By AP
Vandalia, IL – A Fayette County jury has found a 16-year-old guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths last august of two neighbors.
The jury deliberated three hours yesterday before finding Clifford Baker guilty of shooting 60-year-old John Mahon and 53-year-old Debra Tish as they slept in their home in Loogootee, a community of about two dozen people located about 80 miles east of St. Louis. The then 15-year-old later tried to kill himself.
After Baker shot the pair he entered a neighboring home where he punched a woman in the face while clutching a knife, opening a gash above her left eye.
Baker fled that home after being confronted by name by the woman's husband and was arrested soon afterward by a sheriff's deputy who subdued him with a stun gun.
