WESTFIELD, Ind. — Investigators say they've found more remains of a man identified as a victim of suspected serial killer Herb Baumeister.
Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison said human remains recovered in 1996 from Baumeister's Fox Hollow Farm in Westfield have been identified as those of Jeffrey A. Jones, who was reported missing in August 1993. Jones' last known address was in Fillmore, Indiana, which is in Putnam County.
The remains identified are the third to be identified from Jellison's renewed investigation into the more than 10,000 remains recovered from Fox Hollow Farm.
In the mid-1990s, investigators identified eight men from the thousands of bones and bone fragments found on Baumeister's property. Even now, though, many of those remains are still unidentified and have been sitting on a shelf at the University of Indianapolis.
The process has not been an easy one.
"These remains are 30 years old. They've been burnt, they've been crushed, so that makes our DNA efforts difficult," Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison said.
Jones is one of more than likely two dozen men who investigators believe were alleged victims of Baumeister. Investigators already identified some of Jones' remains almost 30 years ago.
Now, they have identified more.
"I think it's important that we give the opportunity to these families to bring as much of their loved one home," Jellison explained of the ongoing effort to identify the remains stored at UIndy.
It started two years ago, when Jellison did a callout for people with male family members missing from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s to submit DNA samples.
Investigators hoped to match those samples to the DNA profiles developed from remains tested by the Indiana State Police.
According to the coroner, this latest match to remains belonging to Jones didn't come from a DNA sample from his family.
Instead, the FBI discovered it after taking the DNA profile from the remains and putting that profile into a database that tracks DNA profiles from genealogy websites.
Right now, Jellison said they still have four DNA profiles with no matches to any of the DNA samples collected from family members of suspected victims. They're hoping the FBI will find a match for those four the way they did with these latest remains belonging to Jones.
"The power of genetic genealogy in this type of investigation just really, really adds to our ability to identify unidentified people," Jellison said.
If some remains go unidentified or unclaimed, Jellison said they plan to create a memorial where those remains that have been cremated can be placed.
"These people don't belong on a shelf, and we need to get them to a final resting spot, and that includes all of them,” Jellison said.
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Baumeister is suspected of ending the lives of at least 25 young men, and investigators believe he could be behind the disappearance of many more.
As police honed in on Baumeister the summer of 1996 following his own son's discovery of a skull in the family's backyard, the once-prominent businessman fled across the Canadian border and ended his own life.
With his death, Baumeister ensured the families of his many suspected victims never got closure on how their loved one's lives ended. That included the family of Allen Livingston, whose mother believed strongly in the years after her son's disappearance that Allen's remains were among those at Fox Hollow.
"I know he's there," Sharon told 13News in 2022. "I know he's there. I know that man got him. I just know it. I feel that. I know.”
Even three decades after her son's disappearance, Sharon held onto the wired telephone line she had in her west Indianapolis home for close to 40 years.
In October 2023, investigators confirmed human remains recovered from Fox Hollow Farm matched a Livingston family reference sample that was submitted in late 2022.
Then, in January 2024, Jellison said human remains recovered in 1996 from Fox Hollow Farm in Westfield were identified as those of Manuel Resendez, who was reported missing in August 1993.