Ruthless Mother Murdered Her Own Son | The FBI Files
hello my name’s dr shaham das i’m a consultant forensic psychiatrist in london i assess mentally disordered offenders i also work as an expert witness so i give evidence in criminal trials all across the uk in june 2021 crimecon is coming to the uk it will be full of experts such as myself and also law enforcement agents they’ll also be your favorite youtubers and podcast makers so i really hope to see you there in a small kentucky town a young boy vanished without a trace no one knew how it could have happened
but within hours the boy’s entire family was frantically searching for him a few leads in the case quickly turned and the fbi was called in to expose the kidnapper and find the missing child [Applause] [Music] [Music] on the day before thanksgiving a mother discovered her 10 year old son was missing from his school when a child of separated parents disappears investigators first look at the family and divorced parents often suspect each other
i’m jim calstrom former head of the fbi’s new york office the search by the fbi and local authorities would cover a thousand miles they were determined to find the boy and his abductor london kentucky is a quiet rural town surrounded by rolling hills in the heart of kentucky’s tobacco country it is a traditional town where many farming families have lived for generations and most of the people know and trust each other at 11 a.
m on the day before thanksgiving november 25th 1992 the children of paces creek elementary school were looking forward to a special holiday luncheon before they left for the long weekend keep up the good work what are we doing over here oh we’ve got glue going scotty ten-year-old scotty baker was especially excited after school he was to stay at his grandmother’s house until his father picked him up on thanksgiving morning scottie planned to spend the entire weekend traveling alone with his father on a long-haul trucking run since his parents were divorced scotty
relished the time he spent with his father and loved to ride in the trucks his dad drove for a living following an afternoon tutoring session scotty was scheduled to go home on the bus at 3 pm to his grandmother’s house for scotty’s mother ruth it would be the first thanksgiving her youngest child was away from her she and her daughter decided to surprise scotty and pick him up before he got on the bus the single mother only had what remained of the day to see her son before he left on the trip with his father the next
morning [Music] ruth waited in the car while the dog went into fetch scotty i picked scotty up at school that day instead of having him ride the bus to his grandmother’s house because he was going to be gone with his father the full thanksgiving weekend and i just wanted to see him before he left girls do you guys know where scotty is scotty’s sister asked some of his classmates if they’d seen him but they hadn’t excused do you know where scott is his teacher said that he had not shown up for his scheduled after-school
tutoring but figured he had skipped it to start his long weekend have a happy thanksgiving you too where’s scotty i don’t know i looked outside for him and no one’s seen him ruth hadn’t called ahead so she thought scotty had probably taken the bus as previously planned i just thought there was some sort of a misunderstanding as to you know whether he was supposed to stay that day i thought he just rode the bus back to his grandmother’s house and somewhere we had just missed missed him scotty’s grandmother lived close by so
the boy would certainly be there by now go upstairs and check for him great thanks dorothy but scotty’s grandmother had not seen him get off the bus that day ruth called his friend’s parents in the neighborhood this is scottie’s mom but none of their children had seen scottie either when we searched the neighborhood and realized that he didn’t go home with any of the kids we went back to school to try to find out if maybe he’d stayed there for some reason missed the bus or at that point we didn’t know what to think
scotty had never got on the bus and went home with another child or went anywhere without telling either myself or his grandmother ruth found the principal in the main office and asked for his help to locate his son by this time the teachers had all gone home for the holiday weekend the principal told her he would try to contact scotty’s teachers at home then ruth made an alarming discovery she saw that scotty had been signed out at 11 20 that day apparently the sign out book was just laying there on the desk and i just happened to look down and see
it and see his name on it and it said scotty baker had been signed out by patricia smith signed out by a patron ruth recognized the name scotty’s father had a cousin named patricia smith that ruth had met once years before it was strange that the cousin would have picked up scotty without telling anyone in the immediate family since she wasn’t authorized the principal called the school secretary to find out more he reached her at a hospital where she was visiting a sick relative the principal asked if she had released
scotty to a woman named patricia smith six hours earlier the secretary recalled that patricia smith a dark-haired woman with glasses walked into the office at about 11 15 am the young woman said she was scottie’s cousin and was picking him up to take him to his father when scotty’s fifth grade class passed by the front office on the way to the thanksgiving luncheon the secretary summoned scotty with exciting news his cousin had come to take him early from school the secretary knew most of the children’s parents and relatives but she
had never met patricia smith before she added that scotty didn’t seem afraid of a woman and he left willingly well apparently [Music] she was taking him to see his father so that kind of made sense to me because if donnie was out on the road and he was just going to swing in and he might have had somebody pick him up but it was strange to me why it would be somebody that scottie didn’t know apparently knew each other ruth didn’t know patricia smith either nor did she know her number she demanded that the principal call the
authorities kentucky state police sent two troopers to the school to help track down the missing jewelry the principal handed officers a school photograph of scottie baker and provided them with the names and addresses of his fifth-grade classmates ruth told officers that his son was last seen six hours earlier leaving school with a woman named patricia smith though her ex-husband donnie had a relative by that name ruth could not provide them with her address or phone number investigators first task was to locate
the cousin former kentucky state police detective larry lewis discovered that donnie baker’s cousin patty smith lived very close to the school as ruth had remembered we went to uh patty smith that was related to donny a cousin and talked to her and she didn’t fit the description whatsoever and her alibi checked out where she was at into the evening police pursued all the women named patricia smith within a 100 mile radius of scotty’s school they found several all were home since the next day was thanksgiving but none looked like the woman described
by the school secretary and all had solid alibis people vouched for this yes there was about three or four other patricia smiths that we checked out and uh none of them panned out so we eventually found out that uh it wasn’t a patricia smith that somebody used that for an alias at scotty’s grandmother’s house ruth and her two daughters braced themselves for the worst almost eight hours after scottie was taken from school by an unidentified woman there was still no word ruth tried to reach her ex-husband donny to see if he might know something
she left a message with his manager at the trucking company who told her that donnie was somewhere on the highway delivering a load of freight to ottawa illinois [Music] we waited for him to call because for some reason i thought he’d know where he was when he got there that was the only hope that we had at that point that somehow donnie would know who had him when he found out that he was that he was gone state police continued to search for answers locally they traveled to the homes of the children that had attended school with
the missing boy that day one of scotty’s friends had spent most of that day with him he recalled seeing scotty leave with a young woman did scotty seem afraid of her the ten-year-old also saw the car they got into he knew it had four doors but he was unsure of the model the boy remembered clearly that scotty was happy about leaving and showed no fear of her did you do her hair color he said that all scotty had talked about that day was traveling on the road alone with his father the fifth grader had little else to add
please give us a call if you think of anything else let her know by 10 pm more than 10 hours after scotty was last seen investigators still had no solid leads to his whereabouts since they’d received no ransom calls police now turned their attention to scotty’s family and friends hello scotty’s stepmother stephanie baker stayed by the phone perhaps someone who was close to the boy knew more than they were telling in child abduction cases it is usually one of the parents who is responsible since they have greatest access to the
child scottie’s mother ruth understood this and was willing to provide investigators with whatever they needed to find her son of course any law enforcement official i think that’s their first thought that the mother and father have something to do with it when a child disappears i think that’s the first people they investigate and in this case they immediately thought donny or i had something to do with it simply because we were divorced detectives asked about her relationship with her ex-husband donnie [Music]
she said that she and donnie were distant but for scotty’s sake they remained generally respectful of each other the couple had divorced five years prior according to ruth the divorce was acrimonious with custody of their son acting as the main point of contact after some wrangling ruth and donnie agreed to joint custody to her knowledge when her ex-husband had scotty on the weekends he always treated their son well in fact ruth believed if there was anyone who might harm her boy it was stephanie her ex-husband’s new
wife of nine months [Music] ruth claimed that stephanie was jealous of scotty’s closeness with his father i didn’t know stephanie very well what i knew about her really was from scotty and at this point scotty wasn’t telling me a whole lot about her i knew that he didn’t want to go to their house anymore and i knew that he didn’t want to be around stephanie much but i i thought it was just the feelings that he was picking up the feelings of jealousy that he was picking up from her investigators thought that ruth might
also be jealous of donny’s new wife as well for the time that stephanie and scottie’s father had been spending with a 10 year old with mixed motives and emotions detective lewis believed at least one of scotty’s guardians was likely responsible for the boy’s disappearance [Music] there were several suspects from the beginning stephanie baker because she was the stepmother donnie baker because he was the father and ruth baker because she was the mother there was a conflict between ruth and stephanie so those three were the
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main suspects [Music] by midnight november 26th scottie had been missing for over 12 hours scotty’s father donnie baker was returning from illinois where he had learned of his son’s disappearance he had dropped off his rig and hitched a ride back to london kentucky with a friend donny’s wife stephanie and her father were waiting at a truck stop to pick him up they didn’t have the good news donnie had hoped for everyone was tired but donny insisted on heading out to search for scotland he and stephanie drove to some nearby
woods where donnie and scotty had often hunted and shot at targets together but they found no sign of his missing son ready with dawn approaching stephanie pleaded with donny to give up for the night and head home he finally relented early on thanksgiving morning donny and his ex-wife ruth set out to distribute flyers with scotty’s photo with their ten-year-old son now missing for almost 24 hours tension got the better of them they accused each other of taking scotty and hiding him despite their mutual suspicions donnie
and ruth continued canvassing the area thank you thank you they posted flyers in every business that was open on thanksgiving on a day meant for family they received no reports of sightings of their missing son they could only hope that scotty was still alive on thanksgiving day 1992 kentucky state police still had no leads to the whereabouts of ten-year-old scottie baker the boy had been taken from school the day before by a young woman who claimed to be his father’s cousin scotty’s father donny a truck driver who
had recently remarried was on the road when his son disappeared police arrived at his home to interview him and his new wife of nine months stephanie baker investigators suspected that perhaps someone close to the missing boy knew more than they were saying the officer told the couple that he needed to interview them separately he didn’t want either of them to influence the other’s responses scotty donnie baker appeared anxious but assured the officer he’d cooperate in any way that he could exit no i did not he confirmed that he planned to pick up
scotty on thanksgiving morning after delivering a truckload of cargo to illinois the previous evening he and his son were going to be traveling alone to tennessee and back donny added that he didn’t ask his cousin patricia smith or anyone else to pick up scotty from school the day before [Music] stephanie told the trooper that the morning that scotty was taken she was at home doing laundry with her friend suzanne [Music] stephanie suspected that donny’s first wife ruth was probably hiding scotty somewhere really any problems she believed that
ruth was jealous of her marriage to donnie and that her husband’s ex-wife would try something drastic to win him back [Music] detectives also interviewed the secretary from scotty’s school the only witness who had stood face to face with scotty’s unknown abductor very big shoulders she was shown photographs of all the women in the family including scottie’s mother ruth and his stepmother stephanie even if they had worn a disguise the secretary was sure that none of them could be the young woman with the dark hair and glasses who had
taken scotty from school the previous morning after more than 24 hours of searching the safe recovery of the 10 year old was becoming less likely former kentucky state police detective larry lewis decided to use polygraph examinations to help eliminate the immediate family members polygraphs are to me there are just an aid uh uh i don’t trust the polygraph a hundred percent but it can help you your first name ruth scotty’s mother ruth was tested first do you know for sure where scotty is right now no she also provided a handwriting
sample to compare to the signature of the woman who signed scottie out of school her handwriting did not match the suspects and the results of ruth’s polygraph exam showed no signs of deception [Music] i was cleared first as a suspect i took a lie detector test and had no problem i the detective you know told me i passed it with flying colors so they immediately cleared me ruth’s ex-husband donnie was also called in for testing though police confirmed he was out of state at the time of scotty’s disappearance they could not rule out his possible
involvement [Music] the results of donny’s exam were inconclusive and revealed possible deception they hoped his young wife stephanie could provide answers but they hid an obstacle as detective larry lewis explains stephanie was asked to take a polygraph but she was pregnant at the time is what she told me and the state police will not give anybody that’s pregnant a polygraph and that’s their policy so when she told me that i didn’t know she was lying to me or not so i sent her to the hospital and i had her test and it was determined
that she was pregnant stephanie did provide a handwriting sample but like ruth’s it appeared not to match the signature of the woman who signed out scott again i woke up it’s around 8. stephanie also gave a detailed account of her activities in the previous day she maintained that she spent the morning at home doing laundry with her friend suzanne it took them several hours and they passed some of the time on the phone with another friend by the early afternoon they had finished their wash and planned to head back to
suzanne’s house that’s when suzanne realized she had lost her keys and feared she had locked them in the trunk stephanie called several locksmiths but found none that were immediately available so suzanne called her mother who came to pick her up stephanie gave investigators suzanne’s address so they could corroborate the story late on thanksgiving night investigators found stephanie’s friend suzanne at home at her apartment she was relaxing with her husband a trucker who was home for the holiday weekend the detective asked her where she was on
the morning that scottie baker disappeared suzanne confirmed that she did laundry all morning at stephanie’s house suzanne also said that at about 11 a.m stephanie spoke to a mutual friend about making plans for all of them to get together sometime over the long weekend but after they found out scotty was missing no one was in the mood to go out we don’t know suzanne told pretty much the same story as stephanie that that she was over at stephanie’s house and that they was washing clothes and they received a phone call and that she
locked her keys up in the car and that her mother had come over and picked her up suzanne provided police with a friend’s number who later confirmed the call the detective asked her to call him if she remembered anything else [Music] as snow dusted london kentucky on thanksgiving night scotty was still nowhere to be found i think we had the first snow that week and i remember standing in the window at the edge of dark thinking that my baby is out there somewhere and it’s snowing and he’s probably cold because whoever’s got him he’s probably not
giving him anything to put on he doesn’t have any clean clothes and he’s not took a bath and i don’t even know if they’re giving him anything to eat and that was i think the saddest snowfall that i ever saw my entire life on friday november 27 1992 kentucky state police called on the fbi for help special agent rod kincaid from the fbi’s london kentucky office learned that it had been two days since scotty had been missing our immediate concern was for his safety and to see that the boy would be returned home with his family
the longer an investigation goes on the longer the child is missing there’s more chance for the child to meet with foul play and if it is a kidnapping there’s more danger that the child will be harmed by now scotty could be anywhere and investigators hoped there was still enough time to rescue the fifth grader from his unknown abductor on november 27 1992 the day after thanksgiving the small town of london kentucky was still reeling from the disappearance of ten-year-old scotty baker who had now been missing for two days
since the fifth grader was last seen with a woman who claimed to be a relative fbi special agent rodkin kate along with local detectives looked to scotty’s family for answers [Music] our investigation basically was looking at the close family members who might have access to scotty who scottie would go with willingly because he it had been reported that he left the school in a rather pleasant way he did not appear to be frightened of the person who took him from the school investigators again met with scotty’s single mother ruth
[Music] she had hardly slept since scotty went missing and confirmed that she had not yet received any ransom demands ruth maintained that she believed her ex-husband donny and his 21 year old wife stephanie probably knew more than they were saying she didn’t trust his new young wife ruth claimed that she and stephanie had never spent time together socially and only ran into each other in the small town stores even then ruth didn’t speak to her since stephanie always acted jealous and immature seemingly mocking
ruth from a distance with her friend suzanne ruth recalled that stephanie had also harassed her children [Music] just a week before scotty went missing stephanie had followed ruth’s daughter and scotty as they were heading home scottie felt that stephanie despised him for visiting her new husband donnie so often stephanie appeared threatened by the boy’s close relationship with his father he’s always ruth said that scotty didn’t like seeing his father stephanie was going to be there [Music] ruth was a very concerned mother
i received a very good impression uh from ruth baker i i certainly did not suspect ruth of being involved with the disappearance of scottie acting just like a concerned mother should act how are you good at the fbi office in london kentucky agents asked scotty’s father donnie to come in for a second polygraph failed the first time he passed this one showing no signs of deception donnie now confided that like ruth he too had become suspicious of his new wife stephanie according to former detective larry lewis donny is a is a very laid-back person
he doesn’t get upset really easy he was very helpful though after we finally got him talking he started saying stephanie did have some problems with his son scotty the relationship between stephanie donny and scotty had become strained just before donnie left on his most recent trip stephanie became angry when he wasn’t thrilled by the news that she was pregnant and then when you come home on the weekend she was convinced that it was because donnie was so close with scotty stephanie complained that donnie spent
more time with his son than with her since donnie was on the road so much his time at home was limited and to stephanie it seemed that scotty always had priority donnie found stephanie’s diary and gave it to investigators as evidence they found several passages that were disturbing i recall seeing in the diary words like donnie would not love scotty more than me i hate donnie i hate scotty and there were words like i wish scotty was gone i wish something would happen to him there were a lot of indications in that
diary that she resented scotty and that she hated scotty agents called stephanie in to take a polygraph exam unlike the state of kentucky fbi policy does not exempt pregnant women from the test when the examiner asked if she knew what happened to scotty her response indicated deception [Music] following the exam stephanie was held for further questioning armed with the information from her diary and her failed polygraph exam investigators pressed stephanie on the details of her alibi which she held firm she repeated her claim that on november
25th the day scotty disappeared from school she was at home with her friend suzanne doing laundry the entire day stephanie also mentioned the phone conversation she had with a second friend starting at 11 am corroborating suzanne’s version of events hey what’s up the timing of the phone call was critical since scottie was taken at 11 20 am but agents could not confirm the call with phone records since it was a holiday weekend and phone company personnel would not be back in the office until monday morning to agents stephanie’s demeanor struck
them as odds and she appeared unfazed that her stepson had now been missing for two and a half days one thing that i recall is how cold stephanie was when she discussed her stepson scotty baker i recall that she was certainly not the least bit or did not appear to be concerned with the disappearance of scotty even though she used the words that she was concerned her demeanor her expressions conveyed to me that she really wasn’t that concerned stephanie provided a second handwriting sample for the fbi to compare to the one
left at the school by scotty’s abductor investigators confirmed that the signatures did not match though they felt certain that stephanie was lying about her knowledge of scottie’s whereabouts she was definitely not the woman who would remove scotty from school stephanie’s alibi hinged on the statements of her friend suzanne [Music] on monday november 30th investigators returned to the friend’s apartment to re-question her and ask her to come in for a polygraph [Music] but suzanne was not at home by november 30th 1992 five days had
passed since ten-year-old scottie baker was taken from his school near london kentucky by an unknown woman it’s never just us scotty the fbi and kentucky state detectives believed scottie’s stepmother stephanie was somehow involved since she was found to be deceptive on her polygraph exam claimed to be doing laundry with her friend suzanne on the day scotty went missing though suzanne corroborated stephanie’s story former kentucky state detective larry lewis doubted suzanne’s credibility suzanne and stephanie seemed like to me
that they had their stories down to pat and they were telling the same story they were telling the same times it put a lot of question in my mind that how they could have their stories down and they were so alike even on their times so we were narrowing our investigation down to suzanne and stephanie agents wanted to confirm the story by polygraphing suzanne but suzanne was nowhere to be found investigators called on her mother to ask if she knew where suzanne might be she said her daughter had left for florida with her husband a truck driver
who was scheduled to make a delivery wrong yeah have you seen this the mother didn’t know when they would be back an fbi agent went to the kentucky trucking firm where suzanne’s husband was employed the foreman confirmed that the trucker was on the road scheduled to arrive in pompano beach florida the following morning december 1st 1992 he did not know which routes the driver had taken and could not confirm if the trucker’s wife suzanne or the missing 10 year old boy was with him i didn’t see him leave with anybody with
a truck out of cb range of the company investigators had no way to reach the trucker on the road kentucky investigators turned to fbi special agent roger ramirez in the miami field office for help our goal is to be able to quickly resolve the situation with the discovery of the child alive when this information came to us we were hopeful that it was going to be the case and hopefully that this little boy scottie would be in the custody of these uh of this couple he’s coming since the truck’s specific route was unknown
it would be next to impossible for agents or police to locate their rig as evening approached 12 hours remained until its scheduled arrival in south florida agents planned to be there when the semi pulled in until then they held out hope that somewhere out on the highway there was a truck with scotty baker on board speeding toward florida the only information we had received was that they were enroute from london kentucky to pompano beach the miami division was not advised of any other stops the vehicle might be making however with a
sealed load we assumed it would be coming directly to the pompano beach warehouse at 7 am december 1st 1992 fbi agents arrived at the warehouse as planned a half hour before the 18 wheelers scheduled arrival but it appeared the truck they were looking for had already arrived a license plate check confirmed it though the door was open they saw no sign of the driver his wife suzanne or the missing 10 year old boy then suzanne’s husband stepped out from behind the truck and asked what they were doing around his rig
we advised him that we wanted to speak to his wife he indicated to us that she was sleeping in the cab we also requested permission to search the vehicle for the young boy he granted both willingly the child was not there but suzanne was she climbed out still groggy from sleeping suzanne said she didn’t understand why they wanted to talk to her she had already been interviewed about the case back in kentucky agreeing to cooperate suzanne assured them she’d answer any questions they may still have agents told her husband that they also
needed to search inside the trailer the trucker was unwilling to break the seal on the trailer door if it were broken his client could refuse the goods agents photograph the seal to protect the delivery requirements yes sir thank you satisfied the trucker raised the door in the sparsely loaded semi an agent searched for any trace of the missing boy while detective lewis waited in kentucky for word in my heart i knew after about 24 hours that more than likely foul play had been committed but i was still hoping at that time that
he would be in the truck but it proved out that he wasn’t the florida agent asked suzanne to tell him everything she knew about her friend stephanie’s 10 year old stepson scotty suzanne said she knew nothing and claimed that she had never even met the boy [Music] she agreed to return to the office so they could fingerprint and photograph her her husband needed to stay at the warehouse with his truck agents in florida received further instructions from agent rodkin kate in kentucky i asked them to conduct a polygraphic
examination of suzanne to test her veracity concerning her recollection of the events and to obtain handwriting exemplars from uh suzanne and have her write wording similar to that used in the sign out log especially the words patricia smith at the field office in miami suzanne was photographed fingerprinted and polygraphed as requested suzanne was found to be deceptive on her alibi during scottie baker’s disappearance the cause got his disappearance and though she had denied it the test also revealed that she likely
knew where he was now as suzanne provided agents with a writing sample they informed her that the results of her polygraph suggested deception but she remained steadfast in her denial and she said fine like her friend stephanie suzanne could not be arrested on the basis of a failed polygraph took us all afternoon and unless her signature matched the suspects agents would be forced to release her on december 1st 1992 six days after ten-year-old scottie baker was taken from his school in london kentucky fbi agents had searched a truck in south
florida where they believed the boy may have been hidden scotty was not there but his stepmother’s friend suzanne was hoshi and stephanie were close suzanne claimed she had never met scottie according to fbi special agent roger ramirez suzanne denied any knowledge and or involvement in the disappearance of scott baker she indicated she’d never even seen the child in person and only seen him in photographs suzanne accompanied agents to the miami fbi field office where she provided a writing sample to compare to the one left by scottie’s
abductor she had also consented to take a polygraph exam and it had revealed possible deception in spite of the results the 22 year old continued to insist that she and her friend stephanie baker had no involvement in the abduction of stephanie’s stepson scott and i brought home at the miami field office she gave basically a similar count initially denying any involvement in her knowledge however we as investigators felt that there was something missing and there was something that she was not telling us how to find that young boy after an hour
of questioning suzanne finally broke she may have realized that it was only a matter of time until the fbi positively matched her signature to the woman’s that had removed scotty from school six days earlier suzanne admitted that she had portrayed herself as patricia smith acting as if she was the boy’s distant relative she claimed that scottie’s pregnant stepmother stephanie had convinced her to sign him out and take him and suzanne said stephanie wanted to get back at her husband i didn’t know that any of this was going
to happen suzanne informed us they took scottie out of school to scare him stephanie was jealous of the relationship that the child had with its father donnie baker stephanie was pregnant with donnie’s child at the time and she was jealous of the relationship i need to talk to you stephanie baker’s plan was to scare him to keep him from going to visit his father stephanie arrived at suzanne’s apartment the day before thanksgiving november 25th at 9 30 a.
m i need you to trust me she had a fight with her husband donny and wanted suzanne’s help [Music] at first suzanne was reluctant to get involved but stephanie was insistent pleading with her to help as a friend i don’t know just please to help me you’re my best friend please suzanne eventually agreed suzanne donned a disguise which would have facilitated her removing the child stephanie also provided her the name of this relative to sign on the dismissal form scotty had never met his father’s cousin patricia smith
nor suzanne stephanie figured the boy would go willingly when the disguised woman told scottish he was taking him to see his father suzanne confirmed that they spent the rest of the morning at stephanie’s until suzanne drove her to scotty’s school at about 11 am stephanie hid in the back seat suzanne retrieved scotty from the school’s secretary suzanne claimed that at the time she didn’t realize the child would never see his school or his parents again suzanne said she headed north out of london kentucky scotty told her how excited he was to go
on the road trip with his father for the entire weekend once a child was inside of the vehicle with them uh stephanie who was seated in the back reaches starts choking the child in the front seat and then pulls him into the back seat suzanne begged her to stop however as she put it stephanie freaked out scotty fought for his life kicking and screaming but his 21 year old stepmother was too strong in moments the boy was dead suzanne simply continued to drive she didn’t know what to do stephanie at this point says that she would blame her because suzanne
was one to check the child out of school as a result suzanne basically felt she had no choice other than to agree to help dispose of the body the women drove to an abandoned strip mine nearby they searched for a spot to hide the body away from the road where are we going up here suzanne said a few hours later they returned with gasoline to burn the corpse before burying it investigators needed to know where the body could be found agents asked suzanne for specific directions so i provided her a pen and piece of
paper for her to draw the exact location as to where the body had been placed suzanne then drew a very detailed map as to where the body of donald scott baker could be located in the london kentucky area on the afternoon of december 1st 1992 six days after ten-year-old scottie baker was abducted on thanksgiving eve authorities retrieved the boy’s charred remains his stepmother stephanie baker after repeated denials eventually confessed to the murder and was arrested residents were shocked that a pregnant woman could have done this to a child
investigators working the case including special agent rod kincaid were deeply affected by the harsh reality of scotty’s murder this is one of the cases i had as an fbi agent that certainly i’ll never forget it was horrible that a 10 year old boy would be taken from a school and murdered fbi agents have families i i have two sons it was a horrible case i feel very badly for the parents because i know they cared about their son stephanie’s accomplice and friend suzanne was prosecuted first because of intense media coverage her
trial was moved to another county commonwealth attorney for the 27th judicial circuit in kentucky tom handy convinced the jury that suzanne was guilty of reckless homicide kidnapping and abusing a corpse how she could drive a vehicle with this child being strangled immediately next to her touching her is unbelievable to me she drove that vehicle for five minutes while little scotty was being strange over there a terrible time her vehicle has dents and marks on the dashboard caused by this child kicking it during his death suzanne received a
sentence of 25 years for her crimes facing the death penalty 21 year old stephanie baker pled guilty to murder and received a life sentence seven months after entering prison stephanie gave birth to a baby boy her parents are raising the child and her husband donny divorced her ten years after the tragedy scotty’s mother ruth baker has managed to press forward in the face of her devastating loss it’s hard to say what your life would have been like you know if he had lived um i think that it’s made me a better
parent to my other two children and my grandchildren because i’m very protective of them ruth baker visits scotty’s gravesite often as a result of her son’s case state legislation was passed in kentucky requiring photo identification for any person signing a child out of school the baker’s hope that through the loss of scotty other families may avoid the pain they’ve suffered
