The parents of a Hewitt teacher who claim their son-in-law, Matt Baker, killed their daughter have dismissed their civil wrongful death lawsuit against him.

James and Linda Dulin, parents of Kari Baker, say they will allow the criminal justice system a chance to work now that Matt Baker has been arrested in the April 2006 death of his 31-year-old wife.

“After discussing this with our attorney, Bill Johnston, my husband and I decided that it would be best to dismiss the civil case,” Linda Dulin said. “We don’t want to do anything to interfere with the criminal proceedings.”

The Dulins have claimed Matt Baker, a former local Baptist minister, drugged his wife to make her death appear to be suicide by sleeping pill overdose.

A police affidavit to support Baker’s Sept. 21 arrest in Kerrville, where he was living with the couple’s two daughters and substitute teaching at Tivy High School, alleges he slipped his wife crushed sleeping pills, then suffocated her after she lost consciousness.

Baker, 36, remains in McLennan County Jail in lieu of $400,000 bond.

Johnston, a former federal prosecutor, said the Dulins were never interested in filing the civil lawsuit for monetary damages.

“They just wanted to get to the truth of it, and a civil suit was one means to do that,” he said. “We just have to consider that the criminal case is more important than anything we would do civilly, so we wanted to sort of back out and let the criminal case take its natural priority.”

While the order dismissing the lawsuit doesn’t prevent the Dulins from re-filing it, Johnston said he doubts that will happen, “assuming the criminal case moves forward.”

Waco attorney James Rainey, who represents Matt Baker with Gerald Villarrial, called dismissal of the civil lawsuit “a step in the right direction.” They have denied that Baker had anything to do with his wife’s death.

Rainey said attorneys for Baker will file a motion seeking to reduce Baker’s bond in coming weeks.

The Dulins and other family members say they have never believed Kari committed suicide. They convinced Hewitt police to reopen the investigation into her death and obtained an order to have their daughter’s body exhumed for autopsy.

Much of the information contained in the police affidavit to support Matt Baker’s arrest was uncovered by Johnston’s civil litigation team, including the fact that Baker had a mistress and visited Web sites pertaining to sleeping pills and drug overdoses.

Justice of the Peace Billy Martin, who initially ruled Baker’s death a suicide without ordering an autopsy, has since changed his ruling to “undetermined,” the same finding issued by medical examiners after the autopsy.

First Assistant District Attorney Crawford Long, who received the report in the Baker case from Hewitt police late last week, declined comment on the case Monday.

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

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