It was late Sept. 4, 1995, actually it was already into the next morning, and Todd Baker was cruising — for a stranger.
A victim.
That’s when he saw 15-year-old Missy Schmidt sitting on the porch of her Near South home.
Baker would describe her later as small, 5-foot-2 or so, 100 pounds, brown hair. He guessed she might be 17.
Missy had spent the day with friends at the State Fair and had come home. It was late. She left her shoes inside with her purse and sat outside that late summer night.
The 33-year-old Baker parked his gray 1979 Chrysler Newport and walked up to her, spoke to her.
Then he pulled out a hammer.
It happened quickly — a strike to the back of her head — and she was out.
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He scooped her up, took her into the dark and struck her again.
Baker left her there, in the dark, to get a sleeping bag from his car. He wrapped her up in it, carried her to his car and left town out on West A Street. He drove country roads for a spot to dump her body.
Three months later, he showed his girlfriend.
In 2004, the woman who later married Baker, Angela Hecox, came forward about how, crouched in the back seat, she’d seen bits and pieces of what he’d done to Anne True, a petite stranger they had seen walking alone along North 48th Street one night in 1996.
He dumped her body north of town.
In September 2006, a jury found Baker guilty of True’s murder, and in December he was sentenced to life.
Baker’s mother called the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office soon afterward wanting to know if there was a second victim. Her son told her Schmidt was dead, Lancaster Deputy County Attorney Jeff Mathers said Monday.
And in a call to his dad from prison, Mathers said, Baker admitted he’d killed True “and there was another one out there that he needed to clear up” so she could be sent back to her family and he could make his peace with God.
The skeletal remains were found in a snowy ditch, wrapped in what was left of the sleeping bag, on Jan. 26 near Southwest 112th Street and Southwest Van Dorn.
It was Missy.
In an unusual hearing Monday, Baker was arraigned on the first-degree murder charge, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison (consecutive to the life sentence for True’s killing) — all in the span of 35 minutes.
Chief Deputy Joe Kelly said later they couldn’t use True’s killing to seek a death sentence because Baker killed Schmidt first.
“Once again, did you commit this crime, sir?” District Judge John Colborn asked Baker near the close of the hearing.
“Yes I did,” Baker said.
Missy Schmidt’s family and friends hugged and wiped away tears as they left the courtroom — a day many probably thought would never come.
It had been a long and difficult investigation, with success hanging on a few chance discoveries.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Jeff Bliemeister said it became hard not to wonder if they’d ever find the remains Hecox had told them about in 2004. They believed they were there to be found. But where?
He went to Florida to talk to Baker about True’s death and ended up arresting him in 2005. In 2006, Baker was convicted for her death.
But still no remains.
Police Sgt. Luke Wilke, working doggedly on Schmidt’s case without many leads to go on, started asking sheriff’s investigators working on the True case if there could have been others like her.
Could Baker have killed Missy?
There had been talk of others. A girl abducted from her porch in Lincoln.
“It kind of fell into place after talking to the sheriff’s office. Everything seemed to fit from that point on,” Wilke said.
But they couldn’t prove anything until Baker’s mom came forward about what her son told her at the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center during a visit in January.
When Wilke interviewed Baker, Baker was quick to admit what he’d done.
The next Monday, Jan. 22, he went out with investigators to try to find Missy’s body. When Baker couldn’t find her, he drew a crude map to help them search.
She was found four days later, with Hecox’s help. Bliemeister gave Hecox credit for coming forward when she thought she could to try to make things right.
If she hadn’t, True’s murder could remain unsolved, Schmidt’s too. And Baker could be a free man.
Bliemeister said Wilke’s dedication and passion to find closure for Schmidt’s family was an underlying factor in the case, too.
Wilke said Baker told him he was going to address the charges for the sake of Melissa’s family. But Wilke waited in court Monday not sure Baker would go through with it.
In the end, Wilke said, he’s never seen anyone accept responsibility for a crime the way Baker did.
Bliemeister said society is safer, truly safer, with Baker behind bars.
“And I think he (Baker) would agree.”
Reach Lori Pilger at 473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com.
