Minister?s wife ?not violent? despite murder charge
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?She?s not a threat to the community at large or to herself,? defense lawyer Steve Farese said as he prepared for a bond hearing today for Mary Winkler.
Winkler, 32, has been jailed without bond since March 23 on charges she murdered her husband, Matthew Winkler, 31, at their Church of Christ parsonage in Selmer, a small town 80 miles east of Memphis.
Farese said he planned to call members of Matthew Winkler?s church as character witnesses for his client at the hearing.
?She?s not a violent person,? Farese said. ?She needs to be out where she can be with her children. She has a place to live. She has a job waiting.?
Winkler is scheduled for trial Oct. 30.
Authorities and defense lawyers refuse to discuss a motive for the killing, but Farese said a statement Winkler made to police may be presented at the hearing.
Investigators call the statement a confession, though defense lawyers disagree with that description.
?I don?t see any motive in there,? Farese said.
Farese and fellow defense lawyer Leslie Ballin say they plan to give Winkler?s trial jury a history of the couple?s 10-year marriage.
?I?m not aware of what I would call a motive. I?m aware of a chain of events that have been going on for years,? Farese said, declining specifics.
Prosecutor Elizabeth Rice refuses to talk about the investigation or why authorities believe, according to Winkler’s indictment, that the killing was premeditated.
Farese said Winkler saw her daughters Sunday for the first time since her arrest when Matthew Winkler?s parents showed up unannounced with the children at the Selmer jail.
It wasn’t the kind of meeting defense lawyers had hoped for.
?We didn?t necessarily want them to see their mother in jail,? Farese said. ?Now don?t get me wrong, she was happy to see them, but it could have been handled better.?
The older children, 8 and 9, broke into tears while talking with their mother through a glass partition, Farese said, and the youngest child, 1, was held up so Winkler could wave to her.
?It was a traumatic event,? he said.
Farese said he did not want Winkler talking to her husband?s parents without a defense lawyer present.
?You don?t want people talking to your client who may say she said something she didn’t say,? he said.