Part 17 (1/2)

Apparently, Vanessa's parents were also against her plans to move to Kerrville with Matt. Barbara wrote: ”You don't need two sets of in-laws having problems with you.”

That same day, Mike McNamara questioned another of the third-grade teachers at Spring Valley Elementary. What she said was that the week after Kari's death, she happened upon Matt and the girls at Walmart. As they talked, Matt described finding Kari's body, saying that when the police asked if the girls were all right that night, he went into their bedrooms to check them. ”If Kari did anything to my girls, I would go get her out of the ambulance,” he said. The problem was that no one saw Matt enter his daughters' bedrooms that night. It was what the teacher said Matt had in his Walmart cart, however, that caught McNamara's attention: a new computer, printer, and monitor.

Baker replaced the home computer, McNamara thought. Why?

Computers were the topic of conversation again three days later at WCY, when chaplain's a.s.sistant Gene Boesche went into Terri Corbin's deserted office to use the printer and discovered that her computer tower was missing. Immediately, Boesche reported the situation to Matt, his boss. The two men then inspected Corbin's office, Matt looking around the filing cabinet and the desk. ”I'll report it,” he said.

Five days later, Matt reported the missing computer to security, and Keith Lowery, the facility's tech expert, was notified. He, too, looked through Corbin's office and verified that the computer was, indeed, gone. Then he went back to the system and ran a check, to see when it was last connected to the network. What he discovered was that Corbin's computer was still being used. Investigating further, he determined that the one using Corbin's computer was Matt Baker.

Lowery then went to Matt's office and inspected the computer on the chaplain's desk. A WCY sticker identified it as Matt's, but when Lowery checked the serial number, he determined that the computer was actually the one from Terri Corbin's old office. Apparently someone had switched the computers. The question then became: Where was Matt Baker's computer?

To find out, Lowery searched Matt's office, but to no avail. Matt's computer was gone, apparently stolen. The only conclusion was that someone had taken Matt's computer and covered up the theft by replacing it with the one from Terri Corbin's old office, going so far as to change the WCY tags to hide the thievery. When Lowery asked Matt where his computer was, Matt said he didn't know.

Not long after, Matt wrote a report. In it, he claimed that he'd noticed something that could explain what had happened: ”I do not remember the exact date that I found my computer turned out at a different angle, but it would be approximately two weeks ago, around the time the tower might have been exchanged.” Although his office was down a locked hallway, he then suggested that volunteers and others who came on the campus had access to the offices and would have been able to make the switch, including a rabbi who'd used Matt's office. ”I do not see any other items missing from my office,” he concluded, signing it Chaplain Matt Baker.

In the weeks that followed, the campus was searched, but Matt's CPU was never found. In hindsight, two things stood out. First, Lowery would recall how Matt had once asked him if deleted e-mails could be retrieved off a computer. They could. The other was that tracing Matt's IP address back, Lowery discovered that the missing computer was disconnected from the WCY network at 11:37 on the morning of June 19, the holiday when Matt talked with Christina Salazar, who'd told him that his work computer could be subpoenaed. That was the same day Matt was seen walking to his truck carrying a box.

WCY's security notified Waco PD, where a case file was opened on the missing computer.

Rumors had been stirring in Hewitt since Matt had first shown up at the school with Vanessa just two weeks after Kari's death, but once two private investigators were looking into the case, the word spread quickly. At Crossroads, many doubted that Kari had committed suicide. After Matt's firing, the pastor who had preceded him, Steve Sadler, returned. He was the one who'd presided over Kari's funeral, the one who'd seen her plea for G.o.d's protection in her Bible. Perhaps hearing the rumors convinced Sadler that the police needed to know what he'd seen.

Whatever the reason, on June 26, Sadler wrote a letter on his Baylor stationery to Ben Toombs, the Hewitt PD officer whose parents attended Crossroads: ”As of conversations at Crossroads Baptist Church yesterday, I feel it is time for me to give you this Xerox copy of a page in Kari Baker's Bible . . .

”On Sunday night April 9 as I was thumbing through Kari's Bible, I came across this notation attached. It had a very sobering and lingering impact. I xeroxed it but filed it away as 99% unrelated to anything of significance. Matt and I have never discussed this or any of the other markings I read in the Bible.

”With the knowledge I now have concerning an investigation into Kari's death, I feel I should give this to you. I am available for further conversation should you want it.”

The Hewitt police now had in their hands Kari's own words: Lord, I am asking you to protect me from harm. I am not sure what is going on with Matt, but Lord help me find peace with him.

Chapter 38.

Linda's crusade to have an official investigation into her daughter's death appeared to reap benefits on July 6, nearly three months to the day after Kari's death, when Captain Tuck Saunders informed the detective in charge of the investigation, Cooper, that Judge Martin said he was now willing to order an exhumation and an autopsy. The news hadn't come directly from the judge but from Texas Ranger Matt Cawthon, whom McNamara and Bennett had been keeping informed.

Three days later, Cawthon dropped in at Hewitt PD headquarters to talk to the chief, personally putting pressure on him to take a look at the case. Voices rose, especially when the chief questioned why Cawthon was interjecting himself into the case. ”Who are you working for, Bill Johnston?” Chief Barton demanded.

”No, that dead woman. And you should be, too,” the Texas Ranger replied.

That same afternoon, Cooper was no longer the lead investigator on the case. Saunders called twenty-eight-year-old Toombs into his office and told him the Baker case was now his. The dark-haired young detective with a crooked smile protested. He explained that he had connections to the case: His father was a deacon at Crossroads, and he'd met Matt and the Dulins. Toombs and his family had briefly lived in Troy and attended the same church as Vanessa. ”She seemed like a nice girl from a good family,” he says.

From what he knew, Toombs didn't think Matt Baker was guilty. Ben's mother spoke well of the former pastor, and, as the young officer saw it, even if Matt and Vanessa had an affair, it wasn't important. ”Because he's having an inappropriate relations.h.i.+p, that doesn't prove he killed his wife,” says Toombs.

Toombs protested the a.s.signment, but Saunders insisted. ”The case is yours,” the captain said. ”Get with Matt Cawthon on this.”

a.s.signed to help Toombs was Mike Spear, a baby-faced Hewitt detective, one with a slight dimple in his chin, who'd joined the department five years earlier, at the tender age of twenty-one. ”I always thought it would be fun to be a cop,” says Spear, who'd heard about the Baker case around the office, always in the context of ”some lady committed suicide, and her parents were causing problems.”

The first thing Toombs did on his new a.s.signment was to call a Waco detective he knew, one in special crimes, to talk about the procedure for exhuming a body for an autopsy. After he hung up, he called the judge's office and got the plans rolling. The affidavit Ben Toombs wrote on July 10, 2006, was ent.i.tled ”for disinterment of a dead body,” and it said that while Kari's death had been initially determined to be a suicide, the cause had ”come into question due to suspicious circ.u.mstances.” The ones referred to as requesting the exhumation were her parents, Jim and Linda Dulin, and the reason to have it autopsied was so that an official manner of death could be determined.

That same day, Judge Martin signed the order for the disinterment from Oakwood Cemetery, section 1, lot 96, s.p.a.ce 2. From the judge's office, Toombs and Spear proceeded to the cemetery, where a backhoe was waiting. As they stood to the side, the operator removed the rich dark earth. A hoist was then used to bring the baby blue coffin up, and when it emerged, the earth had dented the top and one side.

The coffin was then transferred into the back of a hea.r.s.e to be taken to the Southwest Inst.i.tute of Forensic Science in Dallas. Toombs and Spear followed in a slow-moving procession, then accompanied the casket into the autopsy suite. Before long, Dr. Reade Quinton, a pathologist, arrived, and the casket was opened.

Dressed in a teal sweater and skirt set, Kari's body was transferred onto an exam table. For the most part, the autopsy wasn't all that unusual. Photos were taken, and Kari's organs were each removed and weighed. Yet, when it came time to take samples for toxicology, there was a problem: The tests were usually done on blood, but it had all been drained and replaced by embalming fluid. Instead, Dr. Quinton harvested muscle tissue, labeling it to be sent to the lab.

While they waited, Toombs called Matt's attorney, informing him of what was transpiring. When he heard, Matt rushed to the cemetery with his mother at his side and stood above the empty grave, his phone to his ear, talking to Vanessa. For some reason, his thoughts weren't only of Kari that day. ”I wonder if they dug up Ka.s.sidy, too,” he said.

Moments later, after he'd traversed the short distance to the child's grave, the one marked ”My sweet, sweet baby,” Matt sounded relieved. ”No, she's still here,” he said.

Meanwhile in Dallas, after the autopsy, Spear and Toombs talked to Dr. Quinton. ”I don't see anything that would suggest either suicide or homicide,” he told them. ”And I'm afraid that the toxicology I've ordered won't help much. Without blood, having to use muscle tissue, it's not likely to be conclusive.”

When the sad caravan returned Kari's body to Oakwood Cemetery, one lone man waited. Jim Dulin had heard that his daughter's body had been exhumed and would be reburied. In a new casket, one identical to the last, Kari's body was removed from the back of the hea.r.s.e. The casket was slipped back into the ground as Jim prayed. Then, before the two young detectives left, Jim approached them. ”I just want to tell you; you get him, or I will,” he said, weeping. ”If I get him, y'all will be coming after me.”

When the autopsy report came back, as Quinton had suggested, there were no clear answers, but there was more information. In Kari's muscle tissue, the toxicologists found traces of phentermine, the diet drug she was taking, diphenhydramine (Unisom), and something else, something that Kari Baker didn't have a prescription for, a drug she wasn't known to take: zolpidem, better known as the sleeping pill Ambien.

When Dr. Quinton reviewed all the results, he wrote: ”After a complete autopsy and scene investigation the cause of death of Kari Baker, a thirty-one-year-old white female, remains undetermined. The combined effects of phentermine, diphenhydramine, and zolpidem, in conjunction with the possible use of alcohol (per history), may have contributed to the cause of death. However, accurate blood concentrations of these drugs cannot be determined due to embalming. If additional information becomes available, the cause and manner of death may be amended.”

So much antic.i.p.ation had gone into that autopsy suite with Kari's body, so much excitement that the question that was her death might finally have an answer, all to end in uncertainty. Yet, now, those investigating had something to work with, toxicology results that added a new piece to the puzzle: Ambien.

Once he had a copy of the autopsy, Bill Johnston contacted Dr. David Stafford, a well-known forensic toxicologist and former professor at the University of Tennessee in Memphis, asking for his opinion. Days later, Stafford called Johnston. ”This woman did not die of an overdose,” Stafford said. He then went on to explain the chemistry of death by overdose. If Kari had downed a bottle of pills, the individual pills would have broken down and been absorbed at different rates. As they took effect, her system would have slowed. At death, some of the pills would have remained undigested in her stomach. Those would have been easily apparent during autopsy. But there were none, not in Kari's stomach or intestines. ”That means she didn't die of an overdose,” Stafford maintained. ”It's not possible.”

”Could she have aspirated and choked?” Johnston asked.

”No,” Stafford said. ”Her lungs were clear.”

Chapter 39.

The finding of undetermined on the autopsy had been disappointing, but the investigation forged ahead. The day after the exhumation, Bennett and McNamara went to Baylor to talk to Steve Sadler, Crossroads' current pastor. They'd heard that Sadler had found something potentially interesting in Kari's Bible. In a university conference room, they asked what Kari had written. ”He didn't cooperate. He was evasive,” says McNamara. ”Sadler brought someone with him, apparently afraid to meet us alone.”

”There's a privilege, maybe not a legal one, but there's one to me, as a minister,” Sadler contended.

Bennett and McNamara asked questions, however, and Sadler finally admitted that the rumors were true; he had found something troubling in the Bible. ”Will you show it to us?” Bennett asked.

”No,” Sadler said. ”But I did give it to the Hewitt police.”

Despite all the acc.u.mulating evidence, the Dulins had a tie with their son-in-law that they couldn't break, their granddaughters. On July 18, Jim and Linda attended Grace's birthday party at a pizza restaurant. Baker didn't know that one diner at a separate table had a special interest in the case. It was the first time John Bennett had seen Baker, and he wondered about the preacher's body language. Matt had lost weight and looked on edge. He was dressed not as a pastor but in clothes a teenager might wear.

The following afternoon, Toombs's partner on the case, Mike Spear, talked with Cawthon, who urged him to meet with McNamara and Bennett, vouching for the two men. That evening at six, Spear, Toombs, Cawthon, McNamara, and Bennett congregated at Bennett's house. Toombs brought along a copy of Cooper's interview with Matt, and Bennett popped it in his DVD player. Before long, the two seasoned investigators wondered why the detective let the subject control the interview. Bennett noticed that every time a difficult subject was broached, Matt clenched his jaw, and his face flushed.

The DVD ended, and it was McNamara and Bennett's turn to divulge what they knew for the detectives. ”It was typical for them to say, 'Did you meet with this person yet? You may want to talk to this person who may have some information for you,' ” says Spear.

Two days later, Bennett and McNamara met with Spear again. This time the detective brought the eight crime-scene photos. The first thing the two investigators noticed was the purplish hue of Kari's hands and arms, her back, and the back of her neck. What they recognized was lividity. ”That shouldn't be there,” Bennett pointed out. ”Not if she'd only been dead a short time.”

The meeting ended, and the investigation continued. Now that they had more to work with, John Bennett used the information from Baker's interview with Cooper to retrace the former pastor's account of his whereabouts on the night his wife died. Leaving the Crested b.u.t.te address at just after eleven one night, Bennett drove out of the subdivision and turned right, taking the road underneath the highway to the first stop, a convenience store. Matt had said the store was closed, and Bennett saw that it was; pulling back out, he drove up onto the freeway and toward downtown Hewitt. From there, he drove into a second gas station, one that sold only diesel, then into the Exxon, estimating the time it took to pump twenty-six gallons, the amount on the receipt Baker supplied to Hewitt PD. Pumping at twelve seconds a gallon, the standard, that stop took a total of seven minutes and twelve seconds.