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May 3, 2012

By SCOTT REESE WILLEYHometown Press

Chambers County sheriff'sdeputy Sherry Willcox remembersthe phone call 10 years ago thateventually led Kevin EdisonSmith to confess to killing 13-year-old Krystal Jean Baker in1996.

Willcox was working for thesheriff's department as a secretaryin the criminal investigation divi-sion in 2002 when a private inves-tigator called.

He wanted some information onthe unsolved murder.

Willcox retrieved the case folderfrom the captain's office and gavethe private investigator the infor-mation he was seeking.

Then she began to thumbthrough the inch-thick folder,studying the photos and readingthe notes collected by the investi-gating officer, Brad Moon.

“The more I read the more inter-ested I got in the case,” recalledWillcox, who had graduated fromAnahuac High School in 1998. “Itwas so sad what happened to thatlittle girl. The murder had neverbeen solved.”

Her eyes welled with tears asshe looked at the photographs ofthe smiling teen with sandy blondhair.

Anger welled up in her as shescrutinized other photos — theones taken beneath the TrinityRiver Bridge where Krystal’sbody had been found six yearsearlier.

“I was just a secretary at the timebut I kept thinking I wish therewas something I could do to helpsolve this case,” recalled Willcox,now 33. “It was just one of thosecases that grabbed your heart, youknow, the murder of a 13-year-oldgirl. I was hoping that by readingthe case something might jumpout at me, something the investi-gator had overlooked maybe.”

The following year, in 2003,Willcox earned her criminal jus-tice degree at the University ofHouston and took the oath as asheriff's deputy. She was assignedto the juvenile investigation divi-sion and served as the depart-ment's evidence collection andstorage officer.

In the months since talking tothe private investigator, Willcoxhad not forgotten the photographsof Krystal Jean Baker, and noweducated in criminal justice shereviewed the case file again.

“I started talking to other offi-cers about the case,” she remem-bers. “I was hoping they mightthink of something that had beenoverlooked during the initialinvestigation.”

But nothing had been over-looked.

“Deputy Moon had collectedevery shred of evidence and hadfollowed every possible lead,” sherecalled. “Nothing had changed.There were no new leads, no oneto talk to.”

‘We never forget’

Moon, who started working forthe Chambers County Sheriff'sDepartment in 1998 as a jailer,was the initial investigatorassigned to the Krystal Jean Bakermurder case.

After earning his peace officer’sbadge from the Liberty CountySheriff’s Department's LawEnforcement Academy in theearly ‘90s, Moon went to work forthe Chambers County Sheriff’sDepartment’s investigation divi-sion.

He left the department in 2000to work elsewhere when a newsheriff took office, but returned inJanuary 2005 when that sheriffwas not re-elected to office.

Willcox made a beeline forMoon’s office shortly after hereturned.

“She said she wanted to talk tome about one of my cases, the

Krystal Jean Baker murder, and Isaid, ‘Sure, sit down, two headsare better than one,” Moonrecalled.

Sgt. Moon remembered the casewell.

Krystal’s murder had been thefirst homicide Moon had everinvestigated.

“We never forget a case, espe-cially the unsolved cases,” saysMoon, “It’s always there, in theback of your mind somewhere. Iprobably thought of the case atleast once a week for the past 14years.”

Sitting in his office 14 yearslater, Moon remembered howfrustrated he felt when he couldn’tdiscover the little girl’s identityright away.

“The faster we find out who shewas the better chance we had ofcatching the murderer,” heexplained.

He had sent out a description ofthe girl to every police departmentand sheriff’s department in thestate shortly after the young teen’sbody had been discovered on theafternoon of March 5, 1996.

But weeks went by and noagency had claimed her.

Then Moon got a call from theTexas City Police Department.They had a missing girl who theyhad listed as a runaway thatmatched the description Moonhad sent them.

Krystal had last been seen aliveby her grandmother on the after-noon of March 5, 1996. They'dgotten into an argument andKrystal had left her home in TexasCity to go to a friend’s.

But she never made it there.Her mom contacted the Texas

City Police Department. Officersthere listed the little girl as a run-away, because she had left hergrandmother's house in a huff.

“We knew she wasn’t a run-away,” said Krystal’s mother,Monetta Jeanie Escamilla. “Shedidn’t need to runaway. She knewshe could have come back to hergrandmother’s at any time. Weknew something had happened toher.”

But the police refused to listen toMonetta’s pleas, and listed herdaughter as a runaway.

Then officers received Moon’sdescription of a murdered girlwhose body had been foundbeneath the Trinity River Bridgein Chambers County the same dayKrystal had supposedly run away.

The body was Krystal’s.The investigation, led by Moon,

never identified a suspect in themurder. After several years, thecase folder was placed in the“pending” file in the captain’soffice where it had come toWillcox’s attention in 2002.

Willcox and Moon discussed thenow 8-year-old murder mystery.

Was there anything he hadmissed? Any evidence that couldbe looked at again? Was there any-one who could be re-interviewed?Any new leads, no matter howinsignificant, they could follow upon?”

“It had been my first murdercase and I spent a great deal of

Scott Reese Willey photo

Chambers County Sheriff’s deputies Brad Moon, an investigator, and Sherry Willcox, an evidence officer, never gave up searchingfor Krystal Jean Baker’s murderer. Their determination paid off in 2010 — 14 years after the 13-year-old girl’s body was foundbeneath the Trinity River Bridge – when Willcox resubmitted DNA evidence Moon had collected at the murder scene to a statecrime lab. The DNA led to the arrest and conviction of Kevin Edison Smith last week.

Chambers County Sheriff Joe LaRive talks withMonetta Jeanie Escamilla, Krystal Jean Baker’s mom,during a press conference in October 2010 immedi-ately after Kevin Edison Smith had been arrested andcharged with the rape and murder of the 13-year-oldTexas City girl.

Krystal Jean Baker, at left, was 13 years old whenKevin Edison Smith saw her walking down a highwayin Texas City on March 5, 1996. He picked her upand later raped and killed her before dumping herbody beneath the Trinity River Bridge in ChambersCounty.

Cold case cracked

(Continued on Page 5)

Chambers

County sheriff’s

deputies Brad

Moon and

Sherry Willcox

never stopped

looking for

Krystal Jean

Baker’s killer

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