Sheriff Baxter

**Sheriff Baxter** is Xavier's father and the sheriff of Red Pine County.

## History

### Detaining Xavier

Sheriff Baxter came to the vigil for Maddie and stopped his son, Xavier, from entering. He questioned his son about why he had Maddie's phone. Xavier told him he had Maddie's phone because he was trying to protect her. Even though he was dating her, he was secretly hooking up with Claire Zomer. He sent Claire a text not to come out to his truck because Maddie was there, but accidentally sent it to Maddie, so he took her phone in the hopes of deleting it before she saw it. Sheriff Baxter led Xavier out to a patrol car and told him to chill out, that he would handle everything.

Sheriff Baxter told Xavier to stay home from school while he investigated. When he came home to find Xavier in the garage, he was upset that Xavier hadn't stayed inside. He also told Xavier that the phone from his backpack had nothing on it, casting doubt that it was actually Maddie's. Xavier told him he didn't know anything about that.

### Sandra's Search

Sandra came to Sheriff Baxter's house angry because he only assigned one deputy to help her search for Maddie. He said they were short staffed after some break-ins, but Sandra believed it was really because he had an election coming. He promised to let her know if they found anything out about Maddie. Sandra just told him to find her.

### Squatter

Sheriff Baxter called Sandra to inform her that they'd found Maddie's backpack in an abandoned house along with signs that someone had been squatting there.

When Claire came to pick Xavier up for the Homecoming Dance, Claire gave him a campaign donation from her parents and questioned him about the investigation, but he was unable to tell her anything. Later that evening, his deputies found a possible murder weapon near the house where Maddie's backpack was found. They told Sandra they'd connected it to a school employee, though he didn't tell her it was Mr. South. He also told her that Mr. Anderson gave them reason to believe Maddie had a lot of money on her and they believed the person who attacked her wanted it.

### Claire's Broken Window

Claire came into the station to report that one of her windows had been broken at school. She believed that she was being stalked, possibly by the same person who took Maddie. When she overheard another officer telling Sheriff Baxter that Sandra Nears had called to say someone had broken into her home while she was sleeping, she said it might be the same person who attacked her car.

Sheriff Baxter later pulled into a convenience store when he saw Xavier's car out front. He went inside and berated Xavier for leaving school in the middle of the day to sneak into the sheriff's station. Xavier claimed he had just come with Claire to file her report, but Sheriff Baxter didn't believe him. Claire then came up to them and called Sheriff Baxter out for berating his son, then said she wanted to go home because her parents didn't want her out after dark because they didn't believe the town was safe anymore.

### Xavier's Accident

Xavier came to see his father and said Mr. South was innocent. He reminded his dad that he was with Mr. South the day Maddie went missing. He also said that the person he saw at the house jumped out a window, which Mr. South couldn't do. Sheriff Baxter was upset at Xavier for being at the house and told him to go home. Later, when Xavier was hit by his own truck, Sheriff Baxter came to the scene and rode with him into the ambulance.

## Relationships

### Familial

He has a tense relationship with his son, Xavier.

## References

1. ↑ My So-Called Death
2. ↑ The Fault of Our Scars
3. ↑ Dead and Confused
4. ↑ The Twilight End Zone
5. ↑ Grave the Last Dance
6. ↑ Séance Anything
7. ↑ Madison's Body