Fox Hollow Farm victim identified decades after killing spree in Westfield, Indiana
The Hamilton County Coroner has identified the remains of a victim believed slain by Herbert Baumeister at Fox Hollow Farm more than three decades ago.
Allen Livingston, of Indianapolis, who went missing when he was 27 years old in August 1993, was identified using DNA samples at the Indiana State Police lab.
County Coroner Jeff Jellison said Livingston was the first victim to be identified since the office sent a batch of 44 samples to state police roughly 18 months ago.
“His family was also the first to submit a sample,” Jellison said.
Police have linked Baumeister to eight victims found on an 18-acre Fox Hollow Farm off 156th Street and the Monon Trail in Westfield.
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They were among the remains of an estimated 25 people found in June 1996, mostly young, gay men police suspect Baumeister lured from Indianapolis bars to the property before killing them.
Livingston's cousin, Eric Pranger, submitted a DNA sample from Livingston's mother to Jellison because he suspected Livingston could be a victim. Pranger said he was 6 years old when Livingston went missing and didn’t know him well. But he said there was an urgency to the request because Livingston's mother, Sharon, has terminal cancer and deserves an answer.
“I am a ball of emotion right now,” he said. “I am happy and sad. Happy he was identified and sad that it happened.”
Pranger said the disappearance has weighed heavily on Sharon, 77.
“You could see it at the holidays,” he said. “She’d be sad.”
She, too, is processing the new information, and was unavailable for comment, Pranger said.
“She is holding it together,” he said.
Jellison said he did not know the circumstances around Livinsgton's disappearance but past reporting indicates Livingstone was last seen in downtown Indianapolis.
“This is a big success as far as our testing goes but once you think about celebrating you catch yourself because it means that someone was murdered,” Jellison said.
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Livingston has an older brother and a younger sister and brother who grew up on the west side.
Younger brother James Livingston, 53, said he was “relieved to hear he was found.”
“We always thought he could be out there,” but not because he was known to visit the area, Livingston said. It was just an assumption that a lot of missing young men at the time ended up there, he said.
Building DNA profiles
The Indiana State Police lab has gained enough DNA evidence from the bone fragments the coroner submitted to build profiles on four other victims but so far none matches with evidence in the national DNA database, Jellison said.
In addition, the lab still has three older full profiles that don't yet have a match so the potential victims that could be identified stands at 16, Jellison said.
More than 10,000 pieces of remains were excavated and stored at the University of Indianapolis. There are scores more viable samples of DNA that can be tested.
Jellison said the victims were killed and burned and their bone fragments were crushed and buried.
Baumeister, 49, was the owner of Save-A-Lot stores. He shot and killed himself in Canada shortly after law enforcement began investigating Fox Hollow Farm in 1996.
Two years after Baumeister's death, police concluded he also had killed nine other young men whose partially nude bodies were found dumped into shallow streams along I-70 across Central Indiana and western Ohio during the 1980s.
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Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418 or email him at john.tuohy@indystar.com. Follow him on Facebook and X/Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Fox Hollow Farm victim identified decades after killing spree
