The darker side of the human psyche: Serial killers 8: Herbert Richard Baumeister

Herbert Richard Baumeister (April 7, 1947 – July 3, 1996)

An American resident of Westfield, Indiana, who was suspected of being a serial killer. He was under investigation for murdering over a dozen men in the early 90s, many of whom were last spotted at gay bars. Police found human remains on his property and issued a warrant of arrest. He then fled to Canada and subsequently committed suicide before he could be brought to trial. He never confessed to the crimes and his suicide note made no mention of the murder allegations. He was later linked to a series of murders of at least nine men along Interstate 70, which occurred in the early to mid-1980s. Baumeister was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, the oldest of four children born to Herbert and Elizabeth Baumeister and by all accounts his childhood was normal. At adolescence he began exhibiting anti-social behaviour; friends later recalled the young Herb playing with dead animals and urinating on a teacher’s desk. In his teens, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but didn’t receive further psychiatric treatment. In 1965, he attended Indiana University but dropped out and returned in 1967. As an adult, he drifted through a series of jobs, marked by a strong work ethic, but also by more and increasingly bizarre behaviour.

Baumeister married Juliana ‘Julie’ Saiter in November 1971, with whom he fathered three children. Julie later said they had only been sexually intimate six times over a period of in excess of 25 years of marriage. In the 70s, he was committed to a psychiatric hospital by his father after his wife said he was ‘hurting and needed help’. He also founded the successful Sav-A-Lot thrift store chain (two stores total) in Indianapolis in 1988 (not to be confused with the Save-A-Lot grocery store chain).

Investigation

By the early 90s, Marion County Sheriff’s Department’s investigators and the Indianapolis Police Department began investigating disappearances of gay men of similar age, height, and weight in the area. In 1992, investigators got a tip-off from a man named Tony Harris claiming that gay bar patron calling himself ‘Brian Smart’ had killed a friend of his and had attempted to kill him with a pool hose during an erotic asphyxiation session. Harris eventually happened to see the same man again in August 1995, followed him and took down his license plate number. From this data, police identified ‘Brian Smart’ as Herb Baumeister.

Investigators approached Baumeister, told him he was a suspect in the disappearances and asked to search his house. When he refused, they confronted his wife Julie, who also forbade a search of the house. By June 1996, however, Julie had become so frightened by her husband’s mood swings and erratic behaviour that, after filing for divorce, she consented to a search. The search of the 18-acre (73 000 m²) estate, Fox Hollow Farm, was conducted while Baumeister was on vacation and they found the remains of 11 men – eight of whom were identified.

With a warrant out for his arrest, Baumeister fled to Ontario, Canada, where he committed suicide at Pinery Provincial Park by shooting himself in the head. In his suicide note, he described a failing marriage and business as the reason for his suicide. He did not confess to anything.

Baumeister would posthumously be suspected of killing nine other men after bodies were found in rural areas along the corridor of Interstate 70 between Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio during the early to mid-80s. An eyewitness identified Baumeister as the man seen leaving a bar in 1983 with Michael Riley who was later found dead. Similar to the other victims, Riley was strangled to death and deposited nude or semi-nude in a river.

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