SELMER, Tenn. (AP) - The wife of a minister found shot to death in their church's parsonage agreed Friday to return to Tennessee to face first-degree murder charges in his death, authorities said. Mary Winkler was found with the couple's three young daughters late Thursday in Orange Beach, Ala., 340 miles south of their home.
Orange Beach Assistant Chief of Police Greg Duck said Friday she had waived extradition and would be sent back to Tennessee later in the day or on Saturday. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent John Mehr said authorities were charging her with murder in her husband's death after interviewing her during the night.
"We've known from the beginning that she was either a suspect or a victim," said TBI spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson.
Johnson wouldn't discuss a possible motive or reveal what Mary Winkler told authorities.
Matthew Winkler, the 31-year-old minister at Selmer's Church of Christ, was found dead Wednesday night in a bedroom of the parsonage. Church members discovered the body after he missed an evening service and they went searching for him.
Police said the home didn't appear to have been broken into, but Winkler's wife and children—Breanna, 1; Mary Alice, 6; and Patricia, 8—were gone.
The TBI issued an Amber Alert for the children, who had last been seen on Tuesday when their mother picked them up from school.
Orange Beach Police Chief Billy Wilkins said Friday that Mary Winkler, 32, had rented a condo on the beach but that she hadn't stayed there.
Police spotted her as she left a Waffle House around 7:30 p.m. Thursday after picking up a carryout order, Duck said. The children were in the car with her at the time.
A custody hearing was scheduled Friday afternoon in Foley, Ala., where a juvenile Court judge will decide whether Matthew Winkler's parents can take custody of the three children, Duck said.
The news of the death of the third-generation minister and missing family shocked those who knew him in Selmer, a town of about 4,600 in West Tennessee.
Matthew Winkler was hired at the Fourth Street Church in February said Wilburn Ash, an elder at the church. The congregation quickly came to love his straight-by-the-Bible sermons. Church members also took to his wife, who they described as a quiet, unassuming woman who was a substitute teacher at the elementary school.
"They were a nice family," said former Selmer Mayor Jimmy Whittington, who worked with the minister collecting donations for hurricane victims last year. "They just blended in."
Mary and Matthew Winkler met at the Church of Christ-affiliated Freed- Hardeman University in Henderson, where his father, also a minister, is an adjunct professor.
On Thursday, members of the Selmer congregation gathered inside the one-story brick church.
"I can't believe this would happen," said Pam Killingsworth, a church member and assistant principal at Selmer Elementary.
"The kids are just precious, and she was precious," Killingsworth said. "He was the one of the best ministers we've ever had—just super charisma."
