IN THE NEWS
Chicago Tribune - January 9, 2005
Allegation fuels new probe of Brach case
By Jeff Coen and David Heinzmann, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporter Matt O'Connor contributed to this report
Authorities are taking a deliberate approach in a renewed investigation into the disappearance of Glenview candy heiress Helen Vorhees Brach after a federal informant's new account of her killing did not immediately spur prosecutors to seek murder charges in the case.
The informant's allegations that Brach was killed to silence her from revealing that she had been defrauded by crooked horse traders sound like the truth, sources close to the investigation said. But authorities caution that more corroborating evidence would be needed to construct a viable murder case. Brach vanished in 1977 and her body was never found.
Sources with knowledge of the case said the allegations may amount to scoundrels pointing at each other and do not include a credible confession by anyone. The immediate impact of the allegations appears limited to a possible reconsideration of the 30-year sentence given to Richard Bailey, who was convicted of swindling horse owners in 1995. Although he was not charged with killing Brach, prosecutors were allowed to suggest during sentencing that Bailey may have been involved in Brach's disappearance. The U.S. attorney's office acknowledged Friday that prosecutors had "recently learned of information that may be relevant to the sentencing of Richard Bailey."
Bailey's lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, appeared in federal court Friday with prosecutors to set up confidentiality terms. Zellner declined to comment on the information but said she expects a hearing to be scheduled "in a few weeks" before Judge Milton Shadur to consider the information's impact on Bailey's case. Days after the informant's allegations surfaced, sources close to the case said it would be a stretch to consider the Brach case solved.
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and members of the cold case unit of the Cook County state's attorney's office have worked the case together and have promised to fully explore new leads.
The informant has helped authorities tackle members of the equestrian industry in the past, sources said. He was part of the investigations into Bailey and Kenneth Hansen, a horseman serving 200 years for the 1955 murders of Robert Peterson, 14, and John and Anton Schuessler, 13 and 11 respectively.
Investigators long have believed that Brach discovered she had been defrauded into paying an inflated price for a show horse. Sources said the informant has told investigators that horseman Frank Jayne Jr., now imprisoned for burning a stable in an insurance scheme, was behind the slaying. Brach was shot, the informant allegedly has said, and her body was taken to an Indiana steel mill and incinerated.
What investigators lack is hard evidence to support those
claims.
