Mary Winkler: My Ugly Came Out

Mary Winkler’s story was featured on Dateline recently, and I have been unable to get to reviewing the show. In looking at it, however, I found an audio clip of Mary that was shocking to me. Its on Dateline NBC’s website and it is titled, “My Ugly Came Out” (in the lower left column).

This audio is shocking because this is Mary’s first response after shooting her husband. It was recorded in Alabama the day after Matthew was shot dead. She didn’t have time to think through everything. Her responses were gut responses much of the time, though you can still hear Mary self-censor, and change the direction of what she says, sometimes saying nonsense.

Read moreWhat Mary says in this audio at one point shocks me, because this was played during her trial, yet I think few people really listened to what she said and thought about the implications.

Let me review it with you.

When the investigators say to Mary, “I know you are not a cold blooded murderer,” do you hear a little laugh? I can’t believe she laughs!!

Mary says, “I don’t think I’m selfish, but I’d be driving down the road and something would go into my head….about what just happened. And then I had seen anything or heard anything.”

Mary starts to tell what really happened if you ask me, and then she pauses and changes the direction of her thoughts.

Listen to how Mary laughs when she says, “I wasn’t going to Mexico, or anything.” How can she be laughing?

Then she rambles, “I thought about going to Louisiana.” Her demeanor is so matter-of-fact, it gives me pause. This woman is not upset at all about what she did. It’s very notable.

Mary then talks about how she wants her children to go with Matthew’s parents!

If Matthew was abusive to her, I am surprised to hear her say she wants her children to go to “his parents”, and not hers. Isn’t that surprising? They even ask her, “You don’t have any problems with them going with your in-laws? They’re good people?” Mary says, “Oh god, no.”

Do I hear her say “Better than family?”

Mary says, “Not wanting to be selfish, I keep thinking about him, but I probably deserve a slap in the face for that…I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Mary wants to talk about her selfishness, but she just can’t do it. She starts to and then keeps stopping. Maybe she senses the investigators are being lenient with her and she is having a hard time grasping it?

The investigator says he thinks something had to happen because she is a nice person and she says, “I was just laying there and I fell asleep, and they woke me up to come in here, and it is just the thought of stupid stuff, and schedules and this in a certain order.”

I believe that this is true. This is what set Mary off.

She continues, “I love him dearly, but gosh he just nailed me in the ground. And it was real good for quite…a…a quite some time, the problem was…I got a job at the post office a couple of years ago and the first of our marriage, I just took it like a mouse, didn’t think anything different. My mom just took it from my dad — that uhhhh….stupid scenario. And uh, I got a job …right…and nerve and high self esteem, and I’ve been battling this for years.”

Start putting the pieces together. Mary tells us she doesn’t want to think she is selfish, but she got nerve and she has been battling that “nerve” for years!! Then she tells us, “I don’t think I’m selfish, but I’d be driving down the road and something would go into my head…”

If you ask me Mary had thought of doing this to Matthew for years!!

“Um, I don’t know when, but at some point it was really good, and I don’t know, but we moved over a year ago, um (unintelligible), and it just came back out for some reason.”

The investigator says, “He would knock your self esteem down.”

Mary responds from the heart without thinking, “Nooo.” Then she recovers and says, “…um…chew’n…whatever. And that’s the problem. I have nerve now and I have self-esteem and so my ugly came out, um…”

You see, Mary keeps telling us she has this ugly side–this “nerve” — like a demon that wants to surface.

This is shocking, but clearly the truth!

The investigators says, “So you are more or less standing up for yourself now?”

Mary says, “Yeah, and my only battle has been children, too. I mean, I don’t know. I just don’t know what in the world just happened. There’s just no way…”

So let’s add in her next thought. Mary’s only battle with acting on her “nerve” is her children. That demon was kept in check because of her children, and then one day, she lost it.

“How would he run you down,” questions the investigator.

Mary says, “Just chew’n on you. Just mistakes”.

Hmmm…check fraud?

Mary says, “And some well deserved…not always.”

This is big!

“Did he pick on the little things a lot though?” questions the investigator?

Mary says, “Yeah. But gosh, I don’t want to talk about that now. But that’s just, yeah, I just didn’t get up and say, ‘Let’s see how this thing works’. I’ve been battling it, battling not to do that FOREVER. And I don’t know why.”

Mary is confessing here. She finally tells us she has been battling killing Matthew FOREVER! Worse, she tells us she didn’t just look at the gun to see how this thing works. What that means is she has been thinking about this for a long, long time and likely had checked out that gun many times!! I wish the investigators would have responded to what she was telling them!

The investigator asks, “Was he chewing on you when it happened?”

Mary says without thinking (which supports this is the truth), “I don’t even know….It was this and that, and I can’t even. I can’t even imagine pulling anything. I’ll tell you that. I don’t… I just…I really don’t know how it happened still.”

This is supportive she had been dreaming about doing this for years and finally just acted out, likely without a lot of thought or even provocation.

The investigator says, “You just got to a boiling point– just boil over?”

Notice she doesn’t answer the question. If she was a victim and she boiled over, she would know it. I think she is having a hard time registering that they don’t see her as a cold-blooded murderer.

Instead Mary says, “But it was so good, so good, too.”

Mary continues, “It was just a weakn…” Mary stops. It was a weakness–that’s what Mary was going to say. It was HER WEAKNESS. She had “been battling this FOREVER” as she told us. Her “ugly came out”. She “got nerve”. She had the desire to kill Matthew for a long, long time and she finally acted on it.

Mary tries to recover from that leak and says that Matthew had high blood pressure and didn’t go to the doctor like he should. There is no logic in that at all. She continues, ” Because he was a mighty fine person, and that’s the thing, there is no sense, you know, thoughts to a newsstand–some hick town lady did this because she was a mean, you know–no sense in that. Just say the lady was a moron, evil woman and let’s go on with it.”

Mary is calling herself “EVIL” here. The whole picture makes total sense.

Mary says, “That’s my point of view.” No one is leading her, causing her to say things — this is the true Mary. She knows Matthew is dead so she could claim he beat her up here, but she doesn’t!!!

Mary then talks about how her dad will want to come visit her, and want to live by her and she does not want to see him. It makes me wonder if her own father was abusive to her and jealousy could have eaten away at Mary for years…

She says at another point, “That’s some of it. There is no poor me. I’m in control, and um…”

Does this complete the picture for you? A woman who was abused would NEVER say this.

The investigator interrupts and says, “There was no major event that took place or an accumulation over the years?”

Mary laughs and says, “No, (unintelligible).”

The investigator says, “You don’t recall what it was Tuesday morning that kind of set you off? Had you all argued the night before? Was this kind of a daily thing?”

In a normal, not down sounding tone, Mary finally answers, “Not necessarily. I guess that’s just the thing. My nerves. I just never know whats coming next. I think we are having a good day and…BAM! I’m nervous about something and he’s ALOOF about it.”

Aloof? Is that the behavior of an abusive man??! No. But Mary had a problem with her nerves, and had a strong impulses she didn’t understand and didn’t know how to cope with. She knew it was wrong and she finally acted on it.

She is telling us the truth here!!

Mary says, “There is just no excuse for anything, but you know, it WASN’T just out of the blue. I don’t know.”

She confirms again that what I believe are impulse to harm Matthew were not out of the blue. This was something she was “battling forever”!

The investigator says, “Have you thought about doing it before?”

Mary says, “It’s crossed minds, threats have been made..to me as well, but that’s hearsay, you know?” Notice she leaves off the pronouns about who did what?? That’s because its all about her. She even adds in the “to me as well” as an afterthought.

The investigator said, but he’s threatened you? And Mary says, “I remember when we lived in (town), he said something that really scared me.”

The investigator said, “What was it?”

Mary says, “I don’t know. It was something…life threatening. But that was when he was at his absolute worst!”

She can’t remember what it was? Notice how she adds on “life threatening” as an afterthought? This is ridiculous. If you’ve had your life threatened and believed you were in harm, you’d remember it.

Mary clearly tells us in this audio confession what happened. It’s clear as day, if you truly listen. What saddens me is the jurors had their emotions tugged on and they discounted the truth when they heard it with their very own ears.

Do you have any doubts about what happened to Matthew?