Chapter 2
The Predator
One mid-nineties summer, a man showed up at one of the bars. He was not a regular at that particular bar. The man was seen staring at a missing persons poster for Roger Alan Goodlet. One regular bar patron, a man who went by the name of Tony Harris, approached the man and, indicating the poster with a nod of his head, asked, “Do you know him?”
The man said that he did not.
He was lying.
At this point, the newcomer, who was actually Herb Baumeister, gave the name “Brian Smart.” Tony related that, while Brian was reading the missing persons poster, his concern did not appear to be genuine.
The two soon fell into deep conversation. It ended with Brian asking Tony if he wanted to go back to his employer’s home for a swim in the indoor pool. Tony agreed to go along, and Brian suggested they should drive separately. Tony said that he would prefer that they go in the same car; his main concern was that he wanted his car left at the bar so that if he should turn up missing like so many other men had, somebody would hopefully see it there and come looking for him.
Somewhat reluctantly, Tony got into Brian’s car, and they drove north, leaving the bright lights of the city far behind. Although Tony tried to engage in small talk, Brian did not say a lot. Before long, the asphalt of the city gave way to the greener suburbs north of Indianapolis. They turned off from US Highway 31 and onto a two-lane rural road that was lined with horse farms.
They soon came to a driveway. Afterward, Tony would recall noticing a sign that read, “something Farm.” It was dark, however, and he could not quite read it all. They drove down a long and winding drive, finally arriving at a very large house that Tony described as a mansion.
There were several dogs roaming around, and Tony was told to not pet them. The house itself was completely dark. Brian claimed that the power was turned off upstairs but was still on in the basement, where the pool was. The two men entered via a garage door and made their way to some stairs that led down into the basement.
Just as Brian had promised, there was indeed a swimming pool. He motioned to a room directly across from the pool and said that Tony could change in there if he wanted to. Brian was already in the pool when Tony emerged from the changing room. The water was very warm, and with the sliding patio doors all fully open to let in the cold night air, a thick fog hung low over the surface of the pool.
Tony slid slowly down into the water.
“Hey,” Brian exclaimed, as if a great idea had suddenly just occurred to him. “Do you want to see a neat trick?”
He went on to explain that if you were to squeeze somebody’s neck in order to cut off the blood flow to the brain, it could cause the most intense orgasm imaginable. Intrigued but still somewhat reluctant, Tony hesitantly said that he would be willing to give it a try.
Brian took the length of pool hose that was floating on top of the water and gently placed it around Tony’s neck, caressing the skin lightly with the smooth plastic.
Then he began to tighten it. Slowly but surely, Brian started strangling Tony, pulling the hose tighter and tighter with every passing second.
Red dots danced before Tony’s eyes, and he began to feel lightheaded, yet still Brian kept up the pressure. What was this? he wondered—did Brian intend to kill him? Letting his arms and legs go loose, Tony pretended to pass out, falling backward into the pool. All was quiet for a few seconds and then, much to Brian’s surprise, Tony opened his eyes.
“It’s you, Brian! You are hurting people!” he accused the other man. “I have no choice—I’m going to the police.”
“No one is going to believe a person like you,” Brian shot back. Tony knew that he was right, but nonetheless, he had to try. If this man was behind all the disappearances, the first thing he had to do was get out of there alive, and that meant appeasing him … for now.
The two men got down to partying, making good use of the fully stocked wet bar, before finally Brian passed out on a couch in an adjacent room. The following morning, he drove Tony back to the bar in downtown Indianapolis.
“I had a good time,” Brian told him, as though nothing untoward had happened, “and I’d very much like to see you again.”
Tony went straight to the Indianapolis Police Department and told them that there was a man who lived in a mansion somewhere in Hamilton County who was picking up gay men and strangling them. Unfortunately, Tony could not give an accurate description of the killer’s home. The police advised Tony to try to get a license plate number in the event that this individual ever came back into the bar.
This was the “official version” of the events that Tony Harris described to the detectives who questioned him. It must be pointed out that Tony himself is the only living source for what happened at Fox Hollow Farm that night.
Unquestionably, Tony Harris did go to the authorities and reported what had happened to him at Fox Hollow Farm in the company of Brian Smart. Were it not for his willingness to step forward, the case may not have been broken as quickly as it was, and more men would almost certainly have died. For this, he is to be commended.
Tony would maintain that he only visited Fox Hollow Farm on that one occasion, yet in future interviews he would alter his story, admitting to having had a romantic relationship with Herb and engaging in liaisons with him whenever the opportunity presented itself.
How does Tony address the fact that his story has changed over the years—does he feel that it casts doubt on his credibility as a witness? According to him, after that first night at Fox Hollow Farm, he was certain that Herb was the man who was killing off his friends from the gay community, and Tony’s main concern was getting the murders to stop. He was caught in something of a catch-22 situation, however, because he had also developed feelings for the man he knew as Brian Smart, and admitting that he was involved with the killer romantically could be tantamount to being an accomplice, at least in the eyes of many people.
Later on in this book, we will hear Tony’s own account of what else happened that night at Fox Hollow Farm—and discover the crucial missing pieces that he left out of his testimony.
• — •
The private investigator was now fully immersed in his investigation. He couldn’t help noticing that a rather disturbing pattern was beginning to emerge.
The deeper he dug into the morass of disappearances, the more he came to believe that a serial killer was operating in central Indiana, preying primarily on members of the gay community. The private investigator interviewed Tony at length and gleaned as much information as he could from his description regarding the place that he had been brought to that night. Tony told him that it was a large property, one with a long, winding drive and horse fencing. On the strength of that, he drove all around southern Hamilton County in the general vicinity of where he thought that Tony may have been.
Unfortunately, there were just so many horse farms in that area. It was the equivalent of trying to find a needle in a haystack, and the private investigator simply could not locate it. He even went so far as to obtain aerial photographs from the County Surveyor’s office and spotted what he thought might be the right sort of place. After showing Tony the photo, however, his only eyewitness was unsure if it truly was the correct location.
He was right back at square one.
Both the private investigator and the officers of the Indianapolis Police Department gave Tony the same piece of advice: “If Brian comes back into the bar, then come hell or high water, you have to get his license plate number!”
The winter of 1994 came and went without any discernible progress on any of the missing person cases. Just as Tony was beginning to think he would never see the mysterious man again, the weather improved in the spring, and lo and behold, Brian showed up in the bar again.
Tony felt a little uneasy about sneaking outside from under Brian’s watchful eye in order to obtain his license plate number, so he requested that a friend go and write it down. Once it was in his possession, Tony dutifully gave the number to the Indianapolis Missing Persons detective assigned to the case, who in turn ran it through the Bureau of Motor Vehicles computer database.
The car came back registered to one Herbert R. Baumeister, whose street address was listed as being one Fox Hollow Farm.
Jackpot.
This was the first truly solid lead in a case that had already spanned several years. Detectives wasted no time in going straight to Mr. Baumeister’s business to question him.
A detective whom we will refer to as Marsha Warren, of the Indianapolis Police Department, was assigned to the Missing Persons Division. She had received several reports from families with missing relatives but so far hadn’t been able to connect the dots. Now, along with tips from the private investigator and Tony Harris, capped off by the very solid lead provided by the license plate number, it was time to ask Herb Baumeister a few choice questions.
Marsha drove to the Sav-A-Lot store on West Washington Street in Indianapolis. She went inside and walked up to the counter. An employee asked how she could help her. Marsha asked to speak to Mr. Baumeister. The employee replied that he was in the back right now, but she would be happy to go and fetch him.
Herb appeared from a back room and approached Marsha. He greeted her in a friendly manner, offering her a handshake. She asked Herb straight away if he ever visited gay bars in Indianapolis. Herb very quickly and adamantly denied ever having set foot in a gay bar. She countered with the fact that they had multiple eyewitnesses’ testimony to the contrary, and that she had gotten his license plate number from one of those very same witnesses.
At that point, visibly shaken from the confrontation, Herb finally admitted that yes, he did in fact visit the bars from time to time, but his family was not aware of it. Marsha felt that his reaction might be justified; after all, he and his wife had been married for twenty-five years, and they had three children. Marsha told him at that point in time she was investigating the disappearance of some men who had gone missing from within those bars, and she felt he might know something or be involved.
“Can we search your property?” she asked in her most reasonable tone of voice. At this point, Herb clammed up. He flatly denied any involvement whatsoever with the disappearances and told Marsha that if she had any further questions, they should be directed to his lawyer.
Herb’s lawyer was a very well-known criminal defense attorney in Indianapolis. Any Indianapolis citizen of prominent standing who happened to get into legal trouble would usually call him first. Marsha Warren called the attorney’s office and said that she would like to search the Baumeister property.
The attorney responded by saying that he had no idea who in the world Herbert Baumeister was. Puzzled, Marsha returned to the Sav-A-Lot store to confront Herb, only to be told once again, “Talk to my lawyer.” Herb reiterated the attorney’s name for the second time, insisting that the lawyer was indeed representing him.
Marsha called the law office again and was exasperated to get the same response. Nobody at the law firm had ever heard of Herbert Baumeister, so back she went to the thrift store. To say that she was frustrated would be an understatement.
By the third visit, Herb had managed to get a retainer check sent to the law office. “No,” the attorney now insisted, “you cannot search Mr. Baumeister’s property.”
Marsha was up against a brick wall, having what she felt was a prime suspect in her sights but possessing insufficient evidence to allow her to obtain a search warrant.
Enter a well-known forensic anthropologist from the University of Indianapolis. Looking for a fresh approach, Marsha contacted him for some suggestions about how she might be able to get a look at the property without actually setting foot on it. The doctor suggested an aerial survey. That would enable her to get a view of the property from the air and—if she were lucky—possibly see any potential burial spots.
A police helicopter was duly requisitioned, and Marsha, along with the doctor, ventured out to fly over the Baumeister property. The helicopter was equipped with an infrared camera so that if there were bodies buried on the property, it was hoped that the heat emitted during the decomposition process would be visible.
The helicopter pilot took them over the house and grounds, focusing on the woods behind the main house. Unfortunately, nothing out of the ordinary was visible. Either there were no bodies there, or perhaps it had been too long since a body was last deposited in that area.
Once again, Marsha would need to find another way.