Judge Thomas Trempe set his bond at $200,000.
The charge carries a potential penalty of 15 years to life in prison.
Baker Jr. was picked up by the U.S. Marshals Southern Ohio Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team in Dayton on Thursday.
“The longer the case sits around, it’s harder to put stuff together — but we are going to do our best to prosecute this case to fullest,” said Clark County Prosecutor Dan Driscoll after Baker Jr.’s arrest.
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Springfield police say Baker Jr. was involved in a shooting at the Nite Owl Tavern on Jan. 26, 2013 that killed 34-year-old Ernest Edwards, of Springfield, and injured three other people.
Springfield police have previously told the News-Sun that Edwards was not the intended target of the shooting, and he was simply ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
He left behind a wife and two children.
According to a court document filed after the shooting, Baker Jr. and a man named Julian Johnson got into a fight inside the bar that night with other patrons. Baker Jr. allegedly pulled out a gun during the fight — and he and Johnson were kicked out by an employee.
The court document goes on to say that the two left out the front door and Johnson walked over to his car and retrieved a gun.
At the same time as the pair’s exit, people inside the bar were leaving by a back entrance. It’s then that police say both men fired shots — Baker Jr. firing one in a unknown direction and Johnson firing several toward the people leaving the Nite Owl.
The two then drove away from the scene.
Edwards was pronounced dead at the scene, and three other men were taken to the hospital.
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Johnson was arrested in March 2013 by the U.S. Marshals at an apartment complex in Trotwood, where he was found hiding in a bathroom.
Johnson was sentenced in 2014 and is currently serving a prison sentence at Madison Correctional Institution on involuntary manslaughter and attempted tampering with evidence charges related to the shooting.
Baker Jr. was once the Most Wanted Fugitive by the U.S. Marshal’s SOFAST team because he’s also sought out of Franklin County for a 2014 rape charge.
In court on Friday, the judge said he would be held without bond for that charge.
At the conclusion of his case in Clark County, he will then be transferred to Franklin County to answer to the charges against him there.
The News-Sun was on scene on Jan. 26, 2013 when one person was killed and three others were shot at the Nite Owl Bar. Since then, the News-Sun has talked with the victim’s family and kept readers up to date with the criminal proceedings of one of the suspects.
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