Mary Winkler’s defense won’t fight denial of lower bail

A minister’s widow accused of shooting her husband to death is not contesting a judge’s decision denying her bail-reduction request.

Meanwhile, Mary Carol Winkler is preparing for the first of two motion hearings scheduled today and Friday in McNairy County Circuit Court.

The first will be at 8 a.m. today, when she will ask the court to throw out statements she gave police at the time of her arrest.

Winkler has been indicted on a first-degree murder charge in the March 22 death of her husband, Matthew Winkler, a minister at Selmer’s Fourth Street Church of Christ.

Judge Weber McCraw set bail for Mary Winkler at $750,000 after a June 30 hearing. Defense attorneys then filed a motion to reduce that to a $315,000 property bond, which McCraw denied.

“We’ve decided that at this point we’re not going to appeal,” Mary Winkler’s attorney Steve Farese Sr. said Monday. “We’re working on something to see if we can make bond, and we’re preparing for the motion hearing. You can only do so much.”

The bail motion was one of 25 defense attorneys filed in June.

According to the motion to suppress statements Mary Winkler gave police, her attorneys believe she had not been properly advised of her constitutional rights or that the statements could be used against her. The motion also says the statements weren’t voluntary, and were therefore in violation of her right against self-incrimination.

Police have called a key statement that she gave agents of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation a confession. According to the statement, read by a TBI agent at Winkler’s bail hearing, she said she shot her husband in the back as he lay in bed.

She then took the couple’s three young girls and fled to Orange Beach, Ala., and authorities there arrested her, the statement said.

Farese questioned a TBI agent at the bail hearing about Winkler’s condition and state of mind, asking how much sleep she’d had when she gave the statement.

Another motion seeks to suppress evidence seized in the case.

That motion states the evidence was seized illegally and in violation of Mary Winkler’s Fourth and 14th Amendment rights. The motion also contends she will show that she was arrested illegally and without probable cause. •

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