Nightmare isn't over for Schaumburg family

Mark S. Baker was 12 years old when he killed his grandmother, putting a bullet into the back of her head so he could take some friends out for a pizza in her car.

Nearly two decades passed, Indiana prosecutors say, before he murdered again. And this time, he could die for it.

Baker, 32, of Rochester, Ind., is scheduled to stand trial this winter on charges he strangled and beat to death the Schaumburg owner of a Rochester motel in fall 2005.

Prosecutors say Baker bashed Mustansar Chaudhry's skull with a hammer, bound him with duct tape, strangled him and, with the help of an on-again, off-again girlfriend, stuffed him in a water softener salt tank. They are seeking the death penalty.

The trial will mean another emotional round in an Indiana courtroom for Chaudhry's family: a wife and three children who endured the trial of 21-year-old Bianca Newgent this week.

Newgent, who prosecutors say fetched Baker's hammer and duct tape and helped him hide the body, was found guilty on charges of murder, criminal confinement and assisting a criminal and faces up to 65 years in prison on the murder charge alone.

"Nothing is going to bring him back," Chaudhry's wife, who still lives in the Chicago area, said of her husband, "but at least she (Newgent) got what she deserved."

Newgent once had co-managed the Rosedale Motel with Baker, who still did, prosecutor Rick Brown said.

The October 2005 murder followed a squabble over missing motel funds, he said.

Baker had lived in a small apartment in the RoseDale and lived it up while Chaudhry was at home in the Chicago suburbs, Brown said -- skimming money from the business and letting friends stay in the rooms for free.

Brown said he thinks Baker knew Chaudhry had caught on, and expected to be fired.

Before he allegedly killed Chaudhry, Brown said, Baker had him write two checks totaling $5,500; the cash went to buy cocaine, according to testimony at Newgent's trial.

Chaudhry, who often traveled to check on the motel, was reported missing days later. Police found his body inside a plastic salt barrel in the motel garage. Baker's fingerprint was found in blood smeared on the duct tape roll, Brown said. Newgent also had admitted to it, he said.

At Newgent's trial, defense attorneys say she'd been coerced and scared by Baker into being his reluctant accomplice. Newgent's attorney, Brad Rozzi, could not be reached for comment.

Baker was tried and convicted as a juvenile in the 1986 murder of his grandmother, Brown said. He remained in a juvenile prison until he turned 21, he said.