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What drives a person to kill? Is it uncontrollable rage? Overwhelming fear? Unbearable jealousy? Or is it something deeper? Something in the darkest corners of our psyche? Every Monday and Thursday, the Crime House Original Podcast Serial Killers and Murderous Minds dives deep into the minds of history's most chilling murderers. From infamous circumstances, serial killers to ruthless cult leaders, deadly exes and terrifying spree killers, I'm Dr. Tristan Ingalls, a licensed forensic psychologist. Along with Vanessa Richardson's immersive storytelling full of high stakes twists and turns, in every episode of Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, I'll be providing expert analysis of the people involved, not just how they killed, but why. Listen to and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds available now. Wherever you get your podcasts, there's a fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still. Not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you keep going further. Capella University what can't you do? Visit capella.edu to learn more. You're listening to DNAID, brought to you by Abjack Entertainment. Be sure to check out some of the other great TR crime podcasts from this network, including the Murder in My Family, Missing Persons, Scene of the Crime, Zodiac Speaking Beyond Bizarre True Crime, Campus Killings, Below the Surface, and Killer Communications. All of these podcasts are available for you to binge on right now. Wherever you listen to podcasts, subscribe where you're listening to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. Sam. It was 1972 on Hot July Saturday, July 8th around 11:35am A young woman named Ruth Logar was driving north on Rural west road. This was 18 of a mile north of the intersection was Shoaf Road, then a little used gravel thoroughfare two miles northeast of Huntertown, a mile east of Indiana Route 3 and about 8 miles north of Fort Wayne. There were no other cars in sight. As she drove along, Ruth was very startled to see a very small child who turned out to be three years old standing in the grassy area right next to the road. She appeared to be looking at something on the ground. Ruth stopped her car and put it in reverse. Backing up, she pulled up next to where the toddler was standing. Looking toward the child, Ruth could see that there was a bloodied woman lying in a ditch. The child was calm but did not move from the spot where she stood now looking at Ruth. Ruth said, do you want to come with me? No, said the girl. Ruth said, okay, and drove the very short distance up the road to her parents house there. She told them, hey, there's a little girl standing beside a woman's body in the ditch. Ruth's parents called the Huntertown Fire department. It was 11:37am When Allen County Police Department officers David Smith and James Talarico arrived to the scene at 11:54. Huntertown firefighters had collected the little girl and blocked off West Road between Shoaf and Simon Rhodes. They told the officers there was a deceased woman in the ditch on the west side of West Road and she had visible head trauma. The officers went over to the ditch and observed the body. She was a young white woman dressed in dark blue shorts and a white T shirt. Her feet were bare, her shoes nearby. She had been shot. There were no signs of a struggle. A woman's purse was on the ground near the dead woman's body. The firefighters told the police officers that the little girl who had been found standing near the body had a laceration on her head. They instructed their ambulance driver to take her to Parkview Hospital. The officers then turned to Ruth and her parents, who were standing nearby, having returned to the scene after calling the fire department, they had checked the body and stood guard over the little girl until the fire department arrived. Ruth explained to the officers exactly what she had seen and that she asked the girl whether she wanted to get in her car and the girl said no. Officers Smith and Telerico searched the purse that was on the ground and found a driver's license in the name of Phyllis Jean Baylor, age 27, of Indianapolis. The photo matched the woman in the ditch, and it would turn out someone was looking for her. Allen County Coroner Dr. Richard Bauer performed the autopsy on Phyllis on the very day she was found, the 8th. She had no personal articles on her body, and the only documented clothing on the coroner's verdict I was provided was a T shirt and shorts, but we know she was wearing underwear. You'll hear why in a minute. The cause of Phyllis's death was two gunshot wounds to the head and neck. She had been shot at close range. Police described it as execution style. I don't have any information as to whether this means she was forced onto her knees and she knew what was happening or whether she was shot suddenly and was none the wiser. It doesn't seem that she fought back at all. There were no other injuries to her body documented in the report. Believe it or not, I was able to obtain the original incident report even though this was all the way back in 1972. The officer who wrote the report stated, quote, she appeared to have a Gunshot wound with a mark which apparently was made by the muzzle of an automatic pistol upon her left cheek. End quote. Needless to say, the coroner pronounced the manner of death as homicide. He loosely established the time of death between 8pm Friday and before 11am Saturday, and the pathologist determined that Phyllis had been raped. Semen was found on her underwear, but I've got to be honest, I don't know specifics as to why this conclusion was reached. The autopsy report from 1972 contains no reference to vaginal swabs that I saw. I suspect they were collected, analyzed for sperm, came back positive, contributing to the conclusion of sexual assault, and then were discarded, being of no more use at that time. Phyllis was found fully clothed, which pointed to her being allowed to redress herself after the rape. There is also no indication in the report of where the rape took place. There is no reference to vegetation or dirt found on Phyllis or on her clothing. So it remains unknown whether she was violated by the roadside where she was found in a vehicle or somewhere else. At Fort Wayne's Parkview Memorial Hospital, little Jody was determined to have an abrasion on her head at the site of the laceration. She was fine, but was kept for observation before being picked up by her father and taken to the home of Phyllis parents, the Millers. There is no indication that Jody's injury was deliberately inflicted, but we simply have no idea because Jody's time is unaccounted for for more than 12 hours. So who was Phyllis? Phyllis Jean Miller was born on July 13, 1945 in Bluffton, Indiana. Her father was George Edward Miller and her mother, Leona Lucille Miller. Apparently, Phyllis preferred to be called Jeannie, but I'm going to refer to her as Phyllis to avoid confusion. Phyllis and her older sister Barbara were raised in Bluffton and attended Bluffton High School. Phyllis was a member of the Bluffton First Baptist Church. On May 8, 1966, she married Richard Rick Baylor while he was in the Air Force and the two had a daughter, Jody Lee. They relocated to Indianapolis in approximately 1970. Since 1969, Phyllis had worked as a legal secretary for ROCAP, ROCAP, Reese Young. Her employer, Keith Reese, told the media that she was a, quote, lovely girl and a very good employee. Rick, her husband, worked for Indiana Bell. Like many young marriages, that of Phyllis and Rick did not last. According to everyone I spoke with, the couple very amicably agreed to separate and divorce. Phyllis was the petitioner at a hearing on the matter. In November of 1971, they moved into separate homes and their Divorce was to be finalized on September 6, 1972. Jody resided with Phyllis. I don't know what the custody arrangements were, but Rick was very involved in his daughter's life. Phyllis was just 27 when she was killed. She was single and was very close with her parents. Her sister had married and moved to Minnesota. The Allen County Sheriff's Office was the initial lead investigative agency on this case. But the Indiana State Police got pulled in within days for reasons you'll hear. Allen county investigators interviewed Jody's parents and husband Rick. Their stories revealed that Phyllis had disappeared and she and Jody had been missing for several hours before they were found. The timeline went like this. On Friday, July 7, Phyllis had called her father, George Miller, who lived in Bluffton. Phyllis did not work on weekends, so she and Jody were headed to Bluffton to get out of the city and spend the weekend with her parents. She told her dad her plan was to leave Indianapolis around 8:00pm on by car. But when Phyllis and Jody didn't show up at the Miller home at 32 Columbian Avenue by 11, George called her house. When there was repeatedly no answer, he called her soon to be ex husband Rick. Rick had no idea where Phyllis and Jody were and he started to get worried. Phyllis's drive from Indianapolis to Bluffton should have taken an hour and 48 minutes. According to Google Maps, it's a straight shot heading northeast from Indianapolis right up I 69. Phyllis had told George that she was planning on leaving Indianapolis around 8. She possibly timed her departure with Jody's bedtime. I know from personal experience that it's much preferable to drive with a sleeping toddler than an awake one. They should have pulled into her parents driveway no later than 10pm I don't know what time exactly. George reported Phyllis and Jody missing. It was sometime late on Friday night. His daughter and precious granddaughter were mia. And in the days before cell phones there was no way at all to determine where they could have gone. On Saturday morning, July 8, Rick, no doubt absolutely beside himself with worry since Phyllis and Jody had not shown up, started out on his own to look for them. This seems like a long shot, right? But still, I'm sure it seemed preferable to pacing around waiting for the phone to ring. Rick drove the route he knew Phyllis would have taken, north on I 69. He drove for about 75 miles. And then at 10:30am he saw it. A 1965 Ford was sitting on the right shoulder, its hood up. It was empty of all passengers. The keys were not in the vehicle. I called the state Police right away, Rick said, recalling that day. Now I'm not certain how Rick knew that this was the car his wife had been driving. You see, Phyllis's car was in the shop and she had borrowed this car from a co worker. I think it's likely she'd told Rick about the car she was borrowing for the trip. And when he found it, he saw her and Jody's weekend bags and other items inside the car that he recognized because all those things were inside the vehicle. The only things missing were Phyllis's purse and keys and her and Jody. I'm not sure if Rick contacted the ISP or if he continued driving the route to Bluffton, hoping against hope that his wife and daughter would be there. But somehow ISPs red key post was contacted and sent troopers out to deal with the car. The car was not registered to Phyllis of course, but they soon made the connection between her and the vehicle. They now had a missing persons report on a woman and a toddler and an abandoned car with hood up and upon inspection, an evident mechanical issue. Police determined a radiator hose was broken and the car had likely overheated. There is Nothing in the 1972 reports about whether the co worker car owner was interviewed about the car having problems. But I was told that all indications point to this being a wear and tear issue rather than a sabotage issue. Phyllis had borrowed a car because hers was broken and the borrowed car broke down. While all this was going on, the report about Phyllis and Jodi being found came in. It's impossible to imagine how Phyllis's parents and Rick felt upon hearing the news that Phyllis was found dead in a ditch and Jody was alive but had been taken to the hospital with a possible head injury. All this news, the finding of the car and the two missing females happened in the space of about an hour. The family must have been reeling with shock. Let's talk about exactly where the car was found. On Friday night, we think right around 8, Phyllis set off from Indianapolis and drove north on I 69. She made it about 75 miles before she had to pull over onto the northbound shoulder. The location was in Grant county, just north of State Road 26, near Fairmount, 12 miles south of Marion. It was right along the route to her parents house. While the state troopers were on site inspecting the broken down vehicle, a farmer who owned the property nearby approached them and reported that he'd seen the car there when he drove home from work on Friday night. He wasn't certain of the time, but it was around 11:30pm 11:30pm the car had been there since 11:30pm where were Jody and Phyllis for more than 12 hours? They were certainly in a vehicle for at least part of that time. They were found in Huntertown, 70 miles north of where the car was abandoned. But it would only take just over an hour to get to that location. Had Phyllis been dead that entire time and Jody just left her own devices? Indiana State Police Capt. Kevin Smith, who spent many years pushing to get this case solved, told me that those early reports do not contain any information about what Jody's status was when she was found. Was she hungry? Thirsty, Crying? Subdued? Did she have a dirty diaper? Unfortunately, we don't know. Jody has declined all requests for interviews. But according to the News Sentinel, Jody was not able to provide information about the incident. And police at the time believed she was either, quote, knocked out, as they put it, or asleep at the time of the slaying. But she said she saw a man, and police think it was the man who killed her mother. This is all we know. Jody apparently did not relate whether they got in a man's car or a man gave them a ride. If she heard the gunshots or God forbid, witnessed anything happening to her mother. She was unable to share that. The broken down Ford was towed to the state police post in Fort Wayne to be processed for prints. No unidentified latent prints were found. There was nothing in the vehicle indicating that anyone other than Phyllis and Jody was were in the car. Phyllis purse found near her body was searched and found to contain some cash, her identification and cards. Nothing of value appeared to be missing, but the car keys were never found. As for the gun used to kill Phyllis, it was a small caliber automatic weapon. One of the questions that I asked about this case was whether shell casings were found at the scene. Unfortunately, the original incident report I pulled from 1972 makes no reference to shell casings, so we don't know if any were found. But I wondered how the reporting officer could have concluded that the gunshot was made by an automatic pistol unless there were shell casings found at the scene. Do different muzzles of guns make a distinctive shape leading him to draw the conclusion just from the muzzle mark on Phyllis cheek? I just don't have the answer to that. Anyway, that's what the report said. So an automatic it is. I was unable to learn whether any bullets were actually recovered from Phyllis, but Captain Smith told me the Indiana State Police was not able to do anything with ballistics that advanced the case. No neighbors in the area where Phyllis was found remembered hearing any gunshots, even though the nearest home was just a quarter mile away. But the area at the time was rural and residents may have been used to the sounds emitted by hunters and not even noticed. Police declined to speculate about what exactly had happened to Phyllis, whether she had had car trouble and had been abducted by a seeming Good Samaritan. But they did acknowledge that she had been taken to the remote area near Huntertown and killed there.
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Are you a fraud paying American? It's a fact that one in four honest, hard working, tax paying Americans has been a victim of identity theft. With Lifelock Identity Theft Protection though, if your identity is stolen, they fix it guaranteed and get you your money back. Last year the IRS flagged over $16 billion in refunds for identity fraud. That's billions of dollars that could come from your salary, overtime or second job. But this year you don't need to stay a victim. Lifelock monitors millions of data points per second for your personal information and alerts you to threats you could easily miss on your own. And if your information does fall into the wrong hands only LifeLock has US based restoration specialists who are backed by the million dollar protection package. Because this tax season, fraud paying American is something no American should have to claim. Visit lifelock.com iheart and save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% off@lifelock.com iheart terms apply.
- [17:40]
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Hey, this is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage we we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you learn more at pennymac.com pennymac loan services llc/housing lender nmls id 35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply.
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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comdisclosures.
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I know you're all wondering whether Rick Baylor was a suspect. The answer is a resounding no. Even though the two were divorcing, things were not acrimonious. If Rick had wanted to harm Phyllis, why would he wait for her car to break down to do it? And of course Jody would have recognized him. No one thought that he would shoot his wife and leave their daughter by the side of the road, nowhere near home. Still, Rick was questioned by the Indiana State Police and has said himself that he was a person of interest for a short time. I was told that he came across as very honest and concerned in his interviews. He was helpful and cooperative and he was able to prove his whereabouts on Friday night. He was not out driving all over Indiana killing his wife. One thing I questioned was how the coroner made the determination that Phyllis had been raped versus possibly the semen found in her underwear having come from her husband or a boyfriend. How were they so sure it was the killers? I don't have a solid answer to this one. Captain Smith told me he is not even sure how Rick was ruled out as the source. I could only assume that Rick denied having intercourse with Phyllis. The two were separated after all. Perhaps the sample detected in her underwear exhibited fresh sperm and Rick's whereabouts during the days before the incident were accounted for. Perhaps serology tests were conducted and Rick was incompatible with the blood type of the semen sample. I don't know, but in any event, everyone was firmly in the camp of Phyllis was raped by her abductor and killer. Although the genital swabs were apparently not retained, Phyllis's underwear and other clothing were retained for future testing and evidentiary purposes. The investigators were eager to narrow down the timeframe for Phyllis murder and of course to identify her cold blooded killer. Police suspected that he was familiar with the area where Phyllis was found two miles northeast of Huntertown. It seemed unlikely that someone would stumble on that spot, which was very Rural and a mile from the nearest two lane highway. They weren't able to narrow down the timeframe a lot. But Ruth, the witness who had found Jody standing by the side of the road, told the officers at the scene that she had arrived at her parents home the evening before around 12:45am and she hadn't seen anything on her way to the house. However, of course it was dark at that time and it's possible her headlights were wouldn't have captured Jody if she were sitting or lying down next to her mother in a ditch. Then police also learned that the postman had been down the road that Saturday morning just about an hour before Ruth found Phyllis. The officers tracked down this mailman and brought him back to the scene. Quote, he stated that he had not seen anything when he came by at approximately 10:15, but he was not looking, end quote. The investigators also learned that two other men had reported seeing the little girl. I don't know if the men called in this report or if they had pulled over and talked to the firemen on the scene, but a father and son who both lived on a road just south of Shoaf Road had been on the road at approximately the same time as Ruth and had seen the little girl. This didn't really assist police in narrowing down the timeline significantly, but it implied that the little girl was alone with her dead mother for some time. Tire tracks at the body site were of interest to police. They knew what Ruth's tires looked like and exactly where she had pulled over on i69. These were not those. They were able to distinguish another set of tracks, tracks that were suspected to be the killer's car. Photos and measurements were taken, wheel bases and tire sizes assessed, but everything was standard size, too average to be informative. All the tracks did was confirm what the investigators already knew. Jody and Phyllis had arrived at that spot in a vehicle and the vehicle had driven away from the site without them. I was surprised to learn that the 1972 police reports do not mention the direction in which the suspect's car was traveling when it left the area within two days of the murder. The Indiana State Police told the media they had no clues. The 1972 records do not reflect whether the Allen county investigators considered specific suspects connected to the area where Phyllis and Jody were found. I was told that no one in the local area immediately piqued their interest. But another man suddenly fell into the laps of the investigators, who very much did pique their interest and drew the focus of the entire Baylor investigation for a very good reason. Here's what happened. On the Saturday that Phyllis was found shot to death, a man went on a kidnapping spree that involved vehicles and female victims, some with children. On Saturday, July 8, Dana Hugo was shopping in a drugstore in Anderson, Indiana. When she emerged from the store, a man armed with a knife confronted her at her car. He forced her into her car and drove off with her. His 23 year old kidnapping victim, Dana, was the daughter of Madison County, Indiana Deputy Prosecutor George Hugo. He and his wife reported Dana missing late Saturday after she failed to come home for dinner after running her errand. Two days later, on Monday night, Dana managed to convince her captor to let her use the bathroom at the service station where they were getting gas near Jasper, Florida. She locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out. When her captor realized that he wasn't going to be able to get her out without making a scene, he drove off hastily in her car. She came out and got the gas station attendant to call the police reporting that she'd been kidnapped two days earlier in Indiana and the suspect was heading south on I75 in her car. Florida State Police quickly issued a BOLO for Dana's vehicle with Indiana tags and Trooper BK Odom spotted the car on i75 and gave chase. He tailed the suspect who sped up to more than 90 miles an hour and tried to make evasive maneuvers but the trooper managed to bump him and cause him to spin out and crash. Odom arrested him on the spot. The man's name was Arthur Morris Jr. Age 21. Indiana police were already looking for Morris. He had kidnapped two other women the same weekend he took Dana and the same weekend Phyllis was kidnapped and killed. Around mid afternoon on Friday, July 7th, Morris kidnapped a 22 year old woman named Virginia B. And her 21 month old son. He accosted them at Fairview park in Anderson, forced them into her car at knifepoint and drove off with them. I'm not sure exactly what he did to Virginia, but it wasn't good. He left her in Indianapolis tied to a tree with nylon rope. He left her child unharmed by her side. She managed to free herself after he drove off and she called police. They later found her car abandoned. Morris's next known kidnapping victim was 24 year old Betty G. He abducted her at knifepoint from a shopping center parking lot at 7:40am on Saturday as she parked her car to go to work at Montgomery Ward. She was driven in her own Volkswagen to the New Castle area, beaten, stripped and tied up with strips of her undergarments her car was also later found abandoned. Both Betty and Virginia told the same story. Their abductor, Morris, was armed with a knife, but had bragged that he had a.45 caliber automatic pistol in his pocket. He also boasted that he had killed a cop. A third victim, Marcy S. Had managed to avoid being kidnapped. Morris, wielding a rusty steak knife, tried to force her way into her car. Marcy jumped out and ran into a store, and he drove off in her car, which he later abandoned. So this kidnap and rape spree came to an end in Florida after Dana Hugo called police. Morris was captured and held on $100,000 bond. And Dana, who was described as quite upset, was taken to the hospital and sedated. Indiana authorities quickly put together that this Morris guy, arrested in Florida, had gone on a kidnapping rampage involving women and in their state right at the exact time that Phyllis was kidnapped and killed. And the hours between Betty's and Virginia's abductions Friday night to early Saturday morning exactly coincided with the timing of Phyllis's abduction. And Morris was unaccounted for. During those hours, police were all in on Morris. In Dana's car, they found only the rusty knife he had used to abduct Virginia, Betty and Dana. They did not find a gun that might have been used on Phyllis. But Morris was discovered to have a horrific record. In Indiana. In 1970, he was charged with rape. Those charges were dismissed for apparent lack of evidence. In 1971, he was charged with assault after grabbing a woman's breast. He got 90 days suspended. In 1972, he was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. This charge was also dismissed for lack of evidence. Both of those 1970 and 1972 cases involved abductions and rapes of girls as young as 14. Morris forced sex on them and then later argued that the sex acts were consensual. Since it was the 70s, the charges being dismissed because of lack of evidence was probably because in a battle of he said, she said, he was believed and his surviving victims were not. Now, in 1972, three Allen county deputies and an Indiana State Police detective, Sergeant Al Copps, flew to Florida to question Morris in the Jacksonville jail. Allen County Sheriff Robert Bender told the media that Morris was a suspect in Phyllis's case. Police became increasingly focused on Morris when they learned that he was unaccounted for for 12 hours, the exact same 12 hours in which Phyllis and Jody were missing. I mean, what are the chances that it wasn't him? Phyllis was kidnapped in a random attack along a highway by a guy who was randomly attacking women of similar age in central Indiana, some of them with kids at the exact same time. The MO didn't fit exactly in that he abducted his other victims in their own vehicles. But perhaps he had used the Friday afternoon victim's vehicle to abduct Phyllis and Jody after their car broke down. It was reported that Allen County Sheriff Robert Bender said Anderson police found evidence in Morris's impounded car linking him with Phyllis's murder. And indeed, searches of that vehicle found abandoned yielded what appeared to be a child's shoe prints in the backseat. Shoe prints that appeared consistent with shoes worn by little Jody when her mom was abducted. Further, Anderson Morris's hunting ground was right smack along the route Phyllis would have driven from Indianapolis to Bluffton. State Police Detective Sergeant Samuel Platt Jr. Told the media that Morris was, quote, unquote, our only lead at the moment. Under questioning, Morris denied kidnapping or killing Phyllis. He agreed to a lie detector and sat for the polygraph. While in the Florida jail, he failed. One article says of Morris, quote, he is believed to have shot Ms. Baylor in the head, end quote. Allen County Sheriff Robert Bender told the media it was likely that murder charges would be filed against Morris. The investigators were certain they had their man. But despite the failed lie detector, the missing time, the kid's shoe prints, and the MO Prosecutors hesitated to charge Morris and Phyllis's case. At the time. They never found the gun or any evidence Morris ever had one. He continued to deny his involvement. One quote in the media was, quote, anderson police said the man they've identified as a suspect in the kidnapping is probably not capable of murder, end quote. I don't know what that means, but Allen County Sheriff Dan Fiegle later said that the evidence against Morris was, quote, all circumstantial. Prosecutors understandably wanted to ensure they built a solid, winnable case against Morris before proceeding. And Morris wasn't going anywhere, so there was no rush. He was held in the Duval County Jail in Jacksonville while he faced federal charges of kidnapping and and interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle. The FBI was putting together their case and planned to try him in Florida before releasing him to Indiana. In November of 1972, Morris was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for the abduction of Dana Hugo. A psychiatrist who evaluated him before trial labeled him possibly a criminal sexual psychopath. After this conviction was, Morris waived extradition and was returned to Indiana to face state kidnapping charges. He initially pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to kidnapping Virginia Bee, but a plea agreement was Worked out whereby he pled guilty to commission of a felony while armed with a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to 30 years. Then in Betty's case, tried in a different county than Virginia's, he was given an additional 30 years. So all in all, he was supposed to serve 85 years in prison, the first 25 in the federal pen and the remainder in Indiana state prisons. Morris was paroled from the federal system in 1984 and then reported to the Indiana State Prison to serve his state sentence and he was released in 1988. This despite a letter from one of the 1972 survivors, Dana, telling the parole board that she had zero doubt that if she hadn't managed to escape Morris, he would have killed her. She wrote, quote, these terrorizing two days have lingered throughout my entire life and have affected me greatly in my relationships with men and strangers. It is extremely difficult for me to recount the impact this incident has had on my life. Nights of reliving the details of this terror in my dreams, waking up in cold sweats and periods of hyperventilation are only the outward examples of the inner turmoil that still lingers in my psyche. End quote. Dana compared Morris to another violent psychopath, Steven Judy, who was big news in Indiana and whom I will discuss shortly. So after all was said and done, Morris remained the prime suspect in Phyllis's murder. But investigators could not get to the point that they had the probable cause they needed to charge him. Captain Kevin Smith told me that when he started looking into this case earlier in his career, he spoke with some of the older 1970s era investigators who had worked the original Baylor case. They all considered Morris their only suspect. They just could not prove it.
- [33:15]
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Are you a fraud paying American? It's a fact that one in four honest hard working tax paying Americans has been a victim of identity theft. With Lifelock Identity Theft Protection though, if your identity is stolen, they fix it guaranteed and get you your money back. Last year the IRS flagged over $16 billion in refunds for identity fraud. That's billions of dollars that could come from your salary, overtime or second job. But this year you don't need to stay a victim. LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second for your personal information and alerts you to threats you could easily miss on your own. And if your information does fall into the wrong hands, only LifeLock has US based restoration specialists who are are backed by the million dollar protection package. Because this tax season fraud paying American is something no American should have to claim. Visit lifelock.com iheart and save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% off@lifelock.com iheart terms apply.
- [34:15]
A
Hey, this is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you learn more at pennymac.com PennyMac Loan Services LLC/ housing lender NMLS ID35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply.
- [34:45]
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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, CR and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite profile possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available@public.com disclosures.
- [35:48]
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You heard me mention Steven Judy a few moments ago. I know he was considered as a possible suspect in Phyllis's case, but I don't know how. In depth 1970s and early 1980s records, as you can imagine, are sparse. Judy was responsible for the devastating 1979 murder of Terry Chastine, which bore some startling similarities to phyllis case. On April 28, 1979, Terry, a young single mom of three, left Indianapolis in her car with her three children. Sometime after 6am she planned to leave the children at a babysitter's house so she could go to work in the produce department at a marsh grocery store. She never showed up for her shift. Hunters found Terry's body at approximately 9:30am in White Lick Creek near State Road 67 and Mooresville in Morgan County. A police search of the creek led to the discovery of of three additional bodies. Her kids, Terri was found naked with her hands and feet bound with strips of material torn from her clothing and her head covered with her pants. She had been gagged and strangled with other strips of cloth. The evidence established that Terri had been raped and that she died of strangulation while her kids Misty, age 5, Mark, age 4 and Steven, age 3, died of asphyxia due to drowning. They were stripped naked and their heads held under the creep water until they died. At the scene police found a bank book with Terry's name and address in it. They made contact with her boyfriend, Jack L. Who lived with her in Indianapolis. He told them Terry had left home that morning in his red 1978 Ford Granada on the way to White Lit Creek to identify the bodies. On i465 near the interchange with i70, Jack found his car abandoned on the interstate. As you can hear, the Chastain case has parallels to Phyllis's. The car sitting empty on the highway, the mom and children abducted, rape and murder. Had Phyllis's killer escalated to killing kids and struck again seven years after her murder. Police quickly zeroed in on Steven Judy as the killer of Terry and her kids. At the time, Steven Judy was driving a distinctively painted red and silver gray truck. This truck was seen parked by White Lit Creek near the scene of the killings around 7 or 7:30am One witness recognized the truck from having seen it on several occasions at a nearby construction site. Another witness testified that he saw a man near the scene carrying a child under one arm and carrying a bundle in the shape and size of a child under his other arm. A third child was walking in front of the man. At approximately 7:30am A man was seen running away from the creek toward the parked truck. Near that same time, another person saw a man walk with blonde hair backing his truck onto the highway. From this same location he appeared to be alone. Police traced the truck and learned that it was registered to a Robert Carr car. Carr and his wife were foster parents to a 22 year old man named Steven Judy. Robert told police he had allowed Judy to borrow the truck on Friday night and he hadn't returned it until after 8am on Saturday morning. Witnesses on I465 saw the truck with a blonde man whom they later identified as Judy, standing near a car parked on the interstate with the hood open. Another witness testified that he was Driving southwest on State Road 67 and saw a red and gray truck carrying a man, a woman and some children proceeding in the same direction. This witness stated that the truck was moving at a fast pace and in a sometimes erratic manner and that the woman in the truck waved to him. When the two vehicles stopped at a traffic light. That was Terry signaling for help. The evidence against Judy was overwhelming, even though it was 1979. Semen on a coat found at the crime scene was compatible with Judy's blood type and contained a rare antigen that Judy carried. In addition, two threads of material found in Judy's truck substantially matched the threads of one article of Terry's clothing. That trial Judy presented an insanity defense and testified about what he had done. Judy said that he was driving on Interstate 465 in Marion county when he passed Terry's car. He said he motioned for her to pull over to the shoulder of the road, indicating that she had a loose wheel. The two vehicles pulled over to the shoulder and stopped, and Judy offered to help fix the car. Instead, he secretly removed the coil wire, rendering the car inoperable. When her car wouldn't start, Judy offered Terry and her children a ride and she accepted. Judy then drove his victims to the White Lick Creek area and pulled his truck off the road. He testified that he sent the kids on ahead down to the creek, and that was when he bound, gagged and raped Terry. She was able to scream before being gagged and her kids ran back and stood around them and yelled. Judy then strangled Terry with her purse strap and threw her body into the creek. Then he disposed of the kids. He returned to his truck after attempting to eradicate his footprints. He then drove away from the scene, stopped and bought a soda, and went home to the car's house. Stephen Judy was convicted of murdering Terry and her children, but that was just one of the horrific crimes he perpetrated. I just want to talk about his other victims for a second to memorialize them. In 1970, when Judy was 13 years old, he tricked his way into the Indianapolis apartment of Carol E. On the pretext of selling boy scout tickets. He attempted to rape and kill Carol, stabbing her 42 times until his knife broke before finally fracturing her skull with a hatchet and cutting off one of her fingers as she tried to defend herself. He returned home covered in blood and told his sister that he'd been attacked. She called the police, to whom he confessed. As a result of this incident, the 13 year old Judy was admitted to Central State Hospital in Indianapolis. While he was in Central State's treatment program. After being diagnosed as a sexual psychopath, he became the foster child of a family in Indianapolis. The cars. When he was released from Central State, it was to their home. Okay, so what does this all have to do with Phyllis Baylor? Well, the question is exactly when was Steven Judy released from Central State? Because if he was out, he could have killed Phyllis. Phyllis was killed in 1972, and Judy didn't carry out the Terry chastine murder until 1979. But after that murder, Indiana investigators had to go back and figure out if he could have killed Phyllis in a similar crime. It does appear that Judy was discharged from Central State Hospital prior to the Phyllis Baylor slaying. I found an article in the Indianapolis Star mentioning 16 year old Steven Judy in June 1972, saying he was living in Indianapolis at the time. And this in court documents, quote, for the Carol E. Attack, Judy was confined at age 13 to Central State Hospital for three years. Within two years, he was treated and released on convalescent leave to the custody of Robert and Mary Carr. Judy was then 16. He was released from Central State despite a recommendation that he be sent to a juvenile prison. End quote. So Judy was free, 16 years old and living in Indianapolis when Phyllis was killed. What I don't know is whether Indiana investigators were able to question Judy about Phyllis's murder before he was executed by the State of Indiana in 1981. That execution was for the Chastine murder. But before that, in July 1975, Steven Judy assaulted a woman named Susan M. Passersby, heard her cries for help and rescued her before she could be raped and killed. Judy served less than two years in prison and on release returned to live with the cars. Then in April 1977, Judy accosted Pamela Bee. He jumped into her parked car and kidnapped her at knifepoint. She was able to escape and once again, Judy was arrested. At his trial, a hung jury meant that he was once again free after serving a few months time for violating his parole. Finally, in 1979, he killed Terry Chastine and her kids. And that was the tipping point. The U.S. supreme Court had just reinstated capital punishment and Judy, after being convicted, waived his rights to appeal and asked for death, saying he would kill again if he got the chance. Indiana was happy to carry out his wishes. So again we have the question, did Steven Judy kill Phyllis? He was certainly capable of it. The MO with approaching women on the highway certainly fit. 11981 United Press International article about Steven Judy stated, quote, cars were always involved. When Steven Judy Set out to rape, beat or murder a woman. End quote. Mary Carr, Judy's foster mother, participated in a press conference after he was executed. She told the media that in the hours before he was electrocuted in Indiana's electric chair, known as Old Betsy, he confessed to more killings. He told her that he left a string of bodies. Three murder victims and several rape victims across five states. Those states were Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Illinois and Indiana. Mrs. Carr said her foster son had frequent urges to attack women because he considered them stupid and gullible. He said every woman he attacked, he raped. Every woman he ever bothered, he either tricked them into pulling off the road or he started to help them as they were stopped on the road. It sounded very much like what happened to Phyllis. But Judy confessed to all his crimes. Even though he didn't know some of his victims names, none of them exactly matched Phyllis's details. Also, Judy was never known to use a gun. So investigators were left putting a pin in Steven Judy. One thing I do not know is whether DNA from Steven Judy was ever obtained post mortem and entered into codis. I hope so because it sounds like he certainly has more victims, including many believe, Ann Harmeyer. Ann, a junior at Indiana University, was driving back to Bloomington on September 12, 1977 when she disappeared. Her car was found abandoned on Indiana State Road 37 with the hazards on it had overheated with with no water in the radiator. There was no sign of Anne. She was found five weeks later, five miles away in a cornfield. She'd been raped and strangled with her shoelace. Apparently, Steven Judy remains the prime suspect in this unsolved case. We all prefer things a certain way, like groceries. If you want groceries just how you like them, you gotta try Instacart. They have a new preference picker that lets you pick how ripe or unripe you want your bananas. Shoppers can see your preferences up front, helping guide their choices. Because when it comes to groceries, the details matter. Instacart get groceries just how you like.
- [46:35]
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Are you a fraud paying American? It's a fact that one in four honest, hard working, taxpaying Americans has been a victim of identity theft. With Lifelock Identity theft Protection. Though if your identity is stolen, they fix it, guaranteed and get you your money back. Last year the IRS flagged over $16 billion in refunds for identity fraud. That's billions of dollars that could come from your salary, overtime or second job. But this year you don't need to stay a victim. LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second for your personal information and alerts you to threats you could easily miss on your own. And if your information does fall into the wrong hands, only LifeLock has US based restoration specialists who are are backed by the million dollar protection package. Because this tax season fraud paying American is something no American should have to claim. Visit lifelock.com iheart and save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% off@lifelock.com iheart terms apply.
- [47:35]
A
Hey, this is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you learn more at pennymac.com PennyMac Loan Services LLC/ housing lender NMLS ID35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply Phyllis case was quiet for a number of years then in February 1994, Allen County Sheriff's Detectives Tom Rasche and Roy Stevens obtained a search warrant to collect blood and hair samples from an inmate at the Indiana State Prison who was serving a life sentence on a different crime. The Indiana State Police had undertaken a push to use a relatively new DNA testing technology to advance old cases and perhaps once and for all, rule in or out strong suspects. And one of those cases was Phyllis's. Still in evidence were the items of Phyllis clothing and they were ripe for DNA testing. So who was the man investigators were collecting samples from for testing in the Baylor case? It was the prime suspect from day three of the original investigation, Arthur Morris Jr. Morris always had been the suspect in Phyllis's murder. Allen county investigators had reinterviewed him in prison in 1979, hoping to get him to confess. He did not cooperate. Before he was released in 1988, DNA testing had been conducted on a semen stain on Phyllis's underwear in attempts to obtain a genetic profile that could be compared to a sample from Morris. But DNA testing technology was still quite rudimentary and the testing was unsuccessful at obtaining a profile from that evidence. That was all done under the tenure of then Allen County Sheriff Dan Fiegel, who was a detective at the time of Morris's arrest in Florida and had flown down to interview him about the Baylor case. He firmly believed Morris was guilty and said of Morris, quote, we always felt we had a strong suspect. Fiegel was extremely disappointed when the testing didn't work and retired in 1991. Now in February of 1994, Morris was in Indiana State Prison after being convicted in May of 1992 of child molestation for his assault of a 13 year old girl. She testified that he raped her and made her perform oral sex on him. He was sentenced to 31 years in prison after his probation officer called him an extremely dangerous criminal who should be sentenced to the max. The Allen county investigators wanted to execute the search warrant against Morris while they could still find him. Because on February 23, the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned the Morris's conviction for the 1992 child molestation offense. Surprisingly, he had won an appeal based on ineffective assistance of counsel, which has a notoriously high bar. His attorney must have really phoned it in. The Allen county investigators visited Morris in prison several times before his scheduled April release, pressing him on the Baylor case which remained unsolved and cold as Antarctica used to be before global warming. He was willing to speak with the investigators, but still denied killing Phyllis. He agreed to give them hair, semen and blood samples and did so willingly. So the search warrant was not needed. Thank goodness Morris was not released. The state refiled the child molestation charges against him and planned to try him again. A court hearing was held regarding bail for Morris. The prosecutors told the judge that Morris was the suspect in the unsolved Phyllis Baylor case. And former Sheriff Feegle testified about the police theory that Morris was their killer. Bail was set for Morris at $250,000 pending retrial. I don't know whether Morris was reconvicted, but I think he was because he didn't appear in the public eye again. Thank goodness. Meanwhile, the semen sample from Morris and cuttings from Phyllis underwear were sent to a private lab in California for direct comparison. Investigators knew that the 1972 medical examiner had concluded that that Phyllis had been raped and the semen in her underwear was their best connection to her killer. This time the lab was able to develop a suspect DNA profile from the underwear. This was a rudimentary PCR profile used for comparison testing. Only Arthur J. Morris was excluded as the contributor to the profile. After all those years, the top suspect evaporated with the stroke of a DNA analyst's keyboard. Allen County Sheriff's Lt. Roy Stevens said, quote, the circumstantial case against Arthur was very persuasive but the scientific evidence has eliminated him. Mr. Morris was a suspect for a long time, almost 22 years at this point in time. Arthur is no longer a suspect, end quote. Retired Sheriff Feigal told the News Sentinel that detectives in his agency developed no other suspects beside Morris during his entire tenure. And he was very disappointed by the latest test results. I can't believe it, but that's what the DNA says. He said it was a staggering setback, but now at least they had a profile that they could use to compare to any other suspects who might emerge. As unlikely as that seemed, the Journal Gazette covered this significant development in the 22 year old Baylor case. Reporter Megan Irons reached out to Phyllis mother Leona Miller, who said it had come as a shock to her family to learn there might be new evidence. Quote, I thought this was a dead end situation. The last time I talked to the police was in 1972, end quote. Even though it had been 22 years, Leona told the reporter that not a day went by that she didn't think about her daughter. Quote, it's a shock. I don't know what to think. I don't know what they're looking for. The only thing is I hope they find whoever did it so they won't do it again to anybody. Leona gave an update on her granddaughter. Jody had been raised by her father and when he relocated to Florida, she stayed in Indiana to complete her schooling. As an adult, she moved to Chicago and worked in it. She had little to no memory of her mother. After Morris was eliminated as a suspect in Phyllis's case, the investigation stalled. A few people were looked at now and again. One man out of state who bragged about killing a woman in Indiana was questioned, but nothing panned out. The case was cold, no suspects emerged and Phyllis's case remained status quo for years. At the commencement of his career, now Indiana State Police Captain Kevin Smith was a crime scene tech who aspired to be a detective. He read the massive Allen county file on the Baylor case and it stayed on his mind as he advanced through the ranks of the State Police. When he became a detective, having a background in crime scene investigation and evidence collection, he knew that DNA might solve the case in 2015. Having been a detective for 10 years and able to prioritize cases important to him, he initiated a formal reinvestigation of the Baylor case. In a joint effort by the State Police and the Allen county pd. The agencies requested assistance from the public. Captain Smith told me that his main concern was getting the case back in the media cycle and making sure people knew that it was unsolved. WA ran a full report about the case at that time, quoting Captain Smith as saying, this is one of the oldest ones I've got. I can just imagine what the family and the daughters going through just every day since 1972. We would love to solve this case for them. As part of the WA feature, the woman who found Phyllis and Jody gave an on camera interview. Ruth Logar said, quote, I knew I never read anything about it being solved. I'm glad they're reopening it again because obviously I. It was a terrible crime and whoever did it should be punished. But Captain Smith knew that another way to solve the case, absent a tip from the public, would be to focus on the science. 21 years after the previous round of DNA testing in 1994, Captain Smith arranged for updated testing on the semen stain on Phyllis underwear. The lab was able to obtain an STR DNA profile suitable for entry into codis. As always, hopes were high when the profile was entered into the system for the first time. And they were dashed when the profile hit to no one in either the state or federal offender DNA databases. Whoever killed Phyllis, his DNA was not on file. Within a few years, the Indiana State Police established a new cold case unit under Captain Smith. This team was responsible, along with Detective Brian Martin of Fort Wayne for solving the notorious April Tinsley case with IGG and arresting John Miller. I covered that case in season one. After that success, Captain Smith inquired as to whether there was enough DNA extract remaining from the stain on Phyllis's underwear to undertake a genealogy analysis on her case. Private lab Intermountain Forensics was able to obtain a SNP profile of Phyllis's suspected killer. Now they were getting somewhere. Indiana State Police Cold case team and the Allen County Police Department began working with Identifinders International, the forensic genealogy company founded by Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick, who has been a guest on this show. The genealogy work was actually done by Jenna Robertson, who was kind enough to share some details with me. She uploaded the suspect's SNP profile to GEDmatch. The top match shared 309 centimorgans of DNA with the suspect, approximately a second cousin. Typically, this would require building out the top match's family tree to the great grandparent level, knowing that the suspect would have to fall somewhere within that tree. But the top match was adopted and all the other matches she had in GEDmatch were very minor. She could see through the chromosome browser who was related to whom, but not how they were related. She started by building out the trees of some of those lesser matches. And then when she figured out who the biological parents were of the top match. By following the genetic connections she could see for him. She could see where he intersected with the trees of several of the smaller matches. He sort of tied it all together. I asked Ms. Robertson what it was like to build out so many trees for low level matches, knowing that they're only distantly related to the suspect, so their trees would intersect generations back. She said she uses multiple monitors at once to allow her to fill out and view all these trees simultaneously. Then she looks for names or locations in common. And in this case location was crucial because almost all the close relatives in the trees of the lower level matches had some kind of connection to Muncie, Indiana. There was one family, however, that was from Michigan. And when she tied in the top match and figured out all his sets of great grandparents and his connection to the other trees, she noted that his tree contained the name of this Michigan family. It was a case in which the geographic clues could have diverted the genealogist down the wrong path. She knew the crime was in Indiana and all the families were in Indiana. But the one in Michigan stood out because it contained the surname she had seen in the other trees. The relationship of the top match to this Michigan branch aligned with the suspected second cousin relationship the genealogist was seeking. The problem was there was no one to reference test. The Michigan family had a father who was the only child resulting from his parents union. And he and his wife had just one child together and everyone was dead. The course of action the genealogist recommended was for investigators to try to obtain a reference sample from the father's half siblings kids. They contacted this family and learned the that the father of the Michigan branch had a half brother who had a daughter who had already tested using a commercial DNA test kit. She was very supportive and helpful and agreed to upload to GEDmatch so Mrs. Robertson could confirm the level of kinship she shared with the suspect. As anticipated, the results showed that this woman shared DNA consistent with being the half first cousin of the suspect, being the closest living relative to the suspect. The that confirmation would have to satisfy the investigators. But since her relationship to the suspect meshed with all the other matches and tree branches, it was acceptable to everyone. They finally knew who had killed Phyllis.
- [59:53]
B
Are you a fraud paying American? It's a fact that one in four honest, hard working taxpaying Americans has been a victim of identity theft with lifelock identity theft protection. Though if your identity is stolen, they fix it guaranteed and get you your money back. Last year the IRS flagged over $16 billion in refunds for identity fraud. That's billions of dollars that could come from your salary, overtime or second job. But this year you don't need to stay a victim. LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second for your personal information and alerts you to threats you could easily miss on your own. And if your information does fall into the Wrong Hands Only LifeLock has US based restoration specialists who are backed by the million dollar protection package. Because this tax season, fraud paying American is something no American should have to claim. Visit lifelock.com iheart and save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% off@lifelock.com iheart terms apply.
- [60:53]
A
Hey, this is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you learn more at pennymac.com pennymac loan services llc/housing lender nmls id 35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply.
- [61:23]
C
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- [62:26]
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Fred Allen Lyneman was born in Michigan on May 22, 1947. He was the only child born to parents Laverne Richard Lyneman of Michigan and Mary Pearl Jones of Kentucky. Laverne was an army private and World War II veteran and is listed in census records as a radio serviceman. The family relocated from Central Line, Michigan, to Los Angeles, California, where Mary's brothers resided sometime after 1950. Young Fred was baptized in the El Monte, California Presbyterian Church. Unfortunately, Mary died on February 25, 1958 in Los Angeles. Fred was only 10 years old at the time. I'm sorry to report that we know next to nothing about Fred Lineman. We know he became motherless at a young age. I don't know anything about his relationship with his father. It is known that Fred traveled a lot. He was essentially itinerant, traveling up and down the east coast, having extended family in Florida, Michigan, Indiana, and known time spent in Texas and Mississippi as well. But he was also the black sheep. By that I mean Interviews the Indiana investigators conducted with extended family members, the children of Laverne's half siblings revealed that Fred was not well thought of. He was a bad seed, and basically they chose to disassociate themselves from him. In fact, when he died in 1985, his father, Laverne, had already passed away, and no one in the extended family, including Fred Lyneman's own half uncle, would claim his body. They wanted nothing to do with him and refused to pay for burial services. He ended up being buried in a pauper's grave in Michigan. The family does not even know where the gravesite is. Very frustratingly, investigators have not been able to locate many records of law enforcement interaction with Lineman, even though we all agree there must have been significant contacts. In November 1973, Lineman was arrested in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, While hitchhiking on Highway 90 with another young male. A Captain Robert Baker, stopped his cruiser to run a routine check on the two hitchhikers and was glad he did. One of them, fred lineman, age 26, was wanted for grand theft auto in Dade County, Florida. The address he gave at the time was in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. The other hitchhiker was a juvenile male who, it turned out, was a runaway from Baker, Louisiana. Lineman was held in Mississippi for extradition to Florida. Ocean Springs no longer has the record of this arrest. And in Florida, all I could find was that a criminal charge of felony auto larceny was filed against Lineman on November 29, 1973. The online court record I accessed indicates the case was closed in January 1974. A trial was scheduled, and that the disposition was convicted and sent. Throughout 1974, several motions to mitigate were filed, presumably by attorneys for Lineman trying to get his sentence, whatever it was, reduced. Two of these motions were granted, one was denied, and one motion for work furlough was granted. After September 1974, I could find nothing. It doesn't sound as though he served much time at all. This is the only concrete record anyone has found of criminal charges involving Fred Lineman. Unfortunately, given the time frame we're Talking about the 1970s and early 80s, there is no way to track Lineman's travels or behaviors. I was told that the most significant amount of time he spent anywhere was in Detroit, Michigan. But all police records of him there are either non existent or inaccessible. We also don't have a death record for him, but we know he's dead and that's because his death was covered in the newspapers. On April 30, 1985, Detroit police were summoned to a Cass Corridor alley behind an apartment building located in the 600 block of Selden. A passerby called cops because he heard noises from a dumpster in the alley, but peering inside, he saw a bloodied man. He zipped off to call police and returned to the alley minutes later with a public safety officer from Wayne State University named Lieutenant Thomas Wilson. They found the dumpster ablaze and the injured man still inside and burning. The officer managed to get the victim out of the dumpster, but he was pronounced DOA at Detroit Receiving Hospital. Doctors noted that he had died from multiple blunt force injuries. Both his arms were broken, he'd been beaten about the head and upper body with something like a baseball bat and his face had been sprayed with silver spray paint. His name was Fred Allen lineman, age 37. An investigation into lineman's death quickly led police to a basement apartment in the building serviced by the dumpster that had been set on fire. Crime scene technicians noted blood stains and blood smears on a rear door of the apartment building leading to the alley where the dumpster was. Residents of the building reported hearing screams, but coming from a specific apartment in the building sometime on the evening of April 30, but no one had called police. The tenant of this apartment was 21 year old Clifford John Copley. From inside the apartment, detectives confiscated a bloodstained baseball bat, a pipe and a hammer. According to the Detroit News, Copley and a known associate, 27 year old Kevin Reese, were arrested by police. Both of them were known spray paint sniffers. According to the Detroit PD remembered that lineman's face had been sprayed with spray paint. The two men told the investigators that they beat lineman with an axe handle and a baseball bat after they caught him stealing from Copley's apartment. Then they dragged him to the dumpster and set it on fire while Linneman pleaded with them to, quote, let me die, but give me a cigarette. Copley and Reese were both charged with first degree murder. Both were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. Copley died in prison in April 2007. Modern investigators trying to dig up background information on Fred Lineman noted with interest that Copley hailed from Newcastle, Indiana, just 20 miles from Muncie, where Lineman spent a lot of time with his extended family. They wondered whether the two had a history from back in Indiana. But Copley was dead and couldn't answer this question. As for Kevin Reese, he pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced in September 1985 to 25 to 40 years. He served 37 and was released on November 30, 2022. Investigators desperately wanted to talk to him to find out what he remembered about his victim, Fred Lineman, but Riis is in the wind. After his release, he initially stayed in a homeless shelter, but now the Indiana State Police cannot find him. If you know Kevin Reese, ask him to call Captain Smith of the ISP to share what he knows about Fred Lineman. Regardless, Indiana authorities have stated that if Fred Allen lineman were alive, the Allen County Prosecutor's office would charge him with Phyllis Baylor's murder, police said. Captain Smith told me that his meeting with the Baylor family, Phyllis's husband Rick and their daughter Jody, in which he broke the news that they had identified Phyllis killer, was very emotional. After the public announcement that Fred Allen lineman was responsible for the murder of Phyllis Baylor, NBC News interviewed her husband Rick. Here's an excerpt. Quote. Now, almost 53 years later, Richard says that he has very mixed emotions about police finding the person they say is responsible for Phyllis's death. Totally relieved that it was uncovered and that we found out who the person was, but upset that he died, Richard, 79, said, adding that lineman's violent end was, quote, the good side of it. Richard said that he wished Phyllis, his parents and sister were alive to get the closure they had wanted for so many years. But he's relieved their daughter Jody finally got an answer after over five decades. It was a blessing for our daughter to finally know, he said. Indiana State Police spokesperson Sgt. Wes Rowletter said on social media Phyllis Baylor never made it to Bluffton to visit her family. After years of questions, this family finally has answers about what happened to her. But we don't really. I have one answer and a zillion questions. All we can do is speculate at this point. Let's discuss what we think happened on the night that Phyllis and Jody were abducted. More than an hour into her drive to Bluffton on that Friday night in August 1972, the car Phyllis borrowed broke down on I 69 northbound. Assuming she left when she said she was going to around 8. By this time it was dark outside. If I were Phyllis and I were driving at night with my toddler and the car broke down, I would have just stayed put and hoped that a Good Samaritan or better yet a patrol officer would stop and offer assistance. I think Fred Lineman was the one who stopped. What choice did Phyllis have? Presumably Lineman did not trigger her hinky meter or even if he did a little bit, she was probably starting to panic or Jody may have needed a diaper change or a snack. Sitting in the dead car in the dark was dangerous. She weighed her options and presumably asked just for a ride to the nearest town where she could use a payphone to call her dad to come get them. She grabbed her purse and Jody and got into the car. This is indeed the investigators theory of what happened. The Indiana State Police stated in 2015 that they believed Phyllis and Jody got into a car with someone after hers overheated. They do not believe she knew the person who picked her up and there are no known connections whatsoever between then 25 year old Fred Lineman and Phyllis. He was a stranger. Lineman was probably in Indiana because he has significant numbers of extended family in Muncie. Phyllis's car was found just 30 miles from there. I wonder when Phyllis started to realize that Lineman had malignant intentions. Was it when he kept driving north ignoring her request to let her out? Was it when he blew past the interchange with the road to Bluffton and proceeded north instead a total of 70 miles? Did he have a gun pointed at her at this point? And what happened over the next 12 or so hours? Did Lineman drive straight to Huntertown and rape and kill Phyllis right away? Or as one Indiana State Police detective theorized when we spoke, did he hold Phyllis captive for some time before disposing of her in the inhumane and barbaric manner he opted for? We know that none of the witnesses driving along West Road where Phyllis was found noticed anything until Ruth Logar spotted Jody around 11:30am on Saturday. She hadn't noticed the little girl the night before and the mailman hadn't noticed her when he was doing his rounds on Saturday either. But that doesn't mean Jody wasn't there. She could have been there all night lying down or even asleep next to her dead mother. She could have been bonked on the head by her mother's killer. Suffering the small head wound she had, Jody was able to relay only that there was a man. We could only pray for her sake that she did not witness what happened to her mother. And of course we all reflect that Jody is lucky to be alive. And I'm sure she feels that keenly every day. So we don't know where the two were all night. There's no way to know whether Phyllis was raped and killed where she was found or was raped and killed elsewhere and just dumped in the ditch. Whatever happened, it's just unbearable to think about those things going down inside the car with Jodie present and possibly watching. I can't decide where I think the assault occurred. Phyllis was found clothed, but her shoes were not on her feet. Did Linneman kill her in the car and then dump her in the ditch and throw her shoes and purse out near her? Again, we don't know. I don't have enough information to make an informed guess. I know Phyllis was shot in the cheek in a close contact shot, but whether it was her left cheek indicating she was maybe in the passenger seat, I also don't know. Autopsy reports in Indiana are not releasable to non family members. The only thing we really know about what happened to Phyllis and the true pathos of this crime is that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and suffered impossibly bad luck. That Fred Lineman was the one who came upon her. And then there is Lineman himself. I have so many questions about him as well. Was the abduction, rape and murder of Phyllis just a simple crime of opportunity? Did he kill her so she couldn't bear witness against him and his evil deeds were. What else has he done? There is a world of difference, criminologically speaking, between boosting cars and stealing from paint sniffers apartments and raping and shooting women in front of little children. Does the fact that he left Jody alive point to him having a tiny bit of humanity? I can't quite get there. Leaving a toddler alone roadside with her dead and bleeding mother and driving off in a cloud of dust seems to me the ultimate cruelty. After 52 years, Phyllis Baylor's case is resolved thanks to IGG. And if you are one of the bad guys, they are coming for you. Thank you so much to Indiana State Police Captain Kevin Smith, to ISP Detective Jacob Quick, and to Jenna Robertson for speaking with me about this case. Thanks for listening to this episode of dnaid. Before you leave, please let me tell you about some important things related to the show. If you'd like to support this podcast and in the process get access to early and ad free episodes as well as bonus content like crime scene photos, you can sign up for a Patreon subscription for only $5 a month by heading over to patreon.com dnaid of course, you're welcome to contribute more than $5 a month. We rely on Patreon funds to pay for the original source materials I use to research each episode. If Patreon isn't your thing, you can also show your support with an ABJAC Insider subscription through Apple Podcasts. It costs just $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Your Abjak Insider subscription will give you the same benefits for not only dnaid but for all of the shows on the ABJ Network like Killer Communications and Campus Killings. Head over to Apple Podcasts and find the DNAID page or look for the ABJ Network to get started. If you're on social media, we'd love to interact with you. There's DNAID is on every major social media platform. Search your favorite platforms for DNAID Podcasts to find us. We also have a YouTube channel and our website is DNAID podcast.com. you can find links to all of these anytime in our show notes. If you need to reach the show, contact us by emailing dnaidpodcastmail.com finally, if you want to pick up some fun DNAID machine merch and represent the show, visit the store at www.customizedgirl.com s DNAIDpodcast. DNAID is researched, written and hosted by me, Jessica Bettencourt. It's produced by me and Mike Morford of abjack Entertainment Music by Connor Betancourt.
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