‘I’ll always love him,’ Boise woman says of man she murdered. A judge just sentenced her
A Boise woman was sentenced Monday to spend up to life in prison after she was convicted earlier this year of first-degree murder and five other felonies in a 52-year-old man’s death.
Josina Regan, 46, will spend at least 30 years in prison before she is eligible for parole for the 2020 killing of John Baker. Regan was convicted by a 12-person jury in April of first-degree murder, preparing false evidence, possession of a controlled substance, conspiracy to possess a controlled substance, grand theft and conspiracy to commit grand theft. She was also convicted of three misdemeanors.
The exact relationship between Baker and Regan is not known, but the pair knew each other.
Regan will have to pay over $10,000 in restitution and a civil penalty, with $5,000 going to the Baker family to aid in funeral expenses and other costs.
“There needs to be a consequence for taking the life of another human being in the manner in which you did,” 4th District Judge Nancy Baskin said Monday before handing down Regan’s sentence.
Regan’s attorney, public defender Brian Christopher Marx, asked for a much lighter sentence and said Regan was abused by Baker, something that should be taken into consideration. Baskin acknowledged that Baker was “physically harmful” toward Regan at times but said that wasn’t the case on the day she killed him.
Baskin also said the jury heard information throughout the trial about physical abuse and her attorney’s theory that the killing was self-defense, but rejected that notion. The judge said she wasn’t going to second-guess the jury.
In October 2020, Regan showed up at Baker’s home with a loaded firearm and said something to provoke Baker, knowing that it would bring him out of the bathroom, Baskin said. Regan then fired three bullets at him before “he could even know what’s going on,” the judge said.
Baker was pronounced dead at the scene.
After she fatally shot him, Regan prepared false evidence by editing cellphone data, and also stole items from Baker’s residence.
“I’m sorry will not bring John back,” Regan said in court Monday, holding back tears. “John was sweet and kind, he was loving, he was handsome, smart and funny. He was also vicious and mean and hateful and violent, but that wasn’t John, that was the bath salt(s).”
Baskin said there was testimony during the trial that Baker had high amounts of bath salts, a type of designer drug, in his system on the day of the shooting.
Regan said during her statement that she relives the night of Baker’s death over and over.
“I never want to forget John, I love him, and I’ll always love him. Just like I know his family does as well,” Regan said. “I wish I could have met him under different circumstances and that I hadn’t gotten back into that drug life, but I don’t regret knowing John.”
This story was originally published July 11, 2022 at 1:07 PM.
