Detectives say digital, forensic and witness evidence connected Anila Baby to deaths in San Jose and Milpitas on the same day.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A deleted stretch of home surveillance video, a sandal caught on another recording, cellphone location information, blood evidence and the examination of a fatal vehicle collision became pieces of one investigation after authorities linked two Aug. 28 deaths in San Jose and Milpitas to the same defendant.
Anila Baby is charged with two murders in the deaths of Ann Mary Mathew and Anjana Hari, women authorities say knew her personally. Investigators allege Mathew was killed at her San Jose home before Baby drove to Milpitas and intentionally struck Hari with an SUV about 90 minutes later. What began publicly as two different events — one initially reported as a hit-and-run and another discovered inside a residence — was joined through witness interviews, physical evidence and digital records. Prosecutors have not publicly identified a motive, and Baby has not been convicted. The proceedings are currently suspended while doctors evaluate whether she is competent to stand trial.
The San Jose investigation supplied some of the evidence that prosecutors say connected the two cases. Police were called to a home in the 700 block of Linda Vista Street at about 1:53 p.m. Aug. 28. Officers found Mathew unresponsive inside, and medical personnel pronounced her dead. The San Jose Police Department said homicide detectives, the Santa Clara County Crime Lab and the county medical examiner’s office later identified evidence of at least one stab wound and classified the death as a homicide. Detectives quickly established that Mathew and Baby knew each other and began reconstructing who had been at the residence that morning.
According to court records described by the Los Angeles Times and other news organizations, investigators reviewed motion-activated surveillance footage from the property and determined that recordings from portions of the late morning had been deleted. A surviving clip showed a sandal near the entrance. Police said the footwear matched sandals Baby was wearing when she was taken into custody later that day. Investigators also examined vehicle movements and cellphone location information that they said placed Baby at or near Mathew’s home during the period they were investigating. Mathew’s cellphone was reportedly recovered from Baby’s vehicle, adding another connection between the defendant and the San Jose scene.
Forensic testing supplied an additional link. Investigators reported finding blood on Baby’s clothing and said testing overwhelmingly associated a stain with Mathew. That evidence mattered because Baby had been arrested in Milpitas after officers found her with visible injuries and blood on her arms and legs. At the time of that arrest, Milpitas officers were focused on the death of Hari in the parking lot of the Mill Creek Apartments. Once San Jose detectives began investigating Mathew’s death, the condition in which Baby had been found became relevant to a second case and helped investigators examine whether the two deaths were part of the same sequence.
The Milpitas evidence was different in form but similarly detailed. Police had been dispatched shortly after noon to the Mill Creek complex at 440 Dixon Landing Road after witnesses reported that a blue SUV had struck a pedestrian and left. Hari, 35, was found badly injured and was pronounced dead at the scene. Officers initially announced an arrest in connection with what they described as a hit-and-run collision. Investigators later obtained witness statements that changed their assessment of the encounter. Instead of describing a driver who simply lost control or failed to remain after a crash, witnesses described an apparently calm interaction followed by sudden acceleration.
One witness told investigators Hari was walking toward a blue Toyota Highlander and appeared friendly toward its driver. Another account described Hari and Baby as good friends. According to court documents, Hari moved in front of the stopped SUV and the vehicle suddenly accelerated. It struck her, then continued forward into three parked vehicles. Investigators said they did not learn of an argument or other confrontation immediately before the collision from those witnesses. That sequence became part of the basis for prosecutors’ allegation that the contact with Hari was intentional rather than an accidental traffic event.
A traffic investigator’s inspection gave authorities another basis for that conclusion. Court records state that no tire marks indicating an attempt to brake were found before the impact. Police combined that finding with the eyewitness accounts and the vehicle’s path through the lot. They ultimately alleged that Baby intentionally struck Hari. The absence of braking evidence does not by itself determine criminal responsibility, and the government’s interpretation remains an allegation that would normally be tested through the court process. But it was among the physical findings authorities cited when the Milpitas case shifted from a fatal collision investigation to a murder prosecution.
The damaged Highlander also helped officers quickly locate the suspected driver. Police searching nearby found the vehicle in a Walgreens parking lot less than a mile from Mill Creek. Baby was inside, according to court records. Investigators said she appeared incoherent and had injuries as well as blood on her. The SUV had damage consistent with a collision. The rapid arrest meant Baby was already in custody when detectives in San Jose began developing evidence in Mathew’s death. San Jose police later said Baby had been booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail for the separate Milpitas incident before their department sought the additional murder charge.
The order in which police discovered the deaths was therefore different from the sequence prosecutors now allege. Authorities say Mathew was attacked first, during the late morning in San Jose. Hari was struck shortly after noon in Milpitas. Yet Hari’s death generated an immediate police response and arrest, while Mathew was not discovered until officers were called to her residence later. Investigators had to work backward across the two scenes, comparing timelines and evidence before concluding that the defendant already held in the Milpitas case was also a suspect in San Jose.
By Sept. 10, San Jose police announced that the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office had reviewed their homicide investigation and filed a murder charge against Baby in Mathew’s death. That joined the charge already brought in connection with Hari. Prosecutors later described the alleged killings as deliberate and said forensic investigation and follow-up interviews allowed them to charge both deaths. The state’s case, as publicly described so far, depends on multiple types of evidence rather than a publicly reported confession or a single eyewitness who says they saw both incidents.
One part of the case remains notably absent from the evidence made public: a motive. Authorities have described friendship among the women and have said the victims’ families are seeking answers. Witnesses in the Milpitas case reportedly saw Hari approach the SUV in a friendly manner. Investigators have released evidence they say establishes movement, contact and identity, but they have not publicly explained why Baby allegedly attacked Mathew or Hari. That distinction is important because evidence that may help reconstruct what happened does not necessarily establish why it happened.
The court is now addressing a question separate from the evidence surrounding the deaths. Baby’s attorney, Shawn George, told the court in October that he had doubts about his client’s competency to stand trial based on his conversations with her. A judge suspended the criminal proceedings and appointed two medical specialists to evaluate whether Baby currently understands the proceedings and can assist in her defense. The competency inquiry does not determine whether she committed the alleged offenses, nor does it resolve her mental state on Aug. 28. It determines whether the criminal case can presently move forward.
The court is scheduled to review the evaluators’ reports on Dec. 18. Until then, the two-count murder prosecution is stayed. Baby remains accused, not convicted, and the forensic claims and witness accounts have not been subjected to a trial. The central investigative reconstruction has nevertheless grown clearer: authorities say evidence from a San Jose home, a Milpitas parking lot, a damaged SUV and Baby’s movements allowed two initially separate deaths to be treated as one criminal case, even as the reason for the alleged attacks remains publicly unexplained.
Author note: Last updated October 20, 2026.