Two Defendants Could Be Released to Home Confinement in Baker Shooting
It’s been almost two years since three teens allegedly shot a Preston Hollow woman while she sat in her car, and recent court documentation reveals that two of the suspects could be released on home confinement.
In May 2020, Leslie Squair Baker was found shot in the driveway of her Royalton Drive home. She was taken to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Baker was the director of marketing at Texas Health Center for Diagnostic Surgery in Plano, and was a W.T. White High School graduate.
A few days later, police announced they had arrested a 16-year-old male, later identified as Anthony Jermaine Lewis, in connection with the shooting, and he had been charged with capital murder.
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“The investigation revealed the suspect attempted to carjack the victim and killed her during the commission of the crime,” Dallas police said at the time. “Detectives were able to tie the juvenile to two additional carjacking offenses, one in Richardson and one in Dallas. What was learned from homicide detectives was shared with uniformed officers from Project Safe Neighborhood.”
The Project Safe Neighborhood officers located the suspect and arrested him after a high-speed pursuit, finding him in hiding in a shed in a backyard of the Wolf Creek neighborhood near Camp Wisdom. Two handguns, including the alleged murder weapon, were found in the shed as well.
Lewis, now 18, and a second defendant, Antony Isaiah Taylor, could be released to home confinement with electronic leg monitors, but they both have hefty bonds to post first, the Dallas County Sheriff’s office said.
Lewis has four charges, with $500,000 bonds on a capital murder charge and two aggravated robbery counts, as well as a $25,000 bond for evading arrest.
“He then has a hold for the ELM program,” explained detective Raul Reyna. “When the bonds are posted, he will go to the ELM program. Without the bonds, he doesn’t get released. Bonds come first.”
Taylor faces two counts — one for aggravated assault, and a capital murder charge, with bonds of $100,000 and $750,000 each, respectively. Last October, his attorneys filed a motion to reduce his bail, arguing that he was only present at the time of Baker’s shooting.
In the motion (which provides more details regarding the shooting), Taylor said that Lewis got out of the car the three were in to approach Baker, and when he did so, the third defendant — Deng Chen Ajack — “slid over the center console of the car after Lewis exited the vehicle, so that Ajack was then in the driver’s seat.”
That move, Taylor’s lawyers argue, was indicative of Ajack’s alleged knowledge of Lewis’ intent, and his intent to serve as the getaway driver. Taylor insisted that he never got out of the car.
In an interview before a polygraph test, Taylor said that he warned Lewis when he was told of the plan.
“In response to Lewis’ stated intentions to go rob someone of their vehicle, Antony stated, ‘you’re tripping, you’re gonna crash out,’” court documents revealed, adding that Taylor said he meant, in other words, that Lewis was doing something wrong and would get caught. “Perhaps most significant is the meaning Antony imbued with these statements … ‘They knew the way I was talking about ‘they tripping’ that I wasn’t about to go rob nobody.’”
The third defendant, Ajack, also remains behind bars, but is also facing several parole violations for other infractions, court records indicate.
