By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

A couple accused of conspiring to burn down their house near Carthage for insurance gain have been bound over for trial on arson charges.

Dean Dankelson, Jasper County prosecutor, said the charge of second-degree arson that Robert E. Baker, 26, and Stephanie A. Eckenroth, 22, are facing was determined to be the correct charge in a review of statutes by his office following a preliminary hearing Thursday. Associate Judge Richard Copeland consequently ordered the couple bound over for trial on the charge and set Nov. 24 as the date for their first appearance in a trial division of the court.

The judge had asked Dankelson’s office to review the matter when defense attorney Brian Glades questioned the appropriateness of the arson charge at the hearing.

Glades’ point was that state law specifically states that someone commits second-degree arson when they start a fire or explosion. The testimony of a state Fire Marshal’s investigator at the hearing was that the couple had admitted that they planned the fire with Baker’s father, but the father had been the one who’d actually set fire to the home at 2084 W. Mound St. on May 25, 2007.

Dankelson said Friday that accomplice liability applies to state law for all criminal offenses and makes second-degree arson the appropriate charge in the case.

According to the testimony of the state fire investigator, Robert Baker collected more than $50,000 on an insurance claim following the fire. Arson was not suspected until an unidentified informant came forward to the Carthage Fire Department almost seven months later.

An arson charge against Baker’s father, Gary L. Baker, of Kansas City, was dismissed due to a lack of evidence. Dankelson said that his son’s and Eckenroth’s alleged confessions cannot be used in court against Gary Baker because they are hearsay unless the couple were willing to testify against him.