ZAHRA CLARE BAKER - 10 yo (2010) - Hickory NC

Elisa Baker indicted on drug trafficking charges

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A federal grand jury indicted Elisa Baker on drug trafficking charges Wednesday.

Baker is the stepmother of 10-year-old Zahra Baker, who was killed in September 2010.

The indictment alleges that Baker conspired to distribute the painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone, and alprazolam, which is more commonly known as Zanax, used to treat anxiety disorders.

According to the indictment, Baker distributed drugs from 2006 to October 2010. The indictment alleges that she used residences in Granite Falls, Hudson and Hickory to keep and distribute them.

Neighbors in the mobile home park in Hudson where Baker lived with her husband, Adam, and stepdaughter Zahra, told NewsChannel 36 they suspected dealing.

"When they lived down there, cars would come in and out all the time," Peggy Johnson said. "They'd go to the end of the trailer and raise the underpining up and get the drugs out."

Johnson said she's only surprised that Adam Baker, Zahra's father, is not charged as well. "I've seen him go out and get them, him and her both," she said.

Baker is currently being held in the Catawba County Detention Center on the second-degree murder charge in the death of her stepdaughter. She will remain there.

She also faces charges for bigamy and writing worthless checks.

The federal charges carry maximum sentences of 20 years in prison. There are seven counts in all.


Full Document: Read the indictment
http://media.wcnc.com/documents/ElisaBakerDrugIndictment+.pdf

http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/Elisa-Baker-indicted-on-drug-trafficking-charges-122191399.html

Elisa Baker indicted on 7 federal drug charges


Stepmother of Zahra Baker accused of distributing drugs from May 2006 to October 2010
CHARLOTTE --
Elisa Baker was indicted on seven counts of drug charges in federal court Wednesday.

The stepmother to 10-year-old Zahra Baker, Elisa Baker is accused of distributing and conspiring to distribute the prescription drugs Oxycodone, Hydrocodone and Alprazolam between May 2006 and October 2010.

The investigation into Baker’s missing stepdaughter began on Oct. 9, 2010, and she was arrested by Hickory police for obstruction the following day.

Baker, 42, is charged with:

One count of conspiring with others known and unknown to distribute and possess with intent to distribute the controlled substance of Oxycodone, Hydrocodone and Alprazolam from 2006 to October 2010 in Caldwell and Catawba counties;
One count of distribute and possess with intent to distribute the controlled substance of Oxycodone from May 2006 to October 2010 in Caldwell and Catawba counties;
One count of distribute and possess with intent to distribute the controlled substance of Hydrocodone in Caldwell and Catawba counties from May 2006 to October 2010;
One count of distribute and possess with intent to distribute the controlled substance of Alprazolam from May 2006 to October 2010;
One count of maintaining a residence in Granite Falls to distribute the controlled substances of Oxycodone, Hydrocodone and Alprazolam from July 24, 2009, to Nov. 9, 2009;
One count of maintaining a residence in Hudson to distribute the controlled substances of Oxycodone, Hydrocodone and Alprazolam from Nov. 13, 2009 to April 8, 2010;
One count of maintaining a residence in Hickory to distribute the controlled substances of Oxycodone, Hydrocodone and Alprazolam from July 2010 to October 2010.
Hydrocodone and Oxycodone, also known as Oxycontin, are prescription medications used to treat moderate pain and are in the opiate family. Alprazolam, also known as Xanax, is primarily used for anxiety.

The indictment lists the addresses of the apartment complex and mobile home where Baker and her husband, Adam, lived in Caldwell County, as well as the house they rented in Hickory.

Shirley Mims and her husband, Darrell, lived next door to the Bakers when they lived at the Congress Street Apartments in Granite Falls. The manager of the apartment complex, Shirley said she suspected something was going on when the Bakers lived there in 2009.

When she was interviewed in October 2010, Shirley said, “I think a lot of drugs were involved. The first of the month, there were cars, cars cars, and they only stayed a minute.”

Shirley eventually asked the Bakers to leave the apartment complex because Adam and Elisa screamed and fought so much.

“One-and-a-half days after we asked them to move, they were gone,” Shirley said. “I got the impression they didn’t want the police here.”

Baker was investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations and the Hickory Policy Department.

Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to Anne M. Tompkins, U.S attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. The conspiracy to distribute and three counts of distribution and possession with intent to distribute also carry a fine of up to $1 million. The three counts of maintaining a place to distribute a controlled substance carries a fine of up to $250,000. Baker is facing $4.75 million in fines and 140 years in jail if she is convicted of all charges and receives the maximum punishment.

Baker’s first court appearance in U.S. District Court has not been scheduled. She is still jailed in Catawba County on charges related to Zahra’s Baker’s death.

Baker’s stepdaughter, Zahra, went missing in the fall. Hickory police determined it to be a homicide. Most of her body was found dismembered in parts of Caldwell County in October and November. Investigators believe Zahra likely died on Sept. 24 and her body disposed of the following day.

Baker has been charged with second-degree murder and obstruction of justice in Zahra’s death. She is also facing a host of other charges unrelated to the case in Catawba and Caldwell counties.

http://www2.hickoryrecord.com/news/2011/may/18/elisa-baker-indicted-7-federal-charges-ar-1045143/

Hickory is a tight little city of trim bungalows, old elms, plentiful
churches and dawdling pick-up trucks in the wooded foothills of North
Carolina's west where the Appalachians begin their ascent. Once slave
territory and later the core of American furniture making, Hickory has,
like much of America's south, bled jobs; unemployment hit 15 per cent a
year ago, and glum trailer parks spread into pasture on the city's
edges.

Its finest hours came during a few summer days in the
June of 1944 when a polio epidemic hit North Carolina, crippling
hundreds of small children and terrifying parents. Overwhelmed, the
hospital in Charlotte, the state's largest city, barred its doors and
anguished parents trudged onward with sick children. They were halted at
Hickory, where the people had, within three days, created a hospital in
old stone buildings on the town's edge. Doctors from across the United
States flooded into Hickory to treat the polio victims. The saving of
the children is still celebrated here as "The Miracle of Hickory".

Another sickly child came to Hickory in late 2008. Zahra
Baker was then a smiley, freckly eight-year-old. In her brief life she
had already lost her left leg to bone cancer. The disease had entered
her lungs and she had beaten it back. The cancer left her with severe
hearing problems and an artificial leg. With her Australian father, Adam
Baker, now 33, she had come from the sugar hamlet of Giru, 50
kilometres south of Townsville, Queensland. Adam had met a Hickory
woman, Elisa Fairchild, nine years older, on the internet. Elisa had
travelled to Giru, married Adam in his parents' front yard and, a few
months later, returned to Hickory with her new husband and his daughter,
who was ready for a better future.

Zahra Baker, pictured a year ago while waiting for a hearing aid. Photo: AP

But Elisa was not the wife Adam had imagined, nor the
close mother Zahra never had. Then 40, Elisa was hiding six previous
marriages, mostly to vulnerable men, and was still married to at least
one. Her three children, all by different fathers, had grown up
wanderers and, according to some who knew Elisa, neglected. She'd been
evicted from many of the 42 addresses she'd had over the previous seven
years and amassed a string of debts as well as seven convictions for
passing worthless cheques. Once dark and attractive, her looks had been
degraded by years of hard living and obesity. She liked seedy bars and
long nights and drew needy men. She was also a goth who dwelt in the
internet's shadier regions. It's where she met Adam Baker before she
first set eyes on him in the arrivals terminal at Brisbane airport.

Now Zahra Baker is dead, her small body dismembered and
scattered over the woodlands and in the creeks of eastern Appalachia.
Elisa, having led police to only some of her remains, is in prison
awaiting trial for Zahra's murder. Adam Baker is holed up with his
mother, Karen, in a grimy block of flats down a dank gully outside town,
venturing out infrequently in his ageing two-door Mazda, which has the
words "Zoom Zoom Racing" on the sides.

When Good Weekend calls in at the apartment,
Adam is wary and withdrawn. He has thick, muscled arms and a broad
chest that were built with work or weights but seem to have sagged in
idleness. He carries a saggy paunch. There are dark rings beneath his
eyes and he frequently looks away when talking. He seems tired,
dishevelled and acquiescent. His bed is a small mattress on the floor of
the flat's congested living room. Karen is kindly but fiercely
protective of the son who mostly defers to her. She came to Hickory from
Giru shortly after Zahra's death.

Adam declines an offer of dinner to talk about
co-operating with me, but he does accept a beer, saying,"Christ, it's a
while since I had one of these." He variously claims that he has been
too busy to talk, despite being unemployed, or that he has been in
discussions with his lawyer about Good Weekend's request. His lawyer is,
how­ever, overseas and said by his office to be out of contact.
Finally, Adam tells me, "I've been burned too many times. No matter what
I say, it gets twisted around."

Three weeks later, in mid-April, Hickory police shackle
Adam at the wrists and ankles and dress him in green prison scrubs. They
bring him into court and he stands sighing as a prosecutor reads out
new charges against him of false pretences and identity theft, ruses he
used to get the power company to connect his flat. Adam had already been
charged with issuing six dud cheques around Hickory (later dropped),
failing to return rented machinery and attempting to run one of Elisa's
relatives off the road in a dispute over money.

Adam is flat broke. His lawyer says his parents' support
has run out. He can't work because he is now an illegal immigrant – his
tourist visa has expired and his marriage status is being investigated.
His movements are heavily restricted and constantly monitored through a
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement electronic signalling device
bolted around his leg, while the Hickory police have his passport. He
faces a jail term of two years or more if convicted on the various
charges. His lawyer says Adam has been blindsided by the new charges and
his sudden electronic confinement. Others suspect a classic squeeze by
police who want Adam to talk about Zahra's death.

Even when Zahra was alive, those who
came across Adam in Hickory noticed his unwillingness to engage with
strangers. Eddie Mitchell, 69, is a gregarious former Londoner who lives
opposite the neglected little brick house in an otherwise neat street
in Hickory where Adam and Elisa lived and where police say Zahra died.
He recalls his unsuccessful attempts to converse with Adam: "I tried to
talk to him two or three times. But every time I did, he put his head
down, totally ignored me. I had no idea he was Australian. Did not want
to talk. That's unusual around here. To be honest, I thought he was
retarded."

Adam Baker was in his early 20s and living in Wagga
Wagga, NSW, when he met a local teenager, Emily Dietrich. She became
pregnant to him and gave birth to Zahra on November 16, 1999. Weeks
later, suffering from depression, she gave the baby up to Adam, who took
Zahra to stay with his parents, then living in Newcastle. According to
Emily's aunt Diane Ross, Emily had not seen Zahra since she was eight
months old. Adam shut her out of her daughter's life.

In 2004, Adam, Zahra, his parents and at least one of his
brothers moved to Giru, so the family could take jobs at CSR's Invicta
sugar mill, the main employer in the town of 375 people. Zahra was being
looked after by her father and grandmother, Karen, and appeared to be a
loved and cared-for child. "Zahra seemed very happy," remembers Jane
Fenton, a staff member at the Giru daycare centre. "She always came in
with a smile on her face and she was clean and everything.

"She was at preschool then and had just been diagnosed
with the cancer. Then she went away for treatment. Afterwards, she came
back for a visit with her grandmother. I gathered that her father really
did care for her. He brought her through the chemo and everything. She
was a very happy, determined little girl. She was willing to give
anything a go."

The child's struggle with bone cancer was fought far away
from her birth mother, Emily. "We weren't allowed to ring [the Bakers],
and every time we tried they'd moved, changed phone numbers, the whole
works," Diane Ross tells Good Weekend. By the time Emily and her family
discovered Zahra's whereabouts, after Zahra was pictured in the
Townsville Bulletin newspaper in September 2008 on top of an army
vehicle while attending a day out for child cancer sufferers at the
city's Lavarack army barracks, it was too late. Zahra, her cancer in
remission and wearing a prosthetic leg, was about to depart for the US.

In the previous 18 months, while Zahra
had been in and out of hospital, Adam had taken to spending his nights
in Giru on the internet. He had joined the IMVU (Instant Messaging
Virtual Universe) website, where users create three-dimensional
characters to exchange instant messages with others, similarly
disguised. Adam could be anybody – least of all himself. Soon he met and
struck up a virtual relationship with a woman in North Carolina who
called herself Gothic Fairy. She had selected a fairy avatar and added
red angel wings and a stylish gown. Adam's avatar was a black figure
with bat wings.

Gothic Fairy was Elisa Fairchild and she let her friends
know that the younger man far off in the north Queensland cane fields
was the one she wanted to spend her life with. "Who says long-distance
relationships don't work?" she asked on her MySpace page, which she'd
dressed up with a skull and crossbones and a soundtrack of a song called
Living Dead Girl.

Elisa and Adam married in Giru in July 2008. Not
surprisingly, the older, and more worldly, American's arrival aroused
suspicion. Elisa would recount preposterous details of her past to Giru
locals. Kim Wright, a friend of the Baker family, told North Carolina
media earlier this year that while in Giru, Elisa had claimed to have
been a police officer shot in the line of duty and that she had also
been a bounty hunter. "She had a lot of stories that never quite rang
true," said Wright.

It seems Karen Baker may have been disapproving of her
son's new relationship, too. Nikki Hay, of Mackay in Queensland, had a
daughter who also suffered from cancer and who became friends with
Zahra. In an email to Hickory's police chief, Hay told of calling Karen
because she wanted to pass on photos she'd taken of Zahra. "She was so
upset," Hay wrote. "She explained to me that her son had remarried and
they had taken off overseas quite abruptly and she didn't have any idea
of exactly where they were."

Granite Falls is a hardscrabble old steel town
just north-west of Hickory in the folds of the Brushy Mountains –
densely wooded hills known to hide the huts of the moonshiners who still
operate in rural North Carolina. After living for six months with
Elisa's father in Hickory, Elisa, Adam and Zahra moved to Granite Falls
in the middle of 2009.

Things between Elisa and Adam had rapidly gone downhill.
Elisa's dad had thrown them out and later suggested Elisa's drug use was
the reason. For Zahra, there was misery in the back-lane flat that was
her new home. Within six months, their landlady, Shirley Mims, a woman
scarred by her own tragedy, had also kicked them out.

"They were violent; it was physical, physical," Mims
tells me of the couple who rented the flat next to hers. "You could hear
them fighting and everything. They were fighting one night and then
they came out into the parking lot fighting. He came storming out the
door – I was sitting outside smoking – and she came out after him. So we
asked them to move. They went. They didn't give us no hard time about
it."

They were two months behind on the rent. "I never seen
him go to work," she says of Adam. "They came and went but it wasn't
like they were going to work or nothing."

For Mims, the most troubling side of Elisa and Adam
surfaced in the Granite Falls flat only after they'd gone. Mims and her
husband had assumed that the young girl they'd seen with Elisa and Adam
on the day they moved in must have been a visiting grandchild; they saw
her just the once. As Mims tells me, "We never saw her after that, so we
never thought no more about it. We never heard, we never saw her or
anything. She didn't come out to go to school.

"They would come and go, all day, all night, everything.
But the little girl was never with them. We kept hearing all these
noises in the attic. I truly believe that's where she was at. In my
heart that's where she was at because, when they moved, we didn't hear
the noises no more. And then my husband went up to the attic later on
and some boards had been moved and there was a sheet up there."

Mims begins to cry. Her only child, a son, drowned, she says.

Zahra's life would worsen with the move away; some people
would decide her stepmother was a monster and her father a weakling.
Those least able to help her tried. And those who should have stepped in
to protect a little girl failed to.

Hudson is another ramshackle Appalachian town,
a few kilometres north-west of Granite Falls, shrivelled by recession
and irrelevance. The town's decline can be seen in the creeping reach of
the trailer parks up the back roads of the surrounding hills. It was
here that Adam, Elisa and Zahra came next. They could live in a box in a
field for $US350 a month. Adam Baker and his daughter were sliding into
an underclass that Elisa had been in, and lived among, before.
(Unbeknown to Adam, a man who lived in the park, whom Elisa said was a
friend, was one of her former husbands.)

Tanya Hefner is raising four children on faith, hope and
food stamps in a spotless trailer in that park. She has a tough
exterior, but when she realised the plight of Zahra Baker, she acted.
The Bakers' trailer was up a steep, narrow road in the park. Hefner and
her neighbours saw that Zahra walked with a limp – they didn't
immediately know she had a prosthetic leg – and that Elisa frequently
marched her up and down the hill while hitting and cursing her.

Says Hefner, "The whole neighbourhood had seen her hit
Zahra. We heard Elisa cuss her up and down the hill and make fun of her
about her leg. 'Oh, you think you're so good. I think you should get
that limp out of your leg. You need to get up that hill.' Smack. 'Walk
faster.' It was awful."

Eventually, Hefner says, she made a sworn statement to
police that Elisa had threatened her after Hefner, enraged by Zahra's
treatment, had confronted Elisa. Hefner says she also informed
authorities that Zahra was being abused and contacted the local school
Zahra was attending to inform them. The school, she says, told her they
had concerns that Zahra was being abused and about her poor attendance.

Two teachers visited Zahra's home after the child turned
up at her fourth-grade class at Hudson Elementary School with a black
eye. And, according to some in the trailer park, one teacher gave Zahra
her mobile phone number because she was concerned for her. The school
will not talk publicly about what was known or done.

Tanya Hefner has made up her own mind: "Nobody did anything," she says.

Bobby Green, 29, a tattooed, muscled, part-time
landscaper, and his partner, Kayla Rotenberry, lived next door to Adam
Baker. Their children knew Zahra. Bobby Green and Adam became friendly –
for a time – until Bobby and Kayla could no longer stomach Elisa's lies
and fury. They heard and saw Elisa's abuse of Zahra. Kayla recalls that
during one beating, Elisa injured her hand on Zahra's prosthetic limb.

Later, on a night they looked after Zahra when her
parents went out, Zahra would not leave Green's side as he made dinner
for the children. "She stayed right by my side, like on my hip the whole
time," he recalls. When he saw Adam's car return later that night,
Green called to Zahra: "I said, 'Well, here's your mommy and daddy, they
will be over to get you in a minute.' Zahra ran and hid in the bedroom.
She wouldn't go home and that was maybe a month before they moved out
and that's when I started ... that's when you know something was goin'
on."

The autopsy conducted on Zahra Baker's
partial skeleton concluded that two different cutting instruments were
used to dismember her. Her skull has not been found. The report's words
don't disclose how Zahra died but suggest something of how she lived:
two of her right ribs were broken earlier in her childhood – possibly
during cancer treatment. And, despite her history of grave illness, only
one medical record was generated during her two years in the US under
Adam and Elisa's care.

For now, the cause of Zahra's death is given in the
report as undetermined homicidal violence. Police are not revealing
their evidence on exactly how she died until Elisa's trial on a date yet
to be set. The autopsy's words suggest a sudden ending, but Zahra's
short life was in free fall once her father moved to the US. Elisa had a
history of abuse, neglect and use of her own children to obtain money.
By the time she was 25, Elisa had three children by three men and,
according to her ex-husbands, frequently beat and neglected them. Alone
again in 1993, she struck up a relationship with another vulnerable man,
Darrell Putnam, who was profoundly deaf and lived with his mother in
the same street as Elisa in the village of Cherryville, North Carolina.

His mother, Margie, had deep reservations about her son's
involvement with Elisa, who was known in the street to be neglectful
and using of her two young daughters. "She would have one of her little
girls come up the road in a wheelchair and tell people she had cancer,
but there was nothing wrong with the little girl," Margie Putnam
recalls.

Darrell became Elisa's fourth husband. Soon after the
marriage, however, she began disappearing for days on end with the money
he made from his job in a dye factory. The marriage ended when Darrell
found his wife at home with another lover. He walked the 12 kilometres
home to his mother's house and still lives alone next door to her in a
little yellow house covered with toy butterflies.

"I know she wasn't taking care of the kids," says Margie.
"Darrell said she wasn't feeding the kids. He loved those girls. He
stayed with her because of them. But in the end she broke his heart."

Most of Elisa's former husbands – such as her fifth,
Jeffery Allred – walked out. Allred is 1.9 metres tall and
barrel-chested, but he fled Elisa after she took to beating him with a
baseball bat and throwing rocks at him. Too scared to face her in court,
he never divorced her, withdrew higher into Appalachia's hills and
never remarried.

Adam Baker was the seventh in a line of
apparently lonely, vulnerable men whom Elisa married. He stayed despite
ongoing physical violence between himself and Elisa and growing concern
among outsiders for Zahra's safety because of Elisa's treatment of her.

In February, the North Carolina Department of Social
Services released a log of call-outs to Zahra's home in the Granite
Falls trailer park and, from August, back in Hickory. On four occasions
last year between January 29 and August 6, social services officers went
to Zahra's home following reports from outsiders of improper discipline
of the child and reports that she was in what the officers call an
injurious environment. Each time, after interviews with Zahra and her
parents, no action was taken. The department closed the case on August
6, having found no evidence of maltreatment or child-safety issues.
Zahra, obviously, had said nothing to confirm the suspicions. Forty-nine
days later she was dead.

A backwoods farmer, who never knew Zahra but was
anguished that some of her remains were found on his land, has built a
permanent roadside memorial to the child; covered with weathered teddy
bears, flowers and messages, a placard says, "Safe at home with Jesus."

Elisa Baker was charged with Zahra's murder in February
after she led police to Zahra's remains and after her mobile phone
records placed her in those same remote forest locations on September
25. Police believe that Zahra died in the Hickory home she shared with
Elisa and Adam on Friday, September 24, 2010. Her body was dismembered,
police say, and dumped by Elisa the following day.

Incredibly, it would be another 15 days before Adam
Baker, as he tells it, noticed that his 10-year-old daughter, who slept
in the room next to his, was no longer in his home. He did not report
her missing until he made a strange call to the police emergency line at
2pm on Saturday, October 9.

Adam has had great difficulty explaining the 15-day
delay. The reasons he has offered have met with open derision in
Hickory; he is often abused when he ventures out. His first words in the
call to the emergency number were said in a matter-of-fact tone: "Ah,
yeah, my daughter is missing."

He went on to claim that he'd found a ransom note written
on a power bill on the windscreen of his work car, a silver Chevy Tahoe
SUV, addressed to his boss, Mark Coffey, the principal of a small
tree-lopping business. Coffey was also the owner of the house Adam and
Elisa rented and where police believe Zahra died. The note said Mark
Coffey's daughter had been kidnapped and that $US1 million was the
ransom. The words "No cops" were scrawled on the top and bottom.

Adam told the police emergency line that the kidnappers
must have confused Zahra with Coffey's daughter – their intended target.
Then came the oddest part of Baker's call: he laughed. He told the
police emergency operator, "And my daughter is, I think, coming into
puberty ... 'cause she is hitting that brooding stage [chuckles], so we
only see her when she comes out when she wants something. And that's
about it."

The kidnapping, of course, was a fiction. Elisa Baker was
to admit to writing the ransom note. She then led police to Zahra's
remains – an act of co-operation with authorities that, controversially
in Hickory, has seen her murder charge reduced to second degree, thus
avoiding the threat of North Carolina's penalty of execution by lethal
injection.

Adam Baker's most coherent public explanation for not
noticing for 15 days that his 10-year-old daughter was no longer living
with him tumbled out in an interview he gave to a local TV reporter,
Steve Ohnesorge, on February 22:

Reporter: "People say how could you not know what was going on?"

Baker: "Elisa's, ah, very manipulative, abusive and
controlling. With the pressure of work I was gone first thing in the
morning, didn't get home until late. I was told that Zahra was in bed
because Zahra normally went to bed early. I checked every night. From
what I could tell, she was in bed. There was something in bed."

Reporter: "What did you see when you looked in the room?"

Baker: "It looked like Zahra was in bed."

Reporter: "When was the last time you know for sure you saw Zahra?"

Baker: "Well, Steve, I really can't answer that at the
moment because the police are still doing their investigation. I'd love
to answer that but, as I said, I don't want to do anything to hinder
their investigation at this time."

Meanwhile, from her jail cell, Elisa
Baker has written a series of letters to a crime website, Serial Killers
Ink, well known in the US for publishing and selling the correspondence
and art work of notorious prisoners. The site's owner received the
letters after he contacted Elisa in jail.

Whether Zahra died of an illness, as her stepmother has
implied, or whether the child was murdered will come under intense
scrutiny at Elisa's trial. Adam Baker has repeatedly denied any
involvement in his daughter's death or later dismemberment.

The small, now-abandoned house where Zahra died on 21st
Avenue NW, Hickory, stands out from the other smart bungalows on blocks
studded with tall trees. It is boarded up and has been vandalised, and
locals want it razed. The old willow oak tree that for decades stood out
front has been felled by Mark Coffey, who took all the flowers, soft
toys and messages that were hanging from the tree to the police station.
The insides of the house have been ripped apart by the waves of police
who have been through hunting for evidence of what happened to Zahra.
The floor of the small pink room where she slept has been split open to
the earth.

It is a dead house with but one ode to life. The pink
room's shredded wallpaper still bears the words that Zahra Baker could
read each night before she went to sleep: "Love, Laugh, Live."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/what-happened-to-zahra-baker-20110516-1eoxc.html#ixzz1Mz1NVuhc

Kyle Busch wins truck race with Zahra "riding shotgun"



Credit: AP
Kyle Busch does a burn out after winning the NASCAR Truck
Series North Carolina Education Lottery 200 auto race in Concord, N.C.,
Friday, May 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)


by BETH SHAYNE / NewsChannel 36

Posted on May 20, 2011 at 11:23 PM


Updated
yesterday at 10:06 AM

CONCORD, N.C.-- In Victory Lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway Friday night, Kyle Busch said he had an angel riding with him as he took the checkered flag in a truck that featured Zahra Baker's name and picture.

The Busch team chooses a child's name each week for a program they call "Riding Shotgun with Kyle." The child's name and picture are featured just above Busch's head on the No. 18 truck.

This week, his wife Samantha encouraged him to honor the murdered child at the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race.

"[We] were following the Zahra story," she explained. "Nobody deserves that in general, but especially a sweet little girl like that. It’s just, it was horrible....She might have had a hard life, but tonight, everybody out there is rooting for her, and we know she's watching."

Kyle Busch Motorsports teamed up with Speedway Children's Charities for the remembrance. The charity organization had sponsored an event last year where Zahra Baker was fitted with hearing aids.

Other children who've been served by the charity were invited to hang out with Busch before the race, and released purple balloons after a moment of silence for Zahra.

"With a special name on the side of the truck, that means a lot to Kyle Busch Motorsports, and Speedway Children's Charities, the community here around North Carolina, around Charlotte, around Hickory. It's fun to come out here and do this kind of stuff," Busch said in Victory Lane.

His wife Samantha tweeted a picture with the simple caption: "A win for Zahra!"



http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/Beth-story-122363024.html

Elisa Baker Pleads Not Guilty To Drug Charges
Updated: 10:46 am EDT June 2, 2011

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Elisa Baker appeared before a federal magistrate Thursday morning where she pleaded not guilty and asked for a speedy jury trial.
She is charged with possessing and distributing prescription drugs and conspiracy to distribute those drugs.
These are the first federal charges against Baker who was in jail after being charged with second degree murder in the death of her 10-year-old stepdaughter, Zahra.

Time Line Of Events In Zahra Baker's Disappearance

Right now she is locked up without bond.
If found guilty of the federal drug charges, she could face up to 20 years in prison for each charge.

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/28107748/detail.html

Zahra Baker's father says he wants justice for her
Monday, Jul 11 2011
HICKORY, N.C. -- Adam Baker, the father of 10-year-old Zahra Baker, said he wants justice for his daughter, whose remains were found in November 2010, more than a month after she was reported missing.
Elisa Baker is charged with second-degree murder in her stepdaughter’s death.
Adam Baker, who was in court Monday morning on charges unrelated to the investigation into Zahra’s death, said he wants to make sure Elisa Baker “gets what she deserves.”
He said it was difficult to describe what he’s been through over the past 10 months.
"There's no way to describe it,” Baker said. “Unless someone goes through it themselves, there is no way to understand.”
Baker said he visits the memorial set up for Zahra at the site where some of her remains were found and thinks about her every day. He would like to take her remains to his native Australia, he said, but also wants to be in the area when Elisa Baker stands trial.
“(I want to) get this all behind me,” he said. “Take Zahra back to Australia and finally lay her to rest.”
Baker is currently wearing an ankle bracelet and can’t leave the state because of problems with immigration officials.
He faces charges of identity theft and obtaining property by false pretenses. Police said the Bakers used someone else’s identity to set up phone and utility services.

http://www.shelbystar.com/news/baker-56603-justice-wants.html

I want justice also. I want Adam Baker in prison.

So far it looks like she is getting the same justice Caylee got.

He has as much nerve as Casey. If he's looking for sympathy he will have to look elsewhere.

The POS could have sent Zahra home instead of killing her and chopping her up.

He wasn't too worried about justice and Alisa after Zahra was murdered, only after Alisa told LE where they had disposed of various parts of Zahra's bones. I think by justice he means he hope to get off free and clear the same way Casey did.

JMOO.

Elisa Baker To Be Arraigned In September On Murder Charge

5:42 pm EDT July 14, 2011CATAWBA COUNTY, N.C. --
sa Baker is scheduled to be arraigned in September on a
second-degree murder charge in the death of her stepdaughter, Zahra
Baker.The 10-year-old’s girl’s dismembered remains were found
last November in Caldwell County. Elisa Baker was charged in Zahra’s
death in February. A Catawba County judge said Thursday that the arraignment, during
which Baker will plead either guilty or not guilty, will take place
Sept. 12.The judge did not make a decision Thursday on whether
Baker’s trial will be moved out of Catawba County, as requested earlier
this week by her attorney. Her lawyer, Scott Reilly, said the intense
publicity surrounding the case would make it difficult to find impartial
jurors.But District Attorney Jay Gaither said he thinks the case could be heard in the county.“We
think that a fair and impartial jury can be found in Catawba County,”
he said. “It is the judge's call. He's going to have to make that
call.”The judge could make a decision on the matter when Baker
returns to court on Aug. 1 for a change of venue hearing. If a decision
is made at that hearing, a trial date could possibly be decided on by
September.Baker was in court for about 30 minutes on Thursday. She didn’t speak during the court appearance.
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/28546670/detail.html?cxntlid=cmg_cntnt_rss

NEWTON A judge in Catawba County said Thursday he will consider
the possibility of moving Elisa Baker's second-degree murder trial on Aug. 1.

Judge Timothy Kincaid also said the arraignment in the case will
be Sept. 12. That is when Scott Reilly, Baker's attorney, will enter a plea in the case.

Baker is charged in the death of her step-daughter, Zahra Baker,
who disappeared from the family's home in Hickory last fall. Her remains
were found in early November.

Reilly has asked for a change of venue in the case, saying Elisa
Baker cannot get a fair trial in Catawba County. Prosecutors have
disagreed with that contention.

Baker did not say anything Thursday morning during her brief appearance at the county courthouse in Newton.

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/07/14/2453834/elisa-baker-hearing-set-for-aug.html#ixzz1TjP4ZbfN

Elisa Baker is granted change of venue

Posted: Monday, Aug. 01, 2011

HICKORY A judge has granted a change of venue in the trial of Elisa Baker, the Hickory woman charged in the death of her 10-year-old disabled stepdaughter, Zahra.

It's still unclear where the trial will be held. Judge Timothy Kincaid will hear a list of potential locations at Elisa Baker's next hearing, on Sept. 12.

Elisa Baker, 43, is charged with second-degree murder and obstruction of justice in connection with the death of Zahra Baker, the Australian-born girl who had a prosthetic leg and hearing aids because of her fight with bone cancer.

The girl's story and photos captured the hearts of people across the globe. Her body was found dismembered in Caldwell County.

Elisa Baker’s attorney, Scott Reilly, has said in court that he didn't think his client could get a fair trial in Catawba County because of intensive publicity surrounding the case.

Reilly called the case one of the most publicized in the history of North Carolina.

"The extent of the publicity is overwhelming," Reilly said, adding that potential jurors "would have to have lived under a rock in Catawba to not have been exposed."

District Attorney Jay Gaither said he didn't oppose the change of venue, but felt he could have found a fair and impartial jury in Catawba County.

"I trust the jury system, and I trust the system wherever we go," he said

Elisa Baker has been held in the Catawba County Jail since October, when she was charged with writing a phony ransom note to make it appear Zahra had been kidnapped.

Zahra Baker was reported missing on Oct. 9 and became the subject of a massive search. The story of the young a cancer survivor who lost a leg and lived with a hearing impairment gained attention worldwide. Reilly said there have been hundreds of newspaper articles and television stories about the case. CNN's Nancy Grace has described Baker as a "real life evil stepmother," Reilly said court papers. A Google search of the name Elisa Baker, he noted, reveals about 9,540,000 results.

Reilly said the little girl's death has had a profound impact on the community and it’d be improper to have the case in Catawba county. He asked that it be transferred to a court in a community that’s demographically similar to Catawba County.

Elisa Baker told family the little girl died after an illness and that she and her husband, Adam, decided in a panic to get rid of the child's body. Relatives told the Observer the Bakers didn't take Zahra to a hospital and might have feared authorities because Zahra's father is in the country illegally, and because social workers had investigated complaints against Elisa Baker.

Second-degree murder is punishable by prison time ranging from about eight years to more than 30 years, depending on the killer's criminal record. Elisa Baker has a minor criminal record of long-ago convictions for assault and worthless checks.

Reilly cited reader comments in the Hickory Daily News and suggested that many citizens in Catawba County believe Elisa Baker is guilty of murder. In a motion for the change, Reilly urged the trial be moved because “it is reasonably likely that prospective jurors would base their decision in the case upon pretrial information rather than the evidence presented at trial and would be unable to remove from their minds any preconceived impressions they might have formed.”

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/08/01/2496588/zahra-baker-granted-change-of.html#ixzz1ToUzhv9a

It's still unclear where the trial will be held.

---Anywhere but Florida, please!

August 10th, 2011

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - Several months after a federal grand jury in
Charlotte indicted Elisa Baker on drug trafficking charges, the case is
getting delayed.

The indictment claims Baker conspired with others to sell oxycodone, hydrocodone and alprazolam from 2006 to October 2010.

On Wednesday, an order from a federal judge continued the case from September until November.

According to court documents, the defense team was granted a
continuance until November 7 after Baker's lawyers claimed they had not
been given enough time to prepare for the case.

The indictment also says Baker maintained homes in Granite Falls,
Hudson, and Hickory for the purpose of selling the prescription drugs.

Baker is currently charged with second-degree murder in the death of
her stepdaughter, Zahra, whose body was found dismembered in at least
two locations last fall.

Baker is charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute and
possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance, which carries a
maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1,000,000;
three counts of distribution and possession with intent to distribute
controlled substances, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20
years in prison and a fine of up to $1,000,000; and three counts
maintaining a place for the purposes of distributing a controlled
substances, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a
fine of up to $250,000.

If convicted, she faces 140-years in prison.

http://statesville.wbtv.com/news/crime/65749-drug-trafficking-trial-delay-against-elisa-baker

Hearing in NC stepmom's case mysteriously delayed

Updated 03:49 p.m., Monday, September 12, 2011NEWTON, N.C. (AP) — A judge postponed a routine hearing Monday in the case of a
North Carolina woman accused of killing her 10-year-old disabled
stepdaughter and both prosecutors and defense attorneys refused to give
details during a courtroom exchange that lasted only about two minutes.
Catawba County Superior Court Judge Timothy Kincaid agreed to move the hearing for Elisa Baker to Wednesday and did not ask for any additional information.
Monday's hearing, which was scheduled to discuss moving a potential trial
because of the attention the case has received, was delayed for about 30
minutes. When it finally began, prosecutor Jay Gaither
mentioned matters that came up over the weekend that he and Baker's
attorney discussed in the judge's chambers. Both lawyers agreed to come
back at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday for another hearing, but did not say why.
The men then were seen going into Gaither's office after the hearing.
Gaither refused to talk, and after the meeting defense attorney Scott Reilly refused to say if a plea deal might be in the works.
"Our discussions are going to remain private," Reilly said.
Monday's hearing was the latest strange turn in Baker's case. The 43-year-old
Hickory woman is charged with second-degree murder in the death of her
10-year-old stepdaughter Zahra. The disappearance of the girl who lost a
leg to cancer received national headlines last fall. Her remains were
eventually found scattered at sites in Catawba and Caldwell counties.
Authorities said Elisa Baker told them the girl was dismembered and led
them to some of the remains, although the girl's skull remains missing.
Prosecutors said Baker dismembered Zahra's body to cover up her killing. She could
face up to 30 years in prison if she's convicted.
The girl's death isn't the end of Baker's legal problems. She also faces
other state charges, including bigamy, obtaining property by false
pretenses and identity fraud.
In addition, she faces seven federal counts of drug trafficking.
Authorities said she distributed and conspired to distribute drugs
including oxycodone and hydrocodone between 2006 and last October. If
convicted of all of those charges Baker could face a prison sentence of
up to 140 years.
Zahra was reported missing last October by Elisa Baker and the girl's father,
Adam Baker. Police almost immediately doubted the Bakers' story that
Zahra had been kidnapped. A few days after the girl was reported
missing, Elisa Baker was charged with obstructing the investigation into
Zahra's disappearance. Police say Elisa Baker wrote a ransom note
purportedly from kidnappers who were trying to snatch a different
little girl.
Adam Baker has not been charged in Zahra's disappearance or death, but he
also faces unrelated charges, including identity theft and obtaining
property by false pretenses. Immigration officials have barred him from leaving the United States.
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Hearing-in-NC-stepmom-s-case-mysteriously-delayed-2166069.php

Zahra Baker's sister thanks the community



Zahra Baker was reported missing from her Hickory home Oct. 9, 2010. Elisa
Baker was charged with second-degree murder after Zahra's dismembered
remains were found.

By: Brittany Starbuck, guest columnist| sister to Zahra

Published: September 12, 2011

HICKORY --

I was blessed to meet Zahra Baker. I was more blessed than most because I got the privilege of calling her my sister.

I am writing this letter on behalf of myself and my other stepsister, Amber Fairchild.
For some time now, I had been feeling like I wanted to speak out but
could never really get the nerve to do it. But now I finally feel OK
enough to do it. More time has passed and I feel like reality has set
in. I’m trying to actually deal with the loss, rather than believe it
couldn’t have really happened.

My family and I are still dealing with the loss of our Zahra. Even though we only had her here in the United States
for a short amount of time we all loved her instantly. I knew after the
first time I met her that she was the most special person I had ever
met.

So many things she has done and said really changed
my outlook on life. She never looked at the world like I did. She always
had a bright, positive outlook on life, no matter what. I have never
really been around anyone who has been through so much and not had a
negative outlook.

Dealing with the loss of Zahra has been just as hard, if not harder, as it would be to lose my real blood sister. And to me and Zahra that’s what we were — the word “step” was never paired with sister. The same always has gone for me and Amber.

My reason for writing this letter is to say thank
you to everyone who has been touched by my sister and who came to any of
the candlelight ceremonies or charity rides, donated to the park in her
honor, sat up for hours watching news about the situation, etc. I can
say the only thing that has helped my family is seeing all these good
things taking place for Zahra and because of Zahra.

I cannot explain how horrible it is to lose a sister, especially the way we lost our sweet Zahra.
The only thing that helps me get by is seeing that she has not been
forgotten and that changes have been made, and are still being
petitioned to ensure no child ever has to suffer like she did.

Amber
and I both agree we have been pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of
support by the community. As children we moved from county to county
and town to town. We never really had the chance to establish a home and
have community activities or even be a part of a community, so to see
people come together for Zahra
has been eye-opening. I have never seen people be so supportive to
people they never even met, but it has been a complete blessing.

I want to thank everyone for putting together
charity rides, candlelight vigils and charity concerts. It means so much
to know that people have worked so hard to do everything they can for Zahra. I wish that you all could have had the chance to meet Zahra. I’m sure she would have loved to meet each and every one of you, too, as she was the biggest people person I know.

She always had the power to light up every room she
entered. I have never met anyone who was completely selfless in this
world until I met her. All she wanted to do was please others, and she
was amazing at it. Everyone loved her, and I will always carry the
memory of her smile and her truly amazing presence with me forever.

So once again, thank you to this community for everything you have done for Zahra,
and for your support for my family while we have endured the absolute
worst time in our lives. I would also like to make clear that I do not
support Elisa Baker (Zahra’s stepmother and my biological mother), or her attorney in any way. I have not cooperated with her attorney and have no plans of doing anything in this case other than being honest and getting justice for Zahra.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, but most of all, thank you for keeping the memory of Zahra alive in this community as we approach the hardest one year mark we ever imagined we would have to deal with.
http://www2.hickoryrecord.com/news/2011/sep/12/zahra-bakers-sister-thanks-community-ar-1382924/

Elisa Baker's hearing LIVE NOW: http://www.wcnc.com/live-stream/Live-video-Elisa-Baker-plea-hearing-129874748.html

Elisa Baker pleads guilty to second degree murder

Posted on September 14, 2011 at 11:48 PM
Updated today at 10:42 AM

HICKORY, N.C. -- Elisa Baker has pleaded guilty this morning to second degree murder in the death of her 10-year-old step-daughter, Zahra.
Baker also pleaded to aggravating factors of hiding the crime and desecrating the body of Zahra. She pleaded guilty in obstruction of justice, and to charges unrelated to Zahra.
The other charges unrelated to Zahra are of bigamy, identity fraud, and obtaining property by false pretenses.

According to the plea agreement Baker could spend between 14 years to 18 years incarcerated.
Baker was charged with killing 10-year-old Zahra last year. Her body was found in pieces across two counties.
Emily Dietrich was last in North Carolina when her daughter's remains were finally identified last November.
At the time, she stayed with a family who lived on the same street where Zahra once lived - and she’s kept in touch with that family ever since.
The Ridgeways mailed what they could of the street memorial then to Dietrich. They met Emily by happenstance the week Zahra's remains were identified last November.
“We just want to wrap our arms, give her a great big hug. Tell her much we love her. Praying for her and how much we hope this will give her some peace,” said Lisa Ridgeway.
Lisa’s husband David said of Emily, “She’s not looking forward to seeing these people with the stepmother, but at the same time she wants it to be over. She knows she needs to be here because she is the voice and she will be the face for Zahra.”
Elisa Baker, Adam Baker and Dietrich are in the same room together, face to face, for the first time. The hearing began at 9:30 a.m.
They said Emily Dietrich does not believe Zahra's father, Adam Baker, played a role in her death - but that she does think he was an absent father.
“She’s furious with him but I don’t think she holds him responsible for anything that happened to [Zahra] physically,” said Ridgeway. “I don’t think we'll ever know exactly what happened and I don’t know, as a mother, that Emily would truly want to know.”
An autopsy failed to determine an exact cause of death. The Medical Examiner's report listed the cause as "undetermined homicidal violence."

http://www.wcnc.com/video/featured-videos/Zahras-birth-mother-headed-here-from-Australia-129851963.html

DRoseWBTV DERRICK ROSE | WBTV
BREAKING Elisa Baker enters guilty plea on several charges including 2nd degree murder in death of Zahra Baker
1 hour ago

DRoseWBTV DERRICK ROSE | WBTV
Family of zahra baker is entitled to the cost of transporting the child to australia for a proper burial. #ZahraBaker
56 minutes ago

DRoseWBTV DERRICK ROSE | WBTV
Latest information on Elisa Baker guilty plea #ZahraBaker http://www.wbtv.com/story/15436967/elisa-baker-scheduled-for-change-of-venue-hearing-monday
50 minutes ago

DRoseWBTV DERRICK ROSE | WBTV
Several investigators being called right now detailing the process of the case. #ZahraBaker #ElisaBakerGuilty
39 minutes ago

DRoseWBTV DERRICK ROSE | WBTV
Investigator says #ElisaBaker found #ZahraBaker not breathing on Sept 24 and tried CPR 20-25 mins, but not successfull
17 minutes ago

DRoseWBTV DERRICK ROSE | WBTV
Investigator: After CPR tries, Elisa called Adam. 5:30 Adman got home and she told him Zahra wasn't breathing
16 minutes ago

DRoseWBTV DERRICK ROSE | WBTV
Investigator: Elisa said she and Adam agreed not to call 911 and that Adam said he would "take care of it"
16 minutes ago

DRoseWBTV DERRICK ROSE | WBTV
Investigator: Adam went into bathroom, got trash bags and Elisa would have to assist him in taking Zahra remians -ElisaBaker
15 minutes ago

DRoseWBTV DERRICK ROSE | WBTV
Investigators said there were inconsistencies in #ElisaBaker statements about what happened Sept 24 when #ZahraBaker died
13 minutes ago

DRoseWBTV DERRICK ROSE | WBTV
Adam Baker not charged in #ZahraBaker death, although #ElisaBaker says he was involved
11 minutes ago

These are the exact charges she is pleading guilty to:

2nd degree murder
obstruction of justice
bigamy
4 counts of obtaining property by false pretense
2 counts of identity fraud

The potential maximum total sentence for all charges would typically be 722 months or 60 years in prison. But, the deal Baker plead guilty to has sentencing set at 177-222 months or 14 3/4 to 18 1/2 years in prison.

http://www.wbtv.com/story/15436967/elisa-baker-scheduled-for-change-of-venue-hearing-monday

Back in session: http://www.wcnc.com/live-stream/Live-video-Elisa-Baker-plea-hearing-129874748.html

MichelleBoudin MichelleBoudin
Cops say witnesses describe history of elisa abusing #zahrabaker including 1 time when elisa screamed at 10 yr old for urinating on herself
6 minutes ago

MichelleBoudin MichelleBoudin
Teachers said #zahrabaker came to school w 2 black eyes
5 minutes ago

MichelleBoudin MichelleBoudin
Caldwell co schools kept documentation of their concerns for #zahrabaker
4 minutes ago

MichelleBoudin MichelleBoudin
Police do NOT believe adam baker had anything to do with #zahrabaker death.
3 minutes ago

MichelleBoudin MichelleBoudin
Adam visibly relieved to hear cop testify that they believe he had nothing to do w his daughters death. #zahrabaker
1 minute ago

BakerUpdates NewsChannel 36
Defense says Adam Baker flunked lie detector test.
2 minutes ago

BakerUpdates NewsChannel 36
Adam Baker took Hickory PD to a location and told police that's where they'd find Zahra remains.
1 minute ago

MichelleBoudin
Defense trying to show adam baker had something to do w #zahrabaker death. Including that adam took lie detector test & "deception indicated" on it
2 minutes ago

BakerUpdates NewsChannel 36
Has been theme of last 15 minutes. RT @MichelleBoudin: Defense trying to show adam baker had something to do w #zahrabaker death.
1 minute ago

RadBerkywcnc RadBerky
Hickory PD say they believe Adam went from Sept 24 to Oct 4 and never knew Zahra was missing from their 800 square foot house.
8 minutes ago

BakerUpdates NewsChannel 36
4th witness done. 5th and final witness called is NC criminal agent. #zahrabaker
2 minutes ago

BakerUpdates NewsChannel 36
NC SBI agent: Hickory PD searched Baker home and found child's pants w/blood on it.
46 seconds ago

BakerUpdates NewsChannel 36
NC SBI agent: Noticed drops of blood on Zahra's walls and bedroom floor.
10 seconds ago

BakerUpdates NewsChannel 36
Agent tested a saw for blood and markings of Zahra Baker, but came back negative. Still don't know how Zahra was killed.
27 seconds ago

MichelleBoudin MichelleBoudin
FBI says evidence at home shows #zahrabaker did not die of natural causes as elisa has claimed.
6 minutes ago

MichelleBoudin MichelleBoudin
Her bedroom walls were painted pink- cops say to cover drops of blood. #Zahrabaker
4 minutes ago

MichelleBoudin MichelleBoudin
Becoming clear:we may never know what really happened to this 10 yr old cancer survivor-or where some of her remains are buried. #zahrabaker
1 minute ago

BakerUpdates NewsChannel 36
Prosecution showing photo of Zahra's bedroom wall where drops of blood were found. "Some of them appear to be covered up" said agent.
1 minute ago

BakerUpdates NewsChannel 36
Photos of Zahra's room shows someone appeared to clean up the walls from blood.
1 minute ago

BakerUpdates NewsChannel 36
Defense now questioning 5th and final witness. Reminder: Elisa facing 14 years, 9 months minimum. Max of 18.5 years.
2 minutes ago