Judge reinstates Dulins' case in custody battle for Matt Baker's children
By Tommy Witherspoon Tribune-Herald staff writer
A Kerrville judge Friday reversed his ruling from last week that dismissed a lawsuit in which Kari Baker’s parents were seeking primary custody of their two granddaughters.
The new order, issued by 198th State District Judge M. Rex Emerson, reinstates the custody lawsuit between Jim and Linda Dulin, of Waco, and Oscar and Barbara Baker, of Kerrville, parents of former Baptist minister Matt Baker.
Baker, 39, was sentenced to 65 years in prison in January in the drugging and suffocation death of his wife, who was the Dulins’ daughter and the mother of Kensi, 14, and Grace, 10.
Matt Baker arrives at 19th District Court in Waco with his daughters Kensi (left) and Grace. The kids are at the center of a custody battle between their maternal and paternal grandparents.
Duane A. Laverty/Waco Tribune-Herald, file
Emerson dismissed the custody lawsuit after a hearing Oct. 7, leaving the Bakers with primary custody of the girls, as Baker intended before his murder trial started in Waco.
In the new, half-page order, Emerson writes that he failed before ruling to consider the “original suit versus the amended pleadings issue.”
Emerson inherited the custody case when 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother, of Waco, who presided over Baker’s murder trial, transferred the case to Kerrville, where the girls have lived since shortly after Kari’s death in April 2006.
Matt Baker lived with his daughters in Kerville, too, until being jailed for the murder conviction.
Emerson has placed the parties in the high-profile case under orders not to speak to the media.
Linda Dulin and her attorney, Darren Obenoskey, both declined comment Friday based on the gag order.
Barbara Baker said Friday that she was not aware of the judge’s order to reinstate the case and said she would have to confer with her attorney.
In reinstating the custody battle, the judge also ordered that “the children and parties timely initiate counseling and testing as recommended with Dr. Joanna Murphy.”
He ordered both sides to try again to reach a settlement through mediation no less than 10 days before trial and after the completion of home studies and psychological tests.
The Dulins pushed Hewitt police and others to reopen the investigation into their daughter’s death because they didn’t think the initial ruling that she committed suicide by overdose of sleeping pills.
A typed, unsigned note was found beside her bed, but authorities determined Baker, who was having an affair with one of his church members, faked the note to make her death appear to be a suicide.
The Dulins have visitation with the girls the second weekend of each month.
twitherspoon@wacotrib.com
757-5737
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