WILKES-BARRE — Phylicia Thomas has still not been found.
It’s going on 21 years now — Phylicia would be 42 years old. Her birthday was Jan. 5.
Those responsible for her death have never been identified.
Every year for the past 21 years, during these cold days of January and February, the Phylicia Thomas case seems to get colder and colder as well.
Investigators have been searching for clues that would finally unlock this mystery, but they need help.
They need someone with a conscience to come forward and tell what they know. There were plenty of people at that party in a mobile home in Hunlock Township who could have heard the screams and could have seen a blood-stained blanket wrapped around a lifeless body being carried out of a bedroom and out of the trailer and taken somewhere and buried.
Or should we say, disposed of — somewhere.
The past 21 years have been an eternity for her mother, Pauline, her family and friends.
Phylicia went missing on Feb. 11, 2004. She was 22, the presumed victim of a heinous murder. Her body has not been found.
And for the past 20 years, investigators and Phylicia’s family and friends have asked anyone to come forward with information about the case. So far, there have been no such brave souls willing to do the right thing — for Phylicia.
And Phylicia’s mother, Pauline Bailey, continues to wait, praying for justice to be served. All Pauline wants is to bury her daughter so she can have eternal rest. A place where people could visit and pray and place flowers.
It’s called closure.
It is very difficult for Pauline to accept that it’s been 21 years and she is still waiting.
“We just miss her so much,” Pauline always says. “We just want to finally be able to say goodbye.”
Judy Lorah Fisher, a family friend who has spearheaded the search for the young woman’s remains, said people have told her and Pauline that Phylicia was last seen alive while attending the party inside a trailer off Golf Course Road and Timber Lane in Hunlock Township.
Steve Martin, a man who was a target of state police investigators in the case, was 32 when he took his own life while incarcerated at the state prison at Camp Hill on Aug. 10, 2005. Martin was serving a sentence for causing a fatal vehicle crash in Wilkes-Barre in December 2004.
Investigators have not released names of any possible suspects in the Phylicia Thomas case, but Fisher and members of Phylicia’s family believe that investigators feel Martin was responsible for Phylicia’s death, and that as many as three others could have been involved.
“We love her and we will never forget her,” Bailey said at a past vigil on Patriot Square in Nanticoke. “And we will find her and we will say goodbye to her. I just can’t understand how those who did this have not been found. They could still be out there somewhere.”
State police have said they conducted a search with cadaver dogs trained to detect human remains, but no “hits” were ever recorded.
Now, 21 years later, Pauline Bailey, her family and friends still wait — and pray — that Phylicia will be found and returned to her so she can give her daughter a proper burial,
Pauline said her daughter used to love the outdoors, going camping and taking long hikes in the woods. She said Phylicia was always very friendly and she especially loved animals.
Pauline clings to those memories.
Pauline Bailey will never forget Feb. 11, 2004 — she calls it the “day of horror” — when her daughter disappeared off the face of the earth and she and her family remain devastated.
Something very bad did happen on that cold February night. And Pauline believes there are people who do know what happened. She prays that someone will come forward and tell investigators what they know so that Phylicia can be found and brought back home.
Pauline Bailey is always waiting for that call.
Maybe 2025 will be the year that will finally bring answers and closure to the Phylicia Thomas case.
All it will take is for that person with a conscience to come forward.