Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Listener discretion is advised.
I know many of you out there are hungry for more paranormal content these days. What if I told you there is about to be a community just for fans of ghosts and hauntings like us. For months, I've been working on something incredible and I am so thrilled to be releasing it into the wild. I'd like to be the first to welcome you to the Paranormal Circle. Imagine a place where you can access weekly live chats and
roundtable discussions about all things supernatural. Watch twenty four to seven webcams positioned inside some of your favorite haunted locations. In addition to that, you'll be able to watch and assist during live streaming investigations with me and some of my friends who you may recognize. You'll also be granted access to an archive of evidence from these investigations, and you can upload your own evidence for all of us
to weigh in on. Even more, you will be on the list for private in person meetups plus dedicated Paranormal Circle meetups at your favorite paranormal conventions. Strange escapes, retreats, and comic cons. We've also worked with many of these events and your favorite paranormal retailers to offer Paranormal Circle only discounts. All of this, plus dedicated merchandise and swag giveaways amounts to one really cool space for all of
us to enjoy together. If this sounds right up your dark alley, then I'd like to personally invite you to be one of the first to join the Paranormal Circle. If you'd like to join the waiting list to be one of the founding members of the Circle, head to Amybrunie dot com and get on the list asap. We'll be opening up membership this spring, and those on the
waiting list get first access. Again, all of this is only accessible to Paranormal Circle members, so head to Amy Bruney dot com and join the waiting list today.
Hello everyone, Hello, I'm not Amy Bruney. By the way, I don't know if you know this because I'm not drinking wine. That's the only defining factor right there. So Amy, being the MC for this entire event, gets to introduce all these different great sessions, but this one is her session, and so it felt kind of appropriate for me to
get up here and say a couple of things. So I loved this morning's talk from Amanda talking about how important it was to understand sort of the history behind the stories that we hear, because it's really helpful in bringing those stories to life.
Right.
I talked about this with a lot of people yesterday that when you if you just say there's the ghost of a woman who gets seen in this room, always walking through, it's spooky, but it's not the full story. If you are first told, oh, by the way, the wife of the guy who built the used to walk through here all the time, or she had dinner in here all the time, and this is the room that she died in. I'm just making this up, by the way.
Then when you hear that there's always a woman seeing in period clothing, it starts to come to life.
Right.
So that was the conversation that Amy and I were having years ago, and we were talking about what kind of a show could she have as a podcast? And what I felt was this unbalanced history of lots and lots of ghost hunting reporting, which is amazing and fine, but it was like half of the story was going into a place and having an experience with nothing in history to anchor it to. And I said, you have a much more emotional approach to these stories, and you're
connected to them more deeply. Wouldn't it be great if there was a show where the first half of it was basically teaching you the history of this location, the people that were there, the lives that lived and loved and were lost in all of that, and then shift over to now, let's talk to somebody who's been there, and you start to see the connections in those conversations.
So that's where Haunted Road was born. And so today you get the joy of watching one of those live Haunted Road shows that people talk about with Amy and Richard. So let's bring Amy on up.
Thank you, Aaron, full circle. I love this. Welcome everyone. Now, just a quick warning. We are recording, so you know you're going to be recorded in infamy if you yell out anything inappropriate. That's not common on the champagne that's sitting in front of me. Thank you, ladies. But I do want to give a content warning because today's case this is pretty heavy. So I just want to let you know we're dealing with serial killers, murder, really, really
awful stuff. So, without further ado, let's get started. In the early nineteen nineties, a news story ran on a local affiliate in Indiana. A gentleman had brought to light something he felt was unjust and unfair, and he wanted the world to know. You see, he and his son had watched a truck belonging to the Indiana State Highway Department striping the side of the road with yellow lines. To his apparent horror, there was a roadkill on the side of the road, a hapless raccoon, and what do
you know, that truck striped right over it. The man happened to have a polaroid camera with him, so he took photos of the raccoon that was now apparently one with the roadway. Then he proceeded to contact the Highway Department and the local news on camera. During a beautiful sunny day, this man stood in front of his property, telling the local reporter that the raccoon deserved better. How dare that little fella end up with such a fate?
In turn, the Highway Department was interviewed, acknowledging their terrible mistake and saying it was an icelated incident. The irony here, however, is strong. The man in the interview, his name was Herb Baumeister, and behind him on that property at the very moment he lamented the fate of that poor raccoon, where the rotting remains of at least eleven men he had killed, dismembered and tried to hide. This is the story of fox Hollow Farm. I'm Amy Bruney, and this
is Haunted Road. The main house at fox Hollow Farm looks like anything but a farmhouse. The stately Tudor style manner, with white walls and brown trim, is surrounded on every side by trees. Visitors can book tours or rent it as a wedding venue for an elegant country affair. Although developers are building new houses nearby, the home fields secluded thanks to its long driveway and fences. Inside, the wood walls and ceilings are warm and inviting. Brightly colored rugs
carry guests past plush furniture. Up the stairs, visitors can find the library, stained glass lined study, and master bedroom. Sunlight streams in through the big windows, which hold a view of the woods out back. Thanks to the new construction projects, you can see the neighboring houses peeking through the trees, but a few decades ago it would have been easy to feel like the house was alone in a dense forest. The bottom floor has a pool surrounded
by even more windows. Guests can enjoy a drink from the wet bar while admiring the view of the tree filled backyard. The idyllic Fox Hollow Farm is nestled in Westfield, Indiana, which is just about a half hour north of Indianapolis. Honestly, this small city sounds a bit like Paradise. For most of its existence, it was a rural farming community, but in the nineteen nineties the population exploded thanks to its
great reputation. In a history of Westfield, Indiana, author Tom Rumor notes that Westfield was known for its great career opportunities, athletic facilities, and a generally high quality of life. Around the same time, nearby Indianapolis was a hub for gay culture in the Midwest. Residents and visitors could find safety and support in the twelve gay bars that got at the city, but homophobia was still very common in the
nineteen nineties, even in gay friendly communities like Indianapolis. So when numerous gay men disappeared in rapid succession, the police barely paid any attention. Sarah Murrell noted in The Hunter of Fox Hollow that at least ten gay men were reported missing between nineteen ninety three and nineteen ninety four. They all were adults who were thirty five or younger, were last seen in bars, and had what she called
a clean cut, preppy look. Then, Roger Allan Goodlett and Alan Wayne Brossard went missing in the summer of nineteen ninety four. Their families weren't content to wait around for the police to take the case seriously. They hired a private detective, Virgil Vandergriff to dig into the mystery. Later that year, Virgil found a major clue that the police had missed a survivor with a harrowing story that hinted
at what might have become of the missing men. The witness's name was Mark Goodyear, and he told Virgil he went home with a man calling himself Brian Smart after meeting him at a bar. According to Vic Reichhardt's reporting on WRTV, Mark State took him to a nice home in the suburbs that had its own swimming pool. The pair sat by the pool, enjoying drinks from the wet bar,
but Mark was stricken by the strange decor choices. Sarah Murels, the hunter at Fox Hollow, notes that Mark told the PI the house was filled with boxes and the pool was surrounded by clothed Mannikins, but this was far from the eerious detail from his date. After Mark and Brian did some drugs, Brian suggested the experiment with erotic asphyxiation. However, once he wrapped a swimming pool hose around Mark's neck,
the play grew too rough for Mark. Brian refused to let go of the hose until Mark pretended to pass out from a lack of oxygen. Later, when Mark opened his eyes and acted like he was just waking up, he noticed that Brian seemed nervous and uncomfortable. Somehow, he convinced Brian to take him back home, which was very lucky. Mark may not have realized it then, but his partner had a history of strangling other dates to death. This
wasn't Mark's only bout of good luck. A year later, in nineteen ninety five, he spotted Brian at a bar. He immediately recognized his old attacker and figured out which car he'd driven there, except when detectives ran the license plate number, they found the vehicle didn't belong to Brian Smart. The man had given Mark a fake name. His real identity was Herbert Baumer, and he and his wife lived in a large suburban house outside of town on an
acreage known as Fox Hollow Farm. It was a perfect match for the residence Mark had described to Virgil Vandergriff. When police confronted Herbert and asked to search his property, he flat out refused to let them in. Once it was clear he wouldn't cooperate, the police had tried to convince Herbert's wife, Julie, to let them search her house instead. Initially Julie was resistant, but eventually she agreed to cooperate. This was likely because her marriage to Herbert was crumbling.
Their sex life was nonexistent. Courtney Hardwick's article within magazine notes that Julie and Herbert had only had sex a handful of times in their twenty five years of marriage. As the pair navigated their split, Herbert moved out of the main house but continued living in a small apartment over the garage. Julie secured full custody of their three children, and took out a restraining order against her husband, perhaps
because of his history of violent faith of anger. She also knew Herbert had mental health struggles, as he'd spent more than a month committed to a psychiatric facilities soon after their wedding. Throughout their marriage, Herbert had bounced from job to job. His erratic tendencies made coworkers uneasy and
often got him in trouble. According to a J. Wiseman writing for crime Beat, at some point he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and a personality disorder, but it doesn't seem that this led to a viable treatment or any significant improvement in his behavior. Still, Julie had never imagined Herbert would cheat on her with men, let alone kill his
extramarital partners. Even when their son had found a human skull behind their home and Herbert told the bizarre story to explain its presence, she hadn't suspected anything now, though she realized he had ample opportunity to kill, as she and the children often took lengthy trips in the summer, leaving Herbert alone at home, and when she learned of all the evidence the homicide detectives had against her husband,
Julie was willing to cooperate with her permission. Police searched Fox Hollow Farm on June twenty fourth, nineteen ninety six. They found the setup was exactly like what Mark Goodyear had described to the Private Eye. The house was filled with boxes, while clothed mannequins stood around the indoor swimming pool with a wet bar nearby. And in the yard and the woods that surrounded the house, they uncovered roughly ten thousand human bone fragments. That's not counting the impact
bones they unearthed as well. Some appear to be burnt. In WRTV Vick Reichert's report, he says Herbert disposed of his victims by immolating their bodies, then smashing their bones and scattering all that remained across the farm. He also may have incorporated bits of broken bone into the gravel he used to landscape the yard. But the horrific scene at Fox Hollow Farm it may not have been all
Herbert's handiwork. Richard Estepp and Robert Graves wrote in the Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm, Unraveling the History and Hauntings of a serial killer's home, that wild animals may have also been to blame in some cases. After he killed his victims, Herbert would hide their bodies in an outdoor pile of mulch. Then scavengers from the nearby woodlands would tear apart the decomposing corpses. Investigators found eleven different left thumbbones, so we know Herbert had at least that many victims
in his yard. Most estimates put the kill count closer to twenty five, though it's hard to be too specific as many of the skeleton's police were covered were incomplete. By nineteen ninety nine, the officials managed to identify eight of Herbert's victims, all had gone missing between nineteen ninety
three and nineteen ninety five. He's also a top suspect in numerous other missing person cases and unsolved murders, including of nine individuals who were killed before Herbert moved to wa ust Field, but people are still finding evidence on the property today. A new bone was recently discovered in December twenty twenty two, and another victim was confirmed just this past October. As for Herbert Baumeister, he fled the country as soon as he learned about the detective's successful search.
He was never arrested or brought to formal justice, but Herbert did not remain free for long. On July third, nineteen ninety six, a week and a half after the remains were discovered, he killed himself in Canada. Before his death, a witness saw Herbert in his car with a box of VHS tapes, tapes that have gone missing since his suicide. It's impossible to say what footage they contained, but police believe he filmed some of his murders. It's thought he
destroyed the tapes before taking his own life. When his body was found, he laid near an altar made of sand, which was decorated with dead birds. According to private investigator Virgil Vandergriff, Herbert left a suicide note that closed by saying I AM going to eat a peanut butter sandwich and go to sleep. However, if rumors are to be believed, he did not rest in peace afterward. It said Herbert
still haunts the Fox Hollow Farm. His spirit, as well as a shadow figure, had been spotted peering out the upstairs bathroom window or lurking near the pool pump room, and many visitors get an uneasy feeling or perceive a presence with them in the pool room and the master bedroom. It's been said that when Herbert lived at Fox Hollow Farm, he often locked himself out and knocked on the door late at night so his wife or children would hear
and open it for him. Since his death, at least one resident, Joe LeBlanc, reported he often heard knocking on the door, always at one forty five in the morning, and always seven knocks in short succession. Joe also describes one unnerving incident where he stepped into the kitchen only to find all his knives had been pulled out and set on the counter. Afterward, he found new cut marks on the walls. Another time, Joe felt hands clasped his
neck while he was swimming in the pool. It's understandable that the pool would be a hotbed for spiritual activity. This is where Herbert attacked Mark Goodyear according to his testimony to the PI, and police believe Herbert strangled numerous other victims there too, so it's understandable that their restless
spirits still remain near its waters. When visitors take a dip, they may hear someone knocking on the door, but when they answer, there's no one there, and a recent homeowner was trying to vacuum in the pool room, only for the plug to keep yanking out of the outlet, even though the cord was loose and she wasn't tugging on it. Additionally, a man in a red t shirt has been spotted on the farm numerous times. He often walks into the woods,
only visible from the waist up. Joe LeBlanc said on one occasion, his dog chased the man in red deeper into the forest, only for the figure to vanish then reappear in a new location. There are also reports of a frightened man running for his life through the apartment. When Joe LeBlanc looked at a photo of one of Herbert's victims, he was stricken by how similar the picture
was to that fleeing spirit. Besides these apparitions, paranormal investigators at Fox Hollow Farm pick up EVPs and hear voices, footsteps and bangs. Electrical equipment tends to die quickly on the property, and lights flicker while doors open and close on their own. But some of these incidents may have nothing to do with Herbert Baumeister and his murders. Many guests have described a figure in the woods, darting from tree to tree that's believed to be an inhuman spirit.
In their book The Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm, Richard Estep and Robert Graves described this entity as blacker than black, and on multiple occasions psychic said they'd made contact with an anonymous figure. This being, whoever or whatever it is, reportedly pretends to be the ghost of Herbert Baumeister, but according to these mediums, his actual spirit isn't anywhere near Fox Hollow Farm. In light of this, it's safe to
say there's far more to this property than meets the eye. Today, I just happened to have the perfect guest to speak on this case. We are joined by my good friend Richard Estep, who has investigated and studied fox Hellow Farm for quite some time and actually has a book on it which I've quoted a couple of times. Mister Estep, welcome, come on down. Hello, Hi, there is this on, Yes
it is. I'm so excited to have you here. I don't normally, sorry, like I don't normally get to have someone who's actually written a book on the location on haunted Roads. I'm very excited. I am horrified that I did not really know about this case before people started talking about investigating there, Like, why do you I mean, obviously, I think the obvious is why that happened, But like, how do you think that affects the activity there overall?
How do I think the activity is affected by the fact that it's not very well known. It's surprising, right because if you log onto Netflix or any of the streaming services, you know, it seems so many serial killers have their TV series, their many series, their stories are told. Fox Hollow seems to have flown under the radar for so long.
It's wild to me. And like I was when so you showed me that YouTube video of this gentleman of Herbert like on the news, and he has this almost grin, like he knows he's doing something, he knows what he's doing, Like what do you think was going on in his head at that moment.
Having interviewed people that knew her about mystet and were close to him, gave me some insight into his state of mind, and someone who knew him very well said, he is absolutely getting his jollies on the fact that look at my left hand. Here, look at this pay attention to this board deadon and slyly enjoying the fact that right behind him in those trees that you can see just out of camera shop are the remains of
these poor men that he's murdered. He's the only one that knows this, and the rest of us are all fools for paying attention to the raccoon.
I mean, it's just it is. If you get a chance, people listening, look up that video, because it's absolutely haunting knowing what this man did and how he's really playing to like this poor raccoon. It's bizarre. But on that note, just kind of the activity that happens there. What is going on there now? Like I know there's a development going in. What are people like, what's happening on that property?
Well, Foxhlo had after I left and finished the book, Foxhollow quietened down. I was really happy to hear that because the idea of these poor men, these poor souls. I could care less about Herbert Baumeister, but those poor men, you know, not getting a traditional burial really disturbed me. And so the idea that the activity was starting to wind down I thought was one of the you know, maybe some pieces at last coming to that location. And then the land or a portion of the land was
sold for development. So now property development is happening on Fox Hollow Farmer. As we all know, that can be a catalyst for paranormal activity to ramp up again.
So what kind of activity are people experiencing there? I touched on it a little bit, but just kind of can you go into more detail of what happens there and how often?
Absolutely so, the house sat vacant after Herb Baumeister's family moved out. The only occupants, ironically were raccoons in the attic. Oh gosh. And so a couple called Rob and Vicki brook Graves and their children bought the house. They had to be okay with the fact that all those murders had happened there, and they were the very rational people. Rob is a coroner to give you an idea, and Vicky also works in the medical field as a scientist.
And Vicki was actually the first person to see the young man in the red shirt disappear into the woods and later identified him from news real footage as one of the victims, and the same victim Jola Blank had seen in the woods also, so we had corroboration there. So that's how things started. Jola Blank, the lodger when he moved in, was of the same age as many of Baumeister's preferred victims, and so that is a great catalyst for the haunting to kick off and to high gear.
Joe has since moved out, and that may be a factor in why things have in fact calmed down at Foxhollow. But the whole gamut of paranormal activity, from the phantom footsteps, the voices, apparitions, anything in the Paranormal Investigators playbook has happened at that farm at some point since the death of Herb Baumeister.
Now are they allowing investigations or is this just kind of like a special thing that you were allowed in there, Like it's I imagine it's not like a commercial endeavor of theirs.
I mean no, no, it's you can't rent Fox Hollow Farm and investigate there. There was a time when it was opened to paranormal investigators. There were some objections on the part of the local government, the city, and I totally understand why most serial killer locations where the murders took place, you know, thinking about like Dama's apartment or wherever they are quite rightly pulled down and demolished because who wants them to be a shrine to something ghoulish?
But Fox Hollow is still a working family residence. It's beautiful, and I rather like the idea that a family can take this horrible, negative energy and replace it with good, you know.
Yeah, I mean I've talked about that in the past. How kind of unfairly sometimes locations become defined by terrible things that happened there. We're talking about homes, hotels, you know, national landmarks. You know, something terrible happens and it kind of, in our minds anyway, negates every bit of good that ever happened there. So I do like the idea of it, you know, becoming something else and that energy overtaking what happened there over the years.
Yeah. We just saw this at your Strange Escapes Bendngettysburg, which was awesome by the way, with the orphanage, which you know, there are stories of terrible mistreatment of children there, but that's a small percentage of that building's history. You have many years of people being happy there at being a museum. Fox Hollow now is a family home and although there is I believe still paranormal activity taking place. The Graves family and their children bring all this kind
of love and light and joy. I hope that stain can be erased.
Now it's fairly recent. I mean, this is a pretty recent case. How do you think that the relatives of the victims feel about this potentially being a place where there's paranormal activity.
This is probably the book I've agonized most about writing and came closest never to writing, simply because I was concerned with these murders taking place in the eighties and the nineties. The interstate murders Bameister did were in the eighties, and I really agonized over it, and I came to the conclusion that these poor men, many of them are unnamed.
We have some of the names only because these are gay men that disappeared from Indianapolis bars around that time, and we're never seen again, and so their stories were always going to be untold. They were always they were going to be allowed to be forgotten, and sadly some of them are. And some of these men are sitting in boxes in storage as opposed to being buried. So the activity would not have gone away had I not
written the book. The last thing I wanted to do was upset any of the family members of those victims, but I felt the story needed to be told, if only so that we can keep an eye out for the next Herb Baumeister and maybe see some of the warning signs.
Yeah, that's very fair. Actually I didn't because you know, many times when we're investigating a location, kind of the solution for spirits is acknowledgment or you know, resolution in some way figuring out what happened or why they're there, or who they are. And so I guess there is something to be said for that that, you know, acknowledging them in this book and really getting that story out there could over time help the level panormal activity there. Now,
what do you think about these new houses? What do you think is going to happen there? I'm very curious.
I am too, to tell you the truth, because as you pointed out, you know, the bones were spread far and wide. This is kind of an odd thing to say, but in December, I'm having a dental procedure done. A piece of cadaver bone is being implanted into my gum, which was great until I move in the same circles
as you guys. Right. So one of my friends to call of three seconds to say you're going to have a haunted mouth, you know, And I thought about it for a second, and I'm like, that's awful, but it makes me wonder because the remains were spread so far and wide by the nocturnal critters of Fox Hollow, I would be surprised if that disturbance didn't cause some effect.
That being said, though the land has been has been blessed, you know, there are people that have gone out there to try and mitigate the activity as best as possible. We're just going to have to wait and see.
I know, I'm very curious. And also, how did you get a cadaver out? Like? Pig bone in my jaw? So I'm haunted by a pig?
I can request the change?
Yes, well I'm vegetarians. I was very conflicted. But anyways, ex I know that's it. I'm done, okay now. Because many of these victims remain nameless, I do worry and wonder if over time they are going to become more kind of especially like you know, now that they know
that they can be heard. I wonder if over time that activity is going to ramp up in any way you know, in addition obviously to building things like, what else do you think could trigger this to kind of ramp up again, or you know, kind of put these people in these new houses or in the farm at risk of experiencing more extreme activity.
It's a great question, and one thing is attention. So for example, a case I worked in the UK, the Black Monk of Pontifract case, was a Poltic guiz case dating back to the sixties, which was national news. All died down in the twenty tens. They made a movie about it called When the Lights Went Out. Interest in the House exploded. It is now the most requested paranormal rental venue in the United Kingdom. And that's sixty years after the initial Poltergeist outbreak, right, And.
I mean, I think that's just it. People come in, they start talking about it and bringing it up, and I feel like that wakes up something, you know, Like I kind of drawing on another case, I think of Maplecroft, which is what you know, Elizabeth Lizzie Borden bought that house and now a family lives there and supposely it's not haunted at all. But when we were all investigating it, Elizabeth was very much like, hey, let's talk, you know.
So it makes me wonder like if people start paying more attention to this, if it's going to draw out some type of activity, well.
And it also may not be what it appears to be, because, as you know, being a very seasoned investigator, egre goals are a thing, thought forms are a thing, and sometimes these stories take on a life of their own. I think for any paranormal investigator, there is a danger in assuming that what we're being told is in fact the truth the techniques we use, no matter how how you attempt spirit communication with EVPs or whatever it may be.
It's the equivalent of a nineteen nineties Yahoo Internet chat room. Right, you only have their word that they are who they say they are. There's no verification method.
That is very fair. Now, do you think there is at some point a chance that some of these unidentified victims might be identified through paranormal evidence or investigation.
I know that there are people out there that flatly refuse to accept that that can happen if we can get names. That's something I don't like the idea that these men are nameless, so many of them, and we don't have an accurate number, and we can't have an accurate number. We only have a minimum count because of the number of unique thumb bones that were discovered at Fox the number could be grossly higher. So if we can just get names that can be validated, that would be a huge start.
Right, I mean, I'm hoping that with DNA and everything that they can start really gets into these bones and figuring out who these poor people are. You actually investigated there, correct, Now, what would you say was the most kind of disturbing type of activity or more at most, I don't want to say disturbing, but like the most kind of thought provoking bit of paranormal activity you experienced while there.
There were several things. Actually, one of the more memorable is the pool. Now, the ball at Fox Hollow Farm is freezing. As I tell you about it, I can I'm getting the shivers, not the fact that so many men died in it, but of how cold it was. Because I was there in November, I believe it was. And the owner of the farm, Rob said he liked you, Richard.
I like you, but it cost me hundreds of dollars to heat this pool, and it takes a few weeks, and I don't like you that much, so you can go in and I will roll back the pool cover. But the bull's going to be cold. And so I got into the pool. It was freezing cold. My teeth were chattering. We recorded the sound of a growl in the pool area, and more concerningly was a whispered EVP
one word. And I should tell you that as we were in there, I'd been told by someone who knew her very well his favorite song was Blue by You by Linda Ronstack. So we played that song and I was swimming in the pool feeling very self conscious, and played back the audio afterwards, and just a single whispered word, and that word was Laura, which is my wife's name. And there is no Laura connected with Fox Hollow. There was no Laura present at the time. My wife's far
too smart to go swim in haunted pools. And so that felt very personal to me, almost as if hey, I know things about your nearest and dearest.
That's I mean, that's the beginning of a horror movie right there. To be honest, you know, you swimming in this freezing cold, haunted pool and the ghost is telling you the name of your wife's back at home. So that makes me wonder, do you think that's Herb or do you think that that's I mean, who is that?
Who? That's a great question, isn't it. And I think it would be an assumption to say that it was Herb. I do not know who it was one of the other aspects. Because the ball and the kind of woods outside are the ground zero for the haunting, it makes sense that's where most of the lives were taken. I'd heard that Rob had brought a friend home from work one day, and he had a young son, and so,
you know, it was just showing him around the place. Now, you don't tell young children we're going to the place where all the men were murdered, right, you don't. So they were wandering around the pool and this young kid is like, it's a cool, it's a bool, it's cool. And there is a pump room. And I happened to know that Herb had used that room to lay out the bodies of his victims once they were dead, before he disposed of them. And so Rob and his friend
were walking around the pool. They passed the open pump room door and the little boy just said, sh the man's sleeping in there. So Rob's colleague was like, we're leaving and thanks and goodbye. Wow, off they go. So I go to instigate the pump room with some of my friends. We sit in there. It's noisy, you know,
as you would imagine with all this machinery. I'm wearing a T shirt because I've gone back and it's now summer, and I can feel it now as we're talking, Amy, I felt fingertips just stroke my bear tricep in a very a caressing kind of way that just turns my stomach. I know what I felt absolutely wasn't a spider or a cobweb or anything of that nature. I don't know what it was, but it felt very much like fingertips a caress.
Okay, now, okay, Jens, is the house does it look like it looked then? Have they changed anything?
Almost nothing? It's almost identical, identical to how it was. Then Herb's desk is there, his library is there. Herb was a landrover, a ficionado. So there are land rover owner's manuals, Haynes manuals with handwritten notes by Herb in that library. You know, Rob the uses Herb's bathroom sleeps in herb's bed, like it's almost a.
Time whin it's an actual bed.
I do believe so. Yeah, the hose, the pullhose that's hanging in the pump room is the original one, which means that was actually the murder weapon in a number of cases, was never taken into evidence. It's still there.
I find that alarming, you know, I feel like I would want to I wouldn't want to share anything with this person, like, and he's not the first person to do that either, right, Like it's changed hands a couple of times. Why do you think that is that? I'm not I mean no disrespect of this person. I'm sure they're lovely, But why is my question?
Why keep things the way that they are? Yeah?
Why keep his belongings or keep like why have any evidence of this horrible thing that happened there? And I feel like that might even, you know, affect the haunting in some way.
You know, Rubs an interesting man, and I definitely count him as a friend. I had wanted to ask him, how do you live? Him? Man? How do you live in this house? I slept down in that but I couldn't. I could not live there. As beautiful as it is. I would be at the foot of the stairs by the pool, looking up to the kitchen, and I would just think how many men came down these stairs and
never came back up. I couldn't get past that. Rob has his own little bubble, and to this day, at least the last time I spoke to him, does not believe in ghosts. His wife totally convinced. She's the lady who had the vacuum flex pulled out multiple times, you know. So I asked him, Rob, how do you live here? And he said, ah, you know, I kind of mind my own business, and I see things out of the corner of my eyes sometimes. His wife, on the other hand, is like, oh no, I see young men with no
legs in the woods. I'm sold. I believe wow. And he's that's just his view on the world and it doesn't bother him. And maybe it's the fact that, you know, Rob does work in the coroner's field and has callouses that some people just don't. I don't mean that in a bad way, No, that's fair.
Yeah, I mean I just feel like I would not have a problem living in a house like that, but I would want to change things. I would not want to look at an area and think this was the last thing a number of people saw, you know, and I would probably obsess a little too much about what happened there. And so maybe that's why the activity isn't so,
you know, kind of off the charts. It's because there is someone living there who is not kind of dwelling on it and not you know, hashing it out all the time.
And I hope that it brings some stability. I mean, talk about brave people for a moment. When the Graves go on vacation, they have a house sitter. I don't know how much they pay her, but I don't think it's enough.
Probably not. I mean, does everyone know what happened? Everyone local has to know.
In fact, locally there was some resentment that the house still stands, and I understand this. There was some hope that they could put money together and in fact just demolish the house. They see it as a stain on the area, and I get that one hundred percent. I really really do. People sometimes come to that area just for to come by the gate of Fox Hollow, the wooden sign that was there doing the Baumeister ownership Fox
Olive Farm. It's now iconic is still there, and so people will stop, they'll pose with pictures, all those kind of things. You can't go down the drive, nor should you try. You should not trespass there. But this is an area of interest for so many people, and I don't think that's ever going to go away, and I do understand why.
People don't like it, right right, Okay, well, very fair, Well Richard, I want to thank you. Now tell me we'll tell everybody, like, how can people find you? I'm very familiar with your work, but please tell tell the world what you do and where to find mister Estep.
Absolutely thanks for listening everyone. You can find me online at Richard Estep dot net, Facebook, Richard Deestep, author, Twitter, Stepa and I like to find cases like this, investigate them and try and tell their stories, and I hope some of you will choose to join me on that journey.
Yeah, Richard is a writing machine. His books are amazing, and I think you are bringing some very important stories to light. So I really enjoy you and I want to thank you for coming, so thank you so much. The story of Herbert Baumeister is a tragedy, not only because of the lives he took, but also because he got away with it for so long. Who knows how many people would have been saved if the police had
taken the pattern of missing persons. More seriously, we can never give the victims their lives back or restore the years they lost at Herb's hands, but by telling their story now, we hope to honor their loss and show our respect to their spirits. I'm Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road. Thank you, guys. Haunted Road is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney, with additional research by
Cassandra de Alba. This show is edited and produced by Rima Alkali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Menke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Haunted Road is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaronmanke. Learn more about this show over at Grimandmild dot com, and for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.