By BOB MARTIN
Eagle Times Staff
SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — A Springfield man who had been missing since Dec. 12 has been found dead, according to the victim’s mother who spoke to The Eagle Times on Wednesday.
“Paul Bailey has been found,” Bailey’s mother Brenda Stearman wrote on Facebook on Wednesday morning. “Rest in peace Paul. Our hearts are shattered in a billion pieces. Our lives will NEVER be the same.”
Stearman told The Eagle Times that Bailey, 32, was found on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 8 in an abandoned building on River Street in Springfield.
“Our family is grateful to everyone for their love and support, especially everyone who joined in the search on New Years Day,” Stearman said. “Our hearts are broken, but we are glad Paul was found, and we can now lay him to rest.”
There has been an outpouring of support from the community on social media, as there have been 83 “shares” and 73 comments in only an hour of Stearman’s post being up. Many sent messages offering condolences and others shared how heartbroken they were for Bailey’s family.
Stearman told The Eagle Times that there was a search conducted by members of the community on New Years Day. Friends, family and neighbors met at the Holy Family Parish on Pleasant Street to create a search party.
Stearman had been posting on Facebook asking for help from the public in finding her son, and offered a $5,000 reward. She posted a heart wrenching video that the Springfield Police Department was tagged in on Dec. 21, where she acknowledged that her son had been mixed up with dangerous people and had problems with drugs.
She said Bailey was a son, father, a brother and a son, and she just needed to know where he could be whether he was dead or alive. He was last seen on Dec. 12 on Valley Street.
“I have tried calling the FBI, and tried calling the state police,” she said in the video. “Both agencies said I need to work with my local police department, which I have been doing. I just feel like this isn’t getting enough attention for me. I need help. I need someone to help me find my son. Somebody out there knows something about Paul’s disappearance.”
Springfield Police Chief Jeff Burnham recently said police have been looking for Bailey, and any time there is a lead they trace it down, but nothing has panned out. He did say there have been a number of tips, but they had not led to any information on his whereabouts.
Burnham said on Wednesday that a body had been found “accidentally,” but he needed to officially confirm that it was Bailey, as well as a cause of death, after autopsy results were released by the medical examiner.
“We sent the person to the autopsy and we believe with some level of confidence that it is him, but we don’t have confirmation of that yet,” Burnham said. “Once the ME does what is needed, I will put out a press release on what actually happened.”
