Teen charged with killing Wake County 17-year-old girl. Three others charged in death.

Raleigh police charged a 17-year-old boy Wednesday with killing Veronica Lee Baker and say three older teens tried to help him get away, court records state.

Police found Baker, 17, fatally shot in her car Saturday night in the parking lot of Bojangles on Jones Sausage Road in Garner, south of Raleigh. The car was still running, a 911 caller said.

On Wednesday morning, police arrested Devin Cordell Jones and charged him with murder, according to an arrest warrant.

Keyshara Michelle Deans, 19, Nezyiha Zamir Collins, 19, and Tyreek Qumay Rogers, 18, were arrested and charged with felony accessory after the fact to murder, The News & Observer reported Tuesday night.

Deans is accused of driving Jones away from the scene, warrants state. Collins and Rogers are accused of fleeing out of state with Jones immediately after the murder to avoid apprehension, the documents state.

During the three older suspects’ first appearances in court via video, the judge granted a prosecutor’s request for no-contact orders between all of the defendants.

Collins and Rogers were ordered held on $500,000 bail. Deans, who is also accused of other, unrelated charges, was ordered held on $1,015,000 bail.

An August 4 arrest warrant accuses Deans of conspiring with Jones and another juvenile to commit financial card fraud.

Deans asked the judge to reduce her bail so she could go home and be with her son. The prosecution argued it was too early to request a reduction, and the judge left the bail amount unchanged.

Teen wanted to study sociology

Baker was set to start online sociology classes at Wake Technical Community College, said her father, Jim Baker, in an interview with The N&O. She graduated from Garner Magnet High School in the spring. She loved to camp and was hoping to go into social work, Jim Baker said.

She would find kids who were in trouble or needed a little guidance, her father said. Once, she helped a friend by letting him live in her family’s camper. Another time, she invited another friend to stay in her family’s house.

“She just wanted to help people,” Baker said.

Baker and Veronica’s mother, Laura, went to bed at around 9:30 p.m. Saturday, he said. Soon after that, the doorbell rang and the dogs started barking.

Baker opened the door, and a man in a suit who identified himself as a Raleigh homicide detective asked if Laura Baker was home.

He said a body had been found in a car registered to Laura Baker.

“Please not Veronica,” Baker recalled his wife saying.

The detective asked, “Does a 2002 tattoo mean anything to you?” That was the year Veronica was born.

“My wife lost it,” Baker said. “‘My baby, my baby, my baby,’ she said.”

Camping and jet skis

Veronica loved jet skis, and the family frequently visited Holiday Trav-L-Park Resort on Emerald Isle, Lakewood Camping Resort and Carolina Pines near Myrtle Beach, and Grandfather Mountain.

Veronica would usually ride on one jet ski with her father. A month ago, at Emerald Isle, Baker got his daughter her own jet ski for the first time.

“I’m going to go slow,” she said.

She made it about half a lap, and then passed her father “like a NASCAR driver,” Baker said.

Veronica loved seafood. Baker did a seafood boil for her about two months ago on Myrtle Beach. Baker cooked crab legs, clams, oysters, corn and potatoes in a pot, and poured it out onto newspaper spread out on the table.

“She claimed it all as hers,” Baker said. “She sat there and ate till she was about to pop.”

A text saying ‘come home’

Around 7:15 p.m. Saturday, Laura Baker texted her daughter, saying “come home.” Veronica replied, “I am.”

They knew she was at the Bojangles because they had apps that tracked each other on their phones. When she did not arrive home, Baker thought she was still eating or just hanging out with friends.

The Bakers last saw their daughter earlier that day. Veronica was in her car, heading out. When she rolled down the window, her parents asked if she would like to go to the mall in Smithfield. She said they’d just been to the mall and she didn’t really want to.

“I love you, Dad,” she said.

“I love you too, baby” Baker responded.

This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 12:07 AM.