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Ed Baker Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

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Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the
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unexplained death of Ed Baker. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up
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on what we talked about in our previous episode. Well, this case takes
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place in Houston, Texas in nineteen eighty five, and Ed Baker was the
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fifty two year old millionaire chairman of an oil investment business called Vanguard International.
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Edit is currently on his fourth marriage. His first wife was killed in a
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car accident during the nineteen seventies. By the nineteen eighties, Ed and his
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second wife had started up bait oil investment business, Vanguard, and because of
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an oil boom, he has now become a millionaire. But he is going
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through some sort of midlife crisis because he has since gone through two other wives.
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He's got a gambling habit, and he has been spending a lot of
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his investors' money and essentially creating a Ponzi scheme where he takes money from them
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and spends them on himself. But now that he's not getting as many investors
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and there's an oil bust, the house of cars has started to collapse,
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so he's facing prison time and he's been giving off hints that his life might
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be in danger because he borrowed a lot of money from some criminals. One
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night, he went to see his second wife and said that his life was
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in danger and that he didn't have much time left. And shortly thereafter Ed
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went missing, and his burned out car would be discovered in a remote field,
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and it appeared he'd been shot, and then someone had used gasoline to
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set the car on fire. But he has been burned so badly that there's
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been so many theories about what happened to him. There's been speculation that he
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might have been murdered by the people he borrowed money from, or that this
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was an elaborate suicide, because it turned out he had some life insurance policies
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for his family and had specifically asked them if they would pay out in the
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event of a suicide, and at least one of the insurance companies told him
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no. So they figured that he could have shot himself or maybe had an
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accomplice who set his body on fire afterwards to try to make it look like
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a murder. But another theory is that perhaps he faked his own death,
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that he found in John Doe and killed him and then set the body on
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fire until it was beyond recognition, and then skipped the country with all the
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profits because it turned out there was millions of dollars missing from Vanguard, and
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they wondered if he might be living on the proceeds. But it's been now
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thirty five years and there have not been any conclusive answers about what happened to
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him. It is generally suggested that the body found in the car did belong
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to ed Baker, but they have never been able to figure out if his
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death was a homicide or a suicide, and it's always been shrouded in mystery.
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Now, this is not one of those stories where I'm going to pretend
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that the victim was a saint, as ed Baker did commit a number of
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financial indiscretions prior to his death. It sounds like Ded was a decent,
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law abiding man for the first part of his life, but succumbed to greed
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once he finally attained wealth, and it seems like his success caused him to
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experience some sort of weird midlife crisis, as he divorced his second wife and
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went through two more marriages during the last year and a half. Of his
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life and went overboard with his gambling and spending habits. Incidentally, I've always
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loved Robert Stach's description of this during the Unsolved Mystery segment. As he says,
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quote, he began to indulge in high stakes gambling. Baker also underwent
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two facelifts, took disco lessons, and purchased a flashy new Jaguar end quote.
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I don't know why, but the random mention of disco lessons always cracks
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me up, particularly since this was the mid nineteen eighties when disco's popularity was
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in sharp decline. So let this be a cautionary tale. Stealing money to
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pay for disco lessons will lead to financial ruin. But in all seriousness,
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even if ed was operating his business honestly for the first few years, it
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sounds like things reached the point where he was operating a Ponzi scheme. He
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was spending his investors' money on himself to maintain his lifestyle, assuming that all
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the money he received from new investors could make up for that. But when
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the oil boom came to an end and Baker can no longer require new investors,
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the House of Cards started a fall Unsaw Mysteries actually featured a number of
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fraud segments about white collar criminals who became wanted fugitives for doing this exact thing.
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But the key difference is is that Baker wound up dead. So here's
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one of the things that's really sad about this story. I remember last time,
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Robin, you were telling us kind of about his background in his personal
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life as well, where he has the loss of his first wife and then
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he marries his second wife and they truly start over together. They're building this
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new business. It seems like she's really his rock, his best friend.
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She works there, do seem to start this as a legitimate business. And
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then at some point it's like he snaps and this midlife crisis. He just
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says, you know what, I'm done with my second wife, who's been
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the one to help build all of this with me. I'm going to look
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for the fastest, the youngest, the prettiest, the most expensive of all
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of these things. And I think that snap is where he starts to get
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into trouble. Right. He throws away what was stable and he's chasing better,
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bigger, even though he had that stability. And that is so sad
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because he goes back to her from what you told me last time to say,
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I'm scared for my life. And she was still the rock even when
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he was remarried, even when he had moved on. When he was scared
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at the end of his life, he went back to her and said,
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I'm scared something's going to happen to me. Yeah, it's pretty sad,
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particularly the mention of the facelifts, that he's desperately trying to make himself look
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younger. And of course we joked about the disco lessons, and this is
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a guy in his fifties, and it sounds like he wants to be like
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John Traubolt and Saturday Night Fever and make himself look considerably younger and hip.
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But of course now he's blowing all this money and getting himself into more trouble
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and he's going for younger women. And like I said, it doesn't sound
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like Ed Baker was a bad guy until the early nineteen eighties and then it
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just snapped for him and he just abandoned his second wife, Mary and then
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just decided I'm going to be this like high flutin guy who lives life to
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the max, even though he can't sustain it. I feel like two facelifts
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is a lot by the time you're fifty. I watched this guy on YouTube.
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His name's doctor Gary. He's amazing, and he always breaks down potential
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procedures that celebrities have had, and he's just like the nicest guy ever and
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not at all smarmy, like what you would think for a stereotypical plastic surgeon
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that would be on YouTube. He's the antithesis of that. But he talks
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about facelifts and he says that once people start, you basically have to go
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every ten years to get a revision one. So he always says that people
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should wait until they're as old as they possibly can if that is something that
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they're interested in. So if it wasn't a botch facelift that he was fixing,
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he likely got a facelift when he was around forty, which seems like
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it's pretty young to be having that kind of surgery. And I mean,
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especially at the time, it was less likely that anyone would have had that
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type of surgery, let alone men. So I think that would likely speak
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to that deep insecurity and that midlife crisis that we've been referencing since Part one.
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It really is sad that it seems like he couldn't find any satisfaction no
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matter what he seemed to have in his life, even when from the outside
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things look perfect. He clearly was just unhappy with the way that everything was
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going on the inside. One of the strangest details of Ed's apparent midlife crisis
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was his short lived third marriage to Karen Wallbridge, which only lasted five months
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before he got remarried to his fourth wife, Sandy. The only reason we
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even know anything about Karen Walbridge is because of a twenty fifteen book written by
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Patricia Goldstone titled Interlock Art, Conspiracy and the Shadow Worlds of Mark Lombardi.
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Mark Lombardi specialized in what was described as conspiracy art, as he created conceptual
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artwork which featured drawings of alleged financial and political frauds before he was found hanging
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in his apartment in two thousand in an apparent suicide. The main reason Ed
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Baker gets a few brief mentions in this book is because Karen Wallbridge was lifelong
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friends with Mark Lombardi and they were apparently romantically involved at some point at the
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time Karen got married to Ed. She was nearly twenty years younger than him,
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and it was pretty much no big secret that she only hooked up with
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him for his money. According to Karen, Ed had her followed by detectives
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because he thought she was having an affair, and after he got remarried to
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Sandy, he was supposed to pay Karen for the annulment to their marriage,
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but this never happened. Garan is one of the people who believes that Ed
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might have faked his death and fled the country. But while this book doesn't
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delve very deeply into this case, it does imply that a lot of money
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provided to Baker, which allowed his company to have such a successful expansion,
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was provided by mob financiers and real estate investors, who were both involved in
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a CIA network which was operating in Texas during that time period. However,
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even though I have no problem believing that Baker got in way over his head
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and may have found himself in serious debt with some shady figures near the end
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of his life, I am going to stop short on believing that his death
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was a massive conspiracy involving the CIA. Oh, for sure, I don't
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think necessarily that federal agents were involved but I am not going to say that
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the mob or pressure from shady people may not be involved. Remember last time,
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Robin and Jules, you were telling me that at the end of his
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life, he was kind of offered a deal where he could get some financing
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from people who were going to quote help him pay his debt off. And
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we mentioned nothing comes for free, right, someone who's going to help you,
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quote get out of debt, there's a catch, There's going to be
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something that comes with that money, right and expectation, And it seems like
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Ed Baker was in over his head. But then if he really had taken
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money from some of these cetier groups to try to keep that lifestyle or even
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just stay afloat and not get caught as quickly, I don't put it past
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a financier coming after him. No, I agree, I agree. I
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think we definitely went into an in part one that everybody believed that he was
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in debt to some really dangerous people. So I definitely I agree with you
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Ash. I think that there is a possibility that they could have been involved
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in what happened to him, But I'm more inclined to believe that his connection
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to the mob or the people that he potentially owed money to or a driving
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force for the potential actions that he then took, which you know, calling
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of the insurance company and asking if there was a suicide indemnity clause or if
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it would pay out in the event of suicide. Just is one of those
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things that pushes me more towards that side. But yeah, I don't think
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it was a CIA conspiracy. I definitely don't believe that. Yeah, definitely
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not. They never mentioned that on Unsolved Mysteries, and the only source for
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that was in that book we just talked about. But now I'm going to
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talk more about these people who allegedly loan money to Ed. I know that.
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Almost immediately after Ed died, his wife, Sandy, publicly stated that
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she believed her husband was killed because of his failure to pay back at two
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hundred and fifty thousand dollars loan to some organized crime figures in Miami, and
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Ed's private investigator, Bob Gail, also confirmed that Ed had asked him to
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look into the backgrounds of two men from Miami who were going to loan him
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some money and see if they had mafia connections, but it's never been released
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publicly. Who these men were, and it's unclear if Gail found anything in
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their backgrounds to suggest they had connections to organized crime. However, I do
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think it's interesting that Gail was one of the people who pushed forward the theory
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that Ed faked his own death, which makes me wonder if he found something
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which made him believe this story about the loan did not check out. But
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given how much money he owed his investors, I can definitely believe that Ed
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would have been desperate enough to borrow money from anybody he could in order to
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save his company exactly. I think he was desperate at this point, and
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then you started seeing him making these kind of decisions to say, Okay,
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what are my options out and one of those would be borrowing money from,
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like you said, anyone who would give him money. But there's also remember
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that phone call to the insurance company saying is my life insurance valid if there's
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a suicide. He's also looking into other options and other ways that he could
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quote get out from the mess that he's made, and none of them,
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none of them offer him any kind of healthy alternative. It's prison, engage
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with, you know, seedy individuals, or possibly take his own life,
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So basically you're just borrowing time if that is the case, right, like,
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if you don't see that there's any other way out of this mess,
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and that you may not be able to recover financially if you're taking a loan
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from people who are mobbed up, a very high risk loan, I might
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add, I'm sure, and then you know that in the end you're likely
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not going to be able to pay that. Are you then kind of keeping
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in your sites that suicide is an option and you're just basically on borrowed time.
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But I would just think that I would be pretty worried if you're going
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to take a loan like that, that even if you decide to end your
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own life, that it could potentially fall on the shoulders of your family members.
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Yes, that is true, because we have seen examples of that where
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the is like, well, just because you killed yourself or died, does
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not mean we're canceling this debt, and it might fall on your family members.
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And this might be why Bob Gail was one of the people who believe
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the theory that Ed could have faked his own debt, that maybe he figured,
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well, if I bring my wife Sandy in on this and then we
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kill somebody else and think my own death and skip the country will be home
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free. But of course that's definitely the least likely of any of the theories
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that's been pushed forward. It's also interesting how Ed owed fifty thousand dollars to
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a pair of casinos at the time of his death. So when Sandy said
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that Ed had already spent the money which had been loaned to him from these
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men in Miami, that could be another way of saying he gambled it all
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away. I guess the biggest problem with the idea that Ed was murdered by
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the mafia for failure to repay his debts is that if he was dead,
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they would never get that money back. Well, no one has ever openly
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stated this. You do get the impression that some people might have suspected that
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Sandy was personally involved in her husband's murder, or at the very least knew
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more than she was letting on. Yes, Sandy was established as being out
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of town over one hundred and sixty miles away at the time Ed was killed,
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but she still could have conceivably hired to hit Mandy get rid of him,
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and then after finding out what had happened. She starts off spouting a
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story about a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars loan to the mafia in order
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to take suspicion off herself. Sandy did take a polygraph test which seemed to
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indicate that she was withholding information, and she also collected a larger chunk of
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the money from Ed's life insurance policies than anyone else in his life, even
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his own children. Immediately following Ed's death, his son Blake, wound up
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being arrested for threatening to kill Sandy until he received his share of his father's
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estate. Unfortunately, we were unable to find out what ultimately happened with Blake's
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legal situation and if he wound up doing any prison time, but his actions
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suggests that there was a major hostility between him and Sandy, so I wonder
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if Ed's side of the family didn't like her too much. Whatever the case,
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Blake was never considered a suspect, and while I can't positively confirm this,
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there's a comment on the Unsolved Mysteries website stating that Blake was a drug
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addict, which could provide an explanation for his behavior. During online searches,
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we also managed to find a photo of a grave for a Blake Edward Baker,
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who was buried in Gonzales, Texas, after he died in October nineteen
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ninety five at the age of thirty three. We can't be one hundred percent
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sure if this is the same guy, but the ages do match up.
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That is so sad. I hope it's not his son, because it sounds
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like he was battling quite a lot in life. But let's go back to
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this idea of Blake and his relationship to Sandy. If you were under the
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assumption Sandy knew anything anything. Let's say that ed comes to her and says,
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listen, honey, it's bad. It's bad to get killed, and
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you're gonna get killed or we're going to lose everything we have. I'm gonna
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end my life, and I need you to get out of here as soon
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as possible, right or I'm going to have someone help in my life.
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I'm going to take care of this, but you can't be here. If
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you assumed that Sandy was okay with that, and assumed that she knew she
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would financially be protected if he died, I could see absolute hatred for her,
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right, because the assumption would be that at the end of the day,
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it wasn't worth going to the mattresses with him, right, like it
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wasn't worth saying us against the world, bankrupt in an apartment, you know,
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with no fancy cars, like I love you that much that we're just
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going to do this and fix it. I will wait the ten years are
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going to be in prison, Like none of that is what happened. If
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you're assuming Sandy knew it was, I will gladly leave and then when you're
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dead, I'll take your money and everything will be good. So if that
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is what you assumed, no wonder you'd go berserk as one of his or
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someone who loved him, even the wife that was so good to him,
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right, and that he went back to and said, I'm scared. I
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could just see this kind of distaste in my mouth of saying like did she
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know question Mark, no way to prove that she did fail that first lie
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detector test, but then she said she was going to take a second mom
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which we don't think she necessarily took or don't know the results of. But
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I can absolutely see where this decision if you truly truly were someone's partner for
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life, you would say, listen, whatever happens, we'll figure it out,
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Like even if that means you go to prison, and maybe down the
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road we get a divorce. Like, I'm still here as your friend to
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support you. I don't want you to lose your life, do you know
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what I mean? But if it was so easy it was just to go
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off out of town and then recover his life insurance policy, I could see
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where a lot of people say Sandy knew more than she said. It's quite
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interesting how little Ed's children backed her into this story, because we know we
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had issue with Blake and that he had two other daughters from his first marriage,
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but there's next to no information about either of them, and they've never
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commented on the situation publicly. I mean, they went through a major tragedy
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themselves because they lost their mother in a car accident during the early nineteen seventies.
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And while I get the impression that they probably liked Ed's second wife,
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Mary, whom he got remarried to, I'm sure they had issues with Sandy
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as well as Ed's third wife, Karen. Feeling that they're possibly just gold
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diggers who were after their father for his money, So that's why I get
19:30
the impression that they did not get along with Sandy. But they did get
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a decent amount of money from Ed's life insurance policies. But I'm sure they
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were resentful that Sandy got the largest piece. And I've always been interested to
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know whether Blake and his two sisters what they personally believe happened, if they
19:48
believe their father was murdered, or or if his death was a suicide that
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he staged just to ensure that they got the life insurance money. Anyway,
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I know that Sandy eventually moved to Europe, but it's interesting how she was
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not interviewed during the Unsolved Mystery segment, even though Ed's ex wife, Mary
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was Mary claimed that an Ed visitor shortly before his death, he said it
20:11
was his idea to send Sandy to Austin for her own protection, which kind
20:15
of goes against the idea of her traveling there to establish an alibi. As
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far as I can tell, it was after Ed Sandy away that he decided
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to go to the trouble of advising his will to ensure that she got the
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largest payout from his insurance policies. It was also Ed who contacted the insurance
20:33
companies to check if his policies would still pay out in the event of a
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suicide, and he sent a letter to his attorney, Ward Busy, asking
20:40
him to watch over Sandy and his kids. The evidence does clearly show that
20:45
Ed seemed to believe his days were numbered and wanted to ensure that his family
20:48
was taken care of. Now, if you believe the fake death theory,
20:52
this could come across as a similar scheme to the Clarence Roberts case, where
20:56
Ed killed someone else and burn their body before going into hiding and waiting for
21:00
Sandy to collect the insurance money. Afterwards, they would both take off to
21:04
Europe together to live a life of luxury. However, like we stated in
21:08
our last episode, I do think the dental records match is compelling enough to
21:12
conclude that it was Ed's body inside his burnt out car. But let's just
21:18
assume that the theory about Ed completing an elaborate suicide is correct. Even if
21:22
Sandy was not directly involved, perhaps she still had advanced knowledge that Ed was
21:26
planning to do this. It definitely would be interesting to see the contents of
21:30
the final letter that Ed wrote for Sandy, as he had asked word Bucy
21:34
to pass it along to her. These letters are the main reason why Bucy
21:38
was one of the biggest believers in the suicide theory. During his Unsolved Mystery's
21:44
interview, Bucy says the letter addressed to him read quote, if you're reading
21:48
this, I am dead. Since the letter was dated November the sixth,
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the day before Ed was killed, Bucy asked how Ed could have known it
21:55
would arrive after his death, unless he was planning to take his own life.
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Well, the problem is that Bucy's quote during his interview is very misleading,
22:03
and they actually do show the entire letter on screen during the Unsolved Mystery
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segment. In our last episode, you heard us quote it word for word,
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and at no point did Ed actually write quote, if you're reading this,
22:15
I am dead. While Ed was obviously providing Bucy with instructions for how
22:21
to handle things in the event of his death, he was not flat out
22:23
predicting he would die. I wonder too, if there becomes this kind of
22:29
psychosis about the big threat against you, like he knows he's in hot water,
22:33
but he starts over preparing for his death, like the moms following him,
22:37
the CIA could be involved. You know, Oh my gosh, they're
22:41
out for me. They're gonna kill Sandy too. Let me write this letter,
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let me get my life insurance in play. Does it start to become
22:48
like a conspiracy theory in his own brain where all of a sudden, he's
22:52
going, they're gonna kill me. They're gonna kill me. I gotta get
22:55
out of here. And he's so scared or so paranoid that he does end
22:57
up taking his own life beyond just this very well thought out planned financial exit.
23:03
I feel like he does a lot of things to prepare, but I
23:07
wonder if in that preparedness does it make him heightened to this point of like
23:12
he creates the idea that's his only option. But don't you think in a
23:17
situation like that too, people will go, Okay, well, this is
23:21
the foregone conclusion. I can't pay back this money, ergo I am going
23:26
to end up being murdered. So am I going to just sit around and
23:30
wait to see when and how they do it to me in this state of
23:34
fear? Or Am I going to take matters into my own hands and handle
23:38
my own exit from the earthly plane. That is true. Like even though
23:42
these actions of his could be a point towards him planning a suicide, it
23:47
could be the reverse that he figured his days were numbered and says, I
23:51
have to prepare because I'm going to get killed anyway, so i want to
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make sure that my family is taken care of after I'm gone. All that
23:57
being said, Whilbusey's story about the letter might have been misleading. There is
24:03
some logic to what he was saying. Ed did a number of things to
24:07
suggest that he was preparing for his own death, though this could have been
24:11
because he was suspected he was going to be killed in the near future,
24:15
Like we just mentioned, Well, it doesn't seem suspicious that Ed would check
24:18
on his life insurance policies and revise his will if he thought he was going
24:22
to die. It is odd that he would specifically ask his insurance carriers if
24:27
the policies would pay out in the event of his suicide. Why would you
24:33
worry about something like that if you believed that you were going to be murdered.
24:37
If Ed's financial problems were so out of control that he knew there was
24:41
no way he would ever dig himself out of that hole. He may have
24:45
planned to as lade as an escape, but to ensure his family would be
24:48
taken care of financially, he had to ensure that his death looked like a
24:52
homicide. On the surface, it seems plausible that Ed could have been killed
24:56
because he owed people money. But here's an important quest question besides Sandy and
25:02
Mary, did I ever tell anyone else that his life was in danger?
25:06
Remember? He just suddenly showed up at Mary's house out of the blue one
25:10
night to tell her what was going on, and then he wound up going
25:12
missing several hours later. He told Mary that he'd been receiving threatening letters at
25:18
his workplace, But did anyone actually see these letters or confirmed that they existed?
25:25
That's the thing that I mean. He does tell Mary that there's this
25:27
threat and this idea that people are after him, but is it just his
25:33
words? He was the one behind all of that. When he reaches out
25:36
to the private investigator, When he reaches out to the man who he's trying
25:38
to help him prepare for the end of his life, like if something happens,
25:42
right when he shows up and tells Mary that he's in trouble, when
25:45
he sends Sandy away, I'm in trouble. People are after me. Like
25:49
you said, who else knows that? Right? You would think that he
25:53
would have shown all of that to the private investigator or to the attorney who's
25:59
helping him, and he didn't to our knowledge. I also going back to
26:04
you know, is this a plan to make it look like a homicide?
26:07
I think he has to. It has to get so elaborate that he says,
26:11
it needs to look like someone killed me, so that that one policy
26:17
that doesn't count and won't qualify if this is a suicide gets paid out to
26:21
my family. But remember the cars burned out. But there's his own shotgun
26:26
on the floor of the car, which would make sense in the location if
26:30
he had shot himself. And we talked last time about this fire in the
26:34
car, and I think it would be possible if you poured the gasoline in
26:40
a thoughtful enough manner and you threw the match at the back of the vehicle
26:45
or something. I feel like you could sit in the front seat and have
26:47
time to pull the trigger before the fire engulfed you to a point of death.
26:51
I agree love the way you praised that though. If he threw the
26:55
glass lean over himself in such a thoughtful manner, it just makes it sound
26:59
nice. It's lovely, a lovely little Indian of everything exactly. It would
27:03
take a certain amount of time to spread it, but it takes two seconds
27:07
to throw a match. You ensure it's lit, and then you could pull
27:10
the trigger. I think the fact that they discounted, some people discounted that
27:14
this was possible, I think it's kind of shortsighted because it seems entirely possible.
27:19
But it had to be dramatic enough, like you know, there had
27:23
to be a question mark enough which that would cause to have that insurance policy
27:29
pay it off. So to me, that's a very thoughtful, kind of
27:33
intelligent way that he plans this suicide if it was a suicide to say,
27:37
well, I'm at least going to cause enough question mark where they have to
27:38
pay my family out. And I wonder if he was worried too that if
27:44
the mob was after him, maybe they wouldn't be too worried about setting an
27:47
example because not enough people knew about who he was and knew about what he'd
27:51
done. Maybe they would just make him disappear and bury his body somewhere and
27:55
then he's got to be missing for like seven years before there would ever be
27:59
any payout. So if you're worried that somebody could just disappear you and your
28:03
family is left with nothing until they go to court and have you legally declared
28:07
dead in like seven years, I can understand why he could have made that
28:11
choice as well. Yep, that's definitely a good choice. It's better to
28:15
establish that he's dead right away rather than being missing for several years. So
28:19
that's a theory where both things could be true, Like his life could have
28:22
been in danger, but his death could have also been a suicide at the
28:26
same time. So if Ed really was in danger, there really doesn't seem
28:30
to be any logical reason for him to have visited Mary that night, unless
28:36
he wanted to plan some seeds and give off the false impression he was about
28:38
to be killed. That way, when he wound up dead under suspicious circumstances
28:42
a few days later, Mary would be able to corroborate a story about his
28:47
life being threatened and make the police less likely to believe his death was a
28:51
suicide. To be honest, for many years, I never found the suicide
28:55
theory to be that plausible. But I reevaluated things a little bit when I
28:59
read some articles published in the Houston Chronicle and other local newspapers following Ed's death,
29:04
as they contained some interesting pieces of information not mentioned on Unsolved Mysteries.
29:10
Even though Ed's body was found on November the eighth, the segment never mentions
29:14
that his gardener discovered he was missing on the morning of November the seventh,
29:18
when he showed up at the Baker residence and discovered a broken window. While
29:22
there were a few overturned items in Ed's bedroom, the place wasn't exactly ransacked,
29:26
and quite frankly, it kind of gives me the impression that the whole
29:30
scene might have been staged. And remember, there's this idea that if people
29:34
went in and kidnapped him, If there were one or more people that are
29:37
in there kidnapping this man, they have to quietly get a grown man out
29:41
of his house, drive him in his own car. So get him into
29:45
the car, get him to this location, risk being seen in public with
29:48
him. Why not just kill him in his own house? And why kill
29:52
him with his own shotgun? You would show up to a stage I mean
29:55
to have planned murder with a weapon. If you truly were the mob by
30:00
the mob after money, trying to get revenge on him. You wouldn't just
30:03
go there to chat. You'd come to kill him. And I think you'd
30:06
do it with as little risk as possible, which is just kill him the
30:08
moment you see him. And of course, yeah, I could see them
30:12
taking out out into a remote field and setting him on fire to send some
30:15
sort of message. But like you said, why not just do it at
30:18
the house. Why not set the house on fire and burn it down,
30:22
because that would be very symbolic that you take money from us to build this
30:26
expensive house for yourself and then don't pay us, then we're going to kill
30:29
you. Sure, it's possible that Ed could have been kidnapped by intruders who
30:33
broke in and forced him to drive out to this remote rice field in his
30:37
own Jaguar, But the detail that strikes me as particularly odd is how the
30:42
shotgun he owned appeared to be the only item that was missing from the house.
30:48
The Unsolved Mystery segment mentioned a revolver being found on the floorboard of a
30:52
burned out Jaguar, but they did not mention the remains of what appeared to
30:56
be a shotgun were also found inside the vehicle, so if Ed was acted,
31:00
why would he have taken his shotgun with him even though his body was
31:03
badly burned. I think they were able to determine that he received a gunshot
31:08
at some point, and it likely came from the revolver. But regardless of
31:12
whether this was a murder or suicide, it still comes across a strange that
31:18
two separate guns were found inside the car. I'm dead on with you,
31:22
Jules. The shotgun alone is one of the most frustrating things for me here.
31:26
It's the thing that makes me ninety eight percent sure that this was a
31:32
suicide, because again, that was his shotgun in his car. Just doesn't
31:37
make sense. There were apparently eyewitness accounts of smoke coming from the field during
31:41
the early morning hours of Remember the seventh, which means that even though the
31:45
vehicle was not discovered until the following day, it must have burned only a
31:49
few hours after Ed's final phone call with Sandy, So theoretically, after he
31:55
finished the call, Ed could have overturned some items in his bedroom and broken
31:57
his front window and order to create the false impression of a break in before
32:01
driving out into the field. To take his own life. We do have
32:05
the eyewitness sighting of an unidentified pickup truck which appeared to be speeding away from
32:09
the field during the early morning hours, which might suggest that someone else had
32:13
been there it was involved in Baker's death, but for all we know,
32:16
the truck could have just been pass throughs through the area and has no connection
32:20
to this case. However, even if this was a suicide, the person
32:23
driving that truck still could have been involved with what happened. As One of
32:28
the theories pushed forward by people who believed the suicide theory is that Baker had
32:31
an accomplice who set fire to his vehicle after he shot himself. Indeed,
32:37
the biggest issue with the suicide theory is that it really would not have been
32:40
easy for Baker to kill himself in that fashion, especially if he was alone.
32:45
It wouldn't have been easy, but it would have been possible, And
32:49
I don't necessarily think it's impossible for there too have been somebody that helped him.
32:54
You know, did Sandy owe this person money from the life insurance?
33:00
Is it possible that Ed had arranged it where he'd get some of the money.
33:05
But I could see there being a need to ensure that that car burned
33:09
fully, and the way that it is possible for him to have set it
33:13
on fire may not have ensured that it burned fully without someone supervising the flames.
33:19
So if you said I'm going to throw the match, I'm going to
33:22
shoot myself and the car is going to be engulfed, that is very probable.
33:27
But in the event that that fire stopped, let's say at the back
33:30
seat, and all of a sudden there's Ed's body with a self inflicted wound,
33:36
then his family loses. So if he went to all these other lengths
33:40
to ensure that his policies included X, Y and Z, or didn't include
33:46
if he were to stage all of this, if he were to send Sandy
33:50
away, write the letter to the people that were helping him, look for
33:53
his private investigator to look into people that were involved in his case, would
33:59
he then go to the extent to say, for ten thousand dollars, can
34:04
you please make sure that this happens if my family's protected, and like it
34:07
sounds insane, It sounds insane, But if you were loyal to someone and
34:13
loved their family, could you see people willing to do that I wouldn't personally
34:20
want to be involved, but I could see someone saying yeah, for money
34:23
or for the fact that your family can't be left desperate. I could see
34:28
people helping. Yeah, oh one hundred percent. Like I can understand in
34:32
a situation where, you know, say, a systant suicide isn't acceptable somewhere,
34:37
and somebody that I love asked for my help. I think, given
34:42
certain circumstances, if they were truly in pain and they couldn't leave, and
34:46
they just wanted that to happen, I would consider that It's a very different
34:51
thing to light somebody on fire and watch them burn. But I could,
34:55
like you said, Ash, there are people out there who would say,
34:59
okay, like for the the right price, I could do that, or
35:01
because I care about your family. I think maybe both things, but it's
35:07
possible. I don't know how likely it is. I'm more inclined to think
35:09
that he lit the fire himself and just was educated enough on the process of
35:15
how fire burns, how to oxygenate it, and just figured, okay,
35:20
well, if it doesn't fully burn me, then you know, at least
35:22
I've been shot, and it'll look like these people that are after me because
35:28
I planted the seed that I'm you know, in danger from these mob figures
35:31
so people will believe it. But I mean it is possible. Yeah,
35:37
it could be a thing where he told the person you don't even actually have
35:39
to do anything. You just have to hang around the scene and make sure
35:43
that this burns as fully as it can and totally destroys my body, because,
35:46
like you said, if he's already dead, it's not like he can
35:50
do anything if the fire goes out and doesn't burn all the evidence that he
35:52
hopes it does. So he could have just told this person, well,
35:55
if it doesn't burn that thoroughly, could you just please like pour an extra
35:59
cannagatine over it and make sure it burns even more and then, if not,
36:04
just drive away. I did an interview with a detective for an episode
36:07
like way Back a couple of years ago, and he said, one of
36:10
the things that you never forget once you've smelled it is the smell of burning
36:15
human flesh. He said, It's just it's something you can't shake. It's
36:20
horrific. That's why I'm thinking that if someone made me an offer, because
36:23
you set my body on fire after I'm already dead, It's like you would
36:27
have to pay me a lot of money, or I would have to be
36:29
very devoted for that person to just be around and experience that smell of burning
36:32
flesh. Yeah, I don't think any amount of money would get me to
36:36
do it. I would really have to love somebody, and they would have
36:38
to make a real compelling argument for why it had to be done in order
36:44
for me to do it. The authorities found no less than three empty one
36:49
gallon gas cans at the scene, But I have no idea if they were
36:52
able to trace these gas cans and figure out if they might have been linked
36:57
to Baker. Even those suicidal people can be capable of some pretty extraordinary things,
37:02
it would still take an incredible amount of willpower to pour gasoline over your
37:07
body, set yourself on fire, and then have enough wherewithal to point a
37:10
gun at your head and pull the trigger. But still, if Ed's entire
37:15
motivation for ending his life in such a bizarre fashion was to eradicate all evidence
37:20
that his death was a suicide and ensure his family could collect the life insurance,
37:23
how could he have been certain that the fire would burn hot enough to
37:27
destroy his body so thoroughly what if the gun managed to stay in his hand
37:30
after he shot himself. This is why I'm inclined to believe that if this
37:36
was a suicide, Baker potentially had at least one other person there to ensure
37:39
the whole scheme when office planned, and perhaps this person was the driver of
37:44
the mysterious pickup truck. I have no idea who Baker would have enlisted to
37:49
do this, but it would have been their responsibility to ensure that Baker's body
37:53
and the vehicle were burned as thoroughly as possible, which technically could have made
37:58
this an assisted suicide. As strange as this situation sounds, it's not unprecedented.
38:05
There are documented cases of people making their suicides look as unusual as possible
38:09
to make everyone think that they're a victim of a homicide. As an example,
38:14
look at the two thousand and nine death a fifty one year old Bill
38:16
Sparkman, who was found tied to a tree with a rope around his neck
38:21
and died of an apparent asphyxiation. Sparkman was nude and had been gagged,
38:25
and he also had a word written on his chest and it felt to hit
38:29
Marker. But as bizarre as the whole scene was. A thorough investigation revealed
38:35
that Sparkman's death was a suicide, as he was suffering from cancer and had
38:38
staged his death to look like a homicide so that his family could collect on
38:43
some life insurance policies. Totally six hundred thousand dollars. So who's to say
38:47
that Ed Baker couldn't have attempted the same thing. And you know, I
38:51
think it goes beyond money. I think it's very possible Ed did stage the
38:55
same thing. But you know, suicide carries it different stigma with it.
39:00
And when you have someone who chooses to in their own life, despite the
39:06
reality that it's grounded in mental health or you know, decisions that are far
39:09
bigger than most people can understand, there's a shame and a kind of lack
39:15
of care given to the family after someone dies of suicide. And so I
39:21
wonder if that also plays into people's decisions when they in their own life to
39:25
say, I'd rather my family also have this vision that I was hurt by
39:31
someone else, so there can be someone else to be angry at, there
39:35
can be an unknown person to blame and kind of ruminate on, versus that
39:39
I chose to leave them or that quote, they feel they didn't do enough,
39:45
or they question themselves of what else could I have done to save him?
39:49
You know? Does it also spare the family when someone's trying to make
39:52
it look like something else happened? I mean, is that part of the
39:55
thought process that could go into some of these more bizarre cases is where it's
40:00
not just the money. I want my family to think differently of me as
40:05
well and be treated differently as well. And it could be an ego thing,
40:09
like we discussed in our last episode, whether Ed could have been a
40:13
narcissist and he may have had the mentality while suicide makes you look weak,
40:15
and I don't want people to think that I gave up and took my own
40:19
life, So that could have motivated him to try to make his death look
40:22
as elaborate as possible so that people would think he was murdered and not believe
40:27
that he ended his own life on his own accord. And this leads us
40:30
back to Sandy. Even if the story about Ed's life being in danger because
40:35
he owed money to the mob was a complete fabrication, he was still facing
40:38
a ton of trouble because of his financial indiscretions and there was a very good
40:43
chance he would go to prison. So Ed probably figured that no matter what,
40:46
his life was ruined and suicide was the only way out, but he
40:51
still wanted to make sure his family was taken care of. If Ed told
40:54
Sandy about this plan beforehand, then this would have motivated her to share a
40:58
story about Ed's failure payback alone to organize crime figures, planning the seeds that
41:02
her husband was a victim of foul play, and allowing her to collect on
41:07
his life insurance policies. I may not put much stock into polygraphs, but
41:10
this could explain why the results of Sandy's test seemed to indicate that she was
41:15
withholding information. It wasn't because she had him murdered, but because she knew
41:20
he had orchestrated an elaborate suicide plot. Like we mentioned earlier, when Ed
41:23
visited Mary's house and told her his life was in danger, this might have
41:28
been only done for show. Look, I certainly do not rule out the
41:31
possibility of foul play here, and if you had asked me about this case
41:35
a few years ago, I probably still would have said that Ed was murdered.
41:38
But when you look at the big picture and examine all of Ed's actions
41:43
prior to his death. Everything seemed pretty calculated. If this was a suicide,
41:47
then I guess the only way to truly solve this case would be if
41:51
someone was complicit or had knowledge about what Ed was going to do. However,
41:55
since many years have passed, I'm not sure anyone is still actively working
41:59
on this case anymore, so we'll probably never know the truth. But if
42:02
you happen to have any information about the unexplained death of Ed Baker, please
42:07
contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley any final thoughts on this case. My
42:13
gut tells me that Ed decided he had gotten so over his head right and
42:19
so over his head that his only option not just to escape what he had
42:22
created, but to provide an out for his family as well, was to
42:27
in his own life and to allow them to collect on those life insurance policies
42:30
and tried to rebuild after his death. I think he had gotten in a
42:37
position where he and Mary had started a legitimate business. Then he started to
42:42
see wealth, started to hang out with people who might have had more wealth
42:46
than he did, and he wanted to play fast and loose bigger than the
42:51
means he had, and he got in this world where you just keep spending
42:54
and keep spending to keep up, and you find yourself in a position that
42:58
says, I can't do it anymore, Like I'm in big trouble at this
43:02
point, and so are the people that I care about. And so I
43:06
do believe Ed ended his own life. I think that's pretty evident with the
43:09
shotgun found in the car, and also with the I believe sixty points of
43:14
dental matches that were able to be performed despite how charred the body was when
43:17
it was recovered. But it doesn't matter at the end of the day,
43:22
because whether or not you trust what Sandy says, there are so many people
43:27
involved in this case. I feel really sad for Mary, who seems to,
43:31
despite not always being treated respectfully, stood by Ed's side and was there
43:37
when he was scared at the end of his life. She also helped him
43:40
with his three babies that were from his original marriage when he lost his first
43:46
wife. And there are a lot of people who were relying on Ed and
43:52
he wasn't able to get himself out of the mess he created. I don't
43:57
believe that this necessarily was a homicide. Was someone else there to help him
44:00
in his life and protect his family. I think it's a possibility, but
44:05
I think Ed was the one who had this decision and said, I'm going
44:07
to make this so air tight that at the last thing I'll do. I've
44:10
gotten them into a lot of trouble, but the last thing I want to
44:13
do is make them financially stable and safe without me being here. I mean,
44:19
there's a lot of judgment that could go into that, but there's also
44:22
a lot of where you step back and say, I could see, when
44:24
you're that far buried that you could turn to this as an option to say
44:30
I'm done. There's no way for me to get out of this, but
44:32
I could protect the people that I care about, and that seems to be
44:36
what he did. Yeah. I think that both things can be true,
44:42
and that Ed's life was under threat and that he owed a lot of money
44:45
to some dangerous people. But I don't believe that he was murdered. I
44:50
think that he took great care to ensure that his loved ones were taken care
44:54
of, and this was a very elaborate setup. I believe it was absolutely
45:00
his body. I don't think he was in Europe with Sandy, and I
45:02
do believe that, of course Sandy wasn't physically involved, but I think she
45:07
had some kind of knowledge about what Ed was planning, or at least had
45:13
some great suspicions. I mean, it's a really sad case because his kids
45:17
are left behind to wonder what happened, and the idea of thinking that your
45:22
father was murdered in a really brutal way, and you know, having a
45:27
private investigator that Sandy hired second that it wasn't a suicide probably gave fuel to
45:32
their fire of thinking, oh my gosh, like somebody has done this to
45:36
our father. How horrific. Unfortunately, we don't know how his children felt
45:40
about this and where they stood on the suicide versus murder. But I mean,
45:46
I really really feel horrible for them in this situation because nobody wants to
45:52
have their parent and their own life, but nobody ever wants to think of
45:55
their parent being abducted and then shot and said on fire. It's all just
46:01
so horrific. And whether or not somebody else was involved in this careful orchestration
46:07
of this plan, the one thing that really does stick out to me is
46:10
those gas cans are left behind. I wonder if they ever dusted them for
46:15
Prince, and the fact that if you were somebody that was going to end
46:20
somebody else's life, like if you had somebody who was like a co conspirator
46:23
in this grand scheme or somebody murdered him, I believe they would have taken
46:28
those gas cans with them, And the fact that they didn't makes me just
46:31
lean slightly more towards the fact that he executed this on his own and Sandy
46:37
and potentially maybe other people may have had knowledge, but he was the one
46:42
who was responsible for setting himself on fire and pulling that trigger. Yeah,
46:46
now that you mentioned the detail about the gas cans, I'm thinking to myself,
46:50
if he really wanted to make it look like murder, why didn't this
46:52
accomplice take the gun out of the car after he shot himself, Because if
46:57
there's no gun found at the scene, then no one is ever going to
46:59
think suicide. So yeah, that is another point which leans me away.
47:02
With an accomplice being involved, makes me lean towards Ed doing this to himself.
47:07
Like many cases and unsolved mysteries about suspicious suicides. When I originally became
47:13
familiar with this, case thirty plus years ago, I usually automatically bought the
47:16
narrative that foul play had taken place. But of course, as the year
47:21
has gone on, a lot of these cases from the show that were considered
47:24
to be suspicious suicides now look like they probably were suicides all along. And
47:29
I think you could still apply that to Ed Baker, though this is a
47:32
different type of suicide where it's not one that's like the result of depression or
47:37
mental health issues. It was a guy who got himself into some serious trouble
47:42
and was making a calculated effort trying to make his suicide look like a homicide.
47:46
I mean, i'd lfiely admit that of all the victims we featured on
47:50
the show, Ed Baker is not one of the most likable because he did
47:52
do some bad things. He did some financial indiscretions, he went through women
47:58
a lot during the last few years of his life, fan he betrayed some
48:00
people who cared about them. The sympathetic figures in this story are definitely Add's
48:06
children and his second wife, Mary, because even though even though he suffered
48:12
a tragedy by losing his first wife, and he and Mary started their company
48:15
Vanguard international together, he wound up having this weird midlife crisis where he decided
48:22
that he wanted to be with younger women. But it sounds like Mary still
48:24
genuinely cared about him and was concerned when during the last days of his life
48:30
when it looked like he was suffering a mental breakdown and he was thinking his
48:32
life might be in danger. And she is the one who helped keep the
48:36
story in the spotlight, appearing on unsolved mysteries and trying to seek answers about
48:39
what happened ed, whereas his last wife, Sandy, pretty much just stayed
48:44
away from the spotlight and was content to move on. But yeah, when
48:46
you look at it, it does seem like a calculated effort to kill himself
48:51
and ensure that his family would be taken care of, which I guess is
48:53
a honorable thing to ensure that your family will be financially secure after you're gone.
49:00
At the same time, you're making them live through the horror of thinking
49:02
that someone they cared about was murdered in a very horrific fashion and leaving them
49:07
with uncertainty. But when you look at all the evidence, it does seem
49:12
like this was a very calculated suicide in a very unusual situation, Robin,
49:17
do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
49:21
Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now,
49:23
and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I
49:29
also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with
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us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars tier tier two, we
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also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured
49:44
on the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon and if
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the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries,
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where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved
50:00
Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing
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in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured
50:10
in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a
50:15
commentary track over was the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
50:19
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50:23
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a little bit about the jeweles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad free
50:30
episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Pathwent Chili mini's, which
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are always over an hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just
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too short to turn into a series and we're really enjoying doing those. So
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we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them in the show notes.
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So I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you
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have to share us on social media with a friend or to rate and review
50:52
is greatly appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot
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com. You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwent. Until next time,
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be sure to bundle up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm
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clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy