Friends, colleagues shocked by Bailys' deaths

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By CINDY LANGE-KUBICK / Lincoln Journal Star

Carolyn was the outgoing half of the Baily couple.

Oh, Steven, she would say when her husband cracked one of his dry jokes. It was her way of saying she liked his wry wit.

Monday, a day after they were found dead in their rural Lancaster County home, friends described the pair as genuinely nice folks.

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Carolyn Baily

Carolyn Baily

A slender man with a moustache and a kind face. A tall robust woman with a big laugh. People who went out of their way to help.

“I’ve know them for 15 years, said Matthew Anderson. “I can’t seem to wrap my head around this. It’s tragic on so many levels.”

Word of the apparently random killings spread rapidly Sunday through links to the hobbies the couple loved most: dogs and ham radio.

Carolyn Baily, 61, was a constant presence in the Cornhusker Kennel Club. Both husband and wife were involved in the Ashland Amateur Radio Club.

“Dogs. That was her life,” said Elaine House, who lived next door to the Bailys for 15 years until they moved north of town.

The couple left their Lincoln home near 70th and Adams more than a decade ago to have more room for the boxers Carolyn trained, and so Steve would be closer to his job in Omaha, House said.

Steve Baily, 60, traveled the region repairing copy machines, said longtime friend and neighbor Linda Graham.

“He was a whiz computer fixer. Printers were his specialty. Carolyn loved people; Steve loved to tinker.”

Graham is caring for the couple’s two boxers, Buddy and Annie.

Both dogs ran off from the Baily home at 9700 Raymond Road  Sunday, and a neighbor returning the pair to the Bailys  found their bodies.

The couple have two grown daughters — Jennifer Baily in New York and Heather Burns in Washington.

The daughters — along with Heather’s husband, Greg, and their two children — were en route to Nebraska Monday, Graham said.

Steve — only Carolyn called him Steven — was active in the Ashland radio club, helping out as a storm spotter and with other service projects the club organized.

And Carolyn spent many terms as an officer with the close-knit Cornhusker Kennel Club, said member Jill Morstad.

“Carolyn was everywhere … She was always advocating in the community.”

The longtime 4H leader knew a lot about dogs and about people, Morstad said. She had a personality that matched her canines.

“Everything was a new adventure.”

Morstad said Carolyn knew what to take seriously — organizing and advocating — but never took herself too seriously.

“She never lost sight that it was about people having fun with their dogs.”

Anderson and others he has talked to are struggling with grief and anger.

“I am physically ill,” said the former volunteer emergency medical technician. Why the Bailys? Why anyone? asked Anderson, whose fiancee’s parents live near the Baily home.

“Senseless is the word that comes to mind.”

Sunday, House attended a meeting of the Missouri Valley Boxer Club. Carolyn’s absence wasn’t a surprise, she said, because often the Bailys attended radio club events on Sundays.

When she returned home she had a message on her answering machine with the news.

“We’ve had an awful time getting our minds around how this happened with the two dogs there, because Buddy would not leave her side, House said.

Just a few weeks ago House rushed to Gramercy Hill, a local retirement home, where Carolyn was visiting a friend with her Buddy, her older dog.

Carolyn had diabetes and had slipped into a diabetic coma.

While House waited for emergency crews to arrive, she watched Buddy, an 80-pound boxer.

“That dog never left her side.”

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.