Ex-minister killed his wife

WACO, Texas - Jurors sentenced a former Texas minister to 65 years in prison for killing his wife and trying to cover it up as a suicide.

The jury convicted Matt Baker, 38, a day earlier for slipping his wife sleeping pills and suffocating her in 2006.

The case almost never went to trial. Kari Baker's death was deemed a suicide after a note and sleeping pills were found by the bed, and Baker said she was depressed over their 16-month-old daughter's cancer death in 1999. But authorities reopened the case after her parents shared evidence obtained for their wrongful-death lawsuit against Baker.

The state's key witness was his ex-mistress Vanessa Bulls, who told jurors that Baker slipped his wife the prescription sleep aid Ambien, handcuffed her to the bed under the guise of spicing up their marriage, and smothered her with a pillow after she fell asleep. Baker told Bulls he typed a suicide note and rubbed Kari's lifeless hand over it in case it was tested for fingerprints, she testified.Jurors also heard testimony from four women who said Baker had made unwanted sexual advances toward them in the 1990s - including one family friend who said Baker hit on her while his wife was in the hospital with their dying daughter.