State police solve 53-year-old murder case

By WRTV Staff

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    INDIANAPOLIS (WRTV) — The Indiana State Police Cold Case Unit has identified the killer in the murder of the 1972 killing of 26-year-old Phyllis Bailer.

According to the news release, Bailer was traveling from Indianapolis, Indiana to Bluffton, Indiana with her 3-year-old daughter to visit her parents on July 7, 1972.

Bailer and her daughter left Indianapolis around 8:00 p.m. but never arrived. Her family reported her missing.

Her car was found abandoned on northbound I-69 in Grant County at around 10:30 a.m. the next day.

Bailer and her daughter were found in a ditch about an hour later by a woman driving on West Road, north of Schoaff Road in Allen County.

Bailer was found dead while her daughter was unharmed.

ISP said an autopsy confirmed Bailer had died from a gunshot wound and had been sexually assaulted.

Years after her murder, the ISP Cold Case Unit utilized DNA testing not previously available to develop a partial DNA profile from Bailer’s clothing.

In 2024, ISP and the Allen County Police Department began working with Identifinders International, a forensic genealogy company in California, founded by Colleen Fitzpatrick.

Forensic genealogy was used alongside the DNA profile to identify Fred Allen Lienemann as the killer.

ISP said Lienemann from Gross Point, Michigan, was 25 in 1972. Lienemann was born in the Anderson, Indiana area.

Lienemann had no known connections to Phyllis Bailer but had a significant criminal history, ISP said.

Detectives learned that Fred Lienemann was murdered in Detroit in 1985 during their investigation.

ISP said if Fred Lienemann were alive today, the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office would have charged him with the murder of Phyllis Bailer.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, founder of Identifinders International is proud to have help get answers for Phyllis Bailer’s family.

“Identifinders is proud to have supported the Indiana State Police with bringing long overdue answers to Phyllis and her family,” Fitzpatrick said in the press release. “This case is an example of still another homicide that would never have been solved without Forensic Genetic Genealogy”.

ISP said this case demonstrates the Cold Case Unit’s commitment to victims and their families.

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