Crimeatorium - The Murder of Ten Year Old Donald Scotty Baker

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Ten year old Scotty Baker was checked out of school the day before Thanksgiving by someone he thought was his cousin. Once he got into her car, he realized that she wasn't, but by that time, it was too late.Music:CO.AG Music https://www.youtube.com/@co.agmusic1823

Welcome to True Crime Stories with Crime-a-Trorian. On November 25, 1992, Suzanne Baker entered the office of Paces Creek Elementary School in Manchester, Kentucky. donning a wig and glasses, asking to check a student out for the day. The school was holding a special lunch day for kids for Thanksgiving that parents and family were invited to. The student she wanted to check out of school was 10-year-old Donald Scotty Baker, who goes by the name of Scotty. When asked what the occasion was by the school secretary,

Suzanne's response was that she was taking Scotty to see his dad for Thanksgiving as he was an over-the-road truck driver. The secretary noticed she was wearing a wig, but that didn't raise any alarms. A lot of women wore wigs. The secretary happened to catch Scotty in the hall and asked if he would rather stay for lunch or go to visit his dad. Scotty chose the latter. The secretary didn't ask for Suzanne's ID because Scotty seemed to know her and the woman indicated that she was Scotty's cousin. As it turns out, Scotty did have a cousin named Patricia Smith, although he had never met her.

So she signed her name to the sign-out sheet as Patricia Smith, and Scotty was allowed to leave with her. Scotty excitedly waved goodbye to his friends at school on his way out. This is Scotty Baker's story. Scotty Baker was born on February 17, 1982, in Clay County, Kentucky, to Donald Baker and Ruth Rose. He was in the fifth grade at Paces Creek Elementary School and was a good kid who always had a smile on his face and was a friend to everyone. He loved basketball and shooting his rifle. Donald and Ruth, Scotty's parents, were divorced by this time. He spent a considerable amount of time with his dad and his new wife, Stephanie.

By all accounts, Donald and Ruth cherished their time with Scotty. They lived in close proximity to each other, and the visitation arrangements seemed to be going well. When Scotty was visiting at his dad's house, the two spent a lot of time together doing activities. Stephanie, however, never joined the two in these activities. Donald, 37, and Stephanie, 22, met in August of 1991 and married the following year on Valentine's Day. Scotty was in the line at their wedding. Donald picked up on something right away about Stephanie. She was resentful of Scotty and jealous of the attention he gave to him.

She complained to a close friend about not being able to do what she wants in her own home when Scotty was around. With Donald being a truck driver, he was gone from home a lot. Stephanie didn't like this either. On November 25th, Ruth was planning on picking up Scotty early from school as a surprise. When Ruth went to the school to pick him up, he was already gone. Scotty would sometimes take the bus to his grandma's house. Thinking that's what he had done on this day, she went home, then went off to her job at Walmart. Ruth's mother called her at around 7 p.m. and asked if she had picked Scotty up from school that day.

Stephanie Janine Spitzer was an outgoing person, and in high school, she was part of a service club called Teens Who Care. She was also a candidate for the Miss Laurel County High competition. In her senior yearbook, she wrote, I will my soul to God, who willed his soul to me, my respect and love to my parents and brother, my love and heart to my papa, who makes each day of my life special. She wanted to be a teacher and finish two years of college for that pursuit. Suzanne Baker no relation to Scotty or Donald and Stephanie were friends and Stephanie often

confided in her about her resentment of Scotty a week before Scotty was checked out of school by Suzanne Stephanie was particularly upset that he was going to spend the night with her and Donald again not only that she just found out she was pregnant and didn't feel that Donald was very happy about this news. There are differing accounts as to what was actually planned, but Stephanie asked Suzanne to wear the wig and glasses so that she wouldn't be recognized at the school. Stephanie would later claim it was so that if Ruth was at the school, she wouldn't recognize Suzanne. Suzanne walked Scotty out to her car after he was checked out from school. He was so excited that he was going to be visiting his dad. He believed that Suzanne was his cousin,

so he wasn't leery about going with her. He got in the front seat of the car and Suzanne began to drive. According to Suzanne's version of events, her understanding of the plan was that she and Stephanie were going to scare him in order to convince him not to see his father any longer. continuing on with her version of what happened she drove a few hundred feet and Stephanie who was hiding in the backseat underneath some clothes began strangling Scotty from behind

Scotty fought hard for his life he tried to scream and kicked his legs bashing in the console of the car Stephanie continued her attack on Scotty until he stopped struggling Suzanne continued driving and didn't intervene all while Scotty's life was being taken from him the two determined that he was dead

Stephanie then stated to Suzanne that she was just as culpable in Scotty's murder because she was the one that checked him out of school Suzanne was fearful of being outed by Stephanie and decided to cooperate in what was to come next. Once Ruth realized that something was not right, she came home from work and called Scotty's school and she was told about this woman named Patricia Smith

that checked him out. She also called Donald and of course Scotty wasn't with him but Ruth became suspicious that he had taken Scotty with the intention of keeping him from her. she filed the police report and officers began looking for a woman named patricia smith all of the women they found either had alibis or didn't match the description given by the school secretary as time went on both ruth and donald accused the other of taking scotty and hiding him regardless of their suspicions of one another the two began scouring the neighborhood

and talking to Scotty's friends. They printed flyers and contacted the media for help. Ruth appeared before cameras pleading for the return of Scotty, saying, Please just bring him out at the end of the driveway and let him out. It's a long driveway. I couldn't even see who would be in the car. Please, please. Stephanie joined in as well.

she went to Scotty's grandmother's house to answer calls and to make them trying to locate Scotty all the while having first hand knowledge of where he was and what had happened to him Suzanne and Stephanie

needed to find a place to put Scotty's lifeless body while driving they came upon an abandoned mine and placed Scotty out of view of the road near the mine it was then decided

that they needed to burn his body so they went into town and retrieved a gas can, returned to the abandoned mine and doused Scotty and lit his body on fire before burying it. Donald and Ruth

both took a lie detector test and passed. They were eliminated as suspects at that point. One name kept coming up to police as a suspect, Stephanie Baker, Donald's wife.

donald revealed to the investigating officers that stephanie was resentful and jealous of scotty by this time the fbi became involved in the search for scotty and they called stephanie in for an interview she indicated that she didn't know where scotty was and when asked about her alibi for that day she told officers that she had been doing laundry with her friend suzanne she was also given a polygraph test and failed this confused the officers because as one officer put it it seemed like she was the best liar we had ever seen

the investigators interviewed Suzanne next she proved to be a terrible liar according to those who were in the interview she repeated the same story that Stephanie gave and in fact, it was practically identical to it. This raised red flags with the officers. When Suzanne was given a polygraph test, she failed miserably.

After that, she confessed the entire story of what had happened to Scotty. She also added that once the deed was done, Stephanie exclaimed that all her troubles were over. Suzanne told the FBI investigators where they could find Scotty's body and on December 2, 1992, his charred remains were recovered six days after he had gone missing. His backpack was still strapped to his back. Officers arrested both Suzanne and Stephanie shortly thereafter.

Stephanie and Suzanne were both indicted for Scotty's kidnapping and murder on December 18th. Suzanne was charged with reckless homicide, kidnapping, and abuse of a corpse. Stephanie's charges were murder and kidnapping and abuse of a corpse. The trial for Suzanne had to be moved to a different county due to the media attention the crime received. Her seven-page statement given to the FBI was introduced as evidence and accepted as a confession. She was convicted of all three counts and was sentenced to 20 years for kidnapping and five years for reckless homicide, with these terms to be served consecutively. She was also sentenced to 12 months for abuse of a corpse,

which was ordered to be served concurrently with her other sentences. the judge said to her as he handed down the sentence that no one deserves to die the way you described i would have fixed a much more severe sentence and i would increase the punishment if i had the authority to do so the prosecutors considered the death penalty for stephanie but she pleaded guilty to all charges against her and got 25 years to life with a chance for parole in 2017. During Stephanie's trial, her defense attorney claimed that she was abused by Donald and that is why she killed Scotty. Suzanne was released from prison in 2008 for what is called good time credits, which means she probably took college courses and had good conduct while

incarcerated. She served 15 years of her 25-year sentence. Tom Handy, who was a prosecuting attorney against Suzanne Baker, stated that she has served her time according to the law. Suzanne's plans were to live with her parents until she could make arrangements to live on her own. After she was released, Ruth had this to say to reporters. I don't want people to ever forget what she did. When she walks down the street, I want people to look at her and think, there goes a baby killer. While Stephanie has been in prison, she gave birth to her son and her parents ended up adopting him. She received a degree in divinity and a diploma in bible studies. She even got married.

In 2017, she went before a parole board. She recounted her version of the details of that day. She stated that her intent was to take Scotty to see his father. Once the two got into the car and Suzanne started driving, she took off her wig. She claims this scared Scotty so much that he tried to get out of the car while it was moving. She grabbed the back of his sweatshirt and pulled on it to keep him from falling out of the car, strangling him in the meantime. In 1994, Stephanie Spitzer pleaded guilty to murdering her 10-year-old stepson in Clay County. She was sentenced to life in prison with a shot at parole after 25 years.

And that chance came today in front of that parole board. Conroy DeLuge is in Frankfurt with this LAX 18 update. the hearing lasted almost 90 minutes and at the end the two-member parole board decided to defer a decision on stephanie spitzer to the full board which will meet next week spitzer says this morning was the first time she'd given a full account of what happened the day that scotty baker was murdered from a prison just outside of louisville spitzer told the parole board that her friend suzanne baker wore a disguise to pick up scotty from school the day before thanksgiving 1992 spitzer said that at the time she was in the back seat of her car the plan was to take her

stepson to her mother's house but spitzer says scotty freaked out when suzanne pulled off her wig and when he tried to escape spitzer says she grabbed him from behind around the collar and held on until he stopped moving i just wanted him to stop fighting to be quiet i'm not sure how long i held on to him but this is my fault the only thing that stuck out to me is she lied a lot there was a lot of things that i know for a fact that she lied to the board about so i hope they know that just just painful it's just just very painful the full parole board meets on monday they can decide to defer her parole for up to 10 years or to enforce her life sentence. Covering the news in Franklin

County from the LAX 18 mobile newsroom, back to you. The voice you heard at the end was Scotty's mother. Stephanie went on to say, I told my family time and time again, I don't feel like I deserve anything and I'm so sorry, but sorry falls so short. It's such a pathetic word because it doesn't fix anything. She also told the board that killing Scotty had been a terrible mistake she'd made in her youth. One board member's reply to this statement was, we've all been young and most of us have survived our youth without murdering someone. Stephanie also revealed that she didn't deserve to be released, but she also said she never intended to kill 10-year-old Scotty Baker.

Ruth was in attendance at this parole hearing and referred to Stephanie as that thing. She made the following statement. As he was begging to get out of the car, this thing came from the back seat, reached over, got him by the neck, and pulled him across the seat. And while he kicked the dashboard out of the car, she choked him to death. That's what I think about every day of my life. The board could have granted her release, but instead, they ruled that she must serve out her full sentence of life in prison. Donald Baker filed a civil lawsuit against the Clay County Board of Education and the school secretary. Charges were dropped against the secretary due to her entitlement to qualified immunity.

The Clay County Board of Education did have policies in place regarding the process of removing students in school. Those processes didn't always get followed, according to the secretary who allowed Scotty to leave. Ultimately, the lawsuit was dismissed. However, the school board did tighten its student checkout policies. Donald divorced Stephanie. It is unknown what her marital status is now, and as of 2019, she uses her maiden name, which is Spitzer. As for Stephanie's parents adopting hers and Donald's son, Donald stated that given his occupation, it was in the best interest of the child. Scotty was laid to rest at the Manchester Memorial Gardens in Manchester, Kentucky.

Thank you.