ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - No one has ever been arrested in connection with the brutal murder 16 years ago of University of Georgia law student Tara Louise Baker, but that doesn’t mean the homicide’s case file has been gathering dust in some forgotten filing cabinet.
In fact, the commander of the Athens-Clarke County Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division recently revealed that police have identified a viable suspect in the slaying that occurred Jan. 19, 2001, in the bedroom of Baker’s home on Fawn Drive.
Until now, police had not revealed whether they had any solid suspects in the case, but Capt. Jerry Saulters last month said police “had someone suggest this person could be involved” - a person who was subsequently interviewed by investigators and is now considered a potential suspect.
Additionally, he said Baker’s case is currently assigned to Detective Chuck Ivey, one of the police department’s most experienced homicide detectives who firmly believes the case can be cracked.
Even almost two decades since the murder, police still will not discuss details of the crime.
“The Athens-Clarke County Police Department steadfastly follows up on every lead in the Tara Baker homicide and safeguards the case knowledge with the hopes the perpetrator is brought to justice,” Saulters said.
Officers who assisted early on with the case have since retired, and would speak about the murder only on condition of anonymity.
From those interviews, the Athens Banner-Herald and OnlineAthens learned just how brutally Baker had been killed. The first-year law student was beaten, stabbed, strangled and possibly sexually assaulted, which sources said indicated that Baker may have known her killer - perhaps someone who was enamored with her and flew into a rage when she spurned his advances.
The student’s home in the Deer Park apartment complex off Lexington Road in east Athens was set on fire by the killer to cover his tracks.
The only thing taken from Baker’s home was her laptop computer, which might have held e-mails that would have incriminated the killer, sources said.
Investigators identified at least three possible suspects after the murder, including a man Baker was dating, a fellow law school student and an attorney at a local firm that Baker had worked for.
Police ruled out the boyfriend after he passed a polygraph test and his alibi checked out. But they would not say if the other two men were considered to have been involved.
The “person of interest” Saulters mentioned became a viable suspect around 2010, he said.
Prior to that, the Baker homicide case file was reviewed by Dr. Henry Lee, the internationally renowned criminalist. The case was given to Lee at the request of Baker’s family, and he conducted his review at no charge to the family or county.
Baker’s case was also presented to a symposium at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., a gathering of leading homicide investigators from around the country.
Despite the best efforts of law enforcement, Lindsay Baker remained pessimistic about the chances his daughter’s case would be solved, particularly because he believed the investigation was botched in its early stages. He did not think the case was still being actively investigated.
“The stagnation of the investigation has left us mystified, but we can rest in the assurance that it will play out in God’s time, not ours,” Baker said.
Holiday seasons like the one just passed have been particularly difficult for Tara’s family.
“Not only do we sorely miss her smiling face and infectious giggle, but we are relegated to decorating her grave for the season,” Baker said. “Then, before we can turn around, we must suffer the anniversary of her death.”
The reminders that Tara was violently taken from her family are constant, Baker said.
“We recently ran into one of her friends from school and her 15-year-old daughter. It seems Tara was everybody’s maid of honor in the months after graduation,” Baker recalled. “We were happy to see them, but it did sting a bit to see this pretty young lady who was not born when Tara was murdered. We are reminded that Tara’s killer not only took her life, but also a huge limb from our family tree. The next generation will never know the wonderful aunt that was stolen from them.”
A former UGA police officer who assisted in the homicide investigation defended the probe, saying detectives worked the Baker case tirelessly, but there was virtually no physical evidence to help piece together a case.
The crime scene was contaminated by more than a dozen firefighters who were there before authorities even realized Baker’s home was a murder scene, said the former UGA officer, Alex Morrow. He said water from fire hoses and a coating of soot made it impossible to lift fingerprints.
“The fire damage was so extensive that it destroyed the crime scene, so there was very little to work with,” said Morrow, a former detective who recalled working up to 15 hours a day during the first six months after the murder. “We explored every possible avenue with the information and evidence we had.”
Despite the family’s misgivings, police remain confident they eventually will build enough of a case to slap handcuffs on the suspected killer.
“Some of the factors that make this case different are the time that has passed, the fire at the scene and the fact that, by all accounts, Tara Baker lived a low-risk lifestyle,” said Ivey, the detective now handling the case.
“That being said,” he added, “this case is absolutely solvable. Even though 16 years have passed, we still get calls from the public with information about possible leads, and we continue to encourage anyone with possible information to contact us.”
The most recent significant investigative activity in the case occurred in December 2013, according to Saulters, who said it involved interviewing a new witness.
That activity breathed new life into the investigation, according to Saulters, who had a message for the killer:
“The Athens-Clarke County Policed Department has not forgotten what you did to Tara Baker,” he said. “We will continue to work on identifying and bringing you to justice.”
A $30,000 reward is offered for information that leads to the arrest of Baker’s killer.
Anyone with information that could assist in the Baker investigation should call Detective Ivey at (706) 613-3888, ext. 337 or the Crime Stoppers confidential tip line at (706) 705-4665.
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