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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
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 or heading to a football game
00:01:42here at the university of georgia always pushing herself as far and as fast as she could go
00:01:50she had this sort of jump to her walk almost a lilt as if she were bouncing through her day
00:01:57very happy
00:01:58she was a brilliant person she wanted to do the best she could in everything she did
00:02:05what did she mean to you guys everything she was a girl in a hurry but her family would need
00:02:12patience
00:02:12and 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 like this with her
00:02:50little
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
00:03:40athens 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 like they were having a good time basically just friends and really touched me that you know
00:05:27this is this is going to be bad police learned three young women lived in that house valerie ashley
00:05:34and tara officers had no way of knowing who lay dead in the bedroom so they ran the plates on
00:05:40the only
00:05:40car parked in the driveway the owner tara baker an officer called her mother virginia and she said
00:05:48miss baker there's been a fire in athens at tara's house and i said oh my goodness i said we'll
00:05:55be right
00:05:56there because i thought she tara was going to be upset and i wanted to go comfort her because she
00:06:01lost her things you're thinking yes and so i said we'll be down there very soon she said you need
00:06:06to
00:06:07come right now we have a body virginia lived some 80 miles away she called tara's boyfriend chris melton
00:06:14she asked me is tara with you i said no tara's not with me virginia told him what she had
00:06:24just heard
00:06:25i 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 so when you guys get to athens your first stop is the police department that's correct what do
00:06:48they tell you when i walk in they started informing me that yes indeed there was a fire and then
00:06:55that
00:06:55there was a body found in the fire and they need help to identify who it is 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 someone
00:07:22brought him a photo of the victim inside i could not make her out it was horrible and i could
00:07:31not
00:07:31positively say yes this is her and then it did come to me that i had previously given her for
00:07:39an
00:07:40anniversary gift i had given her diamond studded earrings for our two-year and she always wore them
00:07:47and i told him i said if this is tara she's wearing diamond studded earrings moments later one of those
00:07:55emergency workers came back with proof delicate heartbreaking proof and he came up to me with a
00:08:04closed hand and when he opened his hand there's one of the diamond studded earrings the earring you gave
00:08:10of her and 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 could 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 at
00:08:52the
00:08:53ceiling 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 in 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
00:10:26evidence as the crime scene technicians worked detectives wanted to talk to anyone close to
00:10:31tara including 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 it'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
00:11:31this
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 you all in just a minute but you're
00:11:43going to
00:11:43have to excuse me i gotta go get a cup of coffee because i've been out in the rain all
00:11:46day that's
00:11:47what he said to you that'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
00:12:26and 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
00:12:38they rushed back to athens we were just trying to make sense of it it was just it was horrible
00:12:44and you're young students at the time and then have something like this well you just didn't think
00:12:48anything like that could could happen to you the next day tara was supposed to have been celebrating
00:12:54her 24th birthday instead her grandparents were bringing her 10 year old brother kevin to athens
00:13:00and my dad sat on the bed and he said there was a fire at tara's apartment my first reaction
00:13:10is
00:13:10is she okay is she in the hospital i want to go see her and he said no she didn't
00:13:19make it i walked
00:13:20in there and his little fists were balled up he was just screaming no tara no i just
00:13:27his world was shattered meredith always referred to her as the north star that they would sit there
00:13:34you know kind of follow her path tara was the oldest of four and she had her own special bond
00:13:40with each of her siblings adam was the oldest boy adam and tara were so close meredith was next in
00:13:48line
00:13:48she was very doting and protective of me i had very low self-esteem growing up and she would always
00:13:56be like oh isn't my sister so pretty she would do my hair um tell me you know it's okay
00:14:02kevin was the
00:14:04youngest tara called him her baby darling tara was my person if i knew she was coming home i would
00:14:12pace
00:14:12the door looking outside like a lost puppy waiting for her to drive up the people close to tara say
00:14:19she had a strong sense of justice and an even bigger sense of humor she was one of the funniest
00:14:24people i know and she just didn't try tara could tell you to go straight to hell and make you
00:14:29look
00:14:29forward for the trip because she would say it in such a nice way she definitely was very much the
00:14:37person that would 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
00:14:59to do she knew where she wanted to go definitely she definitely did i'd never have known a person who
00:15:05loved life as much as she did when you say that she loved life what did that look like she
00:15:10got up
00:15:10every morning excited sometimes she would call me and just say mama look up look at the sky it's
00:15:16beautiful it's a tara day the blue sky and the white clouds god made it just for me but now
00:15:22on this
00:15:23dreary day in athens georgia there wasn't an ounce of beauty to be found nothing made sense a murder
00:15:29an arson just out of the blue or maybe not a few weeks earlier two of those buildings were on
00:15:38fire
00:15:39both of them two of them
00:15:53it wasn't long before the killing on fawn 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 combing through the charred
00:16:07remains of tara baker's bedroom he'll never forget it i could smell the shampoo in her hair
00:16:15and i can smell it to this day never it never left a lot of times of course investigators talk
00:16:22about
00:16:22different moments from a scene or particularly disturbing scene that just kind of really drives
00:16:29home how brutal this was yes this was that moment yeah it also told him something important tara was
00:16:38most certainly killed after she got out of the shower her roommates helped police develop a timeline
00:16:44of the crime tara was very much a creature of habit yes 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
00:16:58breakfast yeah every day yep and then go back and get ready in fact patrolman jerry salters saw tara's
00:17:07bowl in the sink seeing that bowl sitting there and going about her day and just being in there and
00:17:14seeing that was it's pretty hard after her last breakfast she would have gone to blow dry her hair
00:17:21in her bedroom like she always did her hair is very thick so she'd sit usually at the foot of
00:17:26her bed flip
00:17:26her head over and just sit there and just blow dry it investigators noticed another detail sealed in by
00:17:33the fire itself she had a clock in her bedroom and the clock quit at 9 32 because of the
00:17:41heat because of the heat
00:17:43yeah so that helps you kind of narrow down a window of time of death yes yes sometime between 7
00:17:5130 and 9 30 they figured
00:17:54initially as you're walking through you don't see any evidence that you know somebody had gone
00:17:58through drawers or tried to take anything none at all it was later on we discovered that her laptop was
00:18:05taken truth 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 on
00:18:38the bed it was my blanket so they used my blanket to do that you know i mean that detail
00:18:43is 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
00:18:57you know 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
00:19:09time there were some arson fires so there was speculation is it an arsonist that he actually
00:19:16come into the house maybe surprise tara and kill her and then go about setting the place on fire
00:19:24and those previous fires were within a stone's throw of tara's home a few weeks earlier two of those
00:19:31buildings were on fire both of them two of them just after the murder police also got specific
00:19:38tips about a man walking alone in the rain around the time of the killing and from what i was
00:19:45told
00:19:45back then they reached out to their sources you know might have been involved in different criminal
00:19:51activities and a name never came up one of the first things investigators wanted to know of course
00:19:58was how did the killer get inside the doors were locked when firefighters arrived but doug whitehead
00:20:06noticed something i can't tell you for 100 but that screen was out of that window the window screen
00:20:12right here this window screen and was propped against the side of the building so you're thinking
00:20:16maybe whoever did this came in and out through this window maybe so but the killing was so violent so
00:20:23up
00:20:24close it looked like a crime of passion not a random act could you get a sense in those early
00:20:31days
00:20:32maybe of what direction police were going by the questions they were asking you at the time they're
00:20:37just asking about any male in her life whether it be at the law school or at work or you
00:20:43know in her
00:20:43personal life 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 um
00:21:11but she
00:21:12was with chris so she definitely said no asking girls out was one thing what katie told police next
00:21:18sounded much more suspicious the friday morning that tara died he had come in and he'd had an injury
00:21:26on his head an injury the morning of the murder that would get police looking in suit boy's direction
00:21:32but he wasn't the only one they needed to talk to tara's mother had an idea one disturbingly close
00:21:39to 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 i never met anybody in my life more confident in who they
00:22:18were what they were doing and where they were going in my little tara in the end she never even
00:22:27got to
00:22:27finish 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
00:23:00repeatedly who could have done this she started to wonder about someone who was no stranger to the
00:23:07family her first husband tara's father he threatened me when i divorced him a lot and he his threats to
00:23:15me were hitting me in the head to the point that you couldn't recognize my face tara's family had been
00:23:20told few 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 growing
00:23:33up she thought of lindsay as her dad and wanted no contact with her biological father she refused to
00:23:39answer us phone calls she just didn't want anything to do they didn't have a relationship absolutely not
00:23:44and she made that clear when she changed her last name taking her stepdad's name and dropping her
00:23:50biological 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
00:24:16address and she was a little concerned now the wheels were turning in virginia's mind did the name change
00:24:24set him off he had a tremendous ego and he was didn't like being rejected she urged investigators
00:24:32to look into him and they checked him out they called him in at my request police spoke to him
00:24:39at
00:24:39the police twice they examined his alibi and could find no evidence he was in athens at the time of
00:24:44the murder by 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 police had
00:25:07done more than just take chris's fingerprints two days after the murder they had him back at the police
00:25:12station where they took blood and hair samples along with pictures of his body what were police telling
00:25:18you about him they didn't say anything at first but then they were saying that he is a suspect they
00:25:23told you that yeah and they went a step further they urged tara's friends to steer clear of chris
00:25:31this was a friend of yours yeah i mean you all had known each other since undergrad was that jarring
00:25:35for you to hear stay away from this guy everything was jarring back then though i mean i think
00:25:39we were all in shock still and like we didn't know who were targeted we didn't know you know so
00:25:45you're just scared when we wanted to respect the process so if that would be a part of the process
00:25:50then we were going to do whatever we were told to do because we wanted we wanted an answer tara's
00:25:56family 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 didn't
00:26:10flat out sit me down and say he did this i just think that he was trying to make sense
00:26:14of 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
00:27:04it was 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 i felt like they had nothing not on me but just for the
00:27:28case
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
00:28:12every 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
00:28:39the investigation was constantly changing hands and to the family no one seemed to be in charge kevin
00:28:47went from a little boy to a young teen watching investigators come and go you hit a a wall and
00:28:54then a new team starts over and said okay well we'll figure it out well we're gonna start at the
00:28:59the beginning virginia says some of the information they did get in those first few
00:29:04years was bizarre and flat out wrong the police came to my house and demonstrated how somebody had
00:29:13snuck up behind her and one pretended to be tear on the other was you know the culprit and pretended
00:29:20how she was her throat was cut from behind so she died quickly they demonstrated that they
00:29:25demonstrated that in my living room it was a twisted game of charades so officers were acting
00:29:30out for your family what they believe happened to my mother and then later walked it back said no
00:29:38that's not what happened later admitted that was wrong yeah with every restart came renewed focus on
00:29:46the boyfriend chris for the longest time we were told this is who did it whether or not we believed
00:29:52it
00:29:52we were told and so naturally you don't reach out you don't talk to that person but police had
00:29:58repeatedly his answer never changed i loved her so much it was so deep it's painful to lose her and
00:30:06then
00:30:06it's painful to be looked at that way chris says each time he talked to police he gave them his
00:30:14alibi
00:30:14he had not seen tara in days the night before the murder he slept over at his parents house almost
00:30:21an
00:30:21hour from the crime scene that morning he went to work stopping at a few places along the way
00:30:27when they question you again are they asking you different questions new questions most of the time
00:30:32it's the same questions it's like it landed on somebody else's desk and now they're starting over
00:30:38it happened again and again the phone would ring and the questions would start once they would reach out
00:30:45and talk to me they would ask me questions and i would return ask questions myself what about this or
00:30:50what about that you know and and they wouldn't give me answers did anyone ever come out and just tell
00:30:56you that you were a suspect you know as far as actually saying that i don't recall them actually
00:31:04saying that suspect it was just in the actions chris says it was excruciating because all he ever wanted
00:31:11to do was spend the rest of his life with tara he says he knew she was special just a
00:31:16few weeks after
00:31:17their first date they ran into each other at a crowded college bar we end up back to back and
00:31:23i
00:31:23feel her hand reach around like tickle my arm with her fingernails and then i reach back and i hold
00:31:32her
00:31:32hand and it's kind of silly to say this but i remember i gotta go to the restroom so bad
00:31:37but you're
00:31:38holding her hand yes and you don't want to let it go and i'm not letting go you could not
00:31:44have dragged
00:31:44me away they never got their happy ending instead chris says he tried to go on with his life he
00:31:51built
00:31:51up a small business as a plumber and did his best to put the pain behind him but one time
00:31:57when yet
00:31:58another investigator made yet another call chris didn't hold back she asked me a question and i had to
00:32:06take time to consider you know just i need i need to answer the question and then she aggressively
00:32:14flipped things around a little bit and said well didn't you say this or that or something and then
00:32:20that's when i just kind of lost it do you remember what you said i remember yelling that i love
00:32:27tara
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
00:32:48i'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 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
00:33:15this apartment he was there at the crime scene and police never interview him
00:33:32it 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
00:33:48tough it's been very difficult you know all these years not knowing you know the why and what truly
00:33:55happened as the years passed the relationship between the athens clark county pd and the baker family
00:34:01deteriorated one of the most egregious things we did was miscommunicate with the baker family early on
00:34:10there were some investigators that told them things about the case file that were just not true
00:34:18david griffith a civilian crime analyst with the athens pd began looking into tara's case
00:34:23four years after she was murdered i'll never forget meeting meredith baker for the first time
00:34:30introducing myself and she's dismissive and she tells me to my face you're just another face
00:34:36in this long drawn out investigation and next year you probably won't be here and wow they felt
00:34:43burned 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
00:34:59tara baker case file it was thousands of pages thick griffith hit reset he started in a familiar
00:35:06place in my mind initially it lent itself more to a domestic violence type scenario so i think that
00:35:15made me personally suspect chris melton initially maybe it was a lover's quarrel that went really
00:35:20sideways a crime of passion supported by the fact that tara's killer didn't arrive armed with a murder
00:35:28weapon the knife came from a knife block in the kitchen disorganized is how we classified it all
00:35:35of the tools 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
00:35:47we weren't dealing with a criminal mastermind griffith re-examined chris's alibi in a new round
00:35:53of interviews the police interviewed chris melton's parents his parents see him go to bed in his bed at
00:35:59their house his father gets up at 5 30 in the morning and sees chris's truck out in the driveway
00:36:05so believes he's at home chris's assistant told police he picked chris up for work at 7 15 a.m
00:36:11so he has a pretty good alibi he's got a pretty good alibi and the the best piece of his
00:36:16alibi is
00:36:17at the 9 a.m hour he's caught on camera making a withdrawal at a at a bank over by
00:36:23his parents
00:36:24house at that point he's an hour away from the crime scene notes in the file indicated police saw
00:36:31the video of him making that withdrawal they're allowed to view the video but the bank employees
00:36:38won't give them the videotape and ask them to go through wachovia's legal department to get a copy of
00:36:44the security footage did they follow up evidently there was no follow-up because there's no mention
00:36:50of that videotape after that in the case file so griffith sent a detective back to the bank to get
00:36:56a
00:36:56time-stamped receipt for chris's transaction we were confident in the timeline that we had put together
00:37:02for chris melton and we felt like he would have had to have been able to bend space and time
00:37:08to have
00:37:08killed tara baker griffith reinvestigated other possible suspects tara's biological
00:37:14father and that awkward law student they called suit boy who gave police an alibi griffith ruled them
00:37:20both out but as he was digging through the file a name caught his eye someone who had easy access
00:37:27to
00:37:27tara's home the maintenance man at her development william bryant barrett has a master key that really
00:37:35makes us wonder is william bryant barrett possibly the killer when we start looking at his timeline
00:37:43we know that he shows up on the crime scene at some point the day that her body's found and
00:37:51local
00:37:51affiliates 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
00:38:04police asked him to help secure the building he gets to talking with investigators about theoretically
00:38:12how somebody could have made entry and he demonstrates how to open one of the windows
00:38:17with a knife blade so let me make sure i have that straight this is one of the very few
00:38:21people who has a
00:38:22key to this apartment he was there at the crime scene he shows investigators how to open and close the
00:38:27window with a knife blade and police never interview him no how does that happen i don't know the
00:38:34answer to that plane it was just one of the lapses and investigative effort that happened in this case
00:38:40and it in my mind it's probably the biggest lapse by the time police finally sat barrett down for an
00:38:46interview jerry salters had gone from patrolman to detective he conducted the interview there were
00:38:52some discrepancies on what time he was where and did he have time to commit this i did move into
00:38:58more
00:38:59of an interrogation where i became accusatory uh with him just to really to gain a response
00:39:04and 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
00:39:24details of the crime scene that only the killer would know and investigators would know what does
00:39:30he tell us about the ligature that was used and that she's badly beaten and that's not information
00:39:37that's been publicly released at least we believe so in the moment as we're conducting this interview did
00:39:43he volunteer 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
00:39:54forensic evidence to link the maintenance man or anyone else to tara's brutal death still william brian
00:40:02barrett becomes person of interest number one and what do you do we flail for years believing that
00:40:11william brian barrett'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 something would
00:40:30have to change and when it did somebody knew was asking the questions you are getting new information
00:40:37absolutely liz called me and said we have a name i was just freaking out i'm like everybody get to
00:40:46headquarters
00:41:01tara was never far from meredith's mind 18 years after her sister's murder meredith was
00:41:0733 years old with children of her own what were those years like for you my wedding day was
00:41:13difficult 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 was
00:41:42preparing to leave the athens clark county police department he decided terrace family should know
00:41:47what he 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
00:42:00fall to meredith he sits me down with a whole host of other folks and he walks me through the
00:42:07whole
00:42:07timeline 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 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 but
00:42:46still 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
00:43:01top keep that in mind we didn't know about the stabbing griffith told meredith about his number
00:43:06one person of interest he gave me the the maintenance man theory but it was still a theory at that
00:43:12point
00:43:13he also shared something else something no previous investigator had ever said he told me absolutely
00:43:21chris didn't do it that was huge news for years their family had shunned chris
00:43:28i 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
00:43:42had long left with each new class her murder became more like a memory passed down through
00:43:48campus memorials or newspaper articles that's how a young freshman named cameron j harrelson first heard
00:43:55her name it was an anniversary piece like that the red and black newspaper had done on her death at
00:44:01the
00:44:01time you were a true crime fan yourself yes a fan of dateline a fan of podcasts a few years
00:44:07later
00:44:07cameron decided he wanted to launch his own podcast and tara baker's case he thought was the perfect place
00:44:14to start but first he had to convince virginia baker a random guy like me calling miss virginia baker for
00:44:22the first time i believe her first response to me was who are you and who are you with i
00:44:27said i don't
00:44:28even know what a podcast is so you're gonna have to explain some of this to me and why would
00:44:32i want to
00:44:32talk to you and at the time i had no podcast name had no idea what i was doing and
00:44:37said i'm just me
00:44:39and i want to learn about your daughter he convinced me that he cared about tara and wanted to tell
00:44:44her
00:44:44story and that's all i've ever wanted is to tell her story yeah and he said maybe we can bring
00:44:49in you
00:44:50know some some clues maybe we can bring in you know some tips maybe the podcast also opened a door
00:44:57that chris melton thought was closed for good how did you find out that there was a podcast about
00:45:03tara's case meredith 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 the email led to a phone
00:45:17call
00:45:18and that conversation was pretty you know pretty emotional you know and she was trying to urge you
00:45:27to to talk to talk on this podcast she's like would you participate and help us move forward
00:45:34and absolutely you would i would cameron launched the podcast in july of 2020 welcome welcome welcome
00:45:44the story of tara louise baker will be the focus of season one of classic city crime family and friends
00:45:51told cameron all about tara and also vented their frustration and anger at the investigation what
00:45:58would you say to the police department don't ever do this to anybody else and if you don't know what
00:46:06you're doing get help my goal is to remind people of her life tell people what happened show them the
00:46:14investigation and then hopefully as a result of that law enforcement could solve it it's not my job
00:46:20it's theirs he interviewed chris about the years he spent under suspicion did police continue
00:46:26to follow up with you and interrogate you or they did come after me i would go and give hair
00:46:31samples
00:46:32blood samples tissue and cameron asked about his feelings for tara she was just such a beautiful
00:46:40person on the inside when she smiled she bit the tip of her tongue
00:46:46and people were listening over two years the podcast audience grew to hundreds of thousands it
00:46:56wasn't just people listening people were calling in people were sending you tips like week after week
00:47:03yes hundreds of tips a week and vetted a lot of that and the things that we believe were vetted
00:47:08enough
00:47:09we took to the air still after dozens of episodes and all those tips no new leads for police two
00:47:18years
00:47:18in cameron ended it without any real ending and i did not think it would be ethical for me to
00:47:25continue
00:47:26producing content with tara's family just for the heck of it without answers without answers but then he had
00:47:33another idea one that would put tara's case in an even bigger spotlight this is not just a law this
00:47:40was 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
00:48:35and 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 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 town
00:49:37next 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 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 georgia bureau of investigation at what point did this go from okay we're doing a podcast to hey
00:50:11we're pushing for new legislation to be passed it was a shock i never envisioned doing anything like that
00:50:20i thought we were just going to do this podcast and that would be the end of it and i
00:50:23went with cameron
00:50:24and 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
00:50:55one funded 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 on so long there was no hope for that
00:51:17but i wanted to see it help someone else and i wanted to see it be part of her legacy
00:51:22still tara's family applied for her case to get a second look under the new law
00:51:26just in case and soon meredith found herself walking into the office of the georgia bureau
00:51:32of investigation to meet yet another team of investigators i'm like okay i guess we're doing
00:51:37this this is just kind of our last hail mary see if anything comes of this if not you know
00:51:45we tried we tried yeah so you were assigned two agents yes what were their names liz and jeremy
00:51:52special agents liz biggum and jeremy howell so what are you thinking when you get this assignment
00:51:58i better solve this no i mean it was a privilege that i was trusted enough and they had enough
00:52:06confidence in me to be assigned the case in the first place honestly the case has always had this
00:52:12mythology here in athens so it was exciting to have an opportunity to see the evidence to see
00:52:18the case file to read it and go through it i can remember the file drawer that it sat in
00:52:24it was 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
00:52:30about that first meeting your first conversation with them i was shocked by they were professional but
00:52:37the amount of empathy that they expressed you felt something i did like i believed the words that
00:52:43they were saying but meredith and her family had seen this movie before so you're thinking okay great
00:52:49they're sincere they're kind they care but what are they going to do right what were they going to do
00:52:55well they were about to take a new look at an old piece of evidence and it would change everything
00:53:01we 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 any
00:53:40number of different ways since 2001 why might this time be different i think what makes it different uh is
00:53:49that we're given the gifts of of time resources uh and uh a supervision structure that allows us uh
00:53:59pretty much uninterrupted to be able to start this process and see it through i knew something was
00:54:04happening 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
00:54:47that could be done with that at the lab that we got that process rolling we came to the conclusion
00:54:52that call it maybe 10 or so pieces of evidence could go back to the lab for additional testing
00:54:58or re-examination evidence like that cord around tara's neck along with the knife and knife block from
00:55:05the kitchen there was also a power block connected to the printer the hope that forensic science had
00:55:12evolved enough to reveal fingerprints investigators couldn't detect back in 2001 liz called me and
00:55:18told me that they were going to be resubmitting things to the gbi crime lab and i was like oh
00:55:23she said
00:55:23that they were resubmitting the knife block that they were resubmitting the knife that they were
00:55:27resubmitting the transformer power block i was like okay you send those items off any luck did you get
00:55:32anything no 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 i suspected that would be the case
00:56:01the agents then turned to another piece of old evidence tara's sexual assault kit back in 2001
00:56:08that kit yielded no clues and then it's just kind of sat there since 2001 now two decades later the
00:56:18agents wondered whether dna science had caught up with the evidence our dna manager had been exposed to
00:56:25some training and had some experience with a different way to test a sexual assault kit
00:56:32and it was essentially testing for male dna and he just said hey you know this has never been tested
00:56:38for male dna let's let's try it that's something that wasn't available back in 2001 that was not
00:56:43available these techniques were not available back then she said that they were resubmitting the rape
00:56:47kit and i went huh you didn't even know that existed i didn't know that it was still there
00:56:52i told her i said i thought that all the evidence dna evidence had been exhausted
00:56:58and she said i don't think they knew what they had so she's laying this out for you and it's
00:57:02like
00:57:02this treasure trove oh yeah new information i was just in disbelief and i'm at work i'm standing
00:57:08in the conference room with the door closed listening to her and i'm like okay i think that's the first
00:57:14time that i had a glimmer of hope like this could happen there might be something there
00:57:19it 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
00:57:39in the sense that we were really hoping we would get something from it and we were just kind of
00:57:44waiting
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 agents back to the beginning do you all re-interview chris melton we do if there was ever a
00:58:19time
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 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
00:59:28murdered 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
01:00:22in five days and then it changes to ten days i just remember ten days i don't know why i
01:00:28say that if
01:00:28there was ever a time to be 100 on the record it is now time had gone by so many
01:00:38decades had 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
01:00:53knew 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
01:01:26staring 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
01:02:59clark county pd where agents biggum and howell sat down to talk to him hey how are you good good
01:03:06are you miss faust he was cordial he answered our questions um you know for a while how are you
01:03:14miss faust i am 48 are you sure okay
01:03:22hey what's the good home address for you having dispatched with the pleasantries biggum turned up
01:03:27the 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 oh no connection to her
01:04:02no no
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 is in that house help us
01:04:25he never gave them an explanation instead he said he needed a lawyer he ended it with yeah
01:04:32you can go ahead and take me to jail
01:04:36and 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
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
01:05:01worked tirelessly to 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
01:05:19i was emotional then you hear the name edrick faust yes what did you think who's this guy
01:05:29who's edrick faust i was like i don't i don't know who this person is i've never seen this person
01:05:33before in my life just the fact that this person was in my peripheral the whole time it was terrifying
01:05:39he was close by this is somebody who had been living just right by your house yeah i'm like did
01:05:46i see
01:05:46him like is this somebody i passed in the street yeah maybe waved hello to at some point we certainly
01:05:51wouldn't have thought that anyone would have been stalking us or watching us we were in a safe college
01:05:56town meredith learned about faust's criminal past including that he'd stabbed someone in the neck
01:06:02just two weeks after tara's murder what are you thinking as you're reading this how is this
01:06:08person still around tara's gone she was denied a life and this guy has lived 25 years of wreaking
01:06:16havoc and and ruining other people's lives like why why tara's loved ones hoped their questions would
01:06:24be answered at trial i was ready to see the person who created and caused all this to have to
01:06:29face its
01:06:30consequences i figured that i was going to have to be involved somehow because i was her boyfriend
01:06:37have a seat little did he know just how involved he would be chris melton's dna chris melton told law
01:06:45enforcement chris 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
01:07:14room as this person i can't even explain the feeling i tried not to look at him most of the
01:07:20time
01:07:21other times i felt like my glance was burning through the back of his head when the trial of edrick
01:07:27faust
01:07:27began 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 yellam and chili led the prosecution what is the key thing
01:07:51that you need to drive home to the jury the dna the dna and the lack of any type of
01:07:57connection
01:07:58between tara baker and edrick faust assistant da chris bolden handled the opening statement who killed
01:08:06tara baker ladies 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
01:08:29sort it's the memory that stands out male female yeah male young male white african-american african
01:08:37american the prosecution explained to the jury how faust's dna was found on tara's body and then the
01:08:44jury heard faust tell the gbi he never met tara no connection to her no no all of them i
01:08:50know
01:08:53you 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 we felt like all of that evidence was really strong for us to show chris's alibi and
01:09:34that
01:09:34in fact it was not possible for him to have been the individual who murdered tara witnesses testified
01:09:41they saw chris throughout that early morning and on bank security video time stamped around 9 a.m
01:09:47this witness was the branch manager in 2001 we watched chris entering the bank um coming in
01:09:54and 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 as
01:10:21much see each other as much as we would have liked but we were both in the understanding that we
01:10:28were
01:10:29pursuing future paths for us to have a better future together and then it was the defense's turn
01:10:37anyone listening to false attorney ahmad cruz this is chris melton might have thought it was chris melton
01:10:43on 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 chris
01:10:57miller than i did edric faust and in cruz cross-examination of chris this was his first
01:11:03question why 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 against
01:11:19his client instead he focused on chris melton's emotions his alibi and his changing story about when
01:11:26he last saw tara did you have sex with miss baker the day of her death no sir chris was
01:11:32now sure he
01:11:33last saw tara on sunday five days before the murder from the beginning i said i saw her the weekend
01:11:41prior
01:11:43from the beginning you've said that yes sir that you've seen her the weekend and that has always been
01:11:49what you said there was a time that i was confused and it was 20 plus years later the defense
01:11:58asked chris
01:11:59to look at a photo of tara taken after the murder this is the photo that you were shown to
01:12:04ask to identify
01:12:05miss baker no this was not the photo i don't believe that was the photo it was a photo chris
01:12:13had never
01:12:13seen before he must have cherry picked some of the the worst picture that i have ever seen from the
01:12:20crime
01:12:21scene it seemed to be more of of an autopsy picture
01:12:32and i just i had never seen something so bad mr melton you were just shown
01:12:42the photograph of his papers ceased and you have not shed a tear
01:12:47oh no i felt like i was being tortured and you felt like that crossed the line yes
01:12:55attorney 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
01:13:08death chris melton said he punched a wall in anger and frustration two days after the murder
01:13:15my injuries injuries came from punching the wall and a detective backed him up telling the jury that on
01:13:21the day of the murder chris's hands showed no signs of injury were those marks on his hands on january
01:13:2819th
01:13:29of 2001 when you interviewed him and then fingerprinted 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
01:13:51that puts mr false let alone a black person in miss baker's home all of the evidence including the
01:14:00gift miss baker left in her hand for police it's it's it's caucasian hair the defense attorney told
01:14:09the jury that the caucasian hair found in tara baker's hand was a gift for police what was he
01:14:15trying to do there he was trying to convince the jury that mr melton was the perpetrator of the crime
01:14:21because it was caucasian hair that's correct but prosecutors made sure the jury knew what
01:14:27investigators had known for years that the hairs in miss baker's hands were her own hairs the number one
01:14:34rule is you don't lie to a jury you don't over promise and the moment he said that i wrote
01:14:40down
01:14:40on my pad they're hers that's her hair so either he doesn't know that or he is intentionally misleading
01:14:50the jury tara's family thought the whole defense was a weak attempt at smoke and mirrors
01:14:56but with the case headed for the jury not everyone agreed this is just shocking and then like i say
01:15:02it's unbelievable
01:15:19for those with eyes on the athens clark county courtroom the trial of edrick faust had seemingly taken a
01:15:25detour it just seemed like i was the one on trial i couldn't believe it i couldn't believe it it
01:15:31was
01:15:32maddening but outside the court the defense's words appeared to be landing we met protesters
01:15:39including some of faust family members who believe he was wrongly accused this is just shocking and
01:15:45then like i say it's so unbelievable yeah justice for edrick faust i want edrick faust to walk free
01:15:52and like faust's defense attorney they pointed the finger at chris melton he lied he lied he lied
01:15:58because he had not seen her in two days chris there are some people who may be watching this who
01:16:04believe that you killed tara baker what do you want to say to those people i would say that i
01:16:12did not
01:16:13kill tara baker i did not kill her i loved her ladies and gentlemen the state has rested back inside
01:16:19the
01:16:20courtroom defense rest defense rest almost immediately yeah no witnesses was that a shock to you yes yeah
01:16:29absolutely for closing arguments both sides gave it their all they falsely accused him and they tried
01:16:36mightily mightily to bury the truth there is not one shred of evidence not one single shred of
01:16:49evidence that indicates that chris melton was angry with tara would hurt tara or wanted her dead
01:16:59then the jurors had the case they asked to review testimony dna reports 12 hours later
01:17:07to the judge the jury is ready to deliver the verdict i was so terrified so terrified that we
01:17:14were going 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 has
01:17:28a
01:17:28family those layers peeled off and that 10 year old boy was left sitting there and inside it was that
01:17:3510 year old boy crying in that same hotel room the jury finds the defendant on the following counts count
01:17:42one malice murder guilty that first guilty just rocked everything back rocked us all back i was writing
01:17:54it down 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
01:18:12my heart lipped but i couldn't show any emotion i did not want to make it any harder on his
01:18:19family
01:18:20by showing joy or you know because i i know how hard it would have to be
01:18:27to think that somebody in your own family could be capable of this type of thing police warned chris
01:18:34to stay away from the courthouse for the verdict he heard it hunched over a cell phone and it was
01:18:40a
01:18:40hallelujah moment and a release and we just celebrated amongst us that they had come to the right decision
01:18:55but for tara baker's family still no peace the trial had triggered a social media storm and the
01:19:01verdict only made it worse with chris tara's family even tara herself all under attack
01:19:09there was a lot of online social media commentary yes which made everything so much worse i mean some of
01:19:16it got bad some of it was painful at times i can't believe people can be that cruel did that
01:19:20almost kind
01:19:21of cast a shadow of sorts over this this moment that you'd waited so long for more than a shadow
01:19:28a blanket of pain chris's life and business were upended the anger on social media forced him to
01:19:36take down his company's website my beloved sister at faust sentencing tara's brother adam spoke directly
01:19:43to his sister's convicted killer tara and i were more than siblings we were best friends today sitting
01:19:51in this courtroom face to face i can honestly say i have forgiven you i'll harbor no hate in my
01:19:57heart
01:19:58i've given that all to god i mean tara's been gone for 25 years it doesn't change that 25 years
01:20:03it doesn't
01:20:03change the 25 years that are to come she's still gone yeah but to know that we finally got justice
01:20:11i can't i can't describe that feeling faust was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 45 years
01:20:19in prison we asked faust and his defense attorney for interviews faust did not respond his attorney
01:20:25declined faust 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 you
01:20:46have a verdict where people think one thing or the other i think you just have to trust in the
01:20:52courts
01:20:52i'm serious you used to be taller not long after sentencing meredith had dinner with chris and met
01:20:58his wife jenny they talked for hours i've had multiple conversations where i apologized for the silence
01:21:06what did he say to you don't apologize it's painful but there's no animosity whatsoever
01:21:18ever at uga posing at the arch is a graduation rite of passage it's where tara's friends come to
01:21:26remember her what do you think about tara now
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