Man gets 39.5 years in controversial Knox home-invasion murder

According to federal prosecutors, 43-year-old Patrick Baker, of Frankfort, was sentenced to 42 years in prison, with credit for the 30 months he served in state prison, by U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom, after previously being convicted by a federal jury of murder committed during a drug trafficking crime.

According to testimony at trial, Baker fatally shot 29-year-old Donald L. Mills Jr., during an armed home invasion, on May 9, 2014, in the Stinking Creek community in Knox County. Mills’ pregnant wife and other children were held at gunpoint, while Baker ransacked the victims’ home for oxycodone pills. Baker entered the Mills’ home posing as a United States Marshal, prosecutors said.

According to the evidence at trial, the KSP firearm forensics laboratory tied shell casings recovered from the victim’s master bedroom to Baker’s Kel Tec PF9. This gun was later recovered from a mud pit in Bell County. A surveillance video from the London Dollar General also showed Baker purchasing plastic handcuffs, approximately seven hours before the murder.

The same handcuffs were later recovered just feet from where the victim was fatally shot.  Further, cell tower data was used to trace Baker’s movements, throughout May 8 and 9, from London, to Stinking Creek, to Bell County.

Baker was convicted at trial in August 2021.

“The simple truth of this case is that Patrick Baker was found guilty of planning and committing an armed home invasion, to acquire drugs, where he shot and killed Donald Mills,” Carlton S. Shier IV, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, said in a statement. “Baker was convicted of a brazen act of violence – one that resulted in a murder, committed while the victim’s family was nearby. I want to commend the dedicated work of all our law enforcement partners and our trial team. Their faithful efforts were critical to the verdict, conviction, and sentence.”

“This was a violent crime that took a victim’s life and devastated a family,” added ATF Special Agent in Charge R. Shawn Morrow of the Louisville Field Division in a statement. “ATF is proud to have worked with the Kentucky State Police and the United States Attorney’s Office in bringing justice to this family.”

Baker’s case made national headlines after he was convicted in state court and then pardoned by former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, who said the evidence in the case was weak. Baker had received 19 years in prison on the state conviction and his attorneys told Judge Boom he should get no more than that n the federal conviction but she disagreed.

Prosecutors noted Baker must serve 85% of the federal sentence.

Baker can appeal the federal conviction and likely will do so.

Baker was also ordered to pay $7,500 for funeral expenses of the victim.