Man's wife No. 3 comes forward

A third woman came forward today to say that she, too, is married to a Clayton man who already is charged with being married to two women at the same time.

Jenean Baker, 34, of Atlanta said she and Keron Wilkins wed Nov. 25, 2005, in Miami. She said Wilkins had her name tattooed on his chest.

Wilkins, 30, is in jail on a bigamy charge. He is accused of marrying Shannetta Dawn Stone, 32, of Richmond, Va., on March 20 while he was also married to Chaka Miles Wilkins, his wife of eight years and the mother of his children, ages 4 and 8 months.

Stone said he shared an apartment with her in Cary while he also was living with Chaka Wilkins in Clayton.

In an interview this morning, Baker said that she knew Keron Wilkins had been married to Chaka Wilkins. But she said her husband gave her the impression the relationship was over.

"About four months after we were married, Chaka called me and told me he was already married," Baker said.

Baker said she was shocked at the phone call. She said she was shocked again to learn via news accounts this week about his marriage to Stone.

A native of Miami, Baker said she met Keron Wilkins in 1996 when they were both in the Army. They started dating, and he wanted to marry her then, but she said she felt they were too young.

She left the Army in 2001 and maintained an off-again, on-again relationship with him. They started dating seriously in early 2005, she said.

They planned to marry in 2006, she said, but Keron Wilkins "rushed" her to marry immediately.

Baker consented, and the two were married by a justice of the peace in Dade County.

"All my family was there," Baker said. "I made it out much nicer than it would have been. He had us all tricked."

The two lived together in Miami before moving to Raleigh in 2006. But she said she left him in 2006 and moved to Atlanta because he was seeing other women and because of repeated phone calls from Chaka Wilkins.

Baker said Keron Wilkins started calling her again this year wanting to reconcile. He told her they could live in Connecticut where he had landed a job paying over six figures with IBM, she said. After much wooing by Wilkins, she consented.

She gave two weeks' notice to her employer, Kodak, where she worked as a help desk representative, and was looking forward to living near an aunt in New York.

"I even had a couple of job interviews lined up," she said.

Last month, Keron Wilkins called her to say the job in Connecticut had not come through because he had failed a security clearance. But he told her he could move to Atlanta so the two could start a new life together.

Baker said she had financially supported Wilkins, whom she described "a charming, handsome smooth-talker."

"He got me," she said. "He got me good."