Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Mysterious Death or Disappearance of Texas Oilman Ed Baker Part 1

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The Mysterious Death or Disappearance of Texas Oilman Ed Baker Part 1 · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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  Speaker 1: The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
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  Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised. At a little after nine am
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  Speaker 2: on Friday, November eighth, nineteen eighty five, in West Harris County,
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  Speaker 2: just two miles north of smalltown Kadie, Texas, a couple
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  Speaker 2: rice farmers on their way to harvest the day's crops
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  Speaker 2: noticed black smoke billowing high into the air in their vehicle.
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  Speaker 2: They followed the smoke to its source and discovered a
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  Speaker 2: car smoldering from what had obviously been a terrible fire.
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  Speaker 2: Not long before, the men sped away to call police.
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  Speaker 2: Authorities and firefighters arrived quickly, but weren't prepared for what
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  Speaker 2: they found. Inside the smoldering vehicle, In the front passenger's
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  Speaker 2: seat was a body. The body, of course, was charred.
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  Speaker 2: It was so charred, in fact, so disfigured from the
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  Speaker 2: blaze that Harris County Sheriff's deputies couldn't tell if the
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  Speaker 2: body was male or female. Identifying these remains wasn't going
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  Speaker 2: to be an easy task, but at least they could
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  Speaker 2: identify who the car belonged to. Later that afternoon, Sheriff's
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  Speaker 2: investigators did just that, and the vehicle a nineteen eighty
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  Speaker 2: four Jaguar was registered to a familiar name, fifty two
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  Speaker 2: year old millionaire oilman Edward Gerald Baker, known to most
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  Speaker 2: as simply Ed. The Houston Police and the Harris County
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  Speaker 2: Sheriff's Department, in fact, had been on the lookout for
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  Speaker 2: this very car since the day before, Thursday, November seventh,
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  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five. At nine point fifteen that morning, Ed
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  Speaker 2: and his wife, Sandy, Baker's gardener, saw that a window
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  Speaker 2: of their northwest Houston home was broken, and inside were
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  Speaker 2: signs of what looked like a burglary. At first site.
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  Speaker 2: In Ed and Sandy's bedroom, on the floor was an
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  Speaker 2: overturned ash tray and a telephone which had been knocked
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  Speaker 2: off a bedside table. Upon inspection of the rest of
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  Speaker 2: the home, however, a burglary or robbery began to appear
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  Speaker 2: far less likely. Nothing else was in disarray, let alone
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  Speaker 2: ransacked in any way. Ed Baker's jacket laid across a
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  Speaker 2: chair in the living room, and in it credit cards
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  Speaker 2: and nine hundred dollars cash. The only things that seemed
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  Speaker 2: to be missing was a shotgun. Ed's nineteen eighty four Jaguar,
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  Speaker 2: and Ed himself. His wife Sandy, reported him missing after
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  Speaker 2: he failed to show up at the office. These were
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  Speaker 2: far from the only signs that something was terribly wrong
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  Speaker 2: before Ed Baker's car was found smoldering thirteen miles west
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  Speaker 2: of his home, and to this day, exactly what happened
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  Speaker 2: to oilman Ed Baker is shrouded and mystery. Edward Gerald
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  Speaker 2: Baker or Ed was born to parents Cecil and Pearl Baker,
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  Speaker 2: in Polk County, Florida, on August sixteenth, nineteen thirty three.
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  Speaker 2: Ed's mother was a homemaker and his father was an
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  Speaker 2: auto mechanic. They were a working class family who did
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  Speaker 2: well enough to get by. When Ed became working age
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  Speaker 2: and into his young adulthood, he took whatever jobs he
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  Speaker 2: could to earn some scratch, and it seems he learned
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  Speaker 2: early on that his talents were best suited for sales.
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  Speaker 2: Ed Baker worked as a shoe salesman, peddled various goods
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  Speaker 2: for the department store Montgomery Ward, and eventually landed a
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  Speaker 2: job as an insurance agent, a job he'd hold for
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  Speaker 2: years to come. In nineteen fifty three, when he was
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  Speaker 2: twenty years old and living in Austin, Texas, Ed married
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  Speaker 2: seventeen year old Sally Catherine Mercer. They had all the
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  Speaker 2: ups and downs that you'd expect from any young couple,
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  Speaker 2: but they overcame those obstacles and did well together. Ed
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  Speaker 2: and Sally, anyway, weren't alone in the struggles of marriage.
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  Speaker 2: The two also had two daughters and one son. The
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  Speaker 2: family at some point ended up in Corpus Christi, Texas,
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  Speaker 2: a little over twenty years after Ed and Sally were married.
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  Speaker 2: Tragedy befell the family the day after Thanksgiving nineteen seventy three.
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  Speaker 2: On Friday, November twenty fourth, Sally and she and Ed's
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  Speaker 2: boy Blake, were on a two lane highway traveling back
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  Speaker 2: home after visiting family in Austin. They made it about
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  Speaker 2: eight miles south of Luling when a deer bolted from
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  Speaker 2: the woods into the road. Sally swerved to avoid hitting
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  Speaker 2: the animal, and as she did, she lost control, skidding
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  Speaker 2: sideways into an oncoming vehicle. Eleven year old Blake survived
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  Speaker 2: the accident with minor injuries luckily, as did the driver
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  Speaker 2: and passenger of the other car, but Sally Baker died
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  Speaker 2: of her injuries at a San Antonio hospital where she'd
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  Speaker 2: been rushed after the crash, she was only thirty seven
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  Speaker 2: years old. Three and a half months after the tragic
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  Speaker 2: accidental death of his wife, Sally, on March sixteenth, nineteen
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  Speaker 2: seventy four, ed Baker married Mary Ella Walker. Four years
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  Speaker 2: after that, in nineteen seventy eight, the couple founded Vanguard
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  Speaker 2: Groups International. The company, which was among the fastest growing
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  Speaker 2: businesses in the United States, built a four sable housing
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  Speaker 2: at first, and transitioned into selling commercial real estate partnerships.
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  Speaker 2: By nineteen eighty the company was doing well, but it
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  Speaker 2: was nineteen eighty one when things really took off. In
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  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty, while dealing primarily in commercial real estate, ed
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  Speaker 2: Baker began dabbling in the promotion of oil well exploration,
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  Speaker 2: leading to Vanguard Group's Internationals transition yet again into the
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  Speaker 2: sales of limited partnerships in potential and speculative oil wells.
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  Speaker 2: The oil extraction and production business was booming in Houston
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  Speaker 2: in the early nineteen eighties, largely due to America's high
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  Speaker 2: demand and Texas's ability to supply it. After political and
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  Speaker 2: social instability throughout many other oil producing countries of the
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  Speaker 2: Middle East in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, gas
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  Speaker 2: prices were sky high, which greatly benefited Texas patrol William Fatcats.
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  Speaker 2: Ed Baker saw an opportunity to be one of those oilmen.
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  Speaker 2: Ed was smart and even smarter at selling himself. Like him,
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  Speaker 2: investors saw opportunity in Texas oil production, and when many
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  Speaker 2: of his first speculative oil wells paid off, Ed got clout.
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  Speaker 2: Folks started to trust him and investments poured in. These investments, too,
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  Speaker 2: were tax shelters, havens to legally keep assets while minimalizing
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  Speaker 2: capital gains taxes. By nineteen eighty two, Vanguard Groups Internationals
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  Speaker 2: sales boomed to almost twenty million dollars. The following year,
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  Speaker 2: it was reported that the company was Houston's sixth fastest
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  Speaker 2: growing private firm, having grown one thousand, three hundred and
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  Speaker 2: twenty four percent since its second year of operation. Ed Baker,
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  Speaker 2: who came from a modest, working class family who relied
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  Speaker 2: on an auto mechanics paycheck, was a millionaire, and he'd
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  Speaker 2: gotten there virtually overnight, with the help of his second
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  Speaker 2: wife Mary. Of course, the money, however, went to his
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  Speaker 2: head a little and ed Baker's determination to maintain the
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  Speaker 2: lifestyle he wished to accompany His business's success might have
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  Speaker 2: cost the man his life. Ed Baker went from regular
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  Speaker 2: guide to mega rich oilman in a matter of just
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  Speaker 2: a couple years. When his business took off and having
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  Speaker 2: a ton of cash was completely new to him, Ed
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  Speaker 2: spent millions building a headquarters for his company, Vanguard Groups International,
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  Speaker 2: a good hunk of which was spent on his own
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  Speaker 2: private bathroom, made almost entirely of black moal. Ed was
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  Speaker 2: now middle aged, and all that cash seemed to have
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  Speaker 2: him wanting to relive the glory days. But as a
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  Speaker 2: rich guy, he was a good man. Most everyone thought
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  Speaker 2: the world of him, but becoming an overnight millionaire had
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  Speaker 2: an effect on what was his usually reasonable and down
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  Speaker 2: to earth character. In March of nineteen eighty four, Ed
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  Speaker 2: divorced his second wife Mary. He began taking disco lessons,
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  Speaker 2: bought a brand new luxury sports car, a Jaguar, and
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  Speaker 2: picked up what some called a high stakes gambling habit.
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  Speaker 2: Ed even got a couple facelifts. Indulging himself with these
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  Speaker 2: new habits and luxuries wasn't cheap, and Ed's alimony payments
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  Speaker 2: weren't anything to scoff at. He was to pay Mary
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  Speaker 2: eight thousand dollars a month for ten years. That, along
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  Speaker 2: with the thirty four thousand bucks worth of car notes
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  Speaker 2: and the nearly one hundred thousand dollars mortgage on his home,
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  Speaker 2: was a substantial amount of money coming out every month.
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  Speaker 2: In September of nineteen eighty four, just a few months
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  Speaker 2: after divorcing Mary, ed Baker married a woman named Karen
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  Speaker 2: Walbridge in Las Vegas, Nevada, but he sought to have
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  Speaker 2: the marriage annulled just two weeks later, stating that he
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  Speaker 2: was drunk when they tied the knot something that Karen disputes,
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  Speaker 2: but anyway, Karen and Ed were close friends since she
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  Speaker 2: was in charge of his company's construction division, called Wallbridge
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  Speaker 2: Construction Company. Karen talked to Ed into giving the marriage
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  Speaker 2: some time to see if it's stuck, and he agreed.
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  Speaker 2: It did stick for about six months. Ed then went
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  Speaker 2: through with the dissolution of marriage in March of nineteen
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  Speaker 2: eighty five. That divorce cossed Ed another thirty one hundred
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  Speaker 2: bucks a month in alimony payments, adding to his mounting debt.
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  Speaker 2: Karen Walbridge u kept Walbridge Construction Company in the divorce settlement,
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  Speaker 2: but Ed's company finished out the year nineteen eighty four
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  Speaker 2: as inc magazine's one hundred and thirty seventh fastest growing
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  Speaker 2: private firm. That was down from the previous year's place
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  Speaker 2: at number forty five, but still well in the running.
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  Speaker 2: Like in the case of his second wife, Mary, ed
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  Speaker 2: Baker and Karen remained close and didn't let the divorce
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  Speaker 2: ruin the friendship they had. Four days after Karen and
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  Speaker 2: Ed's divorce finalized, though, in April nineteen eighty five, he
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  Speaker 2: married a Vanguard Group International employee, Sandra Hoff, who was
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  Speaker 2: in her early forties, his fourth wife. No matter, ed
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  Speaker 2: Baker's world was falling apart in nineteen eighty five, or
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  Speaker 2: so it seemed. It's reported that Ed was spending more
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  Speaker 2: money than he had on his extravagant lifestyle, and he'd
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  Speaker 2: been using investor's money to live that life while using
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  Speaker 2: other investors' money to pay back the funds he was
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  Speaker 2: dipping into. His double dipping into investor funds to support
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  Speaker 2: his lavish tastes had landed him in hot water. Clients
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  Speaker 2: were filing lawsuits alleging that Vanguard Group's International wasn't drilling
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  Speaker 2: the oil wells they'd paid ed Baker to drill, and
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  Speaker 2: Ed's lawyer Ward Bucy warned him that he was looking
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  Speaker 2: at serious jail time if he didn't get his act together.
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  Speaker 2: Bucy cited tax problems too, though the exact nature of
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  Speaker 2: those he didn't expound upon. Anyway, Ed Baker was looking
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  Speaker 2: for a way out and was supposedly working on a
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  Speaker 2: deal with an illegitimate source to smooth things over with
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  Speaker 2: his up and up investors. When he borrowed what he
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  Speaker 2: called many millions in the fall of nineteen eighty five,
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  Speaker 2: Ed went straight to his private investigator, Bob Gail, and
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  Speaker 2: asked him to run background checks on the men. Ed
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  Speaker 2: Baker had been using the services of Bob Gail for
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  Speaker 2: years to check out potential investors, among other business dealings
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  Speaker 2: and activities, and to look into extortion attempts made against
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  Speaker 2: him once from someone the PI called a close female companion.
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  Speaker 2: Bob Gail did check out the source of Ed Baker's
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  Speaker 2: borrowed money, though he never disclosed exactly what he found.
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  Speaker 2: Here's what the private eye implied. Ed had found some
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  Speaker 2: shady seeming folks from Miami, Florida who could benefit from
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  Speaker 2: storing a little money in Vanguard Group's international But this
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  Speaker 2: was to be considered more of a loan, and when
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  Speaker 2: Ed told the private investigator that he heard that they
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  Speaker 2: were tied to the mafia, his character and mannerisms changed.
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  Speaker 2: Ed Baker, it appeared, was a nervous wreck. Everything seemed
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  Speaker 2: to be crumbling down around him. In late October nineteen
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  Speaker 2: eighty five, Ed's third wife, Karen, got a letter from
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  Speaker 2: him at her Florida home, telling her that Vanguard Group's
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  Speaker 2: international was struggling and he wouldn't be able to pay
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  Speaker 2: the thirty one hundred dollars a month he owed her
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  Speaker 2: for alimony. But ed Baker went on in the letter
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  Speaker 2: without detail, a deal was going down the following Monday,
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  Speaker 2: which was November fourth, nineteen eighty five, and he was
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  Speaker 2: expecting to come into a substantial amount of money that
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  Speaker 2: would get the company back on track. Karen had seen
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  Speaker 2: Ed's state of mind grow more and more paranoid over
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  Speaker 2: the past months, she later said, in a series of
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  Speaker 2: letters he'd written her, though he left out the specifics
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  Speaker 2: of exactly who. Ed Baker told Karen Walbridge of threats
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  Speaker 2: made against his life the day following when Ed was
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  Speaker 2: supposed to have made the big deal he'd written Karen
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  Speaker 2: about the previous This week. Tuesday, November fifth, nineteen eighty five,
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  Speaker 2: another event took place as Ed Baker's seeming nervousness and
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  Speaker 2: paranoia continued to snowball. On that day, ed Baker's wife, Sandy,
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  Speaker 2: showed up at his daughter's house in Austin. Edid sent her,
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  Speaker 2: Sandy said, because he feared her life was in danger
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  Speaker 2: if she stayed. Ed told Sandy, according to her, that
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  Speaker 2: if he dies, and he just might, that she'd hurt
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  Speaker 2: at first, but she should be strong and eventually she'd
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  Speaker 2: be okay. On Wednesday, November sixth, Ed called Karen Walbridge,
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  Speaker 2: his third wife, at her home in Florida, and a
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  Speaker 2: friend who was house sitting answered the phone. Karen, the
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  Speaker 2: friend told Ed was out of town. He told the
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  Speaker 2: friend to tell her that he called and nothing else.
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  Speaker 2: At seven thirty pm that day, Ed Baker showed up
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  Speaker 2: unannounced at the home of his second wife, Mary, the
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  Speaker 2: wife who'd helped him create Vanguard Groups International. He was
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  Speaker 2: nervous and jittery. His distressed emotional state was the result.
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  Speaker 2: Ed told Mary of the letters he'd been receiving over
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  Speaker 2: the past two weeks that threatened his life, and Ed
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  Speaker 2: went on it wasn't just letters. While at home, he
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  Speaker 2: claimed to have received two threatening phone calls. This is
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  Speaker 2: your day to die, ed Baker told Mary. The caller
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  Speaker 2: said on both Ed's home phone number was unlisted. Mary
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  Speaker 2: didn't know what to do. She'd later say that she'd
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  Speaker 2: never seen Ed so distraught and paranoid. It wasn't like
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  Speaker 2: him at all. His complexion, Mary said, was ghost white.
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  Speaker 2: She told Ed he had to call the police. She
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  Speaker 2: begged him to, but he refused. They wouldn't be able
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  Speaker 2: to help him. Ed told Mary he left earlier that day.
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  Speaker 2: Ed Baker had changed his life insurance policies. Now, in
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  Speaker 2: the event of his death, Vanguard Group's International would no
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  Speaker 2: longer be the beneficiary of the life insurance payout, and
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  Speaker 2: instead his estate worth one point seventy five million dollars
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  Speaker 2: would go to his family. Ed Baker it seemed knew
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  Speaker 2: he was going to die. Several hours after leaving Mary's
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  Speaker 2: house Now, Thursday, November seventh, nineteen eighty five, at about
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  Speaker 2: one am, edphoned his wife, Sandy, who he'd sent to
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  Speaker 2: his daughter's house in Austin. He'd just received another call
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  Speaker 2: to his unlisted number threatening his life, he told her,
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  Speaker 2: and was locked up in their bedroom. That was the
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  Speaker 2: last known time anyone ever spoke to Ed Baker. After
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  Speaker 2: a series of incidents displaying the paranoid and emotionally distressed
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  Speaker 2: state of mind that fifty two year old oilman Ed
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Baker seemed to be in, including letters to his ex
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  Speaker 2: wife in Florida speaking of threats made to his life,
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  Speaker 2: sending his wife, Sandy to stay at his daughter's in Austin,
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  Speaker 2: and changing his life insurance policy so that his family
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  Speaker 2: would benefit as opposed to his company. He disappeared on
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  Speaker 2: the morning of Thursday, November seventh, nineteen eighty five, Ed
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  Speaker 2: and Sandy, Baker's gardener, noticed a broken window at their
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: home at around nine point fifteen am. Sandy called the
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  Speaker 2: Harris County Sheriff's office to report Ed missing. After getting
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  Speaker 2: word he didn't show up for work. A be on
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  Speaker 2: the lookout was issued for Ed's nineteen eighty four Jaguar.
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  Speaker 2: The next day, Friday, November eighth, nineteen eighty five, Rice
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  Speaker 2: farmers out harvesting crops just north of Katie, Texas, saw
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  Speaker 2: black smoke coming from one of the fields, and upon
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  Speaker 2: following the billow found that a terribly burnt, smoldering car
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  Speaker 2: was its source. When Harris County Sheriff's deputies arrived, they
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: discovered inside the vehicle a human body, A human body
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  Speaker 2: so charred and disfigured from the fire that identifying whether
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  Speaker 2: it belonged to a male or female was impossible without
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  Speaker 2: the medical examiner. The car, however, was identified as millionaire
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  Speaker 2: oilmen Ed Baker's nineteen eighty four Jaguar, relatively fast, leading
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  Speaker 2: investigators to believe that the body inside was the vehicle's owner,
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  Speaker 2: though the fact that the body was in the passenger's
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  Speaker 2: seat was strange. Also inside the vehicle was a ring
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  Speaker 2: later confirmed to belong to ed Baker, but mysteriously it
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  Speaker 2: wasn't melted by the extreme temperatures of the fire, the
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: same harsh blaze that had so badly burned a human
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  Speaker 2: body it couldn't be identified as male or female. Remnants
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  Speaker 2: of a shotgun, which had burned and melted, were inside
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  Speaker 2: the car, too, as was Ed's side pistol that he
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: regularly carried, a thirty two caliber Smith and wesson at
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: his feet in the floorboard. Three cans of accelerant, described
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  Speaker 2: by some reports as three one gallon gasoline cans, were
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: found in and around the burnt car. Later, an eyewitness
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  Speaker 2: came forward claiming to have seen a pickup truck speeding
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  Speaker 2: away from the scene of Ed Baker's burning car at
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: around six thirty a m. A couple hours before its discovery,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: a blue Chevrolet pickup with chrome rails and mag wheels.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Later that day, the Harris County Sheriff's Office sent a
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: wrecker out to remove the car from the rice field.
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  Speaker 2: Smoke no longer billowed from Ed Baker's nineteen eighty four Jaguar,
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  Speaker 2: so the record driver was having a little trouble locating
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  Speaker 2: it when he arrived at the North Katie Rice Fields
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  Speaker 2: to tow the car away at around five pm. When
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  Speaker 2: he came about one hundred yards from the vehicle, the
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  Speaker 2: record driver discovered something he wasn't. Sent out there to
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  Speaker 2: find the body of a young man in his early
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  Speaker 2: twenties wearing only a camouflage print t shirt. The young
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  Speaker 2: man's hands were bound behind his back with handcuffs. The
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  Speaker 2: record driver, of course, radioed Harris County Sheriff's deputies, who
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  Speaker 2: sped to the scene. They discovered a pair of overalls
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  Speaker 2: not far from the young man's body that seemed to
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  Speaker 2: belong to him, and the terrible fate he'd met was
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  Speaker 2: obvious even without moving the body an inch. His skull
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  Speaker 2: was crushed from multiple high impact blows to the head
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  Speaker 2: with a blunt object. Harris County Sheriff's Office homicide detective
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  Speaker 2: Ronnie F. Phillips later commented that the young man appeared
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  Speaker 2: to be a construction worker, judging by his calloused hands
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  Speaker 2: and teeth that appeared to have bitten nails holding them
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  Speaker 2: for quick access while building. The body was a confusing discovery,
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  Speaker 2: and detectives didn't know what to make of it. They
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  Speaker 2: weren't sure if there was a connection to ed Baker's
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  Speaker 2: fire ravaged car and the body inside, and if there was,
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  Speaker 2: it was hard to theorize just what that connection might be. Later,
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  Speaker 2: Harris County authorities discovered that ed Baker's lawyer, Ward Bucy,
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  Speaker 2: received a letter that very same day.
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  Speaker 1: It read, Dear Ward, if you're reading this letter, it
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  Speaker 1: means that I'm dead. I've had some threats on my
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  Speaker 1: life and you've been a good friend of me. Please
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  Speaker 1: take care of Sandy and the kids and do what
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  Speaker 1: you can for them. And enclosed is another letter that
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I would like you to take out to Sandy and
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  Speaker 1: get give to her for me.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Friday, November eighth, nineteen eighty five, was a tragically eventful day,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: and it wasn't over That night. Ed Baker's son, twenty
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: three year old Blake Baker, showed up at Ed and
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Sandy's home in North Houston. Sandy had since returned from Austin,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: where Ed had sent her days earlier, so she'd be safe,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: he told her. Anyway, Blake was drunk and apparently became belligerent.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: It's unclear exactly what went down between Blake and Sandy
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: that night, but after the two began talking about Ed
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Baker's estate and where the inheritance would go, Blake blew up,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: pointing out that his father might not even be dead.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: The body in the car hadn't been identified. He demanded
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: that Sandy, his stepmother, give him two hundred thousand dollars,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: and as the argument grew more and more heated, Sandy
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: ordered him from the home home, called police and had
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: him arrested for being drunk and for disorderly conduct. It's
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: hard to know what to make of this event, but
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: it's heartily the last of Blake's erratic behavior. On Saturday,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: November ninth, nineteen eighty five, a crowd gathered at the
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: home of Ed and Sandy Baker. Family, friends, and neighbors
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: came to offer Sandy their support as she waited for
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: the identification of the charred body found in Ed's jaguar.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Those who knew him well, family and friends, shared memories
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: and spoke of his good nature and intelligence. His stepdaughter
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: somberly spoke of what a wonderful man Ed was. The
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: family was presuming that the body inside the burnt jaguar
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: was Ed's neighbors, who didn't know Ed all that well,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: still knew of his friendliness. It was apparent in the
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: smile and wave he always gave in pass. No identification, however,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: was made that day, not of the charred remains found
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: in the smoldering car, and not of the twenty something
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: year old man found it nearly naked, bound and beaten
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: to death only three hundred feet away. At some point
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: in the twenty four hour period after his arrest ed,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Baker's son Blake, posted bond after being taken into custody
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: for drunken disorderly charges. He called his stepmother Sandy, almost immediately,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: it seems, and asked to see her so they could talk.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Sandy absolutely refused, Blake again became belligerent, well a bit
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: beyond belligerent, apparently. Blake Baker again demanded two hundred thousand
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: dollars and told his stepmother if she didn't give it
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: to him, he'd kill her and her daughter. You're dead,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: he told Sandy before abrupt hanging up. Blake wasn't aware, however,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: of Sandy's hiring of private detective Clyde Wilson and the
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: recording device he'd put on the Baker Residen's phone. Since
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Ed Baker's insistence that she go to his daughter's house
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: in Austin to avoid danger and the subsequent discovery of
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: his smoldering car and the charred body within, Sandy had
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: hired Clyde Wilson not only for protection, but also to
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: investigate what looked to be Ed's death. Blake was caught
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: red handed on recording and was arrested and charged with
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: making terroristic threats. He was back in county jail almost
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: as soon as he stepped foot out of it, as
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: the Harris County Sheriff's Office began their investigation into the
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: charred body found in Ed Baker's smoldering car. They proceeded
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: as if that body was Indeed. Ed's homicide detective run
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Many Phillips told reporters for the Houston Chronicle that the
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: department had gotten word that Ed might have received alone
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: from individuals associated with organized crime. Presumably this information came
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: from Ed's wife, Sandy, who later claimed that mafia figures
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: in Miami killed her husband because he owed them a
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: million bucks. The claim had at least some merit. There
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: was a Florida connection. Ed's ex wife, Karen, with whom
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: he still spoke to and was friendly with, lived in Florida.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Organized crime in Florida and particularly Miami, was still prevalent
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: and pervasive in the nineteen eighties. Ed's nervousness and paranoia
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: in the weeks leading up to his car going up
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: in Flames had all the signs of a man who
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: was into something or someone way over his head. Ed
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: had told plenty of folks, his wife and ex wives,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: that he'd received death threats. Even Ed Baker's private investigator,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Bob Gail, alluded to these threats. When asked if Ed
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: had ever mentioned his life being threatened, Gail said, quote, no,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: not exactly. I had to read between the lines end quote.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Vanguard Group's International. Ed's company was in trouble. He'd been
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: using the assets of new investors to pay the money
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: he owed the old ones. Ed's gambling habit had become
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: a problem. At least one close family member commented that
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Ed Baker was always placing bets and just as often
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: losing thousands of dollars at a time. He flew to
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas, Nevada, all the time to
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: engage in high stakes games. Ed's ex wife Karen, saw
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: him gambling at a Lake Tahoe casino the week before
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: he disappeared.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: She said.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Private investigator Bob Gail said that if he needed a
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: time to Ed on the weekends, he knew to call
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Las Vegas. In fact, Gail went on to say, when
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Vanguard's troubles began, Ed's gambling increased tenfold. He was trying
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: to hit it big so he could save the company.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Gail said. When Ed Baker disappeared, it's been reported he
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: owed over fifty thousand dollars to a few casinos in Vegas. However,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Ed's attorney of almost a decade, Ward Bucy, scoffed at
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: the allegations that Ed was a high stakes gambler. Ed Baker,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Bucy said, placed twenty to thirty dollars bets at the
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: roulette wheel, hardly enough to consider the oil man a
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: high roller. Bucy went on to say that owing fifty
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars to three casinos isn't a huge deal by
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Vegas standards. To put that into perspective, that's over one
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: hundred and twenty thousand dollars in twenty twenty one. Money
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: seems like a big deal to me, But what do
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I know. The only gambling I ever do is quarter poker. Still,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: detectives for the Harris County Sheriff's Office weren't convinced yet
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: that ed Baker disappeared or died as the result of
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: a gambling debt or even alone taken out from an
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: organized crime source to satiate the lawsuits from investors wanting
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: a return or at the very least their money back.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: They didn't even have an identification of the charred body
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: found in the Oilman's car. The twists and turns the
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: investigation to come took seemed to have no end. We'll
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: pick it back up from here next time U Gone cold.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: If you have any information about Edward Gerald Baker's case,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: please contact Crime Stoppers Houston at seven one, three, two, two,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: two eight four, seven to seven. We'd like to extend
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: a huge thank you to our good pal Steve Owens
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: a Fascination Street podcast for lending us his voice. This episode,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: if you're not listening to Fascination Street, you should be.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Steve interviews some of the most interesting folks around, including,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: for all you true crime fans, DNA superhero scientist David
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Middleman of Authorham Incorporated, the company solving cold cases and
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: identifying Jane does Left and Right. It's an incredible interview.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: David is a passionate guy fighting the good fight. Thanks
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: to Authuram as most of y'all listening, no and arrest.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: An indictment was made in Carla Walker's murder. Also, Steve
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: has interviewed Carol Baskin of Tiger King fame and the
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: amazingly talented and smooth voiced Laney from the podcast True
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Crime Fan Club. One of my favorite interviews on Fascination Street.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Check it out, y'all. We'll put a link in the
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: show notes. And speaking of David middleman and authoram Incorporated.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: You'd like to help find answers for the families of
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: unsolved crime victims from all over or help identify at
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Jane or John Doe, please visit dnasolves dot com, where
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: you can submit your DNA data from a consumer testing
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: company like Ancestry or twenty three in me to their database.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: We'll provide a link to dnaslts dot com in the
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: show notes. You can support Gone Cold at Patreon dot
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: com forward slash Gone Cold podcast donors at all levels
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: there get the show ad free, and for just two
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: and a half bucks, you'll have access to episodes featuring
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: stories of mostly solved Texas crimes and the bad actors
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: who perpetrated them, such as the Desert Killer and the
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Odessa Lust murders to name a few. I've got an
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: interesting one coming up soon about a psychopath with a
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: strange connection to a member of the Manson family. Anyway,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: thanks to everyone who supports us there. It means the
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: world to Eric and I, and we couldn't do this
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: without you. Inc Magazine, The Miami Herald, the Houston Chronicle,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: and the television show Unsolved Mysteries were used as sources
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: for this episode, Thanks for listening to on