Toddler found with dead mom in a ditch in 1972, IN cops say. Suspect now ID’d
.jpeg "Phyllis Bailer was killed in 1972 at 26 years old. Fifty three years later, her case has been solved, officials said.")
A case spanning back 53 years has just been solved with DNA technology, according to Indiana officials.
On July 7, 1972, 26-year-old Phyllis Bailer and her 3-year-old daughter set out from Indianapolis to visit her parents in Bluffton, according to an April 16 news release from Indiana State Police.
The two left Indianapolis around 8 p.m., but they never made it to their destination, police said.
Bailer’s family called authorities and reported her missing. The next morning, her car was found abandoned on a highway about 80 miles north of the city in Grant County with the hood up and no one in it, police said.
That same morning, a driver found Bailer’s body in a ditch along with her 3-year-old daughter, who was unharmed, in Allen County, about 70 miles northeast of where the car was discovered, police said.
An autopsy determined Bailer had been shot and sexually assaulted, according to police.
In 1972, DNA testing technology was not available, so the case went cold, police said.
Years after Bailer’s death, a partial DNA sample from her clothing ruled out the main suspect at the time, according to police.
Then in 2024, “a much stronger DNA profile from Phyllis Bailer’s clothing” was developed. Authorities began working with Identifinders International, a forensic genealogy company in California.
By early 2025, authorities had identified Bailer’s killer as the now-deceased Fred Allen Lienemann, who was 25 years old in 1972, according to police.
The DNA sample found on Bailer’s clothing matched Lienemann, police said.
Lienemann had no connection to Bailer, but police said he had a “significant criminal history.” They cited one arrest in which Mississippi police said he was caught with a hitchhiker after stealing a car in Florida.
“During their investigation, detectives learned that Fred Lienemann was murdered in Detroit in 1985. If Fred Lienemann were alive today, the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office would have charged him with the murder of Phyllis Bailer,” police said.
