Background: Murderess Mary Winkler–who shot her husband in the back and then refused to aid him or call 911 as he slowly bled to death for 20 minutes–walked away a free woman last month after serving a farcically brief “sentence” for her crimes.
Winkler scammed the court with uncorroborated claims that Matthew (pictured with his wife and three daughters) abused her. According to the testimony from Matthew Winkler’s nine-year-old daughter, Patricia, the dead father–who as he lay dying looked at his wife and asked “why?”–was a good man and did not abuse her mother.
Winkler at first claimed the shooting was an accident and that she panicked, but after her arrest, she switched to the “abused woman” defense that killer women employ so effectively. There was no evidence or corroboration of her abuse claims, but the jury found her guilty of the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter. After her conviction, she served a mere week in prison, then two months in a mental health facility. Since Mary Winkler’s arrest, the couple’s three children have been cared for by Matthew Winkler’s parents, who have filed court papers seeking to terminate her parental rights.
To learn more about this horrendous injustice, click here.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has denied a request by Mary Winkler to intervene in her custody case, which apparently will make it more difficult for her to regain custody of her kids. The Associated Press article on it is below.
What’s really amazing is the way Winkler sees herself as the victim of her murdered husband’s parents. Her court pleading reads “The three minor children continue to be withheld from their mother without just cause.” “Without just cause?” How about the fact that she shot the children’s father in the back and let him slowly bleed to death for 20 minutes? If that’s not “just cause” for withholding a child from a parent, what could ever be?
Winkler also whines that the children’s “grandfather threatened to call the sheriff if Winkler tried to see the children.” What a bastard–I guess he still holds a grudge against Mary for, you know, murdering his son.
State Supreme Court will not intervene in Winkler custody case
Associated Press, 9/4/07
JACKSON, Tenn. — The Tennessee Supreme Court has denied a request to intervene in a case that will determine whether Mary Winkler regains custody of her three young daughters.
Winkler was hoping the court would the court to stop an attempt by the children’s paternal grandparents, Dan and Diane Winkler, to adopt them over their mother’s objections.
Winkler gave the grandparents temporary custody of the children in 2006 after she was arrested in the shooting death of her minister husband at the Selmer parsonage where they lived.
Winkler’s attorney in the custody case, Kay Farese Turner, did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Tuesday morning.
She has asked a juvenile court in McNairy County to return the children and in April a court appointed guardian testified that the girls could go back to their mother.
But the juvenile court halted its proceedings without a ruling when the grandparents asked a chancery court where they live in Carroll County to terminate Winkler’s parental rights and let them adopt the girls.
The filing before the Supreme Court said Winkler has seen her daughters only twice since March 2006 and not at all since September. It claims the grandfather threatened to call the sheriff if Winkler tried to see the children.
“The three minor children continue to be withheld from their mother without just cause resulting in substantial mental and emotional harm to mother and her children,” according to the court petition filed last month.
Winkler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in April. She was freed last month after spending 12 days in jail and about two months at a mental health facility.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals has declined previously to get involved in the custody battle, claiming it did not have jurisdiction over the case.
