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The police searched for Brian Smart for a few years without finding any leads on him. However, one night in 1995, Tony ran into him again in a bar and managed to get the license plate number of his car.
finding of corpses
With this new information, the detectives discovered that the owner of the car was not Brian Smart, but Herbert Baumeister. From there he became a murder suspect and the investigation took an unexpected turn.
After failing to search the Baumeister home, the detectives contacted Julie, who ended up telling them the story of the bones her son had found years earlier on the property.
On June 24, 1996, Detective Wilson and other officers were able to search The Hollow Fox estate while Herbert was not there and found a large number of human bone fragments scattered throughout.
The results of the investigations yielded surprising data: it was the bones of at least eleven men of similar build who died by strangulation. Of them, so far, only eight have been recognized: Richard Hamilton (20), Johnny Bayer (20), Stephen Hale (26), Allen Broussard (28), Manuel Resendez (31), Jeff Jones (31), Roger Goodlet (34) and Mike Kiern (46).
Investigators later were also able to link the disappearances of gay men in Indianopolis to other strangulation deaths along Interstate 70, which until then had a single unidentified suspect: the “I-70 strangler.” ».
flight and suicide
When news spread about the discovery of human remains on the Baumeister property, Herbert fled to Canada and disappeared. Later, his body was discovered inside his car in Pinery Park, Ontario, Canada. The autopsy confirmed that it was a suicide. He had shot himself in the head.
A three-page note was also found, where he explained the reasons for his suicide. Among them, he mentioned economic and marital problems. He did not mention the murder victims or any other data related to the disappearances and the human remains found in his house.
Because he took his own life before being charged and brought to trial, and did not confess to his crimes, Herbert Baumeister died as a suspect in at least twenty serial murders. He is currently considered one of the most sinister serial killers in American history.
Bibliography
- Jota de Hoces. Made in USA Killers: American Serial Killers. (2019). Spain. Jota de Hoces.
- White, JI Herbert Richard Baumeister. Murderpedia. https://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/baumeister-herbert.htm
