As I have recorded previously, last month Susan Baker, the stepmother of Paul Baker and the prime suspect in his 1987 disappearance, was convicted of kidnapping someone else’s kid and keeping her (alive) in a box under her bed. Her protests that she was “protecting” the child from abusive parents were in vain.
Well, Susan got 25 years in prison for her crime. The judge said the kidnapping was “bizarre and cruel.” She got credit for the 375 days she was in jail awaiting trial, so that makes 24 years. The prosecution asked for 35 years — which is one year for every hour Shannon Dedrick spent stuffed inside that box. But 25 years still means Susan Baker will not get out of prison until she’s an old woman.
(The article has a picture of Shannon. I swear she is the roundest-headed kid I’ve ever seen. She looks like Charlie Brown.)
The article refers to James Baker — Paul’s father — as Susan’s ex-husband. They were married at the time of Shannon’s kidnapping, so their divorce must have been fairly recent. I wouldn’t want to be married to someone who’s going to spend the next two and a half decades in prison. I would consider such a spouse to be effectively dead. Never mind that she probably killed James’s son, try as he might to deny that.
Where is Paul?
The Charley Project Blog 