As each year goes by, Pauline Bailey waits.
Pauline waits for someone to come forward and tell what happened to her daughter, Phylicia Thomas, who went missing on Feb. 11, 2004.
Phylicia was 22 at the time — her birthday was Jan. 5. Phylicia would have been 43 years old.
Phylicia Thom is the presumed victim of a heinous murder. Her body has not been found.
All it will take is for that person with a conscience to come forward.
Pauline, her family, friends, and a caring community have not forgotten Phylicia Thomas — and we never will.
Yet, 22-plus years have gone by, and Phylicia Thomas has still not been found. Those responsible for her disappearance have never been 100% identified.
I truly believe that investigators have been searching for clues that would finally unlock this mystery — but they need help.
What is needed here is bravery — for someone who knows something to come forward and tell all.
What is needed is for someone with a conscience to come forward and tell what they know. There were plenty of people at that party in February 2004 in a mobile home in Hunlock Township who could have heard or seen something.
So far, there have been no such brave souls willing to do the right thing for Phylicia. For Pauline.
Cowards all.
When you walk around the area off Golf Course Road and Timber Lane, an eerie feeling comes over you. This is the site where many people — especially Pauline Bailey — are certain that Phylicia Thomas was murdered, dismembered, burned, and buried somewhere in February 2004.
Pauline and devoted friend Judy Fisher claim they know what happened. They even say they know the people responsible.
A few years ago, Pauline and Judy offered their theory on what happened to Phylicia.
During an interview with the Times Leader, Pauline and Judy told their story.
In 2004, on a hill about 200 yards from Timber Lane, is the site where a double-wide trailer once sat. This is where Pauline says her daughter attended a party, along with 17 other people. It’s where she said a couple of people told her they saw four men take Phylicia into a room and soon heard loud screaming.
It’s where they said they were told Phylicia was murdered and carried out of the trailer in a blood-stained blanket.
It’s a sordid story, but one that Pauline firmly believes.
Pauline believes her daughter was brutally murdered because she had made it known that she knew who was responsible for the death three years earlier of her friend, Jennifer Barziloski. Pauline believes the same people are responsible for both women’s deaths.
Pauline Bailey won’t rest until Phylicia is found and given a proper burial.
“I want to bury her and have a place where I can go and tell her I love her and miss her,” she told me.
One “person of interest” in the cases of Phylicia Thomas and Jennifer Barziloski was Steve Martin, who hanged himself in prison in August 2005. Martin was never charged in either case.
State Police said the two women also knew some similar people, including Martin.
In 2004, for months after Phylicia went missing, family, friends, and volunteers scoured a 100-square-mile area, looking inside abandoned buildings and summer cabins and searching for breaks in the ice. The massive sweeps that sometimes included dogs, heat-seeking helicopters, horses, ATVs, and hundreds of volunteers on foot yielded nothing.
Pauline Bailey has often said she 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.
“We knew something bad had happened because she always called and checked in with each one of us,” Pauline told me.
Something very bad did happen on that cold February night. Pauline believes, hopes, and prays there are people who know what happened. She just wants someone to come forward and tell investigators what they know so that Phylicia can be found and brought back home.
Think about Pauline Bailey sitting in her home, waiting for the phone to ring.
Think about these last 22 years of waiting, of missing, of crying, of suffering.
Think about all the memories that never happened.
And think about those responsible who may still be out there enjoying life.
Hope that someone who knows something, after 22 years, lets their conscience be their guide.
Conscience is that inner feeling or voice that can guide a person to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior.
Pauline Bailey is waiting.
She deserves closure.