Bailey, Richard

Richard Bailey Soundex Code B400

Richard Bailey is serving a 30-year sentence in a Florida prison for swindling Helen Voorhees Brach.

Bailey was never charged with the actual murder of Mrs. Brach, although in 1995 the judge said his lengthy sentence reflected Bailey's involvement in the conspiracy to kill her.

Over the years Bailey's involvement in Brach's disappearance has become cloudy, and in his letter to the I-Team, Bailey says he wants out.

In the late 1970's, Richard Bailey looked the part of the gigolo that federal authorities said he was: a confidence man who had embraced wealthy candy heiress Helen Voorhees Brach.

Not for companionship - as she thought - but for the fortune left by her late husband, Frank Vincent Brach.

The law enforcement theory was that Bailey had Brach killed when she threatened to blow the whistle on his horse fraud.

Brach vanished on a cold day in 1977, after returning to her home in Glenview, Illinois after a checkup at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Her body has never been found, and neither has her killer - although crooked horsemen, insurance schemers, and Chicago mobsters are all believed to have had a hand in her "Jimmy Hoffa-style" disappearance.