The quiet Saturday evening of March 6th, 1999, in Redmond, Washington, was shattered by screams that would echo through the annals of true crime history. Inside a modest two-story home, 39-year-old Dava Michael Cross sat alone, drinking heavily, as the tension of a crumbling marriage finally reached its breaking point. For days, he had been fighting with his wife, Anastasia Babakava, their relationship unraveling under years of alcohol, jealousy, and rage.
Around 10 p. m. , the argument turned violent, and Cross snapped, grabbing a knife and attacking Anastasia, stabbing her repeatedly until she collapsed to the floor.
The nightmare did not end there, as the horror quickly escalated to claim the lives of two innocent teenagers who had only tried to help their mother.
Upstairs, Anastasia’s two teenage daughters, 15-year-old Amanda and 18-year-old Melissa, heard the chaos erupting below. They rushed to help their mother, only to be confronted by a man they no longer recognized, their stepfather, drunk, bloody, and screaming that they were against him. Cross cornered them in their bedrooms, where the girls begged for mercy, but he showed no remorse.
When the violence finally stopped, three lives were gone, and the house fell into an eerie silence. Hours later, Cross called his brother, confessing to the murders with chilling detachment, saying, They pushed me too far. Police arrived to find him sitting on the couch, covered in blood, staring blankly at the bodies of his family.
During his trial, Cross claimed he was driven by depression and mental illness, but the jury saw something else entirely, a man who had made a deliberate choice. In 2001, he was sentenced to death for the murders, a decision upheld by the Washington Supreme Court. This case is not just a story of murder, but a descent into madness, obsession, and the dark corners of the human mind.
Dava Michael Cross, the family killer of Redmond, left a trail of devastation that continues to haunt the community. The victims included his wife, Anastasia Babakava, 37, and her daughters, Amanda Baldwin, 15, and Salomi Holly, 18, all stabbed to death in their home in King County, Washington.
The classification of Cross as a murderer reveals a history of mental illness, with a date of birth in 1959 and an arrest on the same day as the murders. His method of killing was stabbing with a knife, and he was sentenced to death on May 13th, 2001, with a conviction on June 22nd, 2001. The case drew national attention, particularly when the Washington Supreme Court ruled on March 30th, 2006, that Cross could be executed despite the life sentence given to the notorious Green River killer, Gary Ridgeway.
The court found that horrific aberrations like Ridgeway do not mean the death penalty should be thrown out, with a five-justice majority ruling that Cross was fairly sentenced to die.
The dissenting justices argued that Washington’s death penalty is like lightning randomly striking some defendants and not others, sparing some of the state’s worst mass murderers. King County prosecutors had let Ridgeway trade a detailed confession about the 48 young women he strangled for his own life, a deal that left some legal observers suggesting it could end capital punishment in Washington. The question was whether it upended the scale for what justices must decide in each death penalty case, whether the sentence is proportionate to the punishment in similar cases.
Cross’s case was the first time the high court considered whether someone could be sentenced to death when the state’s most prolific serial killer was allowed to live.
Justices took nearly two years to decide, with Justice Tom Chambers writing for the majority that Gary Ridgeway is but a single case and instance of what we hope were unique and horrible crimes. Ridgeway’s abhorrent killings standing alone do not render the death penalty unconstitutional or disproportionate. Our law is not so fragile.
While some might oppose a life sentence for Ridgeway, who brutally murdered at least 48 women over decades, often returning to rape their corpses, prosecutor Norm Malang’s decision to give him a plea deal was highly rational. The majority wrote that it resolved the tragedy of many unsolved deaths and disappearances that probably would have otherwise remained unsolved forever, sparing families the agony of unknowing and the rigors of testimony.
The court said the moral question of whether other killers can still be executed is best left to state lawmakers or the people of Washington. Malang expressed pleasure that the court found Cross had a fair sentencing trial and rejected attempts to have the death penalty declared unconstitutional. In a written statement, Malang said the court recognized that each aggravated murder case is unique and that the outcome of any single case should not invalidate the entire death penalty statute.
But dissenting justices said Ridgeway’s case reveals a broken system, with Justice Charles Johnson writing that when Gary Ridgeway, the worst mass murderer in the state’s history, escapes the death penalty, serious flaws become apparent.
Johnson noted that Ridgeway does not stand alone, but is instead symptomatic of a system where all mass murderers have to date escaped the death penalty. He cited cases like Quanfi, Willie Mack, and Benjamin A, who were convicted of 13 execution-style killings at Seattle’s Wami Gambling Club in 1983, also serving life sentences. A plea deal in Spokane County spared the life of Robert Lee Yates, who pleaded guilty to killing 13 people, most of them prostitutes, though Pierce County prosecutors later won a death sentence for two people he killed there.
Johnson wrote that the court has long struggled with how to decide whether someone’s death sentence is proportional and has decided it in inconsistent ways, making comparisons even murkier because 19 of the 31 people given a death sentence in Washington during the past 25 years have gotten their sentences overturned.
Cross’s attorneys, Todd May Brown and Katherine Ross, said they were reviewing the ruling and their options, which could include bringing a new petition to the state supreme court or to the federal courts. Ross said Ridgeway was just one example of many of why the death penalty has not been applied proportionately, noting that it was not just a one-day situation. On any scale, Ridgeway’s crimes are exponentially worse than the slayings committed by any of the seven men now on Washington’s death row.
May Brown added that Ridgeway got the benefit of the fact that he killed more people, he killed so well, and he knew where the bodies were. But deputy prosecutors James Wisman and Lee Yates argued before the high court in June 2004 that the notion that the case of a killer such as Ridgeway should absolve all other convicted murderers seemed absurd.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington argued that capital punishment has not been fairly applied, especially in the way killers with more victims have been able to avoid it. ACLU spokesman Doug Hanik said it does not seem reasonable for them to get life sentences and someone who committed three murders to get the death penalty. In Washington, a county’s elected prosecutor decides whether to seek the death penalty in each aggravated murder case, and it takes a unanimous jury to impose it.
The state supreme court has found the state’s death penalty constitutional time and again. In March 1999, Cross stabbed to death his new wife, Anuka Baldwin, 37, and her daughters, Salom Holly, 18, and Amanda Baldwin, 15, then held his youngest stepdaughter, Melissa Baldwin, hostage for hours as he drank wine, smoked, and chuckled at a movie.
The 13-year-old girl ran to a neighbor when he dozed off. Cross, who became partially paralyzed after slamming himself headfirst into the floor and walls of his cell in a suicide attempt, entered a modified guilty plea to the killings. A jury concluded in June 2001 that he should die.
Deputy prosecutor Tim Bradshaw, who handled Cross’s case in superior court five years earlier, said there are few cases that present the quantum of horror that existed in this case, and the state supreme court recognized that. The jury chose death for Cross, rejecting the mental illness defense that could not save the triple murderer. On Monday, May 14th, 2001, 12 jurors agreed that Cross’s depression did nothing to explain the brutal murders of his new wife and her teenage daughters, concluding that he deserves to die.
The 41-year-old Snowqualami man joined 11 other murderers on Washington’s death row, a place King County juries seldom send anyone. Off to Disneyland now, Cross announced cheerily as he was wheeled out of the courtroom, asking anyone if they wanted to come with him. The nine men and three women who deliberated Cross’s fate for nearly three days were sharply divided last week, but they slowly reached the unanimous decision that his life should not be spared.
The bloodiness of the killings was extreme, and the innocence of the victims was incredible, said jury foreman Scott Bowman, 54, of Belleview. He noted that the fact that Cross could have had a marital spat was bad, but the fact that the other girls had to suffer was inexcusable. The jurors spent long hours talking about Cross’s mental problems and decided they were not serious enough to warrant mercy, with Bowman stating that depressed people commit suicide, not homicide.
Last fall, Cross formally admitted stabbing to death his wife, Anuka Baldwin, 37, and two of her daughters, Salom Holly and Amanda Baldwin. His attorneys, Mark Larinaga and Richard Warner, were left trying to persuade a jury to let him live his life behind bars. Yesterday’s verdict stunned the lawyers, who say Cross suffered from severe depression and delusions long before the March 1999 slayings.
Lonaga said he could not understand how Cross’s mental problems did not sway even one juror, or how the panel concluded that execution was necessary for a man who would almost certainly spend a life prison sentence in a wheelchair. He did not know what happened at first, kept asking what it meant, and when Lonaga told him they just voted to execute you, he just had a blank stare. Lonaga believes Cross cares what happens despite the man’s nonchalance and his repeated profane outbursts in the courtroom.
The former truck driver, who has a heart-shaped tattoo bearing the word myself, never gave his lawyers any hint that he wanted to die. But prosecutors told jurors last week that the murders scream out for such a sentence. Deputy Prosecutor Tim Bradshaw said yesterday that this type of case is not a win-lose, and no pleasure should be taken from such a verdict.
Rather, this is the strong voice of the community. Given the circumstances of the case, I could not see how they could have reached any other decision, said King County Sheriff’s Detective Jim Doyan, who said he could not imagine the terror each victim had to endure. Those close to the slain family, including a woman forced to grieve the loss of her daughter and two granddaughters, declined to discuss Cross’s fate.
The man’s own relatives in Pennsylvania were not there to hear the verdict.
His adult son and daughter took the witness stand in recent weeks, telling jurors of a fun-loving father who took them on trips between his frightening plunges into depression. He used to cover the windows of his house with blankets, then sulk in the darkness or mumble to himself. A sentencing date could be set as soon as next week, though the law gives Judge Joan Deuke no discretion about what to impose.
Cross destroyed a family on March 6th, 1999, ending three lives and leaving the youngest daughter to live with the indelible horror. He left students at Mount Sai High School mourning the loss of a senior and a freshman. Holly was an aspiring marine biologist who was studying hard to get into a good college.
At 18, she was just about to graduate. Prosecutors say she was running through the family’s small rambler when Cross stabbed her repeatedly, attacking her again before she reached the door.
Amanda Baldwin was a petite 15-year-old with a flare for the dramatic and a distinctive laugh. She tried frantically to lock Cross out of the bedroom she shared with her younger sister, Melissa Baldwin. He knocked the door off its hinges and stabbed her, then ignored her cries for help.
The sisters had the dark hair and eyes of their mother, who often held more than one job at a time to provide for them and for her husband of less than a year. She was the first to die following an argument with Cross. The last words Melissa heard from her mother were, What are you going to do?
Kill me? followed by screams, then silence. Cross held 13-year-old Melissa captive in his bedroom for hours, dragging her out to the kitchen occasionally so he could get more wine.
She ran out of the house when he finally fell asleep. Police arrived at the home to find the three victims covered with blankets, and Cross was slumped on his bed smoking a cigarette.
Cross later hurt himself in a bizarre suicide attempt in the King County Jail. He packed his nose and throat with mattress stuffing, toilet paper, and cornbread from his lunch, then slammed himself headfirst into walls and the floor. He fractured his skull and broke a vertebrae in his neck.
Doctors say he will need to use a walker if he ever walks again. Melissa is now 15. Her father died in a car crash when she was two.
She was recently adopted by her best friend’s parents, who have watched Cross’s sentencing hearing every day and have struggled to control their emotions. King County juries are typically reluctant to sentence anyone to die. Prosecutors have asked for the ultimate punishment 17 times, and jurors have imposed it just five times.
Four of those defendants were given reprieves from higher courts. Cal Brown, convicted of torturing and killing a young Burian woman, is the only King County defendant who still faces execution. The state supreme court denied his appeal last month.
The high court will review Cross’s case as it does every time a jury calls for execution. He may also appeal the verdict in the federal court system in a process that takes years.
Depression and madness led to the killings, defense attorneys argued on Wednesday, April 11th, 2001. Long before Dave Cross stabbed to death his new wife and two stepdaughters, he had tumbled into a dismal world of depression and delusions. His attorney told jurors yesterday that he tried medication, tried suicide, tried anything he could to shut out what was happening in his mind.
But King County prosecutors argued Cross knew exactly what he was doing on March 6th, 1999, when he brutally ended three lives and left a terrorized young witness, an unforgivable crime that they contend deserves the law’s harshest penalty. The 41-year-old Snowqualami man already admitted to the slayings, leaving a King County Superior Court jury to decide whether he should live or die. Anything less than a unanimous vote for execution would send him to prison for life.
In his opening statement, Warner said Cross’s inner battles emerged years ago. He threw blankets over the windows of his house in Pennsylvania and hunkered in the darkness, occasionally coming out to pace the halls at night. His first wife and children were afraid of him.
Cross tried to put the sickness behind him in 1990, his attorney told jurors, as he began exercising incessantly and stopped drinking, smoking, and eating meat. But a nasty child custody battle and his mother’s 1996 death hurled him back into depression. His attorney said when he moved in with his soon-to-be wife, Anucha Baldwin, in 1998, he tried to keep himself drunk or stoned.
In court yesterday, Cross was clearly annoyed to hear his attorney spell out intimate details of his life. He shifted uneasily several times before blurting out, Your time is up. Ignoring him, Warner told jurors that Cross’s wife had cried out before the slayings, asking, What are you, insane?
His aberrant behavior after he slashed the woman and her two teenage girls showed that he likely was.
Cross was growling and grunting like an animal in the backseat of a police car, Warner said, then hugged his knees at the police station while humming a mantra-like song. He told his youngest stepdaughter, the only one he spared, that he would kill his ex-wife and go live elsewhere. He was clearly not understanding what he had just done or the absurdity of just going off to live happily ever after.
Warner said Cross tried to kill himself in jail in what truly is a bizarre manner, packing his throat with mattress stuffing and toilet paper and cramming his nose with cornbread, then slamming himself into walls and the floor, fracturing his skull and neck. He is hardly a danger to others now that he is bound to a wheelchair, Warner said. But Deputy Prosecutor Tim Bradshaw described Cross’s bloody rampage through the eyes of Melissa Baldwin.
The 13-year-old girl was lying in bed when she heard her mother’s frantic screams, then silence. After Cross killed the woman, he stabbed to death her oldest daughter, Salomi Holly, an 18-year-old aspiring marine biologist, whose body was found near the kitchen door as if she had tried to escape.
Terrified Melissa Baldwin was cowering in her bedroom with her 15-year-old sister, Amanda, when Cross knocked the door off its hinges and began stabbing the older girl. Bradshaw, holding up a stained piece of cloth, told jurors the younger girl tried futilely to stop the bleeding from her sister’s leg. Cross then held Melissa Baldwin captive for hours in his bedroom, dragging her to the kitchen occasionally so he could get more wine.
He threatened the girl with the two bloody knives and punched her in the face. The deputy prosecutor said the girl ran to a neighbor’s house when he finally fell asleep. Police arrived to find the three victims covered with blankets and Cross sitting in his bedroom puffing a cigarette.
Bradshaw urged jurors to consider what Cross said nonchalantly to police: I don’t give a damn. I killed them. I did it.
My life is over. When you consider the merciless, unmitigated deaths in this case, the ultimate question answers itself. Bradshaw said this becomes Dava Cross’s ultimate day of reckoning.
In the end, Dava Michael Cross stood before the court, silent, expressionless, and utterly broken. He did not deny what he had done. He could not.
The evidence was everywhere, his wife’s blood, his stepdaughters’ final moments recorded in the horror of that night. The jury took only a few hours to decide his fate. On May 23rd, 2001, Cross was sentenced to death for the murders of Anastasia, Amanda, and Melissa.
It was one of the most shocking family murder cases in Washington State’s history, a man who destroyed everything he claimed to love. But as the years passed, the question remained why. Psychologists described Cross as a man spiraling into despair, consumed by alcohol, paranoia, and untreated depression.
His marriage had crumbled, his pride wounded, and in that moment of rage, he sought control the only way he knew how, through violence. Yet, what makes this story truly haunting is its familiarity. Behind every suburban home, every smiling family photo, there can exist a silent storm.
Neighbors later said they never heard a single argument, never saw signs of danger. To them, the Cross family seemed ordinary until the night everything fell apart.
On February 11th, 2010, nearly two decades after the murders, Cross was found dead in his cell at the Washington State Penitentiary. Suicide. The man who once begged for death finally took it himself.
For some, it felt like justice. For others, it was just another tragedy, another reminder that evil often hides not in monsters, but in ordinary men. The story of Dava Michael Cross is not just about murder.
It is about how love can rot into hate, how silence can turn into screams, and how one moment of rage can erase an entire life of meaning. In the end, there were no winners, only loss. This case continues to serve as a chilling example of the depths of human depravity and the fragile nature of family bonds, leaving a community forever scarred by the events of that quiet Saturday evening in Redmond.
