Indianapolis, by luring them to his residence.
A further attempt was made by Jellison in 2022 to compare the thousands of burned, broken bones and pieces that investigators discovered on Baumeister’s property in the 1990s and stored with the remains of his other possible victims.
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“Because many of the remains were found burnt and crushed, this investigation is extremely challenging; however, the team of law enforcement and forensic specialists working the case remain committed,” Jellison stated, according to WTTV, a CBS station
Jellison is still requesting DNA samples from the families of young men who disappeared between the middle of the 1980s and the middle of the 1990s in order to use them in the current identification project.
“That is the most efficient way that we’ll be able to identify these remains,” he explained.
Based on DNA taken from the bones, three persons have been identified thus far in this work. Two of those turned out to be Jeffrey A. Jones and Manuel Resendez, two of the eight men who were identified in the 1990s as possible victims of Baumeister.
When Jones and Resendez went missing in 1993, they were 31 and 34 years old, respectively. According to the coroner’s report on Tuesday, Jones’ remains were identified last week by the FBI and Jellison’s office using forensic genetic genealogy analysis. The same method was used in January to identify Resendez’s remains.
Other bone pieces that were identified as belonging to Allen Livingston, 27, were verified last October with the aid of a DNA sample that his mother had given. The Doe Network claims that Resendez and Livingston vanished on the same day. With Livingston’s identification at that point, investigators had identified nine presumed victims.
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According to WTTV, the case started in June 1996 when Baumeister’s 15-year-old son found a human skull approximately 60 yards from the house.
According to WTTV, the probe got underway as Baumeister and his wife of 24 years were going through a divorce. Baumeister’s wife was given emergency protection and custody to keep him away from her and the three children the day after their son discovered the bones.
As the station stated, Baumeister at the time downplayed the discovery, claiming it was a byproduct of his late father’s medical practice.
Investigators were confused when additional remains were recovered by Hamilton County firefighters three days after the boy uncovered the remains.
Former Sheriff Joe Cook is reported as saying to The Indianapolis Star, “It’s an unusual spot to find bodies.”
The Hamilton County Coroner’s Office is asking anyone who thinks they are related to a missing individual and may be involved in this investigation to get in touch.
