12.Deadly.Little.Secrets.2012

Deadly Little Secrets

The Minister, His Mistress, and a Heartless Texas Murder

Kathryn Casey

Dedication

In memory of my grandparents:

Josephine, Joseph,

Margaret, and Michael

Epigraph

Even the Devil can cite scripture for his purpose.

—William Shakespeare,
The Merchant of Venice

Contents

Chapter 1

N
one of it made any sense, absolutely none of it. Not when her sister Nancy tried to tell her on the telephone nor now that Linda Dulin was surrounded by two of her three sisters and her oldest niece, Lindsey, in the backyard of Linda’s comfortable home on a Sunday evening. Outside, the rolling hills surrounding Waco, Texas, were replete with beauty, bursting with bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and delicate white rain lilies. The days were growing longer, promising summer. Yet it felt like winter in Linda’s heart, cold and lonely. She couldn’t take any more pain. She’d suffered enough. And what her sisters were saying . . . well, it had to stop. It was impossible, and Linda didn’t understand why the others couldn’t just see that.

“I want you to drop it,” she ordered. “Just let it go.”

At fifty-two, Linda was the oldest of the sisters, a lineup that ran from Linda, to Nancy, forty-nine, Kay, forty-seven, and Jennifer, thirty-seven. Nancy’s oldest daughter, Lindsey, twenty-six, was almost like another daughter to Linda. She knew they had come out of love, and that they were all trying to help, but that didn’t alter things. It was too late to change what had happened. Linda’s oldest child, her only daughter, Kari, had died, and there wasn’t anything any of them could do about it. They had to come to terms with what had happened; they had to move on with their lives. As impossible as that seemed, that was what Linda, her husband, Jim, and their son, Adam, were all trying to do, and they didn’t need anyone filling their minds with groundless suspicions.

“Kari is dead,” Linda said. A purposeful woman with short, highlighted dark blond hair and expressively arched eyebrows, she pursed her lips as she sometimes did when standing before her students at McLennan Community College. With a doctorate in organizational communication, she was used to being listened to in a classroom. What she needed now was that same courtesy from her siblings. “There was nothing in Kari that made me think she would take her own life. But we have to accept this.”

“Linda, you’re not listening,” Nancy protested. With shoulder-length dark brown hair and a steady gaze, Nancy might have been younger than Linda, but she was her match. All the women were strong individuals, and they’d grown up both protecting and competing with each other. They’d always been close, held together by a bond that transcended blood. Determined that Linda listen to their theory, Nancy refused to back down. “We don’t believe Kari killed herself.”

“What’s the alternative?” Linda asked, her mind resting uncomfortably on the only conclusion. “If my daughter didn’t kill herself, what are you saying? That she was murdered?”

The pause was uncomfortably long, as all the women looked at each other, wondering who should speak next.

“Linda, you have to understand,” said Kay, her blond hair in a ponytail and her hands fisted on her lap. She knew this was agonizing, but somehow she had to make her oldest sister listen. Linda was the only one seated at the round patio table who believed that Kari had committed suicide, carried out by an overdose of sleeping pills mixed with alcohol. All the others had come to another conclusion, that Kari’s husband, Matt Baker, a Baptist minister, had committed the vilest of sins.

The other women had an advantage over Linda. They’d understood for years that Matt Baker wasn’t the man he pretended to be. Far from being a man of God, Matt lived a double life, one in which he preyed on women.

For those who didn’t know better, from the outside it appeared that Kari had the perfect marriage. Just thirty-one, she was a bright, funny, dynamic woman, an elementary-school teacher with shining blond hair cut short, a wide smile, and playful blue eyes. She and Matt had two precious little girls, Kensi, nine, and Grace, five. Another daughter, Kassidy, had died seven years earlier, and her death was the sorrow mentioned in the note found near Kari’s body. “I want to give Kassidy a hug. I need to feel her again,” it read.

Yet this final missive, including the name at the bottom, was typed. Would Kari have done that? Would she have failed to mention Adam, her only sibling? Kay, Nancy, and Lindsey had discussed it all at length and agreed that the suicide note was a lie.

Linda, however, wouldn’t budge. “Matt’s the father of my granddaughters, all we have left of Kari,” she said, her manner stern. “I want you to drop it. Understand?”

The women nodded. “Okay,” Kay agreed. “It’s dropped.”

Not long after, they hugged Linda at her front door and said good night. Yet after Linda retreated inside, the women congregated near their cars. “So what do we do?” Lindsey asked.

Faith was important to the family, going back to their paternal grandfather, a Baptist minister. The youngest of the sisters, Jennifer, who’d returned home to Florida after the funeral, was married to a music minister. The idea that Matt, the pastor of a small, rural church, could commit murder wasn’t to be taken lightly. But they knew Kari. They knew that if it were one of them, she’d move heaven and earth to find justice.

“Linda said to drop it,” Lindsey acknowledged. “So what do we do?”

For a moment, no one spoke. Then, Kay said, “We’re not going to drop it. Not now. Not ever.”

Later, many in Waco would call the three women gathered at their cars “the angels,” and Linda, who would eventually come to understand what kind of man her daughter had truly married, “Charlie.” This small band of women would join together to uncover the truth, solving the mystery of how Kari Dulin Baker died.

Weeks after that backyard conference, Linda and Jim Dulin reluctantly accepted the heartbreaking truth, that their daughter had been murdered. Yet once they did, the fight had just begun. Their journey would be a long one, requiring the aid of many. Caught in the middle and never far from the Dulins’ thoughts were their two granddaughters, Kari’s beloved girls. In the end, every step would be a fight in a valiant struggle for justice.

Chapter 2

“F
rom the time she was little, Kari was bursting with life, and always something of a diva,” Linda says, a slight chuckle in her voice. “She, of course, fit in with the rest of us. We’re a family of she-rahs. All of us, a large, close, extended family. We love each other. We’d do anything for each other. And we all loved Kari.”

On August 13, 1974, Kari Lynn was born not among the rolling hills of Central Texas but surrounded by mountains in Salt Lake City. At the time Linda was married to Scott, and they were both students at the University of Utah. It was there one horrible afternoon, when Kari was still a baby, that Linda received the tragic news that her husband had died in a motorcycle accident. “It was hard,” she says. “Kari was so small, she didn’t even remember Scott.”

Leaving the mountains behind, Linda relocated to Waco, Texas, to attend Baylor University, where one of her younger sisters, Kay, was a student. As a child, Linda, her father an army colonel, had lived across the globe, everywhere from Okinawa to Berlin. “I was kind of a military brat,” she says. “Growing up, I don’t remember ever living anywhere more than three years.” But by the midseventies, much of the Dodson family had settled in and around the bucolic hills surrounding Waco, a city of 126,000 situated an hour’s drive south of Dallas.

Those unfamiliar with the Central Texas landscape, the tent of bright blue sky, the rich green forests, the grazing cattle, the wildflowers in the spring, and the bright reds and golds of fall, can be unprepared for its beauty. Without the pollution and congestion of Houston, Dallas, or even Austin, the air is clear, and days seem longer. Waco is a place where family values and the belief that a handshake can seal a deal are the norm. Manners still matter in this part of the world. People nod at each other on the streets and wave when they drive by. Mothers teach their sons to hold doors open, and their daughters to say, “Thank you.”

In the heart of the Bible Belt, Central Texas is God-fearing country, a place where faith runs as deep as love of family and country, seemingly in the very land. As far back as history extends, the hills around Waco have been considered sacred. Early Spanish explorers christened the river that runs through the city
Rio de los Brazos de Dios,
the river of the arms of God.

Baptists call Waco “Jerusalem on the Brazos.” Churches dominate the landscape. Drive down one street and pass an imposing stone-and-brick structure with pillars; take a turn and pass a white clapboard cottage-size church. Both are likely to have slender steeples reaching toward the heavens. The majority are Baptist, busy places on Sunday mornings and Wednesday and Sunday evenings, when their congregations gather to sing, praise, study the Bible, and pray. The result is that in Waco, “God bless” is heard often, accompanied by a smile and a nodding of the head. Grace murmured before a meal in a restaurant is common enough to warrant little notice.

Unfortunately, even in Jerusalem on the Brazos, evil is far from a stranger. As in any part of the United States, anywhere in the world, anger, greed, or jealousy sometimes tears back the peaceful façade and men and women do their worst. At times it twists the very values that promise to help man transcend human limitations. In such cases, those who promise redemption instead bring betrayal and tragedy.

The most famous example in this part of Texas is the one with which many identify Waco’s very name. No matter that the city is actually named after the Huaco or Hueco, a tribe of Native Americans that once lived on the land that became the city’s downtown. Instead, Waco, Texas, is synonymous with fifty days in 1993, when a man who claimed to be a great prophet, David Koresh, and his cultish Branch Davidians held the combined forces of the ATF and the FBI at bay, until the compound erupted into a fireball that claimed the lives of Koresh and seventy-five others, including twenty-one children.

For some, Koresh became a martyr to individual rights, yet to many he was simply another false prophet, one who abused children and indulged in polygamy, claiming at least one spiritual bride when she was just thirteen.

Yet, belief in God promises not violence but peace, a call to a greater good. If some masquerade as true believers for their own purposes, to manipulate and even violate others, it’s surely not God’s sin but their own.

In Linda’s family, faith ran deep through the generations. “My father’s dad and brother were Baptist ministers,” she says. “I don’t remember a time when faith wasn’t important to our family. We raised our children going to church as a family. And we live long lives. Kari knew her maternal great-grandmother, who lived until her nineties and played the organ at church. Faith is part of who we are.”

Surrounded by this conservative Christian city, Baylor is the largest of all Baptist universities, begun while Texas was still a republic. The imposing university with its parklike campus is Waco’s epicenter of education, an institution held in high regard.

After her husband’s death, Linda moved into an apartment with the third of the Dodson sisters, Kay, and enrolled at Baylor, intent on completing her undergraduate degree in communications. “It was a good time in many ways. We had fun together,” says Nancy, who visited often. “But it was a rough time for Linda. I remember Kari as this little sprite of a kid with thick blond hair. Just a ball of fire. Linda was never much for doing hair, so Kari would run to me with a brush, and I’d sit on the floor and fix her hair. She’d talk and talk. Even then, Kari was full of life.”

At times, Kari was so funny that there was little more to do than laugh. She loved the family dog, a stray cocker mix that showed up one morning and never left. “She was this goofy kid,” Linda would say rather proudly. One of Linda’s favorite memories was Kari’s second birthday, when apparently the toddler decided that since it was a celebration on her behalf, she was exempt from the usual rules. Linda, who wore glasses and contacts, remembers Kari proudly running into the room, hands on hips to tell her, “I ate your tontacts (contacts)!”

“I knew they wouldn’t hurt her, and I laughed so hard,” Linda says. “She was just this little pistol.”

Even at four, Kari loved to belt out a tune, especially church hymns. When the family congregated or friends dropped over, Kari entertained with a song, putting her whole tiny body into it. “Kari was always Kari, a force to be reckoned with,” says Kay.

After Scott died, Linda went to counseling for a time, seeking advice as she worked through her grief. “I never thought it was good to hold things in,” she says. “Our family is like that. We aren’t afraid to ask for help when we need it.”

While attending Baylor, Linda studied hard and concentrated on raising her daughter. In the mornings, she dropped Kari at the imposing First Baptist Church, with its tall white pillars and arched windows, for day care. Between classes, Kay and Linda crossed paths often on Baylor’s pristine campus, with its redbrick Georgian architecture, windows trimmed in cream, pillars and domes.

It was yet another calamity that brought a young man named Jim Dulin into Linda’s life. That Christmas break, 1977, a fire erupted in Linda and Kay’s apartment, and they lost nearly everything. A tall, avuncular fellow with glasses, Jim, was a friend of their neighbors, and he offered his pickup to transport the little they had left. Before long, Linda was dating the Texas State Technical College grad, a member of the National Guard who worked for the Department of Defense at nearby North Fort Hood.

“I’d never met a finer man,” Linda said years later. Jim was particularly good with Kari, loving and kind. Soon after Linda and Jim married on June 9, 1979, he adopted Kari. And before long, they moved to Gatesville, forty-five minutes southwest by car from Waco, near Jim’s job. Linda taught high-school journalism, coached drama and debate. In 1980, the family expanded when Linda gave birth to a son whom they named Adam. Big sister Kari adored her baby brother. Where she was petite and blond, Linda describes Adam as “a giant, round baby, with big brown eyes . . . Kari treated him like a doll . . . carrying him around.”

A happy baby, Adam loved it when his big sister lavished him with attention, and Linda would always smile remembering those early days before, as might have been expected, Kari grew weary of Adam’s hanging around when her friends came for sleepovers, Kari screaming, “Mommmm, make Adam leave us alone.”

The years passed, and Linda continued teaching and getting her education, working on a master’s degree. Kari did well in school, played T-ball and took dance classes, and wore her blond hair in curls with a thick fringe of bangs.

Jill Valentine, who met Kari in first grade, would remember her friend as “full of joy and laughter. She never seemed to be afraid of anything.” That fearlessness came through in fourth grade, when Jill, Kari, and a friend danced for the school, pretending to be robots. “Kari could never get through the dance without laughing,” Jill would later remember. “She wasn’t embarrassed; she just thought it was hysterical.”

Her friend was also forgiving. In fact, Kari seemed incapable of holding a grudge. The one time she and Jill got into an argument that erupted into a fight, it lasted a full ten seconds. “Then,” Jill remembers, “we were hugging.”

As Linda’s and Jim’s lives were grounded in their faith, so was their daughter’s. Summers meant Latham Springs, a Baptist camp in Aquilla, Texas, where Kari relished the outdoors, swimming, and campfires. At church, she thrived on being involved. One year, Kari and Jill raised funds for missionaries. “We took groceries to homeless shelters,” Jill remembers. “Whatever came up, Kari was there, full of ideas and wanting to help.”

One of Jill’s favorite pastimes was simply hanging out at her best friend’s house. “Linda was funny, with a sarcastic sense of humor,” Jill says. “And Jim was a quiet, kind, nurturing man. I loved being there. They were always on the go.”

A matter-of-fact woman who doesn’t mince words, Linda admits that at times her sense of humor can be a bit biting. “I understand that I can come on rather strong,” she says with a shrug. “Some people don’t like that. And they may not like me, but I’m okay with that. I work hard not to be hurtful to people, but I try to be honest.”

In many ways, Kari was like her mother, outspoken and not letting things that distressed her ride. “Sometimes, Kari lost her temper,” Jill remembers. “But the thing was, she was always fair. And if it turned out she was wrong, she’d apologize. She was smart and funny, and none of us doubted that she would succeed in life.”

Yet as the years passed, Linda watched her children grow and thought that she could envision them as adults. Despite Kari’s boldness, Linda knew that their daughter would remain close. Adam, on the other hand, had a bit of the wanderlust in him. “I knew that our son would travel, but Kari would always stay near,” Linda says.

It seemed no matter what the activity, Kari invested herself into it. That pattern held at thirteen when she had her first boyfriend, and he left her for another girl. Convinced it was the end of the world, Kari threw herself on the floor and bellowed, “But I love him!”

Composing herself so she wouldn’t laugh, Linda comforted her daughter, explaining that she was young, her life just beginning, and there was time ahead for love.

In eighth grade, Kari played basketball on the junior-high team, wearing a black-and-white uniform with number 33, her hair tied in a yellow bow. Then, in ninth grade, she became a cheerleader. As she came of age, Kari grew into a bright, funny girl, with a slightly heart-shaped face and luminous blue eyes. Rarely did she go unnoticed, and in high school, she appeared center court at the fairgrounds, holding long-stemmed roses and wearing a sash that read:
HEART O’ TEXAS SWEETHEART
.

When the Dulins returned to Waco for visits, which they did often, there were big family get-togethers. As her sisters had children, Linda’s family grew, and in high school, Kari spent summers babysitting Kay’s children, teaching them to swim, shouting at them from the side of the pool: “You can do it! You can do it!”

Of Kari’s cousins, it was Lindsey, Nancy’s oldest, that Kari was the closest to. A cute girl with light brown hair, Lindsey was five years younger. As kids, they jumped up and down on Lindsey’s bed singing, “Hey, Mickey, You’re so fine!” When Kari could drive, Lindsey was as excited as her cousin. The two girls rode around Waco with all the windows down, listening to Vanilla Ice blaring on the radio.

In the end, though, it wasn’t family but a job that brought Linda and Jim back to Waco. Linda had earned her master’s and was working on her doctorate when she began teaching communication studies at Waco’s McLennan Community College, a position that came with long hours coaching the speech team. Jim didn’t want his wife commuting, and in 1993, after fourteen years in Gatesville, the Dulin family bought a home on a quiet suburban street lined by trees. Adam enrolled at the local junior high school, and Kari, a sophomore, entered Waco Christian High School.

As it often is, changing schools as a teenager can be difficult. Kari’s saving grace would be her belief that if she confronted people, if she was honest and told them what she thought, they’d understand. It worked at least once, when a girl decided that the new kid in school was an easy target. Instead of becoming angry, Kari simply said, “You’re a very bad person, and what you’re doing hurts me.” At that Kari walked away and, remarkably, the teasing stopped.

Cute and popular, in her senior year at Waco Christian, Kari had a boyfriend, but it was a surprise when Jim rushed their daughter to the emergency room on November 5, 1992, doubled over with pain. He thought Kari was having an appendicitis attack, but she was pregnant. She was bleeding and cramping, and on the chart the doctor who estimated the pregnancy at seven and a half weeks noted: “likely impending miscarriage.”

“Remember, your daughter is eighteen,” the physician told Jim.

When Jim entered the room, Kari sobbed, “Please don’t think I’m a slut.”

“I don’t think that. I would never think that,” Jim said, and he held her as she cried.