Body Found In KY May Be Connected To WI Homicide; Person Of Interest Detained
PINEVILLE, Ky. (WCCO) — A missing man from Prescott, Wisconsin has been found dead in Kentucky.
State troopers found the body in a box alongside a road in rural Bell County. Wednesday afternoon, police confirmed it was 51-year-old Doug Bailey of Prescott, who's been missing since Thanksgiving.
Nearly a dozen law enforcement agencies in five states are now trying to figure out how he got there.
"I got a story they they were headed out for the holidays and he just got out of the truck somewhere in Illinois and said, 'Leave me here and don't come back for me,'" Prescott Police Chief Gary Krutke said. "And that started the missing persons part."
Since Thanksgiving, The Wisconsin truck driver's family and friends have been looking for him for several weeks, posting flyers online.
On Tuesday, Doug's girlfriend, Rose Marie Kuehni, who he lived with in Prescott, was taken into custody as a person of interest in the case.
"She stated she pulled over on the side of the road, he got out and she just left him there," Krutke said.
Kuehni told police they were travelling west on I-74 West near Peoria, just days before Thanksgiving. When Illinois police officers started looking at the case more closely, they decided something just wasn't right.
The investigation eventually led Kentucky state troopers to a location where they discovered two large boxes, sealed with duct tape.
"The body was in a box, apparently down the side of a ravine or mountainside," Krutke said.
Wednesday afternoon, Prescott police officers were still searching the couple's home. Even though his body has been found, it is not clear where Doug Bailey was killed. Wisconsin's mobile Crime Lab Unit is working on the case.
The chief says that Bailey's coworkers, friends and family members have been interviewed and they've learned from social media that he'd talked about wanting to get away, to go south.
"Once we connect all these dots and get a complete picture of what happened, then we can have a more intelligent conversation of what is happening," Krutke said.
The person of interest in this case, Rose Marie Kuehni, is being held in the Pierce County Jail in Wisconsin. She's an instructor at the University of Minnesota, in the College of Continuing Education.
