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The serial killer bought the hearse about 10 years before he killed his first victim so he could “take women out on dates,” a friend of the killer’s father told Fox News Digital.
“I think it was 1970 or thereabouts — I don’t know the exact date — but Herb (Baumeister) Jr. bought the hearse, and I could tell Dr. Herb (Baumeister) Sr. was really confused and a little worried about what to say,” Manetta Brownstein said.
Brownstein worked with Baumeister in the surgery department of an Indiana hospital several times a week from 1966 to about 1976. She said Baumeister was a “gentleman” who would drive her home and look after her after night shifts or emergency surgeries.
During their work together, Brownstein said, Baumeister would tell her details about his son that seemed to weigh heavily on his mind years before he killed the first of at least 12 victims and buried the body around his Indiana property.
Indiana serial killer’s 18-acre estate still holds secrets
Indiana’s Herb Baumeister is suspected of killing at least 25 people, with 12 victims linked to him so far. (Indianapolis Police Department)
Baumeister Jr. At least 25 people died He buried them throughout a million-dollar, 18-acre estate in Westfield, Indiana, called Fox Hollow Farm, in the 1980s and 1990s.
As police hunted down the serial killer, law enforcement discovered 10,000 “burned and crushed” skeletal remains after Baumeister Jr. shot himself to death.
So far, eight victims have been identified by the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office, and investigators have four DNA test results yet to be identified, bringing the total number of bodies to 12, according to Coroner Jeff Jellison.
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Looking back, Braunstein remembers several conversations in which Baumeister seemed concerned about his son.
The hearse remained most vivid in her mind.
Nearly 10,000 human bones have been discovered on the 18-acre Westfield, Indiana estate of serial killer Herb Baumeister. (Google Street View)
Baumeister asked his son why he wanted to buy a used hearse, to which his son replied, “Dad, a hearse is a good way to get around and go on a date,” Brownstein said. “And that was the end of the conversation, but it was clear he was concerned.”
Looking back now, she sees other potential red flags.
Because Baumeister Jr. and Braunstein were close in age, she felt Baumeister Sr. spoke to her to get a younger person’s perspective.
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Baumeister Jr. didn’t seem to have many friends, no one came over to his house or wanted to hang out with him, he didn’t play sports or participate in extracurricular activities at his high school, which was a sports powerhouse, and he struggled to keep up his grades, she said.
Baumeister Jr. dropped out of college after one semester, and in the late 1960s his father encouraged him to return to study anatomy, but he did not finish his first semester.
“I knew Dr. Baumeister was very disappointed when his son dropped out,” Brownstein said, “and it seemed as if he (Baumeister Jr.) didn’t want to be bothered (with school).”
Manetta Brownstein, who knew the Indiana serial killer’s father, said she was “shocked” to learn that Herb Baumeister Jr. had murdered so many people. (Fox News Digital)
Brownstein said he met the serial killer once while he was in college, but doesn’t remember anything unusual.
Brownstein said he once visited her at home and spent an hour talking about “ordinary things,” most of the topics chosen by her.
She left thinking he was a “polite, respectful and good looking” man.
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“Even after all these years, it’s hard to comprehend something like this,” Brownstein said.
She fought back tears at one point, rubbing her eyes and saying: “It’s still emotional.”
“I knew Dr. Baumeister very well,” she said. “He was a really sweet man. I can’t imagine that his son would commit such an unbelievable crime, an unbelievable crime in a bad way.”
Jeffrey A. Jones, who was reported missing from Fillmore, Indiana in 1993, has been identified as the latest victim of serial killer Herb Baumeister. (Hamilton County Coroner’s Office)
Baumeister Sr.’s long-standing concerns about his son, glimpsed by Braunstein, seemed to come to a head in 1971, when Baumeister Jr. was committed to a psychiatric hospital six months after marrying Juliana Sater.
She stayed with her husband throughout his treatment, and by 1984, Baumeister Jr. was married and the father of three children.
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He was successful in a variety of jobs, but his bizarre behavior, including urinating on a letter addressed to then-Indiana Governor Robert Ohr shortly after being promoted at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in 1985, put an end to his success.
He lost his job after the incident, but he and his wife essentially swapped roles: he became a stay-at-home dad and she returned to work.
The couple eventually established a profitable thrift store that changed their lives.
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Double Life
In the early 1990s, Baumeister Jr. and his family moved to a $1 million home on 18 acres, but their marriage began to fall apart.
He stayed there to manage his store and home, and committed most of the murders there, while his wife and children left for long periods to escape the toxic environment.
It was then that his double life began: He used the name “Brian Smart” while stalking gay bars in the Indianapolis area.
There, he would pick up his victims and take them to his spacious, secluded home where he would eventually kill them and bury their bodies.
Nearly 10,000 human bones have been discovered on the 18-acre Westfield, Indiana estate of serial killer Herb Baumeister. (Google Street View)
One day in 1994, his teenage son found the skull and showed it to his mother.
He initially dismissed it as an anatomical skeleton that belonged to his father, but Brownstein and his friends in the medical field quickly realized that was a lie.
“Obviously, we all know there’s no such thing as owning an anatomical skeleton. They’re handled with care,” Brownstein said after hearing about the murders on the news.
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But while Baumeister Jr.’s wife believed the excuse, she grew suspicious and initially refused police requests to search the house.
But her son’s chance discovery of the skull remained trapped in her mind like a fly caught in a spider’s web.
Business declined, the couple was on the brink of bankruptcy, and Baumeister Jr. fell into alcoholism – all of this led to a divorce and his wife taking the skull to the police.
“The thought of ‘I’ve had an encounter with the devil’ definitely crosses my mind.”
— Manetta Braunstein upon learning of Baumeister Jr.’s murder.
Manuel Resendez, who was 34 when he disappeared in 1996, was identified in January 2024 as one of Herb Baumeister’s victims. (Hamilton County Coroner’s Office)
Baumeister Jr.’s reign of terror is over.
The police closed in. They had an arrest warrant and a search warrant to exhume the property where human bones had been scattered.
Baumeister Jr. fled to Canada, where he committed suicide.
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Braunstein said “everyone was shocked” after hearing about Baumeister Jr.’s crimes.
“We knew Dr. Baumeister and his family. They were normal people. As far as we knew, they weren’t doing anything strange,” she said. “So the fact that his son would turn out to be this vicious serial killer was just unimaginable.”
Thinking back and recounting the roughly hour she and Baumeister Jr. spent together several years before the murders, “the thought of ‘I had an encounter with the devil’ certainly crosses my mind,” she said.
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“I just remember saying, ‘Oh man, I’m so glad his father died and he didn’t have to go through this.’
She has since moved out of state, but she still finds it unsettling how “people can be chameleons.”
“That’s the only word I can use,” she said. “He fooled me. I’m sure he fooled everyone else too.”
