Inside the house of horrors where Indiana’s worst serial killer, Herbert Baumeister, scattered more than 10,000 charred bones

• Herbert Baumeister committed suicide in 1996, after the bone fragments were found.
• There are 13 alleged victims, but police said there are likely at least 25

A new investigation into one of Indiana’s most notorious serial killers has led to the identification of a twelfth victim; Police warn there could be at least 25 in total.

The chilling case began in 1996, when businessman Herbert Baumeister’s 15-year-old son discovered a human skull near the family’s Fox Hollow Farm.

Now dubbed ‘The Killing Field,’ police eventually unearthed about 10,000 charred bone fragments on the sprawling Indianapolis-area property.

Baumeister, married, father of three and later owner of two Sav-A-Lot thrift stores, quickly became the subject of an investigation and was believed to have trapped victims in gay bars.

But the 49-year-old fled to Ontario after an arrest warrant was issued and shot himself in a park before he could be tried.

Nine victims had previously been identified. But a new investigation launched in 2022 turned up two more identifications: Allen Livingston, 27, and Manuel Resendez, 34. A third new victim, Jeffrey Jones, 31, has now been named, CBS News reported.

Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison revealed in an update on the case that remains found on the property could represent at least 25 people.

“We know that right now we have 13 victims found on the Fox Hollow Farm property,” he said.

‘Because many of the remains were found burned and crushed, this investigation is extremely challenging.

“However, the team of forensic and police specialists working on the case remain committed.”

He added that the most recently identified man, Jeffrey Jones, disappeared in 1993, in Indianapolis, a timeline that coincides with the young men who disappeared between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s already named as Baumeister’s victims.

More DNA samples will now be analyzed, which Jellison said remains “the most effective way to identify these remains.”

So far, that effort has yielded the identification of three new victims: Jones, Livingston and Resendez.

Two of them were already among the eight men whose remains were found during the initial investigation in the 1990s: Resendez and now Jones.

Other confirmed victims include John Lee ‘Johnny’ Bayer, 20; Richard Douglas Hamilton Jr., 20; Steven Spurlin Hale, 28; Allen Wayne Broussard, 28; Roger Allen Goodlet, 33; Michael Frederick ‘Mike’ Keirn, 45; and Jerry Williams-Comer, 34.

They were all named after DNA extracted from bones found in the expansive Baumeister complex.

The former home and alleged scene of up to 25 murders still stands today, with chilling images showing the first search of the crime scene.

Meanwhile, police have already identified twenty additional locations that could lead to further excavations at the currently empty house, with three additional sets of remains still unidentified. They are all believed to be men and homicide victims.

The Hamilton County Coroner’s Office is calling on the public to come forward if family members went missing during the killer’s reign of terror throughout the Indianapolis metropolitan area.

They are urged to complete a DNA test as the search effort continues.

Jones’ remains were identified earlier this month through advances in forensic genetic genealogy and analysis by the FBI and Jellison’s office.

Resendez’s remains were identified using the same method in January, after he disappeared from the Indianapolis area in 1993.

A few months earlier, more bone fragments belonging to Livingston, who also disappeared in 1993, were identified in Indianapolis.

His remains were recovered in the initial search of the estate in 1996, but remained unidentified until October 2023.

In the initial investigation, police searched the eight acres of land on the farm.

However, due to the size of the operation, there were some oversights: A man named Joe LaBlanc found a bone while walking the dog on the former Baumeister property in 2011, after renting an apartment attached to the main house.

At the time, Baumeister attempted to explain away the skull found by his son, claiming it was part of his late father’s medical practice.

Then, two weeks after the bones were discovered and a warrant was served for Baumeister’s arrest, he committed suicide in Toronto, Canada.

Authorities believed Baumeister frequented gay bars, lured men to his home and killed them. In 1999, he had been linked to the disappearance of at least 16 men missing since 1980.

This included several whose bodies were dumped in shallow streams in rural areas of central Indiana and western Ohio.

Those who believe they may be family members of a missing person related to the case are urged to contact the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office.