Matt Baker’s mistress lied. At least three other women who said he is a sexual predator lied. His lawyer sold him down the river and his trial judge committed judicial misconduct.

Baker’s appellate attorney won’t do what he says. His in-laws and their attorneys manipulated the legal system. The jury got it wrong.

All these factors aligned in a perfect conspiratorial storm to send an innocent man to prison. At least that’s what Baker, a former Baptist minister, said Wednesday.

Matt Baker talks to the Tribune-Herald from behind bars Wednesday.
Duane A. Laverty/Tribune-Herald

Baker, 38, is now an inmate at the Polunsky unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, a maximum-security prison 45 miles east of Huntsville.

Baker sat down for three consecutive hour-long interviews with the Tribune-Herald , ABC’s “20/20” and a Waco television station, his first interviews since going to prison in April.

Baker, who maintains his innocence, admits now that he had an affair with former teacher Vanessa Bulls.

He said he knows, now, that it was a mistake to lie about it to everyone, including his trial attorney, Guy James Gray, who took Baker’s case for free because he initially thought Baker was wrongfully accused.

At Gray’s urging, Baker also granted wide-ranging interviews to a number of media outlets in December 2007.

That was three months after his arrest in the death of his 31-year-old wife, Kari, and after he had moved back to his hometown of Kerrville.

Baker was sentenced to 65 years in prison in January after a 19th State District Court jury found him guilty of giving his wife sleeping pills in a wine cooler and then smothering her in her sleep as their daughters, Kensi and Grace, slept down the hall in April 2007.

Baker claimed his wife was depressed and took her own life or, at least, was trying to call out for help.

Kari Baker’s death initially was ruled a suicide until her parents, Linda and Jim Dulin, pressed for additional investigation.

Baker said he lied about his affair with Bulls, a member of his congregation at Crossroads Baptist Church near Lorena, to protect his girls from the ugly truth.

“I realize now that was not the correct thing to do,” Baker said. “There are a lot of things that I would have done differently. I made mistakes, obviously. I was struggling in my marriage, and I made a mistake. But also, looking back, I would have went and found my wife some better help for her depression.”

Baker is a Baylor University Truett Seminary graduate who preached at churches in Axtell, Riesel, Lorena and elsewhere and also worked at the Waco Center for Youth.

‘There are no facts’

“The people who believe in me still believe in me and think the system is wrong,” Baker said. “I believe the system is wrong. I think there are people who are disappointed in some of the things I did, and I disappointed myself. But at the end of the day, I know I didn’t hurt my wife. I did not kill my wife. If I had had half an attorney at all, I would be home with my kids right now because I know that there are no facts.”

Gray was at a legal seminar this week and did not return messages on his cell phone or office phone.

When asked why he didn’t testify at trial, Baker said he followed his attorneys’ advice.

“I told them I would gladly get up there and testify,” he said. “But I can’t force them to put me up there. I think it would have helped, but personally, I think it would have helped if my attorney would have at least talked to me during the trial or tried to hire any forensic experts. Guy James Gray tanked the case.”

Baker’s prison days

Baker moved to the Polunsky unit about two weeks ago.

He shares a cell with a native Mexican and says he is learning Spanish while he is teaching his cellmate English. Baker said he has not asked his cellmate yet why he is in prison.

While he has been assigned to the “field squad 10” work detail, Baker said he hasn’t been put to work yet. He said his job likely will entail working out in the hot summer sun in fields.

He said he typically gets up around 7 a.m., showers, shaves and goes to breakfast. After meals, prisoners in his 48-man tank hang out in the day room, watching TV or reading newspapers or books, with lights out at 10:30 p.m.

Inmates can check out one book a week from the prison library, Baker said.

He just started reading “The List,” a murder mystery by Steve Martini.

His parents, Oscar and Barbara Baker, brought his daughters to visit him last weekend. He said his kids can visit him once a month for four hours each on Saturday and Sunday.

He is unsure how often they will come because it is six hours from Kerrville to the prison near Livingston and the girls will be busy soon with summer camps and other activities, he said.

Matt Baker poses with his wife, Kari, and their daughter, Kensi, in a 1999 photo taken after the death of their daughter, Kassidy. They are standing by a fountain in memory of Kassidy at Williams Creek Baptist Church near Axtell.

“We talk about what it is like to be here,” Baker said. “I try to make it as good as possible. I laugh about stupid things that people do, dumb comments made or dumb things that happen and things like that. We eat a candy bar and drink a Coke. We try to keep it light.”

The Bakers and Dulins currently are embroiled in a contentious legal fight for custody of their grandchildren.

“When it first started, I wanted the Dulins involved in Kensi and Grace’s life,” he said. “But as soon as they used them as pawns in a game to hurt me, that brought out the protectiveness in me.”

Linda Dulin said her former son-in-law is a murderer and a liar, adding, “Matt Baker’s 15 minutes of fame are over.”

“A jury of 12 people carefully examined all of the evidence. They were given a great deal of evidence to weigh, much of it Matt Baker’s own web of lies,” she said Thursday. “This jury found Matt guilty of murdering his wife, our precious child and Kensi and Grace’s mother.

“If he had any real decency, he would accept responsibility so that my granddaughters could really begin the healing process. Jim and I are now focused on helping our granddaughters have a whole and healthy life.”

Winning a new trial

Besides his contention that there is a lack of evidence to support his guilt, Baker said he thinks he can win a new trial because Judge Ralph Strother committed “judicial misconduct” by calling for a recess when a juror needed a break and not beginning again at the same spot at which the witness was being questioned after the break.

He also claims the judge acted improperly by asking a question of at least one witness.

“Judicial canons and rules of ethics govern me and prevent me from commenting on a pending case. However, if I could, I would not dignify his remarks with a comment,” Strother said.

Baker said Bulls, who has since been fired from her teaching job and declined to testify until she was granted testimonial immunity, lied in her testimony.

Baker said he never told her that he had tried to kill Kari previously by putting pills in Kari’s milkshake. He also said he never told Bulls the details about how he killed his wife on the second, successful attempt.

Baker acknowledged that he and Bulls didn’t have an especially bad breakup that would have embittered her and given her a reason to lie.

Their affair ended, he said, when he moved to Kerrville with the girls. They spoke on the phone twice after that. He thinks she was threatened by local or state officials to force her testimony.

First Assistant District Attorney Crawford Long, who prosecuted Baker with Susan Shafer, said he is not surprised to hear Baker’s continued claims of innocence.

“Rather than admitting the evidence proved he was guilty, he tries to blame everyone in the world except himself for the fact he was convicted of murder,” Long said.

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

757-5737

RELATED SEARCHES

• Matt Baker changes mind, keeps attorney