April 7, 1947 – On this day in Indiana Infamy, Herbert Richard Baumeister was born in Indianapolis to Herbert E. Baumeister and his wife Elizabeth. Almost 50 years later, he was posthumously identified as a serial killer believed to have been responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen men, some of whom he disposed of on his Westfield property.
Category: 1940s
This Day in Infamy: Charles Manson in Juvenile Court

March 7, 1949 – Charles Manson, a 14-year-old petty criminal from Indianapolis, learned Juvenile Court Judge Joseph O. Hoffman had granted his request to be transferred to Boys Town in Nebraska. Local priest Reverend George Powers, who helped facilitate the request, referred to the future cult leader and mass murderer as “a very genuine lost little kid.”