OTTAWA — Witnesses say a blanket stuffed into a bag and thrown into a apartment complex’s dumpster in Emporia was 18-month-old Lana Bailey’s. The toddler’s grandmother Lisa Smith identified the blanket during the murder trial of Kyle Flack this afternoon. Johnson County Sheriff’s Department DNA technician Bethany Stone told Franklin County Attorney Stephen Hunting there was almost a statistical certainty that the blanket was used for Lana and no one else. The bag containing the blanket and baby clothes was found at the same complex that the car of her mother, Kaylee Bailey, was parked. Smith also identified a black coat, gloves and stocking camp found with the bag as belonging to Kaylee Bailey. Flack was arrested in other Emporia apartment complex while detectives in the Major Case Squad were following up a tip that Lana was in an apartment in Emporia. The discovery of three bodies, including Kaylee Bailey, three years ago at a farmstead near Richter set off a frantic search by the Major Case Squad, a cooperative of detectives and investigators from law enforcement agencies in 10 northeast Kansas counties, for the missing little girl. It was part of that frantic search for the little girl that brought Wabaunsee County detective Rob Hoskins, M Squad member; and Emporia police officer R.W. Turner to knock at the door in an apartment complex in west Emporia. They didn’t find Lana. Instead, they found Kyle Flack sitting on a couch. Hoskins testified that before they arrested Flack and read him his rights, Hoskins told prosecutor Vic Braden he blurted out a question. “I said ‘where’s the baby?’ and Kyle Flack replied, ‘what baby?’” His arrest sparked a search of the apartment as well as the complex where Bailey’s car was as well as an area behind the complex, where the bag was found in a dumpster. Flack is charged with killing the little girl, her mother, and Andrew Stout and Steven White. During the first week of his trial, jurors heard 96 witnesses. Prosecutors will continue their case Monday.
Friday, March 11, 5:30 p.m.
