Speaker 1: With Lucky Land Slots, you can get lucky just about anywhere.
Speaker 2: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today. Has anyone seen
Speaker 2: the bride and broom? Sri?
Speaker 1: Sorry we're here.
Speaker 2: We were getting lucky in the limo when we lost
Speaker 2: track of time. No Lucky Land casino with cash prizes
Speaker 2: that add up quicker than a guess registered Well, in
Speaker 2: that case, I pronounce you lucky thanks for free.
Speaker 1: At Lucky Landslots dot com. Daily bonuses are waiting. No
Speaker 1: purchase necessary boid. We're prohibited by lock EIGHTEAM plus terms
Speaker 1: and conditions APPLAG see website for details.
Speaker 3: It is Ryan here and I have a question for you.
Speaker 3: What do you do when you win?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: Are you at fist pumper, a wooo, a handclap or
Speaker 3: a high fiver? I kind of like the high five.
Speaker 3: But if you want to hone in on those winning moves,
Speaker 3: check out Chumbuck Casino At chumbacasino dot com choose some
Speaker 3: hundreds of social casino style games for your chance to
Speaker 3: redeem serious cash prizes. There are new game releases weekly,
Speaker 3: plus free daily bonuses, so don't wait. Start having the
Speaker 3: most fun ever at Chumbuck Casino dot com Nope.
Speaker 1: We're not necessary, Dally revoid where everybody lost, recond fading lay.
Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer.
Speaker 4: The Nightstalker DTK.
Speaker 5: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 5: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 5: your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 4: Good evening. Did Mike accidentally drown in a Florida lake?
Speaker 4: Or was his disappearance the result of a sinister plot
Speaker 4: to kill him? The crisp pre dawn hours of December
Speaker 4: sixteen thousand began much as they had many saturdays for
Speaker 4: avid duck hunter Mike Williams on Lake Seminole, where he'd
Speaker 4: go to relax after a stressful work week. The Florida
Speaker 4: State grad was juggling fatherhood with a thriving real estate
Speaker 4: appraisal career, and that very evening, he and his high
Speaker 4: school sweetheart Denise planned to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary,
Speaker 4: But Mike Williams never returned home When an intense search
Speaker 4: of the lake's marshy waters turned up only his hunting
Speaker 4: boat and a camouflage hat. Investigators reached the morbid conclusion
Speaker 4: he'd fallen overboard and drowned, his body eaten by alligators.
Speaker 4: Nearly two decades passed before the dark secrets hidden at
Speaker 4: Lake Seminole and elsewhere were finally revealed. Evil at Lake
Speaker 4: Seminole is a diabolical tale of betrayal, greed and deception,
Speaker 4: and of a courageous mother who devoted her life and
Speaker 4: savings to uncovering the truth what really happened to her son.
Speaker 4: The book they were featuring this evening is Evil at
Speaker 4: Lake Seminole, the shocking true story surrounding the disappearance of
Speaker 4: Mike Williams. With my special guests, journalist and author Stephen
Speaker 4: b Epstein Epstein, pardon me, Welcome back to the program,
Speaker 4: and thank you very much for this interview. Stephen b Epstein,
Speaker 4: pleasure to be with you. Thank you very much. Incredible story.
Speaker 4: Tell us the very interesting backstory to how you became
Speaker 4: involved in this what recently interviewed you asked here about
Speaker 4: your book Murder on Birch Leaf Drive. Tell us about
Speaker 4: the circumstances in which you first heard about this story
Speaker 4: behind Evil at Lake Seminole. Well.
Speaker 6: I am a resident of Raleigh, North Carolina, and my
Speaker 6: first book was written about events that occurred in Raleigh,
Speaker 6: North Carolina and a criminal case that was tried in Raleigh,
Speaker 6: North Carolina. This book was written about events that occurred
Speaker 6: in northwest Florida, where I don't live, and I had
Speaker 6: never heard a thing about this story until August of
Speaker 6: twenty nineteen when I was taking my son, picking my
Speaker 6: son up actually from the locker room at his high
Speaker 6: school following an away football game, and I just so
Speaker 6: happened to turn on a podcast as I was starting
Speaker 6: to get interested in at least thinking about a topic
Speaker 6: for a new book, and I heard a podcast, A criminal,
Speaker 6: a true crime podcast on this case, and I was
Speaker 6: enraptured from the very first words of the podcast, and
Speaker 6: literally could do nothing else but think about what I
Speaker 6: had heard for days afterward, and pretty much knew that
Speaker 6: I just had to write this story.
Speaker 4: Tell us about Lake Seminole and Tallahassee, Florida, and just
Speaker 4: a little bit about the area geography.
Speaker 6: Geographical sure, so, Tallahassee is located at the eastern edge
Speaker 6: of the Florida Panhandle. As most people know, it's the
Speaker 6: capital of the State of Florida. All of state government
Speaker 6: pretty much is located in Tallahassee, and Florida State University
Speaker 6: is centered in Tallahassee. Those are, in fact, the two
Speaker 6: largest employers in Tallahassee, the State of Florida and Florida
Speaker 6: State University. You got Georgia. The Georgia border is thirty
Speaker 6: miles to the north and the Gulf of Mexico is
Speaker 6: thirty miles to the south. Now, Lake Seminole is about
Speaker 6: an hour northwest of Tallahassee, although it has become a
Speaker 6: huge hunting and fishing mecca for folks from all over Florida,
Speaker 6: especially in the Florida Panhandle. It's a reservoir that was
Speaker 6: created by damming three different rivers that pretty much flow
Speaker 6: in the northern portion of Florida, the western portion of Georgia,
Speaker 6: and just below the southeastern corner of Alabama. And it's
Speaker 6: a massive area. Its shoreline is three hundred and seventy
Speaker 6: six miles and lots of outdoorsmen and outdoors women have
Speaker 6: been going there since it was created in the nineteen
Speaker 6: fifties in order to hunt and fish exactly what Mike
Speaker 6: Williams was doing. The early morning hours of December sixteenth,
Speaker 6: two thousand.
Speaker 4: Now, tell us a little bit, as you do about
Speaker 4: Jerry Michael Williams was thirty one at that time. Tell
Speaker 4: us a little bit about his occupation and the type
Speaker 4: of character he was and the kind of things that
Speaker 4: he really really enjoyed.
Speaker 6: Jerry Michael Williams, who went by Mike, was the younger
Speaker 6: of two siblings, born to Jerry Williams and Cheryl Williams.
Speaker 6: They lived a fairly meager, modest existence. He grew up
Speaker 6: in a mobile home that was on a fairly large
Speaker 6: expanse of land, his parents believing, especially his mom, that
Speaker 6: the furnishings and appliances weren't nearly as important as the outdoors,
Speaker 6: and so Mike became an outdoorsman from an early age,
Speaker 6: hunting with a bow and arrow in his woods. There
Speaker 6: was a lake a couple of miles from his house
Speaker 6: he would bike down to, and that's where he first
Speaker 6: started duck hunting, a lake called Lake Ammonia. Florida's got
Speaker 6: zillions of lakes everywhere, and lots of folks, especially in
Speaker 6: the northwest corner of Florida, become avid hunters and fishermen.
Speaker 6: He certainly became an avid hunter from an early age.
Speaker 6: He was very very popular as a kid. He became
Speaker 6: the president of his high school class. He went to
Speaker 6: a small Christian school called North Florida Christian School, which
Speaker 6: actually began as a segregation academy after Brown versus Board
Speaker 6: of Education. It was all white back in those days.
Speaker 6: It since integrated, but he was very friendly. People really
Speaker 6: liked him a lot. As a kid, he didn't get
Speaker 6: into Florida State, which was his dream. Initially, he went
Speaker 6: to Florida and m University or fam you on a
Speaker 6: track scholarship. After one year he was able to get
Speaker 6: into Florida State and then graduated from Florida State and
Speaker 6: was already working for the person who became his employer
Speaker 6: named Clay Ketcham, who ran a small real estate appraisal
Speaker 6: firm in Tallahassee on thomas Ville Road, and Mike eventually
Speaker 6: became his star appraiser. He was a workaholic, working fifteen
Speaker 6: sixteen hour days. He would have his early morning shift,
Speaker 6: he would have his night shift, and he would come
Speaker 6: home for dinner and would play with his pride and
Speaker 6: joy Annsley, who was nineteen months old at the time
Speaker 6: of his death, and then he'd go back into work.
Speaker 6: Sometimes he'd even take her and she'd be asleep in
Speaker 6: the in the car seat, and he'd rock his baby
Speaker 6: with his foot while he attended to his paperwork from
Speaker 6: his appraisal work, sometimes not going home until one or
Speaker 6: two o'clock in the morning. Mike was married to his
Speaker 6: high school sweetheart, Denise. She was Denise Merrill when he
Speaker 6: met her in the ninth grade. They were a girlfriend
Speaker 6: and girlfriend and boyfriend pretty much ever since, and were
Speaker 6: married in nineteen ninety four, on December seventeenth of nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety four, six years almost to the day before he
Speaker 6: vanished and as we learned later, was murdered.
Speaker 4: Now you talk about his real estate appraiser job with
Speaker 4: somebody who becomes a mentor and his boss is Clay,
Speaker 4: and also about his best friend that he met, Brian
Speaker 4: Winchester in high school, and this relationship and its continuance
Speaker 4: to the point where he and his wife Kathy are
Speaker 4: expecting a baby at the same time that Denise and
Speaker 4: Mike are having expecting Annesley, their daughter. After Kathy and
Speaker 4: Brian's baby, tell us a little bit more about the
Speaker 4: relationship and their trip through university and some of the
Speaker 4: things that they shared in common, especially Brian and Mike.
Speaker 6: Well, it's actually interesting because Kathy Aldridge was a girlfriend
Speaker 6: to Mike before he became a girlfriend to Brian. Kathy
Speaker 6: had gone to school with Mike for a lot longer
Speaker 6: than Brian had. Brian and Mike met just like Brian
Speaker 6: and Denise met in the ninth grade. Both Brian and
Speaker 6: Denise had gone to a different private school up until
Speaker 6: the ninth grade, and they both started at North Florida
Speaker 6: Christian School in the ninth grade. And just as quickly
Speaker 6: as Denise became Mike's girlfriend, Brian Winchester became Mike's best friend.
Speaker 6: There was there were a lot of differences in upbringing
Speaker 6: between Brian Winchester and Mike Williams. Unlike the meager existence
Speaker 6: that Mike's family had, Brian Winchester grew up in fairly
Speaker 6: lavish surroundings. His father was a financial advisor and also
Speaker 6: an insurance agent, and was very well connected with Tallahassee's
Speaker 6: upper crust. They lived in a very nice home right
Speaker 6: off of Lake McBride, one of the many many lakes
Speaker 6: in the area, and Brian grew up not wanting for anything,
Speaker 6: and he went on nice trips with his family. They
Speaker 6: had a ski boat. He became an excellent water skier.
Speaker 6: In fact, he ultimately won several water skiing competitions. And
Speaker 6: he hunted a lot as well, and they would go
Speaker 6: on exotic hunting trips, he and his father, and eventually
Speaker 6: Mike was invited to go on these trips, to go
Speaker 6: hunting with them, to go water skiing with them, and
Speaker 6: in fact, Marcus Winchester, Brian's dad, started looking at Mike
Speaker 6: as being another son because he was there that often,
Speaker 6: and he and his son Brian adored Mike so much.
Speaker 4: You talk about about Brian as well. You were talking
Speaker 4: about Brian as well and his father Brazil, but also
Speaker 4: that our pardon me, that's where Mike worked. But he
Speaker 4: was a financial assurance salesman. Yeah, there there were insurance
Speaker 4: salesman and financial advisor. So what did pardon me, what
Speaker 4: did Brian recommend to Mike in regarding insurance?
Speaker 6: So, Brian Winchester after he graduated from Florida State at
Speaker 6: the same time, Mike graduated from Florida State and went
Speaker 6: to work for CATCHMIM Appraisal. Brian went to work at
Speaker 6: Winchester Financial Group, his dad's firm, and started selling insurance
Speaker 6: and most significantly life insurance, and Brian sold several policies
Speaker 6: to Mike along the way. In fact, he sold policies
Speaker 6: to many of his North Florida Christian and Florida State classmates.
Speaker 6: And that's kind of what you do when you're getting started.
Speaker 6: And so Mike's first policy was purchased through Winchester Financial
Speaker 6: Group and Brian and several more policies all the way
Speaker 6: up until a policy that he bought for one million
Speaker 6: dollars in April of two thousand.
Speaker 4: Now this relationship is by the time he buys this
Speaker 4: policy for over a million dollars. Tell us about the
Speaker 4: relationship after Annesley is born and what happens with Denise's
Speaker 4: job where she worked, what happens with that employment.
Speaker 6: Denise worked for the Florida Board of Administration, which was
Speaker 6: part of state government, and she was an accountant. And
Speaker 6: after she was always going to take some time off,
Speaker 6: and she did. After Annesley was born. She eventually started
Speaker 6: going back to work part time, but not very much
Speaker 6: at all. Mike was the one who was making pretty
Speaker 6: much all of the money for the family and Denise
Speaker 6: stayed at home. She claimed to have postpartum depression. Mike
Speaker 6: was sympathetic about that, and Mike took on many of
Speaker 6: the child rearing responsibilities in addition to the fifteen or
Speaker 6: sixteen hours of work that he put in each day.
Speaker 6: By the time of his murder, he was making close
Speaker 6: to two hundred thousand dollars a year. Denise was only
Speaker 6: working part time, and yet it was Mike who was
Speaker 6: laboring many of the child rearing responsibilities that in that
Speaker 6: situation you would have fought Denise would have been shouldering.
Speaker 4: Tell us also, one of the reasons why I thought
Speaker 4: it was odd that there was this much life insurance,
Speaker 4: and it was this much put this much life insurance?
Speaker 4: What it was? What was one of the reasons that
Speaker 4: involved his hunting hobby that affected this push for more
Speaker 4: life insurance.
Speaker 6: Well, there were really two reasons why Mike wound up
Speaker 6: purchasing as much life insurance as he did. The first
Speaker 6: was his own father, Jerry died as the result of
Speaker 6: a freak accident when he was only sixty years old
Speaker 6: and really left Cheryl Mike's mom in the lurch. He
Speaker 6: carried very little life insurance and not even enough to
Speaker 6: last Cheryl a year. Cheryl, by the way, I was
Speaker 6: just mentioned as an aside, ran a baby sitting her
Speaker 6: daycare service from her mobile home that she's run for
Speaker 6: over fifty years. She runs it to this day. But
Speaker 6: that didn't make very much money, and when Jerry or
Speaker 6: JJ died, it left her in a terrible financial lurch
Speaker 6: and Mike. Mike was well aware of their financial situation
Speaker 6: all growing up, didn't want to have an adult life
Speaker 6: that was as strapped for money as his mom and
Speaker 6: dad's adult life was, and certainly didn't want his family
Speaker 6: left in a lurch the way that Cheryl was left
Speaker 6: in a lurch when her husband JJ was killed. So
Speaker 6: Mike always knew that he wanted to provide for his
Speaker 6: family and that's why he worked so hard and made
Speaker 6: so much money. But he also knew that as a
Speaker 6: hunter and fisherman, he was exposed to circumstances that created
Speaker 6: risk risked to his own safety and his boss, Claike
Speaker 6: catch him when he brought the subject of life insurance
Speaker 6: to Clay. When Mike did, Clay actually told him to
Speaker 6: load up on insurance that he knew how hard it
Speaker 6: was for Mike's mom After his father passed away without
Speaker 6: leaving much an insurance, and he knew the risks that
Speaker 6: Mike was taking as a hunter and a fisherman, and
Speaker 6: he knew how important it was to Mike to be
Speaker 6: able to provide for his family. So he heard lots
Speaker 6: of voices telling him, including Brian's voice, that it was
Speaker 6: smart and wise for him to have that level of
Speaker 6: insurance to make sure his family was provided for in
Speaker 6: case something happened to him.
Speaker 4: Now, you talked about Brian Winchester not only selling life
Speaker 4: insurance policy and financial advice. They were best friends since
Speaker 4: high school, But what is the situation in terms of
Speaker 4: their friendship, in terms of couples and that kind of socializing.
Speaker 4: What was the situation?
Speaker 6: So by the time they were in eleventh twelfth grade,
Speaker 6: they became a fear some forsome. As I describe it
Speaker 6: in the book, Kathy and Brian and Mike and Denise
Speaker 6: were inseparable. They did everything together. They went out to
Speaker 6: night clubs together, they went to dinner together. They were
Speaker 6: in each other's homes constantly. They even took a trip
Speaker 6: to Colorado together in the late nineteen nineties. They were
Speaker 6: almost like a family. The four of them. They spent
Speaker 6: that much time together and they really enjoyed being around
Speaker 6: each other. There were, however, and you may have been
Speaker 6: getting to this, but there were, however, a couple of
Speaker 6: occasions as we get into two thousand, where Mike begged
Speaker 6: off participating in for someome activities and where just the
Speaker 6: three of them wound up going to a couple of
Speaker 6: places without Mike there, and so that was changing a
Speaker 6: little bit. In the year two thousand, of the year
Speaker 6: that Mike was ultimately killed.
Speaker 4: Brian and Mike would have conversations, and Mike was close
Speaker 4: with Clay as well. But one of the conversations he
Speaker 4: had with Brian was about his relationship with Denise after
Speaker 4: his daughter was born. What was the situation and what
Speaker 4: did Mike have to say to Brian about that.
Speaker 6: Well. With to Brian, he revealed that his sex life
Speaker 6: had dried up, that Denise continued to complain of having
Speaker 6: postpartum depression and used that as an excuse not to
Speaker 6: have sex with him, and that was really bothering him.
Speaker 6: In fact, the day after Mike was killed, or the
Speaker 6: day that Mike was killed, was the eve of their
Speaker 6: wedding anniversary. They were supposed to go on a trip
Speaker 6: to the Gibson Inn in Apalachicola Bay, which is right
Speaker 6: on the Gulf of Mexico, a beautiful seaside tourist spot
Speaker 6: where Mike was hoping they were going to basically light
Speaker 6: that flame again, and it was a really important trip
Speaker 6: to him, and he was a little bit surprised in
Speaker 6: view of how things had been that Denise had agreed
Speaker 6: to go with him on that trip. So that was
Speaker 6: going to be that Saturday, December sixteenth, after that duck
Speaker 6: hunting trip that he was on that morning, they were
Speaker 6: supposed to head to Apalachicola Bay and spend the evening
Speaker 6: and rekindle their relationship on the eve of their sixth
Speaker 6: wedding anniversary. Obviously that never happened.
Speaker 4: Mike talks to his confidant and, like I said, Mentor Clay,
Speaker 4: where he works, his boss, what does he say to
Speaker 4: him previous to this anniversary in the short period before that,
Speaker 4: what does he talk about actually doing in his marriage
Speaker 4: and some of the issues, what are those?
Speaker 6: Mike had started noticing some things. It's clear he was
Speaker 6: grabbing a whole of some pieces of a puzzle. He
Speaker 6: didn't even know what the puzzle was. But he was
Speaker 6: grabbing hold of some pieces of the buzz puzzle. For instance,
Speaker 6: Denise took a cash advance of three thousand dollars on
Speaker 6: their credit card, unbeknownst to Mike, and yet they had
Speaker 6: an agreement that they would never use more than fifty
Speaker 6: dollars on a credit card without telling the other what
Speaker 6: it was for. And yet Denise had never told him
Speaker 6: about this, And when he confronted Denise, Denise told him
Speaker 6: it was to buy marijuana and that she was using
Speaker 6: it in pot brownies, which was very disturbing to Mike
Speaker 6: and he didn't quite know what to make of that.
Speaker 6: In addition, when he went to New Orleans on a
Speaker 6: trip in order to get close to reaching the highest
Speaker 6: rung of certification as an appraiser, he had to take
Speaker 6: certain seminars and he went there. Denise had been invited
Speaker 6: invited by Clay Ketcham to go with Mike on that trip,
Speaker 6: and Clay Ketcham would have paid for it, and Denise
Speaker 6: said no. Mike went alone, and afterwards Mike learned that
Speaker 6: she and Brian and Cathy had gone to Orlando to
Speaker 6: a club and nan club Firestone, which was reputed to
Speaker 6: be a place where a lot of drugs were traded
Speaker 6: and used, and Mike started forming this impression that Denise
Speaker 6: was becoming a hardcore drug user and for that reason,
Speaker 6: he was starting to think about life without Denise, that
Speaker 6: perhaps it would be better for him to move on
Speaker 6: from Denise because he wanted to protect Annsley, and he
Speaker 6: also talked with Clay about getting custody of Ansley away
Speaker 6: from Denise. Ultimately, nothing ever came from that. Clay was
Speaker 6: concerned initially, but that seemed to blow over eventually and
Speaker 6: again by December sixteen, two thousand, Mike is thinking he's
Speaker 6: heading to Apalachicola Bay to the Gibson Inn to have
Speaker 6: a romantic evening on the eve of his sixth wedding
Speaker 6: anniversary with Denise, but he never made it.
Speaker 4: Tell us about Cheryl and now her son and Mike's
Speaker 4: brother Nick tell us about a little bit about the
Speaker 4: relationship and what they do ritualistically and what happens on
Speaker 4: Thursday before this on December fourteenth.
Speaker 6: So Cheryl is the true matriarch of the family. I
Speaker 6: get the impression that Jerry JJ was more of the
Speaker 6: silent type, that Cheryl was a very strong willed person,
Speaker 6: probably from the moment she came out of her mom's womb.
Speaker 6: And it was important for Cheryl to maintain a close
Speaker 6: connection with her boys even as they were adults, and
Speaker 6: they ultimately created this ritual where they would get together
Speaker 6: to watch Friends, the sitcom Friends on NBC on Thursday nights.
Speaker 6: So they would typically his older brother Nick would pick
Speaker 6: up Cheryl at her home. She lived just north of
Speaker 6: Tallahassee in a place called Bradfordville, and Nick would pick
Speaker 6: her up at her home in Bradfordville, which was the
Speaker 6: mobile home that Mike grew up in, and then drive
Speaker 6: her the twenty five minutes or so to Mike's very
Speaker 6: nice home in a very nice subdivision which he had
Speaker 6: purchased with his hard earned money, and they would watch
Speaker 6: Friends together. Now, that particular Thursday evening, December the fourteenth
Speaker 6: was Christmas time, so there are Christmas decorations everywhere. There's
Speaker 6: a Christmas tree up at the Centennial Oaks home that
Speaker 6: Mike owns with Denise, and of course Annsley is running
Speaker 6: around as a nineteen month old, and Nick and Cheryl
Speaker 6: get to the door and Annsley squeals in delight when
Speaker 6: they get there, and they sit around and they just
Speaker 6: start talking about the upcoming holidays, and they talk about
Speaker 6: the upcoming anniversary trip that Mike and de Nise are
Speaker 6: starting to take, that are going to take that Saturday
Speaker 6: after Mike gets backed from his hunting trip. They also
Speaker 6: surprise Cheryl and Nick by telling them that they're planning
Speaker 6: to have another baby, not that Denise is pregnant, but
Speaker 6: that they're talking about within a couple of months starting
Speaker 6: to try to have another baby. All of that happened
Speaker 6: that Thursday evening while Nick and Cheryl were in Mike
Speaker 6: and Denise's home on Centennial Oak Circle in Tallahassee.
Speaker 1: With Lucky Lancelots, you can get lucky just about anywhere.
Speaker 2: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today. Has anyone seen
Speaker 2: the bride and broom?
Speaker 1: Mari, Sorry we're here.
Speaker 3: We were getting lucky in the limo and we lost
Speaker 3: track of time. No Lucky Land casino with cash prizes
Speaker 3: that add up quicker than a guess registered in.
Speaker 2: In that case, I pronounce you Lucky Hiks for.
Speaker 1: Free at Lucky landslots dot com. Daily bonuses are waiting,
Speaker 1: no purchase necessary, boyd. We're prohibited by lock eight team
Speaker 1: plus terms and conditions a flag see website for details.
Speaker 3: Hello, it is Ryan, and we could all use an
Speaker 3: extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we just to
Speaker 3: make up for things like sitting in traffic, doing the dishes,
Speaker 3: counting or steps, you know, all the mundane stuff. That
Speaker 3: is why I'm such a big fan of Chumba Casino.
Speaker 3: Chumbuck Casino has all your favorite social casino style games
Speaker 3: that you can play for free anytime anywhere with daily bonuses.
Speaker 3: That's you brighten your day, Lowe, actually a lot, so
Speaker 3: sign up now at Chumbuck Casino dot com. That's Chumbuck
Speaker 3: Casino dot com.
Speaker 1: No necessary, Daly wherever I lost the terms conditions eighteen plus?
Speaker 4: Who did Mike say he was going hunting with that morning?
Speaker 6: Mike said he was going hunting with Brian that morning.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's get to just before dawn, Saturday, December sixteenth. Well,
Speaker 4: maybe we'll just go before that to take us to
Speaker 4: the hours early hours of the morning. For what is
Speaker 4: the official record of what happens in terms of Mike
Speaker 4: getting up and Denise staying in bed and waiting for
Speaker 4: him as he promises to be back at a certain time.
Speaker 4: Tell us about those plans and what transpired in the
Speaker 4: wee hours of the morning.
Speaker 6: Officially, well, there are different Again, I'm going to try
Speaker 6: as best I can not to spoil all of the
Speaker 6: things that a reader has in store for them if
Speaker 6: they read through the book. So I'm going to unfortunately
Speaker 6: not get very specific, but i will say that Mike
Speaker 6: woke up that morning to go hunting. There's no question,
Speaker 6: based upon the records from Clay Ketcham Clay Ketcham's office,
Speaker 6: that Mike entered Clay Ketcham's office around four o'clock that morning,
Speaker 6: and he would have gone there in order to get
Speaker 6: a shotgun in order to hunt with. Mike did not
Speaker 6: keep his shotguns at home once Annsley was born. He
Speaker 6: didn't want any accident. He didn't want that in home,
Speaker 6: so he kept them in a closet in his second
Speaker 6: floor office at catch him appraisal. And we know he
Speaker 6: was there at four o'clock that morning. Other than that,
Speaker 6: there are really no hard and fast records of what
Speaker 6: Mike did that morning. We just know that Mike did
Speaker 6: not come home when Denise was expecting him around lunchtime,
Speaker 6: and Denise started making phone calls because she didn't know
Speaker 6: what happened, and suspected something was wrong, and that included
Speaker 6: calling her father, Warren Merrill, who worked for the state
Speaker 6: Department of Transportation, and she told him Mike's not here,
Speaker 6: were supposed to go to the Gibson Inn, and I'm worried.
Speaker 6: And in fact, Denise's sister Deanna. It's funny she was
Speaker 6: she had three sisters. She was Denise. Her other sisters
Speaker 6: were Deanna, Darla, and Deborah. They were the four D's
Speaker 6: and her older sister, Diana was the one who was
Speaker 6: going to be watching Annsley while they went to the
Speaker 6: Gibbson In. And so she called Deanna and she started
Speaker 6: making these phone calls saying, I don't know what's happened,
Speaker 6: And she asked her father to head out to Lake
Speaker 6: Seminole to see if he can figure out what was
Speaker 6: going on, why Mike hadn't called and why he hadn't
Speaker 6: come back home when he was supposed to come home.
Speaker 4: He went. Her dad went with a friend named Damon
Speaker 4: Jasper that Bernice had also called and he had gone
Speaker 4: with hunting with Mike before at this Lake Seminole at
Speaker 4: prior weekend. Yes, so what happens in terms of this
Speaker 4: journey to they have to. It's about an hour to
Speaker 4: go to this where they're searching for Mike. Tell us
Speaker 4: who else arrives there.
Speaker 6: Well, the first thing we're looking for is any sign
Speaker 6: of anything belonging to Mike. And before too long, after
Speaker 6: searching out of some different landings in the area where Damon,
Speaker 6: Jasper and Mike had been the prior weekend, they found
Speaker 6: Mike's Ford Bronco his truck and attached to the back
Speaker 6: of his truck was a boat trailer, but there was
Speaker 6: no boat on the boat trailer. They immediately called the
Speaker 6: Florida Fish Wildlife Conservation Commission, or the FWC, which has
Speaker 6: they're the ones who are the game wardens basically who
Speaker 6: keep law and order on the lake, and they had
Speaker 6: a check station not far from there, and before long
Speaker 6: officers met with them, and they started trying to look
Speaker 6: around and figure out where Mike could have been. The
Speaker 6: initial thought was he was somewhere on his boat and
Speaker 6: got stranded, ran out of gas whatever it was, and
Speaker 6: was stranded somewhere on his boat, but there was no
Speaker 6: sign of his boat and they couldn't figure out what
Speaker 6: had happened to him or where he was, and then
Speaker 6: a torrential rainstorm came through that in fact spawned tornadoes
Speaker 6: in the area, so they had to call off the
Speaker 6: search for a while and weren't really able to get
Speaker 6: things going until the file following morning, except for Marcus
Speaker 6: and Brian Winchester, who arrived that evening and after everybody
Speaker 6: else had gone home to wait it out until the
Speaker 6: next morning, they went out on the water in the
Speaker 6: wee hours of that morning, December seventeenth, and they had
Speaker 6: headlamps on and were looking on the lake to see
Speaker 6: if they can find anything, And they eventually found Mike's
Speaker 6: small thirteen foot genew hunting boat up against the reeds
Speaker 6: on the western shoreline of a lake, and there was
Speaker 6: no Mike in it, or no sign of Mike.
Speaker 4: Now, the next day, when this search resumes and authorities
Speaker 4: arrive and Marcus and Brian give them the information about
Speaker 4: what they've discovered, what is the theory from these FWC
Speaker 4: officials and also from the prompting of Brian in terms
Speaker 4: of theorizing what may have happened based on his experiences.
Speaker 6: So the first thing that you have to know about
Speaker 6: this particular cove at Lake Seminole, which is right at
Speaker 6: the Georgia Florida border. Literally, you can look across the
Speaker 6: lake in that area and you see Georgia just to
Speaker 6: the east. And in this particular cove, there are a
Speaker 6: lot of people who think at one point it was
Speaker 6: an orchard before the dam filled the area with water.
Speaker 6: And there are a lot of trees and tree stumps
Speaker 6: that protrude through the water, or some that lie menacingly
Speaker 6: just below the surface of the water that you can't see.
Speaker 6: And if you're not very careful while you're in a boat,
Speaker 6: your boat can hit one of those underwater stumps and
Speaker 6: capsize or at least knock the occupants out of the boat.
Speaker 6: And so as searchers were searching this area and this
Speaker 6: same thing was happening to them in their boats, the
Speaker 6: FWC officers quickly began forming this theory that Mike must
Speaker 6: have been jostled in his boat and knocked out of
Speaker 6: the boat and got in the water. And at that
Speaker 6: point the question is, well, why didn't he get back
Speaker 6: into his boat. And that's where the waiters come into play.
Speaker 6: There's an old legend that if one is in their
Speaker 6: waiters and falls into the water, that the waiters will
Speaker 6: fill up water with water so quickly that they will
Speaker 6: tug whoever is wearing them underneath the surface and cause
Speaker 6: them to drown. And so when Brian met with the
Speaker 6: FWC officers, they quickly started talking about this notion that
Speaker 6: Mike was probably wearing his waiters. By the way, Brian
Speaker 6: told them he wasn't with him, and even though he
Speaker 6: was at one point supposed to go, he said, I
Speaker 6: was not with him. In fact, I was sleeping that morning.
Speaker 6: I was actually supposed to go hunting with my father
Speaker 6: in law, but he wasn't with him, he said. But
Speaker 6: that if Mike was hunting alone, there's a good possibility
Speaker 6: he was wearing these waiters and if he fell overboard,
Speaker 6: he would have drowned. And they searched his truck. They
Speaker 6: eventually found the keys or got keys for his truck.
Speaker 6: They searched his truck, no waiters, no waiters in the boat,
Speaker 6: so they're thinking he fell overboard in his waiters. And
Speaker 6: the other thing you need to know about stump Field
Speaker 6: is that it is an area that is, at least
Speaker 6: in the summer months and possibly as well into the
Speaker 6: fall months, it is infested with alligators. And the working
Speaker 6: theory became that Mike not only fell overboard in his
Speaker 6: waiters and drowned, but that the reason they couldn't find
Speaker 6: his body was because it had been stored in a
Speaker 6: hidden layer and ultimately consumed by the alligators in the area.
Speaker 4: People find out early on about the history of the
Speaker 4: lake itself and bodies eighty of them approximately, that had
Speaker 4: fallen in the lake. What happened to those eighty bodies
Speaker 4: that did fall in that lake in various seasons.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and so it's not clear to me if any
Speaker 6: of those bodies succumbed to this type of situation of
Speaker 6: falling overboard at stump Field, this particular cove and wasn't
Speaker 6: an area that was as infested by alligators as this
Speaker 6: area was. But each one of those eighty people that
Speaker 6: drowned somewhere in this rather large lake, every single one
Speaker 6: of those bodies had been recovered prior to Mike Williams,
Speaker 6: and even after Mike Williams, there was never a body
Speaker 6: that wasn't recovered in Lake Seminole that had drowned in
Speaker 6: Lake Seminole other than Mike Williams. And if the officers
Speaker 6: believe FWC officers, I'm sorry, believe that Mike's body would
Speaker 6: eventually float to the surface. And even though they had
Speaker 6: this theory that alligators may had eaten him, they were
Speaker 6: still hoping that at some point, at least parts of
Speaker 6: Mike were going to float to the surface and they
Speaker 6: would find him. And that would be particularly true as
Speaker 6: the weather turned warmer, and at that point they suspected
Speaker 6: his body would surface and they would find him, but
Speaker 6: it never did.
Speaker 4: Now tell us about Nick Williams, Mike's brother, and Cheryl,
Speaker 4: and they're out on a weekly outing to do her errands.
Speaker 4: Tell us what happens and how does Cheryl get the information?
Speaker 4: What is her initial reaction.
Speaker 6: So this is that same Saturday morning, and it's about
Speaker 6: eleven o'clock. They're in a store looking at Cheryl's trying
Speaker 6: to buy just one more Christmas present for Ansley, and
Speaker 6: she found that she finds this toy wagon, a red
Speaker 6: toy wagon like we all had when we were little,
Speaker 6: and she calls Denise and says, you know, I'm looking
Speaker 6: at this wagon. I just want to make sure that
Speaker 6: you're going to be okay with me getting this gift.
Speaker 6: And Denise says, that sounds like a great gift, and
Speaker 6: Cheryl says to Denise, let me talk to Mike about
Speaker 6: it too, and Denise at that point reminds her, no,
Speaker 6: Miss Cheryl, Mike has gone hunting this morning, and Cheryl
Speaker 6: then remembered that Mike and Denise had told them that
Speaker 6: when they were there that Thursday evening watching friends, and
Speaker 6: she doesn't think much more about it. She and Nick
Speaker 6: eventually go out to lunch. They come home, and sometime
Speaker 6: that afternoon, Cheryl goes out for a walk, as she
Speaker 6: does virtually every day. It became a ritual of hers
Speaker 6: after her husband died. She would go down to Lake Ammonia,
Speaker 6: about a two mile walk, and then walk back. And
Speaker 6: when she gets back, Nick is in tears, and Cheryl
Speaker 6: says to him what's wrong, and he tells her that
Speaker 6: Denise had just called and that Mike is missing. And
Speaker 6: Cheryl doesn't understand what he's talking about. What do you
Speaker 6: mean he's missing? Nick told her that the Denise had
Speaker 6: said that Mike had never come home from his hunting trip,
Speaker 6: and that Denise had been expecting him for quite some
Speaker 6: time in order to go to the Gibson Inn and
Speaker 6: celebrate their anniversary, and he never came home. And Nick
Speaker 6: said I'm going to go jump in a car right
Speaker 6: now and head up to Lake Seminole and join in
Speaker 6: and try and figure out what happened. And that's how
Speaker 6: Cheryl found out. And she was puzzled and stunned and
Speaker 6: couldn't quite understand what was going on.
Speaker 4: When she hears about the idea that gators had gotten
Speaker 4: her son, what conversation does she recall having with her son.
Speaker 6: So from the earliest time that Mike had gone duck
Speaker 6: hunting and started this ritual of being out on a
Speaker 6: lake in the early morning hours, as many Florida lakes
Speaker 6: have alligators, it became a concern of hers that he
Speaker 6: was going to be harmed by an alligator. And what
Speaker 6: Mike told her was that she didn't need to worry
Speaker 6: about that because alligators are ectothermic. That means that once
Speaker 6: their bodies get cold enough, they hibernate, they don't feed anymore.
Speaker 6: And duck hunting season only happens in colder weather. And
Speaker 6: this is the middle of December, and we're in northwest Florida.
Speaker 6: We're not in Miami, we're not at South Beach. It
Speaker 6: does get cold in northwest Florida. And he told her,
Speaker 6: you don't need to worry, Mom. There's no way an
Speaker 6: alligator could harm me because during the times that I
Speaker 6: go duck hunting, it's cold enough that they're not going
Speaker 6: to be feeding. And that's what she had always believed
Speaker 6: up until December of two thousand, when she started hearing
Speaker 6: this theory that Mike had been eaten by alligators, which
Speaker 6: never made any sense to her.
Speaker 4: Right away. Clay and his wife belief, Patty, are very
Speaker 4: concerned about everybody involved. They go see Cheryl and Nick,
Speaker 4: but they also go see Denise to see how she is.
Speaker 4: What's the difference in the two scenes in terms of
Speaker 4: their visits.
Speaker 6: So Clay was awakened by Clay and Patty were both
Speaker 6: awakened that morning of December seventeenth, that Sunday morning, by
Speaker 6: a phone call from one of Denise's sisters. Clay and
Speaker 6: Patty coincidentally had been up late the night before because
Speaker 6: they had hosted a graduation party for their daughter, Lindsayhood
Speaker 6: just graduated from Florida State, so they basically had to
Speaker 6: come out of a deep sleep when one of Denise's
Speaker 6: sisters says to Clay that Mike is missing, and Clay said, wait, wait,
Speaker 6: what do you mean Mike is missing? And she said
Speaker 6: he went duck hunting yesterday and he never came home.
Speaker 6: And within an hour, Clay and Petty for on clothes
Speaker 6: and they're heading the hour northwest to and by the way,
Speaker 6: we haven't mentioned this, but the place where Lake Lake
Speaker 6: Seminole's stump field is located is in Sneeds, or just
Speaker 6: north of Sneed's, Florida. So they start heading towards Sneeds
Speaker 6: in order to join in the search that is going on.
Speaker 6: That first full day after the storm passes through, and
Speaker 6: they spend all day out at the lake helping try
Speaker 6: to find Mike. And after being there all day, they're
Speaker 6: all muddy from all the rain that had been through.
Speaker 6: They get back in their car and they drive back
Speaker 6: and they go straight to Mike's house try and console
Speaker 6: Denise and try and come to terms with what's going on.
Speaker 6: And they arrive at the Centennial Oaks home and what
Speaker 6: they see looks more like a painting by Norman Rockwell
Speaker 6: than a vigil for a man who is missing and
Speaker 6: is possibly gone forever. Everybody is sharply dressed. These are
Speaker 6: Denise's sisters. A husband of one of the sister's boyfriend,
Speaker 6: Denise's mom, Johnny, was there, and it doesn't look like
Speaker 6: a vigil at all. It looks like somewhat of a
Speaker 6: Christmas party. There's cookies in punch laid out on the
Speaker 6: dining room table, and it's surreal to Clay and Patty
Speaker 6: that they're walking into the scene that doesn't match what
Speaker 6: they had just experienced at Lake semon. In fact, they're
Speaker 6: wondering why these same people like them hadn't been up
Speaker 6: at Lake Semonel trying to figure out what happened and
Speaker 6: find Mike. But that's not what they encountered, except for Denise,
Speaker 6: who came down the stairs, obviously having been in her bedroom,
Speaker 6: and her face looked like she had been crying for hours.
Speaker 6: Her eyes were baggy, mescara everywhere. She was a mess,
Speaker 6: and both Clay and Patty consoled her the best they could,
Speaker 6: but she was the one exception to the otherwise very
Speaker 6: surreal scene that was going on in that home. And
Speaker 6: then Patty noticed something. As they're standing there with Denise
Speaker 6: at the bottom of the staircase, she noticed a suitcase
Speaker 6: that was at the foot of the stairs, which to
Speaker 6: her was a very hard to take in indication of
Speaker 6: what had happened that Denise and Mike were so close
Speaker 6: to heading out to this beautiful, romantic place to celebrate
Speaker 6: their sixth wedding anniversary. Instead, they're now thinking that Mike
Speaker 6: has gone forever, and that suitcase became a symbol for
Speaker 6: Patty of the horror that had just occurred. Right, and
Speaker 6: then they go. Then Patty and Clay go to Cheryl's
Speaker 6: twenty five minutes north up in Bradfordville, into her mobile home.
Speaker 6: Cheryl greets them warmly, and Nick is there and Cheryl's
Speaker 6: friends are there, and it's almost like a funeral. It's
Speaker 6: the exact opposite of the scene at Denise and Mike's
Speaker 6: home that they had just been to. I mean, people
Speaker 6: are crying, they're miserable, they're in anguish, and they're trying
Speaker 6: to understand what on earth had just happened, and they're thinking,
Speaker 6: you know, Mike may be gone forever.
Speaker 4: Tell us about Cheryl's more about her reaction in terms
Speaker 4: of what she concluded in terms of Mike being alive
Speaker 4: or not alive, before we talk about this event where
Speaker 4: she goes to the lake and then says she has
Speaker 4: a communication otherworldly. Tell us about that, sure.
Speaker 6: So Her initial reaction is, Mike is a strong hunter,
Speaker 6: and there's no way that Mike would have died in
Speaker 6: a hunting accident. He's too good a hunter. He's too
Speaker 6: he's too shrewd, he's too battle tested. He's been hunting
Speaker 6: since he was a little boy, and that his survival skills,
Speaker 6: whatever happened to him, would have been strong enough to
Speaker 6: get somewhere, and they just needed to find him. He
Speaker 6: was going to be somewhere, he was going to be okay.
Speaker 6: They just needed to find him. Those were Cheryl's initial
Speaker 6: instincts that they were going to find Mike and he
Speaker 6: was going to be alive. And then you want me
Speaker 6: to talk about her going to the lake for the
Speaker 6: first time.
Speaker 4: Absolutely so.
Speaker 6: By the time she went to the lake for the
Speaker 6: first time, about ten days later, she gets to the
Speaker 6: edge of the lake, there's already talk that Aligan.
Speaker 1: Wait the Lucky landslide. You can get lucky just about anywhere.
Speaker 2: This is your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and
Speaker 2: the weather's fine, but we're just going to circle up
Speaker 2: here a while and get lucky. No, no, nothing like that.
Speaker 2: It's just these cash prizes add up quick. So I
Speaker 2: suggest you sit back, keep your trade table up right,
Speaker 2: and start look.
Speaker 1: Pay for free at lucky landslipes dot com. Are you
Speaker 1: feeling lucky? No? For just necessary void. We're prohibited by
Speaker 1: Law eighteen plus. Terms and conditions apply. See website for details.
Speaker 6: Eaters have eaten Mike, and she's standing at the lake.
Speaker 6: She closes her eyes and she feels God is talking
Speaker 6: to her. And I can't quote it because I don't
Speaker 6: have the book in front of me right now, but
Speaker 6: essentially what she hears God saying to her is that
Speaker 6: Mike is alive. Mike was not eaten by alligators. Mike
Speaker 6: needs her to go find him. And that's what she
Speaker 6: believed God told her as she was standing at the
Speaker 6: edge of the lake on her first visit to the lake,
Speaker 6: and from that moment forward, that woman was more determined
Speaker 6: than any human being alive to get to the bottom
Speaker 6: of what had happened and to find her son, who
Speaker 6: she believed would still be alive.
Speaker 4: We go back just a bit, just a few days,
Speaker 4: because since just after December sixteenth, there's a massive search underway.
Speaker 4: Tell us a little bit about the depth of this
Speaker 4: search and all those involved. In terms of officially.
Speaker 6: It was a massive search. There were dozens of peoples involved,
Speaker 6: there were cadaver dogs involved. There was a multi agency
Speaker 6: search to Florida Wildlife Commission, the Jackson County Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 6: Sneezes in Jackson County, and so that Sheriff's department was
Speaker 6: very involved. They had divers, they had helicopters, they had
Speaker 6: fixed wing aircraft, they used lasers, they used sonar devices,
Speaker 6: any lead. They had a lot of people in boats
Speaker 6: searching a grid pattern, and they would stick poles, PVC polls,
Speaker 6: or pipes down to probe the lake. And by the way,
Speaker 6: it's a fairly shallow area. There's only a few spots
Speaker 6: that are even deep enough where you couldn't stand. That's
Speaker 6: how shallow this area is. So there's not a whole
Speaker 6: lot of lake to explore in that area, and they're
Speaker 6: finding nothing. But every time they stick a pole down
Speaker 6: and they feel something, they sent an underwater diver down
Speaker 6: to see if there was anything there that was felt
Speaker 6: by the pole. One of the things about this area,
Speaker 6: aside from the alligators, is that there's a lot of
Speaker 6: vegetation in the lakebed and that rises all the way
Speaker 6: up to the surface and it's called hydrilla. It's like
Speaker 6: these massive weeds that grow uncontrollably, and unfortunately, that really
Speaker 6: hampered the search, and it made it difficult to separate
Speaker 6: what one was feeling from being the hydrilla from something
Speaker 6: that could be Mike's body. And the other thing that
Speaker 6: really hampered this massive search was the cold weather it got.
Speaker 6: After that storm came through, a cold front set in
Speaker 6: and there were mornings that it was below twenty degrees.
Speaker 6: Even though this is Florida, there's ice forming on the lake.
Speaker 6: They had a chip through that ice in order to
Speaker 6: even get the boats. Boats on the lake and divers
Speaker 6: would go down and they would come up very quickly
Speaker 6: because they were afraid they were going to get hypothermia.
Speaker 6: Their masks that they were seeing through would freeze up.
Speaker 6: They were very unwieldy, difficult conditions. But despite that, they
Speaker 6: covered that area thoroughly, day after day, week after week
Speaker 6: from December into February, and nothing promising turned up except
Speaker 6: for a camouflage hat found toward the end of December.
Speaker 6: And Brian Winchester was the one who actually was the
Speaker 6: one to bring that camouflage hat to the FWC officers
Speaker 6: and he said, you know, I think that might be
Speaker 6: Mike's hat, And he came back the next day with
Speaker 6: a frame five x seven photo and lo and behold
Speaker 6: Mike's in that photo wearing what appears to be the
Speaker 6: very same hat. So that was another discovery that was
Speaker 6: made that seemed to point to the notion that Mike
Speaker 6: had been there and that he had drowned, But that
Speaker 6: didn't lead them to finding Mike.
Speaker 4: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop for a
Speaker 4: second to hear about our sponsor, which is ritual. We
Speaker 4: all want to do the right thing to keep our
Speaker 4: bodies healthy in the long run, but even if we
Speaker 4: try really hard to eat kale salads and drink green smoothies,
Speaker 4: we're still most likely not getting all of the essential
Speaker 4: nutrients we need on a daily basis. Enter ritual the
Speaker 4: obsessively researched vitamin for women. Rituals essentials have the nutrients
Speaker 4: most of us don't get enough of from food, all
Speaker 4: in their clean absorbable forms, no shady additives or ingredients.
Speaker 4: They could do more harm to your body than good.
Speaker 4: Too easy to take capsules provide nine nutrients you need
Speaker 4: to support a strong foundation for your health. Four months ago, Lisa,
Speaker 4: my wife, read the information about Ritual Vitamins for Women
Speaker 4: and was very impressed with the research that they put
Speaker 4: into developing their ritual essentials. She felt the difference soon
Speaker 4: after starting, and she continues to feel the difference ritual
Speaker 4: makes in her daily routine. From D three to Omega three,
Speaker 4: Rituals Essential for Women helps fill gaps in a woman's diet.
Speaker 4: Their nozazie a capsule design is gentle on an empty stomach,
Speaker 4: and there's a mint tab in every bottle to keep
Speaker 4: things fresh so you don't get that fishy aftertaste common
Speaker 4: with the most Omega threes. A subscription is easy to
Speaker 4: start and it's easy to snooze. It's only a dollar
Speaker 4: a day to have all the essential nutrients your body
Speaker 4: needs delivered every month, no strings attached. Better health doesn't
Speaker 4: happen overnight, and right now. Rituals offering my listeners ten
Speaker 4: percent off during your first three months. Fill in the
Speaker 4: gaps in your diet with Essential for Women, a small
Speaker 4: step that helps support a healthy foundation for your body.
Speaker 4: Visit ritual dot com slash murder to start your ritual today.
Speaker 4: That's ten percent off during your first three months at
Speaker 4: ritual dot com slash murder. Now, Stephen, we were about
Speaker 4: to talk about in this investigation and this massive search
Speaker 4: that really didn't wield anything except, like you say, the
Speaker 4: camouflage hat that just happened to be provided by Brian Winchester,
Speaker 4: Mike's best friend. What are the things that Cheryl did
Speaker 4: in her initiative to become involved and to have this
Speaker 4: case not go away in the public's mind.
Speaker 6: Well, Cheryl believes she was told by God that Mike
Speaker 6: hadn't drowned. In fact, she believed God was telling her
Speaker 6: Mike wasn't even at Lake Seminole. And she started suspecting
Speaker 6: fairly quickly that some kind of foul play had been involved,
Speaker 6: and she wanted an investigation, a criminal investigation into the circumstances.
Speaker 6: And she realized that to the extent that they were
Speaker 6: not conducting a criminal investigation, there were important pieces of
Speaker 6: evidence that were going away and would never they'd never
Speaker 6: be able to get back again in order to search properly.
Speaker 6: So she pushed and she pushed, and she pushed the
Speaker 6: Florida Department of Law Enforcement to start a criminal investigation.
Speaker 6: She started by just seeking some publicity by sending a
Speaker 6: bunch of letters, and this woman can write letters like
Speaker 6: no one's business. She eventually wrote over two thousand letters
Speaker 6: to the governor of Florida, but in the early going,
Speaker 6: she was writing letters to the local newspaper in Tallahassee,
Speaker 6: the Tallahassee Democrat, trying to get them to write a
Speaker 6: story about Mike. Ultimately, she succeeded, and in August of
Speaker 6: two thousand and one, some eight months after Mike disappears,
Speaker 6: the Tallahassee Democrat does a story on lots of different
Speaker 6: people of local interest who are me, and Mike is
Speaker 6: included in that story. So that's her first bit of
Speaker 6: publicity that she's able to get, and then not much
Speaker 6: happens after that until finally, in early two thousand and three,
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, early two thousand and four, she finally gets
Speaker 6: the FDLE to sit down with her and to treat
Speaker 6: this as a suspicious missing person's case. And that's when
Speaker 6: they finally start to investigate this as a possible crime.
Speaker 6: And then they start doing a full fledged investigation, talking
Speaker 6: with people, trying to gather material evidence and that sort
Speaker 6: of thing. For years after that, with the investigation going
Speaker 6: from warm to cold, back to warm, and back to
Speaker 6: cold again. At this time too, the paper, the Democrat,
Speaker 6: is instrumental in keeping this story alive. And at some
Speaker 6: point there is a new news director coming from outside
Speaker 6: that is interested in this story and again even takes
Speaker 6: it too different levels with coverage. Tell us who this
Speaker 6: is and when she becomes involved in why so? It's
Speaker 6: actually Jennifer Portman is who you're talking about. And she
Speaker 6: actually starred as a senior writer. By the end of
Speaker 6: the books, she has become the news director of the
Speaker 6: Tallahassee Democrat. But she's a fairly young, enterprising, investigative reporter.
Speaker 6: She had been working for a newspaper in Missouri, I believe,
Speaker 6: before then, and she spots so. The other thing Cheryl
Speaker 6: did is she placed a couple of ads in the
Speaker 6: Tallahassee Democrat in two thousand and six. In early two
Speaker 6: thousand and six, I think it was in May of
Speaker 6: two thousand and six, she placed a couple of ads
Speaker 6: that said my son is missing. And it ran about
Speaker 6: a quarter of the page, and it described all of
Speaker 6: the things that had happened. And how you know, there's
Speaker 6: an investigation and no one seems to know what happened.
Speaker 6: Can someone please contact the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
Speaker 6: if they know anything. And Jennifer Portman reads this ad
Speaker 6: she had just started working at the Tallahassee Democrat, and
Speaker 6: she says, there's a story here, and she starts interviewing,
Speaker 6: among others, Cheryl Damon Jasper, who was part of that
Speaker 6: initial search with Warren Merrill, Denise's dad. That first day,
Speaker 6: she interviews some of the law enforcement officers who are
Speaker 6: part of the investigation, and she publishes three different articles
Speaker 6: in the Tallahassee Democrat on the eve of the sixth
Speaker 6: anniversary of Mike's disappearance in December of two thousand and six,
Speaker 6: and that begins a title wave of information that the
Speaker 6: Tallahassee Democrat would publish about Mike's disappearance that would go
Speaker 6: on for years and years and years, all under the
Speaker 6: byline of Jennifer Portman. She essentially took this up as
Speaker 6: a cause almost as important to her as it was
Speaker 6: to Cheryl Williams.
Speaker 4: Now, what is the relationship with Cheryl and Nick and
Speaker 4: her granddaughter Annsley, and how was that and the effort
Speaker 4: that Cheryl has put into keeping a story alive, How
Speaker 4: does that affect that relationship and how does it affect
Speaker 4: Cheryl gaining some crucial I guess information and also I
Speaker 4: guess the leverage of sorts.
Speaker 6: Okay, So we go back to August of two thousand
Speaker 6: and one, when Cheryl was successful in getting the Tallahassee
Speaker 6: Democrat to include a little bit of information about Mike's
Speaker 6: disappearance in that article, and on that very day, Cheryl
Speaker 6: got a call from Denise demanding that Denise the demanding
Speaker 6: that Cheryl come to Mike and Denise's home on Centennial
Speaker 6: Oaks Circle in Tallahassee. Cheryl gets there that afternoon and
Speaker 6: Denise beerates her for having put that article in the newspaper,
Speaker 6: for having given the Tallahassee Democrat information that led to
Speaker 6: that article being in the newspaper, telling her that she
Speaker 6: that is unacceptable. She doesn't want to read anything about
Speaker 6: Mike in the newspaper, she doesn't want to see his
Speaker 6: picture in the newspaper. She doesn't want to ever hear
Speaker 6: about Mike again. And she threatens Cheryl that if she
Speaker 6: ever pulls another stunt like that again, she will never
Speaker 6: see Annsley again. That was the first incident where that
Speaker 6: type of threat was made. Now it turns out Denise
Speaker 6: didn't follow through on that that even though there was
Speaker 6: a fairly tense interaction and tense relationship between Denise and
Speaker 6: Cheryl and Nick, she did allow some visitation with Annsley
Speaker 6: to go on fairly limited, typically on a Monday evening,
Speaker 6: for a couple of years until another interaction. And this
Speaker 6: interaction occurred the day before Cheryl's birthday in January of
Speaker 6: two thousand and five. And on that date, Cheryl and
Speaker 6: Nick were eating lunch when Nick's cell phone rang and
Speaker 6: Denise said that Denise needed to meet with them. Cheryl,
Speaker 6: being the day before her birthday, thought, well, this is great.
Speaker 6: Denise is surprising me by bringing Annsley to me to
Speaker 6: help me celebrate my birthday. So she rushed home, made
Speaker 6: Nick rush her home, and they're getting ready for Denise
Speaker 6: to arrive, and think that Annsley will be with Denise.
Speaker 6: And Denise does have somebody with her that afternoon, but
Speaker 6: it's not Ansley, rather it's Brian Winchester. And oh, by
Speaker 6: the way, by this point in time, Brian Winchester and
Speaker 6: Denise Williams are an item. They have begun to date
Speaker 6: and yeah, exactly, in fact, Cheryl had learned about that
Speaker 6: the prior summer when Nick was married, because Denise asked
Speaker 6: for permission to bring Brian to the wedding as her date.
Speaker 6: And so Cheryl's known for some time that Denise and
Speaker 6: Brian are now in a dating relationship. And there's Brian
Speaker 6: standing at her doorstep at her mobile home along with
Speaker 6: Denise no Ansley, and it's very clear that both Brian
Speaker 6: and Denise are upset. Denise sits her down at the
Speaker 6: table in the kitchen and says, look, if you won't
Speaker 6: stop this criminal investigation, then you're not going to see
Speaker 6: ANNs Lay anymore. We love you, but we just can't
Speaker 6: have this going anymore. And Brian is kind of standing
Speaker 6: guard at the door, not taking part in the conversation.
Speaker 6: And then Nick turns to Denise and says, Denise, we
Speaker 6: want to know what you and Brian did to Mike.
Speaker 6: And at that point Brian becomes irate. He says, let's
Speaker 6: get out of here. This isn't going anywhere, and the
Speaker 6: two of them storm out of Cheryl's mobile home and
Speaker 6: they would never Nick and Cheryl would never see Annsley again.
Speaker 6: That was in January of two thousand and five.
Speaker 4: What we forgot to mention for our audience is that
Speaker 4: about three months into this massive search, after this exhaustive
Speaker 4: search of a certain area and where they used pulls
Speaker 4: to mark places that they had exhaustively searched, what was
Speaker 4: found in terms of at that point where they had
Speaker 4: searched before we talk about that information and its relevance afterwards.
Speaker 6: Sure, and it was actually six months. It was the summer.
Speaker 6: It was in June of two thousand and one. There
Speaker 6: was a local fisherman there from Sneeds and he was
Speaker 6: fishing and out of the corner of his eye he
Speaker 6: detected something that was floating on the surface of the water.
Speaker 6: Long story short, it turned out to be a pair
Speaker 6: of hunting waiters, and he quickly got the FWC involved.
Speaker 6: The FWC did some tests on the waiters, which by
Speaker 6: the way, didn't have any bite marks from alligators. They
Speaker 6: looked for any evidence of human rain remains. They found none,
Speaker 6: but portantly they showed those waiters to Brian Winchester, who said, yeah,
Speaker 6: those well could have been the waiters that Mike had
Speaker 6: at that time. So it seemed to be a further
Speaker 6: indication that this theory that Mike had fallen overboard and
Speaker 6: drowned in his waiters was true, although clearly Mike wasn't
Speaker 6: in the waiters anymore. But what happened next was Brian
Speaker 6: got a couple of his friends to head back out
Speaker 6: there on a boat a couple of days later in
Speaker 6: that exact same spot where the waiters were found. Brian
Speaker 6: wasn't there at the time, and a diver, a local diver,
Speaker 6: went down into the water to see if there was
Speaker 6: anything else there, and lo and behold, there was a
Speaker 6: hunting jacket, and inside of that hunting jacket there was
Speaker 6: a hunting license, and it was a hunting license for
Speaker 6: Mike Williams. And also a flashlight was found in the
Speaker 6: very same spot. And when one of the people who
Speaker 6: was part of that crew that went out on that
Speaker 6: boat turned that flashlight on, lo and behold, it worked perfectly,
Speaker 6: some six months after it supposedly had been part of
Speaker 6: what Mike had on his person when he drowned in
Speaker 6: the lake. And the jacket also did not look like
Speaker 6: it had been in the lake for six months. Something
Speaker 6: appeared to be a little bit suspicious about the jacket
Speaker 6: and the flashlight the waiters. The fishermen who found the
Speaker 6: waiters did believe it looked like they had been in
Speaker 6: the water for a long time. However, the FWC officers
Speaker 6: who then received the waiters, they didn't think so at all.
Speaker 6: They thought that the waiters being found on that day
Speaker 6: was also very suspicious. So there was this What happened
Speaker 6: was is that there was a suspicion among the FWC
Speaker 6: and among those who were following this story, and ultimately
Speaker 6: by Jennifer Portman when she started reporting on the story
Speaker 6: that the waiters, the hunting jacket, and the flashlight were planted.
Speaker 6: And the reason they were planted, they all believed was
Speaker 6: because that was because Denise had petitioned to have the
Speaker 6: courts declare Mike in what's called a presumptive death certificate
Speaker 6: so that she could begin collecting on his life insurance.
Speaker 6: The life insurance company would not allow her to collect
Speaker 6: on the claim for life insurance unless there was a
Speaker 6: death certificate, and the way to get the death certificate
Speaker 6: in that instance was to petition the court. And it
Speaker 6: just miraculously happened that the waiters, the jacket, and the
Speaker 6: flashlight turned up literally right as Denise as petitioning the
Speaker 6: court for a presumptive death certificate.
Speaker 4: Interesting, you talked about this case being very very warm
Speaker 4: and then being cold, even though it looked like there
Speaker 4: was a lot of optimism therefore for something to happen.
Speaker 4: What is the crucial thing that happens in terms of
Speaker 4: the police narrowing and focusing on Denise and Brian again
Speaker 4: in this whole case again before we talk about what
Speaker 4: that pressure does in terms of the relationship between Denise
Speaker 4: and Brian and then his deterioration, and that's in that
Speaker 4: contribution to this case as well. Well.
Speaker 6: The first thing you need to know is that in
Speaker 6: December of two thousand and five, almost five years to
Speaker 6: the day from when Mike disappears, Denise and Brian are
Speaker 6: standing in a public space in the Centennial Oaks subdivision
Speaker 6: in a beautiful ceremony stating their vows to each other
Speaker 6: and becoming husband and wife, and Brian then moves in
Speaker 6: to the Centennial Oaks home that used to be Mike's home,
Speaker 6: lives in the master bedroom with Denise the way that
Speaker 6: Mike did, and assumes the parental role over Ansley as
Speaker 6: if he's Mike's I'm sorry, as if he's Ansley's new dad.
Speaker 6: So Brian by two late two thousand and five is
Speaker 6: now essentially filling the role that Mike once filled. Brian
Speaker 6: and Cathy, I should say, got divorced very soon after
Speaker 6: the events surrounding Mike's disappearance at Lake Summon. In fact,
Speaker 6: the day that Kathy left their home was September eleventh,
Speaker 6: two thousand and one, the same day of the terrorist
Speaker 6: attack in New York and Washington, d C. Their marriage
Speaker 6: ended that day, and his relationship presumably was starting with
Speaker 6: Denise sometime thereafter, and by two thousand and four, their
Speaker 6: public about their relationship, and in December two thousand and
Speaker 6: five they get married and move on with life as
Speaker 6: a happy couple from Centennial Oak Circle, where Mike and
Speaker 6: Denise were supposedly a happy couple as well, and life
Speaker 6: goes on. Things are fine until they're not, and until
Speaker 6: their marriage starts to disintegrate, and their marriage finally hits
Speaker 6: the final point in twenty twelve, when Denise essentially kicks
Speaker 6: Brian out of the home and Brian goes to live
Speaker 6: in his parents' home where he grew up, where his
Speaker 6: son Stafford will come and spend half his time with
Speaker 6: him and half his time with his mom. Kathy, and
Speaker 6: Brian is in death Fritz straits. He wants to get
Speaker 6: Denise back, but Denise is not letting him back into
Speaker 6: her life. And this goes on for a period of years,
Speaker 6: and eventually there's a kidnapping incident between Brian and Denise
Speaker 6: when Brian gets to his final point of desperation, and
Speaker 6: it was that kidnapping incident that led to Brian being arrested.
Speaker 4: Now, why does he kidnap her? What is the pressure
Speaker 4: that he has upon him, What does he think he
Speaker 4: can do and gain by this conversation that need to
Speaker 4: speak with her? And what does he do? And what
Speaker 4: are the details that she eventually tells police.
Speaker 6: Well, actually, initially nobody told the police anything. And so
Speaker 6: Denise was interviewed on the day of the kidnapping incident
Speaker 6: and she was asked directly by an FDL agent who
Speaker 6: had been on this case for many years, where she
Speaker 6: thought Mike was and where he was buried, and she
Speaker 6: told the investigating officer from the FDL he drowned at
Speaker 6: Lake Seminole, and incredulous, the FDLA agent named Mike Devaney said,
Speaker 6: you don't really believe that, and she said, yes, I do.
Speaker 6: That's what I've always believed. So she didn't reveal anything
Speaker 6: of any help to law enforcement. She convincingly, at least
Speaker 6: to herself, told the story that she had been telling
Speaker 6: for years, which is that Mike had drowned at Lake Seminol. Brian,
Speaker 6: once he was arrested, also would not talk about anything
Speaker 6: associated with Mike Williams. The problem for him was he
Speaker 6: had just committed an armed kidnapping and the potential sentence
Speaker 6: for armed kidnapping was life in prison. And so it
Speaker 6: got to the point where some pressure was being exerted
Speaker 6: on Brian to help law enforcement figure out what happened
Speaker 6: than to Mike Williams. And eventually, again I don't want
Speaker 6: to reveal too many details because I don't want to
Speaker 6: spoil this for readers, but eventually Brian is the lynchpin
Speaker 6: to finding out more about what actually happened. In December
Speaker 6: of two thousand, this was the big break that the
Speaker 6: investigators had been looking for for years. They always believed
Speaker 6: that if Brian and Denise finally came to a point
Speaker 6: in their relationship where they went their separate ways, that
Speaker 6: would be the moment that they would be successful in
Speaker 6: learning what really happened to Mike. And it took basically
Speaker 6: four years into their separation for Brian to finally snap,
Speaker 6: which led to the kidnapping incident, which led to Brian
Speaker 6: being housed in the jail and potentially having a stand
Speaker 6: trial for armed kidnapping. That led to a cascade of
Speaker 6: events that changed everybody's lives in ways that to this
Speaker 6: day are still difficult to comprehend.
Speaker 4: Why do you think, well, what are the reasons why
Speaker 4: she initially didn't tell police about this? He had asked
Speaker 4: her in this altercation not to go to police. Why
Speaker 4: didn't she go to police? And when she did, who
Speaker 4: was at who urged her to go? And then what
Speaker 4: did she say to police in terms of expressing her
Speaker 4: fear from and the PTSD from the event.
Speaker 6: So this was by all accounts an aggressive kidnapping incident
Speaker 6: where Brian was holding a gun to Denise in her vehicle,
Speaker 6: and it was a harrowing experience for her. But by
Speaker 6: the end of the incident the two of them had
Speaker 6: calmed down. They had called Brian's father, Marcus, and arranged
Speaker 6: for a meeting with Marcus later that afternoon to try
Speaker 6: and sort through what had happened that day and how
Speaker 6: they could move forward and when Brian left Denise that
Speaker 6: morning in August of twenty sixteen. It was his belief
Speaker 6: that she was going to go to work at Florida State,
Speaker 6: and then later that day they would get together with
Speaker 6: Brian's dad, Marcus, and try and sort through what had
Speaker 6: happened that morning. It was also Denise's intention to do
Speaker 6: exactly that. That's what Denise told him she was going
Speaker 6: to do. That's how she started driving her vehicle toward
Speaker 6: Florida State and then lo and behold. Out of nowhere,
Speaker 6: her sister winds up, her sister, Deborah. Younger sister, Deborah
Speaker 6: winds up finding her driving along and pulls her into
Speaker 6: a medical office building parking lot. The reason why her
Speaker 6: sister knew something was up was because Denise started that morning,
Speaker 6: as she started most mornings, on her way to work,
Speaker 6: getting on her cell phone and calling her sister. The
Speaker 6: kidnapping incident started almost immediately after that, and so her
Speaker 6: sister never hurt anything after the initial hello and thought
Speaker 6: something was wrong, which is why she was out on
Speaker 6: the roads trying to find Denise, and she did. Deborah's
Speaker 6: husband is Dave McCraney, who happens to be a uniform
Speaker 6: Tallahassee police officer, and at some point Dave McCraney gets
Speaker 6: on the line with Denise and tells, Denise, you must
Speaker 6: report this incident. You need to go directly to the
Speaker 6: Sheriff's office and report this incident. And that is how
Speaker 6: and that is why Denise went to the Sheriff's office
Speaker 6: that morning to report that Brian had kidnapped her. And
Speaker 6: then ultimately there are several criminal proceedings that Denise participates
Speaker 6: in where she's basically the most important witness to the
Speaker 6: prosecution team to help make sure that Brian stays behind bars.
Speaker 6: Isn't granted bail, isn't granted bond. She tells the presiding
Speaker 6: judge that she's had PTSD associated with the kidnapping incident,
Speaker 6: that she lives in fear of Brian, and ultimately she
Speaker 6: does of victim impact statement at his sentencing. His sentencing,
Speaker 6: which occurs a couple of days before, the Florida Department
Speaker 6: of Law Enforcement announces that they have a big break
Speaker 6: in the case and that their big break is that
Speaker 6: they have located the remains belonging to Mike Williams. That
Speaker 6: was I'm sorry. The day after the kidnapping the sentencing
Speaker 6: that Brian was kidnapped. Was I'm sorry long interview. It
Speaker 6: was the day after Brian was sentenced for kidnapping. He
Speaker 6: was sentenced to twenty years. The next day, the FDL
Speaker 6: has a press conference and announces that they have located
Speaker 6: Mike's remains and they have concluded that Mike Williams was murdered.
Speaker 4: How on earth did this happen? This incredible break happened.
Speaker 4: We just understood that it wasn't exactly her choice to
Speaker 4: go to authorities. But once she got go to authorities,
Speaker 4: what was she thinking and what was later her attorney
Speaker 4: thinking in terms of her providing all those details. I
Speaker 4: guess the attorney's in the dark with no imagination. But
Speaker 4: how on earth did the police convince her to be
Speaker 4: able to do this that, and basically be able to
Speaker 4: try to put somebody in prison that shared that secret
Speaker 4: with her. It seems incredulous that she would not understand
Speaker 4: the danger of doing this well.
Speaker 6: Denise's attorney would argue exactly that. Denise's attorney would argue
Speaker 6: that no one who shared any guilt for the murder
Speaker 6: of Mike Williams would go to the go to law
Speaker 6: enforcement and put in prison, the man who shared a
Speaker 6: secret about Mike's murder with her, and that, in fact,
Speaker 6: everything that you've just said, in her attorney's view, was
Speaker 6: the very reason why it was clear Denise knew nothing
Speaker 6: and had nothing to do with Mike's murder, because she
Speaker 6: never would have gone to law enforcement to have Brian
Speaker 6: Winchester put behind bars if he knew something about her,
Speaker 6: and he would say that whatever Brian Winchester said about
Speaker 6: her was simply out of revenge for her reporting the
Speaker 6: kidnapping incident leading to him being sentenced to twenty years
Speaker 6: in prison, and that it was all a made up
Speaker 6: story by Brian Winchester in order to get revenge against Denise,
Speaker 6: get revenge against her for the things that happened in
Speaker 6: their marriage and her not agreeing to take him back,
Speaker 6: get revenge for a very bad divorce where she basically
Speaker 6: robbed him of his money in Brian's view in terms
Speaker 6: of what she was able to get out of him
Speaker 6: in the divorce, and then for reporting him to the
Speaker 6: authorities for the kidnapping incident, that Brian was able to
Speaker 6: get even by making up a story about Denise having
Speaker 6: been involved in Mike's murder.
Speaker 4: Now with this trial, the central star witnesses. She was
Speaker 4: star witness against Brian. Now Brian is a star witness
Speaker 4: against her. That being said, if he is successful in
Speaker 4: his testimony, or there is belief that he is fairly successful,
Speaker 4: that would prompt Denise to take the stand as well.
Speaker 4: Tell us about what was promised, and just in terms
Speaker 4: of that dynamic that was set up, how crucial was
Speaker 4: were the testimonies of both these people to this incredible outcome.
Speaker 6: Well, again, I'm going to try very hard not to
Speaker 6: spoil anything for the reader who's now getting toward the
Speaker 6: end of the book by the time they're reading these events,
Speaker 6: and I want to leave my readers in suspense. But
Speaker 6: obviously Brian Winchester is the most crucial witness in the
Speaker 6: case because he's going to tell the jury exactly what
Speaker 6: happened the morning of December sixteenth, two thousand, when Mike
Speaker 6: disappeared at Lake Seminole, And he's going to tell the
Speaker 6: jury how the events transpired that led to that moment
Speaker 6: in time, and what Denise's role in that event was,
Speaker 6: and what he and Denise's relationship had been for a
Speaker 6: period of years even prior to the conception and birth
Speaker 6: of Annsley. He wants the jury to believe that this
Speaker 6: was a conspiracy between him and Denise, and that they
Speaker 6: had conspired to murder Mike. And if the jury believes that,
Speaker 6: then there's only one person who can try and convince
Speaker 6: them otherwise, and that would be Denise. And so there
Speaker 6: would be an onus on Denise to take the witness
Speaker 6: stand in her own defense to set up the classic
Speaker 6: he said, she said about whether Denise in fact had
Speaker 6: been involved in any way. And I'm not going to
Speaker 6: tell the readers who are listening to this any more
Speaker 6: than that. I'd rather than read the book and find out.
Speaker 6: I don't want to spoil the suspense of seeing how
Speaker 6: the trial unfolds. But without question, Brian Winchester was the
Speaker 6: most important witness in the trial, and he turned out
Speaker 6: to be a very very impressive witness, both on direct
Speaker 6: examination when being examined by the prosecutor and also on
Speaker 6: cross examination. Despite the fact that Denise had hired a
Speaker 6: pretty good attorney, that attorney was fairly tongue tied when
Speaker 6: he was trying to cross examine Brian. Many times during
Speaker 6: that cross examination, Brian got the better of him, Rather
Speaker 6: than the other way around.
Speaker 4: It's incredible to the appearance of Denise at this trial
Speaker 4: as well, So we'll just leave it at that, because
Speaker 4: of the incredible showdown at this trial and Cheryl's reaction,
Speaker 4: the family's reactions, and the incredible evidence that Brian imparts
Speaker 4: and in the dramatic fashion again one person seemingly feeling
Speaker 4: some grief and remorse and another person completely cold and
Speaker 4: without feelings, seemingly. I want to thank you very much
Speaker 4: Stephen for coming on and talking about Evil at Lake Seminole.
Speaker 4: The shocking truth story surrounding the disappearance of Mike Williams
Speaker 4: certainly is a shocking truth story. For those that might
Speaker 4: want to take a look at this. Do you have
Speaker 4: a website Facebook page for this? Tell us how they
Speaker 4: might find out more about this book.
Speaker 6: So find out about the book by going to Amazon
Speaker 6: and just searching for Evil at Lake Seminole. Fortunately, yesterday
Speaker 6: was the release and it's already take already flying off
Speaker 6: the Amazon shelves, so to speak. Evil Lake Seminole on Amazon.
Speaker 6: It's available in paperback, it's available in print, it's available
Speaker 6: and audible. I'm in fact the narrator on the audible
Speaker 6: edition of the book. There is also a website, Evil
Speaker 6: Atlakeseminole dot com. That website is not a place ago
Speaker 6: if you want to read the book, because again, there
Speaker 6: are a lot of spoilers on that website. All kinds
Speaker 6: of evidence from the trial, all kinds of photographs, all
Speaker 6: kinds of information that was part of the Florida Department
Speaker 6: of Law Enforcements files is on that website. So go
Speaker 6: to the website after you've read the book and you
Speaker 6: want to learn more. And that's Evil at Lakeseminole dot com.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, thank you very much Steven b Epstein for Evil
Speaker 4: at Lake Seminole. Thank you very much, congratulations on a
Speaker 4: fantastic book and hope to talk to you again real soon.
Speaker 6: Thank you my pleasure.
Speaker 4: Good night,