Herb Baumeister

In 1965, Baumeister attended Indiana University for a semester before dropping out, but returned in 1967. In 1972, he attended a semester at Butler University. As an adult, he drifted through a series of jobs, marked by a strong work ethic, but also by increasingly bizarre behavior.

Baumeister married Juliana "Julie" Saiter in November 1971, a union that produced three children. Julie later said they had been sexually intimate only six times in over 25 years of marriage. In the 1970s, Baumeister was committed to a psychiatric hospital by his father. His wife said he was "hurting and needed help." Baumeister founded the successful Sav-A-Lot thrift store chain (two stores total) in Indianapolis in 1988.

Baumeister would posthumously be suspected of killing nine other men, the bodies of whom were found in rural areas along the corridor of Interstate 70 between Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio during the early to mid 1980s. One eyewitness identified Baumeister as the man seen leaving a bar in 1983 with Michael Riley, who was later found dead. Like the other victims, Riley was strangled to death and deposited nude or semi-nude in a river.

By the early 1990s, investigators with the Marion County Sheriff's Department and the Indianapolis Police Department began investigating the disappearances of gay men of similar age, height, and weight in the Indianapolis area. In 1992, they were contacted by a man named Tony Harris claiming that a gay bar patron calling himself "Brian Smart" had killed a friend of his, and had attempted to kill him with a pool hose during an erotic asphyxiation session. Harris eventually saw this man again in August 1995, following him and noting a license plate number. From this data, police identified "Brian Smart" as Herb Baumeister.

The A&E television series Investigative Reports aired an episode about Baumeister titled The Secret Life of a Serial Killer in 1997. History featured the case in their Perfect Crimes series. The case was also featured on The Investigators on TruTV in 2008, Behind Mansion Walls on Investigation Discovery (ID), Paranormal Witness on Syfy in 2012, and Ghost Adventures in May 2014. An independent documentary film titled The Haunting of Fox Hollow Farm also explores the crimes and the possibility of hauntings on the grounds of Baumeister's former estate.

ID featured the case again on the series True Nightmares, in October 2015. The Crime Junkie podcast released an episode on Baumeister on March 4, 2018. The Monster Presents: Insomniac podcast released a two-part episode about the case on June 27, 2019. The All Things Comedy Mexican podcast Leyendas Legendarias released an episode where they talked about the case in October 14, 2020.