Case 347: Zahra Baker

**SPEAKER_1** (0:13)
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Before sunrise on Saturday, October 9, 2010, 42-year-old Lisa Baker called 911 to report a fire outside her home in the small city of Hickory, North Carolina. The dispatcher asked her for the address, but Lisa didn't seem to hear the question. Sounding flustered and out of breath, she replied, My husband works for a tree maintenance company and our backyard's on fire. Lisa explained that because of her husband's job, the yard was full of ignitable debris such as piles of firewood, dead branches, logs and mulch. Within minutes, firefighters arrived, anticipating a large and dangerous blaze. They were therefore surprised to find the fire was actually quite small. It was confined to a mound of chipped wood and grass about one square metre in size. There were a few branches and some household items that had also burned, but the fire was quickly and easily extinguished. Since the cause of the fire was unknown, the city fire inspector was summoned to investigate. Suspecting arson, the inspector phoned the Hickory Police Department, who sent an officer named Rob Rollins to the scene. Officer Rollins arrived at around 5.30am. One of the firefighters immediately handed him a small piece of paper, which Lisa's husband, 33-year-old Adam Baker, had discovered on the dashboard of a silver 1996 Chevy Tahoe SUV parked at the end of the driveway, near the site of the fire. The paper was a special, custom-printed envelope provided by the local power company for customers to mail in their monthly bill payments. Scrawled across it was a handwritten note which read, No cops. Mr. Coffee, you like being in control. Now who is in control? We have your daughter and your pot-smoking redhead son is next, unless you do what is asked. One million unmarked. We'll be in touch soon. No cops.
Adam Baker explained to Officer Rollins that Mr. Coffee probably referred to his boss, Mark Coffee, who owned the tree company where Adam worked. Mark also owned the Chevy Tahoe SUV which he was letting Adam borrow, as well as the property which Adam and Lisa had been renting from him for the past three months. Moments later, Mark Coffee arrived at the Baker's home, accompanied by his 19-year-old daughter, Lauren.
When Officer Rollins showed them the threatening letter and ransom demand, both Mark and Lauren were baffled. They didn't know of anyone who was angry with Mark or might want to harm their family. Lauren obviously hadn't been abducted, and Mark's son was safe at home. The note was apparently just a hoax, or perhaps, together with the fire, a bizarre and elaborate prank. The fire was definitely the result of arson. Someone had poured gasoline in the grass, as well as inside the Chevy Tahoe, but fortunately nothing was seriously damaged and no one had been hurt. The firefighters moved on. Mark and Lauren Coffee returned home, and Officer Rollins went off duty. By the time the sun rose just after 7 o'clock, everything at the Baker's house was back to normal. But seven hours later, at 2pm, a second emergency call was placed from their home. This time, the caller was Adam, who said, Uh, yeah, my daughter is missing. He gave his address, then continued. The police were out here last night over a fire and a ransom note for my boss' daughter, and it appears they took my daughter instead.
Adam Baker explained that he thought his daughter might have been kidnapped by someone who mistook her for Lauren Coffey. He didn't know who was after the coffees or why, but because the ransom note was addressed to Mark Coffey and he owned the house as well as the vehicle parked there, it was clear to Adam that his daughter's disappearance was linked to Mark too. Adam Baker described his daughter as a disabled 10-year-old with a prosthetic leg, but when the emergency dispatcher asked how long she had been missing, Adam didn't seem to know. We checked in there last night, about 2.30, and she was there, he said. And all this happened about 5 o'clock, so I don't know if they set a fire in the yard to distract us to go out and then they go in the door or... I don't know.
The dispatcher tried to clarify this, asking, Okay, so no one has seen your daughter since 2.3 this morning. Adam replied, No, like I said, we had all this drama last night. Me and my wife went back to bed, and my daughter's, I think, coming into puberty. She's hitting that brooding stage, so we only ever see her when she comes out, when she wants something. And that's about it. For the second time that day, officers from the Hickory Police Department made their way to the small brick house on 21st Avenue, North West. They climbed a couple of steps onto a low cement porch decorated for Halloween with cotton spiderwebs and plastic skulls. Upon entering the home, officers found it cluttered and dark. There were fish tanks without fish, and some of the walls, floors and bathroom tiles had been painted black. Officers learned the missing girl's name was Zahra Claire Baker. Zahra and Adam had moved to North Carolina two years earlier from Queensland, Australia, after Adam married his American wife, Lisa, who most people just called Lisa. It was Lisa, not Adam, who had looked in on Zahra sleeping at 2.30am, at which time nothing was amiss. No one thought to check on her during or after the fire. In addition to using a prosthetic leg, Zahra was hearing impaired, so Adam and Lisa just assumed she hadn't heard the commotion or the emergency vehicle sirens rushing down the quiet street before dawn. Nor had they checked on Zahra after discovering the ransom note. In fact, they hadn't even thought to tell Officer Rollins that they had a daughter. But, after they realised Zahra was missing, it seemed impossible to them that the events weren't connected. The fire was probably a ruse to draw them out of the house, they thought, leaving Zahra alone inside. The lights, sirens and firefighters created a distraction, allowing the kidnapper to steal away with Zahra unnoticed. Whoever wrote the ransom note had seemingly mistaken 10-year-old Zahra Baker for 19-year-old Lauren Coffey, and was now holding the wrong man's daughter for ransom.