WACO (April 24, 2009)—Prosecutors got permission Friday to take a DNA sample as a motions hearing got underway late Friday morning in state district court for former Waco-area pastor Matt Baker, who’s charged with murder in the 2006 death of his wife, Kari.

Prosecutors filed a motion on April 15 seeking an OK to take the sample from
Baker.

The sample was taken in a room just off the courtroom after the hearing.

District Judge Ralph Strother refused a defense requests to unseal and make available transcripts of grand jury testimony and for a psychiatrist, who’s a witness in a civil suit filed against Baker by his late wife’s family.

Baker left the courthouse just after noon.

Baker was released from the McLennan County Jail on April 10, a day after a state district judge reduced his bond from $500,000 to a $250,000 surety bond, which required him to post $25,000 in cash.

Baker, who was indicted late last month for murder in the 2006 death of his wife, has pleaded not guilty.

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

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

The death was initially ruled a suicide, but the ruling was later changed.

Baker was arrested and charged in 2007, but the charge was later dismissed.

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.

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.

The murder indictment was handed up a year to the day later.

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

He holds degrees from Baylor University and Baylor’s Truett Seminary.