Mary Winkler’s Children Returned

Just in time to start the school year, Mary Winkler’s children have been returned to her, after several years of her in-laws trying to stop Mary from raising her children.

Mary Winkler, the woman convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2006 shooting death of her minister husband, has taken custody of her three daughters, one of her lawyers said Monday.

Rachael Putnam, a custody attorney, said the former minister’s wife picked the girls up Friday from the slain man’s parents, Dan and Diane Winkler.

“She is absolutely overjoyed,” Putnam said. The lawyer said the children will live with Winkler at her home near McMinnville, about 60 miles southeast of Nashville.

Now, when the custody hearing started, I posted a couple of times on the hearing and the participants of the hearing here and here, where I found some disturbing news about the girls time with their grandparents, and grandmother Diane is possibly a victim of domestic abuse — let me copy/paste that last part here again:

I came across something far more interesting, that seems to be glossed over by the press, in fact the local paper (picking up an AP report) doesn’t even give this any ink, and which I’d like to point out first.

Winkler said she’d told Diane Winkler about the abuse. She said Diane Winkler told her that she needed “to speak up to Matthew and tell him ‘No’ more” and that Diane Winkler said she’d gone through the same thing as a young mother and wife.

Remind me never to go to Diane Winkler for advise on domestic abuse. If Diane had been abused as a young mother and wife, it fits for me — there then is a good possibility that Matthew, at some point, witnessed this abuse. As I have stated before, children of DV are more likely to become abusers or victims as adults.

Thankfully, the County judge, the TN Court of Appeals and finally the TN Supreme Court, which rejected Dan Winkler’s appeal, had the good sense to see through Dan & Diane’s play to take Mary’s children from her.

The custody case is not quite over, but it appears to be winding down.

But, let’s hop on over to the local paper and go through some of the comments (posted at the time of this writing), which show us some of the wingnuttiest folks that are not concerned with the actual facts of the case or the children.

Perfect! This killer should be on death row, not getting custody of the children. The depth our legal system has sunk to throughout this case are amazing.

and:

SHE IS A MURDERER! I’M NOT JUDGING…I’M STATING A FACT!

(among a few other comments of this sort) A jury of her peers did not find that the prosecution made their case for murder.

So far all I have heard is that he wanted his wife to dress up in high heels and stockings. Big deal. No reason to kill anyone.

Funny thing about those shoes — folks from the same demographic typically call these shoes “stripper shoes” but apparently, they are only “high heels” when a husband forces his wife to wear them in the home.

Interestingly, the same commenter doesn’t mention the tons of pornography found on Matthew Winkler’s computer, which he watched to “get in the mood” before he would rape Mary. Perhaps, this commenter feels that as long as it is in the home, that is fine also?