The Pastor's Wife (20 page)

Judge McCraw didn't like leaving jurors idle all day, but in rural areas of the Bible Belt, court on Sunday was not an option. He reconvened the courtroom on Monday morning, but the trial itself got off to a late start. One of the male jurors was dismissed for a minor, unexplained reason. Sue Allison, court spokesperson, assured the media that it was simply business as usual, there was no mysterious subplot and nothing malicious was going on behind the scenes.

When testimony began, Doctor Staci Turner, forensic pathologist and assistant medical examiner, took the stand to tell the jury about the autopsy she'd performed on Matthew Winkler's body. As the doctor detailed the victim's injuries, Mary Winkler looked down sniffling and wiping her eyes with a tissue. Turner corroborated the earlier testimony of Sergeant Rickman, saying that the aspirated blood on his mouth indicated that he'd breathed for some period of time after he was shot. She added, “I would expect him to die within minutes.”

The next witness was Matthew's mother, Diane Winkler. She appeared determined to maintain her control throughout the ordeal. Thick, chin-length brown hair framed a stern face. Her eyes were deep hollows, her lips a ribbon of disapproval. Across the courtroom, her husband Dan sat forward in his seat, his hands folded on his crossed knee. His dark hair had a startling swath of white in the front, a slight splashing of gray at the temples. His
firm jaw and straight nose gave him the look of a patriarch. Typically, compassion and understanding resided in his eyes. But as he gazed on his wife in the witness stand, those emotions were replaced with a determined intensity and focus, as if he could, with a look, instill in her the strength and fortitude she needed.

Diane started out seeming unflappable, but when she was asked about the night she learned of her son's demise, her voice wavered and she came close to tears. She pulled herself back together and donned an emotionless mask to suppress her inner turmoil.

Freeland led her through a re-telling of her experiences in the immediate aftermath of Matthew's death. Then he asked her, “Now, the girls have been back with you since late March of 2006?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, during that period of time, have you ever attempted to turn the little girls against their mother?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you attempted to poison their minds in any way?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you aware of, did you observe or did you hear, their grandfather or their great-grandmother do the same?”

“No, sir.”

 

On cross, Farese questioned Diane about keeping Mary's letters away from the children. She testified that the children opened them when they arrived, for a while. But when the correspondence grew repetitious, the children lost interest and tossed them aside after only the briefest glance. On the advice of the counselor, they held on to the daily letters and gave them to the children once a week.

“When did they start throwing the letters aside? What month?”

“I don't remember that, sir.”

“Well, was it May? Did they throw them aside in May?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“Did they throw them aside in June?”

“The answer's the same. I don't know, sir.”

“Well, you know when you talked to the counselor and told her that they didn't care about their letters anymore. You know that, don't you?”

“I don't remember the exact time, sir.”

“Was this at a time when you decided to cut off visitation with Mary after she had only one visit with her children after she'd gotten out of jail?”

“It could have been shortly after that, I don't remember.”

“Because the children enjoyed their visit with Mary, did they not?”

“They enjoyed playing with her.”

“And they enjoyed hugging and kissing her, too?”

“I don't know, sir, I wasn't there.”

“Well, you were told.”

“I don't know, sir.”

“They told you how much they enjoyed being with their mother, didn't they?”

“No, sir, they really didn't.”

“You didn't say that to the counselor, Ms. Crawford?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Are you denying that you said that to Ms. Crawford, yes or no?”

“I don't remember.”

“Do you deny that you said it?”

“I don't remember.”

Freeland objected that she'd already answered the question, bringing the defense's badgering of the victim's mother to a halt for the moment. Farese continued on to another topic. “When the children were brought to the jail to visit with Mary, were you with them?”

“I was.”

“Was that an expected visit to the jail?”

“No, sir.”

“Y'all didn't tell Mary that you were coming, did you?”

“No, sir, we didn't.”

“Mary didn't ask for the children to come see her in jail, did she?”

Nodding her head, Diane said, “Yes, she did want the girls to come see her.”

“In jail?”

“Y'all were the ones trying to work up the visit,” Diane insisted.

“In jail, is that correct?”

“That was where she was at the time, sir.”

“Right. Talking about wanting to work up the visit, we were the ones trying to get her to see her children when she was out of jail, correct?”

“Only one time that I remembered.”

“One time?”

“That
you
worked up the arrangement.”

“That I worked up the arrangement?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What arrangement did I work up?”

“Y'all were trying to work up the arrangement for Mary to see the girls one time—one time.”

“So we just wanted—Mary wanted to see her children, one time. Is that what you're saying?” Farese grew more agitated with each passing question. He paced in tiny circles behind the podium, waving his arms in the air.

“Yes, sir.”

“Where were you getting your information?”

“From you.”

“I've never spoken to you in my life.”

“From our lawyers.”

“You got your information from your lawyers?”

“Yes, sir, because that was the way it was supposed to be.”

“Yes, ma'am. I understand. We didn't talk to y'all, correct?”

“Correct.”

“We obeyed the rules. We didn't try to talk to you. Or to Mr. Thompson, correct?”

“Right.”

“We went through your lawyer, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And Mary got to see her children one time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you saying that's what we agreed to? For Mary to see her children one time in eight months?”

“That's what was worked out.”

After a pause, Farese said, “I want you to look at that jury, Ms. Winkler.”

“Okay,” she said turning in their direction.

“Look at 'em. I want you to tell that jury that ‘Our agreement was for Mary to see her children one time in eight months.'”

“That was the only agreement that was worked out between our lawyers.”

“There was no agreement, Ms. Winkler, and you are well aware of that.”

“No, sir, I am not.”

“Y'all cut off visitation,” he said, poking his finger in Diane's direction and then making a wide swing of his arm to point at his client, “between Mary and her children.”

“We cut off visitation between Mary and her girls when Mary lied to her children in the gym. But we were willing to work something else out if it was a supervised visit.”

“Did Mary lie to those children in the gym?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were you there?”

“No, sir, I was not.”

“Did you hear her?”

“I did not.”

“You're the person that told the counselor that Mary lied to her children in the gym. Is that correct or incorrect?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“Are you aware that the children told the judge that no such conversation ever took place? Are you aware of that?”

“I am, sir.”

Farese's voice shrieked up an octave. “How are you aware of that? Who told you that?”

“That was told in the juvenile court.”

“Who told you that?”

“Our counselor—not our counselor, but our lawyer.”

“Mr. Adams told you that?”

“Um hm,” she agreed.

“The children have in fact, denied…”

Freeland stood and said to the judge, “I object, Your Honor, as to hearsay and relevance to a murder trial, this is family court.”

Farese snapped back, “Nothing family about this, Your Honor.”

“The court finds it relevant,” Judge McCraw said. “But beyond that, I ask that you rephrase your questions.”

“Yes. Yes, Your Honor,” Farese said, then turned back to Diane. “Just so I'm straight on this, you know the girls have told the judge that their mother never told them any lies?”

Freeland spoke up again, “Objection as to hearsay.”

“I'll move on. I'll move on,” Farese conceded. He questioned her about Mary's house keeping and other remarks she'd made to the counselor. Then, he asked her, “Did you ever tell the children that their mother murdered their father?”

“We told the children that their mother had shot their father.”

“You didn't say ‘murdered'?”

“I'm sure we didn't. She shot him, he died.”

“You never said ‘murdered'?”

“I don't remember that we ever probably used that term.”

“What did you tell the children about why their mother shot their father?”

“We didn't know why at that time.”

“So they just made it up on their own that Mother stole money from the bank?”

Freeland objected. The judge sustained and Farese
asked, “Did Patricia ever tell you that she hoped what happened to her father was an accident?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you then in turn tell her that it wasn't an accident? That her mother shot her father intentionally?”

“We didn't know that at the time, sir.”

“Did you say that?”

“The girls loved their mother, and that has not changed.”

“And the girls still want to see their mother, do they not?”

“No, sir, they don't.”

“Well, what has changed from September of 2006 when the girls wanted to live with their mother and now?”

“Well, it's called publicity, and what's been in news papers, what's been in magazines and what they heard in school. We do not watch the news at home. We do not take newspapers. We do not take magazines. So what they found out, is what they have learned from friends in school.”

“What they have found out is what they have learned from friends in school,” he said with a shake of his head. “Let me ask you something. Have you reported that to the counselor?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That the children are learning from kids at school what's going on in the case?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So that'll be on the counselor's records about the children, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The truth is that anything that would be on the TV about Mary, you would tell the children about it and use the excuse that you didn't want them to hear about it in school. Is that correct or incorrect?”

“That is incorrect.”

“So if those records indicate that, Ms. Crawford is wrong again.”

“Sir, the only time we ever talked to the girls about anything is when they came home saying what someone at
school had seen or what they heard their parents say. And the only thing that we ever told those girls was when they would come home and ask. We always told them that we would always tell them the truth. We never went beyond that and we never dug in deep on anything.”

“What was the truth that you told them?”

“It depended on what they were asking at the time.”

“Well, if they asked, ‘Why did this happen to Daddy?' what is the truth that you told them?”

“Well, that we really don't know.”

“You didn't tell them that Mary stole money from the bank?”

“If that was one of the things made public, and that was one of the things they were asking, we would tell them that. We would not deny it, but we were not authorized to bring things up with them.”

“You weren't?”

“No, sir.”

“Who were the ones to bring things up? Go ahead, tell the jury who were the ones…”

Diane cut him off. “I just told you that—what they would hear from friends in school.”

“Okay. So, in September of 2006, this financial stuff had been brought up, is that what you're saying?”

“All I can tell you is just, when we would discuss things with them, we would not go into detail with them. They're children.”

“They're young, correct?”

“That is correct.”

“And they don't understand what's going on, correct?”

“Neither do we at times,” Diane said.

“But they don't especially, because they're children.”

“But they're very smart children.”

“They're like little sponges, they can absorb material, correct?”

“They are smart enough that they can figure things out.”

“And did Patricia figure it out that her mother was go
ing to move to Georgia, remarry and have another child? That Patricia would live with Mary and the other two children would live with you? Did she figure that all out on her own?”

Diane sighed. “That was something that she made up and told a friend at school, whose mother contacted me because she was concerned about that. And I told her, ‘I didn't know anything about that.' And we approached Patricia and asked her, ‘Where are you going with that?' And she cried and she said, ‘All I want to do is be normal and be like other children here at school.' For which, we told her that it's not the truth. ‘Your mother is not moving to Georgia…'”