Deborah Roberts talks with two producers who sifted through 20/20’s archives to hear how a Texas minister’s story about this wife’s death changed over time. Denise Martinez-Ramundo and Samantha Wanderer also found new voices to take a fresh look at the case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Matt Baker and what happened to his wife?
Hi there, 2020 podcast listeners. Welcome to the 2020 After Show. I'm Deborah Roberts, and on Friday night, we brought you a show called Dirty Little Secret. Matt Baker was a charismatic minister in Hewitt, Texas, and he was leading a life at the center of his community along with his wife, Carrie Baker, who was a Sunday school teacher at the church. They had two little girls.
So when Carrie died of what appeared to be suicide, the community rallied around the grief-stricken pastor. But Carrie's family didn't. They suspected that something was amiss. Calling themselves the Charlie's Angels of Waco, they launched their own investigation revealing something that was pretty shocking in this church community. Lies and adultery.
And ultimately, of course, they helped law enforcement uncover Matt's plot to kill his wife. Here's a clip from the show.
I remember Nancy saying, Linda, have you ever considered that perhaps Carrie didn't take her life? I remember stammering and saying, oh, what are you talking about? Murder? We don't think Carrie killed herself. We know she didn't.
We all hung on those words, too, on last week's 2020. On today's 2020 After Show, I get the pleasure to talk to 2020 producer Denise Martinez-Ramundo, who I normally talk to in the field, but today we get to talk a little more formally, and associate producer Samantha Wunderer.
They both were a big part of telling this story, sifting through hours of archival interviews 2020 conducted over the years, really, with Matt Baker, and speaking to new voices to help John Quinones take a fresh look at this case. So welcome to both of you.
Thank you, Deborah.
Thanks for having us. This is kind of wild. We're actually getting to talk in this formal way. So, Denise, let me start with you because you and I have worked on countless stories together and you have this knack for digging, digging, digging into the old files and finding things that maybe either we thought.
was sort of interesting at the time, or maybe not as much, and then you find something new. So what is it about this story? And of course, we've covered a lot of stories that involve hypocrisy and, you know, ministers in the church and all of that. But what was it about this one?
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Chapter 2: Why did Carrie's family suspect foul play?
Because she likes spaghetti straps.
So he let our cameras in and it was quite remarkable to be able to see that firsthand with our cameras.
Tell us a little bit about him because we talked about in the piece how he was polite and soft-spoken. The community was sort of rallying behind him.
To you, did he just seem like a harmless guy? He definitely seemed like a good dad. He seemed somebody who cared. We actually get to go along with them when they go out to a restaurant. He happens to encounter some of his students. He was a substitute teacher. And they say hello. They talk about what a nice guy he was. He really cared about us.
So you could really see how he probably had everybody convinced because he actually seemed to be like a nice guy to everybody who knew him.
But when you're looking through, Samantha, all these tapes and you're seeing things sort of evolve over time, tell me a little bit about that. You've got to digitize this video. You're working with attorneys. People don't really know how much work goes in. They see what we put on the air. They don't know what's going on behind the scenes for us to be able to bring it.
And this story was very largely dependent on all this video.
Right. It's really interesting. It just shows the importance of archiving material properly, which, thank goodness, the production team who was on this story before me really archived this story well. So all of those old tapes we were able to pull back out, just different kinds of media, things I hadn't seen before as a Gen Z-er. I hadn't seen some of this media. Yeah, exactly. Beta tapes.
Takes you back. Eight full boxes. And that was in the court, right? I was allowed access to go into the court and go through the material myself, which was something that was also new for me. So I was going through piles of boxes, piles of papers, trying to find things we hadn't found before. And in doing that, we found some emails that we hadn't shown in our past coverage.
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Chapter 3: How did the producers uncover new evidence?
Yeah. And that was that was critical, Denise, too. I mean, and for us, talk to us a little bit about why we choose to do these things, because I think one of the things our listeners find intriguing is how we got to that point and why we thought that was important. So why did we think that would make such a difference in our story?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's I think it's one thing to kind of say it or say like, oh, two minutes, you know, what can you do in two minutes? But I think to put it to the test in the sense that, you know, prosecutors argue that it couldn't have been done. And so we wanted to see, like, could it be done? So we want I think visually it's important for the viewer to kind of see what it takes.
And I think like even experts say, like, it's not the same thing like moving a dead body like that, like that moving an actual, you know, live in person. It's just it doesn't take the amount of effort. And I think like once you see it, you kind of can understand what the prosecutors were trying to show to expose, you know, the lies that Matt Baker said on his 911 call.
Yeah, I actually had a story like that when I was in the courtroom with a prosecutor who had a stopwatch and was showing me about, you know, how this person had fired a gun. And it is really compelling to see that and have them bring that to us again. Let's talk about one of the key witnesses in this case, Vanessa Bowles. She was critical.
I mean, she was the other woman. Matt Baker had an affair. She had been approached by law enforcement, by investigators, and she was not forthcoming, you know, multiple times. But in the end, you know, she did the right thing. She was given immunity for her testimony. And it was her testimony about the plot, about how he was planning to kill Carrie, that in the end really is what got him convicted.
And how does she come across to the jury? Because you think about she's the other woman, right? You would think that she would have little credibility with them because of what had happened.
I mean, I think we spoke to the jury foreperson. I think they struggle because she had said different stories. She wasn't forthcoming. But I think in the end, they realized that she was basically exposing herself, that she had nothing to gain at that point. And I think that was really kind of like a turning point for them.
And I think they also realized that what she said in court, that here he was a preacher. You know, who will believe her? You know, who will believe her? So I think that really kind of got to the jury.
But they were conflicted at first about how to sort of interpret her testimony.
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