The Killing Fields
Laura Smither
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Gatti's last fight
Season premiere: The ongoing controversy of the death of world championship boxer Arturo Gatti. Two years after retiring, did Gatti kill himself or was it murder? "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports Saturday, Sept. 24 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
I don't follow boxing much, but I remember clearly when the fighter Arturo Gatti died. The story was an international sensation. In July of 2009, the 37-year-old former welterweight champion was found facedown in a pool of blood in a Brazilian resort.
West Memphis 3: The cost of freedom
Damien Echols, left, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., center, and Jason Baldwin sit at a table before a news conference at the Craighead County Court House in Jonesboro, Ark., Friday, Aug. 19, 2011, after the three were released after pleading guilty to the 1993 deaths of three West Memphis, Ark., children.
/ AP Photo/Danny JohnstonIn their first television interviews since being freed from prison, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin talk exclusively with "48 Hours Mystery" Erin Moriarty. Watch "West Memphis 3: Free" Saturday, Sept,. 17 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
This is what justice in Arkansas looks like: On Aug. 19, 2011, Judge David Laser in Craighead County released three men who had spent the last 18 years in prison, one of them on death row. But as part of an unusual plea agreement, the three men -- Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley -- who insist they are innocent, had to first plead guilty to three counts of murder.
It struck more than a few observers in the packed courtroom that morning that the surreal spectacle had very little to do with justice. As one of the newly freed men, Jason Baldwin, later described it, "When we told prosecutors we were innocent, they put us in prison for life. Now when we plead guilty, they set us free!"
Continue »Genesis of a killer?
"48 Hours Mystery" Correspondent Erin Moriarty interviews Matt Baker at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas.
/ CBS(CBS) - Some time on the evening of April 7, 2006, Matt Baker snuffed out the life of his 31-year-old wife, Kari. Kari had become a liability. Baker, a Baptist preacher in Waco, Texas, was having an affair with a young woman in his congregation and simply couldn't risk getting a divorce.
Continue »Which killers does Long Island murderer resemble?
Suffolk County Police search the dunes and scrub brush across the road from where the bodies were discovered along Ocean Parkway.
/ AP Photo(CBS) - Somewhere in the New York City area, a man is hunting down young women and callously killing them. He finds his victims online where they advertise their services as escorts and prostitutes. He is relatively young. He is also charming and persuasive, able to convince even the most cautious and experienced to let down her guard and go off with him in the night.
Pictures: Long Island serial killer's victims
Continue »Texas Preacher's Interview Used as Evidence
Matt and Kari Baker (CBS)
NEW YORK (CBS) As a reporter who covers murder cases prior to trial, I sometimes encounter an unusual dilemma: how do I report incriminating evidence we uncover during our investigation? What happens if a prosecutor decides to use it at trial? How do I avoid becoming an arm of the prosecution by bolstering a case against a defendant?
Even when the evidence indicates the person is most likely guilty of a crime, it is unsettling for a reporter to think her work might contribute to a guilty verdict. That is exactly what my producers and I faced in the case of Matt Baker.
Continue »Is Man Freed in Murder Case Going Back to Jail?
Erin Moriarty with Bruce Lisker (CBS/48 Hours)
Last year, Lisker was released after spending 26 years in prison for the murder of his mother. Lisker's release came after a federal judge ruled that the evidence used to convict him was either questionable or utterly false.
Will Preacher Matt Baker Get Life for Killing Wife? Erin Moriarty Blogs from Court
Photo: Matt Baker listens in Waco, Texas court Jan. 19, 2010, as ex-mistress tells jury he planned to kill wife.
I have interviewed him and his lead defense attorney, Guy James Gray, extensively since the fall of 2007. Baker has always insisted that his wife Kari committed suicide in the late hours of April 7, 2006 because she was despondent over the death of their daughter Kassidy seven years earlier. He stuck with that story even as we learned more about the case and confronted him with numerous inconsistencies we found in his story.
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Matt Baker Trial: Ex Mistress Vanessa Bulls Says Preacher Killed Wife
Photo: Vanessa Bulls testifies in Waco, Texas court Jan. 19, 2010.
Bulls is the star witness at the murder trial of her former lover, Matt Baker, the Texas preacher who prosecutors say drugged his wife, handcuffed her to the bed under the guise of spicing up their marriage, then smothered her with a pillow until she died in 2006.
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Erin Moriarty: Matt Baker Lied to Me, But Did the Texas Preacher Kill His Wife?
Photo: Matt and Kari Baker.
Since I first began reporting on this case more than two years ago, Baker has insisted his wife committed suicide and denied the existence of a girlfriend.
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