Midwest
Indiana serial killer made concerning purchase before burying 10,000 pieces of remains at home: family friend
A serial killer bought a hearse “to pick up women for dates” about 10 years before murdering his first victim, a friend of the killer’s father told Fox News Digital.
“I’d say it was 1970, or somewhere around there. I’m not really sure of the exact date, but Herb (Baumeister) Jr. purchased a hearse. . . . And I could tell Dr. (Herb) Baumeister (Sr.) was genuinely perplexed and a little, what can I say, concerned,” Mannetta Braunstein said.
Braunstein worked with Baumeister Sr. several times a week from about 1966 to 1976 in the surgery department at Indiana hospitals. She said the elder Baumeister was a “gentleman” who drove her home after late shifts or emergency surgery and looked out for her.
While they worked together, Baumeister Sr. told her tidbits about his son that seemed to weigh on his mind, according to Braunstein. And that was years before his son killed the first of at least 12 victims and buried their bodies around his Indiana property.
INDIANA SERIAL KILLER’S 18-ACRE PROPERTY STILL HIDES SECRETS
Indiana’s Herb Baumeister was suspected of killing at least 25 people. So far, 12 victims have been linked to him. (Indianapolis Police Department)
Baumeister Jr. is believed to have killed at least 25 people from the 1980s to the 1990s, and buried them throughout his $1 million, 18-acre property called Fox Hollow Farm in Westfield, Indiana.
Law enforcement recovered 10,000 “burnt and crushed” skeletal remains after Baumeister Jr. shot himself as police closed in on the serial killer.
So far, the Hamilton County coroner’s office has identified eight victims, and investigators have four more DNA profiles that have not been identified yet, which brings the body count up to 12, according to Coroner Jeff Jellison.
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Looking back, Braunstein remembers several conversations in which Baumeister Sr. seemed concerned about his son.
The hearse was the most vivid in her mind.
About 10,000 pieces of human remains were found on the 18-acre Westfield, Indiana, property of Indiana serial killer Herb Baumeister. (Google Street View)
She said Baumeister Sr. asked his son why he would get a used hearse, and his response was, “Well, dad, it’s a good way to get around and go on dates,” Braunstein said. “And we left it at that, but I could tell it bothered him.”
There were other potential red flags that she can see now in hindsight.
Baumeister Jr. and Braunstein were close in age, so she felt that Baumeister Sr. spoke to her to get a younger person’s perspective.
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She said Baumeister Jr. did not appear to have many friends – people did not come to the house or want to hang out with him, he did not play sports at a high school that was an athletic juggernaut or participate in extracurricular actives, and struggled to maintain his grades.
Baumeister Jr. flunked out of college after one semester. His dad pushed him to go back to school in the late 1960s to study anatomy, but he did not make it through the first semester.
“I knew Dr. Baumeister was very disappointed when his son dropped out,” Braunstein said. “And it’s as if he (Baumeister Jr.) didn’t want to bother (with school).”
Mannetta Braunstein, who knew an Indiana serial killer’s father, said she was “shocked” after learning Herb Baumeister Jr. had killed so many people. (Fox News Digital)
Braunstein personally met the serial killer once while he was a college-aged man, but she does not remember anything out of the ordinary.
He came to her house once and spent about an hour talking about “mundane things,” said Braunstein, who noted that they were mostly topics he picked.
And she came away thinking he was a “polite, courteous and nice-looking” man.
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“It’s hard to get my mind wrapped around something like this, even after all these years,” Braunstein said.
At one point, she fought back tears and rubbed her eyes. “It’s still emotional.”
“I knew Dr. Baumeister very, very well,” she said. “He was just a kind person, and it’s hard to imagine his son being able to do these incredible crimes, and incredible in a bad way.”
Jeffrey A. Jones, who was reported missing from Fillmore, Indiana, in 1993, was identified as the most recent victim of serial killer Herb Baumeister. (Hamilton County Coroner’s Office)
Braunstein’s glimpse into the years of Baumeister Sr.’s concern for his son seemed to come to a head in 1971, when Baumeister Jr. was committed to a mental institution six months after marrying Juliana Saiter.
She stuck with him through his treatments, and by 1984, Baumeister Jr. was a married dad of three.
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He had achievements at different jobs, but some odd behaviors, such as urinating on a letter addressed to then-Indiana Gov. Robert Orr in 1985 – shortly after a promotion in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles ended his success.
He lost his job after that incident, but he and his wife essentially switched roles. He became a stay-at-home dad, while she went back to work.
The couple ultimately founded a profitable thrift store, which changed their lives.
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Double life
In the early 1990s, Baumeister Jr. and his family moved into the $1 million, 18-acre home, but their marriage began to crumble.
He stayed behind to care for the stores and the house, which is where he committed most of his murders, while his wife and kids left for long stretches of time to get out of a toxic environment.
That’s when his double life started. He used the name “Brian Smart” when he hunted for his prey in gay bars in the Indianapolis area.
That’s where he picked up his victims. He brought them to his spacious and secluded home and ultimately killed them and buried the remains.
About 10,000 pieces of human remains were found on the 18-acre Westfield, Indiana, property of Indiana serial killer Herb Baumeister. (Google Street View)
One day, in 1994, his teenage son found a skull and showed it to his mom.
He initially brushed it off as an anatomical skeleton that his father owned, which Braunstein and her friends from the medical field knew was a lie right away.
“Of course, we all know there’s no such thing as owning an anatomical skeleton. They’re carefully handled,” Braunstein said after hearing about the murders on the news.
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But Baumeister Jr.’s wife believed the excuse but became suspicious. She initially denied law enforcement’s requests to search the premise.
But their son’s chance discovery of the skull was trapped in her mind like a fly in a spider-web.
The business went downhill, the couple faced bankruptcy, and Baumeister Jr. was consumed by alcoholism. All of this led to divorce, and his wife going to the police with the skull.
“It certainly crosses your mind thinking, ‘I had a brush with the devil.’”
Manuel Resendez, who was 34 when he vanished 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 closed in. There were a warrant for his arrest and a search warrant to dig up the property, which was littered with human remains.
Baumeister Jr. fled to Canada, where he shot himself.
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Braunstein said, “Everybody was stunned” after hearing about Baumeister Jr.’s crimes.
“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 of,” she said. “So the fact that his son turned into this prolific serial killer was just unimaginable.”
Looking back and rethinking the hour or so that she and Baumeister Jr. had spent together years before the murders, she said, “It certainly crosses your mind thinking, ‘I had a brush with the devil.’
“I just remember saying, ‘My God, thank goodness his father died and didn’t have to live to see this.’”
She has since moved out of the state but said it’s still “unnerving that someone can be such a chameleon.”
“That’s the only word I can use,” she said. “He fooled me. I’m sure he fooled everyone else.”
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MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee food truck operators are fearing for their livelihoods after city leaders voted to limit their hours of operation in the name of public safety.
The Common Council unanimously passed a rule that will force food trucks downtown to close by 10 p.m.
It goes into effect May 9. Aldermen argue it will help prevent people from gathering after bars close.
Food truck owners showed up at City Hall on Thursday morning to say they’re not the problem.
Abdallah Ismail runs the Fatty Patty food truck. He said closing his truck at 10 p.m. will be devastating for his business.
“Most of our sales happen during that time,” said Ismail. “It’s the core of our business at 10 p.m. We need the city to let us talk. We need them to listen to us and find a better solution for us if they can.”
Ismail confronted Ald. Robert Bauman at the city hall demonstration.
Bauman represents downtown, and he said the curfew was put in place at the request of the Milwaukee Police.
He also said the police department believes late-night gatherings at food trucks are a contributing factor to the downtown violence.
Bauman said safety is a top priority.
“If the causation issue is correct that they are a part of the problem then we need to act and if there is collateral damage, that’s unfortunate,” said Bauman. “We regret that but the bigger issue here is economic viability of an entire downtown.”
Ismail said the curfew is unnecessary. He said that’s because the food truck operators have always been willing to cooperate with the police.
“When the police came to us and say close it because there is a problem, we close right away even if it’s a busy day, even if we have a line of people,” said Ismail. “We are already helping the city.”
Bauman said the curfew will move forward as planned, and if it doesn’t work, the Common Council could reconsider the measure.
In the meantime, the food truck operators just hope they can protect their financial livelihood.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed the second attempt by the Minneapolis City Council to give tenants more time to pay rent in the aftermath of Operation Metro Surge, which has pushed immigrant families into housing instability.
Currently, housing providers are required to give renters in Minneapolis 30 days to come up with money to pay their rent before filing an eviction case against them, which is called a pre-eviction notice period. The City Council voted last week to increase that timeframe to 45 days through the end of August.
During the federal operation, many immigrants sheltered at home and did not go to work because they feared being detained by federal immigration agents. As a result, many are struggling to pay rent. Supporters of the ordinance said the measure will give renters more time to access rental assistance, mutual aid or another paycheck to avoid an eviction case in court.
Other council members, housing providers, and Frey have voiced concern that giving residents more time to pay rent will push them into more debt. In his veto letter on Thursday, Frey wrote that rental assistance is the best solution to support renters.
“The City of Minneapolis has a longer pre-eviction notice period than most cities in the country,” Frey wrote in his veto letter. “I am not convinced that more time will result in improved outcomes.”
The city has allocated $3.8 million in emergency funds, and the Wilson Foundation agreed to match another $3 million.
Rental assistance at the state level to help immigrant renters due to the surge has stalled at the Legislature. A bill that would allocate $40 million in rental assistance passed the Senate, but is unlikely to pass a divided House.
“This would have been a tremendous relief for all families, as we would have more time to apply for rental assistance without facing the threat of eviction,” said Alibella Rodriguez, a member of Inquilinxs Unidxs por Justicia (United Renters for Justice) in a statement. “Instead, the Mayor’s veto is a terrible blow to all families, leaving us vulnerable to losing our homes through eviction — homes that served as the greatest refuge we had during the occupation.”
The 45-day pre-eviction notice period ordinance passed with a 8-5 vote. Nine votes are needed to override a mayoral veto. The council will likely vote on overriding the veto at their next meeting on May 7.
This is not the first time the council has tried to extend the pre-eviction notice period.
Last month, Frey vetoed the council’s vote to increase the pre-eviction notice period from 30 to 60 days. The council failed to override that vote. Council members brought forward an ordinance with a shorter time period hoping it would gain more support.
“We’re looking at a mere 15 days,” Council Member Aurin Chowdhury said at a news conference last week. “We changed the policy, we compromised, and it was so consequential, it was worthy of us taking up another cycle to bring it back.”
The St. Paul City Council unanimously approved temporarily extending the city’s pre-eviction notice period to 60 days last month.
According to data from the tenant advocacy group Home Line, eviction filings in Minneapolis increased by 3.4% in the first quarter of the year compared to the average between 2023 and 2025. Housing advocates have said that mutual aid efforts have likely helped keep many renters in their homes for now.
The city will be rolling out more than $6 million in rental assistance to help those affected by the surge. Information about how to access the Minneapolis specific funding can be found here. The Minneapolis funding does not require an eviction case to be filed against the tenant already. Funding is also available through Hennepin County, but an eviction case is required.
Hogsett promised this would be his “final term.” But in weighing another run, he may be looking to overcome scandals and project delays, experts say.
Tony Cook and Peter Blanchard on their reporting of Mayor Joe Hogsett
Indy Star reporter Tony Cook and Mirror Indy reporter Peter Blanchard talk to Mirror Indy’s Ibby Ahmed about reporting on Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett.
As Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett openly considers a fourth term, political experts say that Hogsett’s musing shows he may want to exit office on stronger footing after a third term dogged by scandals and development delays.
With three Democrats already running for Indianapolis mayor in 2027, Hogsett, 69, refused to rule out a reelection bid when reporters asked him about his plans on April 29.
“Any mayor who has put enough time into the development of our downtown would like to see it completed. So it’s one thing to shovel in a new development. It’s another thing to open the doors and welcome people in and see them enjoy it,” Hogsett told reporters with WISH-TV and WRTV.
“So that tugs at my heartstrings,” he added. “But ultimately, I’ll make a decision that’s based on whatever legacy I’d like to leave our city and how far along we are in promoting that legacy.”
Hogsett did not agree to IndyStar’s request for an interview April 30, made through campaign spokesperson Emily Gurwitz. In a statement, Gurwitz said the mayor remains focused on finishing out his third term by delivering investments in roads and public safety, as well as stewarding the Indianapolis Public Education Corp., the state-mandated entity tasked with reshaping public education in Indianapolis.
“Mayor Hogsett made it clear in his comments yesterday: with the 2027 election still more than a year and a half away, he is focused on the work immediately before him to continue shaping a safer and more vibrant Indianapolis,” Gurwitz said. “This includes developing the 2027 City-County budget, moving forward the critical work of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, delivering on important infrastructure investments with triple the funding in the strip-patching budget in 2026, and continuing to drive meaningful public safety improvements for neighborhoods across the city.”
When he announced his reelection bid in 2022, Hogsett said multiple times that he was seeking his “third and final term.” But the mayor’s recent comments and campaign finance reports have sparked curiosity about his intentions now. Hogsett raised more than half a million dollars in 2025 and ended the year with $1.2 million on hand.
Hogsett, who would be 76 at the end of a fourth term, told reporters that he will announce his decision toward the end of this year, ahead of the May 2027 city primary election.
If he enters, he’ll compete with fellow Democrats Indianapolis City-County Councilor Vop Osili, Indiana Sen. Andrea Hunley and Department of Public Works official David Bride.
Each mayoral candidate told IndyStar April 30 that the mayor’s remarks don’t affect their plans.
“I’m running for mayor. I’m talking with residents, visiting every corner of our city, and focused on affordability, housing, roads, and public safety,” Osili said in a written statement April 30. “Everyone has the right to decide their own political future, but the real question isn’t about one candidate, it’s about the future of our city.”
Will Hogsett move beyond ‘third and final term’ he promised?
The 2022 speech where Hogsett announced his bid for a third term — which came after he’d previously called for mayors to be limited to two four-year terms during his 2015 campaign — may shed light on some of the unfinished business he has in mind.
Addressing a crowd gathered inside City Market in November 2022, he mentioned several major redevelopment projects that he hoped to see finished in a third term, after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the “train of progress” to a “screeching halt.”
“Over the next three years, a historic public-private partnership will revitalize the historic City Market while transforming an entire city block,” Hogsett said.
“New development next to old City Hall? It’s on its way,” he later added. “Downtown heliport redevelopment? Won’t be far behind. The old downtown jail? It’s coming down and we’re going up.”
Of that partial list, the only projects that may wrap up by the end of Hogsett’s third term are downtown’s two jail redevelopments. Jail I was demolished and the Indiana Fever are building a $78 million practice facility, set to open in 2027. Although construction started years late on the Jail II redevelopment, it’s expected to bring more than 200 residential units to downtown’s east side by 2027.
The delayed or failed redevelopment plans, meanwhile, have stacked up.
Earlier this month, the city backed out of plans to build a museum hotel, housing and office space at old City Hall. The renovated City Market won’t open until at least 2028, after the city cut ties with the initial developers.
While the downtown heliport — eyed as a potential site for a Major League Soccer stadium — has closed, Indiana Senate leader Rodric Bray recently dashed hopes for an arena on the site in the near future, saying it “doesn’t look like there’s much chance there.”
“We are confident that Major League Soccer puts Indianapolis at the top of its list of places it would like to see a club,” Hogsett Communications and Policy Director Aliya Wishner said in February in response to Bray’s remarks. “We realize there is still challenging work before us to provide the framework for how state and local support will accomplish this goal.”
Scandals, delays could sway Hogsett to seek reelection
Experts say Hogsett may want to secure more wins to overshadow scandals tied to his handling of sexual harassment allegations within his administration and his oversight of city development deals involving conflicts of interest.
An IndyStar/Mirror Indy investigation dubbed “Mr. Clean” found that Hogsett allowed his former chief of staff Thomas Cook, whose sexual misconduct allegations the two outlets investigated in 2024, to cash in on millions in city incentives overseen by a city official with whom he had a romantic relationship. The stories also showed that the Hogsett administration routinely awards no-bid contracts to former staffers and top campaign donors.
Hogsett has said he’s confident that multiple layers of legal, administrative and legislative oversight ensured that tax incentives and no-bid contracts were in the best interest of the city and taxpayers. Cook, who has not been charged with any crime, has apologized for “consensual relationships that violated a trust placed in me” but denied that he used his professional role to further those relationships.
Still, experts say, the incidents may mar Hogsett’s record.
“He has not been able to cement his legacy in the way that I think he hoped,” Gregory Shufeldt, an associate professor of political science at the University of Indianapolis, told IndyStar in an April 30 interview. “The sexual assaults and corresponding cover-ups, the Mr. Clean series of articles and kind of broader insights into corruption, I think have really weakened his political capital. The types of things that he has tried to make the capstone or kind of lasting contributions — for example, the MLS team — have not really seen significant progress.”
By keeping the door open to a fourth term, Hogsett can maintain influence over the debate about who will replace him, Shufeldt said. If a candidate wants the mayor’s endorsement or access to his campaign finance largesse, Hogsett can persuade them to focus on issues that further his legacy.
Paul Helmke, who served as mayor of Fort Wayne from 1988 to 2000, told IndyStar he thinks Hogsett has to weigh whether he may want to hold onto power for the right reasons. Helmke, now 77, said his decision not to seek reelection to a fourth term in 1999 was tough, even though he felt he’d accomplished his major goals.
About 50 years old at the time, Helmke chose to devote his next few decades to pursuing other work. He led an organization working to end gun violence and in 2013 became a faculty member at Indiana University, where he founded a civic leadership center and teaches courses on law and public affairs.
“If Hogsett has things he wants to accomplish that he’s making progress on, that he’s not sure will go well if he’s not there, that’s a reason to run again,” Helmke said. “But if you’re just doing it because you don’t know what else to do, or you get to the stage where you’re not sure you’ll have the energy or enthusiasm, then you probably shouldn’t do it.”
Email Indianapolis City Hall Reporter Jordan Smith at JTSmith@indystar.com. Follow him on X @jordantsmith09 and Bluesky @jordanaccidentally.bsky.social.
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