The Matt and Kari Baker story was on 48 Hours this past Saturday. The show was titled The Preacher’s Wife. If you aren’t familiar with the story, you can read my first post on the case here. You can also watch the show online here.

I think most people see clearly that what Matt says compared to what others say just doesn’t add up. It doesn’t take eyes for lies to see this.

Unfortunately, 48 Hours gives us a fair amount of talk time with Matt, but they don’t show his face through a lot of it, which I find very unfortunate. If he makes any good expressions, we don’t get to see them. What we do see of Matt emotionally is not consistent with a man who supposedly loved his wife. Matt shows a faint, subtle smile from time to time that I find absolutely eerie and inappropriate.

Read moreThe first time he does it is at the end of the intro to the show. Matt says “My name is Matt Baker, and I have been accused of murdering my wife. It’s so unprobable [sic]. It’s not who I am. I loved my wife. I never hurt her a day in my life.” At the end, he is grinning. Did you see it?

The second time I see this subtle grin is when he talked about Kari having almost two personalities. There is absolutely no reason for Matt to be feeling any positive emotions at this time. It’s a complete contradiction to his circumstances. I am only part way through the video at this time, so there may be more examples of this that I have yet to document. I also find the word “almost” interesting as well. You either believe something or you don’t. You don’t almost believe.

Matt wants people to believe Kari acted one way around him because she was grieving, but another way around everyone else. People who are unstable or depressed don’t pick and choose when to display it. They are either unstable and depressed across the board, or they are not.

Matt even tries to tell us that she lost it, and flipped out while he was driving with her in the car one day. He says that she opened the car door because she needed to “get air” when they were moving, and that he had to rescue her by grabbing her waistband. Isn’t it ironic that Kari only flipped out around him, and no one else?

I think on ABC’s 20/20, Matt said they were going around 35 miles an hour, if I remember right. I think he said “not that fast”. Now on 48 Hours, he says they were going 45-50 mph. That’s an interesting change of facts. Wouldn’t Kari be even more insane to open the car door at faster speeds?

I wonder if the doctor will testify that Kari truly was hyperventilating, as Matt says prior her trying to “get air” on the way home in the car. I suspect it is unlikely.

I personally believe Matt is coming up with stories to make us think Kari was unstable. But if she was truly unstable, it would have spilled out in front of her parents, friends, and co-workers, but none of these people ever speak of being witness to any such behavior. In fact, they seem to report a totally different person than what Matt reports.

I also find it extremely strange that Kari wanted to drink on a queasy stomach. Who does this? I personally think this is absolute nonsense. I wonder if they tested her blood for alcohol?

I also don’t buy Matt’s story that Kari wasn’t feeling well, and yet she wanted him to go gas up the car and rent a movie. If you don’t feel well, you don’t send your husband out at 11 pm, and you don’t stay up until 3 a.m. watching movies. Did Matt just need an excuse to leave the house?

Also, Matt told two different stories of what he did when he last saw Kari alive. The last time you see your spouse alive is usually burned into your memory. Obviously, it is not burned into Matt’s memory. One time, Matt told Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours that when he left Kari to rent the movies, Kari was sleeping. “She had rolled back over and gone to sleep. So when I left, she was asleep.”

Two months prior, he had told Moriarty that he kissed her on the cheek. Which story is it? Why does Matt keep getting his facts confused over and over, if he is telling the truth?

Matt also says something very strange when he says, “…as I am calling 911, I’m deciding I don’t want them to see her naked. So I put her clothes on.”

This is exceptionally bizarre.

Most people only have one concern when a loved one is near death, dying, or has just died. It is hope to try to revive them. In a time of crisis, we don’t have room for any other thoughts! But Matt doesn’t even think about this when he is on the phone with 911 from what we hear. Instead, he worries about his naked wife. It’s absolute rubbish.

Also, was he trying to put her clothes on when he was on the phone with 911? Is there support of this on the audio tape? Does he breathe heavy or labored?

He also says when he was on the phone, he was moving Kari to the floor to do CPR. Does this make any sense? I don’t believe you have to have to be on the floor to do CPR, do you? I also wonder if there is any sounds of exertion on the 911 call to support Matt’s story of moving Kari while on the phone? Or did Kari end up on the floor another way?

Also, the police find a bottle of Unisom next to Kari’s bed, which is completely empty outside of two pills on the dresser. On autopsy, wouldn’t you expect they would find pill remnants in Kari’s stomach? Yet oddly, there is no mention of pill remnants in her stomach or GI tract, just traces in her muscle tissue. Would that trace in her muscle tissue be enough to be considered lethal?

I also find the typed suicide note exceptionally unusual as well. Why would one type it and not sign it? Why would it only be a few sentences ? Women are word warriors! Most women would also be very conscious not to commit suicide naked. Women are self-conscious of their bodies. I don’t know of one women who would choose to go this way, if they had a choice. I will review the suicide note in an upcoming posting.

Kari’s former grief counselor’s account doesn’t support Matt’s story, either. She said Kari wasn’t upset about Kassidy’s death as Matt says. Three days before she died, the counselor says Kari was worried that Matt was having an affair, and she was afraid he was trying to kill her.

What are the odds?

Kari also told her friend Jill that she was worried about an affair, and Jill corroborates this on 48 Hours as well.

Who is corroborating Matt’ story?

What are the odds that Kari would find “crushed pills” in Matt’s briefcase, and then die shortly thereafter with an empty bottle of pills, yet with no remnants in her stomach?

What are the odds that Matt would have an unusual relationship with a young single woman named Vanessa at the same time Kari was afraid he was having an affair?

What are the odds that Matt would talk to Vanessa within days after Kari’s death for 28 hours in ten days, if she was only a friend?

What are the odds he would give Vanessa Kari’s cell phone to use after her death, if she was only a friend?

What are the odds he would also be seen in a jewelry store looking at jewelry with Vanessa within days of Kari’s death, if she was only a friend?

The odds are one-in-a-million, and certainly don’t support the story that Matt wants us to believe.

Also, take Matt’s computers. Amazingly, his office computer was switched with his secretary and his just vanished. And even more perfect in timing, his hard drive on his home computer just went kaput, and is no longer working. The odds are getting ridiculous, if you ask me.

Furthermore, Matt wants us to believe he is the perfect husband and dad, doting on his children while Kari was lost in her abyss, and mourning over Kassidy–seven years after Kassidy’s death. It’s just over-the-top.

Matt talks of bathing the children, reading to them, putting them to bed, but when he is confronted about allegations that he inappropriately came on to young girls and women, he flat out denies it. Kari’s aunt Kay corroborates this with a story of her daughter, as does a woman from Matt’s college days on 48 Hours. Lora Wilson says 17 years ago Matt grabbed her, and made inappropriate sexual advances on her.

Matt’s story? He simply turned off the lights and scared Lora. Does that seem logical? He admits to knowing Lora as well as to scaring her, but of course, in Matt’s version of events, he was totally innocent again. He says, according to 20/20, it was just a ” fantasy of a hysterical coed.”

What are the odds?

ABC News show 20/20 say they documented six other complaints against Matt.

“20/20” documented six other complaints against Matt: from a female custodian from the First Baptist Church of Waco, who says he grabbed her sexually; a teenage girl from the same church who claimed he spoke to her in a sexually provocative manner; and at the YMCA where he supervised the day camp, four young women complained to management of improper sexual conduct (source).

Are these people all crazy like Kari was?

What are the odds?

Matt also gets caught up in another lie. He says he never blamed Kari for Kassidy’s death, but an e-mail which has surfaced from Matt to Kari that says the following “I know deep down I hold a grudge against God and you for Him answering your prayer and not mine. In some ways, I do hold you…to blame for her death.”

At Kari’s funeral, the grief counselor confronted Matt about the fact that Kari thought he was going to kill her, and Matt’s response on 48 Hours as he tells the story is interesting. He says “And I said, ‘What? Well, wait, wait, wait. ‘ And I’m like, what is going on here?”

Is that how you would respond to something like this? Why would you ever say “wait, wait, wait”? Most people would say that’s ridiculous and would just walk away. It would be adding insult to a serious injury. They wouldn’t even entertain the thought or dignify a response because it would be so far-fetched. It would be a ridiculous slap in the face!

But Matt does entertain it, and he seems to want to defend it when he says “wait, wait, wait.” You usually say “wait”, or “wait a minute” to people when you have something to explain or justify. It’s a notable response that is out of the ordinary if he was blind-sided by something he knew he had nothing to do with. I find his response hair-raising, to say the least.

Another contradiction in Matt’s story is when he talks about how Kari’s outlook about her new job. He doesn’t say she was excited. He says she was “nervous” and feeling sick. But Kari’s friend, Todd, says when he talked to her the day she died, she was “excited”. Someone who is going to commit suicide isn’t excited about a job prospect if they have no intention of taking it, are they?

Matt also got his facts mixed up about the first time he saw the suicide note. “The police officer brings me the note, and that was the first thought at the point in time, she took her own life.”

But on the 911 call, Matt says, “I think my wife just committed suicide….and her lips are blue, her hands are cold, and there’s a note that says, “I’m sorry, ‘basically.”

This is not a case where you need eyes for lies to decipher the truth. You need good old common sense.

What are the odds?