Tenn. wife sentenced in preacher's death

[superconnected]

Source: Associated Press

SELMER, Tenn. - A woman who killed her preacher husband with a shotgun blast to the back as he lay in bed was sentenced Friday to three years in prison, but with time served could be released on probation in a little more than two months.

Mary Winkler must serve at least 210 days of her sentence but gets credit for the 143 days she has already spent in jail, Judge Weber McCraw said.

That leaves 67 days, 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 might spend only another week in jail.

Prosecutors had pursued a murder charge against Winkler, 33, but jurors convicted her of the lesser count of voluntary manslaughter in April.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070608/ap_on_re_us/minister_slain

[superconnected]

1. 3 years is entirely too short of a sentence.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I really wish people who haven't heard all the evidence

wouldn't always be second-guessing juries, who have heard the evidence. I do a lot of criminal forensic psych evaluations--it's what I do for a living--and I can tell you that every case has aspects that don't come across in the news reports, but that might significantly change your opinion of the proper outcome if you but knew about them.

[durrrty libby]

6. It is shocking how quick to judge so many people seem to be

[Honeycombe8]

29. True. It is shocking, but when you think that it's a TN jury, which I

am guessing would be inclined to hang her from the nearest tree for killing a white male...when you consider that it was a jury in TN that found her guilty of the lesser charge, then I think there must have been some mental issues or something else involved.

This is very different from most cases of this sort. I can't count the times I've heard reports of men getting 10 to 15 years, or 25 years, for killing a woman, when almost always a woman gets life or close to it for killing a man. So this case is most unusual. I don't know, but I think there must be some extenuating circumstances, or the jury would've found her guilty of murder instead of manslaughter.

[LisaL]

30. Why don't you provide actual links to support your claims?

Almost always woman gets a life for killing a man?
Link?
Seems to be just the opposite to me.
When this was reported, immediately people started claiming she was abused.
The only question seemed to be as to what that abuse was.
I don't recall the same claims being made when a man kills his wife (he must have been abused) in any other case.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LisaL]

34. Tell that to Scott Peterson.

He is sitting on death row last I checked.

[raccoon]

40. Thank you! nt

[LisaL]

20. She will only serve 2 months. I think it's outrageous.

[YankmeCrankme]

36. Not quite the same outrage

Compared to Paris Hilton, is it? Funny, how there is such a visceral hatred of Paris Hilton and there was a collective cry for justice regarding her serving her sentence fully from so many here. Do you think there will be a 10,000 letter campaign to express outrage that she is only going to serve 7 months, none of it in prison (5 months jail already served and two months at mental institution)?

Do you think a woman would lie about abuse while on trial for 1st degree murder with the only person able to refute it laying in a grave...a grave she put him in? Nah, nobody would be that calculating. I mean it isn't like she ever committed a felony before without her dead husbands knowledge, oh, wait, she did.

[NC_Nurse]

3. .

:wtf:

[Raine]

4. If the guy was truly abusive then I'm glad

she will be released in only a couple of months.

[Sequoia]

5. Same here.

Abuse is a prison.

[superconnected]

7. I think people should leave abusive husbands, not murder them.

But that's just me.

[Lars39]

9. Selmer is a place where preachers rule and everybody keeps

everybody else in line...or tries to.

[Bake]

35. Really? Do you live in West Tennessee?

I grew up in Jackson, TN, not far from Selmer. Selmer was the home of Sheriff Buford Pusser ("Walking Tall"). I don't think "preachers rule" there......

Bake

[Lars39]

38. Been there often.

Was a member of Church of Christ for a few years. Very stifling.
Side note: my brother was dispatcher during that time for a sherrif that was chummy with Pusser...he's got some interesting stories. :D

[Bake]

39. I'll bet he DOES!!

We all loved it when Walking Tall came out (the famous "judge's new chambers" scene was filmed at my alma mater, Union University; one of the moonshiners was my high school typing teacher ...), but everybody realized that Pusser wasn't really that upstanding a sheriff ...

Bake

[Duppers]

41. well, preachers are put on pedestals there

and individuality is suppressed. In my opinion, religion rules all life there.

I have an 87 yr old aunt who lives one street over from that preacher's house.

She's sweet to me but is very rigid, very conforming and is a racist; I really don't agree with her on much of anything.

[durrrty libby]

11. I agree and that's what I did many years ago, but oh the

sweet fantasies of how it might have gone down

Still, I'd have to hear the evidence before condemning

[Madspirit]

12. Then You Don't Understand

You don't understand the psychology of abuse if you think that. Most women are totally convinced that the abuser will find them and that there is no place they can go to get away. It's actually, usually, what the abuser tells them. They are so beaten down psychologically, they believe it. Get some facts from a battered women's shelter. ...or psychology 101.
Lee

[1monster]

15. And not only that, but a woman who leaves her abusive spouse is

in more serious danger of the abuser tracking her down and killing her than at any other time. It happens more often than you might think.

There have been several cases in the city I live in in the last couple of years... And these women had protection orders/injunctions against their abusive (ex or otherwise) spouses.

[Lars39]

22. The small town I'm living in now was shocked a few weeks ago

when a woman was killed by her newly separated husband. He also shot her son, who survived.
The nearest women's shelter is more than an hour away from this town. The cops in the town downplayed it as a "domestic argument gone bad", even though the murderer had a restraining order against him and showed back up at the house armed with the murder weapon.

[jazzjunkysue]

23. It was illegal, immoral, and unchristian, but so was the abuse.

I'll bet she's thinking that it's a small price to pay for keeping him away from her and her kids for the rest of their lives.

I don't know if the sentence fit the crime or not, but, from her point of view, at least it's over soon.

This woman will never attack anyone else. She's not a danger to society. But abusive men are, and in my opinion, so are many religious leaders. Don't know it this one was particularly corrosive, but many of them sure are.

[LisaL]

24. Keep the kids away from him?

Whatever gives you the idea the kids wanted to be kept away from him?

[jazzjunkysue]

25. Just guessing that she wanted to prevent further abuse to them.

That would be my only reason for picking up a gun. My kids.

[LisaL]

26. What further abuse? What evidence is there he abused the kids?

The child has testified at trial. The child had said she never witnessed her father abuse her mother.
So, again, whatever makes you think the child needed to be kept away from her father?
http://www.fairviewobserver.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070416/NEWS03/70416001

[jazzjunkysue]

31. I'm not going to argue with you. Try someone else. n/t.

[colorado_ufo]

42. And abusive men can be charming as hell when they want to.

That is how they get gullible woman after gullible woman to marry them.

[LisaL]

28. Are you psychic? HTF can you know what she would or

wouldn't do? And her kid actually said she does not want to see her mother.

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. I, OTOH, think that a man who abuses those who he is supposed

to be responsible for, be they spouse, children, infirm dependents, or aged parents, deserves what he gets. I don't believe in the death penalty, but killing in self defense is entirely legitimate. Even if that self defense takes the form of shooting him while he's sleeping.

But that's just me.

[LisaL]

27. Yes, maybe it should be legal to kill those we don't like.

[YankmeCrankme]

37. If he was truly abusive?

Do you think it should have been PROVED before she was convicted of a lesser charge and given only 7 months. If he was NOT truly abusive will you be glad she will be released in two months?

[jmondine]

8. If only all preachers carried handguns

This would never have happened. :sarcasm:

[trashcanistanista]

10. Good one!

Post of the day.:rofl:

[LisaL]

21. And had eyes on the back of their heads.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

13. People who are abused for a long time.....

Eventually crack.

[provis99]

14. amazing how many wives get away with the "abused wife" schtick

The article says it all; she was probably going to claim his life insurance to pay off her involvement in a check-kiting scheme. By the way, did anyone ask the kids if daddy was abusive? No? What a surprise:sarcasm:

[Ellen Forradalom]

17. How do you kill someone this obviously

And then collect life insurance?

[LisaL]

19. Actually, one kid was asked and she said she never witnessed

any abuse.

[NaturalHigh]

32. Surprise, surprise.

No evidence of abuse, but she got off with a slap on the wrist. It's no wonder people think our "justice" system is a joke.

[NaturalHigh]

16. This will undoubtedly be a "movie of the week" soon...

portraying her as a long-suffering victim who killed her husband to protect herself and her kids after years of brutal abuse. Hopefully his family will win all the royalties (and every penny she ever makes for the rest of her life) in a civil case.