After a spellbinding five-day trial that featured tales of infidelity and a multimillion dollar insurance payout, a jury on Friday convicted a Florida woman of helping mastermind the killing of her husband nearly two decades ago.
Jurors found Denise Williams guilty of three counts including first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for her role in a case that has recalled the plot of the Hollywood film classic "Double Indemnity." The 48-year-old Williams was found guilty after testimony by a key witness, the man who shot her husband Mike Williams on a cold December morning on a large lake west of Tallahassee.
Jurors deliberated eight hours before reaching a verdict. Denise Williams, who could spend the rest of her life in prison, is to be sentenced at an unspecified date next year.
FILE - In this Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018 file photo, Brian Winchester sits on the witness stand during cross-examination in the trial of Denise Williams in Tallahassee, Fla. Williams, of Florida, has been convicted of helping mastermind the killing of her husband nearly two decades ago. Jurors convicted Williams of first-degree murder Friday, Dec. 14, 2018, and conspiracy to commit murder for the shooting death of her husband Mike Williams. (Alicia DevineTallahassee Democrat via AP, Pool, File)
Mike Williams disappeared nearly 18 years ago to the date of his wife's conviction. He left early on the morning of Dec. 16, 2000, to go duck hunting, and initially some speculated he had fallen from his boat and that his body had been devoured by alligators. His disappearance triggered a massive search by authorities.
But Brian Winchester, who had been Mike Williams's best friend, said he and Denise Williams were having an affair and that they planned the killing. Denise Williams ultimately received $1.75 million in life insurance payments, including a $1 million policy that Winchester himself had sold Mike Williams.
In the film "Double Indemnity," an insurance agent helps his lover kill her husband in order to cash in on a life insurance policy.
Winchester said he planned to make it look like Williams had drowned. But after pushing him overboard, Williams did not get dragged underwater by his duck-hunting equipment. So Winchester said he shot him in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun. He then dragged his body to shore, put him in the back of his truck and drove back to Tallahassee. He eventually buried him later in the day alongside a small lake located north of town.
Without a body, Denise Williams petitioned to have her husband declared dead due to accidental drowning. Winchester and Denise Williams married in 2005 but the relationship soured and they divorced in 2016.
The case broke after Winchester kidnapped his ex-wife at gunpoint in 2016, authorities said. He eventually made a deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to 20 years in prison for that crime. But Winchester ultimately led authorities to the remains of Mike Williams.
Ethan Way, an attorney for Denise Williams, told jurors during closing statements that his client was innocent and that there was no tangible proof that Denise Williams helped plan the slaying of Mike Williams. Instead he maintained that Winchester was lying in order to avoid murder charges and get revenge on his ex-wife.
"They gave a free pass to a murderer and got nothing else," Way told jurors in his closing statement.
State Attorney Jon Fuchs told jurors it "turns my stomach" that prosecutors gave Winchester immunity in the case, but he said it was important to give "closure" to other members of the Williams family who had suspected for years that Mike Williams did not drown. Fuchs said that Winchester would still be in prison for a long time.
Right before he ended, Fuchs took something out of his pocket and placed it before the jury: It was the wedding band that Mike Williams was wearing the day he died.
Some friends and relatives of Mike Williams sobbed quietly after the verdict and louder yet after the jury left the courtroom. Cheryl Williams, the mother of Mike Williams, thanked prosecutors for their work on the case.
"I am just happy we were able to do our job as a team and bring justice to Mike and his family," Fuchs said afterward. He added "it's not every day in your career that you get to be involved in an unsolved homicide that's 17 years old and through team effort able to make an arrest and ultimately get a conviction."
Way said his client Denise Williams was "stunned" by the verdict and he vowed to appeal it.
"It's terrible, it's the wrong verdict on the facts," Way said. "But I think you have to respect what the jury does. Obviously I don't believe she's guilty of any of the three counts, I don't think anyone on the defense team does."
NEW YORK (AP) — In the days since the Trump administration ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a late-night military raid, Alejandra Salima has spoken to fellow Venezuelan migrants in her role as an advocate. Like her, most voice feelings that seesaw between joy and trepidation, she said.
The removal of Maduro is “a first step, but we’re nervous,” said Salima, who fled to the U.S. three years ago with her 7-year-old son and assists other Venezuelans at the Miami office of the National TPS Alliance. With the regime that Maduro led still in place, “at this moment, returning would put me and my son at risk,” she said.
For more than 770,000 Venezuelans living in the U.S., reactions to Trump's forceful moves in the country they left behind — and the one that has taken them in — are as intense as they are complicated.
Many are thrilled by the removal of Maduro, who harassed and jailed political opponents while presiding over an economic collapse, driving millions of Venezuelans from the country. But as they try to figure out what’s next for them and for families and friends still in Venezuela, many share Salima’s conflicted feelings.
The Trump administration’s move to deport Venezuelans without permanent residency has increased worry. Many were allowed to stay in the U.S. after they were granted Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, a designation Trump revoked after taking office. At the same time, the fear instilled by the government Maduro left behind makes many wary of returning.
“First, they grabbed Maduro, and I feel happy, happy, happy, grateful to the Trump administration,” said Manuel Coronel, a lawyer who left Venezuela in 2017 and now lives just north of Salt Lake City. But he worries the change will be too limited.
“They got him, but the criminals are still there,” said Coronel, who is 54 and works at an immigration law practice. “There’s no new government. Everything’s exactly the same.”
The tensions belie assurances by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who asserted that “overwhelmingly the Venezuelans that I’ve heard from or talked to are excited about the changes.”
“They have more opportunities to go back to their country and have it be more successful and provide for their families today than they did a week ago when Maduro was still in charge,” Noem said last week.
But in interviews with Venezuelans who live in communities around the U.S. there was little indication of a rush to return.
“Thank God we’re here,” said José Luis Rojas, who ended up in New York City after fleeing the Venezuela capital of Caracas in 2018.
Rojas, 31, recounted how Venezuela’s hyperinflation, which topped 1 million percent the year he fled, made it impossible to buy essentials like diapers after his partner became pregnant. They went first to Ecuador then Peru, but left to escape crime, joining thousands of Venezuelans who migrated on foot through the jungle of Panama’s Darién Gap.
Since the couple and their son arrived in the U.S., Rojas has obtained political asylum, a work permit and a driver’s license.
In an interview this week at a Venezuelan restaurant on a New York City street lined with immigrant-run businesses, Rojas welcomed the toppling of Maduro “so there can be change in Venezuela, because many people are struggling.”
But he expressed doubt about the Trump administration’s tightened policies on Venezuelans in the U.S. that have already pushed a number of his friends to leave for countries in South America and elsewhere.
For Venezuelans in the U.S., Trump has “done good things and he’s done bad things," said Rojas as he and his wife tucked into the restaurant's $30 special: a heaping platter of fried potatoes, cassava, corn cakes, sausages, beef, chicken, plantains, fried pork rinds and cheese.
“It all depends on your point of view.”
About 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country over the past decade, with the great majority landing elsewhere in Latin America. Hundreds of thousands have made their way to the U.S., with large numbers settling in suburban communities like Kissimmee, Florida, outside Orlando, and Herriman, Utah, outside Salt Lake City.
Venezuelans quickly became among the largest nationalities to immigrate to the U.S. after COVID-19, lured in part by job prospects. The Biden administration offered new or expanded temporary legal protections, largely ended by Trump after he took office. Hundreds of thousands more were released in the United States after entering illegally from Mexico to pursue asylum or other forms of relief in immigration court.
For people like Jesus Martinez, who fled to the U.S. in 2021 after facing physical threats and persecution, “life in Venezuela is behind us.”
Martinez, who now lives with his wife and children in Orem, Utah, and has applied for political asylum, recalled how life in Venezuela had become intolerable. While it is a relief that Maduro has been removed, he said, the Trump administration's push to send Venezuelans back to a country whose government they still deeply distrust presents a paradox.
“It’s obviously a contradictory situation," said Martinez, 50. He noted that it will take considerable time before loyalists to Maduro are rooted out and Venezuela can make a transition to a stable democracy.
Salima, 48, who works in the Miami advocacy office, was active in opposition politics in Venezuela, where she trained as a lawyer and marched in peaceful protests. She came to the U.S. legally with her son, who is now 10 years old, on a temporary permit for humanitarian reasons, which Trump has revoked. She is elated by Maduro’s ouster.
But those feelings are tempered by her unease over Venezuela’s future while his allies are still in power. Her mother remains in Venezuela and, even with Maduro gone, she refuses to discuss politics during chats on an encrypted app, fearful that government authorities who remain in power will find out, Salima said.
With that reality still in place, the pending end of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans makes her feel “very unstable,” Salima said.
Rallying with other Venezuelans this week in Doral, Florida, to celebrate Maduro's ouster, Jorge Galicia recounted fleeing in 2018 after a fellow student activist was arrested during a wave of demonstrations against the regime.
After settling in the Miami area, Galicia said he joined Charlie Kirk’s conservative Turning Point USA movement, whose politics closely align with Trump’s. But Galicia, 30, said his support for the Trump administration began to waver as the White House’s crackdown on immigrants intensified, breaking up families.
Now, with Maduro gone, he expects many of the Venezuelans who fled to neighboring countries and the U.S. to start returning home. But he hopes Trump will reconsider his decision to deport Venezuelans like himself who have built new lives in the U.S. but still lack permanent status.
“The reason we’re here is because there was a horrible regime that forced millions of us to leave,” said Galicia, wrapped in a Venezuelan flag. But, he said, “everyone deserves to have the choice of returning home.”
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Associated Press writers Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas; Josh Goodman in Doral, Florida; Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.
Manuel Coronel, a 54-year-old lawyer who left Venezuela in 2017 and eventually settled in Utah, sits for a portrait in front of the state's Capitol Building in Salt Lake City, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)
People celebrate after President Donald Trump announced Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country, in Doral, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
Jorge Galicia, a Venezuelan political activist who requested asylum seven years ago, wears a Venezuelan flag around his neck, as he talks about his support of the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by the U.S., Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
People order food at El Arepazo, a popular restaurant in the local Venezuelan community, as a television broadcast shows Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro being led from a helicopter to a court appearance in New York, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
People celebrate outside Versailles Cuban Cuisine after President Donald Trump announced Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country, in Miami, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
