Andrew Wolfson and Joe Sonka | Courier Journal

Billy Kobin, Louisville Courier Journal

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The family of a man pardoned by Gov. Matt Bevin for a homicide and other crimes in a fatal 2014 Knox County home invasion raised $21,500 at a political fundraiser last year to retire debt from Bevin’s 2015 gubernatorial campaign.

The brother and sister-in-law of offender Patrick Brian Baker also gave $4,000 to Bevin’s campaign on the day of the fundraiser, according to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance database.

A photo of Bevin attending the July 26, 2018, fundraiser at the home of Eric and Kathryn Baker in Corbin was published six days later in a local paper, the News Journal.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Jackie Steele, who prosecuted Patrick Baker and other defendants for the 2014 death of Donald Mills, told The Courier Journal on Wednesday that it would be an “understatement to say I am aggrieved” by Bevin’s pardon.

Steele identified Patrick Baker as the brother of Eric Baker, who hosted the Bevin fundraiser at his Corbin home.

The Dec. 6 order was one of 428 pardons and commutations Bevin issued since his narrow loss in November to Democrat Andy Beshear, who was sworn into office Tuesday.

The beneficiaries include one offender convicted of raping a child, another who hired a hit man to kill his business partner and a third who killed his parents.

Steele noted Baker served two years of a 19-year sentence on his conviction for reckless homicide, robbery, impersonating a peace officer and tampering with evidence.

Kentucky Corrections Department

Steele, who, like Bevin, is a Republican, also cited the fact that two of Baker’s co-defendants are still in prison.

"What makes Mr. Baker any different than the other two?" he asked.

Answering that question, he said he believes Baker was pardoned while the others remain locked up because Baker’s family has given generously to Bevin. State records show that Victoria Baker, who lives at the same Corbin address where the fundraiser was held, donated $1,000 in 2015 and that Kathryn Baker gave another $500 to Bevin’s reelection in March.

In a pardon order Dec. 6, Bevin said Baker had made “a series of unwise decisions in his adult life” and that his drug addiction “resulted in his association with people that in turn led to his arrest, prosecution and conviction for murder.”

Bevin wrote that the evidence supporting Baker’s conviction is “sketchy at best. I am not convinced that justice has been served on the death of Donald Mills, nor am I convinced that the evidence has proven the involvement of Patrick Baker as a murderer.”

(Although the pardon says Baker was convicted of murder, court records show that was amended to reckless homicide.)

Bevin commuted his sentence to time served and gave him a pardon.

State prison records showed that Baker, 41, was still at Northpoint Training Center on Wednesday.

If not for Bevin’s clemency order, Baker would not have been eligible for parole until July 2027. The minimum date for expiration of his sentence would have been January 2034.

Eric Baker could not be reached for comment. A woman who identified herself as Kathryn Baker immediately hung up on a Courier Journal reporter Wednesday night after he mentioned the pardon of Patrick Baker and did not answer follow-up phone calls.

There was no answer at Eric and Kathryn Baker's listed address Thursday morning when a reporter rang the buzzer at the gate.

Ben Tobin

The manager for Bevin’s reelection campaign, Davis Paine, and the governor's former chief of staff, Blake Brickman, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Judge David Williams, the former president of the Kentucky Senate, sentenced Baker in 2017. He said that in 30 years of practice: “I’ve never seen a more compelling or complete case … the evidence was just overwhelming.”

Steele said in an email that Baker was the most culpable of the defendants because “he was the one who shot Mr. Mills.”

According to his indictment, Baker and co-defendant Christopher Bradley Wagner posed as law enforcement officials to force their way into Mills’ home, where they fought with Mills before Baker shot him.

They also restrained Mills' wife and took various items from the house. Three children were also in the home at the time of the crime.

Wagner, who was sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter and robbery, is still serving his sentence, as is Elijah Message, who got 20 years for second-degree manslaughter and robbery.

Bevin issued 428 pardons and commutations from Election Day through the end of his term Monday, according to the Secretary of State's Office.

He pardoned Micah Schoettle, who was convicted last year of raping a 9-year-old child in Kenton County and sentenced last year to 23 years in prison.

Bevin wrote that Schoettle was convicted of a heinous crime "based only on testimony that was not supported by any physical evidence.” He added that the case “was investigated and prosecuted in a manner that was sloppy at best. I do not believe that the charges against Mr. Schoettle are true.”

But that explanation infuriated Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders, who prosecuted Schoettle.

“So, I guess Matt Bevin thinks he’s smarter than the 12 citizens that heard the actual evidence,” Sanders said. “I’ve got news for him: Child molesting rarely happens in front of witnesses or leaves physical evidence. If we didn’t pursue those cases, 99% of child rapists would never be prosecuted.”

"This irresponsible manipulation of the justice system is why the public’s confidence is constantly eroded. No one from the Bevin administration gave any warning this was coming. If they had, we’d have shown them why these rapists and killers were behind bars to begin with. These pardons regurgitate false statements of defense attorneys that juries of Kentucky citizens obviously didn’t believe."

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Matt Bevin, Kentucky governor, through the years in photos

Bevin also pardoned:

Kathy Harless , who was convicted of murder in Grayson County in 2003 and sentenced to life in prison after she gave birth in a flea market outhouse and threw the baby in a cesspool. Bevin wrote that she had "paid enough for the death of her newborn son.”

Blake Walker, who was convicted in 2003 in Adair County of killing his parents, Barbara Peterson, 55, a Lindsey Wilson College teacher, and her husband, Brian Walker, 54, who worked in construction and was a former Peace Corps volunteer, and leaving their bodies in a basement. He was 16 at the time.

Bevin wrote that Walker, now 33, is "blessed by a loving and forgiving family and it is this alone that tips the delicate balance in the direction of his request."

He also said that while Walker committed a crime "for which only God can provide true forgiveness," he was commuting Walker's sentence "so that he can proceed with his life, unrestricted in his efforts to serve the world and the needs of others in a way that would best honor the lives and life work of his mother and father."

But Adair Commonwealth’s Attorney Brian Wright, who prosecuted Walker, said he was "disgusted, frustrated and upset" by the pardon, which he called a travesty. He said Bevin's office never consulted him about it, and that Walker agreed to the sentence in a plea agreement.

Irvin Edge, who was convicted of murder and solicitation to murder for hiring a hit man to kill his business partner in 1991 in Daviess County. According to court records, the killer came to victim Charles Westerfield’s door, asked to see him, and then shot and killed him in front of his family members. Edge was sentenced to life, and in 2004, the Parole Board ordered him to serve out that sentence.

Bevin gave no reason for the pardon.

Leif Halvorsen, who was sentenced to death in Fayette County for the murder of three people — Jacqueline Green, Joe Norman and Joey Durham — in 1983.

Bevin commuted Halvorsen's two death sentences to life with the possibility of parole, stating only that “Leif has a powerful voice that needs to be heard by more people.”

Kurt Robert Smith, who as a 17-year-old was convicted in 2002 in Fayette County of the murder of his 6-week-old baby, Blake, whose brain was so swollen that the seams between the bones in his skull were pushed half an inch apart, a state medical examiner testified.

Bevin said Smith had been "duly punished" for a crime 18 years ago. "I am confident that he will become a productive member of society and encourage him to use his life experience to educate and help others," Bevin wrote.

Daniel Scott Grubb, who was sentenced to life in prison in Knox County in 2010 for the murder of Jeremy Johnson. According to news accounts, Grubb claimed both were drunk when he threw a cinder block at him, and after finding his body the next day, panicked and enlisted a friend to bury the body.

Bevin wrote that "drugs, alcohol and a tragic accident resulted in the death of one friend perpetrated by another. Daniel Grubb made a series of bad decisions that forever altered the lives of many people in a negative way.”

Bevin said the pardon came with “the expectation that Mr. Grubb will live his life as a model citizen in a way that will bring honor to his family and to the memory of his friend."

Bevin conditioned one pardon — of Michael Hardy, who was convicted in Warren County of the 2014 wanton murder of Jeremy Pryor — on Hardy refraining from any consumption of alcohol and sharing his story “in schools, churches and other gatherings no less than six times per year for at least the next 20 years.”

“I do not believe that society, as a whole, or the memory of Jeremy Pryor more specifically, will be best served by the continued incarceration of Mr. Hardy,” Bevin wrote.

He said he hoped Hardy's pardon would provide “a teachable lesson for others of all ages (but especially young people).”