Herb Baumeister
Herb Baumeister | |
|---|---|
| Born | Herbert Richard Baumeister April 7, 1947 |
| Died | July 3, 1996 (aged 49) Grand Bend, Ontario |
| Cause of death | Suicide |
| Other names | Brian Smart |
| Criminal penalty | N/A |
| Details | |
| Victims | Undetermined |
Span of crimes | 1980s–1996 |
| Country | USA |
| State(s) | Indiana |
Date apprehended | Never arrested, charged or convicted |
Herbert Richard "Herb" Baumeister (April 7, 1947 – July 3, 1996) was an alleged American serial killer from suburban Westfield, Indiana outside of Indianapolis. Baumeister committed suicide before he could be brought to trial, and never confessed to the crimes he was alleged to have committed.
Early life
The oldest of four children, Baumeister's childhood was reportedly normal.His mother was domineering, and his father, an anesthesiologist, was demanding, as well as verbally & physically abusive. By the onset of adolescence, however, he began exhibiting antisocial behavior; acquaintances later recalled the young Baumeister playing with dead animals and urinating on a teacher's desk. As a teenager, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but did not receive further psychiatric treatment. As an adult, he drifted through a series of jobs, marked by a strong work ethic, but also by more and increasingly bizarre behavior. He took college courses for several years but never obtained a degree. His College major was Anatomy. He worked at a newspaper office,where he surprised co-workers by arriving in a hired hearse, wearing a chauffeur's hat & offerring to drive them to a collge football game. And then at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, he sent a christmas card with a picture of him and a friend in drag. He was eventually fired for urinating on aletter addressed to the Governor.
He married in 1971, at the age 0f 24, a union that produced three children despite his not being very sexually interested in his wife due to his homosexual inclinations. He founded the Sav-a-Lot chain of discount stores in 1988 from a $350,000 loan put up by his mother, and quickly became an affluent, well-liked member of the community. Apparently, his son once found a skeleton in the backyard but he allayed his wife's suspicions by saying the bones had belonged to his physician father.
Investigation
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 (73,000 m2) 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 suicide 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 between 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.
Media coverage
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.