Therapist testifies that deceased wife of minister feared her husband would try to kill her

Therapist says minister’s wife feared husband

WACO, Texas — A therapist has testified that days before a minister’s wife died, she told her she thought her husband was going to kill her and was having an affair.

Matt Baker, a former Baptist minister, is accused of murdering his wife in 2006. He says Kari Baker was depressed over their daughter’s death and committed suicide.

Therapist JoAnn Bristol testified Wednesday that Kari Baker was never suicidal, even as she grieved the death of her 16-month-old daughter in 1999. Bristol said after she counseled Kari for a year, she didn’t hear from her until a few days before her death.

Bristol said Kari Baker told her she thought her husband was trying to kill her, but then recanted. Bristol disagreed with another doctor’s diagnosis that Kari had been depressed.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WACO, Texas (AP) — A teacher was upbeat and looking forward to the future in the days before her death, not despondent as her minister husband has claimed, witnesses testified Wednesday at his murder trial.

Matt Baker, 38, is accused of drugging and suffocating his wife Kari, whose 2006 death was initially ruled a suicide. If convicted, he could face life in prison. Baker has denied that he killed her, saying she was despondent over the cancer death of one of their daughters.

Kari Baker was making plans to help improve her youngest child’s reading skills before she started first grade, said Marla James, a teacher. Kari Baker also said she had joined a gym and recently lost 15 pounds, said her longtime hairdresser, Bacy Barrera.

But a few hours before her death, Kari and Matt Baker exhibited odd behavior at their oldest child’s swimming practice, said Kimberly Jackson, whose child was on the swim team. Kari seemed groggy and had problems holding her head up, and at one point her husband had to help her up from the bleachers, Jackson testified.

Jackson also said that when she called Matt Baker the next day after learning of Kari’s death, she told him that she would have tried to intervene if she had known her friend was severely depressed.

“He said he didn’t have any indication that she was depressed either,” Jackson testified.

During opening statements, prosecutor Susan Shafer said there have been numerous discrepancies in Baker’s story during media interviews, including when he saw the typed suicide note and whether he had thought his wife was suicidal. Shafer said a key witness would be his then-girlfriend, although he repeatedly has denied that he was having an affair at the time of his wife’s death.

“She’s going to tell you how Matt Baker killed Kari,” Shafer told jurors.

Defense attorney Guy James Gray, however, said evidence will show that authorities suspected his client from the beginning and never sought evidence that would show Kari authored the suicide note. Gray acknowleged that his client lied about the affair after his wife’s death, but also pointed out that medical experts could never determine Kari’s cause of death.

Gray said Kari’s her friendly, outgoing personality masked deep depression — not only about her middle daughter’s death but about her own weight gain and her husband’s affair. He said a doctor had prescribed Kari medication for her anxiety and depression less than a week before her death.

“Kari Baker had some problems,” Gray told jurors. “She had a husband running around on her, was still fighting to get over the loss of a child, had problems sleeping, and she mixed sleeping pills, diet pills and alcohol — and she died. It became a murder case when her family learned there was an affair.”

A firefighter who happened to live next door but did not know the couple, Craig Lott, testified that he responded a few minutes after receiving a call about a possible suicide. He said Baker was standing outside when police and emergency personnel arrived.

Lott said he and another firefighter repeatedly performed CPR on Kari and gave her oxygen, but to no avail. He said her body temperature was warm.

But paramedic Shelton Chapman said that he would not have tried to revive her if he had responded first. He said her body was cold and showed signs that she had been dead so long she could not be revived. He arrived at 12:15 a.m., about 11 minutes after being dispatched, and pronounced her dead at 12:17 a.m. after taking over from the firefighters.

The case was reopened a few months after Kari Baker’s death at the insistence of her parents, who never believed her husband’s account. James and Linda Dulin hired an investigator to gather evidence for their wrongful death lawsuit against Baker. The investigator gave authorities evidence that Baker allegedly was having an affair and visited Web sites pertaining to sleeping pills and drug overdoses.

As her parents pushed for further investigation, the justice of the peace who had initially ruled Kari Baker’s death a suicide ordered the body exhumed. The death certificate was amended to list the cause as undetermined.

Earlier this week, the judge denied a defense request to move the trial to another county. Defense attorneys argued that Baker could not get a fair trial in Waco because of intense media coverage and “Justice for Kari” bumper stickers on many cars in the area.