The Mike Williams Murder Case: Affair, Cover-Up, and Trial

The Mike Williams murder case is the story of a Tallahassee real estate appraiser who was shot to death by his best friend during a staged duck hunting accident at Lake Seminole on December 16, 2000, in a plot with his own wife to collect more than $1.75 million in life insurance. For nearly 17 years, the death was officially ruled an accidental drowning. The truth surfaced only after the killer, Brian Winchester, ambushed Williams’ widow Denise in a 2016 kidnapping, was caught, and traded his confession for immunity from murder charges. Denise Williams is now serving 30 years for conspiracy. Winchester is serving 20 years for the kidnapping. No one has ever been convicted of the murder itself.¹²

The Disappearance at Lake Seminole

Mike Williams was 31 years old. He left home before dawn on December 16, 2000, for a solo duck hunt at Lake Seminole in Jackson County, Florida. He had promised his wife Denise he would be back by noon to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary. He never came home.¹

His truck was found at the lake. His boat was recovered the next morning, decoys and shotgun still aboard. Grid searches of the lake bottom over the following weeks turned up nothing. Investigators floated three theories: he had fallen overboard and drowned, he had been taken by alligators, or he had walked away from his family.¹

Why the Death Was Ruled an Accident

Six months after the disappearance, a fisherman pulled a pair of waders out of Lake Seminole. Two days later, a fishing jacket, hunting license, and flashlight surfaced in the same spot. It was enough for Denise’s attorney to petition for a death certificate, and in June 2001 a judge declared Mike dead by accidental drowning. Denise collected more than $1.75 million in life insurance.¹³

Investigators who later looked at the recovered items thought they told a different story. The gear was in suspiciously good condition after half a year in a lake. The flashlight still worked. Jackson County Sheriff’s investigator Derrick Wester concluded the evidence had been planted. Denise had filed insurance claims just 19 days after Mike vanished. The largest policy, worth $1.75 million, had been purchased only six months earlier, sold to Mike by his best friend Brian Winchester.¹⁴

The Mother Who Would Not Let It Go

Cheryl Williams, Mike’s mother, refused to accept the drowning ruling. She visited Lake Seminole on Christmas Day 2000 and came away certain her son wasn’t there. Wildlife experts told her alligators do not feed in cold winter months and would have left forensic evidence anyway.⁵¹

For 17 years she pushed. She filled 27 pages of handwritten notebooks with leads. She wrote thousands of letters to Florida’s governor. She bought billboard space and a full-page newspaper ad, and drained her retirement savings. In January 2005, Denise Williams issued an ultimatum: keep pushing for an investigation and you will never see your granddaughter Anslee again. Denise followed through, and Cheryl and Mike’s father Nick did not see the child again.⁵⁶

Cheryl’s persistence worked. In 2004, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office for the 2nd Judicial Circuit formally opened an investigation.⁷

The Affair, the Plan, and the Killing

Brian Winchester and Denise Williams had been having an affair since 1997, three years before the murder. Winchester later testified that Denise refused to divorce Mike because she feared losing custody of Anslee, and the two of them talked through several ways to kill him before settling on a staged hunting accident. He described the planning as “very mutual” but admitted he “instigated a lot of it.” He called them “Bonnie and Clyde. We were partners in crime.”³⁸

The timing was pushed by the impending lapse of Mike’s life insurance policy and an anniversary trip Denise did not want to take. Denise got cold feet about a planned December 9, 2000, date. Winchester pressed her to recommit. On December 16, he met Mike at Lake Seminole under the pretext of hunting, pushed him overboard, and when Mike swam to a tree stump and tried to grab the boat, shot him in the head at close range. Winchester loaded the body into his truck and buried it on the shores of Carr Lake in Leon County.³²

Denise was not at the lake. Winchester testified her role was to “come up with an alibi for herself and make sure that Mike went.” He divorced his first wife Kathy in 2003. He and Denise married in 2005.³

How the Case Finally Cracked

The marriage between Brian and Denise Winchester fell apart in 2016. When Denise stopped returning his calls during their divorce, Winchester broke into her car in August of that year, hid inside, and pointed a gun at her when she got in to drive to work. She talked him into releasing her, then went to police. He was arrested and charged with armed kidnapping, facing a potential life sentence.³⁴

His attorney went to State Attorney Jack Campbell with an offer. On October 4, 2017, Winchester signed a proffer agreement: he would tell prosecutors everything about Mike Williams’ death and lead them to the body. In exchange, the State granted him immunity from murder prosecution and agreed not to seek a life sentence for the kidnapping.⁴

Finding the Body

Working from Winchester’s information, FDLE investigators began excavating near Carr Lake on October 12, 2017. About 30 people, including agents, cadaver dogs, and Leon County Public Works staff, worked the site for up to 16 hours a day. They built water dams, pumped back the lake, cleared trees, and sifted mud. Holes nine feet deep kept filling with murky water, eels, and water moccasins.⁹

On October 18, they found him. Mike Williams’ remains were buried under six feet of muck. Roughly 98 percent of the bones were recovered and described as very well preserved. He still wore his cold-weather gloves, his outdoor booties, and his wedding ring. Two DNA tests confirmed identity. On December 20, 2017, the FDLE publicly announced the recovery: “We know without a doubt that Mike Williams was murdered.”⁹⁷

Denise Williams’ Trial

Denise Williams was arrested on May 8, 2018, and charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and accessory after the fact. Her trial began that December at the Leon County Courthouse.⁴

The prosecution’s case rested heavily on Winchester. He described the affair, the planning, and the killing, telling the jury Denise had orchestrated it to collect the insurance money and avoid a divorce. He said she had likened their situation to David and Bathsheba and assured him God would forgive them.¹⁰

Prosecutors also played a recording. In 2018, Kathy Thomas, Winchester’s first ex-wife, had agreed to act as a police informant and recorded a phone call with Denise. On the tape, Thomas said, “I’ve always just pretended like I don’t know anything — and I do know,” and asked why Denise and Brian could not have simply divorced. Denise’s answer was guarded: “What do you know?”¹¹

The jury convicted her on all three counts.³

The Appeal and Resentencing

Denise appealed to the First District Court of Appeal of Florida. In November 2020, the panel reversed her first-degree murder conviction, finding the prosecution had not produced sufficient evidence that she directly “counseled, hired, or procured” the killing or “aided or abetted” Winchester in carrying it out. The court drew a line between participating in a conspiracy and bearing legal responsibility as a principal to the murder. It also reversed the accessory-after-the-fact count. It upheld the conspiracy conviction. The Florida Attorney General’s Office asked the state Supreme Court to review the ruling, but in June 2021 the Supreme Court declined without explanation.¹²³

On September 9, 2021, Leon County Circuit Judge Kevin J. Carroll resentenced Denise Williams to 30 years, the statutory maximum for conspiracy to commit murder. He rejected the defense argument that she had been a minor participant. “I don’t find she was a relatively minor participant in the conspiracy to kill Mike Williams,” Carroll said. “Mrs. Williams could have stopped this on December 16 as she had done before.” She received credit for time served.²¹³

The Immunity Deal and the Man Who Pulled the Trigger

The case ended with a stark asymmetry. Brian Winchester confessed to shooting Mike Williams but cannot be prosecuted for it unless investigators find he lied to them. He is serving 20 years for the 2016 kidnapping of Denise.⁴

Denise’s defense attorney Ethan Way called the deal a “Christmas present” for Winchester and told jurors, “They gave a free pass to a murderer and got nothing else.” Assistant State Attorney Jon Fuchs told the same jury it turned his stomach to have granted immunity, but said it was the only way to recover the body and give the Williams family closure after 17 years. State Attorney Jack Campbell defended the choice publicly: “I’m quite confident we would have never found him if I had not taken this step.”¹⁴⁴

Where Things Stand Now

Denise Williams remains incarcerated on the 30-year conspiracy sentence. Brian Winchester is serving his kidnapping sentence at the Madison Correctional Institution in Madison, Florida.¹⁵

Anslee, about a year old when her father was killed and 19 at her mother’s trial, ended up with everything. In a 2019 settlement of an insurance fraud case against Denise, all of Denise’s assets were transferred to Anslee as Mike Williams’ sole heir. Four pieces of Tallahassee real estate were valued at roughly $877,000, with total assets estimated near $1.4 million. The settlement bars Anslee from using those assets to fund her mother’s legal fees or appeals.¹⁶

Cheryl Williams and Anslee remain estranged. “She was all we had left of Mike,” Cheryl told reporters. “Denise, not only did she kill Mike, she stole Anslee.”¹⁶

No one has ever been formally convicted of the murder of Mike Williams. Winchester admits to the killing and is immune. Denise was convicted of conspiring to have him killed, not of the killing itself. The case closed only because a mother spent 17 years refusing to believe her son had drowned.

1
CBS News. Mike Williams Murder Tallahassee Florida Cold Blooded Killer
2
Tallahassee Democrat. Denise Williams Resentenced to 30 Years
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FindLaw. Williams v. State
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Tallahassee Democrat. Details of Brian Winchester’s Plea Deal That Cracked the Mike Williams Case
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WJHG. Murder Victim’s Mother Says Guilty Verdict Was Worth All She Gave Up
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Law and Crime. Denise Williams Allegedly Issued Harsh Ultimatum to Murder Victim’s Family
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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. Mike Williams Body Found
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WFSU. Williams Trial Day 2: Confessed Shooter Winchester Outlines Motive, Affairs
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New York Post. Secret Recordings of Denise Williams Reveal Conversation About Husband’s Murder
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Tallahassee Democrat. Florida Supreme Court Declined Request to Review Denise Williams Reversal
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WCTV. Denise Williams Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Conspiracy in Husband’s Death
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KRGV. Florida Tale of Infidelity and Homicide Ends With Conviction
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Entertainment Weekly. Where Is Denise Williams Now
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Tallahassee Democrat. Mike Williams’ Daughter Awarded All Assets