Probation officer gives office BJ to boot-camp teen
What Wouldn't Jesus Do?: Baptist Preacher Matt Baker Killed His Wife
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 9:00 am
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But before we get into such heavy lifting as murderous preachers, we'd thought it'd be nice to lighten this week's load by starting you off with a bible banger that apparently only plays a scumbag on TV...or the Internet, rather.
By day, Dean Richard Tarkington was a minister at the Word of Faith Christian Center in Lubbock, Texas. His ministry, which he opened in February, was tucked away in the most spiritually inspiring of landscapes: a strip mall. His membership boasted a whopping 40 congregants.
By night, however, the 57-year-old Tarkington was using the church's computers for his other calling: Pervert. He'd make lewd videos of himself and then send them off to be reviewed by young girls, or, at least, one 16-year-old girl living in Louisiana. It seems that Tarkington didn't get the memo that pedophilia was better left to the Catholic Church.
Apparently, the FBI wasn't too impressed when they got wind of Tarkington's after hours activities. Last month, they searched his church, seized his computer, and found enough evidence to charge him with attempted enticement of a child, two counts of attempted production of child pornography, and two counts of attempted possession of child pornography.
Tarkington is currently out on bond, though his passport has been seized and he's currently wearing an electronic monitoring device. Last week, he was indicted on all charges. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison and a $2.25 million fine.
As for the Word of Faith Christian Center, well, it closed. But we're sure the people of Lubbock won't be too disheartened once the space is converted into a true American Mecca...like Arby's.
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2. Jody Lusk
If Tarkington does end up in federal prison, he just might find himself in the most appropriate company of Kentucky preacher Jody Lusk.
In September, Lusk told his wife that he was going fishing for the weekend. Had Mrs. Lusk seen Brokeback Mountain, she would have known that "going fishing" is actually man-code for "going to hump someone who is NOT you." But since we're sure that the Lusks' incredible religious convictions would not allow them to watch a movie about homos, she never got the memo. Instead, she trusted that her husband -- a man of conviction and the highest moral standards -- was doing exactly as he said.
But, of course, no True Crime Report story unfolds that way. Instead, it unfolds like this: While Lusk was supposedly away on his fishing trip, he cryptically texted his wife, "KY license plate 744frm Briggs Lake." Knowing that something was wrong, Lusk's wife immediately contacted police, believing that the text was a distress call. She believe that her husband was trying to tell her he'd been kidnapped.
Police arrived at Briggs Lake only to find the windows of Lusk's car smashed in, his bicycle abandoned on another road further out, and his canoe floating empty in the lake. The authorities assumed Lusk had drowned and began searching the lake for his body, until they soon realized that there was much more to the story.
After discovering that the license plate number Lusk had texted to his wife belonged to an abandoned car that had nothing to do the with the case, the Logan County police began to grow suspicious. After a bit more legwork, they soon discovered that Lusk never went to Briggs Lake to go fishing. Instead, he was getting it on with a minor across state lines.
Apparently Lusk had staged his own kidnapping to cover up the fact that he was picking up a 13-year-old girl from school and then driving her to Illinois to have sex with her. However, Lusk's grand scheme only backfired in his face, and less than two days after leaving town, he was wanted by the FBI.
Lusk eventually turned himself into authorities. He also released a statement to his local TV station claiming that his actions were actually all Satan's fault, duh. "I let Satan have his way with me," Lusk wrote. "It's hard to believe that it was me doing this."
Thankfully, in America, "not guilty be reason of Satan" is not an apt plea. After admitting that he'd been having sexual intercourse with the girl since March, he was charged with six counts of second-degree rape and sodomy.
On January 12, Lusk pleaded guilty to the charges. His sentencing is scheduled for March. In the meantime, federal prosecutors are also looking at pressing charges since he transported the girl across state lines.
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1. Matt Baker
Finally, we bring you to the case of Matt Baker, the Waco, Texas preacher who, just last week, was sentenced to 65 years in prison for murdering his wife -- not a bad way to land yourself the top spot on this here list.
The Bakers' saga began in 2006, when the body of Kari Baker was found dead beside a bottle of pills and a typed suicide note. To police, it seemed like a clear cut case of suicide. Baker told investigators that Kari had been depressed since the death of their infant daughter and had already attempted suicide once before.
But Kari's parents didn't buy that their daughter killed herself. They couldn't believe that the 31-year-old school teacher would leave behind her two children. And they were incredibly suspicious of Baker's behavior after Kari's death. He not only insisted on having the funeral two days after her body was found, but he didn't seem upset and immediately removed all her pictures from the house.
Three months after her death, Kari's parents filed a civil lawsuit against their son-in-law in order to gather enough evidence to prove their greatest fear: that Matt Baker had murdered his wife -- their daughter. For the next three years, Kari's parents, with the help of their lawyer as well as local and state law enforcement agents, struggled to collect enough evidence against Baker.
After a series of investigative and prosecutorial snafus -- which resulted in dropped murder charges against Baker in 2007 -- Kari's parents believed that their son-in-law would never be brought to justice. Then, in 2009, Baker's mistress, Vanessa Bulls, finally came forward and told police everything she knew.
In court, Bulls testified that Baker drugged his wife with Ambien before handcuffing her to the bed under the guise of spicing up their sex life, and then smothered her with a pillow before setting up the scene to look like a suicide. For months, he'd been telling Bulls that he wanted Kari out of his life, but that divorce wasn't an option because he could never preach again and would likely lose custody of their children.
Bulls says she began her affair with the 38-year-old Baptist preacher just two months before his wife was killed. They'd met at his church, where he helped counsel her through her own divorce. She said she didn't help plan or execute Kari's murder, but that the two of them discussed his plans before and after Kari's death. He frequently talked of the numerous ways he could kill his wife: drive-by shooting, hanging, tampering with her car's breaks. He'd already made one attempt on her life when he drugged her milkshake, which she refused to drink because it tasted funny.
Still, Bulls said she did not believe he'd go through with it and that, after he did, she didn't go to police for fear of exposing their affair, getting in trouble for knowing his plans, and for fear of her own life at Baker's hands. Three months after the murder, Bulls ended it with Baker. He was irate, insisting that she couldn't leave him after he killed his wife for her. When she asked him to turn himself in, he claimed that God had already forgiven him.
Thanks to Bulls testimony, Baker was convicted of murder and sentenced to 65 years in prison last Friday. But that still isn't the end of this story. Kari's parents are now asking that investigators look more closely into the death of their granddaughter, who died at the age of 16 months while recovering at home after a brain tumor surgery. They believe that Baker may have been responsible for her death, too.
Interested in finding out what else Jesus WOULDN'T do? See last week's installment: Pastor Daniel Keith Gabbard Sentenced To 20 Years For Killing A Prosecutor
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