Kevin Edison Smith is a Texas inmate convicted in April 2012 of the capital murder of 13-year-old Krystal Jean Baker, who was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and strangled in 1996. The case sat cold for fourteen years until a DNA sample taken after an unrelated Louisiana arrest matched evidence collected from Baker’s body, and Smith is now serving a 40-year sentence that the trial judge called the equivalent of life without parole under the law in effect at the time of the crime.
The 1996 Murder of Krystal Jean Baker
On March 5, 1996, Krystal Jean Baker disappeared while walking from her grandmother’s home in Texas City to a nearby convenience store.1Houston Chronicle. Man Convicted in 1996 Slaying of Girl Her body was later found beneath a bridge over the Trinity River along Interstate 10 in Chambers County.2The Daily News. Smith Guilty in Murder of Krystal Jean Baker Investigators recovered DNA from her clothing and from scrapings under her fingernails, but the profile matched no one in any law enforcement database, and the case went cold.
How Smith Was Identified
Smith worked as an itinerant refinery welder and moved constantly. Records later showed he had lived and worked in 17 cities across Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, and North Carolina during a 13-year stretch.3CBS News. Timeline: Kevin Edison Smith Investigators had never looked at him.
That changed in 2010, when Smith was arrested on a drug charge in Louisiana. State law there required a DNA sample at booking for felony and certain other arrests, handled much like fingerprinting.4Louisiana State Police. CODIS His profile was uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System, the FBI database that lets states cross-check profiles nationally, and it matched the single-source male DNA taken from Baker’s clothing and fingernail scrapings in 1996.1Houston Chronicle. Man Convicted in 1996 Slaying of Girl Smith was arrested for Baker’s murder in September 2011.2The Daily News. Smith Guilty in Murder of Krystal Jean Baker
Trial, Conviction, and Sentence
Smith was tried for capital murder in Chambers County before Judge Carroll E. Willborn Jr., with Special Prosecutor Randy McDonald leading the state’s case and Stephen Christopher Taylor defending. The state relied on the DNA match and on Smith’s own admission to officials that he had killed Baker. At one point during trial, as the prosecutor described the assault, Smith interrupted from the defense table: “I didn’t do that. I didn’t do it like he said I did.”2The Daily News. Smith Guilty in Murder of Krystal Jean Baker The jury returned a guilty verdict on April 26, 2012, after deliberating less than 40 minutes.
Prosecutors had agreed not to pursue the death penalty, and Smith would not have been eligible for it anyway. A moratorium was in effect in Texas when Baker was killed in 1996, and Texas law required sentencing under the penal code as it stood at the time of the offense. The Chambers County District Attorney’s office also hoped that removing execution from the table might encourage Smith to talk about other unsolved killings in the Houston area.1Houston Chronicle. Man Convicted in 1996 Slaying of Girl
Judge Willborn imposed 40 years in prison, the maximum available under the 1996 statute, and described it as the functional equivalent of life without parole.2The Daily News. Smith Guilty in Murder of Krystal Jean Baker Smith cried at sentencing and repeated that he did not understand why. Baker’s mother, Monetta “Jeannie” Escamilla, told him from the courtroom: “You aren’t sorry for what you’ve done. You’re evil and you sat here and disrespected my daughter, my family and your own family. She was my sunshine and you took her away.”
The Appeal
Smith appealed. His trial lawyer declined to continue on the case, and Smith found new counsel to raise two issues. The first was a Batson challenge alleging that prosecutors had struck three African-American prospective jurors for racial reasons. The second argued that the jury should have been instructed on the lesser-included offense of murder, on the theory that Smith had believed Baker was an adult.
The Texas Court of Appeals rejected both claims in June 2014. It held that the trial court’s acceptance of the state’s race-neutral explanations for the strikes was not clearly erroneous, and that sexual assault of a child is a strict-liability offense as to the victim’s age, so mistake of fact is not a defense and no lesser-included instruction was warranted.5Midpage. Kevin Edison Smith v. State The conviction stood.
Suspected Ties to Other I-45 Cases
After the conviction, investigators said publicly that Smith might be connected to other unsolved cases involving women and girls along the I-45 corridor south of Houston, sometimes called the Texas Killing Fields.3CBS News. Timeline: Kevin Edison Smith At least 30 sets of remains have been recovered along that stretch since the 1970s, and authorities have said the cases are not all attributable to one person.6FOX 26 Houston. League City Scene Killing Fields Texas Search Smith’s welding work moved him through many of the towns where such crimes occurred, and Chambers County District Attorney Cheryl Lieck asked anyone with information linking him to other cases to come forward. No public reports show that Smith has been charged with any additional crimes.
The Krystal Jean Baker Act
Baker’s case reshaped Texas DNA law. Because Smith was only identified after Louisiana collected his DNA on arrest, Chambers County prosecutors and Baker’s family pressed Texas to adopt a similar rule. Lobbying began in 2013.7KFDM. Changes to Texas DNA Laws Solves Hundreds of Cases in Just a Few Years
After years of Fourth Amendment debate, the legislature passed House Bill 1399, the Krystal Jean Baker Act, which took effect September 1, 2019. It allows police to collect a cheek-swab DNA sample when a person is arrested for certain felonies, before any conviction. Samples go to the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab and into CODIS.8Texas Department of Public Safety. Krystal Jean Baker Act Aids Law Enforcement More Quickly Connecting Missing Links Unsolved By January 2020, roughly four months in, Texas reported the new process had helped identify suspects in more than 45 previously unsolved cases. The legislature broadened the law in 2023 to reach all felony arrests, and it has since been credited with closing 615 cases ranging from burglaries to homicides, with more than 80,000 offenders qualifying to submit samples in 2022 alone.7KFDM. Changes to Texas DNA Laws Solves Hundreds of Cases in Just a Few Years