Suave and persistent, Richard J. Bailey wooed Helen Vorhees Brach over dinner, on dance floors and across the country.
When at first she refused his overtures, he followed her to Florida. After she fell for him, he traveled with her to New York to ring in the New Year while bandleader Guy Lombardo played.
Brach thought she was being romanced. Law-enforcement authorities say she was being conned, something the millionaire candy heiress apparently began to suspect as she accumulated a motley collection of broodmares and several racehorses through Bailey at inflated prices.
But before she could go to police, Bailey arranged for her murder, law-enforcement officials say. Her body has never been found.
On Wednesday, more than 17 years after Brach’s disappearance, federal authorities will announce that Bailey, who was arrested Tuesday, has been indicted in Brach’s murder for hire, law-enforcement sources said.
The indictment, which does not name Brach’s killer, goes a long way toward explaining one of the region’s most enduring mysteries. But the investigation into Brach’s 1977 disappearance also has led authorities to what they say is a much broader horse swindle and separate charges that likely will rock the equestrian world.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago also will announce charges accusing 19 stable owners, trainers and veterinarians of killing as many as 20 prized horses in insurance-fraud schemes in the Midwest, the East and the South.
Bailey is not named in those cases, but the charges involve a who’s who from the clubby show horse circuit, including George Lindemann Jr., a champion rider from Connecticut whose father is one of the richest men in America; Donna Brown, whose former husband was on the U.S. equestrian team at the 1976 Olympics; Paul Valliere, a leading trainer from Rhode Island; and a Chicago-area businessman named Allen Levinson.
Several suspects in the insurance frauds cooperated with authorities and fingered Bailey in soliciting Brach’s murder and in operating other confidence schemes on lonely women, sources said.
One individual told federal authorities that Bailey approached him about killing Brach but he refused.
In addition to the Brach murder for hire, Bailey’s 28-count indictment charges he flim-flammed about a dozen other women on shoddy horse investments after winning their affections. He faces charges of racketeering, mail and wire fraud, and money laundering.
Brach, 65, who had homes in Glenview and Ft. Lauderdale, was last seen publicly on the morning of Feb. 17, 1977, when she bought a small gift for a niece at a shop at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where she had gone for a routine checkup. She was the widow of Frank Brach, chairman of J.E. Brach & Sons, and her estate was worth an estimated $20 million.
Since he had been Brach’s frequent escort at the time of her death, Bailey was a suspect, but the investigation by local and state police eventually centered on Brach’s houseman, a former convict.
Over the years, the investigation has been marked by a few tantalizing details-the purchase of a meat grinder by the houseman, several digs in search of Brach’s body-and numerous dead ends and unproven theories.
In 1982, a book about the unsolved case carried an apt title, “Thin Air.”
Then in 1989, federal authorities opened an investigation into the Brach case and began focusing again on Bailey and the shadowy corridors of the horse world.
Two years later, federal agents learned of a planned horse killing in Florida and alerted authorities. On a rainy Saturday night, several investigators for the Florida Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services looked on as Tommy Burns and an associate suddenly wielded a crowbar and broke a hind leg of Streetwise, a show horse owned by Brown.
After his arrest, Burns, then of suburban Lake Forest, confessed he had killed as many as 15 show horses in the last decade, usually by electrocution. He said he earned a minimum of $5,000 from owners who then reaped profitable insurance payoffs.
The Brach investigators then pursued the horse-killing cases in an effort to force suspects to cooperate and tell authorities what they knew about Bailey, who had owned three stables in Morton Grove.
Investigators said they learned that with the help of two trainers and a veterinarian, Bailey had misrepresented the value of the horses to the women he conned and then shared the illicit profits with the others.
The other three will be charged in the Bailey indictment, though none of them are alleged to have played a part in Brach’s murder.
At times, Bailey owned part or all of Northwestern Stables, Country Club Stables and the Bailey Stables. Bailey, in his 60s, still resides in the Chicago area.
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Among Bailey’s partners were the late Silas Jayne and his nephew, Frank Jayne. Silas Jayne was an infamous horseman who served 7 years in prison in the 1970s for conspiring to murder his brother and horse-breeding rival, George Jayne.
Silas Jayne was in prison at the time of Brach’s disappearance, and Frank Jayne isn’t named in the indictment, sources said.
Burns is among the 19 defendants charged in the separate insurance frauds. He is expected to plead guilty to the one count he faces-conspiracy to commit mail fraud-and to be a key witness for the government.
Sources said the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms turned up a handful of other horse killers who also are expected to testify for the government.
In a story about the insurance frauds, Sports Illustrated reported that Burns acquired the nickname “Sandman” because people knew when he was around stables “a horse would be put to sleep.”
In all, the indictment charges that about 20 horses were killed for insurance purposes.
The indictment also names Levinson, an officer of Paws-a-tively Inc. and U.S. Machinery Movers Inc., both in Skokie. Levinson supposedly collected on a $50,000 insurance policy on the death of a show horse named Rainman.
Levinson couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday, but he has denied any wrongdoing.
In a 1979 deposition, Bailey repeatedly invoked the 5th Amendment when questioned about Brach’s disappearance by lawyers for Brach’s estate.
In a court deposition that year, a Glenview police officer reported seeing a message spray-painted in front of Brach’s home in 1978: “Richard Bailey knows where Mrs. Brach’s body is. Stop him! Please.”
A court-appointed lawyer disclosed at the time that Bailey had been instrumental in Brach’s purchase of $300,000 in racehorses that lost $100,000 the first year she had them.
Investigators say that Bailey’s dealings with Brach fit a pattern involving older women looking for company.
In one incident in 1989, a Barrington widow answered a singles ad in a local newspaper. According to an investigator close to the case, Bailey had advertised he was an Antioch horse breeder who drove a Mercedes Benz and enjoyed fine music, wine and food.
The two dated, and then one Sunday afternoon, he asked her if she wanted to take a drive in the country to look at some horses, the investigator said.
“Well, he goes to this stable to look at a horse and leaves her at a fence looking at the horses,” the investigator said. “A little later, he comes out with a long face, saying that he’s about to lose this fine horse because he needs $50,000 and all his money is tied up in real estate right now.”
The widow gave him a check for $50,000, which he promised to pay back within a month.
“He cashes the check the next day,” the investigator said, “and of course, she never sees the money a month later.”