Baker transported to East Texas Prison to serve life sentence
Channel 25 - KXXV.com

"WACO - The former Waco-area pastor convicted of murdering his wife in 2006 has been moved to his permanent cell unit of assignment in the state prison system. "

"He has been reportedly assigned to field duty, tending to crops at the 2,900 inmate facility." (read full article here)

I find it very interesting that after extensive and specific physical, mental, occupational and psychological testing that they deemed the fields to be the ideal spot for Baker. A job requiring no education or specific skills at all. It's going to be one, long, hot summer!

Transferred....

My contacts have informed me that Matt has been transferred to his new permanent home at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas.

Another Kerrville Voice

A new email from a concerned resident of Kerrville:

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV

Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. Psalm 146: 3 NIV

faith: 2 b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust. Merriam-Webster Online

The Bible seems to indicate that only God is worthy of our faith (belief without proof). Mortal men should have actions that merit our trust, and my understanding of scriptures is there should be limits when putting our faith in a man. There are many examples of people putting too much faith in someone believed to be “a man of God”: Jim Jones, David Koresh, child molesting priests, etc.

I suspect that most everyone reading this blog has a firm opinion concerning the guilt or innocence of Matt, and I doubt that anything written by me would change your opinion about that issue. Matt’s future does not seem to be the primary concern of current contributors to this blog. The futures of Kensi & Grace are now at issue.

The Friends of Kensi and Grace Baker Fund group is taking actions which could have an impact on their futures. This group seems to take it as a given that remaining with the Bakers is in the best interest of Kensi and Grace. I do not think that is correct. Thus, it seems to be appropriate to direct some questions and comments to a couple of the people listed as Co-Chairs in the brochure.

To the Co-Chair who testified in the sentencing phase of Matt’s trial that a man could be a “good” father even if he murdered his child’s mother, I have the following questions for your consideration and reflection. Do you still believe this? If you do, what act would a man have to commit for your value system to tell you he is a “bad” father?

To the Co-Chair who “stayed away from knowing the evidence on the case on purpose” concerning Matt? I hope and pray you are not taking the same approach in “knowing” what is best for the girls’ futures.

Seriously??!?!?! [EDIT]

I have received an email that touched my heart. And I will respond to that person privately. I do not want to cause grief to "innocent" parties. There is something strange going on with all this and until I know more of the particulars, I will try to protect the "innocent." For that reason (and that reason alone), I am removing my earlier post. I do not want to cause this third person harm or embarrassment.

I corrected my statement from saying the third person was the one who put this brochure together. That was my error in the post and it was an innocent one. According to the email I received, she was not involved at all. I still find that bothersome and the whole thing seems rather dubious. I'm not the only one. The Kerrville people I have heard from are bothered by the whole thing as well. I will post something about that in a little bit. I'm trying to hold out judgement as best I can. I just never imagined a Co-Chair printed on the back of the brochure would have nothing to do with it.

All that said, I removed the earlier post and am replacing it with this one. I did this strictly as an act of kindness. NOT because of a threat. I corrected my innocent error. The rest of what I said is just documented fact. But I will still err on the side of over-kindness on this matter.

I do still urge the Founder to answer questions posed to him in some of the comments here so maybe the world can understand his motives and desires in this matter. I mean, why not? Help us understand.

Email from Kerrville

I received this very kind and passionate comment on a post here and I wanted to share that along with my response.

"Shannon,
I am the person who initiated the Friends of Kensi and Grace group. After reading the original email you posted from a person who received the mailing and the comments posted to date, I want to clarify some unfounded assumptions that unfortunately have been reached. First of all, Barbara Baker had nothing to do with the initiation of this effort. In fact, when first approached about the idea she expressed reluctance and continued to do so until the week of the mailing. The brochure was designed without any input from her and to my knowledge she didn’t see it until after it was finished. She also did not spend one penny of her resources for the mailing. I personally paid for every expense associated with the printing and mailing.

It saddens my heart to see the words, exploit and exploitation, appear in the commentary on your blog. The mailing was done from a heartfelt Christian perspective of helping someone in need, not exploitation of Kensi, Grace or their friends. The mailing went to a limited number of people, primarily to some members of two churches. The response has been very positive. Some of the donations have been accompanied with very sweet notes expressing their love and best wishes for the girls.

In closing I want to address the comments made in your 7:08pm post last night. Speaking for myself (and I’m sure for many, many others, including you), I do want what is best for the girls. I have not been brainwashed and am not being taken advantage of. I’ve known the Baker family for over twenty years. They are honest, hardworking, caring Christian people who have been a blessing to my family and many others in this community. I sincerely believe they will do a good job of raising Kensi and Grace and leading them into adulthood. These young ladies have already experienced more trauma than most of us have experienced in a lifetime. Adding an additional trauma by uprooting them from the community where they feel secure because of the wide and deep support system they have here will serve no purpose. I’m praying that something can be worked out between the two families. All we can do is pray and know that God is in control of all things and His will shall come to pass.


Posted by Founder of The Friends of Kensi and Grace to Don't Even Get Me Started at May 6, 2010 12:25 PM"

My response:

I very much understand and fully believe that you approached this venture from a heartfelt Christian perspective. I do. But I do not think you are seeing the whole picture.

Kensi and Grace were traumatized when their Father (a Baker) killed their Mother. To pretend this didn't happen is more trauma. To keep them in a family where they pretend the man given 65 years is innocent and getting out any day now heaps even more trauma. To pretend that their Mother committed suicide when she was murdered and taken from their world by their Father heaps trauma upon trauma upon trauma. When does that stop?

You may know the Bakers, but do you know the Dulins? They were an integral part of their granddaughters lives until Matt Baker killed Kari. Matt Baker not only ripped their daughter from this world, but with his parent’s help, removed their granddaughters from their lives. Can you imagine such pain? And for what purpose?

The following isn't something I've heard Oscar or Barbara Baker's supporters be able to say. And it is vitally important: “ Matt Baker killed Kari Baker, Kensi and Grace's Mother....Linda and Jim's daughter.....Adam's sister.” Tell me, how healthy is it for two little girls to stay with the family whose son murdered their Mother, ESPECIALLY when they will not admit the truth? This is just NOT okay. How can the girls grow up healthy and whole when they are being fed lies? Kari Baker loved her girls more than anything; she would have never left them by her own choice. Kensi and Grace need to be in an environment where they can be reminded of their mother’s love! This is just NOT okay. Barbara continues to say that Kari was despondent and depressed and even that suicide was a good option for her in "her condition." Yes, she did. Well, twelve jurors heard all of the evidence and decided unanimously and overwhelmingly that she wasn't depressed and despondent and that she DID NOT take her own life. So, what does that say about the nature of Barbara Baker? Why would such a good woman continue to vilify her dead daughter-in-law?

I am sorry but I do think the flyer is exploitation and some people that received it have contacted me and are upset. And I don't doubt that people have sent contributions feeling that they are in some way helping Kensi and Grace. I love that Kerrville is filled with people that love the girls and want the best for them and pray for them as we do here. I don't doubt that for one minute. I don't fault your motive or any givers' motives for for doing what they hope will help the girls. You say the Bakers were reluctant to have this mailed. Well, I received a copy of one of their first letters asking for money. Matt was quoting scripture. Praising God. Oh, yes....and asking for money. And who signed this letter with Matt? Barbara, Oscar, Kensi and Grace. He had those little girls (even younger at that time) put their little tiny childrens' signatures at the bottom of it. Sickening. I see a bit of a pattern here and it tells me that they may not be as reluctant as you think they are. I believe you truly believe what you say. I have seen this from the beginning. I saw the good people of Kerrville being scammed by a sexual predator and murderer....and now his Mother "doth protest too much." I do not think she is the woman you portrayed in your comment. However, I will not say more than that.

Something here just isn't right. If you really search your heart, I think you will see it. Clearly, you are a good woman who believes she is doing the right thing but I think you are incredibly wrong. No, I know you are incredibly wrong. I believe with all of my heart, that for healing to take place, Kensi and Grace must come HOME. They must come back to the family whose lives they were intertwined with before their Father murdered their Mother. They must get REAL counseling where they can learn the truth, accept it, and love their Mother.....and their Father. I know the Dulins well enough to know they will do whatever it takes to help their granddaughters heal. They LOVE their granddaughters enough to forgive and focus on their healing. I don't see that in the Bakers.

Thank you for sharing and your honesty. I return that courtesy to you with this response. There is so much more I could say. Not only have I uncovered a great deal just by going to the courthouse for myself, researching and having copies made of documents.....but I have also made many friends in Kerrville over the past few years. I have learned much from many sources. And I will use the forum of this blog to continue to uncover injustice. I still see it where Kari's daughters are concerned.

Edited this morning to add a comment left on the blog early this morning. I wanted to add it to this post here so it wouldn't be overlooked. Thank you, whoever this was.

To those who support the Bakers fight for custody:

I don't think any of you are crazy or brainwashed but, I don't get it. I don't understand how anyone who truly loves those girls could keep telling them that their Mom killed herself leaving them to go to their dead sister? Like Kari picked Kassidy over them? NEVER!

And if you still think Matt Baker is innocent, tell me HOW? Do you not see how many totally unrelated strangers from all parts of the state and country would have had to get together and concocted a story, then perjured themselves in a court of law for Matt's story to even ring partly true? Why would they do that?

Do you not get that every person who knew Kari, EVERY PERSON, except Matt, says she was not depressed. NOTHING, no e-mail, no note, no plan, no
conversation, NOTHING in Kari's life pointed to suicide outside of Matt's story and a unsigned gramaticaly incorrect typed note.

Aside from all that, can you not see that Matt's version of what happened that night is IMPOSSIBLE? Not only could Kari's death not have happened the way he said, from what he said, in the time he said, but Matt himself could not physically have done the things he said he was doing at the time.

The thing you have to understand is that no one wanted to believe that Matt killed Kari. No one. It's been a 4 year nightmare. But the facts, they just didn't add up. With that note, Matt's weird behavior after Kari died, his impossible whole-filled account of that night, his multiplying lies, horrible things surfacing from his past....Matt left us with no other option. NONE! He killed Kari and then he took her girls away from their lives.

How can you think that living with the Bakers, the people who want the girls to think their mother left them, the people who perpetuate Matt's lies everyday, the people who try to slander Kari's good name are a good for Kensi & Grace? How?

Despite what you believe or want to believe, do you realize how much more harm YOU = you personally, will bring to these girls by helping the Bakers if
you are wrong? If you are wrong the girls entire life in Kerrville is based on a lies. Knowing, as we all do, that the truth always comes out, can you imagine how horrible it will be for those girls to learn that the people who raised them were lying to them and everything they thought was true isn't? No matter what your feelings are towards the Bakers, are you willing to risk that for these two little girls who have lost so very much already?

Maybe you don't know the Dulins, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that they are and will be the best family for Kensi and Grace. They can give them a great life and bright future, without handouts might I add. They are Christian people who love God. They are successful, stable, loving people who will fight for what is right and move heaven and Earth to give Kensi and Grace the very best life possible! Our community will also do whatever we can for Kensi and Grace, just as you in Kerrville have done for these last 4 years. Those girls are so loved and continually prayed for by multitudes of Kari's friends and family.

That's what the main point of getting justice for Kari was...to let her girls know what really happened and to give them the best life possible. We owe Kari and her girls that. To love Kensi and Grace, we know how important it is to let them love both of their parents, as hard as that might be. Tell me, do the Bakers let the girls love Kari?

Please, please, please, step back and really, really think about this. AND please pray for God to honor only what is right and true in Kensi and Graces lives. Surly that is a prayer we can all share.

PS none of my questions were meant to be rhetorical. I really would like to know what you think.

Posted by A friend of Kari's to Don't Even Get Me Started at May 7, 2010 12:52 AM

Feel free to discuss any of this in comments below.

Hearing from Kerrville....

I actually got wind of this last week. Was disgusted. Not sure what to do, if anything. But when I received another email from the Kerrville area about this and it included the attatchment, I felt that I need to say something. Not only disgusted, but angry. It's a little long and I considered just posting excerpts but decided that all of it was pertinent. So with permission, I will share this email with you here:

"Dear Shannon,
I decided to e-mail you because of something I got in my mail yesterday. It made me terribly mad at first and now I am more sad. If you haven’t seen this then I think you will be upset too at what the Bakers are doing because we were shocked by it. They have mailed out this brochure that has pictures of the girls all over it. They are using the girls pictures to collect money for their custody fight. They have a return address on it that says Friends of Kensi and Grace Baker Fund. It tells people to encourage the girls when they see them around town and talks about their sports and youth groups. They are writing about how much money they need and there is a bank fund set up for donations. If they are so hard up for money then how can they afford to print the color brochures and postage to mail them out to everybody? I have never had any face to face dealing with the Bakers. However I have seen how things have been with this case. I started hearing about it in the news and later read this blog after Matt moved back to Kerrville . I was pretty sure he was guilty then, but when I saw the trial on In Session and it was so obvious. I never understood why he wasn’t really working. Matt was asking people for money then too, as you know. He even had the children sign their names on a letter he wrote begging for money. He took everybody’s money but why wasn’t he working a regular job to pay his own legal costs? Or even support his family like any decent man would. He wanted people to feel sorry for him. A lot of them who helped him don’t feel good about that now, trust me. Some gave money only because he was a preacher. Or they felt sorry for his parents. Well anyway he was found guilty regardless, and people are glad about that at least. I think if his mother loved him in the right way she would make him take responsibility. She would love him but not take up for him. This is crazy what she is doing. I am not giving one dime and I wish nobody else would, either. You should know there are many people in the Kerrville community who feel this way. It’s the same thing as taking the girls to court in Waco where they had no business being. And speaking for them to the newspaper. Why wasn’t he protecting them from all of this? It makes me so sad."

With this email was an attachment with the flyer/brochure. I won't post the flyer because it just completely exploits the girls. I am angered that Kensi, Grace and all the other Kerrville children in these pictures are being used in this manner. I heard via a third-party-Kerrville person that thier friend's daughter's picture was used in the brochure WITHOUT permission and that she was livid. Not only was it without permission but it implied their family supported the Bakers and their fundraising and they 100% do NOT. Even after all that has been done, I can't believe they would take pictures of other people's children and use them in their money quests.

I, too, question why Matt didn't "man up" and work over the last 2-3 years to support his family and take care of business. He can't claim that he couldn't get a job because of these horrible allegations because he and his family claimed (and still do) that he has the overwhelming support of the Kerrville community. If that's true and he was actually looking for work, you'd think people (business owners and managers) would be clamoring to help the "innocent, falsely-accused minister" in his time of need. So either he didn't want to work OR he doesn't have the support in Kerrville that he claimed/claims. Either scenario means Baker lied. Instead of working for funds for his defense and/or to raise his children, he wrote letters and made phone calls hounding people for hand-outs. A couple of these have been emailed to me in the past. The court documents show that Matt had a pickup payment of almost $700/month.....that he bought after he killed Kari. No job. $700/month for a big, nice truck? Instead of getting a job and/or selling the truck for something practical and affordable and being able to actually take care of his family, he continued driving that big, nice truck around to pick up his handouts.

Now that Matt no longer needs that truck, what's become of it? Has it been sold for much-needed funds for the custody matter or even to simply take care of the girls' basic needs? No. It's being driven by his parents. Did someone pay it off? Or are they still making payments on it? How are they affording this? Solicited funds??? What money being solicited for with flyers and brochures will actually go to benefit the girls? And are the people in charge of this fund capable of knowing and doing what is truly right for Kensi and Grace?

I feel the Bakers are exploiting their granddaughters and other community children to get the good people of Kerrville to give them more money. Question is: Will they give this time?