Australian criminals and their Crimes. Con artists, scum bags, murderers, corrupt cops, pollies, rapists and paedophiles will find themselves in this blog. It was expanded to also cover those that ought to be charged for their idiotic disgusting behaviour. Usually high-profile people who think they are above the law
UPDATE 7.49am: A GRAND jury in North Carolina has indicted Elisa Annette Baker for the second degree murder of her stepdaughter, Zahra Baker, the cancer-stricken Australian child who came to live in the United States with her father, Adam Baker, 33.
The indictment states that Zahra, aged 10, was murdered on September 24, 2010, more than two weeks before her father placed an emergency call to authorities on October 9, saying Zahra was missing.
District Attorney James “Jay” Gaither told a media conference in the town of Hickory a short time ago that “at this time there is no credible evidence that anyone other that Elisa Baker” was involved in the murder.
The indictment, which was brought down in the Superior Court of Catawba County, also charged Mrs Baker on aggravating factors, saying she “had a history of physical, verbal and psychological abuse” towards Zahra, whose cancer treatment in Australia had left her deaf and walking with a prosthetic leg.
“The defendant secreted the victim from the family and other prior to and after the offence, delaying detection of the offence,” read the indictment.
“The defendant desecrated the victim’s body to hinder detection, investigation and prosecution of the offence.”
Mrs Baker led authorities to parts of Zahra’s remains after she was found to have written a fake ransom note. Until today, she was also being held in Catawba prison on charges relating to obstruction, and bigamy charges.
Mrs Baker had several overlapping marriages, and was not divorced when she married Adam Baker in Australia in July 2008. She has a long history of petty crime and issuing threats to people.
The grand jury was held in closed court and no further details on the cruelty Mrs Baker inflicted on Zahra are as yet forthcoming. The indictment said Mrs Baker took advantage of the trust she had in her domestic relationship to commit the offence.
The second-degree murder charges suggest Mrs Baker, 44, appears to have avoided the death penalty which applies in North Carolina. It is understood her legal team struck a deal that would not see her face the death penalty in exchange for revealing where some of Zahra’s body parts, and her prosthetic leg, had been dumped.
Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins said his “Team Zahra” would continue to follow leads up until the first day of Mrs Baker’s trial, a date for which is yet to be set.
UPDATE 7.49am: A GRAND jury in North Carolina has indicted Elisa Annette Baker for the second degree murder of her stepdaughter, Zahra Baker, the cancer-stricken Australian child who came to live in the United States with her father, Adam Baker, 33.
The indictment states that Zahra, aged 10, was murdered on September 24, 2010, more than two weeks before her father placed an emergency call to authorities on October 9, saying Zahra was missing.
District Attorney James “Jay” Gaither told a media conference in the town of Hickory a short time ago that “at this time there is no credible evidence that anyone other that Elisa Baker” was involved in the murder.
The indictment, which was brought down in the Superior Court of Catawba County, also charged Mrs Baker on aggravating factors, saying she “had a history of physical, verbal and psychological abuse” towards Zahra, whose cancer treatment in Australia had left her deaf and walking with a prosthetic leg.
“The defendant secreted the victim from the family and other prior to and after the offence, delaying detection of the offence,” read the indictment.
“The defendant desecrated the victim’s body to hinder detection, investigation and prosecution of the offence.”
Mrs Baker led authorities to parts of Zahra’s remains after she was found to have written a fake ransom note. Until today, she was also being held in Catawba prison on charges relating to obstruction, and bigamy charges.
Mrs Baker had several overlapping marriages, and was not divorced when she married Adam Baker in Australia in July 2008. She has a long history of petty crime and issuing threats to people.
The grand jury was held in closed court and no further details on the cruelty Mrs Baker inflicted on Zahra are as yet forthcoming. The indictment said Mrs Baker took advantage of the trust she had in her domestic relationship to commit the offence.
The second-degree murder charges suggest Mrs Baker, 44, appears to have avoided the death penalty which applies in North Carolina. It is understood her legal team struck a deal that would not see her face the death penalty in exchange for revealing where some of Zahra’s body parts, and her prosthetic leg, had been dumped.
Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins said his “Team Zahra” would continue to follow leads up until the first day of Mrs Baker’s trial, a date for which is yet to be set.
This awful story just gets worse with all sorts of things being suggested. I think over the next day or 2 there will be a couple of major arrests as the net closes in on the major players in this beautiful courageous girls premature death. Those involved in her death are going to be run over burning hot coals to get to the bottom of this. I cannot even think about her life in the weeks leading up to that time. So many let Zahra down when all she keep doing was give and stand up every time something went wrong…
Police have confirmed human remains found near a river bank last month are those of murdered Australian girl Zahra Baker, 10
NORTH Carolina police have confirmed DNA taken from human remains found near a river bank last month match 10-year-old Australian girl Zahra Baker.
The match was made from bones found in the Dudley Shoals area of Caldwell County, a short drive from Zahra’s home in Hickory.
The announcement follows the release of horrifying details in the murder investigation from unsealed police warrants, including allegations Zahra’s Australian father, Adam Baker, helped dispose of her prosthetic leg by wrapping it in a rubbish bag and tossing it in a skip.
Zahra’s American stepmother, Elisa Baker, was identified as the source of many of the allegations contained in the warrants, including information such as “latex gloves were used while the body of Zahra Baker was dismembered”.
One warrant states: “It was relayed from Elisa Baker through lawyer Lisa Dubbs that a car cover and a bed comforter used to conceal and transport the body parts of Zahra Baker were thrown into the (skip)”.
In another disturbing allegation in the police warrant, a source told investigators that Zahra had been left at a house with two men who raped her. One of the men was asked if they “killed the little girl” and the man said “they might have hit her in the head”, according to the warrant.
Hickory police were alerted on October 9 that Zahra, who was born in Wagga Wagga, NSW, and had her lower left leg amputated aged five after a battle with bone cancer, was missing.
Adam Baker, who moved to the US with his daughter two years ago, has not been charged in connection with Zahra’s disappearance.
Elisa Baker has been in custody since October 10 and has been charged with obstruction of justice in relation to a fake ransom note, which police say she admitted to writing to mislead investigators.
Hickory police say they are still waiting on a DNA profile for Zahra to be created, using cheek swabs taken from Adam Baker and Zahra’s biological mother, Emily Dietrich, who visited North Carolina from Wagga Wagga last month.
The DNA match with the bones announced on Wednesday used a sample taken from personal items believed to belong to Zahra.
Police said last month they had collected enough physical evidence to believe she was dead, after confirming another bone and a prosthetic leg found dumped in bushland belonged to Zahra.
THE father of murdered Australian girl Zahra Baker allegedly helped wrap her prosthetic leg in a rubbish bag and threw it in a dumpster, it has been claimed in police warrants.
Documents unsealed yesterday provide a grisly narrative from Zahra’s stepmother, Elisa Baker, about what was done with Zahra’s body after the 10-year-old died in the United States.
Elisa Baker, in custody on an obstruction of justice charge, told police Zahra – who wore a prosthetic leg and hearing aids after a battle with cancer – was dismembered by someone wearing latex gloves.
Through her lawyer, Elisa Baker admitted she and her Australian husband, Adam Baker, wrapped Zahra’s prosthetic leg in a white rubbish bag and threw it in a dumpster.
She also said she and Adam Baker dumped a mattress and box springs that belonged to Zahra at a rubbish dump.
Since Zahra was reported missing from her home in Hickory, North Carolina on October 9, speculation has focused on what role, if any, Elisa and Adam Baker might have played in the girl’s fate.
Both have denied any wrongdoing in the case, and no one has been charged over her death.
The documents also disclose that an unnamed source told police that two men – at least one of whom was acquainted with Elisa Baker – had raped Zahra.
The records don’t reveal how Zahra died.
But one document says a source told police that two men – at least one acquainted with Zahra’s stepmother – may have hit her in the head.
The records represent the most detailed account to date of what might have happened to the Australian girl who moved to North Carolina with her father two years ago after he met Elisa Baker online.
The details are contained in search warrants that remained secret until Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Poovey ordered them unsealed on Tuesday.
Poovey’s ruling came in response to US media outlets that requested access to the warrants, which are public records.
Prosecutors had sought to keep the documents from public view, saying disclosure could undermine the ongoing investigation or jeopardise the right of defendants to receive a fair trial.
But in a hearing on Tuesday, Poovey denied a request to stay his ruling to unseal the documents.
Among the details contained in the documents, Elisa Baker’s lawyer, Lisa Dubs, told an investigator that latex gloves were used while Zahra’s body was dismembered. Dubs also said investigators might find remains in the bathtub drain at the Bakers’ Hickory home.
Through her lawyer, Elisa Baker said she and Adam Baker dumped a mattress and box springs that belonged to Zahra at a garbage dump in Granite Falls.
Elisa Baker directed investigators to the Fox Ridge apartments in Hickory. Through her lawyer, she admitted that she and Adam Baker wrapped Zahra’s prosthetic leg in a white trash bag and threw it in the apartment dumpster.
Police gave Elisa Baker a polygraph test about Zahra’s disappearance. Among the questions were: “Did you hurt Zahra?”; “Do you know if anyone has done harm to that child?”; and “Do you know the person who wrote that ransom note?”
Elisa Baker showed deception on all three questions, according to the documents.
The investigation into Zahra’s disappearance began on October 9, hours after the Hickory Fire Department responded to a mulch pile fire behind the Bakers’ home.
On October 10, a search and rescue dog gave a positive alert for the presence of human remains in or on two vehicles located at the Baker’s home.
Eight days later, police said they believed Zahra was a victim of homicide. Police named Elisa Baker in the document as a suspect in Zahra’s murder.
Elisa Baker remains in jail, charged with obstruction of justice, after police say she admitted writing a fake ransom note to mislead investigators.
This awful story just gets worse with all sorts of things being suggested. I think over the next day or 2 there will be a couple of major arrests as the net closes in on the major players in this beautiful courageous girls premature death. Those involved in her death are going to be run over burning hot coals to get to the bottom of this. I cannot even think about her life in the weeks leading up to that time. So many let Zahra down when all she keep doing was give and stand up every time something went wrong…
Police have confirmed human remains found near a river bank last month are those of murdered Australian girl Zahra Baker, 10
NORTH Carolina police have confirmed DNA taken from human remains found near a river bank last month match 10-year-old Australian girl Zahra Baker.
The match was made from bones found in the Dudley Shoals area of Caldwell County, a short drive from Zahra’s home in Hickory.
The announcement follows the release of horrifying details in the murder investigation from unsealed police warrants, including allegations Zahra’s Australian father, Adam Baker, helped dispose of her prosthetic leg by wrapping it in a rubbish bag and tossing it in a skip.
Zahra’s American stepmother, Elisa Baker, was identified as the source of many of the allegations contained in the warrants, including information such as “latex gloves were used while the body of Zahra Baker was dismembered”.
One warrant states: “It was relayed from Elisa Baker through lawyer Lisa Dubbs that a car cover and a bed comforter used to conceal and transport the body parts of Zahra Baker were thrown into the (skip)”.
In another disturbing allegation in the police warrant, a source told investigators that Zahra had been left at a house with two men who raped her. One of the men was asked if they “killed the little girl” and the man said “they might have hit her in the head”, according to the warrant.
Hickory police were alerted on October 9 that Zahra, who was born in Wagga Wagga, NSW, and had her lower left leg amputated aged five after a battle with bone cancer, was missing.
Adam Baker, who moved to the US with his daughter two years ago, has not been charged in connection with Zahra’s disappearance.
Elisa Baker has been in custody since October 10 and has been charged with obstruction of justice in relation to a fake ransom note, which police say she admitted to writing to mislead investigators.
Hickory police say they are still waiting on a DNA profile for Zahra to be created, using cheek swabs taken from Adam Baker and Zahra’s biological mother, Emily Dietrich, who visited North Carolina from Wagga Wagga last month.
The DNA match with the bones announced on Wednesday used a sample taken from personal items believed to belong to Zahra.
Police said last month they had collected enough physical evidence to believe she was dead, after confirming another bone and a prosthetic leg found dumped in bushland belonged to Zahra.
THE father of murdered Australian girl Zahra Baker allegedly helped wrap her prosthetic leg in a rubbish bag and threw it in a dumpster, it has been claimed in police warrants.
Documents unsealed yesterday provide a grisly narrative from Zahra’s stepmother, Elisa Baker, about what was done with Zahra’s body after the 10-year-old died in the United States.
Elisa Baker, in custody on an obstruction of justice charge, told police Zahra – who wore a prosthetic leg and hearing aids after a battle with cancer – was dismembered by someone wearing latex gloves.
Through her lawyer, Elisa Baker admitted she and her Australian husband, Adam Baker, wrapped Zahra’s prosthetic leg in a white rubbish bag and threw it in a dumpster.
She also said she and Adam Baker dumped a mattress and box springs that belonged to Zahra at a rubbish dump.
Since Zahra was reported missing from her home in Hickory, North Carolina on October 9, speculation has focused on what role, if any, Elisa and Adam Baker might have played in the girl’s fate.
Both have denied any wrongdoing in the case, and no one has been charged over her death.
The documents also disclose that an unnamed source told police that two men – at least one of whom was acquainted with Elisa Baker – had raped Zahra.
The records don’t reveal how Zahra died.
But one document says a source told police that two men – at least one acquainted with Zahra’s stepmother – may have hit her in the head.
The records represent the most detailed account to date of what might have happened to the Australian girl who moved to North Carolina with her father two years ago after he met Elisa Baker online.
The details are contained in search warrants that remained secret until Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Poovey ordered them unsealed on Tuesday.
Poovey’s ruling came in response to US media outlets that requested access to the warrants, which are public records.
Prosecutors had sought to keep the documents from public view, saying disclosure could undermine the ongoing investigation or jeopardise the right of defendants to receive a fair trial.
But in a hearing on Tuesday, Poovey denied a request to stay his ruling to unseal the documents.
Among the details contained in the documents, Elisa Baker’s lawyer, Lisa Dubs, told an investigator that latex gloves were used while Zahra’s body was dismembered. Dubs also said investigators might find remains in the bathtub drain at the Bakers’ Hickory home.
Through her lawyer, Elisa Baker said she and Adam Baker dumped a mattress and box springs that belonged to Zahra at a garbage dump in Granite Falls.
Elisa Baker directed investigators to the Fox Ridge apartments in Hickory. Through her lawyer, she admitted that she and Adam Baker wrapped Zahra’s prosthetic leg in a white trash bag and threw it in the apartment dumpster.
Police gave Elisa Baker a polygraph test about Zahra’s disappearance. Among the questions were: “Did you hurt Zahra?”; “Do you know if anyone has done harm to that child?”; and “Do you know the person who wrote that ransom note?”
Elisa Baker showed deception on all three questions, according to the documents.
The investigation into Zahra’s disappearance began on October 9, hours after the Hickory Fire Department responded to a mulch pile fire behind the Bakers’ home.
On October 10, a search and rescue dog gave a positive alert for the presence of human remains in or on two vehicles located at the Baker’s home.
Eight days later, police said they believed Zahra was a victim of homicide. Police named Elisa Baker in the document as a suspect in Zahra’s murder.
Elisa Baker remains in jail, charged with obstruction of justice, after police say she admitted writing a fake ransom note to mislead investigators.
CRAIG MCMURTRIE: Well, a very sombre Hickory police chief Tom Adkins spoke to reporters, He didn’t take questions; he just gave a statement saying that it was with great regret that he was standing before the reporters today to say that police believe they know have enough recovered evidence to believe that they have found Zahra Baker.
This is based on DNA results back on a bone that was found some time ago at a place called Christie Road, just outside Hickory, where Zahra Baker lived with her American stepmother and Australian father. They have matched DNA from that bone with samples taken from personal items from the family home.
He’s also saying that medical examiners at the site nearby, at a place called Gunpowder Creek, where investigators found human remains yesterday, that those medical examiners are saying that the remains recovered are consistent with a child.
They have been sent to a police laboratory. The police chief is saying that final conformation hasn’t been made yet, but they will take biological cheek swabs from Zahra Baker’s biological mother and father and then they will be able to confirm, but he’s saying that they have enough remains now and enough of an indication to say that they believe they have found Zahra Baker.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: So what happens from here Craig?
CRAIG MCMURTRIE: Well, essentially the analysis will take at least a week. Today, the police chief wouldn’t say how long it would take, but yesterday some of the investigators were saying that the analysis of those remains, which would be proof positive, would take about a week.
They are saying that they won’t be saying much at all to reporters for the next little while because the expectation is that they will now build their case.
So far the investigation really has centred on Zahra Baker’s parents; the American stepmother Elisa Baker, who is facing an obstruction of justice charge and is currently in jail, and her Australian father Adam Baker, who has been released on a bond for unrelated charges.
The case really has focused on those. Adam Baker is said to be cooperating with police, but we’ll have to await further developments.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: How widely has this case been reported in the States?
CRAIG MCMURTRIE: It’s generated a lot of interest. It has generated national attention, and in that community in North Carolina, the community has clearly been shocked by this; there’s shrine now outside the Baker family home.
Locals were going to the site. Word spread very quickly yesterday when search teams went to this place – Gunpowder Creek, where it was said human remains had been found, and locals were going there just to be there; to express solidarity with this 10-year-old girl.
Her story is just so tragic; she survived bone cancer and lung cancer. She moved to America with her Australian father two years ago and now, of course, she has been found dead.
It started out as a missing person‘s case. It quickly became a homicide case, and the chief of police, Tom Adkins, said that the investigators were just devastated that they had not been able to find her alive.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Craig McMurtrie, thank you. That’s out Washington correspondent Craig McMurtrie with the latest developments on the missing 10-year-old Australian girl Zahra Baker.
Something very shifty going on here, what a pathetic life those in care of this girl have given her…It does not look good…
SHE was uprooted from Australia two years ago, a little girl who has endured the tragedy and hardship of cancer but always kept smiling.
Relatives of the missing 10-year-old disabled girl, feared murdered in the US state of North Carolina, have described the child’s life as miserable, saying she was locked in her room for most of the day and was punished over little things.
Zahra Clare Baker, originally from Wagga Wagga, NSW, was reported missing on Saturday, but police said they have had trouble finding anyone outside the household who had seen the girl alive in the last few weeks.
Authorities also cast doubt on what the couple had told them.
They are now treating her disappearance as a homicide, after her stepmother Elisa Baker allegedly admitted to writing a $US1 million ransom note.
North Carolina police were told of Zahra’s disappearance last Saturday when they were contacted by her father Adam Baker.
This morning police charged Zahra’s American step-mother, Elisa Baker, with felony obstruction of justice after they say she admitted writing the ransom note.
Zahra, whose bone cancer left her with a prosthetic leg and hearing aids, moved to North Carolina from Australia with her father Adam two years ago when he married an American woman, Elisa, after meeting her on the internet.
“I just think this was something for a long time that we knew was going to happen, everybody that was close to the family,” relative Brittany Bentley said on the CBS network.
Adam Baker has said it was possible his wife could be involved in the disappearance and other relatives echoed those remarks.
Zahra was reported missing after a yard fire at the home. The girl’s stepmother, Elisa Baker, was arrested on Sunday on about a dozen charges unrelated to her disappearance.
Bentley, who is married to Elisa Baker’s nephew, said she would have Zahra over for weekends and the girl would get mad when it was time to return home.
Zahra “was locked in her room, allowed five minutes out a day to eat, that was it”, Bentley said.
“She was beat almost every time I was over there for just the smallest things. Elisa would get mad, she would take it out on Zahra, things the kid didn’t deserve. She just had a horrible home life.”
Neighbours also feared the worst. A search warrant revealed that police dogs detected the smell of human remains on cars belonging to the father and stepmother.
“There were warning signs along the way, but you never want to think the worst,” said former neighbour Kayla Rotenberry.
The stepmother said she last saw Zahra sleeping in her room about 2.30am on Saturday, yet Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins said investigators don’t know the last time anyone saw her.
Adkins, the police chief in a city of 40,000 residents about 80km northwest of Charlotte, said the father was co-operating with police, but Elisa Baker wasn’t.
Zahra had two hearing aids, which were left at the house, and a prosthetic left leg from the knee down, police said.
She was being home-schooled, but had attended public schools in the past.
Zahra was described by family friends as shy but constantly smiling, in spite of her health problems. The stepmother could be short-tempered toward her, two former neighbours said, but the woman also fought tears when a charity fitted her for hearing aids a few months ago.
The police chief said he wouldn’t rule out any suspects, including Adam Baker.
Rotenberry, the former neighbour, said she and her fiance were good friends with the Bakers when they lived in the nearby town of Sawmills. About six months ago she noticed that Elisa Baker’s hand was swollen, Rotenberry said.
“She told me that she was trying to spank Zahra, but hit her on her prosthetic leg,” she said.
“When Adam asked her about the injury, she said she fell and hurt her hand. She didn’t want him to know. She knew he would be mad.”
Another former neighbour, Brandy Stapleton, 22, of Lenoir, said that Elisa Baker told her the same story about how she injured her hand.
“She wasn’t the person everyone thought she was.”
Elisa Baker has two daughters and a son from a previous marriage.
Watch the police announcement
Zahra Baker...what has happened to her
Zahra was born in Wagga Wagga and spent her early life in Newcastle, before Zahra and her family moved to Townsville where described by her grandmother Karen Baker as handling “everything with a smile”, attended a Camp Quality weekend for sick children.
The family had only recently moved to the small town of Hickory, northeast of North Carolina’s largest city Charlotte – where the FBI and US Marshals Service have now joined local police in the search for Zahra.
Police have been told Elisa Baker was the last to see Zahra at 2am on Saturday US time. A fire in the backyard of the family home was reported at 5am that day.
Broke down in tears
Police had arrested Zahra’s stepmother on Sunday on unrelated outstanding fraud charges.
On Monday, Mr Baker appeared on Good Morning Americaand said he hoped his wife, whom he reportedly met on the internet, was not involved in the disappearance.
“I wouldn’t like to think so but going off what I’ve heard so far, it could be possible,” Mr Baker said. He said he last saw his daughter on Thursday night and did not realise she was missing until Saturday.
“[I] came back from looking at a job and started some work in the yard and heard her mother [Elisa] come out and started screaming that Zahra was missing.
“She didn’t know very much. She came out screaming and panicking, telling me Zahra was gone.
“I went inside searched the house, started searching around the block, called the police.”
Mr Baker then broke down in tears, saying he wanted his daughter back. “I just hope I can get my daughter back. I miss her so much.”
Stunned and shocked
Karen Baker was also in tears late yesterday and said from her Newcastle home that her son was devastated.
Mrs Baker begged anyone in her son’s home town in the US to come forward with information.
“We are just stunned and shocked and so upset about what has happened,” she said.
“Adam is obviously very upset, but he is holding up.
“The North Carolina police have been in constant contact, keeping us up to date with what is going on, but there is nothing we can do from here – we feel so helpless.”
Something very shifty going on here, what a pathetic life those in care of this girl have given her…It does not look good…
SHE was uprooted from Australia two years ago, a little girl who has endured the tragedy and hardship of cancer but always kept smiling.
Relatives of the missing 10-year-old disabled girl, feared murdered in the US state of North Carolina, have described the child’s life as miserable, saying she was locked in her room for most of the day and was punished over little things.
Zahra Clare Baker, originally from Wagga Wagga, NSW, was reported missing on Saturday, but police said they have had trouble finding anyone outside the household who had seen the girl alive in the last few weeks.
Authorities also cast doubt on what the couple had told them.
They are now treating her disappearance as a homicide, after her stepmother Elisa Baker allegedly admitted to writing a $US1 million ransom note.
North Carolina police were told of Zahra’s disappearance last Saturday when they were contacted by her father Adam Baker.
This morning police charged Zahra’s American step-mother, Elisa Baker, with felony obstruction of justice after they say she admitted writing the ransom note.
Zahra, whose bone cancer left her with a prosthetic leg and hearing aids, moved to North Carolina from Australia with her father Adam two years ago when he married an American woman, Elisa, after meeting her on the internet.
“I just think this was something for a long time that we knew was going to happen, everybody that was close to the family,” relative Brittany Bentley said on the CBS network.
Adam Baker has said it was possible his wife could be involved in the disappearance and other relatives echoed those remarks.
Zahra was reported missing after a yard fire at the home. The girl’s stepmother, Elisa Baker, was arrested on Sunday on about a dozen charges unrelated to her disappearance.
Bentley, who is married to Elisa Baker’s nephew, said she would have Zahra over for weekends and the girl would get mad when it was time to return home.
Zahra “was locked in her room, allowed five minutes out a day to eat, that was it”, Bentley said.
“She was beat almost every time I was over there for just the smallest things. Elisa would get mad, she would take it out on Zahra, things the kid didn’t deserve. She just had a horrible home life.”
Neighbours also feared the worst. A search warrant revealed that police dogs detected the smell of human remains on cars belonging to the father and stepmother.
“There were warning signs along the way, but you never want to think the worst,” said former neighbour Kayla Rotenberry.
The stepmother said she last saw Zahra sleeping in her room about 2.30am on Saturday, yet Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins said investigators don’t know the last time anyone saw her.
Adkins, the police chief in a city of 40,000 residents about 80km northwest of Charlotte, said the father was co-operating with police, but Elisa Baker wasn’t.
Zahra had two hearing aids, which were left at the house, and a prosthetic left leg from the knee down, police said.
She was being home-schooled, but had attended public schools in the past.
Zahra was described by family friends as shy but constantly smiling, in spite of her health problems. The stepmother could be short-tempered toward her, two former neighbours said, but the woman also fought tears when a charity fitted her for hearing aids a few months ago.
The police chief said he wouldn’t rule out any suspects, including Adam Baker.
Rotenberry, the former neighbour, said she and her fiance were good friends with the Bakers when they lived in the nearby town of Sawmills. About six months ago she noticed that Elisa Baker’s hand was swollen, Rotenberry said.
“She told me that she was trying to spank Zahra, but hit her on her prosthetic leg,” she said.
“When Adam asked her about the injury, she said she fell and hurt her hand. She didn’t want him to know. She knew he would be mad.”
Another former neighbour, Brandy Stapleton, 22, of Lenoir, said that Elisa Baker told her the same story about how she injured her hand.
“She wasn’t the person everyone thought she was.”
Elisa Baker has two daughters and a son from a previous marriage.
Watch the police announcement
Zahra Baker...what has happened to her
Zahra was born in Wagga Wagga and spent her early life in Newcastle, before Zahra and her family moved to Townsville where described by her grandmother Karen Baker as handling “everything with a smile”, attended a Camp Quality weekend for sick children.
The family had only recently moved to the small town of Hickory, northeast of North Carolina’s largest city Charlotte – where the FBI and US Marshals Service have now joined local police in the search for Zahra.
Police have been told Elisa Baker was the last to see Zahra at 2am on Saturday US time. A fire in the backyard of the family home was reported at 5am that day.
Broke down in tears
Police had arrested Zahra’s stepmother on Sunday on unrelated outstanding fraud charges.
On Monday, Mr Baker appeared on Good Morning Americaand said he hoped his wife, whom he reportedly met on the internet, was not involved in the disappearance.
“I wouldn’t like to think so but going off what I’ve heard so far, it could be possible,” Mr Baker said. He said he last saw his daughter on Thursday night and did not realise she was missing until Saturday.
“[I] came back from looking at a job and started some work in the yard and heard her mother [Elisa] come out and started screaming that Zahra was missing.
“She didn’t know very much. She came out screaming and panicking, telling me Zahra was gone.
“I went inside searched the house, started searching around the block, called the police.”
Mr Baker then broke down in tears, saying he wanted his daughter back. “I just hope I can get my daughter back. I miss her so much.”
Stunned and shocked
Karen Baker was also in tears late yesterday and said from her Newcastle home that her son was devastated.
Mrs Baker begged anyone in her son’s home town in the US to come forward with information.
“We are just stunned and shocked and so upset about what has happened,” she said.
“Adam is obviously very upset, but he is holding up.
“The North Carolina police have been in constant contact, keeping us up to date with what is going on, but there is nothing we can do from here – we feel so helpless.”
Aussie Criminals and Crooks 