Written by John Jarvis, The Marion Star
MARION — A class of senior social work students at The Ohio State University at Marion sat with their eyes fixed upon Michael Baker as he told them his story.
Baker, 38, is an inmate at Marion Correctional Institution. Eight years ago in Richland County, he pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated vehicular homicide that stemmed from an impaired Baker driving an automobile through a guardrail and into the living room of a residence, killing Lucy Taylor 47, on Dec. 6, 2007.
“I was suffering from a serious broken heart, and I made some bad choices one night, and caused the death of somebody,” he told the students in Teri Kinsway’s class.
The instructor’s objective in having Baker visit the class was to examine what might have helped Baker and others who have committed other criminal offenses to make better decisions.
“The thing I wanted these students to think about was ... ‘How many points could there have been a different outcome because of social workers?’ ” Kinsway said after Baker headed back to MCI; he is scheduled release in 14 months. “I think there’s probably opportunities for us to have made a difference, and I want the students to really perk up and think about, ‘OK, when I’m working in mental health, when I’m working in a school, when I’m working in addiction, I really need to tune in’ because some of these folks could end up being Mr. Baker."
Rough childhood
Baker spoke to the students about his upbringing in Little Kentucky, a depressed area of Mansfield hit hard by the closing of a steel mill. His mother “was busy all the time, so I was pretty much left with dad.”
“I grew up thinking like my father hated me, like I was a burden to him,” Baker said. “I remember seeing a lot of violence in my dad. He was always angry, always upset. I think I was petrified. When I wasn’t petrified at a young age, I was wondering how I could kill this man."
He described his father as a heavy drinker, adding that on one occasion he saw “him nearly beat to death over some money that someone owed him. Just crap like that. My mom just tolerated it. He medicated, and she tolerated, and that was just it.”
He said he remembered his father taking him as a child to dogfights and cockfights.
“I remember being way too young ... seeing dogs fight until they die, and chickens fight until they die,” he said. “I remember he would drive around drunk all day in the car. I remember living on pretzel rods from the drive-thru. My dad would go through getting quarts of beer, and a pretzel rod would come whizzing over the (front seat).”
Asked by Warden Jason Bunting, who along with a corrections officer accompanied Baker to the class, whether he was aware such parenting “wasn’t normal,” Baker said he was not.
“I didn’t realize,” he said. “I remember being super embarrassed by my father. Friends, I mentioned? Those were friends at school. They weren’t friends that came over. They’d never come to my house.”
Answering a student’s question about whether anyone ever intervened to help him, he recalled attending three elementary schools as a third-grader, being held back, and a teacher “hugging me.”
The next year, “I know I got special attention from her. ... I was actually excited to go to school because of that woman. But I think it was limited as far as intervening. ... She could only do so much.”
Lack of intervention
He said he did not remember receiving any attention from social service agencies and did not have much social contact.
“There wasn’t anybody that I can think of,” he said. “That was just a way of life. I didn’t know other kids’ houses. My father wasn’t going to take me somewhere. There were just not a lot of options.”
He said he became a father at age 15 and has three daughters.
“I fell in love with my kids,” he said. “They are the most important thing in my life. I have three daughters, and they all turned out wonderful.”
After marrying at about age 18, he and his wife split up, and he maintained a consistent relationship with his daughters with visitation on Wednesdays and every other weekend.
“I was always there,” he said.
He said he learned as he grew up that he had two sisters, and he said his father had led a double life, which Baker said also involved working as a mason and selling cocaine “on the side.”
He said a childhood friend’s father was a marijuana dealer, adding: “That’s where all the read bad decisions started.”
“In 2007, I ended up killing somebody,” he said. “Instantly, I was all over the front page of the newspaper for a while. It was terrifying. (His daughters) instantly became the targets of bullying. My oldest took it really well. She kind of took it on the chin. The others, not so well.
Life behind bars
Baker said he began to change his life at Marion Correctional Institution, undergoing an intensive alcohol treatment program and participating in programs such as Kairos Prison Ministry International, a Christian volunteer ministry led by laypeople.
“I realized I didn’t have to wear my father’s miserable skin anymore,” he said. “I feel like I have choices now that I didn’t have before. I felt trapped. I had a lot of stuff in me I couldn’t get rid of.”
He said in prison he had a 90-minute visit with members of his victim’s family.
“Obviously, the person’s life I took was not intentional,” he said. “To come to find out who this person was, to meet their family. When they left, they all hugged me. ... It was freeing. I feel so free. I come to prison, and I feel free in prison. I feel like I’m ready to get out and do some positive stuff.”
He said prison — he was sentenced to nine years — saved him.
“I think the way I was living was the way I was going to die,” he said. “I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it weren’t for the prison.”
Social workers’ perspective
Julia Bavle, a student from Powell, said speaking with Baker “reaffirms hope. ... When the system is put in place and the tools laid out, it can be worked and there can be positive results, and a person can rise above it.”
Referring to the lack of contact with social workers before his incarceration, Lisa McKillen, a student from Marysville, said that possibly when Baker was younger public awareness made actions such as interventions less likely.
“I think nowadays in this day and age there is more education, there are more programs, so maybe ... or it could be where he grew up, because there was obviously social workers there, but for whatever reason ...”
Another student, Wendy Roberts of West Mansfield, said the discussion with Baker “shows us the reality. It makes us take off our student hats and put on our social worker hats. ... I think it shows you the impact that trauma can have on someone, and that trauma came from one person and how much impact it had. It took away all the good.”
Baker said he has a strong support system and is optimistic about life after prison; he plans to return to work with Atlas Masonry. He said he hopes his talk to the students helps young people suffering in neglectful or abusive situations gain assistance from social workers and others.
“I wanted the chance to kind of tell the way it is for other people,” he said. “Things are still happening. The grass isn’t always green. Hopefully, someone will be there to pull them out of a hole, because as a child, you’re limited.”
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Twitter: @jmwjarvis