Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.

This is gator  country.

a beatuful but treacherous strech of swamp near Tallahassee.

the blod runs cold in the powerful reptil , that rules the water here.

But is mike william the victim of another kind of cold-blooded killer?

The glistening waters of florida’s lake seminole,just outside  of tallahassee had always been a favorite spote for michael.

 A man who seemed to  have it all , a successful  career in real estate  a beautiful wife and  a sweet young daughter and  long  time love for duck hunting.

firends say mike would grab any  chance to hunt even if he had to sit alone in his boat on seminole lake.It was not unusal for michael to go hunting by himself

then one december morning as  a whipping  cold front was tearing into tallahassee, mike grab his shot gun and heads out to the lake.

 Mike promises his adoring wife denise, he’ll be back by soon.

after all it’s  a  special  day,the loving couple is celebrating their  sixth weeding anniversary

But it’s  well past  noon  now,  mike hasn’t returned home from his  huting trip .daylights curls into darkening skies and denise  becomes frantic.

Brian  winchester.

she phones her dad and friends rendezvous at the lake. ,brian winchester ,mikes best buddy and denise’s  dad  lead the desperate seach at dusk forher missing husband.

It was still very windy ,cold.storm had just blown through. 

 the temperature pkummeted  to 19 degrees which  made searching very difficult. rain,  extremily high winds

The search is called off for the night.

 but the next day, they get their first break into mike’s mysterious disappearance,

they find his boat.

this is where  he launched the boat.due to the truck and trailer was right here also

and where was the boat found from here?

The boat was found approximately 300  yards from here  to the right . it was  apparent that it had been launched by  one individual the way the boat had been turned around and apparently pushed out

Milke’s shotgun were  there still in its case, there was some decoys on top of some other equipment. 

but there was no mike.

search and rescue divers, shopers and hundreds of hours  of manpower by law enforcement agencies over weeks.

then  months are spent scouring lake looking for mike.

hoping by some miracle he´s  still alive.

but tragically it became all too clear.

at that point it seeemed to be a  more of  a recovery type search then looking for somebody who was in distrerss.

police treatting this as an accident ,mike coul’d had fallen over 

 Flordia fish and wildfire investigators believed he had been pulled under by the weight of his fisherman’s  waders

and drowned in the shallow depths of alligators infested waters.

everything  indicated that the boater had fell out the boat  and possibly drowned there. there was no onther indication of anything else.

 but that  just didn’t hold water with mike´s grieving mom. she’ doesn’t  have  a body

supposedly alligators ate him.

a potential feast of flesh for a ferocious congretion of cold-blooded reptiles. 

but mikes mom says ,there is one big problem.and it has to do with the weather.

remember it was bitterly cold that day. 

alligators do not eat in cold water.

aligators don´t eat people whole , if they do attack, they chew on people .they tear arns and legs,but there’s always parts found after an alligator  attack.

but not a gnawed human bone nor a shred of human flesh has ever surfaced from those muddy waters.

 and there’s something else,nobody remembers seeing mike at the lake that morning.

 did this cold- blooded  carnivores consume mike williams.

after he accidentially fell out of his boat and drowned.

Or was the successful handsome  31  year old husband and father and seasoned duck hunter the victim of a foul play.

The  search for mike williams  was  exhaustive, there were divers in the water , helicopters above , search crews on the ground with dogs.

 and they search for 44 days  then 700 man-hours and they never did find mike or his body .

Incredibly investigators believe there may have been nothing left of mike after the alligators.

his heartbroken mother is tortured  by  that thought.

every single person that went missing on that lake had been found, recovered , whatever. this was extremely unusual.

adding to the mystery investigators   is told alligators become zombie- like, they almost  hibernate and  don’t really  eat in wintertime.

word got out that maybe mike was eating by alligators. and lot of people just assumed that´s what happened to mike .

however a lot of the folks who had been arround alligators,who´been around this lake  rather discounted that,because alligators don’t eat people whole.

 then after months of searching for mike, a strange clue  suddenly surfaces. all of a sudden a hat appears.but why wasn’t the hat found during that  10 -day  time figure because it was floating on the surface again  real close to the area where   mike put in his boat.

people couldn’t quite figure that out .

They turned to mike’s best buddy  ,brian winchester.

mikes friend brian winchester examined the hat and he told the folks , that’s look like a hat mike may have owned.

but the  investigator says  a DNA test  is inconlusive.very suspicious

 Things get even  stranger when a  fisherman scoops  a pair of  waders.the same kind mike was wearing when fell overboard but thete’s something mysterious about them too.

no body  parts in there , no sign where an alligators has tore on the waders whatoever. they where completely intact.

this was six months after the initial search started and you wonder how did  the investigators  miss this all this time. they can´t connect  the dots.there.

a short time later  divers at the scene pull up mikes hunting jacket.his hunting license is still legible.even his  flashlight is still working. after six months in the water.

the  condition of these items were so pristine that there was no way that  they would have been at  the bottom of this lake. which is mossy and algea coated. they were too new ,they  were so clearly planted.

Mike’s mom cheryl never  gave up hope of finding her beloved son,she took out full page ads in the newspaper.

and on billboards asking the public for help .

she even took to the streets calling for a criminal  investigation

but mikes mom says  ,her  pleas fell on deaf ears all the way up to the governor’s office.

 There was this clues ,because  of course he died without a will so the wife declaring him dead after six months ,never finding the body ,it just  all seemed very strange.

so why didn’t get as much  news attention at the time?

he was looked at as someone who  drowned in lake seminole  , they had a brief in the newspaper,it  was never followed up .

 by the time his wife denise williams was not interested  in publicity and so it just kind of disappeared.

friends and family say mike’s wife denise  was devastated, after all  she was only 31  ,a widow with a young  daughter to raise alone.

she and mike had dated since the 9th grade at a private christian school, it was almost cliche 

he was a football jock and she  was a cheerleader

 he wanted  more out of life than he had  growing up .

mike was  0n the fast track of success he held down two jobs through college  . on  was with ketchum  real astate appraisers

He was successful  buisnessman ,if you measure success by money ,he was sucessful,and had a beautiful wife and he had his daughter ansley . that he dearly loved-, by most standard he would be successful.

Normally in florida you have to wait  five years before a missing person can be legaly declared dead.

but just  six months after denise’s  husband vanished  without a trace  she asked to issue 

his death  certificate

mikes mother was shocked. and what was the evidence denise to convince a judge her husband met his  demise at the bottom of the lake.

his hunting jacket ,hunting license, working flaslight and the prstine pair of waders.with no  alligators holes.

mike’s brother ,think this evidence was planted. and convinced the evidence was  planted.

cheryl’s crusade to  open a criminal probe seemed to enrage her  daughter  -in -law

after mike disappeared  she threatened cheryl, she said if you do anything to get a criminal  investigation your going to lose access to ansley .  cheryl´s  granddaughter

to this day a heartbroken cheryl hasen’t seen  her  adorable granddaughter

 Did alligators really devour duck hunter mike williams or did mike  fall victim to another kind of

man- eater

the investigators believed that  mike was  killed and they believed his body was taken somewhere else and they believe that his truck and boat was  left over there staged over

and  how much insurance money  did his wife get?

there were two insurance policies , one that was written about six months before he went mising. that was for 1.5 million dollars.

no one know if mike ever knew that  this  insurance policy was taken out , though it was filled out as if it was him .

hadn’t been for his mother  a criminal investigation would never  been  open . it would have been a missing person that  was never found.

if mikes’s widow denise who was the beneficiary of  a huge life insurance policy.

mike  old boss encourage mike to buy as much  life insurance as possible. his old  boss clay ketchum was  a like a father to mike  and  he said what would be  advised.

he said mike given  age at life , and given your risky behavior i would by  all the life  insurance i could.

 what was brian winchester’s role in all of this ?

 brian winchester sold insurance, brian winchester was close pals with  mike and denise.

brian  winchester had sold him a life insurance policy .

 the suspicion is that his his  wife went ahead and did this  with brian and mike was unaware of it.

clay ketchum said alarm bells went off for hom too when  mike first went missing.

brian winchester called clay ketchum , and said  there’s a new development and the game and fish commission of FWC believes that he may have been eaten by an alligator.

clay ketchum thought  it was possible that he drowned until  he heard the alligator story .

the alligator story was when  clay ketchum  started wondering as to whether mike was really in that lake.

there was another thing investigators  courious .mike’s  shotgun , the one that was found in the empty boat.it’s not for duck hunting, and ketchum says  mike kept  all his guns  in the office for safety

to enter  after hours  a personal password is needed to turn off the alarm .

did clay had any way of knowing wether  mike  actually came in his office  to get his  shot gun 

clay cant tell  if mike  came in the office ,but can tell  that the door opened,mike williams code was inserted .

ketchum regrets never telling  investigators at the time , that   mike had a terrible secret weighing on his  shoulders, the  seemingly perfect marriage to his high school sweetheart denise was on the rocks.

mike had confided  to clay  ketchum  30 days  prior to his disappearance thay there was  issues within the marriage.it had something to do with finances and  it was  having to do with a credit card charge and it  exceeled the limit that mike and denise  had set for  themselves and that was bothersome.

it wasn’t  mike who charged the money and  that, it wasn’t something  that he would necessarily agreed, too , clay think it  had to  do with  a  trust issue.

the huge life insurance policies would likely assure denise that she’d never have to pinch pennies again ,but there was another theory that  surfaced about what  could have happened to mike.

 did he fake his own death.

it wasn´t  long after his disappearance, several folks raised the idea  that because of mike’s  good salary at that  age

could he have used som of the money  just to leave start a new life. thats really kind of  a stupid thing to say ,mike was extremely  devoted to his  daughter  ansley ,when he disappeared and mike’s bond with his  mother and his  brother  were extremely strong.

the ink was barely dry on mike’s death certificate

brian winchester ,  denise williams, mike williams

when his mom found out that her daughter -in – law was having a  torrid affair  with her son’´s  best  friend ryan winchester .

investigators were  told  on numerous occasions that brian and denise were  having an affair before mike went  missing ,in fact. brian winchester got a divorce and married his best friend’s wife.

there’s enough pain here  with the disappearance of mike  but  add to that his wife  then goes and  marries his best friend and then they are living mikes old  house. it seemed the grieving widow.was now the marry widow with a new hubby.

The gators didn’t do  it…

so was mike williams a successful  real estate executive,loving husband and father murdered for his money .

a question came up when his spouse started to inquire about obtaining the insurance money,during the search.

mike’s mother and brother  say’s his widow denise has been living on easy  street since she collected at least 1, 5  million dollars in death benefits

when we talking about it ,who stood to benefit from mike williams being declared dead , it looks like it would have been his wife. 

so there were two insurance policies ,one that was written about  six months before he went missing by his best friend brian winchester .that was  for 1. 5 million dollars.

it definitely raises eyebrows as to maybe what was going on surronding  mike’s disappearance.

adding to  the suspicion denise marries the man who wrote those insurance policies , mike´s best friend brian winchester.

then she reportedly cuts the family cord wit mikes mom and big brother nick.

it’s been characterized as calculated ,that she moved on pretty swiftly and was  ready to just  put  mike  behind her .

initially investigators looked at the case as a tragic boating accident mike possibly  drowned. and his corpse was eaten by   alligators

 but there are a bunch  of clues from the scene that don´t add up  

• one  his boat was  found with a full tank of gas,like it  had never been used that day
• two , the shotgun, mike’s brother says it was not the one mike used to hunt ducks.
•  three ,his gear, mike’s jacket waders even his hunting  license where not found until six months after mike’s disappeared ,and despite all that time in the water  there were all in pristine condition.

Not a single tooth mark from an alligator

•  four , is the biggest mystery .there was not a shred of mike

in piecing together what appears to be a pretty sinister,strange story ,there’s no physical evidence ,so at every turn it´s really tough,no arrests are made, no suspects are named

because all you can get is this story  that seems suspicious doesn’t  kind of cross that line into where you can actually  take any action with it.

investigators launched an  insurance probe ,but couldn´t  prove anything underhanded what they were trying to do was to prove insurance fraud  and that would involve that he  was killed to get the money.

but nick mike’s brother believes there may be a reason why his brother´s best friend married his former sister- in – law. and his says ,it wasn’t just for love.

“they were actually  married and so no i wasn’t really shocked  just  because if they were involved in killing mike collecting all this insurance they’d want to get married  and not have to testify against each other one day.”

despite mike’s brother´s allegations  brian winchester has never been  charged or named as a suspects in mike williams mysterious disappearance

shortly after , there is big trouble in his marriage with denise. winchester is arrested  for allegedly kidnapping denise and holding  at gubopoint in her car.

he was reportedly distraught over their impending divorce,he allegedly tells  her he´s going to kill himself.

Denise  also reads a plea from her now  teenage daughter, she had with mike williams begging  the judge

to keep  her stepfather  behind bars.

Brian winchester  has pleaded not guilty these charges 

but mike’s family is wondering if this  could be the break homicide detectives have been waiting for .

 mike’s brother is hoping one of them will now break their silence.

 nick” i think it´s just going to take a confession from one of them to crack the case”

the chances of this ever being solved are so  slim  unless whowever was involved in this  ends up confessing

Denise has never been charged in  mike’s disappearance

mike’s mother would love to be ablte to ask her former daughter.-in -law what she knows.

but denise is not  talking her or anybody in mike’s  family.

mikes mother says it´s very possible somebody killed him .she only have to choices where mike´s concerned ,he can be dead or she can hold that hope but he´s alive somewhere. but right now until somebody can bring her absolute,definite proof that michael is dead.

she´s gonna believe  that he´s gonna come home.

More Details

Published: Dec. 12, 2018 at 12:48 AM CET

It was revealed years later that Williams had died from a shotgun blast to the head and had been buried near a lake north of the state capital. The man who shot him was his best friend and insurance agent Brian Winchester, who confessed last year to the killing and repeated that confession in court. At the time of his death Williams had three life insurance policies worth $1.75 million.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — With a plot that echoes a well-known Hollywood masterpiece, a trial began Tuesday for a Florida woman accused of helping orchestrate the death of her husband in order to secure a massive insurance payout.

Prosecutors contended that Denise Williams planned the December 2000 slaying of her husband with a man that she was having an affair with and later married. On a cold morning in north Florida, Mike Williams disappeared while duck hunting on a large lake west of Tallahassee, and initially it was believed that he had fallen from his boat and that his body had been devoured by alligators. His disappearance triggered a massive search by local and state authorities.

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Brian Winchester, the man who shot and killed Mike Williams, takes the stand for the trial against Denise Williams, wife of Mike Williams, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018.ALICIA DEVINE/DEMOCRAT

Williams is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and accessory after the fact in her husband’s killing.

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Last year, Winchester pleaded no contest to kidnapping his ex-wife at gunpoint, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The very next day, authorities announced that Mike Williams’ remains were found at the end of a dead-end road after they received “new information.” The body had been discovered two months earlier, but the state’s Department of Law Enforcement needed to confirm through DNA tests that it was actually Mike Williams.

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In testimony later Tuesday, Winchester described his long-running affair with Denise Williams. He said Mike Williams told him that Denise had stopped having sex with him and that he was growing suspicious about her activities. Winchester said the growing suspicion and the fact that one of Mike Williams’ insurance policies was about to lapse led him and Denise to kill him.

“We knew our window of opportunity was closing,” Winchester testified.

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He then tearfully described the plot to kill Williams. He said he had intended to drown him by pushing him from his canoe. But he said he panicked when he saw Williams struggling in the water to get out of his jacket and duck waders and shot him. He said he dragged Williams’ body back to shore, put him in his truck and buried him hours later.

“When I shot him, it was dark and there was a bright flash,” Winchester testified, adding later, “I had to make it happen, I had no choice.”

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Denise Williams dresses in a soft pink cardigan for her first day on trial for the murder of her husband, Mike Williams, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018.ALICIA DEVINE/DEMOCRAT

Prosecutors allege Denise was involved in an affair with Mike’s childhood best friend, Brian Winchester, and they plotted to kill her husband so they could be together.

The pair is accused of staging Mike’s disappearance and collecting on his $US1.75 million ($A2.4 million) life insurance, after having a three-year affair leading up to his death.

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Brian and Denise allegedly arranged for Brian to kill Mike while out on a duck hunting trip. Initially it was decided that he would push him into the water in his waders so that he would drown. However, Brian says after he pushed his best friend overboard he couldn’t deal with him flailing around in the water so he shot him.

“He started to yell and I didn’t know how to get out of that situation. I had my gun in the boat, and so I loaded my gun and I just made one or two circles around and I ended up circling closer towards him and he was in the water, and as I passed by, I shot him,” he said.

He said he dragged Mike’s body back to shore, put him in his truck and buried him hours later.

Brian was arrested in 2016 after he became paranoid that Denise would reveal the truth about Mike and kidnapped her at gunpoint.

While awaiting trial, Brian was offered immunity in Mike’s case if he confessed about his friend’s disappearance.

The information he provided led to Denise’s arrest in May on charges for murder, conspiracy and accessory after the fact.