'I just wanted to enjoy my high': defendant pleads his case
- Jamie Duffy
- Sep 12
- 4 min read
ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. ---Derrick Baker was looking for a little sympathy as he sat on the stand this week, testifying in his own trial.
The 53-year-old admitted crack cocaine addict told the jury of his peers that he thought the house he burgled was “abandoned.”
His real goal was some peace and a source of water.
“I wanted to enjoy my high without any disturbance,” he said.
On the stand and under questioning from his attorney, Tyree Barfield, Baker took the court through the story of his day, March 27, 2023, the day he broke into a home on Wayne Trace, he said to find a water source to mix his drugs.
Although defense attorneys pretty much hate it, there’s been a trend lately toward the accused taking the stand. You might even say, the last stand.
In Baker’s case, his confession seemed to worsen things. How could the jurors relate to a 53-year-old man who cut off his ankle bracelet in January after a hospital trip, so eager he was to get back to his old drug life on the outside?
He’d been remanded to Allen County Community Corrections Residential Services Center, which is considered a much better deal than jail or prison,
“My addiction was the bigger part of me,” he said, as if that was going to be OK with the jury.
On the stand, Baker explained how he cooked the drugs. Then he talked about the Mace he always kept on his finger. That day, he needed “a source of water” to mix his drugs.
WATCH THE COURT TESTIMONY HERE:
He first tried to use the water at the nearby Marathon gas station, but people got frustrated when he took too long in the bathroom. Then he offered to clean the bathroom, but the offer wasn’t accepted.
After that rejection, he headed to this home and sat on the back porch. When he ran out of drugs, he reached into the trash to check for water bottles and then decided he needed to go inside.
When he couldn’t jimmy the door with a credit card because of the weather stripping, he grabbed an available shovel to remove the weatherstripping and then used his shoulder, he said.
He was confronted by one of the men who lived there.
'What are you doing here?’, they both asked the other. Baker said the man made a gesture
"So I maced him," Baker said.
While the victim was probably trying to recover from the pepper spray, Barker noticed a cell phone and six bucks.
“So I took it,” Barker said in court.
Remember the fairy tale about the Three Bears? The intruder,Goldilocks, wanted some porridge and a comfortable place to sleep.
In this story, Baker was still hoping for place to relax and get high, but he worried the house might be full of squatters, the kind of people he doesn’t trust.
Taking the red-handled shovel with him, he climbed upstairs to investigate.
He noticed a light on in one of the rooms and used the shovel to push open the already open door.
“That’s when I seen two men in a bed and I thought ‘oh s—t,” Baker blurted out, only to be admonished by presiding judge, David Zent, who put the kibosh on any more cursing. Barker apologized.
Baker and Deputy prosecutor Jamie Groves argued and talked over one another to the point where Zent had to step in as a referee and remind them that they had to wait until the other one was finished.
Groves caught Baker in several lies, such as lying about the men in the house sexually touching him. Another fib was that he’d already been to the Wayne Trace home twice before.
When the cops showed up at the Marathon station- the maced victim had run there with stinging eyes to report the incident- Baker was running down Maywood Avenue, leaving behind a pink can of mace in the middle of Wayne Trace, according to the probable cause affidavit submitted in April 2023.
Baker refused to identify himself and prevaricated about his name, social security number and date of birth.
For some reason, he called himself “Saffon Deion.”
There were three warrants already out for his arrest, two out of Allen County and a fugitive warrant out of Grant county for battery and robbery and he was worried he might have to go to jail.
What made it worse, Baker had more drugs in a pocket the police had missed even though he’d been patted down. He decide to ingest while he sat in the squad car.
With the judge's permission, Baker demonstrated how he twisted his torso and, with cuffed hands, managed to pull out the drugs and eat them.
“I put them in my mouth and started chewing on them until they were dissolved,” Barker stated.
Baker’s last bit on the stand had to do with describing squatters.
He thought the man he maced was a squatter because “his feet were filthy” and his clothing looked like it was stolen.
“He definitely looked like a squatter to me. Homeless people are those who sleep on the outside or at the Rescue Mission or in a tent versus your squatters who will go into an empty house or an empty building.”
Not long after closing arguments Wednesday afternoon, Baker was found guilty of Level 2 Felony burglary with a deadly weapon, Level 3 Felony burglary resulting in bodily injury, Felony 3 robbery resulting in bodily injury, misdemeanor false informing, misdemeanor paraphernalia possession and a charge for being a habitual offender.
The deadly weapon wasn't the Mace. It was the shovel.
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