A McLennan County justice of the peace who ruled a Hewitt teacher’s death a suicide in April 2006 will conduct an inquest into her death next week at the request of the woman’s parents.

Justice of the Peace Billy Martin said he has subpoenaed 11 people to testify at an Aug. 29 inquest into Kari Baker’s death. Potential witnesses include her husband, Matt Baker; her parents, James and Linda Dulin; Hewitt police investigators; and a Dallas medical examiner who performed an autopsy three months after Baker was buried.

The judge said he would close the inquest to the public, including reporters.

The scheduled inquest, designed to gather evidence to determine, if possible, how the 31-year-old teacher died, is the latest development in the ongoing controversy over her death.

Martin ruled after consulting with Hewitt police investigators that Baker died from an overdose of sleeping pills. He has since ordered that her body be exhumed and an autopsy performed, again at the request of the Dulins and Hewitt police, who have reopened an investigation into her death.

The Dulins filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Matt Baker in July 2006, alleging that the former Baptist minister was having an affair, killed the mother of his two young daughters and made her death appear to be a suicide. The Dulins also have sparred with Baker in family court to earn limited visitation rights with their granddaughters. There is no trial date set in the wrongful death lawsuit.

Martin, the Dulins and their attorney, Bill Johnston, all said they would limit their comments about the inquest because of the ongoing nature of the case.

“We wrote Judge Martin a letter asking for the inquest,” Linda Dulin said. “Over the past year, we have gained new information and evidence that justifies this request. My husband and I trust Judge Martin’s judgment on this matter.”

According to the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, a public or private inquest hearing can be held to determine if a death was caused by an unlawful act or omission and, if so, to obtain “evidence to form the basis of a criminal prosecution.”

“This is an ongoing investigation, which I can’t comment on,” Martin told the Tribune-Herald. “But when the disinterment took place, it was at the request of the law enforcement agency investigating this, and that has evolved around to where a death inquest is imminent because the medical examiner in Dallas ruled that the death was an undetermined cause of death, and, of course, I had called it a suicide based on the investigation by the Hewitt PD.”

Pathologists found traces of a diet pill, an antihistamine and a sleep aid in Baker’s system.

However, because of embalming, accurate blood concentration levels of the drugs could not be determined, according to the autopsy reports.

Investigators found a typewritten “suicide-type note” and a bottle of Unisom pills at the scene, the report states. Experts have said it is unusual for suicide notes to be typewritten.

Gerald Villarrial, a Waco attorney who represents Matt Baker, confirmed Tuesday that Baker has been subpoenaed for the inquest. Villarrial said Baker will not testify.

“It seems to me that Kari’s family is pulling out all the stops to get the guy charged criminally,” Villarrial said. “I would think that based on what we know the facts of the case are, I would assume that the judge will look at it and find that what he ruled initially was the cause of death. We are completely convinced that our guy didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Capt. Tuck Saunders of the Hewitt Police Department said the Kari Baker investigation remains open, adding that “we are following any leads that come up.”

Hewitt police reopened the investigation in July 2006, writing in an affidavit to support the exhumation that unspecified “suspicious circumstances before and after” Baker’s death led to renewed interest in the case.

Along with her family’s steadfast belief that Kari Baker never would have harmed herself, Linda Dulin testified at a hearing in March that she discovered Matt Baker had given Kari’s cell phone to another woman within a week of her death. Baker and the woman logged 6,000 minutes talking to each other on the phone within the first 25 days after Kari Baker’s death, she testified.

Since his wife’s death, Baker, a former Baptist minister and chaplain at the Waco Center for Youth, has moved with his daughters to Kerrville, where he is now a teacher and part-time church youth minister.

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

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