Defense attorney's hobby: Painting serial killer portraits

last updated: July 13, 2008 02:36:33 AM

When Modesto criminal defense attorney Martin Baker isn't trying a case or preparing for one, he needs an outlet -- a way to relax and to leave a tough day in court behind.

Baker likes to paint. So when time allows, out come the oils, brushes, palette knives and other tools.

"It's all therapeutic," said Baker, who was a fine arts major in college in his native England and worked his way through law school in the United States by painting signs.

"It helps me stay out of emotional trouble, not go off the deep end."

His artistic side takes over and the works flow. You know, the traditional stuff: flowers, landscapes, wildlife, serial killers.

Serial killers?

Over the past year or so, Baker has painted a series of black-and-white oil portraits of such notorious monsters as Richard "The Night Stalker" Ramirez, Ted "The Unabomber" Kaczynski, Kenneth Bianchi (one of the Hillside Stranglers), Charles Ng and Cary Stayner.

Why, might you ask, would an attorney want to immortalize these demons on canvas?

They are by no means his heroes.

"These images are all based on their mug shots," Baker said. "They all had long careers, with killing as their primary occupation. There's that unique moment in time when they are captured, the expression on their faces ... . Where there once was that glimpse of defiance, there's that moment when they know, and everybody else knows, they're going to be locked up for forever."

The portraits represent the confluence of Baker the artist, Baker the attorney with insight into the criminal mind, and Baker the amateur shrink.

"I'm an armchair psychologist, just like anybody else," he said. "It's easy to look at a mug shot and wonder what's going on in their minds at that very time. I can say more through painting than the original photos would."

His portraits zoom in tightly on their faces, focusing on the intensity of their features -- eyes and facial lines, in particular.

"I'm not idolizing or glorifying them," Baker said. "If anything, I'm exposing them for the deluded, evil people they are, to look at the person to see who he is. These are guys who aspired to be gods, to rise above the rest of us. The mug shots capture them at the point when they're completely humiliated."

Or not.

Ramirez, convicted of raping, mutilating or murdering 25 people, sneered and displayed a satanic symbol drawn on his palm when he appeared in court in 1985.

Stayner gave a cold, calculating and downright bone-chilling confession after killing three Yosemite tourists and a park naturalist in 1999.

Bianchi tried to fake mental illness in his 1979 trial.

Kaczynski ridiculed the concept of psychological profiling, claiming "science has no business probing the workings of the human mind" while being examined to determine whether he was mentally fit to stand trial.

Ng, the most gruesome of them all, was convicted of killing at least 11 people -- videotaping the rape and torture of some victims -- in Calaveras County in the mid-1980s.

Baker began painting two decades ago, and produced a series of portraits centered on prisoners of war from the Persian Gulf War in 1991, about the same time he moved to the United States.

"One was a British air force man," Baker said. "I gave most of them away."

Baker's interest in painting killers began in earnest after he read David M. Buss' book, "The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind is Designed to Kill."

"It's an enlightening read," Baker said. "(Buss) says all men have the potential to kill. It's programmed into us through evolution. Most fight to suppress that instinct."

• Comments
• Add Comment
• Disclaimer