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 from Indianapolis to Bluffton to visit her parents’ house in the summer of 1972 in a borrowed car, according to the Indiana State Police. They never arrived at the home, prompting Bailer’s family to report her missing to police.
The next day, the car was found abandoned on Interstate 69 in Grant County with the hood up, police said.
“Approximately 1 hour later, at 11:37 am, a woman driving on West Road, just north of Schoaff Road in Allen County, found Phyllis Bailer and her daughter along the side of the road in a ditch,” police said. “Phyllis was deceased; her 3-year-old daughter was with her, unharmed.”
An autopsy determined that Bailer’s cause of death was a gunshot wound and that she’d also been sexually assaulted, according to police. However, DNA testing was not an option at the time.
Years later, a profile was developed from DNA found on Bailer’s clothing and eliminated the main suspect at the time. An even stronger DNA profile was developed in 2024, prompting law enforcement to partner up with a forensic genealogy company in California to identify the killer, police said.
In early 2025, the DNA found on Bailer’s clothing was linked to Fred Allen Lienemann, a Michigan man who was 25 in 1972, according to police.
“Lienemann had no known connections to Phyllis Bailer but had a significant criminal history,” police said, adding that the investigation uncovered he was killed in Detroit in 1985. The 37-year-old was beaten by two men with a baseball bat during an argument about property, according to a “The Detroit News” article, shared by Indiana State Police. Lienemann was dumped in a dumpster, which was set on fire “while he was still alive,” per the outlet.
If he were alive, he would have been charged with Bailer’s murder, police said.
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