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Crime Mar 03, 2023
| Photo courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
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A 32-year-old Lake Forest woman was charged Friday with stabbing her mother to death in her home.
Courtney Elizabeth Baker was charged with murder with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon. The deadly weapons used in the attack were a screwdriver and a fork, according to the criminal complaint.
Baker did not enter a plea Friday in the jail courtroom at her arraignment, which was rescheduled for March 17 in the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.
The stabbing victim’s husband called authorities to the 22000 block of Bellcroft Drive about 1:50 a.m. Wednesday, according to spokeswoman Carrie Braun of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
The 72-year-old victim, whose name was not immediately released, was pronounced dead at the scene, Braun said. Baker’s mother was identified as Elizabeth Mary O’Leary, according to a restraining order the victim sought against Baker on Sept. 14, 2015.
The restraining order request was dismissed Oct. 6, 2015, when no one made the court appearance to be heard on it, according to court records.
O’Leary accused her daughter of beating her.
“I am older and have some health issues that occasionally benefit from the care of others,” she wrote in the restraining order request. “When here with Courtney alone, she has often beaten me, kicked me, made numerous threats to myself, my pet and other family members.
“I have been punched, kicked and threatened by Courtney numerous times. I am only attacked by Courtney when no one else is here to protect me and I am defenseless. Courtney has threatened me, saying that she wants me and my dog to die.”
Baker pleaded guilty in July 2018 to resisting arrest, violating a protective-stay away order and possession of drug paraphernalia, all misdemeanors. In April 2018 she pleaded guilty to possession of heroin and methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia, violating a protective/stay away order and destroying evidence, all misdemeanors.
Baker pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of disturbing the peace in April 2017 in a plea deal that saw misdemeanor counts of assault and battery dismissed along with a count of injury to telephone lines, according to court records. In September 2015, she pleaded guilty to unlawful entry of a noncommercial dwelling and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors.
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