Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison, leading a renewed push to identify victims buried on an Indiana serial killer's estate, says the case's only known survivor has lied to investigators, and that evidence points to a second perpetrator.
Jellison has spoken with Mark Goodyear multiple times. Each conversation left him less convinced Goodyear is telling the truth. Goodyear is the only person known to have survived an encounter with Herb Baumeister, the Westfield, Indiana, businessman suspected of killing at least 25 men in the 1990s. Baumeister died by self-inflicted gunshot in Ontario, Canada, in 1996, at age 49, before police could arrest him. He was never charged.
Three decades later, more than 9,000 bones and bone fragments recovered from Baumeister's 18-acre Fox Hollow Farm property still await examination. Only a handful of victims have names. And the coroner now leading the effort told Fox News Digital that the man best positioned to help identify them has refused to cooperate honestly.
Jellison did not hold back about his exchanges with Goodyear. He said he deliberately asked questions he already knew the answers to, and Goodyear got them wrong.
"The first question I would ask him is, 'Are you ready to be honest with me?' Because in the conversations we've had, he's not been honest. I've asked him questions that I knew the answer to, and he didn't pass that test. So for me to sit down with Mark Goodyear, he's going to have to be willing to be honest in this conversation. I don't have time to sit down with somebody that tells lies, untruths."
Jellison added bluntly: "Mark Goodyear knows a lot about this case."
If Goodyear were willing to talk, Jellison said, his questions would focus on identifying the dead, whether Goodyear recognized anyone connected to the remains, and how those people died. Goodyear has repeatedly denied involvement in any of the disappearances and has never been charged with a crime related to the case. Fox News Digital reached out to him for comment and did not receive a response.
Goodyear initially agreed to sit for an interview in connection with a follow-up documentary produced by ABC News Studios, "Return to Fox Hollow: New Victims, Darker Secrets," now streaming on Hulu. But he never showed up for the scheduled session. He left a voicemail for producers that was included in the film.
Jellison went further in the documentary, raising the possibility that Baumeister did not act alone. He stopped short of naming a suspect but said the physical evidence itself raises serious questions about a single perpetrator.
"I was always convinced that there was more than one. There were a lot of people that lost their lives in this incident, and just the placement of the evidence alone. How does one man pull this crime off? And how does one man get... deceased individuals from his residence to potentially 200 yards through very dense woods? I think it would've been a very difficult task."
He also stated plainly in the film: "There are very strong indications there is another suspect, and it wasn't Mark Goodyear." That distinction matters. Jellison appears to believe Goodyear is withholding information, but not that Goodyear is the second killer.
The Fox Hollow Farm case stretches back to 1994, when Baumeister's own son found a human skull in the woods on the family's estate. Investigators did not search the property until June 1996, a gap of roughly two years. By then, Baumeister had fled to Canada, where he took his own life before police could question him.
When investigators finally dug into the 18-acre property, they unearthed approximately 10,000 burned and broken human bones and bone fragments. Baumeister, who owned the Sav-a-Lot shopping chain, is believed to have frequented gay bars in Indianapolis, lured men to his home while his family was away, and killed them. He used the alias "Brian." The New York Post reported that he went by "Brian Smart" at those bars, targeting young gay men.
Investigators also suspect Baumeister may have filmed victims with a hidden camera concealed in an air vent in his basement. Goodyear, who said he first encountered Baumeister at an Indianapolis gay bar in 1994, described being forced to watch disturbing tapes that year.
"It was like having a camera right up against something. You're not going to be able to tell what's going on, but the minute you got a flash of what was going on, it made you scream."
Goodyear said the encounter with Baumeister involved a disturbing sexual episode. He encountered Baumeister again the following year and helped investigators obtain information that led them to identify the suspect. Hamilton County police questioned Goodyear in 1996.
By the late 1990s, only eight victims had been identified. Then the work stopped. Funding for DNA testing dried up, and the case went cold. Jellison described the institutional mindset at the time without much sympathy. "I can't speak for those investigators, but it was just game over," he told the Associated Press.
A renewed effort, powered by modern DNA technology and forensic genetic genealogy, has since brought new identifications. A ninth victim, Allen Livingston, was identified in October 2023 after a family member's Facebook message prompted investigators to reopen the case. Jeffery Allen Jones, who went missing in 1993, was later confirmed as a victim, and Daniel Thomas Halloran's remains were also identified. The confirmed victim count now stands at 12, with four DNA profiles still unmatched.
A multi-agency team including Indiana State Police, the FBI, and a forensic genetic genealogy firm has received about 40 DNA samples from relatives of potentially missing men. But the scale of the challenge is staggering. Jellison compared it to one of the most complex forensic operations in American history.
"I really believe that this investigation is more complicated in some ways than the World Trade Center. With Fox Hollow, we've recovered these remains, but we have no idea who it is that we're looking for."
The World Trade Center recovery had manifests, passenger lists, employee rosters. Fox Hollow Farm has bone fragments and silence.
Jellison described many of the victims as people who lived on the margins, without close family ties. That isolation makes identification harder and makes the case easier to forget, which is precisely why it sat dormant for years.
"Some of these folks did not have close family connections, and they were somewhat marginalized. So there may be families out there not even knowing that their loved one went missing, much less consider that person was a victim at Fox Hollow."
Time compounds the problem. Thirty years have passed since the remains were recovered. Parents who might have reported a missing son could themselves be dead. Jellison said his office is now reaching out to cousins and more distant relatives, people who may not even know a family member vanished.
On August 29, 2024, first public remembrance services were held for nine identified Fox Hollow Farm victims at Prairie Waters Funeral and Event Center at Hamilton Memorial Park in Westfield. Linda Znachko, founder of the "He Knows Your Name" ministry, partnered with Jellison to create the memorial. Eric Pranger, a cousin of Allen Livingston, captured the bittersweet nature of the identification work after learning his relative's fate. "After Allen was identified I was so excited and then after the fact I asked myself, Now what? I got answers, but what about all the other families?" he said.
After the first docuseries, "The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer," aired in 2025, Jellison's office received roughly 500 emails, phone calls, text messages, and social media messages. The follow-up documentary has kept public attention on the case.
Jellison issued a direct appeal to anyone who believes a missing loved one could be connected to Fox Hollow Farm.
"Come forward. If you don't know what to do or you don't know who to call, call me. I'll get you going in the right direction."
Rob Graves, the current property owner, has pointed to areas behind his home where Baumeister may have dumped multiple bodies. The property itself remains a crime scene in all but name, an 18-acre stretch of Indiana suburbia that still holds answers no one has claimed.
Several open questions hang over the investigation. What exactly does Goodyear know that he will not say? Who is the second suspect Jellison referenced? Were the alleged videotapes ever recovered? And how many of the remaining bone fragments belong to people whose families have spent three decades wondering where they went?
Twenty-five men are believed dead. Twelve have names. One witness won't talk straight. And the coroner who inherited this case is doing what the system should have done a generation ago, treating forgotten victims like they matter. The least the people who know something can do is pick up the phone.
