Fatal Fortune: The Murder of Mike Williams Part 3

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hey, everyone, Welcome back to Exposed Scandalous Files of the Elite.
I'm your host, Jim Chapman, and today I am wrapping
up the Mike Williams story, which is a part of
my Fatal Fortune series. Now, the last time that I
left you, I brought you inside of Denise Williams trial,

(00:43):
and I covered the testimonies of Mike Williams mother Sheryl Williams,
as well as the testimony of Kathy Winchester, which, if
you'll remember, that was Brian Winchester's ex wife and at
one time part of that bestie couple duo if you will,
with Brian Winchester and Mike Williams and his wife Denise.

(01:07):
So if you haven't listened to that, go listen to it.
I also covered the fact that Brian Winchester confessed to
the murder of Mike Williams, but according to him, not
without the help of Denise. I also did not give
you any of the details, and that was intentional. Why

(01:27):
because I want you to get them directly from the
horse's mouth, or the assholes mouth in this case. So
in the next clip I'm gonna play you, you're gonna
hear the testimony of Brian Winchester, and he lays out

(01:48):
all of it on the table, from the dynamic of
the friendships to its marriage, ending to the murder of
Mike Williams. The cover up. Honestly one of the most
interesting testimonies I've ever heard out of any testimony I've
done on Exposed. So it's pretty raw. It's pretty honest,

(02:10):
though disgusting in every single way you can imagine. It's
about one hour and forty minutes in length. And here's
that clip.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Waityfady, be seated place tell you next Winnes God, it's
time to stay with it. Called Brian Winchester and mister Winchester.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Spence worn outside your present, so you may proceed.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Thank God, afternoon, good afternoon, and you just speak up
a little bit.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
Good afternoon. That Mike Finn is not doing much, so
we just need to speak up a little out.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Please please introduce yourself to the jurors.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Brian Winchester and mister Winchester. How old are you forty eight?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Mister Winchester, do you know or did you know Mike Williams? Yes, sir,
prior to two thousand. How did you know Mike Williams?

Speaker 4 (03:07):
Mike and I went to high school together and got
to know each other very well. We were very good friends.
We continue to be friends all through college and all
through UH are married getting married.

Speaker 5 (03:24):
And.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
We were we were very good friends. He was a
very good friend.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Prior to two thousand, were you married, yes, sir? And
here were you married to Kathy?

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (03:38):
And how long have you known Kathy prior to two thousand?

Speaker 4 (03:41):
From high school?

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Would you, Mike and her all go to high school
and college together?

Speaker 4 (03:49):
The four of us all went to high school together, Yes, sir.
Who's the four Denise?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Okay? And what was Denise's relationship to Mike?

Speaker 4 (03:59):
Denise and Mike were high school sweethearts. My wife, Kathy
and I were high school sweethearts. We all dated in
high school and off and on through college and then
ended up all getting married.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
It's my understanding both that you and Kathy had a child, yes, sir,
little boy, yes, sir, And that Mike and Denise had
a little girl, yes, sir. Were they roughly the same age?

Speaker 4 (04:27):
Yes, sir.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
At some point did you and Denise become an item?
I guess if you will, prior to two thousand.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yes, sir.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
When was that.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
When did it start. Yes, it's I mean the date
that we used was October thirteenth, nineteen ninety seven. There
was a lot that led up to that point, a
lot of background.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Let's talk about what led up at that point.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
As I said, she married her high school sweetheart. I
married my high school sweetheart. And at first things were
really good, I think, with all of us. But I
was not a great husband and spent a lot of
time away doing hobbies and just stupid stuff. And at

(05:34):
one point I found a note in my first wife,
Kathy's purse, and basically I came to realize that she
had been cheating on me, or or was cheating on
me with another friend from high school named Gavin, and
it crushed me. And after that happened, I began to

(05:58):
look out side of my marriage. You know, I guess
I had a lot of motivations, but it led me
to uh eventually end up with Denise. We all started
going out a lot, all be my wife and I,

(06:18):
Kathy and Denise and Mike. We started going out to
bars and concerts and drinking and doing a lot of
things that we didn't really do well. We were all
in college when probably it's more appropriate to do those
sorts of things. But we started going out a lot
of drinking, and I remember one night in particular. There

(06:40):
were several nights that we did this, but one night
in particularly, we we started talking about sex a lot,
the four of us and I, you know, I was
friends with Denise in middle school and high school, but
I was never attracted to her, uh and Hill that point.

(07:02):
And so after we started talking about sexual things and
things that married couples shouldn't be talking about with each other,
I think that's when the spark kind of started between
the two of us.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
So let's go to October thirteenth, nineteen ninety seven. You
said that's the date that you used as an anniversary
or something.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Yes, sir, we were going out, like I said, going
out a lot, and one night in particular, we were
going to Floyd's and so Denise and I we pulled
up on Tennessee Street, and Denise and I jumped out

(07:48):
of a car and left Mike and Kathy to go park
the car and went down to the entrance of Floyd's.
And that was the first place that we like kissed
each other and ate out and we had our night
out and then after we all went home, uh to
our separate houses.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Let you and the Nise made out that night, but
Mike and Kathy were present.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
They were in the car, they were parking the car.
It was while they were gone, park in the car.
And so that night just the four of us was
Lindsay Lockhart there. Not that night, not that night, not
that night, was just the four of us. And so

(08:35):
later that night, after Kathy and I went home and
Mike and a Nice went home, she and I got
on the phone together and we basically spent the whole
night talking to each other on the phone, and it
was just like, I don't know, we just we connected
like everybody else. I mean, we just really connected, and

(08:55):
we had a lot of sexual talk and had phone
sex and that sort of thing, and we agreed, and
then I met up the next day. I think we
just met during her lunch break at work. And that's
kind of what just started the whole ball rolling with

(09:15):
her and I.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Was this a one time occurrence or was it ongoing?

Speaker 4 (09:22):
Was what what a one time?

Speaker 2 (09:24):
And hers?

Speaker 4 (09:26):
Oh No, that's that's just what started it. I mean
then it, you know, it snowballed really fast. We started
meeting in hotels. We started meeting during the work day.
We started meeting whenever we had the opportunity if Mike
was at work. Mike worked a lot. He really was

(09:48):
a workaholic, quite frankly. She was not happy with with that,
and UH so we started meeting uh very regular and
having sex very regularly. Eventually we started uh going on
trips together. There was times when she and Michaeuld go

(10:10):
on trips and I would go and and meet with her,
Like if he had a conference in Panama City, I
went over and while he was in the conference, Denise
and I went to Destin together, and we took trips
to New York South Beach. We we spent a lot

(10:36):
of time together Orlando. I remember going to Orlando with Kathy.
I don't remember. I don't remember if Denise and I
went to Orlando just the two of us or not.
Probably we we went lots of places Panama City.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
During that time period. You mentioned you'd go to hotel, Yes, sir,
you meet up here in the day, Yes, sir, we're
you're at your house, yes, sir? What about her house?

Speaker 4 (11:07):
We would primarily go to her house, and it was
primarily during the work day. We would meet at home
depot parking lot, or meet behind Kaiser College and leave
a vehicle and go to her house or go to
my house. Sometimes not go to get one of our houses,
depends on how long she could be away from work.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
But where was at Her.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
House was off Meridian on Starmount two fifty six Starmount,
and I believe you have.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
A park at a Grace Lutheran Church as one of
the locations to drive to carl.

Speaker 4 (11:43):
There was a church in the woods off of Meridian,
and I would park at that church and there was
a drainage ditch that ran from the church through the
woods into her neighborhood, and I would walk down the
drainage ditch and then there was only a short distance
that I would have to walk from the drainage ditch
down star Mount to get to her house to kind

(12:03):
of be undercover, I guess, but there was a church
on Meridian when I'm sorry. On Mikasuki, I don't know
why we parked at churches a lot, but I guess
empty parking lots. But there was a church off of
Mikasuki Road that I would leave my car at occasionally

(12:24):
after they moved to uh, Mikisuki Road to me yet
as well?

Speaker 5 (12:28):
Okay, when was that well, I mean it wasn't When
did they move there? I don't remember exactly.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
I would say about a year and a half prior
to Mike's death, if I had to guess.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
And we asked questions earlier about Lindsay Lockhart. Who's that.

Speaker 4 (12:53):
Lindsay Ketchem? Yes, yes, sir, right, she was primary a
friend of Mike's, that Mike worked for the Ketchens, and
Lindsay's the Ketchum's daughter.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
What about Angela Stafford?

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Angela worked with the Ketchems as well and was good
friends with Mike, and I spoke primarily with Mike because
she worked with Mike.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
At some point, did you and miss Stafford also had
some sort of relations we.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
When you say relationship, yes, sir, I believe it was
my birthday. It was either my birthday at Angela's birthday.
On one occasion, and we wanted to go out, the
three of us, Denise and I and Angela wanted to

(13:53):
go out, and for some reason Denise couldn't go out.
I don't know if she couldn't get a babysitter or
what happened but she said no, no, you go on.
And I was like, no, you don't want me to
go out with her without you? And she's like no,
to be fine, And so Angela and I went out
and had a lot to drink and ended up back
at my house in Colin And Lakes and ended up

(14:15):
in bed together, and it was dark, and all of
a sudden, the light came on in my bedroom and
I looked up and Denise was standing there and she
said something like she said something sarcastic and said I'm
sorry or something, and ran out. And I didn't want

(14:40):
Angela to know it was Denise. I think she did know,
but I didn't want her to know, And so I
lied to Angela and told her that that I thought
it was my wife, my ex wife at that point. Kathy, Uh, but.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
So this is after my death, Yes, sir? What is
it before you and Denise and announce that y'all were
dating each other?

Speaker 4 (15:02):
Correct? We were tiding it at that point.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Talk about life insurance policies. What is it that you
did back for a living back in two thousand.

Speaker 4 (15:18):
Part of my job was to sell life insurance.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Okay, did you sell life insurance policy to Mike William.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
Yes, Sir, I sold him two different policies. I sold
him one policy early on when we talked. He may
have even well, no, we wouldn't have been in college.
It would have been right after we graduated from college. So,
which is when ninety three, ninety four somewhere in there,

(15:53):
pretty early on, because I think at first, uh he
had his mother as a beneficial sherry. That was a
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars policy, and that was
before he was married to Denise. Eventually after they got married,
he changed then inneficial on that policy to Denise. And then, uh,

(16:18):
you want me to talk about all that I know
about his policies, whether I sold him or not, or
talk about Okay, So that was the first policy that
I sold him. And then after I was that after
Ansley was born. I believe it was after Annsley was born. Yeah,
it was after Ansley was born. He uh he and

(16:41):
I talked about increasing his coverage.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Whose idea was that to increase it?

Speaker 4 (16:50):
What?

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Was it a mutual idea?

Speaker 4 (16:52):
I mean it was it was a combination of Denise
and I talking about him having more coverage and uh
he and I talking about having him having more coverage.
I mean, there was a lot of conversations behind the
scenes as to getting that new policy.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
In all honesty, having a larger policy a million dollars
on managed marrying kids making the income isn't necessary, necessarily abnormal.

Speaker 4 (17:24):
It's not a it wasn't extravagant based on the income
that he was making.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
But nonetheless there was conversations and he elected to have
a million dollar policies.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah right, he wasn't well, I think to him it
was a lot of money. I think he even had
conversations with mister Catchum about it. But he, you know,
he eventually uh decided and I think with Denise's encouragement,
decided to uh to go ahead and get that extra

(17:56):
million dollar policy.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
And when was that?

Speaker 4 (18:00):
Okay, when did he get the policy? Yes, I get
a little confused because he had one policy that was
issued that actually we didn't get the premium paid or something.
So he actually had a second policy, same thing, same company,

(18:20):
same everything. I think there was only like a three
month gap in between that, but it was within it
was within I think six months to a year before
his death occurred.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
You mentioned another policy.

Speaker 4 (18:37):
Let's go side bart for just saying we don't please
the court report.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
At some point, were you aware of him having another
policy and neighborhood of half a million dollars?

Speaker 4 (18:46):
Yes, sir, he had another policy with a different company
that he bought from a different person. I don't remember
when I first became aware of it, but I know
I became aware of it when I would have and
talking with him about a million dollar policy, and his
thoughts or intentions were that he was going to drop

(19:08):
that five hundred thousand dollars policy and replace it with
the million dollar policy.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Last past forward to the year two thousand. At some
point were their thoughts of how you and Denise could
be together? Yes, sir, How did that get initiated?

Speaker 4 (19:42):
I think I think it even started prior to that,
as as I thought about this and had plenty of
time alone to think about it. One thing that I
have remembered is the prior year, Mike and I were
on a hunting tree up together, and it was at

(20:03):
a lake that was dry, and we had to walk
across the mud, and there were places in the mud
where I don't know how to describe it, but basically
you could fall through the mud and there was nothing underneath.
It was like it was basically I guess people would
call it like quicksand and Mike fell into one of

(20:24):
those mud holes at one time, and it was just
he and I out there, and I helped him out
of it, and he had dropped his gun in there
as well, and he ended up going back in it
after his gun. But anyways, I remember telling Denise about
that and how if I hadn't have been there, or

(20:46):
if I hadn't to help him out that, you know,
it's very likely he would have disappeared. To know, he
would have known what happened to him. But that's just
something that I had remembered in the past few months
and thinking about this. But I think it was gradual
that we, you know, the more we were together, the

(21:07):
more we wanted to be together, and the more we
griped about Kathy and Mike, the more we wanted to
be together. It just kind of it, it just got
worse than were I mean, we just it just snowballed.
We just I don't even know how to describe it.

(21:28):
But so, yes, we eventually started talking about options and
ways that we could be together. And Denise, because of
the way she was raised, because of her pride. I
guess I can't say all the reasons, but she did

(21:50):
not want to get divorced and stated that she would
not get divorced, but she still had a desire for
us to be together, which narrowed the options even further.
I guess I'm sorry who options It was all of

(22:18):
our conversations and planning and everything. I would say, it's
very mutual. You know, I'm not going to sit here
and say that that. Uh, Denise planned everything, and and
you know I was just a dumb guy who went
along with what she wanted to do. I mean I
I instigated a lot of it. I helped come up

(22:40):
with ideas. I planned a lot of things, but overall
it was very mutual. I mean, we wanted to be
together and we weren't going to let anything stop that.
So over the year and a half year prior to
Myke's death, we discussed several options and alternatives of ways

(23:07):
that we could be together.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
What was one of.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
One of the options Mike. Mike worked a lot at
night up at his office, and one of the options
was that we could make it look as if there
was a burglary of some sort up at his office.
And that he got shot in some type of robbery

(23:34):
or something up at his office. Denise didn't like that idea.
I didn't like that idea, and Denise didn't like that idea,
but primarily because there would be an investigation if something
like that occurred. So another idea, We all used to

(23:55):
go out on boats a lot, and Mike had a boat.
And another option was that the four of us would
go out on a boat onto the golf, Me and
Kathy and Denise and Mike and uh, we go out
in a boat on the golf and basically that Kathy

(24:19):
and Mike would be pushed over board, and that Denise
and I would find a booie way offshore that we
could uh hold on to and either let the boat
sink or let the boat take off on its own
or whatever, and make it look like we had an
accident on the water and that Denise and I had
survived the accident.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Obviously, that's why didn't happen. Correct At some point did
the discussion turn to strictly Mike being the one that dies.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
I had no desire whatsoever for anything to happen to Cat.
I didn't really emphasize that with Denise because it was
not good for me to express affection or you know,
care about what happened to Kathy with Denise, but silently

(25:18):
to myself. I was never going to allow anything to
happen to my son's mom. So another scenario that we
came up with was Mike and I going on a
hunting trip together, uh and there being an accident where
both he and I ended up in the water and uh,

(25:42):
he drowned and I did not. Denise liked this idea
because it I don't know how to word it exactly,
but she felt better, I guess, about herself, or we
could feel bad better about ourselves if there was a

(26:02):
chance that he could make it out of it, you know.
I mean, I think there was even talk about, you know, well,
it'll be up to God what happens and not us.
It won't be a murder, It'll be, you know, an accident.
It's kind of screwed up thinking, but that was a
scenario that she could live with.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
I guess it would be fair to say that having
the attention of being a widow was far better in
her mind than being a divorcee.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
Yes, sir, better to be a rich widow than a
poor divorcee and her her biggest concern with the divorce
was she didn't want to share custody of Annesley with
with Mike. She was not going to have Annsley going
back and forth to two different houses. She wasn't going

(26:57):
to give that up.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
The droughting scenario, did you take any further steps to
make that happen?

Speaker 4 (27:13):
Like, what do you mean taking any steps to me
that happened? Like what happened? Yes, sir. So there was
a limited time that we could make that scenario occur
because it had to be during the duck season. There's

(27:33):
only certain days that you can actually go hunting on
duck in duck season, and it had to be at
a place where, in my opinion, it would have been successful,
which kind of ruled out all of the local lakes
around Tallahassee because the lakes around Tallahassee are mostly shallow lakes.

(27:55):
Seminole is a lot deeper.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Me out of the mantap questions we talked about the
life insurance policies and the five hundred dollars lapsing to
that also factor in the Aguilliam.

Speaker 4 (28:08):
Yes, sir, there were a lot of things that were
kind of pressuring us for this to happen when it did.
One was Mike had intended for that policy, the five
hundred thousand dollars policy, to lapse. He was not intended
to continue it, and so behind his back, Denise paid

(28:33):
one more I can't remember if it was quarterly or
semiannual premium, but we kept it going one more premium period,
and we knew we weren't going to be able to
keep it going perpetually, that he would eventually see this money. Hey,
he's going out of the checking account for that policy
that I didn't want anymore. So there was that he

(28:54):
was becoming a couple of things. He was getting angrier
and angrier about the fact that she wasn't having sex
with him. He and I took a trip in November
out to Arkansas together, so we spent twenty hours in
the car together, and I heard a lot about how

(29:18):
unhappy he was, you know, with Denise, and uh, he
was not happy with not having not having sex. Of
course I was. I didn't want him having sex with her.
H she didn't want to have sex with him. But
so he even talked about moving away. He talked about
moving out west, He talked about all kind of you

(29:38):
know things, But he was becoming very unhappy, and he
was also becoming suspicious. He raised his suspicions with me,
not about me, but about Denise on that trip to Arkansas,
that he thought something was going on with her. He

(30:00):
he thought she was using drugs. He thought he had
seen money disappearing. She'd been taking cash withdrawals out of
the ATM, which I knew was for travel for us
when we would go out of town, but he he
kind of thought it might be for drugs or something.
I think he even approached Denise's mom about it at

(30:21):
some point, asking her about it. But so also, their
anniversary was coming up in December and the sixteenth or
the seventeenth, I believe, sixteenth, I believe it was, and

(30:43):
he planned for them to go to Apple at Chicola
and stay at the Gibson Inn over there, and I
think made it pretty clear that he was ready. You know,
Denise didn't have sex with him while the while she
was praying and after Hansley was born, you know, to

(31:04):
my knowledge at all, unless she lied to me about it,
which she could have. But you know, based on what
Mike said, he kind of confirmed that and We checked
up on each other a lot. Denise would check up
to see if I was having sex with Kathy, and
I would check up on her to see if she
was having sex with Mike, because we, you know, we
consider ourselves a couple together. And uh, anyway, so I

(31:30):
think Mike made it pretty clear that this anniversary trip,
it was going to be expected that this was, you know,
going to be their starting over date, that it had
been long enough since Annily had been born that it
was time for them to start having sex again. I
think he was kind of putting some pressure on Denise
about that, and she did not want to go on
that trip, did not want that trip to happen.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
So it was a plan made. I'll take steps at
kil Mike.

Speaker 4 (31:58):
Yes, sir, So you know we decided that that was
the plan that we were going to go with.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Well, let me ask you a question. You earlier talked
about timing the essence because of the duck season. Why
is it important for the duck season aspect.

Speaker 4 (32:12):
Of this, Well, because that was the plan, was he
and I to be on a duck hunting trip together
and to go to Lake Seminole. So duck season only
lasted from Thanksgiving until the end of January. I may
have even been shorter back in those days, but there
was a short timeframe that that the season was in,

(32:34):
and then within that season, uh, you know, we couldn't
necessarily go every single day. You had to In some
places you can only hunt on Wednesdays and on the
weekend Saturday Sundays. But so we knew our window of
opportunity was was closing, basically, so it was decided that

(32:59):
that was the plan and we were going to go
with and we there were several things involved. Denise really
didn't have to do a whole lot other than come
up with an alibi for herself and make sure that
Mike went. I had to had to do you know more, obviously.

(33:26):
But it was decided that, uh, Mike and I would
go on this trip. I had to, you know, I
wanted to make sure he was going to show up. So, uh,
you know, there was a week prior that that this
was planned and that it that it didn't occur before
the actual time that it did occur.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Let's talk about that prior supposed to occur.

Speaker 4 (33:51):
Yes, sir, So a week prior we had it set
up that this was going to be the date that
that the trip was going to occur. So Mike and
I planned uh to go, you know, on the trip.
And then late the night before, I believe it was

(34:12):
before midnight, and I believe Mike was at his office
and he called me and he said, I can't go.
Denise has called me. She doesn't want me to go
uh on the trip. And I was very surprised, uh,
shocked kind of and UH. I was like, okay, and

(34:37):
because we had you know, mail, this plan for this
to happen. And so I can't remember when I called Denise.
I think I called her immediately after I hung up
with with Mike, uh, just to see, you know what,
what what is going on? I mean, because this isn't
something you need to be wishy washy about.

Speaker 5 (34:59):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (35:01):
And I can't I can't remember if I talked to
her that night or if it was the next day,
but we talked very shortly afterward. And basically it was
just a cold feet kind of thing and and she,
you know, got cold feet at the last minute.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
So we went was gonna happen.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
It wasn't that the plan was off, but we we
talked about it, and we we had several you know
more conversations that you know, Look, this is either we're
going to go forward with us or we're not. I mean,
we're either going to be together or not. You know,
like I said that the policy is ending. You got
that anniversary trip coming up next weekend. You know Duxy's

(35:53):
is going to be ending soon. Do you want this
to happen or not? You know, I don't want to
set these plans up if this isn't something you know,
this isn't something you need to be wishy washy about.
I guess basically, so, at some point during the next week,
it was decided again that yes, this was what we

(36:14):
were going to do.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
You're talking about you're telling her, can't be wishy washy.
Times are ending, we have a certain time frame, we
have to do this. And then it almost sounds like
you were pressuring her that whatever pressuring her.

Speaker 4 (36:35):
I don't think it was pressuring her as much as
stating the facts of this is this is the reality
of the situation. If you want this to happen, this
is the best time for her to happen. I was
not happy. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I was not
happy about the fact that we have made these plans

(36:56):
and I had committed that this was what was going
to happen, and then at the last second she backed out.
I didn't understand that, and I wasn't real happy about that.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
But we all those issues that you just talked about,
things that you previously discussed with her, Yes, time frames
and everything like that. Right, so you call her out
and you tell her all these things to not be
wishy washy. Were there other communications where she was talking
to you about putting in plans back in place?

Speaker 4 (37:28):
Right? Yeah, Well we met up eventually, and probably met
up several times that week. At that point, we were
meeting you know, a lot, and so we met I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Were talked about I met up? Am I going out
to eat? Or what are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (37:43):
No, the same as we always did, meeting during the
work day, primarily during lunches that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
So we have about sexual relations.

Speaker 4 (37:53):
Well, we didn't always have had sex every time, but
during that week, the primary reason we were meeting was
to discuss what are we going to do here? You know, what,
what's going to happen here? So we we met up
during that week and and talked about it, and uh
came to the conclusion again, and I remember where it was.

(38:14):
It was at Road and Cove at the boat ramp
at Roden Cove on Lake Jackson off of Meridian Road,
at the end of Roading Cove Road. But we decided
that that this is what we're going to do. We're
not going to back out at the last minute. And

(38:35):
and in a six sort of way, you know, it
was kind of like, you know, well, if God wants
this to happen, this is what's going to happen. Because
the plan again was that it was going to be
an accident, and you know there would be a chance
that he could get out of it.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
You see, he met up. Why meet up rather than
phone calls or something like that.

Speaker 4 (38:57):
Reason, well, that's not necessarily something you really want to
talk about on the phone. We weren't really that concerned
or paranoid about that sort of thing at that point.
But we just met up routinely because we wanted to
meet each other, because we wanted to see each other
and beat together.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
All Right, So the time you meet up at the
code and make a decision, So what's supposed to happen.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
So it's the same plan, it's it's the same night,
just a week later, and from what I remember about
that night before Mike, Mike had volunteered to ring the

(39:49):
bell for the Salvation Army like a Walmart, and Kathy
and I had planned down going out to a concert
at Floyd's, and I wanted us all to go out,

(40:09):
as I remember it, but that didn't end up happening
for whatever reason. I don't know if they couldn't get
a babysitter or why they didn't end up going out
with us, but Kathy and I did end up going
out to that concert. Part of the plan was that
I wanted Kathy to to basically be as drunk as

(40:31):
possible the night before, because I wanted her to sleep
late in late the next morning my my a, my alibi.
The plan was that all this would occur very early
in the morning, and I would have time enough to
get back and meet my father in law up near

(40:53):
it and Thomasville Road to actually go on a hunting
trip with him. So that was going to be my cover,
going to be my alibi. Her alibi was going to
be that she was at home with Annesley, and the
plan was when Mike didn't come back home that eventually
she was going to start calling her sisters and her
dad from her house phone so that she could establish

(41:15):
that she was at the house. Proved that she was
at the house with Annesley.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Okay, so what was planning to make this happen? What happened?

Speaker 4 (41:27):
So Kathy and I went out and went to the concert,
got home late. She did have a lot to drink.
There was discussion between me and Denise, and I can't
remember if I actually did this or not, or if

(41:47):
I did it the week prior or I just really
can't remember, but I remember Denise and I talking about
there was some medication, because medication that Kathy had, and
we talked about giving her a little bit of that

(42:08):
medication that would cause her to sleep really heavy and
make sure that she slept really good through all of it,
because I didn't want her to wake up and realize
how early. I didn't want her to know how early
I was leaving the next morning. So the plan with

(42:31):
Mike was that I would meet him at a gas
station on Thomasvield Road up near the overpath, well the
overpass I don't think was there at that point, but
meet him up at a gas station up near the
McDonald's up there and I met him there. I had
told him that we were going to go to a

(42:52):
secret special spot to go honting, and that he needed
to bring his waiters. I had to make sure that
he brought his waiters, because the belief was there was
kind of like a there's still it is probably like
a duck hunter's myth that if you follow overboard with
your waiters, you're going to sink really quick and drown.

(43:13):
So I had to make sure that he brought his waiters.
And so I told him about this you know, great
spot that we were going to go, and he needed
to bring his waiters. So I met him at the
gas station and I told him when he drove up,
I was real paranoid about phones and him calling me

(43:35):
and there being a record of him calling me. So
I told him that my battery was dead on my phone,
that there was no reason for him to call me
as we were driving over to the lake, because normally
we would have called and talked to each other on
the phone or even ridden together. I don't even remember
how or why I told him that I needed to
use my vehicle instead of just going in his. But

(43:58):
for somehow I came up with some reason to do that.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
You said that you called him and tried to get
him and make sure he was going to get the waiters.
When did you call him and talked about that?

Speaker 4 (44:12):
I don't remember specifically. We talked several times, you know,
Mike and I talked every day ourselves, and so you know,
we talked about hunting all the time, and we talked
about this trip several times prior to it happening. Okay,

(44:34):
So I followed him over to the lake. He had
his boat behind his Bronco and I followed him in
my white suburban lake seminole, which is about fifty minutes away,
and I had told him what landing we needed to

(44:57):
go to, and so we pulled into the landing and
uh launched the boat and uh, I, I said something.
I had to make sure that he had the waiters on.
So I said something about we're running low on time
or or you know, we're going to be really pushed.

(45:18):
And it was so important because I believed and we
believed that that if you fell overboard with the waiters on,
that you would sink pretty quickly. So I told him
something like, we're you know, we're running late. You know,

(45:38):
we need to go ahead and put our waiters on,
you know, here and now before we get in and go.
And so we both did that, and because I knew
where we were going hunting, I was in the back
of the boat driving and he was in the front.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Uh So, what kind of photo were talking? My lock
A large airboat.

Speaker 4 (46:05):
It was a what's called a janou is basically a
canoe that has a flat, flat back that you can
put a motor, a small motor on the back of it.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
I'm familiar with canoes. Canoes can be a little tipsy.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
This boat, this boat was, Yes, basically like canoes are
pretty pretty tippy.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Okay, So you had you put a level of water
and you're heading out.

Speaker 4 (46:26):
When you're driving, Yes, sir, I was driving, and I
know I was very concerned about the time. Everything had
taken longer than what I had anticipated, and I had
to be back in town early enough in time to
meet my father in law for for my alibi trip

(46:46):
to occur. And so we we headed out and there
was a deep area maybe a couple of hundred yards
from the landing that we put in at. And we
got to that area that I knew was a deep area,

(47:08):
and I don't remember exactly how I got him to
stand up, But I don't know if I pretended something
was wrong with the motor or the weight and the
boat was off or something. But I basically stopped the
boat and got him to stand up, and when he did,
I pushed him into the water.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
What up and next?

Speaker 4 (47:42):
So he was in the water and he was like struggling,
and the motor of the boat was still running, and
I pulled off just a little bit to get kind

(48:03):
of away from him so that he couldn't reach back
into the boat. And I didn't know it at the time.
I didn't know if he was trying to swim or
I didn't know what was going on. But what I
came to find out or eventually realized, was he was
taking the waiters and the jacket off, and he he

(48:27):
got those off. And I think I forgot to tell
you about this part before, but I remember now that
that area of the lake had a lot of snags,
a lot of dead trees that come up out of
the water, and there's a lot of stumps that come
up out of the water. And he swam over to

(48:52):
one of those stumps and held on to it, and
he was paying and I was panicking, and none of
this was like going well. I thought it was going
to go and I didn't I didn't know what to do.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
But mh, he was he started to yell, and I
didn't know.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
I didn't know. I didn't know how to get out
of that situation. And so I had my gun in
the boat, and uh so I loaded my gun and

(49:53):
I just I made one or two circles around, yeah,
and I ended up circling closer towards him, and he
was in the water, and as I passed by, I

(50:17):
shot him.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Where did you shoot him?

Speaker 4 (50:23):
The head? So when I shot him, it was dark

(50:48):
and there was a bright flash when that happened, and
I didn't want to see what happened, so like I
closed my eyes when the instant of that flash happened.
And the boat was moving as this happened. And so
I turned back around and came back to where he

(51:08):
was and got to the stump, and I knew I
couldn't I couldn't leave him there being shot, So I
was gonna have to do something to cover this up.

(51:30):
And I reached down and he wasn't far under the water,
but like my whole arm got wet and I remember wondering, like,
how am I gonna explain that my arm is soaking wet?
And I was afraid I was gonna have to jump
into the water. But I reached down and I grabbed

(51:51):
a hold of him, and I was closer because of
where I had driven the boat. I was closer to
another landing, just a little dirt landing that was further
down the shoreline, and so I decided to motor the
boat and pull him over to that landing over there.

(52:14):
So I drug him in the water over to that
dirt ramp and left the boat, left him, ran back
down to where our trucks were parked, got my truck,
came back to where he was, backed my truck to

(52:38):
the edge of the water and let the tailgate down
and ended up putting him in the back of my suburban,
and I pushed the boat back out into the water

(52:59):
to make it looked like, you know, his boat was
out there and he had drowned or disappear or what.
You know. I didn't give a lot of thought as
to what was going to happen after that. I was
just picked as to getting out of that area and
covering this up. So I realized it was probably getting

(53:21):
too late at this point to meet up with my
father in law, but I was still going to try,
and I sped.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Let me stop you for a moment. He said that
you were able to loaded him into your suburban? Yes, sir,
How big was Mike?

Speaker 4 (53:37):
He was a little bit bigger than me. He was
a little heavier than me. We were pretty close in size,
but he was a little bit bigger than me.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
How much do you wish.

Speaker 4 (53:47):
Back then? Probably one seventy one seventy something like that.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
How were you able to get a man that's under
twenty five pounds dead weight into the fact year by yourself?

Speaker 4 (54:03):
It was not easy, It was not pretty. But I
had to make it happen. I mean, I had no choice.
And I can't even explain, like how your body feels
in that kind of a situation, don't. I don't unless

(54:26):
somebody's been to war or something, I don't. I don't
even know how to explain. But like you have so
much adrenaline pumping through your body, you're just it's just crazy.
But you know, it wasn't pretty, And I never I
made a purposeful decision to never view him, to look
at look at him, but uh, I backed the truck

(54:52):
down and there was an angle to the ramp, so
the back of my truck was angled down toward the water,
and I backed it all the way down to the
edge of the water. So it wasn't there was no
distance involved. But yes, he was very heavy and it
was not easy to do that, but I had no choice.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Said, you were concerned about meeting up with your father
in law at that point. What happened next?

Speaker 4 (55:18):
I sped back toward Tallahassee, and as I was driving there,
I was realizing I'm not going to make it in time.
I didn't want to call him because I didn't want
to turn my phone on. I didn't want there to
be any record of where my phone was at, so
I left my phone off. And by the time I

(55:41):
got back to Tallahassee, you know, I looked through the
parking lot. We were going to meet at Carriagegate parking lot.
I looked through the parking lot, didn't see his vehicle there,
and I decided the best thing for me to do
was to go back to my house and pretend that
I had overslept, and then I could also make a
phone call from my house to my father in law,

(56:02):
which would kind of prove that I overslept and I
was at my house, and I wanted there to be
a record of that. I actually when when I was
driving on Thomasville Road, I actually came up to a
stop light and there was a state trooper across from me,

(56:25):
and I can remember just being freaked out about it,
but I mean, I didn't have any choice, so and
that's what I decided to do. So I drove home, UH,
pulled up into my driveway and was really really hoping

(56:47):
that Kathy was still asleep. I went into the house
as quietly as I could. She was still asleep. I
crawled back into the bed and had a phone there
on the floor. I can remember dialing my father in

(57:08):
law and telling him apologizing, I'm so sorry I overslept,
and I didn't want to wake Kathy up, obviously because
I had what was in the driveway, but I wanted
her to know I was there, so I I I

(57:30):
can't remember what I said to her, but I think
I halfway woke her up and said I'm gonna go
out with the dogs or trained dogs. I trained dogs
at the time. It was gone for hours at a
time from the house doing stuff like that. But I
don't remember exactly what I told her, but I basically
I wanted her to I wanted her to know that
I was there, to confirm that I was there, but
not wake up and start asking me any questions about

(57:53):
what happened, Why did you ever sleep, you know, anything
like that. So I did that, and then I went
back out to the driveway to leave. When I went
out to the driveway, my driveway was angled, and I
was walking behind my truck and I saw out of

(58:18):
the back tailgate blood was coming out of the back
of my tailgate and dripping onto the driveway, and that
freaked me out. So I rinsed that off and was
trying to figure out. I'd been thinking on the way
from Lake Seminole back to Tallahassee what was I going

(58:40):
to do with him? And I don't know when I decided,
but you know, ultimately I decided it had to be close,
and it had to be quick, and it had to
be obviously a location that you know, he wouldn't be found.
And I decided on an isolated dirt road boat ramp

(59:06):
down at Carl Lake. But I had no tools, and
at that point Carl Lake was very low. Parts of
it were dry, and like the other lakes, there were
areas in the lake that had puddles of water or mud.
And my thinking was, if I got him there, I

(59:30):
could take him out to one of those water holes
or mud holes and put him in one of those
and that would be a safe place that he wouldn't
be found. But I had no I had nothing to
do this with. So I had to go to a store.

(59:54):
And I'm ninety percent sure the store that I ended
up at was Walmart. Yeah, And I bought a shovel,
I bought a tart, and I bought weights, like weights
that you lift weights with, because I was thinking that
I would use the weights to weigh his body down

(01:00:14):
in the water or a mud hole or whatever. While
I was in that store, I actually ran into a
friend of ours, Mike Phillips, and uh, I actually totally
forgot about running into him or having any conversation with

(01:00:35):
him until I ran into him later during the search
for Mike Williams at the lake, and he said, yeah,
I remember seeing you that day. You were you were
in a panic, you were in you were in a hurry,
and he was thinking I was in a hurry to
go search for Mike. But I was actually in a
hurry because I was trying to bury Mike. But uh, anyways,

(01:01:00):
I bought those things at the Walmart and drove to
car Lake down to the end of the road, turned
my truck around backwards, back down to the landing, and
you know, my thinking was, I was going to drag
him way out until lake. And so I got the

(01:01:22):
tarp and put it on the ground behind my truck,
pulled Mike out, put him on that tarp, kind of
wrapped him up. And as I pulled him, instantly I
knew there was no way I was going to be
able to move him any distance at all, that he

(01:01:46):
was just too heavy and that wasn't going to happen.
So I had to find somewhere close. And it was
a really grown up area. And like I said, the
lake was almost dry, so the water was down, and
I I decided to to put him down, uh in

(01:02:10):
the in the lake bed itself, kind of on the
edge of the lake, so that eventually when the water
came back up, that area would be underwater and it
was hidden from the road somewhat. And uh so I
pulled him down to that area and started digging a hole,

(01:02:38):
and Uh, it was. It was hard.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
I was.

Speaker 4 (01:02:46):
I was exhausted. I was getting bitten by ants all
over me. I remember being scared that I was gonna
have to explain why I had ant bites all over
me because there was ants where I was digging. But
Tom actually, while I was doing this, I heard a
vehicle coming down the road, and so I kind of

(01:03:12):
I had there were bushes there anyway, but I kind
of made sure everything was flat and you couldn't see
it from the road, and I ran back up to
my truck and a guy drove up. He was coming
down there to go hunting out on the lake itself,
and he and I made small talk, chit chat. I
was obviously very paranoid, and I got the impression. I

(01:03:34):
can't remember why now, but at the time I got
the impression that he might have been like a law
enforcement type guy, maybe like a game warden or something
like that. But he talked about he was going deer
hunting out on the lake bed, and so I kind
of hung out at my truck and waited for him
to get several hundred yards away before I went back

(01:03:59):
to uh digging so eventually I got a hole big
enough and I put him there and covered him up. Yeah,

(01:04:22):
made sure it, you know, didn't look suspicious as as
well as I could. But now I still had a
problem because my truck had blood on the back of it,

(01:04:42):
and it was getting later and later in the day,
and I knew at some point people were gonna start
calling me. There was a family Christmas with my wife's
family up in kro that we were supposed to be
going to that afternoon or that night. You know, I

(01:05:03):
was just running out of time, and uh so I
uh put the truck, put the shovel in the back
of the truck, and I knew I had to clean
my truck up. And I think at that point I

(01:05:25):
can't remember the order. I can't remember. I went two
different places. I went two different places to clean up
my truck. One of them was I went to my
parents' house and parked. They have a big lot, and

(01:05:46):
I parked toward the back of it, and uh tried
to use a hose to clean out the truck and
it it. I think I went there first because it
was closer to where I was, but it wasn't working
very well, and I realized I needed to have like

(01:06:07):
a pressure washer, and so I left there and drove
around trying to find a car wash that had a
pressure washer, and there were none on my side of town.
So I ended up at Tharpe Street in Old Bainbridge.
There was a car wash there that I had pressure washers,

(01:06:28):
and I cleaned out the back as best as I
could there. And after that, let's.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Stop for a second. Yes, sir, married him at the
car Lake. At some point you, for lack of better term,
go about your business, go to Caro, meet Kathy and
everybody in the family.

Speaker 4 (01:06:58):
Right after I after I cleaned up.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
I'm sorry you did you go up to Caro meet
Cathy in the family. Yes, at some point where you
contacted about Mike being gone missing?

Speaker 4 (01:07:12):
Right? My recollection is that my dad called me and
said Mike's missing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
Whenever that happened? Would you do? And but let me
back up. When was that?

Speaker 4 (01:07:32):
I remember it being on the drive home from being
up at Cairo for the Christmas party.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
So is this the same Saturday? Yes, sir okay, in
the evening hours, Yes, sir okay, what would you do?

Speaker 4 (01:07:48):
You know? When my dad called I kind of said, well,
that's Mike, because Mike was known to be laid and
kind of irresponsible at times going out on honting or
fishing trips or whatever. But you know, I said, I'll
I'll get back there and we'll, you know, go go
look for him. And uh so got back to town,

(01:08:13):
met up with my dad, and went with him over
to Lake Seminole that night next day that immediately when
I got back to town, there were a few people
over there with boats, mainly friends, uh and family, and

(01:08:36):
those of us with boats started going out where his
truck was. No, we didn't put in where his truck was.
We put it in. There was a concrete landing before that,
which was a nicer landing that you weren't going to
get stuck at, and uh we we. My dad and

(01:08:56):
I went out on the lake and searched for Mike.
He was searching and I was just lying.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
My understanding. The weather front came through and it rained
during that evening.

Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
There was a storm that came through that night. I
think we got off the lake before uh that happened.
But you know, my dad wanted to look. I think
we were the last ones on the lake, and my

(01:09:35):
dad didn't want to give him. My dad loved Mike.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
That would be a good time. I take ten minutes.
H Did you find anything that evening, Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:10:24):
Sir, I didn't really. I mean, I knew where Mike's
boat was, and I didn't really want to be the
one that found it. I would rather somebody else had
found it. But my dad was just really determined, you know.
He he took us to a spot. I knew he

(01:10:46):
was going to be there, but he took us to
a spot and sure enough, there was Mike's boat. So
we found his boat, and I think we just left it.
We didn't touch it. We left it where it was
and went back in and told the whoever the law
enforcement people were there at the time. But shortly thereafter

(01:11:08):
a pretty bad storm, rainstorm, and I think cold front
came through that night.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
And did you go back to the lake the next day?

Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
M hmm, I'm sure. I'm sure I did. The next
two months for kind of a blur for me, but yes,
I spent lots of time at the lake during the
search because I kind of wanted to monitor what was
going on. I wanted to put up a good, you know, front,

(01:11:43):
to look like I was out there looking like everybody else,
but I was. I was out there a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
At some point A half is now on the lake.

Speaker 4 (01:11:59):
Is that not a hat?

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:12:01):
Yes, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
Were you the one that found that hat?

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
I was not the one that found it. I was
the one that put it in the water during one
of my searches on the lake. I was well. Denise
and I were getting concerned that nothing else was being
found out there, and I I was hoping that his

(01:12:28):
waiters and jacket and all would be found to kind
of confirm that that he had drowned there. And I
wanted to keep the searchers in that particular area. So
I took a hat that was similar to a hat
that Mike used, which was real distinctive. It had a
weird looking bill on it and stuff, and when I

(01:12:50):
was out there with another friend of mine, I threw
it in the water in that area because I wanted
to keep the people in that area, because I wanted
the waiters and the jacket to be found to confirm
that that's where Mike was and where he went into
the water.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
What was that hat? Eventually found it was and you
were asked to identify it. Yes, sir, you told law
enforcement it was Mike. Yes, sir, you brought up a
point about you and Denise had concerns. All right, we're
talking at that point following Mike's murder on the sixteen.

(01:13:31):
What communication did you have with Denise?

Speaker 4 (01:13:35):
I can't remember the first time that we talked. We
had pre arranged that obviously our communication needed to be minimal,
both by phone and in person. Obviously we weren't going
to be meeting up in parking lots and having sex
and doing all that was normal for us to be doing.
So we had decided that it's just too close to

(01:13:59):
me and.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Pushed back a little bit. It's a little louder now.
Used to me it.

Speaker 4 (01:14:03):
Was like a concert. But so we had we had
decided ahead of time that we really needed to minimize
our contact. I got a lot of information about Denise
and what was going on with Denise through Kathy, who
was going over to her house and seeing her and
talking to her. Denise kind of sequestered herself up to

(01:14:24):
her bedroom and didn't want to be around a lot
of people, uh during that time, which was smart of
her to do and uh, And so I got a
lot of information from Kathy. But eventually you know, she
and I talked, and there never was a conversation that
was like, well, did it all go according to plan?

(01:14:46):
Or you know we First of all, I didn't want
to talk about that because that was not the plan.
What happened with Mike was not the plan that Denise
and I had come up with, and.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
I I want to make it clear, the plan didn't
play out the way you wanted to, but it certainly
was it the plan that you and Denisa discussed actually
have them.

Speaker 4 (01:15:08):
The plan was for his death to occur, but it
was not for it to occur in the way that
it did. I mean, the plan was for him to
fall in the water and for him to have a
chance to survive it. But obviously that's not what happened.
And I didn't want to tell Denis that, So we
never had a conversation that was like, uh, did it

(01:15:31):
all do according to plan? But it was quite obvious
from the circumstances that Mike was gone, and you know,
she assumed that what we talked about, the plan that
we had made, She assumed that that was what had happened.
It wasn't until years later that I tried to and
somewhat told her that that's not what ended up happening.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
Okay, So at some point you had heard start talking
again despite the distance. Is when was that.

Speaker 4 (01:16:00):
The the first time I'd be guessing. I mean, I
would say a few days before we talked. I'm sure
the first time we talked was just on the phone.
It was it was a little while before I saw
her in person, because I remember being kind of nervous
and and uh, I just knew it would be weird

(01:16:21):
to see her because of what we had done. I
just knew it would be weird to see her after that,
kind of to face each other after that. But but
you know, as the search went on, and you know,
long term, this thing has got back to normal, we
just kind of settled back into the same routines. But

(01:16:42):
the next thing, obviously, that we had to deal with
was the fact that his body wasn't being found. And
so the concern between she and I then became, well,
if his body's not found, what's gonna happen with the
life insurance?

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
Okay, there was a competation here and with her, Yes,
and what is she saying, what is your concern?

Speaker 4 (01:17:05):
Well that if his body's not found, you know what's
going to happen. Is she going to get the money
or not?

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
Oh, did you and or her take any steps to
facilitate that.

Speaker 4 (01:17:18):
To facilitate her getting the money. I was not in
a hurry to push that issue. I felt like we
needed to kind of lay low on that and not
appear to be, you know, the eager widow ready to
cash in or life insurance also she was getting at

(01:17:39):
that time, insurance companies were paying a ridiculous amount I
think eight percent they were required to pay on death
benefit proceeds. So she was earning eight percent as long
as the money sat there, which you couldn't get that
outside in a bank or anything like that. So I
knew the longer at drug out, the better it was

(01:18:00):
going to be. We talked about that again. It was
actually again it was actually my dad because he was
concerned about Denise. He wanted her to get her money
so she could pay her bills. And you know, he pushed,
he pushed it through the hoops that needed to happen

(01:18:24):
for her to end up getting the money quickly as
she could. But what we came to learn, what he
came to learn, what we all came to learn, was
she was going to have to get a death certificate
issued by a judge through a court. So probably my
dad or me hoped her up with an attorney, Kurt Hunter,

(01:18:46):
and she talked with Kurt about what needed to be done,
and I think basically she had to file a petition
with a court stating everything that happened, talking about what
a wonderful marriage she had with Mike. There was no
reason for him to run off on her. I can't

(01:19:06):
remember what all had to go on the petition, but
we talked about that ahead of time, and she ended
up following a petition and it was granted and she
was issued a death certificate, so she was able to
get the money.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
Were there any conversations about what.

Speaker 4 (01:19:22):
Had happened about what had happened specifically with Mike?

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Yes, no, yea. At some point law enforcement takes other
looks in the cases and interviews people. Did y'all have
any conversations about that?

Speaker 4 (01:19:43):
Well, this was years later, and a lot transpired in
between Mike's death and law enforcement getting involved. I think
it was three years later maybe, But the first, the
first thing that happened with me was I just got
a call, uh from a deputy. I don't remember if

(01:20:04):
it was a Jackson County sheriff officer or an investigator
with FDL. But I got a call from somebody and
they wanted to talk to me about Mike Williams in
the case. And I agreed, and I went into fd
L E h On Reckins Roy there and interviewed with
two gentlemen there, and it became quite clear to me

(01:20:28):
during that interview that they were suspicious of what happened,
and not only that, they were suspicious of me and Denise.
And I think even after I left that interview, I
called her immediately and was freaking out, you know that

(01:20:50):
that this was going on, and uh.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
Right there, so you got and he does. Then you
mentioned that there were things, a lot of things that
happened prior to that, and this is a approssimately two
thousand and three, two thousand and four or something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:21:03):
Yeah, sir, right, So.

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
Prior to that occurring, had you and Denise talked about
a possibility of what you would do if law enforcement
started investigating this?

Speaker 4 (01:21:15):
Yeah, I mean we basically weren't going to say anything.
We had the way that we the word that we
put on it was we had an agreement that she
would never say anything about me and I would never
say anything about her, because we knew or we felt
like that as long as neither one of us talked that,
nobody would ever, you know, find out what happened. So

(01:21:40):
we we called it our agreement basically, and and we
were probably pretty arrogantly confident in that agreement.

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
I guess, did you and her take any steps to
ensure the fact that wire cat or having a conversation
with her code words, co signals, things like that.

Speaker 4 (01:22:08):
We we didn't get that way until after law enforcement
started looking into things. The other thing that that made
us really paranoid was Denise. At first, Denise was allowing Cheryl,
Mike's mom Uh to see Annsley and taken Annsley, Mike,

(01:22:32):
and Denise's daughter Hansley, out to cheryl grandma Cheryl's house.
And on one of those trips out to Cheryl's house,
Denise found a notebook that Cheryl had and she had
written her suspicions about Denise and me and what had
happened with Mike, and and when Cheryl was in another

(01:22:54):
room or something, Denise read that and came back and
told me what she had read, and really freaked out
about it, and at that point didn't want UH Cheryl
to didn't want any contact with Cheryl really. But between
that and law enforcement getting involved, we became very paranoid

(01:23:16):
about UH being monitored. So we agreed and talked about
we weren't going to talk about anything on the phones
anymore when we were worried about our cars being bugged,
our houses being bugged. We had hand signals that we
would use if we needed to talk about something related
to Mike or law enforcement. One of them was a

(01:23:42):
see for Cheryl and then the other one was this
like jail bars. So when we did that, we knew
that one of the other of us had something to
talk about. And you would usually go there was a
park next to There is a park next to Denise's

(01:24:05):
house along Mixed Hookie Road. We would go out to
that park and go way out in a field on
a bench, and we would leave our cars in the vehicle,
wouldn't take them. We would leave our phones in the vehicle,
make sure we didn't have a phone on us. We
were we were very concerned that we were being watched
or monitored by law enforcement.

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
Now backing up again, prior to the interview, You're still
married two thousand to Kathy and you start your relations
back with Denise. At some point, did your marriage with
Kathy start falling Park, Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:24:42):
Sir, I mean it had started. It had started, you know,
when Denise and I started our family in ninety seven.
But after after Mike was gone, actually, Kathy and I
spent even more time with Denise, the three of us,

(01:25:07):
doing a lot of things just because Denise and I
wanted to be together, and and yeah, things just got
worse and worse. I mean, Kathy, you know, told me later,
you know that after Mike was gone, it was like
there was no reason for me and Denise to be
apart from each other. She made comments like that, but

(01:25:30):
I think she was suspicious of us, you know, all along.
But I never admitted to Kathy that Denise and I
were having an affair, obviously, and that was just kind
of basically the next step in the plan. But it
couldn't be right off because that would look bad. So
Kathy and I ended up staying together. I think our

(01:25:53):
divorce wasn't finalized until two thousand and four.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
I believe at some point did you and Kathy separate
prior to the Warce yes, sir. At some point, was
there a situation where you backtracked essentially and started and
made a pleasure to try and get back with Kathy

(01:26:18):
and not go over it.

Speaker 4 (01:26:20):
Yes, sir, there, what was that about. There was a
lot that led up to that. As as you said,
we were separated, So Kathy and I were separated. I
had a house to myself. There was the incident that

(01:26:43):
you talked to that we talked about earlier with Angela Stafford,
where Denise walked in on Angela and I in my bedroom.
After that happened, Denise was furious and she you know,
we had a briefcase full of me mentos, cards, notes, letters, pictures, videos,

(01:27:04):
all sorts of things. She left my house and went
to her house and burned it all. She was very
angry with me. I didn't know it at the time,
but she actually was having sex with a guy that
she worked with at work, and I think when she

(01:27:24):
caught me with it, I'm sorry, yes, sir. And so
when she caught me with Angelou, I think she decided
at that point, well, I'm gonna drop Brian and pursue
a relationship with mister Bunker, and so things just basically

(01:27:48):
like went to hell with me and Denise, And long
story short, I mean, I just realized what the disaster
of my life was at that point. And Denny and
I had well, we hadn't broken up. She had basically
dumped me for Chuck, and I found myself at church

(01:28:10):
one day on July fourth, heard a sermon about freedom.
You know, I felt like I was a slave to
all that I had been living for. You know, in
my relationship with Denise and I had a I guess
you would call it a spiritual awakening or conversion, however

(01:28:30):
you want to tournament. Eventually, the relationship with Denise and
mister Bunker went haywire in South They had their legal
issues with each other.

Speaker 2 (01:28:47):
Was there's an incident between you and mister Buker.

Speaker 4 (01:28:51):
That happened prior to me going to church that day?
But yes, sir, uh. The way that I found out
about and Chuck was she left town with him. I
went up to Atlanta on a trip trip together and

(01:29:12):
I found out from one of her sisters that they
were in Atlanta, and I was not happy. I was angry,
and I wanted to confront her, you know, because we
had been through a lot, done a lot for each other.
I mean, I gave up half of my son's life

(01:29:33):
to be with her, you know, killed her husband. Uh uh,
and we've done a lot to be together, and then
for her to turn around and uh go uh you know,
sleep with Chuck didn't make me happy. So I found

(01:29:55):
out they were in Buckhead in Atlanta, and I drove
there to confront them, confront her. I didn't really care
about him so much, but I ended up finding I
ended up sitting in a lobby in a hotel and
they came struggling by uh together, and you know, I

(01:30:15):
confronted them, and we ended up going outside and having
a long argument conversation uh out next to the street
in Buckhead. She I wanted Chuck gone. I didn't want
to deal with Chuck, So my main focus was you

(01:30:36):
need to get rid of Chuck. She uh got rid
of him, got him to leave us alone, and she
and I spend the night together in the hotel. And
I didn't know it at the time, but she was

(01:30:57):
just kind of placating me when Uck was I think
got a room down the hallway in the hotel. I
didn't really leave, but so we had that incident and
Denise told me later that the way that she got

(01:31:18):
rid of Chuck was m She told him that if
he didn't leave it, I could have her turned in
for insurance fraud, which I thought was just it blew
me mourning that she told him that. I couldn't believe
that she admitted that to another party.

Speaker 2 (01:31:39):
Did you hear say that? Or that just what she
told me?

Speaker 4 (01:31:41):
She told me this later and we argued about it later.
So the incident with Chuck happened, and I drove back
to Tallahassee, and I was just done. I was just spit.
And that's what kind of led me to kind of
I guess I thought at the time was rock bottom.

(01:32:04):
I didn't know I had so many rock bottoms ahead
of me. But at that point I ended up in
church and and uh kind of had a spiritual reawakening.
And over the next few months, I decided that I

(01:32:25):
wanted to try to reconcile with Kathy. I still loved Denise.
I still wanted to be with Denise. Eventually, Denise and
Chuck's relationship imploded and they had their you know, legal
issues and whatnot, and uh so they broke up. My

(01:32:45):
dad actually helped Denise. Uh through all of that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:51):
So they break up. You try to get back with Kathy.

Speaker 6 (01:32:55):
They broke up, and in Denise and I Denise kind
of had her own spiritual awakening and this, I know
this sounds all screwy, but.

Speaker 4 (01:33:10):
We wanted to be together still. But we both agreed
that the right thing for me to do was to
try to get with Kathy. And if Kathy decided that
wasn't gonna happen, then we were free to be together.
And so, yes, I tried to reconcile with Kathy.

Speaker 2 (01:33:30):
Did that work out?

Speaker 4 (01:33:32):
Not well?

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Eventually you and Kathy end up in.

Speaker 4 (01:33:35):
A divorce, Yes, sir, we ended up getting divorced, and
so we're free to be together. Mike, when was the

(01:33:58):
I'm this is terror, but I don't remember when it
was finalized. We had a long separation. I don't remember
when the divorce itself was finalized.

Speaker 2 (01:34:06):
At some point, did you and Denise start becoming public
with your dating?

Speaker 4 (01:34:10):
Yes, sir. After the divorce was finalized and we decided
enough time had passed from Mike's death, we we decided
it was okay for us to gradually start dating. And uh,
you know, we talked about it with a lot of people.
There were some people that took it well. Uh, there

(01:34:32):
were some people like her family and her dad who
took it horribly. But we did start dating.

Speaker 2 (01:34:43):
Eventually you got married.

Speaker 4 (01:34:45):
And then we got married in two thousand and five.
We were still concerned about the law enforcement side of it,
but as time passed and nothing happened, we became less
and less concerned about it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
You say that you've still concerned a job. Communications between
each other on well what will you do with law forcement?

Speaker 4 (01:35:08):
Every interview, right, you know, things would come up in
the media. We would see things online or in the news. Cheryl,
you know, never give up and kept pushing things. And
so from time to time that issue would be raised.

(01:35:32):
And I always wanted to talk about things a lot
more than Denista and East did not like to talk
about anything related to that usually. But we you know,
we would typically not talk in the house. We would
typically talk you know, out at Lake LA or a
public place or whatever where we felt like we weren't

(01:35:54):
being monitored. Even at that point, And.

Speaker 2 (01:36:00):
Did y'all have an agreement to pat the agreement not
to talk to law enforcement?

Speaker 4 (01:36:05):
Yes, I mean we promised each other that me and
one of us would ever say anything, because we knew
the only way that we felt like the only way
to would get anything would be if one of us talked.
And I mean I was concerned about Denise, if she

(01:36:29):
ever got under that pressure, whether she would hold up
to it or not. You know, Kathy actually warned me.
I think the first time I heard Kathy talk about it,
she said, you know, Kathy was trying to get me
to talk, but basically she said, you know, you can't

(01:36:50):
trust Denis, and she'll throw you under the bus the
first chance she gets.

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
Would be fair to say that you made sure just
to her, that being Denise, that you had not anybody
yelped about this particular case, Yes, sir, And she made
sure to you that she had not told anybody.

Speaker 4 (01:37:07):
The only person I knew of was was mister Bonker.
But you know, she didn't say that Mike was murdered
or anything like that. She just supposed to right.

Speaker 3 (01:37:18):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
In twenty sixteen, you were there was the kidnapping arrest, yes, sir,
And following that, you confess to the murder the Mike correct, Yes, sir,
you read led law enforcement to his remains, yes, sir.

(01:37:39):
The conversations with Denise, they leading up to the murder
the day currently on County for the most part, Yes, sir.
The conversations with Denise following the murder where the agreement
was never to talk to law enforcement that occurrently Ancunty, Florida, Yes, sir,
whenever she set up or alibi to stay at home
the phone calls that in the Unikan, Florida, Yes, sir,

(01:38:02):
talk a lot about the niece Winchester or Williams formerly
Winchester DC here in the courtroom today, Yes, sir, Can
you please point or an indicating our book flow.

Speaker 4 (01:38:11):
There an article of clothing, the Peak sweaters, so.

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
There it is. What a piece of shit this guy is,
total betrayal of his friend in so many ways, and
the fact that he got a deal on this it
is absolutely sickening to me. But on the other side
of that was he held all the cards, folks. Again,

(01:38:41):
one of the rare times you will ever hear me
say a plea deal sort of made sense to me.
It was really the only way they were going to
find the remains for Mike's sweet mother to have that burial,
and luck have they not made that deal. They had
no freaking evidence of anything, and they couldn't have proved

(01:39:02):
it in court, probably would have never found that body.
But there's absolutely a part of me that is like, Man,
fuck that guy and fuck that deal. Now, a couple
of things that I found interesting in his testimony that
you just heard. First, Denise was never told how Mike
was killed, only that he was killed. And as much

(01:39:25):
as I have to say it, that was a smart
move on the part of both of them to agree,
I guess not to tell her how it occurred, because
it leaves her without any information on how Mike died,
where his body was, etc. So if she's placed under
a lot of detector test and she was asked if

(01:39:47):
she knows anything about Mike's death, she can honestly say
no and it would register her as telling the truth.
If they asked her if she knows where the body is,
she could honestly say no and it would register as
her telling the truth. As much as I hate to
say it was a smart move, it really was a
smart move to do that.

Speaker 4 (01:40:07):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
Also, what I think is likely in her twisted little
mind is she could possibly compartmentalize better and walk around
like nothing ever happened because she lacked those actual details.
This woman's so crazy she could probably trick her mind
in the same one. I don't know if he killed him,

(01:40:29):
he may still be alive. And how about how Mike
was opening up about not having sex with his wife
to Brian Winchester on those hunting trips, as Brian testified
to his frustration over that, and this asshole knew why
it was because he was adding sex the whole time

(01:40:50):
with her. Just makes you say wow. So now you
know all the details of the murder. I'm not going
to rehash those, there's no point hopefully listen to all
of that. And you know exactly how all this went down.
But what happened to Denise.

Speaker 5 (01:41:11):
Jim?

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Did you see what happened in Texas today? Wait before
you tell me that, let me tell you what happened
in New York. It cannot be as crazy as the
case I told you about yesterday in Louisiana. You know what,
we should do a podcast about it, and with that
we did. Crime War Weekly covers the crime news headlines
that have dominated the week. We cover trending crimes from
all over the country and even sprinkle in a few globally.

(01:41:36):
Crime War Weekly is available now wherever you listen to
your podcasts, simply by searching Crime War Weekly or clicking
the link in the description of this podcast. Well, after
a month long trial, in February of twenty nineteen, she

(01:41:58):
was found guilty. She subsequently was sentenced to life in prison. Now,
five months later, her daughter Ainsley was awarded all of
her father's assets in a deal, and that enabled Denise
to avoid insurance fraud charges. Now, part of that deal
was that Ainsley could not use any of that money

(01:42:23):
to cover legal fees for her mother. And you have
to remember this time, Ainsley is nineteen years old. It
took that long to solve this case. So her mother
had raised her whole life. I'm sure she loved her mother,
and they were concerned if she gets all these assets
from Mike Williams, she may use them to help with
her mother's legal defense. But that was part of the deal.

(01:42:46):
If you get the assets, you cannot do that. So
that's it, right, She's convicted, life in prison. Story over. Well,
y'all know me better than that. It's never that way
with the stories that I bring you. So get this.
The year or after Denise's conviction, she appeals it, which
when you're sentenced to life. This always happens an appeal,

(01:43:07):
is no surprise. Her attorney argued, there was no evidence
she was involved in the commission of the murder, and
you have to have that for it to be a
first degree murdered conviction, which she was convicted of in
addition to conspiracy. And in the shock of a century,
the appeals court agreed with her attorney. They overturned the

(01:43:31):
murder conviction in the first degree. Now, they did uphold
the conspiracy charge, which, when I stepped back from my
personal feelings on this case, conspiracy, she's one hundred percent
guilty of All that means is that you conspired on
this murder before or after, so you planned the murder.

(01:43:52):
But I would also argue she assisted in the commission
of the murder because she knew the day that Brian
was going to kill Mike, but she did nothing to
stop it. She could have stopped Mike and said, no,
don't go because Brian's gonna show up and he's gonna
kill you. She didn't do that. To me, that makes

(01:44:12):
her culpable in the actual murder, not just the planning
of it. That's just my view. I'd love to hear
your view on that. So this goes all the way
to the Florida Supreme Court because obviously a lot of
people in Florida were pissed when that first degree murder
charge got overturned. That means no life in prison. So

(01:44:35):
in April twenty twenty four, the Florida Supreme Court declined
to hear the case from the state. Now essentially that
means they agree with the appeals court. So the state lost.
So all told, here here's what both of them ended
up with. Denise Williams got a thirty year sentence for

(01:44:56):
the conspiracy to commit murder charge, making her seventy eight
years old when she's released, and considering the facts of
this case, I would say she would not be granted
an early release, though time's gonna tell on that. Now.
Brian Winchester, who actually killed this guy, with the sweet

(01:45:18):
deal that he got, he's gonna be released at the
age of sixty five. He's still gonna have some life
left in him.

Speaker 4 (01:45:25):
What a wild case.

Speaker 1 (01:45:26):
And for those curious about Ainslie, Mike's only daughter, who
sadly lost her dad at just eighteen months old. She
was nineteen, as I said, when her mother was convicted.
She didn't let that stop her from being the woman
her father would be proud of. She actually got her
bachelor's in business from Florida State. She got a master's

(01:45:49):
in mass communication from the University of Florida, and today
she works for a public relations firm in the Tallahassee area.
For the young ones listening, don't ever let anyone tell
you your circumstances define you. This poor young lady had
everything going against her in life, losing her father so

(01:46:12):
early on, all the shit that surrounded that, the after
effects of it, the marriage to her father's best friend,
which I'm sure as a little girl even she thought
was kind of fucked up. She managed to still make
something of her life. So this young lady surpassed all
the odds, in my opinion, and that is a rap

(01:46:35):
of fatal fortune. I guess you could say subject number one,
Mike Williams, I'll bring you another one real soon. Thank
you so much for listening. Check out the Patreonpatreon dot
com slash exposed podcast files. We put all kinds of
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(01:46:57):
we could really use your support on there. Please consider it.
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early releases and bonus episodes, so check that out. I
just dropped a bonus episode just yesterday from this recording,
and that was on Mindy McCready who had a tragic life.

(01:47:21):
And only Patreon members get those bonus episodes, so please
consider that. And until next time for exposed scandalous files
of the elite, I'm your host, Jim Chapman. Much love,

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