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| Richard Leroy Walker (mug shot GCSO) |
The man who was charged last December with the murder of a young woman in Springfield twenty eight years ago is now behind bars in Greene County.
Richard Leroy Walker, 56, who was in prison in Colorado on an unrelated sex crime, was extradited and booked into the Greene County Jail on Saturday.
On July 29, 1982, authorities found Angela C. Baskin lying in the grass near the Villa Inn Motel at 2601 North Glenstone about 1 a.m. after someone in an upstairs apartment called cops to report screaming in the parking lot.
As they were arriving at the crime scene, police officers noticed Walker shimming up an iron support railing and attempting to pull himself up to the second floor. When Walker saw the officers he dropped to the ground and began walking across the parking lot.
According to court documents, "He said he wasn't aware of any problems at the motel complex; however, he then changed his story and stated....hurry the problem is around the corner!"
Police arrested Walker, who was a driver for Prime and staying at the motel in room #240, not far from the murder scene after he bolted from two officers after giving them his ID.
Authorities later determined that the iron railing that Walker was attempting to climb was directly above where Baskin was found and near Walker's room.
A friend of Walker's told detectives that Walker was wearing a sheath that held a knife and it was attached to his belt before he got kicked out of Wild Bill's Lounge. Walker, was kicked out of the lounge that sat next door to the Villa Inn Motel "because there were complaints from other patrons that he was getting too intoxicated."
A security guard at the lounge told investigators that after Walker was kicked out, he remained in the parking lot of the business for over an hour and then walked toward the motel.
When Walker was arrested, he was no longer in possession of the knife that had been attached to his waist.
Walker was always the chief suspect in Baskin's murder but cops never had enough evidence to charge him. That problem changed for
investigators on December 14, 2011, when Springfield Police Detectives Kevin Shipley and Todd King traveled to Arrowhead Correctional Facility in Colorado where Walker allegedly admitted to killing Baskin.
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| Angela C. Baskin |
According to
court documents, Walker first denied involvement in Baskin's death and said he had "very little recollection of what occurred prior to being arrested at the scene."
The next day, on December 15th, Walker told the detectives that after he was kicked out of Wild Bill's Lounge, Baskin approached him in the parking lot and asked him if he could help her find some marijuana. During the initial investigation in 1982, some friends of Baskin as well as patrons of the lounge, told investigators that Baskin "made several inquiries for assistance in locating marijuana."
Walker told Shipley and King that he told Baskin he couldn't help her in locating any drugs and walked to the Villa Inn Motel parking lot where his truck was parked. Walker said, "while he was bent over inside the cab of his truck repairing the electrical wires with his pocket knife, he was grabbed on the shoulder from behind, which frightened him and spun around with his knife still in his hand and began stabbing at the unknown person standing behind him."
"Walker claimed that after stabbing the subject an unknown number of times, he then realized the person was the same female that had approached him on the Wild Bill's Lounge lot looking to find some marijuana."
Walker claimed Baskin then stumbled over to a grassy area at the corner of the building where she fell to the ground. He told the detectives that Baskin was bleeding heavily from the stomach area.
"Walker claimed that he then realized he had stabbed the female, at which time he began to panic, threw his knife into the field located behind his motel building and was walking away from the building when he was contacted by police."
At a news conference last December, Chief Paul Williams said authorities have been in touch with Baskin's only living relative, her father, who is in his eighties and lives in Louisiana.
Angela Baskin was originally from Carthage, Texas, and had moved back there after getting a divorce. She had only been back in Springfield two weeks when she was murdered. Lt. David Millsap said her son was killed in a car accident and that her ex-husband has also died.
At the news conference officials refused to answer reporters questions on whether or not DNA helped them solve the case or whether or not any kind of weapon was used in the sexual assault in Colorado. They also would not comment on if they have recovered the weapon used to kill Baskin saying "it will come out at the preliminary hearing."
Katherine Sanguinetti, public information officer for the Colorado Department of Corrections says Walker was convicted of a sexual assault of a woman and assault for an incident in Adams County on October 3, 1999. "He grabbed a knife and held it to her throat," she said.
Sanguinetti says Walker had no prior felony record before the sexual assault conviction in Colorado. He was serving ten years to life in prison for the assault there.
Walker, who was indicted on the murder and armed criminal action charges by a grand jury, is scheduled to re-appear in court on April 8th.
