WACO (March 27, 2009)—Former Waco-area pastor Matt Baker, who surrendered Thursday to Kerr County authorities, a day after he was indicted for murder in the 2006 death of his wife, was in the McLennan County Jail Friday evening.

McLennan County Sheriff’s deputies transferred Baker from Kerr County back to Waco Friday.

His bond is set at $500,000.

A hearing is scheduled next Wednesday at which Baker’s attorney is expected to seek a reduction in that amount.

Baker was indicted a year to the day after a murder complaint against him was dropped in the death of his wife, Kari.

The indictment alleges Baker drugged his wife and then suffocated her with a pillow.

On March 25, 2008, McLennan County Justice of the Peace Billy Martin signed an order dismissing the original murder charge against Baker at the request of Baker’s attorney because the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office had not sought an indictment within the required 180 days of Baker’s arrest.

Martin said it was the first such writ he’s signed in his more than ten years as justice of the peace.

The original arrest warrant for Baker was issued in September 2007.

The affidavit submitted for that warrant indicated that authorities thought Kari Baker was suffocated with a pillow or similar object after she was “rendered defenseless” by a combination of alcohol and Unisom.

It said investigators found an abrasion on her nose and bruising to her lips, which would be consistent with suffocation.

Kari Baker, the affidavit says, confided in a counselor several days before she died that “she believed (her husband) was going to kill her.”

She told the counselor, the affidavit says, that she had found a bottle of crushed up pills in her husband’s briefcase and suspected he “was having an illicit affair with another woman.”

The death as initially ruled a suicide.

Martin issued the preliminary ruling on April 8, 2006 after consulting with police, and concluding that the area elementary schoolteacher died from an overdose of sleeping pills in her home in the Waco suburb of Hewitt.

Police found a typed, unsigned suicide note at the scene.

Three months later, at the request of the woman’s parents, Martin ordered that her body be exhumed for an autopsy after questions surfaced about whether Baker took her own life.

Pathologists found traces of Ambien and Unisom in her system, but could not accurately determine the concentration of the drugs.

But an expert cited in the affidavit says if Kari Baker ingested enough of either drug to cause her death, then she could not have died in the time frame provided by her husband, who told investigators that he left around 11:15 p.m. on April 7 2006 to buy gas and rent movies, and returned home to find his wife nude on the bed and cold to the touch.

Paramedics arrived at the house at 12:15 a.m. on April 8, 2006, by which time she was already dead.

Kari Baker’s parents, who dropped a wrongful death suit against their daughter’s husband in October 2007, filed a new suit in March 2008 on behalf of Kari Baker’s mother, Linda Dulin.

Baker was a former pastor at several area Baptist churches and once served as chaplain at the Waco Center for Youth.