The Pastor's Wife (4 page)

“I hadn't thought it through exactly, um. The Winklers live in West Tennessee, and I was trying to think of a scenario to get the girls to them.”

“Before you…”

“And I didn't know where to go from there.”

When Stabler asked her if she had any worries about leaving her daughters with Matthew's parents, she said, “Oh, no. Gosh, no.”

“Good people?”

“Yeah. They're the family.”

“Mary, we're making progress, okay? We can do that, and I can understand what's going through your mind as far as you being away from the kids. What were your thoughts? Just be honest with me. Are you going to be locked up the rest of your life, or were you afraid you were going to be…?”

“Oh, yeah. Uh…”

“You just…”

“But I guess my not wanting to be selfish is: I'm just still thinking about him. And I probably deserve a slap in the face for that. I don't know. I just don't know.”

“I'm battling back and forth with this
why
thing,” Stabler said. “I mean, you seem like such a nice person. I know something had to happen.”

“I was just lying there tonight and I fell asleep, after all this. They woke me up to come in here. It's just the thought of stupid stuff.”

“Like what?” Stabler asked.

“Like schedules, and this, in this certain order…I love him dearly, but, gosh, he just nailed me in the ground, and uh, I was real good for quite some time. My problem was, I got a job at the post office a couple of years ago, and the first of our marriage, I just took it like a mouse. Didn't think anything different. My mom just took it from my dad, and that stupid scenario. And I got a job where I had to have nerve and high self-esteem, and I have been battling this for years, and I don't know when, but for some time, it was really good. Then, I don't know. We moved over a year ago, February oh-five, and it just came back out for some reason.”

“He would knock your self-esteem down?”

“Uh, no. Just chewing, whatever. And that's the problem, I have nerve now and I have self-esteem, so my ugly came out.”

“So you were more or less standing up for yourself more now than you did in the past?”

Mary veered off to talking about her children; Stabler brought her back on point when he asked, “Just fussing at you, nagging all the time?”

“Just mistakes. And some well deserved, by all means.”

“Did he pick on the little things a lot, though?”

“Yeah.”

“That gets old.”

“And I—But gosh, I don't want to talk about that now.”

“I know you don't want to.”

“But that's just, yeah. I didn't just get up and say,
Hey, let's see how this thing works.
I've been battling not to do that forever, and I don't know why.”

“Was he chewing on you when it happened?”

“I don't even know,” Mary said. “It was this and that and, I can't even, I can't imagine pulling anything, I'll tell you that,” she said, referring to the trigger on the shotgun. “I don't, I just, I really don't know that one still.”

“Just kind of got to a boiling point and just boiled over?”

“But he was so good, so good, too. It was just a weakness. I think a lot of times—He had high blood pressure, but he'd never go enough to the doctor to get medicine for it. He was a mighty fine person, and that's the thing. There's no sense, you know, Fox News saying some hick-town lady did this because he was a mean—You know? No sense in that.
Just say the lady was a moron evil woman and let's go on with it.
”

Both men objected, saying that they did not believe that was true. Mary turned her thoughts to her girls again. “My thing there is, their Nana will get them through this. Their Nana will take care of them, for however long it takes. And if they never want to see me again, but I don't want them hearing that, and…I don't know—Patricia's too old, it's too late. I can't imagine Bren not knowing him.”

“I'm sure it's tough living with a situation like that. I know…”

“Even…But my dad called. I checked the voicemail the other day and sometimes I just want to go through the phone and rip his head off. There you go, I opened up. And then, 'cause I thought,
I do not want him to even ever come and visit me
, and I know that he'll want to live wherever I am, and visit every day, but I am not wanting to see him.”

“Your dad, what'd your dad say on the voice message?”

“Um, something, just, uh, calling. I guess some stuff had started happening, I couldn't really tell if it was—But he never calls me, so I'm sure—But, uh, I just don't know. There's some of it. There's no
Poor me
. I'm in control.”

“There's no major event that took place? There's just kind of an accumulation over the years?”

Mary talked about her nerves and then moved on. “I just never know what's coming next. I think we're having a good day and then, bam! I'm nervous about something and he's aloof about it. But it's just no excuse for anything. But, you know, it wasn't just out of the blue, either. I don't know.”

“Have you thought about doing it before?” Stabler asked her.

“Uh, it's crossed minds,” Mary said; “threats have been made, to me as well, but, I mean, that's hearsay, you know.”

“Everybody's probably thought about it,” Stabler empathized. “I've picked at my wife before. You know when you got some serious problems going on, that thoughts run through your mind. You said he's threatened you before, too?”

Mary mentioned an incident from six years earlier when she and Matthew lived in Pegram, and things were at their worst, describing it as “a life-threatening situation.”

“Was it getting that way again?”

“In the past year and a half, it had.”

Stabler and Stuesher attempted to get her to re-create
the events of the morning she shot Matthew, but Mary balked, stumbled around with her words and got weepy. She blamed her tears on allergies.

After providing a tissue for her, the men tried to establish where she and Matthew were at the time she pulled the trigger. She was vague about her husband's location, but said she kept losing her balance because she was standing on the decorative pillows that lay on the floor beside the bed.

“What did you think had happened,” Stabler pressed, “or did you know?”

“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.

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.

“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 love 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.

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