Psychics and investigators believe spirits still inhabit Fox Hollow Farm, along with the current homeowners
Rob Graves is a skeptic, even though he and his family members have heard unidentifiable noises, have had lamps move overnight and even seen dismembered figures out the windows of their Westfield home.
“Stuff happens I can’t explain,” he said.
In May 2009, Graves and his wife, Vicki, purchased Fox Hollow Farm – the infamous former home of serial killer Herb Baumeister.
“It all started with my wife seeing a guy in the woods,” Rob said, adding the man was walking around with a red shirt but did not have any legs. “She had seen it twice before telling me about it.”
Graves contacted a paranormal group that was out at the farm a year before his family moved in and was told he lived in “the most haunted house in Indiana.”
“Let me tell you what she saw and where she saw it,” the investigator told Rob, who was surprised when a total stranger repeated what his wife saw word for word.
Another strange occurrence takes place in the basement. Graves said his vacuum is unplugged continuously despite being connected with an extension cord of adequate length.
“We have to say, ‘stop unplugging the sweeper, I need to sweep,’” he said, adding that once spoken the unplugging ends. “It happens routinely.”
Joe LeBlanc, a man who rented an apartment on the property in the farm’s in-law quarters, also has experienced unexplainable activities including having his door kicked in, knocking in the middle of the night, dead bolted doors whip open and items moved overnight. LeBlanc has also seen the red shirt man and other spirits.
“There are places in my house my wife doesn’t like to go – that make her hair stand up on the back of her neck,” he said.
Once such spot is Rob’s bathroom, which psychics described as a portal for spirits to come and go.
“She told me that before anybody else ever said a word,” he said.
Graves has been told by psychics that the phenomenon’s taking place are from unrested souls.
“They’re souls that have not moved on because so many were unidentified they haven’t had any closure,” he said. “It’s not a demonic thing.”
Despite the unexplainable activity, Graves said his family has no plans to move.
“We love it here,” he said. “We want to change the dynamics of what was.”
The Graves said they knew of the farm’s history before purchasing the home, but Rob said he rarely ever thinks about what occurred more than two decades ago. However, the story of what took place and is being reported caught the eye of Indianapolis director Dan T. Hall.
Hall began his paranormal documentary when filming a children’s program for Showtime at Central State Mental Institution in Indianapolis.
“It was Friday the 13th. All this stuff started happening – creepy stuff,” he said.
For six months last year, Hall and a paranormal investigation team, including psychics, crime scene investigators, a demonologist, Electronic Voice Phenomenon and visual specialists, investigated the 18-acre estate for a movie. “The Haunting of Fox Hollow Farm” was the sixth paranormal documentary by Hall, but the most intensive.
“Typically we spend days or a weekend, but we really hoped to find closure,” Hall said.
The goal of the documentary was to find answers for people that were living – using all the tools and methods available, including ground penetrating radar.
“There’s no script. The story is told by investigators,” said Hall. “Our goal was to help families find closure – trying to find evidence. . . We were trying to figure it out.”
“The whole story was swept under the rug,” added Graves. “He (Baumeister) purposely picked people that wouldn’t be missed. . . He was a master manipulator, that was why he got away with it.”
Graves said a majority of the killings occurred in the pool and adjacent room. Once while LeBlanc was swimming alone he was behind the neck. Hall and his team also detected abnormalities in the pool like a psychic who saw a vision of energy and something pops up in the corner of Hall’s eye.
“It was 12:30 p.m. and we were using an IR camera and heard someone come up behind us,” said Hall. “I’m skeptical, but that was a little unnerving.”
“I’ve seen a shadow figure move from right to left into the pump room,” Graves added.
Throughout all his experience and documentaries, Hall said Fox Hollow Farm is intriguing because of all the happenings in one location.
“The evidence is startling, overwhelming and very disturbing,” he said. “I get more creeped out here (in the pool room). It makes me get my radar up. I have trouble being down here by myself.”
“Most places are gone. Few places had this many people killed and are still standing,” added Graves.
For more information about Hall’s documentary on Fox Hollow Farms or to order the DVD, visit www.ghostville.us.
Fox Hollow Farms has been the center of several TV series this year including “Behind Mansion Walls” on Investigation Discovery and Syfy’s “Paranormal Witness.” It has also been featured on the History Channel, A&E and TruTV.
“With all of the stories, if you don’t cooperate they are going to do it anyways,” said Graves. “The worst thing was they dramatized it.”
Know More
In the early 1990’s a local business owner and family man, bought a quiet estate just north of Indianapolis on contract. Although never brought to trial, Herb Baumeister was the prime suspect in the disappearance and murder of a number of individuals from the Midwest. Baumeister committed suicide in Canada before he could be brought to trial and never confessed to the crimes he was alleged to have committed. In 1996, authorities recovered more than 5,000 human bone fragments on the property from 11 confirmed bodies, but as many as 18 victims. Current residents and visitors to the property have reported unsettling feelings, unexplainable noises, and even seeing apparitions inside the house and round the grounds.
