Murder of Mike Williams/ Alligator Safety, How to Not Get Bit

Join us as we discuss a sinister premeditated murder with some twists, turns and a dedicated, sweet lil' southern mama who blows the whole case wide open with her pigtails, persistence and sass.  An innocent woman may be currently serving 30 years in prison because she married a lying abuser in our humble and only moderately-informed opinion.

We also throw in some alligator safety tips and give the biggest shout out to night shift! Woot! Woot!

We learn Radhika's horrifying superhero origin story and imagine alligators in the work place. Tangets include, Jurassic World/Park,  Steve Irwin and Catfish.

Here's the least traumatic video I had to watch for this episode  https://youtu.be/3fXvc2f9v7Y

Transcript

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Hey everyone, welcome to True Crime Defense, the podcast that nerds out on true crime cases, gives you tips on how to stay safe, and never blames the target of any crime. Hope you enjoy the show! All right, well,, our rabid fans have been clamoring for this one, Radhika. Good thing you asked me to cover another animal safety case. Yeah, I just wanted to tell our listeners, when we were choosing our next project, I asked you what you wanted to do, and you said water safety or animal safety, even though we recently did the case of Diane Whipple, who was attacked by dogs, and you said that one was way too rough for you. So, I mean, what's the deal? Do you want me to torture you? Um, I do. I just want to... Stay away from these crazy, crazy creatures. All right. Well, we can do that. Radhika, are you comfortable with me torturing you and talking about murder and alligators safety? Yes, I am. Excellent. Okay. Well, to soothe your fears right off the top, I'm going to remind you that it's much more likely that you will be killed by a serial killer than an alligator. That is way more reassuring. Yeah, I just glanced at American serial killers on Wikipedia and did a quick estimate and the chances are very low for being serial murdered. And there are much lower for alligator attacks, especially here where we don't have alligators. But no, I still wanted to talk about true crime and large reptiles. So we're taking a well deserved break in Florida. Just kidding. It's December in Lake Seminole, which looks drab and not that close to the beach. This one was all work for me. It's like going to California, but you end up in Bakersfield. Not great. I'm going to give everybody warnings for murder, for intimate partner violence. There's kidnapping at gunpoint. Anything else we need to warn people about? Okay, you all know that we don't give gory details, and if we do give any details, we'll warn you when we get there. I have to spoil the whole thing right off the top. This was not a case of alligators attacking, so you don't have to worry about that. Although we use this as an excuse to talk about alligators, and also as an excuse for me to watch Crocodile Hunter. Which, I actually don't need an excuse, I just watch it almost every day anyway. It's actually Steve Irwin day today. Oh, I didn't know! November 15th, it's Steve Irwin day. So I got a lot of him on my Instagram this morning. If you don't, if you're not following any of their family, do it because they're just so sweet. I love them all. Very wholesome family. Yes. Okay, you know, you gotta have some views of that mullet too, the old school stuff. Yeah, and then you texted me last night and said your sister was bummed it wasn't a case about alligator attacks. And I'm like, did she want to see people attacked by alligators? We finished it and she was like, they showed alligators for 12 seconds. That was the whole thing. I was like, it was a theory. And that's all we needed to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, totally. I also was really interested in this case just because of the targets mom, the way it unfolded. And I think there's some legal BS and the works that we'll get to in the end. So we watched cold case file season 2. Episode one, man mysteriously vanishes while hunting. The onscreen text says only 1 percent of cold cases are solved. And they tell me this one will be solved. I'm thrilled. I hate an unsolved mystery, even though I loved. I love the show unsolved mysteries. The old, the new watch them all. December 16th, 2000, Tallahassee, Florida, Bill Curtis, our host tells us that Mike Williams heads out to go duck hunting. He has a wife named Denise and an 18 month old baby. That night he and Denise were going to celebrate their anniversary. Cheryl Williams is Mike's mom and the cutest little mama on planet Earth. Her pigtails! Yes, she has terrible white pigtails and looks non threatening, but she's pistol, as we'll see throughout. Mike doesn't come home and a search begins. Radhika, there are so many investigators in this one,, I didn't even bother to remember. They need to take some cues from Catfish, if you watch that show. They have, like, a million point font. And it's a lower third, but I would love it over the face. It doesn't matter, and every single time the person comes on screen, I just leave it there, because I just gave up. I was just I, I didn't remember a single investigator. It was a lot. Too much. Yeah. Mike's truck is found at Lake Seminole and no one can find him. Mike's mom, who everyone calls Miss Cheryl, talks about Mike never walking, always running. His dad was a bus driver, and she ran a home daycare and sent Mike and his brother to private school, even though it was really a reach for them financially. He was class president. Mike meets his future wife, Denise, in the ninth grade. He graduates with a degree in city planning or something? City planning, yeah. Okay, I didn't know that was a thing. Mike and Denise are married December 17th, 1994. On May 8th, 1999, their daughter Ainsley is born. Investigators find his boots in his truck and they deduce he's wearing waders or overalls that are connected to boots or I guess sometimes they can also just be pants connected to boots. if he fell out of the boat, the waiters can fill with water and potentially drown a person. I'm going to debunk that a little bit later. I know you're very concerned about it this morning. Because I was like, then why would you wear them if it's an absolute drowning hazard? But teach me more later. Well, you want dry clothes, right? Brian Winchester is Mike's good friend and he finds Mike's boat, which has his gun still in the case. The gas tank is full and it didn't look like the boat was in an accident. The whole situation is very mysterious. We do get to see a cute dog who's so excited to look for Mike and I think he or she was a black lab. Just made the whole day. Miss Cheryl gets a divine message that Mike isn't in the water and she thinks he's still alive. She's such a sweetheart. It's so sad. Mike's hat is found floating and identified as Mike's by his friend Brian. Now we get to the alligator theory. Hundreds of alligators live in the lake and Mike told his little mama not to worry. It's December. They be sleeping. They all are sleeping, yes. It's too cold. Yeah. I guess they like hibernate ish, maybe? Not as active is what I think he was going for. Miss Cheryl was told he drowned and the alligators ate him. But this is true crime slash self defense, and so that's not it. Six months after he went missing, his shirt and waders were found with Mike's hunting license in the shirt pocket. a judge signs a death certificate and the case is closed by the authorities. Miss Cheryl is now becoming my hero because when Brian Winchester, Mike's friend, says that finding Mike's personal effects was a gift from God, she tells him, I've had gifts from God, and that was not a gift from God. Those were planted. I like that line. That's some sass. I mean, I think she probably came up with that one in hindsight, but I'm going to give that one to her. She's delightful. Investigators at Fish and Wildlife say that was in the water for six months should have slime or some evidence that gators bit through them, and there was none of that. Now we get to Miss Cheryl's orneriness. I'm a massive fan of it. She puts up billboards and made cards to hand out to people so she could find Mike. She made a picket sign with his photo and would stand outside of churches in town to see if anyone had info. She keeps being told alligators ate Mike. I just love the like visual of that, her little piggy tails and she's just standing outside church. I hope people were nice to her. It sounds like she was Pulled into the office by the ministers and told not to do it. But good job, miss Cheryl. That's what you have to do. Yeah, she keeps being told alligators ate my, she wrote hundreds of letters. I'm guessing to investigators in 2004, finally, a criminal investigation begins. The investigators are interested that Brian finds both the boat and the hat of Mike Williams. We now learn that Brian Winchester's dad has an insurance company and Brian wrote a 1, 000, 000 life insurance policy on Mike just before he disappeared after Mike disappears. Denise dates and then marries Brian Winchester. Although I do want to add, it wasn't immediate. It was about 5 years after, although they did have an affair before Mike disappeared. Mhm. December 3rd, 2005, they are married and live in the same house that Denise had lived in with Mike. The local rumor mill makes a big deal about that, but I don't know if it's an implication of guilt to live in the same Mojo Dojo Casa house. Totally. I thought having stability for Ainsley would be a reasonable explanation. I don't know. Yeah. I think it's not weird. Sometimes it's... Not easy to just uproot and so I feel like they, it's a small town. Maybe they were just saying things to talk, but I didn't think it was weird. December 12th, Denise and Brian divorce. I'm going to give a warning about armed kidnapping here. August 5th, 2016, Brian, this is four years after their divorce. He's really still. Holding a candle for her. It seems like Brian is hiding in the back of Denise's car with a gun. He had a tarp and other items to use to dispose of a body. She's able to talk him down and he leaves and she reports the incident to the sheriff. Now, as they're investigating this incident, they think it's this is an opening to start asking her about Mike Williams disappearance. And I was really annoyed at this point. Denise just escaped being murdered and disappeared. can we just focus on that as poor women, they start interrogating her about Mike Williams and I'm just like, yeah, she's been tormented by her crappy ex husband. Can we just, it was Brian is arrested for aggravated kidnapping December 19th, 2017 at Brian's sentencing. Denise asks for the maximum sentence and the judge gives him 20 years. A few months before the sentencing, investigators sit down with him and give him a deal on Mike's disappearance for throwing Denise under the bus. He gets full immunity and will never be charged with Brian's murder if he testifies that he and Denise plotted together to kill Mike. He says that they've been having an affair since 1997. I watched this episode and then I listened to the podcast over my dead body, which, by the way, if you guys haven't listened to that one, all the episodes are all the seasons that I've listened to. They're really interesting and really good. this 1 went into detail about this case to. All of this information about Denise plotting has been provided by Brian, who murdered his romantic rival, held Denise up at gunpoint with the intention of getting rid of her, but were to believe him for some reason. I'm just saying he has beef with Denise. And in fact, Radhika, we are nurses. We can't diagnose anything, but in this case. I would go over the heads of the fellow and the attending physicians and straight up call the burn unit because I think there's a good chance that Brian's pants are on fire. He's such a liar. I allegedly, he has a lot of reasons to lie about this. So now if you can't hear about intense premeditated murder, I'd say skip ahead about a minute. Did you, I've warned you ahead of time. Did you skip it or are you watching? I watched the whole thing and it was so sad. It's really sad. Yeah. I had a hard time with this. Brian says he pushed Mike into the water thinking he would drown because the waiters would drag him down. Not understanding that Mike is a full grown man with opposable thumbs and could remove the waiters before being pulled under. There's a lot of tragic details. I'll just say that he shot Mike with a shotgun and buried him. yeah, it was a lot. It's just, it's really like very premeditated and cruel and cold. Brian leads investigators to the body as part of the immunity deal. And now Miss Cheryl tells us that Mike was buried just five miles from her house and she's crying because she really was thinking he'd be found alive. I know, she was like 17 years and I thought he would be alive and I was just so sad that she had to sit in the courthouse and listen to the way her son was murdered because he does provide a very detailed explanation and it totally plays a little movie in your head yeah. Denise is charged with first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder on December 12th it's 2019 maybe. Yeah, it's like either 16 or 18 something like that somewhere in the teens. Brian gets his day in court. He gives all the details of that day. Miss Cheryl says now she has nightmares about it because she had to hear Ryan Winchester talk about the details. November 2020, court overturns Denise's conviction for first degree murder, but keeps her conviction for conspiracy to commit murder, for which she'll serve 30 years. Ms. Sheryl has no contact with her granddaughter Ainsley after she refused to stop investigating. Denise had told her if she didn't stop, she wouldn't be able to see Ainsley, and she just kept pushing. So sad. I didn't hear much evidence against Denise in the podcast, other than the fact that she paid the premiums for the life insurance policy. I think it's very possible that Brian Winchester paid them or forced her to pay them. And he just wanted to get hurt back at her for leaving him. He failed to kill her and this is a way he could metaphorically end her life and have control over her alleged life. Cause it was literally just him storytelling. There was no other piece of evidence, in my opinion, that tied Denise. To it. well, he said you did it. And if they ask her, she's like, well, I didn't and they're like, but he said you did that's all that they had. I didn't in the podcast. I didn't really hear. I really didn't hear much evidence. The judge ruled on it. He said, well, you paid the, the insurance premium. So, in the judge's mind, she was complicit with it, it was planned. Yeah. All right. So before we get to safety tips, I wanted to just thank a couple people supporting the show, particularly Magoomy for giving us a five star review on Spotify. Thank you Magoomy. I just glanced at YouTube. I saw Alyssa as a recent subscriber. Thank you. Just the 2 most recent people I saw. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you. Thank you. We're hoping to build a kind community of people interested in learning about true crime and making the world a better place. safer place. So just please support us. Connect with us on Instagram at TC underscore defense and suggest cases you want us to cover and tell your friends to listen. Now you would think that we would do shotgun safety tips for this case, but I actually recorded an episode with my brother. I cheated on you, Rodica. he's ex military and actually has some experience with shotguns. And so he gave me some safety tips. So keep an eye out for that episode. It's coming soon. everywhere you get your podcast, it's called the death of Ray McNeil. And we cover the Netflix series killer Sally, which is absolutely wild. Have you seen it? No. Yeah. You should watch that one. It's. Outrageous. It's really wild. Yeah. Okay. Even though alligators were not the culprits. We're still going to learn some things about these modern day dinosaurs and how to not get bit or consumed. I guess I looked at a CNN article from 2016 and I realized this is really not that much of a concern, but it's fun to talk about it. So here we go from 1999 to 2014. 78 people died from an alligator or crocodile attack in the US. not that many people. Do you feel reassured? A little bit, but not too much. I mean, thankfully we don't live in an area where we have to worry about this. I just cannot imagine trying to go through my day and worry that a dinosaur attack could be imminent at any time. It's like that last scene in Jurassic World, or whatever. One of the Jurassic worlds where Jeff Goldblum is telling the world, I told you so, as a T Rex, like, busts out of the zoo. Runs onto the airport strip or whatever. Ah! We have to worry about great white sharks. And those bees are always caught on drone cameras right off the coast. But the whole safety episode on that is just remain on land and you're good. Yeah. Don't go in the water. I read an article about a man who just opened his door, and an alligator bit his leg. And the wildlife expert they interviewed said gators have a habit of walking up onto the porch and then resting their bodies against the front door. Presumably because they haven't learned to ring the doorbell yet. Oh my god. Here. Thank you. There was a case of a burglar trying to hide from the cops and a gator got him before they could. Oh, no, he should have just gotten arrested. No, hiding in the swamp. That's the that's what happens. The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website says alligator versus human interactions are increasing due to human population expansion. They recommend never feeding alligators. Thank you for your interest. Keep your distance. you think about, going to, feed the ducks, you, bring a bag of bread, bread. Yeah. Is that, an activity people take their kids, you, go feed the alligators? I hope not. That is just teasing death, in my opinion. Stop that nonsense. Okay. Well, please don't do that. Yeah.. Keep your distance. Swim only in designated swimming areas during daylight hours because alligators office hours are generally from dusk till dawn. Shout out to night shift. Hey guys. Laura, on night shift. Laura. Yeah. Yeah. We got to have her on the podcast. She's a big fan. Love it. Night shifters. keep pets on a leash and at least 10 feet away from the edge of the water. Apparently there are also American crocodiles in Florida. They were endangered, but conservation efforts brought them from a population of 300 to 2000 in the wild. Why safety tips? no need Shelly ecosystem cousins that do the same job. I think it's unnecessary. I think it's kind of cool that alligators and crocodiles live together. It's interesting. Sure. some safety tips for alligators. They add, if you are cleaning fish, dispose of the remnants in a receptacle and don't feed other animals such as ducks, I'm assuming, so you're not in the vicinity when a crocodile or alligator attacks that animal. Florida uniquely is one of the only places where crocodiles and alligators live in close proximity. Crocodiles are more aggressive, but there are fewer of them. Alligators see you later, and crocodiles take longer. Takes a while. That's science, Veronica. I wanted to get some sense of how big they are because I've never seen one in real life, except that one albino one. In the California Academy of Sciences. He's so pretty, but he's kind of tiny. Or is it a she? I can't remember. I don't know. All I know it's a beautiful Mm-Hmm, Okay. Alligators can be 10 to 15 feet in length and weigh 300 to a thousand pounds. saltwater crocodiles can be up to 20 feet and weigh 2000 pounds or more. Yeah. Sweet, sweet. Holy Lord. Yeah. Frank Mazzotti, a professor of wildlife ecology at U of F has been working with alligators for over 40 years. And when I read that just for a second in my mind, I imagined him sitting at his desk while he holds up a cup of coffee, as a sign of greeting to a bunch of other crocodiles, sitting at their desks, that's just how my brain works. he said, I guess it could be alligators and crocodiles together in the workplace. He said the alligator will be interested in a pet. So keep the pet away from the edge of the water. Apparently, alligators may let their prey go after the first bite to reposition them. So take that opportunity to run away in a straight line. If attacked in the water, fight the gator. He says to punch the alligator, poke it in the eyes and hit it in the head. They can run about 10 miles per hour for short distances. So I hope you stretched and wore reasonable footwear. It's frightening.. I also read that on land they can run 10 miles per hour, but, in water they cruise at nine miles per hour and can do short bursts of 18. That's swimming 18 miles per hour. You just did at that point. Where are you gonna go? Maybe you want to like duck out of the way right when they like are about to hit you like in the movie. I mean I guess yeah just like the poking in the eye once they got you like that's when you just gotta fight yeah you can't swim away from an alligator or crocodile. That's just so fast. Yeah I'm gonna put a video in the show notes that shows a woman doing an animal performance and the alligator bites her hand and tries to death roll her and she's able to get in the water with the alligator and wrap her legs around its body and two bystanders are able to hop in and get control of the animal. I'd say the alligator is about five to six feet long and she was in an enclosed space that wasn't that deep so the threat was less than in the wild but it was pretty dramatic and it shows how strong they are even though it's a relatively small animal. It's probably the least traumatic of the ones I had to watch for this episode though so I thought I would share it. Anything else you want to tell the people? I'm just I don't know why, but I'm always, interested in knowing like the bite forces of these crazy animals. When I was looking up the dogs, I just want to know. So I looked up the ones for, alligators and crocodiles. And did you know that crocodiles have, well, I'll start with the alligators. They have a bite that clocks in at 2500 PSI. And. The crocodiles are at 3, 700 PSI, and they're actually the strongest jaws in the animal kingdom, so crocodiles have a beast of a mouth, relating to safety is, I did read about how, they do the death roll where they clamp down on you, chomp. Start rolling you to disorient you, try to rip a limb off, kill you, essentially. but they do release to try to get a second hold on you. And it's when they release that you're supposed to stab their eyes, poke their snout, because the rest of their body is covered in, these thick, incredibly thick scales that not even a knife is gonna, it's not gonna care. So you gotta get the soft parts, but once you get out, then the only thing is to run. Get out of the water as quick as you can. just numbers 2, 500 for alligator bite force, 3, 700 for crocodile and humans clock in at a measly 120. Probably can't win in a biting contest, so don't try to bite or nothing. Honestly, oh, this blew my mind. And so my sister and I are obsessed with sharks and any sort of animal, incidents. And so when we were researching about, crocodiles and alligators. They are from the dinosaur era. They've been here a really long time, and one of the reasons, just like sharks, is, they have no finite lifespan. And they're coined as biologically immortal, and that's because unless a population of alligators or crocodiles in a location is so dense that at a particular point in time, Alligator doesn't get food for a long time, that's one way to kill it, or because it contracts an infection or disease, but otherwise, there's nothing that really kills them, you have nothing that's going to destroy you, so you just have to like, internally combust, I guess, and that's So scary to me. So I don't know why these little American crocodiles were going extinct and we have to save them. They sound like they can save themselves. that's just my opinion. They're not immune to human impact, right? Correct. Honestly, for an animal that can bite that strong and is immortal, don't we want to... Get some more information about that. that could actually help us, right? Benefit us? Totally. That's what all those crazy animal movies are about, scientists getting into the DNA of these animals. Yeah, I guess we have been warned by Jeff Goldblum. Yeah. But do we listen? No, we don't. It's fun to watch those movies. Yeah. Anything, attacks in India. Yeah,, the other thing that I was looking at was not that their attacks are greater, but it's this unfortunate, This region in India where they're super against, their children marrying outside of their caste, which I've mentioned about caste systems before, but they actually use a bunch of alligator infested swamps to murder and get rid of bodies and their population is crazy over there, people and alligators. And. When someone goes missing and they know that they've had a history of flirting with someone outside of the house, they just assume that they've been fed to the crocodiles. So I think it's not like there's a danger of the crocodiles eating the humans because the humans are too close to them. I think it's just a really utilized way of getting rid of humans by the humans. that was scary to find out. Hey everybody, I'm just going to cut in right here real quick because Radhika is about to tell her terrifying origin story. The reason why she and her family left Florida when she was a small child. This does involve a small child at a playground versus alligator and it doesn't go well. So I wanted to warn you of course, we never discuss those kinds of gory details, I was not warned ahead of time. I did not know this is what she was going to tell me. So I hope you appreciate me warning you. You can fast forward a minute or two, and then you'll be safe. Or you can listen and find out Rodica's deep, dark, scary origins. Mostly the reason why I wanted to do this is because, we used to, when it was just me, my mom and my dad, we used to live in Florida and I was, very little, and, the park that my mom would take us to is right next to a lake, because there's so many lakes in Florida, and one of the older ladies that lived in the apartment complex was like, no, no, do not go walking in the dark and don't let your child actually play in this play structure, just, put her on the swing and get out. So. And about a month later, there was a mom who was sitting and was letting her child play on the play structure, but it was evening time. And she looked away, bent down or something. And she just heard a And it's because there was an alligator that was in the bushes just kind of hanging out waiting and he was only two or three. So he's very small. Just got him and she called 911. There's no way calling 9 1 1 is gonna do anything to save your child. And it's a child, so, how does he fight back? And my mom was like, so we're leaving out of this state, and we left. it scares me whenever we, do, any sort of, vacationing near these, waters, and they're like, no, it's a lake house. Do you know what's in this lake? I'm not putting my feet in here. I feel like the ocean's safer than the, sharks are not supposed to really get you, but alligators are sinister. I know it happened at a Disney resort, the same thing. Oh, that's so awful. You would think what at a Disney resort, how much it would be safe to get. Yeah, right. And I see those, videos all the time of, alligators or crocodiles just, sunbathing on golf courses. And I'm like, that's, very public areas that they just, obviously you're not gonna, take them out because that's their home. But at the same time, it's just too close. The little golf balls can totally get really close to the water. And I would just be like, I'm gonna call that a loss and move on. I'm not gonna go get the ball. I don't know some of those people that golf they're really impacted by the competition. They gotta go get that stupid golf ball. Lose a limb while they're at it. I love it. Awesome. Thanks, Radhika. You're welcome. Thank you. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Yeah, that's better. Okay. Maybe it's the, the fan of my laptop is like running wild. Fans gone wild.