The Crime Scene

Herndon was found dead in his home in a posh suburban area of Roswell, Ga., on the morning of Thursday, August 8, 1996.

His mother, Jackie, discovered Herndon's body after his employees working in his basement office grew concerned when he did not show for work and did not return their calls.

Lance Herndon's nude body was found partially covered with a sheet in his waterbed in the home's masterbedroom suite. His head had been crushed by repeated blows from a blunt instrument. Although the murder weapon itself was never recovered, the medical examiner later concluded that was likely a large crescent wrench. There were no defensive wounds on the body, indicating that the victim was ambushed.

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Herndon was discovered lying on his back, his arms folded across his chest, which is the position in which he usually slept, according to people close to him. His wallet and several credit cards were found untouched on a dresser in the bedroom, although the shirt and pants the victim had worn the previous evening were missing. A bloody pillow case, perhaps used by the perpetrator to wipe off blood after the attack, was discovered stuffed into the toilet in the master bathroom.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about Lance Herndon's bedroom was the fact that all of his alarm clocks had been unplugged. Herndon, who habitually rose as early as 4:00 or 4:30 every morning, would set three alarm clocks. In addition, the phone that beside the victim's bed was also unplugged.

Because the heater in Herndon's waterbed kept his body temperature from falling below 87 degrees, his exact time of death could not be determined. The medical examiner who performed his autopsy, however, estimated that Lance Herndon had been dead about six to eight hours by the time his body was discovered shortly after 10:00 a.m.

The Investigation

Early in the their investigation, police began to suspect Baugh of murder, but the case against her was too weak to warrant an arrest. Nevertheless, police kept an eye on her over the next year.

Authorities first went to question Baugh hours after Herndon's body was discovered, but no one answered their repeated knocks on the door. After speaking with a neighbor, they left. But the neighbor later told them that Dionne Baugh had come over to her house immediately after the police left to find out what they had wanted.

According to her neighbor, Baugh said that she had been in the shower when the authorities knocked on her door — which the neighbor found hard to believe, considering that Baugh was wearing a business suit, had dry hair, and was in full daytime make-up.

Baugh then got into her car and drove away. Her neighbor notified the police that she had just left, and they went to Baugh's home to wait for her return.

About 20 minutes after they arrived, Baugh returned home and reportedly collapsed and got hysterical after allegedly learning of Lance Herndon's death. But according to the police, she shed no actual tears.

In her interview with police later that afternoon — and in a subsequent videotaped interview at the Roswell P.D. nine days later on August 17 — Dionne Baugh denied knowing anything about Lance Herndon's death. She told authorities that she had driven her husband and daughter, who had been visiting from Jamaica, to the airport on the evening of August 7 and then returned home.

She said that Herndon had briefly visited her home sometime between 9:00 and 10:30 p.m. the night before Lance's body was discovered and that he brought her his IBM ThinkPad laptop computer which he sometimes let her borrow. Herndon then left her home, she told police.

Despite repeated questioning, Dionne Baugh stuck to her story that she never went to Lance Herndon's home the night he was killed. She also maintained that her relationship with Herndon was solid, and that she and Lance were truly in love. But authorities discovered that her version of events did not match other what others were telling them.

Finally, in January of 1998, police got the break they were looking for. Dionne Baugh was in the process of a divorce from her husband, and police learned that Baugh had spoken to her mother-in-law, Barbara Nelson, a few weeks after the murder. During that conversation, Baugh allegedly admitted to her mother-in-law that she had indeed been to Lance Herndon's home on the night he was killed — despite the fact she had told police she had not present that night.

Baugh was arrested and charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, two counts of theft by taking and financial transaction card fraud. If convicted of either of the murder charges, she faced life in prison.

The Prosecution's Case