Tragically, Clay Boatman was one of the victims of an unidentified American serial killer who killed at least eleven young boys and adult men in Indiana and Ohio between June 1980 and October 1991, dumping their bodies near Interstate 70. He was known as the “I-70 Strangler” who killed at least another 24 young men and boys. Though officially unsolved, Herb Baumeister was named the prime suspect in the case in April 1999 by law enforcement. According to investigators, bodies related to the “I-70 Strangler” case stopped being found in 1991 after Baumeister bought the Fox Hollow Farm, which he would use as a burial site for his subsequent victims.

On August 14, 1990, 32-year-old Clay Boatman, a licensed practical nurse, disappeared after leaving his Richmond, Indiana apartment to visit ‘Our Place’, a local gay bar. His body, showing signs of strangulation, was found in a ditch by a group of children near Eaton, Ohio. When interviewed, Boatman’s family denied that he was homosexual.