Phyllis Bailer

Warning. This episode contains graphic crime scene detail as well as talk of sexual assault. Please listen with discretion. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now in true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to this week's episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are going to get into right now and true crime because, let me tell you, it has been a week of me trying to keep up with everything that has gone down. It has been a wild ride, so to say. So where do we even start? I don't even know. Let's start with the Didty trial. The Ditty trial is going on. Openings were earlier this week, and there has been a lot that has come out. Now there are no cameras or recording or anything allowed in the courtroom, so all of this is coming out like after the fact. But some of the things we've heard that have been testified to Cassie has testified. She has said a lot. There has been a lot of talk, a lot going on. Every time I think I know everything and it can't get worse, it gets worse. So it is going to be really interesting I think to see how everything plays out, because the defense is very much arguing that, yes, he is a domestic abuser, he is a horrible person. He does a lot of weird stuff, but he is not a person who's guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering and all of that. So that is how they're spinning it. That is what they're doing. They even said in the openings that something I'm paraphrasing likely that something to the effect of liking to use baby oil isn't a federal crime. And let me tell you, I will never look at a bottle of baby oil and not think about Ditty from here on out in my life. They are apparently going to be showing videos of the freak offs because they, I guess were recorded. I don't even know, Like this is going to be insane. This trial is going to be I think they said at least two months long. His kids are there, his mom is there, They're hearing all of this stuff. I want to crawl inside of my own skin when I hear some of these stories. And all I really have to say is, I've always felt that Ditty was an unsavory human. I always heard rumors. I always thought that he was a creeper, and I was right. All of this stuff is coming out, and yeah, it's all happening right now, and wow, I'm not prepared any single day for what I'm going to hear about any of the stuff that's going on. It's just it's insane. So that is a ditty update. I will continue to follow along and if there's anything that we need to talk about here, then we are going to talk about it. Next up, Karen retrial is still going on. Karen was allegedly sick the other day, so they did not have court, but court was back in session on Wednesday. I do know that John O'Keeffe's niece was testifying. She is a minor, so that was not recorded. No camera's allowed in the courtroom for her testimony. I have yet to catch up on Wednesday's testimonies anything that happened on Wednesday, but I will be doing that later tonight. So yeah, that trial is still ongoing. There is still a lot of back and forth. There is still a lot of question marks, I'm sure for some of the jurors because they are getting all of this information for the first time. But I will keep you updated on what's going on with that next thing. Big news out of the Menando's Brothers camp. They officially have been resentenced to fifty years to life. The judge agreed he resentenced them, and they are pretty much immediately eligible for parole. The parole hearing is going to be next month on June thirteenth, and I'm sure there's going to be appeals and this, that and the other thing. Anytime there's a decision like this made, of course, there's that channel of appeals, a process that they have to go through, so they're going to be going through that. But we are getting closer than ever to them being out of prison. And it's crazy to think the power that social media and Netflix and all of that has on some of these cases, because they've gained so much notoriety just in the last five years for everything, and the fact that there's been like this new resurgence of people interested and invested in their t and their freedom. It's really interesting to kind of see the dynamics and how they shift over the years. Because you caught anybody back in the nineties and they would tell you the Menenda's Brothers are cold blooded killers. But everything that has come out and everything that's transpired over the last however many years where there's been people that have been coming forward and saying, yes, I was abused by Jose Mendes and this actually happened because they told us all of this stuff happened in the trial, and that was why they made the decision to kill their parents, because they were being abused by their dad, like horrifically sexually, physically, emotionally abused by their father. And there's been a lot of people that have come out of the woodworks in the recent years to say, yes, this actually happened, we were abused. It's so interesting to kind of see the shift in everything. So I'm gonna keep you updated on that whole saga. But we're getting close. This is probably the closest they've ever been to getting out, and it's probably going to happen. In Lorie Dabel News, she had a pre trial hearing on Wednesday kind of discussing everything about the upcoming trial for the conspiracy to commit murder against Brandon Boudreau, and this gal got up there and wanted the judge to recuse himself because he's bias, and he said, I am not biased. There has been multiple different occasions that I have been extra accommodating to you, so on and so forth, and she just continues to argue because she is delusional. So we have to sit through a whole nother trial with this gal defending herself once again. And then I pray and I hope that we are done because I am tired of Lori Valodavill. I am so tired of her, so so tired. But I will keep you updated on all of that. If nothing else, she provides endless amounts of entertainment, and just when you think it's going to be over, she comes out with more. It's just who she is, and yeah, it's interesting. I'll keep you guys updated on all of that. Brandon's trial is set to start at the end of the month, so going to be keeping tabs on that one as well. Okay, we have two things left to talk about. One of them is the Dateline Idaho murders episode that aired on Friday. Holy moly, I watched it once and then I listened to the audio on the podcast, the Dateline podcast in podcast form, and I truly have no words. There were several selfies that they were able to obtain from Brian Coberger's phone and searches for Ted Bundy, photos of lots of college women in bikinis, and it just goes on and on and on and on. Him searching for the University of Idaho murders, him searching for his own name. This was following the murders, and a lot more about like who he was, people that he had kind of interacted with prior to the murders. They have a video of him coming to the crime scene, like kind of passing by the house a couple of times, speeding away. After the fact, they revealed a lot. They revealed from everything that they have been able to gather over the last couple of years, that Maddie was the target and Coburger was a little taken aback by the fact that Kaylee was there that night. And then in the midst of that, they think that Xanna heard a commotion because she was getting her door dash food and she went up to find out what was going on, and he then ran after her, and in that he dropped the knife sheath and that's how that was left behind, and he killed Xana, and then he killed Ethan, and at one point he even sat down on a chair in Xana's bedroom because I guess he was so exhausted. Because I don't think that this guy planned on going in and killing four people. I think he went in and planned to kill one and he ended up killing four. It's going to be crazy listening to everything that comes out at trial, and they have so much evidence that we don't even know yet, And I think I never want to say a case is a slam dunk, but if there ever were a case that was a slam dunk, I feel like it's this one. And we don't even know half of the evidence they have yet. So going to be really interesting to see all of that transpire. That is supposed to be starting. It's September, so I'm just going to take the rest of the year off and be a full time trial watcher apparently. Okay, last thing murder trial update. So if you guys followed along during the murdall trial of it all, there was a clerk of court named Becky Hill who was basically like the room mom. She was kind of in charge of the jury and she was always with them, and there was some wording after the verdict that she had led them to find him guilty and there was bias and all the things. So there's been a lot that has been said about her, and there's been a lot of talk about is he going to get a new trial, what's going to happen with her? And on Wednesday she was arrested and she faces two counts of misconduct in office and account of a instruction of justice. She also violated a state law on two separate charges when she used her former office to promote a book that she co authored called Behind the Doors of Justice the Murdaw Murders. And she also received funds for personal use from the Title for de Incentive Funds and the call Itton County Clerk of Court office. She was released after making a thirty thousand dollars bond, and one of the attorneys that represents two of the jurors in the Murdau trial said as counsel for two jurors in the Murdaw murder trial. Today's indictment is yet another disturbing turn in a case defined by misconduct. The perjury charge against the former call Itton County Clerk of Court stems from her false denial during a jury tampering hearing that she allowed improper access to trial exhibits Sled's investigation now shows that denial was untrue. She also denied having improper content with durors, despite Swarren affidavits and testimony from two jurors, including my client Miss Crosby, confirming that she did. Miss Crosby removed on the first day of deliberations. Believes she was deliberately targeted to deny mister Murda a fair trial. This case demands accountability. The public deserves answers. Murda's attorneys have alleged that she tried to suagers toward a guilty verdict, and basically the reason that she did this was because she wanted to sell copies of her book, and there was like a whole plagiarism scandal as well with her book. That's a whole other conversation. So, if anything, this is going to be a huge deal in the possibility of him getting another trial. I don't know if it's going to happen. There's a lot of red tape and ins and outs to all of that. But this does not look good. This isn't a good thing. This is terrible, and it's crazy because after the verdict and after she wrote this book, she was going around doing a lot of interviews, and she was promoting, of course, and she was talking a lot, and it's just so wild, like what really allegedly was going on? And I don't know, it's very messy. There's a lot of moving parts here, but the basics of it is, Yeah, she's in some serious trouble. And if anything and he gets a new trial, who knows what's going to happen. This is not a good thing. It's not a good thing. So that is the update on that, and that is it for right now in True Crime because I am exhausted from trying to keep up with all of this stuff. I am doing my best to try to stay ahead of all the trial coverage and all of the happenings of everything. But it has been a crazy week. So I'm recording this Wednesday evening. If there's anything that goes on on Thursday, it's just going to have to happen next episode because your girl is tired. So we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode. Okay, guys, we are jumping into a brand new case today. Today's episode is one of unsolved and cold for nearly fifty three years, and now it is solved. We're going to talk about the recently solved case of a woman named Phillis Baylor, who was brutally murdered in Indiana in nineteen seventy two at only twenty six years old, and she had a three year old daughter, and that daughter was with her at the time that she lost her life. The events that would unfold would lead to a fifty three year old mystery, one that I can now say is solved. However, justice will never be served because the suspect has since passed away. So we are going to talk about Phyllis and how we got here, how the crime remained unsolved for so long, and why the crime remained unsolved for so long. Phyllis Jean Miller Baylor was born on July thirteenth of nineteen forty five to her parents, George and Leona Feller Miller, in Bluffton, Indiana. She was married on May eighth of nineteen sixty six to her husband, Richard Baylor, and they had a daughter, Phyllis, and Richard's daughter was only three years old at the time that Phyllis brutally lost her life. So Phyllis was living in Indianapolis, Indiana at the time, and she was twenty six years old and had decided to go on a trip back to Blufton, Indiana to visit her parents. Now she was going to be traveling alone with her daughter, who was three years old at the time. She was in a borrowed car, and the trip from Indianapolis to Bluffton was about one hundred miles and just shy of a two hour drive, a drive that she had made many many times. Phyllis and her daughter left around eight pm on July seventh of nineteen eighty two, and unfortunately, they would never make it to their destination. Now, this was before the days of cell phones and constant communications like we used today, And when Phyllis didn't show up at her parents' house and her mom didn't hear anything from her, she contacted the authorities and reported Phyllis and her daughter missing. Then the next morning, around ten thirty am, Phyllis's car was found with the hood up abandoned on I sixty nine in Grant County. Investigators were called to the scene and they were kind of doing a little investigation trying to see what was going on, and it was just an hour later, about seventy miles from where the car was found, that a woman driving in Allen County, Indiana, would see Phyllis and her daughter. Phillis was deceased in the ditch with her daughter right next to her unharmed. Investigators were quickly called to the scene. They were able to positively make the identification that this was the missing woman and the same woman whose car had been found, and they determined that she had been sexually assaulted and the she had been shot. Now, keep in mind, her daughter was alive right next to her in the ditch. A three year old child left alone with her deceased mother on the side of a road in a ditch, unfamiliar with where she is, unable to even comprehend what had happened because she was only three years old. Now, since Phyllis had been sexually assaulted, they did have DNA, but DNA analysis was not a thing back in nineteen seventy two, and although there was a main suspect at the time, there wasn't enough evidence to ever charge this person with Phyllis's death. And honestly, I wasn't even able to find the identity of who this person was. I don't really know why they were led to believe that this person was a suspect in Phyllis's death, but I'm sure it could have been a situation where they were trying to protect the integrity of the investigation and they kept this person's identity a secret. But I did believe for many, many years that that person was looked at as the main suspect. And when I tell you the rest of the story, that cloud of suspicion that probably followed this person had to be so tough, trying to live in a world where everybody thinks that you're a brutal monster and a murderer. So while I don't know who this person is, I don't know what they've done in their life. I don't know if they are a good person or not, but I hope that they are doing well because they were not the person that took Phyllis's life that day. So despite having all of this DNA evidence, they were not able to come up with anything. And besides this one suspect, there wasn't anything that really pointed them in a direction to go a specific route with who could have done this to Phyllis. It was obvious that the crime was sexually motivated since she was sexually assaulted and the person that did this probably felt that they had to kill her because maybe Phyllis could identify who this person or if nothing else, Phillis saw this person and saw their features and what they looked like and could have potentially turned them in and this person could have gotten caught for what they did. So a sexually motivated crime that turned into a homicide because the killer thought there was no way out. So it wasn't until years later that investigators were able to come up with a partial DNA profile from Phyllis's clothes, and it was then that the main suspect was eliminated because the DNA did not match. And I do have to give hats off to the police department in this investigation because they preserve the clothes and the evidence and the DNA so well in Phyllis's case, and there's a lot of times that investigations will have DNA and it's old, old, old DNA and it is not preserved the way that it should be. And back in nineteen seventy two, when this case first happened, I don't think anyone working back then realized the advancements in DNA technology that we would have currently in twenty twenty five, and they just did what they were supposed to do. They preserved the evidence, They preserved the clothing that Phillis was wearing that night that had the DNA on it, and thankfully that has led to this case now being solved, which we're going to get into shortly. But so many times we hear of the DNA being destroyed or it's not viable for whatever reason due to it not being stored properly, or evidence is lost. We hear that a lot as well. So hats off to the people that handled this case initially because they really did a great job and that is probably the reason this case is solved today. So from what I saw, the main suspect was eliminated in the early two thousands, and that's when they were able to come up with that partial DNA profile. But despite that, the case was still cold, and with the only lead that they had all of these years now being eliminated, they had to keep digging in to see what exactly happened and try to figure out who could have done this and why. So that's exactly what investigators did. They took what they had, they kept digging in and as the years passed, of course DNA technology is ever advancing, and honestly, I feel like I need a podcast just on DNA and genetic genealogy and all of the things, because I think I talk about it every single second of my life and it just completely fascinates me how we are in a era now of technology where time is running out for these people and even though they've gotten away with something for fifty plus years, their day is coming. And it's just so fascinating to me that we're able to take decades old DNA and extract it, create a family tree, and come back to who did this crime. It absolutely, one hundred percent fascinates me, and I don't think I'm ever going to stop talking about it, which is why I really like doing these cold cases that were solved after so many years, because I really love resolution. Despite having a podcast where I talk about cases that are unsolved, I'm a big fan of resolution and knowing what happened, and I really like knowing how they got to that point, how the investigation unfolded, and how the case came to be solved. So I really love sharing these episodes with you guys, because I think it's so important to realize that although I do cover unsolved cases, there are cases that were solved after so many years, and that's why it's so important for us to keep talking about. So in twenty twenty four, everything changed in Phillis's case. Authorities began working with a company called Ideas International, which is a genealogy company based out of California, and in working with them, they were able to come up with a stronger DNA profile than the one they had previously come up with back in the early two thousands. It was from there that they were able to positively identify a suspect, a man named Fred Allen Lineman, who would have been only twenty five years old at the time that Phyllis was killed. Now, Fred was from Anderson County, Indiana, and had been living in Michigan at some point in time, and he did have a checkered past. Investigator cited one arrest in which Mississippi police said he was caught with a hitchhiker after stealing a car in Florida. I'm going to read an article on that arrest for a little more context. Police Captain A. R. Baker stopped a vehicle Sunday afternoon on Highway ninety on a routine check and apprehended a man wanted for car theft in Dade County, Florida. Fred Allen Lineman, twenty six, gross, Michigan, is being held in Jackson County Jail for Florida officials. Also arrested with him was a hitchhiker, a runaway from Baker, Louisiana. He is being held in the juvenile detention facilities. So obviously, if Fred was twenty five years old at the time of Phyllis's death, this arrest was a year later. So he's stealing a car. He's obviously not the most upstanding citizen. But there was nothing else really in his history that said that he was violent or that he had harmed anybody. Petty theft, stealing a car on the run with a random hitchhiker was really what was in his past. But I do think it is interesting that he had kind of left Indiana and he was going to Florida and then he was arrested in Mississippi, and this wasn't a super long time after Phyllis had been murdered, And I do want to say, I think it takes a pretty horrific human to not just take a life, of course, but to take a life with a three year old child right there, and then leave the child alone in a ditch on a road with her mother who had not only been sexually assaulted but also killed. Fred is the actual worst human ever to walk the face of this earth. So authorities, after they identified Fred as being the perpetrator, they said that they did think that this was a crime of opportunity for Fred, and that he had no personal connection to Phyllis whatsoever and was probably out just prowling looking for somebody to harm, and unfortunately he happened upon Phyllis and her daughter who were traveling alone by themselves. And unfortunately, but fortunately, Fred was murdered himself in nineteen eighty five. And I'm going to read a story about his death, and honestly, I don't ever want to wish harm on anybody, but I can't imagine the absolute terror and fear that Phyllis and her daughter felt that day because they were kidnapped from their vehicle and they were driven seventy miles with this horrific predator of a man where God knows what happened, and then he ended up killing Phyllis and leaving her daughter in the ditch next to her body, like a horrible person, and then he drove off and lived his life the next few years and probably never gave it a second thought. He was the actual worst person. And I can't imagine the fear that Phillis felt that day because in her mind, I know her number one priority was protecting her daughter, and luckily her daughter was unharmed, at least physically unharmed. But I can't imagine the fear that they felt and what this man put them through that day, and him being murdered is really just a dose of karma in my opinion. I am now going to read the article about his death. So the title is two men charged in beating death of Detroit man. Two men are accused of beating a Detroit man with a baseball bat, dumping him inside of a garbage jumpster, and then setting it on fire while he was still alive. The victim, who was beaten during an argument over some property, died later at Detroit Receiving Hospital. The dumpster was set on fire after a passerby discovered the victim inside and left to get help. Police said Clifford John Copley, twenty one, and Kevin Race, twenty seven, were charged Saturday in Detroit Recorder's Court with first degree murder in the beating death of Fred Allen Lineman, thirty seven. On April thirtieth, Magistrate Jimmy Lee Gray ordered both men held in Wayne County Jail pending a May thirteenth preliminary examination. Police said Copley and Reese argued with Lineman over some property and then beat him with the baseball bat in Copley's basement apartment in the six hundred block of Selden in the city's Cast Corridor. Police said they were then called when a man walking in the alley behind Copley's apartment building heard someone inside of a garbage dumpster. The passerby left to call police after he looked in the dumpster and saw a man inside bleeding. Police said the dumpster was on fire when the witness returned minutes later with a patrolman from the Wayne State University Public Safety Department. Police said Lineman was pulled out of the burning dumpster and was taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital, where he was dead on arrival. The medical examiner said that Fred had died from multiple blunt force injuries and noted that both of his arms were broken and that his face had been sprayed with silver spray paint. Police said Copley and Reese were both spray paint sniffers. Investigators said they found bloodstains and blood smears leading to the rear door of Copley's apartment building. A search warrant for Copley's apartment was obtained. Three days later. Police said Copley and Reese were arrested in Copley's apartment. Detectives also confiscated a blood stained baseball bat, pipe and hammer during the search. Police said several neighbors told police they heard screams coming from Kopley's apartment shortly after seven pm April thirtieth, but did not call police. Now again, I have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other shoulder, and I do not feel bad at all for Fred Lineman because this was his karma. I do not think that what these men did to him is nice and right and whatever, but this was his karma for what he did to Phyllis and her daughter. Because her daughter I do not know her identity, and I haven't really looked into it because she was a child at the time, and unless things are easily accessible in articles and police reports and all of that, I don't really dig in that deep. But her daughter, wherever she is today, has had to live with this horror for her whole entire life, and that is because of the actions that Fred took that day in taking her mom, kidnapping her and her mom, and killing her mom, which is horrible. So I really don't feel bad that Fred lost his life in such a horrific way. So once investigators came up with Fred being their suspect, they came forward and said, unfortunately he has passed away, but if he was alive to this day, they would be prosecuting him in the fullest for the murder of Phyllis Baylor and he would be in prison for it. So unfortunately they never got the chance to do that. So although he didn't get the chance to pay for his crimes while he was alive, I am a believer in people paying for their sins in the afterlife, and I do think that Fred has had to pay for his because I'm not entirely convinced that Phyllis was his only victim. I think in order to act like that and do that to somebody, you have to be pretty brazen and brave and just not given f about human life. And I don't think that Phyllis was his first victim. I think there are likely others. He was brazen, he was a sexual deviant, and he targeted a woman who was alone a traveling with her daughter. I don't know. Maybe Phyllis had car trouble and she was outside of her vehicle, That's why the hood of the car was up, and maybe he stopped to be the hero and then kidnapped them. We don't really know what happened that day, and we're never going to know what happened that day, but I do know that Phyllis did everything she could in her power to protect her daughter, and I am grateful that at least her daughter made it through and survived that. Like I said, I don't really know anything about her. She's obviously an adult now, and I'm hopeful that she has been able to live a wonderful and fulfilled life. And with this news recently breaking of them knowing who killed Phyllis, hopefully she feels some type of peace and justice that that man is no longer out there hurting other people. And he was killed not too long after Phillis's life was taken. It was several years, of course, but I do hope that he never did this to anybody else. But if he is the type of person that I think he is or was, then I do believe there are probably more victims out there, even maybe just more victims of being sexually assaulted by a random, creepy predator, whether it's in Indiana or Mississippi, or Alabama or Louisiana or Florida. Because he seemed to kind of go everywhere, maybe they are going to be able to tie some other cases to him, because I do think that this was not just a one off. I think that this man was a serial predator. So that is the story of Phillis Baylor. I know both of her pairs and have since passed away, and with this one being very recently solved as of a few weeks ago, it is one of the situations where I'm sure they lived the rest of their lives wondering who had done such a horrific thing to their daughter, and they never got that closure that they needed, but they know now, and that's the most important thing. And I do just want to say all of these cases that span decades and there is evidence there's DNA, even though it might be a small amount of DNA, time is running out for these people that think that they have gotten away with crimes like this. If law enforcement is cooperative and involved and they are willing to send that DNA to one of the many, many, many labs in our country that are doing all these new advancements with DNA technology and testing this DNA, these people are eventually going to get caught. And in some cases the suspect and perpetrator might have already passed away, They might be serving prison time for another crime, or they could be living completely under the radar. But time is running out for them. And I hope that I can keep bringing you these stories that have been called for so long and eventually there's a break in the case because somebody decides that they are going to look into it, and law enforcement agrees to send the DNA over to these different labs and the cases are solved. That is why I keep covering all of these cold cases that I cover, because anytime I cover a case I have a firm belief that that case is solvable. Whether we have eyewitnesses, we have DNA, we have people out there that know something that don't want to say because loyalties lie in different places. Every case I pick. I believe there's an answer, and sometimes we just have to dig a little bit and maybe even put a little pressure on to different people. And exposure is the key in all of these cases. So the more we talk about them, the more I ramble on about them, the better. So thank you guys, as always so much for listening to this week's episode on Phyllis. I hope that I did her case some justice and I'm so glad that I am able to report that after fifty three years, her case has finally been solved. If nothing else, that is really what matters at the end of the day. So I will see you guys next week for a brand new unsolved case. And remember in June, I have summer series starting up, and I am going to be talking about the Pike County massacre, which is the largest murder in Pike County, Ohio, and I'm going to be talking about the road and family murders. If you are not familiar with the story. It is a wild ride and there is so much to it. I am in the midst of recording all of the episodes now, I'm three in and the trial for the Road and Family Murders lasted forever. It was literal two months. It was a long trial, so I still have a lot more to go. Already three episodes in, I am diligently working through all of that, trying to summarize everything as best as I can. And the case is very convoluted and involved, as you will learn as I'm talking about it. But we are still in the process of getting justice for the Road and Family because we have one more trial to go. So I'm going to keep you guys up to date on all of the current happenings as the series progresses, but stay tuned for that. Starting June first, I'm going to be releasing episodes every Sunday night until we get through all that is The Road and Family Massacre, Pie County Massacre, Road and Family Murders. You're going to hear me refer to it as a bunch of different things, but stay tuned for that, and I will see you guys next week for a brand new case and I hope you guys have a fantastic weekend and I will see you then Bye.