WINKLER TRIAL UNDERWAY

Both sides presented their theories of the crime in day one of the Mary Winkler trial:

A prosecutor said Winkler killed her husband not because of any mistreatment, but because she had been depositing bad checks and feared that he would find out.

The defense told jurors that she killed her husband accidentally while trying to protect their child from him.

Mary Winkler, 33, only intended to hold her husband at gunpoint to force him to talk about his personal problems after a situation involving their 1-year-old daughter, Breanna, defense attorney Steve Farese said. The defense did not describe the situation.

"The morning he did what he did to Breanna, she was going to get his attention — with the very things he had always threatened her with," Farese said. He said Matthew Winkler had threatened his wife with a gun many times.

The defense is pushing the Nigerian scam angle. The abuse card is an easy card to play as Matthew Winkler cannot deny the charges, nor can a one year old daughter testify to any sort of "situation", as of yet undescribed. One thing the defense argues I have no problem believing: Mary Winkler was a woman under intense pressure, pressure she was not dealing with adequately.

Meanwhile, the parents of Matthew Winkler have filed a wrongful death suit against their daughter-in-law. I'm not sure what they hope to accomplish with it, other than perhaps better their position regarding custody of the children. They're certainly not going to collect the $2 million in damages unless the Nigerians finally come through with that deposit or, as the article suggests, they anticipate her benefitting from book or movie deals.. As the criminal process is (properly) underway against Mary Winkler, I'm not sure about the scripturalness of their suit, either.