Kay Elizabeth Baker’s life was defined by service, steadiness, and love for her children and students. In late May 2022, that life ended violently on a quiet street in Lithia, Florida. Prosecutors later said her boyfriend, Matthew Robertson Terry, knifed her in a jealous rage after a night out. The case gripped the Tampa Bay area not only because a beloved third-grade teacher was gone, but because evidence from a nearly identical attack years earlier—an attempted murder against a former partner, Michelle Rogers—revealed a chilling pattern. What follows is a deeply detailed account of Baker’s murder on May 27–28, 2022, the response and investigation, the courtroom battle that followed, and the earlier Michigan case involving Rogers that prosecutors said foreshadowed the horror in Lithia.
Kay Elizabeth Baker: Life, Work, and Roots
Friends and colleagues described Kay as the kind of educator who learned every child’s quirks and needs, then built trust with a warm, even temperament. She taught math and science at Cypress Creek Elementary, the sort of teacher parents name with gratitude years later when a child blossoms. Away from school, Kay carved out time for her two children, weekend gatherings with friends, and little pleasures that reset a long week—music, game nights, and the small rituals that knit a close-in circle together. Born in Michigan and proud of those roots, she embraced Florida’s sunshine with Midwestern straightforwardness. The portrait that emerged at memorials was of a person who was generous with time and attention, rarely the loudest in the room but reliably the most grounded.
The Relationship With Matthew Terry
Kay and Matthew Terry were living together in Lithia. By most accounts, the relationship started with the ordinary optimism of midlife connection and quickly became complicated. Friends would later recount cycles: affectionate stretches punctuated by friction over jealousy and control. Nothing about the early months drew police headlines, but trusted confidants remembered Kay confiding worries about arguments that spun up suddenly and intensely. In the courtroom later, this history became relevant when prosecutors framed the case as domestic violence escalating with speed and ferocity.
May 27, 2022: A Night Out That Turned
On the evening of Friday, May 27, the couple went out with friends to The Landing Bar & Grill in the Valrico/Lithia area. It was the start of a long weekend. The mood at the table—drinks, laughter, familiar faces—looked unremarkable to those around them. But what jurors later saw on surveillance footage and heard from witnesses painted a tighter narrative thread: an argument sparked by perceived flirting or dancing, followed by colder body language, and then a decision to head home.
What feels routine in any relationship argument—sharp words, a stiff ride back—can be the pivot point in relationships already primed by control or jealousy. According to the state’s presentation of the timeline, that pivot happened after the couple left the bar.
The Walk Back and the First Cries for Help
Home was a short drive away on a residential street in Lithia. It was late, after midnight now—the early minutes of May 28. Neighbors later told investigators they heard raised voices, movement outside, and then a sudden commotion. What happened in the span of those minutes would become the core of the murder charge: a violent knife attack outside the home that spilled into the adjacent yard of a neighbor’s property. When a neighbor stepped out, the scene he encountered was already catastrophic. First responders were called, but Kay’s wounds—concentrated around the neck—were unsurvivable.
Within an hour of what began as an ordinary Friday night, the household and the quiet block had become the center of a homicide investigation. Deputies canvassed the area, securing the scene, collecting early statements, and beginning a search for Terry, who was no longer at Kay’s side.
Immediate Law-Enforcement Response and Evidence Preservation
Detectives and crime scene technicians moved quickly that night and into the dawn. The priority sequence was textbook: stabilize and document the scene, locate the suspected attacker, and preserve every image, impression, and fiber that could later be tested or reconstructed. Body-worn camera footage from deputies would later give jurors a visceral view of the scene as the first responders saw it: the stillness of a residential lawn, flashlights cutting across grass still damp from Florida humidity, and the distinct footprints and scuffs that indicated a struggle.
Officers interviewed neighbors in real time—what did they hear, from where, in what order, and did they see anyone run? Units spread outward, scanning common egress paths that a person on foot might take in the area. Before sunrise, investigators had begun piecing together a preliminary sequence of events built from the 911 call timing, neighbor accounts, and the location of Kay’s body relative to her home.
The Search for Matthew Terry and the Injuries He Carried
Law enforcement located Matthew Terry not far from the scene. He showed injuries that investigators would later characterize as consistent with either a struggle or self-inflicted harm—an important distinction prosecutors and defense would fight over at trial. The state would argue the wounds were an attempt to muddy the narrative or mimic a chaotic altercation; the defense would float the theory that an unknown assailant appeared, injuring both parties. From the moment Terry was found, the case trajectory pointed toward swift charging decisions, a tightly preserved evidentiary record, and a high-profile courtroom contest.
Forensics and the Anatomy of the Attack
Forensic evidence in stabbing homicides tends to be stubbornly revealing. The angle and depth of injuries, the distribution of bloodstains, the presence (or absence) of cast-off patterns, and trace materials on clothing or under nails often converge on a story more specific than either side’s rhetoric. In Kay’s case, the patterning showed extreme force directed to the neck—a signature that would matter doubly when jurors later heard about the ex-girlfriend attack in Michigan. Analysts mapped the scene: where the assault began, how it moved, and where it ended. The physical story aligned with neighbors’ memory of hearing an argument and a sudden escalation outside, not an intrusion from a stranger.
Digital and Witness Evidence From the Bar
Surveillance footage from The Landing Bar & Grill captured the hours immediately before the attack: the couple’s entry, interactions with friends, and visible tension late in the evening. Jurors later saw enough to connect the emotional tone at the bar to what happened at home—particularly the flashpoint of jealousy the state argued set everything in motion. Friends at the table and patrons nearby described the mood changing. Witness statements helped prosecutors establish both timeline and motive: a simmer that boiled over once they left the social buffer of the bar’s patio and neon.
Charging Decisions and the Early Theory of the Case
Homicide prosecutors in Hillsborough County charged Terry with first-degree murder. The state’s theory was clear from the outset: this was not a mutual fight gone wrong in equal measure; it was a targeted, rage-driven attack. The defense previewed a different story line—that Kay’s death could have been the work of an unknown intruder and that Terry’s own injuries were consistent with him trying to stop that attacker. Early motions by the state sought to admit evidence from the 2017 Michigan case under rules that allow prior bad acts to prove intent, absence of mistake, or a distinctive pattern. The judge would later permit jurors to hear about that earlier attack, a decision that shaped the entire trial.
Trial: The State’s Narrative
At trial, prosecutors built a tight, sequential case. They started with the ordinary humanity of Kay’s life—her classroom, her children, and the normalcy of a Friday night out. They laid in the fuel: jealousy and control. Then they walked jurors minute-by-minute through the bar footage, witness statements, and the return home. The forensic witnesses translated blood dynamics and injury patterns into accessible maps of what happened and where. First responders described what they saw and heard. Finally, the state put Michelle Rogers on the stand…