Murder suspect back in court

STAUNTON — For the second time in 11 years, Kenneth Wayne Baker is working his way through the court system on charges he killed a woman.

Baker, 42, faces a pre-trial hearing today after being indicted in July on a first-degree murder charge in the 1998 slaying of Ruth Naomi Mays, 48.

Doctors deemed Baker incompetent to stand trial from 1999 to 2003, forcing authorities, by statute, to dismiss charges against him. Authorities brought charges anew after a recent Western State Hospital evaluation found Baker had the capacity to understand proceedings and participate in his defense.

That examination stemmed from a separate case against Baker. Authorities jailed him in June on a charge of aggravated sexual battery after a nursing home worker at Living Waters in Fishersville called authorities to report he assaulted an elderly woman who suffered from extreme dementia.

Authorities found Mays on June 12, 1998, stuffed into a septic tank at the home of Baker’s neighbor on Crawford Drive in Churchville, just blocks from the woman’s home. Mays, missing for four months, had a bullet in her head that a state forensics lab later ruled was fired from a gun belonging to Baker.

Letters to the court from Western State detail Baker’s history of psychiatric treatment, which began at age 6, and two head injuries Baker suffered in car crashes..

Baker most recently worked at Shoney’s in Staunton, where he was dismissed when charged in June and previously worked eight years at McQuay International in Verona.

He is being held at Middle River Regional Jail.