As Baptist minister Matt Baker was plotting the death of his wife in 2006, according to his mistress, Vanessa Bulls, he sent her the lyrics to a song called “Dirty Little Secret.”

Bulls kept her and Baker’s alleged secret until Wednesday, when the Harker Heights middle school teacher testified in gripping detail about her four-month affair with Baker and how she said he drugged and smothered Kari Baker as their two children slept down the hall.

Bulls, 27, told the jury that Matt Baker spoke harshly of his wife and their life together and considered several methods of killing her.

Matt Baker walks to the McLennan County Courthouse on Tuesday.
Duane A. Laverty photo

His options included tampering with the brakes on her car, a drive-by shooting, and hanging her and making it look like a suicide, she said.

“He said he wanted her out of his life,” Bulls said, adding that Baker said he could not divorce because it would kill his career.

Prosecutors Crawford Long and Susan Shafer rested their case against Baker, 38, after Bulls’ testimony and that of a chief medical examiner.

Dr. Sridhar Natarajan told jurors an abrasion on Kari Baker’s nose discovered after her body was exhumed is consistent with an injury from being suffocated with a pillow.

Baker’s attorney, Guy James Gray, said Wednesday afternoon that he was unsure if Baker will testify today. But he told 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother he anticipates defense testimony will begin and end today.

Baker is on trial for murder in the April 2006 death of his wife. He has repeatedly denied he killed her.

Baker said Kari had “cheated death” once before, because she had tried to kill herself and he took the pills away from her, Bulls said.

So he decided that making her death appear to be an overdose of sleeping pills was the way to kill her, because people already knew that she had been depressed after the death of their daughter, Kassidy, Bulls said.

While Bulls acknowledged that she knew about Baker’s plot, she said she never reported it to police. She said she was ashamed of their affair and afraid that she could be held responsible in some way for Kari Baker’s death.

‘A manipulative liar’

“He was, and still is, a manipulative liar,” Bulls said. “He took me in my most very vulnerable state and made me believe everything he said.”

She admitted lying to police and others investigating Kari Baker’s death. She said she was granted testimonial immunity before her grand jury appearance.

During his cross-examination of Bulls, Gray focused on her past inconsistent statements and other details that were not included in her grand jury testimony.

“I did not lie to the grand jury,” Bulls said. “I just didn’t tell all the facts.”

“Why should we believe you here today?” Gray said.

Vanessa Bulls leaves 19th District Court for a lunch break Tuesday during the murder trial of Matt Baker. Behind her is McLennan County deputy Ken Fleischhauer.
Duane A. Laverty photo

“What do I have to gain from this right now? I could lose my job as a teacher,” Bulls said. “I am sitting here because a manipulative liar wearing the mask of God came into my life, and I am here to put him where he needs to be.”

Bulls, whose father is a music minister, said she met the Bakers in September 2005, when she started attending Crossroads Baptist Church in Lorena, where Baker was pastor.

About three months later, she said, Baker spotted her sitting alone in the sanctuary before the service started and asked about her divorce.

He told her that whoever found her is going to be a lucky man, Bulls said, adding that his flirtations grew more obvious as the months wore on.

“One time, he heard me talking about dating and he said: ‘Oh, don’t date other guys. Just date your pastor,’ ” Bulls said.

He later told her that he had gotten a vasectomy and was free from sexual diseases, she said. She added he admitted to cheating on Kari Baker a few times in Dallas, calling her “clueless.”

She said Matt Baker started counseling her after her divorce. Their relationship grew into an affair beginning in March 2006, she said.

“That was a point in my life when I wasn’t thinking straight,” Bulls said.

As their relationship progressed, Baker continued to talk negatively about his wife, saying he should have let her kill herself the first time she reportedly tried, Bulls said.

Baker decided to kill Kari Baker on one of their “date nights,” times the couple set aside to try to regain the spark in their marriage, Bulls said.

She said she knew about the plan but didn’t report it, even after learning the next day that Kari Baker was dead.

Said Bulls, “I was shocked, because part of me didn’t really think he was going to go through with it.”

She and her family went to Baker’s house hours after Kari’s death to pay their respects. Baker winked at her, she said.

Five days later, she went back to the Baker home, and Baker recounted how he killed his wife, she said.

She said Baker said he would tell her once and then never wanted to speak of it again.

“He said: ‘You know you are stuck with me, right? Because you know about it and are just as guilty as I am?’ He said God is a forgiving God, and he has forgiven him,” Bulls said.

Pills and handcuffs

Bulls said Baker gave his wife doctored pills, and he handcuffed her to the bed and kissed her until she fell asleep. He kissed her on the forehead and told her to hug or kiss Kassidy for him, Bulls said.

Baker then suffocated her with a pillow, she said.

Baker typed a suicide note on the bedroom computer and placed his wife’s hands on the note to put her fingerprints on it, Bulls said.

Baker later locked the door to the bedroom, left his two daughters sleeping down the hall and went to rent a movie and gas up the car, she said. He came home about 45 minutes later and called 9-1-1, she said.

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

757-5737

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