Mike Baker

Mar 2, 2024 | staradvertiser.com | Mike Baker

SALEM, Ore. >> Three years ago, when Oregon voters approved a pioneering plan to decriminalize hard drugs, advocates looking to halt the jailing of drug users believed they were on the edge of a revolution that would soon sweep across the country. But even as the state’s landmark law took effect in 2021, the scourge of fentanyl was taking hold. Overdoses soared as the state stumbled in its efforts to fund enhanced treatment programs.

Oct 13, 2023 | nzherald.co.nz | Mike Baker |Mike Baker

Less than a year after losing her son in a murder that captivated the true crime community, Stacy Chapin spent three days navigating CrimeCon. Stacy Chapin walked into a conference ballroom at the annual CrimeCon gathering in Orlando and let out a gasp. Nearly 3,000 people were packed inside, all to hear a college professor from Alabama conduct a “forensic analysis” of how Chapin’s son and three of his college friends had been brutally killed in Idaho last year.

Jun 14, 2023 | boston.com | Mike Baker

Crime After four students were stabbed to death in a house near the college campus, investigators scooped up data and forensic evidence, hoping for leads. A new DNA technique finally brought a breakthrough.

Jun 11, 2023 | nzherald.co.nz | Mike Baker

In the weeks after four University of Idaho students were found slaughtered in a house near campus last November, a growing roster of investigators desperately searching for answers had yet to identify a suspect or even find the murder weapon. Publicly, authorities were assuring worried residents in the small university town that they were making progress. Privately, they were exhausting their prospects, scouring through the backgrounds of those with the thinnest possible connections to the case.