The Shadow
WARRENTON, (AP) – The brother of a West Virginia prisoner accused in a decades-old slaying in Virginia’s horse country testified Tuesday he was with his brother when he mortally wounded another man during the New Year’s Eve revenge slaying.
Ronald R. Cloud’s brother also said he fired two shots from a .38-caliber handgun into Brad Baker’s house during the 1980 confrontation. Ernest C. Cloud, 60, said his older brother insisted that he accompany him to Baker’s house.
After the preliminary hearing, General District Court Judge Gregory Ashwell said he found probable cause to forward the case to a grand jury. Cloud, 65, has been charged with first degree murder.
Cloud’s stepfather had been fired by Baker on the day of the shooting, which meant that Cloud’s stepfather and mother would be evicted from their home.
Baker was the manager of Kinloch Farm, an estate owned by relatives of Stephen Currier of the famed Currier and Ives prints and banker and philanthropist Andrew Mellon. He had been in the job for 10 days.
He was found with shots to his head and groin, with the front door window panes smashed out of the two-story farmhouse where he lived.
Ernest Cloud testified Tuesday he and his brother drove to Baker’s house after he had consumed about eight beers. His brother, he said, had a sawed-off, 20-gauge shotgun that he kept hidden under his trench coat.
When they arrived at Baker’s house, Ronald Cloud told him they had had an accident and needed help, Ernest Cloud testified. Sensing trouble, Baker went into a bedroom and grabbed a shotgun.
Ronald Cloud burst into the house, breaking a window to open the door, and he and Baker exchanged shotgun fire, Ernest Cloud said.
“It happened so quickly, I could not tell who shot first,” he said.
As Baker fell to the floor with a head wound, “my brother walked up and shot him a second time in the groin and said that would make it look like a hate crime,” Ernest Cloud said. Baker died the next day.
The shot to the groin led investigators to speculate that the shooting may have been connected to a jilted lover. A 1983 edition of Washingtonian Magazine that focused on the slaying suggested a failed relationship between Baker and Andrea Currier, the Mellon heiress and owner of Kinloch Farm, may have played a role in the shooting.
The older Cloud insisted that Ernest fire his gun, and he testified he shot twice into the house.
Ernest Cloud testified that he didn’t know his brother planned to kill Baker and said he hoped his older brother would cool down before arriving at Baker’s house.
Ronald Cloud’s stepfather and sister also testified at the hearing.
Ernest Cloud acknowledged during questioning by defense attorney Katherine Martell that he had repeatedly lied to investigators through the years.
During questioning by a prosecutor, he said. “There’s a time for closure. Brad Baker’s family needs closure. My family needs closure.”
Fauquier County sheriff’s detective Donald Cahill testified that authorities have made no promises to Ernest Cloud in exchange for his testimony.
Outside of court, Martell told FauquierNow.com, “How come Ernest Cloud is walking out of this courtroom? What he told us today is he’s a drunk and he’s a willing participant in this. Yet he’s walking free.”
Martell added, “You haven’t heard from everybody who was there that night.”
West Virginia records show Cloud is listed as a prisoner in the Mount Olive Correctional Facility in West Virginia. He was sentenced in Hampshire County, W.Va., in 1988 on kidnapping, conspiracy and sexual assault charges, according to the records. The newspaper reports Cloud is serving a life sentence for beating and chaining the woman, who worked with him at a manufacturing plant in Winchester.
