Prosecutors state their case that girl was brutally raped

Published 11:04 pm Tuesday, January 6, 2009

EVERETT — The 17-year-old girl was walking to her job at McDonald’s when she crossed paths with Larry Baker.

She’d left a friend’s house a little early so she could grab breakfast before her shift. She was wearing her uniform and walking in the rain without an umbrella along Fourth Avenue W. in south Everett.

Attorneys don’t disagree where the girl was going that Sunday morning in 2007. They dispute what happened before she reached her destination.

Baker, 35, is accused of raping the Mariner High School student. He denies sexually assaulting the teen, saying the encounter in the parking lot was consensual.

Baker’s trial began Tuesday in Snohomish County Superior Court. He is charged with first-degree rape while armed with a deadly weapon.

Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Craig Matheson told jurors that Baker grabbed the girl by the arm and pulled her to a parking lot between an apartment building and a carport. Baker held a boxcutter knife to the girl’s throat and threatened to kill her, Matheson said.

The prosecutor said Baker ordered the girl to remove her shoes and pants and forced her to lie in the dirt while he raped her. After he was finished, he told the girl he’d see her again, Matheson said.

“She was left lying naked from the waist down face down in the dirt,” Matheson said.

The girl put her clothes back on and walked the remaining few blocks to McDonald’s, where police found her curled up in the fetal position with dirt and leaves in her hair, Matheson said.

Baker’s DNA matched genetic evidence collected during the investigation, the prosecutor told jurors. The girl’s detailed description of her assailant matches Baker’s appearance, Matheson said. Police also found a boxcutter in Baker’s apartment that matched the one found at the scene, he said.

Baker’s attorney Pete Mazzone told jurors a different account of the morning’s events.

He said the girl knew Baker and witnesses will testify seeing the two together weeks before the alleged rape.

Mazzone told jurors that Baker was driving home from a party when he spotted the girl walking down the street. He stopped to talk to her and the two went to a carport to get out of the rain, Mazzone said.

The Everett attorney said Baker and the girl kissed and when Baker unbuttoned her pants, she didn’t protest. The girl made her own advances toward Baker, Mazzone said.

He told jurors the girl and Baker had consensual sex on the ground but the teen became upset when Baker refused to give her his phone number. Baker was worried his longtime girlfriend, the mother of three of his children, would find out, Mazzone said.

The defense attorney also questioned the police investigation. Baker told detectives he knew the girl but investigators failed to further question him about how he knew the girl, he said.

Mazzone questioned the validity of the police finding a boxcutter-style knife in the parking lot. They’d searched the area the day teen reported the assault and didn’t find anything, Mazzone said.

“It’s virtually impossible for the knife to be in the position as they claim,” he said.

Jurors likely won’t be allowed to hear that Baker is a suspect in an unsolved 2004 rape in Waterloo, Iowa. The information can be introduced only if the defense raises questions about the DNA results in the Everett investigation or opens the door in other ways to make the information relevant to the Everett case.

The Iowa investigation helped lead Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives to Baker. A computer matched DNA that was collected in Everett with genetic material from the unsolved case in Iowa. Baker had been questioned in that case. He may face charges there.

Baker, wearing a pink buttoned-down shirt with a tie, nodded as his attorney addressed jurors. He has been in the Snohomish County Jail since October 2007 after he was arrested outside the courthouse.

Baker was attempting to turn himself in when he happened to pass by a Snohomish County sheriff’s detective investigating the case. The detective arrested Baker in the courtyard.

Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.