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Nancy Grace
Nancy Grace Mysteries: Mary Winkler
Aired September 20, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight on NANCY GRACE MYSTERIES, the minister killed by his own wife. Do new revelations uncover her motive?
NANCY GRACE, HOST: I recall when I first heard that the 31-year-old minister, Matthew Winkler, had been gunned down, shot dead in his own home, in his own bedroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So far, the motive in this case has been a very closely guarded secret. Police say they know, but they`re not telling. They say infidelity is not an issue, but won`t comment on whether any other domestic abuse is involved. Meantime, her colleague and her attorney did visit Mary Winkler in jail over the weekend and say they found a woman very upset about what has happened.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She is a quiet, demure young lady who seems very confused. When I first saw her Saturday night, she was in a state of semi- shock, obviously did not know the gravity of what was going on. And yesterday when I visited to her, she`s getting a little better and is acclimating herself to being in prison.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was just -- she was very sorry. She kept repeating how sorry she was and that she wanted me to apologize to this one and that one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The telephone cord had been ripped from the wall as he tried to call 911.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mary Winkler told Oprah Winfrey she never intended to pull the trigger. Here are more details from Taina Hernandez (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mary Winkler says she never meant to shoot and kill her husband, Matthew.
MARY WINKLER, SHOT HUSBAND TO DEATH: When I heard the boom, I just thought, Oh, my goodness, he`s going to think I meant to do that on purpose, and so I took out -- I just took out of there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She told Oprah Winfrey the night of the shooting, she pointed a 12-gauge shotgun at him because she wanted to talk.
OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: What did you want to say?
WINKLER: Just to stop. Just -- don`t be happy. Just to stop being so mean. And just relax and enjoy life.
WINFREY: That`s what you wanted to say to him?
WINKLER: Uh-huh.
WINFREY: With the shotgun.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The fact that he had no defensive wounds added into the scenario. And then we learned that his wife, Mary Winkler, had packed up her girls and taken them on a beach vacation, never giving a hint that their father was dead, lying dead, staring at nothing in his bedroom, shot dead with a shotgun.
She managed to pack the girls, gas up the car, load it up, get on the road and drive all the way to the beach without being detected or suspected? To me, that shows cold blood.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We received a call last night approximately 9:20 PM in regards to a deceased person at 174 Molly (ph) Drive in Selmer. We arrived on the scene and did determine that there was a white male in the bedroom who was deceased.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And he was shot to death?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was shot in the back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course, as with any homicide, police immediately sought out the victim`s family to break the news to them, or perhaps get some information. Strangely enough in this case, though, the family was nowhere to be found.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The discovery of the body of Matthew Winkler was gothic. It was a Wednesday, and as everybody knows, on Wednesday nights in little churches all across this country, there`s a lot going on. There`s choir practice. There`s Bible study. There`s Wednesday night suppers. There`s youth groups. Well, the preacher didn`t show up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The church members of the Church of Christ here in Selmer were concerned about their pastor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Elders from the church went and knocked on the door. No answer. They still didn`t show up. Finally, that evening around 9:00 o`clock at night, several of them, in fact, they got a key to the parsonage. They opened it up. They find the reverend, the pastor, the preacher, dead, lying on his back, staring straight up, gunshot wound to his body, blood on the bed. As it turned out in autopsy, 77 gunshot pellets were removed from his body along with the wadding (ph) -- 77 gunshot pellets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re trying to find the wife and the children. I think you have that information, that they`re driving a 2006 Toyota van.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police issued an Amber Alert describing the van. It also describes the minister`s wife, Mary Winkler, 32 years old, 5-3, 120 pounds, and her three daughters, who are 1, 6, 8 and probably confused.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The girls were very nice and just sweet, the sweetest girls you`d ever meet, great attitude. Yes, ma`am, no, ma`am. Yes, sir, no, sir. Just raised very well, taught very well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But when church members discovered their minister`s body in his parsonage, they called police and immediately went looking for her to see if she was OK or possibly break the news to her. However, she was nowhere to be found. So police put out an Amber Alert. Is it possible she and the girls could have been abducted? Police got the answer to their question when they received phone call from authorities in Orange Beach, Alabama, late Thursday night that led them to this conclusion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would say she a suspect at this time just due to the nature of this, that she`s alive and well, of course, but she does have the children. She was in the van. So we would consider her a suspect at this time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Three days after the shooting, during this time, an Amber Alert had been issued for the Winkler family, a BOLO. Police were on the lookout for the family minivan. Now, we learn -- in hindsight, we learn that Mary Winkler had taken off with her girls. And her original plan was to go to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she was from. But somewhere along the way, things changed. She ended up at a Fairfield Inn in Jackson, Mississippi, and decided at that time not to go to Baton Rouge, that she would instead go to Orange Beach, Alabama. And she decided to take her girls on a vacation to the beach to, quote, "have a good day."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-four hours later, after a dragnet that included six states, police, FBI, Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, the mother and daughters were found in Alabama.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The news is that they have been found in Orange Beach, Alabama.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then police announced they now have new suspicions about the murdered preacher`s wife.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would say she is a suspect at this time just due to the nature of this, that she`s alive and well, of course, but she does have the children. She`s in the van. So we would consider her a suspect at this time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But now it`s a matter of questioning, really. Authorities are telling us that Mary Winkler is going to be questioned by FBI, TBI and even locals there in Alabama. As for what she`s going to be asked, they say they will ask her if she had something to do with her husband`s murder. As for church members here, they say they`re just happy that those children have been found. And as for Mary, they say, they also would like to ask her some questions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because of my huge failure, I can attest to the fact that family -- there will be people there for people that ask for help, and they will be loved and believed. But I just feel so inadequate giving advice that I couldn`t follow myself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grisly details of the crime scene revealed. And just who was minister`s wife Mary Winkler? What could make her fatally shoot the father of her children in the back?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: This is what we know about Matthew Winkler`s severe injuries. Death by shotgun blast is extremely painful, and Matthew Winkler did not die immediately. Many of his organs were perforated by all of the shotgun pellets -- the left lung, diaphragm, stomach, spleen. I could go on to other organs. He basically bled to death.
Also, this must have been incredibly painful. His spine was fractured by the gunshot wound. He laid there and bled to death with a fractured spine, a broken back and multiple perforations to many of his internal organs.
And interesting note. He was shot from between two-and-a-half and seven-and-a-half feet away with a shotgun. Can you imagine him lying in bed and hearing the -- racking the shotgun?
Also, what kind of cold blood did this require? The crime scene investigators could tell that his body had been rolled over and over and over to get where it finally lay when he died. How could they tell that? The position of his feet. Winkler`s feet were crossed over where he had been turned over and over and over.
He endured all that with a broken back, multiple perforations in his internal organs, a gunshot -- a shotgun blast, was bleeding to death. And they found the phone cord and the phone jack ripped from the wall so he couldn`t call 911, all tangled up beneath him in the bed covers there on the floor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was a minister`s wife, and Mary Winkler kept her private life out of public sight. No one saw or heard anything to indicate she might be angry or disturbed enough to kill her husband, Matthew, a popular and charismatic minister.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The thing that has been so unreal with this, that this is the kind of couple, this would have been the last thing that would have happened to anyone, but especially to them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A loving couple by all accounts, except one, the one Mary Winkler gave police when she confessed last week. The reason the shy, demure woman pulled the trigger may be partially answered in a Tennessee courtroom this morning. Prosecutors must convince the judge there is probable cause that Mary Winkler planned and murdered her husband. Expected in that evidence is the answer to the question on everyone`s mind. Why? It`s the subject of much speculation in this small town of 4,500. Could the Winklers have had a dark secret that provoked such violence? Even defense attorney Leslie Ballon (ph) says if so, it wasn`t apparent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A fine man, a good minister. That`s his conduct that we`ve heard in public. What his private life was like, what happened within their home, is something that we`re investigating.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you gotten any inkling that all was not well behind those closed doors?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have not, but that`s not to say that all was well.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ballon claims the defense still doesn`t know exactly what Winkler told police and says they are exploring strategies for her defense.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether or not this is post-partum depression, whether or not this was an act done in a state of passion, whether or not this was an act done with a culpable state of negligence -- those are things that we`re going to look into.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bill Smith is a longtime family friend and dean at the religious university where Matthew`s father teaches. His son was Matthew`s best friend. Smith says the couple seemed incredibly happy about their children, especially the 1-year-old daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we talk about post-partum depression, that really refers to Mary. Did you see any indication...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, not at all.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smith says immediately following Mary`s arrest, Matthew`s parents went to pick up the children in Alabama. They asked to meet the woman they still consider a daughter, despite being told by police that she`d confessed to killing their son.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They hugged her. She hugged them. She was so remorseful and so sorrowful of what she had done. And they assured her that she was forgiven.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An incredible act of forgiveness from a family of three generations of ministers. Rusty Dornin, CNN, Selmer, Tennessee.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cops locate the wife and kids in the getaway van, but make an unbelievable discovery. You`ll never guess what`s inside.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: When police finally apprehended Mary Winkler making an illegal U-turn, they found that she had only $123 on her, but they also found the 12-gauge shotgun, the murder weapon, in the minivan with the girls. Now, that was a weapon she kept in the home for turkey shooting only. And she tells police at the time, she didn`t even remember putting it in the minivan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This weekend, psychologists are expected to begin examining Mary Winkler. Defense attorneys say they need to know whether she understood the consequences when police say she shot her husband in the back. Competency could be a defense.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her condition is pretty fragile right now. We`re concerned about it. Also, in a case like this, where Mary Carol`s mental state at the time of the event is an issue, we want to have a forensic psychological examination done.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her own lawyers call Winkler an emotional wreck. Winkler made two court appearances this week, both times her head down low, apparently trying to avoid eye contact during crowded hearings.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it your desire at this point to waive your right to preliminary hearing?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Close friends say her courtroom demeanor is a far cry from the woman they know. Another friend, who cried during a jailhouse visit with Winkler, said the mother of three kept her emotions in check.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I expected her to be very upset, but she just -- she was very calm. She was worried about the needs of, seems like, everyone else.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: By waiving a preliminary hearing Thursday, the defense prevented prosecutors from reading her alleged confession into the record.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We feel it does no one any good to hear bad things said about the mother of children. We don`t feel that it does anyone any good to hear gruesome things about their late father.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why Winkler might have pulled the trigger is still a mystery. Police and prosecutors won`t say. And after getting their first look at Winkler`s alleged confession to police, the defense will only tell CNN it confirms the couple had problems.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She is sad. She is bewildered. She is lost.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The couple`s conservative church community says it`s baffled. To most people, the young minister and his quiet wife were picture perfect.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know of a couple who from the very start of their relationship loved each other more, and after 10 years of marriage, loved each other more and more.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Winklers` three young children remain in the care of their paternal grandparents, a family rooted in three generations of ministers. Winkler`s in-laws met with her in jail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they loved her. They hugged her. She hugged them. She was so remorseful and so sorrowful of what she had done. And they assured her that she was forgiven.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For now, Winkler`s lawyers say even they cannot get a clear picture of what happened between the seemingly loving couple. When they try to get details from Winkler, in their words, they can`t get her to focus. Susan Candiotti, CNN, Selmer, Tennessee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: What could be Mary Winkler`s best defense shocks a courtroom and a nation weighing a charge of first degree murder.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Although the state, prosecutors, are not required to show motive in a murder case or any case -- because it`s unfathomable to think a prosecutor can actually crawl into the mind of a killer and definitively say why. But in this case, Mary Winkler shed a little light on why she shot her husband to death that morning as he was laying in bed asleep.
She claimed that they had been arguing over finances. Now, if that`s her defense, every woman in America would be able to gun down her husband and get off scot-free because every married couple has some disagreement or dissension of thought on how to spend the money or how to save the money. She said they argued about finances.
She told police that they argued over stupid things. That is her beef with her husband, that they argued over stupid things, that he criticized her too much. Well, again, every woman in America could get off scot-free for murder of her husband if she thought him criticizing her was a grounds to shoot him dead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I rack this gun, it makes a distinctive sound, does it not?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mary Winkler`s best defense against first degree murder charges may be the very shotgun she was holding when she killed her husband. Small town preacher Matthew Winkler died after being shot in the back while lying in bed. An attorney for Mary Winkler argues she never planned to kill him, that it was the weight of the gun that caused her to accidentally pull the trigger.
But the investigator on the witness stand couldn`t say one way or the other if that theory could work, setting off this exchange.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don`t agree with that. Why don`t you? Tell me why.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t agree because I don`t know that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, you don`t agree because you don`t know. But let me ask you that. Could that be correct?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don`t know whether it could or not?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know if (INAUDIBLE) apply pressure on your trigger finger, no, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me ask you this. Could a meteorite hit you in the head right now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I guess it`s possible, yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But this is not?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the first time, the jury was allowed to hear Winkler`s taped confession. And when the investigator asks why she shot her husband, we hear a soft-spoken and polite Mary Winkler say problems had been building at home for some time and that her husband had threatened her.
WINKLER: He said something that really, really scared me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you know, something -- laughed at me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But throughout the hour-plus recording, Winkler frequently seemed confused and unable to recall details of the moment she pulled the trigger. At the time, she said she didn`t know if her husband was alive or dead. But she did say she did not plan to kill him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Had you planned ahead of time to shoot him, or did it happen just spur of the minute.
WINKLER: It wasn`t planned.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It wasn`t planned? It just happened? Were you scared or something (INAUDIBLE)
WINKLER: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now in a Selmer, Tennessee, courtroom, cameras watch as Winkler sits quietly. She once told investigators she did not want the public to think badly about her husband, and each day she has been seen wearing a cross around her neck and what appears to be her wedding ring.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Now, as many legal eagles will remember, at trial, it came out that he asked her to wear high heels during sex. So she shot him. OK, let me just let that sink in for a moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WINKLER: Matthew wanted me to wear it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you mean, he wanted you to wear it, Mary?
WINKLER: (INAUDIBLE) to dress up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dress up?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dress up for what purpose, Mary?
WINKLER: Sex.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sex. Besides the wig and the shoes, how else would you dress?
WINKLER: Just a skirt or -- something slutty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: To the morning of the shooting. Mary Winkler says that the alarm clock went off around 6:15 AM, that she doesn`t remember going to the closet and getting out the family shotgun. But she does remember thinking after hearing a loud boom that it wasn`t as loud as she thought it would be.
She stated that her husband, the pastor, Matthew Winkler, rolled out of bed, and there was blood coming out of his mouth. And she took a sheet and wiped the blood off his face as he said one thing. Why? And she responded, I`m sorry. And that suddenly, she had the overwhelming urge to get out of the house, and she did. That`s her story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Winkler says her husband, a popular pastor in their small Tennessee town, was abusing her and that she feared for her life. But she says she still loves him.
WINKLER: I love Matthew. It was very bad, but it could be very good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: That was from Harpo Productions "Oprah Winfrey Show" and ABC`s "Good Morning America." Another motive behind the preacher`s killing -- the minister`s wife claims abuse, while prosecutors say she had another goal in mind.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: But as we dig deeper, we find more about the financial arguments. What we find out is that Mary Winkler apparently was doing something illegal with the family`s money. And what I mean by that, she had allegedly gotten caught up in some Nigerian money fraud, a scam of sorts.
And you know, in criminal law, there is no coincidence. She had been trying to keep all of this away from her husband. And they were in debt to the tune of $5,000, that we know of, maybe more. The bank wanted Mary Winkler to come in to the branch office that day with her husband to try and resolve the thousands of dollars they were owing the bank. They never made it to the bank because that day, the Reverend Winkler ended up dead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: State of Tennessee versus Mary Carol Winkler.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Number 06657, you are charged under (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Instead of letting him find out what she had done and confessing, owning up to what she had done at the bank, she killed him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s rare when murder defendants take the witness stand. Mary Winkler did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you intentionally, purposefully kill your husband?
WINKLER: No, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you love your husband?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you still love him?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The minister`s wife tried to convince the jury her husband, Matthew, may have been loved by his flock, but abused her verbally and physically.
WINKLER: Matthew was ranting and raving about something, and he knocked something over. And I bent down to pick it up and he kicked me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He kicked you?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where did he kick you?
WINKLER: In my face.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Winkler told the court her husband made her wear short skirts, wigs and high heels to get him in the mood.
WINKLER: He just (ph) liked me (ph) to dress up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dress up?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dress up for what purpose, ma`am?
WINKLER: Sex.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She testified the day he was killed, Matthew Winkler tried to suffocate their daughter by pinching her nose and covering her mouth to stop her from crying.
WINKLER: I just wanted him to stop being so mean!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: While their daughters were sleeping, she told jurors, she recalls having a shotgun her hands, but not much more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember ever pointing the gun?
WINKLER: No, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember ever pulling the trigger?
WINKLER: No, sir!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you pull the trigger?
WINKLER: No, sir!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do we know that, ma`am?
WINKLER: Because I`m telling you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Winkler was arrested the next day in Alabama at a hotel with her daughters. Under cross-examination, prosecutors wasted no time arguing abuse is no excuse for murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Matthew Winkler, in fact, did not deserve to die, did he.
WINKLER: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Then 9-year-old Patricia Winkler woke up that morning, the morning of the murder, to a loud boom. She ran to her parents` room, where she heard the sound. She saw her father lying face down on the floor. She said her mom was just walking around, and when she saw the children, she shut the bedroom door so they couldn`t look in.
She then came out and told the children that she had called 911, but that they would have to get out of the house before 911 got there. Once they got on their way, she continued to lie coherently to her children, telling them that their father, Matthew, was in the hospital.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WINKLER: I screamed for help to God. I just screamed -- not screamed, but talked -- I guess I said everything I wanted to say to someone, but unfortunately, there was no one there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you mean, there was no one there? There was no human there? Was there -- was God there?
WINKLER: Yes. Absolutely. But I think there`s still also the power in physical contact here on earth with someone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: That was from NBC`s "Dateline." The jury hands down a stunning verdict in the minister wife murder case.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: The sex abuse that she details -- she says that he asked her to have oral and anal sex with him, that he wanted her to wear platform shoes, a black wig and look at porn. So she shot him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I think the jury was absolutely stunned, the courtroom, more (ph) less the jury, when the defense attorneys give her a paper bag and ask her, What`s in that bag, Mary?
And she takes out this sandal with a stiletto heel that I think most people in that small community had never seen before in their life up close. The defense attorney later said that they believed that shoe was critical to their case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that the kind of shoe that you would wear to church?
WINKLER: No, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What else is in the sack?
WINKLER: A wig.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me see. Where did you get that shoe?
WINKLER: From Matthew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he buy that?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where did you get that wig, Mary?
WINKLER: From Matthew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who bought that?
WINKLER: Matthew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, why did you need a shoe like that, Mary?
WINKLER: I didn`t need it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, why was that shoe bought, Mary?
WINKLER: Matthew wanted me to wear it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you mean he wanted you to wear it, Mary?
WINKLER: He liked me to dress up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dress up?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dress up for what purpose, Mary?
WINKLER: Sex.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sex. Besides the wig and the shoes, what was the -- how else were you dressed?
WINKLER: Just a skirt or -- something slutty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How long was the skirt?
WINKLER: Very, very short.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: During the course of this, did you ever have an occasion to be asked to look at his computer?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What were you asked to look at?
WINKLER: Pornography.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, what kind of pornography? I mean, was it still photographs or movies, or what?
WINKLER: I think they were moving, movies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were any of them still?
WINKLER: They might have been.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, why would you look at them? Did you enjoy that sort of thing?
WINKLER: No. He told me to, and I would always look at the back of the desk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You wouldn`t look at the photographs?
WINKLER: No, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What would occur after he`d ask you to look at the photographs?
WINKLER: We would have sex.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma`am?
WINKLER: Go have sex.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he ever ask you to engage in any type of sex that you felt was unnatural?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell the jury what that was. Mary?
WINKLER: He -- he just wanted to have sex in my bottom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you -- did that concern you and worry you?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did it hurt you?
WINKLER: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What were you told when you expressed your concern?
WINKLER: He said OK, but then he would do it again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was his answer for if it did hurt you?
WINKLER: Just he saw some show one time and he said that that does happen, but they have surgery and fix it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Walking free again, where does Mary Winkler go next?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We the jury find the defendant, Mary C. Winkler, guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
Ma`am, in the back row, is that your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yours, ma`am?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yours, ma`am?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: So after all of this, Mary Winkler gets convicted on voluntary manslaughter. But then instead of sentencing her to jail time, the judge, I guess he agreed that being asked to wear high-heeled shoes during sex is abuse because the judge cut her loose.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The court does not find that confinement is necessary to serve as a deterrent to others who might commit similar acts. The court finds that the circumstances of this incident in the case are unique. Here the murder was precipitated by instances of alleged spousal abuse, which in turn led to the shooting of (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the judge issuing that sentence shortly after listening to some of the most emotional testimony to date, first from the Winkler family, and then from Mary Winkler herself.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mary, you have destroyed your husband`s character. You destroyed his good name. You`ve accused him of things (INAUDIBLE) being a monster who abused and belittled you. And yet for everything that you accused him of, there never was proof.
WINKLER: I think of Matthew every day and the guilt, and I`ll always miss him and love him. There were bad times, but there were good times. And I wish I could have that good Matthew and that we could live together forever.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, served seven months behind bars. Now she`s wondering, kind of, that`s the way it`s being spun today, if that was long enough. She was on Oprah yesterday, and here`s what she had to say.
WINKLER: There`s no amount of time I think you can put on something like this. No, I just was ready for them to lock the door and throw away the key.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And the judge lets her have time served, 143 days behind bars. She walks right after sentencing. Thanks, Judge!
END
