Abducted Children

Who are they?
How did they disappear? 
Where are they now?

Erica Baker - Kettering, Ohio

Erica is nine years old. On Sunday, February 7, 1999 her dad, Greg Baker, brought her home from visitation at about 2:30 PM. He'd forgotten to buy tickets for a father/daughter dance at the Indian Riffle Recreation Center and reportedly Erica was very disappointed. Greg then went to the Dayton Mall, the Four Dollar Shoe Store and finally home where he saw a TV show about dogs that sniff out criminals.

Erica was a cheer leader for the "Wee Wildcats" at her elementary school. Greg Baker showed investigator's a picture of her with her cheer leading outfit on and said that she was , "A hottie." According to investigators he often took her to work with him, and fellow workers have said that they had a great relationship.

Her mother Misty said that she loved bowling and roller skating. Erica also loved to play pool, a video shows her playing with one of her brothers. Erica loved pink. The walls of her room were painted pink, her bedspead was pink, and she often wore pink clothes to school and around the house. As with Valiree Jackson, Winnie the Pooh was a favorite. She read the Pooh books and kept a half-dozen stuffed animals from the stories at the foot of her bed. Her mother said that her favorite book, "How Angels Got Their Wings" sat on the shelf near her bed, and that when she disappeared she'd been working on a science project about the Sun."She was sweet,'' Misty says. "She was sweet and loved everybody. She'd give you a hug in a minute. She loves to help other people..."

At about 3:05 PM, Erica went to Indian Riffle Park to walk her Aunt Cristi's dog. She was wearing a pink Winnie the Pooh shirt and a red or pink raincoat. At about 4:00 pm, while the joggers made their way around three times around the track in front of the bleachers, Erica stood by the bleachers and near a blue building to one side of the bleachers for about 15 minutes in a pouring icy rain. Was she alone and crying? Or was she waiting for someone? The bleachers are in an open area clearly visible from practically anywhere in the park. The parking lot near the recreation senior center, which was crowded that day for the father/daughter dance that her father had forgotten to buy tickets for, is about 80 meters south of where Erica was last seen. A small service road runs behind the bleachers and around Erica's elementary school. Two hours later her dog was found soaking wet and muddy under a pine tree near the bleachers and blue building where she was last seen by two joggers.

Volunteers drained the nearby pond and hundreds of others helped search for her in areas within four miles of her home. Until this day, no trace of her has ever been found. No one has seen her, or anything she wore or had in her pockets.

Thousands of missing children posters were taped to windows in communities from Ohio to California . In Germantown, Ohio someone found a pink Pooh shirt in the mud. The police brought the bloodhounds, they found nothing. The police rousted scores of sexual predators from Montegomery, Greene and Clark Counties. No one knows anything. The newspapers are mostly silent. On Saturday March 13, 1999 Parents and volunteers passed out posters and yellow ribbons and raised funding to continue the search.

Searches continued through March, “For this weekend, with the weather getting nice, we need all of the volunteers we can get,”. Bad weather prevented searches for weeks at a time. The volunteers gradually vanished and the publicized searches stopped. $40,000 of donations were collected but The Erica Recovery Center closed to be reopened later in a different building.

One suspect was Mr. James Partin who lives within a few miles of the Bakers' residence. Partin was arrested in Columbus when his girl friend found child pornography on his computer, including videos. he was convicted, but a month later was out of jail. Partin had also been investigated in the JonBenét Ramsey case. Apparently he'd lived close by to Elizabeth Miller in Colorado the day that she disappeared, and along with the computer porn investigators had found newspaper clippings of both Elizabeth and JonBenét.

By June, 1999 the yellow ribbons that had been tied to trees in her neighborhood were worn and dirty. A snowman from Christmas was still stuck in the dirt near the Baker's front porch.

Hugs from Erica's Friends

Since August the newspaper reporters have forgotten Erica. In November, 1999, when officials in Florida drained a muddy lake looking for Pilar Rodriguez' body, Misty Baker went on television.

One investigator recently said that he believes Erica's body was buried in a dump near Kettering. It was said that investigators have asked Greg Baker to take another lie detector test and have been checking some of his hang outs in Dayton. One theory is that one of Greg's friends may have picked her up.

"I wrote her a letter, "Erica's mother says. "I told her how much we miss her and love her. We all signed it." Erica's brother Gregory, 12, wants to know when his sister will return.

A Letter to Erica from her friend Amber

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National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.