Baker returned to Arkansas, but word of his crimes had spread, and a local woman named Beth Warthom was openly critical of him. He took several hickory switches to her house, and threatened to beat her. Her husband, David Warthom, began to fight with Baker, and overwhelmed him in front of the house. Beth Warthom screamed, and her husband looked her way. With his attention drawn away from Baker, he was stabbed once with a knife Baker had in his possession. Warthom died on the spot. Baker fled back to Texas, and in July, 1862, he married his second wife Martha Foster, who was unaware that he was wanted for murder. She was a daughter of William and Elizabeth Young Foster.