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Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely

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Speaker 1: those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily

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Speaker 1: represent those of I Heart Media, Stuff Media, or its employees.

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Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised from my Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV.

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Speaker 1: Monster presents Insomniac. I'm Scott Benjamin and everything I'm about

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Speaker 1: to tell you is real. This is Insomniac. On July two,

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Speaker 1: a Canadian trooper cautiously approached the driver of a vehicle

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Speaker 1: parked under a bridge. The man behind the wheel was asleep,

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Speaker 1: and when asked, he claimed was a tourist just stopping

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Speaker 1: for some rest. As the trooper talked with the American traveler,

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Speaker 1: she noted that the back seat held some luggage and

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Speaker 1: a large stack of videotapes. However, since there was really

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Speaker 1: no cause for alarm, the two parted ways. The truth

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Speaker 1: was the tourists had been living out of his car

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Speaker 1: for several days at this point. The very next day,

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Speaker 1: on July three, that same American visitor was in Pinery

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Speaker 1: Provincial Park in Grand Bend, Ontario, Canada. The stack of

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Speaker 1: videotapes in the back seat was now nowhere to be found,

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Speaker 1: and next to him was rambling three page handwritten letter

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Speaker 1: on yellow note paper, stating that his marriage was failing,

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Speaker 1: his business was failing, and he was sorry for messing

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Speaker 1: up the park. After all, he had planned to do

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Speaker 1: this somewhere else. He finished his long note with the

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Speaker 1: line that he simply wanted to eat a peanut butter sandwich,

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Speaker 1: his favorite snack, and then go to sleep. With that,

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Speaker 1: he pulled out a three fifty seven magnum and shot

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Speaker 1: himself in the forehead. By the time his body was

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Speaker 1: discovered later that evening by some campers, he had been

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Speaker 1: missing for eight days. What really brought this man four

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Speaker 1: miles from his comfortable Midwestern home and why did he

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Speaker 1: feel the need to end it also abruptly with a

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Speaker 1: bullet to the brain. Was it really the pressures of

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Speaker 1: a failed marriage and business or was there something more

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Speaker 1: sinister to the story? As it turns out, there was

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Speaker 1: a lot more. In fact, the dark truth was only

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Speaker 1: beginning to be unearthed in his hometown of Westfield, Indiana,

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Speaker 1: just one day before his death, and people in the

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Speaker 1: small town we're already beginning to talk. Most killers aren't

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Speaker 1: very open about their murdering ways, and that's with good reason.

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Speaker 1: But that presents a problem for the killer. Well, secrecy

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Speaker 1: is absolutely necessary. A lot of killers find they need

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Speaker 1: to share what they've done. They feel the need to

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Speaker 1: brag and receive recognition they think they deserve for the

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Speaker 1: depraved acts. Of course, that's dangerous for the killer. Tell

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Speaker 1: the wrong person and you'll end up in prison for

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Speaker 1: life or receiving a death sentence. You're gonna learn how

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Speaker 1: the I seventies strangler found a way around this dilemma.

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Speaker 1: How he found a way to share his terrible secret

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Speaker 1: with an entire group of onlookers, and he knew that

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Speaker 1: none of them would ever report him to the police.

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Speaker 1: How could he be so sure of their loyalty. We'll

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Speaker 1: answer that question along the way. To begin our story,

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Speaker 1: we have to start almost exactly twenty five years ago

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Speaker 1: in a city known as the Crossroads of America, Indianapolis, Indiana.

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Speaker 1: By the mid nineteen nineties, the Indianapolis Police and the

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Speaker 1: Marion County Sheriff's Department knew they had a problem. Gay

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Speaker 1: men from the area surrounding Indianapolis, all matching a similar

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Speaker 1: physical description, age, height, and wait, we're disappearing. Ten had

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Speaker 1: disappeared in the previous two years. Beginning in the spring

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Speaker 1: of nine, but the problem wasn't exactly new to the

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Speaker 1: authorities either. From to the mid nineteen nineties, the discarded

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Speaker 1: dead bodies of men were being found in the rural

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Speaker 1: areas along the corridor of Interstate seventy between Indianapolis, Indiana,

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Speaker 1: and Columbus, so Hio. All of them had been strangled

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Speaker 1: to death. At the time, the investigators couldn't piece it

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Speaker 1: all together. There were no witnesses, and there just wasn't

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Speaker 1: enough usable evidence left behind. The only known connection was

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Speaker 1: the missing men's ties to the gay community. A lot

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Speaker 1: of them were taken on their way to or on

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Speaker 1: their way home from India's gay nightclubs. But now in

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Speaker 1: the fall of things were about to change. Following a

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Speaker 1: tip from an informant, one that wanted to remain anonymous,

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Speaker 1: the hunt for another man, someone known as Brian Smart,

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Speaker 1: was on. According to the informant, he visit one of

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Speaker 1: India's gay nightclubs and he saw another man who was

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Speaker 1: overly interested in a missing person's poster that had been

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Speaker 1: tacked on the club's wall. The poster featured a photo

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Speaker 1: of the informants friend, Roger Goodlett. Goodlet had gone missing

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Speaker 1: in July. Intrigued and more than a little suspicious of

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Speaker 1: the stranger, the informant introduced himself to the man. He

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Speaker 1: said his name was Brian Smart and he was a

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Speaker 1: landscaper from Ohio. The informant tried to get Smart to

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Speaker 1: talk more about the missing goodlet, but every time he

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Speaker 1: mentioned the missing man, Smart became evasive and changed the subject.

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Speaker 1: As the night wore on, Smart became emboldened and invited

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Speaker 1: his new friend for a late night swim at the

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Speaker 1: house he said he was temporarily living in. The man

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Speaker 1: noted that Smart was driving a gray Buick with Ohio

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Speaker 1: license plates. Since the informant wasn't familiar with the area

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Speaker 1: north of Indianapolis, he didn't know exactly where the house

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Speaker 1: was located, but he was able to describe where they

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Speaker 1: ended up that evening. It was an area surrounded by

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Speaker 1: big homes, long split rail fences, and horse ranches. The

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Speaker 1: house they drove to was a large, tutor style home,

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Speaker 1: and the pair entered from a side door. He noticed

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Speaker 1: that the interior was crowded with dust covered furniture and boxes.

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Speaker 1: As they made their way through the house, then down

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Speaker 1: some stairs to the bar, an indoor pool area. Smart

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Speaker 1: offered his guest to drink that he had prepared himself,

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Speaker 1: but the informant wisely refused it. Smart then excused himself,

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Speaker 1: and when he returned he was a lot more talkative

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Speaker 1: than before. The informants suspected that Smart had just snorted

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Speaker 1: some cocaine. He knew enough about the drug to notice

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Speaker 1: the telltale behavioral changes it produced. Soon, Smart brought up

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Speaker 1: the topic of autoerotic asphyxiation. That's when someone received he's

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Speaker 1: pleasure from suffocation or being choked, either during intercourse or masturbation,

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Speaker 1: often to the edge of death. Smart asked the informant

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Speaker 1: to strangle him first, and he went along with it.

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Speaker 1: He choked Smart with the pool hose while he masturbated

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Speaker 1: and passed out. After Smart revived, claiming a sexual rush

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Speaker 1: like no other, it was the informants turn he was.

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Speaker 1: At this point, Smart began choking him with the pool hose,

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Speaker 1: but when it was clear that he wasn't going to stop,

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Speaker 1: the informant pretended to pass out and Smart released him.

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Speaker 1: When the informant finally opened his eyes, Smart appeared rattled,

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Speaker 1: and he claimed he was scared because the man had

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Speaker 1: lost consciousness. The truth was Smart didn't expect his late

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Speaker 1: night pool guests to wake up at all, and that's

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Speaker 1: what spooked him. It was apparent that Smart had done

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Speaker 1: this before, and the man said that his hands were

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Speaker 1: strong and confident around his neck as he strangled into

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Speaker 1: the edge of death. When they had finished their pool

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Speaker 1: side fun, the pair collected themselves and Smart drove the

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Speaker 1: man back to Indianapolis, where they agreed to meet up

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Speaker 1: again the following week. The informant felt that Smart's deviant

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Speaker 1: behavior in the pool that evening might explain what happened

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Speaker 1: to his missing friend Roger Goodlett. He called to tell

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Speaker 1: the authorities about a suspicion. However, that following week, at

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Speaker 1: the time and place they agreed to meet, Smart never

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Speaker 1: showed and for a while he remained a ghost. Oh

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Speaker 1: and one more creepy detail shared by the informant about

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Speaker 1: the large house somewhere north of Indianapolis. There were mannikins

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Speaker 1: all over the place and in different postures, including lounging

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Speaker 1: around the pool area. They were well dressed, almost as

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Speaker 1: if they were attending an upscale pool party. When asked

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Speaker 1: about the mannequins, Smart replied that the owner of the

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Speaker 1: house didn't want to be lonely. He kept them around

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Speaker 1: for company. So why mannequins. What's the fascination. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: due to a condition called a gaunt ophelia, which is

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Speaker 1: the sexual attraction to a statue or a doll, or

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Speaker 1: a mannequin or any other similar figurative object, most often

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Speaker 1: one that has a female form. Those that have this

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Speaker 1: condition are sexualizing good doll. The homeowner in today's case

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Speaker 1: just half wants to be sexualized in a group of

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Speaker 1: life sized dolls. If you know where to look, examples

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Speaker 1: of a gametophilia can be found in lots of places.

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Speaker 1: It appears in the arts. Hans Bellmer created and photographed

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Speaker 1: life sized fetish dolls in the nineteen thirties, and the

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Speaker 1: sexualized doll photography of German artists Helmutt Newton is another example.

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Speaker 1: There are instances of this in novels and movies too,

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Speaker 1: and dating much earlier. There's the Greek myth of Big Malion,

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Speaker 1: a sculptor who fell in love with the statue he

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Speaker 1: had carved. If you're looking for modern examples, those are

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Speaker 1: easy to find too. For instance, Ronald Dotson, age thirty

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Speaker 1: nine at the time was arrested in the city of

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Speaker 1: Royal Look, Michigan, in two thousand seven. Police spotted dots

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Speaker 1: In near a smashed out storefront window that displayed a

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Speaker 1: mannequin wearing a French made outfit. This arrest came just

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Speaker 1: a week after he was paroled for his sixth breaking

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Speaker 1: and entering conviction over the course of thirteen years. Now,

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Speaker 1: not all of Dotson's crimes involved mannequins, but a lot

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Speaker 1: of them did. One notable arrest in his past came

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Speaker 1: after police had found him in an alley behind a

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Speaker 1: woman's clothing store with three mannequins, all were dressed in lingerie.

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Speaker 1: This is clearly a man who has a sexual fetish

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Speaker 1: for female mannequins and simply can't control his urges, even

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Speaker 1: if that means breaking into a business to satisfy his needs.

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Speaker 1: For his crime and Royal Oak, the judge gave Doubts

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Speaker 1: in a harsh sentence a year and a half in prison,

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Speaker 1: but that's likely because he was a repeat offender with

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Speaker 1: many prior convictions, and the judge reason that Dotson's behavior,

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Speaker 1: even though he never really harmed another human, struck fear

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Speaker 1: in the community. With the information and descriptions provided by

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Speaker 1: the informant, the police staked out the gay bars in Indianapolis.

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Speaker 1: He interviewed bar patrons and posted flyers, but they weren't

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Speaker 1: able to locate anyone named Brian Smart or anyone who

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Speaker 1: fit the description, and the killings continued. Finally, a year later,

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Speaker 1: in the fall of the police got another break. The

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Speaker 1: informant had spotted Brian once again, and this time he

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Speaker 1: got the man's license plate. The Indianapolis police ran a

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Speaker 1: check on the license plate number, and the results pointed

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Speaker 1: back to the car's owner. Brian Smart was actually Herb Baumeister,

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Speaker 1: a resident of the nearby suburb of Westfield, Indiana. Herbert

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Speaker 1: Richard Baumeister was born on April seven in Indianapolis, Indiana.

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Speaker 1: He was the eldest child of Herbert and Elizabeth Baumeister,

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Speaker 1: and he led us seemingly happy childhood, but in adolescence

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Speaker 1: he started developing antisocial behaviors. There were rumors of him

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Speaker 1: urinating on a teacher's desk. He started playing with dead animals,

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Speaker 1: and friends remember him speaking of wondering what it would

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Speaker 1: be like to taste human urine. Secretly, Herb's father had

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Speaker 1: him take psychological tests tests that indicated her was a

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Speaker 1: schizophrenic and that he had multiple personality disorder. The odd

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Speaker 1: thing is that there's no record of her ever receiving

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Speaker 1: treatment for either condition. By Herbert graduated high school and

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Speaker 1: was accepted into Indiana University. He dropped out of college

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Speaker 1: after just one semester and went to work as a

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Speaker 1: copy boy for the Indianapolis Star newspaper, but returned to

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Speaker 1: IU in the fall of nineteen sixty seven, and that's

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Speaker 1: when he met his future wife, Julianna or Julie as

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Speaker 1: she preferred to be called. In November of nineteen seventy one,

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Speaker 1: Herb was twenty four years old, and he and Julie

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Speaker 1: were married in the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 1: The two had three children together, two girls and a boy, Marie, Eric,

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Speaker 1: and then Emily. In nineteen seventy two, not long after

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Speaker 1: his marriage to Julie, Herbs spent two months in a

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Speaker 1: psychiatric hospital committed by his own father. Julie agreed with

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Speaker 1: the decision, saying her was tired and he needed help.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen seventy four, have been taking a job with

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Speaker 1: the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and was eventually promoted to

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Speaker 1: program director. This success didn't last long, however, as signs

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Speaker 1: of his mental illness began to show, and his position

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Speaker 1: was finally terminated in the nineteen eighties when he urinated

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Speaker 1: on a letter which was to be sent to the

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Speaker 1: then governor of Indiana, Robert or. The next several years

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Speaker 1: weren't much better for her either. On September three, Herb nowty,

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Speaker 1: committed a hit and run, well intoxicated, but there was

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Speaker 1: no severe punishment. Then. Less than one year later, in

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Speaker 1: March of Herb was charged with auto theft and conspiracy

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Speaker 1: to commit theft, but he once again avoided punishment and

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Speaker 1: somehow beat the charges against him. That very same year,

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Speaker 1: Herb's father died. On the positive side, her had taken

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Speaker 1: a job at a local thrift store that inspired him

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Speaker 1: and his wife, Julie to start a business of their own.

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Speaker 1: In Herb's mother, Elizabeth Balmeister, loan him the money to

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Speaker 1: open his own thrift store. The balmister is called their

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Speaker 1: new thrift store Save a Lot, not to be confused

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Speaker 1: with the chain of grocery stores to go by a

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Speaker 1: similar name, and it was initially successful, earning a couple

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Speaker 1: of small fortune in the first year alone. The pair

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Speaker 1: soon opened a second location and things were beginning to

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Speaker 1: look up for the young family. Herb was a domineering

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Speaker 1: business partner, which Julie didn't like but tolerated, and the

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Speaker 1: employees of Save a Lot noticed that Herb would often

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Speaker 1: disappear for several hours at a time, right in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the workday, and he always returned smelling like alcohol.

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Speaker 1: Despite Herb's questionable management style, the small Save a Lot

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Speaker 1: chain was successful enough to allow the Bombasters to buy

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Speaker 1: a new home, a much bigger home outside of the city,

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Speaker 1: somewhere with a lot of property and privacy, where Herb

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Speaker 1: could conduct a different kind of business. I inherited a

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Speaker 1: fascination with true crime from my father. Other members of

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Speaker 1: our family would shake their heads and wonder why he

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Speaker 1: was drawn to such dark material, But I always understood

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Speaker 1: it's voyeurism, the front row seat to view the thoughts

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Speaker 1: and actions of monsters. They're victims, their families and the

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Speaker 1: authorities who hunt them. Now it's my job to research

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Speaker 1: these stories to the fullest extent, to study them every day.

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Speaker 1: I know it sounds like a dream to some of you,

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Speaker 1: and I thought it would be too, But I was wrong.

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Speaker 1: True crime isn't the escape that it once was for me,

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Speaker 1: It's become the opposite. Making this show has unlocked something

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Speaker 1: inside of me, something I've kept a secret until now.

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Speaker 1: I have nightmares, extremely realistic dreams that prevent me from sleeping,

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Speaker 1: sometimes for several nights in a row. Nightmares that are

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Speaker 1: filled with monsters, real life killers like the I seventies strangler.

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Speaker 1: These nightmares are so vivid they disturb my reality, blurring

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Speaker 1: the lines between waking and sleeping. But the worst part

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Speaker 1: is that sometimes the monster in my nightmare is me

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Speaker 1: When I wake up. The whole day, I avoid eye

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Speaker 1: contact with everyone, certain that I'm guilty of something horrible

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Speaker 1: and they can somehow read it in my sleep deprived,

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Speaker 1: bloodshot eyes. I know these killers, their stories, and I'm

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Speaker 1: hoping that by sharing their cases, I can take away

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Speaker 1: the power that they have over me and get some

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Speaker 1: much needed rest. And I'm telling you my secret because

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Speaker 1: I know I can't be the only person who's struggling

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Speaker 1: with this. Well research in this case, I came across

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Speaker 1: something highly unusual, something I never really expected, and fairly

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Speaker 1: rare among the ranks of serial killers, similar to Herb.

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Speaker 1: I found a short video clip that shows what amounts

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Speaker 1: to a chance encounter with a serial killer by a

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Speaker 1: local television station in Indianapolis. The new station was w

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Speaker 1: i s h TV channel eight, and the reporter interviewed

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Speaker 1: her Baumeister right at the height of his crimes. There's

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Speaker 1: no indication in the video as to what year the

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Speaker 1: interview took place, but I have figured to be between

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Speaker 1: the background of the shot is clearly bout Wister's property.

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Speaker 1: There's no doubt it's his fields, his driveway, and his fence.

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Speaker 1: In fact, you can match the location with crime scene

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Speaker 1: photos taken to the property years later. We'll play the

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Speaker 1: audio for you in a moment. But here's how all

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Speaker 1: of this came to be. Herb and his son were

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Speaker 1: near the road just outside of the property, and they

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Speaker 1: witnessed a road striping crew passing by. There also happened

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Speaker 1: to be a dead raccoon on the road. As the

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Speaker 1: crew approached, Herb said to his son, I think he's

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Speaker 1: going to lay a paint stripe right over that dead racoon.

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Speaker 1: Sure enough, the crew did just that. Apparently, this angered

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Speaker 1: Herb so much that he decided to take photographs of

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Speaker 1: what he witnessed and share them with the local news

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Speaker 1: station to alert them to this wrongdoing. It's a very

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Speaker 1: strange interview. There's Herb standing on the edge of his property,

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Speaker 1: wearing a suit and tie and looking exactly how you

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Speaker 1: would imagine a successful small business owner might look in

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties. Nothing seems to be out of

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Speaker 1: the ordinary. He's relatively calm, he's amiable and even laughs

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Speaker 1: a bit. But at the same time he seems appalled

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Speaker 1: at the callous treatment of this dead raccoon. I find

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Speaker 1: this extremely strange. Listen to his interview and see if

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Speaker 1: you agree. Herb Baumeister of Karmel saw it all. I

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Speaker 1: said to my son, they're gonna hit that raccoon with

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Speaker 1: this way God. And sure enough they just striped right

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Speaker 1: over it space and neck and I didn't even move.

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Speaker 1: But you had no effort to, you know, get it

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Speaker 1: out of the way. So I haven't have a polaroid

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Speaker 1: with me, so I took a shot at the fact

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Speaker 1: a raccoon which met its demise on the yellow line

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Speaker 1: became one with the paint. The raccoon has since been removed.

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Speaker 1: This is all that's left. This was just you know,

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Speaker 1: a Painter should have had a chocolate brought around his

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Speaker 1: career by state officials. There was no excuse for that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the poor thing to deserve a better faith

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Speaker 1: than that. The poor thing deserved a better faith than that.

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Speaker 1: The question is this, has herb really that upset about

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Speaker 1: the treatment of a dead raccoon? Whereas he using this

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Speaker 1: as an opportunity to try to blend in, trying to

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Speaker 1: appear a little more normal than the way he was

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Speaker 1: perceived by everyone around him. Was he attempting to pretend

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Speaker 1: to be a normal, functioning member of society. I guess

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Speaker 1: we'll never know the answer. The Bellmeister family was ready

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Speaker 1: to move into the new dream home, but the cracks

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Speaker 1: were beginning to show, and her secret life couldn't stay

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Speaker 1: secret for long. Eric herbs Son was about to make

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Speaker 1: a gruesome discovery in the woods, something that should make

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Speaker 1: Julie question everything she believed about her husband, but she

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Speaker 1: ignored it. Next time on Insomniac. Insomniac is a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV, written and hosted

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Speaker 1: by Scott Benjamin and produced by Miranda Hawkins, Alex Williams,

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Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, and Josh Thane. Music composed by Makeup and

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Speaker 1: Vanity Set and cover by Trevor Eisler, and a special

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Speaker 1: thanks to Joe Malillo and Wish TV. Follow on Twitter

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Speaker 1: and Facebook at Insomniac Pod, on Instagram at Insomniac Podcast,

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Speaker 1: and at our website insomniac podcast dot com. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Speaker 1: M