The Pastor's Wife

by Diane Fanning

  “Did you ask her the question, ‘Did you shoot your husband?’ Did you ask her that question?”

  “I think the way I asked her was, ‘Why did you shoot your husband?’”

  “Listen to my question. Did you ever ask her, ‘Did you shoot your husband?’”

  “I’d have to refer back to the transcript. I’m not sure.”

  “…Did you ever ask her if she intentionally pulled the trigger?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you ever ask her if she accidentally shot her husband?”

  “No, sir.”

  “When you tell her that making a statement would only help her, was that the truth?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How did it help her?”

  “By resolving the matter, we moved on, we got the kids taken care of.”

  “Oh, by making a statement, you inferred it would help the children?”

  “By resolving this, putting it to closure, the kids were going to go through all this…”

  Farese interrupted. “Listen to my question. You inferred to her if she made a statement, it would help her children, yes or no?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “…You’ve been an investigator twenty-one years, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve seen all sorts of crimes, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve seen crimes that have involved elaborate planning, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve seen crimes that involve very little planning, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What evidence do you have that Mary Winkler intentionally shot her husband?”

  Freeland objected to the line of questioning again. After a conference at the bar, Farese carried the shotgun in its case up to the witness. He held it straight up in the air, the stock-end resting in his hand, the barrel-end pointing to the ceiling. “Would you please remove the gun from its case, sir?” Stabler pulled it out and Farese continued. “Agent Stabler, would you stand and safely demonstrate to the jury—if you need to have more space to make yourself comfortable, I’m sure the judge will accommodate you. Would you please demonstrate to the jury how that gun is loaded?”

  “How it’s actually loaded?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He handled the weapon as he spoke, pointing to different parts of it. “My training is with two types of loads, we call it combat load and tactical load. Basically you can drop a shell in the open chamber and close the action and you’ve got a round chambered.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And underneath you can put in multiple shells in the bottom portion of the shotgun.”

  Farese asked a few questions about the loading of the firearm and then said, “I’d ask you to remain standing and get it ready to rack again.”

  Stabler pulled back on the slide, positioning the shell, as the unmistakable noise echoed in the courtroom. Farese took back the weapon and said, “Now you and I are about how far apart?”

  “About six feet.”

  “About six feet. And when I rack this gun, it makes a distinctive sound, does it not?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s fairly loud, would you agree?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You had no trouble hearing that, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “And if a man is familiar with a pump shotgun, that’s a very distinctive sound to him, is it not?”

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  “It could be dark, lights could be off, and you hear that, you know what it is.”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  Farese then questioned him about the trigger pull on this gun—how many pounds of pressure were required to pull it. Stabler made a guess. Farese contradicted him and hassled him about his incorrect answer. Freeland objected that Stabler was not qualified to answer the questions.

  Farese snapped back, “Who’s qualified? He’s answering, Your Honor.”

  When they returned from the bench, Farese asked more questions about the firearm, this time regarding the weight of it. Stabler resisted all of the attorney’s attempts to get him to make an estimate. Farese changed his tack: “If you were carrying this firearm for a fairly long time, how would you hold it?”

  “Generally when I hunt, I’ll carry it across the chest, carry it over my shoulder for a little bit.”

  “Because of the weight?”

  “The weight and just the discomfort of holding your body in one position for a long time.”

  “But you don’t carry it like this?” Farese said, pointing the gun straight ahead.

  “I don’t, no, sir.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Safety reasons.”

  “Safety reasons. Because if you agree with me, if I held this gun in this position and I have my finger inside the trigger housing, that, number one, with my arm extended, as time passes, the weight becomes heavier and drops,” he said as he lowered the barrel of the gun. “Would you agree with that?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “If I am not careful, it will sympathetically put pressure on your right hand and may cause you to pull the trigger? Would you agree with that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You don’t agree with that? Why don’t you? Tell me why.”

  “I don’t agree with you, because I don’t know that.”

  “…Let me ask you this: Could a meteorite hit you in the head right now?”

  “I guess it’s possible, yes, sir.”

  “But this is not?”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t possible, I said I didn’t know.”

  “Could that be correct?”

  “…I said I don’t know,” Stabler repeated.

  “It’s possible for a meteorite in the head right now, but it’s…”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” said Freeland in an exasperated tone. “It’s argumentative.”

  The judge sustained the objection.

  Agent Chris Carpenter from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation took the stand and told the jury about the time he spent in the Winkler home at the crime scene, and the statement he’d took from Mary in Alabama. He explained the TBI policy not to make audio or video recordings of interviews. He testified that the written statement was in his handwriting, and it was initialed and signed by Mary.

  On cross-examination, Leslie Ballin questioned him first about the search of the parsonage, and then said, “But in Orange Beach, you did go into the van?”

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “Why did you go into the van? Were you going to drive it?” Ballin asked with a smirk.

  “No, sir, I was not.”

  “Why did you go into the van?”

  “Looking in the van for any evidence related to the investigation.”

  “Would ammunition be something that you would consider relevant to the investigation?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was there any ammunition?”

  “None that I found.”

  “Well, if you expect the people that work under you to be complete,” Ballin said in reference to a comment Carpenter made during direct examination, “don’t you expect that of yourself?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You looked in the van, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t look in the entire van. I kept my observation and searching through the passenger area.”

  “Who looked through the entire van?”

  “No one looked in the entire van. Special Agent Booth searched through the trunk area and I searched the passenger area.”

  In an angry voice, Ballin shouted, “You didn’t want to look any further, is that your testimony?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why didn’t you look in the van, sir?”

  “I did look in the van.”

  Ballin spewed, “Why wouldn’t you look thoroughly in the van, sir?”

  “I did look in the van, in the area I was respon
sible for.”

  Ballin pounded on the podium and continued shouting. “Who was responsible for the areas that you weren’t?”

  “As I testified, Special Agent Brent Booth.”

  “And you were convinced that the van had been looked at, searched thoroughly, before the authorities released it?”

  “As you have been reminding me regularly about accuracy and de pen den cy and honesty with the people I work with, Special Agent Booth told me that he had searched the rear of the van.”

  Waving his arms wildly in the air, Ballin shouted, “Thoroughly?”

  “Yes, sir, he…”

  “Completely?”

  “Yes, sir, he said he searched it.”

  “And you relied on him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you believed that he searched it?”

  “Yes I did.”

  “And you believed that he searched it thoroughly?”

  “Yes, sir, I believed he searched it…”

  “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have released it from police custody, correct?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You would agree with that?” Ballin said in a calmer tone of voice.

  “I would agree: Until we had searched it, until we were satisfied, we would not have released it.”

  “April the sixth of oh-six is the day that you saw Dan Winkler, correct?”

  “I would have to see something to refresh my memory.”

  Ballin retrieved the document from the court clerk and gave it to Carpenter, asking him what it was.

  “This is a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation property receipt form dated April sixth, 2006. It is where I received from Mr. Dan Winkler an orange tackle box,” Carpenter said.

  Ballin asked several questions about the item’s physical dimensions and then asked, “Did you send that tackle box or its contents for fingerprint testing?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Would that be because you don’t want to waste the TBI’s time or money?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “It sure is,” Ballin said with his hands on his hips.

  “Repeat it.”

  “Would you agree with me that, because you were convinced that the van had been thoroughly searched in Orange Beach, it would have been a waste of your agency’s time and money to fingerprint it?”

  “No.”

  “Did you fingerprint it?”

  “No.”

  At 6:15, Carpenter stepped down from the witness stand, prompting Judge McCraw to say, “I think this is a good place to stop for the day.”

  The long day of testimony etched weariness across the faces of the jury members. They packed up their belongings and headed for the bus. Dinner and bed awaited, and another day filled with more witnesses would come all too soon.

  Chapter 40

  Even though it was a Saturday morning, court was in session at 8:15. Judge Weber McCraw saw no sense in making a sequestered jury sit around the motel with little to do for two days straight. It was more than the day of the week that was different about this session. The sheriff’s department had ramped up security that morning. Prior to then, everyone walked in and out of the courtroom at will. There were plenty of deputies around, but they didn’t stop anyone. A disturbing phone call changed all that. A very angry man called the courthouse and voiced his displeasure that Mary was not being prosecuted “with enough gusto.”

  Starting that morning, deputies checked most bags and purses, and made each person stand still and be wanded before entering. The attendees at the day’s trial wondered if it was worth all this trouble for what was the most dreaded and boring day in any criminal trial—the financial testimony.

  First in the stand was Jana Hawkins of Regions Bank, who told the jury about the Winklers’ $5,000 overdraft and Mary’s request to remove Matthew’s name from the account.

  Next was drive-in teller Amy Hollingsworth. She appeared very nervous during the direct examination about deposits in Mary’s accounts and the phone calls she had with her over the counterfeit checks.

  When Farese approached the podium, it was obvious that the prospect of cross-examination terrified Amy. The defense attorney gave her a hard time for referring to the bank accounts as Mary’s when she couldn’t say if they were individual or joint accounts. He then got on her for accepting the deposit of the fraudulent Canadian Trust check. By the time Farese released her, she appeared on the verge of tears.

  She was followed on the stand by Paulette Guest, another bank teller at Regions Bank and a member of Fourth Street Church of Christ. She related her telephone conversations with Mary about the insufficient funds for the deposited checks she had written on the First State Bank account in Henderson. She testified that she explained to Mary that what she was doing was a criminal offense called “check-kiting.” She told the jury that she reminded Mary to come in to the bank with Matthew the next morning at 8:30—the morning of March 22.

  Ballin cross-examined her. “You did not, according to your answer to Mr. Freeland, ever talk to Matthew about the account, but you tried?”

  “I don’t know when I tried.”

  “But you know you tried.”

  “I don’t know that I tried.”

  “But you do remember trying to call Matthew, leaving a message, ‘This is Paulette at the bank, you need to come in and talk to me about your account’?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Do you deny doing that?”

  “No, sir, I don’t deny doing it.”

  “In addition to calling Matthew and leaving messages, which you may or may not have done, did you ever talk to him at church about it?”

  “No, sir, I did not.”

  Ballin then elicited from her that she’d explained to Mary that the overdraft situation was not dire—there were ways to work the problem out—but the conversation seemed to be going over Mary’s head.

  After Paulette, April Brown, a corporate fraud investigator for Regions Bank, testified about deposited checks and telephone transfers Mary made between the different accounts at her bank. She explained that when the balances of all the Winkler accounts were combined, the Winklers were still overdrawn by $3,000.

  Freeland next called First State Bank employee Judi Mills to the stand, who testified about the activity on Mary’s account there. The prosecution wanted her to testify as an expert on check-kiting, but the defense objected and Freeland dropped the request.

  With the minds of observers in the courtroom sufficiently numbed by the banking testimony, Freeland livened things up a bit by bringing in a firearms expert, Special Agent Steve Scott. On direct, he testified about the murder weapon and about his examination of the green sweatshirt and red T-shirt worn by Matthew Winkler when he was shot. He said, “I found no dysfunction in the firearm that would cause it to fire unless the trigger was pulled with three and three-quarters pounds of pressure.”

  Steve Farese seemed to relax a lot with this witness. Some tension drained away from his features and posture. In fact, at times, the exchange seemed more like friendly banter between old buddies than a cross-examination. “Could I summarize your testimony in twenty words or less, saying that the shotgun did fire the shell that was in the gun, the pellets and the wadding probably came from that shell and the pellet that came from that shell made the holes in the shirts and penetrated the body?” he began.

  “That’s probably accurate.”

  “A lot shorter that way,” Farese said with a grin.

  Scott returned the smile. “It is a lot shorter, yes.”

  “A couple of things I’d like to ask. You were asked a question about what would cause the gun to discharge; do you recall Mr. Freeland asking you that?”

  “Yes I do.”

  “Probably not in those exact words, but first I need to ask you this: Is there such a thing as an accidental discharge of a firearm?”

  “There are times when a firearm can dysfunction mechanically in such a way that it can discha
rge accidentally.”

  “That’s not my question. My question is, is there such a thing as an accidental discharge by a person with a weapon that is working perfectly well?”

  “Well, let me answer your question by establishing some definitions first. When in firearms identification, when we talk about an accidental discharge of a firearm, we mean that something has dysfunctioned within the gun to cause it to discharge by accident.”

  “Can I ask one question here?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean by ‘we’?”

  “Well, I mean, those in the firearms identification field.”

  “Okay. Go ahead, sir.”

  “Then also, we, I, define someone unintentionally shooting a firearm as an unintentional discharge.”

  “I understand. Okay, then is it possible for someone, in your parlance, to unintentionally discharge a firearm?”

  “I suppose it would be, yes, sir.”

  “‘Suppose’?”

  “Um-hmm,” Scott said with a nod.

  “‘Suppose’? That’s all? You just ‘suppose’? You don’t know that that’s possible?”

  “It is possible, yes, sir.”

  “Okay, now, not only is it possible, but it’s been documented, would you agree?”

  “I have actually unintentionally discharged a firearm before.”

  “That’s my question. And you’re the expert, right?” Farese said with glee.

  “I have been qualified so by the court.”

  “Yes, sir. Now, I’ve got one other question, and I’m sorry to even waste everybody’s time, but this was a figure-eight hole on the outer garment, am I correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Could it have been because the shirt was wrinkled?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s possible.”

  “Okay, I was just wondering. Now, just a lucky guess. Now, let me ask you this, Mr. Scott: When you talked about—Have you got the firearm?”

  “Yes, I have,” Scott said, lifting it up and swinging it around.

  Grinning, Farese said, “Will you please display it in a safe manner? I know I don’t have to tell you, but I’m trying to limit my liability.”

  “I do have the safety on, sir.”

  “Thank you. You stated to the jury that it had two safety mechanisms, am I correct?”