Zahra Baker was 10 when she was killed in North Carolina in 2010.
Early years
Zahra Clare Baker was born on November 16, 1999, in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, to Emily Dietrich and Adam Baker. After Zahra’s birth, Dietrich experienced postpartum depression.
The couple separated when Zahra was eight months old, and Dietrich gave Adam full custody. In 2004, Adam moved with Zahra and his parents to Giru, Queensland, where he worked at a sugar mill.
In 2005, Zahra was diagnosed with bone cancer. She later developed lung cancer. Her treatment led to the amputation of the lower part of one leg, and she also used hearing aids. Adam later met Elisa Fairchild, a woman from western North Carolina, on the IMVU website.
Fairchild traveled to Queensland, and the two soon married. At the time of that marriage, Elisa was still legally married to another man. Zahra’s cancer went into remission in 2008, and she then moved to the United States with Adam and Elisa.
The family settled in Hickory, North Carolina, after living in more than one residence in Catawba and Caldwell counties. Zahra attended public school for a time, but she was later withdrawn for what the family described as homeschooling.
It was never established whether homeschooling actually took place. Authorities and others later suspected she had been removed from school after abuse concerns were raised about Elisa. Neighbors said Elisa was physically and emotionally abusive and neglected the child.
Two teachers went to the home after Zahra appeared at school in Hudson with a black eye while she was in fourth grade. Child Protective Services workers from both counties visited the family’s homes several times before Zahra was killed.
Separate reports involving Elisa’s treatment of her own children dated back to 1999.
Missing report
On October 9, 2010, the case changed rapidly. At 5:30 a.m., Elisa Baker called 911 to report a fire behind the family’s home in Hickory. When officers arrived, they found a ransom note and noticed the smell of gasoline coming from Adam Baker’s company vehicle, a Chevrolet Tahoe.
At 2 p.m. the same day, Adam Baker called 911 to report Zahra missing. He said a $1 million ransom note had been found on the truck during the earlier fire and that it was addressed to his boss and landlord, Mark Coffey.
Adam told dispatchers that whoever started the fire may have intended to take Coffey’s daughter and had confused Zahra with her. He said Coffey’s daughter was safe with her family. Adam also said he last saw Zahra at 2:30 a.m. and had left for work early that morning.
Investigators quickly focused on the household. Elisa took a polygraph test early in the investigation and failed it. She was questioned about whether she had harmed Zahra, whether she knew who had, and whether she had written the ransom note.
On October 10, search dogs examined the Bakers’ home and both family vehicles, the Tahoe and a sedan. The dogs alerted to the scent of human remains in both vehicles, and officers collected swabs from material they believed could be blood.
Soon afterward, Elisa was arrested on several unrelated counts, including communicating threats, writing bad checks, larceny, and driving with a revoked license.
She was later charged with obstruction of justice after admitting that she had written the ransom note, which had diverted the investigation.
In late October, a Catawba County judge raised her bond from $40,000 to $65,000 after hearing testimony that she had considered leaving North Carolina and had failed to appear in earlier court matters.
What police found
By that stage, investigators were also receiving statements about Zahra’s death itself. Elisa’s aunt, Bonzetta Winkler, said Elisa told her that Zahra had been sick for two weeks before she died and that the adults panicked afterward.
Winkler said Elisa gave differing versions of what happened next, at one point saying she and Adam dismembered the body and hid the remains, and at another saying Adam did it alone after Zahra died.
Elisa also told police that Zahra had died on September 24, 2010, more than two weeks before she was reported missing.
A major break came when Elisa told her attorney, Lisa Dubs, that Zahra’s prosthetic leg had been left in a dumpster at the Fox Ridge Apartments in Hickory. Dubs passed that information to investigators.
In late October, officers found a prosthetic leg off a road in Caldwell County, a few miles from one of Elisa’s former residences. Police matched its serial number to Zahra’s medical records from Australia, confirming it belonged to her.
In November, Elisa began taking officers to sites in Catawba and Caldwell counties where Zahra’s remains had been left. Investigators recovered numerous bones, although Zahra’s head was not found until years later.
Elisa also told police that Zahra’s mattress had been thrown into a dumpster, and officers later confirmed that a mattress matching the description had reached a landfill.
She directed them to another dumpster behind a grocery store in Hudson, where she and Adam had discarded a car cover and a bed cover used to hide and move the body.
She further said body parts would be found in the bathtub drain trap and that plastic gloves she used would be in her bathroom. Because a specific medical cause of death could not be determined, authorities classified Zahra’s death as an undetermined violent homicide.
Charges and plea
Investigators said cell phone tower records placed only Elisa Baker, not Adam, in the areas where Zahra’s remains were recovered. Based on that evidence, authorities concluded that Elisa killed and dismembered Zahra on September 24, 2010, and disposed of the remains the following day.
On February 22, 2011, a Catawba County grand jury indicted Elisa on a charge of second-degree murder with aggravating circumstances.
Prosecutors listed five factors: a history of physical, verbal, and psychological abuse; efforts to hide the child from her family before and after the crime; desecration of the body to hinder the investigation and prosecution; Zahra’s youth and physical disability; and Elisa’s position of trust as a parent figure.
Prosecutors said a first-degree murder charge would have been filed if Elisa had not led officers to the remains.
Adam Baker denied involvement in his daughter’s death. The district attorney said the State had no evidence connecting anyone but Elisa to the killing, and Adam was not charged with murder.
He later faced separate counts of identity theft and obtaining property under false pretenses after authorities said he used another man’s identity to get utility service. A judge ordered him not to leave North Carolina without notice, required electronic monitoring, and directed him to report weekly to immigration officials.
As publicity around the case grew, Elisa’s lawyer asked to move the murder trial out of Catawba County. A judge approved a change of venue on August 1, 2011.
Before a new trial site was selected, Elisa pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on September 15, 2011, and received a prison sentence of 15 to 18 years. On March 4, 2013, a federal judge added a 120-month sentence after she was convicted in a separate prescription drug conspiracy case.
