Prosecutors detail family?s financial woes
In a Saturday session dominated by revelations about the poor state of the Winkler family finances, prosecutors sought to show Mary Winkler?s involvement in an illegal check kiting scheme which came to a head the day she shot her husband to death.
?It would deem suspicious,? testified Regions Bank fraud investigator April Brown of $10,000 in mostly worthless transfers made from Mary Winkler?s private account, opened one month before the murder, and into one of the joint accounts she had with her husband, Matthew Winkler.
Specifically, Brown testified there were two deposits of $4,000 each and one of $2,000 made into the account the week before she fatally shot her husband in their home in Selmer. Prosecutors asserted the deposits, made through an ATM machine, were done knowing there was not money from the other bank to cover the deposits, making it a case of check kiting.
It was shown Winkler deposited checks from a mail order scam, one just two days before the murder, into her private account before transferring money to her other family accounts, causing the family, which was already having overdrawal problems, to spiral even further into financial turmoil.
Prosecutors asserted Winkler had opened the private account to deposit the bogus scam checks and then funnel them to the family accounts before it was determined the scam checks were returned as fraudulent.
Prosecutors suggested she should have known the Canadian Lottery checks were part of a scam and that she was using them trying to boost the family finances and conceal the family?s money problems from her husband.
However, defense attorney Steve Farese pointed out many people have fallen for scams which promise easy money.
?People are taken in every day all over this country and victimized,? Farese told the jury.
Prosecutors noted it was more than odd that the family?s financial woes were to be turned over to a security agency on the very morning Mr. Winkler was killed, noting Ms. Winkler always signed the checks for the family and took care of the finances.
Prosecutors brought Michelle Brown from the U.S. Post Office to the stand to show Ms. Winkler had filed for a change of address a few months before the murder, diverting the family?s mail from the church parsonage to a post office box, allegedly to conceal mail concerning their financial problems from her husband. The defense countered suggesting the move of mail was done because of a feud with neighbors whose kids were tampering with their mail after Mr. Winkler had allegedly threatened to shoot their dog.
As for shuffling funds and telephone transfers made in the days leading up to the murder, the defense referred to the family?s finances in sometimes painfully plodding detail, pointing out Ms. Winkler would often move funds from account to account to avoid overdrafts, even years before the killing. The defense also pointed out there were no unusually large purchases seen coming out of any of the accounts, even the private account of Ms. Winkler.
An assessment of the family?s finances revealed the three accounts in both the names of Mary and Matthew were in the red, while Ms. Winkler?s private account was $4,906 overdrawn.
Testimony in the Winkler murder trial will resume Monday at 8:15 a.m.