Man identified on suspected serial killer's property with 10,000 pieces of human remains
The remains of a man who disappeared in the 1990s has been found on a suspected serial killer's property.
Allen Livingston was 27 years old when he disappeared in 1993. His remains were among around 10,000 fragments which were found by police at a farm which formerly belonged to Herbert Baumeister, a suspected serial killer.
Baumeister killed himself in 1996, not long after police obtained a warrant for his arrest, and so was never put on trial.
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Police had been questioning him about a string of gay men who had gone missing in Westfield Indiana in the 1980s and 1990s.
Investigators have since recovered some 10,000 fragments of human remains from the 18 acre site called Fox Hollow.
Police cottoned on to Baumeister after a man called Tony Harris claimed that he met him at a gay bar in 1994, and that Baumeister had later attempted to strangle him.
He alleged that after returning to the Fox Hollow property, the men had begun to have sex, and that Baumeister had tried to strangle him using a pool hose.
Harris said that he had pretended to pass out, which made Baumeister drop his guard for long enough for him to escape the property.
Baumeister had also been married at the time and had a 15-year-old son, who claimed to have discovered a human skull on the property.
When confronted about the skull by his wife, he claimed that the skull was probably left over from his father's work as a physician, which she accepted for two years.
Police have previously said they believe that the 10,000 pieces of remains represent around 25 individuals.
At the time police had enough evidence of human remains at the property to justify an arrest warrant, but Baumesiter fled to Canada, where he died by suicide.
Allen Livingston's mother Sharon told WTHR last year that she believed his remains would be found at the property.
She said: “I know that man got him, I just know. I’m pretty sure they are going to find him. I just know they are.”
Tragically, she was ultimately proven right when fragments of bone found at the property were identified as belonging to Livingston.
Livingston's cousin approached the coroner to ask him to speed up the identification process and provide the family with some closure.
Coroner Jeff Jellison said: “What are the odds, out of 10,000 remains? Out of 10,000, we selected 44 and the first identification is a person from the family that initiated this whole thing. Where does that come from?”
Kit Roberts