A Preacher's Secret, Part 1

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Speaker 5 Carrie

Speaker 5 loved Matt from the very beginning and he seemed to adore her. There were times when it was very difficult being the wife of a pastor, but Carrie was very good at it.

Speaker 5 I'm Carrie's mother. I'm Linda Dooland.

Speaker 7 More than anything, Carrie loved her girls.

Speaker 5 Loved them.

Speaker 8 I think she was a very loving, caring person.

Speaker 8 Family was first for her, but I also know now Cassidy consumed her.

Speaker 8 The loss of Cassidy consumed her thoughts.

Speaker 8 After Cassidy passed away, she couldn't go to sleep. She could not go to sleep and so she started taking sleeping pills.
But I never saw it as suicidal.

Speaker 8 I saw it more as she's hurting, she's missing her daughter.

Speaker 8 It was right at 12 o'clock by the time I made it home. I had that eerie feeling when I walked in the room that something's not right here.
I don't think my wife is okay.

Speaker 8 And I go to her side and I touch her and she doesn't move. She doesn't respond.
And I call out her name and there's no response. And I immediately pick up the phone and call 911.

Speaker 5 Hey, with 911, we have an emergency.

Speaker 8 My wife is laying in the bed and her lips are blue. There was no pulse.
There was nothing. I'm on the phone.
Is she conscious? No, she's not. No, no, no, no, she's not breathing at all.

Speaker 8 I was gone maybe 40 minutes. And during that time, I I don't know what happened to her.
The police officer brings me the note.

Speaker 8 I read the first line, and I handed it back because I said, I can't read it right now. My first thought at that time was, her parents need to be here.

Speaker 5 Matt tells us that Carrie committed suicide. I'm thinking, how can that be?

Speaker 11 I talked to her, and she was

Speaker 5 just in a really good mood.

Speaker 8 I never thought in a million years that my wife would do this. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.
She was my best friend.

Speaker 5 I found it unbelievable, but I accepted it.

Speaker 8 I mean, what was the alternative? My name is Matt Baker, and I have been accused of murdering my wife.

Speaker 12 I'm Erin Moriarty, the preacher's wife.

Speaker 8 I know if she was sitting here, she would look at you and say, he didn't do anything. Leave him alone.

Speaker 5 But she can't.

Speaker 12 Ever since Matt Baker's wife died suddenly at the age of 31, the Baptist preacher has lived under a cloud of suspicion. Is he an innocent man unfairly accused, as his followers and friends believe?

Speaker 12 Daddy, what are we having for supper? Or is he hiding a terrible dark secret?

Speaker 8 In your name we pray. Amen.

Speaker 8 It's so improbable. It's not who I am.
I loved my wife. I never hurt her a day in my life.

Speaker 12 Carrie was a popular third-grade teacher. She and Matt have been together since meeting his counselors at a Baptist day camp in Waco in 1994.

Speaker 8 I would have been 23 and she was 20. I met her and I thought, this is the person for me.

Speaker 5 That was her senior picture in high school.

Speaker 12 I mean, she's beautiful. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Yeah, she is. Linda and Jim Doolan remember their daughter was instantly smitten with the Baylor University senior.

Speaker 5 The thing she kept talking about was, Mom, this guy's a really good Christian.

Speaker 12 Just three months after meeting, Matt and Carrie suddenly announced they were getting married. Did you like him?

Speaker 5 My daughter loved him and I saw him through her eyes.

Speaker 12 By their first anniversary, Carrie was pregnant with daughter Kenzie.

Speaker 5 She was so excited. She really was a terrific mom.

Speaker 12 A second daughter, Cassidy, followed a year and a half later.

Speaker 5 She loved her girls. You know, you know how you feel.
There are no words.

Speaker 12 But right after Cassidy's first birthday, doctors discovered a brain tumor and she was hospitalized.

Speaker 8 There'd be days that it looked really good, prognosis was good, and then turned around and went right back downhill.

Speaker 12 How did Carrie deal with that?

Speaker 5 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 5 She was just there with her baby, just did not leave her.

Speaker 12 In late February 1999, after a 90-day bedside vigil, Cassidy was well enough to go home.

Speaker 8 I always assumed that she would pull through this and fight through this.

Speaker 12 But just after midnight on March 22nd, Cassidy was rushed to the emergency room. This time, doctors couldn't save her.

Speaker 8 To sit there and struggle that far, to come what I thought was so far, to watch her die.

Speaker 8 You know, that was devastating. It really was a very hard, hard thing to cope with.

Speaker 12 Especially for Carrie. How hard did she take that death?

Speaker 5 Oh, incredibly hard. She lost her child and she grieved hard.

Speaker 12 A grief counselor helped Carrie get through the first year and in 2000 a third daughter, Grace, was born. But Matt says his wife was never the same.

Speaker 8 I don't think it was a split second. All of a sudden she was completely different.
It was a gradual changing of the person. She had almost two personalities in a way.

Speaker 8 Not negative, but when she went to work, she had the ability to put issues behind her and focus on work.

Speaker 12 And the other personality?

Speaker 8 The other personality was a little bit more withdrawn at home.

Speaker 12 The way Matt tells it, he became Mr. Mom to Kenzie and Grace.

Speaker 8 So I typically gave them their bath, washed their hair, get them dressed, put them to bed, sing them their songs, and read them their books.

Speaker 12 And from the time Cassidy died, Matt says, Carrie relied on pills to sleep. What kind of sleeping pills? What would she take?

Speaker 8 Unisom.

Speaker 12 An over-the-counter sleep medication. But Matt says sometimes she borrowed something stronger from family and friends.

Speaker 8 I'm not even sure what the names would be, other sleeping pills, just to help her sleep, help her get a good night's sleep.

Speaker 12 And the toughest time for Carrie was always the March anniversary of Cassidy's death.

Speaker 8 It was always two or three weeks leading up to it. It's coming, it's coming.
I can't do this. I can't make it another year.
I can't do this again.

Speaker 12 In April 2006, seven years after Cassidy died, Matt says Carrie was still struggling with the loss. So he took her to the doctor, who diagnosed her as depressed and prescribed an antidepressant.

Speaker 8 And about that time, my wife started almost hyperventilating again in the office. Didn't like him saying anything about depression.
She would never agree that that could be a problem.

Speaker 12 As they left the clinic and headed onto the highway, Matt says Carrie had a meltdown.

Speaker 8 And I'm at about 45, 50 miles an hour, and she is hyperventilating, and she attempts to open the car door as we're driving down the road.

Speaker 12 Why?

Speaker 8 She said she needed to get out and get some air, to get some air, to get some air.

Speaker 12 He says he grabbed hold of her waistband until he could pull off the highway.

Speaker 12 Did you feel that those actions indicated that she was trying to kill herself?

Speaker 8 I didn't think suicide. I thought she just wanted fresh air and wasn't thinking.
She lost it for a second.

Speaker 12 Later that week on Friday, April 7th, Carrie had a crucial interview for a new job at the junior high. What was her mood like?

Speaker 8 Her mood that day was nervous.

Speaker 12 And after the interview, Matt says, Carrie didn't feel well.

Speaker 8 She wasn't laying over like this. It was just...

Speaker 8 Tired.

Speaker 7 I'm tired.

Speaker 8 I mean, just kind of exhausted.

Speaker 12 That evening, despite a queasy stomach, Matt says Carrie drank a wine cooler.

Speaker 8 She went to bed and off and on, dozing, off and on, watching TV. I'm in bed with her, taking care of the kids.

Speaker 12 At 10.30 with the kids in bed, Matt says Carrie asked him to gas up the car and rent a movie.

Speaker 8 And I thought, it's late. All right, but I'll do it.
You know, if your wife asks, you do what your wife asks. And so I got dressed and left the house a little after 11 o'clock.

Speaker 8 Oh, it's probably about two miles to the first gas station that I could fill up at.

Speaker 8 And got out, pumped the gas, went up to the movie place, rented the movie, and drove back home.

Speaker 12 When he returned around midnight, Matt says he found the bedroom door was locked.

Speaker 8 And so I go in and get the little screwdriver that could fit in there and I pop the button, open the door. She was naked in bed.
And I call her name and she doesn't respond.

Speaker 12 At 12.01 a.m., he called for help.

Speaker 8 And as I'm calling 911, I'm deciding I don't want them to see her naked, so I put her clothes on her.

Speaker 12 Matt says, at the same time he was on the phone, he was also moving Carrie to the floor where he began CPR. She's not breathing.
What are you thinking has happened to her?

Speaker 8 I wasn't processing at any point in time what had happened to her.

Speaker 12 Paramedics arrived within minutes, but it was too late. Carrie was dead.

Speaker 12 Police found an empty bottle of Unisom next to a note. I'm so sorry, it read.
I love you, Matt. I want to give Cassidy a hug.
I need to feel her again.

Speaker 12 It was all the evidence the small town police needed.

Speaker 8 The detective that night pulled me into the kitchen. He goes, well, she took her own life.
There's a note, there's pills, there's no signs of struggle. It's pretty obvious what happened.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 that point, my heart sunk. I couldn't believe it.
That was the first

Speaker 8 time for sure that's what they claimed it to be.

Speaker 5 We were truly in shock.

Speaker 5 It was almost like like we were in a trance.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 all I kept thinking about, all Jim kept thinking about was that we didn't have a daughter. Our daughter was gone.

Speaker 12 The county doesn't have a medical examiner, so police just described the case over the phone to a justice of the peace who determined that Carrie Baker died from an overdose of Unisom.

Speaker 12 No autopsy needed. Two days later, she was buried.

Speaker 12 And that might have been the end of this story, if not for a group of tenacious women.

Speaker 5 We wanted to clear Carrie's name.

Speaker 15 Matt was going around talking about what a depressed, suicidal person she was. We knew she wasn't.

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Speaker 17 She was just a very alive person all the time.

Speaker 8 And those girls, she had them going.

Speaker 12 You really miss her, don't you, Jim?

Speaker 12 As out of character as suicide seemed, Carrie Baker's parents, Jim and Linda Dooland, say they had no choice but to believe it.

Speaker 5 We kept trying to convince ourselves what other alternative was there.

Speaker 5 The idea that Matt could have taken her life was more horrible.

Speaker 12 But that's exactly what Linda's family thinks.

Speaker 5 He killed her.

Speaker 12 Linda's sisters, Nancy, Kay, and Jennifer, and niece niece Lindsay.

Speaker 6 I immediately thought Matt did it.

Speaker 12 You believe that?

Speaker 8 Oh yeah, with all my heart.

Speaker 5 Carrie loved her life. She loved her family.

Speaker 15 She would never have left those girls.

Speaker 12 From the start, they tried to convince Linda that Carrie's death needed to be investigated.

Speaker 14 She said, drop it, and we all just said, okay, okay. And then we all walked out together to the cars and we said, that's not happening.

Speaker 18 He could only say she called, you know, but no.

Speaker 12 Linda's younger sister Nancy says Matt's story about Carrie's last day simply didn't match anyone else's.

Speaker 6 He had said that day Carrie was sick.

Speaker 12 You don't believe that?

Speaker 15 No, people that saw her said she wasn't.

Speaker 12 And would a sick, tired Carrie ask Matt to put gas in the car and rent a movie? That makes sense?

Speaker 9 No, at 11 o'clock?

Speaker 12 And they certainly don't believe that if Carrie did commit suicide, that she would ever be found in the nude. Nothing seemed to make sense.
Not even the choice of the sleeping aid Unisom.

Speaker 5 She actually took a generic brand.

Speaker 14 She called it a sleepy time.

Speaker 5 She said her sleepy time pill.

Speaker 12 They also say that Carrie's unhappiness in the last weeks of her life wasn't about Cassidy.

Speaker 12 According to her former grief counselor, Carrie was worried about herself.

Speaker 14 And she said, I saw Carrie in therapy. She was afraid that her husband was having an affair and afraid that he was trying to kill her.

Speaker 12 That was just three days before Carrie died.

Speaker 12 And there's more. Linda's sisters began sharing secrets they had kept from her all these years.

Speaker 5 I didn't realize that no one in the family had liked him.

Speaker 12 They began to tell Linda about Matt's odd and even boorish behavior.

Speaker 14 He had come up behind my daughter and made some

Speaker 14 really inappropriate sexual comment to her.

Speaker 12 There were several unsettling incidents, like in 1996, when Carrie lived with Matt in this complex. Deanne Avilo says the preacher tried to pick up her 16-year-old daughter.

Speaker 18 He asked her, have you ever been kissed by a boy? She said yes, and he just suddenly grabbed her and kissed her right on the lips.

Speaker 12 At one church youth center, Matt was warned about his behavior with young women. He never seemed to stay long at any job.

Speaker 6 Every time he'd moved from a job, I would think

Speaker 6 he did something to someone.

Speaker 12 And there was this woman. Laura Wilson met Matt in 1991.

Speaker 11 Top the first one.

Speaker 12 When they were both student athletic trainers at Baylor University.

Speaker 12 One day she says they were cleaning an empty locker room when he suddenly grabbed her.

Speaker 11 He lifts me up off the floor and he sits on one of the benches with me on his lap.

Speaker 11 And that's when he begins running his hand up my thigh and between my legs.

Speaker 12 Matt denies ever touching Laura. Instead, he says he inadvertently scared her that day by turning out the lights.
Did you ever assault or harass any of these women?

Speaker 6 I did not, and...

Speaker 12 None. None.
So if these women say you did, they are lying. Correct.

Speaker 5 I wanted Matt to be okay. I wanted him to be a good man.

Speaker 5 But it didn't add up. Nothing adds up.

Speaker 12 Linda finally began to see Matt through her sister's eyes. But persuading the local police to reopen the investigation into Carrie's death was going to be far more difficult.

Speaker 15 They didn't do their job and they didn't take us serious.

Speaker 14 And I don't think we were asking them to believe that Carrie was murdered. We just wanted an investigation.

Speaker 12 The police had concluded that Carrie committed suicide.

Speaker 12 Only a few photographs were taken at the scene. The only evidence collected was the Unison bottle, the remaining pills, and the type suicide note.

Speaker 12 Why do you think the police were so willing to accept this as a suicide immediately?

Speaker 6 He's a pastor. He's a preacher.

Speaker 12 So what did you all do?

Speaker 5 We began an investigation.

Speaker 8 All of you?

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 12 Calling themselves Charlie's Angels.

Speaker 19 Linda was Charlie, and we were the angels.

Speaker 12 They began making phone calls.

Speaker 5 Did you talk to Kay or Jennifer?

Speaker 12 Following every lead

Speaker 12 and retracing Matt's movements the night Carrie died.

Speaker 6 We weren't going to give up.

Speaker 15 Somebody was going to listen to us.

Speaker 12 Their biggest discovery came unexpectedly

Speaker 12 when Linda took a look at Matt and Carrie's cell phone records.

Speaker 5 And before I opened it up, I just said a little prayer and I just said, okay, God, help me out here.

Speaker 5 I said, give me a sign. And I opened up the phone bell.

Speaker 10 And oh my gosh.

Speaker 12 The record showed 10 days after Carrie died,

Speaker 12 someone began using her cell phone. And who was using it?

Speaker 5 Vanessa Bowles. Matt had given it to Vanessa.

Speaker 12 Vanessa Bowles, a young woman who attended Matt's church. Weren't you talking a lot to this young woman? We often did.

Speaker 8 We did. We did often talk.

Speaker 12 And weren't you interested in her?

Speaker 8 I never thought of a relationship with her at all. That never was anything in the back of my mind.

Speaker 12 But phone records show almost 1,700 minutes of calls between Matt and Vanessa in just 10 days.

Speaker 5 Jim had highlighted on there and it looked like he got on the phone as soon as he took the girls to school and stayed on the phone with her most of the day. It was crazy.

Speaker 8 I needed a friend.

Speaker 8 I needed somebody.

Speaker 8 to look me in the face and say, I'm sorry, you lost your wife.

Speaker 12 But the records show Matt began calling Vanessa before Carrie died. Did you have an affair with Vanessa?

Speaker 8 Oh, no, I did not. There was never any relationship at all other than a friendship.

Speaker 12 Vanessa told the police they did begin dating, but only after Carrie's death.

Speaker 5 This is a man who has a very, very dark evil side.

Speaker 5 He was preying on other women.

Speaker 5 And then finally he found one who

Speaker 5 it looked like like something might go somewhere with.

Speaker 5 And I believe Carrie was in the way.

Speaker 12 Armed with a possible motive, Linda hired Bill Johnston, a dogged former federal prosecutor, and his team of investigators.

Speaker 5 All of a sudden, all the shock I'd been feeling, all this numbness, it was just like it just washed right off of me.

Speaker 5 And I thought, okay, Linda, we're going to find out what's going on here and after that

Speaker 5 we went into battle mode

Speaker 12 three months after Carrie Baker was laid to rest Her parents had her body removed from the grave and autopsied.

Speaker 12 What made you decide to exhume your daughter's body? That had to be a tough decision, wasn't it?

Speaker 5 Oh, yes, because we needed that information.

Speaker 12 Linda Doolan was determined to find out how her daughter died. Although the authorities ruled it a suicide, she suspected that Matt Baker was responsible.

Speaker 10 He's indicated he'll talk to anyone, and it'd be nice if he'd talked to us, too.

Speaker 12 Sure. Attorney Bill Johnston and his investigators found much of the evidence troubling.

Speaker 10 We never heard of a type suicide note, at least that needed a signature.

Speaker 10 And on the table next to the note were pins.

Speaker 10 Rather convenient, you know, if someone wanted to sign it.

Speaker 12 They found more disturbing evidence in the computer network that serves the entire youth center where Matt worked as a chaplain.

Speaker 12 One month before Kerry died, he began conducting online searches for overdose on sleeping pills and on the prescription drug Ambien, even though Carrie didn't have a prescription for that drug.

Speaker 12 Matt's explanation.

Speaker 8 It scared me that she was taking that much sleeping medicine to get to sleep at night. It took a lot to wake her up in the morning sometimes.

Speaker 12 But if you were concerned, when you mentioned it to her doctor?

Speaker 8 At that point, I didn't think it was necessary to tell the doctor because I thought she was getting it under control.

Speaker 12 When investigators asked to examine Matt's actual computer that was on his desk, they discovered it wasn't his.

Speaker 12 Sometime in mid-June, when the search for evidence got underway, someone had replaced Matt's desktop computer with his secretary's, and Matt's had vanished.

Speaker 12 And why would anyone want to take that computer?

Speaker 8 I have no clue. I don't know why.

Speaker 12 Was there something on that computer you didn't want anyone to see?

Speaker 8 Oh, no. There's, I mean, absolutely not.

Speaker 12 Investigators also have no idea whether there was anything incriminating on Matt's home computer. Matt says the hard drive crashed and is no longer working.

Speaker 12 It's just a coincidence that the hard drive on your home computer is fried and the computer from work disappeared? Just a coincidence?

Speaker 8 Computers crash all the time.

Speaker 12 The more Bill Johnston heard, the more he was convinced that Linda Dooland's doubts about her son-in-law might be right.

Speaker 10 There's more to this guy than just just some guy that's preaching on Sunday. There's a dark side here.

Speaker 12 Do you believe Matt Baker is a dangerous man?

Speaker 10 Oh, sure. You bet he's dangerous.

Speaker 12 Johnston believes that because when Carrie told her grief counselor that she thought Matt was trying to kill her, Carrie confided that she found a mysterious bottle of crushed pills in Matt's briefcase.

Speaker 10 He gave her a story. Oh, that's from the kids at the center.
The kids don't take their meds and they spit them out. That must be what that is.

Speaker 12 Matt told 48 Hours a very different story. He said there were pills, but they were carries and had never been in his briefcase.

Speaker 8 She comes out with a bottle of pills and she looks at me and she says, I found these in there.

Speaker 12 Was that bottle of crushed pills in your briefcase?

Speaker 8 I don't know where she found it. I never had it.
I never saw it before. She had it in her hands.

Speaker 12 And the pills are now gone.

Speaker 12 You know what Matt says? Matt says she threw out the crushed pills, that Matt offered to have them tested, and she put them down the sink.

Speaker 20 There you go.

Speaker 8 The only person that could refute it is not here. I take it you don't believe it.
Not for a second. No.

Speaker 12 As Johnston's suspicions mounted, he convinced his friend, Texas Ranger Matt Cawthon, to look at the case. Cawthon, too, suspected foul play and became frustrated by the faulty police investigation.

Speaker 12 What kind of evidence should have been taken in that night?

Speaker 22 There was a computer printer there. There were bottles of alcohol there.
And, of course, an autopsy would have been a tremendous assistance to the investigation, but it wasn't ordered.

Speaker 12 How much pressure did you have to put on the Hewitt Police Department to take a new look at this case?

Speaker 22 It was considerable pressure.

Speaker 12 In September 2006, the results of Carrie's autopsy, done three months after her body was embalmed and buried, finally came in. And still, no proof of how Carrie died.

Speaker 12 No remnants of pills were found in Carrie's stomach. But there was evidence of ambiene in her muscle tissue, the same sleeping drug Matt researched on the internet.

Speaker 12 Bill Johnston points to the photos taken the night Carrie died, which showed discoloration around Carrie's nose and lips. An indication, he says, she may have been suffocated.

Speaker 10 There was a slight abrasion to her nose, consistent with a rough pillow or some object that maybe has fibers that scrape across.

Speaker 24 The court is of the opinion.

Speaker 12 There are enough questions that 18 months after Carrie Baker died, the Justice of the Peace declared her death was no longer classified as suicide.

Speaker 24 Carrie Lynn Baker's manner and cause of death shall be be recorded as undetermined.

Speaker 12 The police now had a possible homicide on their hands. On September 21st, 2007, the former pastor was arrested and charged with murder.

Speaker 8 I guess the

Speaker 8 foolishness in my part was, if you never do anything wrong, you won't get arrested.

Speaker 12 Matt posted Bond and returned home to his daughters.

Speaker 8 And I'm just waiting for the day that I can grieve with my children the loss of my wife and their mother.

Speaker 12 He says he is the victim of insidious innuendo and wild speculation.

Speaker 12 Have you been able to get work?

Speaker 8 Not after the arrest. Not after the arrest.

Speaker 12 And Matt has found a powerful ally.

Speaker 20 I think Matt Baker is being railroaded.

Speaker 12 Like Bill Johnston, Guy James Gray was once a high-profile prosecutor.

Speaker 20 The more that I know about Matt, the less I believe that he is the type to take somebody's life.

Speaker 12 Gray says Carrie's despair is spelled out in her own heartbreaking entries she wrote in her Bible after her daughter died.

Speaker 17 This paragraph is about how good heaven is, and then she writes out beside it, I want to go with Cassidy.

Speaker 12 Gray also says he can explain some of the seemingly incriminating circumstances. What about the abrasion on the nose and possibly on her lip?

Speaker 20 Well, the first thing the emergency people did when they got there was put one of these artificial CPR deals over her mouth.

Speaker 12 But Bill Johnson says that the abrasion had to have been left there before Carrie died and that Matt is the one who caused it.

Speaker 12 According to Johnson, the most damaging evidence comes from Matt Baker himself. People did say she was very upset with you.
Why was she so upset with you?

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Speaker 8 It had to be somebody's fault and I have to be the fall guy for it.

Speaker 12 Facing murder charges in Waco, Matt Baker retreated to his childhood home in Kerrville, Texas, where his old friends were outraged at the accusations.

Speaker 6 I thought that he was the least likely to be charged with murder.

Speaker 11 Matt is a sweet, loving, caring, tenderhearted person.

Speaker 6 It just is inconsistent with his character.

Speaker 12 That's also how Jill Hotz, Carrie Baker's close friend, once felt about Matt.

Speaker 18 He was a good friend. I mean, he taught my son to tie his shoes.

Speaker 12 But today, she no longer believes in Matt, nor the story he tells about Carrie.

Speaker 18 And I know she didn't take her own life. Someone with that kind of a zest for life, that kind of fight for life, she's not going to take her own life.
And she didn't do that.

Speaker 12 Why does Jill suspect Matt? Because of a conversation she had with Carrie just days before her death.

Speaker 18 She was very, very upset.

Speaker 12 And when you say upset, crying?

Speaker 18 She's crying extremely hard on the phone. And I said, Carrie, what's wrong? And she said, I think Matt is seeing someone else.

Speaker 18 And you know how you have those moments in your life that you wish that you could just redo the whole thing.

Speaker 9 And I tried to reassure her that Matt loved her, and he wouldn't do that.

Speaker 12 And Carrie told Jill that her preacher husband did something far worse. He blamed her for their child's death.

Speaker 18 She said that Matt accused her of praying for Cassidy not to have to suffer anymore.

Speaker 18 And he said that God answered Carrie's prayer instead of his prayer, which was for Cassidy to live to be an old lady and to have a full life.

Speaker 12 Carrie said that Matt blamed her for Cassidy's death? Yes. And how did she take that?

Speaker 18 Extremely hard.

Speaker 8 No, I never blamed her for the death. She misunderstood what I had said.
I said that it hurt me that she felt her prayer was answered and mine wasn't.

Speaker 12 Judge for yourself. Matt sent Carrie this email just days before she spoke with Jill.

Speaker 12 I know deep down I hold a grudge against God and you for him answering your prayer and not mine, he wrote. In some ways, I do hold you to blame for her death.

Speaker 18 She said that that was the worst thing that she's ever heard and she didn't think that they could ever recover from that.

Speaker 12 The day after Carrie confided in Jill was when Carrie told her counselor she thought Matt was trying to kill her. The counselor confronted Matt at Carrie's funeral.
What was your reaction?

Speaker 8 And I said, what?

Speaker 8 Well, wait, wait. And I'm like, what's going on here? That was just kind of just completely rattled everything that was going on at that time.

Speaker 12 Matt denies he had any reason to kill Carrie. He denies cheating on her.
And remember, earlier, he had insisted that the woman he spent so much time with, Vanessa Bulls, was only a friend.

Speaker 8 I never thought of a relationship with her at all. That never was anything in the back of my mind.

Speaker 12 You asked her parents whether you could date her.

Speaker 8 Yes, later in the summer.

Speaker 12 So you were interested in Vanessa Williams. Yes, you did want to date Vanessa Williams.

Speaker 8 Yes, during the summer, absolutely I did.

Speaker 12 According to Matt, Carrie's severe anxiety was apparent to everyone who saw her in those days leading up to her death. But we couldn't find anyone to confirm that.

Speaker 12 On the contrary, even her close friend Jill says that when she last spoke to Carrie, Carrie seemed happier and said things had improved with Matt.

Speaker 18 The day before she died, she was was completely elated. And she said that, you know, we're trying to get everything patched back together.

Speaker 18 She was very hopeful, very future-oriented.

Speaker 12 Those who saw Carrie on her last day say her spirits were much higher than earlier in the week. Her friend Todd Munzee says she looked forward to the prospect of a new job.

Speaker 8 She told me she had a great interview, was so excited about it. And yeah, we had a good high-five right there in the hallway.

Speaker 12 But that very night, Carrie died. And her parents' attorney, Bill Johnston, says there are serious inconsistencies in Matt's story.

Speaker 10 Unfortunately for Matt Baker, he didn't buy enough time for himself. He should have painted a couple hours of alibi.

Speaker 12 Matt is very specific about what time he left Carrie to put gas in the car and get movies.

Speaker 8 I remember when I was getting dressed and ready to leave, the clock said 11-11.

Speaker 12 Yet, he seems unclear about Carrie's state when he left.

Speaker 8 We talked about everything that I was supposed to get and I left.

Speaker 12 She was awake. She was awake.
She was awake when you. Correct.

Speaker 8 When you left? Yeah, we had a conversation. I went, you know, leaned down and kissed her on the forehead before I left.

Speaker 12 But listen to what he said to us two months later. And she was talking and she said goodbye to you?

Speaker 8 She had rolled back over and gone back to sleep. So when I left, she was asleep.

Speaker 12 And remember how Matt says he first found out that Carrie killed herself?

Speaker 8 The police officer brings me the note, and that was the first thought at that point in time. She took her own life.

Speaker 12 yet he had clearly read the note when he called the 911 operator i think my wife just committed suicide her lipster blue

Speaker 8 are are are cold and there's a note that says i'm sorry basically you read the note you had said to the operator she says i'm sorry but i did not read the full note i saw the note but as i picked up the phone i saw it there but i did not take the time to read the note

Speaker 12 The police told Matt the cause of death was obvious.

Speaker 8 There's a note, there's pills.

Speaker 12 It was all too obvious, says attorney Bill Johnston.

Speaker 10 Here's some wine coolers to match the story. They were drinking a wine cooler.
And the note then is, I just have to say, self-serving. Matt, I'm sorry.
Oh, Matt, take care of the kids.

Speaker 10 You know, not critical of him in any way.

Speaker 12 Johnston also points out signs of lividity on Carrie's body, the pooling of blood that happens after death.

Speaker 12 An indication, he says, that that Carrie had been dead far longer than the 40 or so minutes that Matt claims he was away.

Speaker 10 She had to ingest

Speaker 10 something that made her sleepy, then unconscious, then killed her. And she had to quit breathing.
Heart had to stop. And then the lividity had to begin.

Speaker 12 And he is not the only one who questions Matt's story. What parts of Matt Baker's story bother you?

Speaker 7 Just a time frame, that's really really what bothers me the most.

Speaker 12 Stephen Karsh, a toxicologist 48 hours consulted, says that if Carrie were alive when Matt said he left the house, her body would not be cold to the touch, as both Matt and a paramedic reported.

Speaker 7 Being cold in an hour is non-existent unless you're killed in the Arctic or in an ice box.

Speaker 12 But Karsh cautions: there simply isn't enough evidence to say how and why Carrie died. Do you believe that this is a suicide?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 7 But I cannot determine the cause of death and wouldn't certify it as anything but undetermined.

Speaker 12 Matt, did you kill your wife? Did you have anything to do with her death that night? No, I did not.

Speaker 8 Was I the perfect person? Did I do everything correct? No.

Speaker 8 But I didn't hurt my wife. I loved my wife.
I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

Speaker 12 Matt had been arrested and charged with murder. But the DA had not yet brought the case to a grand jury.
That's a requirement under Texas law for a murder case to go to trial.

Speaker 12 How easy is it to actually take someone to trial for murder when even the coroner can't determine that a murder occurred?

Speaker 20 Extremely difficult.

Speaker 12 Matt's attorney, Guy James Gray, was determined to get the charges dropped, and he had plenty of support from Matt's friends.

Speaker 5 I think it should be thrown out.

Speaker 6 I just don't feel that having the Spirit of God in you, that you can do something like this.

Speaker 6 I just don't think you could do it.

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Speaker 8 I have the people that support me.

Speaker 8 I have my family.

Speaker 8 I have my daughters.

Speaker 12 As the second anniversary of Carrie's death approached, Matt Baker and his daughters were still living with his parents in Kerrville.

Speaker 8 Oh, there's Mama Cat.

Speaker 12 His relationship with Vanessa Bowles was over.

Speaker 12 His life in limbo.

Speaker 8 Wait, no, no, no, no. Open it all the way.

Speaker 12 Do you think you'll be indicted?

Speaker 8 I don't know.

Speaker 6 Wait for dad to help you.

Speaker 8 I don't know where I go from here.

Speaker 12 He was falling apart.

Speaker 8 And that's why there's teeth marks in it.

Speaker 8 There is such an unknown of what tomorrow holds.

Speaker 12 While murder charges against Matt are pending, in Texas, in order to go to trial, the DA also has to get a grand jury indictment within 180 days.

Speaker 12 Are you worried that there just isn't enough evidence to actually take him to trial?

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 5 No, we're not.

Speaker 12 Time runs out. On March 25th, 2008, all criminal charges are dropped against Matt Baker.

Speaker 23 Was it a murder? Was it a suicide? That was the major question in the case.

Speaker 12 Assistant DA Crawford Long.

Speaker 23 We felt we didn't have the evidence to go forward with a criminal indictment at that time.

Speaker 20 They went through these facts just like I did, and they're simply not sufficient facts to establish a murder.

Speaker 8 It is a tremendous relief.

Speaker 8 The criminal part is in the past, past, and that's a tremendous blessing.

Speaker 22 Justice was not served.

Speaker 12 Texas Ranger Matt Cawthon is disappointed, but not surprised.

Speaker 22 It is frustrating, but the evidence was there. Every turn,

Speaker 22 we were turned away.

Speaker 12 This is a man you believed killed his wife, and he's walking free.

Speaker 22 Well, you know, Erin, it happens every day.

Speaker 22 And in this case, something went awry.

Speaker 20 This is Bill.

Speaker 12 But Bill Johnston knows there's no statue of limitations on murder, so he's not giving up.

Speaker 10 Because sooner or later, I think the criminal justice system will deal with Matt Baker. I just believe it's going to happen.

Speaker 12 The battle is far from over. Linda and her team are pursuing Matt in civil court.

Speaker 8 Civil case.

Speaker 12 Suing him for wrongful death.

Speaker 17 They allow different evidence and civil cases and that one's more of a problem for him now.

Speaker 5 I'm going to meet with Bill.

Speaker 12 Especially with Carrie's mother and her angels on the case.

Speaker 5 We are going to continue to do what we have been doing and that is we are going to seek justice and I believe with every fiber in my being that we will have it.

Speaker 12 But in the year that follows, tremendous changes take place. For Linda, there's a physical transformation and an emotional one

Speaker 12 as Carrie's case takes a dramatic turn.

Speaker 12 What changed things?

Speaker 23 The thing that changed things was Vanessa Bull's testimony.

Speaker 23 Do you solemnly swear the testimony you give in this matter to be the truth?

Speaker 5 Matt Baker will never get away with murder. He will pay.

Speaker 11 Grand jury indicted Baker?

Speaker 5 They are indicting Matt Baker for murder. I remember just falling to my knees.

Speaker 15 I was overwhelmed.

Speaker 12 How important is Vanessa Bowles? She's key.

Speaker 5 He counted on her keeping her mouth shut.

Speaker 5 That was his life, full of dirty little secrets.

Speaker 18 You really need to turn yourself in, or I'm going to tell what you did.

Speaker 12 And he said, You better not do that.

Speaker 4 Stay tuned for part two, tomorrow.

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