
On the summer solstice in 1990, a UCLA student with an interest in the occult was stabbed to death in a railway tunnel in the San Fernando Valley. Rumors of ritual violence swirled in the era of the so-called Satanic Panic. Police investigating the murder of Ronald Baker found his killers knew him well. One of them had even carried his casket.
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Christopher Goffard
This is an LA Times Studios podcast.
Ronald Baker's Parent
I share this on behalf of Ron's parents. Ron was born at Santa Monica Hospital during a rainstorm on January 18, 1969. He was an easygoing, intelligent child. He was thrilled to be accepted by his first choice of colleges, ucla. He was a science fiction and a Star Trek fan and had visions of becoming a space scientist or an astronaut. He grew up in this church attending.
Christopher Goffard
This is a memorial service for Ronald Baker, a young man who had recently been murdered in a particularly brutal way. He had 18 stab wounds and his throat had been slashed.
Ronald Baker's Parent
Ron was a loving person with a witty sense of humor and a deeply inquiring mind.
Christopher Goffard
When local teenagers found his body in a pitch black railroad tunnel above Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley, he had no ID and was initially John Doe number 135. The tunnel had a dark mystique. The words Holy terror were spray painted above the entrance. People called it the Manson Tunnel. Charles Manson and his disciples had lived nearby at the Spahn Movie Ranch.
Ronald Baker's Parent
He moved to an apartment near Van Nuys and Victory Boulevards where he could take a bus directly to ucla or he could take the Victory bus to the Baker's house.
Christopher Goffard
Baker had been a skinny, sweet tempered 21 year old with a mop of curly hair. People said he had no enemies. He loved the Rocky Horror Picture show sing alongs and worked a candle making booth at Renaissance fairs. He had written his sister a birthday card in Elizabethan English. He'd been to the Manson Tunnel before and was known to meditate in the area.
Ronald Baker's Parent
He was also an avid environmentalist and recycler. He refused to use anything made of styrofoam and we took special efforts at the reception this afternoon to have all paper products.
Christopher Goffard
It was June 1990. A cult inspired mayhem had become a common theme in the Los Angeles media sphere. The serial killer known as the Night Stalker, who was a professed Satanist, had been sentenced to death. A year before. The McMartin Preschool molestation case with its wild claims of ritual abuse of children was still slogging through the courts on Ronald Baker's necklace. Police found a pentagram pendant in the bedroom of his Van Nuys apartment. They found witchcraft books, a pentagram decorated candle and a flyer for Mystic Circle, a group devoted to shamanism and magic. The LAPD was considering the possibility of occult motives in the slaying. He had been killed on June 21st, the summer solstice. Occultists considered it a holy day and they were known to congregate in the area. Headline Writers leaned into the occult angle. Student killed on solstice may have been sacrificed. Read the Daily News. Slain man frequently visited site of occultists. Declared the Times.
Lydia (Friend of Ron)
I know a lot of you don't know me, but my name is Lydia and I don't, can't really get up here and say much because there's too many things to go through. But the best thing about Ron was that you'd call him and an hour later he'd call you back and he always wanted to hear from you and he'd always be there. And out of all of our friends that have split up and that we don't see anymore, Ron was always waiting someplace. He was always close by.
Christopher Goffard
Detectives learned that Baker's particular interest in the occult had been a non violent variety. He had been a practitioner of Wicca, a form of nature worship that shunned violence. Friends said he was shy and introverted and quote adamantly against Satanism. But one detective speculated to reporters, we don't know if at some point he graduated from the light to the dark side of that. Had he gone into the hills to meditate and stumbled across practitioners of more malignant magic. Today on crimes of the the murder of Ronald Baker. For the Los Angeles Times, this is Christopher Goff.
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Detective Rick Jackson
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Duncan Martinez
I'm Duncan Martinez. I've been Ron's roommate for about the past two and a half years.
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Duncan Martinez
Mark really hit it on, hit the nail on the head with the fact about him not having anybody hate him.
Christopher Goffard
Among the people who rose to memorialize Ronald Baker at the Woodland Hills United Methodist Church, Duncan Martinez was memorable. Duncan Martinez had been one of Ron Baker's two roommates in an apartment in Van Nuys. Martinez was an ex Marine in his early 20s. As fit and muscular as Baker had been, spindly and unimposing, Baker considered Martinez one of his best friends. They had met working at Sears years earlier.
Duncan Martinez
He was the most friendliest, sweetest Guy there, I mean, he was never real.
Christopher Goffard
Martinez had been one of the last people to see Baker alive. He and the other roommates said they had dropped him off at a Van Nuys bus stop and that Baker had planned to join his Mystic Circle friends for the solstice.
Duncan Martinez
I mean, he was never real, you know, physically strong or, you know, like a lot of the guys I know, but he had it here. And he would talk to anybody and be there for anybody at the drop of a dime.
Christopher Goffard
Baker had been a light drinker, but toxicology results showed he was heavily drunk when he died. Had someone he trusted lured him to the tunnel? Baker's parents told police that around the time their son disappeared, a raspy voiced man had called them, demanding $100,000 in exchange for his life. How was that connected to his slaying? Duncan Martinez helped to carry his dead friend's casket. And he seemed to be struggling with emotion as he delivered his brief, poignant eulogy.
Duncan Martinez
And I miss him a lot, too. And I just hope that it's something I can get over. Cause I love him. And it's just hard to think of a time without Ron. He's always been there, and he's the one friend that I thought I'd know until I was old, until I always thought Ron would be there. Anyway, thank you.
Christopher Goffard
But something about Martinez's story strained logic. When Baker's father had alerted him and the other roommate to the ransom calls, Martinez said he had looked for him at Chatsworth park, knowing it was one of Baker's favorite haunts. Why would he assume a kidnapper had taken him there? There was another troubling detail. Martinez had cashed a $109 check he said Baker had given him. But a handwriting expert determined that Baker's signature had been forged. Soon, detectives had put the occult angle aside to focus on the roommates. They were each other's alibis. They had showed no signs of animosity toward Baker.
Detective Rick Jackson
Duncan and Ron Baker were very close. They were like best friends.
Christopher Goffard
This is Rick Jackson, who is one of the two main LAPD detectives on the case.
Detective Rick Jackson
They had worked together. They had previously lived in an apartment together.
Christopher Goffard
Martinez agreed to a polygraph test.
Detective Rick Jackson
We call up and set a schedule, not knowing if he'll eventually show up or not. And he does.
Christopher Goffard
During the polygraph, Martinez described his friend's murder as a pretty unsensible crime and insisted he had nothing to do with it. He said, quote, I've never known anybody to carry a grudge or even dislike Ron for more Than a minute, you.
Detective Rick Jackson
Know, on every pertinent question, Were you there? Did you see? Do you know? And he fails it miserably.
Christopher Goffard
The other roommate, the one who supplied Martinez with his alibi was Nathan Blaylock. He was also in his early 20s.
Detective Rick Jackson
An army veteran, Nathan Blaylock. They met, or Duncan, the one roommate met at the Renaissance Fair where they had worked, and they became close, and the three of them moved in together. Ron and Nathan weren't that close, but they were roommates, and there was no major issues between any of them.
Christopher Goffard
Martinez had let detectives search his car. They knew that whoever had killed Baker had. Had done so at close range and would likely have carried some of his blood away from the scene. But detectives found no blood in the car.
Detective Rick Jackson
And this was a couple weeks after the murder. Two and a half, three weeks maybe, but doesn't mean they still didn't do it. It's, you know, who knows how well it was cleaned. Sometimes you miss things, but sometimes you get it.
Christopher Goffard
Then Duncan Martinez lawyered up after the.
Detective Rick Jackson
Result of that came a letter from an attorney a few days later saying that Duncan was no longer without counsel. I am representing him, and he'll continue to cooperate with you any way he can. And he's not a flight risk. Which eventually became kind of an ironic quote.
Christopher Goffard
Ironic because Martinez soon fled the state and was gone for nearly 18 months. Meanwhile, interviews with the other roommate and suspect, Nathan Blaylock, showed a man of exceptional smoothness and cool.
Detective Rick Jackson
Very welcoming, much like Duncan, very personable, very cooperative. And we sit and talk to him. Basically, he regurgitates pretty much what Duncan had told us about. Ron needed a ride over to Corner. They were going out, and he asked if they'd drop him off at the bus stop at Victory in Van Nuys. I remember asking them what corner, and they both gave me different corners. But you can't say it definitely is anything because Nathan didn't know the area that well.
Christopher Goffard
The murder, if the roommates had done it, seemed to have little logic to it.
Detective Rick Jackson
We started doing little things to kind of check them off. Maybe we can come up with an idea to try to eliminate them, because at this point, it made no sense that they were involved. You know, you don't do this to a good friend. You don't really have a really solid kidnapping plan. But it just didn't make sense. So as we went through the checklist to check them off, we did five or six or. Or seven or whatever little things that we could think of to say, okay, does this make sense to eliminate them because of this or does it include them? Well, everything we did kind of kept pointing back to them.
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Christopher Goffard
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Christopher Goffard
Detective Rick Jackson is sometimes called the inspiration for Harry Bosch, the hard bitten detective in Michael Connolly's bestselling series. He won't take credit, but he says he helped inspire some of the storylines, like bringing Bosch out of retirement. Jackson recounts his investigation into Baker's murder in his book Black Tunnel White a Murder A Detective's Obsession and 90s Los Angeles at the Brink, which he wrote with author and journalist Matthew McGuff. While he was on the run, Martinez tried to reinvent himself as Jonathan Wayne Miller, an identity he had stolen from a toddler who died after accidentally drinking Drano in 1974. Jackson says Martinez sliced the child's death certificate out of a Massachusetts state archive, hoping to disguise his fraud.
Detective Rick Jackson
A travesty for the family who I had to contact, which was, you know, you hate to do that. 20 years later, this. This guy basically assumed your child's. Your innocent, sweet child's identity. You know, it's. It was. That was as hard as any death notification, really, because it took them right back to that terrible, terrible day that their child died.
Christopher Goffard
Martinez was arrested in Utah on a warrant for lying on a passport application in February 1992. After being assured his statement could not be used against him, Martinez finally talked. He said it had been Blaylock's idea and that they had been inspired by an episode of Old Time Television.
Detective Rick Jackson
In short, it is. They came up with a kidnapping plan after watching a botched kidnapping on a Dragnet show. They'd been drinking one night. This is. This is Duncan and Nathan. And there you have to understand their personalities, especially together. It's kind of like, I'm gonna one up you and make it even better. One of them would say, yeah, we could do this instead. And, yeah, that sounds cool, but I think we should do this too. And you could just see the personalities, the building blocks back and forth until they had what they thought was a reasonable plan, and they actually went out and made a call to someone Duncan didn't like in high school as a potential victim. But he was away at college.
Christopher Goffard
They weighed possible targets. The student they shared an apartment with, the Wiccan pacifist without enemies somehow seemed a convenient one.
Detective Rick Jackson
The next thing you know, Ron comes into the picture, and they put this plan together to lure him up to the tunnel on the night of the summer solstice because they know that people would believe he would go up there. What they do is they tell Ron that they're meeting three girls up there at the tunnel. Duncan says they're walking through the tunnel. Duncan, over the years that he cooperated with us, said, you know, I never really thought it was going to happen. I really didn't think Nathan would do anything. I didn't think this. I didn't think that. However, there was one thing he said to me in an interview that really jumped out at me big time. And he said, I looked over when it was supposed to happen, and it didn't. That's when I thought that he wasn't going to do it. And then as we're walking back through the tunnel, the attack happened. Well, if you're going to look over exactly when it's supposed to happen, that shows you how much detail they went into about where it was going to happen, when it was going to happen, at what point things were going to go down.
Christopher Goffard
So by Martinez's immunized admission, they lured Baker to the park with a case of beer and the promise of meeting girls. And Blalock stabbed him with a Marine Corps KA Bar knife Martinez had lent him. Baker begged Martinez for help, and Martinez responded by telling his knife wielding friend to finish the job. I told him to make sure that it was over because I didn't want Ron to suffer. Martinez said, I believe Nathan slit his throat a couple of times. He admitted to disguising his voice while making ransom calls to Baker's father. The scheme seemed as asinine as it was cruel, and Martinez offered little to lend clarity. He sounded as clueless as anyone else or pretended to be. You know, he said, it doesn't completely click with me either. I talked to Patty Baker Elliot, the victim's elder sister, who told me they ruined their lives and all of the family's lives with the stupidest crime. In the end, the occult trappings were a red herring, apparently intended to throw police off the scent of the real culprits and the real motive.
Detective Rick Jackson
It makes no sense. At least it made no sense to us until a year and a half into it, when we first met with Duncan and he decided he was going to cooperate with us. And when you told the story, it still didn't make sense because it was such a harebrained scheme.
Christopher Goffard
Nathan Blaylock was charged with murder. To the frustration of detectives who believed him equally guilty, Martinez remained free. His statements, given under a grant of immunity, could not be used against him, and he might have escaped justice forever. But he blundered. When he was arrested for burglarizing a Utah sporting goods store. He claimed a man had coerced him into stealing a mountain bike by threatening to expose his role in the California murder as a Salt Lake City detective recorded him. Martinez put himself at the scene of his roommate's death while downplaying his own guilt. He had made this admission with no promise of immunity, and therefore it was enough to charge him. Jurors found both men guilty of first degree murder, and they were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. For decades, Rick Jackson has been reflecting on the case and the senselessness at its core. Jackson came to think of it as a folly Adieu. Murder, a term that means madness of two and refers to criminal duos whose members probably would not have done it solo. He regarded it as my blue collar Leopold and Loeb case, he told me, comparing it to the wealthy Chicago teenagers who murdered a boy in 1924 with the motive of committing the perfect crime.
Detective Rick Jackson
And it's a fascinating case, but those guys were filthy rich, from filthy, filthy, filthy rich families. And I think their motivation was to create the perfect crime, be based on their high IQ and intellects. But these guys were not. I mean, they were poor kids. And did they hope they could get a hundred thousand? Yes. Was that the total motivation? Probably more so than Leopold and Loeb because they could use the money. But in large, they even acknowledged that the plot probably wouldn't work.
Christopher Goffard
In June 2020, while he was writing his book about the case, the news carried a development he had not seen coming. Governor Gavin Newsom had intervened to commute Martinez's sentence, making him eligible for parole.
Detective Rick Jackson
Of course, you have to apply for that. So Duncan did apply and had private attorneys and had a pretty good record in prison. But the unfortunate thing is, Governor Newsom, they would not turn over anything to us. The report that was written for Governor Newsom, which is, you know, based on public records, you know, they wouldn't turn over these reports. So all we know is he never contacted anybody from the DA's office. He never contacted me or my partner, who are the most knowledgeable people that could have given the other side of the story. He got everything, basically, it sounds like from Duncan Martinez or the investigator that wrote the report for Newsom. Got that from Duncan Martinez.
Christopher Goffard
The governor's office said at the time that Martinez had, quote, committed himself to self improvement during his quarter century in prison. Jackson thought the language of the commutation minimized Martinez's role in concocting the kidnapping plan that led to the murder. He said he regarded Martinez as a pathological liar and one of the most manipulative people he'd met in his long career. Martinez had not only failed to help Baker, but had urged Blaylock to finish him off and then posed as a consoling friend to the grieving family. The victim's sister, Patty Baker Elliott told me the commutation was a shock to her, too. The governor's office had not told her it was coming. She remembers how skillfully Martinez counterfeited compassion, how he cried, how he hugged everyone at the memorial service, how his voice broke during the eulogy.
Duncan Martinez
And I miss him a lot, too, and I just hope that it's something I can get over.
Christopher Goffard
A Los Angeles prosecutor intended to argue against Martinez's release at the parole hearing, but then newly elected LA District Attorney George Gascon instituted a policy forbidding his office from sending advocates. Jackson went to argue the case against releasing him with Ron Baker's sister.
Detective Rick Jackson
You know, it was like spitting into the wind.
Christopher Goffard
The parole board sided with Martinez and he left prison in April 2021.
Detective Rick Jackson
He got out of prison on his first attempt. And Nathan Blaylock still sits in prison. And I do believe they were equally responsible legally, they were under the law. I almost blame Duncan Moore because he was in the position as Ron best friend to stop this whole thing and say, wait a minute, Nathan, what the hell are we talking about here? He didn't and he let it go through and what happened, happened.
Christopher Goffard
From LA Times Studios, this is Crimes of the Times.
To read more about these cases, check.
Out Crimes of the times@latimes.com we also have a link to our video episodes.
In the show Notes.
This episode was written and reported by me, your host, Christopher Goffard. Our senior producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shifflet. At Studio Phonic, Executive Editor is Stuart Leavenworth, Associate Producer is Jordan Patterson, our camera operator is Peter Grayson, our director of post production is Patrick Stewart and our senior sound Recording engineer is Nick Norton with additional engineering by Jordan Patterson. Destin Leigh is our senior coordinating producer. Special thanks to LA Times Studios President Anna mczanian, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argenteri and Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. Crimes of the Times is executive produced and co created by Darius, Derek Shahn and me, Christopher Goffard.
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Host: Christopher Goffard (L.A. Times Studios)
Release Date: November 4, 2025
In this episode, veteran reporter Christopher Goffard revisits the 1990 murder of Ronald Baker, a UCLA student whose brutal killing initially set off a media frenzy with rumors of Satanic ritual and occult sacrifice during the height of L.A.'s "Satanic Panic." Goffard untangles the mythology from the facts, focusing on the true story behind Baker’s death: a senseless plot by his own roommates, which left the LAPD and the public baffled for years. The episode delves into the psychological dynamics of the killers, the misdirection by tabloid headlines, and the enduring impact on the victim’s family amid a justice system riddled with both twists and controversy.
“Ron was a loving person with a witty sense of humor and a deeply inquiring mind.” (Ronald Baker’s Parent, 00:58)
“The LAPD was considering the possibility of occult motives in the slaying. He had been killed on June 21st, the summer solstice. Occultists considered it a holy day.” (Christopher Goffard, 02:20)
“He was never real, you know, physically strong … but he had it here. And he would talk to anybody and be there for anybody at the drop of a dime.” (Duncan Martinez, 07:19)
“You don’t do this to a good friend. … but everything we did kind of kept pointing back to them.” (Det. Rick Jackson, 12:56)
“I told him to make sure that it was over because I didn’t want Ron to suffer … I believe Nathan slit his throat a couple of times.” (Christopher Goffard quoting Martinez, 19:44)
“In the end, the occult trappings were a red herring, apparently intended to throw police off the scent...” (Christopher Goffard, 20:14)
“It makes no sense. At least it made no sense to us until a year and a half … when you told the story, it still didn’t make sense because it was such a harebrained scheme.” (Det. Rick Jackson, 21:07)
“He got out of prison on his first attempt. And Nathan Blaylock still sits in prison. And I do believe they were equally responsible.” (Det. Rick Jackson, 26:32)
“Martinez had not only failed to help Baker, but had urged Blaylock to finish him off and then posed as a consoling friend to the grieving family.” (Christopher Goffard, 24:34)
Martinez’s Eulogy:
“And I miss him a lot, too. And I just hope that it’s something I can get over. Cause I love him. And it’s just hard to think of a time without Ron. He’s always been there, and he’s the one friend that I thought I’d know until I was old…” (Duncan Martinez, 08:17)
Chilling in hindsight, given his culpability.
Detective on Martinez’s Polygraph:
“On every pertinent question, were you there? Did you see? Do you know? And he fails it miserably.” (Det. Rick Jackson, 10:24)
Detective’s Perspective on the Tragedy:
“I almost blame Duncan Moore because he was in the position as Ron’s best friend to stop this whole thing and say, wait a minute, Nathan, what the hell are we talking about here? He didn’t and he let it go through...” (Det. Rick Jackson, 26:32)
Sister’s Pain:
“They ruined their lives and all of the family's lives with the stupidest crime.” (Patty Baker Elliott, paraphrased by Goffard, 20:14)
The murder of Ronald Baker, though sensationalized as an occult sacrifice, was in truth a devastating act of betrayal by those closest to him. The story is a cautionary tale about misplaced suspicion, the seductive power of media-driven myth, and the systemic failures that can let justice slip through the cracks—even when the facts eventually surface. The episode is a testament to dogged investigative work and the enduring agony for the families left behind.
For further reading, Goffard recommends his sources at latimes.com/crimesofthetimes and Det. Rick Jackson’s book on the case, Black Tunnel White: A Murder, A Detective’s Obsession, and 90s Los Angeles at the Brink.