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Speaker 1: those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily
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Speaker 1: Monster presents Insomniac. I'm Scott Benjamin and everything I'm about
Speaker 1: to tell you is real. This is Insomniac. The year
Speaker 1: was her Baumeister was forty four years old, and he
Speaker 1: and his wife Julie's small Save a Lot chain of
Speaker 1: thrift stores was successful enough to allow them to buy
Speaker 1: a new home, a mansion north of the city. The
Speaker 1: home the Bowmasters chose was a million dollar eighteen acre
Speaker 1: estate in the Indianapolis suburb of Westfield, Indiana. It was
Speaker 1: called Fox Hollow Farm, and the sprawling property, with a
Speaker 1: nearly ten thousand square foot house, horse stables, a separate apartment,
Speaker 1: wooded areas, and even an indoor pool, was the family's dream.
Speaker 1: It also afforded Herb a lot of privacy, enough to
Speaker 1: do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, without the fear
Speaker 1: of being discovered. Even more privacy came in the summer months,
Speaker 1: when Julie and the kids would go to visit Herb's
Speaker 1: mother in northern Indiana. Sometimes they were gone for weeks
Speaker 1: at a time, leaving Herb at home alone to watch
Speaker 1: over the Save a Lot stores. By the family business
Speaker 1: was suffering a downturn in fortune. The Save a Lot
Speaker 1: stores were no longer successful, and Herb himself was in
Speaker 1: the midst of another personal crisis. Aside from the business failing,
Speaker 1: he and Julie were no longer getting along due to
Speaker 1: his mood swings and erratic behavior. He was arrested for
Speaker 1: drinking and driving in Rochester, Indiana, and sentenced to three
Speaker 1: days in jail and one year of probation. To make
Speaker 1: matters worse, his son Eric found a human skull in
Speaker 1: the woods surrounding the family home. Eric brought the skull
Speaker 1: to his mother, who then asked him where he had
Speaker 1: found it. When they returned to the spot, they found
Speaker 1: an entire cluster of bones a half buried, full human skeleton.
Speaker 1: That evening, Julie confronted her about the bones, but he
Speaker 1: simply told her not to worry. He claimed it was
Speaker 1: a medical research skeleton that belonged to his now deceased father,
Speaker 1: who was an anesthesiologist. Surprisingly, Julie had no more questions
Speaker 1: about the skeleton in the yard, even after she realized
Speaker 1: that it had somehow disappeared just a few days later,
Speaker 1: probably carried away by animals. She thought to herself. Herb's
Speaker 1: entire life seemed to be in a downward spiral, and
Speaker 1: things were only getting worse. His wife, his children, the authorities,
Speaker 1: and everyone else. Really, we're about to learn the secrets
Speaker 1: that Herb kept hidden at Foxhall of Farm. Her pad
Speaker 1: a lot of secrets, but people around him were also
Speaker 1: aware that he had some problems. Reports from his co
Speaker 1: workers at the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles show that
Speaker 1: his behavior was more than a little erratic, to say
Speaker 1: the least. He lacked a sense of propriety, and his
Speaker 1: timing and judgment were off. He just didn't quite know
Speaker 1: what was socially acceptable. He had a strange fascination with
Speaker 1: dead animals. For instance, when he was young and on
Speaker 1: the way to school one morning, he picked up a
Speaker 1: dead crow, pocketed it, and later placed it on his
Speaker 1: teacher's desk when she wasn't looking. He also had an
Speaker 1: unusual fascination with urine. Not only did he p on
Speaker 1: his teacher's desk and discussed drinking urine. But when he
Speaker 1: pete on the letter to the Governor of Indiana, well,
Speaker 1: they answered the question about who had pete on Herb's
Speaker 1: manager's desk just a month prior. I think all of
Speaker 1: this is related to Herb's untreated condition, his schizophre an.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what schizophrenia is, it's a long
Speaker 1: term mental disorder that can last for years or even
Speaker 1: a lifetime. There's a breakdown in the relation between thought
Speaker 1: and emotion and behavior. This leads to faulty perception, inappropriate feelings,
Speaker 1: and even actions. Schizophrenics are often drawn into a fantasy
Speaker 1: or delusional world. There's a broken sense of reality. Things
Speaker 1: are mentally fragmented. The good news is that there is treatment,
Speaker 1: but there's also no cure. What I found in my
Speaker 1: research was that some, but not all, serial killers are schizophrenic.
Speaker 1: A lot of them do, however, have a different mental
Speaker 1: disorder known as antisocial personality disorder or a p D,
Speaker 1: and personality traits of a psychopath as well, which includes
Speaker 1: no empathy, the ability to manipulate and intimidate others, but
Speaker 1: also to do these things with a sort of charm
Speaker 1: that allows them to get exactly what they want, no
Speaker 1: matter what it takes. Someone who repeatedly gets away with
Speaker 1: murder has to be at least somewhat in control of
Speaker 1: the situation. They have to be very cold, calculating, and
Speaker 1: extremely careful about what they do that doesn't match up
Speaker 1: with the mixed up, confused thoughts and behaviors as someone
Speaker 1: who is an untreated schizophrenic, someone like her Bowmeister authorities
Speaker 1: knocked on the door of the Bowmeister residence in November
Speaker 1: of and asked her for permission to search his estate.
Speaker 1: After all, the license plate search of the buick with
Speaker 1: Ohio plates had pointed directly to Herb, and the police
Speaker 1: were desperate to make any connection that might bring an
Speaker 1: end to killings. Herb, of course, refused the search, and
Speaker 1: since the police didn't have enough evidence for a warrant,
Speaker 1: they had to leave. Julie also refused the search, believing,
Speaker 1: as her husband had told her, the request was the
Speaker 1: result of a false accusation of theft. They were turned
Speaker 1: away at the door, but the investigators knew they had
Speaker 1: an option. They had to get to Julie. She needed
Speaker 1: to know that her husband was living a secretive double
Speaker 1: life and he was now suspected of multiple murders. In June,
Speaker 1: at the age of forty nine, Herb's life was continuing
Speaker 1: to crumble around him. The authorities were still sniffing around him,
Speaker 1: and Julie just waiting for the chance to search the property.
Speaker 1: Both of his Save a Lot stores had now failed
Speaker 1: and had closed their doors for good. Julie had filed
Speaker 1: for divorce, and Herb was so depressed that he threatened
Speaker 1: to take his own life. But even all of that
Speaker 1: wasn't the worst thing that happened to her. In late June,
Speaker 1: while on a visit to his mother in northern Indiana,
Speaker 1: Julie decided that she had enough. She gave the police
Speaker 1: permission for a full search of the property while Herb
Speaker 1: was away. It didn't take long. After just a few days,
Speaker 1: investigators had recovered more than five thousand bones, bone fragments,
Speaker 1: and teeth that they eventually learned had belonged to four
Speaker 1: separate victims. The remains were pulled from the wooded area
Speaker 1: of the property, concealed under piles of fallen leaves and trash.
Speaker 1: A neighbor of Boumeister's prompted a second search the fox
Speaker 1: hall of farm he had found skeletal remains near a
Speaker 1: drainage ditch that operated into two properties. Once again, it
Speaker 1: didn't take long. M lack of sleep. If it lasts
Speaker 1: long enough, I can absolutely wreck you. All right. Well,
Speaker 1: it's two o'clock in the morning on Saturday, early Sunday.
Speaker 1: I'm just just laying here. I can't seem to shut
Speaker 1: it down enough of that my thoughts. I can't seem
Speaker 1: to turn everything off and be able to just get
Speaker 1: some rest. I started recording myself in these sleepless moments,
Speaker 1: the log of my thoughts, my anxieties, my nightmares. It's
Speaker 1: killing me. Um exhausted, but at the same time, can't sleep.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm gonna do. To some extent,
Speaker 1: everyone leads a double life, and it's dominia makes me
Speaker 1: feel like a different person altogether. But I can share
Speaker 1: this with you. Killers like her Baumeister, the I seventies strangler,
Speaker 1: couldn't allow anyone to know about their other life, especially
Speaker 1: not their families. I want to be very careful when
Speaker 1: approaching this topic, and I want to be very clear
Speaker 1: when I say that Julie Baumeister is not responsible in
Speaker 1: any way for the actions of her husband. But I
Speaker 1: would like to know the real answer to the question
Speaker 1: how much did Julie know? And when it's a question
Speaker 1: I always have regarding the spouses of serial killers, how
Speaker 1: is it possible that they don't know their partners guilty
Speaker 1: of murdering people outside and sometimes even inside their own home.
Speaker 1: Right from the beginning, Julius claimed that the Herb Baumeister
Speaker 1: we know the serial killer is not the same Herb
Speaker 1: Baumeister that she was married to. What she means by
Speaker 1: that she saw him as a devoted if often absent husband,
Speaker 1: a good father to their three children, and a successful
Speaker 1: provider for the family. She knew he was flawed, far
Speaker 1: from perfect, of course, but definitely not a serial murderer.
Speaker 1: Even so, it really does make you wonder how she
Speaker 1: ignored so many signs that Herb was not necessarily the
Speaker 1: man she thought he was. At one point, Julie admitted
Speaker 1: that she and her only had sex six times in
Speaker 1: their entire twenty five year marriage. The summer weeks she
Speaker 1: spent away from home didn't help matters either. She wasn't
Speaker 1: able to see her day to day activities, and it
Speaker 1: gave him plenty of freedom to use the house and
Speaker 1: in particular the indoor pool anyway he wanted. This also
Speaker 1: left him completely for you to cruise the Indianapolis gay
Speaker 1: nightclubs in the evenings looking for sex partners and potential victims.
Speaker 1: Julie claims she had no idea that her was interested
Speaker 1: in men. All of this is really just a tip
Speaker 1: of the iceberg. Herbs Double Life held a lot of secrets,
Speaker 1: But the one point it stands out among the rest,
Speaker 1: the one bit of information that's the hardest for most
Speaker 1: people to swallow, is that Julie ignored it when her
Speaker 1: son handed her a human skull and then led her
Speaker 1: to a full skeleton, half buried in her yard. Yet
Speaker 1: she did nothing. It's difficult, but try to imagine yourself
Speaker 1: in that position. Human remains in your own backyard are
Speaker 1: hard to overlook, but that's exactly what Julie did. And
Speaker 1: soon after, when the authorities were knocking on her door
Speaker 1: and asking to search the property, she refused because herb
Speaker 1: told her another lie. All the while, she knew that
Speaker 1: someone was buried in the woods behind the house. So
Speaker 1: how much did Julie Baumeister know and when did she
Speaker 1: know it? Did she really know nothing until the authorities
Speaker 1: took her aside and told her their husband was the
Speaker 1: prime suspect in what they called at the time multiple
Speaker 1: homosexual homicides. That's what she's always claimed, and that's what
Speaker 1: we have to believe until we hear otherwise. The authorities
Speaker 1: were now conducting a second search at fox Halla Farm,
Speaker 1: this time in a ditch that separated the bow maister's
Speaker 1: property from their neighbors. After finding the scattered remains of
Speaker 1: at least four separate victims, including bones, bone fragments, and teeth,
Speaker 1: the investigators felt certain that a search of a ditch
Speaker 1: on the Boma Just property would yield additional grizzly results,
Speaker 1: and they were right. Authorities immediately found human bones in
Speaker 1: and around the ditch, lots of them. Intact rib cages
Speaker 1: and spines were poking out from the muddy ground. Every
Speaker 1: shovelful of dirt seemed to bring more and more bones
Speaker 1: to the surface. Along with the skeletal remains. Investigators on
Speaker 1: earth handcuffs no Doubt used on the victims, and several
Speaker 1: cans of Miller Genuine Draft, Herb's favorite drink. By the
Speaker 1: end of the second search, the serea alone had produced
Speaker 1: the remains of seven additional victims. In total, box all
Speaker 1: of farm concealed the bodies of eleven men, get only
Speaker 1: eight of them wherever positively identified. In addition to the
Speaker 1: eleven bodies found in his property, Herb was also suspected
Speaker 1: in at least nine other killings along the I sevent
Speaker 1: corridor between Indiana and Ohio, killings that all occurred in
Speaker 1: Herb's early active years and then abruptly ended when he
Speaker 1: bought his home and fox Hall a Farm. All had
Speaker 1: been strangled, all fit the profile of his other kills,
Speaker 1: and all were dumped on the roadside in bural areas.
Speaker 1: According to Julie, Herbert made countless trips to Ohio during
Speaker 1: those years, supposedly on store business. Do you remember that
Speaker 1: stack of videotapes the Canadian troopers saw in Herb's back
Speaker 1: seat the day before he killed himself. Well, based on
Speaker 1: the location of a semi hidden video camera found during
Speaker 1: a sweep of the house, those were likely videos of
Speaker 1: the murders he committed in the pool at fox Halla Farm.
Speaker 1: We'll never know for sure, of course, because the tapes
Speaker 1: were never found. One common theory is that her tossed
Speaker 1: them in a river or a lake before he pulled
Speaker 1: the trigger, and because he took his own life, her
Speaker 1: bow Moister was never arrested for his crimes, never went
Speaker 1: to trial, and he never confessed to a single murder,
Speaker 1: not even in the rambling suicide note found near his body.
Speaker 1: The story of her bow Meister and Fox Hall of
Speaker 1: Farm is bizarre in so many ways, one that will
Speaker 1: forever have some amount of mystery attached. We know plenty
Speaker 1: about the case, but it's also clear that some of
Speaker 1: the dirtiest details went to the grave along with her
Speaker 1: bow Moister. The only witnesses to his brutal and unusual
Speaker 1: crimes were the mannequins, and they aren't talking. In Upstate
Speaker 1: New York, a convicted killer was pearled early after his
Speaker 1: deem no longer dangerous to society. They were wrong. He
Speaker 1: was a pathological liar, a pedophile, a manipulator, and a
Speaker 1: serial killer with the second chance he intended to take
Speaker 1: next time on Insomniac. Insomniac is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV, written and hosted by Scott
Speaker 1: Benjamin and produced by Miranda Hawkins, Alex Williams, Matt Frederick
Speaker 1: and Josh Thain. Music composed by Makeup and Vanity, set
Speaker 1: and cover art by Trevor Eisler. Follow on Twitter and
Speaker 1: Facebook at Insomniac Pod, on Instagram at insomniac Podcast, and
Speaker 1: at our website insomniac podcast dot com. For more podcasts
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