Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Jerry Michael Williams

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

One day before his anniversary Jerry Michael Williams went for a duck hunting trip on Lake Seminole but never returned home. For years people were convinced he had been eaten by alligators but the truth was much more sinister. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkie.app/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-jerry-michael-williams/    Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllc Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat.Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF You can join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And we're both coming to you today from vacation. That's right. So there's no such thing as vacations for podcasters who have a weekly show. Britt, you're in California with your family and I'm here in Arizona. Yeah. And I'm not sure where you are, but I'm in a closet of a guest room in the Airbnb where we are.

I am in my friend's guest room. So yeah, it's like I've got a really unique setup. We should probably take pictures. Yeah, definitely. So I made a trip across the country and it's been so awesome because I've been doing meetups along the way in places that we've been stopping. They've looked like so much fun. Yeah. And it's something new that we're trying for our Patreon fan club members. And it has been so cool to meet crime junkies all over the US. I've done meetups in Kansas City, Denver, Phoenix. And thank you to everyone who's come out, stood in line for crazy amounts of time to talk to me about true crime

and your experiences with the podcast. I really met so many cool people. And I found out that there's an entire police dispatch team that listens to us every week. So hey, Parker City Dispatch. Yeah, yeah. Those girls are at Parker City listen every single week. So this has been amazing. I hope I can keep it going. I wish I could do these all the time, but we have a show to make. So without further ado, Britt, are you ready to hear about a crazy story about murder affairs and alligators? Sure, I guess. You had me until you said alligators, but I'm in. All right, because I'm ready to tell you about the murder of Jerry Michael Williams was called Mike by all of his friends and family, and he was described by so many people in his life as the nicest guy in the world who would do anything for you.

Mike met his wife, Denise, when they were in high school. They dated all the way through college at Florida State, and after they both graduated and got good jobs, Denise is an accountant for the state and Mike is a real estate appraiser, they both got married and settled down in Tallahassee, Florida. They stayed close to their best friends, Brian and Kathy. Brian was actually Mike's best friend in high school. And Brian kind of did the same thing. He met Kathy, his wife, in high school. They stayed together for years and eventually got married. And the two couples were incredibly close. Friends said that they bought the houses at the same time, they got married at the same time, had kids at the same time, went on vacations together. Oh, wow. Yeah, all these years later, Brian and Mike were still thick as thieves and their friendship really stood the test of time. But that friendship would come to a screeching halt in December of 2000 when Brian gets a call from his dad. Mike was missing. His dad said that according

to Denise, Mike had gone out for an early duck hunting trip that morning but never came back home. It was getting late and she was really worried that something bad had happened out there. So Brian and his dad decided they had to go search for him. They weren't the only ones Denise had called. She was calling all of their friends and family looking for Mike. Phone call after phone call. Denise repeated the same concerns. Mike woke up early to go duck hunting on Lake Seminole, but he hadn't returned. And with each passing hour, she was getting more and more concerned. Brian and his dad drove out to Lake Seminole, and there was exactly what they were hoping they wouldn't find. Still parked was Mike's truck and the trailer for his boat,

but there was no boat and there was no Mike. And they felt in their guts that something bad had happened. Otherwise, Mike would have been home by now. He wouldn't just stay out hunting all day. He had a family to get home to. Right. When they report back that they found Mike's car but no Mike, the Florida Wildlife Commission is called.

And by four o'clock that same day he went missing, one of the longest, most extensive searches in the history of that area would ensue. Not only is the Florida Wildlife Commission out there searching, but Mike's friends and family are as well. Everyone is convinced there has to have been some kind of accident. So really, at this time, there isn't any thought of like preserving a crime scene. Everyone's thoughts are trying to find Mike. Hopefully he's still alive. Maybe he's in the water. People are at this point, cautiously optimistic. There had been 79 other drownings in Lake Seminole before Mike went missing. Accidents there were somewhat commonplace, so they knew that they could be looking for a body. People were searching by foot,

by boat. They even brought in cadaver dogs. As Brian and his dad walked around the lake, they spotted something they recognized. About 75 yards from one of the landings, not the one Mike had parked his car at, but another one, they spot Mike's boat, but no Mike in the boat. Now they don't touch anything. They notify the Florida Wildlife Commission immediately, who go take inventory of what's found. Inside the boat, there are two life jackets, his shotgun still zippered up in its case, and a bag of decoys. So it sounds like whatever happened to Mike happened shortly after he got out on the water, right? The decoys are still there. His gun is even in its case.

Well, yeah, and when they checked his gas tank on the boat, it was basically completely full, which means that he couldn't have been, like, motoring around out there for any real amount of time. So just as they're starting to find all of this evidence, a storm starts to move into the area, bringing with it freezing temperatures. The search is called off that night, but resumes again the next day.

With still no sign of Mike or his belongings outside of the boat in the car, it's presumed by everyone involved that the search is definitely for a body. There must have been some kind of accident. Mike must have fallen overboard at some point. And Brent, I don't know if you know anything about Lake Seminole. We're not from Florida. And I didn't when I started this research for this case. But the area that the boat was found in wasn't super deep, but it was pretty murky water. Yeah, kind of marshy, probably. Exactly. You wouldn't be able to see to the bottom. So the way that they had to look for him in those first few days is they would basically set up like this square for themselves. And they would slowly ride a boat back and forth and back and forth, poking at the bottom of the lake with a PVC pipe.

And this wasn't fancy, but it was the best way to tell if there was something at the bottom. The guy who was like the professional at the time said that as they're like poking down, if they would come across a body, it would give way like a pillow. Whereas if they hit like a log or something, it would be like very firm. But they poked and they poked, never coming across anything that gave way. Then 10 days into the search, they found something under the water but above it they find a clue a fisherman's hat had appeared and how it got there no one is really sure but it looked like the one that mike used to wear brian his best friend was asked to identify it and he said it could be his hat but like i, I'm not 100% sure.

The hat got sent away for testing as the search continued, but the longer it went on, the less hope there was of finding Mike. Because like with most drowning victims, after some time of the body being underwater, eventually gases start to build up in the body and it floats. So they keep expecting like, okay, any day now this body is going to float to the surface. I mean, there have been 79 other drowning victims. We found all 79. So the search continued from December 16th on into early February and there was no floating body. The testing eventually came back on that hat and there was no DNA that could be linked to Mike Williams. And that's when a troubling theory starts to emerge.

The shallow murky waters where Mike went hunting were known to be infested with alligators. Even when they were looking for him in those days between December and February, searchers saw multiple alligators. And it's unknown who was the first person to make this suggestion that Mike could have fallen overboard and then maybe get eaten by alligators. But the theory was cemented when the search for him ended in early February of 2001, and an official report was made from one of the supplemental search parties that read, quote, quote, with the wildlife around, I would guess that the alligators have dismembered and have stored the remains in a location that we are not able to find, end quote.

Oh, that's such a terrible thing to be considered closure. Yeah, it was a gruesome thought. But to many people, it was the only thing that made sense because why wasn't there a body? Mike was the 80th person to drown in Lake Seminole. And of those 80 drownings, he was the only body that was never recovered. Of the other 79 people, did they have any sort of signs of animal activity on their bodies? I mean, yes, it seems insane that his body got eaten by alligators in the first place. But what seems more unbelievable to me is the fact that 79 other people didn't. So you're not alone in your thinking. But back in 2000, 2001, there

was only one other person who was thinking like you. And it was Mike's mom, Cheryl. After the extensive search, everyone seemed to accept that this was a horrible accident, but Cheryl couldn't. She wouldn't. You see, Mike had told her something before that had stuck with her. Alligators don't feed when it's cold. And when Mike went missing that same night, remember, there was a cold front that came in and it was freezing temperatures, like 19 degrees. The alligators wouldn't have been eating. She tried to tell people this, but people brushed her off. She was just some old lady who couldn't come to grips with the fact that her son's death was a horrible accident. And most people looked at her like, you know, like,

it's just sad that you can't accept this for what it is and move on with your life. But she wouldn't let it go. Right. Maybe she's still just in this deep part of grieving or whatever. Exactly. She wouldn't let this go. But you see, it wasn't just this inconsistency about the alligator eating habits that had her convinced it all wasn't what it seemed. People's actions after Mike's disappearance only compounded her suspicions. The day after the search for Mike ended in February, his wife Denise insisted on having a memorial service for Mike. And in Cheryl's mind, this was crazy.

Like, we're still looking for him. We don't know where he is. There's been no body. We don't even know that he's dead. But Denise was like, what other explanation is there? Like, read the reports. He loved his family. He loved me.

He loved our daughter. He wouldn't run off. And if he didn't run off, that means he died out there. Denise said she needed some kind of closure for healing and that the memorial service would give her that. So Cheryl allowed it to go on. But it didn't stop Cheryl from trying to push forward her own investigation. She reached out to an alligator expert at Florida State and asked him his opinion of the accident report. Is it even plausible that alligators would have eaten her son? Well, the expert made a formal report of his

own and said, no, Mike getting eaten by alligators at that time of year and there being absolutely no trace of it was virtually impossible. What? Cheryl felt vindicated. She kept this report along with her own notes, which would eventually come to over like 27 pages. She kept notes on things people said, things people did, inconsistencies that made her sure Mike was somehow the victim of foul play. But just as Cheryl felt like she was making progress in her own investigation, something happened that would set her back years. In June, just six months after Mike went missing, a fisherman found a pair of waders floating in Lake Seminole in the same area that Mike had been hunting. Divers were called in and under where the

waders were found, they also found a flashlight and a hunting jacket. And inside one of the jacket pockets was a hunting license with the name Jerry Michael Williams. And you could still see the signature as if he had signed it the day before. Now finding this clothing was super controversial because those who believe Mike had died in the lake finally felt like they had the proof and the closure to prove it. Mike had died in the lake finally felt like they had the proof and the closure to prove it. But for Cheryl, it gave her even more questions. Because if we're going to say his body didn't come up because he was eaten by alligators, then why are there no bite marks on this clothing? Why is it perfectly intact? And moreover, why was all the clothing in such pristine condition? If it had been Mike's, like shouldn't have been down there for six months. It should be slimy.

It should be gross, like ruined. Lots of decay. Oh yeah, definitely. And you think like his hunting license, even after being down there for so long would be destroyed. Like even the flashlight that they found worked and it wasn't some kind of like fancy waterproof flashlight.

It was just like a regular small cheapo thing. So nothing about this was making sense to Cheryl. some kind of like fancy waterproof flashlight. It was just like a regular small cheapo thing. So nothing about this was making sense to Cheryl. If it wasn't there the whole time and everything about the way it looked is telling Cheryl it wasn't there the whole time. So her questions are A, who put it there? And B, why put it there now? And a week later, she got an answer to both of those questions. A week after the waders and hunting jacket were found in the lake where Mike went missing, Denise used those very items as proof in court that Mike was deceased. Now, normally in Florida, the law states that you have to wait something like five to seven years to declare a missing person deceased. But if there's some kind of proof you can provide showing that the missing person is most likely dead, but a body will never be recovered, you can get a death certificate earlier.

Now, Denise was petitioning to get a death certificate in order to cash out on over $1.75 million in life insurance policies that she had out on her husband. That seems convenient. Well, and that's what Cheryl said. You guys are really on the same page. Team Cheryl. And not only did Cheryl find it concerning that this stuff magically appeared and it was used in proof for a scheduled hearing to say Mike was dead, but she also found out that in order to

have someone declared dead, there had to have been a public service held to inform the public of their passing, which explained to her why Denise was so dead set on having that memorial service after Mike went missing. Oh my God. So because Cheryl and I think alike, she must be thinking Denise had something to do with it, right? Well, yeah, but it was still really unclear to her why. Mike and Denise seemed to have a great relationship. They had just had their daughter Ansley like 18 months before Mike went missing. He loved his little girl so much. They seemed like a really happy family.

And like sure, after they got married, Denise didn't really come around a whole lot. Cheryl kind of figured that she wasn't super fond of Mike's like poor beginnings and his family was kind of a reminder of that. Denise cared a lot about appearances and maybe she just didn't want to be around them, but not liking his family to Cheryl didn't seem like motive enough to like kill her son. Something was still missing, but that was not going to stop Cheryl. She really didn't need to know why just to know that something was up. She had been begging law enforcement for years. Please take a look at my son's case. And finally, in 2004, with her notes and that report from the alligator expert, she finally got someone's attention.

When Cheryl was finally able to lay out everything for the FDLE, that's the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. They agreed with her. Things are not adding up. So they agreed to take a look at the case for the first time ever. Like actually look at this case through an investigative lens. Because in the last four years since Mike went missing, Cheryl was the only person to have ever done that ever.

When they did their own investigation, they agreed with Cheryl on a lot of points about the alligators and the drowning. They didn't think that Mike was in the lake. And moreover, one of the strangest points to them was that gas tank being full, like I mentioned. If Mike had gone overboard, like right away, which we said he probably had because his gun wasn't even out, why wasn't his boat still running? Like you would imagine. Oh yeah, the engine would have still been going. Or if it wasn't going, it means it died and the tank would have been empty.

But instead, the motor was turned off, the tank was full, meaning that someone, likely not Mike, turned off the motor. Investigators also learned that Mike hardly ever hunted alone. There were, after all, two life jackets in that boat. So who would have been hunting with him that day? Now, usually it would have been his best friend, Brian. But Brian was actually supposed to have gone hunting with his father-in-law that morning, but he ended up oversleeping after like a late night out with his wife before.

So he couldn't have been the one hunting with him. And even if he was, what motive would Brian have to harm Mike? It didn't seem to make sense. Until police learned something about Brian that would completely flip this case on its head. In the years after 2004, as law enforcement slowly try and piece together a story of what could have happened, some very clear suspects come into picture.

Mike's wife Denise, who had pushed for an early memorial and had Mike declared dead just six months after he went missing so she could collect that huge life insurance policy, and Denise's boyfriend. Her boyfriend was the man who sold Mike his insurance policies. And that man was his best friend, Brian. Whoa. So Brian was her boyfriend? Yeah. Years after Mike went missing, Brian ended up divorcing his wife. And in 2005, a year after the investigation started,

Brian and Denise got married. Everyone thought this was very fishy. The life insurance companies even did an investigation because, like, hello, the guy who sold the policies is now married to the lady who benefited, and they look really bad. But the insurance companies said that there wasn't enough to prove anything nefarious happened, so they closed the investigation. And despite all the inconsistencies and the suspicion of now multiple people in law enforcement, law enforcement as well eventually had to close their investigation. There was so much damage done by not treating this as a crime scene in the first few days that no physical evidence could be collected or processed

and they had nothing to go on but like their feelings. And as we all know, you can't put someone in jail on like a gut feeling unless you're like a bad cop in Baltimore and I'm looking at you, Ritson McGillivary. But Cheryl would not give up. Even when the cold case detectives stopped taking her calls, she wouldn't quit. Even when Denise threatened her that if she didn't drop it, she'd never see her granddaughter Ansley again.

She wouldn't quit. She kept pushing and pushing. She would sometimes do one person like picketing in town, reminding people that her son is still missing. She would sometimes pay for billboards with Mike's picture and information on it. son is still missing. She would sometimes pay for billboards with Mike's picture and information on it. And she wrote her governor one letter every day for nine years, begging him to help find justice for her son. Cheryl felt hopeless. Law enforcement felt hopeless. Everyone felt like at this point, Mike was the victim of foul play. They felt like they knew who did it. But they couldn't prove it.

Yep. But the two people they thought were responsible were married now, and there's no way that one was going to turn on the other. Or at least that's what they thought. Until police found out that Brian and Denise were having marital troubles and had separated. Police had hoped that the separation might get one of them to flip on the other.

And it took some time. But eventually, the cracks in their marriage became their undoing. In 2012, Denise and Brian had separated. There had been affairs during their time together. And Brian claimed he was like a sex addict. They tried counseling. But she wouldn't take him back. And after everything they'd been through, he would not let it end like this.

So one day, as Denise is getting into her car to go to work, she backs out, pulls out of the driveway. And as she's going down the road, she senses something in her backseat. Her senses weren't wrong. Slowly from the backseat, Brian emerges holding a gun. And she notices he also has a tarp with him. He's going to kill her. Oh my God.

Brian tells her he's miserable without her. Doesn't she know everything he's done to be with her? They gave up everything. How could she do this to him? Somehow Denise is able to like talk him down. She keeps agreeing with him, telling him maybe they can work it out. Maybe they can be together. He's right.

They should be together. After all they've been through, like it makes sense. But it was all a lie. When Denise got free, she went to police and in tears gave an interview saying that she feared for her life. He kidnapped her. He was going to kill her. And she was convinced that if given the chance, he'd finish the job. Brian was arrested and charged with kidnapping and aggravated assault.

Denise gave a victim impact statement at his sentencing, asking the judge for life in prison. She was certain that if he was ever released, he would kill her. She told the judge, you're choosing between his life or mine, and I hope you choose mine. I think Denise probably wanted him locked away forever because she knew what he was capable of, because she knew what he'd done before. But she probably thought she could hide him away with their secrets in prison. Little did she know, Brian would get offered a deal that he would take, and it would be the end of Denise's life as she knew it. Brian Winchester was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Denise had turned on him. She was the reason he's in jail, and police thought they could use this to convince him to turn on her. And they were right. They offer him a deal. They said, listen, tell us everything and anything you say won't be used against you. You have full immunity. You're serving 20 years. We want Denise. This is a one-time deal, but you get complete immunity. So it worked. Brian was tired of

keeping a decades old secret and he was ready to tell police everything. Brian started his story from the beginning. The affair between him and Denise had been going on for years before Mike went missing that day in December. They opened the door to this affair slowly at first, initially just like talking about inappropriate things, like he said, like we were talking about sex and we shouldn't have been talking about sex. But after a while, all the flirting and talking kind of like led up to this peak one night when both couples went out. They were going to some like bar or restaurant and Mike pulled up and let Brian and Denise

out while Mike and Kathy went and parked the car. And while they're alone, Brian and Denise kissed for the very first time, and it was a snowball after that. The affair continued with them meeting up on lunch hours, or Brian sometimes following Mike and Denise to work conferences out of town, and when Mike would go into the conferences, him and Denise would sneak off and be together. Oh my God.

Denise told Brian that she was deeply unhappy in her marriage and that she wanted out. And according to Brian, it wasn't overnight that they decided to kill Mike. And here's Brian to tell you in his own words. I think it was gradual that we, you know, the more we were together, the more we wanted to be together. And the more we griped about Kathy and Mike, the more we wanted to be together. It just kind of, it just got worse and worse. I mean, it just snowballed.

We just, I don't even know how to describe it. So, yes, we eventually started talking about options and ways that we could be together. And Denise, because of the way she was raised, because of her pride, I guess I can't say all the reasons, but she did not want to get divorced and stated that she would not get divorced, but she still had a desire for us to be together, which narrowed the options even further, I guess. The idea to kill him while hunting wasn't the only one that they had discussed. They talked about a number of different ways that this could happen. Mike worked a lot at night up at his office and one of the options was that we could make it look as if there was a burglary of some sort up at his office and that he got shot in some type of robbery or something up at his office.

Denise didn't like that idea. I didn't like that idea and Denise didn't like that idea, but primarily because there would be an investigation if something like that occurred. So another idea, we all used to go out on boats a lot and Mike had a boat. And another option was that the four of us would go out on a boat out into the Gulf. The four of us would go out on a boat out into the Gulf. The four of you being who? Me and Kathy and Denise and Mike. And we'd go out in a boat on the Gulf. And basically that Kathy and Mike would be pushed overboard

and that Denise and I would find a buoy way offshore that we could hold on to and either let the boat sink or let the boat take off on its own or whatever and make it look like we had an accident on the water, and that Denise and I had survived the accident. So there was even a scenario where both spouses would be killed, but what Brian wouldn't say out loud was that he didn't want Kathy dead. He still cared for her enough that he didn't want to kill her, which is like the lowest amount. I think you have to like someone, but he acts like it's some big deal that he didn't kill her. Yeah. So no gold star for him. But eventually they come up with this idea of a hunting accident. Now, when they originally talked about this, it's like,

it's crazy in my mind how they try and justify it. Apparently, the original plan is like, we're going to take him out. They're going to go hunting together. And then I'm going to get him in the water. And, you know, it'll look like I survived and he didn't, but I'm not going to like do anything. I'm just gonna like push him in and then kind of leave it up to God. And that way, it's not murder. Like that's how they justified it in their minds creating an opportunity for this person to die it's not murder just creating an opportunity of death got it yeah yeah and why now like if this affair had gone on for years what brought it to the point where they're like he's gotta go well apparently they picked december two reasons. One is Mike had three life insurance policies out on him.

And one of them that Denise had taken out was about to lapse. Mike actually didn't want to renew it. And he decided not to make the payment. But Denise went behind his back and made the payment anyway. Now, Brian knew about this. They, like, had decided together they were going to make this payment because they wanted this additional $500,000. Right. like had decided together they were going to make this payment because they wanted this additional $500,000. So they decided they could probably make one payment because the payment was made

either quarterly or like semi-annually. But if they had to make more than one, Mike would start to notice. So they're like, okay, we made this payment. We basically have like this like last quarter to make this happen if we want this $500,000. The second reason that it had to happen then was Mike and Denise's anniversary was actually on December 17th, the day after he went missing. And apparently he had planned this like big trip for them to go away together. Though everyone thought they had this like great happy marriage, they actually were pretty unhappy. They hadn't had sex since their child was born. And Mike was getting a little bit frustrated. He's like, listen, it's been a long time. Like I want to be married again. So he had kind of set up this expectation that when they go on this trip, they're going to be intimate. And Denise did not want to do that.

So she said, we have to have this happen before this trip happens. Now, originally they had planned this whole thing like a week before it actually happened. But shortly before midnight, on the night before Brian and Mike were supposed to go hunting, Mike called Brian and canceled the trip because he said Denise didn't want him to go. Brian was like shocked. So he calls Denise right away and was like, what are you doing? Now is not the time to be getting cold feet. Do you want this or not? And she said she did.

She just got scared. Like she didn't, it's a big deal. She's like, I don't want to, I don't know if I want to kill him, but I do. Even though they think they're not killing him, like it's a whole thing. So they reschedule this for the day before the anniversary and they even secure their own alibis. Denise would be at home. And when Mike didn't return, she would call everybody from the home phone to help establish where she was. And Brian had planned a hunting trip with his father-in-law to be his alibi. So he just needed to make sure him and Mike went super early so that way he could get back and go hunting with his father-in-law and like be good.

So Brian actually the night before, they'd like gone out with his wife. They were drinking. He gave her some sleeping pills without her knowledge that she wouldn't realize how early he was leaving in the morning. And when he left his house that morning, there was no turning back for him. So the plan with Mike was that I would meet him at a gas station on Thomasville Road up near the overpass. Well, the overpass I don't think was there at that point, but meet him up at a gas station up near the McDonald's up there. And I met him there. I had told him that we were going to go to a secret special spot to go hunting. And that he needed to bring his waders. I had to make sure that he brought his

waders because the belief was there was kind of like a there still is probably like a duck hunters myth that if you fall overboard with your waders you're gonna sink really quick and drown so I had to make sure that he brought his waders and um so I told him about him about this great spot that we were gonna go and he needed to bring his waiters. So I met him at the gas station and I told him when he drove up, I was real paranoid about phones and him calling me and there being a record of him calling me.

So I told him that my battery was dead on my phone, that there was no reason for him to call me. I followed him over to the lake. He had his boat behind his Bronco, and I followed him in my white Suburban Lake Seminole, which is about 50 minutes away. uh Lake Seminole which is about 50 minutes away and um I uh I told him what landing we needed to go to and so we pulled into the landing and uh launched the boat and uh I I said something I had to make sure that he had the waders on so I said something, I had to make sure that he had the waders on, so I said something

about we're running low on time or we're going to be really pushed. Why was it so important for the waders to be on? Because I believed and we believed that if you fell overboard with the waders on that you would sink pretty quickly. So I told him something like, we're running late, we need to go ahead and put our waders on here and now before we get in and go. And so we both did that.

And because I knew where we were going hunting, I was in the back of the boat driving and he was in the front. Everything had taken longer than what I had anticipated and I had to be back in town early enough in time to meet my father-in-law for for my alibi trip to occur. And so we headed out and there was a deep area, maybe a couple hundred yards from the landing that we put in at. And we got to that area that I knew was a deep area. And I don't remember exactly how I got him to stand up, but I don't know if I pretended something was wrong with the motor

or the weight in the boat was off or something, but I basically stopped the boat and got him to stand up. And when he did, I pushed him into the water. What happened next? So he was in the water and he was like struggling and the motor of the boat was still running and I pulled off just a little bit to get kind of away from him so that he couldn't reach back into the boat and I didn't know it at the time I didn't know if he was trying to swim or I didn't know what was going on but but what I came to find out or eventually

realized was he was taking the waders and the jacket off and he he got those off and I think I forgot to tell you about this part before but I remember now that that area of the lake had a lot of snags, a lot of dead trees that come up out of the water and there's a lot of stumps that come up out of the water. And he swam over 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 going to go. and none of this was like going well I thought it was going to go and I didn't know what to do but

he started to yell I didn't know how to get out of that situation. And so I had my gun and I just I made one or two circles around And I ended up circling closer towards him. And he was in the water. And as I passed by, I shot him. Now keep in mind, it's so early in the morning that everything is completely dark. Brian said that when he decided to shoot him, he closed his eyes because he knew the gun would flash

and he didn't want to actually see his face. Oh my God, I cannot imagine. Mike must have been so confused. Can you imagine your best friend doing this to you? I mean, me? No. Like, and so here's the thing is Mike thought maybe Denise was having an affair, but he actually used to confide in Brian.

So Brian heard all of his suspicions, but he clearly had like no comprehension that it was his best friend who was actually stabbing him in the back. Brian had betrayed him without explanation and Mike probably died totally confused. I'm not sure he ever even had time to like fully process and put together what was actually happening or why. After Brian shot Mike, he motored back to his body and pulled him into the boat. He took the boat to the nearest landing, ran back to his truck, drove to where the boat. He took the boat to the nearest landing, ran back to his truck, drove to where the boat was, and pushed the boat back into the water. He was panicking at this point. Nothing was going as he planned. Everything was taking longer and he was running out of time.

Like he was never going to make this hunting trip with his father-in-law. Everything was crumbling. So like I said, he pushes the boat back into the water and he starts to drive home to secure a new alibi. Now on the drive, he knew he couldn't call his father-in-law and cancel because the phone would ping in that area. So he decided to drive home again with Mike's body still in his truck and he like crawls back into bed. He wakes up his wife, but like just enough. He didn't want her fully like waking up and getting out of bed. He just like wakes her up enough to be like, hey, I'm going to go. I overslept. I'm not going to go hunting, but I'm going to go like do some training with the dogs. I'll be home later.

Then he calls his father-in-law from the house and said, sorry, I overslept. Can't go hunting. When he went back outside, his stomach dropped because they have this angled driveway. And when he walked behind his truck, he saw blood coming out of the tailgate. So he quickly hoses it off. He knew that he had to get rid of this body like right away. So he goes to some like big store like Walmart or something to buy a shovel, a tarp, and some weights. That is such a red flag purchase.

Well, I know. And here's the crazy part. He ran into someone that he knew while at the store. And later on, when that man like found out everything that had happened, like the crazy part to me is he's like, Brian was acting super weird. He was in a hurry. But at the time, like when I found out his friend was missing, I thought, oh my gosh, like he was just acting crazy because he's going to search for his friend. He had no idea that he was actually in a hurry to go bury his friend's body. That is wild. Brian decided to drive Mike out to Lake Carr. He tries to place his body on the tarp and like drag it out to one of these like mud puddles in the center of the lake area because the water was super low. And in

his mind, like eventually it would overflow with water. But Mike's too heavy. He can't pull him out. So he decided instead to bury Mike along the shoreline, knowing that when more water comes, the waterline would rise and he would be buried under the water forever. It was it was hard. I was I was exhausted. I was getting bitten by ants all over me. I remember being scared that I was going to have to explain why I had ant bites all over me because there was ants where I was digging. But actually while I was doing this, I heard a vehicle coming down the road.

I heard a vehicle coming down the road and so I kind of I had there were bushes there anyway but I kind of made sure everything was flat and you couldn't see it from the road and I ran back up to my truck and a guy drove up he was coming down there to to go hunting out on the lake itself and he and I made small talk, chit chat. I was obviously very paranoid. And I got the impression, I can't remember why now, but at the time, I got the impression that he might have been like a law enforcement type guy, maybe like a game warden or something like that. But he talked about he was going deer hunting out on the lake bed. And so I kind of hung out at my truck and waited for him to get several hundred yards away before I went back to digging.

Mike was buried, but Brian's truck is still covered in blood. So at first he goes to his parents who have this big property. He tries to hose it off, but the regular hose just isn't cutting it. He needed to find a pressure washer. So he goes to car wash after car wash looking for one until he finally is like out of town and able to clean his truck. And this is the crazy part to me. Like if anyone would have looked at this case, like even slightly with foul play on their mind day one there's so much evidence that could have been found like the ants that were biting him like he's so concerned people are going to ask him about this if they see it if anyone would have even like glanced at his

truck that's been like hosed down and power washed clearly that's a red sign too and i have to imagine like where mike's truck was was all muddy there was probably another like set of tire chucks there was probably a second set of prints like there's all this evidence showing that something happened but nobody was looking after washing his car he had to attend a family Christmas at his wife's family's house and act like nothing was wrong act like he didn't just kill his best friend and he did that until he got a call from his dad that Mike was missing and they needed to search. Brian said that he did plant the hat there, but only so that they would hopefully find the waders and jacket that Mike had actually taken off in a panic. So from everything I could say and watching his testimony,

it sounds like that stuff was really his, even though it looked super fishy that it didn't have slime on it and that had been under the water. It sounds like he was just trying to like point them to the stuff that would actually find it. He said for years that him and Denise never spoke about what happened. He said that she probably thought everything went to plan and it wasn't until much, much later that he eventually like forced her to sit down and listen to what he had actually done. Listen to the fact that he had to shoot Mike and bury his body somewhere else. Do you really think that that's true, that she had no idea the entire time exactly what went down?

I mean, I don't know. Clearly, like, I mean, I don't think she's like innocent by any means. Like she's still culpable in all of this. I think it's probably more like Bliss when his body didn't show up. She probably had questions, but like did not want to talk about it. They had a very tumultuous relationship as well. Like from the onset, Brian said that even before they got married, like they were already cheating on each other. The relationship that they literally killed to have was flawed from the very beginning. And

I'm sure they stayed together for so long just because of what they did to be together. And like when it didn't work, Brian just cracked. Like he killed his best friend to be with Denise. And now he had no best friend and he had no relationship with the woman that he killed for. Denise ended up being charged with Mike's murder and Brian testified against her in court. He spent over 90 minutes on the stand laying out the story of exactly what happened. And eventually Denise was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Brian did end up leading police to Mike's remains. And after almost 20 years, Cheryl was finally able to lay her son to rest. And to me, she's the true hero in this story. No one wanted to look twice at this case,

but she would not stop fighting for what she believed in. She trusted her gut and never gave up. She gave up almost 20 years of her life to this case, people calling her crazy, never being allowed to see her granddaughter. But if it wasn't for her, the people who killed her son would still be walking the streets today $1.75 million richer. If you want to see the entire 90 minutes of Brian Winchester talking at Denise's trial, telling the story of their affair and the plan, you can go check that out on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on social at Crime Junkie Podcast on Instagram and at Crime Junkie Pod on Twitter.

And if you guys want to join the fan club, like I said, we've got tons and tons of extra episodes. We're now doing meetups for the fan club. You can get stickers, the ringtone. You can do that by going to our website and clicking on the fan club link. And we will be back next week with a brand new episode.