OH OH - Erica Baker, 9, Kettering, 7 Feb 1999

Could someone please confirm for me if Erica is confirmed dead. I did a search on her and the NCMEC still has a missing status to her case???
 
http://p214.ezboard.com/bjusticeforerica

You can find out a lot of info here. in a very small nutshell: Supposedly Erica was hit by a car and died and the man that admitted to it is now dead without ever revealing where he buried her. Supposedly he told his lawyer where he buried her but the lawyer is not talking and Erica's family is going through all kinds of legal battles to try to get her to tell them where Erica is.

It is really a much longer and complicated story than that, you can find out a lot at the Erica's message board in the link above. I feel so badly for her father and her family. Such a sweet little girl, I can't imagine what they have gone through.
 
warm honey said:
Could someone please confirm for me if Erica is confirmed dead. I did a search on her and the NCMEC still has a missing status to her case???

While it is commonly believed that Erica is dead, no body has ever been found.
Several rumors have come out about her alleged death. Supposedly a woman who was present when she died gave info about her death to her attorney. However, the attorney is refusing to reveal what she was told citing atty client privelege. Several court cases have been brought against the atty and she still refuses to tell what was told to her. (Other rumors state that her family has been threatened if she talks). The client who talked to her atty has since died, without revealing what happened to Erica to anyone else.
A guy is currently in jail on other charges who was also supposedly there the night that Erica died. He confessed at one point, and then recanted his confession. During his confession he stated that several people were drinking and high and they hit Erica, while she was walking along the road (I don't remember who was supposedly driving). He confessed that they put Erica into the van and drove her to an apt. where she died. He later took her out and buried her. He gave LE 2-3 places where she was buried but subsequent searches haven't turned up with her body. And then he later recanted the confession. The last I heard he was charged with something- gross abuse of a corpse I think, and was waiting on trial. His name was Chris something. There are articles about him in this thread.
 
A former federal assistant public defender has more time to appeal a judge's ruling that would force her to testify to what a former client told her about a 9-year-old girl who has been missing for six years.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday continued a 30-day stay granted last month by U.S. District Judge Walter H. Rice to Beth Lewis, who prosecutors want to question about the 1999 disappearance of Erica Baker of Kettering.

Rice ruled in April that prosecutors can take Lewis before a grand jury, but later allowed her to put off testifying while she appeals that ruling. http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/...s-18/1122957781143370.xml&storylist=cleveland


I really don't get the courts. They keep ordering her to tell what Jan Franks told her, but then they keep allowing her more time to put off testifying. It has been six years, that is long enough!
 
I am so glad this is finally going somewhere.

I just hope that the family will finally be able to learn where she is.
 
Nearly seven years after Erica Baker, 9, disappeared outside the Kettering Recreation Center, jury selection began Monday morning for the only person charged in the case.

Christian Gabriel is accused of gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.

At this time, the court is in a phase called voir dire, which is the questioning of potential jurors and selecting of a jury. It began Monday morning and is expected to last most of the day. http://www.whiotv.com/news/5049794/detail.html?rss=day&psp=news

Misty Baker is still hoping that Franks’ attorney, Beth Lewis, will reveal what she knows. So far, she has stayed silent for years, asserting attorney-client privilege. http://www.whiotv.com/news/5051223/detail.html?rss=day&psp=news
 
On Tuesday, the mother of a 9-year-old Kettering girl who disappeared in Feb. 1999 was the first person to take the stand in the Christian Gabriel trial.

Misty Baker, the mother of Erica Baker, who vanished while walking her dog six years ago, said she regrets letting her daughter go out and walk her dog.
http://www.whiotv.com/news/5058581/detail.html?rss=day&psp=news

The only person charged in the case of a 9-year-old girl who vanished more than six years ago was accused Tuesday at his trial of hitting the girl with his van, then burying her body in a park.

Christian Gabriel told police he was driving the van that struck Erica Baker in 1999 when she darted into the street between parked cars, Assistant Montgomery County Prosecutor Leon Daidone said in opening statements in Common Pleas Court.

"He would later tell police Erica Baker's body was twisted and broken, but there was no blood," he said.
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051005/NEWS01/510050344/1056/rss02
 
Tuesday, the jury visited several locations, including where Baker was allegedly hit and killed.

After seeing the area first hand, the jury heard opening statements.
http://www.wcpo.com/news/2005/local/10/04/baker.html

Erica Baker lay face up, her hands crossed over her chest beneath a jacket draped atop her 3-foot, 11-inch body in a shallow grave somewhere in Caesar Creek State Park, a prosecutor told a rapt Montgomery County Common Pleas Court jury Tuesday.

The 9-year-old girl ran in front of a van and was killed on a rainy Sunday afternoon in February 1999 on Glengarry Drive near Powhatton Place, just east of Indian Riffle Park in Kettering, assistant county prosecutor Leon Daidone said in his opening remarks at Christian Gabriel's trial.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1005erica.html

Montgomery County prosecutors laid out their case against Christian Gabriel on Tuesday. He is the only person charged in connection with the disappearance of 9-year-old Erica Bake.

Opening statements began in the trial Tuesday afternoon.

Gabriel is accused of gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. On Monday morning, prosecutors and the defense began questioning potential jurors.

On Monday a jury of five men, seven women and two female alternates were chosen as the jury from a pool of 70 potential jurors. They are the people who will hear evidence in the trial of Gabriel.

On Tuesday morning the jury was taken to several locations throughout the Kettering area that authorities believe are crucial to their investigation.
http://www.whiotv.com/news/5057067/detail.html
 
I didn't register for that site so I have a couple questions.

Is he being charged with murder? What has happened with the attorney that refused to give info that her deceased client might have given her?

I hadn't heard of this case before today. I can't begin to imagine the frustration this family has felt over the years. To know that there is someone that might have the answers to your daughter's death and where her body is and that somebody refused to give them that peace of mind...I would want to choke the truth out of that attorney. It is just beyond belief.

There were ways that attorney could have let the family know what she knew. She obviously knows something or she wouldn't be clawing her way up the judicial ladder to keep from talking. Couldn't she put herself in the shoes of this family? She does have kids because she said her life and the lives of her children were threatened. If someone did threaten her and her family she should ask for protection in return for what she knows...along with the names of who is threatening her.

It's to much to wish that CTV would cover this case. Lately it seems like they either show trials they have already shown or like now...a trial that just got over for real, we know the verdict and pieces of it were shown on news channels.

I hope three things happen during the time of this trial...if this guy is guilty that he be found guilt by a "common sense jury"....that the parents of this little girl are told where her body is....and that the attorney who may have been able to bring peace to this family be charged with withholding info or whatever they can charge her with.
 
http://www.whiotv.com/news/5062040/detail.html


Gabriel Trial: Prosecution Wraps Day Two Of Testimony

POSTED: 4:32 pm EDT October 5, 2005
UPDATED: 5:06 pm EDT October 5, 2005

DAYTON, Ohio -- Day two in the trial of Christian Gabriel has concluded. He is the only person charged is the disappearance of 9-yar-old Erica Baker.

Gabriel is charged with gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. On Wednesday, several people took the stand, including Baker’s mother, Misty, and her grandmother, Pam Schmidt.

more at link

I was watching alittle about it this morning on the 5 oclock news here and they showed the taped interview he did back awhile ago. Says that Jan Franks who has since died was driving his van and struck and killed Erika and her and another man picked the body up and then dumped it somewhere. He said he was just a witness not an accomplice to this. They were all supposedly drunk and high at the time.

The lawyer that has been refered to was the lawyer for the women who died, she was her lawyer for something else I believe and when she died they asked the women lawyer if Jan Franks had said what happened to Erika and she refused to tell saying confidentialty.....but there is a law that says if someone dies then there spouse has the right to wave that which her husband did and then recanted and I thing he finally give permission but she still won't talk. I know that making her talk is still going on.

If I find more I will post it.

Hopefully they will be able to locate her body so that her family can have some peace.

mindi
 
This is the latest thing I could find about the lawyer


http://www.whiotv.com/news/4797885/detail.html


Beth Lewis Given More Time

POSTED: 7:21 am EDT August 2, 2005
UPDATED: 7:41 am EDT August 2, 2005
DAYTON, Ohio -- Former federal assistant public defender Beth Lewis, has been given more time to appeal a judge’s ruling, which would force her to testify in the case involving the disappearance of Erica Baker.

On Monday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals continued a 30-day stay granted to Lewis last month.

In April, a federal judge allowed Lewis to put off testifying about what she may know about Baker’s disappearance while she appeals the ruling.
 
In a 94-minute taped interview with Clark County sheriff's deputies July 19, 2004, Christian Gabriel repeatedly said he had witnessed, while in a drunken stupor, the death of Erica Baker.

Gabriel said was a passenger in a van that struck and killed the 9-year-old, a Montgomery County jury heard him say Wednesday.

"I mean, this stuff ain't getting blamed on me," Gabriel said.

Gabriel insisted on the tape that his girlfriend, Jan Franks, was driving his van and two married roommates of his, Clifford and Sabrina Butts, were in the back of the two-seat cargo van.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1005ericaweb.html

Prosecutors in Christian Gabriel's trial Wednesday played a videotape of an interview with Gabriel. He told police he was riding in a van that struck and killed the 9-year-old as she walked her dog on a rainy Sunday afternoon in February 1999.

He also told police what happened to the body, which has not been found.

"We were going down the street and heard a thud and got out of the van, and someone was lying in the street," Gabriel said in the interview.

"You say she was walking her dog. How do you know she was walking her dog?" an investigator said.

"Because I saw the dog," Gabriel said.

Gabriel said he and three others in the van had been partying.

"I was drunk. I had a buzz. I really didn't see nothing until I heard the thud," he said, telling investigators he was riding in the front passenger seat.

The four people put Erica in the back and drove her to Gabriel's apartment and partied some more, he said. They discussed what to do with her, and Gabriel said he thought they were going to drive her to a hospital.

Instead, they drove to a park, he said.

Gabriel said he stayed in the van while the others dumped Erica's body.

"They said they just laid it somewhere," he said.
http://www.channelcincinnati.com/news/5062518/detail.html?rss=cin&psp=news
 
Bobbisangel said:
I didn't register for that site so I have a couple questions.

Is he being charged with murder? What has happened with the attorney that refused to give info that her deceased client might have given her?

I hadn't heard of this case before today. I can't begin to imagine the frustration this family has felt over the years. To know that there is someone that might have the answers to your daughter's death and where her body is and that somebody refused to give them that peace of mind...I would want to choke the truth out of that attorney. It is just beyond belief.

There were ways that attorney could have let the family know what she knew. She obviously knows something or she wouldn't be clawing her way up the judicial ladder to keep from talking. Couldn't she put herself in the shoes of this family? She does have kids because she said her life and the lives of her children were threatened. If someone did threaten her and her family she should ask for protection in return for what she knows...along with the names of who is threatening her.

It's to much to wish that CTV would cover this case. Lately it seems like they either show trials they have already shown or like now...a trial that just got over for real, we know the verdict and pieces of it were shown on news channels.

I hope three things happen during the time of this trial...if this guy is guilty that he be found guilt by a "common sense jury"....that the parents of this little girl are told where her body is....and that the attorney who may have been able to bring peace to this family be charged with withholding info or whatever they can charge her with.

Since this is now a court case, I started a thread in Trials and there is more info there.
 
Testimony wrapped for day 3 in the trial of Christian Gabriel who is the only person charged in the disappearance of 9-year-old Erica Baker.

On Thursday, jurors saw a written confession by Gabriel. Detectives in Kettering said he changed his story the second time he was questioned by police. He is charged with gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.

The main witness Thursday afternoon was a Kettering detective who interviewed Gabriel. He said Gabriel changed his story the second time he was interview.

The detective said in the first interview, Gabriel denied that he was driving the van that struck Baker. He then said that when Gabriel was interviewed a second time, he went along with police and said he was driving the van.
http://www.whiotv.com/news/5067326/detail.html?rss=day&psp=news

The trial of Christian Gabriel resumed Thursday for day 3 of testimony. He is the only person accused in the disappearance of Erica Baker.

Gabriel is facing charges of gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.

On Thursday morning a lot of attention was put on the van police think Gabriel was driving the day Baker died. They said about six people took the stand, including people who work for the Miami Valley Crime lab.
http://www.whiotv.com/news/5065822/detail.html?rss=day&psp=news
 
http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1007erica.html?cxntnid=dlh-100705


Detective gives emotional account of Erica's death
Defense: No evidence found in case of missing 9-year-old

By Rob Modic

Dayton Daily News

DAYTON | Some 6 1/2 years after Detective Robert J. Green was first called out to find a missing girl in Kettering, and moments after he settled into the witness box to begin his testimony about the marathon case, his composure dissolved Thursday morning in the trial of Christian John Gabriel.

"I know this has been a difficult time," assistant Montgomery County prosecutor Leon Daidone said in a consoling voice.

Green bit his lip, stared down at the table in front of him for several seconds and flexed muscles in his face as his voice cracked with emotion.

After answering questions and taking several pauses during the first 10 minutes, he appeared to regain his composure.

He testified for four hours.


More at link
 
He was just found guilty of both charges...they just said it on my local news.
 
http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1007ericaweb.html?cxntnid=bn-100705



Christian Gabriel convicted in Erica Baker case

By Rob Modic

Dayton Daily News

DAYTON | Christian John Gabriel was convicted Friday of two felony charges in the disappearance of 9-year-old Erica Baker more than six years ago from a Kettering park.

Christian Gabriel convicted in Erica Baker case


A Montgomery County Common Pleas jury deliberated about three hours after it got the case at 2:05 p.m.

Gabriel was convicted of gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.


more at link
 
Authorities still have no body, confusing story and a silent attorney

Where is Erica Baker? Will we ever know?

The trial last week and conviction Friday of Christian John Gabriel on felonies connected with moving and concealing the girl's body — she is presumed dead — disclosed little to investigators.

"I don't think there were any new leads in the case," said Leon Daidone, assistant county prosecutor.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1009erica.html
 

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