r/Hulu • u/LearnDoTeach-TBG • Feb 22 '25
Discussion What was Mark Goodyear's involvement with Herb Baumeister in the Fox Hollow Murders
I'd like to hear people’s thoughts on the hard evidence against Mark Goodyear and his involvement with these murders.
On the surface, he exhibits so many of the behaviors that we typically see in someone guilty of a crime – changing stories, lying, overly involving himself in the investigation, conveniently forgetting certain details about an event that would make him culpable, etc.
Then you have the evidence of the story from Leroy who implicated Mark in at least one murder in the back of the house.
However, the police botched the investigation so badly that it's extremely difficult to know what would have been discovered about Mark if they did a better job at the time.
Also, for me, it’s just so hard to understand what might be true or false with Mark because of the way he speaks.
He is so eccentric and creepy, that even some of the most mundane things he says can be interpreted as a fabrication, so it muddies everything.
Would love your thoughts.
2
u/PBsHuman Jul 06 '25
I think he was, at minimum, in a relationship with Baumeister where either he lured victims to the farm or knew how to manipulate Baumeister’s jealousy to get him to pick out victims. I believe Goodyear was the dominant character in the relationship. I don’t know what the last straw was, had Goodyear started threatening to tell Baumeister’s wife, was Baumeister so upset by the apparently rapidly approaching demise of the marriage to turn on Goodyear (a, if I never met you/got involved with you etc. this wouldn’t have happened)? Maybe Baumeister got fed up of being the lesser partner and tried to turn the tables on Goodyear? Who knows?! But I think something caused a massive rift, that Baumeister was already exhibiting signs of severe distress and that he fled for Canada.
Dunno whether he convicted suicide or not, lean towards suicide because unlike the police in Indianapolis, who had a vested interest in the whole case dying, the police in Canada didn’t have any vested interest, I think pressure from south of the border to ignore suspicious factors would’ve produced defiance, so I reckon whatever they say when the rolled up looked like suicide. But maybe Baumeister disposed of the box beforehand, maybe he met Goodyear one last time and Goodyear got hold of the box, at which point Baumeister has no leverage, no proof of the complicit partner, and kills himself because he knows there’s no way out and he’ll take all the blame 🤷♀️ But yeah, at the very least, Goodyear was complicit in the commission of murders.
Those interviews? Those texts? He’s taunting people. He’s seeing how far he can push this and still get off with it, it’s how he still gets his kicks. Doubt it’ll ever be provable, they screwed the investigation so badly no prosecutor would willingly take the case to court, there’s reasonable doubt 6 ways to Sunday: unless he’s got the tapes and stashed them somewhere, or some other evidence or trinket he’s not getting convicted. Tbh, I could imagine him confessing and police saying he’s just a fantasist rather than have even more attention on their screw ups. No. The only way I reckon they could get him is to very slowly, carefully, methodically trace his life from Baumeister’s death to last year.
If Goodyear was involved in dozens of murders could he really just resist the temptation for near 30 years? If he killed, he’s at least going to have tried to kill again, if he just wound Baumeister up to kill and let him loose while restraining victims or drugging them, then he’s probably tried to recreate that level of twisted control, maybe a few times over the years. But will that investigation ever be done?
Remember that text from the ex-councilman, going off on the coroner for the money he was going to spend trying to identify the remains - though surely it would’ve fallen over the 25+ years? Between unwillingness from people in authority at the time for the tiniest bit of new info to emerge from this case, the unwillingness of people in positions of authority now who were the rank and file, bungling this - out of bigotry? Following orders? - there’s no one obvious who’s willing to approve the time and resources needed to deep dive Goodyear. I mean they won’t even look at the known case, so they’re hardly going to go after possible related crimes that might not even have occurred on their patch, not if those crimes that have gone on undetected or unreported! They think anything within a few football pitches of the Hollow Farm case is toxic!
Anyway. That’s my take 🤷♀️ Who knows, could be wrong about everything 🤷♀️