The Secret Keepers

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Speaker 1 A twisted trail of betrayal and greed. Where would it lead? I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 1 I just got home, and I opened the door, and my husband's dead on the floor.

Speaker 3 His torso was laying in the hallway in a pool of blood.

Speaker 4 I didn't believe it. Did he hit his head? Did he have a heart attack?

Speaker 5 I said, something's wrong.

Speaker 6 Something's wrong.

Speaker 4 I think in the back of my mind, I already knew it wasn't a natural death.

Speaker 7 There's two bullets in his body.

Speaker 3 Two different calibers.

Speaker 1 Wait a minute, two guns. Does that mean two shooters?

Speaker 7 One could argue that.

Speaker 7 There was a seething hatred.

Speaker 1 There was some planning at work here.

Speaker 8 For quite some time, it was a game. Everybody else was basically collateral damage.

Speaker 4 It just destroyed my heart.

Speaker 4 I'm angry now. And I was never a very angry person.

Speaker 1 Here's Keith Morrison with The Secret Keepers.

Speaker 1 It was a warm Colorado morning on the ripe side of summer. The road beneath his wheels, the vast blue canopy above, renewed possibilities in his heart.

Speaker 1 Randy Baker, recovering hard patience, cruised through the sun to the job he loved. Better now, back to sweet routine.

Speaker 1 So, why this morning fatigue?

Speaker 1 Randy felt the warm day wrap his big body like a sleeping pill. He struggled to lift his leaden eyelids.
So tired.

Speaker 1 So tired.

Speaker 4 What was told to me was that he probably fell asleep and swerved.

Speaker 1 It could have been catastrophic. It wasn't.
His Pontiac took a ding, but the cops who responded said he seemed okay.

Speaker 7 These officers had made sure he was all right

Speaker 7 and essentially let him off with a warning.

Speaker 1 Perhaps those cops didn't know it was the fifth time he dozed off at the wheel. His fifth brush with death in a month.

Speaker 1 Lucky? For a moment. Here on the last day of his life.

Speaker 6 911, what is your name?

Speaker 9 Tell me Baker.

Speaker 1 Next morning, Wednesday, August 16th, 2017, 8:30 a.m.

Speaker 10 Okay, tell me exactly what happened.

Speaker 10 I just got home and I opened the door and my husband's dead on the floor.

Speaker 1 Officer Doug Medhurst of the Greedy Colorado Police got the call, found the big, quiet house at the end of a fine, leafy cul-de-sac, where a shaken Kelly Baker was waiting.

Speaker 3 When I got here, Kelly Baker was sitting on the steps over there.

Speaker 1 She was right there.

Speaker 3 I asked her what had happened, and she told me her husband, Randy Baker was dead in the house.

Speaker 1 She'd been away overnight and in the morning she opened the garage door and there he was.

Speaker 3 So Randy Baker was laying right here. His torso was laying in the hallway and his head was inside the door frame here, right in front of that.

Speaker 1 In a pool of blood down there.

Speaker 3 In a pool of blood. He was laying on his right side and obviously dead.
He had a bag of fast food with him and a drink cup from a local fast food restaurant.

Speaker 1 As if he just picked up his dinner.

Speaker 3 It's what it looked like to me.

Speaker 3 He was laying on the floor with that spilled next to him and his cell phone laying there.

Speaker 1 Kelly, the victim's wife, gave Officer Medhurst a little background. Randy had a bad heart.
His health was failing. And he'd been falling asleep at the wheel.

Speaker 3 I continued to talk to Kelly, and Randy's sister, Carol Baker, had arrived.

Speaker 1 As the women huddled with Officer Medhurst trying to make sense of this awful thing, the coroner's investigator arrived.

Speaker 3 I told him of the health issues, and I believe he spoke to Kelly Baker as well.

Speaker 3 And then he did a cursory examination, and he told me that he thought possibly he died of natural causes with all the health issues.

Speaker 1 Did that surprise you?

Speaker 3 Well, wasn't sure. I mean, it was possible with the health issues, but I didn't really know at that time.

Speaker 3 Could be anything.

Speaker 1 Indeed.

Speaker 1 Kelly called Randy's daughter, her stepdaughter. Betty Winnick, knew her dad's heart would eventually give out.

Speaker 4 I pictured the day for a really long time, but you never can picture it. Like

Speaker 4 I was angry. I didn't think I'd be angry, but I just remember yelling at my husband to get there faster

Speaker 4 because I didn't believe it.

Speaker 1 Just trying to put in context what that morning must have been like for you. It just.

Speaker 4 I

Speaker 4 put on a strong face for people though. So because there was Kelly was there, my aunt Carol was there, and the police were still there.

Speaker 4 I broke down for a split second and then composed myself and I was okay.

Speaker 1 She had to tell her mother, Dory, about Randy's death. It wasn't easy.
Dory and Randy had divorced years before, but she still loved him.

Speaker 6 I could tell she's been crying. I said, Betty, what's wrong?

Speaker 6 She goes, dad's gone.

Speaker 6 And I said, no, no. She goes, mom, they found him this morning.
But I said, Betty, something's wrong. Something's wrong.
Something's wrong.

Speaker 1 Thing is, back at the house that morning, Officer Medhurst was thinking the very same thing, especially after Kelly told him the Pontiac was missing, along with his keys and wallet.

Speaker 1 Could be some innocent reason, of course. He had dinged his car, so maybe he'd taken it in for repairs.

Speaker 3 So I asked Kelly if there was a mechanic that Randy used, and she named a local mechanic. And I called them and I said, is this car there? And they said, no, it wasn't there.

Speaker 1 So where was it? Had he driven it home? Did he have it when he bought his Mexican takeout?

Speaker 3 The owner of the restaurant showed me their video surveillance.

Speaker 3 I was able to find a car that appeared to be Randy's driving to the drive-thru to get an order matching the food that I found next to him, his body.

Speaker 1 So now you know a lot more.

Speaker 3 I knew the car had made it to Greeley.

Speaker 1 And probably all the way way home with Randy. But after that,

Speaker 3 I had no idea.

Speaker 1 Two days later, Medhurst got the news. During the autopsy, the medical examiner had taken a closer look, scraped the blood away from Randy's head and shoulder.
And what do you know?

Speaker 3 My phone started ringing off the hook, and the investigation sergeant notified me that Randy had died from two gunshot wounds.

Speaker 1 What did you think when you heard that?

Speaker 3 I thought, boy, I was right.

Speaker 1 Natural causes? Please.

Speaker 1 This was murder.

Speaker 1 Who would want Randy Baker dead when we come back?

Speaker 1 Questions for Randy's loved ones: Could this killing be payback from the past?

Speaker 9 I was just not maybe

Speaker 9 just possibly somebody got moved.

Speaker 1 Betty Wenning's father had a very bad heart. She knew she could lose him soon, thought she was ready,

Speaker 1 but she wasn't. Not at all.
Grief like a sledgehammer.

Speaker 4 I don't know if you watch Grey's Anatomy, but that term my person.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yes, he was my person.
So I went to him for anything and everything.

Speaker 1 Of course, police knew Randy had been shot to death, and his killer must have taken his car.

Speaker 1 But they didn't tell Betty or the rest of the family. Not right away.

Speaker 4 They kept asking about guns, and I was like, all right, this is weird.

Speaker 1 So after a couple of hours, they told you what?

Speaker 4 My father's case was considered a murder case. I think in the back of my mind, I already knew it wasn't a natural death.

Speaker 1 By this time, detectives had pieced together Randy's final hours, had collected security camera footage showing Randy leaving work about 5.35 p.m.,

Speaker 1 and that video from the Mexican takeout place at 7.30.

Speaker 13 Thank you so much for choosing Santiago's.

Speaker 1 The restaurant is about a 10-minute drive from the house, meaning Randy must have been murdered around 7:45.

Speaker 1 But by whom?

Speaker 1 The answer police knew might depend a lot on Randy himself, something in his behavior, his life, My dad was. Which Betty told them had been rough sometimes.

Speaker 4 He was a counselor since I was four or five.

Speaker 1 What kind of counseling did he do?

Speaker 4 Drug and alcohol addiction counseling.

Speaker 13 He had some experience with that.

Speaker 4 Yes, he had a lot of experience with that.

Speaker 1 What did you know about that?

Speaker 4 Not a lot. He didn't like to talk about it, just that he almost died.

Speaker 1 When Randy was 28, a strapping bear of a man, six feet five inches tall, he was a lineman for the local power company. Dory Baker, Betty's mother, and Randy's first wife, could tell that story.

Speaker 6 He was on the line and he got a jolt.

Speaker 6 He was electrocuted.

Speaker 1 He was never the same after that. Heart permanently damaged.
Terrible pain. Depression.

Speaker 1 Not hard to guess the next part. He tried to escape his misery with drugs.

Speaker 6 There was just so much pain there. And

Speaker 6 he didn't know what to do with it.

Speaker 1 He wallowed in his addiction. Got so bad he was even dealing drugs.
But then, after three hard years, he cleaned up his life. No more drugs or dealing.

Speaker 1 And that's when he promised to help others get clean, too. It's what made him a committed counselor as much as anything else.

Speaker 6 Pretty much. Pretty much.

Speaker 1 Randy helped a lot of people. Strangers, friends, family.
One of his nephews, having trouble with drugs himself, texted this Father's Day wish in 2015.

Speaker 1 My dearest uncle, not only have you been a role model and inspiration to me, but the closest person I've ever had is a real father figure. Thank you for believing in me and happy Father's Day.

Speaker 1 So Randy triumphed over his demons, even got his health back. And then one day, a local hairdresser named Kelly entered their lives.
And she actually cut your dad's hair and mom's hair too. Yep.

Speaker 4 We lived a few houses away from each other.

Speaker 1 Tell me about her.

Speaker 6 Very cute,

Speaker 6 very sweet and quiet. And when I saw Kelly actually look at my husband with the look that I knew I was in trouble.

Speaker 1 What was the look?

Speaker 6 She was gaga over at my man.

Speaker 6 And I said, yeah, it's over.

Speaker 1 She was right. Dory found herself replaced by Kelly the hairdresser.

Speaker 6 It broke my heart. I was very depressed.

Speaker 1 Were you angry at him for a while?

Speaker 4 I do think I was young enough that I didn't understand it.

Speaker 4 We were actually pretty close. They were married 18 years.
I called her mom.

Speaker 1 Kelly set up her new hair salon in Randy's basement. And Randy reveled in his new life.
Kelly, her kids, his kid,

Speaker 1 and the other love of his life, his Harley.

Speaker 4 Harley Davison rode King, I think like 95.

Speaker 4 It was his thing.

Speaker 4 And he didn't ride it often, especially the the last like 10 years because he was sick.

Speaker 1 His heart again.

Speaker 1 Cardiomyopathy wasn't easy for him or Kelly.

Speaker 4 He was on many medications. She would do like clean.
The house was pretty big and, you know, she'd be the caretaker, even though he didn't need one.

Speaker 1 But Betty said Randy wanted Kelly to care for him. And she did for years.

Speaker 1 until she just couldn't anymore.

Speaker 4 She was 11 years younger and I think it was starting to get to her that she was still kind of pretty young.

Speaker 1 It was the spring of 2017 when Randy was recovering from open heart surgery. Kelly said she just couldn't take it anymore and she moved out.

Speaker 4 And at first I was like, I can kind of understand that.

Speaker 1 But two months later, Randy was dead. And police were calling in family members to tell them exactly how he died.

Speaker 1 Kelly had trouble dealing with it. Still, they asked for her help.

Speaker 1 But she calmed herself and she did mention Randy's dedication to his job. He

Speaker 9 was a very good counselor and he wanted to change and help these people.

Speaker 1 But said Kelly, he'd been one of them once. So maybe he'd made some enemies.

Speaker 1 I just thought maybe

Speaker 1 just possibly somebody got released because if Randy didn't go to prison, then he must have not done.

Speaker 1 Army may have not the right words.

Speaker 1 And then they looked at the bullets that killed Randy Baker more closely. He wasn't shot with a gun.
There were two.

Speaker 1 Two guns.

Speaker 1 So, a drug-related hit?

Speaker 1 Maybe Kelly was onto something.

Speaker 7 Coming up, two Two shooters? One could argue that.

Speaker 1 Another side of Randy Baker.

Speaker 1 And another man enters the picture.

Speaker 9 Have you been seeing anyone else? Do we have to answer that?

Speaker 1 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 1 Randy Baker's life began in the same random way all life begins. But its end?

Speaker 1 That was no accident. Somebody, or some bodies, made double sure with two bullets from two different guns.
Does that mean two shooters?

Speaker 7 One could argue that.

Speaker 1 You didn't know?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 1 Veteran detectives Chris Onderland and Mike Prill were assigned to the case. It was still early.
A lot to figure out.

Speaker 7 We're still just trying to get ahead of the ballgame or catch up and find out what everyone's statements are, where were they, what issues there may or may not be there.

Speaker 1 First, they had to clear the usual suspects. They had brought Kelly in, of course.
She was the murdered man's spouse. So would she benefit from his death?

Speaker 9 Did Randy have any

Speaker 9 like life insurance policies or anything like that? Yes, but there was actually two.

Speaker 14 Pretty nominal.

Speaker 1 So not really worth killing somebody. Right.

Speaker 1 As for their relationship, well,

Speaker 1 Kelly offered a different view of Randy.

Speaker 9 So you're separated. What was the reason for the separation? Randy was just kind of mean, and I didn't take him anymore.

Speaker 7 She explained that Randy was not necessarily nice to her often, that he was volatile, that she had moved out of the home and was staying with her friend Terry.

Speaker 1 Then, about an hour and a half into the interview, the detective kind of offhandedly asked Kelly a question she clearly didn't want to answer.

Speaker 9 Have you been seeing anyone else?

Speaker 9 Do I have to answer them? Okay. Do I have to answer them? You don't have to.

Speaker 9 Non-answering them.

Speaker 9 Well,

Speaker 1 now that was interesting. A non-answer like a neon sign.
Couldn't ignore that. I don't want to be a terrible or anything, but it's just a harsh reality in this world.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 is there someone we need to talk to? Yeah, Terry's brother, Clint Maker.

Speaker 1 What did you think when you heard that?

Speaker 7 Unfortunately, it's not an uncommon thing. Okay, she's having an affair.

Speaker 7 Does that mean Clint could be a suspect? Well, obviously, we're going to ask and talk to him.

Speaker 1 And they did. And Clint admitted the affair.
He and Kelly worked together in bed all night the night her husband was murdered.

Speaker 1 Kelly Baker, meanwhile, told her stepdaughter, Betty, what it was like to get what felt to her like the third degree.

Speaker 4 She was like, they almost treated me like a suspect. She's like, I guess that's normal, though, because I'm like, was almost an ex-wife, and I have left.

Speaker 1 Betty's head was in a haze during those first few days after her father's death. And desperate to have something to remember him by, she asked if she could have her dad's Harley.

Speaker 1 And so it was a shock when her stepmom told her it was gone.

Speaker 4 She said

Speaker 4 that he sold it and that it's not in her hands. She knew nothing about the sell, essentially, is what she told me.
That was what she, yes. Yep.

Speaker 1 Odd. Why would he sell his prize bike? And then just as the detectives were starting to dig into that puzzle, what do you know?

Speaker 1 Five days after Randy Baker was murdered, somebody found his missing Pontiac.

Speaker 15 This is Randy Baker's Pontiac G6.

Speaker 14 This is the one he was driving the day he was murdered.

Speaker 1 So how does it wind up in here in the police lock?

Speaker 15 A citizen actually called from South Greeley and spotted it in an alley down by the college.

Speaker 14 It had been abandoned, the plates had been removed, and the key was locked inside on the floorboard, and the car had obviously been wiped down.

Speaker 1 Who ditched the car? The investigators didn't know. But the police asked the public for help.
And a few days later, a tip came in. Randy's Pontiac had been listed for sale on Facebook.

Speaker 7 And so we followed up on that Facebook post and tracked down

Speaker 7 this female that was trying to offload Randy's car.

Speaker 9 It really

Speaker 1 tribe of tears we don't want to get to that extent because it's always called on deaf ears and that led to yet another career criminal to another and to another a motley crew they brought them in asked some personal questions like where were you when randy was shot how'd you get the car And that's when this ragged band of walking felonies offered up a true shocker.

Speaker 1 They'd gotten the car, they said, from someone close to Randy Baker. Someone not named Kelly.

Speaker 1 Coming up, cell phone secrets reveal a loved one with no love lost for Randy.

Speaker 7 The phone records were confirming that there was a seething hatred between the two.

Speaker 1 Families can be such a fascinating little study, can't they? Most are warm, protective, loving. But Randy Baker's family? Well, consider this.

Speaker 1 The person who gave Randy Baker's car to those criminal bottom feeders was none other than his big sister, Carol.

Speaker 7 She had received the car within about two hours of Randy's murder.

Speaker 1 And she's got to be involved in this somehow.

Speaker 7 Right.

Speaker 1 How did Carol Baker get her dead brother's brother's car?

Speaker 1 Investigators didn't know, but they had reached at least one conclusion.

Speaker 15 Carol's a little simple.

Speaker 1 She had a little trouble keeping up with things.

Speaker 17 Yeah, she seemed to answer questions fine, but at the same time, I think at one point she even said, I'm slow.

Speaker 1 And then there was something else.

Speaker 7 We were learning that Randy and Carol's relationship was strained.

Speaker 7 So much so that they preferred not to be around each other.

Speaker 1 Betty said the tension between Randy and Carol went way back to their childhood days.

Speaker 4 And he would talk about how she secretly loved being an only child and once he came, she like hated it, was his version. And then she would talk about how she'd pick on him.

Speaker 3 Not the best sibling relationship.

Speaker 1 Once grown, Randy went his way. Carol went hers.
Randy ended up in college. Carol did odd jobs.

Speaker 1 Both married and started families, but said Randy's first wife, Dory, Carol could never leave well enough alone.

Speaker 6 She tried to ruin our relationship from the beginning.

Speaker 1 It worked. Carol was the one who introduced Kelly, the hairdresser, to Randy.
Betty was just a little kid when her father married Kelly.

Speaker 1 But she was old enough to see her dad's relationship with his sister did not improve.

Speaker 4 It was kind of Kelly and Carol versus my dad a lot, and it became that way big time once. all of us kids were out of the house.

Speaker 1 That certainly caught Detective Prill's attention. Carol did not like Randy, and Carol had access to his house.
Who was the last person known to have been in the house before the shooting occurred?

Speaker 7 Carol.

Speaker 1 That's right. Carol told Detective Ongerlund she'd gone to the house that night to do some chores for Kelly.

Speaker 15 She was, you know, the last person at the house roughly an hour before Randy was murdered.

Speaker 15 She drew the blinds, put the dog in the kennel, and then she left and drove to an aunt's house a couple blocks away and that she was there for the rest of the night.

Speaker 1 The hounds had the scent. scent, or so they thought.
All they needed were the granular details.

Speaker 1 And that's when the investigation took a deep dive into the greatest keeper of secrets in the 21st century. The cell phone.

Speaker 7 They have to have those phones.

Speaker 1 You take them away, my goodness.

Speaker 7 And what's inside? Yeah. What stories they tell?

Speaker 1 Detective Prill's specialty was phone forensics, meaning he could coax those phones to give up who was calling whom and when and where they were and what they said in text messages.

Speaker 1 The detective hunkered down in his cubicle. How much time did you spend in here?

Speaker 7 Somewhere around 12 hours a day, seven days a week for a month.

Speaker 1 The detective had seen his share of family spats and lusty intrigues over the years, but he'd never seen anything quite like the story told by those cell phones.

Speaker 1 That spring and summer, Kelly and Carol exchanged roughly 4,500 text messages, an average of 50 a day. How close were these women?

Speaker 7 Well, the 4,500 text messages alone is

Speaker 7 mind-numbing. But the constant exchange of I love yous, I love you, sister, I love you, sissy, I love you to the moon and back.

Speaker 1 And while that was going on, Kelly was also texting her husband Randy, who was still recovering from that open heart surgery. No hearts and flowers there.

Speaker 7 She's saying it's been 14 years. Do you hear me? 14 years.
I don't want any more death, so I shut you out. Wow.
At 8.48, she's saying that, but then she's she's telling Carol I love you so much.

Speaker 1 That was two months before the murder, right about when Kelly moved out of the house. Through texts, Prill could plainly see that Randy still had hopes of salvaging the marriage.

Speaker 7 It was difficult to read through his inner feelings for her.

Speaker 7 He didn't want her gone. He wanted her home.

Speaker 1 Right here at his desk, Mike Prill was seeing what looked to him like motive.

Speaker 7 The phone records were confirming that there was a seething hatred between the two towards Randy.

Speaker 1 Still, both Kelly and Carol had unassailable alibis. Carol had been with her aunt at the time of the murder.
Kelly had been miles away with her lover. But then, Detective Prill found this.

Speaker 7 This message Carol sent to Kelly Baker where it said put it under Sonia and then a phone number.

Speaker 1 Put it under Sonia.

Speaker 1 Right. Put what under Sonia?

Speaker 7 Well, about 10 minutes after that message, Kelly Baker added this phone number in her contacts under the name Sonia.

Speaker 1 Who in heaven's name was Sonia?

Speaker 1 Coming up, an arrest in the case.

Speaker 7 He just ran into the garage, dumped his vest that had a 357 revolver inside of it, and came out and surrendered.

Speaker 1 So who was the killer?

Speaker 4 And I just remember him telling me.

Speaker 3 Feel like falling off the bench?

Speaker 13 Yes.

Speaker 1 When dateline continues.

Speaker 5 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 5 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

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Speaker 1 All those hours spent poking around Kelly and Carol's phones were yielding splendid results. Like the name, Sonia.

Speaker 1 Who was she?

Speaker 1 Well, in fact, she was a he.

Speaker 1 And not exactly a guy you'd bring home to your mother.

Speaker 7 He had ties with the white supremac gang, prominent in Colorado, a prison gang by the name of 211 crew.

Speaker 1 He goes by Grizz, but his mother named him Kelly.

Speaker 1 And who would his mother be?

Speaker 7 He's a biological son of Carol Baker.

Speaker 1 Yep, Carol's son and Randy's nephew. Not a nice guy?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 1 Grizz had a long prison stretch under his belt for attempted murder. He also, on close examination, had a significant presence on that string of text messages Prill uncovered.

Speaker 7 I came to realize that Carol was forwarding text messages from Grizz to Kelly Baker.

Speaker 1 Messages to do what?

Speaker 7 Well, in the end, it was certain to mean to murder Randy.

Speaker 1 Police here in Greedy had never seen anything like it. A wayward wife, a dim-witted sister, a gang banger and nephew.
Had they all conspired to kill their uncle, brother, husband?

Speaker 1 About five weeks after Randy's murder, police brought Kelly back in, and she was chatting as she offered up more theories about the murder.

Speaker 9 I leave my garage door open, but somebody was in the garage when I left at 5:45.

Speaker 1 At this point, detectives did not show their cards. They had a plan.
I wish you guys luck.

Speaker 1 I'm glad you don't you

Speaker 1 fairly well, all things considered.

Speaker 1 Next, they brought in Carol, Randy's sister. They let her believe they had connected her son, Grizz, to the murder.
And then they let her think that Kelly had just sold her out.

Speaker 1 And that's when Carol folded like a cheap tent. Said the mastermind behind the murder was Kelly.

Speaker 9 Why did she feel she had to murder Randy Baker?

Speaker 9 Said he never leave her alone.

Speaker 1 And after implicating her sister-in-law, Carol gave up her own flesh and blood, her son, Kelly Raisley, aka Grizz.

Speaker 9 It's a thousand plans.

Speaker 9 Yes, Kelly Raisley was going to shoot and kill her. Is that correct? Or some other way? Okay.

Speaker 9 I think I need an attorney. You do? Okay.

Speaker 9 Well, you're under arrest for first-cree murder and conspiracy first-free murder.

Speaker 1 They arrested Kelly that same day and charged her with murdering her husband. And after, they gave Randy's daughter Betty the news.

Speaker 4 I just remember sitting down and him telling me, like, we've arrested

Speaker 4 Kelly and Carol.

Speaker 3 You feel like falling off the bench?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 4 I stared at my phone for quite a while, shaking.

Speaker 1 And Grizz was holed up at a friend's house near Denver.

Speaker 7 The house was surrounded. He just ran into the garage, dumped his

Speaker 7 vest that had a 357 revolver inside of it and came out and surrendered.

Speaker 1 Grizz stood in jail for seven months. And then he wrote to prosecutor Rob Miller.

Speaker 16 He wrote a letter exaggerating how he committed the crime, but ultimately admitting to it, saying, I've been played by these two ladies.

Speaker 1 Pretty soon, Grizz was cutting a deal.

Speaker 7 Arrangements were made for Grizz to confess. the entire murder in exchange for the state not pursuing the death penalty.

Speaker 1 Grizz was specific. His mother and Kelly had pushed him to do the killing.
Mom drove him to the scene, dropped him off, and he shot Randy as he walked in the door.

Speaker 9 Did you honestly know you hit him in the head when you fired? I seen that.

Speaker 1 And to solve the mystery posed by the forensics, two guns equaled two shooters?

Speaker 9 Nope.

Speaker 9 Why'd you bring some guns?

Speaker 9 Um,

Speaker 9 I always

Speaker 9 like to to know.

Speaker 1 That's just how he rolls. And after the killing, he explained, he drove off in Randy's Pontiac.

Speaker 1 There was one more revelation, too. Remember Randy's beloved Harley? The one he supposedly sold?

Speaker 9 Were you approached ultimately and talked about what you get paid for doing this? Tell me he'll give you the $10,000,

Speaker 9 okay? And the motorcycle.

Speaker 1 Grizz really wanted that Harley. But he also wanted to get something off his chest.
And that part is still hard to figure.

Speaker 7 It was important to him that people knew that Randy was a great guy.

Speaker 1 He was, in fact, the same nephew who sent Randy that nice Father's Day text two years earlier.

Speaker 1 Not only have you been a role model and an inspiration to me, but the closest person I've ever had as a real father figure.

Speaker 1 How did Grizz explain the fact that he could kill someone after he had this great relationship with him?

Speaker 7 He believed that Kelly and Carol Baker had manipulated him, fed him information that he now knew was not true, that Randy was abusive to both Carol and Kelly.

Speaker 1 Police had also developed a more solid theory about motive. Kelly, remember, had told the police the life insurance was only about $10,000.
As you dug in, what'd you find?

Speaker 19 We found six policies.

Speaker 14 They totaled more than $130,000.

Speaker 1 Wow, right. Who was the beneficiary of all these policies? Kelly.

Speaker 1 The house, too, of course. At the end of that green and quiet cul-de-sac,

Speaker 1 lots of equity.

Speaker 7 She was looking at somewhere near $400,000 with Randy dead.

Speaker 1 So, a murder mystery solved? Why, no, indeed. Kelly said she was innocent, a victim herself.

Speaker 1 Detective Prill didn't buy it.

Speaker 7 This woman could enter a room and

Speaker 7 whisper lies to every ear in there and turn everyone against everyone else but Kelly. She would control the room with her lies, and remarkably no one caught on to it.

Speaker 1 Now, all she had to do was work her magic on the jury.

Speaker 1 Coming up, the widow baker spins a frightening tale.

Speaker 18 He slammed his hands as hard as he could on the table, looked me right in the eye, and said, I will kill you, and then I will kill myself.

Speaker 8 She's a manipulator. To her, it was a game.

Speaker 1 Who would win?

Speaker 1 As the harsh Colorado winter melted into spring, A curious cast of characters filed into the Weld County Courthouse.

Speaker 1 Here was a family-turned circular firing squad finger-pointing blame for the sordid events that ended Randy Baker's life.

Speaker 22 Sometimes, life is stranger than fiction.

Speaker 1 Kelly Baker had pleaded not guilty, denied she had a thing to do with the murder.

Speaker 1 Well, armed with confessions and plea deals from Carol Baker and her son Grizz, Chief District Attorney Thea Carrasco and ADA Rob Miller aimed to prove that, in fact, Kelly was the ringleader of this gang of deadly relatives.

Speaker 22 Randy Baker's own wife and his own sister

Speaker 22 were plotting with his own nephew to give this woman the day she felt like she had waited far too long for already.

Speaker 1 A little bit Byzantine or something. There was some planning at work here.

Speaker 8 For quite some time.

Speaker 1 For three long months. And plan A was

Speaker 1 odd. Remember those falling asleep car accidents? The prosecutor said Kelly spiked Randy's morning smoothies with overdoses of his own meds, hoping an accident would kill him.

Speaker 1 Randy's nephew, Grizz, thought that one up.

Speaker 9 He wanted him to taste them and

Speaker 9 brought him to

Speaker 9 toxic holes you're looking for because he's already hungry.

Speaker 1 When that didn't work, Grizz finished the job with two bullets.

Speaker 11 Do you swear affirm on a penalty of perjury that you'll tell the truth?

Speaker 1 Now prosecutors just needed him to say all the same things to the jury.

Speaker 1 Fine plan. But listen to what happened.

Speaker 16 Do you recall having discussions with your mom or Kelly Baker about a plan to harm Randy Baker?

Speaker 1 No, I don't. Okay.
Grizz was clamming up.

Speaker 16 He knew if he, quote-unquote, snitched, that it would be a rough rest of his natural life in prison.

Speaker 1 Over and over, Grizz played dumb.

Speaker 16 You got a Harley Davidson for this murder, is that right?

Speaker 1 I got a Harley-Davidson, correct.

Speaker 1 The prosecutors did what they could. They played Grizz's confession tape for the jury.
Kelly will give you the $10,000 and the motorcycle.

Speaker 1 Dear mother was a little more talkative about how Kelly was at the end of a rope that summer before Randy's murder.

Speaker 10 We talked about how she can't believe he's still alive and,

Speaker 10 you know he's he's sickly and he doesn't want to be here anymore.

Speaker 8 We got to know the real Kelly Baker. What became clear to us is that she's a manipulator.

Speaker 1 So they called her a puppet master, a liar, a killer. Question was, but the jury believed it.

Speaker 1 Now the defense got its turn. And attorney Robert Ray turned loose his very best counterattack, Kelly Baker herself.

Speaker 12 Kelly Baker had to take the stand in this case, in my view.

Speaker 1 The jury was about about to get a first-hand look at a different Kelly Baker. Demure, kind, long-suffering.

Speaker 1 Hers was a very different story about herself, not as a killer, but as a patient caretaker. She talked about Randy in the early days.

Speaker 12 What was your life like during that time period?

Speaker 18 It was great. I mean, it was...

Speaker 18 a really good marriage with him being a therapist and a counselor. We had our small issues with blending our kids and disciplining our kids, but other than that, for ourselves,

Speaker 18 we loved each other very much.

Speaker 1 But then her life, she said, began to resemble the sad bits of Cinderella. But her Randy was no Prince Charming.

Speaker 18 He was somewhat controlling. He wanted to tell me who I could be with and

Speaker 18 how I could do things. Going out to eat with somebody else or movie night or just have the girls over.
I was never allowed to do anything like that.

Speaker 12 Was there ever any violence in your marriage?

Speaker 18 There was a small amount, yes.

Speaker 12 And what kind of violence?

Speaker 18 Well, he wanted to physically stop me from leaving if we were having an argument.

Speaker 1 And that summer of 2017, Kelly said she just needed a change.

Speaker 18 But when she talked to Randy about it, he slammed his hands as hard as he could on the table, scared the crap out of me, looked me right in the eye and said, I will kill you and then I will kill myself because I have nothing to lose.

Speaker 1 So with her good friend Carol at her side, Kelly fled. She was moving on.

Speaker 1 But that decision weighed on her.

Speaker 18 I was still feeling lost. You know, am I doing the right thing? Am I making the right decision?

Speaker 1 And despite her plan for a new life, she insisted she swore she loved Randy. And she did not kill him.
She didn't know anything about the planned murder.

Speaker 12 Kelly Baker just found the body that morning when she came to the house.

Speaker 1 And really, what physical evidence did the prosecutors have?

Speaker 1 Well, one little something.

Speaker 1 A killer's mistake. An excess of impatient greed.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so the

Speaker 1 check.

Speaker 8 The $420 check was a huge piece of evidence in the case.

Speaker 1 Here was their proof, said the prosecutors. And you didn't need to believe Carol or Grizz for this one.
Just follow the money and pay attention.

Speaker 8 There were two text messages from Randy where he told her that he was coming home with the $420 check.

Speaker 1 That's right. The day he was murdered, Randy told Kelly he'd have the check in his wallet, $420, when he got home.
But remember, he left his wallet in the car.

Speaker 1 And then Grizz killed Randy and took the car, drove away with the wallet and the check.

Speaker 8 At 3.46 in the afternoon on August 16th, the same day that Kelly Baker found Randy's body, she cashed this $420 check.

Speaker 1 So how did Kelly get that check?

Speaker 1 In her final moments of cross-examination, Carrasco used Kelly herself to lay out the prosecution's theory.

Speaker 22 That means that you deposited a check from a dead man's wallet, right?

Speaker 1 Correct.

Speaker 20 A wallet that was missing.

Speaker 1 Right? Right.

Speaker 22 From a car that was stolen.

Speaker 4 Correct.

Speaker 22 Stolen by a killer. Right.
Who shot your husband. Correct.
In a murder you claim you had absolutely nothing to do with.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 5 I'm done with this witness, Judge.

Speaker 1 Almost like you were disgusted.

Speaker 8 I was, and I think the jury was at that point, because to her it was a game.

Speaker 1 And when the game was over, Kelly lost.

Speaker 11 We, the jury, find the defendant Kelly Baker guilty of murder in the first degree.

Speaker 1 Guilty.

Speaker 1 Kelly was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. And despite his witness amnesia, Grizz got exactly the same sentence.
Carol Baker got 30 years.

Speaker 1 At sentencing, Betty Winnick brought to court the namesake Randy Baker never got to meet.

Speaker 4 This is Randall James.

Speaker 1 Betty clings to her family.

Speaker 1 But it's hard, she said, missing her dad.

Speaker 4 This situation has made me feel like I'm not in control of anything in my life.

Speaker 4 And the one person who made me feel like I could be in control of it was him. And I can't call him to

Speaker 4 see if I'm handling this the right way.

Speaker 3 Although I must tell you, as we're sitting here talking, you've been calling on him again and again.

Speaker 4 I like to think that.

Speaker 1 And in the end, for all her smiles and boundless good manners, Randy Baker's daughter is just as tough as he was.

Speaker 1 Maybe tougher. Maybe she just doesn't know it yet.

Speaker 1 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
Thanks for joining us.

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