Kalispell woman gets 20 years for highway deaths

By NANCY KIMBALL

The Daily Inter Lake

After two-and-a-half hours of tearful and bitter testimony from so many witnesses that the hearing had to be moved to a larger courtroom, Genevieve Baker was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison for causing two deaths in a highway accident last April.

District Judge Stewart Stadler sentenced the Kalispell woman to 40 years in the Montana women's prison at Billings on two counts of vehicular homicide, with 20 years suspended.

Noting that she may come up for parole in five years, Stadler told her that the victim's family almost certainly would protest her release at the parole hearing.

"If I had any feeling you would be paroled in five years, I would increase this sentence," he said. "The effect on this family and your family can't be measured."

William J. Daniel Haller, Jr., known as Dan, was 25 when his motorcycle crashed into the rear end of Baker's vehicle as it slid into his path on U.S. 2 near the airport.

Baker's sister, 46-year-old Georgia Johnston of Seattle, was a passenger in the car when it rolled into a ditch and landed upside down.

Both Haller and Johnston died on impact. Baker was critically injured.

Baker initially pleaded innocent to the charges, but in October changed her plea to guilty.

She faced up to 60 years in prison, if the maximum 30-year sentence had been handed down for each count.

Instead, Stadler imposed the 40-year sentence and ordered her to complete an alcoholism treatment program, neither drink nor drive during the sentence period, and pay court costs.

Baker, 48, had a blood-alcohol level of .21 at the time of the crash - more than twice the legal limit.

Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan had asked for 45 years in the women's prison, with 20 suspended. Defense attorney Jack Quatman had asked for 15 years in the correctional system, with 10 suspended.

Testimony began with William Haller, Sr., of Columbia Falls. Dan Haller's father asked for the maximum sentence.

"I feel Ms. Baker is a menace to society," Haller said. "She didn't have enough respect to quit drinking after she killed her sister and my son."

He asked Baker to look at Haller's daughter, Paishance Haller, now 1 year old. On Friday, the toddler was in her grandmother's arms for all in the courtroom to see.

"Ms. Baker, I know I'm supposed to forgive you in the eyes of God. I don't know if I can do that," he said. "I wish I could know if you were remorseful, that you were actually sorry for what you've done. But I don't know that."

Haller's mother, Robyn Christopherson of Yakima, Wash., displayed a photograph taken on the day Haller was born.

"I want you to look at his face and never forget that as long as you live," Christopherson told Baker.

Christopherson said Baker "doesn't have the right to live, she's the one that should die." She spoke of her son's passion for life, how he relished being a father.

"You robbed him of that, because of the stupid, selfish decision you made," she said. "You're old enough to know you shouldn't drink and drive.

"You better hope that God will forgive you, because I never will," she said. "I only pray that you will burn in hell."

Candace Fraley, Haller's fiancee and the mother of their child, said Baker had "stolen the one person I ever had in the world." He was "110 percent dedicated to his family," she said.

"Every single day when we go to bed and when we get up," Fraley said, "I have to be reminded that it's just me and her (now)."

Haller's brother, James Haller, said he and his fiancee Crystal Betts had chosen land and made plans to move back to the Flathead next to his brother's family. His first child was born April 26, three days before the crash. Dan Haller never got to hold the infant, Betts said.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about you," James Haller told Baker. "You've taken his freedom, his life. I feel your life should be taken as well - 60 years is not enough."

Betty Eslick said her oldest grandson was a leader who loved hunting, fishing, camping and traveling with the family.

"There are no words in any language that will tell how I feel," Eslick said.

"For the safety of our streets, Genevieve Baker should be kept off them," Eslick said. "She killed her own sister. My heart reaches out to each and every one of you."

Friends testified, as well.

"He was the kind of guy, Genevieve, that would help you carry your groceries to your car," Travis Parker said. "He would stop and help if you had a flat tire on the road."

"I didn't want to sit here and see people cry," Jordan Ratliff said to Baker. "I didn't want to see you cry. But you decided to go to the bar … I think Dan would have had mercy on you. I don't know that I can."

Quatman asked for some understanding of Baker's life.

Rhonda Phipps, Baker's sister, testified that the family recognized her sister's advanced alcohol addiction and sought treatment several times, only to be told that she needed to make the decision herself. The family of Chippewa-Cree heritage had tried to get help through American Indian services. Their most recent attempt was through the Flathead Valley Chemical Dependency Clinic.

"We were afraid," Phipps said of the sister she described as kind, hard-working and very much loved. "She was getting worse and worse."

Finally, when Baker showed so much remorse over the deaths that she twice threatened suicide, they approached Corrigan and had her taken back into custody.

"It has been very, very hard," Phipps said, adding that her sister accepts responsibility for the deaths. "We tried to apologize to the family. We called Ed Corrigan and asked him to please apologize to the family. My daughter tried to apologize to them at the hearings."

Phipp's and Baker's mother, 77, one of three young survivors among 13 children, testified that she started working at age 15 before marrying an abusive man who abused alcohol and regularly beat her and the children.

Baker testified that she witnessed her mother hit him over the head with a cast-iron skillet once when he was targeting one of the other girls. They both testified to another incident when he had a gun outside the house, and the mother kept the children low inside the house for fear of them being shot. Baker said he sexually abused her younger sister, who eventually took her own life.

After repeated attempts, their mother left with the children but said she hid from him for years in fear that he would find them and start the cycle again.

Despite such a childhood, "Genie is a kind person," Baker's mother said.

"She had this problem that overpowered her. We could not help her. We didn't come here to be angry and hate people. We came here to face up to what my daughter has done."

She told of her daughter's visible remorse with every visit to her in jail, and her fight to quit drinking.

"I want my daughter back. I lost two daughters already and then my brother 10 days after the accident.

"I hurt for these people who lost their son," Baker's mother said. "But all the hate and anger they have, that ain't good. It's not going to bring anyone back. They've got to try to control that because all that hate and anger is going to ruin their lives."

Baker testified that she witnessed much abuse by her father and feared him, then started drinking sometime in her mid-teens. As an adult, she eventually had her own daughter taken from her when her drinking got more severe and she became abusive herself.

A psychologist with the Flathead Valley Chemical Dependency Clinic testified that many treatment clients have turned to drugs or alcohol to deal with trauma that often led to post-traumatic stress disorder.

She explained the stages of addiction, placing Baker in the latter stage when alcoholics carry out "maintenance" drinking simply to function throughout the day.

The psychologist, however, said that Baker's willingness to talk about her family history and her drinking problem, and take responsibility for her guilt in the deaths, makes her "a very good treatment candidate."

Baker testified to several memory lapses, including remembering nothing of the day of the crash until waking up in the hospital. She said she had been drinking about a fifth of alcohol a day at the time, despite having been involved with Alcoholics Anonymous.

"I would take my life in a minute, but I can't bring your son back," Baker said. "I can't bring my sister back, whom I dearly loved.

"I'm very, very sorry for what I've done. I know I can't take it back. I think about your son, your husband, your family," she said to Haller's family.

"I wish I could trade places with him, because I would."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com