Mary Winkler: A tragic injustice
April 20th, 2007Here in Jackson, the Mary Winkler trial has been big news lately.
Winkler, who shot and killed her husband Matthew Winkler, a local pastor, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter yesterday. She could conceivably get off without serving any more jail time.
She shot him in the back with a shotgun while he was in bed, but yet somehow that’s not first-degree murder.
What a big, fat, ridiculous joke.
Tim,
I agree with you. I have been reading the news articles and kept thinking how weak the defense was in their testimonies. You would think with Patricia Winklers testimony about her mom would seal the case. Then Mary kept changing her excuses in why she didnt mean to kill her husband.
I sure hope she repents and God allows her to come to her senses and see she is a sinner in this case. That she truly murdered her husband.
Paul Schafer
I guess the hunter’s calendar needs to add a new season: sleeping husband.
So, she gets on the stand and tells her sob story of abuse, and who’s able to corroborate it? Not even her own child could - and if there was that much “abuse” going on, that child would have known.
It seems the difference between murder in the first and voluntary manslaughter is: 1) this “state of passion” they’re claiming she was in, supposedly due to the bank telling her she would need to bring her husband in to clear up their banking account b/c of some check scheme she was involved with; and 2) that she “accidentally” pulled the trigger on the shotgun while pointing it at her husband’s back as he lay in bed.
1) Her “state of passion” was b/c she was caught in potentially criminal deeds that everybody in her circle was going to find out about. Pride took over, concocted a story with no witnesses, and put the plan in to motion.
2) Why else would you point a loaded shotgun, with a round chambered, at a person unless you intended on using it? Why else put your finger on the trigger unless you intended on using it?
Sounds like y’all need a new DA up there.
There’s no such thing as 1st degree murder anymore - if you have a good reason, then it must be manslaughter and if you had no particular reason then you must be mentally incapacitated. The only murderers left are those who kill in cases of robbery, but even then they can claim to have “feared for their life” or some other rot.
And for that matter, does that mean a serial killer can only get manslaughter? Surely a case can be made for his “state of passion”!
Ok, I’ll get off my legal soapbox now.
I wasn’t sure this was first-degree murder, but it sure wasn’t voluntary manslaughter, either. When I read her testimony, I thought Mary sounded delusional, so much of the “abuse” she claimed was probably delusional as well. She probably needs commitment to a hospital rather than prison, and for a long, long time.
Personally, as a pastor, I find the idea that a pastor’s wife can shoot her husband and get off this easily a bit disconcerting.
“When I read her testimony, I thought Mary sounded delusional, so much of the “abuse” she claimed was probably delusional as well.”
She may have gotten a lesser conviction, but having known more than a couple “good” pastors with dark sides, I’m not so quick to assume the abuse was in her mind.
Luke . . . join me . . . together we will . . . minister!
Too bad I’m not laughing at this joke. Tim, an injustice indeed!
As a pastor’s wife………this case REALLY disturbs me! It shows me that apparently their marriage was not a priority (at least as far as we can know). The pastor’s marriage must always come before his ministry. His ministry will fail if his marriage fails. However, murder is murder. I am reeling at the news that she gets off with a slap on the wrist. Tell me, even if your husband has been abusive…murder is the ONLY way out? While he’s sleeping? That was planned, premeditated. There are other ways to escape abuse, aren’t there? I don’t know what Mary Winkler’s life was like, but her solution was not nearly the right one. And she is barely paying for it.
In today’s Jackson Sun, they published an interview with the jury foreman, who indicated that some of the jurors wanted to return a verdict of not guilty.
I never cease to be amazed at how dense some people are. How on earth could anyone ever argue for a verdict of not guilty in this case? There’s no doubt that the woman killed her husband. None whatsoever.
I’m dumbfounded. Simply dumbfounded.
When the jury returns with a ridiculous verdict, can’t the judge set it aside and do the right thing? Like in this case?
So a jury would be good for what, a first opinion? I know there is a lot of anger about the verdict, but it is within the legal definition of voluntary manslaughter, and it is better than her getting off completely. It’s not like she’s the first person to be let off lightly by a jury for murder, but it’s the legal system we have in place.
Tim,
I also thought that the sentence was ridiculous! It has just frustrated me since then. Too bad that Matthew Winkler could not tell his side of the story. I’m sure she wasn’t the perfect wife either. Everything that was presented was from her side without any proof. It’s like the jury foreman said, he really didn’t have a chance with 11 women on the jury. I understand that Dan Winkler and wife have filed a 2 million wrongful death suit on behalf of the kids. Hope that turns out better. Also, the state can file charges against her for the check kiting too.
No one knows exactly what goes on in any marriage except the two people involved IN the marriage … and sometimes, one or both of them are so deep in denial that the so-called “truth” could never be determined.
I do know that when I was a kid, my mom told me that if my dad had ever beaten her up, she would have waited until he went to sleep and then bashed in his head with a frying pan. Would this, then, have fallen under the category of “premeditated”? (Fortunately for my dad AND my mom — and the rest of the family — my dad never raised a hand to my mom, or vice-versa.)
Regarding the Winklers: It’s understandable to want to hold a minister and his wife to higher standards of behavior, but as we’ve seen over and over, just because they are “men (and women) of God” does not make them any less likely to commit the same kinds of mistakes that other human beings do.
One thing that the defence team knew from the beginning is the prevalence of domestic abuse in a small Southern town. I suspect that every woman on that jury had either experienced abuse first hand or knew someone who had. Whether it was true or not is a different story.