20/20 - Mr & Mrs Murder

Episode Date: September 19, 2026

The seemingly perfect lives of two close-knit Florida couples unravel after one vanishes on a hunting trip. One brave woman goes undercover to unravel the shocking truth. In 2020, an appeals court unanimously overturned Denise’s conviction for murder, ruling that the State failed to produce “competent” and “substantial” evidence. The court upheld her conviction of conspiracy to commit murder. To get ad-free episodes, early access to new true crime podcasts, and exclusive bonus episodes, subscribe to 20/20 True Crime+ on Apple Podcasts. ⁠Click here⁠ to start your free trial today. Terms apply. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Start your free trial today. An all-new 2020 starts right now. Normally when an alligator takes down a deer or a pig or human attacks maybe after dark, they normally don't try to eat it at that point in time. The alligator will take them to the bottom and drown the person. They store it under a log or in their cave or somewhere they let it decay before they try to eat it. it. And then they come up and do the death roll. It tears the meat off. Like we would tear a chicken wing apart trying to eat it. They're just an eating machine.

P-speed market. Tallahassee is a very southern town. It does not look like that typical Florida beach. It's like old Florida. It has been said that Tallahassee is a big little town. Let me just start at the beginning. We all went to high school together. Me and Brian, Mike and Denise. I have a whole new respect for my wife.

We're just totally overwhelmed. We were two. new perfect little families that are all best friends. I always had my family Christmas on a Saturday before Christmas day. We would go to South Georgia at my Granny's Farm. Around noon, Denise calls me and she says, Do you know where Brian is? Do you know where Mike is?

And I say, no, I don't have your kids. I don't have heard from anybody this morning. During hunting season, Brian hunted nearly every day. It would just be morning and I would be up and he wouldn't be there and I would just know he was hunting. She says, well, Mike had gone hunting at Lake Seminole that morning and they were supposed to be leaving to go to Apalachicola. He told me he'd be back by noon.

She was irritated. Denise and Mike had planned to take their anniversary trip at a bed and breakfast. It was kind of a big deal. I said, no, I don't know. If I hear anything, I'll let you know. Brian wasn't home by 2 o'clock, so I just packed up, and we just went up to my grannies by ourselves.

Bryant got to my grannies between four and five, and my uncle said to him, you're in a lot of trouble, meaning because he was late, you know, and so I say to Brian, did you ever hear from Mike today? and he says, well, what are you talking about? And I said, well, Denise had called me and said that Mike hadn't come back from hunting yet.

And he says, oh, I don't know. You know, I didn't go with him this morning. We had a great afternoon. Presents are opened and shortly into all that. Brian was asleep on the couch. I just rolled my eyes and was like, of course, shows up late, and then just comes in and falls asleep. When we got back to Tallahassee, Brian's father called and said, Mike hasn't come home at all.

And they need to go out to the lake to look for him. And I remember Brian saying to me, he'll be cold and he'll be beat up, but he'll be fine. I went to Denise's house. We all felt like we were just waiting for him to get home, so we could all just like, laugh and hear what happens. He's going to have some hilarious story. Duck hunting typically, your ideal conditions are when it's overcast, wet, really cold, just terrible weather. That's when your ducks are flying the best. And that's usually when I stay home when it's nice and cold like that. But Mike had the passion for the outdoors.

But he wasn't a real strong swimmer. He would go by himself. You normally would wear his waiters, which is extremely dangerous for a duck hunter, because if you fall in, the waiters fill up with water and you drown. He just wasn't careful enough, in my opinion, but... He wanted to be outside shooting ducks. It was around 72 degrees on Saturday when Mike went missing, and then a cold front had come through, and the next morning it was 12 degrees. When I first arrived on scene, Brian Winchester and his dad found the boat. It was in the

weeds over near the western side of the shore there. We all gathered around kind of helped them pull it up. We were thinking Mike had fallen in, but why was the kill switch still attached? I was able to get in the helicopter. We're hovering above the lake and it's a very eerie sight when you see all these eyes and you know what those eyes are attached to. There were 12 alligators swimming all around these boats. People had no idea they were there, which then gives you a really foreboding feeling of if he is in the lake, it's not good. Mike had to be out there. He had to be okay. This is Denise and Mike. This is This is the two of them.

In high school, they seemed so perfect together, completed each other. He was a football player, she was a cheerleader. I mean, it was just perfect. All of the boys really wanted to date Denise. She was very fashionable, and she was a big flirt. Denise came from a very religious family. Let's go out to prayers. We all had...

all had the expectation to be perfect. The angels haven't deviated from God's word. You were given these rules of conduct, no drinking, no drugs, no sex before marriage, no heavy metal music, things that might be very typical for a lot of high schoolers. Mike was kind of an anomaly on the football field. He wasn't super athletic, but he overcame that by just tenacity.

He gave one of the hardest hits I've ever seen on a receiver in my life. Most kids are going to jump up and down and scream and yell and be happy, and the first thing that Mike did was he was concerned about him. He kneeled down and started praying for him. And I knew right from that day what kind of person Mike was. I met Mike in fifth grade. And we were always just good friends. He was a little wild and untamed.

Mike was loved by everybody. When I was in ninth grade, Brian was a senior, and so were Mike and Denise and Kathy. Brian loved Kathy a lot. He was that one boy who's introverted and then ends up with the girl who's the cheerleader. You know, that was me. I grew up middle class.

My parents had a copy and print shop, the copy shop. Brian's family was different from ours. I looked at his family. His mom was a stay-at-home mom, and his dad was a successful businessman, deacon in the church. Ms. Bright. Knew lots of people in town. That's what I wanted, was what I saw in the,

that picture. Brian and I got married at a country club in town and it was outside under an archway. It was beautiful. I was teaching middle school and Brian was working under his father, kind of like the next generation of Winchester Financial Group, you know, selling life insurance. What we want you to do is to accomplish your goal. Mike and Denise got married. shortly after us within that same year. Mike was working for Ketchum, appraisal. We would spend a lot of time with Mike and Denise. We'd been out of college for a year, two years.

There was a couple of bars that would have Old Wave. So it would be like the older music, the music that we listened to in high school. We're starting to drink. It was very exciting. exciting and it was fun. It was fun to go out and go to a bar and see a band and dance and all of these kind of like new experiences were things that did not align with the way we had been raised in the Baptist Church. There was this feeling that this is a little bit

wrong and it's made it even more exciting. As two young married couples were doing things that kids do when they're in college, right? After years of going out and partying, I said to Brian, well, all right, you know, this has been fun, but when are we going to start having kids? I was ready to be a mom, and that's where the fork in the road was where we were was. Mike and I both wanted to go to the next level and start our families. Brian and Denise were not ready to let go of this partying. They didn't want to give it up. Is that close up a lot for you? When I realized I was pregnant, I was sort of what I could just

describe as full. It was the beginning of this dream that I'd had. Brian wasn't ready to be to be a dad. He's like, okay, Kathy has what she wanted, so now I can sort of do whatever I want. Mother five. Happy birthday to you. At this point, Brian and I have been married for six years.

We had grown so far apart and weren't even being intimate. Denise and I spent a lot of time on the phone. She would confide in me about things going on between her and Mike. Mike has been pulling out of this foursome that we were. He was just done with partying and was enjoying being a father. For Denise's 30th birthday, the four of us were going to go to Panama City. Denise came, but Mike was not with her.

I knew what it would be. It would be drinking and it would be dancing. I don't have a lot of clear memories of everything that happened in Panama City. I know that there was a lot of alcohol. Brian took some pictures of me and Denise sitting on the bed partially clothed. By today's standards, it wouldn't be. be that bad, but it was enough to keep me in line and keep me guilty. They had spent this time just encapsulating me in this invisible bubble, not feeling confident

to reach out to anyone else that I could talk to. We were driving back to Tallahassee that night, and I can remember just thinking, there had been several times that I would complain to Mike about Brian. And he said, Kathy, pack your stuff up and go back home to your parents. And I told Brian what Mike had told me, he got worried and confided in Denise. Denise called me and she said, God hates divorce. That kind of emotional blackmail was enough to make me. back away at the last minute.

On Christmas Day, it was painful to have to pretend that everything's okay. There's this unspoken assumption. You know, I think we were all thinking it, but no one was wanting to talk about it there in that house because it's just almost too horrible to say. Brian had this picture that he and Mike had taken together when they were in Arkansas on a hunting trip.

I framed it, and that's what I gave him for Christmas. He opens it, and he looks at it, and he says, why would you give this to me? Why would you think I would want this? After 10 days searching, I knew it was a recovery operation. Since Lake Seminole's been here, 103, 104 bodies over the years have drowned. Every person that I've been involved in on Seminole

that's been in the water, we have found him. Mike was 31. My son's closest friend. He was like a son to be. There comes a time when reality sets in that if you can't find him with a helicopter with infrared, you know, he's not coming back. That grief was so, so great

and so real and felt by everybody who knew Mike and Denise. It was very somber. It was very upsetting. There were three or four of us that were supposed to speak

and I wasn't able to do it. Every year, Winchester Financial Group would have an annual meeting of all the agents. Marcus and Brian had compiled a presentation that they presented to, like, the higher-ups. Integrity, friendship, faith, and the feeling of family. Brian had sold Mike two of the three life insurance policies that he held. worth $1.75 million. But in Florida, you had to wait several years for a missing person to be declared dead.

Brian's increasingly getting anxious about this. He felt like it would look really bad if he had sold this policy to Mike and Denise. Now Mike is gone, but the company isn't paying because Mike technically is just missing. I can remember him saying, we cannot wait that long. Denise needs that money. The essence of the Winchester Financial Group is characterized

through this heartfelt story of a special client and a very close and loving family friend. That presentation was made to convince the board to pay Mike's life insurance policy without his body having been recovered. He was supposed to return home that day. to celebrate a wedding anniversary. But the miracle of life insurance

is going to feel a big need, a huge need. All of this is starting to just fade into like a new reality. Between the insurance discussions, between running the errands for Denise, Brian was totally available to her in a way that he had never been to me.

He was at that point her night in shining armor. And I would have conversations with Brian that I wasn't happy. I didn't want to live like this. I didn't want this kind of a marriage. I can remember Brian saying to me, who is going to want to marry you? You're going to be a divorced single mother with another man's child. It was incredibly lonely.

In June, six months out of the six months out of the day. After the initial search, we found a set of waiters floating. A diver from Tallahassee came over, and he dove down in the deeper hole. Within probably two minutes, he came up with a hunting jacket. One sleeve was turned inside out, like someone was trying to get it off. And I put my hand in the pocket and pulled out a hunting license. It said Mike Williams. It was just astounding to me that six months later it's been in the water and I could read his name plain as day

About ten feet from where we had marked the hydrilla was all turned up There had been an alligator there that had done what they called the death roll where they just spin and spin and spin Didn't find any bones or anything but just reinforced what I had seen six months ago Alligators were all over the place. You know he fell out Waiters filled up. He eventually fell out of the waiters, alligators taking them somewhere and stuffed them. Brian's demeanor was relief,

because now they can get a death certificate and the life insurance was going to be paid. I remember asking him, were the waiters messed up? If an alligator got him, then wouldn't there be bite-marked? bite marks and him saying no, he probably got him off before it happened. I couldn't understand why anyone believed that. But I also was coming to the realization that he is gone. He is gone.

One day, in March, Brian admits to me that for her birthday, Denise had wanted to go to the lake to see where Mike had last been. been. For the first time, she'd never been there before. She just wanted me to take her out there so she could have some private time and she didn't want anyone to know. And I said, well, why didn't she want me to know? That doesn't add up. It was the first time I had specifically caught him covering for being with her. You don't expect a man to be having an affair with a woman

who still wants to be best friends with the wife. To say that Denise had stabbed me in the back doesn't even touch it. She had stabbed me in the soul. This show is supported by Chime. Here's a message your younger self would have liked to hear. There's a bank out there where you don't have to pay all those endless fees. It's called Chime. Chime is a breath of fresh air compared to all the other banks that charge you for everything.

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After Mike's dad had passed away, Cheryl wasn't doing well. And so when Mike went missing, that sorrow and just doubled. I would see her on the street corner close to my office on a regular basis holding the sign of Mike asking if anybody had seen him. Mike's mom started coming to the church and standing in the front with a sign. It seemed really pointed to be at our church. Why are you out here? There was missing posters on every telephone pole from Brian's house to the office so that I'm As he drove to the office, he saw every single one.

My mom was very frustrated driving around. She would pull over when she saw a sign. And she would, you know, driving, make me get out, pulled the sign down. Mike disappeared. Mike is dead. And we're trying to move on. You should, too.

I knew Brian was dating Denise in secret. At this point, I'm ready to be divorced. In those last couple of weeks before our court date, he starts saying, this is what the Bible says about divorced women. Using manipulation of the scriptures to try to stop me from going through with it. The day that we were in court to get the divorce, Brian sat behind me crying, openly, crying as if this was breaking his heart. It was just that last-minute push of manipulation

to try to get me to walk out of there and not go through with it. But the divorce was final that day, and I feel good about it. Brian and Kathy got divorced, and I remember Denise telling me about she and Brian. It made sense. Denise lost Mike and loved Mike. Brian was his best friend. Brian's now divorced. That would be a natural fit

that really would kind of heal her heart. Brian loved Kathy. Kathy's the one that left. So Brian and Denise had the green light to start dating. He loved her. He smiled around her a lot more. I know that Brian wanted to ask her to marry him, but Brian told me Denise wanted to marry a godly man.

Go forth knowing you. You are God's ambassador. Growing up, we were always in the church. But around the time Brian was a senior in high school, he didn't want to go to church anymore. He was like, I'm not in it. In the name of Jesus, our Messiah, amen. Denise's parents did not like that about my brother. Brian was not godly enough for her.

And so he did go through a big religious experience. Brian got in the pool and they asked you to tell your story as to why you became a Christian. He said, I ran my life to the ground. I cried out to God and, you know, God forgave me of all of my sins. And I'm here to be baptized as a public display. And, like, I cried. I was super excited that Brian was going to be back in the church. And that also really made Denise very happy that,

Brian was baptized again. Denise were married, and it was very fairy tale. They were incredibly happy to be together. Brian moved into the house that Mike had bought. It was weird. You know, your closest friend, you loved him like a brother, but yet you were able to marry his wife, move into this home.

I was talking with Denise's sister at the time, and she told me the bedroom set was the same set that had been Mike's bedroom set. It's so creepy. Everything that I had seen right after Mike was gone, everything I'd observed, everything I had questions about, I had all these puzzle pieces, and I just couldn't seem to make anything fit.

What I didn't know that Cheryl had been doing for those years was she had been trying very hard to get an investigation ramped up, get anybody just to look into what could have possibly happened to her son. I got a phone call from Derek Wester from the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. And he said, Miss Cheryl has given me your name and phone number. And I would like to talk to you. Yeah, there was a lot of speculation at the time that he had run off. that he got eaten by an alligator. So she comes over and she gives us

her version of what happened on the day of Mike's disappearance. I told Derek that when I woke up that morning, Brian was gone. As far as I knew he was hunting because it's duck season.

I didn't know where he was hunting. I didn't know who he was going with. Brian wasn't home by 2 o'clock. So I just packed up And we just went up to my grannies by ourselves. Brian got to my grannies between four and five. Shortly into all that, Brian was asleep on the couch. We contacted Brian.

We wasn't necessarily interrogating him. We were just talking to him. He explained that he woke up at 10 o'clock in the morning, went out of yard, played with his dogs. And then him and Kathy and their child got in his truck and drove to Kathy's family's Christmas gathering in Cairo, Georgia. That's what he told us. Brian and Kathy gave us both different versions of where they were at. So we asked him, you know, just to clear things up, would you agree to a ponder graph?

He said, absolutely. Maybe the next day, maybe the day after, I get a call. He said, sir, I'm representing Brian Winchester. He's not going to participate, and he's not going to take no polygraph. He gave you a statement. They miss him, they love him, and please respect our privacy. My first knowledge of the Mike Williams case was when my wife and I were looking for daycare. My wife got word about Ms. Cheryl, so we went and saw her.

It was like the perfect setting. She was like a grandma. She was old school. That's when Ms. Sherrill was like, you know, what do you do? And I said, well, I'm an ATF agent. Then she just let it rip. She told me the details about Mike, about the case. I mean, it's just jacked up.

And there's good jacked up and there's bad jacked up, and that's bad jacked up. And I was like, well, it's a no-brainer. I was like, your son's not missing. I mean, hell, somebody killed it. But in ATF's world, it has to be firearm-related. I mean, I just basically told her I couldn't get involved because I had no skin in the game. Ms. Cheryl told me about a handgun.

It belonged to her husband that had not been returned by Denise and Brian. So it was a crapshoot from the get-go. But I was willing to run with that because it was an unagounded handgun. I had these two children. gentlemen come in to the copy shop and they were dressed in suits and ties. This is very serious. It's not a how do you do? Nice to meet you. It's not a friendly welcome. I mean, you know, the thing you got to think about is that you're going in to talk to this woman that used to be married to one of your prime suspects. And that's the father of her child. So, you know, my

experience typically would be, you know, I'm going to be met with some pretty high resistance. He says to me, you are going to have to decide right now whose side you're going to be on. This train is leaving the station and either you're going to be on it or you're not. And I was like, okay, okay, I understand that. And I'm willing to help you. He asked me if I knew if Mike had a handgun. I said to him, yes, he did have a handgun. he kept it in his nightstand.

I was taking back by, you know, her eagerness to help. I believe that Brian and Denise have done something to Mike. And I'm watching them just live this life, happy, carefree. They've got the Golden Goose, right? They've got the life insurance money. Josie being on the case, it was just the first time that I felt like I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. into the tunnel.

The goal was to let Brian know this might have been sleeping, but it ain't sleeping no more. And hell, I'll take you over here and show you a freaking fire ant hill. You step on a damn fire ant hill, all the damn fire ants come out. You know what I'm saying? We wanted all the ants to come out. Brian was very nervous because Josie was a federal agent. The idea came up for me to have a meeting with Brian. and would I wear a wire?

I was terrified at the thought of that. It was very intimidating. It doesn't feel safe. But at the same time, I'm like, we're so close. How can I not do this? What if this is the only chance I have? And what if Brian is close to cracking? Friday, December 14th, 2007,

this would be a recorded conversation between Kathy Thomas and Brian Winchester. Kathy was going to meet with Brian. It would have to be a secure location, a location that is public, daylight hours, easily accessible by us. You know, all the things that would lead to the safety of Kathy. Kathy, if you want to put this in your first.

Okay. What is this? That's so we can hear everything. Okay. Okay. I am terrified I'm going to mess this up, you know, because of I don't know what I'm doing. The key here is that Brian never really knew what Kathy remembered. Our goal, as law enforcement, was to have this meeting where Brian would start quizzing

her about what she remembers. Kathy was going to be very vague. And the goal was for Brian to implicate himself. You just say, okay, well, you need to say, I was here till six o'clock or whatever. That's what we needed. Ask you a couple questions. You can ask. When is everybody saying that I showed up at your grannies?

I mean, what you say is going to make a huge difference in all of this. I know what I remember. I don't know what anybody else has said. What do you remember? I know what I remember. You don't remember? I'll be later again. Well, then maybe you're the one with Bagging Green.

I know what I remember. When I showed off. Supposedly. Back up because I don't want to run over your foot. As we continued the pressure with the case, I remember getting a phone call from Denise's attorney. And he was like, hey, you know, we'll turn that handgun over to you.

So we'd freaking quit what were you doing. Without the handgun, we didn't really have, you know, a dog in a fight. Skin in the game, our nexus was gone. Josie said, Kathy, I'm going to be off the case. you know, it was disappointing. If Josie had been able to stay on him, who knows. The aunt was out of the anthill, man, you know, and it just, it just like that, you know, just went away.

I was on pins and needles all the time, just constantly agitated, agitated because nothing's happening with the investigation. I didn't know what he had done. I didn't know what Denise had done. I just knew that they were at peace. And that meant they knew what happened to Mike. If that means where he is, how he died, they knew. They had peace with it.

The rest of Tallahassee did not. I would always go back to as long as they're together. Nothing's going to happen. This is where the good stuff starts. It started out on the baseball field. And Denise comes walking over. And so even though we had been through all of the bad years, we had been friends before.

There was a familiarity there between us. As time goes on, there would just like be this slow warming of that friendship. as if we had just left the past in the past and picked up where we left all. I had to suppress all of those feelings of her betrayal because my new goal is bigger

than whatever I felt before. My new goal is to find out what happened to Mike. I knew Brian knew what the true story was. And I suspect Denise did too. But as long as they're together, As long as they're together, it's never going to be solved. And that's what was happening. I did not have any faith in law enforcement.

So this is it. This is all I've got left, is to try to get close to her again and break them up. My name is Shannon Maldonado. I'm the founder of Yowie, a gift shop from the lens of artists and handmade objects. I chose Shopify because when I was testing other platforms, it was definitely one of the most user-friendly. It was important to me to think about where we would be in the future. All of the tools for reading your sales like planning inventory. They're just right there on your dashboard.

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right in one spot, and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. Brian was always an A-Brigh, but I never thought he was capable of murder.

And also, there's no way that Denise would remotely plot to hurt Mike. So I'm starting to see things are. are brewing in their marriage. Denise started opening up to me about how he was not easy to live with. So that's where we got.

I was in this position that I had waited for. I am her go-to girl, like she trusts me. As the months go on, Brian is pretty much becoming the same husband to her as he had been to me. Denise spent hours on the phone talking to me about how controlling he was. He would hack into her phone to read her text. But she felt like he was watching her. And however you want to design, are you video in this?

What are you doing? I was playing my phone. Why? Would you play with your phone? I was going to what. Whatever I want my what. Wherever you would want your room to be downstairs, however much wall stay.

or wherever you would want it to be, okay, then you would design that and you would pick that. I would not care because my bedroom will be upstairs, and so you're not going to be messing with my bedroom. Brian and Denise had bought a house together, and they were going to move into it. But Denise wouldn't leave the house that she lived with with Mike. You're supposed to be excited.

But I just realized I'm not getting any of this. Oh, my God. They fought a lot. She started confiding in me about how he never worked, about the money he wanted to spend. He's drinking, he's taking drugs, he's going out to bars. I tried to seem sympathetic, but it definitely brought me a lot of satisfaction when she would talk to me

about the things that he was doing, you get what you deserve. Like I felt like she deserved it. Denise and I have a disagreement and I leave to my office and I look at Craigslist's ass and fantasize about hookers and cheating. Somehow later Denise finds us on my computer. During all this, the Mike Williams investigation, accusations, witch hunt went on, which shamed and isolated both of us. And I medicated all that shame and pain through sex. Brian's parents had a mobile home that was on a piece of property at Lake ammonia in Tallahassee. Denise was concerned that he would have prostitutes, parties, and very bad things going on in there.

She was realizing this is a man who is going to hurt me. Friday, we got into an argument, and I lost it. I grabbed her by her arms and pushed her up against a door screaming, I can't take it. I saw how she was scared, so I let her go and she ran out. She was like, get out. She bagged up all of his clothes and put them in the back of his truck. I did feel a lot of satisfaction that they were imploding, because now it's Brian versus her.

I was hopeful that if Denise divorced Brian, she would open up and tell me what had happened to Mike. It made him crazy. It made him crazy that she wanted a divorce, and literally he couldn't stop it. This man was not going to let Denise be free of him. He would do anything. to have her, and then he got her.

So in the morning of August 5th, I'm at home, and it's just sort of a regular morning. I got a call from Denise's sister. She tells me Brian had kidnapped Denise. She said they're looking for Brian. This was outside the realm of what I would have imagined he was capable of.

What is he doing? What is he doing? What's your name? on that whole house. My house about 9-10, on the Suki Road. Ryan was in the back, I guess, hiding. And then when he came out,

he came up to right behind me. He's screaming. You're gonna do what I say, or I'm gonna hurt you. And he pulled out a gun, and he put it right in my ribs. Because with this, he will turn. He was crazy.

And was trying to force it to turn, and I don't know how, but I just like, took the wheel back. I mean, I just, and me, The fact that we didn't wreck was unbelievable. So then I pulled into CBS. I knew, because I go there all the time, that there are cameras there. And he was like, you won't answer my text.

He wonders, I had to do this because you won't answer my text or my calls. Please just call the divorce off. I've lost everything. It was crazy. And I said, Brian, I will not call the police, I promise. Ridiculous to find that was like, I'll drive you to your truck. And so when I did that, and then I pulled up. Then he started pulling stuff at the back and shoved it into a backpack.

And I saw sheets, I want to say plastic. And then he pulled out something else. Like a tool or something, not a hammer, but something like that. And he shoved all that in the backpack. Then he had a bottle, which it was like, you know, those old-timey bleach bottles that are like white. It was the sprayer thing. A huge one. There was always speculation that Brian Winchester and Denise Williams somehow were involved in the disappearance of Mike.

This was our opportunity to get information related to Mike's disappearance. Denise, he was going to kill you. And for whatever reason you didn't go through with it. He brought that stuff because he covers tracks. But I'm not going to sit here and sugar coat stuff. But you've been living in a crazy life forever. And you finally had enough to get out. I know, I know, Denise.

He did it. And you know exactly what I'm talking about. I don't think you had anything ever whatsoever to be. He held that over your head forever. He has ruined your life. He's going to kill you so that you couldn't talk about him later. That is the truth. I've been in this too long.

Ten years ago he walked in and told you he'd done something. Denise. No. After the kidnapping, she was very concerned for their safety. We were hoping that she would have something that she would have told us that would have implicated Brian in the disappearance. Think about the man who brought something to bury you with, who brought plastic, who brought bleach to cover his tracks.

Why doesn't it make sense? He's nuts. He killed your husband. But he, okay, and he is not that crazy. Then again, what, I can't have an officer live with me 24-7. I can't. I'm not safe. You get him to prison for murder and you'll never see him again.

I killed Mike. We're hearing Mike where no one could ever find him. We thought that we were getting pretty close to Denise saying something. We'll be going to see what they're doing. Everybody was ready for that, that point in time where we were, She gave us something with a little meat left on the bone that we can run on. Hey. How are you?

Finally, Special Agent Michael Devaney went in to try to elicit something out of Denise. I want to talk to you about a couple of things and maybe you can fill in a couple of gaps for me. Can you do that for me? I can try. Okay. Where do you take Mike's buried at? No idea. Do you have any speculation on that?

on where he's buried. Bared. I mean, I believe... You don't really believe he died on the lake? I do. Why? I just always have it. That's what I believe.

This was your husband. He simply vanished. Hopefully you still have an interest in this. This is my priority right now. I'm not comfortable talking about this right now. I've had an unbelievable day. And this is, this is, it's just all too much right now. She was pretty closed off.

All business, kind of cold, very focused on what had happened to her that morning. Do you think he's responsible for whites of disappearance? I do not, and I never had. I would have never married him if I thought that. I'm going to leave on this note. I was hoping you could fill in some of the, pieces of that puzzle you haven't. We arrest Brian he might.

Okay? Yeah. I'm forward you. Well, just think about it. Okay. Okay. Brian got arrested at the office. A SWAT team showed up. Brian Winchester is accused of kidnapping Denise Merrill Williams.

And everybody who knows anything at all of this case knows that this is big, big moment. Brian and Denise were no longer a unit. They were no longer a united force. So if the theory, as law enforcement had always said, that one has to turn on the other, it seemed clear that this was right for that. Denise, I can tell that she is nervous.

She was very afraid that Brian was going to come for her if he got out. But then we heard that Brian was going to do a plea deal, so there wouldn't be a trial. He would just plead guilty to it. Denise Williams, Your Honor, I'm here today to ask you to sentence Brian Winchester to the maximum penalty under the law for the crimes that he committed against me on August the 5th, 2016. He took my sense of security and safety from me. I live each day with the fear of his retaliation. for my decision to tell. He will finish what he has started no matter what age he is when he's released.

For all of these reasons, I'm asking you to sentence him to life in prison for the crimes he has committed. It comes down to my life or his, and I'm asking you please choose mine. Thank you. Ms. Winchester based upon your flee in this case, and I do it to you get you guilty. I sent you to 20 years, Department of Corrections. From my perspective, 20 years and doing something to Denise wasn't what he should be in prison for. There was sort of this feeling of dread. Now, I didn't know if we would ever find out what happened to Mike. Over half of my career was involved with the Mike Williams case, with a cold case.

Sometimes you're just waiting for someone to finally step up. and say, hey, I know something. I've been sitting on for a long time. With this case, the idea was always we're waiting for that one crack. You know, it would be either with Denise or Brian. One day I went to go visit Brian in jail, and he told me I'll be in big trouble. Unless I tell him, unless I tell him what I know about Mike. I snapped the minute he said Mike's name because I'm like, you know where he is.

You know what happened, and you have kept it quiet for 17 years. I said, that mother has every right to know where her son is. The state were doing everything they could to get all the evidence they wanted from Brian about Mike Williams. And so we started negotiating a deal. We built up disagreement that anything he gave him about Mike Williams couldn't be used against him. offered immunity on anything to do with the Mike Williams case if he had information leading to a prosecution or to a body. We received a phone call from the state attorney's office asking us if we could be in their

office that afternoon. That's when we were told that Brian was going to give a statement. It's 212 on October 9th, 2017. This is a Tully Sparkman, investigator of state attorney's office. We're here to take a profit from Brown Winchester. You want a lot of background or... No, you said you could know where the body is, where location was. Can you tell us where it is? Is that Gardner Road? Yeah.

Car Lake? Yeah. After receiving new information, FDA's crime scene unit and special agents spent days conducting an extensive search. Along the shoreline. there's kind of a slope. It's grown up with trees and all kind of, you know, vegetation. He's along that slope, which is probably underwater right now.

That search led to the recovery of human remains. An FDLE's crime laboratory analyst confirmed that the human remains are those of Mike Williams. It was in here where we finally found the grave. 17 years did not hide how Mike Williams died. Forensic analysis concluded that Mike Williams was in fact murdered. Our focus has shifted to bringing those responsible for his death to justice. And we will not stop until that is done. At that point, all the public knew is that we had recovered Mike Williams' body.

They didn't know how we did it. They didn't know when we did it. We didn't want to tip our hand as to what we had because it would greatly impede us from further investigation and charging anyone else that was responsible for his death. Thank you very much. Special agent Will Michler called me and I asked him what happened. Did he suffer? You know, in those last moments. I think Will just kind of didn't have the heart to tell me in that moment.

Mike's body had been found in close proximity to areas that I'd spent a lot of time hunting. So it was pretty gut-wrenching. Know that for seven or eight years, I sat probably 75 to 100 yards from Mike's body for my best friend. So it was a tough day. Prior to the press conference, I was assigned to go speak with Denise. Her eyes got a little teary, but that was all. If this was a loved one of mine, I would want to know where and how did you find them and how do you know it's Mike. She didn't ask anything about it.

As the months go on, I started to feel frustration. I had expected someone to be arrested for what happened to Mike. I knew it was either Brian or Denise. I'll say that. I didn't think it was anybody else. But I just didn't know which one of them had done it. I felt they were both capable of it.

She knew how to shoot a shotgun and there was a shotgun in the home, whatever it was. I knew that Denise knew what happened. I'm Keanu and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed.

Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business. But Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted. Start your free trial at Shopify.com. I started or not in 2013, and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business

as essentially non-technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back end, front end, and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I think it would actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on Shopify.com. Will Michler calls me. And he said, Kathy, I just wanted to let you know that Denise has been arrested.

You need a good. You can tell me. If you and Brian, do you have anything that you want to take Cheryl or anything you want to say at all. After all of these years, that was the first time I'd ever, like, put a question to Denise. Authorities arrested a widow, Denise Williams, for her husband's murder nearly 20 years ago. Authorities only found his remains five months ago. They just arrested Denise. But even after all this, it's just so surreal.

It just made no sense. It was unbelievable. For Mike, I felt relief. A trial has started involving a Tallahassee woman accused of plotting her husband's death. 48-year-old Denise Williams faces life in prison for her former husband's murder and an 18-year-long cover-up. Ms. Williams is charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. first-degree murder and accessory after the fact

of first-degree murder. Your Honor, this time of state, we're called Brian Winchester. Mr. Winchester, did you and Denise become an item, I guess, if you will, prior to 2000? Yes, sir. When was that?

The date that we used was October 13, 1997. Then it snowballed really fast. We started meeting whenever we had the opportunity and having sex very regularly. We spent a lot of time together. At some point were there thoughts of how you and Denise could be together? Yes, sir. We eventually started talking about options and ways that we could be together.

And Denise, because of the way she was raised, She did not want to get divorced, which narrowed the options. Who narrowed those options? I instigated a lot of it. I helped come up with ideas, but overall it was very mutual. We wanted to be together. And we weren't going to let anything stop that. One of the options was Mike and I going on a hunting trip together,

And there being an accident where he drowned and I did not. We could feel better about ourselves. If there was a chance that he could make it out of it, you know, well, it'll be up to God what happens and not us. It won't be a murder. It'll be, you know, an accident. Insurance policies. He and I talked about increasing his coverage.

And whose idea was it? It was a combination of Denise and I talking about him having more coverage. He eventually, I think with Denise's encouragement, decided to go ahead and get that extra million dollar policy. It was a plan made. Don't take steps to kill Mike? Yes, sir.

The plan was that all this would occur very early in the morning. I had told him that we were going to go to a secret special spot. to go hunting. We headed out and there was a deep area. I got him to stand up and when he did, I pushed him into the water. What up the next? He was like struggling. What I eventually realized was he was taking his waiters and jack it off. That area of the lake had a lot of dead trees that come up out of the water. He swam over a river. one of those stumps and held on to it.

And he was panicking, and I was panicking. And none of this was like going well. I thought it was gonna go. I didn't know what to do. Started to yell. And I didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't know how to get out of that situation. And my gun in the boat,

so I lived in like one or two circles around, and I ended up circling closer towards him and he was in the water. I passed by, I shot him. Being shot, I reached down and he wasn't far under the water, and I grabbed a hole of him, him in the water, and ended up putting him in the back of my suburban. I was just panicked as to getting out of that area and covering this up. The plan was for his death to occur, but it was not for it to occur in the way that it did. and I didn't want to tell Denise that.

It was not easy and it was not pretty, but I had to make it happen. I mean, I had no choice. I guess I imagined that Mike's last moment wouldn't have been the way it was. Mike knew that Brian was the one doing that to him. And Mike loved Brian like a brother. My heart just broke.

When you shot Mike Williams at Lake Seminole with the 12-gauge shotgun, was Denise Williams standing there with you? No, she wasn't. She was in my head behind me. She was in your head? Mm-hmm. Fair to say that over the years you've been obsessed with Denise Williams? Denise and I were best friends.

We were Bonnie and Clyde. We were partners in crime. In this case, we're blaming Denise for some idea, some unproven idea about her involvement in the murder of Mike Williams that is based solely on the testimony of the person who did the killing. The penalty for the armed kidnapping is life in prison, isn't it? Yes, sir. And you made a deal with the government not to get that life sentence.

You're turning it a deal. It was a proffer agreement. The way Brian described the events of Mike's murder, it would have made him eligible for the death penalty. But once they got the body, he could never be prosecuted for murder because that was protected by the immunity deal. It was the niece that the government was trying to prove that she wanted him killed for the insurance money. Sometimes you have to make a deal with debt

to get the one you think should be prosecuted. Mr. Winchester, you're a murderer, isn't it true? Yes, sir. Mr. Winchester, you're a liar, isn't it true? Yes, sir. I have nothing else wrong. His friends, family, law enforcement, are all the late looking for him.

And 19 days later, she's filing for insurance spending $1.25 million. That's a cold. A person that's involved in a homicide. Think back. Three days ago, Brian Winchester is on the stand. Describing how he shot his best friend.

Everybody in his... entire room will you by a sheer horror of that situation. I'm sorry one person. That one person sat here, absolute stone faced. Didn't bat an eye, didn't shed a tear. I was watching the jurors. They were pretty riveted to what Brian was saying. And they were looking across the room at the defendant's table.

And they're not seeing Denise having really much. reaction at all and they're making decisions based on what they see in here. Formal, we have a verdict. The state of Florida versus sent Denise Williams, we the jury find it's follows. And I get a text and the text says, Kathy, thank God. I knew just what those three words meant. Count one of the indictment, the defendant is guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder as to count Count two, we the jury find the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder.

Count three of the indictment, the defendant is guilty of accessory after the fact of first-degree murder. What just happened? I had a guttural reaction. When I go to bed at night and I try to go to sleep, I see Michael clinging to that stump in the lake. And I hear him calling help, help. There's no good that comes out of us for any girl that got for 18 years, you know,

to get a resolution like us at some. Cheryl's more deserving of some kind of justice and some sort of peace than any person. He killed his best friend point blank to get the woman he always wanted. And then in the ultimate Ultimate chest move. Took a plea bargain and said, but she had me do it,

and put her away for the rest of her life. Miss Williams, I sent her life in prison. A Tallahassee woman was sentenced to life in prison this morning for masterminding the murder of her husband more than 18 years ago. It's over, and I didn't even know all the specifics, but I knew. I knew that she had been found guilty. had been found guilty.

The only people, in my opinion, who know what truly happen are Brian and Mike. And Mike's dead, and Brian said what he's gonna say. I firmly believe that there is more to the story than what Brian has told. From the get-go, there was kind of a lack of imagination that these nice people from these nice families, you know, church-going people, could ever play a role

play a role in something that was so awful and you know nefarious right the idea that Denise would rather see her husband killed than have the shame of getting a divorce that just seems crazy right Denise had a choice they could have got a divorce as embarrassing and as horrible as that would be in the Baptist Church Mike could have lived he could have had a regular life she could have gone on and had a a regular life and nobody lived like this. Do you think justice was served? No.

Justice wasn't served because my brother is not convicted of murder. Nobody's officially charged with his murder. One person is charged with kidnapping, one person is charged with conspiracy to commit murder. That was the only way. You know, they never got the body and Denise would still be out running free. And, you know, I guess that's... the best outcome you could hope for. This is the only way to get closure for his family.

I know that's what Mike's going to tell me one day. When I see him again, he's going to tell me I did a good job. And that's our program for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm David Muir. And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night. I'm Keanu and I leveled up my business with Shopify.

Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business. But Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted. Start your free trial at Shopify.com.