BATAVIA — When the Carrolls packed up their white GMC Envoy Aug. 4 before making the trip to a family reunion in Kentucky, they brought with them supplies, three children, the couple's live-in girlfriend and the family dog — but not their developmentally disabled foster son.

Liz Carroll, the foster mother charged with killing 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel last summer, refused to take the child with them to Grant County, Ky., out of convenience and fear, said Amy Baker, the Carrolls' intimate partner and the prosecution's primary witness who took the stand Monday.

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The prosecution's key witness, Amy Baker, enters the Batavia courtroom Monday to testify against Liz Carroll. Baker had an intemate relationship with Liz and David Carroll Jr. as their live-in girlfriend. She testified Monday how she and David disposed of Marcus' remains.Click to enlarge

Liz Carroll's mother, Audrey Sims, reacts to Amy Baker's testimony Monday in her daughter's murder trial.Click to enlarge

From 'happy home' to horror

Baker, 25, described the Carrolls' Union Twp. house in late 2005 as "a happy home," one that was suitable for her three children.

But after an affair with David Carroll Jr., a falling out with Liz and the death of Marcus, the two-story house on Valley Wood Drive became "cold," she said.

Baker said Monday the Carrolls did not intend to kill the Middletown boy.

Liz Carroll held Marcus while David Carroll wrapped him in a blanket reinforced with duct tape and placed him in a playpen in the walk-in closet of their bedroom, she testified.

When they returned two days later from the family reunion, "Dave ran up the steps and I heard him scream," Baker testified as tears streamed down her face. "He came back down the steps and he was really scared and really pale. He was whispering because the kids were there and he said, 'He's dead.'"

Baker recounted how she and David Carroll drove to a spot with which she was familiar in Brown County to burn the boy's body. She retraced the steps the two took to dispose of the remains, their shoes and finally the playpen in which Marcus died.

Baker told the court it was common for the Carrolls to bind Marcus. And she said the couple did the same with their other children "so they wouldn't think anything was wrong. They treated it like it was a game for them," she said.

Baker also told jurors she spent the beginning of 2006 fending off repeated sexual advances from Liz and David Carroll.

But when asked by attorneys and jurors why she never contacted authorities about the alleged abuse and Marcus' death, she replied, "I don't know."

Cross-examination focuses on 'lies'

When confronted by Liz Carroll's attorney, Gregory A. Cohen, Baker's memory seemed to fail.

Nearly every answer from her was either "I don't remember" or "I don't know," to which the Carrolls' family members in the courtroom responded with grunts and exaggerated sighs of discontent.

Cohen inquired about the immunity provided to Baker by prosecutors so long as Baker is not found to be directly involved in the boy's death.

He asked about Baker's relationship with the Carrolls, and David Carroll's alleged dominance over her and his wife.

Most of his examination, during which Cohen asked about the immunity provided to Baker and her relationship with the Carrolls, hammered on the days after Marcus' alleged disappearance on Aug. 15 and before Baker was called to testify Aug. 28 before a Hamilton County grand jury.

Baker — together with the Carrolls — told police for weeks the developmentally disabled boy had gone missing from Juilfs Park in Anderson Twp. when Liz Carroll had a medical emergency.

"So you lied," Cohen said, more than once.

The three kept that story going until Baker cut a deal with prosecutors just before her grand jury appearance.

State may rest, defense up next

Prosecutors have few witnesses left to call — the Hamilton County court reporter who took Baker's and Liz Carroll's grand jury testimonies, a Hamilton County deputy, a county coroner employee and two others.

With court beginning at 9 a.m. today, the state may rest before lunch.

Cohen has hinted at calling his client to testify.

He also has subpoenaed Andrew B. Klafter, a doctor at Mercy Hospital Anderson and Theresa Chapman, Baker's mother.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2840 or dgreber@coxohio.com.