No one has been charged in her death. Her stepmother has been jailed after police say she wrote a fake ransom note discovered the day Zahra was reported missing. Adam Baker is free on bond after being arrested on unrelated charges.
Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins says the district attorney will decide what if any charges to pursue in the death of the little girl who used a prosthetic leg and hearing aids as a result of cancer.
According to court documents, 10-year-old Zahra Baker's dismembered body was concealed in a bed comforter and a car cover, and then discarded in a dumpster behind a Hudson grocery store. Eleven warrants detail the account of the girl's stepmother, Elisa Baker, whose lawyers say she led police to the girl's remains.
The Charlotte Observer reported last month that the warrants were released by order of Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Poovey.
Prosecutors wanted them to remain secret, saying their release could jeopardize the investigation.
Zahra Baker, who had used a prosthetic leg and hearing aids after a bout with cancer, was reported missing in October and police say they found her remains in early November.
Warrants say a polygraph test showed deception when police asked if Elisa Baker hurt the girl.
According to the documents released in November, Elisa Baker --through her attorney-- admitted that she and her husband, Zahra's father Adam Baker, wrapped the girl's prosthetic leg in a white trash bag and threw it in the apartment dumpster.
The documents also reveal, Elisa Baker said she and Adam Baker dumped a mattress and box springs at a trash dump.
Burial plans for Baker have not been determined. Adam Baker had said in a televised interview that after the case is over, he would like to return to Australia with his daughter's remains. Adam Baker met his wife on the Internet while he was living in Australia.
More than 1,000 people attended a vigil in downtown Hickory on Nov. 16 -- what would have been the girl's 11th birthday.
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