Renewed effort to identify thousands of bones found in Indiana estate of long-deceased a businessman suspected of being involved in a series of murders brought the number of his alleged victims to 13, a coroner said Tuesday, marking a grim new update in a case that spans decades.
Four new DNA profiles were obtained through efforts to identify the remains and they will be sent to the FBI for genetic genealogy analysis to hopefully identify them, Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison said.
Nine men had already been identified as alleged victims of Herb Baumeisterwho committed suicide in Canada in July 1996 as investigators sought to question him after approximately 10,000 charred bones and bone fragments were found at his sprawling estate, Fox Hollow Farm.
Jellison said investigators believe the bones and fragments could represent the remains of at least 25 people.
“We know at this point we have 13 victims found on the Fox Hollow Farm property,” Jellison said Tuesday.
Investigators believe Baumeister, a married father of three who frequented gay bars, lured men to his home and killed them at his Westfield estate, about 16 miles north of Indianapolis.
In 2022, Jellison launched a new effort to match Baumeister’s other potential victims to the thousands of charred and crushed bones and fragments that authorities found on his estate in the 1990s and then stored.
“As numerous remains were found burned and crushed, this investigation is extremely difficult; however, the team of law enforcement and forensic specialists working on the case remains engaged,” Jellison said, according to WTTV , a CBS subsidiary.
Jellison continues to ask relatives of young men who disappeared between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s to submit DNA samples for the new identification effort.
“This is the most effective way to be able to identify these remains,” he said.
So far, these efforts have identified three men based on DNA extracted from the bones. Two of them were among eight men identified in the 1990s as potential victims of Baumeister: Jeffrey A. Jones and Manuel Resendez.
Jones was 31 and Resendez was 34 when they were reported missing in 1993. Jones’ remains were identified last week through forensic genetic genealogy analysis by the FBI and Jellison’s office, a the coroner said Tuesday. Resendez’s remains were identified using the same technique in January.
Last October, thanks to a DNA sample provided by his mother, additional bone fragments were confirmed to be those of 27-year-old Allen Livingston. According to the Doe Network, Livingston disappeared the same day as Resendez. At that time, Livingston’s identification made him the ninth alleged victim identified by investigators.
“Unusual place to find bodies”
WTTV reported that the case began in June 1996, when Baumeister’s 15-year-old son discovered a human skull about 200 feet from the home.
The investigation began while Baumeister and his wife of 24 years were in the midst of divorce proceedings, WTTV reported. The day after their son discovered the remains, Baumeister’s wife obtained an emergency protective order and custody to keep him away from her and their three children.
At the time, Baumeister explained the discovery, saying it was part of his late father’s medical practice, the outlet reported.
Three days after the boy discovered the remains, more remains were found by Hamilton County firefighters, which perplexed investigators, the station reported.
“It’s an unusual place to find bodies,” then-sheriff Joe Cook reportedly told the Indianapolis Star.
Anyone who believes they are a relative of a missing person who may be connected to the case is asked to contact the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office.
Grub5
