Meet, Marry, Murder - Season 1, Episode 10 - Williams - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: On the day he disappeared, Mike Williams and his wife, Denise had plans to celebrate
their wedding anniversary, a romantic break just the two of them. If only Mike hadn't tried to squeeze in a little hunting
trip that morning. Mike never returns home. NARRATOR: A loving husband, a devoted father,
he had vanished without trace, leaving his devastated family with nothing but theories about what had become of him.
Maybe, he'd even been killed by an alligator. DERRICK WESTER: Because Lake Seminole is infested or has
a large number of alligators, there was a rumor around that the guy probably got snatched up by a larger alligator,
stuffed up under a rock, and that alligator probably preyed on him until he decomposed.
NARRATOR: It would take almost two decades for investigators to uncover the truth and when they did,
they would learn that the Williams perfect marriage wasn't quite the fairy tale everyone had imagined.
[music playing] Mike Williams worked harder than most to achieve his dream lifestyle.
He wanted a beautiful home, a wife, and children. His own childhood featured a loving mother and father,
but the Williams were far from wealthy. Mike had come from a modest background. His daddy was a Greyhound bus driver,
his mom was a daycare provider, and they had they lived in a double wide trailer.
They save their money up. They didn't buy a fancy home. They wanted to save their money to provide a good education
for their sons. NARRATOR: Mike worked nights in a supermarket through high school where he was a grade A student.
And it was here that he met his future wife, Denise Merrell. They became high school sweethearts.
Both were sporty and popular. He played football. She was a cheerleader. It was through Denise that Mike met Brian Winchester.
When Denise Williams and Brian Winchester went to high school, they went to North Florida Christian.
And it was at North Florida Christian that they met Mike Williams and they met the woman who would later become Brian Winchester's wife.
And by all accounts, the four of them were inseparable. They were fast friends. They all stayed in Tallahassee after graduating
from high school. NARRATOR: In 1994, Brian and Kathy married and began a family.
Mike and Dennis married the same year and had a daughter five years later. They seemed all set.
Dennis and Mike had a very strong marriage. They had a beautiful daughter. Mike adored Denise, did everything for her.
Really, I mean, he was a great husband. NARRATOR: Mike wanted more comfort for his family.
While Denise was taking time out to be a mother, Mike was working harder than ever.
Mike was a good family man. He was always a hard worker. Before he even graduated from Florida State University,
he already had a good job as a property appraiser. And by the year 2000, he was doing pretty well.
He was making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. NARRATOR: In fact, Mike's boss worried
that he worked too much. He would often be found in the office before dawn. After a busy day at work, he'd head home,
cook his wife's dinner, then return to his desk after Denise and his daughter had gone to bed.
On one occasion, his boss took the office keys away so Mike couldn't come into work at the weekend.
How did Denise feel about her husband being a workaholic? Not always well, she would tell friends.
Especially, when Mike always found the time for his other passion, hunting waterfowl.
When he was 15, he started duck hunting and it became his favorite hobby for the rest of his life.
NARRATOR: The 16th of December 2000, Mike and Denise's sixth wedding anniversary.
They were going away for the night to celebrate. There was even talk of taking the opportunity
to start trying for a second child, something Mike desperately wanted. But first, he had time to get a few hours of hunting in.
And so on the morning of December 16, he was going to go to the Florida Georgia Line
to Lake Seminole. And in Lake Seminole, it's a huge area. But you see, Mike was an avid duck hunter.
He had his spot. He knew the areas he wanted to go. He was supposed to have came over here duck hunting
that morning and-- by hisself. Nobody else was supposed to have been with him. NARRATOR: As the weak winter sun rose that morning,
Mike was already gathering together his gear, hitching his boat to his truck. It was a ritual he'd gone through 1,000 times before.
Before dawn he packed up his truck and he left for lake Seminole, which is about
an hour away from Tallahassee. It's on the Georgia State line. This was something he just really loved doing.
He told his wife, I'll be back in a few hours. NARRATOR: Denise stayed at home preparing
for the romantic break in the nearby charming fishing town of Apalachicola. But when hours passed with no sign of Mike,
alarm bells began to ring. When he didn't show up for around noon time, his wife started calling around looking for him and she finally
got a hold of somebody that had been fishing with him before. That guy got with her-- her father
and they come over here and notified local law enforcement. NARRATOR: The friend who responded
to Denise's panic-stricken phone call that day was Mike's high school buddy, a duck hunting
partner, Brian Winchester. He and his father, Marcus told Denise that everything would be fine and then headed to the lake.
ETHAN WAY: By the time Marcus Winchester and Brian Winchester got out to Lake Seminole,
the weather had gotten bad. There were some local law enforcement who responded and then they contacted the Florida
Wildlife Commission, the FWC, which oversees game and wildlife. And they began a search for what they
treated as a missing person. Perhaps he got lost. Perhaps he has gotten bogged down into the shallow,
but mucky waters. Mike would have gone with the proper gear. In order to go duck hunting, he would have had to worn
waders and rubber boots. And if one was to be in shallow water, they could easily sink
and the waders themselves, would pull somebody down below the water's surface. And that was the big concern.
NARRATOR: Searchers did not find Mike Williams at the lake that afternoon, but they found plenty of evidence
to prove that he'd been there. Friends see Mike's truck near a remote boat launch on the Florida side.
Meanwhile, a helicopter pilot spots the boat floating. And then law enforcement finds his shotgun in the boat,
so they're assuming something happened to him. Maybe he drowned. BRIAN HARRIS: Mike was last seen in what is known as Stump Lake.
Body of water at the deepest area is eight feet, sometimes six feet. And other times, very shallow.
It's called Stump Lake because there were a lot of trees that grew out of this lake.
There where a lot of rotted trees that had fallen and the only thing left were the stumps.
But they would be either hidden just below the water surface, or sticking up just above.
NARRATOR: Conservation officers and friends of Mike returned to the lake day after day to continue the search
but before long, hopes of finding Mike alive began to fade. I would submit that everyone who was involved in the search
for Mike Williams, with the exception of maybe one or two very, very optimistic very, very hopeful people,
believed that probably after four or five days, that there was not going to be a likely recovery.
NARRATOR: At first, friends and investigators believed that Mike must have drowned.
But a week or so after his disappearance, they started to question that hypothesis.
If he had drowned, where's his body? Because normally in this area, it would have floated up.
And that hasn't happened and days go by. And so since he's not-- there's no body, you have to wonder
what could have happened? And you start ticking off the questions. NARRATOR: 10 days into the search, investigators made
another disturbing discovery. Mike's khaki camouflage hunting hat floating on top
of the lake's dark waters. This was important because it led the searchers to believe
that they didn't think Mike drowned because the hat wasn't located in particularly deep waters or just floating
in a huge body of water. This would be an area that they should have found a body along with that hat.
The body should have risen to the top. It wasn't a deep body of water. NARRATOR: Baffled by the absence of a body,
investigators began to consider a sensational new theory. So all I remember was it was a hunter who went missing
and the rumors are the newspaper had started suggesting that it might have been alligators
or something like that. Seminole Lake has some of the biggest alligators in the state.
They grow to between 13, 14 feet at max. There are some very old ones there and they get to go up to 1,000 pounds.
NARRATOR: Within a few weeks, the search for Mike's body was scaled back. Soon, nobody was looking for him.
Eaten by an alligator or not, by now recovery seemed increasingly unlikely. In February 2001, two months after her husband went missing,
Denise Williams was looking for closure. Denise has really kept a low profile during the search.
This has been covered by news media, but Denise isn't talking to anybody. She's the grieving widow.
When the search gets called off, she accepts the fact that Mike has drowned. That Mike somehow has died.
And so she calls for a memorial service to honor her now deceased husband. ETHAN WAY: I think many in law enforcement and many friends
and family of Denise, unfortunately, probably believed that he had passed away. And that's why there were so many people at the service.
Most, if not all of them, had come to the conclusion that Mike Williams was not coming back from Lake Seminole.
NARRATOR: In June, a fisherman from nearby Jackson County discovered Mike's waders in the water.
They were pristine. Was it more evidence that Mike had been mauled by alligators?
FRANK ROB: There were no teeth marks on the victim's clothing, but an alligator, or any crocodilian,
doesn't have to leave a tooth mark somewhere in order to kill a person. They actually have a very sensitive
bite force when they want to. They pick up their hatchlings, they pick up things gently.
They grab something very gently, in some cases, and sink it and drown it and can leave not even a mark on the person.
Yeah. It's very possible. NARRATOR: Believing that the floating waders would at long
last lead them to Mike's submerged body, police divers were brought in. It was a tense moment for Mike's loved ones.
Would the search bring the closure that they craved? And this allows her to collect on their life insurance policy.
And Denise then will collect more than $1.5 million. NARRATOR: After the discovery of Mike Williams waders
floating on the surface of Lake Seminole, search and recovery divers were called in.
They believed they might find his body entangled in the dense hydrilla weeds that choked the lake bed.
They uncovered Mike's camouflage jacket, hunting license, and flashlight. But two weeks after he had disappeared,
there was still no sign of a body. A mystery may be, but Mrs. Denise Williams felt the need to move on.
She successfully petitioned to have Mike declared officially dead. Veteran homicide detective, Brian Harris,
believes granting a death certificate was a mistake. The mere fact that they found those items,
it should have generated a murder investigation or more work should have been done.
NARRATOR: Denise may have come to terms with letting Mike go, but his mother, Cheryl was not prepared to give up on what
had happened to her son. Mike's mother, she's not accepting this. She's not ready to believe that her son is dead.
There are too many questions. Too many suspicious things. This just doesn't make sense.
She's not letting go. She's not giving up on her son. NARRATOR: Cheryl paid for billboard appeals,
handed out fliers and took out adverts, asking the public for help. She examined every possibility.
Even her daughter-in-law came under suspicion. Ever since Cheryl Williams began, essentially,
what I'd call her crusade, Denise Williams has been vilified by certain parts of the Tallahassee community.
NARRATOR: The grapevine in Tallahassee was alive with whispers. Was Denise Williams really the grieving widow?
Gossip was perhaps the least of her worries. With Mike gone, Denise needed to become the family breadwinner.
Denise was still a stay at home mom. She had an infant daughter. She had no ready source of income,
so she needed to do things to take care of the bills that were starting to mount up in terms of her home, vehicle
insurance, other things. NARRATOR: Luckily for Denise, she knew just how to get her hands on a very large sum of money.
She has filed a petition to have Mike declared legally dead. A county judge grants it and this
allows her to move forward with getting the money from that life insurance policy.
And Denise collects more than $1.5 million. NARRATOR: It was around this time that friends of Denise
discovered that she'd first filed a claim for life insurance less than three weeks
after Michael disappeared. The cause of death she listed was accidental drowning.
Amongst those helping her, one of her oldest friends, Brian Winchester. It was at the direction of Denise's father,
and with the input of Brian, that they began the process of simply filing a claim.
The sad reality about life insurance is you don't want to ever need it. But when you need it, you actually have to ask for it.
And there's no set time that somebody is supposed to sit around and wait before they
actually begin the process. For someone to file for insurance when you haven't even recovered a body within 19 days
would seem suspicious to me. From an outside view, it may seem suspicious, but one of the things that everyone needs to remember
is that the person who was in charge of handling their insurance affairs, for both Mike and Denise,
was the Winchester group. And that was the insurance company that was run by Marcus Winchester, who
is Brian Winchester's father. NARRATOR: Cheryl Williams remains defiant. She began campaigning for an investigation
into Mike's disappearance. She is relentless. She never gives up on her son. In 2004, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
reopens the investigation into Mike's disappearance. Because now, they have enough evidence
to say this doesn't make sense. They look back and they say, hold on. None of it adds up, nobody floating up,
no teeth marks on everything that came to the surface. Something's wrong here. So Cheryl has finally been heard and the case is reopened.
None of it made sense. The gas tank in the boat is completely full. The location where the boat is-- by this time, Mike's own mother
has done her own research about wind speed and currents at the time that Mike went missing.
None of this added up to her. She wasn't buying it. NARRATOR: A fresh investigation revisited the alligator theory,
and the findings revealed inconsistencies. If someone had fallen off a boat and they drowned,
a lot of other things are eat them along before an alligator touches them. They're going to have--
this part of the United States, they're going to have crawdads on them, they're going
to have turtles eating them. A lot of the things are going to be cleaning that up before alligator even thinks about it.
That's not their food supply. It's not what they're looking for. NARRATOR: And there was more.
BRIAN HARRIS: Alligators, in essence, almost hibernate in the winter time. The temperatures were cool in the 50s, very damp.
When the temperatures are in that kind of setting, alligators are not feeding. This was not feeding season for alligators.
And they want to be at 88 and 1/2 degrees, optimally, to be able to feed and digest their food.
When they're not at that temperature, everything, kind of, changes. They will slow down their feeding.
If they do eat something, it takes them longer to digest it. And, really, gators only have to eat once a year if they could
find a good meal, feed on that one time in a year, and they're good to go. NARRATOR: There were many unanswered questions,
but the investigation failed to find any answers. Years went by. Cheryl was not to be swayed.
She continued her relentless campaign. Even as she did, Denise Williams was moving on with her life.
And by her side, Brian Winchester, Mike's best friend and the man who had arranged his life insurance.
We still don't know where Mike is, how he died. Did he die? But five years have passed now.
He's been declared officially dead and Denise and Brian get married. And they move in together into the same home
that Mike and Denise had shared in Tallahassee. NARRATOR: As Denise and Brian went public
with their relationship, the Tallahassee rumor mill went into overdrive. Had their affair, in fact, begun before Mike went missing?
ETHAN WAY: The idea that Brian Winchester and Denise Williams had an affair is, essentially, that urban legend that develops
from the fact that, yes, Denise Williams did marry Brian Winchester many, many years
after Mike's disappearance. People presumed that because they got married, they must have had a relationship
prior to Mike's disappearance, and that's simply not true. NARRATOR: Little by little, the community
began to share in those suspicions. Life for Denise was growing uncomfortable. She and Brian Winchester were both, you know,
talked about and gossiped about. And so Denise Williams became very, very guarded.
She was always, I think, you might describe her a little bit as shy. But she essentially retreated to going to work, doing her job,
and she was very, I'd say, circumspect and quiet about just her life in general.
NARRATOR: In 2007, the investigation into Mike Williams disappearance, prompted by his mother, ground to a halt.
You're working up an investigation with no body. And that can be very difficult because the body
itself can tell a story. It's a body of evidence. And this was the challenge for law enforcement.
And as a result, you don't get as many resources thrown in on a missing person case and, hence, was the case.
There's no crime scene documentary, there's no preservation of evidence, there's no preserving the items that were recovered.
And so, in essence, the case goes cold. It goes dormant. NARRATOR: Later that year, Mike's brother, Nick,
contacted police. He wanted to report a missing gun, a .22 caliber Ruger pistol, that Mike
had inherited from his father. By 2007, Mike's family, they're wondering, Denise has returned all of Mike's original weapons,
all of his guns, and whatever he had hunting wise to his family. It's part of their legacy.
But they're missing a weapon, a .22. And through the help of the local sheriff and a court order, they're able to obtain
that gun back from Denise. NARRATOR: Another mystery, another unexplained twist.
Why had she kept the gun, one that she'd actually claimed on insurance? She'd reported it as lost.
Once again, detectives find themselves wondering if Mike's death was suspicious after all.
Mike has been declared dead. But now, he's a suspicious missing person. So that causes the state of Florida to look at this case
as perhaps, this is insurance fraud. Maybe Mike and Denise are working together.
Or what is the conspiracy here? So it's reopened, but nothing really happens. And then eventually, it gets closed again.
Cheryl keeps calling, and calling, and calling. She's still doing the billboards,
she's still doing the flyers, she's not giving up. But pretty soon, the law enforcement officials
are saying, enough is enough. And they're just not even taking her calls. NARRATOR: Seven years after Mike Williams vanished,
it seemed all hope of solving the case had been abandoned. But Cheryl would still not take no for an answer.
This lady went herself, made fliers, put them on light poles in Tallahassee. She had a picket sign that she stood out
in front of the church that the Winchesters, Brian and Denise, attended. She got funding, she had big billboards
erected around Tallahassee. Have you seen my son? She took out ads in the paper.
I mean, she never stopped. She wrote about 9,000 letters to the governor of the state.
She kept it public. She never let it die. Not one of them was opened. Not one of them.
They were just tossed aside. It's a closed case. Not my job. NARRATOR: Finally, she found someone who would listen
and when she did, everything began to unravel. The authorities released a three page indictment,
and it spells out what they believe happened. Something out of a bad Saturday evening movie.
NARRATOR: In 2008, Derrick Wester, a detective in the Jackson County Sheriff's Department,
had become deeply troubled by some of the claims being made by Cheryl, Mike Willams' mother.
There were simply too many unanswered questions. Once I had an opportunity to have a discussion with Ms.
Williams, Ms. Cheryl Williams, which was Mike's mother, some of the things that she brought up kind of just made you,
like, want to look into it more, you know, want to just track down this, you know,
to appease this grieving mother. And then it just kind of snowballed into maybe there really was something happened here.
NARRATOR: Wester delves deep into Mike's life insurance arrangements. He'd had three policies, including
one taken out just three months before he went missing. The payouts were now bankrolling Denise and Brian's lifestyle.
And I was having a discussion with some other investigators about whether or not he actually had applied for the insurance
policy that the Winchester Financial Group had wrote for him. And Brian Winchester was the agent.
But I had needed his-- Mike Williams' picture for something. So I had his stuff laid on my desk,
and I pulled up the application for his insurance, his life insurance. And I pulled up the driver's license number, typed it
into the computer, and was going to get his driver's license picture. And when I typed the number in it,
it popped up Denise Williams' picture. So I was like, well, how is this? I mean, she's not the applicant.
NARRATOR: Investigator Wester now suspects Mike's policy was altered in the days
following his disappearance. Did Brian Winchester go and do that? Using him and Denise's knowledge and information
and then when I just need the driver's license number, I would speculate he said, well, we just need a number.
And so the chief pulled her's out and they copied the number down. NARRATOR: And Wester found more.
He had a different policy in between the time he went missing and the time she filed
for the death certificate. Because she had-- we had to check that she had wrote and signed to pay the premium during that six month period.
NARRATOR: Wester also looked at Denise and Brian's relationship. Had it really begun after Mike's death?
What he found painted a complicated picture. There was no evidence of that. There was no evidence that suggested that the--
Denise Williams and Brian Winchester were having an affair. They were in close proximity to each other, all of them were.
Kathy Thomas, and Mike Williams, and Brian Winchester, and Denise Williams would go out socially.
NARRATOR: But police records told a different story. One night, the Tallahassee Police Department
had called in a abandoned vehicle at a church down the road from Denise and Mike Williams' house.
They were still married at the time. The truck was registered to Brian Winchester.
They looked up the contact number for the owners. They called Brian Winchester's house,
and Kathy Winchester, at that time, answered the phone. Well, she thought her husband was duck hunting in Arkansas
or somewhere out of town. So she called Brian's father. And by the time the father got over there,
the vehicle had already been gone. NARRATOR: Denise and Brian had gone through a lot
to be together. More than anyone could possibly have imagined. Yet seven years after they married,
the relationship began to crumble. By 2012, this happy couple, Denise and Brian, not so happy
anymore. Apparently, Brian has a little sex addiction problem and that's enough for Denise
to say I'm out of here. So Denise decides she's-- she's getting out of the marriage
and she and Brian separate. And so he's no longer with Denise, but he still loves her very much.
He still is so attached to Denise. That's the love of his life, or at least in his mind.
By 2016, the marriage is going to end. They were separated, some periods of getting back
together, but has had enough. She has now filed for divorce. NARRATOR: For four years, the couple's relationship
had been on and off. Brian had sought therapy for his addiction, but struggled to fight his demons.
With a divorce looming, he made one last desperate plea for Denise. In August of 2016, something kind of bizarre happens.
Denise is driving on her way to her job at Florida State University when all of a sudden, Brian
springs from the backseat and basically attacks her. He starts shouting demands at her.
Something out of a bad Saturday evening movie. He pops up from behind the seat, and he kidnaps
her and holds a weapon to her. And he's pleading for her to keep their marriage together.
And then she's trying to calm him down. And he's basically, sort of, delirious. And he's angry and he's desperate.
And he says, look. I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have anything to live for.
I don't want this divorce. I don't want this divorce. But if you want a divorce, I just
don't have any reason to live and I'm going to kill myself. And she calms him down.
She says, please, Brian, just calm down. Just calm down. You'll be OK. Everything will be fine.
So she calms him down, she takes him back to his vehicle, she promises him she won't talk to the police.
Just calm down, Brian. Everything will be OK. And when she leaves him, she goes straight to police,
and she tells them what happened. And when they did eventually apprehend him for that,
he had a tarp, and he had bottles of bleach, and he had other items in his truck
that suggests that he was probably going to kill and bury Denise Williams. Brian is charged with kidnapping,
domestic assault, and burglary. NARRATOR: Brian and Denise's divorce would be a game changer.
There's a law that says spouses cannot be compelled to testify, but these guys are getting divorced.
Now, there's a criminal case against Brian. Someone's going to sing. This premise of husband and wife privilege
was very beneficial to Denise, initially. She knew that Brian would never say anything against her
and vice versa because they were in on it. They were co-conspirators in this death.
They were in on it. And so by both of their actions, their silence was sealed. NARRATOR: When the marriage ended,
so did the pact of silence. A secret deal was struck between husband number two, Brian Winchester, and the prosecutors, who
had charged him in relation to holding Denise at gunpoint in her car. It was a deal which meant the unearthing
of Mike Williams's body. Florida law enforcement officials hold a news conference.
The reporters are all there with their cameras set up. And they announce after all of these years, 17 years, Mike
Williams' body has been found. NARRATOR: Brian Winchester had handed information
to detectives in return for a lenient sentence for abducting his estranged wife.
Brian Winchester got the deal of the century. Brian Winchester was facing life in prison for kidnapping
Denise Williams at gunpoint. He was two to three months away from going to a trial.
Brian Winchester had been in jail for almost a year, a little over a year. And when faced with the prospect of having to go to trial
looking at life in prison, he approaches the state attorney's office and offers to tell them a story.
NARRATOR: 17 years after her husband Mike vanished without a trace, Denise Williams would be formally charged
with murdering her husband. Brian claimed that Denise had planned the murder of her high school sweetheart
right down to the last detail. Brian is the star witness. And he says, yes. I pulled the trigger, but Denise was the mastermind.
In May of 2018, Denise Williams is leaving her job at Florida State University. She's on her way to go find her daughter
and celebrate her birthday, when police show up and handcuff her and take her into custody.
Denise is under arrest for the murder of her husband, Mike Williams. Everybody who's in jail facing a murder charge
is very concerned and very upset because you're wondering, how did I get here? Why am I here?
Why am I in jail? The authorities release a three page indictment. And it spells out what they believe happened.
NARRATOR: For the people of Tallahassee, the grand jury indictment ended a 17 year wait to find out what
had happened to Mike Williams. The courtroom was kind of like a little circus. I mean, essentially, everybody in town
had thought Denise Williams was guilty for years, and years, and years. NARRATOR: The public gallery was packed.
Some had come to see Denise face justice. Others believed she was the victim of a grave injustice.
Whilst Denise faced a life term for conspiracy to murder, Brian had his deal. He was going to jail for kidnapping,
but there was no mention of him being charged with killing his friend. He knows where the body's buried because he
killed Mike Williams. By offering the body and by then adding a little extra, which
is you can go after Denise Williams, I'll make up a story for you. NARRATOR: For homicide detective, Brian Harris,
the facts speak for themselves. There is no chance Denise is not involved in this murder.
NARRATOR: Denise gave nothing away as she sat in the Leon County Courthouse. She was very, very, very, I don't know, cold.
Very-- not responsive. Kind of, almost, robotic. NARRATOR: She maintained her innocence.
Her lawyer told the court that Denise had always believed that Mike had died in a tragic accident.
But the cops know all the details. They know all the information. They know where the bones were buried.
They know the details and the motive, and the why this has happened. Somebody talked.
Somebody laid out the plan. This was a plan laying in wait and 17 years later, it all came unraveled.
I mean, they turned on each other. Ultimately, bottom line is those two turned on each other in the end.
And it's a direct result of Cheryl Williams one woman army. NARRATOR: In detailed testimony, Brian told the jury
how the conspiracy had begun. So Brian says he and Denise start having an affair.
And that affair started three years before Mike disappeared. Three years before he was killed.
And in that time they're thinking, how can we be together? Because see, Denise's family doesn't believe in divorce.
And so Denise is like, you know, I can't really do that. So how are we going to be together?
NARRATOR: For three years, they met in secret in vehicles and hotel rooms. On double dates, they would secretly kiss as soon as Mike
and Kathy's backs were turned. Nine months before Mike Williams disappeared, Denise and Brian started hatching their plan.
They conspired to kill Mike Williams. She wanted Brian to kill his wife and help her kill Mike, her husband.
But an ironic twist, if you can say Brian has principles, Brian told Denise I can't do that
to the mother of my children. NARRATOR: On the morning of the 16th of December 2000,
Mike Williams had not gone to the lake alone. As best we can gather and from what Brian Winchester testified
to, he had made arrangements with Mike Williams on the evening of December 15, 2000
to go hunting with Mike out at Lake Seminole. No one knew that Brian Winchester and Mike Williams were going to be hunting together.
Mike's mom is right all along. Mike would not go out hunting alone. He had a buddy and his buddy was Brian.
It was going to be Brian and Mike. They were going to do a little duck hunting. He stated that he had met Mike Williams over here
in Jackson County at the boat ramp. They had launched the boat. It was a little 15 foot [inaudible]
with a Go-Devil motor on the back. According to Brian Winchester, who's really the only person
who knows what happened, he and Mike got in a small boat and he pushed off from a landing.
They weren't on the water very long before Brian Winchester adjusted the boat in such a way that Mike
Williams fell overboard. As Mike Williams made his way to a cypress stump. DERRICK WESTER: Mike Williams had stood up in the boat.
Brian Winchester pushed him out. They were dressed in duck hunting gear, which included a set of waders.
And it was Brian Winchester's thought and anticipation that he would fall into the water
and the waders would fill up with water and he would go to the bottom and drown.
NARRATOR: But it did not go according to plan. For a start, a safety conscious Mike had practiced many times
removing his waders in the water. He managed to keep his head above the surface.
It's not called Stump Field or Stump Lake for nothing. Mike was able to, when he was tossed out of the boat,
grab on to a stump. He was able to-- to tread water, so to speak. Stay above water and he began hollering, yelling for help.
And Brian Winchester freaked out. He didn't know what else to do. Brian Winchester circled around him approximately three
times and then, while looking directly at Mike Williams, he shot him in the face with a 12 gauge shotgun
at a distance of less than three feet. NARRATOR: This wasn't part of the plan. Brian couldn't leave Mike's body in the water
with a gunshot wound. He had to cover his tracks. He drug him back up to the hill,
he backed his vehicle down here and loaded him up into the back of his vehicle. He then took the boat and drove it
around to where it was found. Then he walked to the shore, walked down the road back to his truck and then drove back to Tallahassee.
NARRATOR: Brian knew there would be a search for Mike's remains. He made sure they wouldn't look in the right place.
To move the boat away so it wouldn't draw suspicion to the area where the bones would be.
And that is why the boat's final positioning is in direct contrast to where the water
and the current flows and the wind speed at that time. Brian explains it all. It all is making sense.
It's not an alligator. All these theories were thrown out. But what was even more horrifying
was the plot and the plan that he tells. In the afternoon, he took the body to Carr Lake
and buried it in a shallow grave next to the waterside. Brian is the star witness, and he says, yes.
I pulled the trigger, but Denise was the mastermind. Denise was the one who came up with the idea.
It was all about Denise. NARRATOR: Would the jury come to the conclusion that Brian had acted alone or would they
accept his claim that Denise had demanded that he kill his friend? Denise is the brains behind this operation.
Denise had the forethought to obtain a life insurance policy. She had the well-being enough to think about declaring Mike
dead before his body is found. And who knows? If Denise had only been able to control her own selfishness,
if she had stuck it out with Brian, perhaps Mike never would have been found. We often say, there's nothing better than a scorned woman.
I think it goes the same for men. Nothing better than a scorned man. NARRATOR: After 17 years without answers, justice when
it finally came, was swift. Brian's story is very likely. And the jury believes so, too.
And Denise Williams is convicted on all charges-- conspiracy to commit murder and accessory after the fact.
And she's sentenced to life in prison. We were all surprised. The jury had been out approximately eight hours.
We felt, as the defense team, the case had not been proven, that Brian Winchester had admitted to being a murderer
and being a liar. So we were surprised. It takes-- it's almost like a gut punch to have something like that happen when they come
back and say, you know, guilty. NARRATOR: To investigator Derrick Wester, it was the only possible outcome.
As soon as I heard that they had found his remains, I knew that eventually, they was going to arrest her.
NARRATOR: Denise Williams' defense counsel, believes that Brian Winchester has been allowed to incriminate
his ex-wife in a murder she didn't commit in return for revealing where he'd hidden Mike's body.
One of the things he said on the stand was that Denise Williams wasn't on the lake that day
when he killed Mike Williams, but she was in his head. I mean, if you kill somebody, you
bury him in a shallow grave, you know where the body is. And obviously, the government wanted the body.
And Brian Winchester was the only person who knew where Mike Williams remains were.
And so he turned that into, you know, the key component of the deal of the century.
As to Brian Winchester receiving immunity, this case and-- wouldn't be solved, Mike Williams' remains wouldn't
have been found, and Cheryl Williams wouldn't have got closure. So I think that it's a decision that a prosecutor
has to make daily about, you know, what you have to give to get. NARRATOR: Denise Williams was sentenced to life imprisonment
without parole for the murder of Mike Williams and for the fraudulent life insurance claim.
Denise Williams is a cold, calculating woman, was very, very manipulative of men in her life.
ETHAN WAY: To me, it's the case that's the biggest tragedy of my career in terms of an innocent person
being convicted. It's not the most salacious case, it's not the most violent case, it's not the most complicated
case, but it is a case where you're left with this position that the central mob mentality in the community based
perception was more of a factor than the actual trial itself. [music playing]

Denise Williams was devastated when her husband Mike disappeared on a hunting trip. He was feared drowned or eaten by alligators, but his mother didn't buy it.

Though wedded couples vow to stay together until death do they part, this new true crime series looks at what happens when a groom or bride causes their beloved's death.

Brief Summary

Mike Williams disappeared in 2000; his wife Denise and friend Brian conspired to murder him for insurance money, leading to their convictions.

Key points

Mike Williams' Disappearance. On their anniversary, Mike Williams vanishes after a hunting trip, leaving his family devastated.
The Alligator Theory. Rumors swirl that Mike may have been taken by an alligator, complicating the investigation.
Cheryl's Relentless Search. Mike's mother, Cheryl, campaigns tirelessly for answers, believing her son is still alive.
Denise's Life Insurance Claim. Just weeks after Mike's disappearance, Denise files a life insurance claim, raising suspicions.
Investigation Reopened. Years later, new evidence prompts the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to reopen Mike's case.
Cheryl's Relentless Pursuit. Cheryl Williams never stopped searching for her son, Mike, despite the case being closed.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Maybe, he'd even been killed by an alligator.

NARRATOR speculating on Mike's fate

0:32WatchJun 8, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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