Mary Winkler Released After Only 67 Days

After serving a mere 67-day sentence, Mary Winkler, the Tennessee wife who shot and killed her husband over one-year ago, has been set free.

On March 22, 2006, Matthew Winkler, a 31-year-old preacher, was due at an evening service at the Church of Christ on Fourth Street. When he did not show, his fellow clergymen headed over to his house to make sure that he was alright. The last thing they expected to find was the sight that awaited them... Winkler was lying dead on his bedroom floor with a gunshot wound on his back. Matthew had a wife and three children and they were nowhere to be found.

The next day, Mary Winkler was located and arrested near Alabama. She had her three daughters with her. Mary confessed immediately to the murder of her husband of ten years. The woman openly said, "He had really been on me lately criticizing me for things-the way I walk, I eat, everything. It was just building up to a point. I was tired of it. I guess I got to a point and snapped." Mary Winkler admits that she aimed the gun at her husband while the two were arguing over a financial matter, but claims that she did not intend to kill him and does not recall pulling the trigger. She did remember her husband looking up at her after he was shot and asking her why she had done it. She told him that she loved him and that she was sorry.

She was charged with first-degree murder and was held in the county jail while she awaited her trial, which would begin on April 9, 2007. She did not spend the entire pre-trial term in prison; her father mortgaged his house and bailed her out of jail for $750,000.

Walt Freeland, the prosecutor, was hoping for a first-degree murder conviction and a sentence of no less than 51 years in prison. Many witnesses testified about Matthew's good moral character and the lack of apparent problems in the Winkler marriage. Mary Winkler had been involved in several scams involving fraudulent checks and the prosecution emphasized the issue, as they believed it was the motive for her husband's murder.