A Difficult Post: Respecting Victims Amidst the Paranormal

This post is a difficult one—both as a paranormal investigator and ITC researcher with a conscience. I've often discussed the fine line between speculation, intention, and the need for solid data when presenting the supernatural. But when the subject involves horrific tragedies, like those at the hands of serial killers Herb Baumeister and Larry Eyler, it's important to tread even more carefully. Both men terrorized the gay community in the '80s and '90s, and I feel an added responsibility when discussing such events to avoid exploitation. Respect for the victims must always come first.

What We Know for Certain About Herb Baumeister

So, what do we know for sure? Herb Baumeister became the central suspect in the disappearances and deaths of numerous men connected to Indianapolis’s gay community. He was known to frequent Indianapolis gay bars in search of men, including the 501 Eagle, and investigators believe he brought victims back to his former residence, Fox Hollow Farm, where the remains of numerous men were eventually discovered.

Beyond that, unexplainable paranormal phenomena have been reported at both Fox Hollow Farm and the former 501 Eagle. Are they conclusively connected on a spiritual level? I can’t say for certain, but the audio recordings from our ITC sessions at the 501 suggest to me that something there may still be responding to that dark history. During these sessions, we captured EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) that seemed to directly reference aspects of the location’s past, leaving us with more questions than answers.

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Honoring the Victims, Not the Killer

This post is a tribute to the victims, not to Herb or any other monster. My hope is that if any spirits do return to the old 501 Eagle, it's by their own choice—a visit to a place that once brought them joy and community. We ultimately know very little about ghosts, spirits, or how the afterlife operates—if it even exists. But what we do know for certain is that the men who frequented the 501 Eagle were real, flesh-and-blood people with vibrant lives. If the brick and mortar of the 501 holds their fond memories, then may they live on there forever, in peace. Regardless of how the old 501 chooses to speak, may we always listen to remember their lives, not just their tragic ends.

A Memorial for the Victims of Fox Hollow Farm

In August 2024, a long-overdue memorial to the victims whose remains were recovered at Fox Hollow Farm was dedicated at Hamilton Memorial Park Cemetery. in Westfield. The limestone monument stands in honor of the known and unknown men connected to the case and provides a permanent place for families, friends, and the public to remember the lives behind a story too often dominated by the name of their suspected killer. It's an important step toward recognizing their suffering and ensuring they are never forgotten.

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Honoring My Friend, Jason L. Ammerman

It is with a heavy heart that I also share the loss of my dear friend Jason L. Ammerman, who passed away on August 25, 2024. Jason was born on July 20, 1973, and was not only one of the finest poets to ever walk the streets of Indianapolis, but a dedicated amateur historian of the city. He often said his roots lie somewhere between James Whitcomb Riley, Etheridge Knight, Miles Davis, and KISS. Jason was proud of his Indiana heritage, and to me, he was a brother.

We met in 2007 and soon began performing spoken word together as The Reservoir Dogwoods with fellow Hoosier poets Joseph Kerschbaum and Tony Brewer. Jason loved a good ghost story—I believe that, for him, ghosts were poetry. Over the years, we shared many paranormal conversations and adventures. When he began working at the remodeled building that was the old 501 Eagle and experienced strange phenomena, he was both intrigued and unnerved. He wanted to connect with the place, but in a sincere, respectful way—never in a sensational manner. In fact, our first visit there together didn’t even mention serial killers.

Jason passed just days before the memorial for the Fox Hollow Farm victims was placed. I know Jason would have approved of that memorial, just as he graciously contributed a beautiful tribute poem to these men before his own passing. It’s an honor to include his work here. Jason will be deeply missed. May they all rest in peace.

Respectfully,

Evel Ogilville

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PEARL BEFORE SWINE

Dedicated to the memory of the victims of Herb Baumeister and his murderous spree, known and unknown

We speak of dark things
The attractive
The taboo
Their names are left of
Tongues dried
Wilted

These flowers
Dead in their stems
Their aromas staled

And we are left
Exalting murder as a sitcom
To watch
Tasteless
Drowning in the phantasmagoria of flickering images
Faces of the hopeless
Trapped in cells

This was their happy place
But no more

We embrace the dark things
The teeth that gnash at skin
Revealing the meat beneath
These men
Their names like Robert or William or Unknown
Their bones covered just enough to not attract attention
For many years
Just underneath the soil
Disturbed
We are
This is
Disturbing

The method is no different than most predators
Lure/love/then kill
Lure/love/then kill
Leaving them breathless
Empty husks
The taboo

And we are mocked for wanting to help
Dirty phrases
Echoed through empty rooms and we
Red in the face
Do not offer our names lurking
An attempt to be respectful of
Shadows blatantly rubbing against
Bodies
They have no bodies
Just bones
And names
Forgotten
No consequence for the actions of
Lure/love/then kill

There was a time for
These beautiful creatures
Their sensitivity finding a home
Within these walls
To safely exist
To be open of who they are
At a time when being open meant death

The irony is not lost here

We embrace the dark things
Trying to make sense of it all
What does it mean to love?
What does love look like?
A shadow peering from the corners
A voice sighing in the lower decibels
What does love?

There are faces here
Watching from other dimensions
Consensual sex and paying for it through
Asphyxiated
Left breathless
Alone
Forgotten
Names or no names

There are faces here
Victims of change and denial of epidemics

It can’t happen here
This is America
This is the land of the free
Except this
Life
Style
Lure/love/then kill

We embrace the dark things
Until it becomes personal

I have spent many moments with these ghosts
Their frustration imparted upon my soul
Their anguish flickering lights
Their anger banging walls and slamming doors
Wanting to set fire to these bricks
It is dark and things are not of the sense that
We make out of it for
We will never know what it was like

The final breaths manipulated by a predator
Be they human or
A virus or
Cancer or
Loneliness

The predator is always in the wings
Fuck you for stealing these breaths
That is from them
Your victims

Fuck you for being a monster
A fake
A wanna be
A teddy bear manufactured of money

Fuck you for not caring enough to leave them
For families to bury
You stole that simple dignity
After stealing their dignity in being who they were
Through a spell cast as a false sense of security

They say to never cast pearls before swine
But nonetheless
These pearls will never have the joy
Of being cast in an awestruck appearance
Of being in love forever

The swine stole them
The pearls
But we are here to steal the swine back
To offer the pearls a beautiful home

This is from them
Your victims
They are here
You are outside
Not allowed in
They are protected
By us
The living
Who want to rectify
The acts of the past
The misery they feel
Is not on you tenfold
In hell

Herb, rot in hell!
This is from them

© 2021 Jason L. Ammerman

Update: The Case Continues

Since this piece first went up, the Baumeister case has moved forward in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison reopened the identification effort in 2022, bringing modern DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy to the thousands of burned, crushed, weathered, and commingled bone fragments recovered from Fox Hollow back in 1996. The renewed effort has since identified Allen Livingston in 2023 and Daniel Thomas Halloran in 2025, bringing the number of named Fox Hollow victims to 10.

But even that number doesn’t tell the whole story. Modern forensic work has established that the recovered remains represent at least 13 distinct individuals, while investigators have long believed the total number of people represented at Fox Hollow could be substantially higher—possibly as many as 25. Current forensic accounts describe approximately 10,000 bones and bone fragments recovered from the property. The identification effort remains active, which means the story is still changing nearly three decades after Baumeister’s death.

That renewed investigation is also the subject of ABC News Studios’ 2025 docuseries The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer, which went on to earn an Emmy nomination and became ABC News Studios’ most-watched Hulu docuseries of that year. Its 2026 follow-up, Return to Fox Hollow: New Victims, Darker Secrets. The follow-up explores potential accomplices, missing evidence, and evolving witness accounts—reviving a question that has hovered around this case for years: Did Herb act alone?

The 2026 documentary also raises Thomas Ackerman, who died in 2024 and was never charged, as a person warranting renewed scrutiny in connection with that question. Former Noblesville Daily Ledger reporter Laura Musall revisits original case material and evidence while exploring Ackerman’s possible significance. Whatever conclusions viewers draw from the documentary, any suggestion that Ackerman participated in Baumeister’s crimes remains an allegation or investigative theory—not a criminal finding. I’ll treat it as such until something more definitive surfaces.

I want to flag one more thing carefully because older reporting and newer documentaries can make this part of the story confusing. The man historically identified in books and articles under the pseudonym “Tony Harris” is Mark Goodyear, who has now appeared publicly under his own name. Older accounts describe “Tony Harris” as the surviving witness who met a man calling himself “Brian Smart” and survived a strangulation encounter. Information subsequently obtained by one of his friends, including Baumeister’s license plate number, helped investigators connect the mysterious “Brian Smart” to Herb Baumeister.

Goodyear’s more recent public accounts add other details and have drawn renewed scrutiny in the documentaries. He has described himself as “not an accomplice, not a victim, never attacked,” and has never been charged in connection with Baumeister’s crimes. That creates an obvious tension with some of the older accounts published under the Tony Harris pseudonym. Rather than pretending that contradiction is resolved, I think the responsible thing is to leave it where the evidence currently leaves it: Goodyear is an important witness whose evolving account remains part of an active and complicated historical record.

None of this changes what I wrote above. If anything, it sharpens it. We still don’t know the full scope of what happened at Fox Hollow Farm. We don’t know exactly how many men died because of Baumeister, whether every crime attributed to him was his, or whether anyone else participated. And some of the men represented among those thousands of fragments are still waiting to get their names back.

That is ultimately why I keep returning to the same point: The mystery may draw us into the story, but the victims are the reason we should remember it.

Notes:

Special thank you to Richard Estep and his book The Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm.

I recently came across this article, which I also found enjoyable:

Tales From the Underworld — Was Herb Baumeister the Notorious I-70 Strangler? Compelling Evidence Indicates He Likely Was, by Kirsten Ford

Source Notes for 2026 Update

• Associated Press reporting on the renewed Hamilton County identification effort and the determination that at least 13 individuals are represented among the Fox Hollow remains.

• Indiana State Police Forensic Services Division / The ISHI Report, May 2026, describing the continuing Fox Hollow victim-identification effort and approximately 10,000 recovered bones and bone fragments.

• ABC News Studios, The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer (Hulu, 2025).

• ABC News Studios, Return to Fox Hollow: New Victims, Darker Secrets (Hulu, 2026).

• WTHR reporting on the August 2024 Fox Hollow Farm victims memorial at Hamilton Memorial Park Cemetery.

• WRTV reporting on the identification of Allen Livingston and historical reporting on the investigation into Herb Baumeister.

Notes:

Special thank you to Richard Estep and his book The Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm.

I recently came across this article, which I also found enjoyable:

Tales From the Underworld

Was Herb Baumeister the Notorious I-70 Strangler? Compelling Evidence Indicates He Likely Was

Early Life and Troubles…

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2 years ago · 1 like · Kirsten Ford

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