- Indiana authorities have recovered two complete DNA profiles from bone material found on land once owned by businessman and suspected serial killer Herbert Baumeister.
- Baumeister, married with children, is believed to have frequented gay bars, where he targeted young people and lured them into their homes, where they killed them and buried them. The disappearance of at least 16 people has been attributed to Baumeister’s alleged modus operandi.
- Baumeister committed suicide in Canada in the summer of 1996, when he learned that investigators were ready to investigate the body found at the Westfield mansion.
Indiana authorities have recovered two complete human DNA profiles from bones and bone fragments found on a property once owned by a businessman who died in a series of murder charges in the 1980s and 1990s.
Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison said an Indiana State Police lab was able to generate two DNA profiles from a set of bones and fragments submitted to state officials this week as part of a renewed effort to further identify the skeletons found on the property of Herbert Baumeister.
Baumeister was 49 years old in July 1996 when investigators were about to question a body found at Fox Hollow Farm, an 18-acre property in Westfield, Hamilton County, a few miles north of Indianapolis, Canada.
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Last year, Mr. Jerrison asked the relatives of young people who disappeared in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s to submit DNA samples to the office as part of a new effort to further identify some 10,000 charred bones and fragments found on Mr. Baumeister’s property.
He said he hopes the two newly developed DNA profiles will put an end to the family of a man who went missing decades ago.
“In fact, the people at the Indiana State Police who are working with us are the aggressive linemen in this investigation,” Jellison told WXIN-TV. “It’s their hard work that we’re able to identify them.”
Investigators believe Baumeister, a married father of three who frequented gay bars, lured the men into his home and killed them. By 1999, authorities had linked him to the disappearance of at least 16 men since 1980, including several whose bodies were found dumped in rural central Indiana and a shallow river in western Ohio.
Two complete DNA profiles have been found on land once owned by suspected serial killer Herbert Baumeister, who committed suicide in 1996.
In announcing the new identification effort in November, Mr. Jellison said investigators believed the 10,000 charred bones and fragments found at Mr. Baumeister’s property could be the bodies of at least 25 people. During the initial investigation in the 1990s, 11 human DNA samples were extracted from these bones.
Eight of them, all young men, were identified and matched with DNA samples, but the DNA profiles of the remaining three belonged to unknown individuals, Gellison said last year.
State police investigators will now compare the two new DNA profiles with samples submitted by the relatives of the long-lost men, and also see if they match those of eight men whose bodies were previously found.
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“Because we have modern DNA, they are now creating comparative samples and tracking the process quickly,” Jellison told WTHR-TV.
If no matches are found for these samples, state police efforts will be expanded nationwide using the national DNA database, he said. If that fails, Jellison said his office may partner with a private DNA testing company to conduct a “forensic genetic family tree” test.
Meanwhile, Jellison said state police are working to extract more DNA profiles from the bodies found at Baumeister’s property.
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“What I want to say is who these people are. It’s my job to tell them who they are and speak for them,” Jellison said.
