Episode Five: The Golden Tongue

On New Year’s Eve 1976, Helen Brach dances beneath the chandeliers of New York's Waldorf Astoria—just weeks before she vanishes without a trace.

In this episode, the investigation centers on Richard Bailey—a dance instructor turned horse trader who becomes a key figure in the case. Through exclusive interviews, court records, and firsthand accounts, a pattern emerges: a calculated scheme targeting wealthy, often widowed women through fraudulent horse deals.

As investigators begin linking financial fraud to something more serious, the case escalates into a rare federal prosecution under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—known as RICO. Prosecutors allege a broader criminal enterprise involving deception, insurance fraud, and potentially murder.

Despite no body ever being found, they argue Helen Brach was killed to prevent her from exposing the operation. What follows is a high-stakes legal battle—where fraud, conspiracy, and circumstantial evidence converge, and a judge delivers a ruling that will define the case.

But the question remains:

What really happened to Helen Brach?

*Special Thanks to author and friend Gene O'Shea for providing the Mollie Goldstein audio used in this episode. 

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The Missing Candy Heiress is produced, directed, and written by Jonathan Rocks and Beth McNamara. All material is copyrighted.

Legal Disclaimer:  All individuals referenced in this podcast are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law in the United States.

Transcript

SPEAKER_11 0:10

From the world famous World of Australia Hotel on Fashionable Park Avenue, where New York glamorous highest society is celebrating New Year's Eve in the grand ball room, it's Mr. New Year's Eve himself.

SPEAKER_14 0:48

For decades, famed band leader Guy Lombardo has brought in the new year from the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. People in tuxedos and sequin dresses dance and laugh. Champagne corks pop. Glasses clink. And high above the dance floor, thousands of silver, pink, and blue balloons hang, suspended between crystal chandeliers, waiting to drop. And somewhere on the dance floor, beneath the balloons that begin to fall, Helen Brock sways to the music in a full-length evening gown, dancing in the arms of the much younger man she brought as her date. Cameras roll as midnight approaches, and the crowd waits for a cue to begin the countdown.

SPEAKER_10 1:40

Everyone gathered here is waiting home.

SPEAKER_14 2:05

As the crowd welcomes the very first moments of 1977. It's one of the last times Helen Brock will ever be seen like this. Within weeks, she'll never be seen again. And the man with her that night? A former dance instructor she met back at home in Glenview. She calls him Richard. Soon he'll be known by another name. This is the investigative podcast, The Missing Candy Aris.

SPEAKER_05 2:48

I make it easy for her. I mean, I tell you there could be 50 people on a dance floor. They all step off.

SPEAKER_14 3:00

This is Richard Bailey, the man who was Helen's dance partner at the New Year's Eve gala. Though it turns out he was a last-minute substitute.

SPEAKER_05 3:09

She called me and wanted to send me a ticket, everything could come in there. I said, keep your ticket, I'll be on the next flight. Oh yeah, definitely. We had a fabulous time.

SPEAKER_14 3:19

He and Helen return separately to Chicago, which is in the midst of one of the coldest winters on record. Just six weeks later, Helen vanishes. As police investigate her disappearance, Helen's family realizes there were some parts of her life they weren't fully aware of. This is Helen's youngest nephew, Scott Voorhees. Just 15 years old when she went missing, he never knew Helen to be with anyone other than her husband, Frank Brock.

SPEAKER_13 3:56

I never heard anything about this, and I just don't remember the name ever being mentioned until this all came to light after she disappeared. And that's when the name Bailey came to the forefront.

SPEAKER_14 4:07

But in the early days of the investigation, police discover Helen's friends were well aware of Richard Bailey.

SPEAKER_06 4:14

Oh yes, they went out dancing. She loved to dance.

SPEAKER_14 4:20

This is Molly Goldstein. She first met Helen in 1952 at the home furnishings boutique she owned with her husband in Chicago.

SPEAKER_06 4:30

And when she had nothing to do, she'd come over and sit in the store for a while to visit. So we had a good friendship.

SPEAKER_14 4:39

The two even went on double dates with their husbands for years. She says Helen first met Richard in 1973, three years after her husband, Frank Brock, had died.

SPEAKER_06 5:00

She wasn't about to go down the line for that. But she did go out dancing with him and all that.

SPEAKER_14 5:07

On March 11, 1977, two days after Helen's brother Charles officially reports her missing, police contact Molly by phone. Molly tells investigators she's unaware Helen is missing and describes her as someone who would always let people know where she was. She says Helen is a person that is, quote, hard to get to know, and she wasn't someone who became friends with just anybody. Molly admits she does know the name Richard Bailey, but she never met the man. From what Helen told her about Bailey, she didn't like him because he was married with two kids.

SPEAKER_06 5:46

She didn't fall in love with that guy.

SPEAKER_14 5:49

Bailey was also 20 years younger than Helen. As for why she spent time with him, Molly says Helen told her, At least I have someone to go out with.

SPEAKER_06 6:01

Because he was there at the drop of a hat.

SPEAKER_14 6:08

So, exactly who is Richard Bailey?

SPEAKER_05 6:11

I don't like to blow my own horn, but I'm the shrewdest, best entrepreneur that's ever been on this earth.

SPEAKER_14 6:21

Unlike Frank Brock, Bailey didn't inherit an empire. He claims he's a self-made man.

SPEAKER_05 6:27

By the time I was 35, I was multi-millionaire, business-wise, a lot of big businesses. I can just look at a business and it doubles.

SPEAKER_14 6:35

Richard Bailey didn't come from money. Born in 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression, Bailey was raised on a farm in rural Kentucky.

SPEAKER_05 6:45

I used to walk around barefooted and everything. Go to the bathroom, where you think I'd go? Out there in the field. We didn't even have an outhouse. We had no money whatsoever.

SPEAKER_14 6:56

Bailey says his mother contracted the German measles while she was pregnant with him, causing partial paralysis of his eyelids. Kids at school teased him. But life at home was even worse.

SPEAKER_05 7:08

I get nightmares when I think about this there. My father used to say, wake me up at 2 o'clock in the morning, Junior. Go out there and get me a bucket of water in the well. By the minute you get a close step well, you hear the locks rolling.

SPEAKER_14 7:25

Bailey says his father would then lock the door, so he couldn't get back in the house.

SPEAKER_05 7:30

I think my father really wanted to get rid of me.

SPEAKER_14 7:35

So Bailey leaves home at a young age.

SPEAKER_05 7:37

I went to the ninth grade, 16 years old, told Mother I'm gonna join the Army. I mailed her$50 every month she gets.

SPEAKER_14 7:45

Discharged from the Army after three years, Bailey's just 19 years old when he meets his wife, Eunice.

SPEAKER_05 7:51

She was a strict Catholic, and that turned me on because I got her virginity. I had all kinds of women, and no way I'm gonna marry some woman everybody's been sleeping with.

SPEAKER_14 8:04

After they marry, they move to the suburbs of Chicago, where Bailey begins the first of many business ventures. He had a pinball company, a vending service, he trained people to answer phones, and he was a teacher at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio, part-time on weekends. One of Bailey's more successful businesses is a driving school. But after multiple complaints, the Illinois Attorney General launches an investigation into his driving school for builting money from elderly women. His business license is revoked in 1970, but Bailey quickly moves on to a new business, buying and selling horses. Bailey is introduced to this exclusive industry by his brother, Paul P. J. Bailey, a well-known horse jockey. P. J. rode a horse named Royal Mustang in the 1951 Kentucky Derby.

SPEAKER_09 9:05

Royal Mustang is second. And in third place was rude.

SPEAKER_14 9:09

After an impressive second place finish in the Kentucky Derby, PJ later retires in 1968 with$1,788 wins and nearly$6 million in career earnings. After hanging up his riding crop for good, PJ enters the business of buying and selling racehorses. Helping him close deals is his younger brother Richard, whose easy charm makes him a natural salesman.

SPEAKER_05 9:34

People in the horse business all go broke. Straight up. They know all about horses. They're great trainers and everything. When it comes to selling, they don't know the first thing about it.

SPEAKER_14 9:45

Again, Bailey has a particular customer in mind. Older women, usually single or widowed, and always with money. Candieress Helen Brock checks all of Bailey's boxes.

SPEAKER_05 9:57

Some beautiful lady coming by looking for a horse. Well, I had just a horse for her. I pick up a horse for a couple thousand, I sell it for 10 or 20,000 or 50,000 or 200,000.

SPEAKER_14 10:12

Bailey's story is that he met Helen Brock in 1973 at a car wash in Morton Grove, a town about 15 miles from her Glenview estate. Helen wasn't new to the horse world. Frank Brock had owned thoroughbred horses for decades. Going to see their horses race in Florida had been a social activity for Helen and Frank. And she's excited to now revisit the world of horse racing. In 1974, Bailey convinces Helen to buy three horses. He and his brother PJ purchase the horses for$20,000. Helen's price?$100,000, which nets the Bailey brothers a quick profit of$80,000. Naturally, Bailey works to keep his relationship with Helen going. To Molly Goldstein and others, he's merely Helen's dance partner. But to Bailey, the relationship was something more.

SPEAKER_05 11:09

I mean, no, she was part of the family. My sister Faye and her used to spend sometimes two or three weeks at a time together. And uh matter of fact, my sister Faye kept telling me that you know she's going to marry you, Richard, one of these days. Well, I said I'll just wait and see if she wants to.

SPEAKER_14 11:26

Remember, the entire time Bailey is involved with Helen, he's still married to Eunice.

SPEAKER_05 11:32

I'm not good on dates now, but it was 28 years we were married.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Were you faithful?

SPEAKER_05 11:38

In my own mind I was.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

In your own mind.

SPEAKER_05 11:42

I made sure I took care of my family, and then nothing was missing. I had a lot of women on the side. I had a penthouse downtown in Chicago. And up on the 17th floor, and a swimming pool down there. I go out and I'm a good swimmer and a good diver. Well, before you know, all your young girls was knocking on my door till three o'clock in the morning. But I'm I love women. Eunice said no all that.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

She didn't know.

SPEAKER_05 12:10

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. She thought I was at New York someplace, looking in horses.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Did she find out?

SPEAKER_05 12:17

No way. No, no, no. She didn't know what was happening. No.

SPEAKER_14 12:21

Bailey continues his relationship with Helen. In fact, he's the one who helps schedule her appointment at the Mayo Clinic the week before she vanishes. But when she checks out on February 17, 1977, Bailey isn't in Rochester, Minnesota, or Glenview, Illinois. He says he was in Florida, anticipating Helen's arrival because, according to him, they had plans to meet up. And when he's interviewed by Glenview Police in March of 1977, Bailey does provide receipts that place him in Florida the weekend she disappeared. Police don't consider Bailey a suspect in the Brock case, but his involvement with Helen gets around town, and eventually, to his wife, Eunice. Bailey and Eunice soon divorce after nearly 30 years of marriage and two children together.

SPEAKER_05 13:13

I made sure I took care of my family and they all got what they wanted, and uh and a good education and a whole ball of wax.

SPEAKER_14 13:22

Then, in May 1978, someone targets Bailey's stable in Morton Grove.

SPEAKER_08 13:29

Two spray painted messages appear on the road near the Brock house.

SPEAKER_14 13:33

This is Janet Davies, the reporter you heard in episode three.

SPEAKER_08 13:37

Richard Bailey knows where Mrs. Brock's body is, read one. The other was spray painted near Bailey's stables. It read, Richard Bailey killed Helen Brock. Stop him, fleas.

SPEAKER_14 13:48

Police photograph the messages, spray painted in bright red. Notably, the name Bailey is misspelled, with the E having been left out. A police report is filed, but nobody is ever charged or held responsible. And Bailey scrubs the red paint from the front of his stable himself. A year later, Bailey's name surfaces once again in connection to the Brock case. This time, he's subpoenaed as part of Brock Estate Guardian John Meng's investigation into Helen's assets. Specifically, the horses he sold to Helen. Bailey arrives at court looking like he walked right off the set of Saturday Night Fever. He's all smiles in a light blue leisure suit, the top buttons of his wide-collar white dress shirt left wide open. On the advice of his high-profile attorney, Joanne Wolfson, Bailey invokes the Fifth Amendment after every question he's asked on the stand. For some, his apparent unwillingness to aid the investigation into Helen's disappearance raises questions about his story. After this, the press hounds Bailey everywhere he goes. They even snap a photo of him kissing his attorney, Joanne Wolfson, as the pair ride horses at his Morton Grove stable. But Richard Bailey is a freshly divorced man, and he is not under investigation by police, so he goes about living his life. Until April 1st, 1982. April Fool's Day, when guests of a local party find something that prompts their host to call the police.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

He may have even been a participant in her awful demise. Without a body, there is no crime and he knows it. So do his associates. This man is a giggelo and has swindled many people in his lifetime, especially lonely older women. Yet he cannot be brought to justice. Who's paying whom off? If perfectly healthy horses begin to deteriorate and die mysteriously after being insured for large sums of money, a single wealthy woman can be disposed of quite easily as well. If she is about to uncover a huge swindle and use her monetary power to ruin a man, namely Bailey, it makes even more sense. Bailey isn't smart enough to organize every detail without a slip-up. He needs the big boys to do that. He is dumb enough, however, to think he can play in their league forever. Mrs. Brock loved animals, and Mr. Bailey kills them for profit. Mrs. Brock should not have suffered such a cruel fate, and her soul should be allowed to rest. What better way to guard evidence than by sitting on top of it? If only someone had the power to search Bailey's stables and tax shop, especially the foundation of the tax shop. The cement in Bailey's tax shop was poured under guard just a couple weeks after Helen Brock disappeared. If ever there was a man who should be exposed for his sleazy, underhanded dealings and slaughter of innocent animals under the guise of unfortunate accident, it is Richard Bailey. He is a cheat and a user of people, and he will make a mistake someday and trip himself up. It is too bad the authorities can only sit by and wait for that day to come along. How much more death? How much? Will you or someone you know be his next missing victim? Think about it and remember this. The big time horse people have blood money in their pockets, and the jerk that's supposed to be licking up the trail of blood is leaving telltale stains behind. Be forewarned. In two years, Mrs. Helen Brock will be declared legally dead. She should not have suffered for her kindness and trust. Someone of Bailey's ilk should be pressured into revealing the truth about Helen Brock's death, and then left to the punishment of his employers.

SPEAKER_14 18:20

The flyer goes into the file for this open investigation, which is slowly becoming a cold case. Helen Brock remains missing, but focus turns toward her fortune. And once again, Bailey moves on with his life. For the entire time Helen is missing, her fortune increases by more than$3 million. This includes winnings of more than$80,000 from the race horses Helen purchased from Richard Bailey. That would be$260,000 today. Even in death, Helen's money is still moving, still growing, and still changing hands. In 1984, when Helen is declared legally dead, her assets are distributed according to her will. Helen's brother Charles is named head of the Helen Brock Foundation. Helen's longtime accountant and the executor of her will, Everett Moore, is investigated by the Illinois State Attorney General for improper use of funds. He's the one who's been using Helen's penthouse condo in Florida while she's missing. Initially granted an equal inheritance to Charles Voorhees,$500,000. Everett Moore's misconduct results in the forfeiture of his share. He's also required to pay restitution to the estate. Through the Brock Foundation, Charles and the Board distribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to animal welfare charities Ellen had previously supported, including the Animal Protection Institute in California. They also give generously to organizations that support abused women and children. Then, in 1994, Richard Bailey is back in the news. This is Ronald Safer, part of the prosecution team that brought the case against Bailey.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

RICO is a series of crimes that are related over a long period of times that are committed by a group of criminals who stick together over that period of time.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

So it's that it's rare.

SPEAKER_19 21:26

It's rare.

SPEAKER_14 21:36

So Bailey hires prominent Chicago criminal defense attorney, Patrick Tewitt.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

I was doing major criminal defense, winning a lot of cases. Major call somehow, and would you represent me? And I think it was a bond hearing was being held, and uh Joanne Wolfson had been his lawyer some time ago. I think she was getting out of the practice, and so she said, So you take a Richard. He always contended he had nothing to do with helpness his appearance.

SPEAKER_14 22:05

The Rico case against Bailey began five years earlier with a woman who had briefly dated him named Barbara Morris.

SPEAKER_18 22:12

She lived in Inverness, very upscale town. And it was out by Barrington Hills, Illinois. Very, very wealthy.

SPEAKER_14 22:21

This is Clint Rand, an FBI agent who took on the case.

SPEAKER_18 22:25

Went to her home, sat down. I got a little background from her. She had been married, her husband had died a year or two before. He had been a captain with United Airlines. And she had met Richard Bailey, I believe, through a newspaper ad.

SPEAKER_14 22:43

Before online dating apps, newspaper classifies at a single section, sometimes referred to as Lonely Hearts Ads. This is from one of Bailey's Lonely Hearts ads, published in a local paper, the Pioneer Press. I have a beautiful farm with horses, llamas, ducks, geese, and peacocks. I enjoy going to plays, movies, and the best of restaurants. I drive a red Mercedes convertible and have my own business. I'm handsome, with a sense of humor, and looking for a possible long-term relationship. If you're young, slim, trim, classy, and a smart lady, please call.

SPEAKER_18 23:26

I guess he had taken her out to dinner downtown Chicago. And shortly into their relationship, he had taken her out to East Horse Farm. And before they got to the house or the barn or any of the buildings, he stopped by a field where some horses were grazing. And he pointed to one of them and said that that was his horse.

SPEAKER_14 23:52

Bailey told her he owed money on the horse, and if he didn't pay that day, he'd lose it. So she lent him the money he needed.$50,000. That would be over$130,000 today.

SPEAKER_18 24:06

And then she saw him a few more times, Bailey, that is, and he was trying to get her involved in Mohawk steals, and she she was very sharp, extremely aware of what Bailey was was doing. She wanted the money back, and Bailey wouldn't give it to her. Well, it definitely seemed to me like th there was a fraud, and it was a case for, you know, the feds for the FBI to get involved.

SPEAKER_14 24:32

Her story led federal investigators to other wealthy women with similar complaints. They claimed Bailey used flattery, extravagant dates, dozens of red roses, and even marriage proposals to convince them to buy race horses. They paid top dollar for what Bailey claimed were thoroughbred horses, but many of the horses turned out to be worthless. And again, when they asked for their money back, Bailey refused.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

It's all been woven together.

SPEAKER_14 25:14

This is Ronald Safer. He's speaking about Richard Bailey as part of a larger conspiracy.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

You had a ring of people who pretty much stayed together for the 20 years that the conspiracy spanned. And when I say the conspiracy, I mean the conspiracy to defraud women in the sale of horses.

SPEAKER_14 25:48

Does there have to be like someone at the top?

SPEAKER_02 25:51

No. No. No, no. What there has to be an enterprise, and the roles of the enterprise have to be defined. You had the guy that doped the horses, the guy that would identify the marks, the guy who who vouched for the worth of the horses, the fellow who housed the horses and the stables. Richard Bailey was the gigolo. There doesn't have to be a hierarchy. But there if their roles are essentially the same over the course of the uh alleged Rico conspiracy, then you have an enterprise.

SPEAKER_14 26:38

The federal indictment includes more than twenty people, owners, traders, veterinarians. There was even a horse hit man nicknamed the Sandman, who was notorious for killing horses for money, so the owners could collect insurance payouts. But only one of those indicted is charged in connection with Helen Brock, Richard Bailey. Based on the testimony of the women Bailey defrauded, investigators begin to theorize that Helen Brock may have also been a victim. They speculate that when she threatened to go to the state's attorney's office and file a complaint, Bailey would need to find a way to stop her. And that is how this case expanded from fraud to conspiracy to commit murder.

SPEAKER_05 27:22

When I was first locked up, Judd called me in his chambers and he had the two prosecutors there. He takes out the information on Richard Bailey, looks at that, he threw it to the side. He said, Boys, you better get busy. You got nothing on Bailey.

SPEAKER_14 27:48

It's the same Jane Doe you heard about in episode three. The one a medical examiner determined in 1978 was not Helen Brock. But prosecutors pushed back, saying that ruling wasn't definitive. Gene O'Shea was there, and he covered the exhumation as a reporter.

SPEAKER_15 28:12

Soon after the body was exhumed, the Cook County Medical Examiner Robert Stein was uh kind of he was combative, saying, you know, that that the remains were not Helen Brock.

SPEAKER_14 28:25

Just like Glenview Police, federal investigators have no physical evidence related to Helen Brock's disappearance or death. The judge initially grants Bailey bond, but prosecutors appeal the decision, calling him a flight risk. They argue he could flee with the help of his second wife, a wealthy plastic surgeon who they contend could alter his appearance. So the judge revokes his bond, leaving Bailey in jail, awaiting trial. Richard Bailey hires the same flamboyant Chicago P.I. Helen's brother Charles Voorhees used when Helen disappeared in 1977, Ernie Rizzo.

SPEAKER_16 29:04

Bailey's uh, you know, not the greatest guy in the world, he's a giggolo, but he had nothing to do with killing Alan Bryd.

SPEAKER_14 29:10

Then, a story about the case is published in Vanity Fair. In the 1990s, Vanity Fair wasn't some tabloid. It's glossy, long-form journalism, read across the country and around the world, and always features a major celebrity on the cover. This issue has actor Michael Douglas promoting his latest film. Inside, veteran journalist Howard Bloom pens a story titled The Heiress and the Horse Murders. It includes a full-page glamorous portrait of Helen Brock and lays out the story of her disappearance through the lens of an ongoing federal investigation into the horse industry, including the recent indictment of Richard Bailey. Bloom describes the case as being led by what he calls a WhizKid prosecutor, assistant U.S. attorney Stephen Miller. And Miller goes on the record just months after Bailey's arrest and before a trial is even scheduled. The article reads like a movie: a missing heiress, a network of horse traders accused of targeting wealthy women, and one man at the top, charming and defrauding them. There are also explosive allegations, including a coordinated insurance scheme involving dead racehorses, all of it unfolding across wealthy equestrian circles in Florida, Kentucky, Connecticut, and Illinois. Miller's colleague, Federal Prosecutor Ronald Safer, whom you heard earlier, tells Bloom, Silas Jane became the ghost that hovered over the entire investigation, and like a ghost, he led us to other bodies. Silas Jane, the man convicted in a conspiracy to kill his own brother, in prison when Hellenbrock disappeared, and dead by 1987, two years before this investigation even begins. Bailey is mentioned in the article as the key suspect and architect of the conspiracy. His attorney, Pat Toitt, speaks for him, saying, My client is a charming guy who women fall in love with. But that's not a crime in this country. Yet. Miller makes his position clear. The case against Bailey is heading to court in the winter of 1995. His theory that Bailey had Helen Brock killed after she threatened to sue him over money she paid him for horses. When Bloom asks Miller, will you reveal who killed her? And what happened to the body? Miller's answer is wait and see. He says new leads are coming in every day, each one adding more twists and more turns. This is Bailey's lawyer, Pat Toitt, on the strategy of the defense.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

So we told Richard, you go to trial, and the jury acquits you of Helen's involvement and convicts you of the frauds, the judge could still say, I think you were involved in Helen's disappearance, and sentence you as if you were convicted of that. And if you go to trial with everything, with all the stuff about the frauds, and all these women getting up there in front of the jury and cry and all that, they may convict you of the murder too.

SPEAKER_14 32:30

On the advice of counsel, Bailey pleads guilty to the 13 counts of fraud. A headline in the Chicago Tribune reads, Golden Tongue pleads guilty. Richard Bailey admits to 20 years of defrauding women in bad horse deals. Not reported in that headline, the fact that Bailey did not plead guilty to conspiring to have Helen Brock murdered. With no trial and no jury, both sides will simply make their cases and present witnesses to the judge during a sentencing hearing. This again is former assistant U.S. attorney Ronald Safer.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

The question for sentencing becomes is Richard Bailey responsible for murder? If he is, then you apply the murder guidelines. If he is not, then you apply the fraud guidelines. The murder guidelines go up to life. The fraud guidelines are two to three years or whatever it was.

SPEAKER_14 33:34

The government presents witnesses, one after another, detailing under oath how Bailey defrauded his victims. In the gallery, Tina Hergott, the producer behind the 1988 documentary, you heard in episodes three and four. She listens as Bailey's scheme is laid out in full.

SPEAKER_07 34:00

And they could be eating dog food because they don't can't even afford a meal anymore. And he'd call them all pigeons and looking for the next pigeon and and promise to marry them. And I think just that's horrible.

SPEAKER_14 34:18

Then Kathy Jane, the great niece of Silas Jane, testifies that it was she who notified Helen Brock that she was being ripped off in her horse deals with Bailey.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

I was in the outer office one day and Mrs. Brock came in and she knocked on the main office door. Richard Bailey and my father were both in the office.

SPEAKER_14 34:38

She also claims to have witnessed a conversation about what happened to Helen.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

And I heard a conversation between Bailey and my dad that we had to shut her up. And then I heard another conversation just a couple weeks later where she was shut up.

SPEAKER_14 34:54

Her testimony includes that a local police officer and even Helen's houseman, Jack Matlik, were also involved in these meetings about, quote, shutting up Helen Brock. The prosecution then calls local horse trainer Joe Clemens to testify.

SPEAKER_12 35:10

Richard Bailey asked Kenny and I to get rid of Helen Brock. He needed something done and said it would be worth 5,000 if you know if she would disappear.

SPEAKER_14 35:24

Clemens testifies that he refused Bailey's offer. Bailey's defense attorney then subpoenas Helen's houseman, Jack Matlick. Matlick's attorney responds that if called, his client would plead the fifth to any and all questions. This again is prosecutor Ronald Safer.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

Desperately wanted to talk to Matlik. But it clearly wasn't going to happen, and I was not fascinated by where is her body and what happened to her. It just was not my focus. My focus was who was served by her murder and who arranged it.

SPEAKER_14 36:08

The judge rules calling Matlik would be a waste of time.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

The judge always shot it down and said, but just because Matlik might have been involved doesn't exonerate Bailey.

SPEAKER_14 36:19

So defense attorney Pat Toett has only Richard Bailey to take the stand in his own defense.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

He lied on the stand, by the way. I mean, he he lied on the stand about his contact with Matt Lick. His phone records show uh he was on the phone with Matt Lick uh, you know, during the right when Helen Bratt disappeared when she was supposed to have come back.

SPEAKER_14 36:49

With the sentencing hearing now over, the judge determines Bailey will receive a sentence of three years for the fraud charges. But then he takes a recess.

SPEAKER_03 37:02

Everybody's sitting around in the courtroom at ISA. Well, if he was gonna find him, give him his time on Brock, he would have done it. Why do you need a recess? He's going back there to write an opinion or to do something about why he's not convicted. And I remember the U.S. attorney was there and said, I'm not sure. I'm not sure, Sader. Maybe he's just going in there for suspense or whatever. Exactly. He came out and said, and I find that he was responsible for her disappearance, too.

SPEAKER_14 37:33

In addition to the fraud sentence, the judge rules that Bailey will also be sentenced for what he determines was a conspiracy. Bailey is then sentenced to life in prison for conspiring in the murder of Helen Brock. The prosecution is jubilant, telling reporters they were pleased with the verdict of life in prison. Bailey and his defense team are shocked. And many in the courtroom have mixed feelings, including Tina Hergott.

SPEAKER_07 38:03

You know, these lonely women trusted him, and I think that's horrible, but I don't think he was a murderer either.

SPEAKER_14 38:11

The headline in the Chicago Tribune reads, Bailey gets life, Brock Link cited. In the New York Times, it's reported con man tied to killing gets thirty years in jail. And the LA Times leads with money, mystery, and murder. They too have cut a movie deal as the subject of a proposed movie of the week.

SPEAKER_18 39:19

Yeah, the producer. He did the um JFK movie.

SPEAKER_14 39:24

Oliver Stone?

SPEAKER_18 39:26

Yes, so they thought it was gonna go, and Ann Margaret was gonna play Barbara Morris in the movie.

SPEAKER_14 39:31

The movie would romanticize their relationship, which had presented a conflict of interest in Bailey's case. Through it all, Bailey maintains his innocence and files the first of what becomes a series of appeals. And for many, the case of the missing Candieris is closed. Then, in 2002, an ATF agent receives a phone call from a confidential informant. It's one of the witnesses who helped convict Richard Bailey.

SPEAKER_13 40:03

Do you know how they killed her? Yes. How do you know it was her, first of all?

SPEAKER_08 40:07

I saw her at the Racing Horse Show.

SPEAKER_13 40:09

Okay, but he didn't have her wrapped up in anything, or she was in a in a blanket.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

Jesus. Did Bailey arrange this thing with him?

SPEAKER_07 40:18

Absolutely not. God damn, John, I shouldn't be saying this yet.

SPEAKER_14 40:21

You'll hear more of what he had to say next time on the Missing Candieras.