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 ...
This might help a tiny bit--at least eliminate one argument:
~~~~~
http://news.ucc.org/index.php?optio...d=501&Itemid=54
Slain Tennessee church leader was not UCC
Written by J. Bennett Guess
Saturday, 25 March 2006
A slain "Church of Christ" preacher in Selmer, Tenn., was not a minister of the "United Church of Christ." The two churches are unrelated.
Several reporters and media outlets, including CNN, have contacted the national offices of the UCC seeking comment about the death of Matthew Winkler, the pastoral leader of Selmer's Fourth Street Church of Christ. Winkler was founded dead at his home on Wednesday. His wife has reportedly confessed to the crime, according to news accounts.
The United Church of Christ and the similarly-sounding Church of Christ are often confused. However, the two church bodies share no formal ties or affiliations. Besides the commonality in name, the two churches are not structurally related, even though we do share a common confession in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The churches are known for stark differences in Christian theology, approaches to biblical interpretation and styles of church governance.
The UCC, with its national offices in Cleveland, Ohio, was formed in 1957 with the union of Congregational Christian Churches in America and the Evangelical and Reformed Church. It has about 1.3 million members in 5,725 churches.
The Church of Christ is a decentralized, generally more-conservative, evangelical Christian tradition. Its church leaders are often referred to as evangelists, not pastors. Contrary to the UCC, ministerial ordination is not practiced in the Church of Christ, and, therefore, the use of formal titles such as "The Reverend" are discouraged.
UCC members join with others in expressing our sadness for the victims of all violent crimes, including Winkler, and those affected. Our prayers are with Winkler, his family and his faith community.
From the interview of Mary's lawyer, (and I say this as a lawyer)it sounds more and more like a "diminished capacity" defense. He spoke of mental evaulations. May be PPD. Seems more and more like that is the case, or something similar. He described that she doesn't seem to comprehend the gravity of the situation...has the 1000 yard stare...and can't remember all that happened. She has mental problems it would seem.
Didn't the judge say yesterday that he was killed on Tuesday?
If the members of that congregation are able to forgive Mary, then they have done what God has asked us to do. The only way Mary can be forgiven her sins is to confess them to God and have a truly repentant heart. Then God has said he will forgive the sins of one of His children if they do that.
That is one of the most ridiculous posts I've read about this. She had a baby within the last year. Women tend to lose hair three to six months after giving birth. Then it starts to grow back. It can look rather bad depending upon the amount of hair lost and when it fell out. I think it's more likely that she cut her hair short to deal with all the baby hairs growing back.
Uh, those women in my family I was referring to were the ones who made everybody tow the church line as strictly as possible.
You would think CNN with its headquarters in Atlanta would talk to some of the Atlanta area cofCers, but they're probably not that bright.
I think he is baiting us. He continues to discuss the verses about a woman's hair, implying that the CoC believes that because Mary Winkler had short hair, she was too strong willed for her husband to tolerate (or maybe he believes that).
The verses in I Cor are discussing the problem that the Corinthians had with women who looked like prostitutes by cutting their hair short. What is defined as short & long is a matter of culture.
5 But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved. 6 For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered.
14 Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him? 15 But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her[a] for a covering.
"Uh, those women in my family I was referring to were the ones who made everybody tow the church line as strictly as possible."
That's not the point, LadyH. The point is that the women are leading when they should not. That is the problem.
Bibically, women are not supposed to lead. That the church is in that state means that it is in the same state as Adam, letting his wife lead him into a fall. This is the same reason that the church is in the poor state it is in today... the men have been listening to their wives instead of leading.
Genesis 3:17, "To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife..."
You only have to observe the opposition that I get to this position to see what I meant when I said, "That is a woman who is 'of the world' and if Matt was a 'by the Bible' kind of guy, it's no wonder she hated him to death."
This is the link to the "Church of Christ" to which the Winkler's belong
http://church-of-christ.org/
Nothing there that seems cultish to me.
Those thinking it is a cultish organization may be thinking of the "International Church of Christ."
We've covered this in Sunday School and Bible classes. Men are also to love their wives as themselves and honor their wives..
The Bible also says:
28 Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself: 29 for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church;
Colossians 3:18-25 18 Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
At what point would they file for a change of venue. If he wants to show abuse or other negative behavior of the dead husband, they are going to have to make him out to be the villian. That may not go over well in the community they live d in.
Nancy Grace said the judge did. I didn't hear it. That's why Sharyn Everitt's account of Mary driving down the street (or "storming," whichever is the truth) was so important, in my mind.
If it was Tuesday, so what? If it was Wednesday, then we have a better timeline. Mary told the cops in Orange Beach that she shot Matthew on Wednesday, then fled. I took that to mean that she started driving straight through to the Gulf Coast. Doesn't mean she did, but the cops seemed to think so, because they first said her husband had just been killed a few hours earlier.
It was a 6-7 hour drive if straight through. We haven't heard that she stayed anywhere the night before (as if the shooting happened in the evening Tuesday night), but she could've pulled over anywhere and everyone slept in the van. She could've dawdled driving through MS and AL, too. With kids, she would have to stop a few times, I'm sure.
She had $3 and some credit cards with her, I've *heard.*
There were lots of bad reports in the news about it being 28 hours before his body was found -- even the TBI spokesperson or the OB cops said that, I believe. That was NOT from when he was shot *disclaimer: as far as we know* but from when he was last sighted.
That came from a wrong extrapolation of the last known time that Matthew was seen alive, which was *allegedly* around 3:15-3:30 PM on TUESDAY afternoon, walking the dog in a park near their house.
Others got it confused and thought it was Wednesday afternoon, just 6 hours before they found his body. No way. The phone and door were already going unanswered at 7:00 PM, when the prayer meeting was to have started. Mary had already held the kids home from school on Wednesday, so we know that whatever happened had either already happened or was about to happen.
The Everitt neighbors said the dog barked all day long and into the evening on Wednesday. I'm going to *trust* their timing on that one. They also said they looked that direction, towards the Winkler house, and still saw the van there "up on the hill." BUT, they did not say how late into the day they saw it there. That's another timeline item I'd like to know. It would have made a LOT more sense to have Sharyn Everitt say she saw Mary "storming" down the street at a certain time on Wednesday, rather than Tuesday. That would've been the time for the "getaway."
As it is, now Everitt just says she saw Mary driving towards the school at a time to pick up the girls. She seemed to think, when interviewed the first few times, that Matthew had been killed on Tuesday, because of the media reports. That would have been Tuesday, because that's when the girls *were* in school and did stay for after-care and Mary *did* pick them up at around 5:45PM. On Wednesday, Mary wouldn't have been going to get the girls, because they were at home.
It is entirely possible that she killed him before midnight Tuesday night, so that technically it was Tuesday, but that's not what she told the Orange Beach cops.
It sounds like the TBI doesn't think abuse was involved, and they already know the motive that Mary Winkler gave. Quoting TBI spokesperson Jennifer Johnson from Larry King Live last night:
JOHNSON: I think everything about this case is puzzling. I don't think there's any information that could come out that would really make sense of it all and I think that's really where the public is right now. They want some reasonable explanation for this and I think we all have to brace ourselves for the fact that it may never come. They never get a reasonable explanation or a satisfactory answer.
CALLER: I have a question. Could the motive have been that Mr. Winkler could have been abusing his wife or children in any way?
JOHNSON: A lot of people have asked that question and from the very moment that we came upon the scene we actually looked and there's no history of domestic violence. As I said earlier, we can't share the motive but I think, you know, the history does sort of speak for itself.
I saw that as well as other interviews and thought the same thing.
Isn't legalistic the same as work oriented? There were rules to follow and if you didn't follow them to a tee, I was told, "well, you will go to hell". It has only been in the last few years I have learned what "grace" is...and still struggle with the whole idea of it. I'm still trying to be the perfect Christian based on works so God isn't mad at me.
Confused? Yeah, I guess if you're a MSM'er who has no tolerance of religion, and no basic knowledge of faiths with widespread differences, like the COC and the UCC, then sure... you will be confused every time.
BTW: Rte66, You are doing a wonderful job posting updates and keeping the rest of us up to date on this thread.
Thank you.
I saw footage of Mary holding the hand of Steve Farese, her male attorney, as she entered the courtroom. She was leaning on him heavily almost as if she needed his support to move forward.
YW. As long as they leave the DofC alone, I will not touch the topic of CofC.
I need to "come up for air" and see all the news items that have happened today that are just flying past me while I try to make some sense out of this Winkler case--at least, what "facts" we can ascertain at this time.
Oh, ha. When I was reviewing some notes just now, I saw that Daniel Everitt, of the "dog" neighbors, was the one I alluded to very early on who said he didn't know the Winklers well, because ... well, everyone around there is Baptist, including himself. LOL. *And never the twain shall meet.* I didn't recall today that he was *that* neighbor.
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