"Attorney Beth Lewis (Trimmer) should do the right thing and come forward and tell the Montgomery County grand jury what she knows about the disappearance of Erica Baker," said Greg Flannagan, spokesman for the Montgomery County prosecutor's office.

Prosecutors and Erica's family have been trying since mid-2002 to find out what - if anything - Trimmer might know about what happened to the 9-year-old.

Erica vanished while walking her dog in suburban Kettering in February 1999. No trace of her has been found, despite massive local searches and national publicity.

Three other courts have already ruled that Trimmer should tell the grand jury what Jan Marie Franks, a woman who died in 2001, might have said about Erica.

Authorities say informants have claimed Franks was with a group of people who panicked after their vehicle struck Erica. Authorities suspect Franks told Trimmer what happened to Erica.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court's decision - issued without comment Monday - a 2½-year legal battle over Trimmer's silence isn't over.

A federal district court in Dayton still must decide a separate court challenge that Trimmer filed earlier this year.

Erica's mother, Misty Baker, 37, said Monday that Trimmer's legal battle has made a tough situation even tougher.

"I don't know why (Trimmer) feels that she needs to drag this out," Baker said. "I just want to know: Is my daughter coming home or not? At least she can give me that."

Promise to a client

Trimmer, who couldn't be reached Monday, has said that she sympathizes with Erica's family, but feels her promise to keep clients' discussions secret is irrevocable - and that the case would jeopardize all Ohio attorney-client relationships.

Trimmer was a public defender representing Franks in an unrelated federal case.

Trimmer's lawyer, S. Adele Shank of Columbus, said she thinks many people have the mistaken impression that Trimmer's silence has halted the investigation. Authorities "can still be doing everything to investigate the case as they would in any other case, even if this were not going on," Shank said.

She noted that it's possible that Trimmer might not even know any relevant information.

"We don't know if anything incriminating was ever said," Shank noted, because no one knows the content of Franks' conversations with Trimmer.

Dead of drug overdose

Authorities have said Franks was uncooperative. So after she died of a drug overdose in late 2001, authorities persuaded her husband to sign a confidentiality waiver. That invoked a previously untested 50-year-old Ohio law.

Because of the confidentiality waiver, a lower court found Trimmer in contempt for refusing to break her silence. An order that would have sent Trimmer to jail has been on hold during court challenges. She and her lawyers have argued that the law is being misapplied and misinterpreted.

Shank said lower courts cannot enforce the jail order against Trimmer while a related issue is pending in a Dayton federal court.

The U.S. District Court in Dayton is considering an important question: Which law - federal or state - should apply to Trimmer?

Because Trimmer was a federal employee when she represented Franks, federal law should apply, Shank argues. "(Federal) law has not been interpreted the same way the Ohio law of privilege has been interpreted," Shank said. Flannagan said prosecutors think that the case belongs in state court.

Baker just wants to see it resolved.

"I'm glad she stands on her vows as an attorney. But I'm standing on my vows as a mother - about a child I gave birth to, not about something I learned in school," Baker said. "There comes a point in time when you've got to do the right thing. If she doesn't know anything, then say so. But I don't think that's the case."

Erica Baker chronology

Feb. 7, 1999: Erica Nicole Baker, 9, disappears while walking her dog in Kettering, Ohio, a Dayton suburb. Erica lived with her grandparents, her mother and three brothers a few blocks from the park area where she was last seen. The dog returned home, trailing its leash. Searchers scour 146 square miles in five days; the national TV show, America's Most Wanted, features the case.

May 1999: Actress Sarah Jessica Parker, a former Cincinnatian, makes a public-service announcement about the case for TV and radio broadcasts, appealing for leads.

Feb. 4, 2000: After investigating 4,000 tips, Kettering police say they have four likely suspects. They don't identify them. The girl's closest relatives are cleared.

August 2001: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children provides an artist's age-progression rendering, showing what Erica, who was 9 when she disappeared, might look like at age 12.

June 25, 2002: A Montgomery County judge finds federal public defender Beth Lewis in contempt for refusing to disclose communications she had with Jan Marie Franks, a client who died in December 2001.

Aug. 26, 2002: A standing-room-only crowd of 44 people listens in the Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals in Dayton as lawyers argue about whether Lewis should be jailed and how Ohio law should be interpreted. The court later rules that a confidentiality waiver signed by her former client's husband lifted Lewis' obligation to keep her clients' secrets; Lewis appeals to the Ohio Supreme Court.

March 3, 2004: Upholding two lower courts' rulings, the Ohio Supreme Court says Lewis, now known as Beth Lewis Trimmer, must break attorney-client confidentiality. Lewis later files challenges in U.S. District Court in Dayton and in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Oct. 18, 2004: U.S. Supreme Court refuses to consider challenge to Ohio Supreme Court ruling; U.S. District Court case is still pending.

Source: Enquirer archives

E-mail jmorse@enquirer.com