Evaluation: Slaying suspect can stand trial

STAUNTON – A recent evaluation completed by two University of Virginia doctors listed a suspect in a Churchville killing as competent to stand trial.

A first-degree murder trial date is expected to be set today for Kenneth Wayne Baker, more than a half-dozen years after doctors deemed him incompetent to stand trial in the killing of Ruth Naomi Mays, 48.

Authorities found Mays on June 12, 1998, stuffed into a septic tank at the home of Baker’s neighbor on Crawford Drive in Churchville, a short distance from the woman’s home. Mays had been shot four times in the abdomen and twice in the head, according to an autopsy. She’d been missing for four months.

A state forensics lab ruled the shots were fired from a gun belonging to Baker.

Doctors deemed Baker incompetent to stand trial from 1999 to 2003, forcing authorities to dismiss charges.

Authorities charged Baker again after a June 2009 Western State Hospital evaluation found he had the capacity to understand proceedings and participate in his defense.

Baker’s public defender asked for a neurocognitive assessment through a U.Va. forensic clinical psychologist and clinical neuropsychologist. The report arrived at Augusta County Circuit Court in April.

“There is no reason to believe, based upon all available data, that his enduring delusion would interfere with his ability to stand trial,” the doctors wrote in their report to Judge Victor V. Ludwig.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Rupen Shah and public defender Duane Barron declined to comment on the latest evaluation.

Baker maintained delusions that he had two sons and that an ex-wife hid them from him, according to court records.

Baker arrived for his evaluation “slightly disheveled” and slow to initiate but cooperated with evaluators’ questioning and tests, the records said.

Baker first received psychiatric care as a 6-year-old after exhibiting aggressive behavior toward first-grade classmates, according to court documents.

He was committed to the now-defunct DeJarnette Center for 11 months.

Baker has a long history of drug abuse, according to the records.

He graduated from high school in 1985, and in 1989 landed a factory job at McQuay International in Verona. He was fired in 1997 for missed work days, according to court documents.

A self-described “daredevil,” Baker was involved in four traffic crashes, one of which left him with frontal lobe damage to his brain, according to court records.

“He reported that he occasionally hears the voices and experiences visual depictions of his deceased grandmother and of a close friend who died in a motor vehicle crash,” the doctors’ report stated.

The voices “always tell me to live my life,” Baker told doctors.

Asked about an insanity defense, Baker told doctors that sometimes people “blow a gasket,” according to the report. “Sometimes in life people just snap,” Baker said. “They snap and need psychiatric help. Then they go back to Western for another evaluation by a doctor and a judge decides they may stay on meds.”

In addition to first-degree murder, a trial date also is to be set today on an aggravated sexual battery charge against Baker. He is accused of fondling a 97-year-old Fishersville woman at Living Waters, a convalescent home where Baker resided after leaving Western State last year.