HICKORY, N.C. — Hickory police said late Tuesday morning they have canceled the Amber alert for missing 10-year-old Zahra Baker and now consider the case a homicide investigation.
Police also said Elisa Baker, the missing girl’s stepmother, has been charged with a felony after admitting she wrote a ransom note that was found at the family’s house last weekend.
Meanwhile, a woman who lived next door to Elisa Baker and her husband, Adam, when the family lived in Caldwell County said a Department of Social Services employee visited Elisa and Zahra Baker at least once several months ago to investigate what the neighbor said were bruises on the child.
Biting his lower lip and apparently trying to fight off tears, Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins said during a late-morning news conference, “We are handling this as a homicide investigation.”
Zahra Baker was reported missing Saturday. But Adkins said Tuesday morning, “We cannot confirm that anyone (outside the household) has seen Zahra in the last month.”
Adkins said police have charged Elisa Baker, 42, with felony obstruction of justice, in connection with her admission under questioning Monday night that she had written the ransom note. The police chief said Baker then asked for an attorney and did not answer additional questions.
Adkins said police continue to try to form a timeline to determine when the last time Zahra Baker was seen by anyone outside the household. Neighbors told the Charlotte Observer on Monday that they had not seen the girl in the six weeks that her parents, Adam and Elisa Baker, had been living in their current house in Hickory.
The Bakers moved to Hickory from the Caldwell County town of Hudson.
Kayla Rotenberry, who lives in Hudson, told the Observer on Tuesday that she saw a man visit Elisa and Zahra Baker at least once.
After the man left, Kayla Rotenberry said she called Elisa Baker and asked, “Who was that?”
“Elisa told me it was someone from DSS,” Rotenberry said.
She said the investigator came because DSS had received reports that Zahra had bruises on her body and was being kept in her room most of the time. Rotenberry’s fiancee, Bobby Green, told the Observer he saw bruises on the young girl.
“That little girl was something else,” Rotenberry said. “All she wanted was a mom, and she got one who was crazy.”
She said Tuesday that Caldwell County’s DSS didn’t find anything wrong because “Zahra wouldn’t say anything.”
The case surfaced Saturday afternoon, when Adam Baker called Hickory police and reported his daughter was missing.
But that wasn’t the first time police had visited the Bakers’ home that day. Authorities were called to the house about 5 a.m. Saturday, in response to a mulch fire in the yard and a report that gasoline was poured into an SUV.
A search warrant says officers found a ransom note on the SUV, addressed to a “Mr. Coffey,” who was identified as Adam Baker’s boss, Mark Coffey. The mostly unpunctuated note read: “Mr. Coffey, you like being in control now who is in control we have your daughter and your … son is next unless you do what is asked 1000000 ($1 million) unmarked will be in touch soon.”
The words “no cops” also were written on the note.
Police checked on Coffey and were told his family was fine.
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