Tuesday, February 16, 1999

Emptiness invades Erica's house

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BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Erica's dog, Jaime, tries to get Misty Baker's attention. Erica was walking Jaime when she disappeared. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        KETTERING, Ohio — As a school bus dropped off a half-dozen neighborhood kids Monday, the little Shih Tzu that Erica Baker was walking when she disappeared ran toward the giggling youngsters, his tail wagging.

        “Jaime! Come back!” shouted Misty Baker, Erica's mom, “She's not on there.”

        Everywhere Ms. Baker turns these days, she confronts reminders of her 9-year-old daughter's gut- wrenching, week-long absence — and signs that the entire community cares.

        “Everything everyone has done for us — all the volunteers, every little note and nice things people have done — means so much to us,” Ms. Baker said. “How do you thank people — total strangers — for caring about your little girl being gone?”

Erica Baker

        Erica's picture and physical description seem to be everywhere, but there's so much the photos don't tell about the little girl described sometimes as a tomboy, sometimes as ladylike.

        Between answering three telephones, greeting visitors and keeping an eye on Jaime, Ms. Baker on Monday talked about the little girl she loves and misses so much. She also talked about her appreciation for the police and the public's response to her family's plight.

Erica's mom looks at a box made and delivered to her house by a 7-year-old. The message starts with "Dear god ... Let he be safe." (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        A team of professional searchers ceased operations Friday but volunteers continue to look for Erica.

        Police are following up on thousands of tips about Erica, who vanished Feb. 7 a few blocks from her home. Only a half-dozen of those tips were considered “premium leads,” said Officer Larry Warren, Kettering police spokesman.

        Saturday's broadcast of Erica's case on Fox TV's America's Most Wanted generated more than a dozen possible leads that police were investigating, Officer Warren said.

        Ms. Baker and her ex-husband, Greg Baker, Erica's father, have been given lie-detector tests. Both results were “favorable,” police said.

        “I don't blame people for thinking the parents might have something to do with it, just because of the way these cases have gone in the past,” Ms. Baker, 32, said. “But I don't want them focusing on me and taking the focus off of Erica, either.”

HELP FIND ERICA

Erica Baker is 9 years old, 3 feet, 11 inches tall and weighs 65 pounds. She was last seen wearing a pink rain jacket, a pink Winnie-the-Pooh sweatshirt, blue jeans and white tennis shoes. She has blond hair and hazel eyes.         Information about Erica has been posted with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at: www.missingkids.com.         Anyone with information should call the Kettering police at (937) 296-2555, or (937) 296-2570, or email to erica@siscom.net.

        Ms. Baker remembers — with a laugh — June 22, 1989, the day Erica was born at a Dayton hospital.

        “When the doctor told me it was a girl, I told him, "Quit lying,'” she said, because she had already given birth to three boys. “Then I started bawling like a baby, I was so happy. I really wanted a girl — and there she was, my baby girl.”

        At first, Erica lived with her brothers — Logan, 11, Greg, 12 and Jason Sponaugle, 16 — and parents in Miamisburg, just west of Dayton. Her parents divorced six years ago, but Erica maintained a close relationship with her father.

        Three years ago, Erica, her mother and brothers moved into the Kettering home of Pam and Mike Schmidt, Erica's maternal grandparents.

        The children protested at first, but have made lots of friends since the move. Asked who her granddaughter's best friend was, Pam Schmidt said, “Whoever was with her; that was her best friend for the day.”

        Even though Erica can be sweet, with three brothers, she learned how to stick up for herself.

        Perhaps her desire to stop fighting with her brothers motivated Erica to become a mediator at her school, Indian Riffle Elementary in Kettering, where she is a third-grader, her mother said.

        Erica also loves dressing up, but she hates shoes, Ms. Baker said, pointing to a photograph of her daughter standing with lace-topped socks and a frilly white dress.

        Ms. Baker crocheted a pair of slippers for Erica, who want ed to wear them to school instead of shoes. “I've got them wrapped up, and I won't let anyone touch them until she comes home,” Ms. Baker said.

        The family tries to keep Erica's room undisturbed, except for the messed-up bed sheets that detectives combed for samples of her skin cells and other possible evidence, Ms. Baker said.

        “She even helped paint this room. She just loved pink,” Ms. Baker said, standing in the room where the little girl's nightstand light stays on.

        Ms. Baker said one of the hardest things is to see the closet where Erica's favorite dresses hang. She holds up a purple velvet and chiffon dress, a Christmas present, and said, “I told her it was only for special occasions.”

        Then she started to cry and said, “When she comes home, I'll let her wear it all the time — even to bed if she wants. I just want her home.”

        Ms. Baker senses her daughter is alive.

        “I don't know whether it's hope I'm feeling or her presence,” Ms. Baker said. “All I know is that I would feel devastated and completely empty without her.”

        Erica's brothers aren't as expressive about missing their sister, Ms. Baker said, “although they have their moments.”

        One such moment came Friday, when her youngest brother, Logan, made a special balloon for his sister at a balloon launch sponsored by a local radio station.

        “He drew a broken heart on it and wrote, "Erica, come home,'” Ms. Baker said.

        Another precious memento stands out among the cards, letters and notes dropped off and sent by friends and strangers, Ms. Baker said.

        From a distance, the cardboard box covered with ribbons, rhinestones, glitter and glued-on paper hearts looks like a Valentine.

        But up close, the message of an anonymous 7-year-old boy leaps out from the box sitting atop the family's TV set, summing up the desperate feelings of so many:

        Dear God ... Let her be safe ... Let her know that we are all looking for her and the police will help her. Please God, help the police find her.

       

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