Patrick Baxter

Patrick Baxter (born April 28, 1969) is an American serial killer who raped and killed two women and a teenage girl in Westchester County, New York, between 1987 and 1990. Due to DNA profiling, Baxter was arrested for the murders in 2000 while serving a sentence for car theft and was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life imprisonment.

Murders In the span of three years, one girl and two women were sexually assaulted and subsequently murdered in Westchester County. Initially, they were believed to be unrelated cases, as the victims were of different races, shared no commonalities and each was killed in a different town. Thanks to advancements in DNA technology, all three murders, which had become some of the county's oldest cold cases, were finally connected and solved. She had recently found a new job as a medical office receptionist at Hartsdale, and on July 17, 1990, she was en route to work when she was attacked near the Crestwood train station. Her attacker ripped through her clothing and sexually assaulted her, tossing her pantyhose aside. After finishing, he shot her once in the back of the head with a sawed-off shotgun, before stealing her purse and jewelry. She was later discovered by a bicyclist. The killing shocked the community, as murders were a rarity in Tuckahoe.

At the time, her boyfriend and a carpenter named Douglas Steadman were considered suspects, but both were later eliminated. Baxter came across Gibbens by chance, as his only connection to the area was hanging out with some friends at the Crestwood Train Station.

Exposure and imprisonment Since 1990, Patrick Baxter was jailed and released from prison on several occasions for different crimes. In the mid-1990s, he was convicted of auto theft in The Bronx and sentenced to 3-to-7 years imprisonment at the Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill, with eligibility for parole in 2001. In early 2000, investigators examining cold cases noticed that Baxter's name kept popping up in relation to these cases, and they ordered that he give a blood sample for testing. After a legal battle, a sample was provided, which matched the killer's DNA in all three cases.

Charges were soon filed, and Baxter was brought to trial in 2002. He was convicted of all three murders and sentenced to 25 years to life imprisonment for each murder, to be served consecutively. During his sentencing, he expressed his condolences to the victims' families, but calmly denied committing the murders.