Seven-month-old Shannon Dedrick was reported missing by her mother Chrystina Lynn Mercer at 11:23 a.m. on Saturday, October 31. In a startling discovery, made at 9:55 p.m. Wednesday night, sheriff’s deputies found the healthy infant hidden under a bed at the home of her babysitter, Susan Elizabeth Baker and the sitter’s husband James Arthur Baker – photos below.
According to Washington County Sheriff Bobby Haddock, 100 law enforcement agents spent 5-days searching in and around the rural Panhandle town of Chipley, Florida. Shannon Dedrick was found in a box that had been shielded from view by other items placed in front of it.
Authorities have determined that Baker and the child’s mother hatched a plot on Friday whereby the babysitter would raise the child. Mercer delivered the baby to Baker’s home early Saturday morning and then called authorities ten hours later to report the child missing.
The infant was taken by law enforcement officials to Northwest Florida Community Hospital to be examined. She was reported to be healthy, and it appeared she had been fed during the five day ordeal, though there was no evidence of a baby bottle in the box with the child.
Authorities indicate that the babysitter is a half-sister of the baby’s father James Russell Dedrick Jr. She reportedly became very concerned about the baby’s welfare several months ago and penned a letter to Florida Governor Charlie Crist, asking him to save the baby from her drug-abusing parents.
The Florida Department of Children and Families, who had made several previous visits to the home, launched an investigation in August but did not find legal grounds to remove the baby from the parents.
Authorities narrowed their investigation to the home of Baker after they discovered that the woman has a criminal past. It turns out she spent time in prison in 1987 for beating her husband’s six-year-old child.
She and her husband were also extradited from Florida to South Carolina in 2000 for the disappearance of his three-year-old Paul Baker, who reportedly went missing while Susan Baker napped. Authorities never found the boy and a grand jury failed to bring down an indictment against the pair for lack of evidence.
Baker and Mercer remain in jail pending multiple charges.
View more photos and video press conference coverage below.