A disabled Australian-born girl was dismembered and police needed her stepmother’s help to find the remains because they were in such remote locations, according to court documents filed on Monday by the woman’s lawyers.
The latest details in the case of Zahra Baker were revealed as attorneys for the stepmother said the woman’s bond should be lessened because she helped police. Elisa Baker has been in custody since the day after Zahra was reported missing, and she is accused of trying to throw off investigators by writing a fake ransom note for another child.
Zahra’s father was also arrested on a host of charges unrelated to the girl’s disappearance, but is free on bail.
No one has been charged in Zahra’s death, but police have cast doubt on her parents’ claims they last saw her alive on Oct. 9. Zahra was born in Australia and moved to North Carolina with her father about two years ago.
On Friday, police said they found a bone that matches DNA from Zahra, and believed other remains were about 8km away. They have not said how she died.
Elisa Baker told police on Oct. 24 that Zahra “was deceased, that her body had been dismembered and that it would be recovered at different sites,” according to the documents. She was allowed to accompany police the following two days to sites within about 24km of Hickory, in western North Carolina, showing them where Zahra’s remains were.
The court papers were reported by Charlotte-area TV stations and posted on the Web site of WCNC-TV.
As police continued their investigation, residents left stuffed animals, balloons and birthday cards at a makeshift memorial in front of the family’s house. Pictures and angels hung from a tree outside the home in Hickory, about 80km northwest of Charlotte.
A candlelight vigil for the freckle-faced Zahra, whose cancer forced her to use hearing aids and a prosthetic leg, was scheduled for yesterday, the day she would’ve turned 11.
Calls about the vigil have come in from across the country, said Adrienne Opdyke, one of the organizers of the event planned by the Children’s Protection Council of Catawba County. Candles will be distributed, and a choir is expected to sing. Birthday gifts will be donated to needy children in the area.
Zahra’s parents told authorities she was last seen in her bed at their home in Hickory. Soon after she was reported missing, police had trouble finding anyone other than Zahra’s parents who had seen her alive in the weeks before her disappearance. A suspicious early morning fire occurred at the family’s home several hours before she was reported missing.
It was then that police discovered a ransom note addressed to Adam Baker’s boss on the windshield of Baker’s car. Police went to that man’s house, and found him and his daughter to be fine. Elisa Baker admitted writing the note and was charged with obstruction of justice charge, police said.
Adam Baker, 33, is facing one count each of assault with a deadly weapon and failure to return rental property, two counts of communicating threats and five counts of writing worthless checks, authorities said.
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