I-70 Killer

Hello hello True Crime Club and welcome back to another edition of True Crime Club:The blog. *WE ARE DISCUSSING SENSITIVE MATERIAL THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL VIEWERS, PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION*

Today we are discussing the horrific case of Herb Baumeister. Herb was born on April 7th 1947 to Elizabeth Baumeister and Herbert Baumeister. He was married to Julie Saiter who was described as “one of the most gullible wives of a serial killer”. He grew up as a ‘normal’ kid and he is the oldest of 4 siblings however on the onset of adolescence his play began alerting attention, he would play with dead animals and was once reported for urinating on his teacher’s desk. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager but received little to no psychiatric treatment. He exhibited strange behavior but was marked by his strong work ethics as he drifted from a series of different jobs. In 1971 is when he married his wife Julie and from that marriage he fathered 3 children: Erich, Marie and Emily. Herb shared with a reporter that his wife had in 25 years of marriage, only gotten intimate 6 times. He was a successful business owner who had founded Sav-a-lot in Indiana and lived on a million dollar estate of Fox Hollow Farm.

On the surface, Herb looks like a normal guy, a wife, three kids, a successful run business, but the part of Herb’s life that people didn’t see was the complete double-life Herb ran. A deeper look into Herb’s social life informed us that Herb was also known as Brian Smart and he regulared at few gay bars and he would meet men. Unbeknownst to those men, he would later assault and kill them. It is said that Herb followed the guidelines for murder that John Wayne Gacy followed, he buried the bodies not in his home, but in the area surrounding the home he shared with his ‘cover family’. Herb would often stay home when his family went and summered at a nearby family-owned condo.

Brian Smart had not lived the same life of Herb Baumeister, Brian Smart lived about 40 minutes from Herb. Brian was the part of Herb that talked killing with confidence, who claimed he would never get caught, afterall he had been doing this for years and had no detection, to his knowledge. When law enforcement began looking for Brian Smart, they learned that that information was not able to be found because Brian Smart did not exist. Brian’s existence had been stunting the type of husband and father that Herb was. Brian made him more distant but it didn’t stunt the ideal that he was a model citizen and a nurturing man.

In 1993, police had been in contact with a man that claims ‘Brian Smart’ had killed his friend and attempted to kill him as well and that they had met him at a gay bar. The man by the name of Tony Harris, saved many lives in the LGBTQ+ community.

In 1994, the son of Herb, Erich was playing in the woods on the family’s property when he discovered a skull, he ran for the aid of his mother and the two went to examine the area, they found several other bones as well. When Julie announced this to her husband, Herb simply told her that they were from a medical skeleton that once belonged to his father, as Julie heard the response she had no reason to distrust her husband and she asked him no further questions regarding this incident.

In 1995, the man that had called the original tip into police, Tony Harris had called back because he was able to get the license plate number and when law enforcement had run the plate number, it did not come up to a Brian Smart, it came up registered to a Herb Baumeister. From this call on, Herb was under police surveillance. This is originally when law enforcement had asked to search the property and Herb had refused due to the fact that law enforcement had no evidence to obtain a search warrant. Julie was made aware of her husband’s secret life and informed her of their theory. She disregarded the information, and brought it up to Herb at home that evening, in which his response was that he had no connection, Julie didn’t question it further.

Herb’s business soon began to hit its downfall and the police had been showing up in connection to the murders. Herb was under immense pressure, given he is hiding a secret identity to not only his wife and children, but also every man that has ever seen him at a gay bar. Herb’s world is falling around him, he began talk of suicide and it all became too much for Julie. She filed for divorce in June of 1996 and had contacted police to comply with the search of the property.

As a result of the search, law enforcement was able to recover the bodies of 11 men and hundreds of human bones. 8 of the men found were identified and matched the descriptions of gay men in the area that had been reported missing. The bodies were found approximately 50 feet away from the family home. While this investigation was underway, Herb had been at the lake property, he began making phone calls to his brother asking for money on several different instances, and on one of the calls made that day, his brother informed Herb that there were law enforcement actively searching for him on the grounds of the bodies found on the family property.

After that phone call, herb had fled to Canada on July 3rd 1996. He constructed a 3 page suicide note and shot himself in the head with a .357 magnum in his car at Pinery Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. The suicide letter contained that he had failed his marriage, his kids and his business and there was no confession nor merely a mention of the murders at all. His body was found 8 days after he had committed suicide.

Police were able to conclude the case based on the evidence that was found connecting Brian Smart or Herb Baumeister to the murders. His trial never happened as he had killed himself before it could have even begun. Two years passed and law enforcement was able to connect a total of 9 murders to Herb Baumeister. Victims of Brian’s were found half-undressed, and their causes of death were strangulation which was the same way the bodies on the property had been determined to be the cause of death as well. Law enforcement, before even connecting Herb to these killings, had given the names ‘I-70 Killer’ and ‘Interstate strangler’ due to the location of the bodies being found along interstate 70 between Indiana and Ohio. After the death of Herb and the opening of the case, Julie and the children moved back to Indianapolis.

Today, Fox Farms is a true crime staple and tourist attraction. People have reported paranormal activities around the area. Some even report that the spirit of Herb himself walks the farm. Psychics say that herb stands in the window in the living room. One heard Herb’s voice stating that he “took a pipe to the skulls’ of his victims. The Fox Hollow Farm was bought by a couple with the last name of Graves, when it had gone on the market, it was listed for $2.8 million and with the help of an anonymous partner, the Graves purchased the property for $987,000.

An interesting fact about the property: The sellers do not have to volunteer information about the property unless they are directly asked. Meaning unless the Graves’ had asked about the bodies found on the property, the sellers would not have informed them. The Graves also decided to open the property as a haunted attraction, costing at around $90 a person and bringing 5 annual trips through. The Graves sold the property to Noah Herron, who plans to break up the acres and sell three lots, using the others for his family.