(Grant County, Ind.) — Over 50 years after a mom was killed and her daughter was left abandoned with her body, the young mom’s cold case murder has been solved, Indiana authorities said.
On the night of July 7, 1972, Phyllis Bailer, 26, and her 3-year-old daughter were driving the 100 miles from Indianapolis to Bluffton, Indiana, to visit Bailer’s parents — but they never made it, the Indiana State Police said.
The next morning, around 10:30 a.m., Bailer’s car was found empty in Grant County, Indiana, police said.
About one hour later, a woman driving in Allen County, Indiana, discovered Bailer and her daughter along the side of the road in a ditch.
Bailer had been sexually assaulted and shot to death, police said. Her 3-year-old daughter was with her and unharmed.
No arrests were made.
Years later, a partial DNA profile was developed from Bailer’s clothing, which eliminated authorities’ main suspect, police said.
The murder continued to go unsolved for decades.
Last year, “a much stronger DNA profile” was developed from Bailer’s clothes, police said, and investigators started working with a forensic genealogy company.
Genetic genealogy is an investigative tool — first used in 2018 in the arrest of the Golden State Killer — in which unknown DNA from a crime scene is identified by comparing it to family members who voluntarily submit DNA samples to a database.
Through genetic genealogy, police identified Fred Allen Lienemann as the person who left DNA on Bailer’s clothing, authorities announced on Wednesday.
Lienemann, who was 25 years old at the time of the murder, “had no known connections to Phyllis Bailer but had a significant criminal history,” police said.
Lienemann was killed in Detroit in 1985, police said. If he was alive, prosecutors would charge him with Bailer’s murder, police said.
“Phyllis Bailer never made it to Bluffton to visit her family,” state police spokesperson Sgt. Wes Rowlader wrote on social media. “After years of questions, this family finally has answers about what happened to her.”
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