Jury deliberating fate of pardoned Kentucky man who now faces murder charge
A federal jury began deliberating on Tuesday afternoon the fate of a Kentucky man who faces a murder charge after being pardoned on a related state homicide conviction.
Patrick Baker faces up to life in prison if convicted.
The jury was out for about two hours and thirty minutes before asking to go home for the night about 7:15 p.m. The panel will resume deliberations Wednesday morning.
In closing arguments, a prosecutor argued Baker killed a drug dealer while trying to satisfy his need for pain pills. However, a defense attorney for Patrick Baker said prosecution witnesses had lied about Baker and argued there was not sufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to convict him.
Baker, 43, was convicted in state court in 2017 in n the death of Donald Mills, a Knox County man who was a large-scale drug dealer. Mills died of two gunshot wounds to the chest after two men posing as police invaded his home to rob him of drugs and money.
A judge sentenced Baker to 19 years in prison, but then-Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned him just two years later in December 2019.
Federal authorities later brought a charge against Baker that he murdered Mills during a drug-trafficking crime.
The case has drawn considerable attention because members of Baker’s family had held a political fundraising event for Bevin in 2018.
The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Reed, reminded jurors of testimony that Baker tried to recruit a friend to rob Mills; that he had a Google Earth photo of Mills’ house on his iPad; and that he bragged to one man he was getting ready to make a big score.
“The plan was that they were going to rob Donald Mills of oxycodone pills, a lot of oxycodone pills,” Reed said.
An alleged accomplice, Christopher Wagner, said he went with Baker to Mills’ house and that Baker, who was in a bedroom alone with Mills, later told him Mills had pulled a gun and Baker had to shoot him.
Wagner said he fled to Bell County with Baker, where they buried parts of the gun. Wagner later led police to the gun, which belonged to Baker and was linked to shell casings left behind at Mills’ house.
Lori Hammack, Baker’s ex-wife, testified he confessed killing Mills to her, Reed reminded jurors.
However, one of Baker’s three defense attorneys, Steve Romines, said in his closing argument that another man, a felon named Adam Messer, killed Mills and helped frame Baker.
“Make no mistake about it, ladies and gentlemen, Patrick Baker is innocent,” Romines told jurors.
Romines reminded jurors a boy who was staying with Mills’ sons that night told police the killer had a skull-and-crossbones tattoo, which Messer has but Baker doesn’t, and that Mills’ mother described the killer as having brown eyes, while Baker has blue eyes.
One defense witness, Joshua Spencer, testified that Adam Messer and his brother Elijah had talked repeatedly of robbing Mills in the weeks before the crime, Romines said.
And he reminded jurors of inconsistent statements that prosecution witnesses, and that two witnesses had erased or destroyed cell phones that could have held evidence incriminating someone other than Baker.
As to Baker’s ex-wife, Romines said Baker did not confess to her, but that her memory changed over time.
Romines said there was a reason that Adam Messer, who was Mills’ friend, didn’t give police information about Baker’s alleged involvement until Messer got worried he was under suspicion and had to deflect suspicion.
“The only reason not to is because he did it,” Romines said of Messer.
Reed said in rebuttal that the boy who testified about the tattoo could not have seen it that morning from his vantage point, and that Baker’s story about Messer taking his truck and gun for the crime without his knowledge didn’t make sense.
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 5:50 PM.
