The Murder Of Mike Williams: Conspiracy, Betrayal, And A Mother Who Never Gave Up

Mike and Denise Williams were high school sweethearts who met when they were just 15 years old and attending North Florida Christian High School in Tallahassee. Mike, the student council president, a football player, and avid duck hunter, took a shine to his future wife, a cheerleader who received the yearbook title “best dressed.”

The two went on to attend Florida State University together, with Mike majoring in political science and urban planning and taking a job as a property appraiser. The couple made good money and bought a home in an upscale subdivision in East Tallahassee. To the outside world, they seemed to have the perfect marriage, especially after the couple’s daughter, Anslee, was born in 1999.

But that all changed on December 16, 2000.

It was Mike and Denise’s sixth wedding anniversary, and Denise would later tell investigators that her husband woke up early, as he often did, to go duck hunting at Lake Seminole. By noon, however, he had not returned, so Denise called her father. 

Shortly after that, Mike’s best friend, Brian Winchester, and Winchester’s father, drove out to the lake to look for Mike. There they found his 1994 Ford Bronco near a boat launch, but found no other signs of Mike.

A search team was sent to the lake, but found only Mike’s hunting license, jacket, and waders, according to The Washington Post. It would be 17 years before Mike’s body would be found.

Before that, however, investigators believed that Mike had drowned following a boating accident and was eaten by alligators, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. Though his body wasn’t found, Mike Williams was declared legally dead, allowing Denise to collect $1.75 million from multiple life insurance policies.

Within five years of Mike’s disappearance, Denise married Brian Winchester, who, it turned out, had sold Mike some of the insurance policies just a few months before he disappeared. The couple also lived in the house Mike and Denise had previously shared.

While most people moved on, Mike’s mother, Cheryl, refused to believe that her son had drowned and conducted her own investigation.

“From the minute he disappeared…I knew the police’s explanation wasn’t true,” Cheryl told the New York Daily News in 2016.

In 2004, she was able to lobby the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to reopen the case, assisting local agencies as they re-investigated. Investigators soon found numerous issues with the original conclusions about Mike’s disappearance and alleged death. For one thing, his boat was found with the engine off with a full gas tank, but if he had fallen off the boat while the engine was still running, it would have continued to run until the gas ran out. It was also odd that Mike had allegedly gone duck hunting by himself that day, when he usually went with friends.

Soon, the alligator theory – that Mike had drowned and his body was eaten by alligators – was debunked. Alligators become dormant in the winter when the temperatures drop and the water is too cold. Even if a gator had acted contrary to its normal behavior, some part of the body would have been left behind, yet nothing was found.

Despite this information, the case was closed again. Years went by, but Cheryl Williams refused to give up on her son. Then, in 2010, when police were made aware of the insurance money associated with Mike’s death, the case was reclassified as “suspicious.”

Things finally started to unravel in 2012, when Denise and Brian Winchester separated. Three years later, in 2015, Denise filed for divorce, which Winchester opposed. Winchester was ordered to comply with the divorce, and was told to submit an appraisal for the couple’s house by August 2016.

Denise later told police that on the day the appraisal was due, she was sitting in her car outside her accounting job at Florida State University when Winchester climbed over the back seat of her car and started yelling at her to drive, producing a gun. She drove to a CVS parking lot, ignoring where Winchester told her to go. He then told her he was going to kill himself, insisting he had nothing to live for if Denise went through with the divorce. She calmed him down and dropped him off at his truck, promising not to go to the police after he apologized. She then headed straight for the police to report the incident.

Winchester was charged with kidnapping, domestic assault, and armed burglary, and Denise obtained protection orders against him. Cheryl expressed hope that the new development would find the answers to what happened to her son 16 years earlier.

“[Winchester’s] not going to let Denise run around alone with all that money,” Cheryl told the Daily news, referring to the life insurance money Denise collected after Mike disappeared. “I’m praying he doesn’t commit suicide, I’m praying he’ll tell us what actually happened.”

And Winchester did tell.

In October

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