Mannequins: Herb Baumeister

Welcome to Season 6 of your favorite problematic podcast. In fact, this is your favorite problematic podcast's favorite problematic podcast! 

Herb Baumeister was one weird dude. All he wanted for Christmas was peanut M&Ms, world peace, and to strangle a whole bunch of gay men in the early 90s. What an ###hole.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro - Tony has a very creepy evening.
• 4:54 J. Harvey bids you welcome to Season 6 of Wicked Gay.
• 5:57 Those reenactments that true crime shows use are kinda tacky.
• 9:17 Herb Baumeister's origin.
• 12:23 Gay men are vanishing in Indianapolis and Detective Vergil is on the case.
• 17:53 Vergil hears Tony's very scary story about "Brian Smart".
• 23:35 Detective Mary Wilson is on the case.
• 25:02 Herb is losing his shit, and Fox Hollow Farms is located by the po po.
• 29:21 Julie tells the cops about the skeleton in the yard.
• 33:49 Cops find out exactly how big of a graveyard Herb had turned the neighborhood into.
• 35:20 Herb does the most annoying thing an evil monster can do.
• 36:38 It looks like Herb was also Ohio's I-70 Slayer.
• 39:12 Outro. Thanks for listening!

Transcript

Indianapolis Indiana, August 1994 The 501 Club

Tony was particularly taken with the tall, lanky man at the corner of the bar. Not because he was attracted to him. No, he’d seen him around once before and wasn't interested. He was this time, though. it was because of how intensely the tall lanky man was staring at a missing persons poster on the club’s wall. The poster displayed his friend Roger, looking a little embarrassed at having to smile for the camera. Tony’s friend had disappeared without a trace earlier that summer, one of an unfortunate number of gay men who had similarly vanished throughout the early 90s. 

And Tony saw something in the tall man’s eyes, something in the way he scrutinized Roger’s picture. This was the man who had taken him.

He introduced himself to the man, who said his name was Brian Smart and that he was a landscape architect from Ohio. Tony tried to subtly weave Roger’s disappearance into their conversation, but Brian evaded the topic. Instead, he invited Tony to leave the bar with him. He had mentioned a large empty mansion that he had been living at while working on the grounds. It had an indoor pool, and Brian invited Tony to come home with him for a cocktail and a swim.

Tony wanted to know what happened to Roger. So bravely or foolishly, he accepted Brian’s invite.

They headed north in Brian’s Buick with the Ohio license plate, into the suburbs. Tony didn’t travel to the area often, he had always classified as where the rich people lived. In a quiet neighborhood pulled into a driveway, past a landscaped embankment. There had been a sign but all he had seen before Brian drove past was the word “farms.”  The pulled up in front of a large Tudor-style mansion, and entered through a side door into a garage that housed several cars, one of them antique. As they went in the house, Tony noticed with a growing unease how dark, and quiet and still everything was. The vaulted ceilings made their footsteps echo.

The house seemed to be in disarray. There was items of furniture and boxed placed haphazardly throughout the many rooms Brian led him through. He hadn’t turned on any lights, moonlight was the only illumination for the pair.

They came to a stairwell, Brian bidding Tony follow him, mentioning there was electricity in the basement. At the bottom of the steps was what looked like a giant rec room with a wet bar and an indoor lap pool. It was as cluttered as the upstairs was, but with one major difference. It chilled Tony to the bone.

Mannequins. Several mannequins around the room, striking different poses, as still as death. Sightless eyes staring.

Brian noticed Tony’s apprehension. And didn’t do much to relieve him of it.

"I get lonely down here," he said, grinning. "They give me company."

Tony refused a cocktail that Brian offered him, and felt like the mood in the room got tense because of it. Brian’s face darkened, and he left the room for several minutes and when he returned, Tony noticed that Brian seemed high, and decidedly more cheerful. His odd host told him to go for a skinny dip in the pool while his host watched him from the side. Tony did so, while Brian babbled about innocuous things under the influence of what Tony assumed was cocaine.

But then Brian changed the subject. He gathered up the garden hose that lay on the side of the pool, and told Tony that he’d just learned this really neat trick that he wanted to show him. He said it would give Tony a really great rush. 

Tony would later assume it was the same trick that he’d shown a multitude of men. The only difference this time being Tony would survive it. 

You’re listening to Wicked Gay, a true crime podcast about gay people doing awful things.

Hello! It’s the…wait for it…SIXTH SEASON OF WICKED GAY. Six seasons! Six seasons of well…death, depravity, and sorta morbid stuff…but there was some levity in there, too, right? I mean, it’s laugh or cry right?

Thank you, listeners for continuing to tune in to this janky problematic podcast. It’s not the most popular one, and I might not have a network backing me up, and my Patreon has less than 20 subscribers. But the very fact that people give me their time and in some cases their hard earned cash to listen to my foolish ass telling horror tales and the occasional pop culture or personal anecdote means all the world and the planets and the galaxies to me. Absurdly grateful for you guys. Remember, if you ever want to drop me a line or tell me to screw, I'm wickedgaypod@gmail and wickedgaypod on social media. 

Ok, and I’ve probably mentioned this before, one of the first things my husband the other Mr. Harvey and I first bonded over was this show called American Justice. It used to be on A&E before it got super trashy with the rich people being horrible and living car wreck lives. It was hosted by this guy Bill Kurtis who has a calming, precise voice that could lull you to sleep, and it was the first true crime show I ever enjoyed. America’s Most Wanted was ok, but John Walsh was a little too self-important. There wasn't a lot of humble. And yes, I know he had a terrible terrible tragedy and my tiny heart goes out to him but there was a lot of leather jacket wearing preening I felt like. Bill Kurtis walked through abandoned factories and down courthouse steps and seemed to know what he’s talking about without letting his ego get in the way. 

One of the things I liked most about American Justice was that they didn't use reenactments which I hate. I want truth. I hate watching actors revisit terrible things. And remember when the first iteration of Unsolved Mysteries in the early days would use like the family members for reenactments having them play themselves? Ghastly. Yes, lets relive the time my daughter got beheaded for the camera. Plus, pretty much none of them were professional actors, so it really took me out of it. Not only have we had a tragedy but sympathy could also be engendered for wooden line readings. Oh no, Danny, last time I saw her she was on her way to school Just - ugh.

American Justice relied on interviews, and because many of their cases were older ones, a lot of video and newspaper stuff. I LOVE the real stuff. I love seeing what the vibe really was when it all went down. It takes me there. I bring up American Justice because I'm pretty sure it was when I first saw Herb Baumgartner in the flesh. Way back when.

Herb Baumgartner was this big gangly sort with a hound dog face and crazy eyes. He was a closeted gay man who killed a SLEW of people. His American Justice episode featured this clip from one of his family’s home movies. I played the audio from it at the beginning of the episode. He wants world peace while he’s got at least 8 corpses out back.  Watching this man and knowing he had this secret life that was terribly terribly wrong and here he’s doing a mundane Christmas morning, the clash there is just…obscene. That always stuck with me. So we’re going to learn about Herb and what he did and where he ended up. Apologies in advance.

This is episode 51, Mannequins: Herb Baumgartner.

My sources for this episode were Wikipedia, YouTube, and Murderpedia.

Herbert Richard Baumeister was born April 7, 1947, to an anesthesiologist and his wife. They lived in the Washington Township area of Indiana. He initially seemed normal, but when he reached adolescence, things seemed a little…off. He would often speculate what piss tasted like, and leave dead birds on the teachers desk. I mean, ok, water sports and a morbid sense of humor, but it was bad enough that his dad ended up taking him for a psych eval. The prognosis was paranoid schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorder, and that sounds pretty serious and you’d think that a doctor, which his father was, would realize an adolescent with that diagnosis probably needs some early intervention before people start ending up hurt or worse, in the ground, but no…no further tests or treatment were pursued. 

Nothing bad seemed to have happened as he became a teenager, but unfortunately for Herb he gave off an incredibly awkward vibe so he just didn't fit in. So very few friends and no dates. 

He went to college but dropped out a couple of times and ended up never finishing. He had ambition, he wanted to be rich and important and wear suits and show his dad that he was worthy of praise and attention. But wasn't quite sure how to do it at first. So he worked a series of jobs where he seemed to be noticed for odd or outlandish behavior at each one. For instance, when his dad got him a job at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, he was known for going off on his fellow employees as well as pissing on his boss’ desk, More than once. He said it was a joke. Haha. He almost got fired after his pee stream hit an envelope from the Governor of Indiana. But still didn't. Herb’s dad was a doctor, and had some influence and that was probably why.

Amidst all this weirdness, Herb somehow got a girlfriend which is odd cuz A) he was secretly gay although his mannerisms sort of gave it away but no one dared bring it up and B) he was a mess. He married his wife Julie in 1971, and they ended up having three children. Julie would later tell cops their sex life was nil, and she never saw her husband naked once during their 25 year marriage. He was embarrassed about being so skinny he told her. Seriously not once? How do you share a bedroom with someone for that long and not see them naked? He’s like one of Tobias Funke never nudes from Arrested Development.

Herb and Julie were both Republicans and wanted to be rich. And they pulled it off. Herb briefly worked at a thrift shop and thought it could make a boatload of cash, so he borrowed some money and he and Julie opened their own, called Sav A Lot. And then they had a small chain in Indiana, and made a lot of money. So this desk pisser somehow stumbled into riches and success. They ended up buying a huge house with acres of land and an indoor pool in one of the tonier neighborhoods outside of Indianapolis. They called it Fox Hollow Farms, and put a big sign at the end of the long driveway.  And life seemed wonderful. For them at least. 

In early June of 1994, A retired private investigator named Virgil Vandagrif, who was known for his work with missing persons cases, was approached by the mother of Allan Broussard, a young gay man who had gone missing the week before. Allan had last been seen leaving an Indianapolis gay bar called Brothers. That's a little incesty. His mother informed Vergil that Alan had some issues and was a practicing alcoholic. So she didn't know if that had anything to do with him vanishing.

A little bit about Indianapolis’ gay scene. It was the early 90s, in the Midwest, the Bible Belt. It wasn’t a great time or place to be an out queer person at that time. But the community had its spaces, and there were a few bars you could got to, Brothers being one. Notice I didn’t put “safe” in front of spaces. That's because, beginning in the spring of 1993, men began vanishing from Indianapolis. Gay men. 

Herb Baumeister had two cycles of victims, and this was the second. I’ll get to the first a little later as less is known about it. 

In May of 1993, John Lee "Johnny" Bayer, 20, went missing on May 28, 1993. He was followed by
Jeffrey Allen "Jeff" Jones, 31, who went missing on July 6, 1993.
Richard Douglas Hamilton Jr., 20, who went missing on July 31, 1993.
Allen Lee Livingston, 27, who also went missing on August 6, 1993.
Steven Spurlin Hale, 28, went missing on April 1, 1994.
The aforementioned Allen Wayne Broussard, 28, went missing on June 6, 1994.
Roger Allen Goodlet, 33, went missing on July 22, 1994. That was the friend of Tony Harris that you heard about in the opening.
Michael Frederick "Mike" Keirn, 45, was last seen on March 31, 1995.
And Manuel Resendez, 34,was  last seen at a gay bar in downtown Indianapolis on August 6, 1993. 

If you’re a regular listener to Wicked Gay. you’re probably aware of a recurring theme - until unfortunately fairly recently, when the victims are marginalized people, people are a lot more apt to not care. Horrible, but that was how it was. If 8 white men or god forbid white women, vanished from the same area in a span of two years, every news crew in the Western Hemisphere would have already set up show and Nancy Grace would have been yelling as suspects via satellite. Yeah that wasn't the case here. 

There were a few articles written about the disappearances. But it wasn't exactly front and center of the news cycle, and the press didn't pay much attention. All of the victims were either openly gay or perceived as such. Which meant they were outcasts. The cops were said to be kind of slow to move on this one. Their thinking was that these young men probably all decamped to much bigger and accepting cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. So all that was happening here was a bunch of rude callous men not telling their families they suddenly moved. Right. 

Vergil however started to look into the cases, and pretty quickly wondered if someone was murdering gay men in Indianapolis. Bless Vergil cuz he got off his ass and put some effort in. But how did he come to this conclusion? 

First, Vandagriff learned that an Indianapolis police detective named Mary Wilson was like the one working on the disappearance, they would end up sort of joining forces, as Vergil was an ex cop.

He came across a small article in a gay magazine about the missing Jeff Jones who had disappeared a year earlier. It reported that Jones, 31, had vanished , and Vandergriff learned  that Jeff shared a background with the others. Rejected gay guys who drank or drugged a lot and might not have been as concerned with their personal safety as they should have been.

But what really convinced him was when he got a visit from Roger Goodlet’s mom. Roger had vanished earlier that week after leaving her house to go to a bar. The cops had told her to wait but she didn't want to. Who could blame her. 

She told Virgil about Roger, his childhood demeanor, his trusting nature, his tendency to drink too much -- the whole litany of factors that made Roger vulnerable alone out on the streets, and Virgil felt like he was hearing Jeff’s story again. 

So Vergil started his investigation in the gay bars of Indianapolis. He put up missing posters for the victims in the bars. He found a scared community, where even the bar owners were fearful to talk to him. He did learn that Roger had left a bar called Our Place with another man, a guy who drove a light blue car with Oho license plates. 

The police took took his info, thanked him politely and didn't act on it. That didn't deter our Virgil though. Especially when he met Tony Harris, and heard his story. Of which I only told you half. Here’s the rest, as he told Vergil. He told this story during various visits to Vergil’s office. He was terrified and worried no one would believe him. so it had to come out piece by piece. 

When last we left Tony and the man who called himself Brian Smart, they were in the lower level of a mansion that Brian claimed he was living in while he landscaped it. There was an indoor pool surrounded by mannequins that Brian said kept him from being lonely. The only place creepier than this one is probably a church. I kid. Brian wanted to show Tony a trick with a garden hose. 

"If you choke someone while you're having sex it feels really great. You really get a great rush…” oh you never want to hear that in the context of a first date, right? Well, I guess if that's your love language. 

"You just want to pinch these two veins," this Brian guy said indicating the carotid arteries in his neck. "And it's such a great buzz” he said and went on “ You should see how someone looks when you're doing it to them. Their lips change color -- that's how you can tell it's working."

Tony was now convinced Brian had killed Roger and probably the rest of the missing guys from the gayborhood. He was also scared out of his mind. But he was also determined to get to the bottom of all of it. Brave soul. HE did what Brian asked. Which was to let Brian put his hands around his neck to secure the garden hose while he lay back. Let me interject here by saying I have no clue how Tony survived this encounter which clearly had taken place numerous times. It would turn out later that Herb’s wife, who he freaked out more and more at that time, was often staying at her moms house with their kids, so Herb/Brian was alone in the house a lot. All the better to murder a whole mess of people.

 Brian began to strangle him and it got intense, as the blood pressure mounted in his head, Tony having really played chicken with death here tried to survive by pretending he lost consciousness. He felt Brian ease up the choking, and whisper his name. Then he began to shake him. Tony opened his eyes and actually grinned at the serial killer. Brian was angry.  "You scared the shit out of me! You know you can die doing this! There have been accidents!" What a disingenuous turd that man was. 

Having survived, Tony was really sowing his oats by that point, he just began blurting out his suspicions. Honestly, did Tony have a gun on him or something. Sis was playing with fire!

“Is that what happened to Roger Goodlet?” he demanded to know. “ Was he one of your accidents? Were there others?"

Brian just stared at him, not seeming to comprehend what Tony was asking him. I should note here that one of the reasons Tony might have survived this encounter with Herb Baumgartner was because the guy was clearly still drunk or high to Tony. He gave Tony a grin and that was about it as far as information coming forth. 

Then Brian in quotes started slurring his words and passed out. Tony decided to continue to Scooby-Doo. He went upstairs and searched the house. He didn't believe that Brian was merely the landscape artist living there until the new owners took over. He was right, seeing as he found toys and clothes and the house was obviously live din. Then he tried to find out Brian smart’s real name. 

And this bold bitch went downstairs to go through the unconscious Brian in quotes’ pants pockets downstairs. He stopped when Brian in quotes began to come to. Tony demanded Brian drive his ass home. Which, he did. Without murdering him. Go Tony. 

They got back in Brian’s Buick, and Brian drove him back to the 501 Club and told him he was a good sport and fun to play with and they made plans to meet there the following Wednesday. A second date with a serial killer. Tony agreed but he was terrified. This Jessica Fletcher-ing got him inside the lair of a serial murderer who showed him his MO. His life was probably in danger. 

Vergil wanted to know where that house was, stat. Tony wasn't very clear exactly where he’d been, he knew it was one of the exclusive suburbs in Hamilton County. The trouble was that Tony's vague description of Brian in quotes’ McMansion could fit almost any one of a hundred estates in that area. All he had to go on was that a sign posted near the driveway read something about "Farms"

The next plan was to stake out the 501 Club the next Wednesdays hoping Brian would show. Because Tony remembered that Brian owned several cars, Virgil and a guy who worked with him tried checking out every car that passed by for drivers with Brian’s description - brown hair, long face, very pale.'

Zilch. The bar eventually closed and Tony had been stood up. But no need to complain to your therapist cuz being stood up by a serial killer goes in the win column this time Tony. 

At this point, Vergil knew he really needed some help. So he went to that police detective he knew was actually paying attention, Mary Wilson. He brought Tony along. Mary Wilson liked what she heard, well, I mean as far as creepy near death experiences with psychos with asphyxiation fetishes can be liked. 

May was the principle investigator in the Jeff Jones disappearance, and whose details matched so closely with t Roger Goodlet and Alan Broussard. Mary, was also investigating the disappearances of of 20-year-old Richard Hamilton, 21-year-old Johnny Bayer, 28-year-old Allan Livingstone,  All gay guys. 

Mary began taking Tony for rides through the northern suburbs to find Brian’s McMansion She also had plainclothesmen in the gay bars in town -- the 501 Club, the Varsity and Our Place -- where they talked to the bar owners and patrons to find out if anybody had contact with a tall guy with a choking fetish. So somebody was at least doing something.

Vergil was still on the case. The moms had put up what money they could to finance the search from his end. He sent one of his investigators, an ex state trooper for many years and a guy who knew the highways and byways of the Indianapolis area, to search the  suburbs. And this guy Bill ended up finding a property sign at the end of a long driveway. Fox Hollow Farms it read. Farms, that word rang a bell. Tony had mentioned seeing that word. 

SO ex trooper Bill noticed that the mansion looked very much like the one Tony had been describing. Large rundown and creepy. Nobody was home, so ex trooper bill went peeping in the windows. He was looking for mannequins and an indoor pool. Didnt find them but he did find out that the owners were named Baumeister.

Vergil had aerial pics taken. Unfortch, Tony said the driveway was too short in the photos. 

Now , while this shit was going on, Herb Baumeister’s charmed life had gone the way of Shannen Doherty’s character on Charmed. Rest in power Brenda Walsh. 

His marriage being messy started to take its toll on both him and wife Julie. Friends and neighbors were noticing how miserable they both seemed. And then their business started tanking. Customers were no longer crazy about their thrift shops, and the quality of the shops declined as Herb was hardly ever there, always on quote business trips, and when he was, he was erratic, hostile and often seemed drunk. Julie was threatening divorce but wasn't ready to pull the trigger.

And then Brian Smart popped up in the gayborhood again.

Brian in quotes, ill just start calling him Herb, appeared at the Varsity Lounge on the evening of August 29, 1995. Tony Harris was there and just about fell over. He handled his shit and sashayed over to chat. At the end of the night, he got the license plate # of the pickup truck Herb left in.  Vergil and Mary Wilson were very happy to find out that the truck was registered to one Herbert R. Baumeister of Westfield Indiana/ He lived at Fox Hollow Farms with his wife and kids. And they found out his manor house had a pool in the basement.

The Mounties were about to get their man, so to speak and Herb went to pieces.

Mary and her boss, Lt. Greene, caught up with Herb at one of his stores on November Mary didn't mince words. She told him that he was a suspect in the disappearance and probably murders of several gay men and that they wanted to search Fox Hollow Farms. Herb got frazzled and told them to talk to his lawyer. 

Det. Mary said fine, and went to the wife, Julie. She was hell no, as well. Herb had would tell later her he was being accused of theft which is why they wanted to search the house.  He said if the cops ever came back, "Do not, under any circumstances, allow the police to conduct a search." 

But then Det. Mary spilled the tea for Julie. They suspected her husband of something ghastly and they were looking for bodies and weapons. Julie was shook. But still wouldn't let them in. Mary gave the poor lady her card and said call me if you change your mind. 

Knowing flat out that he was screwed, things must have gotten worse at home. Because Julie phoned Mary Wilson sometime after her visit one morning to blame her for ruining her home life.. "The police are not coming to my house," she screamed, " tearing through things, upsetting my children, all on the word of a psycho named Tony Harris whom my husband never even heard of!"

Mary Wilson couldn't get a search warrant, because Hamilton County where Fox Hollow Farms was located, was out of her jurisdiction. Hamilton County, would not cooperate. Why? No one knows? Whether it was their timidity to confront an otherwise-law-abiding citizen until they had conclusive proof, or whether they really didn't believe Baumeister was guilty, No one knew. But it took six months for Julie Baumeister to let the cops in. , but it might have saved a lot of trouble and the six-months wait it eventually took for Julie to finally open her back yard for inspection."

In June of 1996, Julie ceded defeat. During that time, Herb lost his shit completely. The charity that Sav A Lot thrift stores chiefly worked with cancelled their contract, which meant the business was probably going under Their family was rent asunder and both Baumeister parents initiated separate divorce proceedings; And she had a small but perhaps growing suspicion that he was gay and had done the things he was being accused of.

On June 23, Herb and their son were out of town, and Julie chose then to get in touch with Detective Mary.  And told her a shocking and kinda revolting story. Playing in the back yard some years back, their son had come upon a human skull. A skull that ended up being attached to a full on skeleton. Whoa. But we believe what we want to believe, and we delude ourselves sometimes so our lives can remain as is. Herb somehow got Mary to believe that the skeleton was a corpse that his doctor father had used for medical studied and just hadn't buried it deep enough. Don't they cremate those?
 
Julie and some cops went to the Baumeisters. The yard looked normal at first. But, as the men began to kick around beyond the back patio, they found a charred  bone about a foot long. They weren't sure if it was human. Then, in a macabre test twist in an already macabre case, I mean mannequins, the cops realized some of the pebbles in the back yard weren't pebbles. They were bone fragments. A lawyer that had accompanied them looked down and realized he was standing on bone chips. The fucking kids played back there. It turns out there was human boner everywhere. The lawyer found a human tooth.

Some of the cops and detectives and superiors Mary dealt with were still skeptical and assumed it was animal. Rich people don't have graveyards of victims on their compounds. Mary sent the bags of bones to a Forensic Anthropologist at the University of Indiana for an examination. His findings? "They're human. They're recent. And they've been burned." he said.

The cops realized they were now in the center of one of the worst crime sprees in Indiana’s history. It appeared that Herbert Baumeister's homemade graveyard might contain the remains of the young gay men who, over the last several years, had vanished from the streets of Indianapolis.

Everyone went back, all the cops, prosecutors, that anthropology guy, and they dug Herb’s shit up. The nerds dropped a little orange flag wherever remains were found. Soon the lawn was covered with a 100 flags. "It looks like a mass disaster scene." the science guy said. Meanwhile inside, the pool and the mannequins was just as Tony had described. And they found something that Tony hadn’t seen. A semi hidden VHS camera that the police imagined had been used to record the murders. Evil jerks gotta have their trophies.

Julie was worried cuz Herb had their son. She had custody papers drawn up to get the kid back. They were at Herb's moms house. When presented with these, he thought it was just the first shots fired in their divorce. He didn't know the cops had dug his graveyard up. Herb gave the kid up without protest.

The cops were realizing that Herb had been burning corpses under piles of leaves and garbage. They asked Julie just how the hell hadn't she noticed any of this. She explained that  for several months at a time, especially in summers, she and the kids visited Herb's mom. leaving Herb alone at home. The cops lined up the time Julie and the kids were away with the dates of the disappearances. They matched. I read months at a time and I was like, if that's how bad your marriage was, you were that skeeved out or angry or indifferent towards him, why didn't you make it permanent? She obvi sensed something. 

Meanwhile at FOx hollow, 60 volunteers dug and found  5,500 bones, teeth and bone fragments, which, made up about four bodies. Then the neighbors came by and said they had found bones near THEIR property. Herb was a messy bitch 

In a drainage ditch were so many human ribs, vertebrae and spines that one of the cop murmured, "Jesus Christ, they're everywhere!" The bones were so numerous and more intact than in Herb's graveyard, and they actually stuck up visibly from the mud. Shovels drew up not only more bones - but, with them, cans of Miller Genuine Draft beer (Herb's favorite drink) and handcuffs. Cue creepy music.  At the end, they deduced that they had found 11 bodies in total. By September, they were only able to ID four of the bodies, 

: Roger Allen Goodlet; 34; Steven Hale, 26' Richard Hamilton, 20; and Manuel Resendez, 31.  This was followed way too much later by the identification of Roger Alan Goodlet, Michael Frederick Keirn,, Jeffrey Allan Jones, Richard Douglas Hamilton Jr., Johnny Bayer, Allen Wayne Broussard, and Allen Livingston.  According to Google, there are still four DNA profiles that need to be ID’ed. 

What happened to Herb. He did something super fucking annoying that these assholes often do. Don't do the crime if you cant do the time. 

Herb made it into Canada, ending up at Grand Bend Ontario. In a place called Pinery Park, on  June 30, He shot himself in the temple with put a .357 Magnum revolver. HE left a note attributing his suicide to his business and marriage failing but was too cowardly to confess to murder. 

Instead, his final words on the three-page suicide document explained that he would now eat a peanut butter sandwich, his favorite snack, then to "go to sleep". See, annoying.,

U.S. cops learned that the night before he died, a Canadian cop found Herb sleeping in his Buick under a bridge. Herb said he was a tourist who was just catching a nap. The cop didn't know what was up, and let him go. One interesting detail the cop noticed. There was a pile of VHS tapes on the back seat. The kind your record on. Those tapes had vanished by the time Herb's body was found. The cops feel that they were the videos of the murders and Herb tossed them. 

There isn't as much info about the next part, but it absolutely bears mentioning. Julie told the cops that, in the 80s, Herb had taken a shitload of business trips, picture quotes on that one, to Ohio. In his investigation, Virgil uncovered a string of murders in which strangled gay men were found dead alongside Interstate 70 in Ohio. They were called the I 70 murders and they were unsolved. 

Julie, this poor woman,  cooperated with a prosecutor from Ohio, She got him credit card receipts, phone call records, and even the use of their car that Herb had driven on those business trips 

Herbs photo matched police sketches drawn from witnesses who had thought they had seen the I-70 strangler. One eyewitness, in fact, even came forward to identify Herb's picture as that of the same man who had driven his friend home from a bar one evening in 1988; his friend, Michael Riley, who had been found dead the next morning. And Not long after, representatives from combined Ohio and Indiana counties held a press conference to definitely link Baumeister with the I-70 slayings.

The I70 slayings are still officially unsolved but I'm going to name the victims. And brace yourself, cuz not all of these people were adults. 

Michael Sean Petree, 15
Maurice Allen Taylor, 22
Delvoyd Lee Baker, 14
Michael Andrew "Mick" Riley, 22,
Eric Allen Roettger, 17,
Michael Allen "Mike" Glenn 29
James Boyd Robbins Jr., 21
Steven Lynn Elliott, 26
Clay Russell Boatman 32
Thomas Ray Clevenger Jr., 18
Otto Gary Becker 42

A lot of those victims were easy targets due to addiction issues, familial discord over their homosexuality, and some of them having engage din sex work. Herb obviously learned from this series of murders, if it was him, cuz he left whole bodies this time. The next cycle he made sure to burn and scatter, not that it helped in the end. The I70 might not be unsolved for long, surely they might be able to make a DNA match someday. Right?

And that is the Herb Baumeister saga. Broken demonic man takes and ruins a whole bunch of lives. But let's commend Tony Harris. Vergil, Vandagriff and Mary Wilson. Without those tree, especially Tony who is one of the bravest guys I've ever read about, Herb might not have been caught and more lives could have been lost.

Thank you for joining me this evening. Wicked Gay’s theme song is by Gino the Goons, its cover art is by Paul Chapman, its audio engineering is by the other Mr. Harvey. Drop me a line at wickedgaypod at gmail, if you want MORE Wicked gay you can mince on over to patreon.com/wickedgay. And that's about it. Happy Back to School or wherever September takes you. Nite.