Investigators search Burke site again

Tuesday night, Hickory police cars and a Hickory City brush truck with hydraulic grappling arm arrived at the property of Real Tree Services as authorities again searched the property looking for the body of 10-year-old Zahra Clare Baker.

Burke County EMS crews arrived in the twilight towing portable floodlights to illuminate the search that neighbors thought was complete after officers spent two days looking for Zahra. The vehicles made their way past a Burke County deputy posted to keep people out of the crime scene about 100 yards past his patrol cruiser.

Investigators are looking through a 50-foot-by-100-foot brush pile with the truck. Neighbors had speculated the truck would be used to search under piles of wood chips on the property where Real Tree Services keeps its heavy equipment and wood chipper.

News crews milled around while a news helicopter flew in slow circles overhead. They were all waiting for what had come to seem inevitable.

Hickory Police Chief Adkins arrived on the search scene at 9 p.m. and did not address the media.

The man who helped Adam Baker, Zahra’s father, get his job working for the tree trimming and lawn maintenance crew was at the scene. Bobby Green said he lived next door to the Bakers in Sawmills and his three children used to go to the Bakers' home to play with Zahra.

Now he thinks the Bakers may have murdered their daughter, and he wonders if he put his children in harm's way by letting them visit the Bakers' home.

He described Zahra's mother, Elisa Baker, as a mean woman who could not be trusted.

"I think she's evil. She lied about everything all the time," he said. "She had a short fuse, especially with Zahra, because she was jealous of the time she spent with her father."

Green said Elisa was physically abusive toward her stepdaughter and suspects she's behind Zahra's disappearance. He added that he suspects that Adam Baker may also be involved in the crime.

Many now wonder if Adam Baker was involved in his daughter’s murder.

Baker’s boss doesn’t think so.

But Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins said he hasn’t ruled out any suspects.

Fred Causby is the foreman for Real Tree Services and operates the company from his home on Hartland Road north of Morganton. He hired Baker as a laborer about six months ago.

“He started in March or April,” Causby said. “He’s just a hard working individual.”

Saturday Causby gave his permission for law enforcement to search his property with a K-9 unit. He said they were looking for Zahra’s remains on his industrial wood chipper and a 4-foot high pile of wood chips.

Causby said the dog alerted on the chipper and the pile but two days of intense searching by a combined force of Hickory police, Burke County deputies, SBI agents and FBI agents failed to turn up any evidence.

“I thought it was a waste of time when they came out to search,” he said in the afternoon before authorities returned Tuesday night. “I have a difficult time believing this. I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of people, and I’d like to think I’m still not wrong.”

He described Baker as a quiet man, a self-directed worker who can be funny at times and tells stories about working on a sod farm and a sugar mill in his native Australia.

Causby met Elisa Baker a couple of times when she’d come to pick her husband up after work and those brief encounters left him feeling unsettled.

“He (Baker) may not have had good judgment,” Causby said referring to the woman Baker met on the Internet and moved to America to wed. “I think the elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top. She seemed very controlling.”

Causby’s not the only one with that impression. Family members say they suspect Zahra’s stepmother physically abused her.

Brittany Bentley, who lives in Granite Falls, is married to Elisa Baker’s nephew and told CBS’ “Early Show” her suspicions Tuesday. She said she would have Zahra over for weekends and knew something was wrong.

Zahra “was locked in her room, allowed five minutes out a day to eat, that was it,” Bentley said. “She was beat almost every time I was over there for just the smallest things. Elisa would get mad, she would take it out on Zahra, things the kid didn’t deserve. She just had a horrible home life.”