The Husband Was Not Who He Seemed

The minister was not a man of God

Kari Dulin and Matt Baker, before they were married (photo from the book Deadly Little Secrets: The Minister, His Mistress, and a Heartless Texas Murder)

Kari Baker

Kari Baker committed suicide, driven by her grief over the death of her baby girl several years before. Her minister husband, Matt Baker, found her sprawled in the bed in their Hewitt, Texas home on April 8, 2006. The neatly typed suicide note was on the table, next to a half-empty bottle of Unisom sleep aid.

She had been alive when he went out to pick up a movie about an hour before. He performed CPR while calling 9 1 1, but Kari was unresponsive. Police from the Hewitt Police Department arrived on the scene, and EMTs did their best to revive her, but it was too late.

Kari Dulin Baker was pronounced dead at 12:17, April 8, 2006. Her two young daughters were asleep in their bedroom. Later, others would remember that in spite of all the noise the police and EMTs made, the two little girls never woke up. There was a suspicion that Matt had given them a sleeping aid to make sure they didn’t wake up, but nothing was ever proven.

The EMTs noticed several anomalies as they worked on Kari. There was lividity in her back and neck, which was a sign that her heart had stopped beating and her blood had pooled several hours before, not within the forty-five minutes her husband had been gone.