?I knew I would get caught? – Winkler?s confessions to police revealing
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Those confessions took center stage Friday during the second day of her trial for the murder of Matthew Winkler.
In one of the confessions, Winkler noted she did not recall retrieving the pump shotgun from the bedroom closet or anything else before hearing the gun go off, something different from her earlier confession made to Alabama Bureau of Investigation agent Stan Stabler in which she recalled the moments leading up to the shooting.
?I kept losing my balance. I always thought it was going to kick hard,? Winkler could be heard telling lawmen during her tape-recorded statement to the ABI made prior to her confession to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Her statement about steadying herself by her husband?s bedside in preparation to fire the shotgun came even as her defense continued its move to show the shooting may have been an accident.
The defense has suggested she may have pulled the weapon to get her husband to listen to her but that she accidentally pulled the trigger when she panicked.
Winkler, while saying she did not plan to kill her husband, did admit she had thought about it before.
?It?s crossed minds,? Winkler continued in the recorded statement, suggesting her husband had also made threats against her. ?Threats were made, to me as well.?
Winkler said at the time of the shooting she recalled hearing the boom, noting it was not as loud as she expected it to be.
?I went over and wiped the blood off his mouth with a sheet. He asked me why and I just said I was sorry,? Winkler said in her statement to the TBI made two days after the crime, recalling what her husband said to her as he lay dying on their bedroom floor. ?He had been onto me lately, the way I walked, what I ate. I guess I just got to the point where I snapped.?
Winkler was not specific about what caused her to shoot her husband of 10 years inside their church parsonage near Selmer, recalling only that the couple was having financial problems because of her ?bad bookkeeping? and that her husband had ?ranted? the night before the shooting about problems at the church where he was minister.
?I had an uneasiness about me,? Winkler said of the restless sleep she had the night leading up to the shooting.
Winkler said she left the scene almost immediately, telling the children their daddy had been hurt by a ?bad man,? adding she did not pack items for the hasty departure. The shotgun used in the killing, however, was found in the van by lawmen when she was stopped in Orange Beach, Ala., the following day.
?I knew I would get caught,? Winkler told the TBI, noting she decided to spend what time she had left with her daughters in the resort town. ?I didn?t pack anything. I just wanted away.?
?I wanted to take them to a beach,? Winkler said of fleeing with the children to Orange Beach after the shooting. She noted she planned to return to West Tennessee after spending the night in Orange Beach but had no firm plans of how she would address her husband?s murder. ?I hadn?t thought it through exactly.?
Winkler, under constant urging by the ABI during her first confession to give a reason for the shooting, kept resisting comment, saying she was afraid what the media would make of her words. She went on to describe her husband as a ?mighty fine person,? adding he had not physically abused her although there was one occasion while they were serving at a church in Pegram where she felt threatened.
?Something life threatening,? Winkler said of the incident in Pegram, allegedly brought on by her husband?s adverse reaction to prescription medication.
As for problems in their marriage, Winkler suggested in her confession that she felt dominated by her husband.
?The first of our marriage, I took it like a mouse. My mom took it from my dad,? Winkler can be heard saying on the tape, noting she had a change of attitude. ?I have nerve now. I have self-esteem.?
The agent, in talking to Winkler, told her it was hard to imagine what would have prompted her to kill her husband in his sleep.
?I don?t think you are a cold-blooded killer,? said Stabler, who would later note he said things Winkler wanted to hear during his interview, hoping to get the truth of what happened.
While it took the state less than an hour to play her confession and hear testimony from agent Stabler, defense attorney Steve Farese took most of the remainder of the day cross-examining him.
Farese spent some of his time questioning how the ABI could overlook an orange tackle box containing shotgun shells, something Mr. Winkler?s father, Dan Winkler, said he found while cleaning out the van weeks after the crime. Stabler said he did a thorough search of the van and found the shotgun but no box containing shells.
Farese also suggested Stabler was playing on the emotions of the defendant by constantly bringing up her children as a hot button to get her to resume talking.