Murderpedia

 

 

Juan Ignacio Blanco  

 

  MALE murderers

index by country

index by name   A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  FEMALE murderers

index by country

index by name   A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 

 

 
   

Murderpedia has thousands of hours of work behind it. To keep creating new content, we kindly appreciate any donation you can give to help the Murderpedia project stay alive. We have many
plans and enthusiasm to keep expanding and making Murderpedia a better site, but we really
need your help for this. Thank you very much in advance.

   

 

 

Mary Carol WINKLER

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 
 
 
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Parricide - Allegations of abuse by her husband
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: March 22, 2006
Date of arrest: Next day
Date of birth: December 10, 1973
Victim profile: Her husband, Matthew Winkler, 31 (the pulpit minister at the Fourth Street Church of Christ)
Method of murder: Shooting (12 gauge shotgun)
Location: Selmer, McNairy County, Tennessee, USA
Status: Sentenced to 3 years in prison for the conviction of voluntary manslaughter on June 8, 2007. Released on August 14, 2007
 
 
 
 
 
 
photo gallery
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mary Carol Winkler (Mary Carol Freeman; born December 10, 1973) is an American woman who was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2006 shooting of her husband, Matthew Winkler, the pulpit minister at the Fourth Street Church of Christ in the small town of Selmer, Tennessee.

Winkler gained national attention because of public speculation about her motives and mental health, allegations of abuse by her husband, her brief flight from the state, and again for the brief length of her jail sentence. In August 2008, Winkler was granted full custody of her three daughters.

Criminal case

According to police, Mary Winkler confessed to the March 22, 2006 fatal shooting of her husband, whose body was discovered in their home by church members after he missed that evening's service. He had been shot in the back with a 12 gauge shotgun.

The couple had been married since 1996. One neighborhood family reported that Matthew Winkler had repeatedly threatened to shoot that family's dog after it strayed onto the Winklers' lawn. Also, other friends, as well as Mary Winkler's family, allege that Matthew Winkler had been abusive to Mary. Winkler maintained this was the reason for the shooting.

After police issued an Amber Alert due to fears of kidnapping, Mary Winkler and the children (Patricia, then 8; Mary Alice, then 6; Breanna, then 1) were discovered in Orange Beach, Alabama. Winkler was placed into custody there and later extradited to Tennessee to stand trial. When asked by investigators about what had happened to her husband, Winkler stated that she and her husband had argued about money and offered "I guess that's when my ugly came out." A grand jury indicted Winkler on Monday, June 12, 2006, accusing her of first-degree murder.

Bond hearing

On Friday, June 30, 2006: Mary Winkler's bond hearing was held. A Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent read a statement Winkler gave to authorities in Alabama, where she was arrested a day after her husband's body was found. In it, Winkler says she did not remember getting the gun but she did know her husband kept a shotgun in their home. The next thing she heard was a loud boom. Matthew Winkler was shot in the back as he lay in bed. He rolled from the bed onto the floor, and, still alive, he asked his wife, "Why?" to which she responded, "I'm sorry." When she left the home, Matthew Winkler was still alive in the bedroom, and the phone had been disconnected from its socket. According to the statement, she and her husband had been arguing throughout the evening about many things, including family finances. She admitted some of the problems were "her fault."

Mary Winkler had lost money in what her lawyer said was a scam. She had deposited checks that came from "unidentified sources" in Canada and Nigeria into bank accounts belonging to her and her husband. The checks amounted to more than $17,000. Winkler had become caught up in a swindle known as the "Nigerian scam", which promises riches to victims who send money to cover the processing expenses. She added "He had really been on me lately criticizing me for things — the way I walk, I eat, everything. It was just building up to a point. I was tired of it. I guess I got to a point and snapped."

Bond was later set at $750,000, an amount that defense lawyer Steve Farese Sr. claimed was excessive and "tantamount to no bond at all". A plea for reduction of bond was filed and subsequently denied. Winkler's lawyers, Leslie Ballin and Steve Farese Sr., also filed motions to throw out her confession on a technicality, to require prosecutors to state whether or not they would seek the death penalty (they did not), to give potential jurors an extensive questionnaire, and other motions relating to voir dire. Winkler's entire defense team -- Attorneys Steve Farese Sr., Leslie Ballin, Tony Farese, Steve Farese, Jr. and Investigator Terry Cox represented her pro bono throughout the entire criminal case.

Trial

On April 18, 2007, Mary Winkler took the stand in her own defense. She told a jury of ten women and two men that her husband often "berated" her and forced her to wear "slutty" costumes for sex. As proof she displayed a pair of high-heeled shoes and a wig to which those in attendance gasped. Winkler claimed that she only shot her husband accidentally. She said that she went to the bedroom closet and retrieved a shotgun because she wanted to force him to work through their problems. "I just wanted him to stop being so mean," she said through tears. Winkler denied she ever actually pulled the trigger, but told the jury "something went off". She heard a boom, then ran from the house because she thought he would be mad at her.

Verdict

On April 19, 2007, the jury came back with a verdict: guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Winkler showed no emotion as the verdict was read. Prosecutors had asked that Winkler be convicted of first-degree murder, but the jury settled on the lesser charge after deliberating for eight hours.

Sentencing

The sentencing phase was set to begin on May 18, 2007, but was delayed due to a scheduling conflict by one of the attorneys. On June 8, 2007, a Tennessee judge sentenced Mary Winkler to 210 days in prison for the conviction of voluntary manslaughter. She has credit for already serving 5 months and the judge permitted her to spend up to 60 days in a Western State Mental Health Facility in Bolivar, Tn. That will be all the time she has remaining. She will be put on probation for the rest of her sentence.

Reaction

Many claim that this is not justice for the killing of Matthew Winkler. Men's rights activists such as Glenn Sacks are questioning why men like Scott Peterson are getting the death penalty, while women like Mary Winkler are being treated as if they committed a misdemeanor. They point to society's biased view that only males are victimizers. They claim that society believes that Mary Winkler killed because she was being abused and that "abuse" now includes such minor things as "being critical" of someone therefore giving anyone who does not like being criticized justification to commit murder in order to end the criticism, while men kill wives as an escalation of their abuse.

Release

On August 14, 2007, Mary Winkler was released after spending a total of seven months in custody, five months in a county jail and two months in a mental health facility.

Wikipedia.org

 
 

Winkler free after 67 days for killing

USAToday.com

August 15, 2007

SELMER, Tenn. (AP) — The woman convicted of manslaughter in the shotgun slaying of her minister husband was freed Tuesday after serving 67 days in custody.

Mary Winkler was released from a mental health facility where she had been undergoing treatment for about two months, defense attorney Steve Farese Sr. said. He has declined to identify the facility where Winkler was held.

Winkler, 33, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2006 shotgun slaying of her husband, Matthew, at the Church of Christ parsonage in Selmer, where the couple lived with their three young daughters.

She was charged with first-degree murder, but jurors convicted her of the lesser charge after she testified that her husband abused her and demanded sex she considered unnatural.

Winkler was sentenced June 8 to three years in prison but had to serve only 67 days — 12 in jail and the rest in the mental health facility — because of credit for time in jail before her trial, the nature of the offense and lack of a criminal record. The remainder of her term will be spent on probation.

Farese said Winkler was headed to McMinnville, about 65 miles southeast of Nashville, where she lived and worked at a dry cleaning shop for eight months while she was free on bail and awaiting trial.

"She'll go back to work soon," Farese said.

A day after her husband's body was found, Winkler was arrested 340 miles away on the Alabama coast, driving the family minivan with her three young daughters inside.

Since her arrest, her children have lived with their paternal grandparents, Dan and Diane Winkler. Farese's law firm is helping her try to regain custody of the children.

 
 

Winkler guilty of lesser charge

By Beth Rucker - Associated Press Writer

DecaturDaily.com

April 20, 2007

SELMER, Tenn. — A preacher's wife who claimed her husband abused her was convicted of voluntary manslaughter Thursday for killing him with a shotgun she said fired accidentally as she aimed at him.

Mary Winkler showed no emotion as the verdict was read, but later she hugged her family and her attorneys.

Prosecutors had sought a first-degree murder conviction, but the jury settled on the lesser charge after deliberating for eight hours. She faces three to six years in prison, but she would be eligible for parole after serving about a third of the sentence.

If Winkler, 33, had been convicted of first- or second-degree murder, she would have gone to prison for at least 12 years and maybe for the rest of her life.

Her lawyers said Mary Winkler's testimony on the stand was decisive.

"They had to hear it from Mary; there was no other source," defense attorney Steve Farese said.

Winkler told jurors in powerful testimony Wednesday that her husband, Matthew, abused her physically and sexually, but she said she did not pull the trigger and the shotgun went off accidentally as she pointed it at him.

The prosecution said it was ludicrous to suggest the shooting was an accident. Assistant District Attorney General Walt Freeland said bank managers were closing in on a check-kiting scheme that Mary Winkler wanted to conceal from her husband.

Matthew Winkler, a 31-year-old preacher at the Fourth Street Church of Christ, was found in the church parsonage fatally shot in his back in March 2006.

One day later, his wife was arrested on the Alabama coast, driving the family minivan with their three young daughters.

Prosecution witnesses described Matthew Winkler, a 1993 graduate of Austin High School in Decatur, as a good husband and father, and the couple's 9-year-old daughter testified she never saw her father mistreat her mother.

Mary Winkler also said under cross-examination that her husband did nothing for which he deserved to die.

"At the end of the day, we're left with the memory of Matthew Winkler," said defense attorney Leslie Ballin. "And even though there have been a lot of negative things said about him in this trial, there were some good things, too, and you heard that from Mary."

Matthew Winkler's father Dan Winkler, who is also a preacher at a Church of Christ in Huntingdon, thanked the jury and thanked God for being "our rock and our shield" during the trial.

"We're very grateful for the privilege and honor that was ours to be the parents of Matthew Brian Winkler," he said.

"And we treasure the memory of the love that he had for his family, for his Lord, for his church, for us his parents."

The prosecution released a statement that said, "We want the Winkler family to know that our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to them for the loss of their son, brother and father, Matthew Winkler."

The couple's three daughters — ages 2, 7 and 9 — are in the custody of his parents, but the defense attorneys said Mary Winkler hopes the verdict will allow her to be reunited with her daughters in the future. Dan and Diane Winkler have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Mary Winkler.

She will be sentenced May 18, but is free on bond until then. She will continue living with a friend in McMinnville, about 65 miles southeast of Nashville.

Voluntary manslaughter suggests the crime was committed in an irrational state and premeditation is not necessary for a conviction.

A psychologist testified Mary Winkler could not have formed the intent to commit a crime because of her compromised mental condition. Dr. Lynne Zager said she suffered from mild depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, which started at age 13 when her sister died and got worse because her husband abused her.

The defense attorneys said the jury convicted Mary Winkler of a lesser sentence because they believed her stories of abuse.

Mary Winkler testified her husband punched her in the face, kicked her at times and refused to grant her a divorce. The prosecution said there was no medical evidence of abuse, but Mary said she never told anyone and hid the bruises.

Speaking about their sex life, Mary Winkler spoke quietly and hesitantly, with eyes downcast. She said her husband forced her to view pornography, dress "slutty" and have sex she considered unnatural.

The defense showed the jury a pair of white platform-heel shoes and a wig Mary Winkler said her husband wanted her to wear during sex. Pornographic photos she identified as coming from their home computer were entered as evidence.

The Winklers were married in 1996. They met at Freed-Hardeman University, a Church of Christ-affiliated school in Henderson. Mary took education classes, and Matthew took Bible classes. Neither graduated.

The jury was made up of two men and 10 women, one of whom said she had been a victim of domestic abuse. They have been sequestered at a motel during the trial, which began April 9.

 
 

Preacher's Wife Killed Husband Because of Abuse, Family Says

Mary Winkler's Family Talks for the First Time About Why She Shot Her Husband

Nov. 20, 2006

It was a crime that stunned the nation. In March, 32-year-old Mary Winkler, a soft-spoken preacher's wife, was charged with the murder of husband Matt, a Church of Christ minister in the small town of Selmer, Tenn.

Shocked parishioners discovered Matt's bloodied body, riddled with a blast of bird shot, in the home the couple shared with their three daughters.

When Winkler was questioned the day after the shooting, authorities said she confessed to the crime, saying she had snapped after years of abuse.

Now out on bail, Winkler is working in a dry-cleaning shop and preparing for her trial, where she will tell her side of the story.

In an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America," Winkler's family said she killed her husband because she was abused.

"Physical, mental, verbal," said Clark Freeman, Winkler's father. "I don't know how she took it. She's a stronger individual than I am."

Freeman says the abuse became more apparent the last three years of Winkler and Matt's marriage.

"I saw bad bruises. The heaviest of makeup covering facial bruises," Freeman said. "So one day, I confronted her. I said, 'Mary Carol, you are coming off as a very abused wife, very battered.'"

But Freeman says she denied the accusations.

"[She] would hang her head and say, 'No, daddy, everything's all right. Everything's all right.'"

Friends say Winkler didn't talk about the abuse, but her growing fear of her husband was obvious.

"One Sunday, Mary came into the church and I looked at her and she had a black eye," said Winkler's friend Rudie Thomsen.

Another friend, Amy Redmon, said it was clear who was in charge in the relationship.

"He was an authority figure, and he made the decisions basically. It was obvious," Redmon said.

Sisters Say Winkler Is More Like Her Old Self

Winkler's sisters, Tabatha Freeman, 25, and Amanda Miller, 24, told "GMA" that she seemed caught in a difficult situation and that they weren't sure how to respond.

"We didn't know if it could get worse if we were to confront [it]," Miller said.

Freeman and Miller also say that Matt kept Winkler from seeing her family.

"As these years went on, she seemed to be nervous to show love towards us," Miller said. "Now it's back to the old Mary [who] loves us and doesn't care to come and hug us and gives us a kiss on the cheek."

Winkler's attorneys say there are also indications that Matt may have sexually abused her as well.

"What went on behind their closed doors is going to have to be told," said Winkler's attorney Leslie Ballin. "Some of what we've got from the state of Tennessee touches on sexual abuse."

What's striking to many outsiders is how accepting and supportive the majority of the community has been to Winkler.

That sense of forgiveness, community members say, stems from the town's Christian roots and from its tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Winkler's daughters are currently living with Matt's parents.

"She misses her daughters, but she's staying busy," said Miller, of her sister. "She's the loving Mary we used to know."

ABC News' Mary Fulginiti contributed to this story from Tennessee.

 
 

A "Perfect" Life: Mary Winkler Story

By David Krajicek


The Big Boom

The drone of an alarm clock roused Mary Winkler awake at 6:15 a.m. on March 22, 2006.

As her preacher husband, Matthew, 31, lay sleeping, the diminutive woman slipped out of their marital bed and padded quietly to the bedroom closet at their parsonage in Selmer, Tenn. There, she withdrew a loaded 12 gauge shotgun from its case.

She walked a few paces back toward the bed and leveled the barrel on her husband's back.

"The next thing I remember was hearing a loud boom," Mary Winkler would later say. "I remember thinking it wasn't as loud as I thought it would be. I heard the boom, and he rolled out of the bed onto the floor."

It was a brutally efficient shot. Matthew Winkler took 77 pellets of birdshot that ravaged his sturdy body, breaking his spine and puncturing several organs.

Yet he was not dead.

He lay on the floor with blood bubbles at his mouth and managed to utter one final word to his wife of 10 years: "Why?"

"I told him that I was sorry and that I loved him," Mary Winkler said. She dabbed the blood from his mouth with the sheet.

The blast startled the couple's three young daughters, sleeping in another bedroom in the family's small home in Selmer, Tenn.

The oldest, Patricia, cautiously crept into her parents' bedroom to find the source of what she called the "big boom."

"My daddy was face down on the floor," the girl said. She heard him groaning, and she asked her mother what had happened.

"I told her daddy was hurt," Mary Winkler said. "I told her we were leaving."


Biblical Epic

By the following evening, when Winkler was arrested on the Alabama coast, the case was a full-blown national spectacle.

America wanted an answer to Matthew Winkler's last question: Why? Why had this mousey woman used a shotgun to terminate a seemingly harmonious marriage to her well-regarded husband?

The college sweethearts seemed to be a loving, Ken-and-Barbie couple. But from the outset, public opinion deemed that he must have done something to deserve itabuse of his wife or the children, a love affair, homosexuality.

Mary Winkler became a presumed victim and Matthew a presumed abuser.

And her clever defense attorneys, Steve Farese and Leslie Ballin, nurtured that image with a carefully controlled story line: a demure, angelic woman pushed until she fought back against a temperamental, perverted, domineering husband.

The shooting, it seemed, was an act of vengeance of biblical proportion.

That narrative prevailed at trial, where Mary Winkler mounted the witness stand and abashedly showed jurors10 of 12 womenthe "slutty" platform shoes and hoochie mama wig that Matthew asked her to wear to bed.

Farese and Ballin steamrolled the prosecutor's doomed attempt to gain a first-degree murder conviction.

Mrs. Winkler, facing a lifetime behind bars, instead was convicted of voluntary manslaughtera kid-gloves verdict that stunned many observers and delighted Farese, Ballin and their client.

On June 8, 2007, Judge Weber McCraw decreed a sentence of 210 days in prison and three years probation. But he allowed 60 of the days to be served in a mental health facility. And since she already served 143 days in jail before making bond, the sentence meant she was would be a free woman after a week in jail and two months in mental health treatment.

The surprising outcome enhanced the Winkler case's reputation as one of the more curious criminal acts since the seminal spectacle, OJ Simpson.

But left dangling were several questions.

For example, when did it become appropriate to use a shotgun as a tool of marital dispute resolution, asks forensic psychologist Dr. Kathy Seifert.

And who will raise the three daughters, the subject of an upcoming court battle between grandparents Dan and Diane Winkler, who have temporary custody, and their daughter-in-law? (On the side, they are suing one another.)

The Winklers have one other question: Where can they go to get their son's good reputation back?


Perfect

In the weeks after the shooting, friends and acquaintances used the word "perfect" to describe the relationship of Matthew and Mary Winkler.

They seemed to live and breathe the Bible. The Winklers, still a handsome young couple after 10 years of marriage, had three precious daughters.

Matthew was a beloved "pulpit preacher" at Fourth Street Church of Christ in Selmer. He was an athletic man who greeted friends and strangers alike with a toothy smile and a firm handshake.

Mary was a supportive and well-liked partner in Matthew's work. She was about to return to college to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a schoolteacher.

They lived with their pet spaniel dog in a brick parsonage on a shady lot not far from the church.

Even Selmer (pop. 4,500), in McNairy County, seemed just right for the Winklers. They had moved there in January 2005 when Matthew took the position at Fourth Street Church.

It is the sort of place where people wear their faith on their sleeves. One McNairy County telephone directory lists more than 100 churches, but just three taverns.

It was all perfect for the Winklers until that March morning in 2006.


A New Job

On March 21, Mary Winkler worked her very first day as a substitute teacher in Selmer public schools. Her new colleagues noticed that she spent an inordinate amount of time while on break talking on her cell phone.

She rounded up her children after school and went home to the parsonage, where she was met by her husband.

That night, the family watched "Chicken Little" and ate Pizza Hut carryout. The parents tucked the girls into bed at about 8:30.

Mary and Matthew then revisited a familiar argument about family finances. The Winklers were broke, like many young families with a modest income and a nursery full of children. But the subject had a new urgency.

Mary Winkler, the family's bookkeeper, had fallen for an Internet scam.

Millions of the scam emails are sent each year, most seeking some form of good faith deposit from the victim in exchange for the promise of a huge payoff. The concept has been around for centuries and is known in the confidence rackets as the advance-fee fraud.

It is known in Africa as the 419 scheme, for the Nigerian law that bans it. Many of the scammers live in Festac Town, Nigeria, outside the capital of Lagos. They call themselves "yahoo-yahoo boys" because many have Yahoo accounts.

Like any financial scam, the success of the 419 scheme depends upon the greed of its victims. Those who bite are drawn into a more elaborate scheme.

The scammers gain the trust of a victim by wiring a small deposit into his bank account. Soon, the victim is drawn into a check-kiting or money-laundering operation that involves deposits and wire transfers of stolen or altered checks from third-party accounts.

Mary Winkler was deeply involved in the scam.

Through wire transfers, she had deposited two fraudulent checksone from Canada, one from Nigeriatotaling $17,500 in family accounts, then shifted some of the funds to a second bank in the shell game known as check kiting.

She had withdrawn $500 cash by the time bank officials caught on.

That is why she spent so much time on the phone on March 21. Two Tennessee banks, Regions Bank in Selmer and First State Bank in Henderson, were demanding to know Mary Winkler's role in the 419 scheme.

She was never completely forthcoming in explaining her involvement.

"I'd gotten a call from the bank, and we were having troubles, mostly my fault. Bad bookkeeping,'' she would later say. Referring to her husband, she added, "He was upset with me about that."

(Attorney Farese claimed Matthew Winkler was involved, as well. "As a family they were being conned," Farese said. "The information we have is that he was aware of the checks...and knew about where they were being deposited.")

The argument escalated from there, by her account.

"Matthew started ranting about problems he was having and personal feelings about the church administration," she said. "I didn't know what set him off. I was just listening to him. He calmed down. We started the movie, and I fell asleep. He woke me up. We went to bed...I remember not sleeping well."

But she said there were other problems that seemed to culminate that night.

"I was upset at him because he had really been on me lately, criticizing me for things, the way I walk, the way I eat, everything. It was just building up to this point. I was just tired of it. I guess I just got to a point and snapped."


To the Beach

The following morning, as Matthew lay drawing his final breaths, Mary Winkler herded her daughters into the family's minivan and drove away. She packed nothing, although she did take along the shotgun.

She lied in telling her eldest daughterconcerned about Matthew's well-beingthat help for him was on the way.

She drove that evening to Jackson, Miss., staying at a Fairfield Inn, and then continued the next morning to a Sleep Inn on the Gulf of Mexico in Orange Beach, Ala., a popular regional vacation destination.

"The only reason I headed towards (Orange Beach) is that I wanted to take them to the beach and play with them as long as I could," Mary Winkler later said. "I planned on coming (back) when we were through. I knew I would be caught...I didn't tell the girls the truth that I had shot Daddy. I said he was in the hospital, just anything to make up him not being with us."

She paid for hotel rooms, gas and food with cash from the $500 she had withdrawn. She did not use credit cards and did not phone anyone.

Matthew Winkler was found dead by church members about 15 hours after he was shot, when he failed to show up for his regular Wednesday night prayer meeting.

Tennessee authorities issued an Amber Alert for the daughters, and Orange Beach Police Officer Jason Witlock spotted the Winkler family van Thursday afternoon on the beach highway.

Orange Beach police personnel entertained the daughters, Patricia, then 8; Allie, 6, and Brianna, 1. The girls, described by police as bright and inquisitive, were turned over to the custody of Dan and Diane Winkler.

Mary Winkler's demeanor at arrest and her police mug shot appeared to indicate depression, repressed feelings, shock or some combination of each.

Police were puzzled by her lack of emotional reaction as she was being taken into custody for slaying her husband.

"There were no tears shed that I know of," said Greg Duck, assistant police chief in Orange Beach. The arresting officer said the woman seemed "relieved".

Tennessee police drove to Orange Beach and interviewed Mrs. Winkler after midnight. With folksy language, she calmly and precisely explained what she had done and why.

She said she had accepted abuse from her husband "like a mouse" for many years. Then she said, her "ugly came out."

In her statement to police, Winkler said she had been beaten down by her husband over "stupid stuff" until she was bullied to the brink of insanity.

"I love him dearly, but gosh, he just nailed me in the ground," she said, "and I was real good for quite, quite some time."

Police and prosecutors said the statement indicated that she had given the killing some forethought, and this apparent premeditation brought a first-degree murder charge.

Winkler agreed to return to Tennessee, where she waived her right a preliminary hearing, based on advice from her Dixie dream team of Memphis lawyers, Farese and Ballin.

They agreed to take the case without retainerat least initially. A cynical view is that they agreed to work free in exchange for the priceless publicity that the case brought.

But Farese said he did it as a favor to Memphis attorney Mike Cook, a cousin of Mary Winkler.


Born in Knoxville

Mary Winkler was born Mary Carol Freeman in 1974 in Knoxville, a city of 200,000 located in the western lap of the Appalachian Mountains in eastern Tennessee.

She and her parents, Clark and Mary Nell Freeman, lived on Frontier Trail, in a modestly affluent neighborhood in southwest Knoxville, where the city fades into farm fields. Census statistics indicate the Freemans' ZIP code is 94 percent white, with an average home value of $100,000 and average household income of $42,000both well above the Tennessee average.

Mary's mother was a teacher, and her father worked in real estate as a house flipper. He bought rundown properties at bargain-basement rates, then renovated and resold them.

The Freeman family attended Laurel Church of Christ in Knoxville, a 200-family congregation known for its campus ministry at the University of Tennessee. Clark Freeman served as a deacon at Laurel.

The family suffered a loss when younger daughter Patricia, a quadriplegic, died during a seizure when Mary was 8 years old. Not long after the girl died, the Freemans adopted five children, two boys and three girls from the same family.

When she was young, Mary went by her middle name, Carol, perhaps to differentiate from her mother, Mary Nell.

Mary Carol had an active extracurricular schedule in high schoolseveral choruses, Spanish club, a religion society, tennis, Future Teachers of America.

She graduated in 1992 from South-Doyle High School, part of the Knoxville public school system.

She spent the 1992-93 academic year at Nashville's David Lipscomb University, a flagship college for Churches of Christ believers, then transferred the following year to Freed-Hardeman University, another Churches of Christ affiliate in Henderson, Tenn., 20 miles north of Selmer.

Mary met Matthew Winkler at the school, where Matthew's father worked as an adjunct professor.


Family Business: Faith

Religion was the Winklers' family business.

Matthew's paternal grandfather, Wendell Winkler, was a fire-and-brimstone evangelist who preached in the southeast for more than 50 years. His father, Dan, was a peripatetic Church of Christ minister and mother, Diane, a teacher. The couple has two other sons, Dan Jr. and Jacob.

The family moved frequently, following Dan Sr. from one church position to the next.

Matthew graduated from Austin High School in Decatur, Ala., where his father was a preacher at Beltline Church of Christ. Tall, handsome and fit, Matthew was a sports star at Austin High, and he continued to stand out in college.

Freed-Hardeman is a venerable Christian university with a picture-postcard campus set on a hill in Henderson, a small city in western Tennessee.

The school has 2,000 students who major in business, education, Bible study, fine arts or science and math. About two-thirds of the students are from Tennessee. The student body is overwhelmingly white, and 9 in 10 are Church of Christ members, according to the school's student profiles.

Matthew majored in Bible study, and Mary studied elementary education.

The university's website describes an austere student lifestyle at Freed-Hardeman, particularly when compared with non-religious colleges.

For example, the student handbook mandates "modesty and appropriateness" in fashion and grooming. A strict midnight curfew is enforced. Students are required to attend daily chapel service, and dormitories are segregated by gender.

The university website notes:

"Halloween provides a unique activity on campus. Students are allowed to trick-or-treat in dorms of the opposite sex. This is the only time during the school year when members of the opposite sex are allowed to visit each other's dorms beyond the lobbies."

Yet a classmate of Mary and Matthew Winkler told the Crime Library that the school was less restrictive in practice than it might seem on paper.


"Life Was Good"

"Life was good there," said Elizabeth Gentle, 32, a native of Haileyville, Ala. "It was a lot of fun."

Gentle transferred to the school in 1994, the same year as Mary Freeman. They went through orientation together, and she remained friendly throughout the year with Mary, whom she recalled as a tiny young woman with long brunette tresses.

"She was a nice girl," Gentle said. "She was quiet. She was unassuming. She had a pretty smile on her face. She was easy to get along with. I sat next to her in Bible class, and she always had a good attitude. She was willing to socialize, and she could be funny. She just had a sweet spirit about her. I can't say anything bad about her."

Mary Freeman was a member of the campus Evangelism Forum, and she was active in Phi Kappa Alpha, one of six campus social clubs. (Despite Greek names, the clubs are not associated with traditional sororities and fraternities.)

Gentle also was acquainted with Matthew Winkler, whom she recalled as always wearing "an infectious smile."

"I can't say anything bad about him, either," she said. "He loved life, loved people...They were just good Christian people."

Gentle went on to become a broadcast journalist, and she has worked for the past six years for WAFF-TV in Huntsville, Ala.

She said it did not immediately sink in that the minister killed in Tennessee had been her old Freed-Hardeman classmate.

And when she realized that the alleged perpetrator was the demure former Mary Freeman, "I said, 'You've got to be kidding.'"

Gentle covered the story for her station, watching in the Selmer courtroom as her old college friend was led in wearing orange prison scrubs.

She was not the same woman, Gentle said. Her hair was shorn, and her dull expression was not that of the lively coed she had known a decade ago.

"To me she has a different look on her face now than she did then," Gentle said. "It just seems blank."

Mary Freeman and Matthew Winkler were married in 1996 in a backyard ceremony at Mary's family home in Knoxville, with Clark Freeman presiding. They returned to Freed-Hardeman, but financial considerations forced the young couple to leave college in 1997 after Mary got pregnant, according to a former classmate.

The young couple settled in Nashville, where Matthew completed his Bible study degree while working as a youth minister at the Bellevue Church of Christ congregation.

Daughter Patricia — named after Mary's late sister — arrived in October 1997, followed three years later by Mary Alice, known as Allie. Between the two births, the family suffered the loss of Mary's mother to cancer.

Mary became estranged from her father at about the time of that death, although she was in contact with her adopted siblings.

Matthew Winkler next took a job teaching Bible classes at Boyd Christian School, another Church of Christ affiliate, in McMinnville, in middle Tennessee.

"Matt had it all," the principal there, Eva Ferrell, told Woody Baird of the Associated Press. "He was handsome. He was full of personality. He was smart. But most importantly he had a good, Christian soul".


Move to Selmer

The year 2005 brought more changes for the Winklers.

In March, about a year after suffering a miscarriage, Mary gave birth prematurely to the couple's third daughter, Brianna. The newborn was cared for at a hospital in Nashville, 150 miles from home, which led to many car trips back and forth.

Meanwhile, in January 2005 Matthew had taken a job as pulpit preacher at Fourth Street Church of Christ in Selmer, the McNairy County seat.

McNairy, in southwest Tennessee near the Mississippi border, is best known as the home of Buford Pusser, the stick-toting sheriff whose life was portrayed in a series of three films in the 1970s. Pusser, just 26 when he was elected sheriff in 1964, won a reputation as an uncompromising foe of crimes high and low, and he set about cleaning up the vice, gambling and corruption.

It is not easy to square McNairy's "Walking Tall" reputation for lawlessness with actual police reports.

Homicide is rare in the county, which has a population of 25,000. In 2003, the county reported a total of just 28 violent crimes, none of them murders.

McNairy County, named for a 19th century Nashville judge, is poor, 93 percent white and relatively uneducated.

About one in six residents live in poverty. Just 9 percent of residents have a four-year college degree, compared with about 18 percent of all Tennessee residents and nearly a quarter of the U.S. population.

But what it lacks in education McNairy makes up for in fervent faith.

Among its more than 100 churches, McNairy County counts 18 affiliates of the Churches of Christ and 30 Southern Baptist congregations. Selmer has about 30 churches.

Some believe the Winklers' faith was a subscript to the spousal homicide.

The Churches of Christ use a literal reading of the Bible for its creed. Nearly all leadership positions are held by men. Women are subservient--said to be decreed in the Apostle Paul's epistle that wives must submit to their husbands.

The old-fashioned church practices full-immersion adult Baptism, and it forbids the use of musical instruments during services.

Churches of Christ regard themselves not as a denomination but as a network of like-minded autonomous congregations, each governed by its own slate of elders. (They are not related to the United Church of Christ, a mainline Protestant denomination.)

The elders are assisted by deacons, who often have responsibility for practical matters, such as buildings and grounds. The religious leader at a Churches of Christ affiliate typically is called "evangelist" or "pulpit preacher"--the position that Matthew Winkler held.

The faith is deeply rooted in Tennessee, where two influential adherents, Tolbert Fanning and David Lipscomb, lived and preached.

The fundamentalist faith has grown slowly but steadily. It now counts about 3 million adherents in the United States and has affiliate churches around the world.

Tennessee remains a Church of Christ stronghold, with more than 400 congregations.


Missed Signs?

Most members of the Fourth Street Church say they did not see signs that Mary and Matthew Winkler were having problems. Some wonder whether they missed warning signs.

"I wish I had," said one woman. "A lot of us are feeling a little guilty."

Dr. Judy Kuriansky, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University, noted that ministers and their wives live a fishbowl lifestyle.

"There's no question, as we now well know, that people of the cloth have secrets," she told the Crime Library. "Religiosity can have dark sides. We don't like to think about that. We like to think that members of the clergy are only pure in their motivations."

Typically, Kuriansky said, a violent act such as the Winkler murder is precipitated by a final "grand insult" that tops off some festering problem.

"The dimensions of a good relationship include compromise and communication," said Kuriansky, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to a Healthy Relationship." "When you don't compromise and communicate, things build up over time."

She said shrinks called it "gunny-sacking": Problems are hidden in a metaphorical burlap bag that becomes an increasing burden.

Kuriansky said ministers rarely seek help for personal problems because they fear they could lose their job if they admit to being less than perfect.

As one minister's spouse put it, "Until someone has walked in the shoes of a pastor's wife, they have no idea what kind of pressures and unrealistic expectations are often put on them."

Coincidentally, one of those who stepped forward to speak about the dynamics of clergy marriages was Gayle Haggard, whose husband, Ted, was a nationally known fundamentalist preacher in Colorado Springs.

Haggard told a reporter that women like Mary Winkler feel pressure "to live a certain way, to dress a certain way, for their children to behave a certain way."

Eight months later, Haggard resigned after admitting to using methamphetamines and a having a long relationship with a gay prostitute.


Bailed Out

In August 2006, after five months behind bars, Mary Winkler posted $750,000 bail with help from her father, who mortgaged his property.

She moved to McMinnville, Tenn., to live with Kathy Thomsen, an old church friend.

Soon after Mary's release, her defense team began to press its abused-spouse narrative in the court of public opinion.

First came a profile of Mary Winkler in the November 2006 issue of Glamour magazine.

Her attorneys agreed to allow her to pose for photos, including one featuring her crucifix necklace. Her father and siblings offered testimony to the woman's saintly nature while castigating Winkler for obsessing on money and holding Mary under his thumb.

Clark Freeman, Mary's father, added elusive references indicating that his estrangement with his daughter was related to some unspeakable abuse at the hands of Matthew.

Attorney Farese picked up on that theme.

"Only Mary can talk about his temper and how controlling he was," he told the Glamour reporter. "God and Matthew Winkler: These were the two figures she served...Mary did not know up from down and was literally trapped."

At about the time the magazine article was published, Mary Winkler's support team appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America," where they again made accusations of Matthew's abuseverbal, mental, physical, sexual.

The television spot served as a dress-rehearsal for the defense argument at trial.

One friend said she saw Mary with a black eye, and another said the woman cowered before her husband.�

"I saw bad bruises," said Clark Freeman. "The heaviest of makeup covering facial bruises. So one day, I confronted her. I said, 'Mary Carol, you are coming off as a much abused wife, very battered'...(She) would hang her head and say, 'No, daddy, everything's all right.'"

"There are all kinds of abuse imaginable that will be talked about at the trial," added attorney Ballin. "What went on behind their closed doors is going to have to be told."

There was just one brief diversion from this storyline.

On New Year's Eve 2006, Mary Winkler was spotted smoking and drinking at a McMinnville bar. A customer captured her on a cell phone video, and the footage aired on local TV.


Trial Time

Prosecutors tried several times to negotiate a guilty plea. Farese and Ballin said they declined several offerseven after prosecutors decided not to seek the death penalty against Winkler.

Prosecutor Walt Freeland went to trial seeking a first-degree murder conviction and a 51-year sentence.

Trial observers judged that the prosecution was outflanked by the nimble defense team. Farese and Ballin managed to mold testimony to fit their abuse-spouse narrative, and the prosecutors were lousy counter-punchers.

The preacher's wife may have been saved from life in prison even before testimony began.

"This trial shows once again that the most important part of any trial is the jury selection," Michael Mendelson, a longtime New York criminal defense attorney, told the Crime Library. "The OJ Simpson case proved that, and this case proved it again. If you get the right jury, you win. If you don't get the right jury, you lose."

Farese and Ballin seated a jury with 10 women and two men. During three days of jury selection, the attorneys closely questioned potential jurors about spousal abuse. Among their queries:

"Can emotional abuse be as damaging as physical abuse?"

"Have you ever talked to someone who didn't listen?"

"Have you ever wondered why someone would stay in an abusive relationship?"

Even in jury selection, they were molding Mary as an empathetic figure overwhelmed by years of abuse.

"This was a southern jury filled with southern women," Mendelson said. "Even today, some southern women are born into a heritage of deference to their husbands. You might have had 10 women sitting on that jury who have experienced the same sort of thing, and here they are judging one woman who had the balls to do something about her situation. They may have been saying, 'Aha, it's get-even time.'"

The conventional wisdom is that women jurors are tougher than men on women defendants, but the defense attorneys obviously saw something in this particular jury that prosecutor Freeland did not.


Heartbreaking Testimony

The Winklers' oldest child, Patricia, then a fourth-grader, appeared as a prosecution witness, giving brief but heartbreaking testimony that often left the child, her mother, many jurors and spectators in tears.

Prosecutor Freeland asked whether Matthew had been a good father, and the child softly replied, "Yes, sir." Asked whether he had ever been "ugly" with her mother, she responded, "No, sir."

The girl, dressed in a black-and-white polka dot dress, said she and her sisters were startled awake by a "big boom or something" on the morning of the slaying. She said she crept into her parents' bedroom and found her father on the floor groaning.

Her mother, she said, "was just walking around, and she saw us and closed the door...Me and Allie was scared."

The child said she has seen her mother only once since her arrest.

"I didn't want to see her," she said. "I mean, I still love her, I just don't want to."

Matthew's mother, Diane, later testified that during the children's first visit with Mary, she told them that she had not killed Matthew. She indicated that both she and the children were angered by what they saw as a bald-faced lie.


'Slutty' Shoes

During the trial, Mary Winkler seemed to have regained some of the spark that college friends said was missing from the emotionally blank young woman displayed in her arrest mug shots.

She dressed conservatively but with modest flair, and she was clearly engaged by the proceedings.

Her trial testimony proved key, although it was hardly the X-rated subject matter that Ballin had hinted at.

She revealed that her husband pressed her to engage in oral and anal sex, which she viewed as unnatural. She said he insisted that she dress up "slutty" in an Afro wig, miniskirts and footwear fit for a hooker.

In a brilliant show-and-tell gambit, defense attorneys Farese and Ballin entered the wig and shoes into evidence. During her testimony, Winkler shyly gripped one of the white platform shoes by its eight-inch stiletto heel.

Any defense that calls a defendant to the witness stand is taking a risk. But it paid off in this case.

Farese and Ballin used the boilerplate defense for gunshot cases: Their client was holding the gun, but she did not mean to use it.

Winkler admitted that she pointed a shotgun at her husband's back but said she did not intend to pull the trigger. She indicated she was in a state of near delirium over their marriage. Their checking account was overdrawn by $5,000, and she was under pressure from Matthew over the check-kiting scheme.

When the gun "accidentally" fired, she said, her instinct was to flee. She packed up her daughters and drove to the beach.

"All I knew was that the stupid gun had went off, and nobody would believe me and they would just take my girls away from me," she testified.

Winkler said she had suffered silently through years of sexual, physical and psychological abuse. She demurely reviewed Matthew's sexual tastesincluding internet pornography as a prelude to �sexand said he had punched and kicked her.

It was a classic abused-spouse defense.

Yet, during her initial statement to police after she was arrested, Mary specifically said that Matthew had not abused her in any way.

Why had she changed her story?

"I was ashamed," she said. "I didn't want anybody to know about Matthew."

It seemed like a crucial contradiction on which the prosecution could capitalize. But prosecutor Freeland let the opportunity slip by.

The defense offered some corroborating evidence two people who witnessed Matthew's temper; the friends who saw Mary's black eye and watched her cower when she was in her husband's presence.

During his presentation of evidence, Freeland attempted to focus attention on the Internet scam and the couple's financial problems. He was able to land a few jabs but never a knockout punch.

Freeland later insisted that Matthew Winkler was "a good daddy who didn't abuse anybody." But defense attorney Farese countered, "If you look up spousal abuse in the dictionary, you're going to see Mary Winkler's picture."


The Conviction

After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated for eight hours on March 22 before announcing the verdict to a hushed Selmer courtroom: Mary Winkler was judged guilty of voluntary manslaughter.

Under Tennessee law, voluntary manslaughter is a crime of passion "produced by adequate provocation sufficient to lead a reasonable person to act in an irrational manner."

There was no reaction in the courtroom to the verdict, even though it was filled with the loved ones of both Matthew and Mary Winkler.

Later, after Judge McCraw dismissed the jurors, Mary Winkler hugged her attorneys, her father and other kin in the courtroom.

�Outside court, Matthew's father, Dan Winkler, expressed no anger and revealed little emotion. Instead, he made a polite statement thanking the jurors, judge, prosecutor and police.

The prosecution team, disappointed by the verdict, issued a statement expressing condolences to Matthew Winkler's family.

After the trial's conclusion, defense attorney Farese revealed that Mary Winkler had turned down three plea bargains.

"We were offered 35 years," Farese said. "We were offered 20 years. We were offered 15 years. We're now looking at three to six years. My reaction is the verdict was most probably just."

"There are no winners," added Ballin. "We're left with the memory of Matthew Winkler. And even though there have been a lot of negative things said about him in this trial, there was a good side to him, too. You heard that from Mary, 'He could be so good at times.' This is a case about two people who had a tumultuous marriage of some 10 years that ended in tragedy. Nothing good about it."


210 Days for a Life

Because she was a first-time felon, Mary Winkler faced a sentence range of three to six years when she stood before Judge McCraw to get her comeuppance. He also had the discretion to order probation.

During a five-hour sentencing hearing, Freeland argued for the maximum six-year sentence. Farese and Ballin argued for probation.

Mary Winkler, who was among the 10 people who testified, read a statement that seemed disingenuous: She rued the loss of the man she killed.

"I've suffered the loss of someone I loved," she said. "I've lost my freedom. I've lost my children, and I've had my life be put on public display. I think of Matthew every day, and the guilt, and I always miss him and love him."

She said acknowledged there were both good and bad times in the marriage, "And I wish I could have that good Matthew, and we could live together forever...I hope this situation sheds light on unhealthy relationships, and that others will find the strength and have the courage to seek help before such a tragedy occurs again."

McCraw received 90 letters of recommendation written on Winkler's behalf. His 25-minute long sentencing edict, which he recited from a written script, included no chastising words about the defendant.

McCraw said the offense made Winkler eligible for prison since it met the state's legal definition of a "violent, shocking and reprehensible" act. But he added, "In fashioning this sentence, the court has considered the seriousness of the offense, the jury's verdict and the testimony about allegations of abuse of the defendant."

The sentence210 days, minus the 143 already served and 60 days in a mental facilityonce again brought mute reaction in the courtroom.

Mary Winkler simply bowed her head and closed her eyes for about 20 seconds, as if in prayer.

"I'm quite happy," Farese said outside court. "I think in the end he (Judge McCraw) did what was right."


Foreman Speaks

Outside court before the sentencing hearing, jury foreman Bill Berry gave Court TV an unusually blunt assessment of the trial and his fellow jurors.

He said the jury leaned heavily in favor of Mrs. Winkler due to the "10 ladies" seated on the jury.

"I don't think justice was done," said Berry. "It's the times we're living in. People are getting away with murder today."

He called the gender makeup of the jury "unbalanced" and "unfair."

He said that after the first seven hours of deliberations, nine of the 10 women appeared ready to vote for acquittal. They "wanted her to just walk free," Berry said.

He said the verdict of voluntary manslaughter was a compromise.

"We had to settle on something," he said.

Berry said he believed Winkler was "not completely" truthful when she testified to physical, sexual and mental abuse at the hands of her husband. He said he doubted the physical abuse and was not sure about sexual abuse, but he conceded there may have been mental abuse.

Berry said he had hoped Judge McCraw would sentence Winkler to the maximum time in prison, and he said she "doesn't deserve" to regain custody of her daughters.


Withering Words

There are lingering legal issues surrounding the slaying.

Fights lie ahead between Mary Winkler and her in-laws. Diane and Dan Winkler filed a $2 million wrongful death civil suit against her, and they are seeking permanent custody of their three grandchildren.

The Winklers are trying to terminate Mary's parental rights, and she responded with a petition to seek immediate custody. The case is pending in Chancery Court in Jackson, Tenn.

The most riveting moments in the sentencing hearing came during victim impact statements given by the Matthew Winkler's brother and mother. After initially expressing love and support for their daughter-in-law, Winkler family has had an increasingly contentious relationship with her.

"I've watched as the life of my brother has been turned into a circus," testified Dan Winkler Jr. While starting icily at his sister-in-law, he added, "I don't see any remorse."

Most withering was the testimony of the victim's mother, Diane Winkler.

"You broke your girls' hearts," Mrs. Winkler said during a stern 30-minute monologue in which she stared intently at Mary Winkler, who sat wearing a print dress and white sweater. "Mary, you have destroyed your husband's character. You have destroyed his good name...You have accused him of being a monster who abused and belittled you."


What It Justice?

Tom Flowers watched the Winkler story unfold with keen interest.

A Tennessean, he attended the same college as the Winklers, was raised in their denomination and had met Matthew's preacher grandfather, Wendell.

He said the prosecution strategy that sought a murder conviction and long sentence was flawed.

"I was just stunned when the prosecution�was pressing for a conviction of premeditated, first-degree murder," he said. "So when the verdict came out, I was satisfied that justice had been served."

But was it justice?

A few months after the slaying, when the motive in the case was still a mystery, Jennifer Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, made a prescient comment when contacted by Crime Library.

"At the end of the day, this probably won't make much more sense to the public than it does right now," Johnson said. She added, "I think most people will be thinking...'I just don't get it.'"

Perhaps the outcome was a form of backlash against the clergy after two decades of scandals among Catholic and Protestant denominations. Perhaps it was payback after generations of the dirty little secret of spousal abuse.

But Dr. Kathy Seifert, the forensic psychotherapist, said there are unanswered questions about Mary Winkler's "massive overreaction" to whatever marital problems the couple might have been having.

"My suspicion is that someone who uses violence as a means of a resolving domestic problem has a model of that violence, abuse or neglect somewhere in her background," Seifert said.

She said the profile of Mary Winkler presented in her defense narrative seemed to fit the classic profile of a "hot" violent female. These often are passive victims of abuse who "get to the point where they can't take it anymore, and something snaps, and they finally seek their revenge."

Seifert added that the kinky sex angle doesn't seem to ring true.

"I can see a very conservative lady not exposed to the world very much becoming very, very upset and psychologically damaged by that," she said. "But when it comes to killing somebody over something like that, it feels like there's a piece of information missing some other component that causes the massive overreaction. Maybe it's an insurance policy. Maybe it's childhood abuse. Maybe it's something else."

TruTV.com

 

 

 
 
 
 
home last updates contact