Mike Williams Case: Lake Seminole Murder, Affair, and Reversal

The Mike Williams Lake Seminole case was never an accidental drowning. On December 16, 2000, the 31-year-old Tallahassee real estate appraiser was shot and killed by his best friend, Brian Winchester, during a staged duck hunting trip, as part of a plot with Williams’ wife, Denise, to collect roughly $1.75 million in life insurance. The truth took 17 years to surface. Today, Winchester has immunity for the killing, and Denise is serving 30 years for conspiracy after an appeals court threw out her murder conviction.

What Happened on the Lake

Williams left home that December morning for what was reported as a solo duck hunting trip on Lake Seminole, the reservoir on the Florida-Georgia border. He never came back. Searchers found his truck and boat but no body. After 44 days, the search was called off. Six months later a pair of waders and other belongings turned up in the lake, and in June 2001 a judge declared Williams dead by accidental drowning, accepting the theory that he had fallen overboard and been eaten by alligators.¹

Winchester was with him. In his later testimony, Winchester said he pushed Williams out of the boat. Williams did not drown. He swam toward a tree stump and tried to grab the boat. Winchester shot him in the head. “When that happened, he was in front of me to the right and I took the boat to the left of him and when I got to where I felt like I needed to and before he could grab onto the boat, I shot him,” Winchester testified.²

Winchester then loaded the body into his truck, drove about 60 miles, and buried Williams in six feet of muck at the end of Gardner Road near Carr Lake in northern Leon County, where it stayed for 17 years.³

The Affair and the Insurance Motive

Winchester was Mike Williams’ best friend and also his insurance agent. He had been having an affair with Denise since 1997, three years before the killing.²

In the months before the hunting trip, Mike Williams was carrying three life insurance policies with Denise as the beneficiary on all of them: a $250,000 Kansas City Life policy from 1995, a $500,000 Cotton States policy applied for in late March 2000, and a $1 million Kansas City Life policy applied for in April 2000. Winchester was the agent on the Kansas City Life policies.⁴

According to Winchester, Denise pushed her husband toward a “seven-figure” policy and described their situation as being “like David and Bathsheba.” The two considered a staged robbery before settling on the hunting accident. Winchester called the planning “very mutual,” while acknowledging he “instigated a lot of it.” They also briefly discussed killing Winchester’s then-wife, Kathy Thomas, but Winchester refused.²

Prosecutors said the Cotton States policy was approaching its lapse date, which pushed the plot forward. Denise filed her first insurance claim 19 days after Mike disappeared. When she filed the Cotton States claim, she did not disclose the other policies; prosecutors argued that revealing the $1 million Kansas City Life policy would have triggered scrutiny that could have voided the contract.⁵⁴

After Mike’s death, Denise and Winchester eventually married.

Seventeen Years as a Cold Case

Mike’s mother, Cheryl Williams, never accepted the drowning ruling. She noted that her son was the only drowning victim in Lake Seminole’s history whose body was never recovered. She kept handwritten notebooks on every development, put up billboards, bought a full-page newspaper advertisement, and wrote thousands of letters to Governor Rick Scott. She drained her retirement savings on the effort.⁶⁷

The campaign cost her more than money. In August 2001, Denise threatened her: “You do anything to get a criminal investigation and you will lose Anslee,” referring to Cheryl’s granddaughter. When Cheryl succeeded in prompting a criminal investigation in 2004, Denise cut off contact between Cheryl and Anslee for years.⁸

Cheryl’s advocacy helped bring the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office for the 2nd Judicial Circuit into the case in 2004, taking it over from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.⁹ For more than a decade, nothing broke.

How the Case Finally Cracked

The break came from inside the marriage. In August 2016, Winchester kidnapped Denise at gunpoint. He was arrested, and in December 2017 he received a 20-year prison sentence for armed kidnapping, domestic assault, and armed burglary.¹⁰¹¹

Facing that sentence, Winchester cooperated. On October 4, 2017, State Attorney Jack Campbell granted him full immunity for the murder of Mike Williams in exchange for “the truth about what happened.” The agreement also shielded him from a potential life sentence on the kidnapping charge and barred prosecutors from using his statements against him.¹¹

Winchester led investigators to the burial site. Starting October 12, 2017, agents and cadaver dog handlers worked the remote Carr Lake location, and on October 18 they recovered Mike Williams’ remains. About 98 percent of his bones were found, well preserved, with his clothing intact, including cold-weather gloves and outdoor booties. Two DNA tests confirmed the identification. On December 20, 2017, FDLE Special Agent in Charge Mark Perez announced: “We know without a doubt that Mike Williams was murdered.”³⁹

The Trial of Denise Williams

Denise was arrested on May 8, 2018, and charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and accessory after the fact. In August 2018, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Patronis, added three counts of felony insurance fraud.¹¹¹²

The state’s case leaned on Winchester. Assistant State Attorney Jon Fuchs told the jury that granting immunity to a confessed killer “turns my stomach,” but argued it was the only way to deliver justice after nearly two decades. In closing, Fuchs held up Mike Williams’ wedding band. Kathy Thomas, Winchester’s ex-wife, testified about the affair and had helped build the case by recording a 2018 conversation with Denise.¹³¹⁰

Defense attorney Ethan Way argued the state had no “tangible proof” beyond the word of a confessed killer who had reason to blame Denise after she turned him in for the kidnapping. “They gave a free pass to a murderer and got nothing else,” Way said.¹³

In December 2018, the jury convicted Denise of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. She was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years. The accessory charge was dropped, and the insurance fraud counts were dismissed in February 2019 after prosecutors determined further prosecution was unnecessary given the life sentence and the transfer of Mike’s assets to his heir.¹⁴¹⁵

Why the Murder Conviction Was Reversed

Denise appealed in January 2020. On November 25, 2020, Florida’s First District Court of Appeal reversed the first-degree murder conviction in a 19-page ruling but let the conspiracy conviction stand.¹⁶

The three-judge panel drew a line between planning a crime and being legally responsible for its commission. Conspiracy proved she agreed with Winchester to kill her husband. Being a principal to the murder itself required more. The court held that “mere planning or scheming” was not enough and found no testimony about any acts or words by Denise “to facilitate the offense, to encourage the offense, or to direct the offense at any point” on the day of the killing. The state had not shown she counseled, hired, procured, aided, or abetted the actual act as it occurred.⁵

The Florida Attorney General’s office asked the Florida Supreme Court to reinstate the murder conviction. On June 9, 2021, the court unanimously declined to hear the case, and the reversal stood.¹⁷

On September 9, 2021, Leon County Circuit Judge Kevin J. Carroll resentenced Denise on the conspiracy count to 30 years in prison with credit for time served, plus a $2,100 fine and court costs. The judge rejected the defense’s “minor participant” argument: “Mrs. Williams could have stopped this on December 16 as she had done before.”¹⁸¹⁴

Where the Case Stands

No one is formally convicted of murdering Mike Williams. Winchester has immunity for the killing and is serving 20 years at Madison Correctional Institution for the 2016 kidnapping. Denise is serving 30 years at the Florida Women’s Reception Center in Ocala for conspiracy to commit murder.¹⁹

Mike and Denise’s daughter, Anslee, was a toddler when her father disappeared. In May 2019, a settlement transferred all of Denise’s assets to Anslee, including four Tallahassee properties valued at roughly $877,000. The settlement bars Anslee from using any of the assets to pay Denise’s legal or appeal costs, with a $150,000 penalty for violation.²⁰

Cheryl Williams and Anslee were still estranged as of the most recent reporting. “I brought her daddy home for her and she’s financially independent now,” Cheryl said. “That’s all I can do for Anslee is love her, and I do love her.”²⁰

1
CBS News. Mike Williams Murder Tallahassee Florida Cold Blooded Killer
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WFSU. Williams Trial Day 2: Confessed Shooter Winchester Outlines Motive, Affairs
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Tallahassee Democrat. Mike Williams Body Found
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Tallahassee Democrat. Denise Williams Charged Insurance Fraud
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FindLaw. Williams v. State
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News4Jax. Woman Spends Years Searching for Truth, Justice in Son’s Murder
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WJHG. Murder Victim’s Mother Says Guilty Verdict Was Worth All She Gave Up
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Tallahassee Democrat. Mike Williams’ Mom: They Did Not Have the Right to Kill My Son
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FDLE. FDLE Provides Update in Mike Williams Investigation
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ABC News. Partners in Crime: Florida Couple’s Affair Leads to Husband’s Murder
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Tallahassee Democrat. Details of Brian Winchester’s Plea Deal That Cracked Mike Williams Case
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WFSU. Denise Williams Facing Additional Insurance Fraud Charges
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KCCI. Woman Gets Life in Prison for Plotting With Husband’s Best Friend to Kill Him
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Tallahassee Democrat. Denise Williams Resentenced to 30 Years
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WTXL. Denise Williams to Spend Life in Prison for Husband’s Murder
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Tallahassee Democrat. Denise Williams Murder Conviction Overturned
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BBS Appeals. Florida Supreme Court Rejects State’s Petition to Reinstate Overturned Criminal Conviction
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WCTV. Denise Williams Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Conspiracy in Husband’s Death
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Entertainment Weekly. Where Is Denise Williams Now
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Tallahassee Democrat. Mike Williams’ Daughter Awarded All Assets