A missing South Carolina teen was found brutally beaten and stabbed in an abandoned home this week, and authorities have arrested two other teens for her murder.
Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook described the death of 13-year-old Ka’Niyah Baker as “brutal, heinous, vicious, gruesome, monstrous, and disturbing” at a press conference on Saturday.
Baker had been last seen on January 13, and the Richland County Sheriff’s Department had said they believed she could be in danger, WLTX reported. But no signs of the girl turned up until Wednesday night when Columbia firefighters responded to a fire at an unoccupied home on the Capital Heights neighborhood and found a body of a female inside.
The victim had significant injuries to her face and body and had been severely burned, Holbrook said, and Coroner Naida Rutherford said that visual identification wasn’t possible because of the severity of her injuries. Finally, using DNA from dirty clothing at Baker’s foster home and dental records, they were able to positively identify the victim as the missing girl.
Rutherford said Baker had been “bludgeoned, stabbed, and burned.”
“The manner of death is not an accident, and this is not a suicide,” Rutherford said. “This is a horrible homicide.”
Holbrook said police have arrested a 15-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl for the murder. Both had been reported missing on January 12, and Holbrook did not say when or how they were located.
Fifth Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson said his office will pursue charging both suspects as adults.
Holbrook said that all three girls — the two suspects and the victim — were known to be frequent runaways. The 16-year-old girl was wanted by the Department of Juvenile Justice after allegedly cutting off her ankle monitor. Both suspects had been enrolled in school as recentaly as December but are now considered drop-outs.
Baker was originally from Sumter but was living in foster care in Columbia at the time of her death, Holbrook said.
