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Slayings of 'sweet' mom, three kids baffle police

MARIANNA - Danielle Baker was 15 when she had her first child four years ago. Last month, she gave birth to her fourth.

Despite the difficulty of being a high school dropout and teenage mother of four, she still wanted to achieve something for herself and her children. Each day she went to a program for teen mothers. She told her family she wanted to go to nursing school.

But Thursday morning a worker in her apartment complex found Baker and her three sons dead. Baker's 2-year-old daughter, Ashandi Brunson, was left untouched and had attracted a neighbor's attention by banging on a wall overnight while left with the bodies. The dead boys were Amad Baker, 3, Amarion Baker, 1, and Aaron Baker, 3 weeks.

Baker's family and friends remembered her as generous, happy and a loving mother. They didn't know of any problems with boyfriends and struggled to understand how someone could kill her and the children.

"She was a sweet person; that's why I don't know who would do this," said Baker's sister, Shemeka Marlowe. Investigators had similar questions more than a day after the bodies were found. They said they had no suspects and no motive, and were trying to figure out if more than one killer was involved. They weren't openly saying how the four were killed.

"The crime scene in this case was one of the most brutal I've ever seen," said State Attorney Steve Meadows of Panama City, the prosecutor for a six-county area that includes Marianna.

Several agencies were working around the clock to solve the crime, Meadows said.

Baker lived with her children in a one-story, brick apartment building in this city of more than 6,000 about 70 miles west of Tallahassee. She left school after the ninth grade and went into the teen parenting program.

Many girls might have given up. Having four babies before turning 20 might cause some to think they won't do much else. But those who knew her said Baker was never discouraged. She had dreams of doing more, her teachers and family said.

"She was an outstanding student," said Mary Olds, the director of the teen parenting program Baker attended.

"She was mature. Having the four kids, that kind of does that," said Olds. "The girls here looked up to her. She was really a team leader."

Police interviewed the girl's father, whom relatives identified as Daniel Brunson, and the father of the two oldest boys, whom relatives identified as Wesley "Jonathan" Williams. Neither was taken into custody.

Relatives said they didn't know who fathered the youngest child.

[Last modified March 19, 2005, 01:26:18]