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00:00:02tonight on dateline she was the light of our family i can't tell you the pride i had in her
00:00:11why would anybody harm her you just hear there's a house fire there's a body yes went into the
00:00:20bedroom and she was laying on her back i could smell the shampoo in her hair they said we're
00:00:27considering this a homicide i'm just sobbing i'm saying no tara no it was unbelievable that
00:00:34somebody did this on purpose you all were roommates you were close who were they asking you about just
00:00:39the people in her life at the law school at work then of course her boyfriend they take pictures of
00:00:45my body they take pictures of my hands i just lost it five or six persons of interest and nothing
00:00:52quite fit more than two decades finally you have a name like everybody get to headquarters
00:01:02it's painful i felt like i was the one on trial a young law student found dead in a fire
00:01:09evidence burned in the flames but the drive for justice burned far stronger i'm lester holt and this
00:01:18this is dateline here's blaine alexander with a window of time
00:01:35can't you just imagine her rushing off to class or somewhere to study
00:01:40or heading to a football game here at the university of georgia always pushing herself
00:01:47as far and as fast as she could go she had this sort of jump to her walk almost a
00:01:55lilt
00:01:55as if she were bouncing through her day very happy she was a brilliant person she wanted to do
00:02:02the best she could in everything she did what did she mean to you guys everything she was a girl
00:02:10in a
00:02:10hurry but her family would need patience and perseverance if they would ever find justice
00:02:19thursday night is party night in athens georgia just like it was 25 years ago but on thursday night
00:02:25january 18th 2001 tara baker wasn't bar hopping she was studying this was her first year at uga's law
00:02:33school and she was buckled down at the law library with her friend katie lonstein i don't remember what
00:02:40we were working on i think it was probably a paper she turned on her computer it made all of
00:02:44its very
00:02:45loud noise because it had a big fan and then she leaned in and she went shh like this with
00:02:50her little
00:02:50crinkly nose they worked for a couple of hours and then i hit 9 9 30 something like that i'd
00:02:57had
00:02:57enough i wanted to go home for the day so i packed up and i knew she was staying until
00:03:01at least 10
00:03:03because that was her grand plan and she she told me to call when i got home because she always
00:03:09worried
00:03:09about me when i walked home katie made it home safely but she forgot to call so tara called me
00:03:15at
00:03:16about 9 40 9 45 and she said ma'am you did not call me and i said i know
00:03:23i'm so sorry tara uh i'm home
00:03:25i'm fine everything's okay then tara went home herself around 10 katie's sure of it because her
00:03:32friend always stuck to her plan for tara this was home a little place on fawn drive on the outskirts
00:03:39of
00:03:43athens rain clouds were gathering the next morning as the call came into firehouse 5 that little house
00:03:49on fawn drive was on fire firefighters arrived on the scene kicked in the door and found a living room
00:03:55full of smoke what do you see when you come over here see a red glow around this corner of
00:04:02this wall
00:04:02firefighter doug whitehead remembers this house like it was yesterday and what he saw in the kitchen
00:04:08what is it all four of those electric eyes were on high the burners were turned on the burners were
00:04:15on high and the knobs pulled off and placed on the countertop he then saw a locked bedroom and knew
00:04:22something was burning behind that door you come inside this room what do you see when you walk in
00:04:27smoke fire and i see where the fire had broken through the roof and you could see daylight through
00:04:34the hole what else did you see in here we found a body on the floor a body on the
00:04:38floor yeah what
00:04:39could you tell about this person it appeared she maybe had just gotten out of the shower and a comb
00:04:45had been run through her hair and an electrical cord around her neck this was no longer just a fire
00:04:54they doused the flames backed out and called police what was it that that stood out to you when you
00:05:02got
00:05:02to the scene there was a lot of fire still there a lot of police officers detectives and media was
00:05:08starting to show up jerry salters was a young patrolman back then he was asked to stand guard in the
00:05:14kitchen
00:05:15i had looked on the refrigerator and i seen a bunch of pictures and it was college-aged females just
00:05:22looked
00:05:22like they were having a good time basically just friends and really touched me that you know this
00:05:27is this is going to be bad police learned three young women lived in that house valerie ashley and
00:05:34tara officers had no way of knowing who lay dead in the bedroom so they ran the plates on the
00:05:40only car
00:05:41parked in the driveway the owner tara baker an officer called her mother virginia and she said miss baker
00:05:49there's been a fire in athens at tara's house and i said oh my goodness i said we'll be right
00:05:56there
00:05:56because i thought shoot tara was going to be upset and i wanted to go comfort her because she lost
00:06:01her
00:06:01things you're thinking yes and so i said we'll be down there very soon she said you need to come
00:06:07right
00:06:07now we have a body virginia lived some 80 miles away she called tara's boyfriend chris melton she asked me
00:06:16is tara with you i said no tara's not with me virginia told him what she had just heard
00:06:26i remember all the noise in the room stopped and then i recall someone saying in my name and
00:06:36bringing me back around chris left his plumbing job and a co-worker drove him to athens about an hour
00:06:42away
00:06:43so when you guys get to athens your first stop is the police department that's correct what did they
00:06:48tell you when i walk in they started informing me that yes indeed there was a fire and then that
00:06:55there
00:06:55was a body found in the fire and they need help to identify and they're asking you and i recall
00:07:06at first
00:07:07saying i can't i can't do this and he says you know if if you don't do this her family's
00:07:14gonna have to
00:07:15identify her and that convinced you that convinced me police took chris to the crime scene where
00:07:21someone brought him a photo of the victim inside i could not make her out it was horrible and
00:07:30i could not positively say yes this is her and then it did come to me that i had previously
00:07:39given
00:07:39her for an anniversary gift i had given her diamond studded earrings for our two-year and she always
00:07:47wore them and i told him i said if this is tara she's wearing diamond studded earrings moments later one
00:07:55of
00:07:55those emergency workers came back with proof delicate heartbreaking proof and he he came up to me with
00:08:04a closed hand and when he opened his hand there's one of the diamond stud earrings the earring you gave
00:08:10her
00:08:12and that's why i knew so i knew it was her
00:08:19now investigators had a name and a case that would become an athens legend i can smell the shampoo in
00:08:27her hair and i can smell it to this day but the search for a killer would be tainted by
00:08:32mistrust
00:08:32and lingering suspicion this was a friend of yours yes i think we were all in shock i remember yelling
00:08:38that i love tara that i would never hurt tara it would take a new generation to bridge the divide
00:08:46people were sending you tips like week after week yes hundreds of tips a week i was just staring
00:08:52at the ceiling in utter shock and disbelief you couldn't even process it no uh
00:09:10if tara baker's bedroom held any clues about what happened to her crime scene technician david
00:09:16leadall knew getting them would not be easy what was the condition of the room well it was it was
00:09:24a
00:09:24crime scene investigator's nightmare because when that ceiling fell all that insulation everywhere it's
00:09:31it was about two or three inches deep and covered most of the room so it became real difficult to
00:09:38try
00:09:38to get trace evidence like hairs and fibers things of that nature was it immediately clear to you that
00:09:45she didn't die in the fire once i moved some of the insulation away i could see the stab mark
00:09:51in the neck and she also had other injuries to her eyes were black and blue swollen a little bit
00:09:59they found a knife by her body and signs of blunt force trauma to her head the cord around her
00:10:05neck came
00:10:05from her printer at the time did you know anything else about her other injuries sexual assault we
00:10:13suspected yes she had no clothing on in the position that she was in later at tara's autopsy the medical
00:10:20examiner determined she had been raped but a sexual assault kit did not provide any useful evidence
00:10:27as the crime scene technicians worked detectives wanted to talk to anyone close to tara including her
00:10:32boyfriend chris when you were in there they were asking you questions but there were more than just
00:10:37questions they asked you for your fingerprints that's true that's true at the time had they told
00:10:43you much about what had happened to tara no nothing as tara's family headed to the police station in athens
00:10:53they knew even less i'm thinking to myself maybe somehow she fell asleep and one of her candles
00:10:59caught things on fire but it can't be her she can't be gone that's can't i kept telling myself
00:11:03there's no way it could be her i'm just sobbing i was using my sweater as a as a tissue
00:11:10and i'm just
00:11:11laying in my uncle's arms just absolutely sobbing i was like this is not real it's a mistake it's not
00:11:18her
00:11:19meredith schroeder is tara's sister she was 15 years old at the time
00:11:25so we pulled up there was some folks waiting for us outside we walk in there they lead us to
00:11:31this
00:11:32conference room and we went in and we sat down and we waited for a while and then this detective
00:11:39came
00:11:39in and he said well i'm gonna talk to you all in just a minute but you're gonna have to
00:11:43excuse me i
00:11:44gotta go get a cup of coffee because i've been out in the rain all day that's what he said
00:11:48to you
00:11:48that's exactly what he said to me at this point has anyone officially confirmed to you no what's
00:11:54happened that she's no and when he left the room to get his coffee that young woman that had called
00:12:00me was in the room and she said well we've determined that it is tara and we're considering
00:12:07this a homicide at this time and i i think all of us let out screams almost
00:12:18and i remember going in i guess it was shock i was just couldn't the nausea was incredible
00:12:25and we kept asking what happened what happened they wouldn't tell us what happened they just said
00:12:32she's gone tara's roommates valerie lowe and ashley hall were away that friday morning they rushed back
00:12:39to athens we were just trying to make sense of it it was just it was horrible yeah and you're
00:12:44young
00:12:44students at the time and then have something like this well you just didn't think anything
00:12:48like that could could happen to you the next day tara was supposed to have been celebrating her 24th
00:12:55birthday instead her grandparents were bringing her 10 year old brother kevin to athens and my dad sat on
00:13:02the bed and he said there was a fire at tara's apartment my first reaction is is she okay is
00:13:12she
00:13:12in the hospital i want to go see her and he said no she didn't make it i walked in
00:13:20there and his little
00:13:21fists were balled up he was just screaming no tara no i just his world was shattered meredith always
00:13:30referred to her as the north star that they would sit there you know kind of follow her path tara
00:13:37was
00:13:37the oldest of four and she had her own special bond with each of her siblings adam was the oldest
00:13:43boy
00:13:44adam and tara were so close meredith was next in line she was very doting and protective of me i
00:13:53had
00:13:54very low self-esteem growing up and she would always be like oh isn't my sister so pretty she would
00:13:57do my hair um tell me you know it's okay kevin was the youngest tara called him her baby darling
00:14:07tara was my person if i knew she was coming home i would pace the door looking outside like a
00:14:14lost puppy
00:14:15waiting for her to drive up the people close to tara say she had a strong sense of justice
00:14:20and an even bigger sense of humor she was one of the funniest people i know and she didn't try
00:14:26tara could tell you to go straight to hell and make you look forward for the trip because she would
00:14:31say
00:14:31it in such a nice way she definitely was very much the person that would come and talk to the
00:14:40kid at
00:14:40the lunch table that was sitting by themselves she always wanted to see everybody succeed tara met her
00:14:46boyfriend chris in undergrad and they stayed together when she went off to law school at her
00:14:50top choice uga it was an honor for her to be here she took it seriously this was her dream
00:14:57and she had
00:14:57her eyes on the future she knew what she wanted to do she knew where she wanted to go definitely
00:15:01she definitely did i'd never have known a person who loved life as much as she did when you say
00:15:08that
00:15:08she loved life what did that look like she got up every morning excited sometimes she would call me and
00:15:14just say mama look up look at the sky it's beautiful it's a tara day the blue sky and the
00:15:19white clouds god
00:15:20made it just for me but now on this dreary day in athens georgia there wasn't an ounce of beauty
00:15:26to be
00:15:26found nothing made sense a murder an arson just out of the blue or maybe not a few weeks earlier
00:15:36two of
00:15:37those buildings were on fire both of them two of them
00:15:54it wasn't long before the killing on fond drive became front page news in the athens banner herald
00:16:01crime scene tech david ledal was on the scene until late into the night
00:16:05combing through the charred remains of tara baker's bedroom he'll never forget it i could smell the
00:16:13shampoo in her hair and i can smell it to this day never it never left a lot of times
00:16:21of course
00:16:21investigators talk about different moments from a scene or a particularly disturbing scene that just kind
00:16:27of really drives home how brutal this was yes this was that moment yeah
00:16:35it also told him something important tara was most certainly killed after she got out of the shower
00:16:41her roommates helped police develop a timeline of the crime
00:16:46tara was very much a creature of habit yes she was she had a very specific morning routine yes
00:16:52walk me through that she'd get up like 6 30 shower and then make her cheese grits that was her
00:16:59breakfast
00:16:59yeah every day yep and then go back and get ready in fact patrolman jerry salters saw tara's bowl in
00:17:07the
00:17:07sink seeing that bowl sitting there and going about her day and just being in there and seeing that was
00:17:16it's pretty hard after her last breakfast she would have gone to blow dry her hair in her bedroom
00:17:21like she always did her hair is very thick so she'd sit usually at the foot of her bed flip
00:17:26her head over
00:17:27and just sit there and just blow dry it investigators noticed another detail sealed in by the fire itself
00:17:35she had a clock in her bedroom and the clock quit at 9 32 because of the heat because of
00:17:42the heat yeah
00:17:43so that helps you kind of narrow down a window of time of death yes yes sometime between 7 30
00:17:51and 9 30
00:17:52they figured initially as you're walking through you don't see any evidence that you know somebody
00:17:58gone through drawers or tried to take anything none at all it was later on we discovered that her
00:18:04laptop was taken truth was the entire home felt violated tara's collection of memories photos of
00:18:12all those people she loved were charred almost lost in the ruin and when investigators saw melted
00:18:20fabric on the kitchen burners they knew exactly how the killer started the fire
00:18:26the suspect had taken a blanket and put it on the stove in the kitchen and when he went back
00:18:34into
00:18:35the bedroom he took the burning blanket and threw it on the bed it was my blanket so they used
00:18:40my blanket
00:18:41to do that you know i mean that detail is just so chilling to me because blankets are just they're
00:18:47comforting yeah when you got to the stove and you realized what had happened what the blanket had been
00:18:55used for someone had to really think this through you know it's almost like a switch flipped you know
00:18:59at that moment we weren't college students anymore wayne ford has been a reporter for the athens banner
00:19:06herald since 1982 in the community at the time there were some arson fires so there was speculation is it
00:19:14an arsonist that he actually come into the house maybe surprise tara and kill her and then go about setting
00:19:22the place on fire and those previous fires were within a stone's throw of tara's home a few weeks
00:19:29earlier two of those buildings were on fire both of them two of them just after the murder police also
00:19:37got specific tips about a man walking alone in the rain around the time of the killing and from what
00:19:45i
00:19:45was told back then they reached out to their sources you know might have been involved in different
00:19:51criminal activities and a name never came up one of the first things investigators wanted to know
00:19:58of course was how did the killer get inside the doors were locked when firefighters arrived but
00:20:05doug whitehead noticed something i can't tell you for 100 but that screen was out of that window
00:20:11the window screen right here this window screen and was propped against the side of the building
00:20:16so you're thinking maybe whoever did this came in and out through this window maybe so
00:20:21but the killing was so violent so up close it looked like a crime of passion not a random act
00:20:30could you get a sense in those early days maybe of what direction police were going
00:20:34by the questions they were asking you at the time they were just asking about any
00:20:38male in her life whether it be at the law school or at work or you know in her personal
00:20:44life
00:20:45police heard about one law school classmate who had gotten himself a nickname
00:20:51one day one of the police people asked me if i knew who suit boy was and i said yes
00:20:58he was called
00:20:59suit boy because on fridays he would dress in a suit in order to ask women out on dates
00:21:04i knew that he that suit boy had asked tara out at least once probably just the one time
00:21:10um but she was with chris so she definitely said no asking girls out was one thing what katie told
00:21:17police next sounded much more suspicious the friday morning that tara died he had come in and he'd had
00:21:25a an injury on his head an injury the morning of the murder that would get police looking in suit
00:21:31boy's direction but he wasn't the only one they needed to talk to tara's mother had an idea one
00:21:38disturbingly close to home it at one point occurred to me what if it could have been her biological father
00:21:59on behalf of the university of georgia law school three weeks after tara baker was killed her family
00:22:04joined faculty and students for a memorial at her beloved law school tara's stepfather lindsey baker
00:22:11told them tara had been living her dream but i never met anybody in my life more confident in who
00:22:18they were what they were doing and where they were going with my little tara in the end she never
00:22:27even
00:22:27got to finish her second semester as you go through your lives practicing law remember that was tara's dream
00:22:35that's what her dream was as you do it terrible practice law to see him standing there and talking
00:22:42about his little girl and trying to choke back tears was just it was tough everything was tough for the
00:22:55bakers in those early weeks especially the not knowing as she grieved virginia asked herself repeatedly
00:23:01who could have done this she started to wonder about someone who was no stranger to the family
00:23:07her first husband tara's father he threatened me when i divorced him a lot and he his threats to me
00:23:15were hitting me in the head to the point that she couldn't recognize my face tara's family had been told
00:23:20few details about what had happened to her nothing about the rape or stabbing but they did know she'd
00:23:27suffered blood force trauma to the head tara was eight years old when her parents divorced
00:23:32growing up she thought of lindsey as her dad and wanted no contact with her biological father she
00:23:38refused to answer us phone calls she just didn't want anything to do they didn't have a relationship
00:23:43absolutely not and she made that clear when she changed her last name taking her stepdad's name
00:23:49and dropping her biological father's but just days before she was killed tara got a letter from him
00:23:56she was very upset that he had found her she had been withholding her address from him i don't know
00:24:03how he got it apparently they had a conversation and he said that he did learn that she had changed
00:24:10her name that was in the letter also and the letter was forwarded from her previous address to this address
00:24:16and she was a little concerned now the wheels were turning in virginia's mind did the name change set
00:24:24him off he had a tremendous ego and he was didn't like being rejected she urged investigators to look
00:24:33into him and they checked him out they called him in at my request police spoke to him at least
00:24:39twice
00:24:40they examined his alibi and could find no evidence he was in athens at the time of the murder
00:24:45by then they were increasingly focused on someone else someone tara did have a relationship with
00:24:51her boyfriend chris melton with chris because he was the boyfriend you know if these other factors
00:24:58were true in emotional killing had access to the house then you know chris is a suspect
00:25:06police had done more than just take chris's fingerprints two days after the murder they had
00:25:11him back at the police station where they took blood and hair samples along with pictures of his
00:25:16body what were police telling you about him he didn't say anything at first but then they were
00:25:21saying that he is a suspect they told you that yeah and they went a step further they urged tara's
00:25:28friends to steer clear of chris this was a friend of yours i mean you all had known each other
00:25:33since
00:25:33undergrad was that jarring for you to hear stay away from this guy everything was jarring back then though i
00:25:39i think we were all in shock still like we didn't know who were targeted we didn't know you know
00:25:44so
00:25:45you're just scared when we wanted to respect the process so if that would have been a part of the
00:25:49process then we were going to do whatever we were told to do because we wanted we wanted an answer
00:25:56tara's family got the same warning from police and the bakers stopped talking to chris
00:26:02was your dad thinking that chris was possibly in some way responsible i think that he was but he
00:26:10didn't flat out sit me down and say he did this i just think that he was trying to make
00:26:14sense of it and
00:26:15if that was the what the police were telling him and pointing in that direction then he thought so
00:26:21he was going to pursue it my dad was so protective of his kids and he was devastated as a
00:26:31six foot three
00:26:33nearly 400 pound man that he couldn't protect his daughter from the evil that happened he said if
00:26:42you've got something on him i want to know if you've got if if he was tying a shoe down
00:26:48the street i want
00:26:49to know he did that with more than just chris nothing was recovered from the crime scene to rule chris
00:26:56in
00:26:56or out no fingerprints no dna forensic investigators did find hair in tara's hand but testing determined it
00:27:04was her own the killer didn't leave behind anything he came in and killed tara then he left
00:27:13with so little evidence the investigation was stuck and police would return again and again to the same
00:27:21place i was yelling in the phone and i felt like they had nothing not on me but just for
00:27:28the case
00:27:43the months were slipping by in january 2002 the one-year anniversary of tara's death came and went
00:27:51with no arrest for the baker family the unanswered questions were agonizing they knew police had to
00:27:59hold back details about the investigation but they wondered if they were even getting basic facts
00:28:05i was getting it very sporadically oh this happened oh well this also happened and then this happened
00:28:11every so often the bakers would pile into the car and drive the 80-odd miles to the athens clark
00:28:17county
00:28:18pd i was in the car with them when they would drive up there to make the police talk to
00:28:22them
00:28:23and i would just be you know sitting out in the lobby twiddling my thumbs so you remember this from
00:28:28a teen's perspective right your parents just the frustration frustration the anger the feeling of
00:28:34helplessness that they couldn't do anything for tara anymore this this is all that they could do the
00:28:40investigation was constantly changing hands and to the family no one seemed to be in charge kevin went
00:28:47from a little boy to a young teen watching investigators come and go you hit a a wall and then
00:28:54a new team
00:28:55starts over and said okay well we'll figure it out well we're gonna start at the beginning virginia says
00:29:01some of the information they did get in those first few years was bizarre and flat out wrong the
00:29:09police came to my house and demonstrated how somebody had snuck up behind her and one pretended
00:29:16to be tear on the other was you know the culprit and pretended how she was her throat was cut
00:29:22from
00:29:22behind so she died quickly they demonstrated they demonstrated that in my living room it was a
00:29:28twisted game of charades so officers were acting out for your family what they believe happened
00:29:34to my mother and then later walked it back said no that's not what happened later admitted that was wrong
00:29:40yeah with every restart came renewed focus on the boyfriend chris for the longest time we were told
00:29:50this is who did it whether or not we believed it we were told and so naturally you don't reach
00:29:55out
00:29:55you don't talk to that person but police had repeatedly his answer never changed i loved her so
00:30:02much it was so deep it's painful to lose her and then it's painful to be looked at that way
00:30:11chris says
00:30:12each time he talked to police he gave them his alibi he had not seen tara in days the night
00:30:18before
00:30:18the murder he slept over at his parents house almost an hour from the crime scene that morning he went
00:30:24to
00:30:24work stopping at a few places along the way when they question you again are they asking you different
00:30:30questions new questions most of the time it's the same questions it's like it landed on somebody else's
00:30:36desk and now they're starting over it happened again and again the phone would ring and the questions
00:30:43would start once they would reach out and talk to me they would ask me questions and i would return
00:30:48ask questions myself what about this or what about that you know and and they wouldn't give me answers
00:30:54did anyone ever come out and just tell you that you were a suspect you know as far as actually
00:31:00saying that i don't recall them actually saying that suspect it was just in the actions chris says
00:31:09it was excruciating because all he ever wanted to do was spend the rest of his life with tara
00:31:13he says he knew she was special just a few weeks after their first date they ran into each other
00:31:19at a
00:31:20crowded college bar we end up back to back and i feel her hand reach around like tickle my arm
00:31:27with her fingernails and then i reach back and i hold her hand and it's kind of silly to say
00:31:34this but
00:31:34i remember i gotta go to the restroom so bad but you're holding her hand yes and you don't want
00:31:40to let
00:31:40go and i'm not letting go you could not have dragged me away they never got their happy ending
00:31:47instead chris says he tried to go on with his life he built up a small business as a plumber
00:31:53and did his best to put the pain behind him but one time when yet another investigator made yet another
00:32:00call chris didn't hold back she asked me a question and i had to take time to consider
00:32:07you know just i need i need to answer the question and then she aggressively flipped things around a
00:32:15little bit and said well didn't you say this or that or something and then that's when
00:32:22i just kind of lost it do you remember what you said i remember yelling that i love tara
00:32:28that i would never hurt tara and i needed her to know this and i was yelling in the phone
00:32:35and i felt like they had nothing not on me but just for the case still chris says he always
00:32:43picked
00:32:43up the phone when investigators called because maybe it would finally be the call that mattered
00:32:49i'm waiting on the phone call that says chris we we have somebody we've got the person we have this
00:32:57information we can share this with you now and then the next phone call i get is another question
00:33:03then four years after the murder someone new took over the case would he see something everyone
00:33:10else had missed so let me make sure i have that straight this is one of the very few people
00:33:15who
00:33:15has a key to this apartment he was there at the crime scene and police never interview him
00:33:33it became a cruel ritual year after year tara's close friends came together to mark the anniversary of her
00:33:41death you graduated you moved on with your lives and still there were no answers that was tough it's
00:33:49been very difficult you know all these years not knowing you know the why and what truly happened
00:33:56as the years passed the relationship between the athens clark county pd and the baker family
00:34:02deteriorated one of the most egregious things we did was miscommunicate with the baker family
00:34:08early on there were some investigators that told them things about the case file that were just not
00:34:17true david griffith a civilian crime analyst with the athens pd began looking into tara's case four
00:34:24years after she was murdered i'll never forget meeting meredith baker for the first time introducing
00:34:31myself and she's dismissive and she tells me to my face you're just another face in this long drawn
00:34:37out investigation and next year you probably won't be here and wow they felt burned they felt burned
00:34:44yeah griffith resolved to turn the situation around what was different about the way david
00:34:49griffith handled this well for the first thing he was patient enough to listen to me yell at him
00:34:53that's saying a lot it does and he kept us cool by the time he got his hands on the
00:34:59tara baker case
00:35:00file it was thousands of pages thick griffith hit reset he started in a familiar place in my mind
00:35:08initially it lent itself more to a domestic violence type scenario so i think that made me
00:35:15personally suspect chris melton initially maybe it was a lover's quarrel that went really sideways
00:35:22a crime of passion supported by the fact that tara's killer didn't arrive armed with a murder weapon
00:35:28the knife came from a knife block in the kitchen disorganized is how we classified it all of the
00:35:36tools that were used to commit the crime are sourced right there from the scene of the crime
00:35:41what does that tell you about the type of person who could have done this what it told me is
00:35:46that we
00:35:47weren't dealing with a criminal mastermind griffith re-examined chris's alibi in a new round of
00:35:53interviews the police interviewed chris melton's parents his parents see him go to bed in his bed
00:35:59at their house his father gets up at 5 30 in the morning and sees chris's truck out in the
00:36:05driveway so
00:36:06believes he's at home chris's assistant told police he picked chris up for work at 7 15 a.m so
00:36:12he has a
00:36:12pretty good alibi he's got a pretty good alibi and the the best piece of his alibi is at the
00:36:189 a.m
00:36:19hour he's caught on camera making a withdrawal at a bank over by his parents house at that point he's
00:36:26an hour away from the crime scene notes in the file indicated police saw the video of him making that
00:36:33withdrawal they're allowed to view the video but the bank employees won't give them the videotape and
00:36:40ask them to go through wachovia's legal department to get a copy of the security footage did they follow
00:36:47up evidently there was no follow-up because there's no mention of that videotape after that
00:36:52in the case file so griffith sent a detective back to the bank to get a time stamped receipt
00:36:58for chris's transaction we were confident in the timeline that we had put together for chris melton
00:37:03and we felt like he would have had to have been able to bend space and time to have killed
00:37:09tara baker
00:37:10griffith reinvestigated other possible suspects tara's biological father and that awkward law student they
00:37:16called suit boy who gave police an alibi griffith ruled them both out but as he was digging through
00:37:23the file a name caught his eye someone who had easy access to tara's home the maintenance man at her
00:37:30development william bryant barrett has a master key that really makes us wonder is william bryant barrett
00:37:38possibly the killer when we start looking at his timeline we know that he shows up on the crime scene
00:37:46at some point the day that her body's found and local affiliates filming outside the crime scene
00:37:54actually capture him on video what's he doing he's watching from outside the crime tape
00:38:00as the firefighters work and there was more the night after tara's murder police asked him to help
00:38:06secure the building he gets to talking with investigators about theoretically how somebody
00:38:12could have made entry and he demonstrates how to open one of the windows with a knife blade so let
00:38:19me
00:38:19make sure i have that straight this is one of the very few people who has a key to this
00:38:23apartment he was
00:38:24there at the crime scene he shows investigators how to open and close the window with a knife blade
00:38:29mm-hmm and police never interview him no how does that happen i don't know the answer to that blaine
00:38:35it was just one of the lapses and investigative effort that happened in this case and it in my
00:38:41mind it's probably the biggest lapse by the time police finally sat barrett down for an interview
00:38:47jerry salters had gone from patrolman to detective he conducted the interview there were some discrepancies
00:38:53on what time he was where and did he have time to commit this i did move into
00:38:58more of an interrogation where i became accusatory uh with him just to really to gain a response
00:39:05and how did he respond he didn't ask to leave he stayed there what did that tell you tells me
00:39:10either
00:39:10one he's being honest or two uh he's pretty good at lying the maintenance man did give them something
00:39:18highly suspicious something he shouldn't have known what police call hold back information it's details of
00:39:25the crime scene that only the killer would know and investigators would know what does he tells us
00:39:31about the ligature that was used and that she's badly beaten and that's not information that's
00:39:38been publicly released at least we believe so in the moment as we're conducting this interview did he
00:39:43volunteer this hold back information he did during the course of the interview but he disavows
00:39:48having anything to do with tara baker's death and sticks to his story and again there was no forensic
00:39:55evidence to link the maintenance man or anyone else to tara's brutal death still william bryant barrett
00:40:03becomes person of interest number one and what do you do we flail for years believing that william bryant
00:40:12barrett's involved in the death of tara baker and just not having enough to
00:40:21get a warrant for his arrest so the infuriating cycle continued questions no answers
00:40:29something would have to change and when it did somebody new was asking the questions
00:40:34you are getting new information absolutely liz called me and said we have a name i was just
00:40:44freaking out i'm like everybody get to headquarters
00:41:01tara was never far from meredith's mind 18 years after her sister's murder meredith was 33 years old
00:41:08with children of her own what were those years like for you my wedding day was difficult
00:41:15because she should have been my maid of honor
00:41:23having my children was difficult explaining to my children they had an aunt tara that would have
00:41:28absolutely adored them for much of that time tara was never far from david griffith's mind either
00:41:35he had analyzed and agonized over the case but it never led to an arrest in 2019 as griffith
00:41:42was preparing to leave the athens clark county police department he decided tara's family should
00:41:47know what he knew so he called meredith who had become the family point person there were things
00:41:54in the case file that we had not divulged to the family i proposed that we divulge everything we knew
00:42:00about the case file to meredith he sits me down with a whole host of other folks and he walks
00:42:07me
00:42:07through the whole timeline like this is when your sister got up this is when she ate breakfast this
00:42:14is when she went to go blow dry her hair this is when we believe the attack began he told
00:42:20her the
00:42:20horrific details the cord found around tara's neck and how she was stabbed beaten raped and all of this is
00:42:28new information to you being presented in a chronological yes was all new because i still
00:42:38did not have confirmation as to whether or not she was sexually assaulted the facts almost two decades
00:42:43later were hard to face but still better than not knowing virginia realized the absence of facts had
00:42:50sent her suspicions in the wrong direction like her ex-husband she says she never would have
00:42:55insisted police investigate him if she'd known the whole story we didn't even know about you know
00:43:00the sexual assault at the top keep that in mind we didn't know about the stabbing griffith told
00:43:05meredith about his number one person of interest he gave me the the maintenance man theory but
00:43:11it was still a theory at that point he also shared something else something no previous investigator
00:43:17had ever said he told me absolutely chris didn't do it that was huge news for years their family had
00:43:26shunned chris i felt guilty knowing that he suffered in silence and that we never reached back out
00:43:35and knowing what all he had gone through by now any student who knew tara baker firsthand had long left
00:43:43left with each new class her murder became more like a memory passed down through campus memorials
00:43:49or newspaper articles that's how a young freshman named cameron j harrelson first heard her name
00:43:56it was an anniversary piece like that the red and black newspaper had done on her death at the time
00:44:01you were a true crime fan yourself yes a fan of dateline a fan of podcasts a few years later
00:44:08cameron
00:44:08decided he wanted to launch his own podcast and tara baker's case he thought was the perfect place to
00:44:14start but first he had to convince virginia baker a random guy like me calling miss virginia baker for the
00:44:22first time i believe her first response to me was who are you and who are you with i said
00:44:27i don't even
00:44:28know what a podcast is so you're gonna have to explain some of this to me and why would i
00:44:32want to talk to
00:44:33you and at the time i had no podcast name had no idea what i was doing and said i'm
00:44:38just me and i
00:44:39want to learn about your daughter he convinced me that he cared about tara and wanted to tell her story
00:44:45and that's all i've ever wanted is to tell her story yeah and he said maybe we can bring in
00:44:50you know
00:44:50some some clues maybe we can bring in you know some tips maybe the podcast also opened a door that
00:44:57chris melton thought was closed for good how did you find out that there was a podcast about tara's case
00:45:04meredith had actually reached out via email what did you think it was an emotional moment
00:45:12because there's so much time had gone by since i'd heard from the family
00:45:15the email led to a phone call and that conversation was pretty you know pretty emotional
00:45:25you know and she was trying to urge you to to talk to talk on this podcast she's like would
00:45:30you
00:45:30participate and help us move forward and absolutely you would i would
00:45:39cameron launched the podcast in july of 2020 welcome welcome welcome the story of tara louise
00:45:45baker will be the focus of season one of classic city crime family and friends told cameron all about
00:45:52tara and also vented their frustration and anger at the investigation what would you say to the
00:45:59police department don't ever do this to anybody else and if you don't know what you're doing get help
00:46:07my goal is to remind people of her life tell people what happened show them the investigation
00:46:15and then hopefully as a result of that law enforcement could solve it it's not my job it's theirs
00:46:21he interviewed chris about the years he spent under suspicion did police continue to follow up with
00:46:27you and interrogate you or they did come after me i would go and give hair samples blood samples tissue
00:46:35and cameron asked about his feelings for tara she was just such a beautiful person on the inside
00:46:42when she smiled she bit the tip of her tongue
00:46:46and they just obviously thought that was the best and people were listening over two years the podcast
00:46:52audience grew to hundreds of thousands it wasn't just people listening people were calling in people
00:47:00were sending you tips like week after week yes hundreds of tips a week and vetted a lot of that
00:47:07and the
00:47:07things that we believe were vetted enough we took to the air still after dozens of episodes and all those
00:47:14tips no new leads for police two years in cameron ended it without any real ending and i did not
00:47:22think it
00:47:23would be ethical for me to continue producing content with tara's family just for the heck of it
00:47:30without answers without answers but then he had another idea one that would put tara's case in an
00:47:36even bigger spotlight this is not just a law this was appropriations we're talking money
00:47:55by the spring of 2022 the athens clark county police department had a new leader you're the police
00:48:01chief now you're at the very top yes in 2001 he was that rookie cop standing in tara baker's kitchen
00:48:08by 2006 he was a detective interviewing potential suspects now he was chief jerry salters he'd always
00:48:16carried tara's case with him as the chief i want to the community to feel safe and know that they
00:48:23have
00:48:23a police department that cares about this community will do anything to solve the case
00:48:28still to tara's mom it all felt like deja vu even with a new chief there was no movement in
00:48:35the case
00:48:36and i called a station and asked to speak to him how was that conversation oh that poor man
00:48:44you gave him an earful oh i did and it was not all kind i don't think you can unhurt
00:48:50someone
00:48:51but i do believe that letting the family uh gain trust in the police department and our intentions with
00:48:58the case i think it went a long way but good intentions only go so far and tara's family was
00:49:04becoming resigned they might never find tara's killer but while cameron jay had stopped reporting
00:49:10on tara's case he still had a few ideas i said well tara was such a fierce advocate for justice
00:49:18that wouldn't it be amazing if we could make sure that she affected change for others he wanted to find
00:49:25a way to get more resources dedicated to cold cases and so i started researching in the process of doing
00:49:31that i'm googling online and just so happened to see that there's another unsolved murder in the
00:49:36town next door to where i grew up and their families kind of sort of advocating for the same thing
00:49:43so i called that family the coleman family 18 year old ronda coleman was found murdered in 1990
00:49:50and her case was never solved and so we united forces then together cameron helped the coleman and
00:49:58baker families push for a new law one that would create and crucially fund a brand new cold case
00:50:04unit in the georgia bureau of investigation at what point did this go from okay we're doing
00:50:09a podcast to hey we're pushing for new legislation to be passed it was
00:50:17a shock i never envisioned doing anything like that i thought we were just going to do this podcast
00:50:22and that would be the end of it and i went with cameron and my children to the capitol and
00:50:26we lobbied
00:50:28with congressmen and some of the senators from the state so you're going into the gold dome you're
00:50:34shaking hands you're talking to people yes absolutely telling tara's story yes the campaign worked in the
00:50:40spring of 2023 the coleman baker act passed and georgia's governor brian kemp signed it into law
00:50:46today we're helping to restore hope for those still grieving hope for justice and hope for closure
00:50:52and so what did the coleman baker act do it number one funded a cold case unit at the georgia
00:50:58bureau
00:50:58investigation to the tune of five million dollars and that's big because this did not exist before
00:51:04no there really was not just a law this was appropriations we're talking money what was your
00:51:09hope with this bill that it would solve cases for other families i felt like tara's case had gone
00:51:15gone so long there was no hope for that but i wanted to see it help someone else and i
00:51:20wanted
00:51:20to see it be part of her legacy still tara's family applied for her case to get a second look
00:51:25under the
00:51:26new law just in case and soon meredith found herself walking into the office of the georgia
00:51:31bureau of investigation to meet yet another team of investigators i'm like okay i guess we're doing this
00:51:38this is just kind of our last hail mary see if anything comes of this if not you know we
00:51:45tried
00:51:46yeah so you were assigned two agents yes what were their names liz and jeremy special agents liz
00:51:54biggum and jeremy howell so what are you thinking when you get this assignment i better solve this
00:51:59no i mean it was in privilege that i was trusted enough and they had enough confidence in me to
00:52:08be assigned the case in the first place honestly the case has always had this mythology here in athens
00:52:13so it was exciting to have an opportunity to see the evidence to see the case file to read it
00:52:20and go through it i can remember the file drawer that it sat in it was the bottom file drawer
00:52:25in the
00:52:25hallway and it took up the entire file drawer it was such a large case tell me about that first
00:52:31meeting your first conversation with them i was shocked by they were professional but the amount
00:52:37of empathy that they expressed you felt something in that meeting like i believed the words that they
00:52:44were saying but meredith and her family had seen this movie before so you're thinking okay great they're
00:52:50sincere they're kind they care but what are they going to do right what were they going to do well
00:52:56they were about to take a new look at an old piece of evidence and it would change everything
00:53:02we were all obviously really excited about the fact that we had a lead
00:53:20it had been 22 years in the making the case that just couldn't be solved now georgia bureau of
00:53:27investigation special agents liz biggum and jeremy howell were stepping up to the plate determined to
00:53:33do what their predecessors could not this is a case that has been examined re-examined looked at
00:53:40any number of different ways since 2001 why might this time be different i think what makes it
00:53:47different uh is that we're given the gifts of of time resources uh and a supervision structure
00:53:57that allows us uh pretty much uninterrupted to be able to start this process and see it through i knew
00:54:03something was happening when they started calling me asking for information that i had files that i had
00:54:10finally a law enforcement agency was asking to see six years worth of work and not just local but the
00:54:18state law enforcement state agency yes it was huge were you optimistic going into this i'm wildly
00:54:24optimistic about cases such as this the agents also had the advantage of modern day science and a cutting
00:54:31edge crime lab there's a big difference between 2001 and 2024 yeah there's new and modernized techniques
00:54:37that we can utilize in order to re-examine certain things we knew there was a ton of evidence that
00:54:42was kept at the athens clark county police department so we wanted to make sure that if there was anything
00:54:48that could be done with that at the lab that we got that process rolling we came to the conclusion
00:54:52that
00:54:52call it maybe 10 or so pieces of evidence could go back to the lab for additional testing or re
00:54:59-examination
00:55:00evidence like that cord around tara's neck along with the knife and knife block from the kitchen
00:55:06there was also a power block connected to the printer the hope that forensic science had evolved
00:55:12enough to reveal fingerprints investigators couldn't detect back in 2001 liz called me and told me that
00:55:19they were going to be resubmitting things to the gbi crime lab and i was like oh she said that
00:55:23they
00:55:24were resubmitting the knife block that they were resubmitting the knife that they were resubmitting the
00:55:28transformer power block i was like okay you send those items off any luck did you get anything
00:55:33no nothing new no no and i'm not surprised uh with that uh given the dynamics of this scene
00:55:40you mean the fire the fire exposure to water everything that you don't want to have happen
00:55:46in a crime scene happened in this crime scene so it made it difficult to get those anything from those
00:55:51items absolutely we started getting notifications that all right there's nothing on this there's
00:55:57nothing on that i'm like okay all right that's fine i suspected that would be the case the agents then
00:56:03turned to another piece of old evidence tara's sexual assault kit back in 2001 that kit yielded no clues
00:56:11and then it's just kind of sat there since 2001. now two decades later the agents wondered whether dna
00:56:19science had caught up with the evidence our dna manager had been exposed to some training and had
00:56:27some experience with a different way to test a sexual assault kit and it was essentially testing
00:56:34for male dna and he just said hey you know this has never been tested for male dna let's let's
00:56:40try it
00:56:40that's something that wasn't available back in 2001 that was not available these techniques were not
00:56:45available back then she said that they were resubmitting the rape kit and i went huh you
00:56:49didn't even know that existed i didn't know that it was still there i told her i said i thought
00:56:54that all the evidence dna evidence had been exhausted and she said i don't think they knew what
00:57:00they had so she's laying this out for you and it's like this treasure trove oh yeah new information i
00:57:06was just in disbelief and i'm at work i'm standing in the conference room with the door closed listening
00:57:10to hurt i'm like okay i think that's the first time that i had a glimmer of hope like this
00:57:16could happen
00:57:17there might be something there it could be a long process the agents warned likely nine months before
00:57:24they had any results so i was like okay all right but what's nine months to 25 years yeah what
00:57:33is the
00:57:33waiting period like for you each waiting for that result to come back i mean of course we were on
00:57:38pins
00:57:38and needles in the sense that we were really hoping we would get something from it and we were just
00:57:44kind
00:57:44of waiting for that phone call in a case where months had turned to years then decades finally
00:57:51something happened in record time just two and a half months later the results of that test come back
00:57:58what did they show uh i mean essentially it was that we had male dna we were all obviously really
00:58:04excited about the fact that we had a lead a lead at long last and there was something else something
00:58:12that would bring these agents back to the beginning do you all re-interview chris melton we do if there
00:58:18was ever a time to be 100 on the record it is now i was thinking here we go again
00:58:43finally a break in the tara baker cold case and it was big dna from an unknown male recovered from
00:58:50tara's sexual assault kit while investigators were looking into that the lab called back they'd also
00:58:57detected chris melton's dna given that chris was tara's boyfriend his wasn't that surprising but the
00:59:04agents still wanted to talk to him do you remember what you thought when you got a call from the
00:59:08gbi
00:59:08i was thinking here we go again we've got some information back from her sexual assault kit
00:59:16so there's been some dna that's come back to you the dna raised questions about the timeline
00:59:22questions chris had been asked before specifically when was the last time he saw tara before she was
00:59:29murdered we've got lots of questions some of them were kind of invasive they wanted verification of
00:59:36when the last time we had seen each other or been intimate it was almost two weeks what i can
00:59:43recall
00:59:44like 10 days 10 days was not the answer agents were expecting they were like well hang on that
00:59:51that's not going that that doesn't work out right that was a problem for two reasons it's highly
00:59:57unlikely dna would still be detected 10 days after a sexual encounter this evidence is it doesn't last
01:00:06long where it was and even more confusing back in 2001 chris told police they had seen each other
01:00:14five days before she was killed was it five days ten days you originally you said that you hadn't seen
01:00:21her in five days and then it changes to ten days i just remembered ten days i don't know why
01:00:28i say that
01:00:28if there was ever a time to be 100 on the record it is now time had gone by so
01:00:38many decades have gone by
01:00:39and i was confused i genuinely didn't do anything to her were you concerned about that discrepancy not
01:00:47necessarily because it's been 24 years and memories change and fade they weren't concerned because they
01:00:54knew chris had a solid alibi what's more they had explosive new information about that other dna profile
01:01:00from the unknown male the lab ran it through the fbi database and got a hit liz called me and
01:01:09said we have
01:01:09a name i was just super excited i was just freaking out and calling my boss calling jeremy called our
01:01:20analyst and i'm like everybody get to headquarters and she was like we have a match and i was just
01:01:27staring at the ceiling
01:01:29and utter shock and disbelief you couldn't even process no uh-uh
01:01:35his name edrick faust had you heard it before no seen it before no what's your next step we just
01:01:43wanted to learn everything we could about edrick they learned edrick faust had a rap sheet convictions
01:01:49for criminal trespassing aggravated assault battery attempted robbery and carrying a concealed weapon
01:01:56the biggest thing that we were kind of taken aback by is that he lived 585 feet from tara's residence
01:02:03wow very close very close you could essentially stand in edrick's front yard and see the back door
01:02:10of tara's residence now they needed to figure out if faust and tara knew each other you want to establish
01:02:17if there's any sort of known relationship any known connection any chance meeting between the two
01:02:22you're kind of cross-referencing their daily routines to see where they might have overlapped
01:02:27where they might have intersected absolutely naturally we could find no connection or relationship
01:02:34between edrick and tara meaning no reasonable explanation why his dna would have been present
01:02:39absolutely no reasonable explanation whatsoever and if faust was tara's rapist they believed he was
01:02:45also her killer at that point we felt comfortable arresting him so in may of 2024 more than two decades
01:02:53after her murder officers arrested edrick faust in a walmart parking lot they took him to the athens
01:03:00clark county pd where agents biggum and howell sat down to talk to him hey how are you good good
01:03:07he was cordial he answered our questions um you know for a while how are you miss faust i am
01:03:1648
01:03:19are you sure okay
01:03:22hey let's get a home address for you having dispatched with the pleasantries biggum turned
01:03:27up the heat and faust's demeanor changed the agents held off on telling faust about the dna evidence
01:03:48our game plan going in was to visit if there was any known relationship between the two
01:03:55and so you wanted to see what he would say yes did you know her no connection to her no
01:04:02no
01:04:03that's when they told faust they had his dna my dna
01:04:12it's been a long time we've made so many advancements and things
01:04:18if you can help us understand why your dna's in that house help us
01:04:26he never gave them an explanation instead he said he needed a lawyer he ended it with yeah you
01:04:32can go ahead and take me to jail and did you in fact take him to jail we obliged
01:04:40authorities charged edrick faust with tara's murder rape and arson that cleared the maintenance man who
01:04:47for years had been the number one person of interest when they came and said we made an arrest
01:04:53i didn't know how to breathe i was like how do i react to this for over two decades investigators
01:05:01have worked tirelessly to find answers for the family and friends of tara louise baker and bring some
01:05:07amount of closure and healing to this horrific event i was elated i was shocked i was emotional
01:05:21then you hear the name edrick faust yes what did you think who's this guy who's edrick faust i was
01:05:30like i don't i don't know who this person is i've never seen this person before in my life just
01:05:34the
01:05:34fact that this person was in my peripheral the whole time it was terrifying he was close by mm-hmm
01:05:41this is somebody who had been living just right by your house yeah i'm like did i see him like
01:05:47is this somebody i passed in the street yeah maybe waved hello to at some point we certainly wouldn't
01:05:51have thought that anyone would have been stalking us or watching us we were in a safe college town
01:05:58meredith learned about faust's criminal past including that he'd stabbed someone in the neck just
01:06:03two weeks after tara's murder what are you thinking as you're reading this how is this person
01:06:09still around tara's gone she was denied a life and this guy has lived 25 years of wreaking havoc and
01:06:17and ruining other people's lives like why why tara's loved ones hoped their questions would be answered
01:06:24at trial i was ready to see the person who created and caused all this to have to face its
01:06:30consequences
01:06:32i figured that i was gonna have to be involved somehow because i was her boyfriend have a seat
01:06:38little did he know just how involved he would be chris melton's dna chris melton told law enforcement
01:06:45chris melton's actions it just seemed like i was the one on trial why didn't you cry
01:07:04welcome back ladies and gentlemen we are about ready to begin the trial of the state of georgia
01:07:09versus edrick faust for 25 years you all were wondering and waiting and now you're in the same room
01:07:14as this person i can't even explain the feeling i tried not to look at him most of the time
01:07:21other
01:07:21times i felt like my glance was burning through the back of his head when the trial of edrick faust
01:07:28began in early february of 2026 tara baker's family and many of her friends were there in court katie
01:07:34lonstein had envisioned this moment for years 25 years of this i wanted a monster and i got a boring
01:07:43man in a tan shirt district attorney cocky yalaman chili led the prosecution what is the key thing that
01:07:51you need to drive home to the jury the dna the dna and the lack of any type of connection
01:07:58between tara
01:08:00baker and edrick faust assistant d.a chris bolden handled the opening statement who killed tara baker
01:08:09ladies and gentlemen edrick faust killed tara baker and now
01:08:15the final chapter begins today remember how neighbors told police they saw a man walking near
01:08:23terrace house the morning of the murder to see somebody walking those witnesses took the stand the
01:08:28person had on an orange shirt of some sort it's the memory that stands out male female yeah male
01:08:34young male white african-american african-american the prosecution explained to the jury how faust's dna
01:08:41was found on tara's body and then the jury heard faust tell the gbi he never met tara no connection
01:08:48to
01:08:48her no no i don't know i know i mean i don't talk he did the only time i seen
01:08:53it was it was in the
01:08:54people you need to make it clear to the jury that there's no reason that his dna would have been
01:08:59within proximity of tara baker that's correct it seemed like a fairly straightforward case
01:09:05until it wasn't the prosecutor knew chris's dna was also detected and knew the defense was planning
01:09:11to make chris the center of its case so the prosecutor addressed that head on let's talk about
01:09:17what chris was doing on january the 19th of 2001 chris was investigated so thoroughly at the beginning
01:09:26of this case um we felt like all of that evidence was really strong for us to show chris's alibi
01:09:34and
01:09:34that in fact it was not possible for him to have been the individual who murdered tara witnesses
01:09:41testified they saw chris throughout that early morning and on bank security video time stamped
01:09:46around 9 a.m this witness was the branch manager in 2001 we watched chris entering the bank um coming
01:09:54in and filling out the withdrawal slip and then going to the teller and getting the cash the prosecutors
01:10:00knew they had to put chris on the stand he told the jury about every place he went that morning
01:10:05and
01:10:05answered questions about himself and tara how was the state of you and tara's relationship you know
01:10:14in those months leading up to her murder everything was wonderful it was difficult for us not to see
01:10:21as much see each other as much as we would have liked but we were both in the understanding that
01:10:28we were pursuing future paths for us to have a better future together and then it was the defense's
01:10:37turn anyone listening to false attorney ahmad cruz this is chris melton might have thought it was chris
01:10:43melton on trial chris melton stated chris melton's behavior chris melton's dna chris melton's actions
01:10:51in his opening statement cruz said chris melton's name nearly a hundred times i found out more about
01:10:57chris miller than i did edric faust and in cruz cross-examination of chris this was his first question
01:11:03why didn't you cry when just now why didn't any tears fall out of your eyes
01:11:14they are falling down during trial the defense attorney barely challenged the dna evidence
01:11:19against his client instead he focused on chris melton's emotions his alibi and his changing story
01:11:25about when he last saw tara did you have sex with miss baker the day of her death no sir
01:11:31chris was
01:11:32now sure he last saw tara on sunday five days before the murder from the beginning i said i saw
01:11:41her the
01:11:41weekend prior from the beginning you've said that yes sir that you've seen her the weekend and that has
01:11:49always been what you said there was a time that i was confused and it was 20 plus years later
01:11:58the defense asked chris to look at a photo of tara taken after the murder this is the photo that
01:12:03you
01:12:03were shown to ask to identify miss baker
01:12:08no this is not the photo i don't believe that was the photo it was a photo chris had never
01:12:13seen before
01:12:14he must have cherry-picked some of the the worst picture that i have ever seen from the crime scene
01:12:21it
01:12:22seemed to be more of an autopsy picture
01:12:32and i just i had never seen something so bad and mr milton you're just shown
01:12:42the photograph of his papers ceased and you have not shed a tear come on now i felt like i
01:12:49was being
01:12:51tortured and you felt like that crossed the line yes attorney cruz showed the jury a few pictures as
01:12:58well photos of chris's hands taken during his second police interview two days after tara's death
01:13:05these are chris melton's hands after miss baker's death chris melton said he punched a wall in anger
01:13:11and frustration two days after the murder my injuries injuries came from punching the wall
01:13:17and a detective backed him up telling the jury that on the day of the murder chris's hands showed no
01:13:23signs of injury were those marks on his hands on january 19th of 2001 when you interviewed him and then
01:13:32you said that he had been fingerprinted they were not okay if they had been would you have taken pictures
01:13:37of them the way you did on january 21st yes okay then the defense homed in on the hair found
01:13:44in tara's hand
01:13:45you will hear evidence in this case that there is not a shred of evidence that puts mr false let
01:13:53alone a black
01:13:54black person in miss baker's home all of the evidence including the gift miss baker left in her
01:14:02hand for police it's it's it's caucasian hair the defense attorney told the jury that the caucasian
01:14:11hair found in tara baker's hand was a gift for police what was he trying to do there he was
01:14:17trying to
01:14:17convince the jury that mr melton was the perpetrator of the crime because it was caucasian hair that's
01:14:23correct but prosecutors made sure the jury knew what investigators had known for years that the
01:14:29hairs in miss baker's hands were her own hairs the number one rule is you don't lie to a jury
01:14:36you don't over promise and the moment he said that i wrote down on my pad they're hers that's her
01:14:44hair
01:14:45so either he doesn't know that or he is intentionally misleading the jury tara's family
01:14:52thought the whole defense was a weak attempt at smoke and mirrors but with the case headed for
01:14:58the jury not everyone agreed this is just shocking and then like i say it's so unbelievable
01:15:19for those with eyes on the athens-clark county courtroom the trial of edrick faust had seemingly
01:15:25taken a detour it just seemed like i was the one on trial i couldn't believe it i couldn't believe
01:15:31it
01:15:31it was maddening but outside the court the defense's words appeared to be landing
01:15:38we met protesters including some of faust's family members who believe he was wrongly accused
01:15:43this is just shocking and then like i say it's so unbelievable yeah justice for edrick faust i want
01:15:51edrick faust to walk free and like faust's defense attorney they pointed the finger at chris melton
01:15:56he lied he lied he lied because he had not seen her in 10 days chris there are some people
01:16:01who may be
01:16:03watching this who believe that you killed tara baker what do you want to say to those people i would
01:16:10say
01:16:10that i did not kill tara baker i did not kill her i loved her ladies and gentlemen the state
01:16:18has rested
01:16:19back inside the courtroom defense race defense rests almost immediately yeah no witnesses
01:16:26was that a shock to you yes yeah absolutely for closing arguments both sides gave it their all
01:16:33they falsely accused him and they tried mightily mightily to bury the truth there is not one shred
01:16:45of evidence not one single shred of evidence that indicates that chris melton was angry with tara
01:16:54would hurt tara or wanted her dead then the jurors had the case they asked to review testimony dna reports
01:17:0412 hours later
01:17:07to the judge the jury is ready to deliver the verdict i was so terrified so terrified that we were
01:17:14going to come out the other side no different as he waited in the courtroom kevin baker was suddenly
01:17:20the heartbroken little boy of 25 years ago that person that is a grown man that is married that
01:17:28has a family those layers peeled off and that 10 year old boy was left sitting there and inside it
01:17:34was
01:17:35that 10 year old boy crying in that same hotel room the jury finds the defendant on the following counts
01:17:41count
01:17:42one malice murder guilty that first guilty just rocked everything back rocked us all back i was writing it
01:17:54down as they were like count one guilty count two guilty guilty on all counts murder rape and arson
01:18:05when they read the verdict and said guilty to all 12 counts my heart lipped but i couldn't show any
01:18:15emotion
01:18:16i did not want to make it any harder on his family by showing joy or you know because i
01:18:24i know how hard
01:18:26it would have to be to think that somebody in your own family could be capable of this type of
01:18:32thing
01:18:33police warned chris to stay away from the courthouse for the verdict he heard it hunched over a cell phone
01:18:39and it was a hallelujah moment and a release and we just celebrated amongst us that
01:18:51they had come to the right decision but for tara baker's family still no peace the trial had triggered
01:19:00a social media storm and the verdict only made it worse with chris tara's family even tara herself
01:19:06all under attack there was a lot of online social media commentary yes which made everything so much
01:19:15worse i mean some of it got bad some of it was painful at times i can't believe people can
01:19:19be that
01:19:19cruel did that almost kind of cast a shadow of sorts over this this moment that you'd waited so long
01:19:25for
01:19:26more than a shadow a blanket of pain chris's life and business were upended the anger on social media
01:19:35forced him to take down his company's website my beloved sister at false sentencing tara's brother
01:19:42adam spoke directly to his sister's convicted killer tara and i were more than siblings
01:19:49we were best friends today sitting in this courtroom face to face i can honestly say
01:19:54i have forgiven you i'll harbor no hate in my heart i've given that all to god i mean tara's
01:20:00been gone
01:20:01for 25 years it doesn't change that 25 years it doesn't change the 25 years that are to come she's
01:20:05still gone but to know that we finally got justice i i can't i can't describe that feeling
01:20:13you have been very patient faust was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 45 years in prison
01:20:20we asked faust and his defense attorney for interviews faust did not respond his attorney declined
01:20:30faust is appealing his conviction and his supporters are raising money for him
01:20:35the chief of police hopes the community can move forward as a chief i'm responsible uh for the
01:20:41safety of this community and also building meaningful relationships and during times like this when
01:20:46you have a verdict where people think one thing or the other i think you just have to trust in
01:20:52the courts
01:20:55not long after sentencing meredith had dinner with chris and met his wife jenny they talked for hours
01:21:02i've had multiple conversations where i apologized for the silence what did he say to you
01:21:09don't apologize it's painful but there's no animosity whatsoever at uga posing at the arch is a
01:21:22graduation rite of passage it's where tara's friends come to remember her what do you think
01:21:28about tara now as you stand here by this arch one she's thrilled that this case has been solved but
01:21:34two she's probably mad at us because it took 25 years i have never had my life changed so much
01:21:42by
01:21:42someone that i've never met and tara baker did that for me and for so many people that is tara's
01:21:49legacy
01:21:50what made tara special was the ability to connect with every single person she comes in contact with
01:21:58that's one thing that i keep hearing is that she made so many people feel special yes i've heard so
01:22:04many people tell me that when if they hadn't seen her in a long time when they saw her again
01:22:09she would
01:22:09make them feel like it was the happiest day of her life that's all for this edition of dateline and
01:22:19don't forget to check out our talking dateline podcast in which we'll go behind the scenes of tonight's
01:22:24episode available wednesday in the dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts we'll see you again
01:22:31next friday at 9 8 central i'm lester holt for all of us at nbc news good night
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