GUILTY TN - Rev. Matthew Winkler, 31, shot to death, Selmer, 23 March 2006

[docwho3]

but it seems everyone interviewed talks about the pastors "super charisma"-I just wonder if this tragedy occurred because he was possibly abusing his daughters?

Or maybe the wife was afraid that the charisma would allow him undue influence in court enabling him to take custody of the children in the event of an upcoming divorce?

 

[Tammie63]

The Orange Beach, Alabama, police describe how they found the wife and daughters of slain pastor Matthew Winkler. Link to video midway down page
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/24/pastor.slain.ap/index.html

edit to add link-duh

 

[blueclouds]

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

I say a picture DOES STATE A 1000 WORDS...

take a close look at this photo.


Daddy with hand on oldest child, both smiling. The second oldest daughter SUBSTANTIALLY DISTANT FROM sister & dad, NOT SMILING WHATSOEVER.
She seems very sad.

NONE of my family photos or extended family photos on my walls at home display a similar picture.

SOMETHING IS UP WITH THIS FAMILY.

 

[blueclouds]

but it seems everyone interviewed talks about the pastors "super charisma"-I just wonder if this tragedy occurred because he was possibly abusing his daughters?

interesting. take a look at my PHOTO post. MY hunch too. I've met many a pedophile WHO'S EXCEPTIONALLY CHARSIMATIC & WONDERFUL WITH CHILDREN. Something is up.

 

[dark_shadows]

Foxnews

SELMER, Tenn. — A popular and charismatic Tennessee minister was found shot to death in his parsonage, and authorities labled his wife a suspect after she and the couple's three young daughters were found in Alabama on Thursday after a daylong search

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CNN
SELMER, Tennessee (AP) -- Matthew Winkler had been the minister at the Fourth Street Church of Christ for just over a year, and the congregation loved his straight-by-the-Bible sermons and his quiet wife, Mary.

Now church members are struggling to understand how their charismatic 31-year-old minister could have been shot to death in his small-town parsonage.

Winkler's body was found Wednesday night. His wife and three young daughters were found Thursday in southern Alabama after a daylong search.

Late Thursday, authorities said they considered Mary Winkler, 32, a suspect. She and the couple's daughters were alone in the family's van when a police officer spotted it parked along a road in Orange Beach, Alabama, about 400 miles south of Selmer.

 

[Annie]

I don't think you can conclude anything from that picture. They were probably placed in position by the photographer. One of my daughters would never smile in a picture, but smiled a lot at other times. I would tend to think maybe too much attention to another woman but hate to speculate until we learn more. Sometimes people are charismatic with everyone but their own family.

 

[cammy-g]

I feel some of these comments are extremely insensitive towards the victim. The Pastor is dead and raising speculations that he abused these children because of a normal family photo just seems like blaming the victim.

Family photos or group photos are hard to capture everyone smiling at the same time. We were at a restaurent last night and someone volunterred to take a picture so everone could be in it but this person who ntook the photo did not frame it correctly and the tops of our heads were not included. How many times have I seen photos where whoever took the picture was not able to capture a well framed picture.

It seems like with some cases like the Harvey murders that speculation that went to Kathryn Harvey murdering her own children was highly unfair. I guess this is always bound to happen, but the poor man has not even been buried yet.

Assuming that the wife may have murdered her husband, who knows what her reasons may have been, but her choice of where she fled to shows she is a little of a nut case. You do not go to Orange Beach to hide out, certainly not a spot to go hide from a psycho, so I can assume she went to take her daughters for a vacation getaway now that daddy was out of the picture but she seems clearly the one to blame. It does not look like a suicide on part of the pastor as that probably would have been stated by now in the news and also how the flyer from NCMEC said caution was advised, paints a fairly clear picture that they thought she was somehow involved in this murder.


What does seem clear is that these three children lost both a mother and father.

 

[luckyevan93]

On the news last evening, they interviewed several teens from the McMinnville, TN. church where Mr. Winkler used to be youth pastor (sorry, could not find an article on this on the www.wtvf.com website this morning) and several boys said you could go to him at any time with any problems you had and he would help you.

 

[englishleigh]

but it seems everyone interviewed talks about the pastors "super charisma"-I just wonder if this tragedy occurred because he was possibly abusing his daughters?

These "super-charisma" preacher types are usually the ones who are harsh and strict and abusive at home. I have a friend whose father was like this and he was a Presbyterian minister. He was just plain mean and barked at them all the time about Scripture and how they were sinning against God when they were just being kids, but everyone at their church adored him. My friend's mom eventually left him when the kids were all teens.

This Winkler woman didn't shoot her husband one day because he didn't take out the trash.

 

[cammy-g]

These "super-charisma" preacher types are usually the ones who are harsh and strict and abusive at home. I have a friend whose father was like this and he was a Presbyterian minister. He was just plain mean and barked at them all the time about Scripture and how they were sinning against God when they were just being kids, but everyone at their church adored him. My friend's mom eventually left him when the kids were all teens.

This Winkler woman didn't shoot her husband one day because he didn't take out the trash.

This case just seems to be full of double standards, if it was a man that killed the wife which is more often the case, he would be crucified and castrated, but since this woman allegedly killed her husband, he must have done something to deserve it.

 

[englishleigh]

This case just seems to be full of double standards, if it was a man that killed the wife which is more often the case, he would be crucified and castrated, but since this woman allegedly killed her husband, he must have done something to deserve it.

Well, but that's how it usually is. Maybe this case will be different...but usually when the man kills his wife, it's out of abusiveness or drinking, or a love triangle or something. Usually when the woman kills her husband, it's out of desperation to escape something the husband has done or been doing, or protection of the children, or herself. Women don't normally kill or resort to such violence against a spouse unless they are pushed to the brink, especially a quiet, sweet preacher's wife, as this woman was supposed to have been. I agree it could be anything that was going on here, but I am just saying...statistics show that when a woman kills her husband, it's to escape something bad that has been happening.

 

[englishleigh]

Mary Winkler is to be charged with first-degree murder.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188977,00.html

 

[MrsMush99]

There is going to be a press conference at 11:30.

 

[MrsMush99]

Here's another link: Link

 

[Lacy Wood]

The news I heard said that Matthew Winkler was "pastor of the Church of Christ in Selmer, TN."

When I had a teenage job at a radio station in Georgia decades ago, I did the Sunday morning gig, and dealt with what I considered peculiarities of the Church of Christ preacher...all music had to be a cappella and you called him "preacher", NEVER pastor! I once accidentally did an exit voiceover sayng "You have just heard preacher_______ _______ "pastor" of the ________Church of Christ", and he darn near wrecked the place slamming his chair against the wall, slamming doors of the studio, and peeling out of the parking lot. (He later forgave me for the transgression.)

We had other ministers who did programs and the C of C guy was fond of informing listeners those preachers were all going to hell and their followers with them. It was his way or burn in hell. The women who came with him seemed suppressed to me. They apparently enforced the letter of the scriptures as to women, and, as you may know, that puts women in a very lowly position. I just wonder if the outwardly perfect Winkler family had a darker underside. (That was just my experience and I don't know if other C of C churches are similar.)

 

[HeartofTexas]

I'll go out on a limb and say that this man was molesting one or more of his daughters. And, like a few others of you, I would bet the daughter not standing in front of him in the picture is a good candidate. I saw the picture referenced above BEFORE I read this thread and thought the same thing. It's not just that she's not smiling... look at her eyes... they are dead. The wife probably knew she could never win in court against this "charismatic minister", so did the unthinkable. Obviously, this is JMHO.

 

[englishleigh]

I'll go out on a limb and say that this man was molesting one or more of his daughters. And, like a few others of you, I would bet the daughter not standing in front of him in the picture is a good candidate. I saw the picture referenced above BEFORE I read this thread and thought the same thing. It's not just that she's not smiling... look at her eyes... they are dead. The wife probably knew she could never win in court against this "charismatic minister", so did the unthinkable. Obviously, this is JMHO.

This is my suspicion, too. I HATE that I feel this way, I am not enjoying the speculation...but this is what I think was happening, too...if not this, then some sort of abuse was happening to the kids, to the wife, or both. Something made that sweet, quiet, docile substitute teacher-preacher's wife blow him away.

 

[SafeReturn]

This is sad. Now these poor children won't have a father OR a mother.

 

[MrsMush99]

There are two threads on this case. I'm getting confused. Maybe a mod can merge them?

 

[CuriousAnne]

Here's another link...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/24/minister.slain/index.html

Mary Winkler had rented a condominium at the beach, Orange Beach Police Chief Billy Wilkins told The Associated Press on Friday.

Wilkins also said the children's grandparents would seek temporary custody, AP reported.

Investigators have found no evidence of a history of domestic violence, Johnson said.