FRANKLIN, Ind. — When police arrived at a Franklin home on Nov. 12, 2022, they found Jennifer Lewis lying in a bedroom with a gunshot wound to the head. Her boyfriend, Johnathan Baker, claimed she committed suicide.
Now Baker will be serving 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
A frantic voicemail recovered from Lewis’s phone may have captured the final moments of her life and helped lead to Baker’s arrest and eventual conviction.
When police first arrived at the home in the 2700 block of Woodfield Blvd on Nov. 12, 2022, at approximately 1:45 a.m., Baker told officers that Lewis’s death was a suicide. Investigators documented their suspicions, however, pointing out the placement of the handgun and multiple shell casings found in the room as suspicious for a suicide scene.
In the end, it may have been Baker’s own phone that betrayed him. Court documents reveal that police found a voicemail on Lewis’s phone from Baker’s own number. The voicemail was from 1:30 a.m., not long before police arrived on scene.
In the voicemail, Baker and Lewis can be heard arguing. At one point, Jennifer starts to scream out “no, no, no” while Baker is heard telling her, “Now you’re going to get me thrown in prison,” court documents said.
Other phone calls made by Lewis and Baker to a witness threw doubt into Baker’s claim of suicide including a phone call where Baker reportedly said, “Call the cops, I shot her” only to then backtrack minutes later by saying, “Don’t call the cops, she shot herself.”
To read more details about the investigation, click here.
