Kari and Matt Baker - Part 3 of 3

0:00 I am Rich and I'm Tina. And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage. Some days you'll feel like killing your husband. And some days you'll feel like killing your wife. Welcome to love, Mary Kill. Hi, Tina, Hey Rich, welcome back. Thanks, happy to be here. I know you have no place I'd rather be in, say, afternoon. Better way to spend a Saturday afternoon when Michigan is in the middle of a football game and sitting here in the podcast studio.

0:42 We were just in the kitchen having a little snack between between two and three stacks between stacks, and you said one of the most shocking things you've ever said to me in over twenty years. Yes, I did. You said I might not watch the Michigan I'm still reeling from that. I know it is a little bit crazy, but there's just there's a lot going on, and it's it's probably a game they're gonna win, like by fifty points or something. And I guess that was different. But I probably will watch the game. I know you're going to watch the game. I'm sure that. I just say, that's the biggest lie you ever told me. Well, here's here's part of the problem is that I'm more invested in the Lions right now than I am in Michigan football. And the Tigers actually have like a slim chance of making the playoffs, and so I'm kind of invested in the Tigers again too.

1:34 I only have so much you just keep let's break it all down for us, Rich tell us more. I don't want to go into more detail, but I only have so much room in my brain, and so Michigan is right now, they're kind of number three. I'm definitely like a football sports widow. Yeah, a lot of times on Saturday night or I'm just like, I'm just gonna just go do my own thing. Yeah, thank goodness for Bravo there for me in my time of need. But hey, did you bring me a snack? I brought you a snack. We haven't had enough snacks. I figured I figured for the third course, I would go for a dessert course. And I've really been just craving some Hostess treats lately. I was like, you know, I'm going to just get something Hostess related, and.

2:20 Thank god Hostess is still around for us. Right a few years ago, marketing, well did they I don't know. Or was that all marketing? So they had I saw something new, or at least new to me. I haven't seen it in the hostessisle before. And it is called meltamores. They are like a hostess. I saw those with the store and I was like, it. Has chocolate, creamy caramel in the middle, and you can actually microwave it. Briefly, it was, yeah, I think we have to try that. Probably want to know how? I okay, you didn't. I didn't microwave it yet, but it only takes five seconds. So five seconds. Yeah, can you set your micro for five seconds? No, No, we probably can't.

3:03 Yeah, should we give them a try? Absolutely? All right, we'll be right back. What did you think about the hostess meltimores? Well, I think it's worth a five seconds to put it in your microwave. It's worth the weight we tried on each way, and yeah, putting it in the microwave, it's a it's like a little lava cake. They're small size. If if you ever had a two bite brownie before, it's about the size of that. Yeah, I would recommend eating at least three or four out of citty. I would not, but just a difference of opinion. I'm going to give them a I'm going to give them a eight out of ten. I'm going to give it a six and a half, six and a half. I'm not I don't love a process they're definitely Yeah, it has that kind of you know that. Yeah.

3:53 I glanced at the ingredients list on the back and it's a long list, which tells you that, yeah, they're pretty processed. So it's like a very bad grade for nutrition, but a good grade for I mean, it's a good little snack. I just prefer usually a homemade treat. But yeah, it was it was not bad. You really did a good job. It's hard to get like three snacks for three different episodes, So bravo to you. Oh, thank you, thank you. Do you think anyone would listen to a podcast of just us eating snacks? No, probably not, and I think I would probably not. Probably think because we don't post pictures of ourselves, people must think they got to be five hundred pounds each.

4:39 Well, we should get back to our case because there's still a lot to talk about in part three. Do you want to give us just a real quick recap of the first two parts? I sure don't, but I will because you wrote up a nice little synopsis for us. So, Matt and Carrie Baker, how long have they been married? Like ten years? Yeah? I think just over ten years, twelve years. We've established that Matt is a horrible. One of the most horrible people we've ever talked about. I think he sexually assaulted many girls, young girls and well, I don't know sure, like young girls, but like teenagers. Yeah, definitely underage and many women. Carrie sadly died in April two thousand and six under suspicious circumstances. Her death was quickly, like super quickly, ruled a suicide by the Justice of the Peace, who didn't even come to the scene of the crime.

5:33 I just did it over the phone. Carrie's aunts and her cousins suspected Matt had something to do with it. And remember that Carrie's therapist that she was talking to, she had told the therapist, I think Matt's going to kill me. Took them a little work to convince Carrie's mob Linda, that Matt may have murdered her. But she did come around, and she came full circle, and she was They were all on the case, the women, along with Carrie's Dad Jim put pressure on police, but in their mind the case was closed. When we left off at the end of part two, the family was growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of action by police. They wanted to exhume Carrie's body, and they were getting resistance.

6:16 Before we get into part three, I do want to give a content warning that we will talk about sexual assault in this episode and it may be disturbing for some listeners, so please listen with care. All of the Duelin's pushing and prodding did have some impact on the police. Days after their meeting at the Hewitt PD Sergeant Cooper called Matt and asked him to sit down and talk with him. Matt recounted basically the same story he had told on the night of Carrie's death, but he added a few more details. He said he'd left the house around eleven to ten pm. First, he went to a convenience store slash gas station near his house, but found that it was closed, so he went to a second gas station. At this station, he couldn't pay at the pump, so he went inside and was told that the gas station only had diesel, So he stopped a third time at an Exxon station and filled up before going to Hollywood Video, where he bought a diet pepsi, some peanut Eminem's, and rented the movie. He estimated he was there for ten minutes, leaving at eleven fifty to head back home.

7:15 He told Sergeant Cooper that Carrie had urinated on the bed and vomited as he moved her to the floor. He also repeated that foam was coming out of her nose and fluid poured from her mouth as he attempted CPR. Cooper didn't follow up on any of this, despite the fact that no one at the scene had made note of any fluids on the bed or the floor, perhaps knowing that a unism overdose couldn't kill someone quickly. Matt made a special point to tell Cooper that he didn't think it was the medication that killed Carrie. He thought she probably threw up in her mouth and choked on the vomit. When Cooper asked him about the pills in his briefcase, he told a different story than he had told to others. He said that he had never seen the pills before, and he thought that Carrie must have put them there. Cooper also asked him about his relationship with Vanessa Bulls. Matt claimed they were just good friends.

8:06 He said Carrie and Vanessa had been friends before Carrie's death, and that he had grown close to Vanessa since Carrie died, but they were just friends. What Matt didn't tell them was that around that same time, he had paid a visit to Vanessa's dad, Larry, and asked his permission to officially date his daughter. Larry replied that it was Vanessa's decision, not his. Sergeant Cooper asked Matt if he would be willing to take a polygraph, and he said, of course, he would, absolutely, But when Cooper later followed up to try and arrange the polygraph, it was a criminal defense attorney who responded on Matt's behalf. What do you think? He said? Uh, he said, my client will not be taking a polygraph exam correct.

8:51 Jim Linda and her sisters and niece had exhausted every avenue they could think of in trying to get justice for Carrie. They started calling anyone they could think of looking for ideas. A friend of Carrie's from high school said that she knew an attorney in Waco who was a former federal prosecutor and maybe he could help. On June ninth, Linda and Nancy met with the attorney Bill Johnston. She told him the whole story, saying, quote, I don't want you to assume my son in law did anything wrong. I just want the truth. I need to know what happened to my daughter end quote. She felt an overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude when Johnston agreed to help, saying, we can do that. Finally they had someone on their team.

9:33 Johnston had invited two friends of his to the meeting, former police detectives and current private investigators, John Bennett and Mike McNamara. Johnston said, who you really need right now are these two guys. Let's put them on the case to learn everything they can. Maybe what they uncover will help convince the police to reopen the case. Linda and Jim agreed, and Bennett and McNamara went to work. Around this same time, all the rumors spreading around town were affecting Matt's reputation at the Crossroads Baptist Church, where he was the pastor, being seen publicly with Vanessa. So soon after Carrie's death, Matt canceling Sunday evening services several times to spend time with Vanessa, and the question of whether Carrie had actually died by suicide were all swirling around.

10:18 The church deacons met and decided that it was time to part ways with Matt Baker. They gave him a sixteen hundred dollars severance check and sent him on his way, good for them. Following the meeting with Linda and Nancy, John Bennett and Mike McNamara started digging in. They wanted to develop a picture of Carrie and her mental state in the days and weeks leading up to her death. They spoke to many friends and colleagues of Carrie's, none of whom believed that Carrie had taken her own life. McNamara spoke with a teacher who had worked with Carrie. She reported that she had run into Matt at Walmart the week after Carrie had died. What caught McNamara's attention was what the teacher said was in Matt's shopping cart, a new computer and printer. Why would Matt be replacing his home computer just days after Carrie's death. The Private Eyes also did some digging on Matt Baker's past and found out about the alleged sexual assault on Baylor's campus that had been reported years later to the police after the statute of limitations had expired. They saw the complainant's name on the report was Laura Mueller, but they were having trouble tracking her down. In other computer news, someone at w C Wide noticed that the computer had gone missing from the vacant office next to Matt's, formerly used by his assistant, who had quit in frustration after working for Matt for nine months. The missing computer was reported to security, who had the IT person do some investigating.

11:46 The IT guide discovered that the computer was still connected to the network and was still being used, and that the user logging into it was Matt Baker. They went and checked Matt's computer, only to discover that it was actually the missing compute from the office next door. Someone had taken the tag off of Matt's computer, placed it on the other computer, and then replaced Matt's computer with it, so it was actually Matt's computer that was missing. Matt claimed to not have realized that his computer had been replaced because it looked the same to him. Later, it was revealed that Matt had been at WCY on June nineteenth, a day when not many people were there because of the June teenth holiday. A receptionist reported having a conversation with Matt where he mentioned something about Carrie's suicide note.

12:35 The receptionist said, well, if the note was written on a computer, there would be a time stamp on the document so the police could determine when it was written. Matt said, oh, well, I don't have our home computer anymore, but maybe Carrie wrote the note on her work computer. The receptionist, who must have been an avid true crime podcast listener, said, well, the police can subpoena at your work computer, so maybe they could subpoena Carrie's work computer and check. That must have gotten Matt thinking, because later that day Matt was seen leaving WCY with a large box, and it was soon after that that his computer was discovered to be missing. His work computer from WCY was never found. Wow, so he got rid of his home computer, he got rid of his work computer, all within a short period after Carrie's death.

13:22 So he must have had incriminating searches or whatever on both of those computers. It seems that way for him to want to get rid of both of them. Yeah, we will find out more about his okay, some of his searches coming up. There was a third computer controversy because Matt had not only his home computer his computer at WCY, but he had a church laptop at Crossroads where he was pastor, and he didn't return that laptop after he was fired. They kept asking for it, and one of the church deacons finally had to threaten to report Matt to the police for theft, and then he finally turned it over. The deacon gave the laptop to his son, who gave it to the Waco Police Department just in case there was anything on it that might be useful. The Waco Police department, though, they returned it to the church a week later, saying they had taken a look but found nothing useful.

14:13 The pastor who had officiated at Carrie's funeral, the one who had made a copy of her journal page where she expressed a fear of Matt, must have heard the rumors about Matt and decided he should give the journal page to the police. He sent it to a Hewitt officer named Ben Tooms because the pastor knew Ben's parents from church. Around the same time. Sergeant Cooper must have been sick of being second guest about the Carrie Baker case. He probably begged to be taken off of the case and got his wish on July sixth, when his boss told him that he was off a case and twenty eight year old Ben Tooms would now be taking over, assisted by twenty six year old Mike Speer. That same day, to hew What police got word that Judge Martin was open to ordering an exhumation and autopsy of Carrie's body.

15:02 Texas Ranger Matt Coffin, although not officially involved in the case, had taken a strong interest in it and stopped by the Hewett Police Department to put pressure on the team to follow through with the exhumation. Captain Saunders of the Hewett Police Department was getting irritated with people injecting themselves into the case and implying or outright accusing that they had watched the investigation. Sauners asked Coffin if he was working for Bill Johnston, the Dulan's attorney. Coffin replied, quote, no, I'm working for that dead woman, and you should be too. Then Tombs knew a little bit about Matt Baker because his parents had gone to his church. He had a positive perception of Matt and didn't think that he would have killed his wife. But he dove into the investigation anyway, immediately writing up a request for exhumation and autopsy and taking it to Judge Martin, who signed it that day. Finally, three months after Carrie's death, the family hoped to get some answers.

16:01 Three months. I mean, that's that's great though, that they were so persistent. Tombs called Matt's attorney to inform him that they were exhuming Carrie's body. Matt rushed to the cemetery, calling Vanessa. When he got there, he said to her quote, I wonder if they dug up Cassidy too, Oh, because Cassidy's death had been somewhat suspicious. Yeah, but it was never investigated. He went to Cassidy's grave and saw that it was intact. Vanessa would later say he sounded relieved when he told her. Tombs and Spear accompanied Carrie's body as it was taken to Dallas for the autopsy. It was a routine autopsy, but the toxicology testing would be complicated by the fact that Carrie's body had been embalmed, so there was no blood to test. Instead, they sent some muscle tissue to the lab, but this was less likely to be conclusive.

16:54 The tox screen was positive for fentermine, dieph and hydromine, and soopledem. Phentermine is the diet drug that Carrie was taking, diefhenhydramine is the active ingredient in unism, and zopdem is ambient. Because the results were based on testing muscle tissue instead of blood, it was impossible to determine the level of each drug in her body. The cause of death was now listed as on determined, which was better than the previous ruling of unisom overdose, but still disappointing to the family who had been hoping for a clearer answer. It was interesting that Carrie had tested positive for ambion because she didn't have a prescription, and Linda knew that she had tried at once and didn't like the effect on her.

17:41 So I'm guessing that Matt must have had a prescription for ambien. I don't think he had a prescription either. Maybe Vanessa did. The Dulan's lawyer, Bill Johnston, was able to get a copy of the autopsy result and send them to doctor David Stafford, who was a well known forensic toxicologist for his interpretation. Stafford studied the results and came back saying that there's no way this woman died of an overdose. If she had downed a bottle of pills. He said, the individual pills would have been broken down and been absorbed at different rates because her system would have slowed down as they took effect. When she died, some of the pills would have remained undigested in her stomach or intestines, which wasn't the case. Also, her lungs were clear, so she couldn't have choked or aspirated on vomit either. And Matt said that she vomited, correct.

18:36 Yeah, well, he said there was like fluid in her nose and mouth, and I think he said she may have vomited. But remember he also told the detective at one point that he thought she didn't die of an overdose. He thought she must have choked on vomit. Okay. While there was finally progress in the investigation, it was moving slowly and there was still no indication that the DA was thinking about proceeding with an indictment. To try and move things forward, Bill Johnston recommended that the Duelans file a wrongful death lawsuit. It wasn't about the money. Filing a lawsuit would give the Dulans legal team subpoena powers so they could get employment records, medical records, police records, and also to pose witnesses, including Matt. They failed the suit.

19:19 On July thirty first, two thousand and six. Matt had moved two hundred miles away to Kerrville, where his parents lived and where he had gotten a job at a funeral home delivering bodies and counseling families. He was served papers as he was unloading boxes outside of his new duplex. A couple of questions for you, did Vanessa go with him? No? She did not, The girls did, yes? And were they not able to see their grandparents anymore? Well, they had the agreement that I think we talked about last time, that the Duelans had to take him to court to basically get him to let the girls see them. And so they had that agreement still in place where they I think they saw them like two two weekends a month or something like that.

20:01 Okay, so that agreement was still in place. That's good. The two pis Bennett and McNamara were continuing their investigation. They visited WCY that was where Matt had previously worked and learned about the missing computer and the conversation Matt had with the receptionist on June nineteenth, when he was seen leaving with a large box. They really wanted to track down the woman who would report of the sexual assault. Her name and the report was listed as Laura Mueller. They searched and searched, but couldn't find her. They did have her birthday from the same report, so in desperation, they pulled up a list of everyone born in Texas on that day and they didn't find a Laura Mueller, but they found a Laura Wilson and her name was spelled Lra instead of la u R, and it turned out to be her. She had taken her husband's last name and the detective who took the report spelled her first name incorrectly. She told him exactly what Matt had done to her all those years ago and beg them quote, please get him before he does it again. I remember you talking about Laura in part one and how she was very traumatized by the experience. Extremely she had a really hard time.

21:19 Yeah, she really did. And that was the first, the first sexual assault that we know of that Matt did that was reported. That's really great police work too, write, I mean, yeah, pulling up I can't imagine how long the list of everyone born in Texas on that day would have been, but tracking that down was pretty impressive. That's fun because you in your script here have it written in LA you are, And in my head I was like, isn't it La? But that must have felt so good for Laura to be able to be helpful in this investigation. That must have been I'm sure hope helped her recovery. The more that Bennett and McNamara uncovered, the more convinced that Linda, k Nancy and Lindsay became of Matt's gill. They also started wondering about Cassidy because there were some similarities. Had Matt killed Cassidy because she had become an inconvenience to him? And what if Kenzie and Grace became inconvenient for him?

22:13 It's so horrible to think about that, but there were some things about Cassidy's death that were definitely made you wonder the fact that he went in there she was fine. He said she was fine, and then like ten minutes later he went in there again and she wasn't breathing. The fact that he didn't he said, oh, we don't need her breathing monitor anymore, so she didn't wear that. There were just a number of things that were. I were called. Her doctor was shocked by her doth. Yeah, they called. He called child Protective Services because he thought there was no way that she was on the road to recovery. So I can't imagine someone doing that. But it really does make kill You couldn't kind of imagine this guy doing it. He's such a dirtbag.

22:56 Texas ranger Matt Coffin was staying involved in the case, and he, along with the Duelin's legal team, came to the conclusion that Vanessa Bowles was the key to cracking this case. There were rumors going around the Waco area that Vanessa and Matt had broken up, so the time might be right to get Vanessa to talk. Coffin talked to the Hewett Police Department detectives working the case, Ben Toombs and Mike Spear, and they agreed that it would make sense to talk to Vanessa. They decided to surprise her as she was stopping by the grocery store one evening after class. She agreed to come to the station and speak with them. Vanessa seemed nervous and talkative. It almost sounded as if she had rehearsed what she was going to say, because she pretty much told her story without being prompted, and it was very consistent with what Matt had told the police. She said that she and Carrie had become friends, but then Matt started calling her in late January or early February. She didn't think he was pursuing her, He just wanted to chat and help her through her divorce. She said. They did start seeing each other after Carrie passed away, but it was all very innocent and above board. It was always them hanging out with their kids. Over time, she started hearing rumors about Matt's past, and she decided to break it off with him. The officers, both young men, seemed to allow Vanessa to control the interview. They didn't ask any hard follow up questions, and they let her change the subject any time she seemed to feel uncomfortable with the direction that it was going. They decided she was being truthful and there was no reason to ask her to take a lie detector test. The subpoenas from the wrongful death

24:29 lawsuits started bearing fruit. When the team got access to the few crime scene photos that had been taken. They sent them to an independent crime scene analyst, who said that the extent of the lividity evident in the photos did not match the timeline given by Matt. In his opinion, much more time had elapsed than forty five minutes. He also noted that there appeared to be bruising on Carrie's nose and lips, suggesting that she may have been drugged and then smothered. The subpoena for computer rect from WCY showed that Matt had done all sorts of searches on various drug sites, porn sites, and dating sites. Matt's laptop from Crossroads Church, the one that the Waco police had said contained nothing of interest, also showed visits to various dating and porn sites. Some of the sites Matt visited included sex list dot com, hotmatch Up dot com, sex datenetwork dot com, I Want a New Girlfriend dot com, and hornymatches dot com.

25:30 Oh my gosh, I have been out of the dating scenes for so I didn't even know those existed. Yeah. The drug sites he visited included drugs dot com, medicine net dot com, rxlist dot com, and hydrocodone dot com and Ambient dot com existed either, and a month before Carrie's death, Matt had googled the phrase overdose on sleeping pills in what the team felt was the closest to a smoking gun that they were likely to find. They discovered that Matt had added generic Ambient to a shopping cart on one drug site, but he hadn't completed the purchase. They spoke with the drug company, who said that a lot of people abandoned their card at that point because there's a two week delay before drugs can be delivered while the company verifies a prescription. Matt had also made an online purchase of some herbal sexual stimulants.

26:21 These were over the counter capsules that claimed to have an aphrodisiac effect. By the fall of two thousand and six, Hewittt Police detective Ben Toombs had come to believe that Matt Baker had most likely killed his wife, but he also didn't think they would ever be able to prove it. The DA was still unwilling to take the case. They didn't think it was winnable, so the investigation once again stalled. The wrongful death lawsuit continued and Matt was brought in for a deposition, but he pleaded the fifth refusing to answer any questions. He had also been told to bring in various items photos, journals, notes, and his home computer and printer, care, Mary's Bible and more, but he brought none of them. He said that he wasn't given adequate time to gather the items and some weren't in his possession anymore. He promised to follow up and provide the items, but of course he never did. The months flew by until August two thousand and seven, when Linda wrote a letter to Judge Billy Martin asking him to hold an inquest into Carrie's death with all the information and evidence they had gathered. This was the next logical step in trying to get the investigation restarted. Martin agreed, and the inquest was scheduled for late August. There were three possible outcomes to the inquest. First, Judge Martin could listen to the evidence and leave the suicide ruling in place. If that happened, the duel In's quest for justice was essentially over.

27:46 It would be nearly impossible at that point to get a prosecution. Second, the judge could rule carries DAPA homicide. This was the outcome that Linda and Jim were hoping for. It would be an opportunity for Judge Martin to rectify the mistake he had made on the night of Carrie's death, being so quick to rule her death of suicide. The third option, which is what Judge Martin ended up doing, was to rule the manner of death undetermined. This at least left the door open for an eventual prosecution, but it still wasn't ideal, especially given the DA's reluctance to prosecute this case. It didn't really change anything. However, With the door at least slightly opened, the Duelan's legal and investigative team was more determined than ever to kick it wide open. They talked again to Texas Ranger Matt Coffin.

28:33 Matt was on their side and felt like there was enough evidence to arrest Matt, but he also didn't want to step on the toes of local law enforcement. He did, however, feel comfortable at least giving them a strong nudge in the right direction. He met with Hewittt Police Chief Barton and said, if you don't write a warrant to arrest Matt Baker, that I will. Chief Barton instructed Ben Toombs to write the warrant, which was presented to Judge Martin, who signed it that day. Afternoon in September two thousand and seven, Matt Baker turned himself in at the Kerr County Sheriff's office. Linda and Jim were pleased, but they knew the road ahead was still long and fraught with obstacles. Just because he was arrested didn't mean that the DA John Segrest would decide to bring the case to trial.

29:18 We'll be back after a break. The case ended up on the desk of Prosecutor Crawford Long. He looked over all the evidence and he didn't like what he saw. He thought the lividity in the photos was fairly strong evidence, but he spoke with some experts who said they couldn't absolutely rule out that the lividity couldn't happen that quickly. The defense expert could plant reasonable doubt in the minds of a jury. He also sent out the Unison bottle and suicide note for testing, and neither came back with any of Matt's DNA or fingerprints.

29:59 He wasn't sure the evidence was substantial enough and didn't want to rush it. You only have one shot at a prosecution. If the person is found not guilty, it's over and you can't try someone again because of double jeopardy laws. There is no statute of limitations on murder, so Crawford decided to take it slow. The problem with taking it slow is that an arrest warrant in Texas lapses after one hundred and eighty days if no indictment is brought, and that's exactly what happened. In March twenty eight, two thousand and eight, the charges against Matt were dropped. Such a long, long fight for justice. Do you remember Shannon Gamble? I do you do. We talked about her briefly. She was the mom of Carrie's third grade student. Shannon had run into Carrie at Walmart on the last day of her life. She didn't know Carrie that well, but she was moved by how much Carrie obviously cared about her son, Brody and her other students.

30:56 In her gut, she never believed that Carrie had taken her her own life. When Matt was arrested in September two thousand and seven, Shannon decided she wanted to do something to support justice for Carrie, so she started a blog. She launched the blog called Don't Even Get Me started with the first post on September twenty fourth, two thousand and seven, talking about a conversation with her now fifth grade son, telling him that his teacher's husband had been arrested for killing her. Her first post ended with the words quote, let all kinds of justice rain down on this evil man. The blog is still online today, and we'll link it in our show notes. The blog became popular locally. It was a place where the community could gather virtually shear anecdotes about Carrie and rally for justice.

31:46 Once Matt's arrest warrant lapsed and the charges against him were dropped, Shannon decided to make bumper stickers and gave them away to anyone who wanted them. That's so kind and generous of hers. Just another thing that really moves me in this case, all the people that were really rallying together. Nothing makes me more emotional than overt kindness. The bumper stickers were simple, a blue background with bold letters and white reading Justice for Carrie. Soon they were everywhere around Hewett, including on cars parked outside the courthouse where the DA's office was, and on cars everywhere that the Hewitt police officers patrolled. There is no doubt the bumper sticker campaign helped to continue applying pressure on authorities. That's amazing.

32:32 Yeah. When Matt was arrested, the Doolan family put the wrongful death lawsuit on hold, but when the charges were dropped, they resumed their civil case. They had Matt scheduled for another deposition, and this time his lawyer surprisingly encouraged him to talk. Met had a new lawyer, guy James Gray, who was a former prosecutor as a DA. Gray hadn't lost a case in twenty years as a defense attorney. He only took cases where he truly believed the defendant was innocent. He interviewed Matt, believed his story, and agreed to take his case pro bono. Really, the guy deserves no grace at all. Part of Gray's strategy was to get Matt in front of the media, who had picked up the story around the time of his arrest. Matt did several interviews whether they helped Matt's cause or not as questionable. He contradicted himself many times, and most observers felt like the interviews made Matt look guilty. In any case, Gray decided that since Matt had spoken publicly, it wouldn't be a good look for a jury if he were to take the fifth again. He did take the fifth on questions related to the past accusations of sexual assault, but he answered questions regarding Carrie's death and his relationship with Vanessa Bowles. He told mostly the same story about the knight of Carrie's death as he had done before.

33:55 The only addition was that he said when the EMTs showed up, they told him to continue giving CPR to Carrie because he was doing such a great job. Yes, the empts are like, you're so good at this, keep it up. That's what he made it sound like. Well, I remember during the nine to one one call he said, yeah, it sounded like he wasn't even making any effort at all. It didn't sound like it now. Regarding his relationship with Vanessa, he claimed they were just friends until the summer of two thousand and six, when it became romantic. He said it only went to the next level because his kids liked Vanessa and wanted to spend more time with her. I have rolled my eyes more in this case than any other case. Yep. He said they had only kissed twice and hadn't had sex at all before they broke up. And no, they weren't shopping for engagement rings. They were at Kay Jewelers looking for earrings for grace. And how about his Internet searches for drugs? He said he had just made those searches because he was worried that Carrie was taking too many sleeping pills.

34:58 What a guy. In January two thousand and nine, going on three years since Carrie's death, McLellan County DA John Seagrest was feeling the pressure to get things moving on the case. Whether it was all the bumper stickers around town or maybe the fact that Segrest was up for reelection soon. He decided the case could use a fresh set of eyes. So many cases have a fresh set of eyes, There's. Been a lot of fresh sets of eyes on this one. Seagrest gave it to Abden Rodriguez, one of the investigators on staff at the DA's office. Rodriguez reviewed the tapes of both Matt and Vanessa's interrogations and felt certain they were both lying. He arrived at the same conclusion others had before him. Vanessa Bowles was the key to this case.

35:44 He had to bring her in and get her to tell the truth. After going back and forth with Vanessa's lawyer, they arranged for her to come in for an interview. She told basically the same story as before, claiming that Matt was just counseling her in the months before Carrie died. Referring to the phone records showing how often and for how long they talked, Reguez remarked, that is a lot of counseling. Two weeks later, he decided to take another run at her. He called her and bluffed, saying, quote, I know what you did. I know what Matt Baker did. I know you two were having a sexual relationship, and I know you know what happened to Carrie Baker. End quote.

36:24 He offered Vanessa immunity if she would come clean. She agreed to come and talk with him again, but her lawyer called Rodriguez back and said no, she had reconsidered and would not be coming in after all. Rodriguez then called Crawford Long, the prosecutor, and said, we need to get this woman in front of a grand jury. Long agreed, and soon Vanessa was served with a subpoena. Before she was scheduled to appear, her lawyer called Long and said that Vanessa was planning to take the fifth However, she did have information and wanted to strike a deal for amune unity. Long didn't want to give her blanket immunity, not knowing how deep her involvement was in Carrie's death, so he offered what's called testimonial immunity, essentially that guarantees that whatever she said to the grand jury couldn't be used against her. When she sat before the grand jury on March twenty fifth, two thousand and nine, Vanessa stunned everyone when she said Matt told her that he had killed Carrie so that he could be with her. The next day, the grand jury returned an indictment on the charge of murder against Matt Baker. Matt was taken into custody again before being released on bond.

37:35 What woman is okay with that? And obviously she was, but yeah, it's hard to imagine, Okay, kill your wife and then we can be together. I'm okay with them. I'm sure I'll never do it again. They had the indictment, but they needed more detail from Vanessa to ensure a conviction. She was still reticent when Rodriguez interviewed her after the grand jury testimony. She finally admitted that the relationship with Matt had been sexual, but still claimed that it hadn't started until after Carrie died. Rodriguez kept pushing and finally got her to admit they did have sex once before Carrie died. Rodriguez interviewed her one more time over Labor Day weekend of two thousand and nine. She finally seemed to realize that her only choice was to open up and come clean. She talked to Rodriguez for three hours and admitted the affair with Matt started months before Carrie's death.

38:27 By late February, Matt had begun planning how to kill Carrie and talked openly about his plans with Vanessa. He started talking about things he could do. He said that, you know, she took sleeping pills every night, so maybe he could make it look like she overdosed on sleeping pills. He talked initially about maybe putting something in a milkshake, because he said she liked milkshake, so he was thinking about maybe putting sleeping medication in there and having her drink that. He talked about making it look like she'd hung herself, maybe having her hang out somewhere and leaving a note making it look like she'd hung herself. He talked about tampering with the brakes of her car. He had talked about maybe doing a dry by shooting. And one night, maybe a week or so after that, after he talked about tampering with her breaks she was late.

39:20 He said that the night before she was late coming back home from teaching college, and he said he started to get excited, thinking maybe she really did have a wreck and he wouldn't have to do anything. I'm so bothered by them having these discussions about the best fighting to kill Carrie, who. I don't did Vanessa believe that Carrie was a horrible person. I mean, even if she I think she did believe that, even if. She was a horrible person. Exactly, even if she was, that does not give justification for murder. Matt told Vanessa beforehand that he was going to do it that Friday night. She said that he bought the sexual enhancement capsules on the internet. Knowing that Carrie was willing to do whatever it took to try to rescue the marriage. He emptied the contents of the capsules and filled them with crushed ambient. They drank some wine coolers, and then he handcuffed Carrie to the bad as a form of foreplay. Again, he knew she was willing to try anything. After a little while, she fell asleep from the ambient, he said.

40:20 Then, whenever he did that, he said, he kissed her on the forehead and either I don't know which way said he either said, give Cassidy a hug for me, or give Cassidy. A kiss for me. Then he said he got the pillow and put it over her face. Next he said that he thought she was dead, so he stopped. And then I don't know how long, he said, she wasn't breathing. A couple of seconds later, she just took one big gasp for air, and that he said, oh shit. And then he showed me his hand. He said he put the pell hell on her face. But then he said he did this with his hand where her nose was, where her nose and mouth where he said he did this area tighter so he would be sure to suffocate her.

41:10 Such a chilling, chilling story, you know, so so horrible. Oh my god. The prosecution was pleased that they now had what they believed to be the truth from Vanessa, but they still wanted some physical evidence to corroborate her story. The jury would likely look at her testimony with skepticism because she had lied for so long. Her mention of them feeding Carrie drugs in a milkshake jogged their memory. Looking back at the emails between Matt and Carrie, they found the one from the day before the seventh anniversary of Cassidy's death, where Matt suggested making Carrie a special milkshake with extra chocolate syrup. Indeed, Vanessa said that Matt had mixed the ambient into a milkshake that night, but Carrie said it tasted bad and wouldn't drink it. That lended credibility to Vanessa's story, hopefully it would be enough to convince a jury.

42:00 After hearing the whole story from Vanessa, the DA considered prosecuting her as well. She was very much in the loop on Matt's plans to kill Carrie and did nothing to stop it, but they decided not to. First, they didn't have any evidence that she actively participated in Carrie's murder, and second, they really needed Vanessa's help if they were going to convict Matt. Before the trial, Matt met with his lawyer, Guy James Gray, and admitted that he had lied about his relationship with Vanessa. It had been sexual. Remember that Gray valued trust and tried to only represent people that he believed to be innocent. He had believed in Matt, but now the trust was broken and Gray was furious. He filed a motion asking to be taken off the case, saying there was a serious breach of confidence with his client. Getting new lawyers would delay the trial by months. So the judge denied Gray's motion. He would be forced to represent a client that he no longer trusted. Gray still said that he did his best, but he avoided even speaking to Matt after that unless he had to, which is just kind of wild to think about. So your lawyer basically is like, I don't want to represent you anymore, and the judge said you have to, which you know, if you put yourself in Matt's shoes, I know it's hard to do but that can't be a good feeling knowing that your lawyer doesn't like you, doesn't want to talk to you.

43:18 So Matt didn't have the decision to fire him. No, it wasn't an option. Wow. The trial was called to order on Wednesday, January thirteenth, twenty ten. The prosecution's case admittedly was not the strongest. The investigation was botched from the beginning, and so much evidence had been lost. The lynchpin of their case was Vanessa Bulls, who had lied repeatedly for years, and as it turns out, was actively involved in the plans to kill Carrie. The defense's goal was to convince the jury that Carrie was depressed. A doctor had prescribed an antidepressant to Carrie just days before her death. Carrie wrote in her journals about her struggles, although to be fair, most of those writings were from six or seven years before she died, not long after losing her baby girl in a strange way. The shoddy police work was a key part of their defense as well. They would argue that because the police didn't do their job initially, there was unfortunately no way the jury could know for sure what happened.

44:17 Vanessa Bull's testimony was the big moment that everyone was waiting for. She recounted how their relationship started. One time I was sitting by myself in the church. It was before the service started, when no one else had gotten there. My dad was doing the sound check. He came in and he just sat down, started talking to me, you know, just casual, Oh how are you, started asking me things about my divorce, and started telling that you looked at my daughter, and I said, whoever finds you is going to be a lucky man. Soon he started dropping hints. Sometime in December. I don't remember what the conversation was, but I was talking to someone about when you guys starting to call me, you know, but I'm getting a divorce. I don't know if I can really feel like I can date again. And he obviously overheard because later he came by and was kind of smiling. He said, Oh, don't date other guys, just date your pastor, and kind of smiled, and so I just kind of threw back another comment like oh yeah, haha, laughing, thinking that he was just joking.

45:12 What a what a funny joke. Then he got even more. Direct after that. There was there was some kind of a church pot luck. I want to say it was a Christmas pot luck that we had. I'm not positive though, And I was outside against some food and he started walking down the hallway. Everyone else was in the recreation area eating and he kind of motioned for me to walk down that way. I did, and he goes, will you really? I said, will you will? I really? What he said, will you really date your pastor? And I just I didn't say anything. I just kind of looked at him. He said, well, he said, I've had a vasectomy, so I can't get you pregnant. Also, I don't have any STDs. And then I said have you done that before?

45:56 And he kind of laughed and he said no comment. Then he started laughing again, said she's completely clueless. He said I did it one. Time at True at Seminary while he was a ministerial student there. He said, she had on her. Then I cheated on her a couple of times in Dallas, things of that nature. I think hearing all this is super interesting because it's just it gives you a glimpse into Matt's approach to try to pick up women, and it's just how does how did this work? Ever? For anybody you know. I mean, he's gross, he's and not that it matters, but she's a beautiful Vanus is a beautiful woman, and Matt just looks like your dog's butt. Yeah, pretty much as we've heard from other people. Matt loved talking badly about Carrie.

46:38 He said she was a horrible mother, said that she made the girls cry all the time. He said he did everything for them except for do their hair. He said Carrie actually did did the girl's hair, but he said other than that that they were always upset, that she was a horrible mother, and that she never he never did, she never did anything. I think her excuse for why Matt was able to take advantage of her was because she said she was young and naive and going through a difficult time. I was buying into everything. He was complete and still is a manipulative liar who took me my vulnerable state and made me believe everything he said.

47:22 She then told the story that we heard earlier about how Matt talked about his plans to kill Carrie, and she gave all the details that he shared with her. After it was done, she said that he chose the movie When a Man Loves a woman, not because it was the movie they saw on the first date, but because it was about a mother who treated her children badly, which reminded him of Carrie. The next time Vanessa saw Matt was on Wednesday, five days after he killed Carrie. I got there, I couldn't believe he'd actually gone through it. And first before he told me the story, he said, you know you're stuck with me, right because you knew you knew about it, so you're just you're just as much guilty. And God is a forgiving god. He'll forgive you for knowing about this as he has forgiven me.

48:09 And he stated also that if I were to ever say anything that no one would believe me because he was a preacher. Vanessa and Matt's relationship continued, but Vanessa claimed that she wasn't in love with him. We're never really in a relationship. I think I was more. I was more worried about myself than because not only had I known about this and not done the right thing, and truth. Who wouldn't believe me? He was a preacher, And so I felt like I was stuck. And I thought, as long as I didn't care about being in love anymore, I just wanted to be safe. I know that sounds ironic, that I was like, as long as someone's good to me, I down care about being in love, care about being attracted to someone, because I wasn't in love with him, I wasn't attracted to him. I just ironically felt that I would be safe that he was a preacher, even though he killed his wife.

49:14 Logic's a little hard to follow there. She wanted to be safe, so of course, be with the man who killed his wife. As time went on, Vanessa said that she started feeling ashamed of her part in it, and that she started to fear Matt. When she dumped him, he was outraged, saying, I killed my wife for you, and now you're leaving me. She spoke with him one last time after the breakup. When Matt called her to check in on her, Vanessa described it as the creepiest phone call she's ever had. Then I just told him that, I said, I'm going to hang up, and after I do, I'm calling the Hue Pity and the Dunels investigators and tell him that you called me. And he said, well, the whole time he was completely calm. He said, well, if you feel like you need to do that, okay, like nothing had happened.

50:02 And then. I told me and I said, you really need to turn herself in or I'm gonna tell. What you did. And he said, better not do that. In that creepy tone. He said, Essa, you really better not do that. And I but. And that's when I started crying. And then he said, well, hopefully after this is all over, I can give you a hug. And I hung up the phone. That's so creepy. You better not do that. Yeah, just I can just picture it. Oh chilling. Do we question the reliability of Vanessa's testimony at all?

50:45 I question it for sure, and I'm sure the jury questioned it as well. I mean, she she had lied a lot, and you know, yeah, she was in according to her even she was in on the whole planning. So yeah, yeah, can you really trust her? And I think that was the prosecution's fear, too, is that the jury would not see her as reliable. She paints herself, you know, not in the best lights. So and one last clip of Vanessa. She also described how fearful she had been of Matt starting from when he was released on bond up until the trial. Definitely he's possibly well, I know he's killed one person. I think he's killed two people. What's another notch in the lipstick case. Not only that, it can put them behind bars where he can't hurt anybody again, including me.

51:28 This is doing nothing good for me, is making me look bad. I could possibly lose my job because of this. Ever since he got released from jail. I sleep with a crystal nail fall. Next to my bed. I had nightmares three nights ago that he came and killed me before I testified. Yes, I am scared of him, but I'm saying things. Right right now. On cross examination, Gray got Vanessa flustered and confused. She did contradict herself several times. She also didn't show much remorse and didn't really act like she had done anything wrong. It was definitely a knockout performance, but the question was would the jury buy her story or not. From the beginning of the trial, Matt's lawyer said he expected Matt to testify. People who knew Matt also expected it, But when it came time for the defense to put on their case, Gray only called one witness, a forensic scientist, who testified that there was a one in oneenty twenty nine chance that Vanessa had touched the Unison bottle. It was really kind of pointless to even call this one expert.

52:29 If Matt had testified, the prosecution planned on having him demonstrate with a one hundred and ninety seven pound dummy how he could have called nine one one, moved Carrie's body from the bed to the floor while on the phone, dressed her in a T shirt and panties, performed CPR, and greeted the empts at the door when they arrived, all within the span of a four minute nine one one call. Gray may have heard about this strategy by the prosecution and knew that it would be a disaster for his client. The case went to the jury, who started deliberating just after two in the after noon. While the jury was out, there was a rumor that the school where Vanessa was currently teaching had put her on administrative leave. It turned out to be true. Around nine thirty that evening, the jury came back with their verdict guilty of murder. The sentencing hearing took place the day after the verdict was read. In this case, the jury would decide Matt's sentence, and it could range from probation to life in prison probation. Iah, isn't it crazy that they don't have more sentencing guidelines. The death penalty was off the table because Texas law limits the death penalty to cases involving either a second felony like burglary, rape or multiple murders, or a crime that involves special circumstances, for example killing an off duty cop or firefighter, or a child under six. While Matt's history of sexually assaulting women was not allowed as part of the trial, it was fair game. During the sentencing hearing, one woman after another took the stand to tell the jury how Matt had violently assaulted them. The final witness was Laura Mueller

54:02 formerly Laura Wilson, who flew in from New York to finally have her story heard and to hold Matt Baker accountable for the trauma that he had caused her nineteen years earlier. I get emotional because all these women took the stand, and it just felt really cathartic that they were able to finally tell their story and be heard. The jury deliberated for two and a half hours and came back with their sentencing recommendation. Matt hadn't spoken during the entire trial, but he got the chance to say a few words before the judge handed down the sentence. I truly believe in my innocence. I believe the jury made a mistake in this. I'm during legal reason why you should not be sentenced.

54:47 The sentence of the court that you beconfined in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for a term of sixty five years. Sixty five years, I like it. During the victim impact statements, Linda Duel got the chance to address her former son in law directly, and she made the most of the opportunity. I just I admire Linda so much and all these people that really helped get justice. I want to play the first couple of minutes of her comments. I'm talking to you, Matt today. Okay, you haven't looked at me in almost four years. Can you look at me today for a little while. Okay. We were so blessed to have Carrie in our lives for thirty one years.

55:33 And how she loved us. She loved her brothers, me, her father, her extended family, and Matt. Matt, she loved you, but more than anything, she'd loved her girls. Her love for Kinsey Cassidine, Grace was engraved on her soul, her soul, and then you took her from his, Matt. You discarded her like she was yesterday's trash.

56:19 You murdered the mother of your children. And I still can't wrap my head or my heart around this. And you left so many other victims. The people in your churches who want to believe that the person leading them truly is a man of God. Your family, your family, Matt, your friends. The people who believed in you. You really can't look at me, can you. But the most tragic victims, Matt, The most magic victims, Kensy and Grace, those sweet, sweet babies.

57:08 You took their mother and then you fed them lies, Matt. You fed them lies, and then you erased her from their lives. So powerful, Yeah, it's so brave. The fight for justice was over, Linda, Jim, Nancy, Kay and Lindsay had worked tirelessly for almost four years and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, but their fight wasn't over. There was still Kenzie and Grace to think about. Before his conviction, Matt had signed over guardianship of the girls to his parents, Oscar and Barbara Baker. During the Duelan's first visitation with the girls after the trial ended, it was clear that both girls, now thirteen and nine, blame their maternal grandparents for their father being taken away from them. Kenzie begged them, quote, all I want to say is that I do know.

58:00 I want to move to Waco. If you really want us to be happy, leave us in Currville. Linda and Jim wanted nothing more than to make Kensi and Grace happy, but they worried that being raised by the Bakers would not be the best thing for them. Linda reached out to Barbara to try and collaborate on what would be best for the girls, but she was ignored. It was clear to the Dulans that the Bakers were doing everything they could to ensure the girls would turn against them. About a month after the trial ended, the Dulans filed for custody. As you know, the system moved slowly, so months passed and then a year. During this time, Kensie and Grace continue to live in Kerrville, with the Bakers doing well in school and making friends. An independent therapist was appointed by the court to assess the Dulans, the Bakers, and the girls, and an attorney was appointed to represent the girl's interest. The custody trial finally began in July twenty eleven, a year and a half after Matt Baker was convicted of murder. Kensie was now fifteen and Grace was eleven. The girls appointed attorney argued that Kerrie and Grace should still be with the Bakers. They didn't want to live with the Dulans. They were happy with the Bakers.

59:13 They had friends and a support system in Kerrville. They had already left their mother, their father, and a sister. The attorney argued that another disruption would further traumatize them. It became apparent during the hearing that even in prison, their dad was still a big part of the girl's lives. He called three times a week and wrote them letters regularly. In his letters, he gave them false hope, saying he would be home soon. Matt had filed an appeal and said he was convinced that he would soon be set free and it was good to give the girls hope. In one letter, he asked Kensie if she would be pen pels with a fellow inmate, another convicted murderer. Kensie balked at this, and Matt admitted during the custody hearing that this was a lapse in judgment on him his part and some letters maturge the girls to stick together and protect themselves when they were at the Dulans, and also he coached them on what to say to the judge if they wanted to stay on Kerrville with Oscar and Barbara. Emails from Barbara to her son revealed that she was trying to turn Kensie and Grace against Linda and Jim. She told Matt how she was refusing to communicate with Linda and how Kenzie was trying to sway the therapist. This drives me crazy when this happens, Like, can someone put the interests of the kids right. It's not about your ego, it's not about you know, this false relationship they want them to have with their father.

1:00:40 It's just so sad. Overall, the situation didn't look good for the Dulans. The courts generally try not to disrupt children in these situations anymore than needed. The fact that the girls had been with the Bakers for a year and a half, coupled with their court appointed attorney's recommendation didn't bode well for the Duels, but Linda and Jim had done their homework. They decided that the best way to understand what type of environment the girls would be brought up in would be to speak with others who had been there. In the case of the Bakers, they had fostered forty nine different children over an eight year span in the seventies and early eighties. The Duelans hired an investigator to track down the former foster children. They were able to locate thirty of them, and twenty agreed to speak with the investigator. What they found was shocking.

1:01:30 They heard story after story about sexual and emotional abuse these foster children had suffered at the hands of Oscar and Barbara Baker. Six of them would end up testifying at the custody hearing. Starting on day two. Lorie Harden testified that she had stayed with the Bakers for two years as a troubled teen. During that time, she said that Barbara Baker was aggressive and degrading, regularly belittling her foster children to make them feel inadequate. There were two foster children who were mentally challenged, and Laurie claimed that they were favorite targets of Barbara. She also testified that Oscar regularly made sexually inappropriate comments and one time stroked her leg and buttocks. Connie Mefocheray testified about Oscar kissing her and putting his tongue in her mouth. She was twelve at the time. Sherry Perkins lived with the Bakers from age ten until she was eighteen. She had been diagnosed at the time with having the mental capacity of a seven year old. She sat on the stand that Oscar touched her inappropriately and inserted his fingers into her vagina.

1:02:40 Barbara would laugh at her, calling her names like porky, pig, fatso stupid and retarded. Sherry actually reported these incidents to her caseworker. Their response, they placed her in a psychiatric hospital for a week and then returned her to the Baker household. He's poor foster kids. After that, she never spoke up again because she didn't want to go back to what she referred to as the crazy hospital. She was asked on cross examination why she later visited the Bakers even after she had moved out and was living on her own. In a heartbreaking statement, she said, because I thought of them as my parents. Tracy Owens lived with the Bakers from age seven to nine. She said that Oscar began touching her inappropriately while bathing her, and that gradually progressed to him making her perform oral sex on him and then to full intercourse. She said that he also passed her around to other men in the community who sexually abused her.

1:03:41 Oh, his stories are so horrible, So horrible. The Bakers found one formal foster child to testify in their defense. James Hodges notice It's a male, said that he never saw anything inappropriate happen during his time living with the Bakers, and that the six women who testified were all lying, although he wasn't able to explain how he could have known that. We should note that Oscar and Barbara Baker have denied all of these stories of abuse. The therapist who had been appointed to evaluate both the Duelan and Baker households, recommended that Jim and Linda be given sole managing conservatorship over the girls. She said that she believed the current environment the girls were living in was unhealthy, that the Bakers were making a concerted effort to drive a wedge between the girls and the Dulans.

1:04:29 Was there any evidence of any abuse. Not that. She said the girls had what is called parental alienation syndrome. This occurs when a child is manipulated into turning against a parent or grandparent in this case, and believing everything they do is wrong. On a scale of one to ten, she said the degree of alienation with Kenzie and Grace was somewhere in the eight to ten range, and that is most certainly a form of child abuse. She was asked, shouldn't the girls wishes to say where the Baker's be taken into consideration. She replied, quote, I don't know of any adolescents who know what's best for them. True. Lastly, Kensie took the stand to express her wish to stand Kerville with the Bakers. She was asked how she went from referring to the Dulan's home as her favorite place in a note she wrote in two thousand and five, the year before her mother died, to saying I hate Linda and Jim. Only a couple of years later, she said it was because Linda and Jim took her dad away from her. The attorney pointed out that it was the state of Texas that tried their dad and a jury that convicted him. Kensie replied, quote, I don't feel they love me anymore. They don't show it like they used to. The jury deliberated for a day before returning their decision. That's such a hard thing for a jury to weigh in on. The girls would live in way Go with Linda and Jim Doolan.

1:05:54 What do you think about that decision? U, I. Mean, obviously I think it was the best decision for them. It must have been super hard, especially for Kenzie because she was fifteen and fifteen, if you recall, it's like the hardest year of your life. Yeah, so to have to you know, be uprooted and to lose your mom and lose your dad and listen to your baby sister like, yeah, mar Kenzie is I mean, she's I mean, they've both been through up but Kenzie at that age is that's such a critical age. Yeah, And really eleven two is also like a super critical age too. Yeah, for sure, that's a great transition because that that was actually where the Catherine Casey book ended. And to me, it was it was good, That's what I thought was the right thing to do, but it also was kind of a cliffhanger because I'm like, well, the girls were really opposed to this, and like, how did that turn out?

1:06:40 So luckily? Him and Linda seem they. Seem like really really nice, good people. So I'm happy to say that based on some Facebook slew thing that I did, it seems like Kenzie and Grace are both doing well and they remained very close to Linda Dulan and the rest of the duel In family. Jim Doolan sadly passed away twenty fourteen. Both of the girls are in their twenties now. They both post occasionally about their memories of their mom, along with posts that are loving and appreciative of Linda and Jim. I haven't seen any mentions of Barbara and Oscar Baker, and they're not connected. The girls aren't connected with Barbara on Facebook. Oscar also passed away in twenty twelve, so I'm not sure if and for how long those relationships continued after the custody battle.

1:07:28 One year, on Linda's birthday, Kenzie wrote about her quote, I don't think it'll come as any surprise, but she's kind of a badass. She is hilarious, she is kind, she is incredibly smart, but also works harder than anyone I have ever met. She is the definition of resilience. She is a caregiver, but is also honest when she is the one in need. Sometimes I just watch her in awe and think how lucky I am that that is who I get to look up to and learn from. I come from resilient stock. A couple of years ago, on Carrie's birthday, Grace wrote quote, you were a light in the darkness. You loved Kensie and I with your whole heart. Your laugh was contagious. Your smile could light up a room. I wish I could have had more years with you, but sadly that was not what happened.

1:08:14 You were taken from this world too soon. I used to cry every year that your birthday came around. Now I celebrate. I know that's what you would want. I try my best to be the woman you raised me to be. I am succeeding. I laugh hard, love unconditionally, and smile. People tell me that my smile is just like yours. It's one of the many things you blessed me with. I miss you more than words can describe. Both Kenzie and Grace seem like lovely, well adjusted, courageous and strong women. I'm sure their mom is looking down on them and is proud. Rest in peace, Carrie. So we've had a lot of discussion along the way, and I know this has been a long three part episode and we're already kind of running along as well, so I didn't want to stretch it too much longer. But one thing I'm really in to talk about with you and get your take on is what is wrong with Matt?

1:09:05 Like he something is wrong with him. I know that sounds obvious, but. So he didn't have a psychological evaluation. I never read about any psychological evaluation with him, but just the fact that he seemed to have no emotions when his daughter died, when his wife died, when he's calling nine to one one just all the things he said are just so like you would tell people that Carrie was a horrible mother right after she died, and he just seemed to have no like awareness or compass. Yeah, we do this every week, and we probably shouldn't. We diagnose people with different psychological conditions, and you know, we don't have the tools, we don't know the people, so.

1:09:47 We haven't done a in depth interview with. Right And It's been a long time since I've been in college, so but that's it. I'm still going to have an opinion. It's possible that he had antisocial personality disorders. Some of the markers of anti social personality disorder include deceitfulness, hostility, irresponsibility, manipulativeness, risk taking behaviors, aggression, impulsivity, irritability or lack of restraint, and their mood tends to be angry, bored, or generally one of discomfort. Do you think that sounds like a lot of that sounds like mad. Yeah. The deceitfulness thing is interesting because I didn't really talk about it, but he did lie a lot, Like people that he worked with would notice that he would just lie about things that didn't didn't really matter that much, but he would just lie really easily.

1:10:39 I have known people like that, and it's always very strange, like, why would you make that story up? Right? You know, it doesn't benefit you to me that story up. You had mentioned maybe he was a psychopath or a sociopath, and again, those terms are thrown around a lot, and they do have a lot of characteristics in common, including lack of remorse, or empathy for others, lack of guilt or bil to take responsibility for their actions, a disregard for laws or social conventions, and an inclination to violence. The difference between sociopaths and psychopaths are believed, I believe is sociopaths are made and psychopaths are born. Sociopaths tend to act more on impulse, and psychopaths tend to would plan things out. Oh interesting, and you demonstrated that men plan things out. He planned things out way in advance.

1:11:29 Yeah. Wow. Interesting. You have to wonder, like, how long had he been planning and killing her for just like something that he'd been wanting to do for years. Well, it seems like from what we can tell it was it was after he met Vanessa, So it was like probably three months before it happened when he started thinking about it, But who knows, he may have thought about it before. One thing that drives me nuts with these typically men is that they want to dispose of their mate and find another mate, and they think it's their life is going to be completely different. I have a different mate, right, and you know it's like it's only a matter of time until that relationship goes bad too, Yeah, exactly. Do you think he would have killed again? I think he absolutely would have killed again if he had gotten remarried and found that his new wife was inconvenient for whatever reason. I think he looked at people as if they were disposable and yeah, it's horrible. Well, thanks for hanging in there with us. I know that was a lot. I know it was. It was emotionally exhausting, I think for us, just yeah, going through all that.

1:12:29 But I can you. Say, you're working on an airplane and you started. Doing up at the airplane. Yeah, it's hard. I'm proud of you. You did it. It's hard to get through these sad stories sometimes. And I can tell that you are emotionally like, I don't know, sometimes just like we feel responsible for the victims in a way, like telling their stories and yeah, yeah, that can be hard, and you just get attached to them and you care about them. Yeah, and you really want to do a good job. Yeah, well you did. You did a great job. This case will be publishing on September thirtieth for most people, and then the next day after that is October first. Yeah, you know what that is.

1:13:17 I do know what that is that's the day that you told me I could put Halloween decorations up exactly because I married a psychopath who thinks that you can't decorate for Halloween till October. For thirty one days, there's plenty of days to have Halloween decorations up. Well, when can you put because I have like ball decorations and then Halloween decorations. I don't know. Can you put up ball decorations? I can't, I shouldn't even I shouldn't even wait, do you want to give? You? Just write a guideline of what I can and can't do that I can adhere to. Okay, all right, I shouldn't have weighed in, because I really the whole decorating thing is too It's too much for me to wrap my brain around.

1:13:59 So the thing that's hard, though, is like from the time we put up like fall decorations, our house is decorated September, October, November, December. So that's you pretty much we go from one season to the next. I don't think we used to decorate for Christmas until later, but I've started doing it earlier, as a lot of people have done. But I'm sorry, I regret that is not what we were not. October first is the two year anniversary of a little podcast called Love Mary Kill. Two years. Two years, I can't believe. I can't believe it. We've been doing it for that long. Yeah, and that we have not missed a week. We've published an episode every week. Yeah, and that is something that we are very proud of because we don't talk about it much, but there's been a lot of times when we're like, we just can't do it, we can't get it together, whether it's like because of our health, because of our travel schedule, because of just life. So yeah, we've done one hundred and four weeks in a row, and I'm really proud of that, and I know you are too.

1:14:58 I am proud of it too. We're so grateful for some of you guys have been around for a long time. Some of you guys are newer listers. I love when newer listers message us and they'll be like, I listen to all your episodes in two weeks, and that is dedication. That is dedication. First of all, if you can get through the early episodes, congratulations, you deserve a medal for that. Because I want to think that we've improved. I think, Yeah, I don't think we really knew what we were doing when we started. We still don't. Still I think you do. I still I'm still figuring out. But anyway, you're a heartful, sincere Thank you for listening. Yeah, we we appreciate it so much and we would not still be doing this if it wasn't for all of you that are listening and that send us.

1:15:41 Your feet back, a lot of great encourage. Yeah, it's really really warms our heart. And some helpful criticisms a couple of things along the way. Yeah, but we don't want to dwell on that though. Absolutely not. I mean it's you know, Yeah, we're grateful. Well, we do love to connect with you. Also follow us on Instagram or Facebook. You can find us on social media. Email us at lovemarykillat gmail dot com, and consider supporting us on Patreon dot com slash Lovemrykill. We have one tier five dollars a month for early ad free access and a monthly bonus episode.

1:16:23 Very good and if you haven't, maybe you could consider leaving us a five star review on Apple or Spotify. You would really appreciate it. Until next time, don't kill your wife and don't kill your husband A companion the