Minister's wife goes on trial for his murder

NY Times:

Just over a year ago, Wilburn Ashe stood outside his minister’s home in Selmer in southwest Tennessee. He could see the lights inside, but the door was locked and his knocks went unanswered.

Mr. Ashe returned to church for Bible study without the minister, Matthew Winkler. Later, four other church members went to the house and let themselves in with a key. They found Mr. Winkler dead, sprawled in a bedroom with a shotgun wound, and no sign of his wife, Mary, or their three daughters.

The discovery was only the first shock in a killing that thrust Selmer into headlines around the country. After the Alabama police found Mary Winkler and the children hundreds of miles away, she stunned the community again with the admission that she had shot her husband and fled.

On Monday, after a year of speculation, jury selection is to begin in a McNairy County courthouse where Ms. Winkler, 33, will face trial on charges of first-degree murder.

The killing left members of Mr. Winkler’s church, the Fourth Street Church of Christ, searching for answers and, at times, seeking respite from the attention on their town.

...

The Winklers arrived in Selmer in 2005. Mr. Winkler, a minister’s son, was energetic and lively, and the congregation grew. Church members said his wife seemed doting and domestic.

The home was apparently not as tranquil as it appeared. Clark Freeman, Ms. Winkler’s father, said in a televised interview in November that he suspected abuse, and that his daughter covered “terrible bruises” with makeup. Mr. Freeman, reached by phone last week, declined to comment.

There may also have been strains over finances. Ms. Winkler’s lawyers have said that the couple were caught up in an overseas swindle. Ms. Winkler had also deposited worthless overseas checks in a local bank, prosecutors said.

...

After Ms. Winkler posted $750,000 bail, she went to McMinnville, Tenn., about 65 miles southeast of Nashville, to live with friends and work at a dry cleaner. She made headlines again when a television station broadcast photographs of her taken on New Year’s Eve, smoking at a restaurant with a beer in front of her.

...

I suspect life as a minister's wife was not for her.