KRYSTAL JEAN BAKER - 13 yo (1996)/ Convicted: Kevin Edison Smith - Texas City TX

Welder arrested in 1996 killing of Texas City girl

By ALLAN TURNER
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle

Sept. 24, 2010, 11:49AM



                   
                   
               McLemore Family photo    

    Krystal Jean Baker at age 13.  Krystal Baker, 13, was reported missing March 5, 1996. Her body was discovered the same day.      


A Louisiana welder is being held in lieu of $1 million bail today after being charged in connection with the 1996 death of a 13-year-old Texas City girl.Texas City Police chief Robert Burby said the arrest of Kevin Smith, 40, was made through a DNA match. Smith was arrested Wednesday – his birthday – at a Port Arthur plant where he was working as a welder.“It’s a miracle from God and all the Angels,’’ the teen’s mother, Jeanie Escamilla, said.Her daughter, Krystal Jean Baker, last was seen as she stormed out of her grandmother’s home in Texas City after a family disagreement about 3 p.m. on March 5th, 1996. Two hours later, her strangled body was found near the Interstate 10 feeder road at the Trinity River in Chambers County.Two weeks passed before authorities linked the body to the missing teen in Texas City.“They kept calling her a runaway,’’ Escamilla said, adding that “she was too girly-girly to be a runaway.’’Escamilla said she and Krystal’s brother and sister distributed pictures and “talked to everyone’’ in a futile effort to find the girl.Escamilla said Krystal phoned friends and family members from a tire shop a short distance from her grandmother’s home asking for a ride. Krystal also called her mother, but Escamilla said, “I was at work and couldn’t get her.”Escamilla worked as a cosmetologist at the time.“She was beautiful on the inside and on the outside,’’ Escamilla said. “But she was a teenager. She loved you one minute and hated you the next.’’Burby said DNA was collected from Smith during a recent arrest was matched to the teen’s murder. He would not divulge details of Smith’s arrest.Escamilla said that as the years dragged by, “I just put it in the hands of God. I just tried to appreciate the moment - when your heart’s been broken, it’s hard to be happy".
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7216137.html

Man Arrested in 1996 Murder of Texas Teen


Updated: 22 hours 1 minute ago

AOL News (Sept. 25) -- A Louisiana man has been charged with the murder of a Texas teenager, 14 years after her body was found.

Kevin Smith, a 45-year-old welder, was arrested at his workplace on Wednesday. Police say DNA records led them to him.

Prosecutors say that Smith killed Krystal Jean Baker, 13, then left her body under a bridge.

The arrest "is a miracle from God and all the angels,'' said the girl's mother, Jeanie Escamilla, according to the Houston Daily Chronicle.

Baker was last seen storming out of her grandmothers' house in Texas City on March 5, 1996, after the two had an argument.

"She did get in a spat with her grandmother that day," said Escamilla.

"She was a teenager," she added, according to the Galveston Daily News. "She loved you one minute and hated you the next."

Later in the day, the girl made calls from a nearby tire shop asking friends and family members to come pick her up. They didn't get to her in time.

Hours later, the teen's body was found. It took authorities two weeks to identify her. During that period, the teenager was listed as missing, and Escamilla frantically handed out pictures to try to locate her daughter.

Police say they took DNA from Smith during a recent arrest on a drug charge. They ran his sample against a database of cases, and came up with a connection to the Baker case.

"He appeared calm and he appeared like he didn't have any idea we were coming to arrest him," said Capt. Brian Goetschius of the Texas City Police Department, according to ABC News.

If convicted, Smith could face life in prison. He is currently being held in lieu of a $1 million bail.

Though Smith is a Louisiana resident, police believe he previously lived in the Texas City area. They are still trying to construct a timeline to determine where and when exactly he was in Texas City.

Escamilla said that she had left the case "in the hands of God" and focused on looking after her five grandchildren.

"I wish I could wake up out of this terrible nightmare and hold my little girl in my arms again," Escamilla said, according to the Galveston Daily News. "None of this is going to bring her back."

Claims trigger probe in teen's 1996 slaying





January 10, 2011

TEXAS CITY — Prosecutors are investigating claims that a man charged with capital murder in a 1996 cold case slaying is innocent after a consultant professed another man confessed to the crime.

The man the consultant said confessed, however, was jailed in a Texas prison when Krystal Jean Baker, 13, went missing in Texas City.

In e-mails sent to Chambers County authorities and The Daily News, James L. McIntyre, who said he is a consultant, claims Kevin Edison Smith, 45, is innocent in the slaying of Baker. The Texas City teen went missing March 5, 1996.

The girl’s body was found four hours after her disappearance beneath the Trinity River bridge in Chambers County. She was sexually assaulted and strangled, authorities said.

Prosecutors claim Smith’s DNA linked him to the killing. Smith was arraigned last month and pleaded not guilty. He remained jailed on a $1 million bond.

Chambers County District Attorney Cheryl Leick announced in October she didn’t intend to seek the death penalty after Smith gave a statement in the case.

Leick told The Daily News the statement was a confession.

Among the 29 e-mails McIntyre sent to The Daily News, he claims he and a retired Houston FBI agent, Mark Young, solved Baker’s homicide 11 years ago.

McIntyre claims inmate Lorenzo Bahena Sanchez, 39, admitted in court to killing Baker. Sanchez hasn’t been charged in connection with Baker’s homicide.

Sanchez was, however, convicted of first-degree murder involving the May 19, 2000, stabbing death of a child in Waseca County, Minn., Sarah Russell, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Corrections, said.

Waseca County Attorney Paul Dressler told The Daily News he would review Sanchez’s court file to learn whether there is any mention of Baker.

Shauna Dunlap, a spokeswoman for the Houston FBI, confirmed Young worked for the FBI, but she didn’t have contact information for him.

Meanwhile, Leick’s office contacted Smith’s attorney, Steve Taylor, to inform him of the e-mail, which also claims Sanchez’s DNA was linked to the Baker homicide.

“We’ve given it to an investigator to look into,” Leick said.

Before Sanchez was convicted of the Minnesota killing, he was jailed in Texas, stemming from 1993 cocaine and theft charges in Dallas County, Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said.

Sanchez was in custody in Texas prisons from Aug. 25, 1995 until May 23, 1996.

Specifically, Sanchez was housed at the Darrington Unit in Rosharon from Feb. 23, 1995, until March 8, 1995. From March 8, 1995, until April 3, 1996, Sanchez was at the Torres Unit in Hondo, Lyons said.

Sanchez remains in Texas under a joint agreement with the state of Minnesota and Texas, serving time for his murder conviction.

The reason Sanchez is housed in Texas is not a matter of public record, Russell said.

Among the newspaper clippings e-mailed from McIntyre to The Daily News, one from Sanchez’s trail in Waseca County said Sanchez would serve his time in Texas to be nearer to relatives.



http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=009eeb044661caf3

Man convicted in 'Killing Fields' murder of Texas City teen

by Lindsey Kovacevich / KFDM & KHOU.com staff
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:21 PM
Updated Thursday, Apr 26 at 10:45 PM

CHAMBERS COUNTY, Texas -- It took a Chambers County jury only about 30 minutes to convict a man of capital murder in the 1996 sexual assault and strangulation of a 13-year-old Texas City girl.

Krystal Jean Baker was last seen at a convenience store in Texas City on March 5, 1996.

In a taped confession, Kevin Edison Smith admitted he gave her a ride, then choked her with a leather strap when she "started freaking out on me."

Smith received an automatic life sentence for killing Baker and dumping her body underneath the Trinity River Bridge on I-10 in Chambers County.

Prosecutors said they didn’t seek the death penalty because investigators want to question Smith about other unsolved murders in an area of I-45 between Houston and Galveston that became known as "The Killing Fields."

Dozens of girls and young women, including Baker,vanished from that area, beginning in the 70s.

Most of the cases remain unsolved.

Smith's jury began deliberating at about 10 a.m. Thursday and reached a decision by 10:30.

Smith didn’t testify in the trial, which began Monday, but they did hear his videotaped interview.

During closing arguments, prosecutors told the jury the evidence against Smith was overwhelming.

"It comes right out of his mouth," said prosecutors. "You heard it on tape. ‘She wouldn’t be quiet. She struggled. So what do I do? I picked up a strap.’"

Baker’s family, Smith, and others in the crowded courtroom began crying at the end of closing arguments, according to KFDM reporter Lindsey Kovacevich.

"I didn’t do that. I didn’t do that," Smith cried out.

"Collect yourself, Mr. Smith, or I’ll have you removed from the courtroom," the judge told him.

Smith was linked to Baker’s death through a national DNA database after he was arrested in Louisiana on a drug charge in 2010.

After the arrest, Krystal’s mother, Jeanie Escamilla, said she had given up hope her daughter’s killer would be found.

"I wish I could wake up out of this terrible nightmare and hold my little girl in my arms again," Escamilla told the Galveston County Daily News in 2010. "None of this is going to bring her back."

Smith, 47, graduated from Galveston's Ball High School and lived near Baker at the time of her disappearance.

http://www.khou.com/news/crime/Man-convicted-in-1996-Texas-City-girl-may-be-suspect-in-Killing-Fields-murders-149115165.html