ANALYSIS: 'Battered Woman' Defense Tested in Winkler Case

June 8, 2007 — -- For more than a decade, the so-called "battered woman syndrome" murder defense has gained traction in the courts and exonerated some abused women of homicide charges. Whether it will work for Mary Winkler remains a question. This morning in a Selmer, Tenn., court, a judge will deliver the answer.

When I first met Mary Winkler, she was working at a dry cleaning shop in McMinnville, Tenn. As I watched this petite 5-foot-2-inch woman diligently and politely wait on each customer with a smile, I wondered where her "ugly" (as she told the jury) came from.

Mary looked like a young, fun-loving schoolgirl more than a killer, and it's hard to even envision her picking up a 12-gauge shotgun that is almost as big as she is, balancing on pillows, shooting her preacher husband in the back while he slept and leaving him there to die.

That vision, however, became crystal clear at trial when I heard Mary tearfully testify about the fateful night when police believe she did exactly that. She also detailed a home life filled with years of fear and abuse.

It was early in the morning on March 22, 2006. She remembered her 1-year-old daughter Brianna, who had difficulty breathing, waking up in the middle of the night crying. She remembered Matthew, her husband, literally kicking her out of bed to go deal with their weeping child. When Brianna did not stop crying, Mary said Matthew did what he often did: suffocated Brianna by pinching her nose and covering her mouth to try to get her to stop.

"I just got to a point and snapped," Mary told the police.

She even remembered holding the shotgun later that morning. But she insisted she had no recollection of what happened thereafter, until she saw her dying husband lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

She grabbed the shotgun, her three children and a pair of socks for Brianna and fled. She did not try to help her husband, call 911 or tell anyone what she did until she was caught by the police the next day more than 500 miles away from home. Mary said she took her children to the beach "just to be together."