MERCER — Sandra Kay Baker’s body was never found after she went missing nearly eight years ago, but the Delaware Township woman has been declared dead.

However, that doesn’t provide much closure for Ms. Baker’s children, who flew into Pittsburgh Friday morning for a hearing with Mercer County Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas R. Dobson.

“Not until we get the man who did it,” Ms. Baker’s daughter Shedara Binkley said of when the family can rest easy.

Mrs. Binkley, 36, Clearwater, Fla., and her brother, Shawn Krebs, 34, Denver, testified their mother owned a home in Florida, where she lived until early 1999, when she moved to Delaware Township.

They wanted to put the property in their names and Florida requires a death certificate to make that change, they said. They had their mother declared dead by Florida courts in 2007, but learned a death certificate must be issued in Pennsylvania, where Ms. Baker last lived.

Krebs and Mrs. Binkley told Dobson they were very close with their mother and maintained regular contact with her that ended May 25, 2000, the last day she was seen alive.

“I got a phone call on the 25th that she didn’t come home,” Mrs. Binkley said.

Dobson concluded that Ms. Baker, who was 46 when she went missing, is dead, with the date of death being May 25, 2000. The Mercer County coroner’s office is now authorized to issue a death certificate with the cause of death listed as unknown and her children are appointed trustees of her estate, he said.

In Pennsylvania, a person can be declared dead after they’ve been missing for at least seven years.

After the hearing, Mrs. Binkley and Krebs talked about their mother’s life and how they feel about the investigation into her disappearance, which is ongoing.

Ms. Baker was originally from Florida and was married for seven years to Robert Krebs of Tampa, the father of Mrs. Binkley and Krebs, who also attended the hearing.

Ms. Baker moved to Mercer County in 1999 to live with her fiancé, William T. Crea Jr., whom she met while visiting her friend Linda Henry of Greenville. State police have named Crea a suspect in her disappearance and said she is presumed dead.

“She was happy,” Mrs. Binkley said of her mother when she moved and began planning an Oct. 7, 2001, wedding.

Krebs never met Crea and Mrs. Binkley met him once when he visited Florida, but didn’t get to know him well enough to get an impression of him, she said.

Mrs. Henry, who was at the hearing, said Crea called her May 25, 2000, to say that Ms. Baker had left their home at 62 Folk Road, which they shared with his parents, and never returned.

Mrs. Henry then called Mrs. Binkley, who reported her mother missing to state police after being unable to contact her.

Mrs. Binkley and Krebs have been following the case ever since and are hopeful it will be solved, even if their mother’s body is never found.

“I’m hoping this year it will change,” Mrs. Binkley said of the investigation.

They said they believe Crea is linked to her disappearance because Ms. Baker would never just walk away from her life without telling anyone.

As Krebs broke down crying outside the courtroom, his sister said she didn’t have the heart to tell her 16-year-old daughter, one of her two children who were close to Ms. Baker, why she needed to fly to Pennsylvania.

“My children went everywhere with Grandma,” she said.

It’s just as upsetting for Krebs, who got married and had two children after Ms. Baker went missing. He really wishes his family knew his mother, who was a great person, he said.

There are no immediate plans to schedule a funeral or memorial service to honor Ms. Baker.

“I would love to have her body to do that,” Krebs said.

Ms. Baker’s ex-husband said he kept in touch with her over the years and said that while the family knows she’s gone, they want justice to be served to end the pain and suffering.

“It’s very hard to see my children go through this,” he said.

Mrs. Henry said she won’t stop hanging posters of Ms. Baker to remind people she’s missing, even though she’s been declared dead.

“It doesn’t stop the fact that I’m going to continue to look for Sandy. I haven’t given up,” she said.

There are no new developments in the case, said Mercer County First Assistant District Attorney Samuel Zuck. Crea, who now lives in Ellwood City, has not been charged.

Police said Crea reported Ms. Baker missing May 31, 2000, and that he last saw her May 25 at Sheetz in Pymatuning Township. Crea told police he received a phone call from Ms. Baker earlier that day in which she said she feared she was in danger and would call him back in a few days.

In January 2006, Clifford Stephen Aley Jr., 50, a private investigator from Ambridge who performed a background check on Ms. Baker for Crea, was found guilty of lying to police about her disappearance.

Aley was sentenced in March 2006 to 18 to 48 months in prison and is serving in Frackville. Aley appealed the conviction but it was denied in February 2007 in state Superior Court. He’s also serving a 4-to-12-months sentence for threatening Mercer County Sheriff’s deputies and Mercer County Jail guards.

While Aley was on trial, he testified that on May 28, 2000, Crea told him he strangled Ms. Baker May 25 after accusing her of having an affair. Crea told Aley he buried her body in a container where no one would trip over it, about five to eight miles from his parents’ Folk Road home. Police have searched that area but found nothing.

Aley admitted he lied to police about Ms. Baker’s disappearance because Crea told him he would have Aley’s children killed if he told police Crea confessed to killing Ms. Baker.