Brother says Bath killings could have been prevented, seeks answers

Bud Martin says Bath should not have been left with so many unanswered questions after Lisa Bailey and her daughter, Jennifer Bailey, were killed outside their Crawford Drive home. Speaking publicly for the first time about the deaths, Martin said he believes the killings could have been prevented and that the days before the Oct. 6, 2024, slayings deserve closer scrutiny.

The case remains one of the most painful in Sagadahoc County because the violence ended with three deaths at 10 Crawford Drive. Maine State Police said Lisa Bailey, 58, and Jennifer Bailey, 32, were killed by Michael Bailey, 66, who then died by suicide at the scene. The state later listed the case in its 2024 homicide records as a domestic murder-suicide.

Martin’s central concern is not just what happened that day, but what happened before it. He said the response in the days leading up to the killings fell short and argued that if police knew there was a real danger, the women should have been separated, protected and kept safe rather than left in a volatile situation. His comments turn the case from a private family loss into a public test of how local systems handle domestic violence once officers are involved.

That question has become more urgent because police records connected to earlier family-fight calls remain heavily redacted and are being pursued in public-records litigation. A 2026 lawsuit filed by The Times Record and WMTW against Bath police centers on access to records from the 2024 killings and the department’s response to domestic-dispute calls. Without those records, the public still does not know what officers saw, what warnings were documented or whether a different intervention could have changed the outcome.

The broader state picture shows why the case has drawn attention beyond Bath. Maine State Police listed 34 homicides in the state in 2024, 15 of them domestic. Advocates said more than 12,000 people experienced domestic abuse or violence in Maine that year, and 15 people were killed by their abusers. State officials also rely on the Maine Domestic Abuse Homicide Review Panel, which reviews cases where a victim was killed by a family or household member and recommends changes meant to improve prevention.

For Bath, the killings now sit at the center of both grief and accountability. The unanswered records, the lawsuit in Augusta and the review panel’s work all point toward the same issue: whether warning signs were missed, and what Maine institutions will do differently before another family in the state faces the same outcome.