Mr & Mrs Murder

20/20

A true crime podcast episode examining the mysterious disappearance and presumed murder of Mike Williams during a hunting trip in Florida, u

Key takeaways

Denise Williams was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder but not of murder itself, highlighting legal distinctions in her case.
The prosecution's theory centered on a motive rooted in religious shame over divorce, though evidence remains circumstantial.

Main topics

Murder investigation
Conspiracy to commit murder

Notable quotes

"He killed his best friend point blank to get the woman he always wanted."

Conclusion

Despite Denise Williams being sentenced to life in prison for conspira

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) Early morning on a Manhattan sidewalk, a shooting caught on surveillance video. It was an assassination-style killing, and everybody saw it. A new podcast series from ABC Audio and 2020 goes inside this captivating case. I'm ABC News legal analyst Brian Buckmeyer. Listen to Burden of Proof, Luigi Mangione, wherever you get your podcasts. An all-new 2020 starts right now. Speaker 2 (0:36) 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. Then they come up and do the death roll. Speaker 2 (1:13) It tears the meat off like we would tear a chicken wing apart trying to eat it. They're just an eating machine. Speaker 8 (1:39) Peace be market. Speaker 1 (1:46) 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. Speaker 1 (2:08) Let me just start at the beginning. We all went to high school together. Me and Brian, Mike and Denise. I have Speaker 7 (2:26) a whole new respect for my wife. We're Speaker 1 (2:28) just totally overwhelmed. We were two perfect little families that are all best friends. I always had my family Christmas on a Saturday before Christmas Day. Speaker 1 (2:56) 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 haven't 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 granny's by ourselves. Speaker 1 (4:02) Brian got to my granny's between 4 and 5, 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. Speaker 1 (4:29) 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 happened. He's gonna have some hilarious story. Speaker 3 (5:31) 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. He normally would wear his waders, which is extremely dangerous for a duck hunter. Because if you fall in, the waders fill up with water and you drown. He just wasn't careful enough, in my opinion. Speaker 3 (6:14) 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 Speaker 2 (6:45) 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. Speaker 4 (6:59) 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 Speaker 3 (7:10) 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. Speaker 3 (7:23) 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. Speaker 5 (7:49) Mike had to be out there. He had to be okay. This is Denise and Mike. This is the two of them. Speaker 5 (8:02) 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. Speaker 1 (8:13) All of the boys really wanted to date Denise. She was very fashionable and she was a big flirt. Speaker 3 (8:23) Denise came from a very religious family. Speaker 2 (8:27) We Speaker 1 (8:28) all had the expectation to be perfect. Speaker 2 (8:35) You Speaker 1 (8:36) were given these rules of conduct. Speaker 1 (8:41) No drinking, no drugs, no sex before marriage, no heavy metal music. Things that might be very typical for a lot of high schoolers. Speaker 3 (8:59) 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. Speaker 3 (9:13) Most kids are gonna 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. Speaker 1 (9:42) 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. Speaker 5 (9:55) When I was in ninth grade, Brian was a senior, and so were Mike and Denise and Kathy. Brian loved Kathy a lot. Speaker 1 (10:04) 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. Miss Bryant. Knew lots of people in town. That's what I wanted was what I saw in 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. Speaker 8 (11:10) What we want you to do is to accomplish your goal. Speaker 1 (11:15) 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 and it was fun. It was fun to go out and go to a bar and see a band and dance and... Speaker 1 (11:56) 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 made it even more exciting. As two young married couples, we're doing things that kids do when they're in college, right? Speaker 1 (12:30) 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. Mike and I both wanted to go to the next level and start our families. Speaker 1 (12:55) Brian and Denise were not ready to let go of this partying. They didn't want to give it up. Speaker 5 (13:01) Is Speaker 1 (13:04) that close up enough 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 a dad. Speaker 1 (13:30) He's like, okay, Kathy has what she wanted, so now I can sort of do whatever I want. At this point, Brian and I had been married for six years. We had grown so far apart and weren't even being intimate. Speaker 1 (14:00) 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. Speaker 1 (14:33) 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 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, Speaker 1 (15:35) 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. Speaker 1 (16:33) 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. Speaker 2 (16:58) He opens Speaker 1 (17:02) it. Speaker 1 (17:05) And he looks at it, and he says, why would you give this to me? Why would you think I would want this? After Speaker 3 (17:22) 10 days searching, I knew it was a recovery operation. Speaker 2 (17:31) 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 them. Speaker 7 (17:52) Mike was 31. My son's closest friend. He was like a son to me. There Speaker 4 (18:07) 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. Speaker 5 (18:16) That grief was so, so great and so real and felt by everybody who knew Mike and Denise. Speaker 3 (18:30) It was... 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. Speaker 1 (18:48) 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. Speaker 2 (19:04) Integrity, friendship, faith, and the feeling of family. Speaker 1 (19:10) 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. Speaker 1 (19:49) I can remember him saying, we cannot wait that long. Denise needs that money. The Speaker 2 (19:54) essence of the Winchester Financial Group is characterized through this heartfelt story of a special client and a very close and loving family friend. Speaker 1 (20:03) That presentation was made to convince the board to pay Mike's life insurance policy without his body having been recovered. Speaker 7 (20:16) He was supposed to return home Speaker 4 (20:17) that day to celebrate a wedding anniversary. But the miracle of life insurance is going to fill a big need, a huge need. Speaker 1 (20:30) 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 knight 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. Speaker 2 (21:22) In June, six months after the initial search, we found a set of waders floating. A diver from Tallahassee came over and he dove down in the deeper hole. Speaker 3 (21:39) Within probably two minutes, he came up with a hunting jacket. Speaker 3 (21:46) One sleeve was turned inside out, you know, 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 10 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. Speaker 3 (22:20) 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 taken him somewhere and stuffed him. Speaker 1