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Post by Graveyardbride on Aug 20, 2016 6:16:55 GMT -5
Did Alligators, Wife, or Insurance Agent Cause Man’s Disappearance?TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Cheryl Williams immediately suspected foul play after her son mysteriously disappeared off the face of the earth during a duck hunting trip in the winter of 2000. “From the minute he disappeared … I knew the police’s explanation wasn’t true,” Williams said of her son, Michael Williams (above), whom authorities speculate was devoured by alligators after falling out of his boat while solo hunting on Lake Seminole in Jackson County, Florida. Yet, despite an unprecedented search of the muggy lake waters, investigators never retrieved the 31-year-old real estate appraiser’s body. Now, almost 16 years later, Williams' mother told the Daily News she hopes a shocking turn of events involving her son’s then-wife will provide some answers.
Michael Williams, married to Denise Williams with an 18-month-old daughter, left his Tallahassee home for a hunting trip in the early morning of Dec. 16, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report obtained by FoxNews. Police were contacted after Williams never returned home and investigators eventually found his deserted boat in a cove on the western side of the lake. The investigation folded after cops theorized he was eaten by alligators. Cheryl Williams thought police jumped the gun on concluding the investigation – especially after finding out from local alligator experts the warm-blooded creatures hibernate during that time of year.
More than three relentless years later, Cheryl managed to persuade police to open a criminal investigation into her son’s case after she found out he was sold a $1 million life insurance plan a few months before his disappearance. The person who sold the insurance: Brian Winchester – a now 45-year-old man who ended up marrying Denise Williams in 2005. “I lost my son, his daughter lost her father and Denise is the only one who got millions of dollars,” Cheryl Williams said. “She and Brian are the only ones who profited from his death.”
Denise, who changed her name to Winchester upon remarrying, separated from Brian in 2012. Despite fishy details surrounding the life insurance sale, neither of the two was considered a person of interest in Williams’ disappearance. Now, Cheryl Williams hopes this might change.
Brian Winchester (above) was arrested Aug. 5 for kidnaping, domestic assault and armed burglary. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Denise Winchester told investigators Brian, whom she’s in the process of divorcing, hid in the backseat of her car while she was out shopping. Upon entering the car, Brian stuck a gun to Denise’s chest and ordered her to drive to a remote location. The two drove to a CVS parking lot where Denise managed to calm her armed husband. Brian told her he didn’t want a divorce and expressed suicidal thoughts. Denise promised not to report Brian, but dialed 911 after dropping him off at his truck, which was parked nearby. At a court hearing last week, Denise persuaded a judge to keep her husband in jail – saying she feared for the safety of herself and her daughter, who is now 17.
Cheryl Williams – who has sent hundreds of letters to Florida Gov. Rick Scott about putting more pressure on the investigators handling her son’s case – said she’s praying Brian will spill information about what really happened 16 years ago while in custody. “He’s not going to let Denise run around alone with all that money,” she said, referring to her son’s life insurance, which was paid out in full to his then-wife. “I’m praying he doesn’t commit suicide, I’m praying he’ll tell us what actually happened.”
Williams, speaking through tears, told The News she also prays her son is somehow still alive. “Everybody in law enforcement says he’s dead, even his own brother says he’s dead. I’m the only one who holds that hope that he’s alive somewhere,” she said. “I want my story out and I want everybody to know about it because if he’s alive, somebody might know him.”
Williams noted she hasn’t seen her granddaughter in over a decade as Denise has barred her from visiting. “She was the only part of Michael’s life I had left,” Williams sniffled. “If Michael’s dead, I want them punished,” she added, referring to Denise and Brian Winchester. “I don’t want them to get away with this.”Source: Chris Sommerfeldt, The New York Daily News, August 18, 2016.
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Post by pat on Aug 20, 2016 8:56:37 GMT -5
Whoever told this woman that alligators hibernate during the winter doesn't live in Florida. I live near a lake that has alligators and you can go out walking around the lake in December, January and February and see them sunning on the bank. Their metabolism slows down when it's cold, but they don't disappear like bears and other animals that hibernate.
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Post by natalie on Sept 7, 2016 16:37:07 GMT -5
I have seen them out and about too, year-round. I think they used the wrong word, and meant to instead say that they don't eat (or eat very little) in the winter, as opposed to the rest of the year, because their metabolic process slows down. That's called brumation though, not hibernation.
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Post by Graveyardbride on May 8, 2018 19:52:40 GMT -5
Florida Woman Arrested in 2000 Murder of HusbandDenise Williams (above), 48, former wife of Mike Williams, who disappeared 17 years ago, was arrested this afternoon. She was taken into custody without incident at her office at Florida State University. Officers reported she was working at her desk when they arrived and said nothing as she was handcuffed and taken to a waiting FSU police vehicle. She worked as an accountant and tax specialist in the Controller’s Office. A number of her co-workers declined to speak with a Democrat reporter following her arrest.
Earlier this afternoon, a local grand jury indicted her on a charge of first-degree murder in the killing of her husband, Mike Williams, a real estate appraiser who went missing while duck-hunting on Lake Seminole in December 2000 and was initially believed to have drowned. However, after learning new information, investigators discovered his body in October 2017.
Clay Ketcham, Mike Williams’ boss at Ketcham Realty Group and close friend, was astonished by the news of Denise Williams’ arrest. When contacted by a reporter, all he could say initially was “Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.” Ketcham admitted he never thought the day would come. “We are getting to the end of the story,” he said. “It’s horrible. But it’s a feeling of coming to resolution with it.” Ketcham added that he wants “anyone who had any part of this to be fully accountable.”
Tim Jansen, the attorney representing Brian Winchester, who married Denise Williams five years after the disappearance of her husband, declined to comment on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s investigation into the killing of Mike Williams. “However, if he [Winchester] is subpoenaed and compelled to testify with immunity, he will testify truthfully at any and all proceedings,” Jansen asserted, adding that he doesn’t believe Winchester will be charged in Williams’ death.
During their divorce proceedings in 2016, Winchester held his wife at gunpoint, upset over the possibility she might tell investigators what actually happened to Mike Williams. Winchester was later sentenced to 20 years in prison for the kidnaping of his estranged wife. A day after he was sentenced, FDLE announced Mike Williams hadn’t gone missing, but, in fact, had been murdered. The agency didn’t name a suspect at that time.
Jansen added that Winchester will cooperate with law enforcement “to the extent we are able” and at an appropriate time, his client may comment on the case.
Mark Perez, FDLE special agent in charge, thanked investigators for their work in solving the nearly 18-year-old case. His comments came outside the FSU University Center. “I want to commend the investigators for their unwavering dedication. We’ve had this case for 15 years and the relentless effort in working with prosecutors and then ultimately the grand jury in bringing those responsible for Mike Williams’ [death] to justice is a great reward. Hopefully, this will bring peace and resolution to the Williams family.”
Officers arrived at Ms. Williams’ campus office just before 4 p.m. and she was in custody within 10 minutes and on her way to be booked into the Leon County Detention Center. Her first court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday morning.
A Tallahassee Democrat reporter asked her several questions as she was being escorted to an FSU police vehicle. Specifically he asked if she killed Mike Williams or whether she and her ex-husband, Brian Winchester, planned to kill him. The reporter also asked if she had anything to say to Williams’ mother, Cheryl Williams. Ms. Williams declined to respond.
Today’s arrest was the biggest bombshell yet in the disappearance of Mike Williams, an affable 31-year-old father who never returned home after supposedly going duck hunting alone the morning of Saturday, December 16, 2000. He and his wife had planned to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary that night at the Gibson Inn in Apalachicola. The pair had an 18-month-old daughter.
Despite an exhaustive search of the lake, his body wasn’t found. Six months later, Denise Williams had her husband declared dead, which allowed her to collect life insurance totaling more than $2 million. She later married his best friend, Brian Winchester, who sold Mike one of the policies six months before he went missing.
The case was cold until five months ago, when the FDLE announced a major breakthrough – the discovery of Mike Williams’ body. Investigators said he hadn’t drowned or been eaten by alligators – early theories of what might have happened. He was discovered October 18, buried in six feet of muck near the primitive boat landing at the end of Gardner Road in northern Leon County. Officials refused to confirm how Williams was killed, only that evidence proved conclusively he was murdered. His clothing was still intact and he was wearing cold weather gloves and outdoor boots.
On October 12, acting on new information, FDLE investigators began working to excavate Gardner Road landing. Leon County Public Works officials first cleared the heavily-wooded area of trees and installed water dams and pumps to hold back adjacent Carr Lake. They were searching not far from where 10 years ago this week, Tallahassee Police confidential informant Rachel Hoffman was killed. When the drug sting went fatally wrong, Mike Williams’ body had been buried there for almost eight years.
For the next five days, county workers, FDLE investigators, cadaver dogs and their handlers – approximately people 30 in all – worked up to 16 hours a day sifting and searching through thick mud and dumping backhoe scoops onto 10 huge sheets of plywood.
A few neighbors ventured toward the area, curious what was going on, but they were satisfied with the explanation that all the activity was just part of a training exercise.
“How was it kept a secret? By the grace of God,” a law enforcement spokesperson said. “There is literally no other explanation.” Not even the workers operating the machinery initially knew the purpose of the search, but the man running the bucket had figured it out by the end. The work was arduous and holding back the lake was a constant challenge. Water moccasins and eels menaced the 9-foot deep holes that quickly filled with murky water. “It was a nasty, wicked place,” the spokesperson added.
By Wednesday, October 18, Public Works officials were ready to call it quits and FDLE was set to hire a private company to continue the work when they finally found Williams. Two DNA tests confirmed the body was his. The spokesperson said approximately 98 percent of his bones were recovered and the body was “very well preserved.”
The Mike Williams case was featured on a 2016 episode of Crime Watch Daily; in 2012, it was the subject of Investigation Discovery’s “Mystery on Lake Seminole”; and the strange disappearance was highlighted on Disappeared in 2011.
Source: Jennifer Portman, The Tallahassee Democrat, May 8, 2018.
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Post by pat on May 9, 2018 5:40:35 GMT -5
How would FDLE have known where to search for the body unless somebody told them? The only one who knew other than Denise Williams was Brian Winchester. He must have worked out some kind of deal.
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Post by Graveyardbride on May 11, 2018 8:41:38 GMT -5
How would FDLE have known where to search for the body unless somebody told them? The only one who knew other than Denise Williams was Brian Winchester. He must have worked out some kind of deal. |
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Post by Graveyardbride on Jun 2, 2018 17:09:02 GMT -5
The Murder of Mike WilliamsThe murder of Mike Williams (above) wasn’t a crime of passion. It was cold and calculated, Brian Winchester told investigators, the final act of a scheme he and Mike’s wife Denise hatched so they could be together. It would look like an accident; her pious image wouldn’t be tarnished by divorce, they’d “live happily ever after,” he said. And with Mike’s nearly $2 million in life insurance, they’d be rich, to boot.
But things didn’t go as planned, Winchester continued in his sworn confession last fall. Not the murder he committed, not the pact of silence that concealed the crime for 17 years, certainly not the everlasting love. Today, both are behind bars. The 47-year-old Winchester is serving a 20-year prison sentence for kidnaping Denise Williams, 48, in 2016. She’s in jail, charged with her former husband’s murder, the planning and the coverup.
It’s a salacious story, Ethan Way, Denise Williams’ criminal defense lawyer, proclaimed – if it were true. Winchester acted alone, Way contends, and his concocted story about his client’s involvement is pure fiction. She was not in any way a party to the killing of her 31-year-old husband, he insisted, and has no knowledge whatsoever about what Winchester did to Mike Williams. Way declared there is no evidence to back up Winchester’s outrageous claims, which were provided only after he was given complete immunity from punishment for his admitted act of murder. “Brian Winchester got the sweetheart deal of the century,” the lawyer added. “He can say whatever he wants at this point. He has license to make up whatever he wants to make up.” Prosecutors are trying to hold the wrong person responsible the killing, Way continued, and he plans to prove his client’s innocence at trial as soon as possible and will argue that Denise should be released on bond. According to Way, all Denise ever knew was that her husband went hunting one morning and never came home.
But in sworn statements made to law enforcement officials, Winchester tells a different story. “Denise,” he said, “has had a double life going on for 20 years.”
A storybook romance unravels. The affair between Winchester and Denise, who met in preschool, began October 13, 1997, he asserted, just three years after they’d both married their North Florida Christian High School sweethearts. The 1988 yearbook is packed with photos of them. Mike, a standout athlete and student council president, voted “Best Personality.” Denise, a cheerleader, voted “Best Dressed.” Kathy Aldridge, who became Kathy Winchester, also on the cheering squad, voted “Best All Around.” Brian was also a Key Club member and his portrait appears next to that of Mike Williams. The two couples lived parallel lives from high school onward: They all attended Florida State, both couples married in 1994 and their children were born in 1999. Yes, Denise’s daughter was born two years after Winchester claims their affair started. In 2000 when they rang in the new century and within a year all turned 30, the four were still the best of friends. Winchester, who worked for his father’s financial services firm, was “somewhat content” with the ongoing clandestine relationship with Denise – she wasn’t.
Mike Williams wouldn’t celebrate another New Year’s Day. “I was manipulated in ways I didn’t know at the time,” Winchester whined to investigators during one of three recorded statements he made as part of a plea agreement. “I had a good wife, I had a kid and I had Denise on the side. This is messed up thinking, but in my mind, I had it pretty good,” he admitted. “Denise and Mike, on the other hand, they were at each other’s throats and she had two million reasons for this to happen.”
Mike didn’t know about the affair, Winchester insisted, but he knew something was up. He was unhappy with his marriage, unhappy with his work as a real estate appraiser and unhappy with his recently-widowed mother. He wanted a change – a new job, a new town, a new baby. But his wife wanted none of those things. “Denise was getting worried that things were going to blow up,” Winchester added.
Scenarios ‘snowballed’ to murder. Winchester doesn’t remember who first broached the subject, but sometime in early 2000, as he and Denise grew closer, Williams became more miserable and pressure began to mount. “The subject of Mike or Kathy’s deaths started coming up in conversations. Denise basically made it clear she would never get divorced, primarily because of appearances,” he explained. “She is ultra-concerned about the way she appears to the world.”
There was only one way they were going to end up together, so they began concocting “scenarios.” In one, Winchester recounted, both couples would go boating. There would be an accident and only Brian and Denise would survive. Brian said he nixed that idea because Kathy was the mother of his son. Also, her life wasn’t insured for more than a million dollars. “The other scenario was where Mike and I went hunting and there was an accident and he didn’t make it, but I made it back to safety,” Brian said.
“Denise has this thing where she gets people to do stuff for her and she minimizes her guilt or conscience or whatever in it,” Winchester alleged. “She wanted it all to be on me and not on her, and she wanted in her mind a scenario where it wasn’t a murder, but it was an accident.” The idea “snowballed,” he told investigators and together they began to plot the details. During that time, about six to nine months before he was killed, he sold Williams – with Denise’s encouragement – a $1 million life insurance policy, supplementing the two others he had totaling $750,000. “We would be together and live happily ever after and, as a side note, we’d have all this money and enjoy a wonderful life together,” Winchester asserted from his prison cell at Wakulla Correctional Institute.
Waders were the weapon of choice. By December 2000, the tension reached a crescendo. Increasingly suspicious, Williams had gone to Denise’s mother with concerns about money missing from their accounts and cash disappearing. Was his wife having an affair? Was she doing drugs?
Denise and Mike’s sixth wedding anniversary was looming and he was pressuring her to have another baby. He was also planning a spring trip to Hawaii – and one of those three life insurance policies – the $500,000 policy from Cotton State – was about to lapse. “Her daughter was getting older,” Winchester added, “and if something were going to happen to Mike, she wanted her to be young enough so she wouldn’t remember.”
The lovers would settle on Saturday, December 9, 2000, as the day. The plan was for Winchester was to take Mike to a “secret” duck-hunting spot on Lake Seminole long before dawn. He knew the lake, knew the landing from which he would launch and the depth of the water. The distance from Tallahassee – about an hour – was a problem, but he said, “for what we had planned to happen it seemed to be the best location.”
Denise would ensure her husband got up and went on the duck-hunting escapade. According to Winchester, their alibis were well-rehearsed. He would kill Mike early, then actually go hunting with his father-in-law, who would be able to vouch for his whereabouts. Denise would stay at home with 18-month-old Anslee and make a few calls from the house to prove she’d been there.
But hours before they were to head out, Williams called Winchester, saying he had to cancel their plans. As soon as possible, Winchester called Denise and she said she had gotten cold feet and called it off. “I was relieved, but I was like, ‘What the hell?’ This isn’t something to be wishy-washy over,” he continued in his statement.
But within days, Denise had regained her resolve. She and Williams were set to go to Apalachicola for their anniversary trip the following Saturday afternoon, December 16. She didn’t want to have sex with him and get into another fight about it – and that $500,000 was about to disappear. She insisted her lover take care of things that morning before she had to go to the Gibson Inn and sleep with a husband she had come to despise.
Mike’ final moments. According to Winchester, Mike Williams spent the last Friday night of his life ringing a bell for the Salvation Army Christmas Red Kettle collection, then went home to Denise and Anslee. That same night, Brian and Kathy got a babysitter for their toddler son, Stafford, and went to hear Vast (a band) at Floyd’s MusicStore. She had a few drinks and fell asleep hard, Winchester said. “Denise and I had agreed we would have very limited communication, as limited as we could make it prior to the incident and after the incident just to avoid detection,” he added.
Early Saturday morning Winchester and Williams met at a gas station on Thomasville Road near Interstate 10. “I told him not to call me, that my phone wasn’t working because I didn’t want any record of phone calls,” Winchester stammered, his voice breaking. Mike didn’t think anything of it and led the way to the lake in his gold Ford Bronco; he followed in his white Chevy Suburban. They got to the deserted landing in the dark and launched Mike’s boat. “It was just like a hunting trip is supposed to be,” Winchester recalled.
And that’s what it would have appeared to have been – a sad, tragic, hunting trip – when Mike Williams accidentally fell from the small boat wearing his waders and sank like lead. That was the plan. Williams was wearing those waders – the ones assumed for so long to have been planted – and he did fall into the lake, but it was no accident. “We got to the area where his waders and jacket were found,” Brian continued, frequently pausing. “I got him to stand up and I pushed him into the water – he, he got his jacket off and his waders off and he was in a panic, obviously. I was in a panic,” Winchester admitted. “I was driving the boat –and I didn’t know what to do – and I ended up shooting him.” Shot him right in the head with a cheap 12-gauge shotgun. Tears ran down the killer’s face and he blew his nose and heaved a deep sigh before he was able to continue: “He went under the water and – so I found him in the water and I drug him to the shoreline.”
He then ran back along River Road to the landing where they had parked, jumped into his truck and backed it to the edge of the lake. He placed Mike’s dead body in the truck bed and pushed the boat out into the water. As he sped away, he broke down the shotgun he’d bought from an FSU student and threw the pieces out the window. He drove home as quickly, slipped into bed with his wife and pretended to have overslept and missed his hunting date with her father. He immediately called his father-in-law on their home phone to apologize. Kathy Winchester never knew her husband had been out killing his best friend.
His wife was still in bed when Winchester drove to Walmart on Thomasville Road where he purchased a blue tarp and shovel. Mike’s bloody body was in the back of the truck the whole time. “I almost think I was in some kind of shock because there isn’t a lot I can remember about that day,” he claimed.
Hours later, he’d act surprised when he and his father, Marcus Winchester, found Mike Williams’ boat about 2 a.m. the next day as they helped to search the lake for the body Brian knew wasn’t there.
Haunted by the secret. During the next 17 years, Winchester told investigators he and Denise had a lot of conversations about Mike Williams, but he never told her everything. “She does not know that the plan that she had come up with, that was agreed upon ... she does not know that is not what happened,” he said in the October interview. “I didn’t want her to know the truth about how things went down; she didn’t know Mike was shot and I didn’t want her to know that part.” He tried once to tell her, he claimed, but she didn’t want to know.
Days after spilling his story to law enforcement, Winchester led investigators to the spot at the end of Gardner Road (above) where Williams’ bones and shotgun pellet-riddled skull were recovered. Finally, the inane theory that Williams was eaten by alligators was put to rest.
There was nothing special about the burial site at the edge of what was then Carr Lake’s dry shore – Winchester had grown up in northern Leon County and knew the area well. Back in 2000, it was remote, but he could get to it easily. The slope to the lake was far steeper than it is now, so he dug a hole about two-feet-deep in which he placed Williams’ corpse and the tarp in which it was wrapped. The high bank helped conceal his gruesome handiwork from a deer hunter who showed up hoping to find deer on the dry lake bottom. Winchester talked with the man who was none the wiser, watching him until he was out of sight.
Over the years, Winchester would occasionally return to the site, just to check. He worried the landing would eventually be developed and considered moving the body.
“Does it ever get to you?” State Attorney’s investigator Jason Newlin, asked.
“Every day, man, every day. I regret it, everything,” Winchester replied. “It affected me a lot more than Denise because Denise has an uncanny ability to live in denial. It’s weird, man, when you live a certain way, over a time period, and you act like something is the truth, it’s almost like you begin to believe it.”
A marriage reinforced by ‘mutual destruction.’ Winchester and Denise Williams waited an appropriate amount of time – almost five years to the day – before getting married. They swore to each other, Winchester revealed, they would never, ever tell. “It was discussed and agreed on multiple occasions that neither one of us would ever say anything no matter how much pressure we were put under,” he told investigators. “We felt like neither one of us was going to be held responsible unless one of us flipped on each other. It was a cold war, the theory of mutual destruction. If you tell on me, I’ll tell on you.”
They took precautions. After Cheryl Williams, Mike’s mother, got law enforcement involved, they developed hand gestures – the letter “C” – to signal when they needed to talk about Mike. They would meet outside in parks, such as the Miccosukee Greenway, Winchester continued. It was across from the Williams house, the one he moved into when they married in December 2005 – the one in which law enforcement once believed Mike was killed. Brian and Denise became convinced the place was bugged and the phone tapped. They thought their cellphones were being used for surveillance. As their paranoia increased, Winchester said they would pat each other down to ensure neither was wearing a wire before talking.
As time went on, Denise wanted to talk about her former husband less and less and while Winchester followed every news story, Denise shielded herself from anything concerning Mike’s mysterious disappearance, which eventually became a subject of international speculation and one of the hottest cold cases in town. “She preferred to live in la-la land where she pretended she had nothing to do with it,” Winchester explained. “It got to where she believed nothing would ever transpire from it from a law enforcement perspective, so her story that she needed to believe – what she told her daughter and told herself and be able to live with herself – was the story we created for her, which was she was at home with her baby, Mike went hunting and she has no idea what happened.”
Denise and Brian’s relationship began to fall apart and by 2012, when they separated and he moved out of her house, their marriage was in a shambles. According to Winchester, Denise played the victim and made him out to be the bad guy, but she was no saint. Cheating on Mike was the least of it, he told investigators. “Her friends don’t know the truth about Denise,” he insisted. “Not just the affair, but behaving behind closed doors in a way if her friends and family found out they would completely disown her. ... Sexually, she was off the charts.”
Denise finally filed for divorce in 2016, which unhinged Winchester. His son, Stafford, now about to graduate high school, found photos on the phone belong to his father – an admitted sex addict – of prostitutes. The boy moved in with his mother full time. Winchester’s own mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer that would swiftly kill her. And Denise wouldn’t talk to him anymore. He became convinced that when the divorce was final and the protection of marital privilege gone, she would “cave” or try to pin everything on him. Denise assured him – even as he held a gun to her ribs that day in August 2016 that triggered the spilling of 17 years of secrets – she would never tell. She kept her promise.
Winchester told prosecutors there was no scenario for what would happen if one was arrested and revealed what really happened that December morning – who planned what and how it was concealed for so long.Sources: Jennifer Portman, The Tallahassee Democrat, June 2, 2018; Circuit Court of Leon County, Florida; and Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
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Post by pat on Jun 2, 2018 19:31:59 GMT -5
I believe that Denise was in on the murder, but I don't believe everything that Winchester said. He says that Mike was unhappy with his work, his marriage, and his mother. Then he says that Mike was pressuring Denise to have another baby. That doesn't make sense. If he was unhappy with his marriage, why would he want another baby?
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Post by kitty on Jun 3, 2018 1:44:43 GMT -5
I have a question for Lee: Isn't there a law that there has to be something other than someone's word to convict a person? What I'm asking is could she be convicted of murder on Brian Winchester's word alone?
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Post by Graveyardbride on Jun 5, 2018 11:00:52 GMT -5
I have a question for Lee: Isn't there a law that there has to be something other than someone's word to convict a person? What I'm asking is could she be convicted of murder on Brian Winchester's word alone? |
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Post by Graveyardbride on Dec 15, 2018 1:39:10 GMT -5
Jury Declares Denise Williams GuiltyAfter eight hours of deliberation, a Leon County jury convicted the 48-year-old Denise Williams of all three charges against her in the murder of her first husband, Mike Williams, who disappeared in December 2000. She faces life in prison for conspiracy to commit murder, first-degree murder and accessory after the fact for masterminding and concealing a wicked plot to be free of her husband and collect almost $2 million in life insurance.
The guilty verdict brings closure to the 18-year-old mystery of what happened to the 31-year-old father and real estate appraiser when he vanished while supposedly hunting ducks at Lake Seminole. “We got justice for Michael,” his mother, Cheryl Williams told Assistant State Attorney Jon Fuchs (above left) moments after the three guilty verdicts were read by Leon Circuit Judge James Hankinson. It was her refusal to believe her son drowned and was eaten by alligators and tenacity to discover the truth about what happened that brought about an investigation three years after he went missing.
Denise Williams remained emotionless as she had during four days of testimony. The verdicts came two days shy of 18 years to the day Mike Williams was murdered.
Fuchs said he was happy he his team were able to bring some resolution for Mike’s family and friends. “This is a career case,” he told reporters. “It’s not every day in your career that you get to be involved in an unsolved homicide that is 17-years-old and through team effort make an arrest and ultimately get a conviction on a 17-year-old homicide.” He described how close he became with Williams’ family over the course of the investigation. “They’ll always be a part of my life,” he said. “Miss Cheryl and that smile that she has and then the thanks that she just gave me, and our team, of course, there’s no way to describe it.”
Defense attorney Ethan Way (above right) described his client’s reaction as “stunned, she’s just shocked; she’s very upset.” He told reporters he would appeal the convictions. “It’s terrible; it’s the wrong verdict on the facts, but you have to respect what the jury does,” he continued. “Obviously, I don’t think she’s guilty of any of the three counts. Ultimately, we submitted the case to the jury and the jury made a decision.” A date for sentencing will be set next week.
He blamed “the drumbeat” of intense media coverage of the case that chronicled Williams’ disappearance and the discovery of his body last year proving he was murdered. “I firmly believe [Denise Williams] was tried in the court of public opinion and that spilled over in everything involved with the defense from the beginning.”
Way also said the confession of Brian Winchester, who actually killed Williams, may have clouded jurors’ thinking that someone needed to be punished for his death. “They’re probably wondering, as any reasonable person might wonder, why is Brian Winchester getting a free pass on murder?” he added. “He shot his best friend in the face at three feet with a 12-gauge shotgun. Denise Williams didn’t do that. Denise Williams didn’t put him up to that.”
In exchange for his confession and the whereabouts of Mike Williams’ body, the state granted Winchester immunity for any admissions he made concerning the murder. In court, he detailed the plot to do away with his best friend so he and Denise – with whom he’d been having an affair for three years – could be together. During his closing arguments, Fuchs called the agreement a risk. After the verdict, he admitted it was one that paid off two-fold. “Once we were able to find Mike Williams and bring him home and they were able to give him a proper burial, I think that was the right decision, regardless of the outcome there,” he insisted. “Now, it just feels that much better.”
He also presented jurors a document showing Denise Williams filed an insurance claim 19 days after her husband went missing. The search for Williams continued well into February, almost two months after he disappeared. “That’s a cold individual,” Fuchs observed. “That’s a person who is involved in a homicide.”
Additionally, the prosecutor highlighted a recorded telephone call he played in court, in which Winchester’s ex-wife, Kathy Thomas, who was working as a confidential informant, confronted Denise Williams about the murder. In the February call, Thomas testified Winchester told her in 2003 what had really happened to Mike Williams and she knew Denise was involved. Twice during the call, Thomas accused Denise of plotting the murder and she did not react or deny the charge, instead redirecting the conversation. “It’s not what she said, it’s what she doesn’t say,” Fuchs explained, asking jurors to use their common sense when deciding her guilt or innocence.
Way told the jury that after years of investigation, the evidence presented amounted to just a few concert tickets, life insurance documents and photos of the search for Mike Williams. The evidence was displayed on a single table. “We have some pieces and some guesses, but without Brian Winchester, it doesn’t amount to anything,” he said. “All of the things presented to you by the state attorney to suggest corroboration do not prove anything. They never have, they never did and never will.”
In his closing arguments, Way told jurors the case before them wasn’t about justice for Mike Williams. Fuchs countered by saying his opponent was wrong. “This absolutely is about justice for Mike,” he insisted, pointing to Denise Williams. “This is about holding that person accountable for what her role is.”
Fuchs closed with a photo of Denise Williams juxtaposed with a photo of Mike Williams’ skeletal hands still wearing his wedding ring. “Mike Williams was a devoted father; he was a devoted husband. Mike Williams died with his ring on,” he reminded jurors. “The only part of that, that Denise Williams took to heart is the death do us part.” He then removed the gold band from his pocket and dropped it on top of the partition behind which the jury sat. The sound reverberated through the hushed court room. “So, she took it to the extreme and she, along with Brian Winchester, made sure that death did them part.”Source: Karl Etters and Jennifer Portman, The Tallahassee Democrat, December 14, 2018.
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