Posted on 06/08/2007 2:30:09 PM PDT by midwesteastcoastconnection
SELMER, Tenn. — A woman who killed her preacher husband with a shotgun blast to the back as he lay in bed was sentenced Friday to three years in prison, but she may end up serving only 60 days in a mental hospital.
Mary Winkler must serve 210 days, or about seven months, of her sentence before she can be released on probation, but she gets credit for the five months she has already spent in jail, Judge Weber McCraw said.
That leaves only two months, and McCraw said up to 60 days of the sentence could be served in a facility where she could receive mental health treatment. That means Winkler may not serve any significant time in prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I think the blame here goes mostly to the jury, not the judge. They acquitted her of murder and convicted her only of some petty charge.
The judge and prosecutor both live in my county.
The judge is a good guy. He did what he could on a voluntary manslaughter conviction.
He did refuse to expunge Mary’s record.
Your opinion is wrong about the shoes. The lawyers were not allowed in the house without the police.
Good thing for her, her name last name wasn’t Hilton.
Were the shoes entered into evidence at the time the crime scene was processed, or were they entered by the defense at some later date? If there are photos of them in her closet the day after the murder, then maybe she wasn't lying. What I was saying is that the prosecution should have (maybe they did, I don't know)tried to establish when the things were purchased and by whom.
Here is the scenario I'm picturing: lawyer interviews Mrs. Winkler. He is looking for anything he can find to create doubt or justification for his client's actions. He asks if he had any peccadillos. Winkler is a plain jane preacher's wife. She was probably very modest about her body and sexuality. Preacher man wants her to sex it up, gets her to wear lingerie and heels. Nothing weird, just bought stuff for her from Victoria's Secret but to her it was still vulgar. Had nothing to do with why she killed him, but the lawyer doesn't have much to work with.
Now he is in Nashville for court and stop in at one of the local ballet parlors downtown. For some reason he thinks of Mary Winkler and her prudish attitude towards the 2 1/2 inch closed toe pumps she thought were slutty, and he thinks to himself "now if he made you wear something like these 7 inch lucite platforms that Bambi here is wearing, I could see your point in blasting him".
Cue the little light bulb over the head. Next thing is that classic photo of the shoes in the foreground, and little miss murderer behind them looking forelorn and disgusted.
What is your ‘take’ on this....
This sentence makes me so angry. The Winkler family (Matthew’s parents, his grandparents and uncles) are very nice caring people. Even she admitted when she was first caught that she did something wrong! Sickening
Her early statements are what leads me to believe that the scenarios she claims were pure fiction.
They were. She got caught in a money scam and he got angry. She shoots him in the back and leaves him to die. End of story. That in itself is terrible, but then she lies on stand about his character. Not only did she take his life, she took his good name and he isn’t around to defend it. Her meanness goes deep to the bone.
I believe she was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, a Class C Felony, which could have brought at least two years served if she had 2 priors. that is one of the problems of a sentencing schedule; when a person's first offense is a murder, they get off much easier than they should
If they had got her for 2nd degree murder, a class A felony, a standard offender could get out in 4.5-7.5 years.
I totally agree. What I don’t understand is why the prosecution let her get away with such a rediculous scenario without a more vigorous inquiry. They basically let her story go unchallenged.
yeah, they probably didn’t think anyone would believe it would see through it, but you never should take that chance. :(
Number two, I would be very surprised if they would ever step inside Platinum Plus or any other sleaze joint.
For some reason I believe her, but whatever happened did not warrant killing him, unless her life or the children’s were in danger, which they apparently were not.
Exactly! Her daughter testified that she never saw her father mistreat her mother. They ignored her testimony. She changed her story 3 times. She left him to die. She knew he was still alive and she jerked the phone out of the wall to keep him from calling for help. There was never any proof whatsoever other than her testimony and inuendos from her friends that she had been abused. She was involved in criminal activity that he was going to find out about the very day she shot him. She was on the phone talking and agitatedly pacing at her job the day before she killed him. She violated her bond by being out drinking New Years Eve and the judge and parole board ignored that, too. It was premeditated murder pure and simple. Her employer and the people she lives with just love to shove it in our faces that she is getting by with it. The day she was found guilty of manslaughter, they had a big sign on the marqee of the drycleaners where she works. It said “Welcome Home, Mary. Its just sickening. Meanwhile, Matt is dead and can’t even defend himself.
Good question. And the shoe was brand new. Never been worn.
Another thing she claimed was that he got up that morning because the baby was crying, and put his hand over the babys’ mouth and nose to quiet her, then went back to bed. But the autopsy showed his bladder was full. So full that had he been awake, he would have had to visit the bathroom really bad, yet he supposedly got up, tried to smother the baby and walked back to the bedroom, passing the bathroom, and went back to sleep with a very full bladder.
The older girl said she didn’t ever want to see her again.
No. He was a very nice decent minister in a small town church. Very much loved by the town and his congregation.
Strange, too, that in her confession, she was acting almost cocky, like she was enjoying the attention. But she wouldn’t say that he was abusive. As a matter of fact she said he never abused her, that he was upset because the church was broke. I guess so seeing she used the churches money for her little check kiting scheme she had going on. Then her lawyers tell her to keep her mouth shut and they come up with this abuse defense and suddenly it was her he was mad at, not the church. At one point in her confession she even said, “ he was so good.”
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