Authorities Are Still Identifying Herb Baumeister's Victims From Thousands of Bone Fragments

The first time anyone suspected Herb Baumeister was hiding something was in June 1996 when his 15-year-old son found a human skull on the family's property. Erich Baumeister was playing somewhere on the 18 acres of land when he stumbled upon the bone fragment. The teenager triumphantly brought it into the house and showed his mother, Julie. When she mentioned it to her husband, he said it belonged to his late father, who was an anesthesiologist.

According to CBS4, the very next day Julie got a protective order against her husband, which kept him from seeing her or their three children. Although her reasons were related to their family business, which Baumeister had mismanaged, she also narrowly escaped a life filled with horrors. By that time, Baumeister had already been connected to the mysterious deaths of several gay men in the area. Authorities later discovered over 10,000 bone fragments belonging to his victims.

In January 2025, CBS News reported that the investigation into Baumeister's victims has been renewed. It began in late 2022 when Eric Pranger sent a Facebook message to Jeff Jellison, who was about to take office as the Hamilton County Coroner. Pranger was hoping Jellison could get some answers for her aunt, whose son disappeared from the Indianapolis area around the time Baumeister was killing gay men.

Allen Livingston disappeared in August 1993, the same day as one of Baumeister's other victims. Pranger and his family long believed that because Livingston was bisexual, there was a good chance Baumeister murdered him. "How do you say no to that," asked Jellison. "That's our job as coroners by statute, to identify the deceased."

Police obtained DNA samples from his mother, Sharon Livingston, as well as one of her daughters. Jellison, along with the Indiana State Police, the FBI, the Human Identification Center, local law enforcement, and a private company that specializes in forensic genetic genealogy were all working together to find out what happened to Livingston. Almost a year later, Jellison was able to find them some peace after confirming that Livingston was one of Baumeister's victims. Sharon died a year later.

Because of Pranger's quest for closure, the Human Identification Center was able to collect 40 DNA samples from people whose loved ones had gone missing around the time Baumeister was active. As of February 2025, there are 12 viable DNA samples, nine of which have been identified. Jellison and his partner are hoping for more samples from relatives of men who vanished from the Indianapolis area in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s.

In a police interview with Mark Goodyear, per ABC News, he described how met Baumeister out at a club and went home with him to Fox Hollow Farm, which was the name of his property. The Tudor-style mansion had an indoor pool, which Baumeister dangled in front of Goodyear. He would later tell police there were mannequins scattered around the pool and posed at the bar as if they were at a party. Goodyear already felt uneasy and chose not to drink a cocktail Baumeister offered him.

The two had consensual sex and participated in autoerotic asphyxiation. Goodyear told the police, "He had a fascination with strangulation. I do believe that If I had been severely under the influence, that he probably would have went further with me."

It wasn't until a private detective began asking questions about missing gay men that Goodyear made the connection to his own experience. Sadly, Baumeister didn't give Goodyear his real name, but the rattled gentleman was able to describe him physically, which led to someone spotting his car and getting the license plate information. This resulted in police identifying Baumeister as the killer.