Deadly Little Secrets Part 17

Apparently, Vanessa's parents were also against her plans to move to Kerrville with Matt. Barbara wrote: "You don't need two sets of in-laws having problems with you."

That same day, Mike McNamara questioned another of the third-grade teachers at Spring Valley Elementary. What she said was that the week after Kari's death, she happened upon Matt and the girls at Walmart. As they talked, Matt described finding Kari's body, saying that when the police asked if the girls were all right that night, he went into their bedrooms to check them. "If Kari did anything to my girls, I would go get her out of the ambulance," he said. The problem was that no one saw Matt enter his daughters' bedrooms that night. It was what the teacher said Matt had in his Walmart cart, however, that caught McNamara's attention: a new computer, printer, and monitor.

Baker replaced the home computer, McNamara thought. Why?

Computers were the topic of conversation again three days later at WCY, when chaplain's a.s.sistant Gene Boesche went into Terri Corbin's deserted office to use the printer and discovered that her computer tower was missing. Immediately, Boesche reported the situation to Matt, his boss. The two men then inspected Corbin's office, Matt looking around the filing cabinet and the desk. "I'll report it," he said.

Five days later, Matt reported the missing computer to security, and Keith Lowery, the facility's tech expert, was notified. He, too, looked through Corbin's office and verified that the computer was, indeed, gone. Then he went back to the system and ran a check, to see when it was last connected to the network. What he discovered was that Corbin's computer was still being used. Investigating further, he determined that the one using Corbin's computer was Matt Baker.

Lowery then went to Matt's office and inspected the computer on the chaplain's desk. A WCY sticker identified it as Matt's, but when Lowery checked the serial number, he determined that the computer was actually the one from Terri Corbin's old office. Apparently someone had switched the computers. The question then became: Where was Matt Baker's computer?

To find out, Lowery searched Matt's office, but to no avail. Matt's computer was gone, apparently stolen. The only conclusion was that someone had taken Matt's computer and covered up the theft by replacing it with the one from Terri Corbin's old office, going so far as to change the WCY tags to hide the thievery. When Lowery asked Matt where his computer was, Matt said he didn't know.

Not long after, Matt wrote a report. In it, he claimed that he'd noticed something that could explain what had happened: "I do not remember the exact date that I found my computer turned out at a different angle, but it would be approximately two weeks ago, around the time the tower might have been exchanged." Although his office was down a locked hallway, he then suggested that volunteers and others who came on the campus had access to the offices and would have been able to make the switch, including a rabbi who'd used Matt's office. "I do not see any other items missing from my office," he concluded, signing it Chaplain Matt Baker.

In the weeks that followed, the campus was searched, but Matt's CPU was never found. In hindsight, two things stood out. First, Lowery would recall how Matt had once asked him if deleted e-mails could be retrieved off a computer. They could. The other was that tracing Matt's IP address back, Lowery discovered that the missing computer was disconnected from the WCY network at 11:37 on the morning of June 19, the holiday when Matt talked with Christina Salazar, who'd told him that his work computer could be subpoenaed. That was the same day Matt was seen walking to his truck carrying a box.

WCY's security notified Waco PD, where a case file was opened on the missing computer.

Rumors had been stirring in Hewitt since Matt had first shown up at the school with Vanessa just two weeks after Kari's death, but once two private investigators were looking into the case, the word spread quickly. At Crossroads, many doubted that Kari had committed suicide. After Matt's firing, the pastor who had preceded him, Steve Sadler, returned. He was the one who'd presided over Kari's funeral, the one who'd seen her plea for G.o.d's protection in her Bible. Perhaps hearing the rumors convinced Sadler that the police needed to know what he'd seen.

Whatever the reason, on June 26, Sadler wrote a letter on his Baylor stationery to Ben Toombs, the Hewitt PD officer whose parents attended Crossroads: "As of conversations at Crossroads Baptist Church yesterday, I feel it is time for me to give you this Xerox copy of a page in Kari Baker's Bible . . .

"On Sunday night April 9 as I was thumbing through Kari's Bible, I came across this notation attached. It had a very sobering and lingering impact. I xeroxed it but filed it away as 99% unrelated to anything of significance. Matt and I have never discussed this or any of the other markings I read in the Bible.

"With the knowledge I now have concerning an investigation into Kari's death, I feel I should give this to you. I am available for further conversation should you want it."

The Hewitt police now had in their hands Kari's own words: Lord, I am asking you to protect me from harm. I am not sure what is going on with Matt, but Lord help me find peace with him.

Chapter 38.

Linda's crusade to have an official investigation into her daughter's death appeared to reap benefits on July 6, nearly three months to the day after Kari's death, when Captain Tuck Saunders informed the detective in charge of the investigation, Cooper, that Judge Martin said he was now willing to order an exhumation and an autopsy. The news hadn't come directly from the judge but from Texas Ranger Matt Cawthon, whom McNamara and Bennett had been keeping informed.

Three days later, Cawthon dropped in at Hewitt PD headquarters to talk to the chief, personally putting pressure on him to take a look at the case. Voices rose, especially when the chief questioned why Cawthon was interjecting himself into the case. "Who are you working for, Bill Johnston?" Chief Barton demanded.

"No, that dead woman. And you should be, too," the Texas Ranger replied.

That same afternoon, Cooper was no longer the lead investigator on the case. Saunders called twenty-eight-year-old Toombs into his office and told him the Baker case was now his. The dark-haired young detective with a crooked smile protested. He explained that he had connections to the case: His father was a deacon at Crossroads, and he'd met Matt and the Dulins. Toombs and his family had briefly lived in Troy and attended the same church as Vanessa. "She seemed like a nice girl from a good family," he says.

From what he knew, Toombs didn't think Matt Baker was guilty. Ben's mother spoke well of the former pastor, and, as the young officer saw it, even if Matt and Vanessa had an affair, it wasn't important. "Because he's having an inappropriate relationship, that doesn't prove he killed his wife," says Toombs.

Toombs protested the a.s.signment, but Saunders insisted. "The case is yours," the captain said. "Get with Matt Cawthon on this."

a.s.signed to help Toombs was Mike Spear, a baby-faced Hewitt detective, one with a slight dimple in his chin, who'd joined the department five years earlier, at the tender age of twenty-one. "I always thought it would be fun to be a cop," says Spear, who'd heard about the Baker case around the office, always in the context of "some lady committed suicide, and her parents were causing problems."

The first thing Toombs did on his new a.s.signment was to call a Waco detective he knew, one in special crimes, to talk about the procedure for exhuming a body for an autopsy. After he hung up, he called the judge's office and got the plans rolling. The affidavit Ben Toombs wrote on July 10, 2006, was ent.i.tled "for disinterment of a dead body," and it said that while Kari's death had been initially determined to be a suicide, the cause had "come into question due to suspicious circ.u.mstances." The ones referred to as requesting the exhumation were her parents, Jim and Linda Dulin, and the reason to have it autopsied was so that an official manner of death could be determined.

That same day, Judge Martin signed the order for the disinterment from Oakwood Cemetery, section 1, lot 96, s.p.a.ce 2. From the judge's office, Toombs and Spear proceeded to the cemetery, where a backhoe was waiting. As they stood to the side, the operator removed the rich dark earth. A hoist was then used to bring the baby blue coffin up, and when it emerged, the earth had dented the top and one side.

The coffin was then transferred into the back of a hea.r.s.e to be taken to the Southwest Inst.i.tute of Forensic Science in Dallas. Toombs and Spear followed in a slow-moving procession, then accompanied the casket into the autopsy suite. Before long, Dr. Reade Quinton, a pathologist, arrived, and the casket was opened.

Dressed in a teal sweater and skirt set, Kari's body was transferred onto an exam table. For the most part, the autopsy wasn't all that unusual. Photos were taken, and Kari's organs were each removed and weighed. Yet, when it came time to take samples for toxicology, there was a problem: The tests were usually done on blood, but it had all been drained and replaced by embalming fluid. Instead, Dr. Quinton harvested muscle tissue, labeling it to be sent to the lab.

While they waited, Toombs called Matt's attorney, informing him of what was transpiring. When he heard, Matt rushed to the cemetery with his mother at his side and stood above the empty grave, his phone to his ear, talking to Vanessa. For some reason, his thoughts weren't only of Kari that day. "I wonder if they dug up Ka.s.sidy, too," he said.

Moments later, after he'd traversed the short distance to the child's grave, the one marked "My sweet, sweet baby," Matt sounded relieved. "No, she's still here," he said.

Meanwhile in Dallas, after the autopsy, Spear and Toombs talked to Dr. Quinton. "I don't see anything that would suggest either suicide or homicide," he told them. "And I'm afraid that the toxicology I've ordered won't help much. Without blood, having to use muscle tissue, it's not likely to be conclusive."

When the sad caravan returned Kari's body to Oakwood Cemetery, one lone man waited. Jim Dulin had heard that his daughter's body had been exhumed and would be reburied. In a new casket, one identical to the last, Kari's body was removed from the back of the hea.r.s.e. The casket was slipped back into the ground as Jim prayed. Then, before the two young detectives left, Jim approached them. "I just want to tell you; you get him, or I will," he said, weeping. "If I get him, y'all will be coming after me."

When the autopsy report came back, as Quinton had suggested, there were no clear answers, but there was more information. In Kari's muscle tissue, the toxicologists found traces of phentermine, the diet drug she was taking, diphenhydramine (Unisom), and something else, something that Kari Baker didn't have a prescription for, a drug she wasn't known to take: zolpidem, better known as the sleeping pill Ambien.

When Dr. Quinton reviewed all the results, he wrote: "After a complete autopsy and scene investigation the cause of death of Kari Baker, a thirty-one-year-old white female, remains undetermined. The combined effects of phentermine, diphenhydramine, and zolpidem, in conjunction with the possible use of alcohol (per history), may have contributed to the cause of death. However, accurate blood concentrations of these drugs cannot be determined due to embalming. If additional information becomes available, the cause and manner of death may be amended."

So much antic.i.p.ation had gone into that autopsy suite with Kari's body, so much excitement that the question that was her death might finally have an answer, all to end in uncertainty. Yet, now, those investigating had something to work with, toxicology results that added a new piece to the puzzle: Ambien.

Once he had a copy of the autopsy, Bill Johnston contacted Dr. David Stafford, a well-known forensic toxicologist and former professor at the University of Tennessee in Memphis, asking for his opinion. Days later, Stafford called Johnston. "This woman did not die of an overdose," Stafford said. He then went on to explain the chemistry of death by overdose. If Kari had downed a bottle of pills, the individual pills would have broken down and been absorbed at different rates. As they took effect, her system would have slowed. At death, some of the pills would have remained undigested in her stomach. Those would have been easily apparent during autopsy. But there were none, not in Kari's stomach or intestines. "That means she didn't die of an overdose," Stafford maintained. "It's not possible."

"Could she have aspirated and choked?" Johnston asked.

"No," Stafford said. "Her lungs were clear."

Chapter 39.

The finding of undetermined on the autopsy had been disappointing, but the investigation forged ahead. The day after the exhumation, Bennett and McNamara went to Baylor to talk to Steve Sadler, Crossroads' current pastor. They'd heard that Sadler had found something potentially interesting in Kari's Bible. In a university conference room, they asked what Kari had written. "He didn't cooperate. He was evasive," says McNamara. "Sadler brought someone with him, apparently afraid to meet us alone."

"There's a privilege, maybe not a legal one, but there's one to me, as a minister," Sadler contended.

Bennett and McNamara asked questions, however, and Sadler finally admitted that the rumors were true; he had found something troubling in the Bible. "Will you show it to us?" Bennett asked.

"No," Sadler said. "But I did give it to the Hewitt police."

Despite all the acc.u.mulating evidence, the Dulins had a tie with their son-in-law that they couldn't break, their granddaughters. On July 18, Jim and Linda attended Grace's birthday party at a pizza restaurant. Baker didn't know that one diner at a separate table had a special interest in the case. It was the first time John Bennett had seen Baker, and he wondered about the preacher's body language. Matt had lost weight and looked on edge. He was dressed not as a pastor but in clothes a teenager might wear.

The following afternoon, Toombs's partner on the case, Mike Spear, talked with Cawthon, who urged him to meet with McNamara and Bennett, vouching for the two men. That evening at six, Spear, Toombs, Cawthon, McNamara, and Bennett congregated at Bennett's house. Toombs brought along a copy of Cooper's interview with Matt, and Bennett popped it in his DVD player. Before long, the two seasoned investigators wondered why the detective let the subject control the interview. Bennett noticed that every time a difficult subject was broached, Matt clenched his jaw, and his face flushed.

The DVD ended, and it was McNamara and Bennett's turn to divulge what they knew for the detectives. "It was typical for them to say, 'Did you meet with this person yet? You may want to talk to this person who may have some information for you,' " says Spear.

Two days later, Bennett and McNamara met with Spear again. This time the detective brought the eight crime-scene photos. The first thing the two investigators noticed was the purplish hue of Kari's hands and arms, her back, and the back of her neck. What they recognized was lividity. "That shouldn't be there," Bennett pointed out. "Not if she'd only been dead a short time."

The meeting ended, and the investigation continued. Now that they had more to work with, John Bennett used the information from Baker's interview with Cooper to retrace the former pastor's account of his whereabouts on the night his wife died. Leaving the Crested b.u.t.te address at just after eleven one night, Bennett drove out of the subdivision and turned right, taking the road underneath the highway to the first stop, a convenience store. Matt had said the store was closed, and Bennett saw that it was; pulling back out, he drove up onto the freeway and toward downtown Hewitt. From there, he drove into a second gas station, one that sold only diesel, then into the Exxon, estimating the time it took to pump twenty-six gallons, the amount on the receipt Baker supplied to Hewitt PD. Pumping at twelve seconds a gallon, the standard, that stop took a total of seven minutes and twelve seconds.

After going into Hollywood Video, picking up a video and checking out, Bennett drove back to Crested b.u.t.te. Bennett's conclusion? The route Matt said he drove, including the stops, shouldn't have taken more than thirty-five minutes and forty-seven seconds. Matt should have been home at least ten minutes before he said he was, well before 12:03, when he called 911.

"We lived the investigation every day. We talked about it every day," says Bennett, with a frown. "We'd say, was it possible this happened, or that. Was there any way we could think of where Matt didn't do it? Any way that it could have been suicide? But that didn't seem to work. We had no evidence she would kill herself."

"We kept trying to point the arrow away from Matt Baker, and it kept turning and pointing right back at him," says McNamara.

To get more information on Matt's past, McNamara investigated the former pastor's work experience. At First Baptist in Waco, he talked to a man he'd known for years, Jake Roberts, who'd been Matt's boss in the youth program. From Roberts, McNamara learned about the young girl who'd charged that Matt pushed her for s.e.x, even the cleaning woman he'd propositioned. From there, McNamara went to the Family Y and heard about the allegations from teenage girls that had led to Matt's firing. All of it fit the police report Bennett and McNamara already had from Waco PD, the one from the woman who said Matt a.s.saulted her at Baylor.

As McNamara and Bennett a.s.sessed it, there'd been many opportunities to hold Baker accountable, but no one had taken the step of reporting his actions to police. "What I found disturbing was that he was allowed all these years to engage in criminal acts," says McNamara. "Matt Baker is a coward and a bully. He bullied these women, and no one stood up for them."

There were others to whom Nancy directed Mike and John, including the teenage neighbor Matt kissed in the parking lot and the friend of Lindsey's he'd propositioned in the hospital. As McNamara made his way from church to church asking questions about the former pastor, at times he was rebuffed, as in Riesel, where he was told that those in charge of the church had received a letter from Matt's lawyer warning them to be careful what they said about his client. "I can't talk with you," a man there told McNamara. "I have to protect our church!"

Another meeting was held with Bill Johnston. Linda attended, and the two private investigators reported all they'd learned. "More and more I realized that Matt had a dark side I knew nothing about," says Linda. "Matt was incapable of truly loving a woman. And I felt sadness for Kari, that she'd died never really having been loved by a man."

Meanwhile, Jim continued to fight his own demons, carrying the guilt of not having been able to protect his daughter. At times he daydreamed about finding a way to even the score, hunting Matt down, and throwing him into a pit. Frustrated and angry, one night in his dreams, Jim believed that he heard G.o.d's voice. "You're not going to do anything about this. I know what he did was wrong, but what gives you the right to take their daddy away?" the voice asked. "I will take care of this. And you will wait on my will."

In July, Matt wrote a letter of resignation to WCY, explaining that he was moving to Kerrville. To coworkers, he blamed the move on gossip his in-laws were stirring up. "I want to get the girls away from all this," he said to one.

Evidence mounting, decisions were being made. As Johnston saw it, his two investigators were very different. McNamara tended to go with his heart, and he'd believed within weeks of taking the case that Matt had killed his wife. Bennett was the more systematic of the two. He'd been the one who kept questioning, pushing, trying to look at the case from all sides before coming to a conclusion. That day, Bennett told Johnston, "You know, based on Matt's own story, it couldn't have happened that way. She couldn't have killed herself in that period of time. All the experts are saying the same thing. The only other one with opportunity is Matt."

During a meeting with McNamara and Bennett, the lawyer told Linda that with the investigation apparently stalling at Hewitt PD, it was time to move ahead on their own. The course of action Johnston recommended was the filing of a wrongful death suit. A civil suit, Johnston explained, would give them subpoena powers, allowing him to obtain employment, medical, police, and other records. He'd also be able to depose witnesses, including Matt Baker. The objective wasn't the money they'd be asking for in the suit, but to arm them with the powers to keep digging. The ultimate goal was to gather enough evidence to move the criminal investigation forward.

"I told you before you didn't need to hire me yet," Johnston told Linda. "Now, if we're going to take this any further, you do."

After talking the situation over with Jim, Linda called Johnston back and said they agreed, giving the attorney the go-ahead to draw up the paperwork and file suit.

In Dallas, Jill and her husband continued to debate whether or not Matt Baker could have or would have murdered his wife. Jill was still having those moments when she'd forget and pick up the phone, wanting to call Kari to tell her something that happened at work or at home. Off and on, Jill called Linda to reminisce about Kari. "We were laughing at all the funny things Kari did," Jill would say later. "It was fun just to have someone to share them with."

It was during one such call that Linda told Jill they were moving forward with the civil suit. "I need to know if we can count on you," Linda said.

Jill considered her response for only a moment. "Kari was like a sister to me, and I'll do whatever I can. I don't believe she killed herself."

Afterward, when she again talked to her husband, Stephen said, "I don't know how you can be so comfortable with the idea that Matt did this."

"You're just not getting it," Jill responded. "Kari couldn't have committed suicide. What are the other options?"

Not long after, Matt called the Hotzes one night, asking questions, Jill believed to see if she'd tell him what Linda had planned. The conversation quickly grew heated. "Kari didn't think I was having an affair," he told her.

"Yes, she did, Matt," Jill countered.

"Do you believe that?"

"It doesn't matter what I believe, Matt. Kari thought you were."

"Do you think I could have had an affair?" he demanded.

"Yes. I think you could," Jill responded. "I didn't at the time, and I wish I hadn't said that to Kari."

"I was your pastor! How could you think that of me?" Over and over, Matt screamed, "I was your pastor!"

Meanwhile, Bennett and McNamara continued to pull information together. One hole they'd been trying to fill for more than a month was the ident.i.ty of the Baylor woman who'd accused Matt of attempting to s.e.xually a.s.sault her. "We had her date of birth and what we finally did was pull up everyone born in Texas on that date," says Bennett. "Then I went through the list, and what I found wasn't a Laura Mueller but a Lora Wilson." With a little more digging, Bennett discovered that the Waco detective who'd taken the report had misspelled the woman's first name, and she'd married, taking her husband's last name, Mueller.

Once he had the right name to work with, Bennett used the Internet to search and uncovered an old phone number. Calling it, he found someone who knew Lora Wilson Mueller and left a message. He hung up not knowing if the woman who'd fled Baylor after the attack would call or want to forget the incident and refuse to talk.

The following morning, on July 22, Mueller called Bennett. "I can't speak to what happened to Kari Baker," she said. "But I can tell you what Matt Baker did to me. I left Baylor feeling as if they'd turned their backs on me and supported Matt. They treated me like I was some screwed-up s.l.u.t who wanted to ruin the life of a good ministerial student."

Before the call ended, she begged, "Please, get him before he does it again!"

On July 26, the final day of her sister Jennifer's weekend visit, Linda drove the girls home to the house on Crested b.u.t.te. While Jennifer took the girls inside, Linda noticed a cooler she and Jim had lent Matt in a pile of boxes on the curb for the garbage collectors. At the time, Matt was getting ready to move to Kerrville. Linda decided to reclaim her cooler. When she stood over the garbage, she saw family photos and some of Kari's things, including cards she'd written Matt for birthdays, Christmases, and Valentine's Days. Inside, Kari had inscribed messages professing her love.

Linda kept looking until she noticed a stack of computer disks. Deciding those were the most important, she grabbed the CDs and ran back to her car. Minutes later, Jennifer emerged, and they drove away.

The wrongful death suit brought by Linda and Jim on behalf of their granddaughters, Kensi and Grace, was filed on the last day of July 2006. It read, "On or about April 7, 2006, Matthew Baker intentionally caused the death of his wife, Kari Baker. The defendant then falsely reported the death to the police as a suicide . . . The Dulins suffered because of Kari's death the loss of a daughter, and Kensi and Grace lost a mother."

A day later, Bennett drove the two hundred miles from Waco to Kerrville, and found Matt unpacking a U-Haul in front of a small duplex. As Bennett watched, a process server handed Matt an envelope. Inside was a copy of the lawsuit. "Have a good day," he said, before he walked away.

Afterward, Matt called Linda, something he hadn't done in months. On the phone, with Jim sitting next to Linda, Matt tried to talk them into dropping the suit.

"Matt, we know you did it," Linda answered.

"Linda, you know . . ." Matt never finished the sentence.

"He never said he hadn't murdered Kari," says Linda.

In early August, in Kerrville, Matt settled in, enrolling the girls in school. He found a position at a funeral home delivering bodies and counseling families. He also found a part-time job at a local university, working with students.

Meanwhile, in Waco, the investigation continued.

One afternoon, Bennett followed up on his interest in the Bulls family, driving again to Troy, and this time talking to Vanessa's father, Larry. An amiable man, Bulls listened as Bennett explained that he was an investigator hired by the Dulins, looking into their daughter's death. Under questioning, Larry Bulls confirmed that Matt had begun calling Vanessa months before Kari's death, in December.

Based on what they now knew from the autopsy, Bennett had an important question: "I asked if anyone in the household had a prescription for Ambien. Larry said that his wife, Cheryl, did. Then I asked if Vanessa could have given Matt Ambien."

"I don't know," Bulls responded, according to Bennett.

Meanwhile, McNamara continued his investigation into Matt's past employment. At the Waco Center for Youth, he heard from Matt's coworkers about his odd behavior, the strange statements he'd made after Kari's death, including how he'd flaunted his relationship with Vanessa and claimed the marriage to Kari had been loveless. Then someone brought up a matter McNamara was particularly interested in: Matt Baker's missing computer. "Matt's computer had gone missing the same day someone saw him walking through the parking lot with a box," says McNamara. "My thought was, of course, what was on it that it was so important, he was willing to steal state property?"

That afternoon, the retired deputy U.S. Marshal took a tour of the facility, and Matt's a.s.sistant, Boesche, explained how the doors to the wing that included the chapel and chaplain's office were kept locked, limiting access. When they reached Matt's old office, the facility's head of security, Dennis Edwards, attempted to use a master key to open the door. To his surprise, the key didn't work. Later, Edwards determined why. Months earlier, Matt had asked the complex's handyman to change the lock.

"Do you dispense Ambien here?" McNamara asked Edwards.