(WatchDogReport.org) – Renewed attempts to identify thousands of bones discovered at a deceased businessman’s Indiana estate have pushed the number of the suspected serial killer’s presumed victims to 13, according to a coroner.
The announcement marks another disturbing update in the decades-old case. The search to identify further victims has produced four additional DNA profiles. Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison stated that the FBI will carry out a genetic genealogy analysis that will hopefully identify the remains.
Last October, a victim, Allen Livingston, was identified with the help of DNA provided by his mother. Two more victims were recently identified as Jeffrey A. Jones and Manuel Resendez, both of whom were previously suspected to have perished at the hands of the alleged serial killer.
The long-deceased suspect, Herb Baumeister, committed suicide in Canada in July 1996 as detectives were looking to question him about roughly 10,000 burnt bones and bone fragments that were discovered at the large Fox Hollow Farm estate.
According to Jellison, investigators are estimating that the skeletal remains relate to at least 25 victims. They allege that Baumeister lured gay men to his property before killing them in the 1980s and 1990s. Born in Indianapolis in 1947, Baumeister had three children with his wife Juliana, who he married in 1971. The suspect ran several successful thrift stores in the Indianapolis area. Months after police questioned her about her husband’s connection to the young men’s disappearances, Juliana divorced Baumeister in January 1996.
Baumeister is alleged to have murdered his victims using strangulation before burning and pulverizing the remains and burying them on the 18-acre farm. Juliana revealed to investigators that one of the couple’s children found a skull on the farm in 1994, which her husband claimed was a medical specimen.
The suspect shot himself at Canada’s Pinery Provincial Park before he could be arrested and charged. In his suicide note, he apologized for the mess he left behind at the park and for his failures in business and his marriage, but made no mention of the murders he was suspected of committing.
The day after the couple’s son found the skull, Juliana obtained an emergency protective order as well as custody that prevented him from gaining access to her or their children. Three days after the discovery of the skull, Hamilton County firefighters uncovered more remains. Then-Sheriff Joe Cook commented at the time that it was an “unusual” location to find bodies.
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