(Video) Former Minister Baker Receives 65-year Sentence for Murdering Wife

Matt Baker, whom prosecutors called an evil minister with no conscience, was sentenced to 65 years in prison Thursday in the April 2006 drugging and suffocation death of his wife.

A 19th State District Court jury of seven women and five men deliberated about two hours before determining punishment for the 38-year-old former Central Texas minister.

Jurors reached their decision after hearing testimony during the punishment phase that Baker, a Baylor University and Truett Seminary graduate, got away with attempting to sexually assault a fellow student 18 years ago at Floyd Casey Stadium.

Improper advances

Testimony also revealed that Baker made improper advances toward a friend of his wife’s cousin, while his daughter lay critically ill in a Dallas hospital.

It also showed he frequently surfed the Web for pornography on his Texas Youth Commission computer, while he was chaplain, and on a church-owned laptop computer.

Jury members, who deliberated about seven hours Wednesday before convicting Baker, declined comment as they quickly left the courthouse, some saying they were tired and wanted to go home.

Baker showed no emotion as Judge Ralph Strother read the verdict. When asked if there were any legal reason why he should not be sentenced, Baker said: “I truly believe in my innocence. I believe the jury made a mistake.”

As he was led away to jail, Baker turned to his mother, Barbara Baker, told her he loved her and asked that she take care of his two daughters, Kensi and Grace.

Baker must serve at least 30 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.

He was convicted mostly on the testimony of his former mistress, Vanessa Bulls, a Harker Heights teacher whose father was music minister at Crossroads Baptist Church in Lorena, where Baker was a former pastor.

Prosecutors Crawford Long and Susan Shafer, who asked jurors for a life prison term, said they were pleased with the sentence.

“Sixty-five years is an excellent sentence,” Long said. “The court considers a life sentence based on 60 years, so for practical purposes, the jury gave him a life sentence, and I am very glad they did.

“I think the facts show that this is a particularly bad crime. This isn’t a crime of passion or an instance where somebody lost their head.

“The murder was not just to remove her from his life, but I think he took certain pleasure in killing her and deceiving the police and the public,” Long said.

Baker lied in numerous media interviews about his affair with the 27-year-old Bulls, who was given testimonial immunity before her McLennan County grand jury testimony that led to Baker’s murder indictment.

Bulls, who was suspended from her teaching job after her testimony Tuesday, told jurors she and Baker had a four-month affair that spanned before and after Kari’s death.

She gave details about how Baker told her he had killed Kari by drugging her with sleeping pills, then suffocating her with a pillow while the two girls slept down the hall.

Lora Mueller on Thursday said Matt Baker assaulted her while they were student trainers at Baylor.

Mueller, now a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Baker tried to kiss her, pinned her to a sink and molested her.

She said she told her superiors about the incident at the time, but Baker received no serious punishment.

After Baker was escorted to jail, his mother said she doesn’t think her son received a fair trial because “it was based on the lies of a woman (Bulls), and that made the difference.”

While Barbara Baker said she is not proud that her son had the affair with Bulls, she said she does not think that he killed his wife.

“This was a criminal trial, and there wasn’t any evidence,” she said. “I thought you had to show how it was done instead of taking the word of somebody who said maybe, maybe and maybe. Put it all together and they said, well, maybe he did it.”

She said her family will ask for a court-appointed attorney to file an appeal for her son because they don’t have funds to hire an appellate attorney.

“He will be 70 years old when he can get out. That is a life sentence,” she said.

Baker’s Kerrville-based attorneys, Guy James Gray and Harold Danford, said they respect the jury’s verdict. They tried to withdraw from Baker’s case less than a week before his trial started, citing ethical reasons.

Gray clarified those reasons after trial.

“We discovered (the affair) about six weeks ago, and we finally figured out that Matt was being untruthful with me, and I asked the judge to let me and Harold get out, but the judge didn’t want to delay the trial,” Gray said. “He was being untruthful, mostly, about Vanessa Bulls. But once you get untruthful about one part, you naturally begin to question all the other parts, too.”

Gray said he probably could have done a better job representing Baker but thought the evidence did not rise to the level of a conviction.

“He fooled me about the affair, but I really think there was probably some reasonable doubt there,” Gray said. “There was an awful lot of circumstantial evidence that they proved. But the credibility of Vanessa Bulls was pretty low, and to get to the drugs and the pillow and the suffocation, you have to believe her.

“While my opinion of Matt is pretty low right now, I do believe that there was technical reasonable doubt.”

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