An Indiana said reported Thursday that the remains found on the property of a presumed serial killer have been identified as Manuel Resendez, a man reported missing in 1993.
According to Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison, the remains of 34-year-old Manuel Resendez were found on Herbert Baumeister’s former property, at a Fox Hollow Farm estate in Westfield. The remains were initially found in 1996 among “10,000 charred bones and bone fragments” found at the estate, which could be the remains of at least 25 victims, investigators said.
CBS 4 reports that the “work of many forensic specialists” helped identify Resendez.
Baumeister, who took his own life in 1996, is suspected of enticing gay men to his home, where he killed them and disposed of their bodies at the rear of his property.
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Investigators suspected that Baumeister, a married father of three at the time who frequented gay bars, enticed unsuspecting men to his property to murder them. By 1999, investigators connected him to the disappearance of at least 16 men since 1980.
Some of the victims’ bodies were discovered discarded in shallow streams in rural central Indiana and western Ohio.
In 2022, Jellison started a renewed initiative to identify the victims. Investigators urged the relatives of young men who vanished between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s to submit DNA samples.
“I would like to thank the entire team of law enforcement and forensic specialists that have come together to support this effort,” Jellison said.
Anyone who believes a loved one may have been victim of Baumeister is urged to contact the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office.
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[Feature Photo: Herbert Baumeister/Police Handout; Manuel Resendez/Hamilton County Coroner]
