Bank Employees Discuss Winkler Financial Problems - NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather & Sports

SELMER, Tenn. - Day three of the Mary Winkler murder trial featured several witnesses who testified about Winkler family financial problems.

Most of the day Friday, jurors listened to a recorded interview of the preacher's wife telling authorities about how the shooting followed a buildup of domestic problems.

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Winkler said their problems reached a boiling point and "my ugly came out," according to the recording played Friday.

Winkler told authorities that she didn't remember getting the gun.

The trial is held at the McNairy County Justice Center in Selmer, a small West Tennessee town is 165 miles west of Nashville.

Members of the Fourth Street Church of Christ found Winkler's husband, Matthew Winkler shot to death on March 22, 2006 in the church parsonage.

Mary Winkler was arrested a day later on the Alabama Gulf Coast with their daughters.

On Saturday, Regions Bank employees April Brown, Jana Hawkins, Amy Hollingsworth, and Mary Paulette Guest, who is also a Fourth Street member, testified about the Winklers' banking activity including how bank employees caught Mary Winkler trying to deposit bad checks and called her several times last March.

The prosecution contends that financial problems led Winkler to shoot her husband, but the defense claims domestic problems lead up to the shooting. Prosecutors said the Winklers' Regions Bank account was overdrawn $5,000.

Winkler said she was surprised by how loud the shotgun was. Winkler's attorneys are expected to argue that the gun went off accidentally and that she never planned to kill her husband.

On the trial's opening day, the prosecutor said Winkler may have been motivated to shoot her husband to conceal her involvement in a check-kiting scheme. Defense attorneys said that the couple was taken by the scheme.

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