By Terri Sanginiti

The News Journal

A 44-year-old woman was arrested following a lengthy investigation into the death of her husband who died last year from antifreeze poisoning, state police said Friday.

Jamie L. Baker, of the 2000 block of Bryn Zion Road west of Smyrna, was charged Thursday with first-degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon during a felony, said Master Cpl. Gary Fournier.

Baker's 42-year-old husband, James D. Baker II, was found dead Sept. 16 on the bedroom floor of his home by his wife, police said.

An autopsy determined that the victim's kidneys contained a substance suspected to be ethylene glycol, a chemical found in antifreeze. If taken in small dosages, ethylene glycol will crystallize in the kidneys and eventually kill a person, police said in court records.

Evidence recovered at the time from the death scene by detectives consisted of pills, syringes and a box containing several bottles of liquid steroids, Fournier said.

When the bottles of steroids were tested at a laboratory and found to contain ethylene glycol, the medical examiner ruled the death homicide by poisoning.

Homicide detectives investigated further and conducted interviews which indicated that James Baker had ordered the steroids in June with a friend over the Internet, and had them shipped to the friend's house.

The friend told detectives that the steroid bottles were not tampered with when they arrived, because they always checked for tampering.

The two would divide the bottles between themselves and Baker would take his portion back to his home and place them in a locked toolbox in a closet, Fournier said.

Detectives, armed with a search warrant Thursday, went to the Baker home and took the victim's widow back to Troop 3 in Camden to interview, according to court records.

It was then that Jamie Baker told detectives how she had used a hypodermic syringe and extracted antifreeze from a container stored in the garage and then injected several bottles of the steroids with the antifreeze, police said in court records.

The woman gave no reason for doing what she did, Fournier said.

According to Baker's obituary on the Hicks Home for Funerals site in Elkton, Md., Baker was a competitive weightlifter who had worked as an environmental specialist for 22 years at the DuPont Experimental Station. He had been married to his wife for 21 years and had two daughters.

Jamie Baker is being held without bail in Baylor Women's Correctional Institution.

Contact Terri Sanginiti at (302) 324-2771 or tsanginiti@delawareonline.com.