Haunted Crime Scenes: The Murder of Samuel T. Baker
Mortally Wounded
Was a Confederate War Veteran Who Was Found Mortally Wounded in a Savannah Cemetery the Victim of a Botched Robbery, a Police Conspiracy, or a Drunken Accident?
SAVANNAH, Ga. — November 16, 1901
As usual, Samuel T. Baker cut through Colonial Park Cemetery on his way home from another late night at his office. At midnight, on the far side of the dark graveyard, something horrible happened to him. A half-hour later, three young boys found the 62-year-old Confederate veteran lying in a pool of blood. Mr. Baker was alive, but barely. His skull had been smashed, both of his eyes were black, and his speech was slurred.
The panicked boys ran to the nearby Savannah police barracks in the 300 block of East Oglethorpe Avenue, on the northeast corner of the cemetery, and summoned help.
What happened in the next few hours would shock Mr. Baker's family and leave a stain on an honorable man's name that has lasted for more than a century.