Former Baptist minister Matt Baker, who is charged in the slaying of his wife, has been released after more than three weeks at the McLennan County Jail.

Baker, 36, was released shortly before noon Thursday on a $200,000 bail bond, two days after bail was reduced from $400,000 by 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson after an agreement between Baker’s attorney and a prosecutor.

Baker’s release negates the necessity for a hearing that had been set for this afternoon on Baker’s motion challenging the evidence under which he was being held.

McLennan County Justice of the Peace Frank Culpepper doubled Baker’s bond to $400,000 after Baker was returned to Waco from Kerr County.

The original bail was set in Kerr County, where Baker had been substitute-teaching at Tivy High School in Kerrville.

Baker, 36, was arrested Sept. 21 on murder charges in the April 2006 death of his 31-year-old wife, Kari, a teacher at Spring Valley Elementary School in Hewitt.

Her death initially was ruled a suicide by overdose of sleeping pills until her parents, James and Linda Dulin, persuaded Hewitt police to reopen the investigation and exhume her body for autopsy.

Baker will return to Kerrville, where he is living with his parents and his two daughters, his attorney, Guy James Gray, has said.