Waco couple pushes for 'Kari's Law'

Waco couple pushes for 'Kari's Law' to make autopsies mandatory for suspected suicides
Erin Quinn
WacoTrib.com

"A retired Waco couple is pushing state officials to amend Texas law in honor of 31-year-old Hewitt teacher Kari Baker, whose husband almost got away with murder by making her death look like a suicide.

Tom and Jan Purdy wrote a letter this week to 14 local and state officials urging them to back 'Kari’s Law,' which would mandate that an autopsy is conducted on any suspected suicide." (read more)

There are so many, many things that could have been done differently at Kari's crime scene that would have alleviated all the extra pain of the last four years and money spent gaining eventual justice for Kari. There has to be change. Change in the laws. And change in the hearts and minds of those whose paychecks are signed by the taxpayers of McLennan County. Autopsies for apparent suicides. Great! Local ME's office. Great! Person in charge of declaring a suspicious death of a young, healthy, vibrant 31-year old woman to be murder or suicide getting out of bed and showing up at what could be a crime scene..........FREE!

A comment on another website brings up the cost of autopsies....and how McLennan County would be picking up the tab on those. It costs approximately $2,000 to send a body to Dallas for an autopsy. I'm sure if we had our own ME and could do the autopsies locally, it would be much less plus as someone pointed out on the WacoTrib article, McLennan County would be able to make money by offering surrounding counties a closer ME's office for their autopsies. Okay. How much county funds were spent bringing Kari's murderer to justice? How much Dulin funds were spent investigating this case to a point where it was looked at by the District Attorney's office? How many autopsies could have been done with that money? Hundreds? Thousands? Erin reports there are approximately 25 suicides in McLennan County per year. You can do the math.

Can those involved in handling Kari's murder scene and eventual investigation look into Kari's daughters' eyes, hold their hands, and say that they did everything for their mother that they would have done for one of their very own family members? I personally know many of them that could. There are many more that it's obvious didn't even come close. What level of commitment do YOU want from your elected officials and law enforcement personnel if they were investigating YOUR mother or daughter's death?

If things are done right to begin with, not only do we save hundreds of thousands of dollars, we also save the mothers and fathers, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and children of murder victims years of grievous hell on earth. And you can't put a price tag on that.