Wesley Eugene Baker was born on March 26, 1958, in Baltimore, Maryland. His early life was marked by great difficulties. He was born to a young mother who had been a victim of rape. Unfortunately, his childhood continued to be troubled as he suffered physical and sexual abuse. This abuse came from various people in his life, including his mother and stepfather, as well as two teenage girls.

By the age of 15, Baker became a father. He had a child with a 28-year-old woman who was struggling with heroin addiction. At this time, he was also dealing with his own issues, including addiction to alcohol and heroin. These challenges affected his teenage years significantly.

At 16 years old, Baker faced his first brush with the law. He was convicted for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and sentenced to three years in prison. His legal troubles did not stop there. In 1978, he was convicted of armed robbery and received a 15-year prison sentence. Baker served nine years of that sentence before he was released. However, he was free for only two years before being arrested again for drug and weapons-related offenses.

On June 6, 1991, Wesley Baker approached Jane Tyson in the parking lot of Westview Mall in Catonsville, Maryland. Jane, 49 years old, was getting into her car with her two grandchildren after shopping for shoes. Baker pulled a gun and demanded her purse. Without warning, he shot her, killing her instantly. After the shooting, he fled to a waiting Chevrolet Blazer driven by an accomplice.

A witness saw them leaving the scene and managed to note the license plate number. This information helped the police apprehend Wesley Baker and his accomplice shortly after the crime. Baker was charged with first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and using a handgun during the commission of a felony.

The trial took place in 1992, where Baker was convicted. A jury sentenced him to death and an additional forty years for the robbery and handgun charges. Despite the conviction, some evidence suggested doubts about whether Baker was the actual shooter. A young boy who witnessed the event said the shooter ran towards the driver's side of the car, while a witness reported seeing Baker in the passenger seat. Additional evidence included Baker's fingerprints on the victim's car, raising questions about how he could have fired the gun with those prints present.

Baker's execution was delayed multiple times. In 2002, just days before he was scheduled to die, a moratorium on the death penalty was imposed in Maryland for a study on racial bias in capital punishment. The study found that African Americans were more likely to be sentenced to death when accused of killing white victims compared to cases where whites murdered whites.

On December 5, 2005, Wesley Baker was executed by lethal injection. He was the last person executed in Maryland before the state abolished the death penalty in 2013. Baker did not give a final statement before his execution, and eyewitness accounts described him showing little reaction during the procedure. His last meal consisted of breaded fish, pasta marinara, green beans, orange fruit punch, bread, and milk. After Baker's execution, the remaining death row inmates in Maryland had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.