00:00:04
[music playing] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: On
the same day Mike Williams and his wife Denise
planned a romantic evening
00:00:17
to celebrate their anniversary,
Mike, a loving husband and a devoted
father, also decided
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to see if he could squeeze
in a quick hunting trip that morning. Mike never returns home.
00:00:29
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Mike
vanished without a trace. In fact, he disappeared
so suddenly and completely
00:00:36
that his devastated family felt
the only possible explanation-- no joke-- was that he had
been eaten by an alligator.
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Because Lake Seminole is
infested or has a large number of alligators, there was a rumor
around that the guy probably
00:00:55
got snatched up by
a larger alligator, stuffed up under a rock, and
that alligator probably preyed
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on him until he decomposed. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
A freak accident, the hunter became the hunted.
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And that was the official story. Until around 20 years later
when investigators discovered
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what really happened
to Mike, and there was nothing accidental about it. I'm Michelle Trachtenberg and
this is Meet, Marry, Murder.
00:01:41
Mike Williams dreamed
the American dream. A house with a
white picket fence, a solid job, a beautiful wife.
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But he learned early
on that nothing in life would be handed to him
on a silver platter.
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Mike had come from
a modest background. His daddy was a
Greyhound bus driver. His mom was a daycare provider.
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And they had-- they lived
in a double wide trailer. They saved their money up. They didn't buy a fancy home.
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They wanted to save the money
to provide a good education for their sons. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Throughout high school,
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Mike worked nights
at a local market where he met the girl who
he would eventually marry,
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Denise Merrell. They were a popular couple. He played football. She was a cheerleader.
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You've heard this story before. Except these two high
school sweethearts also came with a third
wheel, a mutual friend
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named Brian Winchester. When Denise Williams and Brian
Winchester went to high school,
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they went to North
Florida Christian. And it was at North
Florida Christian that they met Mike
Williams and they
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met the woman who would later
become Brian Winchester's wife. And by all accounts, the four
of them were inseparable.
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They were fast friends. They all stayed in
Tallahassee after graduating from high school.
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MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: In 1994,
Brian and Kathy got married and started having kids.
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Mike and Denise also
got hitched in '94, but waited five years before
starting their family.
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Denise and Mike had
a very strong marriage. They had a beautiful daughter. Mike adored Denise.
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Did everything for her. Really, I mean, he
was a great husband. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Mike
wanted his daughter to grow up
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with more than he had as a kid. And with Denise being
a stay at home mom, that meant he had to
work twice as hard.
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Mike was a good family man. He was always a hard worker. Before he even graduated from
Florida State University,
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he already had a good job
as a property appraiser. And by the year 2000, he
was doing pretty well.
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He was making a couple hundred
thousand dollars a year. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Mike
was a major workaholic.
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He'd get to work early,
clock out to get home in time to cook dinner for the family.
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And then, go back to
the office to finish up his work after their
daughter had gone to bed.
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One time, Mike's boss even had
to take away his office keys to stop Mike from coming
in over the weekend.
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So how did Denise feel about
Mike constantly choosing work over their relationship?
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According to her
friends, not great. Especially since
Mike always seemed to find the time for his
other passion, duck hunting.
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When he was 15, he
started duck hunting and it became his favorite
hobby for the rest of his life.
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MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: December
16, 2000, the day of Mike and Denise's sixth anniversary.
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The plan is for them to go away
for the night to celebrate. Mike even thinks they'll
maybe take the opportunity
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to try for baby number two. But before that,
he wants to relax and do a little duck hunting.
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And so on the morning
of December 16th, he was going to go to
the Florida Georgia Line
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to Lake Seminole. And in Lake Seminole,
it's a huge area. But you see, Mike was
an avid duck hunter.
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He had his spot. He knew the areas
he wanted to go. He's supposed
to have came over
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here duck hunting that morning. And myself-- nobody else was
supposed to have been with him.
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MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
At the crack of dawn, Mike is up getting
his gear together
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and hitching his
boat up, something he has done 1,000 times before. Before dawn he
packed up his truck
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and he left for Lake
Seminole, which is about an hour away from Tallahassee. It's on the Georgia State line.
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This was something he
just really loved doing. He told his wife, I'll
be back in a few hours.
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MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Back at
home, Denise gets everything ready so that they can
leave for their trip
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that night to the nearby town
of Apalachicola as soon as Mike gets back from hunting.
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Except he doesn't. When he didn't show
up for around noon time, his wife started calling
around looking for him.
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And she finally got a
hold of somebody that had been fishing with him before. That guy got with her father
and they came over here and
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notified local law enforcement. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
The friend who Denise calls is none other
than their best high school
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buddy and Mike's
frequent duck hunting partner, Brian Winchester. Brian and his dad Marcus tell
Denise they're sure Mike's
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probably running late. But they'll go back to the
lake and check just in case. By the time Marcus
Winchester and Brian
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Winchester got out
of Lake Seminole, the weather had gotten bad. There were some local law
enforcement who responded
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and then they
contacted the Florida Wildlife Commission,
the FWC, which oversees Game and Wildlife.
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And they began a
search for what they treated as a missing person. Perhaps he got lost.
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Perhaps he has gotten bogged
down into the shallow but mucky waters. Mike would have gone
with the proper gear.
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In order to go duck hunting,
he would have had to worn waders and rubber boots. And if one was to be in shallow
water, they could easily sink.
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And the waders themselves
would pull somebody down below the water's surface. And that was the big concern.
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MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: After
searching all afternoon, there is still no sign of Mike.
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But there's no doubt
he was there earlier. Friends see Mike's
truck near a remote boat
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launch on the Florida side. Meanwhile, a helicopter pilot
spots the boat floating.
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And then, law enforcement
finds his shotgun in the boat. So they're assuming
something happened to him.
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Maybe he drowned. Mike was last seen in
what is known as Stump Lake. Body of water at
the deepest area
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is 8 feet, sometimes 6 feet,
and other times very shallow. It's called stump lake because
there were a lot of trees
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that grew out of this lake. There were a lot of rotted
trees that had fallen and the only thing
left for the stumps.
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But they would be either hidden
just below the water's surface or sticking up just above.
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MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
After days of searching and still no sign of Mike,
everyone understandably
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starts fearing the worst. I would submit that everyone
who was involved in the search
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for Mike Williams, with
the exception of maybe one or two very, very optimistic,
very, very hopeful people,
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believed that
probably after four or five days that there was not
going to be a likely recovery.
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MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
After a week, it started to look more and more
like Mike must have drowned.
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So case closed, right? Wrong. Because according
to investigators there are still a lot
of unanswered questions.
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If he had drowned,
where's his body? Because normally in this area
it would have floated up.
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And that hasn't
happened and days go by. And so since he's not-- there's no body
you have to wonder,
00:09:27
well, what could have happened? And you start ticking
off the questions. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
One of those questions
00:09:32
is why, after 10
days of searching, Mike's camouflage
hat is discovered floating on the lake.
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This was important
because it led the researchers to believe that
they didn't think might drown.
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Because the hat wasn't
located in particularly deep waters or just floating
in a huge body of water.
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This would be an area that
they should have found a body along with that hat. The body should have
risen to the top.
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It wasn't a deep body of water. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Finding Mike's hat leads investigators to
believe there may be a reason
00:10:14
why his body hasn't been found. So all I remember was it
was a hunter who went missing.
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And the rumors or the
newspaper had started suggesting that it might
have been alligators
00:10:25
or something like that. Seminole Lake has
some of the biggest alligators in the state.
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They grow to between
13, 14 feet at max and there's some
very old ones there. And they get up to 1,000 pounds.
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MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Pretty
soon, the search for Mike's body is called off,
which makes sense
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because whether he was eaten
by an alligator or not, it doesn't look like his body is
going to show up any time soon.
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Either way, by February 2001,
Denise is ready to move on. Denise has really kept a
low profile during the search.
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This has been covered
by news media, but Denise isn't
talking to anybody. She's the grieving widow.
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When the search gets
called off, she accepts the fact that Mike has drowned. That Mike somehow has died.
00:11:19
And so she calls for
a memorial service to honor her now
deceased husband. I think many in law
enforcement and many friends
00:11:30
and family of Denise,
unfortunately, probably believed that
he had passed away. And that's why there were so
many people at the service.
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Most, if not all of them
had come to the conclusion that Mike Williams was not
coming back from Lake Seminole.
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MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
In June, six months after first disappearing,
a local fishermen
00:11:53
finds Mike's waders
out on the lake, which leads many to conclude
that Mike did, in fact,
00:12:00
meet an alligatory demise. There were no teeth marks
on the victim's clothing. But an alligator
or any crocodilian
00:12:09
doesn't have to leave
a tooth somewhere in order to kill a person. They actually have
a very sensitive
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bite force when they want to. The pick up their hatchlings. They pick up things generally.
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They grab something very
gently in some cases and sink it and drown it and can
leave not even on the person.
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Yeah, it's very possible. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Thinking
that Mike's waders might be
00:12:30
a sign his body is
nearby, police divers begin searching the area. Everyone hopes
finding Mike's body
00:12:37
will finally bring some
closure, especially Denise. And this allows her to collect
on their life insurance policy.
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And Denise then will
collect more than 1 and 1/2 million dollars. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
After Mike Williams's waders
00:13:13
are found floating on the
surface of Lake Seminole, police divers are called
in to search for his body.
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They end up uncovering Mike's
jacket, hunting license, and flashlight, but no Mike.
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But Mike's wife, Denise,
is ready to move on. And successfully petitions
for Mike to be declared
00:13:31
dead, which according to
veteran homicide detective Brian Harris, is her first mistake.
00:13:39
The mere fact that
they found those items, it should have generated a
murder investigation where more
00:13:47
work should have been done. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
But while Denise appears to have come to terms
with Mike's death,
00:13:55
Mike's mother Cheryl isn't
ready to call it quits yet. Mike's mother, she's
not accepting this.
00:14:03
She's not ready to believe
that her son is dead. There are too many questions. Too many suspicious things.
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This just doesn't make sense. She's not letting go. She's not giving up on her son.
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MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Cheryl
starts putting up billboards and handing out flyers
asking the public for help
00:14:22
looking for her missing son. She is not ready to
leave any stone unturned, even when it comes to
her daughter-in-law.
00:14:31
Ever since Cheryl
Williams began, essentially, what I call her
crusade, Denise Williams
00:14:39
has been vilified
by certain parts of the Tallahassee community. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
By this point,
00:14:46
rumors are spreading
like wildfire. Everyone is questioning whether
Dennis is really the grieving
00:14:52
widow she appears to be,
but a gossip seems to be the least of Denise's worries.
00:14:59
Denise was still
a stay at home mom. She had an infant daughter. She had no ready
source of income.
00:15:06
So she needed to do things to
take care of the bills that were starting to mount up in
terms of her home, vehicle,
00:15:13
insurance, other things. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Lucky for Denise, she knows just the
way to get her hands
00:15:19
on a whole bunch of money. She has filed a
petition to have Mike declared legally dead.
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A county judge grants it. And this allows
her to move forward with getting the money from
that life insurance policy.
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And Denise collects more than
1 and 1/2 million dollars. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Right around the time
00:15:41
Denise cashes the check
on Mike's life insurance, her friends discover
that she actually
00:15:47
filed the claim less
than three weeks after Mike first disappeared. For someone to file for
insurance when you haven't
00:15:56
even recovered a
body within 19 days would seem suspicious to me. From an outside view
it may seem suspicious.
00:16:05
But one of the things that
everyone needs to remember is that the person who
was in charge of handling
00:16:12
their insurance affairs
for both Mike and Denise was the Winchester group. And that was the
insurance company
00:16:18
that was run by
Marcus Winchester, who was Brian Winchester's father. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
No surprise.
00:16:25
Mike's mother Cheryl thinks
the whole thing is pretty fishy and pushes to reopen
the investigation.
00:16:31
She is relentless. She never gives up on her son. In 2004, the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement
00:16:39
reopens the investigation
into Mike's disappearance. Because now, they have
enough evidence to say,
00:16:46
this doesn't make sense. They look back and they say,
hold on, none of it adds up.
00:16:51
No body floating up. No teeth marks on everything
that came to the surface. Something's wrong here.
00:16:58
So Cheryl has finally been
heard and the case is reopened. None of it made sense.
00:17:04
The gas tank and the
boat is completely full. The location where the boat is--
by this time, Mike's own mother
00:17:11
has done her own research
about wind speed and currents at the time that
Mike went missing.
00:17:18
None of this added up to her. She wasn't buying it. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Cheryl's persistence pays off
00:17:25
and the new investigation
starts finding holes in the original
alligator theory.
00:17:30
If someone had fallen off
a boat and they drowned, a lot of other things
are going to eat
00:17:34
them long before an
alligator touches them. They're going to have-- this part of the
United States, they're
00:17:39
going to have crawdads
on them, they're going to have turtles eating them. A lot of the things
are going to be
00:17:43
cleaning that up before an
alligator even thinks about it. That's not their food supply.
00:17:46
It's not what
they're looking for. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
But wait, there's more.
00:17:50
Alligators, in
essence, amongst hibernate in the winter time. The temperatures were cool,
in the 50s, very damp.
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When the temperatures are
in that kind of setting, alligators are not feeding. This was not feeding
season for alligators.
00:18:11
And they want to be 88
and 1/2 degrees, optimally, to be able to feed
and digest their food.
00:18:17
When they're not
that temperature, everything kind of changes. They will slow
down their feeding.
00:18:21
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Even though it's starting to look more and more
like Mike Williams wasn't eaten
00:18:27
by alligators, investigators
still can't figure out what happened to him. But while Mike's mother
Cheryl refuses to give up
00:18:36
looking for answers,
Denise Williams is moving on with her life. And right there with her
as Mike's former best
00:18:43
friend, Brian Winchester. We still don't know where Mike
is, how he died, did he die.
00:18:51
But five years have passed now. He's been declared
officially dead. And Denise and Brian get married
and they move in together
00:19:00
into the same home
that Mike and Denise had shared in Tallahassee. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
By now, the rumor mill
00:19:07
is going into overdrive. Almost everybody is
wondering the same thing. Did Denise and Brian's affair
start before Mike went missing?
00:19:17
The idea that Brian
Winchester and Denise Williams had an affair is essentially
that urban legend
00:19:22
that develops from the fact
that, yes, Denise Williams did marry Brian Winchester
many, many years
00:19:27
after Mike's disappearance. People presume that
because they got married, they must have
had a relationship
00:19:33
prior to Mike's disappearance. And that's simply not true. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
In 2007, Cheryl's
00:19:40
reopened an investigation into
Mike's disappearance starts to lose steam. You're working up an
investigation with no body.
00:19:47
And that can be very
difficult because the body itself can tell a story. It's a body of evidence.
00:19:54
And this was the challenge
for law enforcement. And as a result, you don't
get as many resources thrown
00:20:01
in on a missing person case. And hence was the case. There's no crime
scene documentary.
00:20:07
There's no preservation
of evidence. There's no preserving the
items that were recovered.
00:20:12
And so, in essence,
the case goes cold. It goes dormant. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: But
then, a few months later,
00:20:22
Mike's brother Nick gets
in contact with the police. It seems that one
of Mike's guns,
00:20:29
a 22 caliber Ruger
pistol that Mike had inherited from their
father, had gone missing.
00:20:36
By 2007, Mike's family
they're wondering, Dennis has returned all of
Mike's original weapons.
00:20:46
All of these guns
and whatever he had hunting-wise to his family. It's part of their legacy.
00:20:53
But they're missing
a weapon, a 22. And through the help
of the local sheriff and a court order,
they're able to obtain
00:21:01
that gun back from Denise. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
At this point, it's seven years since Mike
Williams first vanished.
00:21:08
Detectives are ready
to throw in the towel. But Cheryl isn't willing
to give up the fight.
00:21:13
This lady with herself, made
fliers, put them on light poles in Tallahassee. She had a picket
sign that she stood
00:21:20
out in front of the church
that the Winchester's-- Brian and Denise attended. She got funding.
00:21:27
She had big billboards
erected around Tallahassee. Have you see my son? She took out ads in the paper.
00:21:34
I mean, she never stopped. She wrote about 9,000 letters
to the governor of the state.
00:21:40
She kept it public. She never let it die. Not one of them was opened. Not one of them.
00:21:46
They were just tossed aside. It's a closed case. Not my job. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Finally,
when it seemed like all was
00:21:55
lost, Cheryl found someone
who'd actually listen and that was the beginning of
the end for Denise Williams.
00:22:03
The authorities released
a three page indictment. And it spells out what
they believe happened.
00:22:11
Something out of a bad
Saturday evening movie. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Eight
years after Mike Williams was
00:22:32
supposedly eaten by alligators
while duck hunting, Mike's mother Cheryl convinces a
Jackson County sheriff's
00:22:38
detective named Derrick
Wester that there are too many questions surrounding
Mike's strange and sudden
00:22:46
disappearance. Once I had an opportunity
to have a discussion with Miss Williams--
00:22:52
Miss Cheryl Williams, which
was Mike's mother, some of the things that she
brought up kind of just
00:22:57
made you want to
look into it more. You know want to just
track down this and this
00:23:03
to appease this grieving mother. And then, it just kind of
just snowballed into maybe
00:23:10
there really was
something happened here. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: After
taking a look into Mike's life
00:23:15
insurance arrangements, Wester
discovered there were actually three policies, one of which
had been taken out just
00:23:23
months before he went missing. And all that money
was bankrolling Denise and Brian's lavish lifestyle.
00:23:30
And I was having discussions
with some other investigators about whether or not he actually
had applied for the insurance
00:23:37
policy that the Winchester
Financial Group had wrote for him. And Brian Winchester
was the agent.
00:23:44
But I had needed Mike Williams'
picture for something. So I had his stuff
laid on my desk
00:23:50
and I pulled up the
application for his insurance-- his life insurance. And I pulled out the
driver's license number
00:23:56
and typed it into the
computer so I can get his driver's license picture. And when I typed the
number in, it popped up
00:24:01
Denise Williams' picture. I was like, well, how is this? I mean, she's not the applicant.
00:24:08
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
All of this has Detective Wester starting to
suspect Mike's policy has been
00:24:14
changed after he disappeared. Did Brian Winchester go and do
that using the him and Denise's
00:24:20
knowledge and information. And then, when they just need
a driver's license number,
00:24:24
yeah, I will
speculate, he's said, well, we just need a number. And so she pulled hers out and
they copied the number down.
00:24:31
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
But there was still more. He had a different
policy in between the time
00:24:36
he went missing and the time
she filed for presumptive death certificate. We had to check
that she had wrote
00:24:43
and signed to pay the premium
during that six month period. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Naturally, Wester
00:24:51
began to wonder just when
Denise and Brian's relationship had actually started. There was no evidence
that suggested that the--
00:25:02
Denise Williams and
Brian Winchester were having an affair. They were in close
proximity to each other.
00:25:07
All of them were. Kathy Thomas and Mike Williams
and Brian Winchester and Denise
00:25:12
Williams would go out socially. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Police
records, on the other hand,
00:25:17
told a totally different story. One night the Tallahassee
police department had called in a
abandoned vehicle
00:25:25
at a church down
the road from Denise and Mike Williams' house. They were still
married at the time.
00:25:30
The truck was registered
to Brian Winchester. They looked up the contact
number for the owners,
00:25:36
they called Brian
Winchester's house. And Kathy Winchester, at that
time, answered the phone.
00:25:41
Well, she thought
that her husband was duck hunting in Arkansas
or somewhere out of town.
00:25:49
So she called Brian's father. And by the time the
father got over there, the vehicle had
already been gone.
00:25:57
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
You'd think after all that Denise and Brian had gone
through by that point they'd
00:26:03
be able to get over anything. But seven years after
getting married, their relationship
was on the rocks.
00:26:12
By 2012, this happy couple,
Denise and Brian, not so happy anymore. Apparently, Brian has a
little sex addiction problem.
00:26:22
And that's enough for Denise
to say, I'm out of here. So Denise decides she's
getting out of the marriage
00:26:29
and she and Brian separate. And so he's no
longer with Denise, but he still loves
her very much.
00:26:36
He still is so
attached to Denise. That's the love of his life,
or at least in his mind.
00:26:42
By 2016, the marriage
is going to end. They were separated. Some periods of
getting back together.
00:26:51
But Denise has had enough. She has now filed for divorce. In August of 2016, something
kind of bizarre happens.
00:27:01
Denise is driving on
her way to her job at Florida State
University when all of a sudden Brian Springs from
the backseat and basically
00:27:12
attacks her. He starts shouting
demands at her. Something out of a bad
Saturday evening movie.
00:27:19
He pops up from behind the
seat and he kidnaps her. And he holds a weapon to her.
00:27:26
And he's pleading for her to
keep their marriage together. And then, she's
trying to calm him down.
00:27:33
And he's basically sort of
delirious and he's angry and he's desperate. And he says, look, I'm
not going to kill you.
00:27:41
But I don't have
anything to live for. I don't want this divorce. I don't want this divorce.
00:27:45
But if you want
a divorce, I just don't have any reason to live
and I'm going to kill myself.
00:27:48
And she calms him down. She says, please,
Brian, just calm down. Just calm down.
00:27:53
You'll be OK. Everything will be fine. So she calms him down, she
takes him back to his vehicle,
00:27:59
she promises him she
won't talk to the police. Just calm down, Brian. Everything will be OK.
00:28:04
And when she leaves him, she
goes straight to the police and she tells them
what happened.
00:28:09
And when they did eventually
apprehend him for that, he had a tarp and he
had bottles of bleach
00:28:17
and he had other
items in his truck that suggested that he
was probably going to kill
00:28:21
and bury Denise Williams. Brian is charged
with kidnapping, domestic assault, and burglary.
00:28:32
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
So after all of that, now that Brian and Denise
are getting divorced,
00:28:37
that's the end, right? Wrong. There's a law
that says spouses cannot be compelled to testify.
00:28:45
But these guys are
getting divorced. Now there's a criminal
case against Brian. Someone's going to sing.
00:28:53
This premise of husband
and wife privilege was very beneficial
to Denise initially.
00:29:00
She knew that Brian would
never say anything against her and vise versa because
they were in on it.
00:29:07
They were co-conspirators
in this death. They were in on it. And so by both of their actions,
their silence was sealed.
00:29:15
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: With
their marriage over all of a sudden, Brian's
ready to strike a deal
00:29:20
with the prosecutors
who want to throw him in jail for kidnapping
Denise at gunpoint.
00:29:26
And all he has to do is lead
them to Mike Williams' body. Florida law
enforcement officials
00:29:32
hold a news conference. The reporters are all there
with their cameras set up. And they announce after
all of these years--
00:29:39
17 years Mike Williams
body has been found. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: In
return for finally giving up
00:29:50
the goods, Brian Winchester
gets himself off the hook for kidnapping his ex-wife.
00:29:57
Brian Winchester got
the deal of the century. Brian Winchester was facing
life in prison for kidnapping
00:30:04
Denise Williams at gunpoint. He was two to three months
away from going to a trial.
00:30:11
Brian Winchester had been
in jail for almost a year-- a little over a year. And when faced with the prospect
of having to go to trial,
00:30:21
looking at life in
prison, he approaches the state attorney's office and
offers to tell them a story.
00:30:29
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: 17 years
after Mike Williams vanished without a trace, Denise
Williams is formally charged
00:30:36
with killing her husband. And according to
Brian Winchester, she's the one who
planned his murder
00:30:43
down to the very last detail. Brian is the star witness. And he says, yes, I
pulled the trigger.
00:30:52
But Denise was the mastermind. In May of 2018, Denise
Williams is leaving her job
00:31:19
at Florida State University. She's on her way to
go find her daughter and celebrate her birthday.
00:31:24
Well, police show
up and handcuff her and take her into custody. Denise is under
arrest for the murder
00:31:31
of her husband Mike Williams. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: For
Mike's family and friends,
00:31:39
really, the entire city of
Tallahassee Denise's indictment marks the end of a
17-year-old mystery.
00:31:48
The courtroom was kind
of like a little circus. I mean, essentially,
everybody in town
00:31:53
had thought Denise Williams
was guilty for years and years and years. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
It seemed like everyone
00:31:58
showed up to watch Denise
finally face justice. Ironically, some people
believed that she
00:32:05
was actually the victim
of a grave injustice. Because while Denise was
facing life in prison,
00:32:12
Brian only received a relatively
light sentence for kidnapping and wasn't charged at all for
the killing of his old friend.
00:32:21
He knows where the
body is buried because he killed Mike Williams. By offering the body and by then
adding a little extra, which
00:32:30
is you can go after
Denise Williams, I'll make up a story for you. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: But
Denise seemed to be completely
00:32:37
relaxed during the trial. She was very, very,
very, I don't know, cold but not responsive.
00:32:44
Kind of almost robotic. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Denise
insisted she was innocent.
00:32:49
Her lawyer claimed she
had always believed Mike had died in a tragic accident. But the cops know
all the details.
00:32:57
They know all the information. They know where the
bones were buried. They know the details
and the motive
00:33:03
and the why this has happened. Somebody talked. Somebody laid out the plan. This was a plan laying in wait.
00:33:14
And 17 years later,
it all came unraveled. I mean, they
turned on each other. Ultimately, bottom line is that
those two turned on each other
00:33:24
in the end. And it's a direct
result of Cheryl Williams' one woman army. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
In detailed testimony,
00:33:35
Brian gave up the goods. So Brian says he and Denise
start having an affair. And that affair started three
years before Mike disappeared.
00:33:45
Three years before
he was killed. And in that time,
they're thinking, how can we be together?
00:33:52
Because see, Denise's family
doesn't believe in divorce. And so Denise was like, you
know, I can't really do this.
00:33:58
So how are we going
to be together? MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
For three years, they'd planned a
secret rendezvous
00:34:04
in back seats and hotel rooms. On double dates
with their spouses they'd still away kisses when
Mike and Kathy weren't looking.
00:34:13
Nine months before Mike
Williams disappeared, Denise and Brian started
hatching their plan.
00:34:22
They conspired to
kill Mike Williams. She wanted Brian
to kill his wife and help her kill
Mike, her husband.
00:34:35
But an ironic twist, if you
can say Brian has principles, Brian told Denise,
I can't do that
00:34:44
to the mother of my children. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: The
morning of December 16, 2000,
00:34:50
Mike Williams didn't
go to the lake alone. As best we can gather and from
what Brian Winchester testified
00:34:57
to, he had made arrangements
with Mike Williams on the evening of
December 15, 2000,
00:35:06
to go hunting with Mike
out at Lake Seminole. No one knew that
Brian Winchester and Mike Williams were going
to be hunting together.
00:35:14
Mike's mom is right all along. Mike would not go
out hunting alone. He had a buddy.
00:35:19
And his buddy was Brian. It was going to
be Brian and Mike. They're going to do a
little duck hunting.
00:35:26
He stated that he had
met Mike Williams over here in Jackson County
at the boat ramp.
00:35:33
They had launched the boat. It was a little
15-foot [inaudible] with a GO-DEVIL
motor on the back.
00:35:40
According to Brian Winchester,
who's really the only person who knows what happened, he
and Mike got in a small boat
00:35:48
and pushed off from a landing. They weren't on the water very
long before Brian Winchester
00:35:55
adjusted the boat in
such a way that Mike Williams fell overboard. As Mike Williams made his
way to a Cyprus stump.
00:36:03
Mike Williams had
stood up in the boat. Brian Winchester pushed him out. They were dressed in
a duck hunting gear,
00:36:12
which included a set of waders. And it was Brian Winchester's
thought and anticipation
00:36:18
that he would fall
into the water and the waders would
fill up with water and he would get to
the bottom and drown.
00:36:26
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Brian's plan didn't work out the way he thought. And a big reason why is because
Mike had practiced taking
00:36:34
off his waders underwater. So he was able to keep his
head above the surface. It's not called Stump Field
or Stump Lake for nothing.
00:36:43
Mike was able to when he was
tossed out of the boat grab on to a stump. He was able to tread
water, so to speak.
00:36:52
Stay above water and he began
hollering and yelling for help. And Brian Winchester
freaked out.
00:36:58
He didn't know else to do. Brian Winchester circle around
him approximately three times.
00:37:04
And then, while looking
directly at Mike Williams, he shot him in the face
with a 12 gauge shotgun
00:37:11
at a distance of
less than three feet. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Shooting Mike in the face
00:37:18
wasn't exactly part
of the plan to make it look like a drowning. A gunshot wound meant he'd
have to cover his tracks.
00:37:25
He drug him back
up to the hill, he'd backed his
vehicle down here, and loaded him up into
the back of his vehicle.
00:37:34
He then took the
boat and drove it around to where it was found. Then he walked to the
shore, walked down
00:37:41
the road back to his truck, and
then drove back to Tallahassee. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Brian knew
00:37:46
that he'd be looking
for Mike's body so he made sure they wouldn't
look in the right place.
00:37:52
In the afternoon, he
took the body to Kerr Lake and buried it in a shallow
grave next to the waterside.
00:38:02
Brian is the star witness. And he says, yes, I pulled
the trigger but Denise was the mastermind.
00:38:11
Denise was the one who
came up with the idea. It was all about Denise. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
After 17 years
00:38:19
of lies, when justice finally
came for Denise Williams, it came fast. Brian's story is very likely
and the jury believed so, too.
00:38:29
And Denise Williams is
convicted on all charges. Conspiracy to commit murder
and accessory after the fact.
00:38:39
And she's sentenced
to life in prison. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Denise
Williams' lawyer believes
00:38:45
Brian Winchester got away
with murder by being given the opportunity to
incriminate his ex-wife
00:38:52
in return for revealing where
he'd hidden Mike's body. One of the things
he said on the stand
00:38:59
was that Denise Williams
wasn't on the lake that day when he killed Mike Williams,
but she was in his head.
00:39:06
I mean, if you kill
somebody and you bury them in a shallow grave,
you know where the body is.
00:39:12
And obviously, the
government wanted the body. And Brian Winchester was the
only person who knew where
00:39:19
Mike Williams remains were. And so he turned that into
you know the key component
00:39:25
of the deal of the century. I'd asked to Brian Winchester
received immunity, this case
00:39:32
in-- wouldn't be solved. Mike Williams' remains
wouldn't have been found and Cheryl Williams
wouldn't have got closure.
00:39:42
So I think that it's a
decision that a prosecutor has to make daily about you know
what you have to give to get.
00:39:49
To me, it's the case
that's the biggest tragedy of my career in terms
of an innocent person being
00:39:55
convicted. It's not the most
salacious case. It's not the most violent case. It's not the most
complicated case.
00:40:03
But it is a case where
you're left at this position that the essential mob
mentality in the community-based
00:40:10
perception was more of a factor
than the actual trial itself. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
For planning and cashing
00:40:16
in on her husband's
murder, Denise Williams is sentenced to life in
prison without the possibility
00:40:23
of parole. Any way you cut it, the
murder of Mike Williams is a tragic story and
a chilling reminder
00:40:30
that the person most
likely to kill you may be the person you married. Denise Williams is a
cold calculating woman.
00:40:37
Was very manipulative
of the men in her life. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
I'm Michelle Trachtenberg.
00:40:43
And I'll see you next time
on Meet, Mary, Murder. [music playing]