BLUFFTON, Indiana — Indiana State Police have solved the murder of Phyllis Bailer from July 1972.
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According to police, Bailer and her 3-year-old daughter were reported missing after they did not arrive at Bailer’s mother’s home in Bluffton.
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Bailer’s body was found with her daughter, who was unharmed, on West Road in Allen County, police say.
An autopsy confirmed that Bailer was killed by a gunshot and that she had been sexually assaulted.
DNA testing was done on Bailer’s clothes years after the murder, as DNA testing was not available at the time of her death. The DNA profile revealed that the main suspect in the case was not the killer, according to police.
A forensic genealogy company identified the killer in 2025.
Fred Allen Lienemann, who was 25 in 1972, matched the DNA found on Bailer’s clothes, police say. Lienemann was murdered in Detroit in 1985, according to police. If Lienemann were alive today, he would be charged with the murder of Bailer.
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