Herbert Richard Baumeister (April 7, 1947 – July 3, 1996) was an American businessman and suspected serial killer. A resident of the Indianapolis suburb of Westfield, Indiana, Baumeister was under investigation for murdering over a dozen men in the early 1990s, most of whom were last seen at gay bars. Police found the remains of eleven men, eight identified, on Baumeister's property. Baumeister committed suicide after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was later linked to a series of murders of at least twelve men along Interstate 70, which occurred in the early to mid-1980s. Early life Herbert Baumeister was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, the oldest of four children born to Herbert and Elizabeth Baumeister. His childhood was reportedly normal but he began exhibiting anti-social behavior by the onset of adolescence, playing with dead animals and urinating on a teacher's desk. In his teens, Baumeister was diagnosed with schizophrenia but did not receive further psychiatric treatment. In 1965, Baumeister attended Indiana University for a semester before dropping out, but returned in 1967. In 1972, he attended a semester at Butler University. As an adult, Baumeister drifted through a series of jobs, marked by a strong work ethic but also by increasingly bizarre behavior. Baumeister married Juliana "Julie" Saiter in November 1971, a union that produced three children. Julie later said they had been sexually intimate only six times in over 25 years of marriage. In the 1970s, Baumeister was committed to a psychiatric hospital by his father; his wife said he was "hurting and needed help." Baumeister founded the successful Sav-A-Lot thrift store chain (two stores total) in Indianapolis in 1988. Investigation By the early 1990s, investigators with the Marion County Sheriff's Department and the Indianapolis Police Department began investigating the disappearances of gay men of similar age, height, and weight in the Indianapolis area. In 1992, they were contacted by a man named Tony Harris claiming that a gay bar patron calling himself "Brian Smart" had killed a friend of his, and had attempted to kill him with a pool hose during an erotic asphyxiation session. Harris eventually saw this man again in August 1995, following his car and noting his license plate number. From this data, police identified "Brian Smart" as Herb Baumeister. Investigators approached Baumeister, told him he was a suspect in the disappearances, and asked to search his house. Both Baumeister and his wife,