A Serial killer A friend of the killer’s father told Fox News Digital that he bought a hearse “to bring women over for dates” about 10 years before his first murder.
“I would say it was 1970, or thereabouts. I don’t know the exact date, but Herb (Baumeister) Jr. had purchased a hearse … and I could tell Dr. (Herb) Baumeister (Sr.) was really shocked and a little, shall I say, concerned,” Manetta Brownstein said.
Brownstein worked with Baumeister Sr. in the Indiana hospital’s surgery department several times each week from 1966 to 1976. He said the elder Baumeister was a “gentleman” who would drive him home and care for him after late-night shifts or emergency surgeries.
According to Brownstein, while they were working together, Baumeister Sr. told his son something that had been weighing on his mind. And this was several years before his son killed the first of at least 12 victims and buried their bodies around his home. Indiana property,
Indiana serial killer’s 18-acre estate still hides secrets
Herb Baumeister of Indiana is suspected of killing at least 25 people. So far, 12 victims have been linked to him. (Indianapolis Police Department)
It is believed that Baumeister Jr. At least 25 people were killed from the 1980s to the 1990s, and buried them at his $1 million, 18-acre estate called Fox Hollow Farm in Westfield, Indiana.
After police shot serial killer Baumeister Jr., law enforcement officials recovered 10,000 of his “burnt and crushed” skeletons.
So far, the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office has identified eight victims, and investigators have DNA profiles for four more that have not yet been identified, bringing the death toll to 12, according to Coroner Jeff Jellison.
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Looking back, Brownstein remembers several conversations in which Baumeister Sr. seemed concerned about his son.
The image of the hearse was most vivid in his mind.
Nearly 10,000 human remains were found on the 18-acre property of Indiana serial killer Herb Baumeister in Westfield, Indiana. (Google Street View)
She said Baumeister Sr. asked his son why he would buy a used hearse, and his response was, “Well, Dad, it’s a great way to get around and go on a date,” Brownstein said. “And we left it there, but I could tell it was bothering him.”
There were other potential red flags that she can see now, looking back.
Baumeister Jr. and Brownstein were around the same age, so he felt Baumeister Sr. talked to him to get a younger person’s perspective.
He said Baumeister Jr. didn’t have many friends — people wouldn’t come to his house or want to hang out with him, he didn’t play any sports in high school, wasn’t very good athletically or participate in extracurricular activities, and he struggled to keep up his grades.
Baumeister Jr. dropped out of college after one semester. His father encouraged him to go back to school to study anatomy in the late 1960s, but he didn’t make it past the first semester.
“I knew Dr. Baumeister was very disappointed when his son dropped out,” Brownstein said. “And it seemed like he (Baumeister Jr.) didn’t want to be bothered (with school).”
Manetta Brownstein, who knew the father of an Indiana serial killer, said she was “shocked” to learn that Herb Baumeister Jr. had killed so many people. (Fox News Digital)
Brownstein once personally met the serial killer when he was in college, but he doesn’t remember anything unusual.
Brownstein said he once came to her home and talked for an hour about “normal things,” topics he mostly chose, she said.
And she came away thinking he was a “polite, well mannered and good-looking” man.
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“Even after all these years, it’s hard for me to comprehend something like this,” Brownstein said.
At one point, he held back tears and rubbed his eyes. “It’s still emotional.”
“I knew Dr. Baumeister very well,” she said. “He was a kind man, and it’s hard to imagine that his son could commit these unbelievable crimes, and in such an evil way.”
Jeffrey A. Jones, who went missing from Fillmore, Indiana, in 1993, was identified as the most recent victim of serial killer Herb Baumeister. (Hamilton County Coroner’s Office)
Brownstein got a glimpse of Baumeister Sr.’s concern for his son in 1971, when Baumeister Jr. was admitted to a mental institution six months after he married Juliana Satter.
She remained with him during his treatments, and by 1984, Baumeister Jr. was a married father of three children.
He had accomplishments at various jobs, but also engaged in some odd behavior, like urinating on a letter addressed to then-Indiana Governor Robert Orr in 1985 — his success ended shortly after he was promoted to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
He lost his job after the incident, but he and his wife switched roles. He became a stay-at-home father while his wife went back to work.
The couple eventually founded a profitable thrift store, which transformed their lives.
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double life
In the early 1990s, Baumeister Jr. and his family moved into an 18-acre mansion worth $1 million, but his marriage began to fall apart.
He stayed behind to look after the shops and house, where he committed most of the murders, while his wife and children went away for long periods of time to escape the toxic environment.
That’s when his double life began. He used the name “Brian Smart” to haunt gay bars in the Indianapolis area.
It was from here that he would pick up his victims. He would take them to his huge and secluded house and eventually kill them and bury the remains.
Nearly 10,000 human remains were found on the 18-acre property of Indiana serial killer Herb Baumeister in Westfield, Indiana. (Google Street View)
One day in 1994 her teenage son found a skull and showed it to his mother.
He initially dismissed it as his father’s skeleton, but Brownstein and his friends in the medical field quickly realized it was a lie.
“Of course, we all know there’s no such thing as a physical skeleton. They’re handled carefully,” Brownstein said after hearing about the killings on the news.
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But Baumeister Jr.’s wife, though she believed the excuse, became suspicious. She initially refused police requests to search the premises.
But the incident of his son’s discovery of the skull stuck in his mind like a fly trapped in a spider’s web.
Business declined, the couple faced bankruptcy, and Baumeister Jr. sank into alcoholism. All of this resulted in a divorce, and his wife went to the police with a scalpel.
“You must be thinking, ‘I encountered the devil.'”
Manuel Resendez, who was 34 at the time of his disappearance in 1996, was identified as one of Herb Baumeister’s victims in January 2024. (Hamilton County Coroner’s Office)
Baumeister Jr.’s reign of terror was over.
Law enforcement They had a warrant for his arrest and a search warrant to excavate the property, which was littered with human remains.
Baumeister Jr. fled to Canada, Where he shot himself.
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“Everyone was stunned to hear about Baumeister Jr.’s crimes,” Brownstein said.
“We all knew Dr. Baumeister (Sr.) and his family. They were normal people. It wasn’t like they were doing anything weird that we knew about,” she said. “So the fact that his son turned into this notorious serial killer was just unimaginable.”
Looking back on the hour he and Baumeister Jr. spent together several years before the murders, he said, “Of course you have this thought, ‘I had an encounter with the devil.’
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“All I remember was saying, ‘Oh my God, thank God his dad died and he didn’t have to live to see all of this.’”
She has now moved out of state, but said it’s still “nerving that someone could be such a chameleon.”
“That’s the only word I can use,” she said. “He fooled me. I’m sure he fooled everybody else.”
