Kimberly Bailey Snapped: The Rick Post Tijuana Murder Case

The Kimberly Bailey and Rick Post murder case ended with a wealthy Fallbrook, California businesswoman convicted in federal court of orchestrating the 1998 kidnapping, torture, and killing of her former lover, San Diego private investigator Richard “Rick” Post, in Tijuana, Mexico. A San Diego jury found Bailey guilty in July 2002 of conspiracy to kidnap a person in a foreign country, kidnapping, and murder for hire. She was sentenced to life in prison in August 2003 and died in federal custody in 2008 after a cancer diagnosis.¹

Who Kimberly Bailey and Rick Post Were

Bailey, who also went by Janet Fleming, was a multimillionaire who owned a 33-acre ranch in Fallbrook. She had made her money over roughly 15 years selling biofrequency “black box” devices based on the ideas of Royal Rife, marketed under names including The Last Seed, Naturetronics, Astropulse, and Nature Tech, with claims that the devices emitted electromagnetic waves capable of curing diseases. The business was described as very profitable.²³

Rick Post was a San Diego native, born in 1945, who served in Army Intelligence during the Vietnam War and later founded Intellisource Security and Investigative Services, Inc. His firm took on everything from infidelity investigations to homicide work. He was married twice and had four children.¹

Bailey first hired Intellisource in 1997 to look into missing investment money. By 1998 she and Post were romantically involved, but Post ended the relationship to keep things professional. Bailey was reportedly upset about the breakup.¹

What Triggered the Plot

The person who pushed Bailey from anger to action was John Krueger, an aspiring investigator who worked for Post at Intellisource. Krueger fabricated stories that Post was skimming Bailey’s money and sleeping with other women. He later admitted he invented the accusations to “rile her up,” hoping to remove Post and take over Intellisource himself. People who knew Bailey described her as paranoid and constantly convinced people were stealing from her. She and Krueger began plotting to kidnap Post to recover the supposed money and, in her words, get even.¹⁴

In mid-August 1998, Bailey and Krueger met with Humberto Iribe, an associate of Krueger’s, at Horton Plaza in San Diego. Iribe refused to grab Post on U.S. soil, so Bailey worked out a way to draw him across the border.⁴

The Kidnapping, Torture, and Killing in Tijuana

On August 20, 1998, Bailey lured Post to Tijuana under the pretext of a business trip. Iribe abducted him off the street and took him to an abandoned house. Over the next five days, Iribe and other men beat Post and crushed his fingers with pliers. Bailey traveled to the location and, according to recorded admissions she later made, watched and took part in the torture, interrogating Post about the money she believed he had taken.⁵¹

Bailey initially wanted Post held indefinitely in a private dungeon. Iribe told her that was too dangerous. Prosecutors said Bailey then told him to “do what you have to do” and paid an additional $10,000 to have Post killed. Iribe killed Post on or about August 25, 1998, on a hillside outside Rosarito Beach. His body was never recovered. Bailey paid roughly $60,000 in all for the kidnapping and murder.³⁶⁴

To buy time, the conspirators forced Post to leave decoy voicemails on his office phone saying he had gone to Mexico City on business. Bailey also paid to have a fake video made that purported to show Post at the Tijuana airport.⁴

How Investigators Built the Case

Post’s son Ian was suspicious right away. The Mexico City voicemail did not fit anything his father had told him, and Rick Post had simply disappeared. Local law enforcement treated the matter as a missing-person case and the investigation stalled.¹

The first break came about four months after the disappearance, when attorney Coleen Cusack approached the U.S. Attorney’s Office seeking blanket immunity for her client Krueger in exchange for information about a kidnapping and murder. Prosecutors turned the deal down but passed the tip to the FBI. When agents tried to re-interview Krueger in May 1999, he invoked his right to counsel and cut off the conversation. FBI Special Agent Brett Fenoglio later said that response confirmed for investigators that Post had been murdered and Krueger was involved.¹

The Recorded Confessions

In June 1999, Svetlana Ogorodnikova, a former Soviet spy who had served federal prison time for her role in the 1980s espionage case involving FBI agent Richard Miller, moved onto Bailey’s Fallbrook ranch with her husband to work as caretakers. Bailey befriended her and, over time, confided the details of Post’s kidnapping and killing.³⁴

After Bailey moved to Texas later in 1999, FBI agents visited the ranch and interviewed Ogorodnikova. She told them what Bailey had said and agreed to record phone calls with her. On the recordings, Bailey described paying thousands of dollars to have Post kidnapped and killed, admitted using pliers to crush his fingers during the interrogation, and recounted telling Iribe to “do what you have to do, kill” once she decided Post could no longer be kept alive.¹

The Undercover Sting

In December 1999, Bailey returned to San Diego to meet a man she believed was a hired killer. He was actually FBI agent Nicholas McKean working undercover. Bailey named three people she wanted dead, including Krueger, and paid the agent $10,000 as a down payment, agreeing to $10,000 per target. Audio and video of the meeting were later played for the jury.⁴²

Trial, Verdict, and Sentence

Bailey’s federal trial opened on June 18, 2002, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. Prosecutors relied on the Ogorodnikova recordings, the audio and video from the sting, and testimony from Krueger, who had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnap and turned government witness.⁴

On July 17, 2002, the jury convicted Bailey on all three counts: conspiracy to kidnap, murder, and maim a person in a foreign country; kidnapping; and murder for hire. Even so, the jury did not find beyond a reasonable doubt that Post was actually dead, a distinction tied to the absence of a body.³⁴

On August 20, 2003, Bailey received life in prison on the conspiracy and kidnapping counts, running concurrently, and ten years on the murder-for-hire count, also concurrent. At sentencing, the judge found by clear and convincing evidence that Post had been murdered. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentence on October 12, 2004.⁵⁴

The Co-Defendants

John Krueger pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnap in October 2001 and testified against Bailey. In November 2002 he was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison, five years of supervised release, and a $25,000 fine. He was released in 2010.⁵¹

Humberto Iribe was extradited from Mexico in July 2003. During his trial he entered a conditional guilty plea to conspiracy to kidnap and attempted kidnapping, and he was sentenced to 300 months (25 years) in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release.⁷¹

Bailey’s Death in Custody

Bailey was diagnosed with cancer while serving her life sentence and died in federal custody in 2008. Rick Post’s remains have never been found.¹⁶

1
Oxygen. Kimberly Bailey Had Investigator Rick Post Tortured, Killed
2
Quackwatch. Pretrial Memo
3
San Diego Union-Tribune. Fallbrook Woman Gets Life in Kidnapping Conspiracy
4
GovInfo. United States v. Bailey, No. 00-CV-00155-JM
5
Los Angeles Times. Fallbrook Woman Sentenced to Life in Kidnapping Conspiracy
6
Doe Network. Richard C. Post III
7
Justia. United States v. Iribe