For the families of victims killed in unsolved murders, life is at a standstill.
The Enquirer is highlighting a series of cold cases, summarized and analyzed by the journalists whose careers largely focus on unsolved murders: the creators of Cincinnati.com's Accused podcast. If you have any information on any unsolved case, please reach out to the appropriate law enforcement agency. Suggestions for cases to highlight can be sent to [email protected].
The crime: When the Bakers found Jamie, the family dog, walking the street alone, its leash dragging on the ground, they knew something was terribly wrong.
Nine-year-old Erica Baker had asked to take the Shih Tzu for a walk at about 3:30 p.m. in Kettering, a Dayton suburb about 55 miles north of Cincinnati. At first, her mother said no. It was raining, and Misty Baker didn’t want Erica to catch a cold.
But Erica liked walking the dog near the Kettering Recreation Center. The little girl persisted and promised to wear a raincoat over her Winnie the Pooh sweater. Mom relented and has never seen her daughter since.
The search: Erica’s disappearance devastated her hometown of Kettering and beyond. Hundreds of volunteers turned out to search the area, while law enforcement drained most of a 2.9 million-gallon retention pond in search of the girl’s body. Nothing turned up – not even a scrap of her clothing.
“She’s the friendliest child in the world,” Kim Hesse told a Dayton Daily News reporter after the Feb. 7, 1999, disappearance. Hesse had worked as a playroom supervisor at Erica’s elementary school.
“It was normal to see her walking around,” Hesse said. “She smiled and waved at everyone.”
The conviction: This case is among the most baffling covered by Backstory – because it’s unsolved, and yet, someone has served time in prison for it.
Christian John Gabriel of Springfield was questioned within months of Erica’s death as a potential witness. Yet, in 2005, he was indicted in part because of statements made years earlier by his then-girlfriend Jan Franks. Franks said that she and Gabriel were driving together when their van struck and killed the girl. Afterward, they hid the body, she had said.
Despite Franks’ statement, charges didn’t come for years. In fact, Franks died of a drug overdose in 2001, four years before Gabriel’s case was even presented to a grand jury.
Prosecutors didn’t feel they had enough evidence to charge Gabriel with homicide, so, just days before the deadline was set to expire on lesser charges, they charged him with tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse – a risky move when no corpse was ever found.
Gabriel, now 50, told police three versions of what happened. In two versions, he claimed to have been in a van that struck the girl, though the driver and other occupants of the van changed between the accounts, as did Erica’s supposed burial spot. In the third version, Gabriel said he had nothing to do with Erica’s death at all.
Jurors heard all three versions, as well as Gabriel's lawyer's argument that his client only confessed because he'd been brow-beaten by cops. The jury deliberated for three hours before convicting Gabriel, who was hauled away cursing after a judge imposed a six-year prison sentence. After his release about a decade ago, he moved to Florida, according to public records.
But where’s Erica? When someone disappears, families usually have the option of holding out hope that they’ll turn up alive someday. Not so in Erica’s case. By the time Gabriel faced trial, her family had accepted that she was, indeed, dead, but they still couldn’t feel at peace because they didn’t have a body to bury.
Greg Baker, Erica’s father, pleaded with Gabriel to lead them to their daughter’s remains, but Gabriel denied any knowledge. (His possible motivation: There’s no statute of limitation on a murder charge.) As such, this case has continued to haunt not just Erica’s family, but the whole community.
Police recently announced they’re still searching for Erica, though a planned search April 10 turned up nothing.
Got tips? Contact the Kettering Police Department at (937) 296-2570. The department is being aided by search-and-recovery outfit Texas EquuSearch Midwest.
Accused, reported by Enquirer journalists Amber Hunt and Amanda Rossmann, is an award-winning podcast investigating cold cases with three seasons available on all mainstream platforms such as Apple Podcasts and also at www.accusedpodcast.com.
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