A suspect has been identified in an Indiana murder that occurred more than half a century ago, authorities said.
Phyllis Bailer, 26, was traveling from Indianapolis to Bluffton, Indiana, on the night of Friday, July 7, 1972, Indiana State Police said in a press release. Bailer had a three -year -old daughter in the car. They were going to visit Bailer’s parents, police said, but the couple never arrived in Bluffton, and Bailler’s family called the police to inform his disappearance.
The next morning, Bailer’s car was found in Grant County, Indiana, abandoned with the hood on the road, according to the police. Approximately an hour later, a woman who was driving at the nearby All County found Bailer and her daughter in an Ititch next to another road. Bailer was dead and his daughter was unharmed, police said.
An autopsy determined that Bailer had received a fatally and sexual shot. The Alles County Police and the Indiana State Police investigated the case.
Indiana State Police 
DNA tests were not available in 1972, and did not become a more common application to use until the early 1990s, said Indiana state police. After the murder, a partial DNA profile was developed from the dance. The State Police was not specific when the DNA profile was created.
That DNA profile was used to eliminate the main suspect in the case. As DNA tests continued to improve, the Cold Cold Team of the Indiana State Police continued to work in the case, authorities said, and in 2024 they developed a “much stronger DNA profile”, again from Dance’s clothes.
That DNA profile was tasks for international identifiers, a Forensic Genealogy company in California. The combined resources of the company and the cold case team were able to identify a suspect in the case in early 2025.
The suspect was identified as Fred Allen Lienemann, who would have the 25 leg at the time of the murder of Dance. It was a match for DNA found in Dance, said Indiana State Police. The two had no known connections. Lienemann had a long criminal history, including a first -degree murder charge in May 1985, police said.
The investigators discovered that Lienemann had been killed in Detroit in 1985. If he had been alive today, he would have accused Bone of the murder of Bailler, said Indiana state police, and the case would have been the prosecutor’s office.
“Phyllis Bailer never arrived in Bluffton to visit his family,” said Public Information Sergeant of the Indiana Wes Rowlander State Police on social networks. “After years of questions, this family finally has answers about what happened to him.”