Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Ed Baker Pt. One

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Ed Baker Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:31
Welcome back to the Pathway Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm
0:36
Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. November eighth, nineteen eighty
0:42
five, Harris County, Texas, the charred body of fifty two year old
0:47
Ed Baker, the millionaire chairman of an oil investment business, is discovered inside
0:53
his burned oak car in a remote field. Since Baker was suffering from serious
0:58
financial problems and claimed he was receiving death threats, there is suspicion that he
1:03
was murdered by people he owed money to. However, others suspect the Baker
1:07
staged an elaborate suicide in order to ensure that his family could collect on his
1:12
life insurance policies. It's also theorized that Baker may have faked his own death
1:18
and fled the country, but the actual circumstances of what happened to him remain
1:23
unknown. After that, the path went Chiley. So today we're going to
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be exploring another bizarre case which was featured on Unsolved Mysteries, the nineteen eighty
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five death of Ed Baker. Or was it actually a death after all?
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This is a pretty unique story about a man who built up a multimillion dollar
1:42
oil investment business before it all came crashing down and he wound up debt.
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The charred remains a Baker's body would be discovered inside his burnt out car in
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a remote field, and on the surface, this seemed like a clear cut
1:55
case of foul play, since Baker had been experiencing severe financial problems and his
2:00
playing paranoid behavior prior to his death, which suggested that his life was in
2:04
danger. But it turned out that opinions about this case would be sharply divided,
2:07
as there was other evidence to suggest that Baker could have staged an elaborate
2:12
suicide and made it look like a murder so that his family could collect his
2:15
life insurance benefits. And there was also a third possibility. Even though investigators
2:21
were pretty certain that the victim inside the vehicle was Baker, his body was
2:25
burned so badly that some people suspected he faked his own death in order to
2:30
escape his troubles. So could the victim have actually been an unidentified John Doe.
2:35
If Baker really did die that day, was it suicide or was someone
2:38
else responsible for his death? Well, after thirty eight years, there are
2:43
still no conclusive answers about what actually happened, but the possibilities are endless.
2:47
So we're going to be exploring a number of different theories about the case on
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today's episode. I have so many questions, like is it possible that the
2:57
decline in wealth came from something more complicated than just a failed business endeavor?
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Like could it have been that, Yes, he's a very successful billionaire or
3:07
multi millionaire doing these oil investments, but he's also contributing money or funneling money
3:14
to something that's darker. Or is he gambling or is he part of some
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other kind of elite group who's doing illegal behavior, and therefore when the finances
3:25
crash, maybe it's not just his business that's crashing those finances. Oh yes,
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this definitely gets brought up a lot later in this case, there is
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speculation that he was involved in the legal activity, and he was involved in
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gambling. He was spending more money than he earned, so I think that
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definitely contributed to his problems. And then you've got to think about the mental
3:45
health that comes with that, right, So, Like I mean, I
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feel like right now, in twenty twenty three, we're all doing the thing
3:51
where it says, Okay, how do we take our family finances and cover
3:53
groceries and mortgages and car payments and children's childcare and clothes and everything that we're
4:00
looking at. Financial stress can cause significant mental and emotional health problems. It
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can cause significant relational and family problems. I'm wondering when you started describing him,
4:12
I almost felt like you were describing Rivera to a point. I'm not
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sure there's a similarity because there really isn't like any outward indications that he was
4:20
suffering from a mental health problem. But it's possible that he reached the point
4:25
where he realized either I'm going to be go to jail or I'm going to
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wind up bankrupt, and that suicide might be the better option to almost protect
4:32
his family instead of just being a mental health crisis. Yeah, that's a
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lot of people theorize is that he knew it was the end, but he
4:39
wanted to ensure his family was being taken care of before he killed himself.
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Our story begins in Texas in nineteen eighty five. Our central figure is fifty
4:49
two year old Edward Gerald Baker, who goes by the name Ed and currently
4:55
lives in Houston. Ed spent the early part of his life working such jobs
5:00
as a shoe salesman and an insurance agent, and had two daughters and a
5:03
son with his first wife, but after twenty years of marriage, tragedy would
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strike on Thanksgiving weekend in nineteen seventy three when Ed's wife was killed in a
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car wreck. He would soon get remarried to a woman named Mary Ella and
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eventually decided to start his own company called Vanguard Groups International. At the outset,
5:25
Ed only had three employees working under him, including Mary, and the
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company initially specialized in such ventures as building inexpensive housing and selling partnerships in commercial
5:35
real estate development. However, by the time the nineteen eighties rolled around,
5:41
the oil industry was hitting a major boom period in Texas, so Baker decided
5:46
to start using Vanguard to sell limited partnerships in speculative oil wells. After achieving
5:51
some early success with promoting oil well exploration, it wasn't long before Baker developed
5:58
a reputation for being a brilliant strategist who was able to develop clever tax shelter
6:02
programs and sell them to wealthy investors that were happy to trust him with their
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money. As a result, Vanguard would be featured in Ink magazine for three
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consecutive years on their annual INK five hundred list of the fastest growing privately held
6:17
companies in the United States. By nineteen eighty four, the company was housed
6:23
in a newly constructed office building and its sales had reached to nineteen million.
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However, as Ed's wealth grew, it seemed like he wanted to change his
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lifestyle, and in March of that year, he decided to divorce Mary after
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ten years of marriage. In September, Ed married his third wife, Karen
6:41
Wallbridge, but the marriage would prove to be short lived, and Ed would
6:45
file for divorced from her only five months later. Only four days after the
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divorce was finalized, Ed got married for a fourth time to Sandy Hawk,
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one of his employees at Vanguard. Okay, if anyone's listening, if you
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were going to be his fifth wife, it's time to start looking at the
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trail right and there, and is probably not someone you're going to rope down
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and have as a long term partner. So surprising, very surprising. You
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have this successful man. He sounds like he's almost a narcissist who says Okay,
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I've been successful. I don't need her, even though she stood beside
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me and help me start this company. And this one's not so fun either,
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And I can get whatever I want because I'm a wealthy man. And
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he just kind of seems to pick and choose what he wants when he wants
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it. Don't you feel like he's probably already engaged in an affair, like
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the idea that four days later he goes on and he marries that employee of
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Vanguard, And it's like, clearly you were obviously engaged in some kind of
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extramarital affair prior to this divorce, because just your timeline seemed to be like,
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whatever's convenient if she starts to have too many opinions, or if I
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find somebody who I think is better looking or more fits the idea of the
8:00
successful guy that I've become. It's exactly what Actley said. It just falls
8:05
under this really narcissistic behavior. And it's pretty cringe when you look at this
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long list of women. But ugh, get like Ash said, if there
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was a fifth wife, you would definitely be looking at all of these other
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wives that came before you, and these short marriages and I mean, the
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one ended in tragedy. We can't count that, but it seems like a
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man who wanted to be on the rise and wanted to project a certain image,
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and his wife was like merely an extension of him, exactly. And
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as he gets more and more successful, or as he thinks he gets bigger
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and more grandigoes, he's like, oh that one not so much. Not
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you either, No, thanks, thanks for helping me, but I'm going
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to continue to keep going. Doesn't sound like the person i'd want to have
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chasing me for a short term. But I will say, even though he
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did get married four days after the divorce was finalized, we all know,
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especially if money is involved, a divorce would have taken a really long time.
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And you do have people who say, I've been filed for divorce for
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two years, you know, and because of the court systems were waiting on
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stuff. But Ed's gross so far in his his grandiose behavior. I think
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that's an extension of of that. Oh yeah, we're going to talk more
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about this on our next episode. But I have the feeling that Ed was
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suffering from a serious midlife crisis as he got into his fifties and got more
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rich because he did a number of weird things around this time period, and
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the fact that he went through so many wives in such a short amount of
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time. It was just kind of par for the course for him during this
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time period. Doesn't the name Vanguard remind you, do either of you?
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Watch Seinfeld? Yes, vandal Ay Industries exactly. Yeah. And it also
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reminds me of them, didn't the leader cult leaders? Yeah? I'm like,
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yeah, I think he did keep going there or whatever. Yes.
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And if another man, if you just look at him, I'm I question,
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what was it. I don't see it either about good old Vanguard.
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So Ed's going to hire George Constanza to be his LATEX sales yes, and
10:09
start his own colt. It was also around this time period when Ed began
10:13
to spend money excessively and became heavily involved in high stakes gambling. However,
10:18
this would eventually come back to bite him because, without his investor's knowledge,
10:22
Baker had been borrowing their money to support and maintain his lavish lifestyle. He
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likely assumed that he would be able to repay that money once he attracted another
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round of investors, But as nineteen eighty five rolled around, the price of
10:33
crude oil started dropping in a huge way. This would lead to an oil
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glut, which drastically worsened over the next two years and had a major negative
10:41
impact on Houston's economy. As a result, Vanguard started experiencing serious financial hardship
10:48
as Baker found himself unable to attract many people to invest in his oil well
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deals. As the years went on, Vanguard's investors, most of whom had
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invested a minimum of two hundred thousand dollars each, were clamoring for their money,
11:01
but Baker was unable to repay them. Three lawsuits were filed against Vanguard,
11:05
including one from Window Energy, who complained about having invested in an oil
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drilling operation which was never completed. Okay, so basically he's running a Ponzi
11:15
scheme where he just continues to make these false promises, collect money, and
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use them for his own benefit, is what he's doing here exactly. And
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like Ponzi schemes weren't as well known in the nineteen eighties, but these would
11:26
definitely come into the spotlight a lot during like the late nineties and early two
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thousands, with people like Bernie Madoff and with like the two thousand and eight
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financial crisis. But whenever you do something like this, it's always going to
11:37
fall apart, where eventually you just do not have enough money to maintain your
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lifestyle and pay back your investors in the house of cards comes crashing down.
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Who do they say, borrowing from Peter to pay Pal? Is that is
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not the phrase? Yeah, that's the phrase. Yeah, exactly. I
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Also you got to think, too, he's got kids, right, that
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are they're probably adult kids at this point, but he's he's got kids too
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that are you know, I'm sure part of this lifestyle or you know,
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their dad's an important figure in their life. And so this would be incredibly
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stressful to say. Not only do I have the investors that are coming after
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me, I have legal repercussions coming after me. Eventually this could turn into
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criminal charges. And I don't know how much he's worried about his temporary wives,
12:24
but I do assume he would be very concerned about the fact that he
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does have children and possibly you know, other little kiddos that are counting on
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him, and not only is his lifestyle falling apart, but theirs could be
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too. By October of that year, Vanguard was on the verge of bankruptcy,
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and Baker's issues with his investors, as well as some tax problems,
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meant that he was not only in danger of losing his company, but he
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could also be facing potential jail time. Baker told his private investigator, Bob
12:56
Gail, that in order to escape financial ruin, he was arranging a baileut
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with two men from Miami who were going to loan him a million dollars.
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According to Gail, Baker was very concerned because he'd heard these men might have
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some sort of connection to the mafia in organized crime, so he wanted Gaile
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to run a background check on them. While at around seven thirty pm on
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the evening of November sixth, Ed suddenly showed up at the home of his
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ex wife, Mary, and he appeared to be very paranoid and anxious.
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Mary said that she had never seen Ed look this bright and before, as
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he started rambling on about how he was being followed and that over the past
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two weeks he'd received some letters at work containing death threats. Ed also told
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Mary that earlier that day he received two threatening telephone calls at his home number,
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even though it was unlisted, and the caller said quote today is your
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day to die. I feel so bad for Mary in this moment. I
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mean, this is the woman, remember who started the company with him when
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it was a legitimate business. It's something that you know, she was part
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of the action, and when it starts to skyrocket, he divorces her like
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it's almost as if she really was his right hand man. She really was
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his best friend, saying, not only am I helping you grieve the death
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of your late wife, I'm the wife to step in after that role.
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I know from experience that's not an easy position to be in. She also
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is encouraging him to chase this stream of a new endeavor and they do it
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together, and then he leaves her, and then she watches him start to
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kind of have this grandiose lifestyle from wife to wife to wife, and then
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all of a sudden, he's back on my doorstep. And as much as
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you would kind of be frustrated with him, this is the man who was
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your best friend and husband for many years. You guys did a lot of
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things together, including your family, and he's scared and he's overwhelmed, and
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I'm not so sure that there wasn't some kind of complication if he received money
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from someone other than a financial institute who was going to quote help him.
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Trust me, there were heavy strings attached to that money. So it's like
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blood money. In my opinion, no one is going to just help you.
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I've learned that the hard way right financially, with business, no one's
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out to just help you. There's always something at the back end that they're
15:18
going to get tenfold for whatever they're offering to give you. So could he
15:22
have been right? Could he have been scared that these people wanted more than
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he could repay and now he's indebted to them and he might have to pay
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with his life possibly, Or like we talked about it earlier, he could
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be setting an elaborate plan in motion. But at this point I almost feel
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like he actually is legitimately overwhelmed and scared. He has real names to give
15:45
to his private investigator. If he was just super vague with everything and he
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didn't have names of the actual people to run background checks, I would say
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what you just said, Ash. He was setting up this whole idea of
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there being this imminent threat to his life in order to be able to have
16:00
this elaborate stage suicide so that the insurance companies would pay out and you know,
16:06
his debt would be forgiven or whatever the situation. But the fact that
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these people have names, I don't know. It does sound like he could
16:14
have been in danger. And I will say about Mary is that she seemed
16:18
like a very decent person that even though Ed had divorced her years earlier,
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it sounds like she still legitimately cared about him and was fearful about his life.
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And we'll talk more about this later on, but I find it interesting
16:30
that as the years went on, it would be Mary, his ex wife,
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who seemed to be more anxious to find answers about what happened to Ed,
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rather than his current wife Sandy. So Mary was would pretty much be
16:41
the torch bearer at trying to find answers and being an advocate for him over
16:45
the next several years. I assume that was her love. I mean,
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I assume that they truly did life together, whereas it sounds like these second
16:53
are the third and fourth wife might have been luxury items who were arm candy
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for a man who had more money than he knew what to do with and
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started to want to have somebody who was young and attractive and fun at a
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party, these kinds of things. Whereas Mary was that person, she was
17:11
his rock. I'm sure through many griefful moments mourning his wife, I'm sure
17:18
that she was there when days weren't good in a small business startup, and
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she was there when the days were good until he decided to leave. So
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I very much believe she not only loved him, but she loved his family.
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And in this moment, she's going like, as much as I think
17:33
sometimes you are the dumbest man I've ever met, I don't want anything to
17:37
happen to you. I feel like, aside from his late wife, it
17:40
has to be the most meaningful relationship that he's ever cultivated. And unfortunately,
17:45
probably due to his midlife crisis, he used her bit like a stepping stone
17:49
and then went through wives really fast, and at that point he wasn't married
17:52
to them for very long. And it doesn't seem like he seemed all that
17:57
interested in the day after the relationship. It was more like the external,
18:02
how it made him appear and how others perceived him, and how his wife
18:06
was an extension of him. But it feels like from the information that we
18:08
have, his relationship with Mary was different, especially since she was the one
18:14
that he trusted to go to with this information. It speaks to the depth
18:18
of their prior relationship for sure. So before he left Mary's house, Ed
18:22
mentioned that he had sent his current wife, Sandy, to her daughter's home
18:26
in Austin for her own protection. Hours later, at approximately one am on
18:30
the morning of November the seventh, Sandy said that she spoke to Ed over
18:33
the phone from Austin and he told her that he was holed up in his
18:37
bedroom because he had just received another threatening phone call. He said there was
18:41
a good possibility he might die and asked Sandy to remain strong before he ended
18:45
the call. Later that morning, at nine to fifteen am, Ed's gardner
18:49
showed up at his residence and discovered that the house had a broken window and
18:52
appeared to have been burglarized. When the gardener went inside and entered Ed's bedroom,
18:57
he noticed that the telephone have been knocked off a table and an ashtray
19:02
was overturned on the floor. Though the rest of the house did not appear
19:04
to be ransacked, there was no sign of Ed anywhere, and while a
19:08
shotgun he owned appeared to be missing, most of Ed's personal items, including
19:12
his jacket and a wallet containing credit cards and nine hundred dollars in cash have
19:17
been left behind. Okay, I mean knowing that we have two theories murder
19:22
or suicide, or potentially a murder he committed, put the body in the
19:29
car, and fled. You could see this from both sides, right,
19:33
But I'm almost inclined at this moment to think he had sent Sandy to her
19:37
daughter's house for her own production. I genuinely think he was scared, whether
19:44
it's legitimate or not perceived or not imagined, I think he was scared.
19:49
And he also makes a phone call over to say that he had just received
19:55
another threatening call. So he is confiding in Sandy, and he is confiding
19:59
in Mary's and then that night he disappears and he doesn't take important things.
20:07
Now, if you're going to complete suicide, I don't think you need your
20:08
wallet, although keep in mind you have your car and the registration for that
20:15
and stuff. But to make it easier on people, wouldn't you want your
20:18
wallet at the scene to make an identification super easy? You'd think if you
20:23
were planning it. Now, if you weren't planning this and you were apprehended
20:26
or something happened to you. Leaving your wallet behind becomes a very serious issue.
20:33
And there's also the fact that the only item that appears to be missing
20:36
is his shotgun. And you keep wondering yourself if he was kidnapped, why
20:40
would his shotgun be missing, Like, why wouldn't they use their own guns
20:42
to get him out of the house. So it makes you wonder is there
20:45
a reason that he took that when he disappeared. Maybe he fell for fear,
20:49
in fear of his own life, and that was the quickest weapon for
20:53
him to grab, but somehow he was apprehended in the process. But I
20:59
agree these people are they're as mobbed up as they seem like they are,
21:03
or is threatening so much so that he is so paranoid. He's confiding in
21:08
both his ex wife Mary and his current wife Sandy, and he's telling his
21:12
private investigator that he's scared. These guys have their own guns, so they
21:17
didn't take his gun to do this. But I do agree with you ash
21:19
In that if he was going to stage an elaborate suicide, I would think
21:25
identification of the body would be a really important thing, So you would want
21:29
to make it as easy as possible for the investigators at the scene to be
21:33
able to draw the conclusion that it is indeed your body. Ed remained a
21:37
missing person for the next twenty four hours, but shortly after nine am on
21:42
the morning of November eighth, the Harris County Sheriff's Department was contacted by some
21:48
farmers who reported finding a burned out vehicle in a remote rice field located next
21:53
to a dirt road about twenty miles outside of Houston. When the Sheriff's and
22:00
arrived at the scene, they discovered that the burned out vehicle was a Jaguar
22:03
Sedan and the charred remains of a person were in the passenger seat. The
22:08
body was burned so badly that they could not even tell if the victim was
22:12
a man or a woman, and its weight had been reduced to thirty two
22:18
pounds. A check of the Jaguar revealed that it was registered to Ed Baker,
22:22
but due to the condition of the remains, the authorities could not say
22:26
with absolute one hundred percent certainty that the victim was him. However, the
22:32
medical examiner's report noted that there were at least sixty points of similarity between Ed's
22:37
dental records and what was left of the victim's teeth and jaw, so the
22:41
official consensus was that it was him. In addition, a ring was found
22:47
with the victim, and Sandy would positively identify it as a ring that she
22:52
had given to her husband. A burnt thirty two caliber revolver was on the
22:56
vehicle's passenger side floorboard beneath the victim's feet, and there did appear to be
23:00
a gunshot wound in his head. The cartridge under the revolver's firing pin had
23:06
an indentation which seemed to indicate it had been fired, while the other five
23:11
shells inside the gun looked like they had exploded from the severe heat of the
23:15
fire. There also appeared to be remains of a shotgun inside the vehicle,
23:21
which may have been the missing shotgun from Ed's residence. A total of three
23:25
empty one gallon cans of gasoline were found inside and around the vehicle, so
23:30
it seemed pretty obvious that someone had intentionally set the Jaguar on fire and this
23:34
was a case of arson. Okay, so many questions here. If this
23:38
is some mafia related or planned attack on this man and they have the plan
23:45
to go in. We're going to kidnap him. We're going to put him
23:49
in his own car and drive him somewhere, shoot him, set the car
23:55
on fire, and tried to burn all the evidence. If they have the
23:59
wear withal to buy gas cans and gasoline plot when they're going to attack this
24:03
man, make threatening phone calls. I'm going back to the shotgun we just
24:10
mentioned. Why would his shotgun be part of the plan. You came prepared
24:14
with a murder weapon. If you went to this extent to attack him right
24:18
and to kill him and to get rid of him, why not just kill
24:22
him in his home right there and set that on fire. That's very bizarre
24:25
too. Why risk taking him from his home to the car and driving with
24:30
someone who is likely panicked. Why would you do all that? No one
24:36
else was in the home. It's not like they had to isolate him away
24:37
from anybody else. That's odd to me. I'd also like to ask,
24:44
do we know you said? The medical examiner reported there's at least sixty points
24:48
of similarity between Ed's dental records and what was left of the teeth and draw
24:52
area. I'm curious how rare would that be for other people to match that,
25:00
like, is that something that one in ten thousand would have, one
25:03
in one hundred would have, one in a trillion would have What are we
25:07
looking at there? That's a good question, because I don't really know how
25:11
they conducted dental records investigations back then, Because this was nineteen eighty five,
25:15
it was still a much different time. DNA testing was still a couple of
25:19
years away, So today they would just use DNA to positively identify beyond a
25:25
shadow of a doubt if it was him. But here, you're trying to
25:27
do dental records for a very burnt out body, and I can't imagine what
25:32
the teeth looked like at this point. So he said there were at least
25:34
sixty points of similarity. But if it's sixty out of say eighty or ninety,
25:40
then that sounds like a pretty convincing match. But if it's sixty out
25:42
of a couple hundred, then maybe that isn't so convincing. But he did
25:47
think that there was enough similarities that he felt that the victim was ed.
25:51
So witnesses reported having seen smoke in the rice field early on the morning of
25:55
November the seventh, which meant that Ed's death likely took place only hours after
26:00
his final phone call with Sandy. Around that same time period, an eyewitness
26:03
had been driving through the area and noticed a blue Chevy pickup truck with chrome
26:07
rails and mag wheels rapidly speeding away from the field, but the truck was
26:12
never found and it was unclear if he had had any connection to what happened.
26:17
In a bizarre turn of events, hours after the discovery of the burnt
26:21
out jaguar, the body of a young man who appeared to be in his
26:23
early twenties and dressed in nothing more than a camouflaged shirt, was found about
26:27
a quarter mile away from the scene. The victim had been handcuffed and killed
26:33
by several blows to the head, which crushed his skull. Initially, there
26:37
was speculation that this man might have been hired to kill Baker before someone else
26:41
killed him, but the investigation later determined that he was murdered in a dope
26:45
deal, which was completely unrelated to the Baker case. As far as I
26:49
can tell, this young man's name has never been released publicly, and there
26:53
virtually no details available about what happened to him, but he was likely killed
26:57
around twenty four hours after the first eyewitness sightings of the smoke from the burning
27:02
Jaguar. So it was nothing more than an odd coincidence that these two events
27:07
happened to take place in the same area. That is so sad I could
27:11
see where Initially you'd go, Okay, wait a minute, is something connected
27:14
here, But it's pretty clear that they're not. It's just two tragedies occurred
27:18
on the same evening. But okay, what about back to this eyewitness and
27:22
the blue Chevy pickup truck with chrome wheels that are flying away, right,
27:29
it really kind of looks chaotic to someone enough for them to remember and mention
27:33
it. We know the problems with eyewitnesses. I won't get started with it.
27:37
But was anything ever able to be done? I know a blue Chevy
27:41
doesn't really give you a whole lot of details, but was anything found from
27:47
that truck? It doesn't sound like it. I haven't read anything. If
27:51
they looked for tire tracks to like indicate if the pickup truck might have been
27:55
near the scene where Ed's car was found. They obviously thought it was an
27:59
important because they did reveal it on Unsolved Mystery several years later, and they
28:03
thought it might be a vital clue. So maybe the witness shared some information
28:07
to make them think that this truck had some connection to what happened. But
28:11
then again, like at that point, the motorist is not going to know
28:15
that someone has just been murdered in that field, So are you really going
28:18
to distinctly remember a truck speeding away before you know the significance of what happened.
28:22
It could be something where once he learned about Ed's death, he just
28:26
thought back and says, oh, I remember seeing the speeding truck, So
28:29
maybe it's significant to the case and that's why he came forward. Do we
28:33
know anything about the trajectory of the gunshot? I know it doesn't look like
28:41
they have that information. They never released it publicly. That's too bad,
28:45
because I think you could see if somebody else was going to put a gun
28:48
to his head and kill him, you're going to be looking at a certain
28:52
trajectory, Whereas if somebody is going to end their own life, say with
28:56
a rifle, you're going to get a very specific trajectory, don't you guys
29:02
think? I think so, yeah, because I'm currently working on another case
29:06
where the trajectory of the bullet and the victim could make a big difference in
29:10
determining whether their death was murder or suicide. But it's also possible because things
29:15
were spurt so badly with his body that maybe they just couldn't tell clearly in
29:19
this particular case. Shortly after the discovery of Baker's body, his attorney,
29:26
Wardbucy, received a letter from him which read, quote, mister Wardbucy,
29:32
there have been threats on my life in the past month that I don't know
29:34
how real they are. Just in case, I've written Sandy a letter that
29:38
I want you to keep to give to her in case something should happen to
29:42
me. I hope this isn't silly, but in these days and times,
29:47
crazy things happen every day. Maybe I'm just reacting, but I've never had
29:52
a threat before, and it just kind of gets to me. I guess
29:55
you've had experience with clients before, so you understand if anything should happen.
30:00
Please help Sandy and my kids all you can. You've always been a good
30:03
friend and I know I can count on you. Thanks Ed Baker end quote.
30:08
Indeed, Ed didn't close a second letter, which he asked us to
30:12
give to Sandy, though the contents of the second letter have never been revealed
30:17
publicly. WHOA, that's so heavy. It's heavy for both circumstances, like
30:25
ooh, I just got chills if he was going to complete suicide. The
30:29
fact that this man was able to sit back and say, Okay, I'm
30:33
going to go ahead and set this up, so that's my family to be
30:37
taking care of financially. I'm going to write my attorney letter. But then
30:40
he sits there. I can't imagine what it would take to say goodbye to
30:44
rebel or like, think about, you know, if I got to say
30:47
goodbye to buddy, Like, what would you actually say? What would you
30:49
put in something that's that important? So having to sit down and write something
30:53
like that would be so overwhelming, and then to pretend to function afterwards if
30:59
you knew you were going to complete suicide would be one of the most just
31:02
bizarre, heavy things I think you could do in life. I don't even
31:07
know where that's going, but that's heavy. And then imagine if this is
31:11
legit. Imagine if he knows he got in with the wrong people, he
31:15
has a massive debt to pay. There's only one option, and it's make
31:18
a deal with the devil, and he knows the devil's incredibly dangerous, and
31:22
this devil has basically told him you'll never be able to repay this debt.
31:26
In fact, I'm just going to take your life for it. And he's
31:29
having to prepare for like when is that going to happen to me? Also
31:33
a horrific heavy burden to be carrying around. Yeah, we know that Ed
31:40
mailed it to buc like a short time before his death, but it didn't
31:42
arrive until after Ed was already dead. So you could construe this as a
31:47
setup where if he was planning suicide, he's just planting the seeds by sending
31:51
this final letter to say I want you to take care of my family because
31:55
my life is in danger. But on the other hand, it could be
31:57
authentic where he wasn't planning to kill himself, but he felt that, oh,
32:01
I'm not long for this world. I may be murdered soon, so
32:05
I better send this letter to my attorney to get my affairs in orders.
32:07
So I know that war Busy we'll talk about it later, has his own
32:10
ideas about what happened to Ed, but I cannot imagine his reaction getting that
32:15
letter after finding out that this close friend of yours has just been killed under
32:19
strange circumstances. So, following her husband's death, Sandy immediately started expressing her
32:25
belief that her husband had been murdered. She suspected that he was the victim
32:30
of a mafia hit because he owed a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars loan
32:32
to some organized crime figures. Sandy claimed that six weeks before Ed was killed,
32:37
she accompanied him on a trip to Miami, and while he never shared
32:40
specific details about what was going on, Sandy suspected that the reason Ed went
32:45
down there was to meet with these organized crime figures and try to arrange another
32:50
way to pay off the loan, since he had already spent all the money.
32:53
It would also turn out that Ed over fifty thousand dollars in gambling debts
32:58
to at least two casinos in Las Figter Vegas. Investigators would soon discover that
33:01
in the days prior to his death, Ed called his life insurance agents.
33:06
He inquired about whether any of the policies he had taken out would still be
33:09
paid to his family in the event of a suicide, and was told that
33:13
at least one policy valued at five hundred thousand dollars when not two days after
33:19
Ed's body was found, his twenty three year old son, Blake Edward Baker
33:22
would be arrested and charged with making a terrorist threat after he allegedly phoned up
33:28
Sandy and threatened to kill her if she did not pay him the two hundred
33:30
thousand dollars he felt he was entitled to from his father's estate. In spite
33:36
of this, Blake passed a polygraph when questioned about his father's death and was
33:39
not considered to be a suspect. Yikes, that's heavy too. You have
33:44
a dead man and the son's like, here we are, I'm going after
33:46
wife number four. See what happens here. It's very bizarre, very bizarre
33:53
that Ed calls and says, does suicide count on my policy? I mean,
34:00
for me, when you're thinking about, like, oh I might be
34:04
sick, I want to check and see if cancer is covered. I might
34:07
you know, we're going on a big trip. I want to see if
34:10
a plane crash is covered. But I don't need to know if suicide's covered
34:15
because that's not in my repertoire of possibilities. So unless that is something that's
34:22
crossed your mind and something that you think your family may need protection from and
34:27
care for after your death. Why would you ask that question? Like,
34:31
I have done quite a bit to get life in terms, especially after Buddy
34:36
passed away. You go through a lot if you're trying to get your family
34:38
protected, And I don't know if my policy covers that or what the stipulations
34:45
are, like, I don't need to know that. A lot of times,
34:49
after a certain number of years, they will pay out, but they
34:52
won't do it in like the short term. I think there's like a suicide
34:53
indemnity clause that a lot of them have, Like after five years it's fine
35:00
and you would be paid out for that, but they don't want people who
35:01
are intending to complete suicide to buy a policy and then you know, six
35:07
months later they've got to pay out. Or wonder if in the eighties,
35:10
Jules, do you think in the eighties it was too I'm unsure, but
35:15
if this policy for five hundred thousand wouldn't pay out and then he ends up
35:20
dead shortly thereafter, I believe that both things can be true. That he
35:23
could be paranoid because he's under threat, But I think in a situation like
35:29
that you might be looking to be able to control your own fate rather than
35:34
waiting to be murdered or you know, something terrible done to you. If
35:37
they're asking you questions, trying to figure something out, maybe trying to tell
35:42
you that, like your loved one may take on your debt, that he
35:45
may choose to exit this world on his own terms, and he wants to
35:49
make sure his family is protected. Because it's just so strange that just before
35:52
he dies he's asking insurance companies about suicide, because why else would he be
35:58
concerned if he worried that they're going to stage it to look like a suicide
36:01
if he's murdered. That just doesn't really sound plausible to me personally, Yeah,
36:07
exactly. It just seems like too much of a coincidence, Like on
36:09
its own, someone wanting to know if their policy will pay out in the
36:13
event of a suicide. I could see someone calling them to ask that.
36:16
But then a few days later he's found dead in a circumstance where there's ambiguity
36:22
about whether his death was a homicide or a suicide. So you think he
36:25
heard that from his insurance company and realized, well, if I kill myself,
36:29
I have to do whatever I can to make it not look like suicide
36:32
so that the policy will pay out. On November sixth, shortly before he
36:37
went missing, Ed officially revised his will, removing Vanguard Group International from his
36:44
life insurance policies and making his family the beneficiaries. According to his updated will,
36:50
Sandy would receive five hundred thousand dollars and her daughter fifty thousand, while
36:54
Ed's owned two daughters received two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars each and Blake
37:00
one hundred and fifty thousand. His ex wife, Mary would receive five hundred
37:04
thousand from an insurance policy that she had as collateral on a ten year alimony
37:08
agreement, but one of the insurance carriers refused to pay out any death benefits
37:14
since it could not be conclusively proven that Ed's death was not a suicide.
37:19
Indeed, the fact that Edd inquired about whether these policies would pay out convince
37:23
some of the investigators, as well as Ward Beaucy, that Ed could have
37:28
taken his own life. The theory was bolstered by the fact that a gun
37:31
had been found on the floorboard beneath Ed's feet, leading his speculation that he
37:37
shot himself. While investigators found it unlikely that Ed would have been able to
37:40
pour gasoline over his body and set himself on fire before pulling the trigger,
37:45
they could not discount the possibility of Ed bringing an accomplice to the scene who
37:51
poured the gasoline in and around the vehicle and then started the fire after Ed
37:55
shot himself in order to make his death look like a homicide. Ward Beauty
38:00
believed that when Ed revised his will and sent him the letter about taking care
38:04
of his family, he already knew he was planning to kill himself in order
38:07
to escape his financial and legal problem, so he intentionally sent Sandy out of
38:13
town before he went through with his juicide in order to give her a plausible
38:16
deniability. Sandy refused to accept the idea that Ed took his own life and
38:22
hired her own independent private investigator, who concluded that his death was not a
38:28
suicide. Sandy did agree to take a polygraph test, but the result seemed
38:32
to indicate that she was withholding information. One month later, she agreed to
38:37
take a second polygraph, but we were unable to find out how those results
38:42
turned out, and Sandy eventually moved to Europe. So she fails the first
38:47
polygraph, right, it says that she might be with holing information, but
38:51
then she agrees while she's hired a private investigator to take a second polygraph.
38:57
That's bizarre. You would think at some point she'd be consulting with her private
39:01
investigator or trying to talk to an attorney or something somebody and they'd be like,
39:07
wait a minute, the police said you failed a polygraph test. Don't
39:09
go back in there, Like, do not talk to them anymore. They're
39:14
setting you up to be roped into this case, It's very likely that Ed
39:20
did send Sandy away. We know he did for her quote safety will to
39:24
spare me from discovering a body or being in the immediate scene when I'm discovered
39:30
as a deceased individual. That's protecting her too, right, getting her away
39:35
from the scene, it's helping her not have any culpability. And he's already
39:39
possibly set up this letter that'll be sent to her as well. So did
39:44
she know what was going on? We don't know what their marriage was like.
39:47
If I'm a young new bride, maybe she wasn't, maybe she was
39:52
older than him. But I was a young new bride married to a man
39:54
who claimed he was a multi millionaire even if he was having financial problems,
40:00
he likely would have you fallen in love with Sandy under this pretense that he
40:05
was going to provide her with the world and they were going to have these
40:07
amazing moments together. If he was going to end his life and I was
40:12
going to get his life insurance, like, would I be willing to go
40:15
stay with my daughter and come home and have all of my worries gone and
40:19
money? Possibly? Could I also have been so stressed and overwhelmed or not
40:24
understood a question, failed at first polygraph Eve and tried to prove my innocence
40:30
with the second one. Yeah. Also, it would not be smart legally,
40:34
but I could see both sides of the coin here. Yeah. It's
40:37
never been conclusively established if she took the second polygraph because I was unable to
40:42
find that information. So it's possible that maybe her attorneys talked her out of
40:45
doing it. But there has been speculation that the reason that she failed the
40:50
first one and they thought she was withholding information is that even if she was
40:53
not directly involved in Ed's death, maybe she knew that when I go to
40:58
Austin and I'm away from town, and he's going to go kill himself and
41:00
ensure that I'm taking care of financially, which is not something she would want
41:05
to admit. But like I mentioned earlier, Sandy has not exactly been an
41:08
advocate for Ed. She pretty much stayed out of the spotlight. Whereas Mary,
41:13
his ex wife, was the one who appearing on unsaw mysteries doing interviews
41:16
and seemed a lot more concerned about finding out what happened to him, whereas
41:21
Sandy was off just living her life in Europe. So this could be an
41:24
indication that she knew Ed's death was a suicide and all she cared about was
41:29
living off the life insurance money. And it might have been that she didn't
41:32
know exactly, but she might have strongly suspected it based on his actions.
41:37
And I think if you're taking a polygraph and they're asking these questions about whether
41:42
you knew he was going to end his own life, and you had strong
41:45
suspicions based on behavior and evidence that could come up as you're withholding information,
41:50
I would think and I mean they weren't married for that long at that point,
41:54
were they not? Really? No, only a few years at most?
41:59
Yeah, son know, like exactly like ash had said, maybe they
42:02
were married under the pretense that, you know, he was this wealthy guy.
42:06
And I don't know why we think that he's probably older than her.
42:08
He might not be. They could be the same age, but it seems
42:12
like that would have been something given his midlife crisis type behavior, he would
42:16
have been dangling in front of her like a carrot. So when the walls
42:21
started to come crashing down and she's going, WHOA, this isn't what I
42:27
signed up for, and then realizing that he's in debt to these people that
42:30
are potentially dangerous and this could be her life. I mean, we don't
42:36
know how in love she was or she wasn't, but we do know like
42:39
you'd mentioned that, she wasn't an advocate for finding out what happened to Ed,
42:45
Well, she's staying out of the spotlight. She just wants results,
42:49
the support the conclusion of murder or not being a suicide, potentially because it's
42:53
financially advantageous for her to do so, because if it's found to be a
42:59
suicide, then nobody he gets paid anything, correct or at least the one
43:02
policy, right, Yeah, they didn't get other money paid out from other
43:06
policies, but I think the most expensive one of the five hundred thousand dollars
43:08
one was the one where you would not get it paid out if it was
43:12
proven to be suicide. Well, even though the burned body found in the
43:15
Jaguar was officially identified as Ed Baker, some people, including Ed's private investigator
43:22
Bob Gail, had an additional theory about what might have happened to him.
43:25
They wondered if perhaps the remains did not actually belong to Baker, and consider
43:30
the possibility that he may have killed an unidentified victim before placing their body in
43:34
the Jaguar and then setting fire to it in order to fake his own debt.
43:37
He then escaped his troubles by fleeing the country and living off the money
43:42
he had embezzled from his investors. Indeed, when Vanguard Group's International filed for
43:46
bankruptcy following Baker's death, at least ten million dollars could not be accounted for.
43:52
Whatever happened, The investigation soon hit a standstill, and even though the
43:55
story was featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries in October of nineteen ninety two,
44:00
it failed to bring the case any closer to a resolution. So after
44:04
thirty eight years, the exact circumstances behind the death of Ed Baker are still
44:08
unclear. So I guess you could say the path went chili. So when
44:14
you say Robin, at at least ten million dollars couldn't be accounted for,
44:17
even though we know there was a formal filing of bankruptcy and things like that.
44:22
Is it something that he had simply embezzled. Do we think it's deeper
44:24
with some kind of illegal trade that would have no record? Is it the
44:28
gambling debts? Like, what's the assumption of where that ten million dollars would
44:31
be? We really don't know. I mean, it's possible that he could
44:36
have embezzled it and already spent it by that point so it was gone,
44:39
or he could have given it to some criminal figures. But there has been
44:44
speculation that maybe he put it in a secret bank account somewhere as his emergency
44:47
fund, and that after he faked his death he just disappeared and lived off
44:52
this money. We really don't know. Anyway. This is a pretty unique
44:58
case, as you're not going to find two many mysteries about unexplained deaths in
45:00
which there are three possible solutions homicide, suicide, or faking their own debt.
45:07
Usually, when a deceased person is found inside the remains of a torchtout
45:10
vehicle and they've been burned so badly that the remains only weighed thirty two pounds,
45:15
you're not going to assume that a suicide took place, but in this
45:19
case you can't completely discount that possibility. While the idea of Ed Baker faking
45:23
his own death and disappearing to start a new life might seem unlikely, this
45:28
is not the first case we've covered on this podcast in which someone has attempted
45:31
to do this. You might be familiar with our episode about Clarence Roberts,
45:36
who was also featured on Unsolved Mysteries, and you can see some parallels between
45:39
Clarence and Ed Baker. Clarence had also got himself into serious financial trouble before
45:45
his body was found inside a burning barn in what appeared to be a suicide,
45:49
but it soon became obvious that the burned body found in the rubble did
45:52
not belong to Clarence, and that he likely killed an unidentified vagrant in order
45:57
to fake his own debt. Clarence is a pair. Plan was for his
46:00
wife, Geneva, to collect on his life insurance policies and they could go
46:04
off to live somewhere on the money. But since the insurance companies did not
46:07
believe Clarence was dead, they refused to pay out, So Clarence was presumably
46:12
forced to spend an entire decade in hiding before he died for real in another
46:16
fire. We're going to talk more about this later on, but some suspected
46:21
that Ed Baker was attempting a similar scheme with his wife. Do you remember
46:24
when we covered that on the Pathway Chili? While say, okay, first
46:27
of all, what kind of karma is that? Well, that is carbon
46:30
It's possible that Clarence killed a poor, homeless person and sets their body on
46:36
fire, is stuck, miserable and poor, waiting for his wife that's never
46:40
going to come, and then he dies in a fire. Karma. Oh
46:46
it's so great. That is seriously what I was thinking about when you talked
46:50
about Sandy and eventually moves to Europe. I mean, listen, I've definitely
46:54
moved to leave behind emotions and things like that, but I don't need to
47:00
go to Europe, right like a hop and skip from Texas to Arkansas's fine,
47:05
but you know Sandy goes to Europe after she fails a polygraph test,
47:08
and we know that somebney was paid out to her or to somebody in the
47:14
family. So is it possible that Ed was setting her up to meet him
47:19
over in Europe. That's a heavy, heavy, elaborate, detailed scheme,
47:22
But it's not unthinkable if we knew more about the probability of those dental records,
47:30
Like what does a sixty point match mean? Does that mean that you
47:32
know, it's an eighty percent probability that you can positively identify the body,
47:39
or is it like these are sixty points that are on fifty percent of the
47:45
population. It just is so vague, and until we have more context there,
47:49
it's really hard to know. Now, I'll stay right up front that
47:53
Robin does not believe at Baker faked his own death, and I happened to
47:58
agree with him. They were able to make a pretty close match between Baker's
48:01
dental records and what was left of the burn victim's teeth, as well as
48:06
his jawbone, as I just mentioned. But the only reason that they could
48:09
not say with absolute one hundred percent certainty that it was him was because it
48:15
took place during a time period before DNA profiling became a common practice in criminal
48:21
investigations. Interestingly enough, Unsolved Mysteries would later produce another segment about a man
48:27
named John Rubis, who was the leader of a multi million dollar drug network
48:31
in Puerto Rico. Much like the Baker case, Rubus's charred remains were found
48:37
inside a burnt out car in a remote field in San Juan, and all
48:40
they could use for identification was some loose teeth and a fragment of jawbone.
48:45
However, there were a number of witnesses who had supposedly seen or talked to
48:50
Rubus after he was killed and given his immense wealth and power, this led
48:54
to speculation that he faked his own death and the remains in the vehicle belonged
48:59
to someone else. However, DNA testing was eventually performed on the jaw fragment
49:04
and it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the victim was Rubis.
49:07
Maybe he pulled out his own teeth it was a dire jaw though, Yeah,
49:13
probably not. No, I mean, if it was teeth then maybe,
49:15
but hid entre job owed seems like much. Yeah, and I'd wager
49:21
that if ed Baker's remains were exzuomed today and subject to DNA testing, the
49:25
exact same thing would happen. Though I'm not sure this will ever be done,
49:30
since I don't know if anyone is still actively working on this case,
49:32
but I definitely think that we can rule out the entire fake death theory,
49:37
and our next episode will focus on the debate between Baker's death being a homicide
49:42
or a suicide. Let me just ask this question, because Ash, you
49:45
might know, you've done a lot of homicide investigations with teeth. Isn't there
49:52
not always the material that you can test for DNA? Like after many many
49:58
years when they find bodies and stuff, they can't always test for DNA?
50:01
Can they based on the material left and teeth, like, if there's enough
50:06
or not? All right, give me one second, let me google this
50:07
while you asked me directly, hold on your own death, and we want
50:15
you to check for us if you pull out our teeth. Yeah, yeah,
50:20
No, it's not always possible. It says that teeth are usually successful
50:24
samples of DNA, but intact teeth and the proper parts of the teeth that
50:30
contain the best possible quantities. The richest quantities of DNA not always available,
50:37
So it depends on the decomposition of the corpses and the damage done to the
50:42
teeth more so than decomposition. So if a shotgun had, you know,
50:45
ruined all the teeth of all the yeah, it is possible that a tooth
50:51
fragment may not have what's needed to make as good of a match. And
50:54
of course, with odentology and bite marks and things like that, if you're
50:58
trying to test with the jaw from that, we all know that that has
51:00
been proven to be a subjective science. It's not as reliable. So there's
51:06
a whole lot of problems when you're trying to rely on teeth in general in
51:08
murder cases. Okay, I am definitely going to agree with you guys.
51:14
I don't think Sandy got to reunite with Ed over in Europe. I definitely
51:17
don't think that that's the case. But what I felt uneasy about this entire
51:22
time was Ed in his own car, Ed inquiring about the suicide on his
51:28
insurance policy, Ed writing that letter, Ed sending Sandy away, and Ed's
51:34
shotgun missing and found on the floorboard or close to his body in his car.
51:39
Again, if I was someone in the mafia going to make a hit
51:45
on you, I don't know that I would take you out of the house,
51:50
into the car to a remote place, shoot you, light the car
51:53
on fire, and risk so many opportunities for people to see us in transport
51:58
and in that field killing you. So it seems like his shotgun being present
52:05
is a massive red flag. But those gas cans and the fire burning to
52:07
that extent is really questionable because how did he set that fire and then also
52:15
shoot himself those don't you know, It's very difficult to have both those happen,
52:20
So that's bizarre. I think it's possible, and I think it's most
52:24
likely a suicide. But I'm excited about the next episode because I need more
52:30
facts to make a better conclusion. Yes, I think this would be a
52:34
good time to bring it into part one. But join us next week as
52:37
we present part two of our series about the Unexplained depth of Ed Baker.
52:42
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trailment Cold
52:44
Patreon. Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now,
52:47
and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and
52:52
I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
52:58
with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars tier Tier two,
53:01
we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not
53:07
featured on the Trail went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon and
53:12
if you join our highest tier tier three, the ten dollar tier. One
53:15
of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD
53:21
Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original
53:24
Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary
53:30
playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases
53:35
featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did
53:38
a commentary track over was the episode featuring this case. So if you want
53:43
to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel
53:47
Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three. So I want to let
53:51
you know a little bit about the Jewles and Nashy Patreons. So there's early
53:54
ad free episodes of the Path Went Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili
53:59
Vini's which are always over an hour, so they're not very many, but
54:01
they're just too short to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing
54:06
those, so we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them in
54:08
the show notes. So I want to thank you all for listening, and
54:12
any chance you have to share us on social media with a friend or to
54:15
rate and review is greatly appreciated. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at
54:20
gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So
54:23
until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold trails and chili pass
54:28
call for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy