Fox Hollow Farms Murders
I got onto Hulu the other day to watch one of my obsessions (Couples Therapy) and saw a follow-up episode was being released of the Fox Hollow Farms Murders documentary. I immediately freaked out because I had watched season one when it released and it had stuck with me ever since. Before starting the new episode, I went back to re-watch the first season and I want to talk about it. First, let’s do a broad overview of the alleged crimes, but I highly recommend watching the documentary to get all of the information or you won’t fully understand the rest of this article. The documentary is called The Fox Hollow Murders: Playground of a Serial Killer and can be streamed on Hulu. All of the information from this article is obtained from this documentary.
The Fox Hollow Farm Murders
In 1996, human remains were discovered on an Indiana property owned by a wealthy businessman named Herb Baumeister. Police were led to the property after a man came forward saying he had narrowly escaped being a victim of Herb. This survivor, Mark Goodyear, detailed how Herb had picked him up at a bar in Indianapolis and took him back to Fox Hollow Farm. Once there, Mark alleges that Herb tried to drug and kill him through erotic asphyxiation. When police served a search warrant on the Fox Hollow property, tens of thousands of human remains were discovered in just one area of the property alone. It is important to note that the remains were discovered were all bone fragments, not complete skeletons. Some remains were shallowly buried and some were just laying in the open. Police also discovered a burn pile in the woods on the property where a large number of human remains were found.
Herb was not immediately arrested due to there not being enough physical evidence linking him directly to the murders, though he was the prime suspect. Days later, before he was even interviewed by police, Herb was found deceased in a Canadian park with a single gunshot to the head. Herb did leave a note stating he regretted how his marriage and business had both failed, but made no mention of the remains found on his property and did not confess to any crimes. Herb’s death was ruled a suicide and the investigation into the remains found on Fox Hollow Farms stalled, essentially going cold for many years.
My Theories
What if Mark and Herb getting together was more than just dating or friendship? What if it was two people recognizing a darkness in each other? A darkness they would go on to explore together for many years. What if Mark was actually the dominant in the duo and Herb was the more docile one? Let’s remove Mark’s statement to the police altogether for a moment. Without that statement, we know men were picked up from gay bars in Indianapolis, the same gay bars that Mark and Herb had been seen in frequently. We also know that those men somehow ended up at Fox Hollow Farm and were never seen or heard from again. Finally, we know that remains were found on the property, later identified as some of these missing men. That’s it. That’s all we know about the crimes. What we don’t know is what actually happened between the time the victims left the bar and when they died. We don’t know who actually killed them or where the actual crime scene (specific spot on the property) of these victims occurred. We know from Herb’s lawyer that Herb had reached out to him and spoke about a man named Mark Goodyear that was stalking him and just generally a bad guy. This is where Mark’s statement to police comes back into play and leads the police to Fox Hollow Farms and the thousands of human remains later found. We know Herb was dead a short time after this exchange. Mark later stated in an interview that his statement to police was false and he was not a victim of Herb.
The point I’m trying to make here is that any speculation of what went on at the farm with the victims and how they ended up deceased comes solely from Mark’s admittedly-false statement to the authorities. There’s a lot we don’t know because there’s little to no physical evidence in this case. Based on everything I saw in the first season of this documentary, I have the following theories;
Herb did not act alone and Mark was willingly involved in the murders.
Mark was the dominant personality in their relationship.
Herb did not kill himself and Mark, at the very least, knows what actually happened to him.
Let’s break these down and look at evidence that supports each one. My first theory is that Herb did not act alone and Mark was willingly involved in the murders. We know that Mark’s statement to police about being a survivor of Herb is false because he plainly admits it in multiple interviews over the years. He admits that he went to police and made the statement so they could get a search warrant for Fox Hollow. This Hulu documentary is Mark’s most recent interview and he outlines a new version of his story. Mark states that he suspected Herb of being responsible for the dissapearances and confronts him about it. They end up back at Fox Hollow where Mark says he drugged Herb, but it only lasted about forty minutes. I think it speaks volumes that Mark had forty minutes to leave if he was really that scared of Herb, but didn’t. Mark also states he had gone to the police multiple times over the time he knew Herb and no one would listen to him, but no such police reports could be found. He also claimed he was warning everyone at the gay bars in Indianapolis that Herb was a bad guy, but that could not corroborated either. Essentially, each of Mark’s stories over the years has gaping holes and falls apart under scrutiny. For Mark to have the intimate knowledge he does of the murders and what Herb was doing on the farm, he had to be involved to some degree.
Mark later states in the interview that Herb admitted all of his crimes to Mark and confessed to killing 56 people. Herb also supposedly confessed to having a video camera hidden in a vent in another room. This camera apparently had perfect line of sight to a chaise lounge in one of the sitting rooms. In a previous interview with a journalist, Mark admitted to actually dating Herb for over two years prior to the police investigation. Due to his contradictory storytelling and immaculate knowledge of the supposed crimes, I believe he was willingly involved in whatever took place on that farm. I can hear you asking, “then why would Mark get involved with the documentary and talk about the crimes?”. Personally, I think he’s bragging. I think he’s confessing in the most roundabout way possible so he can show off what he did. If my theory is correct, then he helped commit an unknown amount of murders and got away with it. He’s proud of himself.
My second theory is that Mark was the dominant personality in their relationship, meaning Herb was more submissive. I previously stated that Herb had left a message with his lawyer stating that Mark was stalking him and just generally not a good guy. He also expressed fear of Mark in that message and the hope that Mark wouldn’t do anything to his family once Herb was gone. To me, this suggests that Herb’s relationship with Mark was more fear-based which would mean that Mark was holding the power. We can also look at what Mark himself says to show support for my theory. For example, Mark likes to take control of the conversation and speak in riddles. He tells one journalist “not an accomplice, not a victim, never attacked. What am I?” in a series of text messages. In my mind, the answer could either be witness or partner. In my experience, people that speak in riddles are showcasing their intelligence and power over you. Mark also likes to leave what I call “breadcrumb bombs” in his interviews. He will make a statement that seems to hint at something big, but when asked a follow-up question he refuses to elaborate. For example, when asked if he thought Herb killed himself, Mark replies that he’ll discuss that at a later time because “I’m not trying to do 25”. Hinting that he has intimate knowledge of a pivotal event, but won’t share. Again, this signals to me that he is taking control of the narrative and showing how much more powerful he is than you because he has knowledge you want, but can’t get. This constant need to be in control leads me to believe that he was doing the same thing with Herb, placing him in a position of power.
That last example leads perfectly into my third theory that Herb did not kill himself and Mark, at the very least, knows what actually happened to him. Making a statement that you’re “not trying to do 25” implies that Herb was actually murdered and you know who did it and how it happened. He then went on to state that Herb’s fingers were extremely swollen at his time of death and there was no way he could have pulled the trigger himself. How would Mark know what Herb looked like at the time of his death unless he was there? Herb was killed in a park in Canada days after the last time Mark had reportedly seen him so Mark would have no way of knowing what Herb looked like at his time of death unless he was there. I’m not saying Mark was necessarily the one that killed Herb, but I do believe he was at least present at the scene when it happened.
PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL OF THIS INFORMATION INCLUDED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE FACTS FROM THE DOCUMENTARY AND MY OWN PERSONAL THEORIES. NO CHARGES HAVE EVER BEEN FILED AGAINST HERB BAUMEISTER OR MARK GOODYEAR IN CONNECTION WITH THE FOX HOLLOW FARM MURDERS. THIS IS STILL AN ONGOING INVESTIGATION.
So What’s Next?
I would love to hear your theories about this case and if you think I missed the mark with mine. I will be watching the follow-up episode soon and post another article with how these theories may have changed or if I have additional theories to share. I know this is not my typical content, but true-crime documentaries are a huge passion of mine and there are some that just stick with me more than others. Let me know if you would like to see more (or less) of this content and give me suggestions for future documentaries/articles.
Until Next Time,
Happy Sleuthing
