Pardoned KY man admitted he shot a man to death during robbery, accomplice says
A Kentucky man accused of killing a drug dealer during a robbery thought that posing as a police officer during the crime would keep down problems, an accomplice testified.
But the alleged killer, Patrick Baker, told him something went wrong, the accomplice, Christopher Wagner, testified at Baker’s federal trial.
“He said ‘I had to shoot him,’ “ Wagner said.
Donald Mills, who dealt in large quantities of pain pills, died in May 2014 when two men burst into his home in Knox County and he was shot in the chest.
Baker, now 43, went on trial this week on a charge of killing Mills during the commission of a drug crime.
His case has been high-profile because then-Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned Baker of the crime in December 2019, two years after a jury in state court convicted him of reckless homicide in Mills’ death and he was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Members of Baker’s family had held a political fundraiser for Bevin the year before.
Bevin has denied that political contributions played a role in his decision to pardon Baker. He said the evidence was sketchy, though the state Court of Appeals had earlier said the evidence was overwhelming.
State Republicans and Democrats alike called for an investigation of the pardon, and federal authorities have looked into the fundraiser.
They also picked up a case against Baker. The charge in federal court involves a drug crime, which was not an element of the crime in state court.
Baker has consistently maintained he did not shoot Mills.
Another witness in the case, Nathan Wagner, testified that he was a friend of Baker’s and had sold him drugs and used drugs with him.
Baker’s drug addiction “had become a major financial problem” by the spring of 2014, said Wagner, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence in a methamphetamine case.
Wagner said Baker approached him with an idea to rob a drug dealer to get pain pills and money, but he “shut it down” and told Baker to go home and get some sleep.
Christopher Wagner, who is not related to Nathan Wagner, also testified he was a friend of Baker’s and used pain pills and meth with him.
Baker also raised the idea with him of robbing a drug dealer that he thought would have 1,500 pills and up to $200,000 in cash, Wagner said.
Baker believed the intended target wouldn’t be able to report being robbed because he was a drug dealer, Wagner testified.
Baker had been to Mills’s house with another man, Elijah Messer, the day before to buy pills, according to other testimony.
Wagner said he first thought Baker wasn’t serious. However, Baker and Wagner put pistols and ski masks in Baker’s Ford F-150 pickup truck late on May 8, 2014, went to buy a pain pill and then went to a Dollar General store in London, where Baker bought toy plastic handcuffs.
“He was wanting to impersonate the cops for the robbery,” Wagner testified. “He didn’t think anything would happen if they thought we was the cops.”
The two then went to the home of Adam Messer in Knox County. Messer’s brother, Elijah, and some other people were there as well.
Several in the group smoked meth, including Baker and Wagner, and Elijah Messer talked at length about robbing the drug dealer, Wagner said.
Wagner said he and Baker and Messer were to split the money and drugs they expected to get in the robbery.
Baker had a Google Earth photo of Mills’ mobile home on his iPad, but Messer told him they didn’t need it because he knew the place well, Wagner said.
Wagner said before they left for Mills’ house, Baker covered the shiny toolbox in the bed of his truck with a piece of camouflage called a ghillie suit, which is used by hunters, and also covered the license plate on his truck.
Elijah Messer followed them in another truck driven by Angela Mills, who parked nearby while Baker drove on to Mill’s house, Wagner said.
Wagner said Baker ran up onto Mills’ porch. It was about 5 a.m. and Mills and his family were asleep, according to other testimony.
When Wagner lagged behind, Baker told him to come on, then kicked in the door of Mill’s home, Wagner said.
Wagner said he took Mills’ wife, Charlene, to one bedroom, where he watched her, her two sons and a friend of one of the boys who was staying over, letting her go look for an asthma inhaler for one of her sons at one point.
Baker was asking Mills where he kept the money and drugs, and ultimately took him to the master bedroom, Wagner said.
Wagner said he couldn’t see what was going on in the other bedroom, but suddenly heard two shots, and then several more after a pause.
Baker seemed agitated when he came out of the bedroom, “slinging” stuff around, Wagner said.
Baker and Wagner fled shortly after. Baker first couldn’t find the truck keys, Wagner said.
“He was panicking,” Wagner said.
Baker told him that Mills had asked to go to the bathroom while they were in the master bedroom, and that when Baker let him start that way, Mills pulled a gun.
They met Messer nearby after the robbery, and Baker, shaken, confronted Messer, who had told them Mills didn’t have guns and that the robbery would be easy.
“It all went wrong and I had to shoot him,” Baker said, according to Wagner. ‘He was like, ‘Why did you lie to me?’ “
Wagner said Baker had taken a bag of pills from the victim, which he thought might be gabapentin, a painkiller, and also five oxycodone pills. The two of them snorted the five pills while on the way to Bell County, where they pulled off U.S. 119 onto a rough road that appeared to have once been part of a surface coal-mining operation, Wagner said.
Baker changed into other clothes he had brought and then burned what he’d worn to Mills’ house, and Wagner threw his cap and camouflage vest into the weeds, he said.
Baker disassembled the murder weapon, burying parts of it and throwing parts of it away, Wagner said.
Wagner led police to the site after they arrested him about a week later. Police found the buried parts of the gun and linked the weapon to Baker, according to information presented in court.
Defense attorneys have argued that Elijah Messer’s brother, a felon named Adam Messer, is actually the person who planned the robbery and shot Mills, and that Messer then directed police to Baker to save himself.
Baker’s attorneys also have attempted to discredit prosecution witnesses, arguing they have changed their stories, provided inconsistent information and provided new details years after the fact, implying they made them up.
For instance, Steve Romines, one of Baker’s attorneys, pointed out in cross-examining Wagner Wednesday that Wagner said nothing in his first interview with police about Mills’ wife shooting at him and Baker as they fled; that he told police he had met one potential participant in the robbery only a few times but testified in federal court it was at least 50 times; that he initially lied to police and said he and Baker had only planned to go to Knox County to buy pills, not rob anyone; and that he told state police he didn’t know if Baker had plastic handcuffs during the robbery while testifying at the trial that they both did.
When Wagner testified against Messer in 2018, he said he hadn’t heard how the haul from the robbery would be divided, but said at Baker’s trial it would be split three ways, Romines said.
“One of those is perjury, isn’t it, Mr. Wagner?” Romines asked.
Wagner acknowledged he lied one of those times, and that he did not provide some details to police or in earlier trials, but attributed that to being nervous or to not being asked about particular information.
He also said that within minutes during his first police interview, he corrected one lie Romines pointed out. Wagner didn’t back down from his basic story that Baker killed Mills, and was clear that Adam Messer wasn’t there.
Wagner is serving a 10-year sentence for manslaughter and robbery in connection with the crime, and Elijah Messer is serving 50 years.
Baker’s trial is scheduled to continue Thursday.
This story was originally published August 11, 2021 at 10:56 AM.
