The Pastor's Wife Read online

  “I thought something shot,” Mary babbled, “the smell and there was a little bang, wasn’t near what I thought.”

  “Did he ask you to call 9-1-1? Or did you just tell the girls that?”

  “I was trying to ease them,” she explained. “I lied a lot yesterday, then and today.”

  Mary insisted that she did not know whether Matthew was dead or alive—

  “Now, Mary, I’m going to tell you what you probably don’t want me to tell you. He didn’t survive it, okay?”

  “Has anybody told them?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Has anybody told them?”

  Stuester caught on first. “Your daughters? No.”

  “Nobody’s told the kids,” Stabler emphasized. “Nobody’s told them.”

  “Thank you.”

  Agent Stabler thought he turned off the tape recorder when they left the room to give Mary a few moments to herself. They hoped with some time to reflect, she would open up to them a bit more.

  But Mary disappointed them in that. She didn’t want to talk about the reasons she shot Matthew. She simply said, “Y’all are so kind. Y’all are very kind, but I just—There’s no reason for him to have anything ugly, because I have obviously done something very bad, so let me just, you know, be the, get the bad. That would be my request.”

  They objected, but it was futile. Mary’s mind was made up. The only thing she wanted to talk about now was making sure no obstacles stood in the way of her girls being with Matthew’s mother.

  Chapter 6

  Dan and Diane Winkler spent Thursday afternoon in earnest and anguished prayer for the safety of their daughter-in-law and their three precious grandchildren. That evening, the phone rang, and their prayers were answered. Patricia, Allie, Breanna and Mary were all alive—and safe.

  The next piece of news was something they did not want to hear. Their daughter-in-law Mary was being questioned for her role in Matthew’s death. They were needed in Alabama to take responsibility for their grandchildren.

  They attempted to get a flight out from Nashville to Orange Beach that night, but it wasn’t possible. They booked a flight in the morning and spent the next hours in fitful and restless sleep before rising to drive to the airport.

  In Selmer, on Friday, March 24, the grapevine hummed with news of the discovery of Mary and her girls. The community breathed a sigh of relief. There would be tears and sorrow at the funeral of the young, charismatic preacher, but they’d been spared the agony of tiny coffins enclosing three innocent little girls. Soon, however, the communal rejoicing turned to astonishment and dread. Mary killed Matthew? It didn’t seem possible.

  Life in the small town no longer bore its peaceful appearance. Satellite trucks from local, regional and national media outlets filled Second Street and the surrounding neighborhood. Any resident with business at City Hall or the police station put it off for another day if they could. There was no place to park, and when they walked in from a distant space, they were besieged by hungry journalists.

  Every downtown store and office faced herds of roaming reporters seeking news and gossip—anything to pump up a headline or spark a sound bite. It felt like an invasion to the local population—but the press was just doing their job, nothing more. Selmer Police Chief Neal Burks gave regular press briefings in front of City Hall to apprise the journalists of the latest developments. But, as with every breaking story, it was never enough to satiate the media.

  That Friday morning was no exception. The police chief introduced Investigator Roger Rickman to read the official statement.

  “On March twenty-second, 2006, the body of Matthew Winkler was found in his home in Selmer, Tennessee. Mr. Winkler had been shot. On March twenty-third, 2006, the deceased’s wife, Mary Carol Winkler, was apprehended by law enforcement officers in Orange Beach, Alabama. According to agents of the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, Mary Winkler confessed to the murder of her husband, Matthew Winkler, shooting him on March the twenty-second, 2006, and leaving Selmer with her three daughters.

  “These warrants,” he said, holding them up in one hand, “have been faxed down to the TBI and the West Tennessee Drug Task Force and Violent Crimes, who are down there right now, and we anticipate this warrant being served within the next hour. And they’re in the process now of getting her extradited back to Tennessee.”

  Rickman would not answer any questions about Mary’s interviews with law enforcement, the murder weapon, the motive, the means of death, the contents of the van or Mary’s state of mind. He did tell them that they anticipated Mary’s return to McNairy County this weekend and a hearing next week.

  After seven minutes of back-and-forth, Neal Burks interrupted and announced, “This will be the last news conference that we have.”

  Reporter Russell Ingle stood in the lobby of City Hall talking to a couple of police officers about the impact the Winkler story had on their town, when a 9-1-1 call came in reporting the possible discovery of a bazooka.

  The weapon was transported back to the National Guard armory in Selmer. It was missing its warhead, but the booster charge remained alive. The Jackson Police Department dispatched their bomb disposal unit to Selmer, where they blew it up and eliminated the threat.

  As the only full-time staff writer at the Independent Appeal, Russell covered the bazooka story as well as other developing news in the area during the week. He wrote half of the ten pieces about the Winkler tragedy in the first issue after Matthew’s death.

  He and his local colleagues were under pressure unknown to the out-of-town reporters. When the story played itself out to the end, they would still be here. They would be judged by their neighbors for what they wrote.

  “We tried not to hurt the people in the churches. They are our friends. They are our advertisers,” Tom Evans, managing editor of the Appeal, said. “We didn’t want the church to take a hit for the story. We wanted them treated with respect.” At the same time, they knew they needed to be objective, truthful, and tell the whole story. It was a precarious tightrope.

  There were no services or events planned at the Fourth Street Church of Christ on Friday, but the traffic in and out of the sanctuary never ended, with journalists and photographers keeping watch outside. A steady flow of church members knocked on the locked door and slipped inside. Out of sight of the cameras, they greeted one another, embraced, offered words of support and prayed for strength and resolution.

  Mid-afternoon, a member ducked out the front door and hung up a handwritten sign reading, “No more interviews today.” In the lobby outside of the sanctuary, photographs of the children and their mother were stapled to a bulletin board. In another room, an easel held a more extensive display of pictures: Patricia and Allie in costumes, playing basketball, posing with kittens and sitting with Santa Claus, one of Mary holding up her youngest daughter and laughing. A shot of Matthew flashing a big smile at a church social as he balanced brimming plates of food in each hand.

  That morning, Dan and Diane Winkler flew from Nashville to Alabama to take care of their son’s daughters. Throughout the flight, they prayed for the strength and grace to handle the situation in a manner befitting Christians who loved the Lord. They drove straight from the airport to the Baldwin County Courthouse.

  There, they learned that Mary was “a person of interest” in the murder of their son, and asked to speak with their daughter-in-law. They were allowed to visit, one at a time, under the watchful eye of an officer. The atmosphere was tense. Law enforcement had no indication that the elder Winklers intended to harm the prisoner. But, after all, it appeared as if she killed their son.

  Dan entered the holding area first. “Mary, I am so sorry for all of this.”

  Mary hung her head and did not respond.

  “I wish we could take the handcuffs off so I could give you a big bear hug.”

  Mary reached toward him with her bound hands and a soft, slight smile on her face. He gave her an awkward embrace and said, “I l
ove you, Mary.”

  Dan left with a heavy heart. He wanted Mary to ask for forgiveness. And he wanted to forgive her, but he knew he couldn’t. The tenets of his faith demanded that the sinner ask for forgiveness in a state of penitence and contrition before it could be granted. Mary did not ask. She did not utter a single word of remorse.

  Diane stepped up to Mary and folded her in a heartfelt embrace.

  “I’m sorry I’m putting y’all out with the girls,” Mary said.

  “There’s no problem with that, Mary. We love you and we love the girls. We’ll take good care of them.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t worry about the girls,” Diane assured her before she left.

  Right after their visit, Agent Chris Carpenter of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation arrived in Alabama bearing an arrest warrant issued that morning charging Mary Winkler with first-degree murder.

  Carpenter led the interview with Mary. Also present at the interrogation were Lieutenant Kim Holley and Officer Byron Maxedon of the Selmer Police Department, and additional officers with the state law enforcement agency who’d rushed to the Alabama coast. TBI policy prohibited recording the event. Carpenter summarized her words in his handwriting. Mary signed the statement, putting her initials on each page.

  In the interview, Mary admitted that she was there when her husband died.

  He had a shotgun he kept in the closet in a case. I don’t remember going to the closet or getting the gun. The next thing I remember was hearing a loud boom and I remember thinking that 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 and I saw some blood on the floor and some bleeding around his mouth. I went over and wiped his mouth off with a sheet. I told him I was sorry and that I loved him and I went and ran.

  I do remember me holding the shotgun, hearing the boom, and then a smell. He asked me why and I just said I was sorry. I was scared, sad, and wanted to get out of the house.

  The statement ended with a pathetically thin answer to the reason for the shooting.

  I was upset at him because he had really been on me lately, criticising [sic] me for things, the way I walk, what 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.

  Chapter 7

  After their visit with Mary, Dan and Diane Winkler followed representatives from social services to the foster home where the three girls spent the previous night. They hugged and kissed their granddaughters, gave vague answers to their questions and assured them that they were loved.

  They all traveled to the courthouse in Foley, Alabama, for a hearing before a juvenile judge. Baldwin County officials transported Mary to the hearing as well, where she indicated her approval of her in-laws as guardians of her daughters. Dan and Diane spoke to her again, telling her once more that they loved her. The judge awarded custody of the children to the grandparents.

  Upon leaving court, Dan spoke to the media, thanking supporters for their prayers. “Now we want to turn our attention to remembering our son and to the care of three young children.”

  In Selmer, members of the police department parked their vehicle in the lot behind the Fourth Street Church of Christ. They emerged from the building carrying a computer tower.

  Authorities transported Mary from the courthouse to the Baldwin County Corrections Center in the county seat of Bay Minette, Alabama, more than an hour’s drive away, the coastal town where police took her into custody.

  Back in Orange Beach, TBI Agent Chris Carpenter searched through the passenger area of Mary’s mini-van. Special Agent Brent Booth went through the contents of the rear compartment looking for any relevant evidence. He spotted an orange tackle box, but did not open it or confiscate it.

  The Winklers spent the night in a hotel with their granddaughters. They were joined by both of their sons, and friends Eddie and Sheryl Thompson. They had the hard task of telling the two older girls that their father had passed away.

  “Patricia, something terrible’s happened to your daddy.”

  “I know someone hurt him,” she said.

  Then, they delivered the news that she would never see him alive again. They repeated the heart-wrenching scene with Allie. Breanna was too young to know or understand.

  In the morning, the authorities released Mary’s mini-van to the Winklers, who used it to make the long drive with the three girls to their home in Huntingdon. Their granddaughters behaved beautifully. The only unpleasant incident was when Patricia had a bout of car sickness. At one meal stop, a stranger recognized them and paid for their food. They arrived home very late, but Matthew’s Aunt Linda and his maternal grandmother were there to greet them.

  The girls were fearful and full of questions. Aunt Linda held her two great-nieces tightly to her side as they sobbed out the worries. They wanted someone they knew with them at all times—preferably Nana and Poppa. Lights had to be left on at night, or they were too afraid to sleep.

  In Selmer, church members gathered to plant annuals in honor of their fallen minister on Saturday, pausing to share memories of him. Before his death, Matthew planned a spring clean-up of the church grounds that included planting flower beds. “We’re doing this because Matthew wanted us to,” James Turner said.

  Retired psychiatric nurse Jimmie Smith said, “It keeps us busy. We don’t understand all of this, but God’s with us, and we’re working for Him, planting His flowers.” Then she was back digging in the dirt.

  In Bay Minette, Mary waived her right to an extradition hearing, clearing the way for her transfer back to Tennessee. Saturday morning, Baldwin County sheriff’s deputies outfitted Mary with handcuffs, a belly chain and shackles. She climbed into the back seat of the McNairy County vehicle. Sheriff Rick Roten and Officer Byron Maxedon of the Selmer Police Department made the trip back to Tennessee with her.

  Mary asked no questions and made no comments. She only spoke when asked if she needed a restroom break or if she was hungry or thirsty. At one of the two stops for gas, Mary was escorted to the service station lavatory. She went inside alone while Maxedon stood guard outside the door.

  They pulled up to the back of the McNairy County Justice Center at the jail entrance around 4:30 that afternoon. She entered still wearing the pink sweat suit she had on when she was stopped by the Orange Beach police two days earlier.

  The sheriff spoke briefly to the gathered media. “She’s fine. She had no emotion whatsoever. She was quiet and cooperative,” he said. “She didn’t ask any questions, didn’t talk about anything. She had good behavior. We’ve had no problems whatsoever.”

  Officials walked her through the standard booking procedures. She was fingerprinted, photographed and searched by a female guard, and placed in a holding cell alone for eight to ten hours. There she dressed in a prison uniform before being transferred to a cell in the female block.

  Mary Winkler, preacher’s wife, mother of three, college student, was now an inmate charged with first-degree murder of the man she claimed she loved.

  The Lives

  “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.”

  —Proverbs 31: 10-12

  Chapter 8

  No one saw it coming. Nothing in Mary Winkler’s history foreshadowed this horrendous event—the ultimate act of domestic violence. No one ever looked at Mary and believed she was capable of taking another person’s life.

  Clark Freeman and Mary Nell Hackney married on July 20, 1968. More than five years later, on December 10, 1973, Mary Nell gave birth to their first child, Mary Carol Freeman, in Knoxville, Tennessee.

  At the time of Mary’s birth, Knoxville was home to approximately 175,000 people, making it the third-largest city in the state.

  Knoxville is situated in eastern Tennessee, in former Cherokee country,
embraced by the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachian mountain chain on one side and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the other. Growing up, Mary often visited the park and explored the 510,030 acres of ridges, hollows, river gorges, the most diversified plant life in the country and the largest stand of virgin timber east of the Mississippi, authorized by the federal government in 1934 and dedicated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940.

  The city began its life as a fort named after George Washington’s secretary of war, Henry Knox. That structure still stands in the central business district of the city. In 1796, when Tennessee became a state, Knoxville was its first capital.

  The Freeman lifestyle owed a lot to the Tennessee Valley Authority, a New Deal project under Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, that transformed the Tennessee River and brought modern conveniences to the city. The program, beginning in 1933, built large dams, and purchased smaller existing private dams, and created a network of fifty that operated as a single system, generating power and enhancing the region’s economic development. The Tennessee Valley Authority is still one of the two largest employers in Knoxville. The other is the University of Tennessee.

  This institution of higher education began in 1794 as Blount College and gained its current status in 1879. It now leads a statewide university system that is a pivotal part of the Knoxville community, serving as a national leader in energy research and the cultural center of the city as well as providing a nationally recognized athletic program closely followed by local citizens.

  After World War II, Knoxville felt the impact of the United States government again when the village of Oak Ridge—twenty miles west of the city—became the site of the Manhattan Project, a secret federal nuclear installation. The city benefited from another federal project in the fifties—the development of the interstate highway system during Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration. The city lies on U.S. Route 40, the long and winding highway that connects Wilmington, North Carolina, on the east coast, to Barstow, California, in the west. All these government programs boosted the economic growth of Knoxville, which positively impacted the standard of living enjoyed by Freeman family decades later.