A suspect has been identified in the 1972 murder of an Indiana woman who was found in a ditch on the side of the road with her unharmed 3-year-old daughter, police said last week.
Phyllis Bailer and her daughter were traveling in a borrowed car from Indianapolis to Bluffton on July 7, 1972, to visit her parents' house, according to the Indiana State Police. They never arrived, prompting Bailer's family to report her missing to police.
Richard Bailer, Bailer's husband at the time, told NBC News he got a call from her father the next day letting him know. Richard began driving toward Bluffton in an effort to find his wife, whom he referred to by her middle name, Jean, and their young daughter, Jodi.
He said he found their car on Interstate 69, which police said had the hood up.
"I called the state police right away," he said, recalling that day.
Later that day, a woman driving north of Schoaff Road in Allen County found Bailer and her daughter in a ditch along the side of the road, police said.
"Phyllis was deceased; her 3-year-old daughter was with her, unharmed," police said.
Both of them were taken to a local hospital, where, Richard said, he was reunited with his daughter and given the unfortunate news of his wife's death. Richard and Phyllis had been separated for about three months before the incident, and he quickly became a person of interest to police, he said. He said he was able to absolve himself by informing the authorities of his whereabouts at the time of the incident.
Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Richard's statements.
An autopsy determined that Bailer's cause of death was a gunshot wound and that she'd also been sexually assaulted, police said. However, DNA testing wasn't an option at the time.
Years later, a profile was developed from DNA found on Bailer's clothing, and it eliminated the main suspect at the time. Police didn't identify the suspect. An even stronger DNA profile was developed last year, prompting law enforcement to partner up with a forensic genealogy company in California to identify the killer, police said.
Early this year, the DNA found on Bailer's clothing was linked to Fred Allen Lienemann, a Michigan man who was 25 in 1972, police said.
"Lienemann had no known connections to Phyllis Bailer but had a significant criminal history," police said, adding that the investigation uncovered that he was killed in Detroit in 1985. Two men beat Lienemann, 37, with a baseball bat during an argument about property, according to a Detroit News article shared by Indiana State Police. Lienemann was dumped in a dumpster, which was set on fire "while he was still alive," the newspaper reported.
If he were alive, he would have been charged with Bailer's murder, police said.
Now, almost 53 years later, Richard says he has "very mixed emotions" about police finding the person they say is responsible for Phyllis' death.
"Totally relieved that it was uncovered and that we found out who the person was, but upset that he died," Richard, 79, said Monday, adding that Lienemann's violent end "was the good side of it."
Richard said that he wished Phyllis' parents and sister were alive to get the closure they had wanted for so many years but that he's relieved their daughter, Jodi, finally got an answer after over five decades.
"It was a blessing for our daughter to finally know," he said.
