True Crime Campfire - Episode 14: Matt Baker: Sinister Minister Part 2

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

Join us as we conclude the story of Matt Baker, a Baptist preacher with some seriously scary inner demons. Sources:Book: Deadly Little Secrets by Kathryn Caseyhttps://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Killer-s-in-laws-win-custody-fight-1468405.phphttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-mystery-dirty-little-secrets/https://www.wacotrib.com/news/crime/mistress-testifies-that-matt-baker-told-her-how-he-killed/article_07715ba9-d27f-576d-a040-e92024871725.htmlFollow us, campers!Patreon: https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie and I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. So, campers, when we left you last, Carrie had just started to suspect that her husband Matt might be having an affair. And a journal entry, she wrote about a week before, her death indicated she might have been wondering about some other darker things as well. It sounded like Carrie might have been starting to fear her husband, and sadly, she would soon find out that the little voice in the back of her head wasn't lying, and everyone who loved her would have to deal with the aftermath. The next day, Matt took Carrie to the doctor. She asked for something to calm her anxiety.

She wanted some Xanax because she'd had it before and it had helped her. But the doctor wouldn't give her any. He started her on something called Selexa instead. And later that day, she called a friend and she cried and she said, look, I think Matt's having an affair. And her friend kind of scoffed at the idea, oh no, he would never, Matt loves you. And I think this is so unfortunate because I understand her friend was trying to help her and reassure her.

but what she, in fact, did was just invalidate Carrie's gut feeling, which was right on the money, by the way. Yes. And when that happens, that can really discourage people from listening to that instinct, right? Right. Yeah, I think the best thing for her friend to have done or anyone that's in the same situation is just validate the feelings. Absolutely. Yeah, he is acting weird. Let's talk about it.

What can we do about it right now? Yeah, or even just say, like, God, I can't even imagine how awful it is to feel that way. I'm glad you told me and just let them talk. You know, let them work it out. Because the thing is, when you don't listen to your little voice and when you constantly tell yourself you're being silly, then when your gut tells you that something more sinister is going on as Carrie's is about to tell her, then you're more likely to ignore that as well. If you get in the habit of it, you're more likely to ignore something really serious. Right. And it's almost, it's like it's being gaslit through your friends, your closest allies.

Yeah, it wasn't intentional, but yeah, it was just her. her friend trying to be reassuring, but unfortunately it had that effect. And I just think it was probably an extension of Matt's manipulation of the friend. Of course Matt loves you. He would never. Well, you know, they say that abusers groom allies just as well as they grew victims. Absolutely. Yeah.

So that Monday night, Carrie went into Matt's briefcase to look for a pen to grade papers with. And she found this little toothpick holder in there full of what looked like crushed pills. now what the actual hell right so she took this to matt and she said what is this and he said that the pills were from the residential treatment center where he worked that sometimes you know the teenagers there they didn't want to take their meds and they'd spit them out and they must have spit them in there which is just absurd beyond belief like that is a nonsense explanation how they would all spit them into the same toothpick holder and also when you spit meds it doesn't turn into powder it was complete crap, and Carrie thought it made no sense, and she told him so. So she reached out to her old therapist, the one who'd counseled her through Cassidy's death years earlier, was a lady named Dr. Bristol, and she told Dr. Bristol that she wanted to talk about her and Matt's marital issues. She wasn't suicidal. Dr. Bristol said she didn't get that impression at all. She was just anxious. And in the midst of telling the doctor about her and Matt's issues, Carrie just suddenly blurted it out about the crush pills.

And she said the night after she found them, she'd gotten up in the night to live. look for them, thinking that maybe she could go and have them tested to find out what they weren't. Now, that alone tells me her gut was telling her the truth about what was going on, that she would even think to have them tested. But Matt had walked in on her looking, which is like a scene from a flipping horror movie. And she told him that she wanted them so that she could have her therapist identify them for her. And Matt said he'd thrown them away and reported the incident to the high ups at the center where he worked. Right. For the record, I'm close friends with somebody that used to work for poison control. If you call poison control and you have a pill

with the letters and numbers on them, they can identify the pills for you. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So just in case you find yourself in a similar situation, campers. So she paused for a moment, and then she just said, I think Matt's having an affair. And I think he's planning to kill me. And Dr. Bristol was so stunned that she asked Carrie to repeat it. And she did. And then Carrie did what people so often do, which is immediately walked it back. But I know that's ridiculous. It can't be true, et cetera, et cetera. And unfortunately, her backpedaling was so effective that Dr. Bristol dropped it.

And they just moved on to talking about things that Carrie and Matt could do to rekindle the romance in the marriage. And that was that. This is just wild to me because Carrie knew exactly what was going on. She knew what those pills were about. She knew he was cheating. She knew he was planning to kill her. She knew it all. Isn't that astounding?

Yeah, that little voice doesn't lie, man. Yeah. I wish she'd had a therapist like me because I would have told her, Carrie, girl. If that is what your gut is telling you, listen. We need more true crime aficionados in these positions because you and I both would have said, okay, we're leaving today. Let's go pack your shit. Right.

Yeah. So the next Wednesday, Carrie confided in a work friend the same exact thing. I think he's having an affair and I think he's planning to kill me. And again, immediately said, but I know that's ridiculous. I know that's ridiculous. And she would just kind of shut it down. So two days later was Friday, April 7th. Carrie was in a great mood that day.

She had aced a job interview for a position that she really wanted. She was super excited about that. And people saw her just practically dancing on air. But then, soon after, at the YMCA for her daughter, Enzy swim meet, her mood by then had totally changed. And there were other parents there, and they noticed that she and Matt sat apart from everybody else, which was unusual for them. That Carrie's eyes were red like she'd been crying. And it seemed to everyone like they'd been arguing. There was this palpable tension between them. And they left the swim meet. And just

after midnight that night is when the 911 call came in. And we know that story already. And we heard that from Matt's and the original responding officers and EMT's points of view. But what was going on parallel was this. The 911 dispatcher had had someone called Linda and Jim, and they'd rushed over. Most of the night was a blur for them, as you can imagine, but they do remember certain things. Linda remembers that she overheard Matt telling a police officer that Carrie took Unisom and Xanax. And Linda corrected him, no, no, remember the doctor wouldn't give her Xanax. She doesn't have any Xanax. And Matt said, oh, I didn't mean that. I just meant the unisome. Weird, right? Also, Linda Jim and cousin Lindsay all noticed that Matt showed no sadness or grief whatsoever, but he did seem nervous. He was pacing. He was fiddling with his car keys, which to me is kind of interesting psychologically that he would pick up his car keys. It's almost kind of kind of seems like subconsciously he had a desire to flee if he had to, you know? I mean, that's just my silly armchair psychology, but I thought it was kind of interesting. No, it's absolutely interesting. I think you have a great point there. And Linda asked to see the suicide note and very reluctantly in office.

let her look and this quote unquote suicide note was eight lines long it didn't even mention carrie's brother adam who she was really close to it didn't directly address the kids like each of them by name it mentioned how great of a husband and father matt was at a time when she had just told her mom mom i want to leave him and linda felt there was something very off about this but she was just so numb at that point because she just lost her daughter that she just nodded and said thank you and that was that But she also remembers that, you know, Matt had said that there was vomit, and she saw no vomit, not on the bed, not on the floor. Matt claimed that he'd cleaned it up, but when would he have had time? It didn't make sense. So when the police were getting ready to leave and told Matt that Carrie's death had been ruled a suicide, Lindsay saw him visibly relax.

Now, why would you? That's just weird. She didn't hear when the officer told Matt there would be no autopsy if she had. have immediately protested, she completely assumed that there would be one. Matt and Carrie's family told the kids the next morning, and this was poor little Kenzie who was nine and Grace, he was five, and they both just fell on the floor and sobbed. And the only reason I bring that awful, sad little detail up is to just underscore what an absolute piece of subhuman garbage this man is to do this to his children. Yeah. I just, holy shit, you know, how could you take your kids' mom? Carrey's aunts, Nancy, and Kay and cousin Lindsay knew immediately that Carrie wouldn't kill herself.

And both Lindsay and Nancy's first thought was Matt killed her, like right off the bat. And it's amazing to me how often I see this in true crime, where people just know instantly, and they're right. Again, gut instinct, that little voice, right? Lindsay called poison control the next morning to ask about dying from an overdose of unison. And poison control said that they didn't think it was possible. Carrie's therapist arrived, Dr. Bristol, and told Lindsay and Nancy about Carrie's fear that Matt was trying to kill her with crushed pills, and this, of course, just confirmed what they already felt. So they were now just waiting on the autopsy. They didn't know that no autopsy was planned. Kay was close friends with Dr. Bristol, Carrie's therapist, and former grief counselor, and she called her the night Carrie died. Bristol's stomach dropped when she heard Carrie had supposedly died of an overdose. She thought back to, yeah, she thought back to her last.

session with Carrie only a couple days before, when Carrie told her about the crushed pills she'd found in Matt's briefcase and said, I think Matt is having an affair and I think he's planning to kill me. Bristol rushed to tell Kay about this, and when Kay told Nancy and Lindsay, it confirmed what they had already felt sure of in their hearts. Matt had done this. But they didn't want to upset Linda by saying this without proof, so they told Dr. Bristol not to go to the police with this yet. Wait for the autopsy. That will back up our suspicions. And then we can tell the police and tell Linda. Can I just interrupt for one second just to say that untold suffering would have been avoided in this case if people would not have worried so much about upsetting each other.

And I don't say that to blame her family because we all do this kind of stuff. So it's not like I'm any better, but I think it's just a lesson for all of us that when you have a gut feeling or you know something really red flaggy and disturbing, maybe just think about like going ahead and upsetting the person. I mean, I'm not going to say it's not going to blow up in your face. But in this case, so often the family kept things from Carrie and from Linda and Jim that if they had known, things might have gone differently. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. And like, it sucks, right, to be the bearer of bad news. And it sucks because it might backfire and the person might be mad at you.

Yep. That's the risk. But at the same time, do you want to live with that guilt? Yeah. Especially when it's stuff like, you know, Matt is. hitting on the 20-year-old friend of cousin Lindsay while his child might be dying of cancer in the adjoining room. That is a serious red flag. I mean, like, Carrie needed to know that. Maybe not right then, but she needed to know that. No, and yeah, especially, especially after their

daughter died, I think that would have been a prime time. Yeah, so maybe worry less about upsetting each other in the moment and more about making sure everybody has all the facts that they need. is all I'm saying. Oh, absolutely. And this is, this is Texas. Yeah, Texas. This is a bunch of Baptists. Baptists.

So, yeah, it's not, that goes with the territory, I think. We must not have any unpleasantness. Yeah, right. And they don't want to, they don't want to make people sad. Yeah, and so which is an understandable impulse, but sometimes it's necessary. Now, people were devastated and completely shocked. No one had ever. dreamed Carrie would take her own life.

She didn't strike anyone as suicidal or even depressed. Though she'd confided in, knew she'd been anxious, but not depressed or suicidal. She'd been stressed about her problems with Matt, but she'd been so excited about her new job, making all kinds of plans for the future. Plus, no one had gotten an email, voice message, text. Carrie would have said goodbye. And Matt, for his part, was cool and casual making funeral arrangements. At the funeral home, he pointed randomly to a casket and said, I'll take that one.

Now, later that day, Nancy and Lindsay went back over to the house, and as he often did when he saw her, Matt mimed squeezing her breasts and smiled. Oh, my God. At the wake, people again noticed that Matt was on emotion. no red eyes, no nothing. And like it, Cassidy's funeral, he seemed to be enjoying the attention. Dr. Bristol had a chilling encounter with Matt at the wake. Did Carrie tell you she thought I was having an affair? Did she tell you she found crushed pills in my briefcase? Did she tell you she thought I was trying to kill her? Oh my God. What the fuck? Did Carrie tell him? Or was he listening to door during their session. I vote he was listening at the door. That's what I think, because he drove

her to that therapy session. He drove her to all of her therapy sessions. Yeah, he was totally listening at the door is what I think. Creep. Then, when Dr. Bristol was talking to Linda and Jim, she saw Matt glaring at her. Oh, boy. Yeah. Later, on the day of the wake, Nancy Kay and Lindsay learned that from Linda that there had been no autopsy. They were thunderstruck. They had told Dr. Bristol to hold off on telling the cops about the crushed pills and Carrie's fears because they assumed the autopsy would confirm foul play. Now, Carrie's body had been embalmed. Oh, no. And seeing how much Linda and Jim were hurting, they decided that for the moment, they'd keep their suspicions to themselves. They had no proof, after all. Matt hung out with

the Bulls family quite a bit over the next few days. Vanessa and her parents, and a assuming Vanessa's kid. Meanwhile, Dr. Bristol went to meet with Sergeant Cooper, the officer who had been in charge of Carrie's case. She told him about the pills, Carrie's fears and suspicions, and he was, how do I put this? Not very receptive. Carrie's Aunt Kay called soon after and got a similar reaction. There's no evidence of foul play.

Call us if you get any evidence. For fuck's sake. Isn't that your fucking job? This was so frustrating in that book by Catherine Casey, which, as we said, was our main source for the podcast. We'll put all of our sources, as usual, on our social media. But you just wanted to strangle this guy. He was so condescending. And it just kills me.

It's like, why in God's name will they never just admit that they screwed up? It just seems like people in general and law enforcement in particular seem just allergic to the notion of admitting that they just made a human error. You know, mistakes are forgivable, most of them. But then if you just double down and act like an asshole in the face of obvious suspicious stuff, then you're a dickhead. And here's the thing is a lot of times, like in the medical field, you can't admit fault because of lawsuits.

Yeah. But in this field, all they wanted was for them to reopen the case. These are completely innocent people whose daughter slash cousins, slash stepdaughter was just brutally taken from them and all they wanted was for law enforcement to do what it is supposed to do and they just treated them like they were crazy and it's just absolutely terrible it's it's this guy is the villain of the story absolutely aside from old twat baker twat so on april 12th carrie's death certificate was printed suicide overdose of unison left note and matt went back to work fast he told co-workers at the residential center that

it was fine it wasn't a marriage anyway we were just coexisting oh my god he complained about what a crappy wife and mom carrie was said now that she was gone the dark cloud was gone from the house and even the kids were happier oh my god the the mother figure that that nourished and nurtured them their whole lives, they're happier without them. Yeah, talk about their mom. Serious red flag that old Matt Baker might be psychopathic, is that

he could actually convince himself that his children were not upset about losing their mother. That's just bananas. And in the weeks following Carrie's death, Matt told the Doolins that Carrie had been depressed for a long time and had stopped taking care of the girls.

Now, they knew this was nonsense. And when Lynn Linda encouraged him to get the girl's grief counseling, he said they didn't need it. Grace has already moved on. She's looking for a new mother, he told her. Grace told me, now I can jump on the bed and mommy can't get mad because she's dead. Oh, my God. Lord have mercy, it's awful.

The mind boggles, campers, because here's the thing, is I can see a child that doesn't fully grasp the concept of death thinking that. Sure. Right? Yeah. But an adult human, looking at that and not having their heart rended from their chests is monstrous. And like gleefully telling the dead woman's family about it. Like, you guys all just need to move on because the kids have moved on. Yikes.

They can jump on the bed now. Yeah. This dude's a complete evil monster. Evil, evil. I hate this guy so much. So, Linda and Jim were obviously horrified and destroyed. and disturbed. But they needed to believe Matt wouldn't hurt Carrie.

They made themselves believe Carrie had taken her own life. Because Camper's denial is powerful. If we need to believe something, we can talk ourselves into it. And life went on for Matt. Overnight, he changed his look. Younger, cooler clothes, spiked hair. Now, well, you can see his pictures on our social media. this guy was not cool he was not attractive hello fellow kids yeah I'm down with your bad scene

this guy this guy looked like he was he absolutely looked like a prison snitch I just I'd love to trip him down a flight of stairs he yeah but he did he was like he was wearing sunglasses on the back of his head he's one of those baseball cat turned around yeah yeah so embarrassing yourself. One of these days we're going to put together a montage, by the way, maybe for the Patreon's of just all the different ways in which Katie wants to bully and physically assault the various killers

in the faces. We've got shove them into a locker. I think there was maybe mentioned in season one of like giving somebody a wedgy. I remember rightly. Now we've got Kay come down a flight of stairs. May I add beat him with a sock full of oranges? Can we do that?

Ooh, I like that one. Because I am at heart a very nonviolent individual. So am I, interestingly enough. Very gentle, but these guys just bring out the worst. Matt Baker just, ooh, he, he touches the rage, the primal rage button. He sure does. So, to top it all off, a friend of Linda's mentioned that they'd seen him at the grocery store with a young blonde woman and a baby. Hmm. And a couple of weeks after Carrie's death, it was Kenzie's birthday. Matt went all out. He rented a limo for Kenzie and her friends, a tiara for Kenzie picked him up at the school in the limo. And a couple of Matt and Carrie's friends agreed to help out. He told them the music minister's daughter Vanessa was going to help out too. How nice. Right? Back at the house, at one point, Matt and Carrie's friends who were helping out saw Matt and Vanessa disappear into the bedroom together for like a gross amount of time. And later they saw them on the couch with Vanessa's head in his lap. Come on.

They were, like, horrified at this. I mean, it was a slumber party, and Vanessa was still there in the morning when parents came to pick up their kids. Soon after, someone from their church saw Matt and Vanessa and Kay Jewelers looking at engagement rings. Every kiss begins with Kay, Katie. Right. And, oh, and, by the way, these friends also noticed that all pictures of Carrie and evidence of Carrie living there were completely gone. Oh, yeah, that was so gross. Like, right away.

weeks we're talking within weeks of the death yep so linda and jim sensed that something more than friendship was going on between matt and venezsa right away because they have eyes yeah and linda because she's a classy lady tried to remind herself that matt was grieving and that he had a right to move on with his life but for fuck's sake it had been weeks and before long nancy k and lindsay decided they had to tell Linda what they suspected. Linda's first reaction? No. In fact, she got angry. She told them, drop this. Matt is my granddaughter's father. And Linda refused to believe Matt had killed Carrie until she finally saw Matt and Carrie's phone records. And all of those calls to Vanessa Bowles. Then, she talked to Carrie's therapist, who told her about the last session. Carrie, as you

recall, had been cheerful, looking forward to a new job. And then there were the fears that Carrie relayed. Linda was devastated. She said, Carrie was trying to make sense of it all, but still not trusting her instincts. Listening to Joanne, Dr. Bristol, I hurt for my child. I wish I had known. I wanted to hold Carrie, but I couldn't. My daughter was dead. Now that Linda was on board, she and her sisters and cousin Lindsay formed what they started calling the Charlie's Angels. They were determined to get Carrie's death investigated. So together, they teamed up to find justice.

Yes, and these badass broads went full-on secret agent. They staked out Matt's house to try and catch Vanessa coming and going, which I imagine was not that hard. They thought maybe her car was in the garage because Matt had immediately sold Carrie's car, shades of Scott Peterson, by the way, selling Lacey's Land Rover like, Really, really soon after you went missing.

Mm-hmm. They considered going through the trash at Matt's house, but they didn't want to be caught. They might have actually realized that once you throw trash out and it's on the curve, it's actually not the person's property anymore, so probably nothing would have happened to them, but maybe they just didn't want Matt to see him doing it. They called all the numbers on Matt's phone bill. They found out from that, obviously, how many phone calls going back and forth. They also found out that he and Vanessa were buying an engagement ring. gross. They also researched the effects of unisome. And they found cases where children had taken three times the recommended dose and survived. And that's a child, like a tiny little child's body,

not a grown woman. In one case that actually did result in death, it was incredibly slow, which didn't fit with Matt's timeline at all. So none of that looked particularly good for Matt. And Carrie's Aunt Kay called the coroner, good old Billy Martin, the guy that you know, ruled it a suicide over the phone and asked why there hadn't been an autopsy. And Martin said that he didn't order an autopsy because he was told there was a handwritten note. So, of course, Aunt Kay told him that

there sure as hell was not a handwritten note. It was typed. And she told him all the details she had. And then he told her that he would call the Hewitt PD. Which he did. And Hewitt PD did what they apparently did best up until now and ignored everything. Charming. Good. Good. Great. Great job, guys. Really, you know, way to serve and protect there. Oh, yep.

Then, Lindsay and her sister drove to Matt's house. Matt had previously invited her over to look through all of Carrie's stuff, but when she tried to pick a day, he just ignored her and ghosted her. But she went over anyway, and when she got there, most of Carrie's stuff was already gone, and there was a photo of Vanessa on the fridge. Oh, yeah. And it was a photo of Vanessa with Matt and Carrie's kids. Yeah, which is just flipping horrifying.

And at one point, Lindsay said something about moving on, and Matt said to Kenzie, the little girl, well, some people aren't able to move on. Are they Kenzie? Who isn't able to move on in this family? And Kenzie, who I'm sure was just confused about what the hell was happening, hesitated. And after Matt kind of prodded her to answer, she replied, Linda can't move on. Linda is Linda Doolin, Carrie's mother, Kenzie's grandmother. What the hell is wrong with this man? So just blatant. alienation from that side of the family, just blatant manipulation of a child is just despicable. So, Cooper, meanwhile, who was the detective that was on the case, continued to do the least amount of work possible. He kept coming from the perspective of the put-up on cop that just had to deal with this crazy family. It was just really gross the way they were treated. There was one instance where Jim, Carrie's stepdad, who's just furious and feeling powerless, had a shirt made featuring a photo of Carrie with her girls, and he wore it in church in the front row, and Matt saw it and said, oh, I like your shirt.

And then, in a serendipitous move, Linda reached out to one of the true heroes of this case, Texas Ranger, Matt Cawthon. And I know we've said this about John Douglas. We've said this about Jovan Nort, but Matt Coffin is a daddy cop. We don't mean that in a creepy way. No, no. I just mean he goes in with his dad strength and he gets shit done. He's just, you know, he's just the kind of guy that just kind of makes you feel safe. You know, he's like, he's got it. He's got this. He's going to, he's going to fix things. He's

going to come in and fix it. And he's going to, and he's going to give you like a little toolkit for your car. Yeah. He's going to remind you to, you know, to get your oil change. Yes. Exactly. He's a reassuring presence is what we're trying to say. And he listened finally to all of Linda's concerns, everything that she'd uncovered, and he wanted to help her, but the Rangers have to be invited by the cops, kind of like the FBI profilers, like they have to be invited. The cops, however, didn't think that they had probable cause for an autopsy, and of course, as she had every right to do, Linda threw a fit over this. She talked to the chief, but again, got nowhere, and later, a source said of the chief, it was like he was backing Cooper no matter

what. He didn't like that anyone questioned one of his men. I heard him say, that bitch killed herself and her parents are fucking crazy. This is a law enforcement officer, ladies and gentlemen, saying this. Shame on him. Yeah, this bitch killed herself and her parents are fucking crazy. God, shame on you.

You need to quit. You are in the wrong line of work, sir. That's despicable and shameful. Anyway, finally, 52 days after Carrie's death, Cooper talked with Matt Baker. And he said pretty much what he'd always said,

that they got home from the swim practice, that Carrie went to the bedroom, to lie down. She threw up a couple times. He ruminated over whether she'd already maybe taken some meds. Carrie asked for some booze and a movie. And, you know, this was his song and announced that he'd gone out to do

that and come home and found her. And the new details were that he now stopped at three different gas stations before he found one that was open. He hadn't said that before. And he was just incredibly unemotional while recounting his, you know, wife's death. He talked about how messy it was with the vomit and the urine, even though

no one at the scene indicated finding anything of the sort and based on the timeline he would not have had time to clean up like you know have you ever had to clean up puke it's not quick it's not a quick operation but anyway cooper didn't press the point of course because that would be like work and stuff and matt told cooper he would be willing to take a polygraph test he also mentioned that carry would explode over nothing even though literally no one who knew her said that but him so enter bill johnston this is a former prosecutor now an attorney, just a regular old attorney, and Linda reached out to discuss her daughter's death to Bill Johnston. She asked him, please look into this for me. She specifically told him that she

didn't want them to assume Matt's guilt. She said, look, if Carrie committed suicide, I can live with that. You know, it's painful, but I can. I just want to know the truth. So that was, again, Linda is a classy and I think open-minded person. She just wanted to know. what happened, whether it was good news, meaning, you know, Matt didn't kill her or bad news, meaning Matt did. She just wanted to know. And Matt at this point had been fired from crossroads where he was working, but he hadn't returned his work laptop. This was the Baptist church where he'd been preaching. And a deacon whose son was a police officer advised Matt that if he didn't return the laptop, they would call the cop. So then finally he brought it back, but that's

what it took. That summer, Cooper finally visited Matt at the Waco Center of Youth, where he was working as a counselor, chaplain, to follow up on his interview. And Matt had a brief conversation with him, afterwards seemed kind of nervous and then left. And at this point, Matt lawyered up. And they advised the police that he wouldn't be talking to the police anymore and would not be taking that polygraph that he promised. So, yeah. Also, by the way, the Doolins had to sue for visitation with their grandchildren because Matt wasn't letting them see them, which is just despicable. And they won. And Matt was basically told by the courts, look, you had to stop poisoning your children against their grandparents. And the fact that he didn't already see how

damaging that is to children and knock that off of his own accord is really telling of the kind of awful person he is. So thank God, you know, they were given visitation. All right, so that's all going on, and now we've got Cawthon, the Texas Ranger, and the attorney Johnston on the case, and they were kind of the dream team, the superhero group that Carrie deserved, and on June 19th, Skeleton Crew was working at WCY, the Waco Center of Youth, where Matt was a chaplain. One of his coworkers noticed that Matt was there, kind of skulking around, and went to talk to him about Carrie's death. And he mentioned that their relationship was over a long time ago, and that he was the one who'd been the primary caregiver for the girls and was giving them more freedom now that

Carrie was gone, even allowing Kenzie to say fuck. Great. Again, we've got a guy who's a minister here working as a chaplain at the Center for Troubled kids and is telling a coworker, I'm letting Kenzie say fuck. Like, what are you doing? Like, don't you know people are going to be grossed out by that? It's a weird thing to brag about, right? It's a weird flex.

Yeah. Just like, you're a chaplain. What are you doing? Do you think that the people that hired you to be a chaplain are going to be thrilled about that? That's so weird. He also brought up Vanessa, which is astonishing that he thought that was appropriate to say to his co-worker. He said, we're into each other. The girls want a new mommy.

And then said that they'd probably get married once Vanessa got done with school. And then, this is even creepier, he pointed out that Lily looked just like him. Lily was Vanessa's daughter with another man. What do you mean she looks just like you? Weird. Oh, what are you talking about? The woman also asked about that. suicide note. She told him that if he still had the home computer, then he could tell when

it was written, like I guess trying to help him because she knew that he'd been questioned by the police. But, alas, they'd gotten rid of the home computer for some reason. And she told him that the police could subpoena his work computer as well as carries, and he was later seen after that conversation carrying a large box to his truck. Hmm, I wonder what that was all about. Hmm. Also, a witness said that she saw Matt at Walmart the week after Carrie's death buying a brand new computer. So clearly he got rid of that computer as quick as he could. The one that, you know, he typed the suicide note on, quote unquote, suicide note. So finally the cops got their hands on Carrie's journal slash Bible or a little devotional book and found that entry where she

prayed for protection from harm and said she didn't know what was going on with Matt. Cawthon finally stopped in on the Hewitt PD. He spoke with the chief. He pushed him to take a serious look at the case and the chief asked him who are you working for? Bill Johnston the prosecutor, former prosecutor and Cawthon, who is a badass, replied no, I'm working for that dead woman and you should be too.

Damn, Skippy. It's about time somebody said it. So the case was resurrected at long last and their first course of action was to exhume Carrie's body. They called Matt's attorney to let him know they were doing this and this is fascinating. Matt immediately showed up at the cemetery, but then

was apparently concerned that Cassidy's body, the baby, was exhumed, and he rushed over to his daughter's grave and seemed relieved to find that it was untouched. Now, if that doesn't give you chills and make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, I don't know what will. Yikes. Yeah. Why would he be so worried about that? Hmm, I don't know.

Consciousness of guilt, anyone? On autopsy, they couldn't do a toxicology test to, like, the normal way because it's normally done on blood. So instead, they used muscle tissue, which is much less conclusive. The report came back pretty vaguely. They found traces of phentermine, which is a diet drug, diphtromine, which is unisome, but also something else that she couldn't have taken because she didn't have a prescription for. something she wasn't known to take. Zolpidem, which is Ambien. They couldn't see the levels because there was no blood, but it was there nonetheless.

Johnston contacted some forensic toxicologists, and they advised that Carrie could not have died of an overdose. If she had taken an entire bottle of pills, they would have metabolized and broken down unevenly and absorbed at different rates. Her system would have slowed down. Some of the pills wouldn't have been. been fully digested, and there were no pills in her digestive track. Her lungs were also clear of any fluids. In July, the investigators reviewed the crime scene photos, where they saw clear lividity. Now, lividity is basically when a body's heart stops pumping, when the blood stops flowing, the blood settles to the side that the body's lying on, leaving like this

purplish marking. And so it can show you if the body's been moved because it leaves like imprints on each side the body's laying on. And a body doesn't develop lividity in the time frame Matt had given for the night's events. So she had been dead for longer than he had told the police. Rout row. So then the next step was to follow Matt's footsteps that he took the night of Carrie's death and got his trip down to the minute. They found that the route that he took couldn't have taken more than 35 minutes and 47 seconds.

He should have been home well before he called 911 at midnight. So this pretty much blew up his timeline, which for Maddie is not a good look. No. Then they drove into his work history and found all the purvy shit. He'd been doing all these years without consequence. At this point, Matt resigned from the youth center. He wanted to move back to Curville with his parents because, Of course he did.

And he found a job at a funeral home. And in August, he enrolled the kids in school. And now, campers, we will come to what I like to call Vanessa's Big Day Out, also known as the She Claimed Opera. So Cawthon believed that the key to cracking this case is to get Vanessa to roll over on Matt. he basically told her, I'm coming after you. Get her, get her. And because he didn't believe he could get to her by being nice. She was the type of girl that always got what she wanted.

And by August 2006, the rumor mill was in full swing saying that Vanessa and Matt had broken up. Might be a good time to pounce. So they brought her in. She claimed that she and Carrie were friends. Duh, right, eye roll. She claimed that Matt pursued her, and that he wasn't her type. But she sacrificed because she just loved the girl so much. She claimed that she didn't realize that Matt had cast aspersions on her purity,

that they'd just been taking the kids out after Carrie's death. There were no shenanigans going on. She claimed that she thought it was weird that Matt said Grace knows who she wants her new mommy to be and agreed it was a red flag. Oh, God. She claimed that she and Matt did not have a relationship before Carrie died. She also claimed that she had no idea that Carrie found pills in his briefcase and that she now thought it was possible that Matt was a murderer. And stunningly, stunningly, she also claimed that she had no idea that she had. now thought that maybe Matt hurt Cassidy.

Damn. Yeah. Yep. Meanwhile, police used the Crossroads laptop to dig into Matt's internet activities. They found a ton of porn. Weird. I know. I wonder where that came from. Shocker. They also found history on a site called secure rxcart.com. A site that Matt had used to try to find Ambien. He'd put the Ambien in his cart, but then he backed out before buying it. The site owner suggested that it was usually because customers found that there was a two-week waiting period before they could order.

He also accessed sites that sold hydrocodone and GHB, which is the date rape drug. He also searched the phrase, overdose on sleeping pills nine months before Carrie's deaths. Nine months. Oh, yeah. That's really creepy. The authorities took this cue to change Carrie's cause of death from suicide to undetermined. About damn time. It was coming together, campers.

Enter Abdon Badass Motherfucker Rodriguez. He was an investigator for the DA's office, and this dude is like a dog with a bone when he senses a liar. He looked at Vanessa Bowles and saw a liar and manipulator. He decided he was going to crack the case. and Vanessa Bowles was going to be his prime witness. Get her, get her, get her. But when he called her, his call was returned by her lawyer. Rodriguez told him, either she talks to me or she talks to the grand jury.

Now, she's not dumb. So she chose to talk to him. And he mostly went over what was already asked. But instead of letting her change the subject or distract him with her feminine wiles, Rodriguez pressed her on the tough questions. to which she'd become defensive. Through his interview, Rodriguez found that Vanessa's mother had a prescription for Ambien. Interesting, is it not?

Mm-hmm. And this guy kept at her, too. At one point, he called her, told her he was in Caraville, and let her think he was working the case there. He told her, 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. Carrie Baker. We're willing to give you immunity if you tell us what you know. To which she replied,

okay, when are you going to be back in Waco? That's a pretty sweet deal. Now, of course, after setting up this meeting, because she's a moron, she didn't show up. So he subpoenaed her ass. Nice. And made her talk to the grand jury. He showed up at the school she was working at to hand her the subpoena. And on March 25th, 2009, Rodriguez made sure she saw him when she showed up to testify. Her attorney told the prosecutor that she wanted to talk to them in exchange for immunity. Now, they knew they were going to need her if they were going to get Matt Baker. So they made one of those really annoying deals with the devil that the prosecutor sometimes have to make. They gave her testimonial immunity. Now, if you're not familiar with that,

It's when they promise not to use anything you say under oath against you, provided you're truthful. So as long as she was honest, Vanessa could get up on the stand and spill her guts, and the law wouldn't touch her. Ew, I hate this so much. It's, you know, necessary evil, I think. I hate it so much, though, damn it. Okay. This is also something you're going to hate. Oh, yeah.

Vanessa loved, loved the attention she got on the stand. she thought she was Angelina Freaking Jolie up there. She showed up and paraded and preened in front of the news cameras with dark sunglasses on. Like she was going to a movie premiere. It was so gross. There's video of her on the stand and she's loving it. She's eating it up. So on the stand, in response to the question, did Matt Baker ever tell you anything about his wife's death? Vanessa said, he told me he killed her to be with me. Boom. Mike drop bombshell.

Yep. And with that, Matt Baker was indicted. I should say so. So afterwards. Afterwards, Vanessa was continuing to do this thing that liars do, which is called trickle-truthing, which is like just slowly letting out the full details. Oh, we never slept together at Kenzie's party, but we have a witness, Vanessa, that says you did. Okay, okay, okay. We slept together in the same bed, but there wasn't anything inappropriate to perish the thought.

Of course not. At this point, I think Vanessa realized that she wasn't going to be able to flirt or cry her way out of this. So she spilled the tea. She said Matt discussed all kinds of different ideas for how to get Carrie out of the picture so he and Vanessa could finally be together. Oh, yeah. And this was everything from tampering with the brakes on Carrie's car. or staging a drive-by shooting to using chloroform or the date rape drug to knock her out and stage a suicide. That last part sound familiar?

Yeah. He talked about hanging Carrie or making it look like she'd overdosed. He talked about putting it in a milkshake was one of the things Vanessa said. Now remember that email Matt sent Carrie about making her another chocolate milkshake, making it sound like this had become a routine for them? And then remember how she had complained of rapid heartbeat and dizziness and sweaty hands and shaking and everything? the day's leading up to her death? Hmm, make you wonder, doesn't it?

Vanessa also said Matt said he was going to type the suicide note. This has sounded awfully familiar. All of it, isn't it, Camper's? And instead of being serious about all of this and treating it with some degree of respect and reverence, Vanessa Bowles didn't seem like she had any regrets at all.

She had obviously no sympathy for Carrie. She had been in a position to prevent this woman's death. All it would have taken is one phone call. And she'd opted not to do that because she wanted Matt for herself for some just utterly baffling reason.

Ugh, I hate this woman. Didn't we tell you we're going to hate her? Do you guys hate her as much as I do? Oh my God, I hate this woman. She could have saved Carrie's life. It would have taken one phone call, even an anonymous phone call. And she could have saved this woman's life. The mother of two children, a woman who was much beloved

and a good teacher and somebody who had a good heart, she was a little bit naive and she was certainly very manipulated when it came to her husband and his, you know, faults, but she did not deserve this. And Vanessa could have saved her and just chose not to do it. And I think that's absolutely despicable. And Rodriguez still wondered, you know, if she was telling them everything.

He later said, Vanessa showed no remorse. And when she talked about Carrie's death, it was as if she didn't even acknowledge that a woman had died. And I've seen parts of her testimony, and I definitely think that's true. I don't think she felt bad at all. She was just sorry they got caught. finally Vanessa described exactly what Matt had told her about Carrie's murder after buying some kind of erectile dysfunction or libido drug online he had taken the little capsules and emptied them out

and then he refilled them with Ambien and Matt told Vanessa that he and Carrie were drinking wine coolers that night and he gave her the pills and told her that he'd bought him to like enhance their sexual encounters and at this point Carrie's doing whatever she can to try and save their marriage so you know she was game so he gave her that she took the pills he handcuffed her to the bed in kind of a playful sexual way and then just waited for the alcohol

and the ambient to knock her out and once she passed out he smothered her with a pillow which you might be thinking now remember those little marks that they noticed on her nose and mouth those little red raw marks maybe like somebody who's been smothered

with a pillow yeah and the sad thing is if I remember correctly from the 48 hours about this that she actually did fight like there was evidence that she had resisted. So she wasn't just unconscious, which is really sad.

Yeah. So just deal with the awfulness of that for a second of coming to, and you can obviously tell that the person that you have loved and supported and trusted is trying to take your own life from you. Just horrible. Just awful. So, yeah, he is a piece of shit. So Matt's defense attorney, of course, argued hard for the suicide theory.

They hammered home how hard Cassidy's death had hit care. He admitted the relationship with Vanessa, but denied it was serious before Carrie died. It didn't work. And thank God he was convicted and sentenced to 65 years in prison. And there was much rejoicing. Yay. So a couple little postscripts to the story. After a really hard-fought battle with Matt's family, Linda and Jim Doolin won custody of Kenzie and Grace.

And these poor kids, both of them had been seriously damaged. you know, not only by their mom's death and all of the trial and their father being sent to prison, but also from the toxic alienation strategies that Matt had used to try to turn them against Carrie's parents. So the kids really took a while to adjust. Like they had been taught to hate their grandparents, really. But they ended up happy and thriving. And, you know, you see him on that 48 hours episode and that you can tell, you know, they're doing well. As for Grandma and Grandpa Baker, oh, my God, you guys.

So it turns out the Baker family was even more poisonous than we already knew. When Matt was growing up, the bakers took in a bunch of foster kids. I think it was like 10 or so in all over time. And of course, people in their community thought they were just angels in human form for doing this. And after Matt Baker's conviction as part of the custody battle between the bakers and the Doolins, it came out that four of the former foster kids alleged physical and sexual abuse. Sexual abuse at the hands of Matt's dad, Oscar Baker, and physical abuse at the hands of both of them.

And another former foster kid said he wasn't abused, but that they were controlling and cold and it was a terrible environment to grow up in, and that he got out as quickly as he could. So, that happened, which is disgusting and horrifying. So what a mess.

Right, y'all? But, you know, at least the Doolins finally got justice for Carrie. Matt Baker most likely will never see the light of day again. I sure hope not. He still claims he's innocent, by the way, which is gross. And at least the kids ended up okay. So sort of a happy ending, I guess, like as happy as it gets in an awful tragedy like this. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you can, this is the best you can hope for. Yeah. And how selfish of

Matt Baker and Vanessa Bowles to deprive two children from both of their parents. Yep. And he just thought he could just slide Vanessa right in in her place and that the kids wouldn't even notice. You know, We can't necessarily armchair diagnosed, but the fact that he thought that would work, and that's how human emotions and feelings work about people. I would not be at all surprised if he was a psychopath. Not at all surprised. That's all I'll say. I can't diagnose him, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised.

It wouldn't be a shocker. But he was just like, oh, let me just click in this new model of wife. We'll just slide her into Carrie's place. They were both blonde. The kids won't notice, right? They're going to be fine. It won't affect them in any way. performed at their mother supposedly took their own lie, took her own lie. Yeah, and it won't,

it won't give them any bad, like, emotional baggage about relationships with men, right? Of course not. But they're disposable and replaceable. But they get to jump on the beds and say, fuck now. So they're going to be just fine. Great, great. It's just unbelievable. And let's go back and remind ourselves also that, at least in my opinion, he killed Cassidy. Yeah. I completely think he killed Cassidy. I just don't think, I don't think his behavior makes any sense. No. Around that child's death. No, and the nail in the coffin, no pun intended, is his behavior when Carrie's body was exhumed. Absolutely. That he frantically ran over there and made sure that they weren't exhuming Cassidy too and then was obviously relieved. Come on. They should have immediately

called the judge. Can we get her to? Yeah, seriously. We're right here. We might as well. But, you know, I guess no probable cause. But, you know, even that that oncologist knew, you know, she called CPS, she knew this baby wasn't sick enough to die. And that he had insisted she not wear her breathing tube that night or her breathing alarm. That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah, that's just highly suspicious to me. So we don't have any proof. Obviously, this is alleged.

It's just our opinion. But it is an opinion that I know is shared by others as well. Yeah. And honestly, I can't fathom a motive for such a thing. But if he is the type of person I think he is, it might have been as simple as. as he had always kind of wanted to try killing someone and he had an opportunity and knew that this child is sick. She was obviously a burden on them because she was very sick and still requiring a lot of

expensive medical care and time and attention from Carrie. And Carrie wasn't wanting to do it with him very much because of it. And that was an inconvenience to him because Matt did love his sex. And so I honestly kind of feel like he was probably just standing there and looking at Cassidy and thinking, I bet I could get away with this. Yeah. And I think it was probably an impulse. Yeah, I don't, I mean, aside from him insisting not to use the breathing alarm, I think, yeah, he was probably just, this baby is an inconvenience.

And I'm not getting the attention I want from this baby. No, yeah. No, I think that was part of the impulse. Like, he just was standing there. They were getting the kids ready for bed. And he thought, I'm going to come back later and I'm going to smother my daughter. That's what I think happened. And so he made sure she didn't have the alarm on because it would have woken carry up.

And she would have come in and saved her. That's what I think. We don't have any proof, but it is what I suspect. So I could be dead wrong. We need like alarms any time we're saying anything alleged. Allegedly. We need like a little alarms to go off. Yeah.

And it's pretty heavily suggested in the Catherine Casey book as well. Uh, yeah. Which I highly suggest you read. It's very well done. She's one of my favorite true crime authors. She does a really good job. This is, yeah, it's a great book. So, anywho, that's the story.

And that's all for now, campers. know we'll have another one for you next week and oh my god is it a doozy next week's one is bananas so look forward to that but for now lock your doors light your lights and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire and tonight we want to shout out a few more of our wonderful patreon angels thank you so so much to rose steve and anna we appreciate you all so much love you thank you you can follow us on twitter at tc campfire Instagram at True Crime Campfire, and be sure to like our Facebook page. If you want to support the show and get access to extras,

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