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welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
00:01:48
as always is a man who serves up soul rolles and pimp in the poultry ladies and gentlemen the captain yep I'm
00:01:55
spending most of my life living in a gangster's paradise it's good to be seen and good good to see you thanks for
00:02:00
listening thanks for telling a friends today we are still sipping on Spats in October Fest by our good
00:02:14
friends overseas serving up the traditional October Fest beer it's that time of year Captain I love the fall and
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I was built nice and sturdy for a good October Fest and if you want to get authentic or pretty close to it for us
00:02:28
here in the states fill up a glass with spats and October Fest garage grave three and 3/4 bottle caps out of five
00:02:36
and let's give a good cheers to our friend Andy from Cincinnati this cheers are coming from Nick and the captain but
00:02:42
also Jamie so big shout out to our friends in Ohio yeah don't be an ass fill up a glass a big we like your jib
00:02:52
goes out to Amy from Virginia everyone we mentioned went to our website true Crim garage.com helped us out with this
00:02:58
week's beer funding for that that we thank you yeah you want to help out the garage go to iTunes and leave us a
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festar review b r you in that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer
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let's talk some true [Music] crime unfortunately Amy Baker is no longer with us and 33 years ago someone took
00:03:40
her life after she ran into car trouble on the side of Interstate 95 way back in
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1989 now police have been upfront and investigators have been upfront with the public here captain and telling us here
00:03:56
is what happened and the reason why they are telling us in this case and which is
00:04:02
a little bizarre because we've seen in other cases where they tell us nothing about what they know that happened and
00:04:09
still ask us for our help us being the public the old we're going to keep the information close to the vest statement
00:04:17
in this case they're saying here is what happened public now please help us out and you'll see why they are desperate
00:04:24
for information from the public based off of the evidence what the evidence suggests to them in this case so police
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have said repeatedly in the case of Amy Baker that what happened that night was that Amy ran out of gas she decided to
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leave her vehicle she walked started walking toward the this gas station that was nearby and someone unknown to her
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abducted raped and murdered her along her way along the way to getting help for her vehicle we have several reports
00:05:01
that will back up this statement from the local law enforcement the first being from the Richman Times Dispatch
00:05:08
that says quote the night of March 29 1989 Amy Elizabeth Baker was driving South on Interstate 95 when her 1970
00:05:19
Volkswagen broke down forcing her to pull onto the shoulder just south of State Route
00:05:26
617 617 exit in Fair facts police believe the 18-year-old Stafford woman was walking up the exit ramp and had
00:05:36
nearly reached the top about 9:15 p.m. when she was confronted by her as salant she was then forcibly taken into the
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nearby Woods sexually assaulted and strangled this again all according to the police another report that backs
00:05:54
this up comes from the Washington examiner that reports on May 29 9 1989 Baker was driving South on Interstate 95
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when her car stalled out around 9900 p.m. the 18-year-old left her blue 1970 Volkswagen Beetle on the shoulder and
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started walking toward an Exon station on nearby Blacklick Road police believe someone accosted Baker at the top of the
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exit ramp and forced her into the woods now note that this time frame right the nine p.m. sighting makes a lot of sense
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the police spotted the beetle after 1 p.m. with the hazard lights on but Amy left her aunt's house around 8:20 the
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distance between Falls Church in Newington is about 20 miles it should have taken Amy maybe 30 minutes even
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with some traffic to get where her car was found it seems that if Amy was seen this is all key to this this case we
00:07:00
have an eyewitness now it seems that if Amy was seen around 9 the timing lines up nearly perfectly yeah and in so many
00:07:09
cases that we've covered the timelines don't line up so it also means that her car was there for we could say quite a
00:07:17
while before it was spotted by the trooper around 10 and and the original report says just after 10 pm we had a
00:07:24
press release that was issued in 2010 note the years right this case takes place in
00:07:32
1989 we have the the police actively asking the public for help in this case we yesterday we cited a 2005 request
00:07:42
from law enforcement to the public asking for whoever called Crim stoppers on April 3rd 1989 with some information
00:07:51
please call us back we are still looking for you we want to talk to you we believe you know something that is of
00:07:57
great importance to this case into this investigation that's 2005 this press release is 2010 so what should be of
00:08:06
note and should be a kudos to the police and and the investigators in this case is that they have actively been working
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this case all of these years later so this press release that was issued in 2010 says it's titled 1989 homicide of
00:08:24
Amy Baker and this is now the Cold Case investigation that is happening in her case and the Fairfax County crime
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solvers had this news release from the Cold Case investigation in 2010 it says crime solvers seeking information on
00:08:44
Cold Case homicide Fairfax County crime solvers is seeking is still seeking The public's assistance identifying the
00:08:52
person responsible for a homicide that occurred 21 years ago about 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday March 29
00:09:00
1989 18-year-old Amy Baker was driving Southbound on Interstate 95 near Blacklick Road when her car experienced
00:09:10
difficulties Amy abandoned her blue 1970 Volkswagen Bug and walked up the exit ramp onto Blacklick Road toward the
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Exxon gas station I believe it's called backlick Road and not Black Lick Road detectives believe that her attacker
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confronted her and forced her into the woods near the top of the exit ramp where she was sexually assaulted and
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strangled her body which was found two days later was partially buried in some leaves detectives continue to
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investigate her death and would like to speak with anyone who may have been in the area at the time of the attack or
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who may have knowledge of the incident in addition to the $11,000 cash reward offered by crime solvers a
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$26,000 private reward is also being being offered for information which leads to an arrest and indictment in
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this case anyone with information is asked to contact crime solvers by phone at 1866 411 tips which is
00:10:15
8477 you could also email at www.f farfax Crim solvers dog or text tip 187 tip1 187 plus your message to
00:10:30
crimes 274637 as always callers never have to give their names or appear in court well
00:10:39
a couple things that I find difficult in this one is that nobody no eyewitnesses that we know of
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Saw another vehicle but because this is so close to an exit ramp I Al I often wonder with
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this case did the perpetrator get get off the exit park somewhere and then walk back on foot that way they commit
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they could commit the crime they could commit the rape the murder and then walk back to their vehicle I would like a
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better description of what the officer who spotted these vehicles remember the vehicles that they were asking the
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public to call about so a couple things here what this tells me is those even though those are pretty vague
00:11:30
descriptions either that information didn't reach those drivers and they don't know to reach out to
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police or one of those drivers does not want police knowing that they were in the
00:11:43
area that night and so what I'm talking about is that 80s Buick and the um Ford Escort that police were asking for I
00:11:55
want more of a description by law enforcement of why are these vehicles of importance okay they were in the area is
00:12:02
what we're told what does in the area mean were they parked alongside the interstate or was one of them seen on
00:12:09
Blacklick Road or were these just simply vehicles that had happened to pass by uh
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around the time the other thing that's difficult though too Captain is the vehicles that are in question that the
00:12:21
police are asking about information for those Vehicles we have to keep in mind were spotted by the state trooper
00:12:30
which would have been after 1 p.m. her car based off of the timeline that we've gone through and I know it was a little
00:12:38
repetitive for the listeners there but the reason why we went through multiple reports was to confirm what police have
00:12:44
said always has happened in this case right that around 900 p.m. her vehicle was already broken down out of gas
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hazards on she's on foot and they have a witness some kind of witness has told them that she was spotted on foot up
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near the exit ramp right so she had made it at least a short distance before someone accosted her those are are their
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words and so they have reason to believe based off of this eyewitness's sighting
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that she made it pretty close to this gas station before the abductor happened upon her so again that again this is
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this is all very weird stuff because I keep going back to how the vehicle was found and it's found in the unlocked
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State the the doors were not locked now that could just be simple it could be something as simple as she intended to
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lock the doors but for whatever reason failed to do so because the change in her pocket suggests to me her intention
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was to call for help and remember she's only about 20 minutes away from her home my guess here if I had to try to
00:14:00
crawl inside the victim's mind here would be that her intentions were to call home ask Dad her mom to come and
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meet her her or bring her gasoline because there's nobody saying that she had a gas can which which is a
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little weird to me too seeing how this is not the first time that she's run into this
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problem but it all indicators to me are that is that she made an effort to lock her personal belong ings in her vehicle
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flashers on intended to make a phone call and then be back at her vehicle rather quickly and this gas station's
00:14:37
not terribly far from her car so and and I want to point that out that's something that I think when we attempt
00:14:43
to profile our victim in our victim's movements of that night to me that is very key because I know there's a lot of
00:14:52
people out that out there that are going to say well maybe somebody offered her help and she got into somebody's vehicle
00:14:59
that's certainly a possibility but I would put it at the very low probability based off of two things one if I'm an
00:15:07
18-year-old woman and I'm on the side of the road at night and I can see the Exxon station from my broken down
00:15:16
vehicle I ain't getting in nobody's car I I'm walking to that gas station and two we have what police tell us are an
00:15:25
eyewitness that saw her walking and saw her up near that exit R right so here here becomes another question
00:15:34
though if you're an 18-year-old female and you're walking and you can see the gas station you're not going to
00:15:43
get in a car of a stranger that doesn't mean you wouldn't get in a car of somebody you were
00:15:49
familiar with and I also wonder is where the body was found is that the crime crime scene
00:16:00
because if she did get into a vehicle it's it's very likely that the vehicle became the crime scene and they
00:16:08
decided to drop her back off at this point they would have access to her keys and so they could have unlocked the
00:16:18
door they could have been the ones to put on the flashers who knows yeah I mean it's it's difficult to
00:16:27
say exactly what happened here but we do have the statements of police that seem
00:16:32
pretty definitive in their statements of her car broke down ran out of gas she was walking on foot when she was
00:16:40
accosted and abducted by somebody unknown to her and taken into the woods where she was assaulted and killed there
00:16:50
um again we don't know exactly what they're basing all that information off of we do
00:16:56
know that there was an eyewitness um that that saw her walking but for them to repeat that statement to the
00:17:05
public and then ask the public for help time and time again it sounds to me like
00:17:11
they have reason to be very locked in on that situation the other thing too is and and I know I've said this in a in a
00:17:19
previous episode and somebody tried to challenge me on it but I have reviewed hundreds of cases I've never ever recall
00:17:27
and you sometimes playing the probability and you're playing the numbers here when you're trying to
00:17:32
profile these things but I have never reviewed a case where somebody is abducted sexually assaulted and killed
00:17:37
and then returned to the area where they were abducted from it's to me I I'm not saying it's never
00:17:45
ever happened in the history of mankind what I'm saying is out of the hundreds of cases I've reviewed that it's I've
00:17:51
never come across that once so that being the situation I would put that at uh very very small
00:18:02
probability well obviously technology has changed since 1989 but don't you think because of the
00:18:11
sexual assault because of the rape because of the strangulation that we would have some
00:18:17
kind of evidence to test now to get this you know douchebag to get this murderer off the streets well the answer
00:18:29
to that is I have two answers for you yes and no and as as we will see we'll get into it so luckily we have um some
00:18:40
more information that comes by way of the family and this is really important information to me here Captain because
00:18:46
it's coming from Mary who is Amy Baker's Aunt who was with Amy Baker's mother Sue Mary's the one that that first finds
00:18:59
the body and she posted on a Fairfax message board about the case and I'm going to just read part of her post for
00:19:08
the listeners because it was rather lengthy but here's the important stuff is is as the colonel sees it so it says
00:19:17
quote thank you for your concern and compassion about Amy her car broke down at 9:30 at night and it was dark outside
00:19:25
at the time it is believed she was walking to the gas station to call someone for help but never made it that
00:19:31
far before being abducted I had parked my car at the gas station the morning we started searching for her and you
00:19:39
couldn't see the spot where we found her from there however since she broke down
00:19:45
on Interstate 95 I still find it hard to believe with all of the traffic at that
00:19:51
exit that no one saw her with anyone we know she made it partway to the station before being abducted and
00:20:00
Newington is always a busy interchange Blacklick which is the other Road did go across 95 at the time remember we had CH
00:20:11
said that that area has changed a little bit and we believe she was heading for the gas station on Blacklick near the
00:20:17
top of the ramp the only businesses around that area at that time were the Newington motel and the Exxon station no
00:20:28
the ramp was not icy that night in fact it was very warm for a March night almost like spring we do know she made
00:20:36
it to the top of the ramp and everyone was checked out that worked close to that area that night she never made it
00:20:45
to the Exxon station if she had she would have made a phone call for help and a call was never made she had
00:20:53
relatives that drove tow trucks that's very important and she would have called called them not the first time she had
00:21:01
broken down but in a different car she knew who to call and then it said and then just some
00:21:09
items from my notes here remember that change was found in the pocket of Amy shorts we know this based off of the
00:21:16
police reports and we know that her wallet was found in her vehicle so her aunt is pointing out that
00:21:25
the most likely spot sorry what her aunt is pointing out is likely spoton Amy intended to use the
00:21:35
pay phone at that Exon station to call for help yeah the problem with some of these
00:21:42
cases again is technology because at this point you know today if somebody makes a call well
00:21:51
one they could have a cell phone so they could call you at the side of the road but let's say she made it to the gas
00:21:56
station and made some phone calls I'm sure there was not everybody in her family that she could have called pulled
00:22:03
their phone records to see if she called but because of the change because nobody is is admitting that they heard
00:22:12
from her it's probably more likely like you said what they believe that she never made it to the gas station she
00:22:19
never was able to make a call again I'm putting a lot of weight in the the investigator statements to the public
00:22:27
they're not going to try to mislead us and then ask us for our help we you know as
00:22:33
stated one we don't have anybody saying that they spoke to to Amy via phone that
00:22:38
night and you're right Captain we I'm sure that not everyone that's related to her or um who she may have attempted to
00:22:46
call that the phone records were in fact checked or confirmed that she didn't call them but we also have the statement
00:22:53
that everybody that worked in the area at that time has been interviewed by police so what I'm getting at is we have
00:23:00
zero eyewitnesses that put her at the pay phone zero eyewitnesses that put her at or inside the Exxon gas station this
00:23:08
is a congested area hi trffic area and I also imagine we don't have a ton of people that she's going to call it's not
00:23:16
a list of 30 people it sounds like she would have called her home right or she would have called one
00:23:23
of these relatives that owned a tow truck I'm look I I know that we live in a different world today than we did in
00:23:30
'89 and nobody can remember anybody's phone number because we don't have to these days but I I still can't imagine
00:23:37
an 18-year-old woman knowing the the tow truck relatives phone number by heart I
00:23:44
she's calling Mom and Dad and we have we have from the from the family statement
00:23:52
that they were home that whole night so I again I'm just going to going to have to go off of the police statements to
00:23:59
the public based and based off of what we do know and what is pointed out that that has never been brought to to light
00:24:09
that to believe otherwise that that she never made it to that Exon station well it's so frustrating because one the cops
00:24:17
show up they find the vehicle they don't find her if they do a better search they
00:24:24
find her right away we're able to preserve the crime scene a little bit better but on top of that there's a lot
00:24:31
of missing person cases where the the person wrecks on the side of the road but it's kind of a desolate Road there's
00:24:39
not a lot of people on that road she is on a road where it's a I would say a pseudo busy exit you have a hotel you
00:24:50
have a gas station and especially at that time of night you have a gas station that is
00:24:56
open because this is 89 not every station is going to be open 24 hours or even into the late night so it's just so
00:25:07
frustrating that the cops didn't find her sooner and so frustrating that there's not an eyewitness coming forward
00:25:15
and telling us more information that somebody chances are somebody saw something and just thought maybe never
00:25:24
followed up on it or maybe never even heard about the crime because they were traveling and passing through the area
00:25:29
or maybe they they knew something but they were afraid but either way it's it's so frustrating that you'd think in
00:25:36
this case there would be some eyewitness that that could really put a nail and find this bastard and and get this guy
00:25:45
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00:28:05
much more to get into and so such a frustrating case for the baker family cheers to you Colonel cheers Captain
00:28:14
you're exactly right a frustrating case to the the heartbreaking and frustrating
00:28:18
to the baker family and then frustrating to all involved and look again there were some mistakes made in our opinions
00:28:26
early on in the case a great search was not done of that area and not that I would expect for a great search of that
00:28:34
area to be conducted that night when her vehicle was found but certainly the next
00:28:39
day and certainly given the items that were found in her vehicle I would have expected there to have been a better
00:28:47
search of that area but we can't change that one and two the current day investigators are not responsible for
00:28:56
those mistakes they they are currently Baker's case is very active and again I I only point
00:29:03
that out based off of recent information coming out of law enforcement one and two you see the consistent and constant
00:29:13
effort to ask the public for help we see this as late as 2005 and then again in 2010 and 2011 and even in 2020 so
00:29:23
there's been an effort to keep this case in the media and remind people from time to
00:29:30
time that this case exist and that it's still unsolved and then we went through those multiple reports that were coming
00:29:38
out early on in this case because I wanted everyone to understand the consistencies within those reports again
00:29:46
it seems like police are pretty locked in on the following that Amy pulled over put on her hazards and started walking
00:29:54
along the highway up the exit ramp again we know that a witness saw her walking since we know the timing and that she
00:30:02
made it to the top of the exit ramp that's important the the the the quote that's been made of made it to the top
00:30:10
of the exit ramp but here's the thing her body was found a mere 200 yard from her vehicle so we're sitting here you
00:30:18
say frustrated Captain I agree we're sitting here going what the heck happened this area was not really a
00:30:25
pedestrian area at all but it was a highly trafficked area Amy is walking so did some guy come along in a vehicle
00:30:34
and and and grab her and drag her into the woods or you know if as you pointed out
00:30:42
earlier there's still a possibility that pulls up in a vehicle and he drags her into the vehicle rapes and kills her in
00:30:50
his vehicle and then but again I go to the idea of why why backtrack to the area where the car was found just to get
00:30:58
rid of the body this is right Beyond risky if the killer was in fact in a vehicle did he pull his vehicle over and
00:31:07
chase her into the woods that too is risky right because his vehicle would be sitting there on
00:31:13
the roadside it would have attracted some attention and we do have we do have the
00:31:20
statement from police in 2005 that says police don't believe Amy knew her attacker rather it was believed to have
00:31:28
been a crime of opportunity a stranger on Stranger attack unless the vehicle wasn't a car and it was something like a
00:31:36
motorcycle where he could kind of hide it behind her car right that's what that's what I'm that's the thing that I
00:31:44
can't get around in this case if the perpetrator did have some kind of vehicle motorcycles very interesting to
00:31:52
think about if he did have a vehicle when where did he leave the vehicle during the attack and during the murder
00:32:02
again it it's difficult too because we talked about this in the Nancy eagleson case that we covered not too long ago
00:32:08
tire tracks would be key but you're not finding the body until two days later we
00:32:13
know that there were would have been other vehicles that could have contaminated that area with tire tracks
00:32:20
tire tracks near the body would be of of a bigger concern than tire tracks near where her car was found
00:32:28
the other thing too did we don't know did they dust her car for Prince because we said the possibility
00:32:35
that he could have come back and placed a purse or something in the car right I I think that's the other thing
00:32:42
though too is would she get into a car with somebody she didn't know they say most likely not but it's like what if
00:32:51
she gets up to that exit so now she's inside of the gas gas station she feels a little more safe safe somebody pulls
00:32:57
up and says hey can I help you no I'm I just ran out of gas and the guy says oh well I have a gas
00:33:05
can and now it changes the whole game okay well I could call somebody and bother somebody and
00:33:12
wait right wait all this time for them to get dressed and come you know come find me and they're going to have to get
00:33:21
a gas can or something or we're going to have to leave my car on the side of the
00:33:26
road you see what I'm saying so it's like yeah maybe in Norm normal situations Amy wouldn't get into a car
00:33:33
with a stranger or get into a truck or get into a van with a stranger but what if they're offering
00:33:40
such a simple solution oh I got a gas can we can just go fill that up real quick and put some gas in your car and
00:33:47
you'll be on your way or what if she didn't have a choice what if there's a situation where
00:33:54
she's pulled in or there's a a gun a knife or something that's presented a Threat Level that's presented that she
00:34:01
doesn't believe that she has a choice in the matter yeah it could have been Threat Level Midnight so let's go to
00:34:07
1995 this is going to be roughly about six years after Amy's murder this is when the Fairfax County's four member
00:34:16
Cold Case Squad was formed Amy's case was just one of many that the unit is going to be tasked with solving now as
00:34:25
of 1998 Fairfax County had 71 unsolved murder cases on the books dating as far back as
00:34:34
1964 Fairfax County Police have a good solve rate they are closing More than 70% of the approximately 12 murders that
00:34:43
occur in the county annually so a very good solve rate by Fairfax County there are between 1,400 and 1500 officers on
00:34:53
the force so a rather large Force um detective dick kleene inherited the cardboard box full
00:35:03
of Amy Baker's murder investigation evidence this in 1992 after another detective resigned Amy's case still
00:35:11
generates phone calls to the County's crime solvers hotline and two criminal investigators police continued to
00:35:19
compare the circumstances of Amy's death with other seemingly unrelated but similar crimes around the
00:35:28
country again they're working off of they seem to have evidence that they believe this is a stranger on Stranger
00:35:36
crime So Good by them to be looking at similar crimes not just in their County not just in their state but around the
00:35:44
country detective Klein's experience and the extreme violence of this crime of Amy Baker's murder has led this
00:35:52
detective to conclude that whoever killed Amy baker has a police record believe it or not that's pretty much the
00:36:00
end of what we know for sure about Amy's case except for one thing something you
00:36:05
had asked about earlier Captain there is DNA in this case so in 1999 detective Klein told the Times Dispatch that the
00:36:17
autopsy on Amy turned up DNA evidence belonging to the killer detective Klein has had the DNA reanalyzed and run
00:36:26
through a state database of known offenders the work allowed detective Klein to eliminate five names from a
00:36:35
list of six suspects that he compiled So This Cold Case detective comes up with six suspects
00:36:46
after reviewing the evidence after reviewing the file and working the case for a period of time the DNA evidence
00:36:53
that they have that was collected back in 1989 has eliminated five of those six suspects that this detective
00:37:05
had repeat that again out of the six suspects they had five of them have been eliminated yes
00:37:14
detective Klein after he worked the case he's a Cold Case detective after he had
00:37:19
time to to review the evidence review the file test some things and work the case for a period of time he came up
00:37:27
with what he says is six suspects and he says that the DNA evidence that was collected back then
00:37:34
back in 1989 has eliminated five of those persons from his short list of six suspects well wouldn't that mean they
00:37:44
have one left well there's some there's some problems so when earlier when I gave you the answer of yes and no when
00:37:52
it comes to right don't we have something today that we can test that can lead us to finding this offender
00:38:01
well there's a couple problems and this also creates a problem for the detective's statement that he believes
00:38:09
based off of the evidence of the crime that he thinks whoever would have killed Amy Baker would have a police record so
00:38:17
the offender's DNA is not in codus so what that means is they don't have anybody on file that doesn't mean that
00:38:24
this guy never committed another crime this doesn't mean that he never committed another felony it just means
00:38:30
that from the time that they started that that cotus started collecting DNA offender DNA the DNA that they're
00:38:38
looking for in the Amy Baker case is not in the codus database as we just pointed
00:38:44
out the DNA collected at the time did not match those five other suspects so let's get into the weeds a little bit
00:38:50
and and get into some better detail with this so this is all based off of information that's coming from Fairfax
00:38:58
County Police this says DNA evidence was also collected at the scene but at the time the technology wasn't at the level
00:39:06
that it is today there's no longer enough of the sample left to conduct additional test so basically they've
00:39:14
used it all up the DNA evidence that they had they used it all up the only hope now is that a suspect turns up and
00:39:23
codus at some point or police to discover a suspect who is a match after a onetoone comparison what I'm pointing
00:39:33
out here Captain is that the biological material that's left there's there's no more biological material left so we
00:39:40
cannot go and do a forensic genealogy right but you know think about this it's investigation guy commits this crime in
00:39:49
89 maybe commits a similar crime and 90 when he's arrested for that crime he is then put in prison prison but they don't
00:39:57
take his DNA and then he's let's say murdered later on that year his information his DNA would would have
00:40:05
never been collected and there's so many obviously possibilities of this person being arrested for another crime and
00:40:14
them not getting his DNA that's correct that's that's absolutely correct and so the other possibility that we have
00:40:26
here that we should explore and this is where we need people that know Amy Baker
00:40:31
to come forward this is conversations that should have been had and maybe maybe these conversations took place and
00:40:38
that's why we are where we are today so I think it's probably a an error on my part to say that this is offender DNA
00:40:50
that this is suspect DNA but we certainly see that they're using it to eliminate people
00:40:58
but I don't know where that DNA came from the the reports are that it was collected at the scene where her body
00:41:06
was found that you know and without getting too you know I'm not going to get into
00:41:11
to Too Much discussion of our victim here because we know that she was attacked they believe that she was
00:41:17
sexually assaulted uh that a rape was committed and then she was murdered that's been their statement
00:41:24
so based off of their statements I would suspect that to be the Killer's DNA it's
00:41:31
the it belongs to the the rapist and the killer who are the same person is there
00:41:36
a chance that we could have a situation where there was a consensual sexual encounter leading up to her car be
00:41:44
before her car breaks down I'm not saying you know sometime earlier that day and this has kind of boogered up the
00:41:53
investigation right because there's a chance that she could have been abducted assaulted and killed but
00:42:01
it's not in the traditional sexual SL rape manner that we're thinking of so and I I bring all that messy stuff and
00:42:10
disgusting stuff up for good reason and that is because there is a suspect we we said that has not been
00:42:19
cleared through um sorry and I say that because there is that sixth suspect one who has not been cleared by
00:42:30
DNA so you think that that's pretty easy right but there's also a suspect that the police really like in this
00:42:38
case who has been cleared by the DNA well that's that's pretty interesting so that makes the DNA very confusing here
00:42:47
in the situation right and this this suspect is Melvin Irving schifflet so Melvin schifflet
00:42:56
is a convicted murderer and he has also sexually assaulted and attempted to murder
00:43:03
another victim but thankfully she smacks him in the head with a bottle Dam near knocks him out and she flees the scene
00:43:12
and is later able to testify against him so the sexual assault that he conducted
00:43:19
on these two victims one that was murdered one that he attempted to murder was that he forced the victim to
00:43:26
perform oral sex on him he was unable to perform he's unable to get an erection and yet he murders
00:43:37
the one victim and attempts to murder the other victim and by the way in both cases
00:43:46
strangulation was the method of murder and the method of attempted murder so this is not the colonel just bringing up
00:43:54
a suspect here this is a suspect that is being looked at in this case by the investigators that are working this case
00:44:02
yeah you're not being all willy-nilly or sing along ding-dong so where we see science help in so many cases we can
00:44:10
also see situations where science is confusing stupid science and is not so helpful right but again you would think
00:44:20
that they would have information about Amy's personal life and details of the events of her personal life that led up
00:44:30
to her car running out of gas before she's because the period of time that goes down between her running out of gas
00:44:38
and the murder some of that's going to be based off of science off of the coroner's
00:44:43
findings at the autopsy and some of that's going to be based off of eyewitnesses and who are those
00:44:53
eyewitnesses the eyewitnesses are her family that know the time that she left their
00:44:58
home to travel home her family that she spoke to on the phone that says I'm leaving I'm on my way home I'll be there
00:45:07
soon and the potential witness that saw her at the top or near the top of the exit ramp you are going to include all
00:45:17
of those in your findings and in your statement of making a time of death which they have stated
00:45:26
occurred within 30 to maybe 60 minutes after she left her vehicle we should point out a couple of
00:45:37
things before we move off of this suspect Melvin Irving shifflet so while I've seen to I've seen several reports
00:45:45
that that make him the sixth suspect or an uncleared suspect again the the the clearing of five with the
00:45:54
DNA based off the reports I've seen doesn't clear him in this case right he's one of the five that the DNA
00:46:02
doesn't match but to say that it cleared him is difficult because it seems like he's remained on their list of suspects
00:46:10
based off of his previous crimes the murder that he committed the attempted murder that he he
00:46:19
committed but the DNA doesn't match up so I I we need to point out all angles here especially
00:46:27
when we're talking about a quote unquote suspect here right so we should note that Melvin Irving schifflet he did get
00:46:36
out of prison one month before Amy was killed but one local paper this is the freelance star reported that Melvin
00:46:47
Irving shifflet one of the Region's known Killers now serving time on rape and murder charges was cleared after a
00:46:54
comparison with DNA evidence taken from Amy's body so he he remains a a very confusing suspect in this case and in
00:47:04
this on the list of suspects and we don't have other people being named publicly it's very frustrating and
00:47:13
frustrating probably for law enforcement because so much time has gone by but even more frustrating for Amy Baker's
00:47:21
family and friends and loved ones and to expand on frustration Captain we have a
00:47:27
2014 article again from the freelance star that reports Fairfax police this is detective John frell who is the Cold
00:47:37
Case officer in charge at at the time of 2014 in charge of Amy's case he acknowledged publicly the frustration a
00:47:47
case such as this brings to the family and to police he would not speak at the time specifically about the case in
00:47:55
particular about the condition or the availability of DNA evidence that was recovered from our victim um we pretty
00:48:05
much we got pretty much the same thing when we contacted the Fairfax police Cold Case unit the the email that we
00:48:14
received back was the Amy Baker case is an active case being investigated by our
00:48:19
Cold Case Squad due to the case being active I will not comment on suspect or evidence status at this time we always
00:48:27
welcome the documentaries so that the public knows we have not forgotten the victims and the potential that someone
00:48:34
out there listening will come forward with new information if you saw something say
00:48:41
something or if you've heard something say something this case is solvable this case is very solvable and it's one
00:48:51
captain that there there are some local rumors and such that that we didn't feel would be appropriate
00:48:58
to review here um for reasons that we cannot get into at this time but this is a case that you may find us revisiting
00:49:08
on off the Record at some point as as Clarity comes forward in some of this information that we are currently
00:49:16
sitting on again like the captain says if you if you saw something say something if you know something that's I
00:49:24
think that's the the other thing that we need to point out here right a lot of time has expired
00:49:31
between the time that Amy was killed and today somebody likely has told somebody
00:49:37
something along the way something that they did back in 1989 something that they're not proud of something that they
00:49:44
they may even be scared of uh somebody that's been looking over their shoulder all of this time so if anybody has said
00:49:52
anything to you uh over the years and you know something help this family out please please help this family out help
00:50:01
them find some peace right it's been a long time and Sue Baker and the the wonderful Baker family they deserve to
00:50:12
to have some peace and to get some justice for their daughter who never made it home that
00:50:19
[Music] night [Music] want to thank you so much for joining us here in the garage and thank you so much
00:50:35
for tagging us in your stories on Instagram we absolutely love it and we love seeing those Colonel do we have any
00:50:43
recommended reading for the beautiful listeners you know what this week Captain we are recommending a book by
00:50:49
Christopher Barry D titled talking with serial killers the most evil people in the world tell tell their own stories
00:50:56
and I blanked a couple weeks ago when we talked about the Texas monster that is Kenneth McDuff and I blanked because I
00:51:06
should have recommended this book when we covered that case because there's an interview with Kenneth mcduffin here and
00:51:12
I use that for part of the research there's also interviews with several other serial killers this is the most
00:51:19
evil people in their own words so check out that great title again it is talking
00:51:24
with serial Killers by Christopher Barry D you can find that book and other titles including podcast other books
00:51:34
maybe movies documentaries several recommendations all on our recommended page on our
00:51:39
website true Crim garage.com and you know they're good cuz they're coming from the goat until next week be good be
00:51:47
kind and don't live [Music] is it possible to predict the unpredictable can 3D printed life-size
00:52:29
organ models help to map out complex surgeries ahead of time is it possible it already is right here Mayo Clinic you
00:52:38
know where to go