By Joe Johnson
A Superior Court grand jury has indicted 49-year-old Edrick Lamont Faust for the murder of University of Georgia law school student Tara Louise Baker that had gone unsolved for 23 years until the Athens man was arrested in May of this year.
On Friday the grand jury returned a 12-count indictment charging Faust with malice and felony murder, rape, aggravated sodomy, arson, and other crimes associated with Baker’s death on Jan. 19, 2001.
The indictment alleges that Faust broke into Baker’s home in the Deer Park neighborhood and killed the 23-year-old student by stabbing her with a knife and strangling her with a cord. He also allegedly raped and sodomized Baker and set fire to her apartment in an attempt to conceal his crimes.
The case went unsolved for over two decades —mostly because the arson fire destroyed the crime scene and physical evidence — until after the Athens-Clarke County Police Department in September of last year partnered with the newly-formed Georgia Bureau of Investigation Cold Case Unit for a comprehensive review of the case.
Biological evidence and DNA science along with new technology all played a role in solving the case, according to GBI Director Chris Hosey.
At the time of the murder, Faust was living just a couple blocks away from Baker’s apartment on Fawn Drive.
Faust is being detained without bail and is to return to court on Sept. 17 to be arraigned.
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