Indiana thrift store owner Herb Baumeister died by suicide July 3, 1996, facing accusations that he may have killed upwards of a dozen gay men in the early and mid 1990s.
By 1993, several young men had disappeared from Indianapolis gay bars and nightclubs, but it wasn’t until Allen Wayne Broussard, 28, and Roger Allen Goodlet, 33, disappeared in the summer of 1994 that the wider community began taking notice, in part because their families pushed for answers and hired a private detective.
At that time, Baumeister was living with his wife, Julie, and their three children in a sprawling home on an 18-acre estate called Fox Hollow Farm, located in Hamilton County, Ind., about 18 miles north of Indianapolis. Investigators think that while Baumeister’s family was traveling, Baumeister, who often spent time at Indianapolis gay bars, brought men back to his home, where he killed and buried them.
In early 1995, his teenage son found bones and a human skull in their wooded yard, Julie says in an A&E’s Investigative Reports. Baumeister claimed the bones were from a medical skeleton that had belonged to his physician father, so Julie didn’t call the police.
By the summer of 1995, the Marion County Sheriff’s Department and Indianapolis Police Department were investigating the disappearances of gay men from the Indianapolis area who were all of a similar age, height and weight.
Goodlet’s friend told investigators about being picked up at a gay bar in 1994 by a man calling himself Brian Smart who drove him to a large remote house and nearly strangled him with a pool hose while they engaged in erotic asphyxiation. Without an exact location or more to go on, the lead went nowhere. About a year later, that man saw “Brian,” whom he suspected of killing Goodlet, at a downtown bar, and asked someone to follow him and get his license plate number.
The car was registered to Herb Baumeister.
The investigation stalled because there wasn’t enough evidence to secure a search warrant, and the Baumeisters initially refused to let investigators to search their property.
By 1996, Baumeister’s marriage was crumbling, and his business was failing. After filing for divorce, Julie allowed officials to search the property. They discovered charred and shattered human bones. An extensive search eventually unearthed the remains of at least seven men, four of whom were identified based on dental records, including Broussard and Goodlet.
A warrant was issued for Baumeister’s arrest. On July 3, 1996, Baumeister was found dead in Canada from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
After that, the investigation ceased and the remains were sent to storage.
