It’s easy to think of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard as being Ethan Winters’ story. He’s the everyman protagonist thrust into the violent world of Resident Evil as he searches for his missing wife. He unknowingly morphs into a mutant with powerful regenerative abilities, and is being pursued by a deranged family of murderers possessed by a psychotic bioweapon obsessed with wanting a family.
By the time Ethan arrived at the Baker estate on July 19, 2017, at least 40 people had been murdered. It’s possible that number is closer to 100. Ethan put an end to the nightmare, but it didn’t start with him. What makes the Baker House Incident stand out is how long the situation went on and more disturbingly, how it was buried by the authorities.
A Bioweapon Looking for a Family
Every horror related to the Baker Incident can be traced back to Eveline.
She was designated E-001, a bioweapon created in the early 2000s by a criminal organization called The Connections. Artificially aged to look like a ten-year-old child, Eveline could spread a mold-based infection that gave her the ability to telepathically control the people she infected and give them abilities like superhuman strength and regeneration. They also lost their minds. Over time, the infected turned into passive extensions of Eveline’s will who worshipped her…or worse, their worst traits come bubbling up the surface.
What made Eveline so dangerous was that she was a mentally unstable entity who desperately wanted a family. She’d been treated as a lab experiment her entire existence, and that need to belong made her unpredictable and volatile.
At some point, the BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance) learned of Eveline’s existence and tried to eliminate her but failed. In October 2014, her creators moved Eveline by ship from their research facility in Munich to a second laboratory in America. A hurricane hit the ship on October 5. Eveline became unstable, and her obsession with having a family led her to infect the crew. When the ship’s tankers exploded, she and her handler Mia Winters were thrown into the Louisiana bayou, right near the Baker estate.
Jack Baker found the wreckage and he brought Mia home. Then he found Eveline and brought her inside too. Within days, she had infected the entire family.
What the Bakers Turned Into
Before Eveline, the Bakers were an ordinary family living in Dulvey, Louisiana. They had deep roots in Dulvey, along with a long history of relatives who had served in the military. Jack, his wife Marguerite, their son Lucas, and their daughter Zoe lived on an isolated plantation property in the bayou. Nothing about them would make you believe they would harm another human.
After the infection, Jack became a massively aggressive enforcer who was near-indestructible. Marguerite developed a disturbing connection to insects and could control swarms of them. Lucas was infected too, but he was secretly given an inhibitor by The Connections, which kept him immune to Eveline’s mind control. He kept up the act by following Eveline’s instructions. Lucas spent three years reporting back to his employers while running his own experiments in a nearby salt mine. He was always the most dangerous Baker because he knew exactly what he was doing.
Zoe was partially infected but managed to resist Eveline’s control to an extent and preserved her sanity. She tried to escape multiple times and would try to help the victims when she could. She would call them on the phone from the trailer, giving them directions to a serum that would put an end to Eveline’s reign of terror.
Mia Winters was still on the property after the shipwreck, and was also under Eveline’s control. She participated in some of the murders, but it was clear she was fighting against Eveline’s influence. Her love for her husband Ethan was something Eveline couldn’t fully extinguish, and that conflict would play a role in the latter’s downfall.
The Victims
The disappearances started as soon as the family was infected. Eveline pushed Jack and Marguerite to bring more people to their ranch. The Baker Ranch was a large property in a remote area near a bayou with several buildings such as the Main House, Old House, Guest House, Greenhouse, Testing Area (Barn), and the Boathouse. The estate also had a salt mine hidden nearby. The multiple houses and isolation was a perfect combination for anyone looking to kidnap and murder people.
Some were given the chance to join Eveline’s “family.” The ones who didn’t cooperate were chased down and murdered. Some were cooked into meals and eaten while others were infected with the Mold and transformed into mindless creatures known as the Molded.
The Bakers kept a partial count with their tally reaching at least thirteen Molded. The actual body count was much higher. Travis and Courtney were a young couple who tried to escape together. Travis was infected with the Mold and held prisoner in the Bakers’ incinerator. He did manage to leave a letter for Courtney that told her how to escape but she was targeted and killed.
Another victim of the Mold was a man on his honeymoon, whose wife had already died. Three college women were captured by Lucas for his experiments; all three died. Another victim was a homeless man. A traveler Jack described as a ‘piece-of-shit hippy’ was caught in the hall and taken to the processing room.
Helen Midkiff was last seen in public on December 24, 2016, before she was abducted. On June 1, 2017, a three-person crew from the internet series Sewer Gators investigated the Bakers’ Guest House. Andre Stickland was immediately captured and killed by Jack. Peter Walken was also killed and Clancy Jarvis lived long enough to document some of what he witnessed before he too was murdered by Lucas. Deputy David Anderson came to investigate but was killed in the garage by Jack before he could get anyone to safety.
After Clancy died, the confirmed minimum death toll stood at 40 but the real number is probably closer to 100.
The Cover-Up
Eveline was finally destroyed by Ethan on July 19, 2017. Chris Redfield arrived with Blue Umbrella forces to retrieve Ethan and rescue Mia.
Now all anyone had to do was come up with a plausible explanation for what happened. And that was harder than expected.
The Baker House Incident was catastrophic for the BSAA. An internal investigation concluded that the Mold outbreak was an accident caused by Eveline going rogue and was not an act of terrorism. The report also determined that the BSAA was responsible for failing to prevent Eveline’s shipment to America. Since acknowledging what really happened would have been a blow to their reputation, the BSAA started work on a full cover-up of the Baker Estate Incident.
First the BSAA had a quarantine wall erected around the swamps surrounding the Baker estate to protect the public from the Mold. The Louisiana Army National Guard monitored an exclusion area that would be maintained until 2027.
Then they worked with the Dulvey Parish Sheriff’s Office, which was already investigating nearly 20 disappearances connected to the outbreak, to craft a story to deceive the public. On July 21, 2017, Sheriff Coleridge reported that Jack, Marguerite, Lucas, and Zoe Baker were found dead at their property following a search of the area by Deputy Riley Whiteford. The statement didn’t explain why the Louisiana Army National Guard was guarding the area.
A follow-up report confirmed the deaths of all four Bakers, along with Clancy Jarvis, Andre Stickland, Peter Walken, and Deputy David Anderson, the last of whom had been declared missing but was never formally connected to the Baker case. The official cause of death was attributed to hydrogen sulfide fumes that had built up beneath the swamp. A later inquest agreed with those findings and recommended the area be kept off-limits for ten years.
The report was disputed by a geologist named Sally Baldwin, who’d surveyed the area in 1998 and found no evidence of hydrogen sulfide in the region. The magazine Inspector published an article alleging that Sheriff Coleridge had met with BSAA representatives. Locals had seen soldiers, helicopters, tanks, the wrecked ship Eveline was on, and a giant monster emerging from the Guest House. These sightings were dismissed as being nothing more than wild conspiracy theories and the public’s attention had moved away from the incident.
The Baker House Incident is one of the more unsettling events to happen in the Resident Evil universe. You have a volatile bioweapon using mind control to brainwash a family of four to bend to her will. For three years, dozens of people vanished into the swamps of Louisiana. Some were murdered, some were mutated into Molded creatures.
By the time Ethan arrived, the damage was irreversible. The outbreak might be over, but it doesn’t change the fact that at least 40 people had lost their lives. Some victims will never be identified. Their families will never learn the truth of what really happened to their loved ones. Thanks to the cover-up, one of the worst outbreaks in recent history was written off as a tragic accident with the hope it would be forgotten in time.
