12.Deadly.Little.Secrets.2012 (42 page)
Read 12.Deadly.Little.Secrets.2012 Online
Authors: Kathryn Casey
“I thought you’d said she only had one french fry that night?” I questioned, doubtful that after so many hours he’d see even a trace of the food.
“She ate like two or three French fries,” he said, suddenly looking a bit uncomfortable.
My e-mail to the pathologist read: “If a healthy 31-year-old woman eats three French fries at 7:30 in the evening and throws up around midnight, will there be any visible evidence of the potatoes?”
As I suspected, she answered: “The French fries will be long gone.” Making it even more doubtful, Matt had said repeatedly that Kari threw up not long after arriving home that last evening.
The other thing I could check on was Matt’s home computer, the one so many from Bill Johnston to the prosecutors said that Matt had repeatedly failed to produce. Why not? After all, if he was telling the truth, there was the possibility that the note was written on the home computer during the time he was gone from the house. If that was so, it was powerful evidence. “Why didn’t you give it to the police?” I asked.
“I did produce the computer,” he insisted. “I took it to my attorney’s office in Kerrville and gave it to him.”
“Which attorney?” I asked.
“Richard Ellison,” he said. “He told me he kept it in his safe. I don’t know why he didn’t give it to the police. I never tried to hide anything.”
The next day, I called Matt’s former attorney. When I asked him if he’d
ever
had possession of Matt Baker’s home computer, Ellison said, “No. I never had it. I never saw it. He talked about bringing it in, but he never did.”
At that point, I found it difficult to believe anything Matt had told me, but there was one time, when he looked reflective, and I thought maybe, just maybe we got close to the truth. Near the end of our time together, I asked what had happened between three and six on April 7, 2006, the afternoon before his wife died.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Kari saw Todd Monsey sometime around three,” I said. “She was happy. She high-fived him. She talked to her mother, and she was in a good mood. The next thing we know, she’s at Kensi’s swim-team practice, and she’s visibly upset. Something happened, Matt. What happened?”
Matt Baker frowned and shook his head. “Well, we did have a disagreement because she didn’t want to go into the Y,” he said. “I said, fine. She didn’t want to go, and she said, ‘Well, maybe I’ll just move out and move in with my mom.’ I said, ‘If you have to do that, fine. I’m not going to help you move out. I don’t want you to move out.’ ”
“Why was she upset?” I asked.
For just a moment, I thought he was going to answer me. Then he shook his head again. “I don’t know what the core of the issue was. She just loses it every once in a while, like a switch turned off and on.”
“Had she learned about the affair with Vanessa Bulls?”
“At that point, she had never confronted me on it,” he said. “She never accused me of it, not to my face. If she’d felt that way, she would have confronted me, told her mom or Jill, and she never did.”
But that wasn’t true. Kari had told Jill earlier that week. In the conversation in the car, she’d said, “I think Matt is having an affair.”
It seemed so odd. Kari was excited that afternoon, enthused by the prospect of a new job. She was on a high. Something brought her down quickly. It was a Friday, Matt’s day off, his day with Vanessa. There were so many possibilities, including that Kari left Walmart that afternoon and somewhere saw Matt and Vanessa together. Or she returned home and found something Vanessa left behind, the type of thing that would tip her off that another woman had been in the house.
Kari was upset enough that when one of the moms at swim team asked her not to divulge a secret, she’d sarcastically replied, “Everyone knows you can trust the Bakers.”
Clearly, something had happened that brought home to Kari that she couldn’t, perhaps especially when the Baker in question was her husband.
As the interview continued, I asked about all those lives he’d touched as a pastor, those who’d once looked at him as an emissary from God who now struggled with their faith. In Dallas, one couple he’d married had conducted an entire second wedding. “I didn’t want my memories of my wedding to include Matt Baker,” the bride told me.
There were others I’d talked to, those who hadn’t attended a church service since the day they’d come to the conclusion that Matt had murdered Kari. “I can’t,” said one woman. “I think about it sometimes, but I can’t walk through the door. I can’t look in the eyes of another minister or pastor and believe him.”
Matt appeared untroubled by the damage he’d caused. “I can probably tell you who those people are,” he said with a sardonic frown, as if the people I referred to were somehow unworthy and therefore not to be considered.
In the end, the damage Matt Baker had done radiated out from that bedroom on Crested Butte where Kari’s body was found, like long, thin, icy fingers, invading the lives of so many. Yet no one had been so injured as two young girls, his own daughters.
As I write these last paragraphs, in Waco, Linda and Jim Dulin are bringing their dead daughter’s children into their home, hoping to do for Grace and Kensi what they can no longer do for Kari: save them from the darkness that is Matt Baker. Will the girls ever come to terms with the truth, that their father murdered their mother? Maybe not, but at least with the Dulins, away from all the manipulation, one day they’ll be able to look at all the evidence and come to their own conclusions. Finally, they’re free to grieve for their mother and all they have lost, to put aside the hate and sadness and reclaim their place in the world, as two girls, dearly loved, free to be young, not ensnared in a web of lies.
Amazingly, through all they’ve suffered, the Dulins aren’t among those who have lost their faith. When I last interviewed Linda, as she got ready to welcome her granddaughters into her home, I asked her to reflect on all that had happened. She said, “This has been the most difficult journey of our lives. Parents aren’t supposed to survive their children. A wife isn’t supposed to be murdered by her husband. And precious granddaughters aren’t supposed to have their childhoods ripped from them. But I have witnessed God’s love and grace in the most incredible way during these five years. You see, love really does trump evil.”
D
eadly Little Secrets
took more than a year to complete. Before the writing could even begin, I attended Matt Baker’s trial, then fanned out to track down and interview sources. That process alone consumed many months, requiring six trips back and forth to Waco from my Houston home, poring over documents, long weeks filled with face-to-face meetings and, once back in my office, long days on the phone consulting sources I couldn’t visit in person.
I would, therefore, like to begin by thanking those people who shared their experiences with me, those who knew Kari and Matt Baker, their families and friends, the law enforcement folks who worked on this case, everyone who talked with me. Many of you are mentioned in the book, some are not, but I’m grateful to you all. Matt’s and Kari’s stories are important, shedding a light on how religion can be manipulated for evil ends. Without all of you, I couldn’t have told it.
Thank you to everyone at HarperCollins, especially my editor, Will Hinton, and art director Gail Dubov and designer Nadine Badalaty, who provided the wonderful cover. Thank you as well to my agent, Jane Dystel.
In addition, I’d like to acknowledge my friend
Kathy L. Patrick, founder of the Pulpwood Queens, a book club phenomenon that began in the small town of Jefferson, Texas, one that has grown to become a force in the publishing world. I met Kathy in her combination bookstore/beauty parlor five years ago, and she’s enriched my life in more ways than I can describe through her generosity, her dynamic personality, her enthusiasm for books and literacy, and introducing me to the esteemed PQs, passionate women who advocate for literacy and the power of the written word to change lives.
As always, thank you to my friends and family who’ve supported me so loyally over the years, understanding when I’m on the road for weeks at a time or locked in my office writing day after day. Please know that although I don’t say it as often as I should, I love and appreciate each and every one of you.
Finally, I’d like to express my deep gratitude to my readers, those of you who enjoy my books and recommend them to others. You are
the
most important element in the equation. Thank you.
KATHRYN CASEY is an award-winning journalist and author, who has written for
Rolling Stone, TV Guide, Reader’s Digest, Texas Monthly
and many other publications. She’s the author of six previous true crime books and the creator of the highly acclaimed Sarah Armstrong mystery series. Casey has appeared on
Oprah,
Oprah Winfrey’s Oxygen,
Biography,
Nancy Grace,
E!, truTV,
Investigation Discovery,
the Travel Channel, and A&E. Casey is based in Houston, where she lives with her husband and their dog, Nelson. Visit her website at www.kathryncasey.com.
Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
“Casey stakes her claim as one of the best in the business.”
M. William Phelps, author of
Perfect Poison
“Among the elite of true crime writers.”
Carlton Stowers, Edgar® Award-winning author of
Careless Whispers
“Kathryn Casey joins Carlton Stowers as the premier chroniclers of Texas crime.”
Gregg Olsen, author of
Abandoned Prayers
“She explores incredible crimes . . . with a deft and experienced hand.”
Ann Rule
Non-Fiction
Deadly Little Secrets
Shattered
Evil Beside Her
A Descent Into Hell
Die, My Love
She Wanted It All
A Warrant to Kill
Fiction
Singularity
Blood Lines
The Killing Storm
True Crime Shorts
The Drag Queen Murder
True Crime Files
Blues & Bad Blood
Texas Love Triangle Murder
Some names have been changed in the book: Jake Roberts, Sarah Parker, Jackie, Nellie, Tracy Owens, and Sherry Perkins.
DEADLY LITTLE SECRETS
. Copyright © 2012 by Kathryn Casey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780062136459
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062018557
FIRST EDITION
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
