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Attorneys deliver opening arguments in Baker case
By Justin Wier
YOUNGSTOWN
Prosecutor Nicholas Brevetta told jurors they will hear from multiple independent witnesses who will place Nahdia Baker, 30, of Stone Mountain, Ga., at the scene of an arson and attempted murder on May 24, 2014.
“We will call witness after witness ... and their testimony, though they don’t even know each other ... it all meshes together,” Brevetta said.
Baker is the last of six people who prosecutors say were part of a drug ring on the East Side responsible for at least four murders in 2011 and 2012. The first three of those people – Michael Austin, Hakeem Henderson and DeWaylyn Colvin, were indicted in 2013. All are serving lengthy prison sentences, with Austin and Henderson each convicted in a trial, and Colvin pleading guilty.
Baker, along with Vincent Moorer and Melvin Johnson Jr., were all indicted in 2015 for their roles in the drug ring. Moorer and Johnson were also convicted in trials and are also serving lengthy prison sentences.
Baker faces several charges related to the arson and attempted murder. Her trial began in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Monday with Judge John M. Durkin presiding.
Defense attorney Walter Madison, who is representing Baker, held up a stack of poster boards displayed by prosecutors listing the offenses with which his client was charged.
“This is their burden,” he said. “This is what they have promised.”
He kept his opening remarks short.
“I don’t have a whole lot to say because I’m quite anxious to see how they’re going to [make their case],” he said.
He advised jurors to pay attention to what they hear, but even more attention to what they don’t hear.
Sandra Sacui, the first witness, was visiting a friend on the West Side on May, 24, 2014.
She remembers because she saw a crime committed. “It was like no other day,” Sacui told the court.
She was sitting outside of her friend’s house in her car, talking on the phone when she saw a car pull up to a vacant house down the street. A woman got out of the car’s passenger seat, walked over to a car parked in front of the vacant house, made what Sacui described as a waving motion and moments later the car burst into flames.
The woman, who Sacui identified as Nahdia Baker in court Tuesday, got back into the car and took off.