Wife of minister is guilty of lesser charge

SELMER, TENN. —  A minister’s wife who claimed her husband physically and mentally abused her was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter Thursday for shooting him in the back.

Mary Winkler, 33, was stoic as the verdict was announced, saying nothing and staring blankly into the distance.

Prosecutors had asked jurors to convict Winkler of first-degree murder, which could have carried a life sentence. But after deliberating for eight hours, the jury decided the prosecution had not proved that crime -- or that of second-degree murder.

“The verdict was most probably just,” said Steven Farese, Winkler’s defense lawyer, who had said earlier that he hoped the jury would find Winkler not guilty of all charges.

Winkler faces three to six years in prison but could be eligible for parole after serving a third of that time.

Matthew Winkler, 31, a minister at Selmer’s 4th Street Church of Christ, was fatally wounded from a single shotgun blast, fired at close range while he lay in bed March 22, 2006.

His wife, who was arrested a day later in Orange Beach, Ala., with their three daughters, told officials with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation that “my ugly came out.”

Yet Mary Winkler’s meek, soft-spoken demeanor led many to wonder why.

Prosecutors argued that the shooting was a deliberate, premeditated act. Winkler killed her husband, they argued, because she did not want him to know she had fraudulently deposited several counterfeit checks from a “Nigerian scam” in the couple’s joint accounts.

Bank officials testified that the day before the shooting, they had urged Winkler to bring her husband to the bank to discuss the illegal transactions, but the defense countered that Matthew Winkler had told his wife to deposit the checks.

The defense argued that the shooting was accidental and that Winkler was the victim of domestic violence.

After the verdict, Winkler’s defense team, who worked pro bono, credited their client with playing an integral role in the verdict.

“Mary was Mary,” said Leslie Ballin, another defense lawyer. “She was honest. She had to bare and tell the world what went on behind closed doors.”

On the morning of the shooting, Winkler testified, her husband was awakened by the cries of their 1-year-old daughter, Brianna. After physically kicking her out of their bed, Winkler said, her husband walked into Brianna’s room and attempted to suffocate the child, who has breathing difficulties, by pinching her nose and holding her mouth.

After calming her daughter, Winkler said, she returned to the bedroom to talk to her husband. “I just wanted him to stop being so mean,” she said.

Winkler said she could remember holding the shotgun but could not remember pointing it at her husband or pulling the trigger. She remembered hearing a boom as “something went off.”

Winkler said her marriage was an unhappy one. Over the years, she said, her husband had threatened her with a shotgun, pushed her, shouted at her and kicked her in the face. She also said her husband forced her to dress “slutty” and have “unnatural” sex. Asked to identify a pair of white platform shoes and a dark wig, Winkler winced, explaining her husband asked her to wear them during sex.

Still, at the end of her testimony, Winkler insisted she had not intended to kill her husband.

“Did you love your husband?” Farese asked her.

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you still love him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Through all that?

“Yes, sir.”

The nearly two-week trial riveted residents of this Bible Belt town of 5,400. Some were so sympathetic to Mary Winkler that they drove from neighboring states to wait in court for the jury to deliver its verdict.

Neal Counce, 66, drove 70 miles from Florence, Ala., to Selmer with her husband and sister. “The first time I saw her on TV, I said, ‘That’s a battered woman,’ ” Counce said. Her own sister had been abused, she explained. “It’s that look when you won’t raise your head or look at a person.”

Counce was disappointed after the jury of 10 women and two men delivered a verdict of voluntary manslaughter, a finding that indicates they believe Winkler committed the crime in an irrational state and without premeditation.

“She got too stiff a sentence,” Counce said sadly as she walked out of the McNairy County Justice Center.

Defense lawyer Farese was also subdued. But he said a voluntary manslaughter finding was preferable to that of first- or second-degree murder, comparing the final verdict to being hit by a tennis ball instead of a bowling ball.

“I guess we’d prefer a tennis ball,” he said.

Winkler remains free on $750,000 bond until sentencing, which McNairy County Circuit Court Judge Weber McCraw tentatively set for May 18.

Defense lawyer Ballin said Winkler’s primary concern was how the verdict would affect her future with her daughters, aged 2, 7 and 9. Matthew Winkler’s parents, Dan and Diane Winkler, have custody of the girls and have filed a $2-million wrongful death suit against Mary Winkler on their behalf.

Outside the courthouse, the defense team took pains to speak well of Matthew Winkler.

“Even though there have been a lot of negative things said about him in this trial, you know there were some good things too,” Ballin said. “You heard that from Mary. This is the case of two people who had a tumultuous marriage of some 10 years that ended in tragedy. There’s nothing good about it.”

jenny.jarvie@latimes.com