Ramah man gets 3 years for killing
Claimed self-defense for disembowling aggressor

By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Accepting a lesser sentence of aggravated battery to avoid a long and risky trial for attempted murder Kevin Baker, 43, of Ramah entered a guilty plea in February for a knifing incident that occurred in October 2007. He received sentencing Monday in the 13th Judicial District Court in Grants.

Baker, the victim Jack Mansperger, Mansperger’s family, and neighbors familiar to both men attended Baker’s sentencing in Judge Camille Martinez-Olguin’s courtroom Monday afternoon. Olguin heard testimony from state prosecutor Assistant District Attorney Peter Burns, presenting friends and family members in support of Mansperger, and from Baker and his defense attorney Joseph N. Riggs III before handing down the maximum sentence possible for the charges.

Baker received three years in the New Mexico Department of Corrections for the aggravated battery charge and an additional 18 months for tampering with evidence, with the sentences to run consecutively. Olguin’s sentence also stipulated that Baker must serve at least 85 percent of the assault sentence and must serve two years of parole after being released from corrections. The judge allowed the defendant 50 days credit for time served, but no credit for time Baker spent wearing an ankle-bracelet monitoring device while awaiting trial and sentencing.

Pam Mansperger, the victim’s stepmother, said before the sentencing that she couldn’t stand the thought of Baker walking for the crime, or of his getting a suspended or light sentence. “He came with that knife to murder Jack and left him like that to die,” she said.

Mansperger’s stepson was left at the scene of the incident between the two men, in a area where homes are far apart and little traffic passes. Baker slit Mansperger from his sternum to below his navel, disemboweling him with what a 4-inch-wide Bowie-type hunting knife. A neighbor, Larry McGuire, said in a statement read in the courtroom by friend Gary Ozzee, that the victim reached the door of his home nearly dead, with his intestines outside his body.

The callousness of leaving Jack Mansperger to die in a remote area after mortally injuring him, along with apparently taking the knife back into his vehicle with him and what the judge referred to as Baker’s “rap sheet” motived the Olguin to deliver the maximum sentence possible. “You cut a good plea, very good,” she told the defendant before adjourning the session.

The defense presented a case of self-defense on claims that Jack Mansperger was the aggressor in the incident, attacking Baker with an air hose from his shop and that Jack was known to be violent.

Riggs asked for supervised probation, restitution for medical related bills and an order keeping Baker out of the area and presented Baker’s flawless record in cooperation while going through the legal process as an indication of attitude and willingness.

The defense attorney said he was not surprised by the sentence. “The actions that led to the stabbing were the law of the Old West,” he said. “The judge showed her court does not want the law of the Old West.” Riggs said he was dismayed but not surprised.

Pam Mansperger said she was surprised. “It didn’t look like it was going to go that way,” she said. She added that as the defense made its case, she just knew it was not going to go her way. Although Pam said as far as she was concerned the knifing was a clear case of attempted murder, she was satisfied with the sentence.