Wesley Baker
| Wesley Baker | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 26, 1958 |
| Died | December 5, 2005 (aged 47) Maryland |
| Criminal charge | Murder |
| Criminal penalty | Death penalty |
| Killings | |
| Victims | Jane Tyson |
Wesley Eugene Baker (March 26, 1958 – December 5, 2005) was a convicted murderer executed by the U.S. state of Maryland. He was convicted for the June 6, 1991, murder of Jane Tyson in Catonsville. He was pronounced dead at 9:18 p.m. EST after being executed by lethal injection. As Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, no new convicts can be sentenced to die, but those condemned at the time abolition went into effect remained, technically, under a sentence of death. However, on December 31, 2014, Gov. Martin O'Malley commuted the sentences of the final four condemned inmates to life imprisonment, officially making Baker the last person to be executed by the state of Maryland.
His first criminal conviction was for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle at 16 years old, for which he received 3 years in prison. In 1978 he was convicted of armed robbery and received 15 years in prison. Released after 9 years, he was only a free man for two years, before being arrested again for weapons and drug-related offenses.
Wesley Baker approached Jane Tyson, 49, on June 6, 1991, in the parking lot of Catonsville's Westview Mall as she got into her car with her grandchildren, a 6-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, after shoe shopping. He placed a gun to her ear and demanded her purse and then, without warning, fired the gun, killing her instantly. He fled to where his accomplice was waiting with a Chevrolet Blazer. A member of the public spotted the two fleeing in a car. He noted the license number and called the police, who apprehended Wesley Baker and Gregory Lawrence a short time later.
Baker was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Harford County on October 26, 1992, of first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony. Four days later he was sentenced to death by the same jury as well as forty years in total for the other two charges. The conviction and sentence were upheld by the Maryland Court of Appeals. Lawrence was convicted of the same charges a year earlier and received life in prison plus 33 years.
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