2000s on a december morning, an experience outdoor went hiking. morning hours were his to hunt. >> that was his outlet and what he enjoyed. >> he never came back. he seemed to have simply vanish. his wife, denise, called around to family. late afternoon mike a brother, nick, got the worrying news. >> there would be a search that started at lake seminole. mike is a very skilled hunter. we thought that maybe he had an accident. >> a formal search began on the 30,000 acre lake. one member of the search party

arrived early and stayed late. >> brian winchester had found the boat. mike wasn't in it. his decoys were all in the boat. >> what picture came together for you? >> like everybody else, worried he might have fallen out. >> mike's boss, clay catcher. >> brian stood with me. any time they would come up with a potential hit, brian said i don't want to be here when they find mike. >> man-made lake seminole can be treacherous for boaters. a one-time peach orchard before it was flooded and tree stumps lurk below the surface. david arnette was at the scene. >> you hit a stump and could be thrown out easily. >> they didn't have a body but

there was an early theory about what might have happened. like most duck hunters he was known to wear chest-high waders. >> waders are bulky, basically like putting two buckets on your legs. you have problem with them filling up with water and taking you down. >> what was down there as everybody knew, alligators. hard to think of such an awful end for a nice working husband and father like mike williams. >> popular theory the gators got him. >> yes. your heart is gripped by that, the here is awfulness of it. >> there was a big problem with the gator theory. with such unusually cold temperatures, fish and wildlife officers knew the alligators were not stirring much. >> his metabolism is down so low

they don't want to eat. they are like a bear. >> then an officer found a hunter's hat floating on the water. the best friend thought it looked familiar. >> he shows us a photograph with mike with that hat on. >> surely the hat was good evidence mike had an accident and drowned in lake seminole. mike's co-workers felt hope slip away. >> when did you both realize this was it? >> i think we all knew that something had happened. >> true. >> after a few weeks had past, we knew mike wasn't coming back. >> months went by with no sign of mike. and then in june something of mike's did literally surface that made people wonder, his chest-high waderings. >> waders didn't have the slime that lake seminole would produce if you put something out there three or four days, it will be slimy.

especially in the backwater where there is not a lot of flow. it gets the brown sludge on it. >> they were as clean as the new pair with no sign of a gator attack. >> we found no indication of any bite marks on the waders, no indication of any human remains. >> traces of mike, but still no body. how unusual that was for a lake not to give ups it dead. >> michael that point was the only hunter/fisherman that had gone overboard in that lake that was never found. >> fish and wildlife officers were confounded. eventually the case of the missing boater was handed off to local sheriff detectives to investigate. >> i remember telling some of the guys, investigators, you might want to look into this deeper because something don't add up. >> one year after mike goes missing his wife, denise, visits the lake for a final good-bye. coming up -- >> she had a flower with her. she had written mike a note.

>> there was growing suspicion this wasn't an accident. >> no. something is wrong here. >> when dateline continues. >> when dateline continues here? nah. ♪ here? nope. ♪ here. ♪ when the middle of nowhere... is somewhere. the all-new chevy trailblazer. ♪ thewith acetaminophenctionzer. fights pain in two ways. advil targets pain at the source... ...while acetaminophen blocks pain signals. the future of pain relief is here. new advil dual action.

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it's really good dentistry to be able to recommend one product that can address two conditions. duck hunter mike williams disappeared on lake seminole and his wife, denise, was home with a young daughter to raise. their story began as high school

sweethearts. he the football star and student council president, she the cheerleader and homecoming queen. patty, the wife of mike's boss got to know them both. >> impressions of her. >> nice, absolutely delightful. >> after attending a private christian high school, the two graduated from hometown florida state university and got married. their baby girl was born on mother's day. denise was a cpa. mike had become an ace real estate appraiser in his hometown of tallahassee. mike's boss was amazing that despite the 15-hour days he put in at the office, he always made time to take care of the homefront. >> mike made sure the dinner was ready. laundry. >> he is mr. mom. >> we all said we wanted to be married to mike williams. we all needed a mike williams in our life. >> mike's co-workers took delight in wondering what denise

had in store for him when she called him at the office. >> i am across the street. i need gas. bam, bam, down the steps. i guess denise needs gas. >> now with mike gone, denise would be the sole provider for their young daughter. fortunately mike had several hefty insurance policies. >> small child and a wife, yeah. you need insurance. >> mike's best friend and insurance broker helped denise navigate the claims process. as long as most people could remember, denise and mike and brian and his wife were couples together and all attended the private christian high school, married high school sweethearts and had children about the same time. then came lake seminole. after a year had gone by denise asked patty to take her to the lake. >> she told me she was going to

a christian counselor. she had a flower with her and had written mike a note. 30 to 45 minutes back. she was back and crying. >> gone, but definitely not forgotten according to denise's friend and co-worker. >> she loved him like a woman would love your life partner and soul mate. >> the official death certificate said mike drowned while duck hunting but for family and friends doubts started to creep in. the waders found six months after mike disappeared looking almost pristine. >> no. something is wrong here. >> staged? >> i thought staged. i know anything left in the lake for any period of time will have algae on it. >> could mike's disappearance be the result of foul play?

enter the wild card, the squeakiest of squeaky wheels, mike williams' mother who wasn't buying the official story that mike, an experienced outdoors man had an accident on the lake. >> mike is not in lake seminole. he didn't drown or did not get eaten by alligators. >> some call her eccentric or even crazy, but she demanded answers. she opened her purse and spent money she couldn't afford. >> i would take out an ad and i asked the public to help me find my son. it was a $1,200 ad. >> earnings from the day care center. >> you have to change a lot of diapers to pay for an ad that expensive, but it got publicity. >> some of the day care center kids, now all grown, remembered

making missing person posters. >> i was only six years old. i remember somebody would draw out mike's name and missing and we would fill it in with a black sharpie. >> she was a one-woman campaign and wrote letters to the governor every day for years. 2,600 in all, paid for billboards and stood outside churches with posters. >> you were getting a reputation around town as the batty lady with the pig tails out there with the signs and the billboards. >> everybody called me crazy. >> but not everybody. police began to take her seriously after years of her struggling to draw attention to mike's case. >> she is a straight shooter. she tells it like it is.

>> will is an agent with the florida department of law enforcement. four years after mike went missing they agreed to take the case. >> if not for miss shcheryl. >> she is upset because she and her daddy said it was an invasion of their privacy. >> denise's friend in her defense said denise told cheryl to stop the noise because it was confusing their daughter. >> she was telling it to the little girl when by all accounts he was not. >> nick and i never told her that her daddy was alive. never. >> then denise laid down a

demand to her mother-in-law, stop raising a ruckus or she will never see her granddaughter again. >> she followed through with her promise. >> she is gone. >> totally gone out of my life. i couldn't stop. i had to find out what happened to mike. >> and that smoldering stalemate between cheryl and denise held fast as the years went by. denise williams began dating and thinking about marriage with one of her suitors, but soon the rumor mill will be a buzz with a more sensational take on denise's love life. >> all of a sudden we find out she is dating brian winchester. >> shocking to some and suspicious to others. >> this is just so creepy. >> when dateline continues. >> when dateline continues

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duck seasons came and went as the years rolled by. long after mike williams' ill-fated hunting trip, denise was a young widow raising her daughter. she started dating again. one day there was a new man in her life. someone with a familiar name. >> all of a sudden we found out she is dating brian winchester. >> brian, mike's best friend and fishing and hunting buddies. since their days as a happy foursome in high school and beyond, brian and his wife,

cathy had gotten a divorce. ryan wasn't denise's first relationship after mike. >> denise dated other people. >> she didn't fly right into his arms. >> no. she had reservations for a while. he really had to prove himself to her in terms of where he was at with his christianity. >> mike's best friend hooking up with the widow of the man that disappeared. didn't take the court of public opinion long to do the math. could brian have anything to do with mike's disappearance and what did denise know? the coffee shop conspiracies took wing when five years after mike's disappearance, brian married denise. mike's old boss was invited to the wedding. >> minister got up and said there is nothing that i don't know between the two of them. and patty and i kind of punched each other in the ribs saying there might be one little piece of information that he is not aware of.

>> brian moved into the same house mike and denise lived in together and began raising mike's daughter. >> what bothered me the most is that they stayed in mike's house. >> raising the child. >> raising the child and assumed the role of father. >> takes over his life. >> takes over his life. >> it is so creepy. >> for cheryl, the marriage seemed to corroborate long-running suspicions. she kept a detailed notebook about mike's disappearance and brian and denise were filling more and more pages in it. she alerted an investigator about the suspicions sharing a 27-page summary of her notes. >> she was a good source of information. she was a real bulldog on this. >> like this item cheryl noted. remember those insurance policies mike bought, they were worth $1.75 million. and it was brian who sold mike a large part of them.

those waders that surfaced were used by denise's lawyer as evidence to declare mike dead in seven months so she could collect her money. >> better than icing on the cake. >> that was all i really needed to know. >> the authorities needed more than idle gossip. an investigator for the prosecutor's office worked the case for ten long years. >> are suspicions getting grounded in the relationship? >> it was all of it. it was a cumulative thing. you know, you look at the body never floated. waders popping up. the money. >> mike: the investigators kept their eyes on the married couple and bidened their time. if either was harboring a secret involving foul play it might have a corrosive effect on their relationship. >> they are not go to turn on

each other twhiwhile they are married. >> seven years into the marriage, brian moved out. denise wanted a divorce. brian put it off for years. >> marriage was finished. >> i would say so. >> in august 2016, brian did something that nearly ended very badly for denise. the wild episode started one morning as denise got in her car to go to work. hiding in the back seat, brian popped up, shoved a gun in her ribs and said drive. denise pulled into a shopping center parking lot and talked brian into letting her go. she promised she would not tell policy but after brian left she reported the induction. she said an unhinged brian upset about the divorce threatened to take his own life. >> did he tell you how he was going to do that? >> no. he said he bought the gun to do

it and said did you plan to kill both of us today. he said well, me. >> little did she know in an adjoining room, an agent was listening. he wanted to know about mike's disappearance and what brian had to do with it and what denise might know. denise's already very bad day was about to get infinitely worse. >> coming up. >> where do you think mike is buried? >> i have no idea. >> so many secrets. what was the truth? >> i am sure he told you something. >> when dateline continues. >> when dateline continues back off! you're not welcome here! get out of my face! hpv can cause certain cancers when your child grows up. get in its way. hpv can affect males and females... and there's no way to predict who will or won't clear the virus. but you can help protect your child by taking a first step. the cdc recommends hpv vaccination at age 11 or 12

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president paid no income tax at all for 10 of the last 15 years because he reported losing much more money than he made. nbc news hasn't seen or verified any of the documents provided by the times. the president said the story was totally untrue and made up. now back to dateline. >> welcome back to dateline, it has been more than a decade since mike williams vanished. his wife, denise remarried building a new life with his best friend. without evidence their hands were tied, until a scary incident involving a gun. denise ran to police, but they had something else they wanted

to discuss. back to secrets of lake seminole. >> denise williams was carjacked at gun point and now sitting in a police interview room giving her version of the abduction. >> police believe brian wasn't going to just kill himself after denise told him he brought along a tarp and bleach as well as the gun. >> denise, he was going to kill you. he bought the stuff to cover his tracks. >> police felt they were the keys to understanding mike's disappearance and they believe brian was leaving no chances. he killed mike. he was going to kill you. >> asking denise if she really

knew the man he married. >> that person today could have done anything. anything. that is not the person that i married or knew. >> the lead agent couldn't believe denise was finally being questioned about what happened to mike. >> they had approached brian and denise on one occasion. and they both refused to talk and went straight to an attorney and that was that. >> he waited a long time for this moment and now it was his turn to enter the room to find out what denise knew. >> where do you think buried. >> i have no idea. >> you don't believe he died on

the lake? >> i always have believed. >> this is your husband. >> i am not comfortable talking about this right now. >> he kept pushing, telling denise if she didn't talk he would get the story from somewhere else. >> i would rather get the story from you than brian. >> that's fine. >> he may say something you don't want to hear. >> i have no idea. >> for now the mystery of mike's disappearance remained just that. brian was arrested and charged with kidnapping denise and pleaded in the to the charges. a year later he changed his plea to no contest. >> it comes down to my life or his.

>> denise appealed to the judge to give him a life sentence. >> he will finish what he started no maesht what age that he is when he is released. nothing had been said about mike williams. >> we walked out. i looked to patty and said that's it. the door has been slammed on whatever happened to mike. we will never know. >> but the next day fdle had a major announcement, they found a skeletal body in a shallow grave. >> the human remains are those of mike williams. >> after all of the years it was over. police were mum on how they found mike's body, but speculation is that brian led them to it. >> forensic analysis led us to believe that mike williams you was in fact murdered. >> his body was 50 miles away,

back in tallahassee off of a dead end road. >> the agent broke the news to denise. >> i saw her tear up when the death notification was provided to her that mike williams' remains had been identified and located. >> now you would think with the recovery of the body murder charges would be filed. but that didn't happen. detectives continued to investigate. they had another suspect in their sights. what a sensation that turned out to be. five months after mike's body was recovered a perp walk to remember. denise williams, in handcuffs marched by cops from her office at florida state university, charged with the first degree murder of her first husband,

mike. the indictment said denise confired with brian winchester to kill his best friend, mike. >> they said they had to make a deal with the devil. >> they wanted information of what happened to mike and where the body was. >> they had one priority to find mike's body. brian got 20 years for the kidnapping and would not face murder charges. >> the state of florida vs. denise williams. >> 18 years after mike williams disappeared denise went on trial facing a mandatory life sentence if convicted. prosecutors had a lineup of witnesses, fdle agents, fish and

wildlife officers and mike's mother, head barely showing above the witness box. >> did you suspect brian winchester, your husband, was having an affair with denise williams. >> i did suspect that. >> suspicions confirmed after brian asked them to join them in a threesome at a beach condo before the murder, snapshots with partial nudity and that denise tried to involve her in a cover-up. >> to get a message to brian that i am not talking. >> but those wins were the side dishes to the main course. coming up, after so many years,

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brian winchester would be the state's star witness, required to testify to every grizzly detail. you have to worry whether the jury would hate your star witness. >> they walk out and don't believe brian winchester, she walks. >> brian winchester, about to tell his story of duck hunting, sex and murder. >> the more that we were together, the more we wanted to be together. >> denise and ryan were plotting mike's so-called accident. >> i think there was talk about

it will be up to god what happens and not us. it won't be a murder. it will be, you know, an accident. >> to most divorce would have been a better solution but brian said that denise did not want to endure the stigma. >> because of the way she was raised and her pride, i guess she did not want to get divorced. we wanted to be together. we were not going to let anything stop that. >> better to be a killer than a divorcee? >> the widow gets sympathy and on top of that $1.75 million. >> so, the weekend of the wedding anniversary became d-day. the plan was to make it look like mike drowned in a boating action. >> we believe if you fell

overboard with the waders on you would sink quickly. i basically stopped the boat and i got him to stand up. when he did i pushed him in the water. >> what happened next? >> he was in the water. he was struggling. i pulled off a little bit to get away from him so that he couldn't reach back into the boat. i did not know it at the time. i didn't know if he was trying to swim. i didn't know what was going on. but what i came to find out or eventually realized he was taking the waders and the jacket off. >> mike made it to a tree stump and clung for dear life. >> he was panicking.

i was panicking. he started to yell. i had my gun in the boat. i made one or two circles around. and i ended up circling closer towards him. and he was in the water. as i passed by, i shot him. >> where did you shoot him? >> in the head. >> buckshot throughout mike's head as the details emerged in

court. >> what is hard for me now is what i found out in court how he was murdered. >> i pushed the boat back out into the water to make it look like he had drowned or disappeared. >> he stuffed mike's body into a dog crate. later that day the two drove to lake seminole. >> there was a storm that came through that night. you know, my dad wanted to -- i

think we were the last ones on the lake. my dad didn't want to give up. my dad loved mike. >> brian testified they grew concerned about the other incentive to recover mike. >> the concern between she and i became it has body is not found what will happen with the life insurance. >> brian admitted to staging the hat found ten days in the search. >> i was the one that put it in the water during one of my searches on the lake to kind of confirm that he had drowned. >> and for the next 16 years brian said that he and denise kept a mafia-like oath of silence. >> riveting testimony, the first-person testimony of taking a best friend out there and killing him. >> i heard the story multiple times. i still feel the emotion. you can tell by the jurors they are on the edge of their seat and engrossed in what he is

saying and are waiting for the next line. they are seeing someone laying their soul there with everything out there. >> mr. winchester, you are a murderer, isn't that true? >> coming up, will there finally be justice for mike? >> we didn't have a slam dunk case. >> we the jury find as follows. >> as it comes to a matter of jurors, he said-she said. pick one. >> yes. >> when dateline continues. one >> yes >> when dateline continues . it's why only 1 in 10 cars we look at qualify to sell on our site. if it's been in a reported accident, we won't sell it. and at our state-of-the-art facilities our ase certified mechanics roll up their sleeves and get to it. inspecting, dialing-in, and fine tuning every single car inside and out, bringing all of it up to our high standards.

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welcome back. denise williams was on trial for the murder of her first husband, mike. prosecutors argued while she did not pull the trigger, denise hatched the deadly plan with her

lover, mike's best friend, brian winchester. in riveting testimony brian spilled every detail of mike's execution, but the defense was about to come out swinging and the convicted felon's corre credibility will be the number one target. here is the conclusion of secrets of lake seminole. >> the prosecution would live or die by the star witness. would jurors believe brian winchester. >> when it comes to the jurors he said-she said. >> i believe her. every day twice on sunday. >> brian's chilling account of murdering his best friend in a plot with denise was an award-worthy performance. compelling if you were a sucker for crocodile tears. >> he is a well rehearsed, well trained liar. >> the defense boiled down to brian being obsessed.

>> he coveted denise and had a desire to have her. >> the defense said he was the only killer. she had nothing to do with his craziness. in cross-examination the defense wanted jurors to see brian's only goal was to save his own bacon. for his efforts he wasn't charged with murder and got just 20 years in prison for kidnapping her. >> you didn't go to law enforcement and volunteer the details of the mike williams murder did you? >> absolutely not. >> while you were in jail you decided you would take certain steps to try to frustrate the prosecution of the armed kidnapping case. >> yes, sir. i was desperate to do anything i could to avoid go to prison. >> like having a discussion with one inmate offering to kill denise and get others to lie in

the case. >> he did offer to make denise go away and make other witnesses in the case go away. i said don't ever speak to me of that again. >> you were drawing the line at having witnesses eliminated. >> yes, sir. >> you were not drawing the line of having witness testimony and other evidence fabricated. >> correct. >> with the possibility of new charges for witness tampering. >> he has to throw her under the bus. >> he has to deliver and get a revenge element. denise turned him in. if denise was involved in the order, why would she take the one person to incriminate her and turn him into law enforcement and have him locked up? >> as for the actual murder the defense got brian to admit that it was he and he alone pulling the trigger. denise was an hour away at home in tallahassee with the baby. >> when you shot mike williams

with a 12 gauge shotgun was denise williams standing there with you? >> no. she was in my head behind me. >> fair to say over the years you were obsessed with denise williams? >> obsessed? denise and i were best friends and bonnie and clyde and partners in crime. >> why, the defense asked, was his bonnie in the dark about what actually happened at the lake. >> denise williams had no idea you shot her husband. >> correct. i tried to tell her about it one day and she did not want to know the details. she told me that she assumed what we had planned did not happen. god was going to forgive us. >> in the end the defense attorney got brian to tell us exactly why they shouldn't believe him. >> mr. winchester, you are a murderer isn't that true? >> yes, sir. >> mr. winchester, you are a

liar. >> yes. >> you got him to say yes. >> i never in 20 years had a witness come out to say they are a liar. >> in his final remarks to the jury the attorney argued if you exclude his lying testimony, you are left with nothing tying denise to the murder. >> this case is only about brian min chester. it is only about him. doing the most heinous thing we got. >> the prosecutor pointed to denise. >> listen to brian winchester describe how he shot and killed her husband. absolute stone faced. didn't bat an eye or shed a tear. >> with that the jury had the

case. a point easy to lose sight of, denise was on trial for murder. >> did you feel good about things? >> i felt pretty confident. i wasn't 100% sure either. like we didn't have a slam dunk case. >> there is no evidence or proof. she did nothing wrong. >> she has the story told by the ex-husband. >> exactly. >> late that night about eight hours into deliberations, a verdict. cheryl waited 18 years for this moment. >> the state of florida vs. denise williams. >> cheryl's jaw dropped. >> we find the defendant is guilty of first degree murder. >> guilty on all counts. >> what is going on? >> it is like oh, my god. we did it. we got justice for mike. this was about justice for mike. mike was a good person. he was a good father. he loved denise.

his wedding ring was on his hand when they found his remains. to me if you can kill somebody that still loves you, you don't have any heart or soul, nothing. >> the conviction meant a mandatory life sentence for denise williams. her attorney filed an appeal. our interview with cheryl and nick came on a difficult day. >> this is an important day. this is an anniversary day. >> yes, sir. it is the 18th anniversary of mike's disappearance. now i know it is his murder. >> what did you learn about yourself? >> i do believe in what's right. i will stand up. i will fight for that. >> despite the verdict cheryl said her fight is not quite yet over. what was once a struggle to find out what happened to her son is now a struggle to return her estranged granddaughter back to the family.

that child, a father and now slow motion justice, a mother. setting a banquet of sorrow for all. >> that is all for this edition of dateline. i am natalie morales. thank you for watching. atalie ms thank you for watching >> i think back and go this was such a senseless murder. why diane when she was ready to start a brand-new life. i will never know that answer. >> the calls kept coming. >> hi diane, it is 2:00. >> by 2:00 it was too late. >> someone had killed her. >> we had her body. we had the scene. and that was all. >> she had a fiance. >> they argued a lot. >> we had our ups and downs, no

questions. >> a co-worker with a crush. >> he was an odd character. >> he was always affection atato her and she didn't like it. >> i didn't budge. all of the bells were going off. >> i jumped in my car and took off and felt like i dodged a bullet. >> the who was frightening. the why was much worse. >> in my wildest dreams i never imagined a website like this could exist. >> you had your motive. >> yes, we did. >> it was the afternoon of november 15th, austin, texas, 4:00 p.m. there was something in the air, the smell of it. the familiar feel of it against

the skin, the storm coming. something big. >> they did tell us on the news if you don't have to go out tonight don't. >> in the sky overhead turned dark by midnight in the afternoon. >> when it gets like that, it is pitch blackout. you have the fear of tornadoes. >> sure enough said the announcers on tv, twisters had been spotted headed to parts of the city. >> diane lived in the northwest. i said hey girl, they said there was a tornado heading in your direction. she said my direction. she is like i don't know what to do. i have never been in a tornado. >> she must have been freaked out. >> very freaked out. >> the ferocious rain and hellish win and funnel clouds dipped and swirled around the city. the next morning, a friday, it was all over. friends checked on