So what's the story with the preacher's wife?

[momrek06]

Sorry, momrek06.


I have lived in the deep south for over 24 years. When I first moved here, I was shocked how prevalent and accepted guns were. People had them in their houses, in their purses, in their cars. When I was buiying hardware at Sears, the guy next to me was buying 3 shotguns. I was absolutely stunned.

I'm used to it now, but I can't say I approve.

Yes, we have guns here in the Northeast..but I am not sure if they are as prevalent in homes I guess as in the South....(once again, I do not know).

What I am saying...is around here I do not think it is the typical "staple" in a home where there are 3 baby girls and for that matter the dad a minister.

I realize people probably have them MORE for safety than anything..BUT for me, I am intimidated as HE** when it comes to guns...

I would have to have been pushed wayyyy overrrr the edgeeee to have pulled out a gun, loaded it and shot someone ESP my DH...

As far as this entire situation is concerned I feel the worst for the 3 baby girls , then Matt and Matt's family and then for Mary....

I am sure as the days develop we will all come to know just exactly what happen that night.

 

[JadenLayne]

I just had to chime in on the gun thing. I feel sure the pastor probably hunts, therefore has guns. There aren't to many people in this part of Tennessee who don't hunt.

 

[nannerbadnanner]

I'm in TN also. Someone I know who was acquainted with the family said the wife was on anti-psychotic medication. Take it with a grain of salt because who knows about the accuracy of the statement.

 

[sheherazade]

Yes, it is horrible for the three little girls.


But as to the other issue, I have seen guns in houses with small children. I've seen them kept unsafely in houses with small children.

Guns are relatively common in households here.

I find it awful, and I have several friends in law enforcement who confirm that when someone keeps a gun in the house for security or safety, statistically, they or someone in their family is most likely to be harmed by the gun rather than protected by it.

It's a gun culture.

 

[disneyfanz04]

Here is the latest since no one has posted yet...

SELMER, Tenn. - Hundreds of mourners filled a small-town church to hear a slain minister eulogized as a devoted husband and father Tuesday while his wife sat in jail, accused of murder.

The three young daughters of 31-year-old Matthew Winkler followed his flower-covered casket into the Fourth Street Church of Christ, where he had been minister for almost a year.

Church members found Winkler's body in the bedroom of the parsonage on Wednesday. Authorities said his wife, Mary Winkler, 32, confessed to shooting him and told them why she did it. But they have refused to disclose the motive.

Church members have said they saw nothing but a loving relationship between husband and wife.

About 500 people attended the service or watched it on TV monitors in the basement, Police Chief Neal Burks said. Eddie Thompson, one of two ministers leading the service, did not mention Mary Winkler by name or describe the slaying.

"He just said we're puzzled. That's the word he used, `puzzled,'" said Barbara Letson of Decatur, Ala., who attended the funeral, which was closed to reporters.

Matthew Winkler was a third-generation minister in the Church of Christ. His father, Dan Winkler, also officiated at the funeral in Selmer, a town of about 4,400 people 80 miles east of Memphis.




I am a little confused as to why so many people think that he was abusing the kids or his wife??? Is it because he was a minister at the Church of Christ??? My goodness, give the guy some credit he is the VICTIM here(and can't defend himself) until someone proves otherwise. Maybe Mary was just off her rocker...or maybe she couldn't handle being the "preacher's wife" anymore. That is a HUGE commitment.

I pray for those three girls who have lost both her parents in 1 day. I also pray for Matt and his family, and for Mary who God only knows why killed her husband.

 

[sheherazade]

I am a little confused as to why so many people think that he was abusing the kids or his wife???

No one here thinks anything in particular, disneyfan.

The police say they know the motive, that it's not adultery, but they are not saying what it is.

The defense attorney says there will be a reason.

It is a mystery, and people are conjecturing, theorizing, wondering.

 

[momrek06]

I am a little confused as to why so many people think that he was abusing the kids or his wife???

No one here thinks anything in particular, disneyfan.

The police say they know the motive, that it's not adultery, but they are not saying what it is.

The defense attorney says there will be a reason.

It is a mystery, and people are conjecturing, theorizing, wondering.

YUP, I agree with you, sheherazade, 100%.

 

[Robinrs]

I am a little confused as to why so many people think that he was abusing the kids or his wife??? Is it because he was a minister at the Church of Christ??? My goodness, give the guy some credit he is the VICTIM here(and can't defend himself) until someone proves otherwise. Maybe Mary was just off her rocker...or maybe she couldn't handle being the "preacher's wife" anymore. That is a HUGE commitment.

I pray for those three girls who have lost both her parents in 1 day. I also pray for Matt and his family, and for Mary who God only knows why killed her husband.

Why do we think this? Because we're trying to make some semblance of sense to what is a nonsensical crime. Women can understand killing an abuser of themselves or a child, outside of that it makes no sense.

Of course the sensible thing is to wait patiently for the true cause but in the meantime discussion boards are for just that, discussion of what we think.

 

[momrek06]

Why do we think this? Because we're trying to make some semblance of sense to what is a nonsensical crime. Women can understand killing an abuser of themselves or a child, outside of that it makes no sense.

Of course the sensible thing is to wait patiently for the true cause but in the meantime discussion boards are for just that, discussion of what we think.

YUP!! Once again, I will say I agree with you as well, ROBIN...YES I DO!!

 

[clarabelle]

Sorry, momrek06.


I have lived in the deep south for over 24 years. When I first moved here, I was shocked how prevalent and accepted guns were. People had them in their houses, in their purses, in their cars. When I was buiying hardware at Sears, the guy next to me was buying 3 shotguns. I was absolutely stunned.

I'm used to it now, but I can't say I approve.

Do you have any stats to back that up? I couldn't find any. I don't know what part of the country truly has the most guns- it may be the south. I can tell you this. I have never lived anywhere but the south. I have never owned a gun. My parents don't have a gun- nor my friends -nor my sisters.
I have never seen anyone buy a gun.
In my circle of friends and family it is not common. You can't lump ALL of us together.

 

[Wishing on a star]

Everybody is speculating on a motive here...

I have this to say.
When the police are so strongly withholding information, it is probably because they feel it is beneficial to their investigation. If it was very cut and dry, then the motive might have been leaked by now.

There could be more going on here than we know about.

Patience people! Patience!

 

[taeja71]

Everybody is speculating on a motive here...

I have this to say.
When the police are so strongly withholding information, it is probably because they feel it is beneficial to their investigation. If it was very cut and dry, then the motive might have been leaked by now.

There could be more going on here than we know about.

Patience people! Patience!

that's why I quit posting. I'm going to wait until Thurs. why drive myself crazy here on a thread, my three kids can do that for me and I don't have to be online.

 

[ozarkmom]

Do you have any stats to back that up? I couldn't find any. I don't know what part of the country truly has the most guns- it may be the south. I can tell you this. I have never lived anywhere but the south. I have never owned a gun. My parents don't have a gun- nor my friends -nor my sisters.
I have never seen anyone buy a gun.
In my circle of friends and family it is not common. You can't lump ALL of us together.

I've lived in the south for over 20 years. We own one gun that my 14 year old hunts with. It's locked up and he's had a hunter's education course. I know as many people who don't have guns as do. One thing I've never seen are these people who just have guns laying all around and buying 3 at a time. Also shouldn't that have been at Wal-Mart instead of Sears? I don't think I've seen any guns at Sears. Now I do know one person who has alot of guns. My boss he hunts, and skeet shoots all over the country with people from all over the world! Also while I'm in a mood I have alot of friends that belong to The Church of Christ and no one has ever heard of a children's sunday school teacher that wasn't a woman.

 

[horseshowmom]

Tonight's news said that the attorneys are exploring post-partum depression as a possible defense. There might be a video at www.wreg.com.

 

[goofy's friends]

Everybody is speculating on a motive here...

I have this to say.
When the police are so strongly withholding information, it is probably because they feel it is beneficial to their investigation. If it was very cut and dry, then the motive might have been leaked by now.

There could be more going on here than we know about.

Patience people! Patience!

ITA!! It also leads us to believe that they are protecting someone----they wouldn't protect the shooter, so who else but the kids??

 

[Kerlynne]

ITA!! It also leads us to believe that they are protecting someone----they wouldn't protect the shooter, so who else but the kids??

That's what I was wondering, If somehow the children played a part in their father getting shot.

 

[momrek06]

That's what I was wondering, If somehow the children played a part in their father getting shot.

Well I said that a few posts back...I thought Mary might be COVERING for someone where she so quickly admitted her guilt.....

That being said....I never suspected the kids....some other adult (maybe) but never entered my mind the kids...ugh....

JUST SO SAD....prayers for all

 

[MScott1851]

THE BELOW IS PURELY HEARSAY...NO IDEA IF TRUE OR NOT...

Dh works for a Memphis TV station, he actually went and covered the visitation last week...and the story they were hearing rumbling around all weekend was that the wife was mentally unstable, emotionally and physically abusive to her husband and children, and possibly someone else was involved, not necessarily in the shooting, but was aware that it might happen. This has yet to be proven, of course.

Also...I was born and raised Church of Christ, and to insinuate that my religion is in the business of keeping women subservient and "in their place" is ridiculous. We merely take a literal interpretation of the Bible, and while women do not serve as pastors, elders, or deacons, we are encouraged to take on other responsibilities in the church. There's nothing shady or misogynistic about it. And several other religions don't allow women to serve in those capacities, either. (Southern Baptists, for example, only have about 30 women as pastors in approximately 40,000 churches, and this is only a recent development)

Churches of Christs have male pastors because they believe they are so instructed by the New Testament.

We decided this by, as in all doctrinal questions, asking, "What does the Bible say? 1) there were no known women pastors in New Testament times; 2) none of the instructions regarding church order include instructions for women pastors; and 3) some texts on church order explicitly forbid women to occupy that role. In 1 Timothy 2:12, written with the specific purpose of regulating the office of pastor and the orderly function of the churches, Paul writes, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man" (NIV). Paul does not expect that women will not or cannot learn or teach (compare with Titus 2:3-5 and 2 Tim. 1:5; 3:14,15). He concludes women cannot have a pastoral position, or perform the pastoral function, for that puts them in authority over men in the life of the church.

 

[Miss Inga Depointe]

I hope you don't think I am down on your church, really, Catholic women have limited roles in the church too and that doesn't affect our control or our decision making (at least in the American church), so I know how that kind of a thing goes.

I think it's more the pastor's wife thing we were wondering about (and priests don't have this same challenge, LOL). I think some people have wondered what kind of pressures that might have brought on (to be the perfect family and to be the perfect pastor's wife in the kind of religion.) I think it would be alot of pressure being a pastor's wife in any religion.

My mom once told me that a guy she was really in love with decided to be a minister and she told him she was proud of him but couldn't marry him because she didn't think she'd make a good pastor's wife. I think that was a good instance of self-awareness, on her part .

 

[MScott1851]

Oh, the above tirade wasn't directed at you in particular...just in general. I think that there's a certain amount of pressure involved with being any public figures' wife, and especially those in positions of religious leadership...my great-aunt was married to a preacher for over 20 years, and the pedestal that her congregation and others in the community put her up on was too high for ANYONE...the pressure to lead by example alone is bad enough, but when everyone in the town has unrealistic expectations, it only compounds the problem.

I just don't get how this thread even got headed in the direction that his particular religious affiliation had anything to do at all with the murder, or that Churches of Christ are some strange little deviant offshoot branch of Protestantism that are bound and determined to keep women quiet and obedient, so she snapped and killed him. The reality is that if Mr. Winkler had been any other denomination, the comparisons would have been the same, only substitute the denomination of choice...