Catherine Rusoff
More than two decades after the murder of University of Georgia student Tara Baker, authorities announced they have arrested a suspect.
Edrick Lamont Faust, 48, has been charged with murder and faces several other charges in connection with the 23-year-old law student’s death, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced.
“Tara Louise Baker was a hard-working student with a bright future ahead of her,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said in a press release Thursday. “Tara’s life was stolen from her in a horrific act of violence. While this arrest will not bring her back to us, I pray it helps bring closure to the Baker family as they continue their healing journey.”
Athens-Clarke County firefighters found Baker’s body in his apartment in January 2001. Authorities considered the fire suspicious and intended to cover up Baker’s murder. Investigators spent the next 23 years working to prove these suspicions in collaboration with the FBI, the Athens-Clarke County Police Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to crack the cold case.
But it was only after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Cold Case Unit reviewed Baker’s case in September 2023 – after the Coleman-Baker Act was signed into law – that authorities were able to gather enough evidence to make the arrest. The GBI said a press conference would be held to provide more details about the investigation.
The Coleman-Baker Act – named after University of Georgia student Sue Coleman, who died 21 years ago, and Tara Baker – was signed signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp in 2023. The legislation established a new unit within the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate cold cases. It also required law enforcement authorities to review unsolved cases if more than six years had passed.
“May Tara’s memory live on through the good work of this Unit,” Kemp posted on social media after the arrest was announced.
His family thanked authorities in a statement, reported WGAU, and said, “Although this is a day we have long prayed for, it is not a day without sadness and unanswered questions.”
