West Valley City Shooting Claims Life of Charles Baker, Charges Later Dismissed Against Suspect
In a case that began with a neighborhood dispute and ended in a fatal shootout, Charles Baker, a 49-year-old Black man from California, was shot and killed on February 13, 2018, in West Valley City, Utah. The incident led to the arrest of a suspect, but in a significant turn of events, the murder charge was later dismissed.
The tragic events unfolded following an earlier interaction
between the suspect's 15-year-old stepson and some neighbors. The suspect, identified as Carlo Joseph Ayvacian Toledo, 40, of West Valley City, went to an apartment to discuss the earlier incident, which resulted in a shootout with Baker. During the exchange of gunfire, Baker was killed, and Toledo sustained gunshot wounds to his leg and chest.
Toledo was subsequently charged with murder, a first-degree felony, and six counts of discharge of a firearm. However, in November 2019, just a day before his trial was set to begin, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case. The motion revealed that in preparation for the trial, interviews with several state witnesses produced statements that were "significantly different than previous statements and included previously unknown information which is exculpatory to defense."
In light of this new information, the state requested more time to investigate the validity of these new statements by re-interviewing witnesses and reassessing the case. When the motion to reschedule the trial was denied, prosecutors chose to dismiss the charges out of "an abundance of caution." The case was dismissed without prejudice, which allows for the possibility of charges being refiled in the future.
Further complicating the case, Toledo's stepson who was present during the shooting, Jerrad Jacobsen, was shot and killed in his home in Kearns in March of the same year. Initially believed to be a self-inflicted wound, his 15-year-old stepbrother was later arrested for the shooting and admitted to manslaughter.
