Dashboard camera footage shows the moment a yellow Camaro with an infant inside veers into a house at full speed in Ohio on June 27, 2023; the aftermath of the crash is seen inset. (Screengrab via WTVG; WTOL)
An Ohio man alleged to have abducted and infant girl in a car crash last month has now been charged with her murder.
Johnathon J. Baker, 23, stands accused of one count of aggravated murder over the June 27 incident that ended in the death of his girlfriend’s 7-month-old daughter. The defendant’s name has been spelled various ways. Some local media accounts spell his first name “Jonathon.” The Tiffin Police Department have rendered his first name “Johnathon.” Court records show his first name spelled “Jonanthan.”
On July 11, the case against Baker was filed, by way of a warrant for “unable to serve,” in the Tiffin-Fostoria Municipal Court, records reviewed by Law&Crime show. Details are scarce regarding the formal allegations and the public docket is currently slim – containing only the lone murder charge, and basic information about the defendant, complaining officer, and a statutory reference to Ohio law.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Baker allegedly stole the baby and tore off in a yellow Camaro – leaving the Buckeye State city of North Baltimore and traveling east-southeast. 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 the baby girl 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 alleged 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 the driver had other things in mind.
“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,” the TPD said in their first press release.
“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 4:00 p.m. at a home on Sandusky Street in Tiffin – a small town some 55 miles southeast of Toledo.
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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 in an effort to get the infant out.
Both Baker and the girl were extricated and taken to a nearby hospital after officers performed CPR.
According to Toledo-based ABC affiliate WTVG, officers said the girl was bleeding and breathing shallow – but alive.
The child would later succumb to her injuries. The defendant himself was initially in critical condition.
The defendant is reportedly still being treated at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Toledo, according to the Advertiser-Tribune. The child’s official cause of death has yet to be released as of this writing.
In chilling 911 calls released after his arrest, the defendant, the girl’s mother, and an unidentified third person – 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?” the defendant asks.
“Johnathon, what’s going on bud?” the other man asks.
The third caller 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, WTVG reported.
In one of the 911 calls, the girl’s mother plaintively pleads with her boyfriend, using her daughter’s name: “I just want [her].”
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