Linda Dulin chatted with friends and family members Thursday afternoon in the McLennan County Courthouse snack room while she waited to find out how the jury was going to punish her son-in-law, Matt Baker.

She appeared weary from her long, emotional journey, but she still couldn’t help noting a bit of irony in the fact that she was sitting 10 feet from Justice of the Peace Billy Martin’s office.

It was Martin who ruled that her daughter, Kari Baker, committed suicide in April 2006 without leaving the comfort of his bedroom and after talking to detectives by phone.

Kari Baker

The detectives said they found a typed, unsigned suicide note, and Matt Baker claimed that she was depressed.

Martin testified at Baker’s murder trial that he said, “That’s good enough for me.” He then declared it a suicide without ordering an autopsy and went back to sleep.

Linda Dulin, her husband, James, other family members and Kari Baker’s friends did not believe that the 31-year-old mother of two — who had lost a child seven years before but was eager about a new teaching opportunity — took her own life.

They pushed Hewitt police to reopen the investigation. They hired lawyers and private investigators, had Kari Baker’s body exhumed and never lost hope that the truth would come out.

They said they had to do it for Kari, their granddaughters, Grace and Kensi, their peace of mind and justice.

Their four-year struggle was capped this week when a 19th State District Court jury convicted Matt Baker of murder for drugging and suffocating Kari Baker with a pillow at their Hewitt home.

In an emotional, victim-impact statement after Matt Baker was sentenced to 65 years Thursday, Linda Dulin glared at him and demanded that he look at her.

“I’m talking to you today, Matt,” she said. “You haven’t looked me in the eyes for four years, and maybe you can do that today for a little while.”

Baker glanced up briefly, then appeared to hang his head as Dulin continued speaking.

“You took her from us, Matt,” she said. “You discarded her like she was yesterday’s trash. You murdered the mother of your children.”

Dulin promised Baker that “this journey does not end here,” saying that he took Grace and Kensi and “fed them lies.”

Linda and Jim Dulin, the parents of murder victim Kari Baker, leave 19th District Court on Thursday afternoon after ex-minister Matt Baker was given a 65-year sentence in the 2006 murder of their daughter.
Rod Aydelotte photo

“You see, Matt, you were never going to win this one,” she said. “You spent your life preying on innocent people. But love trumps evil. Do you hear me, Matt? Loves trumps evil.”

The Dulins have pledged to fight for custody of their two granddaughters, who live with Baker’s parents, Barbara and Oscar Baker, in Kerrville.

Baker granted his parents guardianship and gave them power of attorney over his two daughters before his trial started, Barbara Baker said Thursday.

“We can’t give them back their mother, but we want, more than anything in this world, for them to be whole and healthy,” Linda Dulin said in her statement. “You poisoned them. You taught them to hate. But it won’t last.”

Dulin said she knows her battle for custody could get rough. But it is one she said she and her husband must undertake.

She will do so, she said, feeling blessed for all the support that has been shown her and her family, for the hard work of the jury who convicted Baker and for her faith and belief that God would not forsake them.

She also said she will do so through forgiveness.

“We have to step out and forgive,” Linda Dulin concluded. “So, we do. We forgive. Because that’s the only way, Matt. Love trumps evil.”

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

757-5737

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