By Keith L. Alexander
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 31, 2010; B01
For the seven years that Yolanda Baker and Terrence Barnett dated, Baker's family watched a once loving relationship grow increasingly violent.
Baker would show up at family functions with bruises and bald patches on her head from having her hair pulled out. She took out a restraining order against Barnett but began seeing him again after a little more than a year. Baker also sought child support from Barnett on behalf of their then-5-year-old-twins, a boy and girl.
Then, after the two had seemingly made amends, Baker went missing from her Northeast Washington home Aug. 1, 1999. She has not been seen since. Authorities declared her dead last year and charged Barnett with killing her.
After Baker disappeared, her family members spent years trying to find answers, closure and accountability in the death of the woman they had nicknamed Princess.
On Tuesday, after three days of deliberating, a D.C. Superior Court jury found Barnett, 45, guilty of second-degree murder. He was charged with first-degree murder, but the jury was unable to determine during the three-week trial that there was enough evidence that he planned to kill Baker.
As the jury foreman announced the verdict, Barnett bowed and shook his head slightly. Cold-case detectives sitting in the back row of the courtroom fist-pounded each other and smiled. Members of Baker's family, who filled up three rows of one side of the courtroom, and members of Barnett's family, sitting on the other side, broke into tears.
"All these years, it's over," cried Andrea Flemmings, one of Baker's sisters.
"We are very pleased. Thank God for this justice," said Deon Haynes-Parker, another of Baker's sisters, as family members gathered outside the courtroom. Baker's twins, now teenagers, are being raised by her family.
Baker's brother-in-law Leroy Flemmings said that although his family mourns for Baker, they are also concerned about the twins.
"I'm glad the kids can now have some closure," Flemmings said. "They lost their mom and their dad the moment this happened."
Cold cases are challenging to prosecute, but murder cases in which a body is not found are even more difficult. This was only the fourth case without a body that the District's U.S. attorney's office has tried since the 1980s, officials said.
Lawyers, law students and trial watchers visited the courtroom during the trial to watch Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Haines square off against criminal defense lawyer Nikki Lotze.
Lotze insisted that Barnett was innocent, telling the jury that there was no evidence of Baker's death and no eyewitnesses linking Barnett to Baker's disappearance or death.
In her nearly 90-minute closing argument last week, Lotze reminded the jury that police questioned Barnett just days after Baker was reported missing and released him.
Baker's car was found blocks from her house days after she disappeared and after two other men had been seen driving the car around the District. Lotze dismissed as "cockamamie" the story that one of Baker's sisters saw Barnett hours after Baker had gone missing, standing on the 14th Street Bridge outside Baker's car and pulling a large plastic bag from the trunk.
Lotze called the case a "witch hunt" based primarily on Barnett and Baker's volatile relationship.
In her hour-long close, Haines suggested to the jury that a history of abuse could be used as a motive in a slaying in domestic cases.
Haines said Barnett killed Baker in the bedroom of the house they shared, cleaned the room with bleach, and ripped the bloodstained carpet up and got rid of it. Haines said Baker then "chopped up her body," put it in the trunk of her car and disposed of it. "Her car is her gravesite," she said.
During the trial, Haines called about 30 witnesses, including family members, court officials, prosecutors and police officers. All testified about the abusive relationship and Baker's efforts to seek help from police and the courts.
Prosecutors had sought first-degree murder charges, but Glenn L. Kirschner, head of the homicide unit for the District's U.S. attorney's office, said that securing first-degree convictions in domestic violence cases is difficult because, in most cases, such slayings are "spur of the moment" rather than planned.
Haines was assigned to the case last year. After the verdict, Baker's family showered her with hugs. "The jury gave this family the closure they have been seeking for the past 10 years," Haines said.
Barnett is scheduled to be sentenced June 18 by Judge Michael L. Rankin.
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