By David J. Krajicek

April 20, 2007

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SELMER, Tenn. (Crime Library) - Clever jury selection by the defense and vivid show-and-tell testimony featuring a pair of "slutty" platform shoes likely saved Mary Winkler from life in prison.

The preacher's wife was convicted Thursday night in Selmer, Tenn., of voluntary manslaughter in the shotgun shooting death last March of her husband, Matthew.

U nder Tennessee law, voluntary manslaughter is a crime of passion "produced by adequate provocation sufficient to lead a reasonable person to act in an irrational manner."

Prosecutors had sought a first-degree murder conviction, which would have led to a prison sentence of 51 years.

Instead, Winkler faces a sentence range of just three to six years when she stands before McNairy County Circuit Court Judge Weber McCraw on May 18 to get her comeuppance.

The law allows good-time release after a fraction of a manslaughter sentence is served. With credit for the five months that Winkler was incarcerated immediately following the shooting, she could escape without a single additional day behind bars, although observers expect a sentence toward the higher end of the three-to-six year range.

The jury of 10 women and two men deliberated for eight hours Thursday before solemnly announcing the verdict to a hushed courtroom at the McNairy County Courthouse in Selmer (pop. 4,500).

Mary Winkler, 33, was accused of fatally shooting Matthew, 31, in the back early in the morning of March 22, 2006, as their three daughters slept nearby. To outsiders, the college sweethearts seemed to be a loving, Ken-and-Barbie couple.

He was pulpit preacher at Selmer's Fourth Street Church of Christ, a conservative denomination that takes the Bible literally.

But behind their public façade, the Winklers had a troubled relationship and severe financial problems.

After her arrest, Mary Winkler told police that she accepted abuse from her husband "like a mouse" for many years. Then she said, her "ugly came out."

"It was just building up to this point," she said. "I was just tired of it. I guess I just got to a point and snapped."

Courtroom wags believe the trial turned on Mary Winkler's compelling testimony. She revealed that her husband pressed her to engage in kinky and demeaning sex, insisting that she dress up "slutty" as a hoochie mama in an Afro wig, micro-miniskirts and footwear fit for a hooker.

 

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By, David J. Krajicek