Nineteen-year-old Robbin Len Baska, a resident of Ottawa, Kansas, was fatally shot on Friday, June 9, 2017, in Kansas City, Missouri. Baska, who was born on February 27, 1998, had been staying at her mother's apartment in the 100 block of N.W. Harlem Road because her own was being fumigated. The aspiring police officer was napping when the incident that led to her death unfolded at approximately 3:30 p.m.
Initial reports, according to Robbin Baska's father, suggested that two intruders,
a man and a woman, forced their way into the apartment in an apparent robbery attempt. The male intruder allegedly held Robbin's mother, Rebecca Lee, at gunpoint. During the struggle, it was reported that someone tripped over Robbin, and she was shot. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Baska had recently been promoted to a manager position at a McDonald's restaurant and was remembered by her family as a caring and humorous individual who loved to make people laugh.
In a significant development, Rebecca Lynn Lee, 42, was later charged by Clay County prosecutors in connection with her daughter's death. The charges filed against Lee were for unlawful use of a weapon and armed criminal action. According to court documents, when officers arrived at the scene, they found Lee moving dogs into her vehicle. Lee informed them that her daughter was deceased in an upstairs apartment. Her initial account to investigators mirrored what she had told her ex-husband, detailing a home invasion by a man and a woman. She claimed that during the struggle, she heard a gunshot and then grabbed her own gun to chase the fleeing intruders, firing at the man. However, a witness provided a conflicting account to investigators, stating that after seeing a man and woman being chased out of the apartment by Lee, she allegedly fired two shots at them and then tried to hand the witness the gun, stating that 'her daughter got in the way.' Lee was held at the Clay County Detention Center on a $100,000 bond.
