MiddletownJournal.com

CINCINNATI — Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland agreed Tuesday to Kentucky's request to extradite a key witness who testified under immunity against an Ohio couple convicted in the death of their 3-year-old foster child.

Strickland issued a warrant for Amy Baker to be brought before an Ohio judge for extradition proceedings and, if the judge agrees, turned over to Kentucky authorities. She faces a charge there of tampering with evidence in connection with the disposal of the body of Marcus Fiesel. Authorities in Maysville, Ky., say she helped throw the developmentally disabled boy's remains from a bridge over the Ohio River.

"I expected the governor to review this, not just blindly (approve) it," Baker's attorney, Norm Aubin, told The Cincinnati Enquirer. He told WLWT-TV that he would keep battling the extradition of Baker, who was already jailed in Clermont County, east of Cincinnati, on $50,000 bond pending extradition proceedings.

It wasn't immediately known when she would next appear in court. A July hearing had been scheduled earlier in Clermont County.

Strickland received the extradition request Monday from Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher, whose request called her "a fugitive from the justice of the Commonwealth of Kentucky."

"After careful review of the request and determining that it meets the legal requirements, the governor has agreed that she should be extradited," Strickland spokesman Keith Dailey said.

The Kentucky charges came despite the immunity Baker was granted by Clermont County prosecutors to testify against Liz and David Carroll Jr., the Cincinnati-area couple who left Fiesel bound in a closet for two days while they attended a weekend family reunion in Kentucky in August. The boy was dead when they returned home.

Baker, 25, who was David Carroll's live-in girlfriend, testified under immunity that she was with Carroll when he later burned the boy's body and threw the ashes and other remains in the Ohio River, which is under Kentucky's jurisdiction. Kentucky police also say the remains were thrown off the William Harsha Bridge, which is considered to be in Mason County, Ky.

"The ends of justice, in my opinion, require that said fugitive be arrested and returned to Kentucky for trial," John Estill, the Mason County Attorney, wrote to Fletcher earlier this month.

Baker testified at Liz Carroll's trial, which ended in her murder conviction in February. Liz Carroll, 30, was sentenced to 54 years to life in prison. David Carroll then pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, with an additional year in prison for his guilty plea to gross abuse of a corpse.

The case spurred an outcry about the foster-care system, and has led to Ohio reform legislation and changes in agencies involved in foster care.