The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer - Who is Herbert Baumeister and what did he do? Details explored

The tranquil, well-to-do suburbs of Indianapolis hold a disturbing secret: the story of Herbert Baumeister, aka Herb. During the day, he was a prosperous businessman, a loving husband, and a father of three. But at night, he's said to have become a monster. The new Hulu show, The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer, tells this grim tale. It looks into the dark side of a man who's thought to have killed more than a dozen people.

Herbert Baumeister's terrible deeds came to the forefront in 1996. The police found nearly 10,000 human bone pieces in the woods behind his house, called Fox Hollow Farm. The series doesn't just focus on the horrors but also the pain of those who knew and loved the victims. The discovery of the bones was a huge shock. It came after Mark Goodyear, a key figure in the case, had a disturbing encounter with Herbert Baumeister and told the police.

But before the cops could make an arrest, Herbert Baumeister ran off to Canada. He killed himself before anyone could bring him to justice. This left a cloud of mystery that still hangs over the incident.

This Hulu docuseries shows us what happened at Fox Hollow Farm. It's a story of a man who had two lives: one full of success and family, the other filled with horror and fear. It is about the search for closure that still goes on today.

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The Fox Hollow Murders: What crimes did Herbert Baumeister commit?

Herbert Baumeister's story starts in the early 1990s, a period when the gay community in Indianapolis was small and often ignored by the police. As young men vanished from local nightspots, their families' worries were often brushed aside. Initially, many people thought these disappearances were connected to the AIDS epidemic happening at the time.

However, as more men went missing, people started to suspect something else was going on. The situation changed when a private detective, working for the missing men's families, linked the disappearances to Herbert Baumeister.

A man named Goodyear, who had a lucky escape, shared chilling details about a basement pool at Herbert Baumeister's house. This pool was part of Baumeister's practice of autoerotic asphyxiation, which is now believed to be involved in the killings. In 1996, the police searched Fox Hollow Farm.

They discovered a terrible sight - bone pieces scattered everywhere. This was a big clue, but by the time they got there, Baumeister had already run away. He was found dead in Canada on July 3, 1996, from a gunshot wound he inflicted on himself. In a note he left behind, he didn't confess or explain anything.

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The Fox Hollow Murders: The modern investigation sought justice for the forgotten victims

Herbert Baumeister's death stopped the immediate legal actions but did not bring peace to the victims' families. For many years, the remains found at Fox Hollow Farm stayed unknown. Only in 2023, when Hamilton County coroner Jeff Jellison decided to look into the case again, there was a chance to find out who they were.

Jellison's work is the main part of The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer. This show doesn't just focus on how bad Herbert Baumeister was. Instead, it shows how poorly the case was handled at first. Many people, as per Deadline, think that the way the victims lived their lives, especially who they were attracted to, made the police not care as much about finding out who they were.

This series brings the focus back to the people who were hurt by these crimes, not just the person who did them. It uses old film footage, talks with the people who tried to solve the case, and stories from the victims' families to show what went wrong in the system that let these crimes stay hidden for so long.

One person who stands out in the show is Eric Pranger. He's the cousin of one of the victims, Allen Livingston. Pranger was so determined to get justice and help his family that he managed to get the first identification of someone from Fox Hollow's remains in a very long time.

As Jellison states,

“These are people with families who want to know what happened to them.”

The ongoing mission to restore dignity to neglected victims is upheld powerfully.

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Interested in the crimes of Herbert Baumeister? Watch the four-part documentary series, The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer, on Hulu.

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