Murder or suicide? The death of the preacher's wife

Produced by Lisa Freed and Gail Zimmerman

[This story previously aired on July 30, 2011. It was updated on May 25, 2013.]

Ever since Matt Baker's wife, Kari, died suddenly at the age of 31, the Baptist preacher has lived under a cloud of suspicion. Is he an innocent man unfairly accused as his followers and friends believe? Or is he hiding a terrible, dark secret?

"I know if she were sitting here she would look at you and say 'He didn't do anything. Leave him alone.' But she can't," Matt told Baker "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty. "It's so improbable. It's not who I am. I loved my wife. I never hurt her a day in my life."

Kari was a popular third-grade teacher. She and Matt had been together since meeting as counselors at a Baptist day camp in Waco, Texas, in 1994.

"I would have been 23 and she was 20," Baker recalled. "I met her and I thought, 'This is the person for me.'"

Linda and Jim Dulin remember their daughter was instantly smitten with the Baylor University senior. "The thing she kept talking about was, 'Mom, this guy's a really good Christian,'" said Linda Dulin.

And just three months after meeting, Matt and Kari suddenly announced they were getting married. By their first anniversary, Kari was pregnant with daughter Kensi; a second daughter, Kassidy, followed a year-and-a-half later.

"She loved her girls," Linda said. "You know, you know how you feel. There are no words."

But right after Kassidy's first birthday, doctors discovered a brain tumor and she was hospitalized. "There'd be days that it looked really good. Prognosis was good. And then turned around and went right back down hill," Baker explained.

In late February 1999, after a 90-day bedside vigil, Kassidy was well enough to go home. But just after midnight on March 22, Kassidy was rushed to the emergency room. This time doctors couldn't save her.

"To sit there and struggle that far. To come what I thought was so far to watch her die... that was devastating. It really was a very hard, hard thing to cope with," Baker told Moriarty.

It was especially hard for Kari. "She lost her child and she grieved hard," said Linda.

A grief counselor helped Kari get through the first year. In 2000, a third daughter, Grace, was born. But according to Matt Baker, his wife was never the same.

"I don't think it was a split second, all of a sudden she was completely different. It was a gradual changing of the person," he explained. "She had - almost two personalities in a way. Not negative. But when she went to work she had the ability to put issues behind her and focus on work."

"The other personality was a little bit more withdrawn at home," Baker added.

The way Matt Baker tells it, he became "Mr. Mom" to Kensi and Grace. And from the time Kassidy died, Baker said his wife relied on pills to sleep.

According to Baker, Kari used Unisom, an over-the-counter sleep medication. But he said she sometimes borrowed something stronger from family and friends.

And the toughest time for Kari was always the March anniversary of Kassidy's death.

"It was always two or three weeks leading up to it. 'It's coming, it's coming. I can't do this. I can't make it another year. I can't do this again,'" said Baker.

In April 2006, seven years after Kassidy died, Matt said Kari was still struggling with the loss. So he took her to the doctor, who diagnosed her as depressed and prescribed an antidepressant.

"And about that time my wife started almost hyperventilating again in the office. Didn't like him saying anything about depression," Baker explained. "She would never agree that that could be a problem."

As they left the clinic and headed onto the highway, Baker said Kari had a meltdown.

"And I'm at about 45, 50 mph and she is hyperventilating. And she attempts to open the car door as we are driving down the road," he said. "She said she needed to get out, get some air."

According to Baker, he grabbed hold of Kari's waistband until he could pull off the highway. He didn't think it was a suicide attempt. "I thought she just wanted fresh air and wasn't thinking. She lost it for a second," he said.

Later that week, on Friday, April 7, Kari had a crucial interview for a new job at a junior high school; Baker described Kari's mood as "nervous."

And after the interview, Baker said Kari didn't feel well. That evening, despite a queasy stomach, he said Kari drank a wine cooler.

At 10:30 p.m., with the kids in bed, Baker said Kari asked him to gas up the car and rent a movie.

"And I thought, 'It's late. All right, but I'll do it. If your wife asks you, do what your wife asks.' And so I got dressed and left the house a little after 11:00," he recalled.

"It's probably about two miles to the first gas station that I could fill up at. And got out. Pumped the gas ... Went up to the movie place. Rented a movie ... and drove back home."

When he returned around midnight, Baker said he found the bedroom door was locked.

"And so I go and I get the little screwdriver that can fit in there and I popped the button. Open the door... And she's naked on the bed," Baker explained. "And I call her name and she doesn't respond."

At 12:01 a.m. he called for help. "And as I'm calling 911 I'm deciding I don't want them to see her naked. So I put her clothes on her," he told Moriarty.

Video Hear excerpts of the 911 call

Matt Baker said at the same time he was on the phone, he was also moving Kari to the floor where he began CPR. Paramedics arrived within minutes, but it was too late. Kari was dead.

Police found an empty bottle of Unisom next to a note. "I am so sorry," it read, "I love you Matt ... I want to give Kassidy a hug. I need to feel her again."

It was all the evidence the small town police needed.

"The detective that night -- pulled me into the kitchen. He goes, 'Well, she took her own life. There's a note. There's pills... There's no signs of struggle. It's pretty obvious what happened.' And that point my heart sunk. I couldn't believe it. That was the first time for sure that's what they claimed it to be," said Baker.

"We were truly in shock," Linda Dulin said of her daughter's death. "It was almost like we were in a trance. And all I kept thinking about - all Jim kept thinking about was that we didn't have a daughter. Our daughter was gone."

The county doesn't have a medical examiner, so police described the scene over the phone to a justice of the peace, who determined that Kari died from an "overdose of Unisom." No autopsy needed. Two days later, she was buried.

And that might have been the end of the story if not for a group of tenacious women.

"We wanted to clear Kari's name," Kari's aunt, Nancy, told Moriarty. "Matt was going around talking about what a depressed, suicidal person she was. We knew she wasn't."

As out of character as suicide seemed, Kari Baker's parents, Jim and Linda Dulin, said they had no choice but to believe it.

"We kept trying to convince ourselves," Linda said. "What other alternative was there? The idea that Matt could have taken her life was more horrible." But that's exactly what Linda's family thought.

"He killed her," Linda's younger sister, Nancy, said. "Kari loved her life. She loved her family. She would never have left those girls."

From the start, Nancy, as well as Linda's other two sisters, Kay and Jennifer, and niece Lindsey, tried to convince Linda that Kari's death needed to be investigated.

According to Nancy, Matt Baker's story about Kari's last day simply didn't match anyone else's. "He had said that that day Kari was sick."

But she didn't believe it. "People that saw her said she wasn't," said Nancy.

And Nancy said it doesn't make sense that a sick, tired Kari would ask Matt to put gas in the car and rent a movie.

And they certainly didn't believe that if Kari did commit suicide, that she would ever be found in the nude. Nothing seemed to make sense - not even the choice of the sleeping aid Unisom. According to Linda, "She actually took a generic brand."

They also said that Kari's unhappiness in the last weeks of her life wasn't about Kassidy. According to her former grief counselor, Kari was worried about herself.

"And she said, 'I saw Kari in therapy ... And she was afraid that her husband was having an affair and afraid that he was trying to kill her,'" said Kay.

That was just three days before Kari died.

And there's more: Linda's sisters began sharing secrets they'd kept from her all these years.

"I didn't realize that no one in the family liked him," said Linda.

They told Linda about Baker's odd and even boorish behavior.

"He had come up behind my daughter and made some, just really inappropriate sexual comment to her," said Kay.

There were several unsettling incidents, like in 1996, when Kari lived with Baker in a complex. DeeAnn Avalos said the preacher tried to pick up her 16-year-old daughter.

"He asked, 'Have you ever been kissed by a boy?' She said, 'Yes,' and he just suddenly grabbed her and kissed her right on the lips," said Avalos.

At one church youth center, Baker was warned about his behavior with young women. He never seemed to stay long at any job.

"Every time he'd move from a job, I would think -- he did something to someone," said Nancy.

Lora Wilson met Matt Baker in 1991, when they were both student athletic trainers at Baylor University. According to Wilson, they were cleaning an empty locker room when he suddenly grabbed her.

"He lifts me up off the floor and he sits on one of the benches with me on his lap. And that's when he begins running his hand up my thigh and between my legs," she recalled.

Matt Baker denies ever touching Wilson. Instead, he says he inadvertently scared her that day, by turning out the lights. He also denied ever assaulting or harassing any of the women.

"I wanted Matt to be OK. I wanted him to be a good man," Linda Dulin said. "But it didn't add up. Nothing adds up."

Linda finally began to see Matt Baker through her sister's eyes. But persuading the local police to reopen the investigation into Kari's death was going to be far more difficult.

"They didn't do their job and they didn't take us serious," said Nancy. "And I don't think we were asking them to believe that Kari was murdered," Kay added. "We just wanted an investigation."

Police concluded that Kari committed suicide. Only a few photographs were taken at the scene, and the only evidence collected was the Unisom bottle, the remaining pills and the typed suicide note.

So the women began their own investigation. Calling themselves "Charlie's Angels", they began making phone calls, following every lead and retracing Baker's movements the night Kari died.

Their biggest discovery came unexpectedly, when Linda took a look at Matt and Kari's cell phone records. The records showed that 10 days after Kari died, someone began using her cell phone.

"Matt had given the phone to Vanessa Bulls," said Linda.

Matt Baker admits he often talked to Bulls, a young woman who attended his church.

But he says he wasn't interested in her. "I never thought of a relationship with her at all. That never was anything in the back of my mind."

But phone records showed almost 1,700 minutes of calls between Baker and Bulls in just 10 days.

"It looked like he got on the phone as soon as he took the girls to school and stayed on the phone with her most of the day. It was crazy," said Linda.

Matt Baker says he needed a friend. "I needed somebody to look me in the face and say, 'I'm sorry you lost your wife.'"

But the records show Baker began calling Bulls before Kari died. He denies he was having an affair. "There was never any relationship at all other than a friendship," he told Moriarty.

Vanessa Bulls told police they did begin dating, but only after Kari's death.

"This is a man who has a very dark, evil side... He was preying on other women," Linda said. "And then finally he found one who it looked like something might go somewhere with. And I believe Kari was in the way."

Armed with a possible motive, Linda hired Bill Johnston, a dogged former federal prosecutor, and his team of investigators.

"All of a sudden, all the shock I'd been feeling, all this numbness - it was just like it just washed right off of me. And I thought, 'OK, Linda, we're going to find out what's going on here.' And after that, we went into battle mode."

Three months after Kari was laid to rest, her parents had her body removed from the grave and autopsied.

Linda Dulin was determined to find out how her daughter died. Although authorities ruled it as a suicide, she suspected that Matt Baker was responsible.

Attorney Bill Johnston and his investigators found much of the evidence troubling.

"We never heard of a typed suicide note... at least that needed a signature," he told Erin Moriarty. "And on the table next to the note were pens... Rather convenient, you know, if someone wanted to sign it."

They found more disturbing evidence in the computer network that serves the entire youth center where Matt Baker worked as a chaplain. One month before Kari died, he began conducting online searches for "overdose on sleeping pills" and on the prescription drug Ambien, even though Kari didn't have a prescription for that drug.

Baker's explanation? "It scared me that she was taking that much sleeping medicine to get sleep at night. It took a lot to wake her up in the morning sometimes."

Asked why he didn't mention it to the doctor, Baker replied, "At that point, I didn't think it was necessary to tell the doctor because I thought she was getting it under control."

When investigators asked to examine the actual computer that was on Baker's desk, they discovered that it wasn't his. Sometime in mid-June, when the search for evidence got under way, someone had replaced his desktop computer with his secretary's; Matt Baker's had vanished.

Baker says he had "no clue" why someone would want to take that computer and that there was nothing on the computer that he didn't want anyone to see.

Investigators also have no idea whether there was anything incriminating on Baker's home computer. Matt says the hard drive crashed and is no longer working.

The more Bill Johnston heard, the more he was convinced that Linda's doubts about her son-in-law might be right.

"There's more to the guy than just some guy that's preaching on Sunday. There's a dark side here," he told Moriarty.

Asked if he thinks Matt Baker is a dangerous man, Johnston replied, "Oh sure. You bet. He's dangerous."

Johnston believes that because when Kari told her grief counselor that she thought Matt was trying to kill her, Kari confided that she found a mysterious bottle of crushed pills in his briefcase.

"He gave her a story, 'Oh, that's from the kids at the center. The kids don't take their meds and they spit 'em out. That must be what that is,'" Johnston explained.

Matt Baker told "48 Hours" a very different story. He said there were pills, but that they were Kari's - and had never been in his briefcase.

"She comes out with a bottle of pills. And she looks at me and she says, 'I found these in there,'" he told Moriarty.

Asked if that bottle of crushed pills was in his briefcase, Baker replied, "I don't know where she found it. I never saw it before she had it in her hands."

The pills are now gone. According to Baker, Kari threw out the crushed pills and that he offered to have them tested "and she put 'em down the sink."

But Johnston doesn't believe it. As his suspicions mounted, he convinced his friend, Texas Ranger Matt Cawthon, to look at the case. Cawthon also suspected foul play and became frustrated by the faulty police investigation.

"There was a computer printer there. There were - bottles of - alcohol there... and of course an autopsy would have been a tremendous assistance to the investigation. But it wasn't ordered," he told Moriarty.

Cawthon said it took "incredible pressure" on the Hewitt Police to take another look at the case.

In September 2006, the results of Kari's autopsy - done three months after her body was embalmed and buried - came in, and still no proof of how she died. No remnants of pills were found in Kari's stomach, but there was evidence of Ambien in her muscle tissue - the same sleeping drug Matt Baker researched on the Internet.

Bill Johnston points to the photos taken the night Kari died, which show discoloration around Kari's nose and lips; an indication, he says, that she may have been suffocated.

"There is a slight abrasion to her nose... consistent with - a rough - pillow or some object that maybe has fibers that scrape across," he explained.

There were enough questions that 18 months after Kari Baker died, the justice of the peace declared her death was no longer classified as "suicide;" instead, it was labeled "undetermined."

Police now had a possible homicide on their hands. On Sept. 21, 2007, the former pastor was arrested and charged with murder.

"I guess the foolishness on my part was if you never do anything wrong, you won't get arrested," Baker told Moriarty.

Baker posted bond and returned home to his daughters.

"I'm just waiting for the day I can grieve with my children for my wife and their mother," he said.

Matt Baker says he is the victim of insidious innuendo and wild speculation and has been unable to get work after his arrest.

He also found a powerful ally: Guy James Gray. Like Bill Johnston, Gray was once a high-powered prosecutor.

"I think Matt Baker is being railroaded," Gray said. "The more I know about Matt, the less I believe that he is the type to take somebody's life."

He says Kari's despair was spelled out in her own heartbreaking entries she wrote in her Bible after her daughter died.

"This paragraph is about how good Heaven is and then she writes out beside it, 'I want to go to Kassidy,'" Gray pointed out.

Gray also said he can explain some of the seemingly incriminating circumstances.

Asked about the abrasion on her nose, Gray said, "Well, the first thing the emergency people did when they got there was put one of these artificial CPR deals over her mouth."

But Bill Johnston says that the abrasion had to have been left there before Kari died and that Baker is the one who caused it. According to Johnston, the most damaging evidence comes from Matt Baker himself.

Facing murder charges in Waco, Matt Baker retreated to his childhood home in Kerrville, Texas, where his old friends were outraged at the accusations.

"Matt is a sweet, loving, caring, tender hearted person," one friend told "48 Hours."

"It's just inconsistent with his character," said another.

That's also how Jill Hotz, Kari's best friend, once felt about Matt. But today, she no longer believes in Baker or the story he tells about Kari.

"I know she didn't take her own life," Hotz said. "Someone with that kind of a zest for life, that kind of fight for life, she's not gonna take her own life. And she didn't do that."

Why does Hotz suspect Baker? Because of a conversation she had with Kari just days before her death.

"She was very, very upset... crying extremely hard on the phone. And I said, 'Kari, what's wrong?' And she said, 'I think Matt is seeing someone else,'" Hotz told Erin Moriarty. "And you know how you have those moments in your life that you wish that you could just re-do the whole thing? I tried to reassure her that Matt loved her. And he wouldn't do that."

And Kari told Hotz that her preacher husband did something far worse. He blamed her for their child's death.

"She said that Matt accused her of praying for Kassidy not to have to suffer anymore," Hotz continued. "And he said that God answered Kari's prayer instead of his prayer, which was for Kassidy to live to be an old lady and to have a full life."

Kotz says Kari took that extremely hard.

Baker says he never blamed Kari for Kassidy's death. "She misunderstood what I had said. I said that it hurt me that she felt her prayer was answered and mine wasn't."

But Baker had sent Kari an e-mail just days before she spoke with Jill Kotz.

It read, "I know deep down I hold a grudge against God and you for Him answering your prayer and not mine," he wrote. "In some ways, I do hold you... to blame for her death."

"[Kari] said that was the worst thing she ever heard," Kotz said. "And she didn't think that they could ever recover from that."

The day after Kari confided in Kotz was when Kari told her counselor she thought her husband was trying to kill her. The counselor confronted Baker at Kari's funeral.

Baker's reaction? "And I said, 'What? Well, wait, wait.' And I'm like, 'What's going on here?' That was just kind of - just completely rattled everything that was going on at that time."

Matt Baker denies he had any reason to kill Kari. He denies cheating on her, and he insists that the woman he spent so much time with, Vanessa Bulls, was only a friend. But he admits that later in the summer he was interested in dating Vanessa.

According to Baker, Kari was suffering from severe anxiety that was apparent to everyone who saw her in the days leading up to her death. But "48 Hours" couldn't find anyone to confirm that. On the contrary, even her close friend, Jill Kotz, says that when she last spoke to Kari, Kari seemed happier and said things had improved with Matt.

"The day before she died, she was completely elated. And she said, 'We're trying to get everything patched back together,'" Kotz recalled. "She was very hopeful. Very future oriented."

Those who saw Kari on her last day say her spirits were much higher than earlier in the week. Her friend, Todd Monsey, said she looked forward to the prospect of a new job. "She told me she had a great interview. She was excited. We had a good high five right there in the hallway."

But Kari died that very night. Her parents' attorney, Bill Johnston, says there are serious inconsistencies in Baker's story. "Unfortunately for Matt Baker, he didn't buy enough time for himself. He should have painted a couple of hours of alibi."

Baker was very specific about the time he left Kari to put gas in the car and get movies. "I remember when I was getting dressed and ready to leave, the clock said 11:11," he said.

Yet, he seems unclear about Kari's state when he left.

"We talked about everything that I was supposed to get and I left," he said.

"She was awake when you... left," noted Moriarty.

"Oh, yeah," he replied. "We had a conversation. I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead before I left."

But when asked two months later if she was talking or said goodbye to him, Baker told Moriarty, "She had rolled back over and gone back to sleep. So when I left, she was asleep."

And remember how Baker said he first found out that Kari killed herself?

"The police officer brings me the note. And that was the first thought at that point in time, she took her own life," he said.

Yet, he had clearly read the note when he called the 911 operator: "I think my wife just committed suicide ... Her lips are blue, hands are cold, and there's a note that says 'I'm sorry,' basically."

When pressed by Moriarty - "You read the note. You had said to the operator, 'She says I'm sorry.'" Baker said he had not read the full note. "I saw the note, but as I picked up the phone, I saw it there, but I did not take the time to read the note."

The police told Baker the cause of death was obvious. It was all too obvious according to Johnston. "Here's some wine coolers to match the story they were drinking a wine cooler. And the note then is - I'll just have to say self-serving. 'Matt, I'm sorry. Oh, Matt. Take care of the kids.' You know, not critical of him in any way."

Johnston also points out signs of lividity on Kari's body: the pooling of blood that happens after death. It's an indication, he says, that Kari had been dead far longer than the 40 or so minutes that Baker claims he was away.

"She had to ingest something that made her sleepy, then unconscious, then killed her. And she had to quit breathing, her heart had to stop. And then lividity had to begin," he explained.

And he is not the only one who questions Matt Baker's story. Steven Karch, a toxicologist "48 Hours" consulted, says that if Kari were alive when Baker says he left the house, her body would not be cold to the touch, as both Matt and a paramedic reported.

"Being cold in an hour is non-existent. Unless you're killed in the Arctic or in an icebox," said Karch.

But Karch cautions there simply isn't enough evidence to say how and why Kari died. Asked if he believes this is a suicide, he answered, "No. But I cannot determine the cause of death. I wouldn't certify it as anything but undetermined."

Baker denies he had anything to do with Kari's death. "Was I the perfect person? Did I do everything correct? No. But I didn't hurt my wife. I loved my wife. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her," he said.

Matt baker had been arrested and charged with murder, but the D.A. had not yet brought the case to a grand jury, which is a requirement under Texas law for a murder case to go to trial.

His attorney, Guy James Gray, says it is extremely difficult to take someone to trial for murder when even the coroner can't determine that a murder occurred.

Gray was determined to get the charges dropped.

As the second anniversary of Kari's death approached, Matt Baker and his daughters were still living with his parents in Kerrville. His relationship with Vanessa Bulls was long over. And his life was in limbo.

Asked if he thinks he'll be indicted, Baker replied, "I don't know where I go from here. There is such an unknown of what tomorrow holds."

While murder charges against Baker were pending, in Texas, in order to go to trial, the district attorney also has to get a grand jury indictment within 180 days.

Linda Dulin says she was not worried about not having enough evidence to take him to trial. But time ran out and on March 25, 2008, all criminal charges against Matt Baker were dropped.

"Was it a murder? Was it a suicide? That was the major question in the case," Assistant District Attorney Crawford Long said. "We felt we didn't have the evidence to go forward with a criminal indictment at that time."

"They went through the facts just like I did," Baker's attorney, Guy James Gray said. "And they're simply not sufficient facts to establish a murder."

"It is a tremendous relief," Matt Baker said. "The criminal part is -- is in the past ... And that's a tremendous blessing."

Texas Ranger Matt Cawthon was disappointed, but not surprised. "Justice was not served," he said. "It is frustrating, but ... the evidence was there. Every turn ... we were turned away."

"This is a man you believed killed his wife, and he's walking free," Moriarty noted.

"Well, you know, Erin, it happens everyday," he replied. "And in this case, something went awry."

But Bill Johnston knows there's no statue of limitations on murder, so he is not giving up.

"Because sooner or later," he said, "I think the criminal justice system will deal with Matt Baker ... I just believe it's gonna happen."

The battle was far from over. Linda Dulin and her team are pursuing Matt in civil court, suing him for wrongful death.

"They allow different evidence in civil cases," Gray explained. "That one's more of a problem for him now."

Especially with Kari's mother and her angels on the case.

"We are going to continue to do what we have been doing," Linda said. "And that is, we are going to seek justice. And I believe - I believe with every fiber in my being that we will have it."

But in the year that follows, tremendous changes take place as Kari's case takes a dramatic turn -- Matt Baker is indicted for his wife's murder and secrets are revealed.

"The thing that changed things," Long said, "was Vanessa Bulls' testimony."

The story continues ... with "48 Hours" Dirty Little Secrets".