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	Editorial: Matt Baker Trial Yielded Many Lessons, Including the Power of Tenacity Waco Tribune-Herald January 24, 2010 http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2010/01/24/01242010wacfulleditorial.html The Matt Baker trial is over and the 38-year-old former Central Texas pastor begins a 65-year sentence for the murder of his wife, Kari, whose mysterious death in Hewitt in 2006 spurred a virtual crusade in our community mounted by her family and friends. Evidence of it could be seen in the courthouse parking lot this past week: bumper stickers that read “Justice for Kari.” If there’s a big lesson to come from the trial — that is, one that goes beyond those stemming from the basic tenets carved into the Ten Commandments — it’s that one should never underestimate the resourcefulness and diligence of private citizens when a wrong must be righted. Even when Hewitt police and Justice of the Peace Billy Martin overlooked crucial details in Kari Baker’s death — initially ruling it a suicide and consigning it to the files with little investigation and no autopsy — Kari’s family and friends persevered. By continuing to press police, county officials and the news media, Linda and Jim Dulin and their allies succeeded when others might have surrendered the cause and collapsed in overwhelming grief. They enlisted private investigators and attorneys to do what the system initially failed to do. For the past four years, the Dulins remained tenacious even when met with indifference and disbelief. Slowly, gradually, others — including the police — became convinced that, yes, there was enough evidence to reopen this case. And last week, the Dulins and Matt Baker had their day in court. Thanks to the openness and honesty of Judge Ralph Strother’s district court and the hard work of news media, we were able to follow along and learn for ourselves what happened. For Baker, it was the end of a life of duplicity and predatory behavior that culminated in murder. For the Dulins, it was a bitter victory — an affirmation of justice regarding the death of their beloved daughter. Other lessons emerged in the trial. The failure by Hewitt police and Justice of the Peace Martin to fully investigate Kari Baker’s death more closely in the beginning should remind all law enforcement and JPs of the need to be skeptical of initial conclusions, to question rather than assume, to give full rein to all possibilities instead of cavalierly dismissing them out of hand. The trial’s punishment phase also reminds us that no boss, no manager, no company owner should tolerate the sort of sexual advances that testimony shows Matt Baker made to women, including a young woman at Baylor University when she and Baker were student trainers there 18 years ago. A lesson, too, is surely to be found in Vanessa Bulls, the 27-year-old parishioner pursued by Pastor Matt Baker, even as he contemplated killing his wife. The fact Baker told her that he planned to kill his wife then told Bulls afterward how he did so, can only make us wonder why she never had the sense to tell somebody. Her gripping testimony swept all other evidence aside, especially as she detailed Matt Baker’s account to her of specifically how he drugged and smothered to death his wife. Is Bulls, too, guilty? You can decide. Dr. Diana Garland, dean and professor of social work at Baylor University, argues in Sunday Focus today that Bulls may well have been an unwitting victim herself in the final analysis. Garland’s case is well worth your time. Meanwhile, the trial is done and our focus now turns elsewhere. But the Matt Baker trial should linger in our minds, and not just because of the horrific murder of a 31-year-old teacher and mother of two. This trial displays the depths to which each of us can fall in personal responsibility; the disturbing failures possible in intricate systems designed to detect wrongdoing; and the triumph of ordinary citizens when they’re aroused and have just cause.
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