Posted on 03/24/2006 8:28:46 AM PST by Blogger
Slain Minister's Wife to Be Charged With Murder Friday, March 24, 2006 MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The wife of a Tennessee pastor found shot dead in his house Wednesday will face first-degree murder charges, authorities announced Friday.
Mary Winklerwas found Thursday night with the couple's three daughters in Orange Beach, Ala., about 400 miles south of their home in Selmer.
Investigators with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said she was interviewed during the night and the charges were being prepared.
"We've interviewed her and she was cooperative," said Jennifer Johnson of the TBI, adding that once a warrant with the charges was drawn up, extradition proceedings would begin to have her returned to Tennessee.
Matthew Winkler was found shot to death in the bedroom of his parsonage Wednesday by church members who began searching for him after he failed to show up at an evening event at Selmer's Church of Christ.
Police said there were no signs of forced entry, but Winkler's wife and children — Breanna, 1; Mary Alice, 6; and Patricia, 8 — were gone.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
He was the employee. Not her. She was there too of course but more as a member of the church. Nothing strange that he signed the letter.
Cult?
Total Rubbish.
I am a member of the church of Christ.
I don't do cults.
you've got freepmail.
How do you come to that conclusion??? A cult??? Do you know anything about the church of Christ???
That's right. He was the employee. She was part of the perfect-looking package. She wasn't there as a member of the church. She was there as one of his job qualifications. She was there to make him look good. My cynicism is taking over here, so I'd best keep quiet. lol
I just see the letter from a different perspective than others. No big deal.
Our paper is reporting she admitted to planning it in detail right down to the date she was going to do it. And she hasn't accused him of anything. There have been whispers and hints of post partum depression.
Maybe because he didn't show up for services?
Is there a link to the article? I'd like to read it.
As the son of a church of Christ minister I can really see your point. But as a member of the church I would have to disagree with you. Preacher's families often feel like they (we) are under a microscope. We are constantly worried that everything we do is being judged and that they are judging our father( or husband). If we sin, we're thinking that the church will say, "if the preacher can't control his own family then how can we allow him to preach to us." As I grew, both physically and spiritually, I learned that what the other members actually saw was that just like any member of the Lord's church, we are imperfect and need as much support as they do while we struggle together to live in this world and try not to be of it.
Sorry you find the south so repulsive, but the use of the word daddy is a southern thing. People are always saying "your daddy" or "her daddy" or "his daddy". Even to grown people in the south, their parents are still "mama and daddy".
This is just plain sick that people are trashing a decent man when he can't even defend himself!
He did have his mother to stay with Andrea and the children durring the day. Their was a 30 minute gap between when he went to work and when his mother arrived. She chose this 30 minute period to drown her kids. Why is it assumed that birth control is the mans responsibility? Surely she had enough sense to swallow a birth control pill.
Oh it is not! The Central CoC in McMinnville has the biggest congregation in town and the most prominent citizens of this town go there. What a total crock!
I don't have a link but there have been several articles in the Southern Standard, the McMinnville paper. One of them was a regular feature in the Sunday paper called Business Pulse. The reporter does a lot of opinions in that column and post partum depression was mentioned.
Two months ago the preacher who replaced my dad at his last church had a baby (OK, his wife did), but last month she started showing signs of postpartum depression. She was getting treatment for it and seemed to be doing better. He took over taking care of the kids while she recovered and last month he went to pick his other kids up from school. He was gone for less than 15 minutes and came to find that she had hung herself in the back yard.
Call the Welcome Wagon!!! I think I'm moving down there. I'm sure the RE taxes are a lot less than $10k/yr and your governor can't be any more stupid than Corzine or more corrupt than the rest of these Dems up here. They make Clinton blush!!
So get ready y'all, to say howdy to this damn joisy Yankee, Tony Soprano look and talk alike.
Fuhgeddaboutit!
Maybe the motive has not been at least hinted at because the cops don't believe it? Withholding this kind of information unfortunately generally leads to wild speculation. Her lawyer made some incredibly stupid comments about women in this country being second class citizens, possibly setting the stage for an abuse defense. A neighbor said the husband was aggressive and they had an argument over a dog.
Oh, good, lots more posts since yesterday! I was posting to myself over and over so I thought no one was interested and there were so many new revelations to discuss. I see someone has already posted the CNN transcripts, that's good.
Here's one story for starters about the visitation last night. I'm still having a very hard time believing that anyone, especially the family of the murdered man, can just "forgive" someone the day after the murder! No way! It's a very difficult thing that has to be worked through. This is just lip service.
~~~~~
Funeral today for preacher
Parents offer forgiveness to daughter-in-law
By TONYA SMITH-KING
SELMER - Though they don't understand what reason Mary Winkler would have had for killing their son, her in-laws have "assured her of their forgiveness," a longtime family friend said Monday.
Winkler, 32, has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of her husband, Fourth Street Church of Christ minister Matthew Winkler, 31. His body was found Wednesday at the couple's Selmer home. She fled after the shooting with their three young girls to Orange Beach, Ala., where she was arrested Thursday, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Police have said Mary Winkler confessed to shooting her husband in the back, though they haven't discussed a motive. She has since apologized to his parents, Dan and Diane Winkler, and their sons, Daniel and Jacob, according to Billy R. Smith, dean of the School of Biblical Studies at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson.
Smith has known the Winkler family for 25 years and said he and Dan Winkler have been friends for that long. Smith has talked to Dan Winkler several times since the tragedy and planned to attend visitation for Matthew Winkler on Monday night in Selmer, he said.
"They were able to visit with her in Alabama, and she expressed her great sorrow for what she'd done, and they assured her of their forgiveness," Smith said. Dan and Diane Winkler "have loved her as a daughter, not as a daughter-in-law, and if they could take her home with them right now, they would," he added.
"They're a great example of what it means to forgive," Smith said of Matthew Winkler's parents. " ... That's because of their faith, their character and their love."
Mary Winkler was arraigned Monday afternoon on the murder charge.
Meanwhile, black bows hung on the doors of Selmer's Fourth Street Church of Christ, where Matthew Winkler had been the minister for just over a year. Some members worked around the church to prepare it for the funeral today.
A 5 p.m. visitation drew 200 to 300 people to Selmer's Shackelford Funeral Directors to pay their respects.
Mary Winkler's father, Clark Freeman, attended Monday's arraignment. Smith said he spoke with Freeman on Sunday.
"He's so sorry and just distraught for what has happened," Smith said. "But the relationship between the Winklers and him is very good."
Dan Winkler is a minister at the Huntingdon Church of Christ and teaches at FHU. His father, the late Wendell Winkler, was a well-known Church of Christ preacher, Smith said.
Smith last saw Matthew and Mary Winkler during FHU's Bible Lectureship in February. They visited his office to show him their new baby, 1-year-old daughter Brianna. Matthew Winkler also informed Smith that he'd be participating in an annual FHU youth leadership training program in July, as he'd done in recent years.
"They were both just as happy as they could be and on top of the world," Smith said of the visit.
Smith taught Matthew Winkler at FHU, and his son, Scotty Smith, and Matthew Winkler were best friends, he added.
"I never saw Matthew when he was not happy and excited about his life, but especially about his wife and family," Smith said. "Matthew was being very effective in his work (at Fourth Street) and had made a lot of new friends."
Smith described Mary Winkler as "a wonderful young lady, just like we've known and loved from the day they married." The two had been married 10 years.
"This is a mystery to both sides of the family and their friends," Smith said of the shooting.
Other than family and friends, those attending Monday's visitation included people Matthew had known and touched throughout his brief life.
There was a line of about 100 to 150 people waiting outside to get in before 6:30 p.m. Monday. The line continued inside and could be seen through a large glass window in the funeral home.
Police blocked an entrance to keep out media, which included many local and national print and television outlets.
Two Freed-Hardeman University students from McMinnville, who knew the Winklers, were among those coming to offer their condolences and say goodbye to Matthew Winkler.
Tyler Boyd, 19, a marketing major, believed Matthew Winkler would also be forgiving of Mary Winkler.
"I think Wink would be the first one to forgive her after this," Boyd said referring to Matthew Winkler by a nickname many young people used for him. "I don't think he'd have to think about it."
Boyd said Matthew Winkler encouraged youth to search the Bible, find the truth and serve God with everything they had.
Matthew Winkler taught at a Christian school in McMinnville and was a youth minister at a church there. His wife worked in the mail room at Super D Drugs in McMinnville.
FHU sophomore Shane Fisher, 19, worked with Mary Winkler at the drug store. He was a clerk.
He would often tell her jokes "to crack her up," Fisher said. He described her as "very compassionate; so friendly all the time."
"I don't ever remember her having a bad day," Fisher said. "She was a good Christian lady; she really was."
Both Boyd and Fisher attended a youth seminar last week during FHU's spring break in McMinnville with other youth who knew Matthew Winkler. His death has motivated many to serve God, Boyd added.
The seminar's theme was "The Power of Faith."
"It kind of uplifted us," Fisher said. "I think if Matthew Winkler was here right now, he would tell us, 'Keep going, never give up' and put our faith in God because everything's going to work out all right in the end."
You know what? YOU creep me out!
How dare you!? I am a Daddy. I love to hear my kids call me Daddy. I'm very, very proud to be called Daddy. I love my kids. This certainly means I'd never abuse them or stand and let them be abused. Are you now going to make the term "Daddy", politically incorrect? "Us Daddy's sure are a bunch of pedophiles--Yup, Daddy is evil!"
What you say is sickening to me. You reveal your own mind with these sick comments.
Apparently there are several flavors of CofC:
http://news.ucc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=501&Itemid=1
I think the church in this case is a "member" of this:
http://church-of-christ.org/
Website of actual church involved:
http://hometown.aol.com/fourthcofc/myhomepage/business.html
Cultic flavor:
"International Churches of Christ"
http://www.icoc.org/ (no longer in business??)
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/i02.html (more info.)
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