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Dateline NBC - Season 35 - Episode 12: A Window of Time
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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 terror 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 and then of course her boyfriend they take pictures
00:00:45of my body they take pictures of my hands i just lost it five or six persons of interest and
00:00:52nothing
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 as far and as
00:01:48fast as she could go she had this sort of jump to her walk almost a lilt as if she
00:01:56were bouncing
00:01:57through her day very happy she was a brilliant person she wanted to do the best she could in
00:02:03everything she did what did she mean to you guys everything she was a girl in a hurry but her
00:02:11family
00:02:11would 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
00:02:40what we were working on i think it was probably a paper she turned on her computer it made all
00:02:44of
00:02:44its very loud noise because it had a big fan and then she leaned in and she went shh like
00:02:50this with
00:02:50her little crinkly nose they worked for a couple of hours and then i hit 9 9 30 something like
00:02:56that i'd
00:02:57had enough i wanted to go home for the day so i packed up and i knew she was staying
00:03:01until
00:03:01at least 10 because that was her grand plan and she she told me to call when i got home
00:03:08because
00:03:08she always worried about me when i walked home katie made it home safely but she forgot to call
00:03:14so tara called me at about 9 40 9 45 and she said ma'am you did not call me
00:03:22and i said i know i'm so
00:03:23sorry tara uh i'm home i'm fine everything's okay then tara went home herself around 10 katie's sure of
00:03:31it because her friend always stuck to her plan for tara this was home a little place on fawn drive
00:03:38on
00:03:39the outskirts of athens rain clouds were gathering the next morning as the call came into firehouse
00:03:47five that little house on fawn drive was on fire firefighters arrived on the scene kicked in the
00:03:54door and found a living room full of smoke what do you see when you come over here see a
00:03:59red glow
00:04:01around this corner of this wall firefighter doug whitehead remembers this house like it was yesterday
00:04:06and what he saw in the kitchen what is it all four of those electric eyes were on high the
00:04:13burners
00:04:14were turned on the burners were on high and the knobs pulled off and placed on the countertop he
00:04:20then saw a locked bedroom and knew something was burning behind that door you come inside this room
00:04:26what do you see when you walk in smoke fire and i see where the fire had broken through the
00:04:32roof and
00:04:32you could see daylight through the hole what else did you see in here we found a body on the
00:04:37floor
00:04:37a body on the floor yeah what could you tell about this person it appeared she maybe had just gotten
00:04:43out of the shower and a comb had been run through her hair and an electrical cord around her neck
00:04:52this was no longer just a fire they doused the flames backed out and called police
00:04:59what was it that that stood out to you when you got to the scene there was a lot of
00:05:04fire still there
00:05:05a lot of police officers detectives and media was starting to show up jerry salters was a young
00:05:11patrolman back then he was asked to stand guard in the kitchen i had looked on the refrigerator and i
00:05:18seen a bunch of pictures and it was college-aged females just looked like they were having a good
00:05:23time basically just friends and really touched me that you know this is this is going to be bad
00:05:30police learned three young women lived in that house valerie ashley and tara officers had no way
00:05:36of knowing who lay dead in the bedroom so they ran the plates on the only car parked in the
00:05:41driveway
00:05:42the owner tara baker an officer called her mother virginia and she said miss baker there's been a fire
00:05:50in athens at tara's house and i said oh my goodness i said we'll be right there because i thought
00:05:57shoot
00:05:57tara was going to be upset and i wanted to go comfort her because she lost her things yes and
00:06:02so i said
00:06:04we'll be down there very soon she said you need to come right now we have a body virginia lived
00:06:10some
00:06:1080 miles away she called tara's boyfriend chris melton she asked me is tara with you i said no tara's
00:06:21not
00:06:21with me virginia told him what she had just heard i remember all the noise in the room stopped
00:06:29and then i recall someone saying in my name and bringing me back around chris left his plumbing job
00:06:40and a co-worker drove him to athens about an hour away so when you guys get to athens your
00:06:46first stop
00:06:46is the police department that's correct what do they tell you when i walk in they started informing
00:06:52me that yes indeed there was a fire and then that there was a body found in the fire and
00:06:58they need help
00:07:00to identify and they're asking you and i recall at first saying i can't i can't do this and he
00:07:10says
00:07:10you know if if you don't do this her family's gonna have to identify her and that convinced you
00:07:17that convinced me police took chris to the crime scene where someone brought him a photo of the victim
00:07:23inside i could not make her out it was horrible and i could not positively say yes this is her
00:07:34and then
00:07:35it did come to me that i had previously given her for an anniversary gift i had given her
00:07:42diamond-studded earrings for our two-year and she always warm and i told him i said if this is
00:07:49tara
00:07:49she's wearing diamond-studded earrings moments later one of those emergency workers came back
00:07:57with proof delicate heartbreaking proof and he he came up to me with a closed hand and when he opened
00:08:05his hand there's one of the diamond-studded earrings the earring you gave her and that's when i knew
00:08:15so i knew it was her now investigators had a name and a case that would become an athens legend
00:08:24i can
00:08:25smell the shampoo in her hair and i can smell it to this day but the search for a killer
00:08:31would be
00:08:31tainted by mistrust and lingering suspicion this was a friend of yours yes i think we were all in shock
00:08:37i
00:08:38remember yelling that i love tara that i would never hurt tara it would take a new generation to
00:08:45bridge the divide people were sending you tips like week after week yes hundreds of tips a week i was
00:08:52just staring at the ceiling in utter shock and disbelief you couldn't even process it no uh-uh
00:09:10if tara baker's bedroom held any clues about what happened to her crime scene technician david
00:09:16liedall 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
00:10:05came from her printer at the time did you know anything else about her other injuries sexual assault
00:10:13we suspected yes she had no clothing on and the position that she was in later at tara's autopsy the
00:10:20medical examiner determined she had been raped but a sexual assault kit did not provide any useful
00:10:25evidence as the crime scene technicians worked detectives wanted to talk to anyone close to tara
00:10:31including her boyfriend chris when you were in there they were asking you questions but there
00:10:37were more than just questions they asked you for your fingerprints that's true that's true at the time
00:10:43had they told you much about what had happened to tara no nothing as tara's family headed to the
00:10:52police station in athens they knew even less i'm thinking to myself maybe somehow she fell asleep and
00:10:58one of her candles caught things on fire but it can't be her she can't be gone that's can't
00:11:02i kept telling myself there's no way it could be her i'm just sobbing i was using my sweater as
00:11:09a
00:11:09as a tissue and i'm just laying in my uncle's arms just absolutely sobbing i was like this is not
00:11:16real
00:11:16it's a mistake it's not her meredith schroeder is tara's sister she was 15 years old at the time
00:11:24so we pulled up there was some folks waiting for us outside we walk in there they lead us to
00:11:30this
00:11:32conference room and we went in and we sat down and we waited for a while and then this
00:11:38detective came in and he said well i'm going to talk to y'all in just a minute but you're
00:11:43going to have to excuse me i gotta go get a cup of coffee because i've been out in the
00:11:46rain all day
00:11:47that's what he said to you it's exactly what he said to me at this point has anyone officially confirmed
00:11:52to you no what's happened that she's no and when he left the room to get his coffee that young
00:11:59woman
00:12:00that had called me was in the room and she said well we've determined that it is tara and we're
00:12:06considering this 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
00:13:02on the bed and he said there was a fire at tara's apartment my first reaction is is she okay
00:13:11is she in
00:13:12the hospital i want to go see her and he said no she didn't make it i walked in there
00:13:20and 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
00:13:58hair um tell me you know it's okay kevin was the youngest tara called him her baby darling tara was
00:14:08my person if i knew she was coming home i would pace the door looking outside like a lost 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
00:14:31because she would say it in such a nice way she definitely was very much the person that
00:14:38would come and talk to the kid at the lunch table that was sitting by themselves
00:14:42she always wanted to see everybody succeed tara met her boyfriend chris in undergrad and they stayed
00:14:48together when she went off to law school at her top choice uga it was an honor for her to
00:14:53be here
00:14:54she took it seriously this was her dream and she had her eyes on the future she knew what she
00:14:59wanted to do she knew where she wanted to go definitely she definitely did i'd never have
00:15:04known a person who loved life as much as she did when you say that she loved life what did
00:15:09that look
00:15:09like she got up every morning excited sometimes she would call me and just say mama look up look at
00:15:15the sky it's beautiful it's a tara day the blue sky and the white clouds god made it just for
00:15:21me
00:15:21but now on this dreary day in athens georgia there wasn't an ounce of beauty to be found
00:15:27nothing made sense a murder an arson just out of the blue or maybe not a few weeks earlier two
00:15:36of
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
00:16:11i could smell the shampoo in her hair and i can smell it to this day
00:16:18never it never left a lot of times of course investigators talk about different moments from
00:16:23a scene or a particularly disturbing scene that just kind of
00:16:28really 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
00:16:40shower her roommates helped police develop a timeline of the crime tara was very much a
00:16:48creature of habit yes she was she had a very specific morning routine yes walk me through that
00:16:53she'd get up like 6 30 shower and then make her cheese grits that was her breakfast
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 was very thick so she'd sit usually at the foot of her bed flip
00:17:26her head
00:17:27over and 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 no anything not at all it was later on we discovered that her
00:18:04laptop was taken
00:18:06truth was the entire home felt violated tara's collection of memories photos of all those people
00:18:13she loved were charred almost lost in the ruin and when investigators saw melted fabric on the kitchen
00:18:21burners they knew exactly how the killer started the fire the suspect had taken a blanket and put it on
00:18:30the stove in the kitchen and when he went back into the bedroom he took the burning blanket and threw
00:18:37it
00:18:38on the bed it was my blanket so they used my blanket to do that you know i mean that
00:18:43detail is just so
00:18:44chilling to me because blankets are just they're comforting yeah when you got to the stove and you
00:18:51realized what had happened what the blanket had been used for someone had to really think this through you
00:18:57know it's almost like a switch flipped you know at that moment we weren't college students anymore
00:19:03wayne ford has been a reporter for the athens banner herald since 1982 in the community at the time
00:19:09there were some arson fires so there was speculation is it an arsonist that he actually come into the
00:19:17house maybe surprise tara and kill her and then go about setting the place on fire and those previous
00:19:25fires were within a stone's throw of tara's home a few weeks earlier two of those buildings were on fire
00:19:32both of them two of them just after the murder police also got specific tips about a man walking alone
00:19:40in the rain around the time of the killing and from what i was told back then they reached out
00:19:47to their
00:19:47sources you know might have been involved in different criminal activities and a name never came up
00:19:55one of the first things investigators wanted to know of course was how did the killer get inside
00:20:01the doors were locked when firefighters arrived but doug whitehead noticed something
00:20:07i can't tell you for 100 but that screen was out of that window the window screen right here this
00:20:13window screen and was propped against the side of the building so you're thinking maybe whoever did
00:20:17this came in and out through this window maybe so but the killing was so violent so up close
00:20:25it looked like a crime of passion not a random act could you get a sense in those early days
00:20:32maybe
00:20:32of what direction police were going by the questions they were asking you at the time they were just
00:20:37asking about any male in her life whether it be at the law school or at work or you know
00:20:43in her personal
00:20:44life police 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 had had
00:21:25an injury on his head an injury the morning of the murder that would get police looking in suit boy's
00:21:32direction but he
00:21:33wasn't the only one they needed to talk to tara's mother had an idea one disturbingly close to home
00:21:40it at one point occurred to me what if it could have been her biological father
00:21:45on 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
00:22:18were what they were doing and where they were going with my little tara in the end she never even
00:22:27got
00:22:27to finish her second semester as you go through your lives practicing law remember
00:22:34that was tara's dream that's what her dream was as you do it terrible practice law to see him
00:22:41standing there and talking about his little girl
00:22:45and trying to choke back tears was just it was tough everything was tough for the bakers in those early
00:22:56weeks especially the not knowing as she grieved virginia asked herself repeatedly who could have done
00:23:02this she started to wonder about someone who was no stranger to the family her first husband tara's
00:23:09father he threatened me when i divorced him a lot and he his threats to me were hitting me in
00:23:16the head
00:23:16to the point that you couldn't recognize my face tara's family had been told few details about what had
00:23:22happened to her nothing about the rape or stabbing but they did know she'd suffered blunt force trauma to the
00:23:29head tara was eight years old when her parents divorced growing up she thought of lindsay as her
00:23:34dad and wanted no contact with her biological father she refused to answer us phone calls she just didn't
00:23:41want anything to do they didn't have a relationship absolutely not and she made that clear when she changed
00:23:47her last name taking her stepdad's name and dropping her biological father's but just days before she was
00:23:54killed tara got a letter from him she was very upset that he had found her she had been withholding
00:24:01her
00:24:01address from him i don't know how he got it apparently they had a conversation and he said that he
00:24:09did learn
00:24:09that she had changed her name that was in the letter also and the letter was forwarded from her previous
00:24:15address to this address and she was a little concerned now the wheels were turning in virginia's mind
00:24:22did the name change set him off he had a tremendous ego and he was didn't like being rejected she
00:24:31urged
00:24:32investigators to look into him and they checked him out they called him in at my request police spoke
00:24:39to him at least twice they examined his alibi and could find no evidence he was in athens at the
00:24:43time
00:24:44of the murder by then they were increasingly focused on someone else someone tara did have a relationship
00:24:51with her 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 body
00:25:16what were police telling you about him they didn't say anything at first but then they were saying
00:25:22that he is a suspect they told you that yeah and they went a step further they urged tara's friends
00:25:28to steer clear of chris this was a friend of yours i mean you all had known each other since
00:25:33undergrad
00:25:34was that jarring for you to hear stay away from this guy everything was jarring back then though i mean
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
00:26:15and if that was the what the police were telling him and pointing in that direction then he thought
00:26:20so he was going to pursue it my dad was so protective of his kids and he was devastated
00:26:30as a six foot three nearly 400 pound man that he couldn't protect his daughter from the evil that
00:26:40happened he said if you've got something on him i want to know if you've got if if he was
00:26:47tying a
00:26:47shoe down the street i want to know he did that with more than just chris nothing was recovered from
00:26:55the crime scene to rule chris in or out no fingerprints no dna forensic investigators did
00:27:01find hair in tara's hand but testing determined it was her own the killer didn't leave behind anything
00:27:10he came in and killed tara then he left with so little evidence the investigation was stuck
00:27:18and police would return again and again to the same place i was yelling in the phone i felt like
00:27:25they had nothing not on me but just for the 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 pd
00:28:18i was in the car with them when they would drive up there to make the police talk to them
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
00:28:40the investigation was constantly changing hands and to the family no one seemed to be in charge
00:28:46kevin went from a little boy to a young teen watching investigators come and go you hit a a wall
00:28:54and then a new team starts over and said okay well we'll figure it out
00:28:58well we're gonna start at the beginning virginia says some of the information they did get in those
00:29:03first few years was bizarre and flat out wrong the police came to my house and demonstrated how
00:29:13somebody had snuck up behind her and one pretended to be tear on the other was you know the culprit
00:29:19and pretended how she was her throat was cut from behind so she died quickly they demonstrated that
00:29:25they demonstrated that in my living room it was a twisted game of charades so officers were acting out
00:29:31for your family what they believe happened to my mother and then later walked it back said no that's
00:29:38not what happened later admitted that was wrong yeah with every restart came renewed focus on the
00:29:46boyfriend chris for the longest time we were told this is who did it whether or not we believed it
00:29:52we
00:29:52were told and so naturally you don't reach out you don't talk to that person but police had repeatedly
00:29:59his answer never changed i loved her so much it was so deep it's painful to lose her and then
00:30:06it's
00:30:07painful to be looked at that way chris says each time he talked to police he gave them his alibi
00:30:15he had not seen tara in days the night before the murder he slept over at his parents house
00:30:20almost an hour from the crime scene that morning he went to work stopping at a few places along the
00:30:26way
00:30:26when they question you again are they asking you different questions new questions most of the
00:30:32time it's the same questions it's like it landed on somebody else's desk and now they're starting
00:30:38over it happened again and again the phone would ring and the questions would start once they would
00:30:44reach out and talk to me they would ask me questions and i would return ask questions myself what
00:30:49about this or what about that you know and and they wouldn't give me answers did anyone ever come
00:30:55out and just tell you that you were a suspect you know as far as actually saying that
00:31:03i don't recall them actually saying that suspect it was just in the actions chris says it was
00:31:09excruciating 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
00:31:28her fingernails and then i reach back and i hold her hand and it's kind of silly to say this
00:31:34but i
00:31:35remember i gotta go to the restroom so bad but you're holding her hand yes and you don't want to
00:31:40let it go
00:31:41and i'm not letting go you could not have dragged me away they never got their happy ending instead
00:31:48chris says he tried to go on with his life he built up a small business as a plumber and
00:31:53did his best to
00:31:54put the pain behind him but one time when yet another investigator made yet another call chris didn't hold
00:32:02back she asked me a question and i had to take time to consider you know just i need i
00:32:09need to
00:32:10answer the question and then she aggressively flipped things around a little bit and said well
00:32:17didn'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 i'm waiting
00:32:50on 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 else
00:33:10had missed so let me make sure i have that straight this is one of the very few people who
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
00:33:40of her death you graduated you moved on with your lives and still there were no answers that was tough
00:33:49it's been very difficult you know all these years not knowing you know the the why and what truly
00:33:55happened as 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
00:34:09early on there were some investigators that told them things about the case file
00:34:15that were just not true david griffith a civilian crime analyst with the athens pd
00:34:21began looking into tara's case four years after she was murdered i'll never forget meeting meredith
00:34:28baker for the first time introducing myself and she's dismissive and she tells me to my face you're
00:34:35just another face in this long drawn out investigation and next year you probably won't be here and wow they
00:34:43felt burned they felt burned yeah griffith resolved to turn the situation around what was different about
00:34:48the way david griffith handled this well for the first thing he was patient enough to listen to me
00:34:53yell at him that's saying a lot it does and he kept us cool by the time he got his
00:34:58hands on the tara
00:34:59baker case file it was thousands of pages thick griffith hit reset he started in a familiar place
00:35:07in my mind initially 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
00:35:29the 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 what does
00:35:42that tell you about the type of person who could have done this what it told me is that we
00:35:47weren't
00:35:47dealing with a criminal mastermind griffith re-examined chris's alibi in a new round of interviews
00:35:54the police interviewed chris melton's parents his parents see him go to bed in his bed at their house
00:36:01his father gets up at 5 30 in the morning and sees chris's truck out in the driveway so believes
00:36:06he's at
00:36:06home chris's assistant told police he picked chris up for work at 7 15 a.m so he has a
00:36:12pretty good
00:36:13alibi he's got a pretty good alibi and the the best piece of his alibi is at the 9 a
00:36:19.m hour he's called
00:36:20on camera making a withdrawal at a at a bank over by his parents house at that point he's an
00:36:26hour away
00:36:27from the crime scene notes in the file indicated police saw the video of him making that withdrawal
00:36:33they're allowed to view the video but the bank employees won't give them the videotape and ask
00:36:40them 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 for
00:36:58chris's
00:36:58transaction 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
00:37:16student they called suit boy who gave police an alibi griffith ruled them both out but as he was
00:37:23digging through the file a name caught his eye someone who had easy access to tara's home
00:37:28the maintenance man at her development william bryant barrett has a master key and that really
00:37:35makes us wonder is william bryant barrett possibly the killer when we start looking at his timeline we
00:37:43know that he shows up on the crime scene at some point the day that her body's found and local
00:37:52affiliates filming outside the crime scene actually capture him on video what's he doing he's watching
00:37:58from outside the crime tape as the firefighters work and there was more the night after tara's murder
00:38:05police asked him to help secure the building he gets to talking with investigators about theoretically how
00:38:12somebody could have made entry and he demonstrates how to open one of the windows with a knife blade
00:38:18so let me make sure i have that straight this is one of the very few people who has a
00:38:22key to this
00:38:22apartment he was there at the crime scene he shows investigators how to open and close the window with
00:38:28a knife blade and police never interview him no how does that happen i don't know the answer to that
00:38:35plane it was just one of the lapses and investigative effort that happened in this case and in my mind
00:38:42it's probably the biggest lapse by the time police finally sat barrett down for an interview jerry salters
00:38:48had gone from patrolman to detective he conducted the interview there were some discrepancies on what
00:38:53time he was where and did he have time to commit this i did move into more of an interrogation
00:38:59where i
00:39:00became accusatory uh with him just to really to gain a response and how did he respond he didn't ask
00:39:07to
00:39:07leave he stayed there what did that tell you tells me either one he's being honest or two uh he's
00:39:14pretty
00:39:15good at lying the maintenance man did give them something highly suspicious something he shouldn't
00:39:20have known what police call hold back information it's details of the crime scene that only the killer
00:39:27would know and investigators would know what does he tells us about the ligature that was used and
00:39:34that she's badly beaten and that's not information that's been publicly released at least we believe so
00:39:40in the moment as we're conducting this interview did he volunteer this hold back information he did
00:39:46during the course of the interview but he disavows having anything to do with tara baker's death
00:39:51and sticks to his story and again there was no forensic evidence to link the maintenance man or
00:39:57anyone else to tara's brutal death still william bryant barrett becomes person of interest number
00:40:05one and what do you do we flail for years believing that william bryant barrett's involved in the death of
00:40:14tara baker and just not having enough to get a warrant for his arrest so the infuriating cycle continued
00:40:26questions no answers something would have to change and when it did somebody new was asking the questions
00:40:35you are getting new information absolutely liz called me and said we have a name i was just
00:40:43freaking out and 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
00:41:15she 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 he had
00:41:35analyzed and agonized and agonized over the case but it never led to an arrest in 2019 as griffith was
00:41:42preparing to leave the athens clark county police department he decided tara's family should know what
00:41:48he knew so he called meredith who had become the family point person there were things in the case
00:41:54file that we had not divulged to the family i proposed that we divulge everything we knew about the case
00:42:01file
00:42:01to meredith he sits me down with a whole host of other folks and he walks me through the whole
00:42:08timeline huh like this is when your sister got up this is when she ate breakfast this is when she
00:42:14went
00:42:14to go blow dry her hair this is when we believe the attack began he told her the horrific details
00:42:21the
00:42:22cord found around tara's neck and how she was stabbed beaten raped and all of this is new information to
00:42:29you
00:42:31being presented in a chronological yes yeah was all new because i still did not have confirmation as
00:42:39to whether or not she was sexually assaulted the facts almost two decades later were hard to face
00:42:45but still better than not knowing virginia realized the absence of facts had sent her suspicions in the
00:42:51wrong direction like her ex-husband she says she never would have insisted police investigate him
00:42:57if she'd known the whole story we didn't even know about you know the sexual assault at the time
00:43:02keep that in mind we didn't know about the stabbing griffith told meredith about his number one person of
00:43:07interest he gave me the the maintenance man theory but it was still a theory at that point he also
00:43:14shared
00:43:15something else something no previous investigator had ever said he told me absolutely chris didn't do it
00:43:22that was huge news for years their family had shunned chris i felt guilty knowing that he suffered in
00:43:30silence and that we never reached back out and knowing what all he had gone through by now any student
00:43:40who knew tara baker firsthand had long left with each new class her murder became more like a memory
00:43:47passed down through campus memorials or newspaper articles that's how a young freshman named cameron j
00:43:54harrelson first heard her name it was an anniversary piece like that the red and black newspaper had done
00:44:00on her death at the time you were a true crime fan yourself yes a fan of dateline a fan
00:44:05of podcasts
00:44:06a few years later cameron decided he wanted to launch his own podcast and tara baker's case he thought was
00:44:13the
00:44:13perfect place to start but first he had to convince virginia baker a random guy like me calling miss
00:44:21virginia baker for the first time i believe her first response to me was who are you and who are
00:44:26you with i said i don't even know what a podcast is so you're gonna have to explain some of
00:44:31this to me
00:44:31and why would i want to talk to you and at the time i had no podcast name had no
00:44:36idea what i was doing and
00:44:37said i'm just me and i want to learn about your daughter he convinced me that he cared about tara
00:44:43and wanted to tell her story and that's all i've ever wanted is to tell her story yeah and he
00:44:48said
00:44:48maybe we can bring in you know some some clues maybe we can bring in you know some tips maybe
00:44:55the
00:44:55podcast also opened a door that chris melton thought was closed for good how did you find out that there
00:45:01was a podcast about tara's case meredith had actually reached out via email what did you think
00:45:10it was an emotional moment because 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 cameron launched the podcast in
00:45:40july of 2020 welcome welcome welcome the story of tara louise baker will be the focus of season one of
00:45:48classic city crime family and friends told cameron all about tara and also vented their frustration and
00:45:55anger at the investigation what would you say to the police department don't ever do this to anybody
00:46:03else and if you don't know what you're doing get help my goal is to remind people of her life
00:46:11tell people what happened show them the investigation and then hopefully as a result of that law
00:46:18enforcement could solve it it's not my job it's theirs he interviewed chris about the years he spent under
00:46:24suspicion did police continue to follow up with you and interrogate you or they did come after me i
00:46:30would go and give hair samples blood samples tissue and cameron asked about his feelings for tara
00:46:38she was just such a beautiful person on the inside when she smiled she bit the tip of her tongue
00:46:46and it 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
00:47:07the things that we believe were vetted enough we took to the air still after dozens of episodes and all
00:47:14those tips no new leads for police two years in cameron ended it without any real ending and i did
00:47:22not
00:47:22think it would be ethical for me to continue producing content with tara's family just for the heck of it
00:47:29without answers without answers but then he had another idea one that would put tara's case in an even
00:47:36bigger 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 chief
00:48:01now you're at the very top yes in 2001 he was that rookie cop standing in tara baker's kitchen by
00:48:082006
00:48:09he was a detective interviewing potential suspects now he was chief jerry salters he'd always carried
00:48:16tara's case with him as the chief i want to the community to feel safe and know that they have
00:48:23a
00:48:23police 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
00:48:35and i called the 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
00:48:58with the case i think it went a long way but good intentions only go so far and tara's family
00:49:04was
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 effected change for others he wanted to
00:49:24find a way to get more resources dedicated to cold cases and so i started researching in the process of
00:49:30doing that 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
00:49:42so i called that family the coleman family 18 year old rhonda 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 baker
00:49:58families push for a new law one that would create and crucially fund a brand new cold case unit in
00:50:05the
00:50:05georgia bureau of investigation at what point did this go from okay we're doing a podcast to
00:50:10hey we're pushing for new legislation to be passed it was a shock i never envisioned doing anything like
00:50:20that i thought we were just going to do this podcast and that would be the end of it and
00:50:23i went with
00:50:24cameron and my children to the capitol and we lobbied with congressmen and some of the senators from the
00:50:32state so you're going into the gold dome you're shaking hands you're talking to people yes absolutely
00:50:36telling tara's story yes the campaign worked in the spring of 2023 the coleman baker act passed and
00:50:44georgia's governor brian kemp signed it into law today we're helping to restore hope for those still
00:50:49grieving hope for justice and hope for closure and so what did the coleman baker act do it number one
00:50:56funded a cold case unit at the georgia bureau investigation to the tune of five million dollars
00:51:01and that's big because this did not exist before no there really was not just a law this was
00:51:06appropriations we're talking money what was your hope with this bill that it would solve cases for
00:51:12other families i felt like tara's case had gone so long there was no hope for that but i wanted
00:51:18to
00:51:18see it help someone else and i wanted to see it be part of her legacy still tara's family applied
00:51:24for
00:51:24her case to get a second look under the new law just in case and soon meredith found herself
00:51:29walking into the office of the georgia bureau of investigation to meet yet another team of
00:51:35investigators i'm like okay i guess we're doing this this is just kind of our last hail mary see
00:51:41if anything comes of this if not you know we tried yeah so you were assigned two agents yes what
00:51:50were
00:51:50their names liz and jeremy special agents liz biggum and jeremy howell so what are you thinking when you get
00:51:57this assignment i better solve this i mean it was in privilege that i was trusted enough and they
00:52:05had enough confidence in me to be assigned the case in the first place honestly the case has always had
00:52:11this mythology here in athens so it was exciting to have an opportunity to see the evidence to see the
00:52:19case file to read it and go through it i can remember the file drawer that it sat in it
00:52:24was the
00:52:24bottom file drawer in the hallway and it took up the entire file drawer it was such a large case
00:52:29tell me about that first meeting your first conversation with them i was shocked by they
00:52:36were professional but the amount of empathy that they expressed you felt something in that meeting
00:52:42like i believed the words that they were saying but meredith and her family had seen this movie before
00:52:48so you're thinking okay great they're sincere they're kind they care but what are they going to do
00:52:52right what were they going to do well they were about to take a new look at an old piece
00:52:59of evidence
00:52:59and it would change everything we 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 do
00:53:33what their predecessors could not this is a case that has been examined re-examined looked at any
00:53:40number of different ways since 2001 why might this time be different i think what makes it different
00:53:48is that we're given the gifts of of time resources and a supervision structure that allows us
00:53:58uh pretty much uninterrupted to be able to start this process and see it through i knew something
00:54:04was happening when they started calling me asking for information that i had files that i had finally
00:54:11a law enforcement agency was asking to see six years worth of work and not just local but the state
00:54:18law enforcement state agency yes it was huge were you optimistic going into this i'm wildly optimistic
00:54:24about cases such as this the agents also had the advantage of modern day science and a cutting-edge
00:54:31crime 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
00:54:42kept 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
00:55:28the transformer 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 you
00:55:40mean the
00:55:40fire the fire exposure to water everything that you don't want to have happen in a crime scene
00:55:46happened in this crime scene so it made it difficult to get those anything from those items absolutely
00:55:52we started getting notifications that all right there's nothing on this there's nothing on that
00:55:58like okay all right that's fine i suspected that would be the case the agents then turned to another
00:56:04piece of old evidence tara's sexual assault kit back in 2001 that kit yielded no clues and then it's just
00:56:12kind of sat there since 2001. now two decades later the agents wondered whether dna science had caught up
00:56:20with the evidence our dna manager had been exposed to some training and had some experience with a
00:56:29different way to test a sexual assault kit and it was essentially testing for male dna and he just
00:56:37said hey you know this has never been tested for male dna let's let's try it that's something that
00:56:41wasn't available back in 2001 that was not available these techniques were not available back then she said
00:56:46that they were resubmitting the rape kit and i went huh you didn't even know that existed i didn't know
00:56:51that it was still there i told her i said i thought that all the evidence dna evidence had been
00:56:57exhausted and she said i don't think they knew what they had so she's laying this out for you
00:57:02and it's like this treasure trove oh yeah new information i was just in disbelief and i'm at
00:57:07work i'm standing in the conference room with the door closed listening to her and i'm like
00:57:11okay i think that's the first time that i had a glimmer of hope like this could happen there might
00:57:17be
00:57:18something there it could be a long process the agents warned likely nine months before they had any results
00:57:26so i was like okay all right but what's nine months to 25 years yeah what is the waiting period
00:57:34like for you each waiting for that result to come back i mean of course we were on pins and
00:57:38needles in
00:57:39the sense that we were really hoping we would get something from it and we were just kind of waiting
00:57:44for that phone call in a case where months had turned to years then decades finally something
00:57:52happened in record time just two and a half months later the results of that test come back what did
00:57:58they show i mean essentially it was that we had male dna we were all obviously really excited about the
00:58:05fact that we had a lead a lead at long last and there was something else something that would bring
00:58:12these
00:58:12agents back to the beginning do you all re-interview chris melton we do if there was ever a time
00:58:20to 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
00:59:03but the agents still wanted to talk to him do you remember what you thought when you got a call
00:59:08from
00:59:08the gbi i 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 when
00:59:36the last time we had seen each other or been intimate it was almost two weeks what i can recall
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 unlikely
00:59:58dna would still be detected 10 days after a sexual encounter this evidence is it doesn't last long
01:00:07where 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
01:00:21seen her in five days and then it changes to ten days i just remember ten days i don't know
01:00:27why i say that
01:00:28if there was ever a time to be 100 percent on the record it is now time had gone by
01:00:37so many decades
01:00:38had gone by and i was confused i genuinely didn't do anything to her were you concerned about that
01:00:46discrepancy not necessarily because it's been 24 years and memories change and fade they weren't
01:00:52concerned because they knew chris had a solid alibi what's more they had explosive new information about
01:00:58that other dna profile from the unknown male the lab ran it through the fbi database and got a hit
01:01:07list called me and said we have a name i was just super excited i was just freaking out and
01:01:16calling
01:01:17my boss calling jeremy called our analyst and i'm like everybody get to headquarters and she was like
01:01:23we have a match and i was just staring at the ceiling in utter shock and disbelief you couldn't even
01:01:33process his name edrick faust had you heard it before no seen it before no what's your next step
01:01:42we just wanted to learn everything we could about edrick they learned edrick faust had a rap sheet
01:01:48convictions for criminal trespassing aggravated assault battery attempted robbery and carrying a
01:01:54concealed weapon the biggest thing that we were kind of taken aback by is that he lived 585 feet from
01:02:02tara's residence wow very close very close you could essentially stand in edrick's front yard and see
01:02:09the back door of tara's residence now they needed to figure out if faust and tara knew each other you
01:02:16want to establish if there's any sort of known relationship any known connection any chance meeting
01:02:21between the two you're kind of cross-referencing their daily routines to see where they might have
01:02:27overlapped where they might have intersected absolutely naturally we could find no connection
01:02:33or relationship between edrick and tara meaning no reasonable explanation why his dna would have
01:02:38been present absolutely no reasonable explanation whatsoever and if faust was tara's rapist they believed
01:02:44he was also her killer at that point we felt comfortable
01:02:49arresting him so in may of 2024 more than two decades after her murder officers arrested edrick
01:02:56faust in a walmart parking lot they took him to the athens clark county pd where agents biggum
01:03:02and howell sat down to talk to him hey how are you good morning miss faust he was cordial he
01:03:09answered our
01:03:10questions um you know for a while how are you miss faust i am 48 are you sure okay
01:03:22and what's your home address for you having dispatched with the pleasantries biggum turned up the heat
01:03:28and faust's demeanor changed we've got a torch they are for a myriad of charges that range from
01:03:38arson to murder the agents held off on telling faust about the dna evidence our game plan going in
01:03:49was to visit if there was any known relationship between the two and so you wanted to see what he
01:03:57would say yes did you know her no connection to her no no that's when they told faust they had
01:04:05his dna
01:04:12man it's been a long time we've made so many advancements and things
01:04:19if you can help us understand why your dna's in that house help us
01:04:25he never gave them an explanation instead he said he needed a lawyer he ended it with
01:04:31yeah you can go ahead and take me to jail
01:04:33and 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 for
01:04:47years had been the number one person of interest when they came and said we made an arrest i didn't
01:04:54know
01:04:55how to breathe i was like how do i react to this for over two decades investigators have worked tirelessly
01:05:02to find answers for the family and friends of tara louise baker and bring some amount of closure
01:05:08and healing to this horrific event i was elated i was shocked i was emotional then you hear the name
01:05:22edrick
01:05:23faust yes what did you think who's this guy who is edrick faust i was like i don't i don't
01:05:31know who this
01:05:31person is i've never seen this person before in my life just the fact that this person was in my
01:05:36peripheral the whole time it was terrifying he was close by mm-hmm this is somebody who had been
01:05:42living just right by your house yeah i'm like did i see him like is this somebody i passed in
01:05:48the
01:05:48street yeah maybe waved hello to at some point we certainly wouldn't have thought that anyone would
01:05:52have been stalking us or watching us we were in a safe college town meredith learned about faust's
01:05:59criminal past including that he'd stabbed someone in the neck just two weeks after tara's murder
01:06:05what are you thinking as you're reading this how is this person still around tara's gone she was
01:06:12denied a life and this guy has lived 25 years of wreaking havoc and and ruining other people's lives
01:06:19like why why tara's loved ones hoped their questions would be answered at trial i was ready to see the
01:06:26person who created and caused all this to have to face its consequences i figured that i was gonna
01:06:34have to be involved somehow because i was her boyfriend have a seat little did he know just
01:06:40how involved he would be chris melton's dna chris melton told law enforcement chris melton's actions
01:06:47it just seemed like i was the one on trial why didn't you cry
01:06:59and i was the one on trial for the state of georgia versus edrick faust
01:07:10for 25 years you all were wondering and waiting and now you're in the same room as this person
01:07:15i can't even explain the feeling i try not to look at him most of the time other times i
01:07:22felt like my
01:07:23glance was burning through the back of his head when the trial of edrick faust began in early february
01:07:29of 2026 tara baker's family and many of her friends were there in court katie lonstein had envisioned
01:07:35this moment for years 25 years of this i wanted a monster and i got a boring man in a
01:07:45tan shirt district
01:07:47attorney kalki yalaman chili led the prosecution what is the key thing that you need to drive home
01:07:52to the jury the dna the dna and the lack of any type of connection between tara baker and edrick
01:08:01faust
01:08:02assistant d.a chris bolden handled the opening statement who killed tara baker
01:08:09ladies and gentlemen edrick faust killed tara baker and now the final chapter begins today
01:08:19remember how neighbors told police they saw a man walking near tara's house the morning of the murder
01:08:24to see somebody walking those witnesses took the stand the person had on a orange shirt of some sort
01:08:30the memory that stands out male female yeah male young male white african-american african-american
01:08:38the prosecution explained to the jury how faust's dna was found on tara's body and then the jury heard
01:08:44faust tell the gbi he never met tara no connection to her no no all of them i know i
01:08:50mean the whole time
01:08:51she did the whole time i seen it was it was in the newspaper you need to make it clear
01:08:55to the jury that
01:08:56there's no reason that his dna would have been within proximity of tara baker that's correct it
01:09:03seemed like a fairly straightforward case until it wasn't the prosecutor knew chris's dna was also
01:09:09detected and knew the defense was planning to make chris the center of its case so the prosecutor addressed
01:09:15that head on let's talk about what chris was doing on january the 19th of 2001 chris was investigated
01:09:24so thoroughly at the beginning of this case we felt like all of that evidence was really strong for us
01:09:32to show chris's alibi and that in fact it was not possible for him to have been the individual who
01:09:39murdered tara witnesses testified they saw chris throughout that early morning and on bank security
01:09:45video time stamped around 9 a.m this witness was the branch manager in 2001 we watched chris entering the
01:09:52bank um coming in and filling out the withdrawal slip and then going to the teller and getting the cash
01:09:59the prosecutors knew they had to put chris on the stand he told the jury about every place he went
01:10:04that
01:10:04morning and answered questions about himself and tara how was the state of you and tara's relationship
01:10:13you know in those months leading up to her murder everything was wonderful it was difficult for us not to
01:10:21see as much see each other as much as we would have liked but we were both in the understanding
01:10:27that
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 out 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 now
01:11:32sure he last saw tara on sunday five days before the murder from the beginning i said i saw her
01:11:41the
01:11:41weekend prior from the beginning you've said that yes sir that you've seen her the weekend and that has
01:11:48always been what you said there was a time that i was confused and it was 20 plus years later
01:11:56the defense
01:11:58asked chris to look at a photo of tara taken after the murder this is the photo that you were
01:12:03shown to
01:12:04ask to identify miss baker no this was not the photo i don't believe that was the photo it was
01:12:12a photo chris
01:12:13had never seen before he must have cherry-picked some of the the worst picture that i have ever seen
01:12:20from the crime scene it seemed to be more of of an autopsy picture
01:12:32and i just i had never seen something so bad
01:12:37chris melton you're just shown the photograph of his papers ceased and you have not shed a tear
01:12:47come on now i felt like i was being tortured and you felt like that crossed the line yes
01:12:56attorney cruz showed the jury a few pictures as well photos of chris's hands taken during his
01:13:01second police interview two days after tara's death these are chris melton's hands after miss baker's death
01:13:09chris melton said he punched a wall in anger and frustration two days after the murder my injuries
01:13:15came from punching the wall and a detective backed him up telling the jury that on the day of the
01:13:21murder
01:13:21chris's hands showed no signs of injury were those marks on his hands on january 19th of 2001
01:13:30when you interviewed him and then fingerprinted him they were not okay if they had been would you have
01:13:36taken pictures of them the way you did on january 21st yes okay then the defense homed in on the
01:13:43hair
01:13:43found in tara's hand you will hear evidence in this case that there is not a shred of evidence that
01:13:51puts
01:13:52mr false let alone a black person in miss baker's home all of the evidence including the gift miss
01:14:01baker left in her hand for police it's it's it's caucasian hair the defense attorney told the jury that
01:14:10the caucasian hair found in tara baker's hand was a gift for police what was he trying to do there
01:14:16he was
01:14:17trying to convince the jury that mr melton was the perpetrator of the crime because it was caucasian
01:14:22hair that's correct but prosecutors made sure the jury knew what investigators had known for years
01:14:28that the hairs in miss baker's hands were her own hairs the number one rule is you don't lie to
01:14:35a 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 so 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 the
01:14:58jury 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
01:16:02may be watching this who believe that you killed tara baker what do you want to say to those people
01:16:09i would say that i did not kill tara baker i did not kill her i loved her ladies and
01:16:18gentlemen
01:16:18the state has rested back inside the courtroom defense rest defense rests almost immediately yeah no
01:16:25witnesses was 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
01:17:03dna reports 12 hours later to the judge the jury is ready to deliver the verdict i was so terrified
01:17:12so terrified that we were going to come out the other side no different as he waited in the courtroom
01:17:18kevin baker was suddenly the heartbroken little boy of 25 years ago that person that is a grown man that
01:17:27is married that has a family those layers peeled off and that 10 year old boy was left sitting there
01:17:33and
01:17:34inside it was that 10 year old boy crying in that same hotel room the jury finds the defendant on
01:17:40the
01:17:40following counts count one malice murder guilty that first guilty just rocked everything back rocked us all
01:17:53back i was writing it down as they were like count one guilty count two guilty guilty on all counts
01:18:01murder rape and arson
01:18:05when they read the verdict and said guilty to all 12 counts
01:18:12my heart lipped but i couldn't show any emotion
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 more than a shadow a blanket of pain chris's life and business were upended the anger on social
01:19:35media forced him to take down his company's website my beloved sister at faust sentencing tara's
01:19:41brother adam 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
01:20:14fost was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 45 years in prison we asked fost and his defense
01:20:22attorney for interviews fost did not respond his attorney declined free agent foast is appealing his
01:20:32conviction and his supporters are raising money for him the chief of police hopes the community can move
01:20:37forward as a chief i'm responsible for the safety of this community and also building meaningful
01:20:43relationships and during times like this when you have a verdict where people think one thing or the
01:20:50other i think you just have to trust in the courts i swear you used to be taller not long
01:20:55after
01:20:56sentencing meredith had dinner with chris and met his wife jenny they talked for hours i've had multiple
01:21:03conversations where i apologized for the silence what did he say to you don't apologize it's painful
01:21:13but there's no animosity whatsoever
01:21:20at uga posing at the arch is a graduation rite of passage it's where tara's friends come to remember
01:21:26her what do you think about tara now as you stand here by this arch one she's thrilled that this
01:21:32case has been solved but two she's probably mad at us because it took 25 years
01:21:39i have never had my life changed so much by someone that i've never met and tara baker did that
01:21:45for me
01:21:46and for so many people that is tara's legacy what made tara special was
01:21:53the ability to connect with every single person she comes in contact with that's one thing that i
01:21:59keep hearing is that she made so many people feel special yes i've heard so many people tell me that
01:22:06when if they hadn't seen her in a long time when they saw her again she would make them feel
01:22:10like it
01:22:10was the happiest day of her life that's all for this edition of dateline and don't forget to check out
01:22:20our talking dateline podcast in which we'll go behind the scenes of tonight's episode available
01:22:26wednesday in the dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts we'll see you again next friday at 9 8
01:22:33central i'm lester holt for all of us at nbc news good night
01:22:50so
01:22:50so
01:22:50so
01:22:50so
01:22:50so
01:22:50so
01:22:50so
01:22:50You
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