The bond for Matt Baker, charged in the 2006 death of his wife, has been reduced from $400,000 to $200,000 after an agreed order this morning between prosecutors and Baker’s defense attorney.

The agreement, signed by 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson, will mean a hearing that had been set for Friday will be cancelled.

McLennan County Justice of the Peace Frank Culpepper set Baker’s bond at $400,000 for the murder charge after Baker was returned to Waco from Kerr County. The original bail set in Kerr County was $200,000.

“We agreed to have the bond set at $200,000, which it was originally set at, which we believed was proper under the state and case law,” said Crawford Long, an assistant district attorney for McLennan County.

Baker was arrested Sept. 21 in Kerrville in the April 2006 death of his 31-year-old wife, Kari, who was the mother of his two daughters and a teacher at Spring Valley Elementary School in Hewitt.

Baker’s arrest came after Kari’s parents, James and Linda Dulin, convinced Hewitt police to reopen the investigation into her death, which had been ruled a suicide by sleeping pill overdose without the benefit of an autopsy. The Dulins have said they never believed their daughter committed suicide.

An exhumation of the body, autopsy and inquest by McLennan County Justice of the Peace Billy Martin failed to determine a cause of death but persuaded Martin to change his ruling from suicide to undetermined.

Baker, a former Baptist minister, is represented by Guy James Gray, the former district attorney in Jasper who prosecuted three men for dragging James Byrd Jr. to his death in June 1998.

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

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