Ed Baker -- Pennsylvania, 1974

True Stories of Injustice...

Ed Baker -- Pennsylvania, 1974

CM began its investigation on behalf of Ed Baker in June 1994. Ed was wrongfully convicted in 1974 as one of four men who brutally murdered an 85-year-old south Philadelphia man with an ice pick. Baker is now serving out a life sentence.

Although CM’s investigation is only in its infancy, it is already clear that there is something terribly wrong with this case. Baker was convicted based solely on: (1) the testimony of one of the self-confessed real killers, Donahue Wise, who is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic known amongst his associates as “Dr. Nut;” and (2) the shaky statement of one Clifford Walker, then a scared 16-year-old with only a fourth-grade education, who was coerced by the police into corroborating Wise’s story and was himself convicted for his purported role in the killing.

In exchange for the opportunity to plead guilty to second-degree murder and a three to twelve-year open term, Wise quickly fingered both Walker and Baker as his accomplices. Soon after hearing Wise’s statement, the police arrested Walker. During a 24-hour interrogation, he gave the police a total of five statements. The first three statements told a singular and consistent account of the events on the night of the killing: Wise and two others (specifically not including Baker) approached Walker and asked him whether he would act as a lookout for a robbery they were about to commit. Though he did not specifically agree to participate, Walker said he saw the three men enter the home, at which point he became scared and left the scene. He stood by his original account until the police dragged him into Wise’s jail cell for a confrontation. At that point, Walker, frightened, tired and confused, gave in and corroborated Wise’s version of the events.

Jim McCloskey and Baker’s attorney, NACDL member Leonard Sosnov (who also represented Edward Ryder), plan to obtain statements from various individuals to establish Baker’s innocence. This includes statements from numerous bar patrons who heard Wise boast that he “had to kill” the victim before robbing him. CM also intends to obtain sworn statements from Baker’s aunt, to whom Wise apparently confessed last year. Wise told the aunt that he implicated Baker after he falsely accused Walker because everyone in town knew that Walker and Baker were close friends and they always hung out together. CM will also establish, through numerous witnesses, that on the night of the killing Baker had travelled to the north side of Philadelphia to attend the funeral of a friend’s aunt, and that he stayed overnight at the home of the friend’s sister.

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
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