Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — The Jackson Police Department is on the lookout for a man accused of kidnapping and holding a 19-year-old woman hostage for two days.

Marcus Baker, 32, is wanted in connection with kidnapping a 19-year-old woman in west Jackson, on Capitol Street near Mount Vernon, and keeping her against her will for two days in south Jackson, from last Monday to Wednesday. Initial news agencies reported his name as Marcus Butler, but Commander Tyree Jones of the Jackson Police Department said on Oct. 21 that Butler was an alias.

"His real name, we just learned, his real name is actually Marcus Baker. His alias name might be Marcus Butler, but his real name is Marcus Baker," Jones said.

Jones described Baker as an African American male, about 6-feet, 1-inch tall and 160 to 170 pounds. He was last seen driving a gray Ford Crown Victoria. Jones said police issued a warrant out for arrest for kidnapping.

"From what I understand, there was no affiliation," Jones said. "

He saw her walking down the street, pulled a gun on her and made her get in the car."

Jones said that after the kidnapper left her alone, the victim escaped. "He left, and she was able to bust a hole in the door and damage the door and make her escape," Jones said.

This comes a few weeks after another thwarted kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl, who also escaped her kidnapper and made it to authorities. The police arrested a suspect on that case.

"We made an arrest on that other case with the 13-year-old girl. We don't believe that they are related. We don't see a trend or anything in it. It just so happened that we had a couple of random kidnappings," Jones said.

No Homicides for Oct. 10-16

For the week of Oct 10-16, the Jackson Police Department reported no homicides for the four precincts. That number was down from the two in the previous reporting period. For the last 28 days, the city has seen eight reported homicides, four up from the same period last year.

"We didn't have any homicides for the last reporting week," Jones said. "We just contribute that to conflict resolution, first of all, between individuals. And also with these homicides, these are the hardest things to predict, and they are also one of the major crimes that we cannot curtail. Individuals get to arguing, and they may decide that they want to pull a gun and shoot the other one, or there might be some other type of motive behind it.

"Only thing I can say is that we are just fortunate that we did not have a homicide last week, and we hopefully can continue that trend of not having it."

Low Crime at the State Fair and JSU Game

Jones said that for the reporting period, and the big events in the city, the property crimes remained low. "It was very low. We only reported four auto burglaries for the whole time," he said.

He said that even with the Jackson State University game against Southern University last weekend, the crime rate remained exceptionally low, considering the number of people at the game.

"Actually, not only did we have the fair during this reporting Comstat period, but we had the Southern/Jackson State game at Memorial Stadium, which is one of the biggest games and biggest crowds for college football here in the city," Jones said. "We didn't have any incidents to report there as well.

"So with the fair being here and the 40(,000) to 50,000 people here at the stadium for the football game, tailgating and making entry into the stadium for the game, four auto burglaries for that reporting period is pretty good."

CORRECTION: This article originally reported that the football game last weekend was between JSU and Southern Miss. It was instead Southern University.

Email city reporter Tim Summers Jr. at [email protected]. See more local news at jfp.ms/localnews.