A judge sentenced an 81-year-old woman Tuesday to life in prison for a western Wisconsin cold case murder.

Mary Josephine Bailey is eligible for parole after 20 years, which was the law in 1985 when the offense was committed, but it doesn’t mean she’ll be released, said Polk County Attorney Jeffrey Kemp.

A jury recently found Bailey guilty of first-degree intentional murder in Polk County Circuit Court for the killing of 45-year-old Yvonne Carol Menke, who was shot outside her St. Croix Falls apartment before work on Dec. 12, 1985.

Yvonne Menke (Courtesy of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office)

Bailey was considered a suspect in the early days of the investigation, as several people told law enforcement that Jack Owen, Menke and Bailey, whose last name then was Lunsmann, had been “involved in somewhat of a ‘love triangle,’” the criminal complaint said.

That aspect of the case became stronger during the eight-day trial, said Holly Wood Webster, Polk County assistant district attorney.

“We learned information from one of Ms. Bailey’s friends back then about her having been outside of Yvonne’s apartment when Jack was there, had been kind of pointing up at the window where Jack and Yvonne were” and she was jealous, Wood Webster said.

Another witness saw Bailey parked outside of Menke’s apartment one night after midnight. The evidence showed Bailey “had been essentially stalking Jack and Yvonne,” Wood Webster said.

Victim’s children talked about their loss

Bailey did not speak during the sentencing hearing, according to Kemp. Bailey’s attorneys did not return calls seeking comment.

Menke’s children talked in court Tuesday about “how this wasn’t just killing their mom, but it had an impact on their whole family of not having their mom there,” Wood Webster said. Menke’s youngest child was 16 when his mom lost her life.

Another child discussed the guilt she’s carried “from feeling like she had given the murderer information to complete this crime,” Wood Webster said. In a phone call the day before Menke was killed, a person asked about Menke’s morning routine. One of Menke’s daughters thought the caller was a friend of her mother’s, “just wondering when she’d be available to talk,” never knowing it was “someone intending to kill her mom the next morning,” the prosecutor said.

The crime also ruined Christmas for the family, Kemp said. “Every December that rolls around they’re just reminded of their loss,” he added.

Cold case solved

Prosecuting a cold case was difficult because there were witnesses who had died and some people’s memories had faded, Kemp said.

Mary Josephine Bailey (Courtesy of the Maricopa County Jail)

Menke was shot three times in her head and neck in a stairwell of her apartment complex just before 6:30 a.m. Investigators found a boot print in snow near Menke’s body, with the word “Arctic” visible in the area where the front of the heel would be, and the same boot prints about a block away.

That was “the strongest piece of physical evidence” in the case, Wood Webster said. It was an Arctic Cat brand boot, women’s size 5. There were about 1,000 of that style and size of boots sold worldwide between 1973 and 1985.

“That’s a small number of boots,” Kemp said.

Bailey’s boots, a pair of size 5 Arctic Cat snowmobile boots, were submitted to the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory for comparison to the boot prints found at the murder scene. The lab concluded her boots were consistent with the sulfur casts taken by officers at the scene in terms of tread pattern, size and wear pattern, according to the criminal complaint.

“The rest of it is all part of a puzzle — you put together all the pieces,” Wood Webster said. “Some of them were known back then and some of them weren’t learned until more recently. … But when you put all those pieces of that puzzle back together, it really only pointed at (Bailey).”

Polk County investigators worked the case again in late 2021 and into the winter of 2022, re-interviewing witnesses and others who had knowledge of Owen, Bailey and Menke. Owen died in October 2021, while living in Montana with his wife.

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