Mary Winkler, Husband Killer

Mary Winkler shot her husband in the back on March 22, 2006 in Tennessee. He was still alive when she put here three children in the car and drove to Alabama where she was apprehended and arrested.

From Wikipedia- (According to the statement, she and her husband had been arguing throughout the evening about many things, including family finances. She admitted some of the problems were "her fault." Furthermore, she said, "He had really been on me lately criticizing me for things — the way I walk, I eat, everything. It was just building up to a point. I was tired of it. I guess I got to a point and snapped."

Authorities believe that Mary Winkler had been a victim of a financial scam. She had deposited checks totaling $17,500 in bank accounts from unidentified sources in Canada and Nigeria in what agents described as a check kiting scam, also known as an 419 scam.)

So Mary was angry. Wrath took over and she exacted her revenge.

Mary Winkler went to trial in April 2007, charged with first degree murder. She took the stand and said her husband was abusive. There was no evidence to support her claim. During her ten year marriage she had never told anyone her husband was abusive.

Mary Winkler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, “The unlawful killing of a human being, without malice, which is done intentionally upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion. Also a killing committed without lawful justification, wherein the defendant acted under a sudden and intense passion resulting from adequate provocation” Her punishment will be a few months in prison, or probation. (Update 6/8/2007 AP. Winkler was sentenced Friday to three years in prison, but she may end up serving only 60 days in a mental hospital. Mary Winkler must serve 210 days, or about seven months, of her sentence before she can be released on probation, but she gets credit for the five months she has already spent in jail, Judge Weber McCraw said. That leaves only two months, and McCraw said up to 60 days of the sentence could be served in a facility where she could receive mental health treatment. That means Winkler may not serve any significant time in prison.)

I wonder if her deceased husband, Matthew Winkler, had killed his wife Mary in a similar fit of passion because she had verbally abused and criticized him for ten years, if he could have gotten such a verdict? I doubt it. In this society we demonize men and analyze women. We deify women. We never believe they would lie.

This verdict sends a message to any wife who wants revenge. All she has to do in tell a few friends that her husband is abusive, and then blow her husband's brain out, and all she will get is a slap on the wrist.

American men are like some males of insect species where the male is devoured by the female during the mating ritual. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/6/l_016_05.html American men cannot help themselves because males are handicapped with the natural urge to mate. American males will continue to be demonized, and sacrificed.

Update June 21, 2007
SELMER, Tenn.
A woman convicted in the shooting death of her preacher husband was moved from a county jail to a mental health facility, officials said Thursday.

The judge approved the move for Mary Winkler on Wednesday, said Sue Allison, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. The name and location of the facility were not disclosed.

Winkler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2006 shooting death of her Church of Christ minister husband, Matthew, in the Selmer parsonage where the family lived.

She was sentenced June 8 to three years, but she will be eligible for probation after serving 210 days and got credit for the 143 days she already spent in jail. That left 67 days and the judge ruled that 60 of those days could be served in a facility where she could receive mental health treatment.

Officials did not say why she required mental health treatment. At trial, Winkler testified that she had been physically and emotionally abused by her husband.
Copyright 2007 by the Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.