Herbert The Pervert

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Welcome to ten Minute Murder, Brief
and Bingeible True Crime. I'm Joe the

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host. Thank you for joining today, and I'm a little bit sleepy today.

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I'm gonna be honest. I stayed
up too late last night. I

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wish I could blame that on someone
else, but the call is coming from

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inside the house on this one.
I mean, it's kind of your fault.

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Some of you have asked me to
watch Barry and let me know what

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I think about it, and I'm
almost afraid to tell you what I think

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so far. I'm not even finished
with the first season, but it's a

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struggle. It's not that good.
I wanted it to be really good.

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And maybe the problem is it's the
main role of Barry, who is hired

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killer. That's what he is,
the main role. It's played by a

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guy who I've only ever seen in
comedies, and I keep expecting him to

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be funny, and he's not funny. But I think any moment now he's

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gonna say something funny, and it's
not funny. And another part of the

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problem may be that one of my
favorite all time shows is Dexter a serial

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killer, and this is Barry.
I guess kind of a serial killer.

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He's a hired killer, so he
is a serial killer. It just feels

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like a low key rip off.
I don't know, but that's why I'm

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tired. I'm trying to get through
the first season and so far, no

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boy now. And I know you
guys keep telling me it's going to get

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better. You have to wait through
the boring parts and it eventually gets better.

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So I'm waiting on that, so
we'll see how it goes. Hey,

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if this is your first time listening
to ten Minute Murder, please subscribe

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please leave a rating and review any
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ten Minute Murder dot com for all
things related to ten Minute Murder. Now

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to today's story. In the nineteen
nineties, gay men were an easy target

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for prowling killers and sexual predators.
Many witnesses would avoid coming forward, refusing

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to admit that they'd been having a
homosexual encounter or been present at a gay

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bar. In a way, some
of these victims could have been killed an

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almost plain sight. People would pretend
they didn't see it, But investigators in

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the Indianapolis Police Department had been working
hard for years trying to make connections between

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missing gay men who seemed to have
several common characteristics similar height, similar weight,

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and age, last seen in the
same general location. It all had

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the makings of the work of a
serial killer. Finally, in nineteen ninety

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two, a breakthrough came when a
witness came forward, identifying himself as Tony

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Harris. Tony told investigators that he
believed his friend, Roger Goodlett, had

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been murdered by a regular at a
gay bar that they attended. Tony had

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noticed that the suspect, who went
by the name Brian Smart, had also

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shown unusual amount of interest in Roger's
disappearance. Also, Tony knew that Brian

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was violent. In the past,
Brian had attempted to asphyxiate Tony to death

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with a poolho'se Tony managed to escape
the attack, but Brian Smart was an

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alias, and without the man's real
name, there were no further leads.

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Three years later, Tony saw Brian
again. He recognized his assailant instantly.

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He followed his car and was able
to write down the license plate number.

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Once again, Tony went straight to
the police with his findings, and this

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time it gave them the connection they
needed to move the investigation forward. A

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name. The license plate number that
Tony wrote down belonged to a local man

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by the name of Herbert Ballmeister.
From an early age, Herb Baumeister was

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already earning the media nickname that would
one day be given Herbert the Pervert.

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By all accounts, there was no
childhood trauma that led him to developing his

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obsession with obscure and obscene sexual fetishes. In fact, he led the cookie

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cutter childhood. Born to well off
parents and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana,

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along with three younger siblings, Herb
wasn't shy about discussing his fascination with one

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particular body function, urine. He
was obsessed, and several of his childhood

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friends remembered young Herbert wondering what would
it be like to taste human urine?

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In school, he acted out by
urinating on the desks of several teachers.

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It wasn't just urin that fascinated Herbert, though, he was also intrigued by

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death and dying. This led to
a frequent antisocial hobby of playing with the

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corpses of dead animals. When Herbert's
father, a very well respected anaesthesia logists,

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found out about Herbert's strains obsessions,
he took action immediately. Herbert was

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assessed by a mental health professional who
diagnosed the young boy with both antisocial personality

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disorder and schizophrenia. However, despite
these serious diagnosises at such a young age,

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there was never any push for Herbert
to receive any further mental health treatment.

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For the rest of his high school
years, Herb remained socially withdrawn and

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outcast. In adulthood, Herbert continued
to make everybody around him uncomfortable. He

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was a bizarre mix of character traits, managing to hold down jobs because of

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his dog work effort and then losing
them in a repeated cycle. He got

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married in nineteen seventy one, and
he had three children with his wife,

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Julianna. Despite Julianna reporting that she
has never seen Herbert naked, and in

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fact the couple had sexual intercourse less
than ten times during their twenty five year

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long relationship, Julianna tried her best
to be understanding about Herb's glaring health issues,

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which placed a significant strain on their
relationship. Within six months of their

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wedding, Herb's father had him committed
to a mental hospital. Initially, after

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investigators got a hold of Herbert's license
plate number, he refused to allow investigators

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to search his property, and Julianna
backed up her husband's demands. There was

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no hard evidence to connect him to
the case, and police couldn't really push

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that any further. However, Herbert's
unusual and often frightening behavior was getting worse,

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and shortly after he was identified as
a suspect in the missing persons cases,

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Julianna decided that she wanted to get
a divorce. She'd had enough of

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Herberts and his secrets, and she
held one final trump card over him.

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After she filed for divorce, she
finally gave investigators permission to search the farm

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they lived on while Herbert was out
of town. A search of Herbert's property

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confirmed suspicions that he was a killer. Eleven sets of human remains were located,

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with eight bodies able to be positively
identified. What investigators didn't realize was

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that one of these bodies had possibly
been discovered earlier by Herbert's own child.

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One day in nineteen ninety four,
Herbert's son found a human skeleton buried in

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the backyard of the family home.
He told his parents about what he had

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found, and Herb reassured him that
the skeleton was actually a dissecting skeleton that

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had been given to him by his
father. Then he reburied it with no

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explanation as to why it was in
their yard in the first place. And

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it's honestly pretty incredible that this lie
was believed by anyone, because who buries

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a medical specimen in their own yard
and then later reburies it. It was

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obvious that Herb's family had seen the
skeleton of one of the missing men.

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Police issued a warrant for Herbert's arrest, suspecting that his property had been searched,

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and knowing that his secret he had
spent so long concealing was about to

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be revealed. Herb could not allow
himself to be arrested, and his opinion,

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his life was already in town and
this was the final straw. He

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drove to Lake Huron and shot himself
in the head at a park, leaving

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behind a three page suicide note which
incredibly did not mention the disappearances or explain

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the eleven bodies found on his property. Instead, he used his suicide note

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to express regret for his failed career
and impending divorce. The bodies found on

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Herbert's land were called the Fox Hollow
Farm Victims, the name of Herbert's eighteen

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acre woodland's property. Although eight of
the victims were able to be identified,

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all of the males who went missing
in Indianapolis, most of them Gay,

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three are still unknown, despite the
coroner's office making public appeals for members of

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the public to carry out DNA tests. It's widely believed that there are many

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more human remains on the property and
that these were not Herbert's only victims.

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In fact, Herbert is believed to
be responsible for more than just the Fox

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Hollow Farm killings. He became the
prime suspect in another case, uncaptured serial

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killer known as the I seventy strangler. As the name suggests, this killer

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strangled his victims to death then dumped
them close to Interstate seventy throughout the eighties

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and early nineties, and like Herbert, he preferred to target men, but

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also killed young boys. Bodies of
the ice seventy Strangler's victims stopped being dumped

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near the Interstate during nineteen ninety one, exactly when Herbert bought the Farm Hollow

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property. Investigators believed that with eighteen
acres of woodland at his disposal, Herbert

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switched from dumping the bodies and risking
evidence being discovered to disposing of his victims

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on his own property. If Herbert
truly was the I seventy Strangler, his

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victim count is much higher than the
reported number. There were eleven confirmed victims

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of the strangler in addition to the
still unknown amount of bodies on Herbert's farm.

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Two other missing gay men, Alan
Livingstone and Jerry Williams Comber are also

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believed to have been killed by Herbert, Although the bodies were never found.

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It's unknown if Herbert ever had any
other disposal sites for bodies or if Interstate

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seventy and Foxhallow Farm were the only
resting places for his victims. In twenty

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twenty two, a fresh search of
Foxhollow Farm located yet another piece of human

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body, as well as identifying a
total of twenty separate locations where human remains

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may have been buried deep underground.
So many questions remain, what was his

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motive, why did he start killing? And who was his first victim?

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And the big question, how many
victims are there in total? In Herbert's

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final action, by putting a gun
to his own head and leaving behind a

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pointless suicide note, he ensured that
those answers would be as difficult to find

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as possible. Although Herbert the Pervert
left his victims families and his own family

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without closure or justice, some of
his darkest secrets are likely still buried on

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the farm that he, his wife, and his children once called home.