Baker
TIFFIN — A North Baltimore man guilty of shooting and killing his daughter has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Jonathan Baker, 24, appeared Monday in the courtroom of Seneca County Common Pleas Judge Damon Alt.
In a statement before he was sentenced, Baker said that killing his daughter was “completely evil.”
“I truly thought that day I was doing something good,” he said, and explained there was a sickness in his mind because he hadn’t yet found God.
A jury earlier this month found Baker guilty of aggravated kidnapping and murder with a gun specification.
Wood County Assistant Prosecutor Brian Boos said Baker has shown no genuine remorse and that he shot his 7-month-old daughter in the head twice at close range to hurt the mother.
The case was prosecuted in Seneca County by prosecutors representing both Wood and Seneca counties.
“That is a level of evil that is rarely seen,” Boos said.
He asked for the maximum sentence.
A victim’s advocate read a statement on behalf of the infant’s mother.
The day Baker took her little life, I died a little as well, according to the statement read by the advocate.
She struggles every time she hears a baby cry or in distress, but she is not a victim, she is a survivor.
Her daughter, Emery, was always happy, giggling and cooing, enjoying tummy time or bouncing in her bouncy seat.
She will never be able to watch Emery grow into a woman, fall in love, pick her career, grow old and have her own family to cherish – but Emery is looking down from Heaven and never has to wonder why her father is so evil.
Baker kidnapped his daughter from North Baltimore and crashed his car into a Tiffin house on June 27, 2023, while trying to flee from police.
The incident started with the Wood County Sheriff’s Office sending out an alert after Baker took the child while armed with a gun.
He reportedly contacted the child’s mother and told her he was feeling homicidal and suicidal and claimed he had killed the child.
Tiffin Police Chief David Pauly previously said an off-duty city officer spotted the vehicle and alerted department officials. Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but Baker sped up before driving off the road and through the front yard of a home. He then crashed into another residence.
Law enforcement officers broke out the car’s back window to get the infant, who was bleeding from the head and had “labored breathing.”
It was initially believed that the infant died of injuries sustained in the crash, but the autopsy determined she had been shot twice.
After Baker was found competent to stand trial, he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury discounted that defense.
Defense attorney Christopher Bucio said he had four daughters of his own and this was a difficult case to try.
He said he didn’t believe Baker woke up that day and decided he was going to commit a horrendous crime.
His argument that Baker was suffering from mental issues was rejected by the court, Bucio said.
“The mind is a tricky thing. Mr. Baker’s mind was not OK on the day in question,” he said.
The defendant showed remorse by not testifying at trial and not fighting the charges, he said.
Bucio asked for a sentence that was something less than life.
Baker said it was “absolutely horrible” what happened that day and everything that led up to this.
“This can happen to anybody anytime he said,” and then went on to speak about how bad things are happening in the world because people don’t have God.
He said he was happy to hear the baby’s mother believes there is an afterlife, and Emery is looking down on us.
“Whatever your choice is, I’m not going to refute it,” he said to the judge, but “please have mercy.”
“Mr. Baker, you murdered your daughter … throughout the day you were afforded every opportunity to prevent that crime from happening,” Alt said.
She was defenseless and trusted you to protect her and instead you took her life, he said to Baker.
Alt called it a “senseless act,” and said the court has not seen any genuine remorse and that Baker’s statements minimized the actions he took that day.
He imposed the sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the aggravated murder charge.
Wood County Prosecutor Paul Dobson said after the sentence was “absolutely appropriate” and praised the Seneca County Prosecutor’s Office, his staff, and law enforcement for all the work they did.
An additional sentence of a maximum of 16.5 years for the kidnapping charge, a mandatory three years for the firearms specification and mandatory registering as a violent offender upon his release from prison are mute.
Baker will get credit for 472 days spent in jail.
