Mike Williams vanished after going duck hunting at Lake Seminole in North Florida before dawn on December 16, 2000. His truck, trailer and boat were found, but there was no sign of him. Rescuers searched the lake and its murky bottom for weeks, using grid searches, cadaver dogs and divers, but after 44 days the search was called off and Mike was listed as missing. Lake Seminole is alligator country, and many concluded alligators had gotten him. Authorities and some in the community accepted an alligator theory; Mike’s family and friends found it hard to imagine he had run off — he adored his wife and daughter and had no reason to disappear.
Mike’s mother, Cheryl Williams, never accepted the alligator explanation. She doggedly pursued answers, compiling 27 single-spaced pages of notes documenting inconsistencies and suspicious details: why had a pair of waders and a jacket surfaced at the lake months later when they should have been slimy; why had evidence been so quickly construed as accidental drowning; and why did certain people’s actions around the time of the disappearance look odd? Cheryl’s persistence — picketing, billboards, letters to the governor — kept the case alive.
Six months after Mike disappeared, waders, a fishing jacket and a hunting license believed to be his turned up at the lake. Shortly afterward, Denise Williams, Mike’s wife, successfully got him declared dead in a fast six-month court proceeding, citing those items as proof and obtaining life insurance payouts. Mike had bought multiple life insurance policies, including a $1 million policy sold by Brian Winchester, a longtime friend and insurance agent. Denise collected nearly $1.75 million in insurance, which she sought quickly because Florida law otherwise required a five-year wait to declare someone dead.
Cheryl remained unconvinced. She sought experts; one, alligator specialist Matthew Aresco, told her that alligators in North Florida in December would not have left no trace and that the alligator explanation was virtually impossible given the conditions and forensic expectations. Cheryl’s notes, persistence and pressure eventually prompted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to launch a multi-agency investigation in 2004. Detectives found inconsistencies in what people had said and in how events had unfolded.
Suspicion fell on Denise and Brian. In the years after Mike disappeared, Brian and Denise’s relationship changed dramatically: Brian divorcEd his wife, then reportedly dated and later married Denise. Their closeness and timing — Brian’s sale of the large life insurance policy months before Mike’s disappearance and Denise’s quick insurance claims — drew investigators’ interest. The waders that resurfaced near the insurance hearing also appeared suspicious to investigators: they were not slimy and seemed planted.
For years Mike’s body remained undiscovered and key players were silent. Under Florida law, as long as Denise and Brian remained married, neither could be compelled to testify against the other. That changed as their marriage deteriorated. Brian began exhibiting erratic, violent behavior toward Denise and in 2016 he kidnapped and assaulted her, culminating in a 2017 arrest on kidnapping and aggravated assault charges. During the investigation and subsequent plea bargaining related to the kidnapping, Brian began to talk.
He told detectives he had set Mike up on the day he disappeared: he followed Mike to the lake, met him, and then, in Brian’s account, he shot Mike at point-blank range with a shotgun. He claimed he placed Mike’s body in the back of his Suburban, drove it to a remote marshy area called Carr Lake, about 60 miles from Lake Seminole, and buried him there. Brian described staging Mike’s truck, trailer and boat at Lake Seminole to make the disappearance look like an accident.
Brian struck a deal with prosecutors: in exchange for his recorded confession and cooperation locating Mike’s remains, he would not be charged with murder. He pled guilty to the kidnapping and assault of Denise and received 20 years in prison. Shortly after Brian’s sentencing on the kidnapping charges, FDLE announced they had recovered Mike’s remains at Carr Lake, where investigators located skeletal remains and a wedding ring. Forensic evidence indicated Mike had been shot at close range in the face — a lethal shotgun blast. Brian’s recorded confession and the physical evidence together convinced investigators Mike had been murdered.
FDLE said Brian led them to the exact spot where he had buried Mike. Brian told investigators Denise had suggested murder as a solution because she did not want a divorce; he said the plan was to make Mike appear to have drowned and to collect the insurance money, enabling Denise and Brian to be together. Brian’s confession implicated Denise as the instigator. After discovery of Mike’s body, Denise was arrested in May 2018 on charges including first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and accessory after the fact.
At trial prosecutors argued that Denise preferred being widowed to being divorced and that she conspired with Brian to kill Mike and to orchestrate the alligator theory and the staged evidence. Brian testified at Denise’s trial, saying he had killed Mike and that Denise had been in his head, though he at times denied she stood beside him at the moment of the shooting. He also admitted to lies and to multiple inconsistent statements in earlier interviews. Testimony included Cheryl visiting the courthouse to testify about her long belief that Mike had not died in the lake and about Denise’s refusal to help in the search or to cooperate.
The jury faced testimony from friends, family and experts, including DNA and forensic findings about the nature of Mike’s death and the condition and location of his remains. They also heard about the insurance policies and Denise’s efforts to collect insurance payouts while Mike was still missing, and about Brian and Denise’s relationship.
After deliberation, the jury convicted Denise Williams of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, first-degree murder and accessory after the fact — verdicts that reflected the prosecution’s view that Denise had a role in plotting Mike’s death and benefitted from his murder. For Cheryl Williams, the years of campaigning for answers ended when prosecutors said the mystery had been solved: Mike had been murdered, his body found, and those responsible held to account. Cheryl, who had spent years refusing to accept the alligator explanation, was able at last to mourn with evidence and a conviction in the case that had haunted her family for nearly two decades.