In the fall of 1994, a 13-year-old boy found a human skull in his backyard. Detectives later discovered thousands more bones scattered about his family's estate, a property known as Fox Hollow Farm. The remains belonged to the presumed victims of Herb Baumeister, an alleged serial killer active thought to be active in Indiana for more than a decade. The investigation closed in the late-‘90s without an arrest. 11 unique DNA samples were catalogued and 8 victims identified at the time, but officials suspect the remains belong to as many as 25 people. In 2022, Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison set out on a brand new investigation to put them to rest. Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the dark history of Fox Hollow Farm?
This episode includes discussions of murder, assault, and suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. For mental health support, visit Spotify.com slash resources. Is there a place near you with an especially dark past? Every time you drive by it, someone always brings up the stories. Maybe it's an old psychiatric hospital that played host to inhumane experiments.
Or a section of woods where people tend to vanish into thin air. Or a house where a string of gruesome murders took place. There's a legal term for these kinds of properties. They're said to be stigmatized or psychologically affected. And in many states, when they go up for sale, the seller is required to disclose certain details if asked, like suspicious deaths and homicides.
Some states even have specific language around reported hauntings and supernatural activity, all of which can affect the asking price. It's the reason Robert and Vicki Graves could afford to buy Fox Hollow Farm, an enormous estate in Indiana with an indoor pool, two libraries, and a five-car garage.
The original asking price was $2.8 million in 2004, but the Graves reached a deal a few years later for just shy of $1 million. All because, about a decade earlier, police searched the property and found human remains. A bunch of bone fragments scattered about a pocket of woods. It started with a few, then a few hundred, then a few thousand.
The graves haven't gone out of their way to look for more fragments, but every time they've stumbled on a new one, Robert has brought it to the lab at the University of Indianapolis, where they're stored for safekeeping. The remains are believed to belong to at least 12 victims of a suspected serial killer who owned Fox Hollow Farm before the graves and who they believe still haunts the grounds.
Welcome to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. I'm Janice Morgan. You might recognize me as the voice behind the investigative docuseries Broken and the true crime podcast Fear Thy Neighbor. I'll be your host for the next few weeks, and I'm thrilled to be here.
To help us tell today's story, we interviewed Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison, the man responsible for the latest investigation to identify the victims at Fox Hollow Farm. We're so grateful for his time and expertise. Stay with us. Hi, Connor.
Hello.
So let's talk about what drew you into this case.
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Chapter 2: Who were the victims of Herb Baumeister?
My business was successful, and going from owning a private successful business to working for county government, you know, I had to give some real thought to that. But I sold my business, went to work as a deputy here in the office, worked here for 10 years as a deputy, and then I made the decision to run for coroner.
Coroner is an elected official in Indiana. They can hold office for up to eight years, two four-year terms. When Connor spoke to him at the end of 2024, Jeff was finishing up the second year of his first term.
Responsibilities for the position vary depending on jurisdiction and state, but they're wide-ranging and include notifying family members of the deceased, interviewing witnesses, testifying in court, collecting evidence, and performing autopsies.
Some of the things we see, hear, and smell, you can't unsee. There's no day that is the same. You could start your morning out with a traffic fatality, have a suicide midday, and finish up with a child death in the evening.
But above all else, the coroner has one role.
Our duties are to determine cause, manner, and identification in death investigations.
When did the name Fox Hollow Farm first come across your desk?
I received a phone call from Eric Pranger.
The call comes in 2022, a few months into Jeff's first term. Eric tells Jeff he's the relative of Alan Livingston, who's been missing since August of 1993. The Livingstons believe that Alan is among the remains taken from Fox Hollow Farm. They're looking for someone who can help confirm or deny their suspicions.
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Chapter 3: How did the investigation into the bones begin?
I wonder if you could put into words how you measure the success of your investigation.
This investigation was very personal for me because I've sat with the family members and we've held hands, we've cried, we've laughed, we prayed. My goal was to get these remains off of the shelf at the University of Indianapolis to a final resting spot. We can't leave these people there for eternity. Some of the families have chosen to receive those remains back to their care.
Some have said, no, we do not want the remains returned to us. And that was another challenge. So what do we do with these remains?
Why would someone deny the remains of a loved one? How many victims haven't been identified? Will this case ever see a criminal conviction? More after this. Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison and his team revived the investigation to identify the victims at Fox Hollow Farm in 2022. Ever since, they've been working to right some of the wrongs of the past.
You mentioned earlier that you offered remains to the families of loved ones, and I'm not trying to ask you to speculate on their reasons, but I wonder if you know why they refused their remains?
Yeah, I... I do. I mean, you know, part of the reason goes back to the initial investigation in the 90s. I don't feel like law enforcement and the coroner at that time did the greatest job with this case in a couple areas. When they identified these eight individuals, I mean, it was suspects dead.
These are eight gay men from Indianapolis found in very conservative Hamilton County in the 90s, where this lifestyle certainly was not very well accepted. So it was game over. Abruptly, the investigation ends. And people came forward and said, hey, you've got more remains yet to be identified. And family members came forward and they said, we believe that our loved one is a part of these remains.
And at that time, Hamilton County made the decision not to fund the investigation any longer as far as identifying these remains. And to put that burden on family members. So a family member that came forward that said, hey, I'm willing to give you whatever you need to see if my loved one was recovered in these remains. The county said, great, you pay for it.
Now, where in this country does law enforcement and the coroner say to victims' families in a homicide case that we're going to make you pay to find out if your loved one was a victim? You don't do that. The DNA is expensive now and was very expensive back then. These people didn't have the money to do that. So, conservative Hamilton County, we're done.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did the coroner face in the investigation?
So I called the lady back and I said, would you please come into my office and talk to me? And she did. And I explained to her what we had done. And after a very, very long conversation, she agreed to take the remains back. That was in November of 22. December of that year, I got a Christmas card here at my office and it was from this lady. And I opened it up and it simply said,
Thank you for the closure I didn't know I needed.
There are others who have stepped forward to support as well. An organization called He Knows Your Name has built an ossuary and a monument at a local cemetery for any remains that go unclaimed for whatever reason. The victims' names will be engraved on the monument as they're known. Meanwhile, the search for additional remains is still underway.
According to Jeff, back in the 90s, the majority were found in three concentrated locations on Fox Hollow. None of the bones had been buried very deep. Most were scattered and covered in brush. Some appeared to have been burned and or smashed. Jeff doesn't believe there are any common denominators between the three locations, reasons why they might have been chosen.
But he suspects that more bones are out there, dispersed even farther by animals. Jeff's team has been back on site with cadaver dogs, but he says they're not quite ready to perform another excavation. They have plenty to keep them busy. Building on the forensic work of the 90s, Jeff and his team have now found 12 unique DNA profiles.
That's 12 victims, three of whom remain unidentified as of this recording. Jeff says his plea has been the same since day one.
If you're the biological relative of a missing person, please come forward. If it's unrelated to Fox Hollow Farm, we'll get you pointed towards the right agency or we'll get a swab ourselves from you and we'll get that entered into CODIS because that is the most efficient way in identifying remains like this.
CODIS stands for Combined DNA Index System. It's a national database of profiles that helps law enforcement identify victims and suspects. When Jeff and his team got a call from a woman whose brother went missing in the 80s, they took a swab of her DNA and entered it into the system. It turned up a match on a set of remains discovered in Las Vegas, Nevada.
We had a suspicion that this type of thing would happen, that we would get matches to remains recovered around the state, around the nation, and good. you know, good for it, because not only are we working very hard to provide closure for the families of the Fox Hollow victims, this investigation will provide closure for families completely unrelated.
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Chapter 5: What are the key findings from the investigation so far?
Chapter 6: What is the significance of the 10,000 bones found?
Chapter 7: How did the community react to the discoveries at Fox Hollow?
Since Jeff's team started their work, they've been able to identify a ninth victim, Alan Livingston. It's the name that set Jeff's whole investigation into motion in the first place.
When you stop and think, the family that initiated the phone call with me, out of 10,000 remains, The first person identified was their loved one. That's a God thing right there, you know?
The reason for that phone call was time. It was running out for Alan's mother, Sharon, who'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
That lady was struggling for 30 years. When I sat down and talked to her, I noticed on her table next to her couch that she still had a landline phone. And I said to her, I said, Sharon, I don't often see that anymore in people's homes, a landline phone. And she looked at me and she said, that's the only number that my son has to call me at.
So she had sat for 30 years waiting on that phone to ring. And obviously that in and of itself is not healthy. And she did pass just the other day. So we were able to locate her son and bring a little bit of that closure back and return her son's remains to her before she did pass. So, you know, to me, we just won the game right there.
Identifying new victims tends to attract the most media attention. Jeff says it's how a lot of people judge the success of his investigation, but it's only part of what drives him to continue.
I wonder if you could put into words how you measure the success of your investigation.
This investigation was very personal for me because I've sat with the family members and we've held hands, we've cried, we've laughed, we prayed. My goal was to get these remains off of the shelf at the University of Indianapolis to a final resting spot. We can't leave these people there for eternity. Some of the families have chosen to receive those remains back to their care.
Some have said, no, we do not want the remains returned to us. And that was another challenge. So what do we do with these remains?
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