Winkler thankful for visits with daughters

HUNTINGDON, Tenn. (AP) ‘ A minister’s wife convicted of killing her husband said Friday that court-ordered visits with her three young daughters are going well.

Mary Winkler is in a custody fight with the girls’ paternal grandparents. The children have been living with their grandparents since shortly after Winkler shot their father, Matthew Winkler, two years ago in the small West Tennessee town of Selmer, where he was a Church of Christ minister.

‘I’m just thankful that my girls are able to be with me and I’m able to be with them,’ Mary Winkler said after a brief court hearing.

Winkler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in April 2007 at a trial that drew national attention and was sentenced to three years in prison. She was granted probation for most of that sentence.

She has been meeting periodically with her children under court orders since late last year. Times and conditions of those meetings are under court seal.

‘We’re just moving forward to get back together and make our family and just love each other and take care of each other,’ she said after the hearing in Huntingdon, the hometown of grandparents Dan and Diane Winkler.

The hearing on legal matters involving the custody fight was held in private.