WACO, Texas (ABP) — The star witness at the trial of a former Baptist pastor charged with murdering his wife in 2006 testified Jan. 19 that the accused planned the crime, hoping to make it look like a suicide, and afterward told his ex-mistress that he drugged his wife with sleeping pills and smothered her with a pillow.
Kari Baker
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Vanessa Bulls was the 27th witness to testify against Matt Baker. The graduate of Baylor University and George W. Truett Theological Seminary was pastor of several Baptist churches in Texas before his arrest in September 2007, 18 months after the death of his wife, Kari.
The prosecution rested its case at the end of the day Jan. 19. The defense began calling witnesses the morning of Jan. 20. Baker has denied killing his wife in several high-profile media interviews, including CBS News "48 Hours" and the March 2008 cover story of Texas Monthly.
Bulls, 27, told jurors in Waco, Texas, she was raised a strict Southern Baptist and attended the Baptist-affiliated University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. She said she met Baker in 2005 at Crossroads Baptist Church in Lorena, Texas, where he was pastor and her father worked as a music minister.
Bulls said Baker offered to counsel her because she was going through a divorce, and his flirting with her led to a four-month affair. Early on, she said, he told her he had a vasectomy so she wouldn't get pregnant and that he had no sexually transmitted diseases. When she asked him if he had done it before, she said, he laughed, called his wife "clueless" and added, "I did it once at Truett Seminary."
Bulls said Baker told her that he wanted to kill his wife and make it look like a suicide because getting a divorce would ruin his career. After describing details of the crime, she claimed that he warned her not to tell anyone because she was guilty, too, that God had forgiven both of them and that no one would believe her because he was a preacher.
"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."
Bulls said shortly after his wife's death she and Baker went shopping for an engagement ring, but they broke up. She said he got a new girlfriend after moving with his daughters to Kerrville, Texas, where he worked as a substitute teacher and in a part-time student ministry position funded by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
The defense says Kari Baker committed suicide because she was clinically depressed, upset that her husband was cheating on her and never got over the death of an infant seven years earlier. Her family and friends say she was excited about the prospect of a new job and would never have abandoned her two children.
Linda Dulin, Kari Baker's mother, took the stand Jan. 18. She described her daughter as an extrovert who loved life and her daughters. Dulin said Kari and Matt were on the Dulin family's phone plan, and she became suspicious when she saw a bill showing that Kari's cell phone was being used 10 days after her death. She later learned that the phone had been given to Vanessa Bulls.
Baker earlier denied that he was having an affair, but his lawyer began his opening statement admitting that Baker did have a girlfriend, but said it had nothing to do with the death of his wife.
Bulls, who testified against Baker at a grand jury in exchange for immunity, admitted that she lied to investigators and did not tell the whole truth in her grand jury testimony. She said she was afraid of repercussions and thought no one would believe her.
Asked by defense lawyers, why anyone should believe her now, she said she had nothing to gain by testifying and would possibly lose her job as a teacher by doing so.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.