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True crime story about the murder of Mike Williams from Tallahassee retold in new book

Marina Braun
| Tallahassee Democrat correspondent

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Most of us find Tallahassee to be quite quiet. A quiet place surrounded by trees and numerous lakes and full of honest citizens who mean us no harm and would do us no harm.

However, we don't always know what lies within the green forests or what might be buried near the shimmering lake.

And that brings us once again to the 20-year saga of perhaps one of Tallahassee's most harrowing crime stories – a story that the Tallahassee Democrat's then-news director, Jennifer Portman, kept alive in people's minds for decades.

It's a story that continues to captivate crime fans in podcasts, television series, and now in another literary retelling of “true crime,” the just-released “Guilty Creatures: Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida” ($28.99, Signal Publishing 2024) which came out on July 23rd.

Murder case: 'A horrible, evil place': How Mike Williams' body was discovered 'by the grace of God'

Arrest: “Oh, my God!”: 17 years after Mike Williams' disappearance, his wife is charged with murder

The suspenseful nonfiction novel was written by Baltimore-based crime writer Mitika Brottman, a psychoanalyst with a doctorate from Oxford University and a job as a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The author has been called “one of the best nonfiction writers.”

Brottman has a penchant for describing the facts and consequences of a crime in carefully researched detail, while also delving deeply into the motivations and perceptions of those involved.

“Guilty Creatures” takes us back to the year 2000, when real estate agent Mike Williams allegedly went duck hunting alone on Lake Seminole. His wife Denise was at home with their little daughter. But Mike didn't come back that day. There was no sign of him at Lake Seminole either.

It seemed fortunate that time passed without her husband being seen. Only six months earlier, he had taken out a $2 million life insurance policy. When Mike Williams was declared dead a year later, it was assumed that he had fallen overboard and been “eaten by alligators.” Now, that life insurance policy could make life easier for his widow and child.

However, his mother, Cheryl Williams, could never believe that her son's death was so “simple” and continued to push for decades for a more thorough investigation into what she believed was a crime.

In 2005, Denise Williams remarried Brian Winchester, who, along with his former wife, had been long-time friends with the Williams family. Winchester was also the agent who sold Mike Williams the life insurance policy.

Despite constant lobbying of senior government officials and ads in the Tallahassee Democrat calling for the investigation into Williams' death to continue, his mother, Cheryl Williams, remained convinced that justice had not been done. She became estranged from her granddaughter and was called “crazy” by Denise.

But by 2012, Brian Winchester and Denise Williams' marriage was already falling apart. In 2016, Denise filed for divorce. That's when Winchester kidnapped her in a fit of rage and presented evidence that he may have planned a murder-suicide. Denise “talked him down” and fled, but she immediately called the police.

The following year, Winchester was arrested for the kidnapping and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Shortly thereafter, however, after so many years, Mike Williams' body was finally found – not eaten by alligators, but buried in a swampy mud next to Lake Carr.

It wasn't long before Denise Williams was also arrested and charged with her husband's murder. During her trial, Brian Winchester, her former husband, testified against her and also admitted that he shot Mike Williams as he clung to a tree stump in the lake and then moved and buried his body near Lake Carr.

The couple's motive: to eliminate Denise's husband and collect the insurance money. Denise was initially sentenced to life imprisonment and later, when this sentence was overturned, she had to serve the 30-year prison sentence she had also received for conspiracy to commit murder.

Author Mitika Brottman said in a phone interview that she “delved into in-depth research, visiting Tallahassee, examining the murder files, trial footage, court transcripts and evidence documents related to the case. Florida's Sunshine Laws easily allowed this type of access.”

She admits that an earlier book on the case, “Evil at Lake Seminole” by Steven Epstein, was invaluable. “I have made many attempts to contact both Denise (who is now incarcerated at the Florida Women's Reception Center) and Brian Winchester (who is being held at the Wakulla Correctional Institution), but to no avail.”

One wonders what fascinates a true crime author so much. Why this genre in particular?

“I am fascinated by how the human brain works and what happens psychologically to people who commit horrific crimes,” Brottman said.

“In this case, a murder remained covered up for 16 years,” Brottman said. “What was going through Brian and Denise's minds during those years? How did they justify the crime, especially since they were both devout Baptists? Did they suppress and deny their involvement to such an extent that they truly believed they had nothing to do with it?”

Brottman says she tries to “get inside the mind” of criminals in her books and now believes that “the psychology of a person who commits a crime is no different – they just experience the same emotions as anyone else, only more extreme. Basically, I believe that anyone is capable of murder under certain circumstances.”

Although the author is currently on tour to promote her book, she will soon return to Baltimore to resume her position as a literature professor, where she teaches Edgar Allen Poe and Jane Austen.

“Interestingly, I don't read a lot of true crime stories,” she said, preferring “women's fiction from the pre-war era.” Although Brottman's personal tastes don't particularly favor stories of gruesome acts, she hopes you'll delve into the story of a crime that haunted Tallahassee for decades.

Brottman's gripping novel was named one of the 19 nonfiction books to read this summer by the New York Times., praised as “catnip for true crime fans.”

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