27-05-2025
Death sentences upheld in the murder of boys
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by a man who received two death sentences in the 2020 murders of two boys in a Putnam County home.
Justices upheld two first-degree murder convictions and two death sentences for Mark H. Wilson, who killed Tayten Baker, 14, and Robert Baker, 12, who were the nephews of Wilson's girlfriend.
Wilson and his girlfriend, Cindy Guinan, and their 14-month-old child had moved into a shed on the Baker family's property five days before the murders, according to the Supreme Court opinion.
The boys' mother, Sarah Baker, woke on Aug. 26, 2020, to find them murdered.
Their heads had been beaten with a hammer and their throats had been cut, according to the Supreme Court opinion. Wilson was arrested after his mother told police that she thought he was responsible for the murders.
Wilson told authorities that he thought the boys were hurting and abusing his girlfriend and the 14-month-old child, though officers found no evidence to support those allegations, the Supreme Court opinion said.
Wilson also said he had been using methamphetamine on the day of the murders.
In the appeal, Wilson's attorneys raised a series of issues, including alleging that the trial judge erred by rejecting proposed 'mitigating evidence' about the methamphetamine use.
But the Supreme Court rejected the arguments in a 49-page opinion. 'Here, there was no objective evidence establishing by the greater weight of the evidence that Wilson was impaired at the time of the murders,' said the opinion, fully shared by Chief Justice Carlos Muniz and Justices Charles Canady, John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso.
'No one who observed him close in time to the murders saw any indication that he was under the influence of any substance.' Justice Jorge Labarga concurred with the result of the opinion but did not fully sign on. Wilson, now 34, is an inmate at Union Correctional Institution, according to the Florida Department of Corrections website.
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