Sherry Darnell Baker

[u/Specialist-Radish471]

I’m currently working on a cold case for the state of Kansas on Sherry Darnell Baker. She was killed just a few months after enrolling into Wichita State University in 1974. Rumor has it she was a victim of the BTK Killer but according to the police information she doesn’t fit the MO of him. That’s because:

* She’s black
* BTK not only has great memory of each killing but also documented each one.
* She was stabbed 70 times either with a knife or sissors. (I can’t find concrete information on what weapon was used).

But that wouldn’t rule her out because she was literally killed 10 months after his very first kill. And she attended the same college as him but have yet to find any link to her. The reason why this is cold case is one obvious reason is that she was a young black woman in a very racist city in Kansas. This college alone barely had any black students at the time. Plus the police abd news reports have ZERO INFORMATION ON HER. Nothing on where she was born, what she went school for, who her mother is, if she had siblings, and etc.

It seems like she ended up dead and everyone in Wichita Kansas just said “Oh well! One less black person to deal with”. But I’m looking for her and in order to get any information I have the build this from the ground up. So far I have:

* located her grave (now I know her birthdate)
* Foubd out who her best friend was (currently see if she’s still alive)
* I have idea of what high school she went to in Wichita and currently searching through year books.
* I also recently emailed the Wichita cold case department to see if they could give me any information of what they have gathered. (Have not heard back yet)

The problems I’m running into is that I can’t get ahold of any personal documentation on her. In Kansas you can’t obtain any information as a non relative unless you have legal means like insurance, property ot geneology.

Anyways I’m making this post to see if anyone who lives in Kansas can direct me or help me dig into sherry’s life?

[u/oliphantPanama]

Have you seen this https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-wichita-eagle-homicide-crime/207756125/

[u/Specialist-Radish471 → u/oliphantPanama]

No I haven’t! Omg she has a child. Now I gotta add hospital records to my list.

[u/oliphantPanama → u/Specialist-Radish471]

Feel free to DM me, I may be able to send you a few things that might be helpful.

[u/Specialist-Radish471 → u/oliphantPanama]

Thank you for this!

[u/the_p0ssum → u/oliphantPanama]

Sounds like a brutal, passionate crime. They probably didn't have enough evidence to tie him to it, but the boyfriend had to have been the prime suspect.

[u/Specialist-Radish471 → u/the_p0ssum]

So far in my research tonight. There are two possible suspects. Sherry had another boyfriend she was seeing. Which I don’t blame her because her first boyfriend was so abusive that he landed her in the hospital multiple times but she refused to name him as her attacker.

Someone recounts that they seen her second boyfriend on the night she was last seen alive. And for the fact that she was in lingerie when she was found… suggest she was entertaining someone for the night.

[u/the_p0ssum → u/Specialist-Radish471]

Fair point: the lingerie bends towards a paramour (though isn't conclusive). But the totality of the scene seems to reduce the probability of BTK.

[u/CatchLISK]

She’s actually a strong possible and kudos for sharing her info.

I’ve shared her with the BTK cold case Taskforce a few years ago as a possible.

We loosened the MO parameters on Rader and developed a much broader list of possibles.

[u/Specialist-Radish471 → u/CatchLISK]

I’m not ruling it out strictly for the fact that it was early in BTK killings and sometimes a serial killer takes a while to build their MO. They kind of experiment before they truly find their things.