Mark Wilson
Jurors have recommended the death penalty for a man convicted of murdering two boys. The defense for Mark Wilson, 32, can still argue for a sentence of life without parole in a Spencer hearing scheduled for December, according to WJXT. With that said, the jury determined he deserves execution for beating Robert Baker, 12, and Tayten Baker, 14, with a hammer and then slitting their throats.
As previously reported, authorities said the Baker family invited Wilson and his girlfriend (the boys’ aunt) to live in a shed on their property. It ended with a horrifying double murder. Robert and Tayten’s mother Sarah Baker testified to seeing Wilson sharpening a knife the night before the killings. That was the knife used in the slayings, authorities said.
“When I ripped off the blanket, I knew,” she testified, according to WJXT. “It was everywhere. [Tayten] was covered in blood. I ran over to Robert, and I’m screaming at him to call 911, and I rip his blanket off and all I can remember is his head flipped forward and then it banged back up against the wall. He was the same thing, soaked in blood, and I didn’t get a good look at what his injuries looked like, but I did as far as Tayten’s. In that moment, I started screaming at the top of my lungs.”
“These are some of the most brutal murders I’ve heard about, the defendant attacked these kids without mercy.”- State Attorney on deaths of Robert and Tayten Baker. @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/UIPJcMZOCK
— Bridgette Matter (@Bmatternews) August 28, 2020
“Mark Wilson, the sick monster responsible for Tayten and Robert’s brutal murder was arrested last night,” Putnam County Sheriff Gator DeLoach said on Facebook at the time. “Very quickly detectives honed in on Wilson and immediately established this individual was only a threat to those around him. Unfortunately, Robert and Tayten were the ones who suffered whatever was going through Wilson’s twisted agenda. As a parent, the murders of Robert and Tayten are an unimaginable loss to a family. I can’t begin to understand the anguish their parents are suffering.”
“I can tell you I’ve been in the criminal justice system working since 1980, and these are some of the most brutal murders that I have heard about,” 7th Judicial Circuit State Attorney R.J. Larizza said at the time.
The defense reportedly asserted that these killings were not premeditated, based on the disorganized elements of the crime scene. Wilson told a detective he was up for three days and had been high on meth the morning of the killings.
[Screenshot via WJXT]
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