From the archives: At the time of Tara Baker's death, police believed she did not know killer

Editor's Note: This story was originally published in the print edition of the Athens Banner-Herald on January 20, 2001, the day after Tara Baker's body was found. It has been republished online for our readers due to the update in the case.

Athens-Clarke police said Saturday they do not believe University of Georgia Law School student Tara Baker knew her killer.

A day after Baker's body was discovered by firefighters responding to a fire at her Fawn Drive home, investigators had not identified a firm suspect in the murder-arson, though they believe it was a stranger to the 23-year-old.

''We don't know who did this at this point,'' Athens-Clarke Assistant Police Chief Mark Wallace said Saturday. ''We have some leads which I'm not in a position to discuss, and we have some evidence which I'm not in a position to discuss. We have been able to determine that we do have a homicide and that the perpetrator attempted to cover the crime by setting fire to the residence.''

An autopsy of Baker was performed at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab in Decatur Saturday morning. Authorities said they will not release a cause of death or comment on the condition of the body in order to protect their investigation.

Baker, from Lovejoy in Clayton County south of Atlanta, was the first University of Georgia student to be murdered since 1992, when Jennifer Lynn Stone was found raped and strangled in her off-campus apartment downtown. That case remains unsolved.

Authorities have adopted a high-priority stance with the investigation of Friday's murder. As many as 20 investigators with Athens-Clarke police and the GBI have been assigned to the case, Wallace said. The police department has canceled all days off for officers in the criminal investigation division.

''We're hopeful we'll be able to solve this crime, and we're working around the clock to accomplish that,'' he said.

GBI Director Milton ''Buddy'' Nix has spoken by telephone with Athens-Clarke Police Chief Jack Lumpkin several times since the murder and the state crime lab, usually closed on Saturdays, was opened to assist investigators, Wallace said.

''He's very concerned,'' Wallace said.

Clarke County District Attorney Ken Mauldin confirmed that officials with his office had visited the murder scene.

''We've certainly been kept abreast of what's going on,'' Mauldin said.

Athens-Clarke officers on Saturday continued their door-to-door canvass of the neighborhood, asking residents if they had seen anything or anyone unusual. The Deer Park subdivision is a neighborhood of rental properties off Lexington Road mostly populated by college students.

Wallace acknowledged that a Dec. 25 arson at an apartment on Deer Parkway could be connected to Friday's murder.

''Certainly, we're looking at that possibility,'' he said.

No one was home when someone entered an apartment in the early morning hours of Christmas day and set fire to a pile of clothes in a closet. The apartment sits about a block away from Baker's home on a street running parallel to Fawn Drive.

Police have narrowed down a time frame in Friday's killing but would not comment on when the murder could have occurred. Wallace did say that Baker failed to show up for a 9:30 a.m. class, and authorities were called to the fire at her home at 11:25 a.m. Firefighters broke down a locked front door to reach the fire, which started in a bedroom and burned through the roof.

Wallace would not comment on whether there had been forced entry into the home prior to authorities' arrival.

''We believe we have determined a point of entry and a point of exit,'' Wallace said, but would not elaborate.

Baker's two female roommates were out of town Friday, Wallace said.

While residents have complained about a rise in crime at Deer Park, statistics don't indicate an alarming problem. Nancy Zechella, director of Safe Campuses Now, said after studying crime data for the neighborhood, she believes the number of car break-ins and criminal trespass reports filed in the Deer Park area were not unusually high for a residential area with a majority student population.

In the past semester, there have been three car break-ins and a criminal trespass in the Brighton Park and Deer Park area, Zechella said. Someone tried to enter a Deer Parkway home on Christmas eve by removing a window screen. Two burglaries were reported in October 1999.

The area's crime rate ''does not strike me as being extraordinary,'' Zechella said, adding that car break-ins have been up this semester throughout Athens.

Wallace said police were also studying crime reports from the area to try to determine if there were any identifiable patterns.

One problem facing police is the anonymity in which many off-campus college students live. Of more than a dozen Fawn Drive residents interviewed Friday night, none knew Baker or her roommates, including their next-door neighbors.

''We're not a very sociable neighborhood,'' UGA student and Fawn Drive resident Michael Hinton said Friday. ''It would probably be a little safer if we were.''

''It's good for students to get to know their neighbors so they will know who strangers in the neighborhood are,'' Zechella said.

Zechella said students also need to lock their doors during the day, use peepholes before opening doors and report even the most minor crimes to police.

Judging from the flat layout of the neighborhood and the noticeable lack of trees or large shrubbery, it would be nearly impossible for a criminal to leave the neighborhood in daylight hours unseen, she said.

''There's no place to hide out there,'' she said.

Wallace said investigators are hoping that fact will lead them to locate someone who saw something.

''We're continuing to talk to residents to ascertain if they saw anything suspicious or if this event brings back to mind anything they might have seen that was suspicious.''

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Tara Baker case: Police discuss murder-arson in 2001 news story