Cold case investigator’s chilling query about Fox Hollow serial killer Herb Baumeister’s ‘sole survivor’

A cold case investigator has raised a chilling question bout the man who claims to be the sole survivor of the notorious Fox Hollow Farm serial killer, who terrorized Indianapolis’s LGBT community three decades ago.

Back in the early 1990s, wealthy businessman Herb Baumeister prowled gay bars in downtown Indianapolis for young men, before luring them back to his sprawling family estate where he murdered them and discarded their remains around the property.

His nightmarish crimes were finally exposed in 1996, in large part thanks to the account of a lone survivor, Mark Goodyear, who claimed he escaped a terrifying night at Baumeister’s lair.

A search of Baumeister’s 18-acre estate he shared with his wife and three children then uncovered thousands of human bones belonging to victims, many of them burned and ground down into tiny pieces. But, Baumeister fled to Canada and killed himself before he could face justice, taking his dark secrets to the grave.

Now, in the upcoming four-part ABC News Studios docuseries ‘The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer,’ a cold case investigator has suggested the man long believed to be the hero of the story might not be so innocent after all.

In a shocking segment of the show, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, retired Boulder County Sheriff’s Office Detective and cold case investigator Steve Ainsworth has cast doubts on the man who claims to be the sole survivor of Baumeister’s killing spree. 

Rather than being the ‘hero’ who lived to tell the chilling tale, Ainsworth says he thinks Goodyear knows too much to simply have been a victim. 

‘He gives knowledge that he shouldn’t have had – unless he was there,’ says Ainsworth. 

Goodyear denied any involvement in the murders in the ABC News Studios series. 

Ainsworth did not work on the Fox Hollow Farm investigation. He is now retired but continues to work on other cold case investigations. 

In the bombshell ABC News Studios footage, Ainsworth is seen discussing Goodyear with Rob Graves, the current owner of Fox Hollow Farm who has also spent years researching the case.

When Ainsworth asks Graves what he thinks Goodyear’s relationship was with Baumeister, Graves describes Goodyear as a ‘hero’ who exposed the serial killer preying on his own friends and community.

‘Mark, of course, is the one person that Herb didn’t kill,’ Graves says.

Ainsworth presses him: ‘How much do you think he knew?’

‘I think Initially I think these were his friends that were disappearing. And I think eventually he put it together that this might be what’s happening to them,’ Graves says.

‘And Mark’s really the person that brought the authorities to the property.’

He continues: ‘I would characterize him as a hero in this as this could have gone on indefinitely if Mark didn’t say something.’

A skeptical Ainsworth interjects with a shocking claim. 

‘I’ve just seen statements that Mark made and he gives knowledge that he shouldn’t have had – unless he was there,’ the retired cop says in the ABC News Studios docuseries.

‘Do you know about that?’

Graves admits: ‘I can’t explain why.’

Goodyear has long claimed he survived an encounter with Baumeister and it was his story that ultimately unmasked the Indiana serial killer.

It was the early 90s and members of Indianapolis’s LGBT community began noticing that young gay men were mysteriously disappearing, after nights out in the downtown area gay bars. Soon, panic spread that there was a serial killer on the loose.

Then Goodyear allegedly survived an encounter with a creepy man at a huge estate in the suburbs of Indianapolis – and led cops to Baumeister.

The new ABC News Studios docuseries features the first face-to-face, on-camera interview with Goodyear since he first told his story to police three decades ago.

In a trailer for the show, the one man long believed to have escaped from Baumeister’s clutches teases the speculation he has long been shrouded in.

‘Let me ask you: what do you think? Am I the evil culprit? The accomplice?’ Goodyear asks, before breaking into laughter.

‘I’d like to know how the audience views me.’

Elsewhere in the trailer, he is seen inside the still-intact pool room at Fox Hollow Farm where he has previously alleged his near-death encounter took place.

‘Oh this home feels so nice and comfortable. It just wraps itself around you,’ his voice says over the trailer footage.

‘Now, let me tell you a very interesting story,’ he is also heard saying.

Besides Ainsworth, others featured in the ABC News Studios trailer also suggest the infamous serial killer likely had a murderous accomplice – as it is pointed out that ‘everything we know about this case’ comes from Goodyear’s story.

‘How does one man drag all these people into the woods?’ Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison questions. 

Goodyear denies any involvement in the murders. 

According to Goodyear, he met Baumeister in a bar sometime in 1994.

Baumeister was using the alias Brian Stat and invited him to go home with him, he told police at the time.

In a police interview on July 8 1996, Goodyear described how Baumeister drove him to a huge estate where mannequins had been creepily staged to look like people.

In the basement of the home was a swimming pool room and Goodyear said the two men went down there.

He claimed that Baumeister gave him a drink that he believed had been drugged so he went to the bathroom and poured it away.

At one point, Goodyear claimed Baumeister came up behind him and put a pool hose around his neck, trying to strangle him. Because he was sober, he said he managed to break free.

‘I do believe that if I had been severely under the influence that he probably would have went further with me,’ he said in the police interview.

Following the chilling encounter, Goodyear told a police officer investigating the disappearances of the young men in the area and they tried to retrace the steps of that night to find the huge estate, but couldn’t.  

Around two years later, Goodyear then spotted the man again in a bar and his friend noted down Baumeister’s license plate, according to the police interview transcript.

The number was traced to Baumeister and he became the prime suspect in the disappearances of the missing men.

Baumeister’s wife eventually let authorities onto the family estate, after she too had grown suspicious of her husband since her son found a human skull on the property two years earlier.

In June 1996, police searched the property and found thousands of human bones and remains across the vast estate. Eight victims were identified among the remains back then, followed by a ninth in 2023.

With the net closing in, on July 4 1996, Baumeister killed himself in a park in Canada, leaving a suicide note that made no mention of his depraved crimes.

It was Goodyear’s survival story that ultimately led cops to the depraved serial killer who had been masquerading as a married father-of-three and successful businessman and owner of thrift stores in the local community.

But there have long been questions around Goodyear’s version of events, as he has changed details of his story over the years.

Goodyear has never been named a suspect in the case.

No one has ever been charged and no other suspects have ever been named in connection to the serial killer case.

As part of DailyMail.com’s own investigation into the case, we previously asked Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office whether authorities ever looked into the possibility that there was more than one killer.

‘Not that I am aware of,’ a spokesperson said.

Families of the victims have long felt that the case was quickly shuttered because the prime suspect was dead – and because the victims were gay men living in a conservative area in the 90s.

The Fox Hollow Farm case was effectively closed by 1998, with an unknown number of victims still unaccounted for and 10,000 human remains still unidentified.

That same year, law enforcement officials across multiple Indiana and Ohio counties announced that Baumeister was also the likely serial killer responsible for a series of murders along Interstate 70 in the 80s and early 90s, dubbed the ‘I-70 Strangler.’ Investigations into these murders were also shuttered.

In 2022 – almost three decades on – Jellison launched a new investigation into the Fox Hollow Farm murders to identify all 10,000 still-unidentified human remains found at the estate.

The new ABC News Studios docuseries follows the Hamilton County coroner as he works on the case.

Jellison has previously estimated there could be at least 25 victims whose bodies were burned, ground up and discarded around the wealthy Baumeister family’s estate. 

He spoke to DailyMail.com last month revealing it is ‘the second largest investigation into unidentified human remains in United States history, second only to the World Trade Center.’

Since launching the investigation, a ninth victim – Allen Livingston – has been identified.

Jellison revealed to DailyMail.com that the team is now very close to identifying two more victims among the remains.

‘We have one DNA profile right now that we know is another individual but we just don’t know who that person is,’ Jellison said, adding that he is ‘confident’ that 10th victim will be identified soon.

An 11th victim also looks like it will match a family member who has submitted their own DNA to the lab on the belief that their loved one is among the Fox Hollow Farm remains, he told DailyMail.com.

Jellison’s work has also helped identify two more victims not connected to the Baumeister case, providing answers to their families.

‘I feel a moral responsibility to provide families with closure,’ he told DailyMail.com.

‘For every remain we identify or every remains we come up with a DNA profile that is a win.’

The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer’ is produced by One Traveler, an All3Media Company for ABC News Studios. Alex Jablonski is director. Jen Casey, Nick Gilhool, Alex Walton and Jacob-Cohen Holmes are executive producers for One Traveler and All3 Media. Alex Jablonski serves as executive producer, with Angela Borg and Sophie Kruz as co-executive producers. Victoria Thompson serves as executive producer, and David Sloan serves as senior executive producer for ABC News Studios.

‘The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer’ premieres on Hulu on February 18.