by Ann Rule
It began on March 24, 2006, at 9:30 A.M., approximately thirty-six hours after the young minister’s body was discovered. Rigor mortis had begun to stiffen his body, but was not yet complete; the red and purple markings on the portion of the body that had been the lowest—where blood had pooled when his heart stopped beating—were fixed and complete on his back and buttocks, with blanching along the parts that had touched the floor of the Winklers’ bedroom.
There would be few surprises in this autopsy. Matthew Winkler had only one real wound, along with some scratches on the front of his right knee and lower leg, perhaps made as he crawled on the floor in a vain attempt to escape his killer. He had been shot in the back by a weapon far enough away that there was no soot around the wound.
“In the middle of the back is a three-quarter-
inch-in-diameter shotgun wound of entrance with slight irregular margins, and an irregular one-sixteenth-to-one-eighth-inch circumferential marginal abrasion. The defect is located twenty-one and a half inches below the top of the head and at the posterior midline. Five evenly spaced half-inch-by-half-inch rectangular abrasions surround the defect.”
As dictated by Dr. Turner, the “defect” left by the shotgun shell sounded clinical and had no emotion. But the fatal wound was horrific, of course, as all shotgun wounds are; pellets of birdshot and wadding from the contents of a shotgun shell had blasted into Matthew’s back.
After it perforated his skin, fatty tissue, and the muscles in his back, the birdshot cut through four ribs in the middle of his back and tore through the lower lobe of his left lung, his diaphragm, stomach, spleen, pancreas, and left adrenal gland. There were contusions in the upper lobe of his left lung and the lower lobe of his right lung, and two of the vertebrae in his spinal column were broken. His trachea (windpipe) and lungs were awash in aspirated blood, and his stomach held a hundred milliliters of blood. White foam from his ruined lungs had bubbled from his nose and mouth.
Carefully, Dr. Turner collected scores of pellets of the birdshot and the plastic wadding from his internal organs.
Whoever had held the shotgun had stood above Matthew; the trajectory of the birdshot could be traced from his back to the front of his body and from right to left, and slightly downward.
Dr. Turner estimated that he might have lived a very short time before he lost a tremendous amount of blood from all these wounds.
Matthew Winkler had appeared to be a healthy young man, although he had fat around his belly. His heart valves and other aspects of his heart were normal, and on first look, his heart seemed okay. However, a silent killer had been at work, surely shortening his life span, even without the violence of a shotgun blast.
At the age of thirty-one, all of Matthew Winkler’s major coronary arteries were 50 percent narrowed with calcified plaque. He probably had not yet suffered symptoms from this blockage of blood flow in his heart, but he would almost certainly have died young if he didn’t change his eating and exercise habits. It didn’t matter anymore.
In a thorough postmortem examination, all of the body’s systems are checked. Some findings may seem unimportant at the time, but become vital later on. There was no food in Matthew’s stomach, or any tablets or capsules. His bladder was extremely distended, holding a thousand milliliters of clear light yellow urine.
Blood samples from his heart and vitreous humor (from the eyes) were taken and labeled for tests to determine the presence of alcohol or drugs. Almost two months later, the results came back. Every single test—from alcohol to barbiturates, stimulants, amphetamines, sleeping pills, cocaine, marijuana, and even aspirin—came back negative. He hadn’t ingested any of them in the period before he was killed; none of them were present in his blood and eye vitreous humor, not even in a half-life stage.
Dr. Turner’s summary of the case of the death of the Reverend Matthew Winkler was succinct, and to be expected: “Autopsy reveals a penetrating shotgun wound of the back. A flower-shaped wad abrasion surrounds the entrance defect…. In my opinion, the cause of death is a shotgun wound of the torso. The manner of death is homicide.”
Mary and Matthew
Mary Carol Winkler’s life imploded when she was thirty-two years old. With the news that she had been arrested for the shotgun slaying of her husband, virtually everyone who had ever known her was stunned. Those who knew her the best weren’t surprised that she had, perhaps, lived a life of quiet desperation in her marriage. That she had chosen to escape from it by obliterating her husband was, nevertheless, unthinkable.
Sometimes it takes a stranger to catch a sudden glimpse of the relationship a man and woman share. They can see that instance with as much clarity as if an expensive camera’s shutter opened briefly and then slid shut. A Selmer couple operated a small barbecue restaurant where Matthew and Mary had eaten a few times. They watched the interplay between the two with dismay.
“He always ordered the big barbecue plate,” the female partner recalled, “while she had her our lowest-priced sandwich. Both times, they had their two older girls with them, and those children just begged for something to eat—but he wouldn’t order anything at all for them. And it looked as if she wanted to—but didn’t dare disagree with him.”
Maybe that was simply Mary’s personality; she had been a quiet person for all of her life. Like Matthew—whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been ministers—Mary grew up in a devout home and in the Church of Christ. She had seen her parents—Nell and Clark Freeman—practice Christian charity from the moment she understood the concept, and she had also seen more tragedy than most young girls have to endure.
Mary was born in Knox County in east Tennessee on December 10, 1973, five years after her parents married. She had a sister who was two years younger, but Patricia had contracted spinal meningitis when she was very young, and her mind would never mature beyond that of a five-year-old. Rather than being jealous because her parents had to focus so much of their time on their handicapped child, Mary Carol adored Patricia. She may have been told that her sister’s health was fragile and that God could take her away at any time, or she may have only feared that.
She knew that Patricia was mentally slow, and she could see the braces she had to wear for her crippled hips. She was like a little mother, looking after Patricia and playing with her, albeit very carefully and tenderly.
Like many families with a child in precarious health, Mary’s household bonded together tightly, gathering strength from one another. Because her sister needed so much attention, Mary asked for very little. She was reportedly a happy little girl—but quiet.
Patricia Freeman died suddenly when she was about eight years old. A neighbor recalled that her mother was giving her a bath when she passed away. “She was singing one minute,” he said, “and dead the next.” She had probably suffered a fatal heart attack.
Even though Patricia’s life had been very difficult and her illness thought to be one that would shorten her life, no one in her family was prepared for her to slip away so rapidly, and the Freemans went through a very difficult time dealing with their loss—especially Mary. They had no grief counseling, but they prayed and shared their feelings with one another.
And they moved on. Nell Freeman taught school. She would later become a “Homebound Teacher,” the Tennessee school system’s term for someone who tutored students whose illnesses prevented them from attending classes. She understood their special needs because of all the years she had cared for Patricia.
Clark Freeman remodeled houses long before “flipping houses” became the hugely popular endeavor that it is today. He bought them from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, fixed what was broken, refurbished and painted them, and sold them for a moderate profit. He was a man who worked very hard and seldom complained.
Freeman was also a lay minister in the Church of Christ, and the Freemans attended services at the Laurel Church of Christ in Knoxville. Like all men in this denomination, he was the head of the household
, sometimes demanding and authoritative—but Mary and her mother accepted that was as it should be. They weren’t always happy about it, though.
And then the Freemans did something that few couples would have the fortitude and unselfishness to do: they adopted five children, all of them siblings who needed a loving home. Mary Carol had lost her only sister, but now she was one of six children. Eric, Chase, Shannon, Tabatha, and Amanda joined her family. The six children in the Freeman household were all attractive kids. If Mary felt any diminishment in her role in her family, she didn’t act out about it.
Some people who grew up with Mary and her adopted siblings in Knoxville remember her as vivacious and fun-loving, with a constant smile, but more recall that she was quiet, a little reserved, but always kind.
Mary Carol was very pretty then and excelled in anything musical, joining choral groups at Doyle High School, and she sang well enough to be selected for the Madrigals—which wasn’t easy to achieve. She wasn’t a member of the elitely popular cliques at her school, but she had many friends and she certainly seemed happy. When Mary graduated from high school in 1992, she had a long string of activities printed under her senior picture, including religious, musical, and sports clubs. She belonged to Future Teachers of America. She headed off to David Lipscomb University in Nashville, where she worked toward a teaching degree, and joined the University Singers.
And in 1993, Mary changed colleges. She moved to Henderson, Tennessee, and Freed-Hardeman University, where there was a program in special education, her ambition since she had helped care for her sister. Freed-Hardeman was established in 1869 and traces its heritage to the Church of Christ, which helped to build it. Indeed, even today, all members of the board of trustees for the university must be members of the Church of Christ, and the curriculum includes both an undergraduate and a master’s degree in what is called simply “Bible.”
The Freed-Hardeman motto is strangely non-religious-sounding: “Teaching How to Live, and How to Make a Living,” but it may be only pragmatic for an area where surviving can be hardscrabble.
Matthew Winkler attended Freed-Hardeman after graduating from high school in Decatur, Alabama, thirty-five miles south of the Tennessee line. He was one of nineteen hundred students there, and he majored in “Bible.” His father, the Reverend Dan Winkler, was a professor there so it was natural that Matthew would go to Freed-Hardeman. He apparently wasn’t forced into a mold he resented; Matthew said he wanted to preach. But Mary always felt he would rather have been a teacher.
It was to be expected that Mary Freeman and Matthew Winkler would meet in a college as small as Freed-Hardeman. Although there were no fraternities or sororities there, at least half of the student body joined one of the college’s seven Greek-named social clubs. Mary was a sophomore and Matthew a freshman when they both joined Phi Kappa Alpha. The social clubs gave them access to intramural sports, retreats, and the annual spring production of “Makin’ Music.”
With Matthew’s plan to carry on his family heritage of ministry, he would, of course, need to marry a suitable wife. As he came to know and date Mary Freeman, she seemed to be a superlative candidate for the woman who would stand beside him, bear his children, sit in the pews of the churches where he would preach, teach Sunday school, deal with the ladies of the church, and maintain a neat and welcoming home.
Her own goal—to become a teacher—was completely acceptable for a minister’s wife, and her lovely voice would be a bonus as future congregations sang “Throw Out the Lifeline,” “In the Garden,” and “We Will Gather at the River,” three of the old-timey hymns popular in the Church of Christ.
And Mary was very pretty, slender, sweet, and fun. Their attraction to each other certainly wasn’t just based on suitability. Matthew was popular and very good-looking. Even as a freshman in college, he had the charisma and confidence that drew people to him. He and Mary seemed to make a great couple, and they appeared to be in love. They had dated for only four months when Matthew asked Mary to marry him. Mary said yes immediately.
Both their families were pleased when they became engaged, the tall man majoring in Bible studies and the petite future teacher. On April 20, 1996, they were married in a ceremony with Mary’s father officiating.
Matthew continued to work toward his degree, but Mary didn’t graduate. She took a job in the deli department of the Piggly Wiggly supermarket to help support them. She was a little concerned when Matthew began to tell her what to do—and when, in the first months of their marriage, he turned out to be quite strict, much as her father was. And she worried a little that he was trying to isolate her from her family. But she wasn’t really unhappy. The Bible, which Matthew knew like the back of his hand, said that when couples marry, they move on from their families and “cleave” to each other. But somehow Matthew went beyond that, reportedly urging Mary to sever her connections to old friends, and to limit her visits with her parents and adopted siblings.
A woman who lived next door to Mary’s parents felt that Matthew was “domineering. He was never nice when he was around here,” she told reporters a long time later. “He was always very controlling with her and the kids.”
Mary’s sister Tabatha would recall a conversation with Matthew where he called the Freeman family together and explained that they had to accept that Mary would not be a part of their family the way she had been before. He and their marriage had to come first. Tabatha was stunned. She didn’t see why being a wife would preclude Mary from being a sister.
Mary and Matthew lived in Henderson until July 1998, when Matthew graduated. During that time, Mary gave birth to Patricia Dianne, named for her long-dead sister and Matthew’s mother. She was an exceptionally devoted mother and delighted in her baby girl. Matthew seemed happy to be a father, and their family album had many photos of him smiling with Patricia.
In July 1998, Matthew accepted his first call to a church. The family moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he became the youth minister at the Goodwood Boulevard Church of Christ.
Mary rarely visited her family in Knoxville, and Matthew preferred not to spend holidays there. She must have been torn; her mother, Nell Freeman, was very ill with colon cancer that had spread to her lymph system. When she died on April 10, 1999, Mary was six months pregnant with her second daughter, Allie. One can only imagine how difficult it must have been for her to lose her mother, be pregnant, have a toddler, and be a good minister’s wife.
Seven months later, the Winklers lived in Pegram, Tennessee, a town of two thousand residents, and a suburb of Nashville. Matthew had a new job as youth minister with the Bellevue Church of Christ. They were settling down for a while, and bought their first house in a neighborhood of young families. Outwardly, Mary and Matthew seemed happy, although this was the time when Mary told Detective Stan Stabler that Matthew had been “at his worst” and had actually threatened her life. Perhaps.
She and Matthew were much admired by the congregation in Bellevue and considered “a real benefit and blessing. He was a good daddy. She was a good mommy,” a church elder recalled. “And he was an excellent youth minister.”
Mary was twenty-six; Matthew was twenty-five. And both of them were trying very hard to present the best face they could to the world. What they showed to each other, no one knew.
Matthew was doing well; he received a call to be the youth minister of the Central Church of Christ in McMinnville, and they moved in April 2002. McMinnville had a population of almost thirteen thousand and was southeast of Nashville. They bought a house in McMinnville in September 2002 but weren’t able to sell their Pegram home until May 2003.
And Mary was pregnant again. She lost the baby at nine weeks in 2003. Matthew had wanted a son. He once mentioned their loss in a church sermon as an example of how people can suffer losses and manage to go on.
The Winklers’ having to carry mortgages on two houses for eight months on a minister’s salary may have been the beginning of their financial difficulties. With two
small girls and her church duties, it would have been hard for Mary to take a teaching job—even substitute teaching. She found a job at the post office, and that helped some. In the fall of 2004, Matthew started teaching Bible classes to boys at the Boyd Christian School in McMinnville.
Mary was soon pregnant for the fourth time, due in the spring of 2005. As she told the detectives in Orange Beach, she had begun to have difficulty keeping up with Matthew’s many schedules and doing things the way he wanted them done. Her neighbors and church members in McMinnville remember Mary as being full of energy, always scurrying from one commitment to another. Most of them admired her for the way she handled her latest job—at the Super-D drugstore—and her duties at Matthew’s church so well, while, at the same time, she managed to have birthday parties for Patricia and Allie and keep up with her housework.
When Brianna was born prematurely on March 5, 2005, she had such serious breathing problems that Mary had to leave her behind when she left the hospital. When her third baby was allowed to come home, Mary tiptoed to her crib several times a night to be sure she was breathing.
As far as their neighbors knew, the Winkler marriage was sound. Some thought Mary was more friendly than Matthew was, while one man described her as “odd. She wasn’t too friendly—she didn’t mix well.”
Sometimes Matthew and Mary engaged in what is known today as “public demonstrations of affection” (PDAs), and they were glimpsed hugging each other or even exchanging a discreet kiss during church parties or trips.
According to Mary, they did have problems in their marriage, but they involved things that she would never have told anyone else—things too embarrassing to tell, things too disturbing to contemplate.