Tamara Bedenbaugh
Decker is a suspect in the April 1, 2016 murder of well known composer Don “Terry” Plumeri.
Jessica Baker and Darren Decker
May 30, 2016
Couple went from business to burglary
By Nicki Gorny
The Daily Commercial
OCALA — Before being arrested for a Sumter County burglary last month, Darren Decker, a 41-year-old Ocalan who has called Florida home for the past eight years, wore a lot of hats.
He's an entrepreneur who has operated a number of different businesses in New York and Ocala.
He's a philanthropist who offered up his Ocala tavern for community fundraisers and hosted a Florida Bikers Helping Florida Bikers event.
And, if allegations brought by local law enforcement prove true, he is a serial burglar and murderer.
Decker and his longtime girlfriend, Jessica Baker, 44, were arrested last month in connection with what authorities describe as a four-month string of approximately 60 burglaries in Alachua, Citrus, Levy, Marion and Sumter counties. They also are persons of interest in the January death of Tamara Bedenbaugh in Marion County and suspects in the April killing of Don “Terry” Plumeri on the Citrus County side of Dunnellon.
Neither Decker nor Baker has been charged in the deaths. Because the burglaries span more than one judicial circuit, Ric Ridgway, chief assistant state attorney for the 5th Judicial Circuit, said the Attorney General's Office of Statewide Prosecution will handle those cases.
Decker and Baker moved from New York to Ocala in 2008 after his businesses there, including auto repair shops and even a deli, ran into debt and tax problems. Following an approximately two-year stint working at a Tuffy Auto Service Center in Ocala, Decker took the entrepreneurial route again, opening Double D's Automotive, on Northeast 14th Street, in the fall of 2011.
He sold it and in 2014 began running Just One More The Beer Pub, a blue-collar tavern on Northeast 25th Avenue. He renamed it All About That Beer and began to take on a particularly public role. He positioned the joint as a venue for local fundraisers, a collaborator with the non-profit Florida Bikers Helping Florida Bikers, and a rallying point for last summer's Florida Southern Pride Ride.
But the couple ran into tax problems again and the couple transferred the bar's lease to somebody else. Decker had run a pawn shop in New York, could quickly spot the value of items, and law enforcement authorities suggest the couple found a new revenue stream beginning in January: burglaries.
Authorities say the burglary spree began in January, and charges filed so far in Alachua, Marion and Sumter counties offer a partial timeline from there: a stop in Lake Panasoffkee on Feb. 4, in Bushnell on Feb. 12, in Webster on March 8, in Gainesville on March 30, in High Springs on April 4, and so on.
Each burglary fit a profile. Pry marks around doorways. Thefts of guns, jewelry and small electronics. And, tying the crimes together, each homeowner reported a missing pillowcase.
That was the couple's signature, according to authorities: taking their loot in pillowcases they swiped from the houses. Hence their knickname in official circles: the “pillowcase burglars.”
Baker typically played a minor role, according to one affidavit from Alachua County that references an interview Decker gave after his arrest.
“Jessica Baker would at times drive him around not knowing what he was planning to do at residences,” the affidavit states. “The defendant (Decker) stated that Jessica was only present for a few, listing another burglary which occurred in Alachua County.”
In response to the burglaries, the Citrus County Sheriff's Office undertook all-out effort.
Then "a major break in the case came as a result of our suspect selling stolen property from a prior burglary," according to CCSO. "This information helped lead detectives to Decker and Baker, who were arrested in Marion
County on Monday, April 18th, for a burglary that had occurred that day in Sumter County."
That break was when a burglary victim spotted her stolen items on Craigslist and notified authorities. Marion detectives followed the couple who had posted the items and watched them enter the rear door of a home in
Sumter County before arresting them later that day with a lot of allegedly stolen merchandise from a host of break-ins.
The couple was booked into the Sumter County jail on April 21.
The most serious accusations against Decker and Becker — the killings of Bedenbaugh and Plumeri — come from law enforcement rather than prosecutors.
Officials then said they were confident of a connection to the Plumeri death. Plumeri, 71, a well-known composer, was found dead in his Dunnellon home on April 1 after a break-in.
They identified them less certainly to the Marion County killing. Bedenbaugh, 57, was found dead in her County Road 225A home on Jan. 25 after a home invasion robbery.
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