A coroner in Indiana investigating the Fox Hollow Farm serial killer said law enforcement “dropped the ball” when the case was first investigated in the 1990s.
Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison announced in April that his office had identified human remains at Fox Hollow Farm in Westfield, Indiana, that belonged to Daniel Thomas Halloran. He was the tenth victim of suspected serial killer Herb Baumeister, whom law enforcement has tied to at least 25 victims.
Jellison told Fox News Digital in an interview that he thinks law enforcement didn’t handle the case as they should have when they were first investigating it.
“I think originally in the investigation, law enforcement did a good job of excavating the remains, but I think as time went on in the investigation, our county really dropped the ball,” Jellison said.
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Jellison said local law enforcement in the late 1990s made victims’ families pay for DNA testing, and he believes they didn’t pursue the possibility of additional victims or suspects aggressively.
“They made the decision not to fund DNA testing to identify potential victims in what might be one of the most prolific serial murders in our country. They put the burden of that DNA testing on the families, the cost of that on the family. And I think there was, from a criminal side, the potential for an additional suspect or suspects exists. And I don’t know that law enforcement pursued that as aggressively as they could have,” he said.
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Detectives believe Baumeister lured gay men into his home during the 1980s and 1990s, and allegedly killed them. He would then bury their bodies across his 18-acre property, which is known as Fox Hollow Farm, according to detectives.
When his family was out of town, Baumeister, who owned the Sav-A-Lot shopping chain, would go to gay bars across the Indianapolis area and allegedly find men to bring home.
Investigators first considered Baumeister a suspect in summer 1995, according to FOX 59. But detectives were unable to access his property until 1996, when around 10,000 bones and bone fragments were found.
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Baumeister killed himself in 1996 at a Canadian park shortly after bone fragments were found on his property by his 15-year-old son, prompting authorities to launch an investigation.
In April 1998, Hamilton County Sheriff James Bradbury said the case was considered closed.
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”If somebody has any information, we don’t care who it is, we’d be happy to look at it,” Bradbury said. ”But Herb Baumeister is the only suspect we have in any of them.”
Families of people allegedly killed by Baumeister spent decades waiting for closure, which Jellison wants to change. He first began an investigation into identifying DNA from the 10,000 bone fragments in 2022.
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Jellison said he “cannot imagine” that law enforcement would push the financial burden of a DNA test onto a victim’s family in today’s world.
“These remains represent victims in a homicide, in a murder. So, to say to the families that if you want to know if your loved one was a victim of a murder, I mean, that’s a tragedy in and of its own,” Jellison said. “I think we’re better today. We’re more sensitive today to victims and family members of victims of crimes.”
The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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