SHOCKER! Tara Baker Murder, 20-Years earlier, 5-Miles From Laken Riley Murder Scene; TRIAL UPDATE

Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan

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True Crime

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

Update on Tara Baker Homicide. Tara Baker was a law student at UGA when she was murdered on January 19, 2001. Her apartment was set on fire to cover-up the murder. It took nearly 10 years to get a death certificate and more than another 10 to arrest a suspect. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the case and why the trial of Edrick Lamont Faust, scheduled to begin in October, 2025, has been moved to January 2026.

Transcript Highlights
00:01.05 Introduction

02:34.58 Tara Baker, working and going to law school

05:01.75 Murders of Tara Baker and Laken Riley were less than 5 miles apart

10:08.02 Death Certificate is a "marker"

15:32.75 911 call was for an apartment fire

20:02.45 Firefighters have to be aware of their surroundings

24:56.80 Clothing might not burn - completely

29:56.47 Looking for what isn't destroyed by fire

33:17.54 Strap muscles in neck can indicate strangling

39:06.13 Fire used after the fact

43:42.43 Conclusion

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:05.6	Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Moore.
0:09.9	Look, I was a normal kid growing up.
0:13.0	My favorite movies when I was a kid were probably, let me see, in this order.
0:23.2	It would have to be chitty, chitty, bang, bang.
0:30.4	Immediately after that, and a very close to first would have to be the actual Willie Wonka movie.
0:33.6	I'm not talking about the Johnny Depp thing that was like a nightmare to me.
0:35.9	Those were my two favorites.
0:39.1	And I have to qualify that by saying I was a normal kid because I did actually like stuff like that. But I got to tell you, one movie that had a lasting
0:45.3	impact on me other than the birds, which I saw to drive in when I was little and scared
0:50.2	the hell out of me, was the movie The Paper Chase.
0:55.5	I love that movie.
0:56.7	I don't know why it is.
0:57.8	I think it didn't have so much to do with all the associated characters around it.
1:03.3	It had to do with John Housman's character because I saw that and I thought even at that
1:08.6	young age when it came out in 1973, I thought, wow,
1:13.0	wouldn't it be great to be a lawyer?
1:15.1	And it didn't hurt that the man in my life that I idolized the most was my uncle who wound
1:24.9	up being a prosecutor in the New Orleans area and eventually became a judge, a district judge, and then eventually an appellate judge.
1:35.1	And it just seemed like a magical environment.
1:38.5	It was harsh.
1:39.4	It was hard.
	...

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