John Jefferson
Inset: Jonathan Baker (Wood County Prosecutor’s Office). Background: Authorities at the scene where Baker crashed with his daughter in the car (WTOL).
A 24-year-old Ohio man will spend the rest of his days behind bars for abducting his 2-year-old daughter from his girlfriend, fatally shooting the child twice in the head and leading police on a high-speed chase with the infant’s body still inside the vehicle. Seneca County Common Pleas Court Judge Damon Alt on Monday ordered Jonathan Baker to serve a sentence of life without parole in a state correctional facility for the 2023 slaying of young Emery, records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Alt handed down the sentence after a jury earlier this month found him guilty on charges of aggravated murder with a firearm specification and kidnapping. In addition to the life sentence, Baker was given an additional 16 1/2 years on the kidnapping charge and three years for the firearms specification.
According to a report from the Sentinel-Tribune, Baker addressed the court on Monday saying that he now understood that the killing of his daughter was something “completely evil.”
“I truly thought that day I was doing something good,” he reportedly said, adding that what he did was “absolutely horrible.” He also mentioned that he believed he was suffering from a sickness of the mind because, at the time of the murder, he had not found religion and “did not have God in his heart that day.”
Baker then reportedly asked Alt to “please have mercy” before sentencing him.
However, the judge clearly did not believe Baker’s claims about regret were real.
“Mr. Baker, you murdered your daughter … throughout the day you were afforded every opportunity to prevent that crime from happening,” Alt said, adding that it was a “senseless act” for which Baker appeared to show no genuine remorse.
Prosecutors reiterated that Baker’s newfound contrition appeared disingenuous.
“That is a level of evil that is rarely seen,” Wood County Assistant Prosecutor Brian Boos reportedly told the court in requesting Baker get the maximum sentence.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Baker on June 27, 2023, kidnapped his daughter from his girlfriend’s home and fled in a bright yellow Camaro. The car was soon seen in the city of Tiffin by an off-duty police officer who followed and kept law enforcement apprised of its location, police said.
At the outset, the fate of Emery was unknown, but initial indications did not bode well for her, police said.
“The male subject had indicated he was feeling homicidal and suicidal and had made a statement to the child’s mother that he killed the baby,” the Tiffin Police Department wrote in an initial press release. “The BOLO also advised that the subject was armed with a firearm.”
Seneca County Sheriff’s Office deputies and local police officers tried to initiate a traffic stop after receiving the Camaro’s location from the off-duty officer — but Baker was able to avoid the initial attempts to stop the car.
“The Camaro began accelerating and at a high rate of speed, erratically drove off the roadway through the front yard of one residence and crashing into another residence, knocking it off its foundation,” police said.
“The suspect vehicle rapidly accelerated and veered left off the roadway, crashing into a residence,” the department added in a follow-up press release. “No one was in the home at the time of the crash.”
The crash occurred just before 4 p.m. at a home on Sandusky Street in Tiffin — a small town some 55 miles southeast of Toledo.
Police later released dashcam footage of the brief chase that ended with seven-plus officers and deputies working together to break the Camaro’s back window to get the infant out.
Both Baker and the girl were extricated and taken to a nearby hospital after officers performed CPR.
Emery was initially found alive but succumbed to her injuries shortly after she was recovered from inside the Camaro.
In chilling 911 calls released after his arrest, the defendant, the girl’s mother, and an unidentified third male — who looped 911 dispatchers in on the group call — discuss the state of things.
“Anything you’d like to say to me before I say my goodbyes?” Baker asks.
“Jonathan [Baker], what’s going on bud?” the other man asks.
The unidentified male also tells the dispatcher, at one point, that the girl’s mother is tracking the defendant’s cellular phone location because “he forgot to turn it off.” That information was also provided to police to assist in their efforts.
In one of the 911 calls, the girl’s mother plaintively pleads with her boyfriend, using her daughter’s name: “I just want Emery.”
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.
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