After nearly 25 years, the trial for a man accused of killing UGA law student Tara Baker begins
By John Dodge, Alvieann Chandler
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ATHENS, Ga. (WXIA) — The trial for a man accused of the brutal killing of a UGA law student in 2001 began Monday with the lead prosecutor warning jurors that the evidence in “a heinous crime” will be difficult for them to hear and watch.
Assistant District Attorney Kris Bolden began to detail for the jury what he called “very grisly evidence” in Tara Baker’s death that will lead them to conclude the defendant Edrick Faust is guilty of her murder.
“Edrick Faust killed Tara Baker. Edrick Faust set her house on fire,” Bolden said.
Bolden told jurors how firefighters responded to a fire at her home on Jan. 19, 2001, opened her bedroom door to extinguish the blaze and discovered her naked body wedged between the footboard and mattress. When police arrived, they found Baker had been stabbed in the neck with a computer printer cord around her neck. They also found the knife used to kill her.
The autopsy was done the next day, which was Baker’s 24th birthday. The medical examiner found the stab wound severed her jugular vein, and that she was strangled and hit on the head. There was also evidence of a sexual assault.
Bolden made several points to rule out Baker’s boyfriend as a suspect, saying Chris Melton’s whereabouts were accounted for in the night before and day of the killing. He added that Melton has cooperated with investigators.
Initially, the rape kit did not find any evidence of semen or other male DNA. However, in 2023, the rape kit was resubmitted, and a few months later, a DNA profile was found to match Faust. The odds that the DNA belongs to another person, Bolden said, were 1 in 800 quadrillion.
Defense attorney Ahmad R. Crews told the jury that prosecutors won’t be able prove how Faust got into the home or how he was able to leave the home without any witnesses seeing him.
“How did Mr. Faust get away without being seen in the middle of the morning?”
Crews also laid out a strategy to raise questions about Baker’s relationship with her boyfriend. He also questioned why the hair around her body was not that of a Black person and that this client’s fingerprints or handprints were never discovered.
Crews showed the jury photos of Melton’s hands, which appeared to be red and bruised, taken a few days after Baker’s death. He suggested to jurors that Baker’s and Melton’s relationship was coming to an end in the days before her death.
23-year-old Baker, a first-year student, was found dead inside her burned apartment off Fawn Drive in Athens, Georgia, just one day before her 24th birthday on January 19, 2001.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Baker was last seen by a friend outside the library at around 7:30 p.m. on January 18, 2001. That same friend received a call from Baker, who said she was planning to leave the library at 10 p.m. This phone was the last time anyone heard her voice.
Athens Police determined that the fire was set on purpose and ruled her death a homicide, but a suspect was never arrested until 2024, when police took Faust into custody.
Until today’s opening statements, authorities have not provided details about the evidence they gathered that led to Faust’s arrest. However, his arrest is the result of the Coleman-Baker Act, which encourages law enforcement agencies to reexamine cold cases and is named in part for Baker.
Opening statements for the trial were delayed on Monday morning as lawyers argued over the admissibility of certain phone records.
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