Posted on 03/29/2006 8:52:49 AM PST by T-Bird45
Ashland attorney Steve Farese, who heads Mary Winkler's legal defense team in Selmer, Tenn., says he and her other attorneys want a psychiatric evaluation for their client.
Tennessee authorities claim Winkler has confessed to killing her husband, a Church of Christ minister, in their Selmer residence last week. The couple's three children reportedly were in the house at the time of the slaying.
Winkler apparently fled with her children to southern Alabama, where she was arrested late last week. They have been placed in the custody of their maternal grandparents.
Farese, in a telephone interview after an arraignment in Selmer on Monday, described Mary Winkler as "very sad, very reserved, a flat effect, very withdrawn."
He said no bail motion was made at Monday's court appearance out of respect for the WInkler family and because the funeral is set for this morning at the Selmer church where Matthew Winkler was the preacher.
Tennessee officials have said they know a motive but have refused to disclose it. Farese said it is possible the motive will not be presented until a trial, adding, "but they will have to tell us in discovery."
How did Farese get involved with the case?
"I was called by a friend in Memphis who is an attorney and who is distantly related to Mary Winkler and was asked to enter the case," Farese said. He is a member of the Farese Law Firm, founded by his late father, John B. Farese Sr.
Farese said he has brought Memphis attorney Leslie Ballin into the defense team, as well as his son, attorney Steve Farese Jr., and Marc Garver, an attorney from Atlanta. He said third-year University of Mississippi Law School student Lynn Brown of Holly Springs is working as the team's clerk.
Scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday in Selmer is a preliminary hearing, at which Tennessee prosecutors must make only a prima facie or "sufficient evidence" case to move the investigation toward a possible indictment.
It's possible a bail motion will be made at then, Farese said.
"This is a media circus," he observed Monday. "Everybody was there except the Taiwan Times, and they probably will be there Thursday."
Farese said he thinks Tennessee prosecutors will call only one witness Thursday morning and that he does not plan on calling anyone to the stand.
Right - too time consuming and just what does that do to the term "newscaster"?
Makes me realize that I should never have believed any of the elaborate reports on prior high profile cases. Hours of watching wasted because it could have all been lies unchecked.
I think there's a medical term for women who shoot their husbands in the back.
I heard a rumor that she had rented a place to stay before she shot him. Is that true?
Hmmm. Interesting. I presumed existing medication would work fine but there might be something new.
Also, abuse of the daughters would be very easy to check considering their ages.
Lies unchecked, "legaleeze" and so on. I wonder if the "truth" is in there somewhere at all.
Condo... coast of Alabama I believe.
That was a mistake or misprint--it *is* the "P"aternal grandparents who have custody.
We have been collecting a lot of info on the case on this thread, if anyone is interested:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1602406/posts
None of the "facts" about the timeline have been confirmed by anyone in the know, save for a few things established by LE at the time of Mary Winkler's arrest.
The very last word I saw from Orange Beach police in AL or perhaps Selmer PD who transported her back to TN was that the "condo" (which is not the motel room where she was about to stay on Thursday night) was rented after the murder took place.
There is a ton of misinfo floating around and it's taking quite a bit to track things down to their origins.
Fox and all the others, will continue to say whatever they think necessry to get people to watch.
That is not true. This is a local story for us.
I think that it is called gossip!!!!!!!
As I understand it, they are completely unrelated. For the most part the word "psychopath" has been replaced with the word "sociopath," both used to describe a person who is devoid of conscience.
Someone suffering a psychotic episode would most likely be a sufferer of depression or bipolar disorder or other disorder that was in a sufficiently disraught state so as to be delusion.
Psychotics don't usually commit murder...though they may harm their children if they are severly depressed or delusional or if they believe they are hearing voices.
LOL, I hadn't heard that. Next they'll be saying she killed him for forcing her to drink poison and handle snakes.
Thanks
Something tells me the father may have been abusing the children (or one of the children) and the mother may have just found out about it and snapped. Why else would she kill him,then take the kids and run? It just seems to me like she was trying to just get away from him,away from the whole situation.It's really very sad...very sad,indeed.The kids are the innocent victims in this whole situation,as they usually end up being,time and time again.
No, actually, I don't think that was the motive.
But I don't think it is gossip to speculate on what the motive might have been. Gossip usually is defined to include a vicarious pleasure derived from revealing or listening to the alleged secrets of another. If speculation about a legal case is gossip, then Court TV is the "gossip channel" and law schools are filled with...oh never mind.
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