Woman speaks out after wearing wire to catch ex-husband and his new wife for murder
Topics: True crime, Florida, US News
Callum Jones
Featured Image Credit: Inside Edition
Topics: True crime, Florida, US News
A woman has spoken out after she finally received the answers she desired about what really happened to Mike Williams, her close friend who was killed in 2000.
Williams left home to go duck hunting on Lake Seminole in Florida in December of that year, and was to be never seen again.
After 44 days of searching, officials called off the search for Williams, while many wondered whether the successful real estate appraiser had simply run off.
Six months after his disappearance, Williams' fishing jacket, hunting license and a flashlight were found by a local fisherman in Lake Seminole.
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However, mystery surrounded Williams' death until very recently, with the answers finally come to fruition thanks to the investigative work of Kathy Aldredge.
Aldredge's suspicions arose after her husband, Brian Winchester, began having an affair with Denise - who was his best friend's widow.
"To say they stabbed me in the back doesn’t even touch it," she says in Hulu documentary Mr. & Mrs. Murder. "They had stabbed me in the soul."
Williams’ mother, Cheryl Williams, and Aldredge long believed Denise and Brian had conspired to kill Williams - but they needed proof.
Despite the pair spending many years not paying for the crimes they had committed, Aldredge and Williams' mom never lost hope they would get the answers they so much desired.
Speaking of the times they spent many hours searching through the clues, Aldredge told People: "She and I spent a lot of years under the radar, Cheryl and I went through this together, even though we didn't see each other every day and we didn't talk every day, whenever we got together, this investigation was what we talked about.
"This investigation was what connected us, and it was a constant obsession throughout all those years, no matter how much time had passed between us, there was always that connection."
Things started to unravel when Brian was arrested for kidnapping Denise at gunpoint and making her promise to never reveal the secret behind Mike's death.
In exchange for immunity from murder charges, Brian started working with police, leading to the discovery of Mike's body in 2017, buried near a boat landing in Leon County, Florida. The discovery proved definitively that he'd been murdered.
Kathy provided the final nail in the coffin in the case against Denise, agreeing to wear a wire to prove Denise was involved in Mike's death.
Working with police, Kathy read from a script provided by cops during a phone conversation with Denise.
She told Denise: "Brian told me that ya'll planned it."
Denise responded: "Planned what? Oh my God."
Kathy said: "I know that you know something Denise."
She told Inside Edition this year: "The whole decision to go that route of trying to figure out what happened here really came from a place of desperation because it seemed like no other avenues were working."
And speaking about her decision to finally speak out about the situation, Aldredge told People: "I feel a lot of satisfaction. I've waited a long time to speak on this topic and speak about my experience, and so there's a lot of satisfaction in finishing the project."
Denise was sentenced to 30 years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder after a previous murder conviction was overturned.
Meanwhile, Brian was handed a 20-year sentence for kidnapping Denise, on top of a 30-year sentencing for conspiracy in relation to Williams' death.
Mr. & Mrs. Murder is available to stream on Hulu.