Mr. & Mrs. Murder is a four-part docuseries, directed by Michael Beach Nichols, that explores the 2000 disappearance and murder of Mike Williams. For years, he was assumed to have disappeared while hunting on a Lake Seminole, about an hour outside Tallahassee, Florida, likely as the result of a alligator attack. But it was later shown that his wife Denise was involved in his murder. She ended up marrying Brian Winchester, the ex-husband of her best friend Kathy Winchester, and he admitted to shooting Mike Williams at Denise’s request.
Opening Shot: We see an alligator floating from underneath. An expert explains what happens when an alligator kills an animal or, sometimes, a human. It does the “death roll,” then takes the body underwater and pins it down on rocks; the alligator eats the body when the water has sufficiently softened the flesh.
The Gist: Kathy Winchester is interviewed for the series, as is Mike Williams’ mother Cheryl, who also provides narration via journal entries she made as the search for Mike’s body wore on for over 15 years; his body wasn’t found until 2017. Also interviewed are a number of law enforcement officers, experts on how alligators hunt consume prey, and friends and family of both the Williamses and the Winchesters.
It’s a complex story. Brian, Kathy, Mike and Denise all knew each other in high school, with Kathy and Brian getting married around the same time Mike and Denise did. Due to their fundamental Christian upbringing, having a family right away was pretty much a given. However, Brian and Denise wanted to keep the partying, fun lives that the two couples had in their post-college years, while Kathy and Mike fully embraced their roles as parents to their respective children.
After Mike’s disappearance, it was believed by many that he was the victim of a gator attack. But things didn’t add up for Kathy, Cheryl and others. And it seemed like Brian was getting more hostile about Mike the longer his friend was missing. Soon after waders and a jacket with Mike’s hunting license in it were found, six months after his disappearance, Kathy found out that Brian and Denise were having an affair.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Mr. & Mrs. Murder has the same feel as other ABC News Studios true-crime docuseries, like Trophy Wife: Murder On Safari.
Our Take: If you read up on Mike Williams’ disappearance and murder, you realize how complex a case it is, and it goes beyond the dynamics of these two couples, who did everything together from high school into their early 30s. Mr. & Mrs. Murder does a good job of trying to lay out the case in a logical, straightforward manner, while communicating how heavily the emotional factor weighed in with the facts of the case.
Kathy Winchester is a reliable narrator here, as is Cheryl Williams, despite how close they were to the story. They both had suspicions that the narrative that Mike Williams got eaten by an alligator just didn’t make sense, and we’d imagine that when Kathy found out that her husband Brian and her best friend Denise were having an affair, those suspicions became even stronger.
This is one of those occasions when a four-part series is justified, and not just because of the passage of time that occurred between Mike Williams’ disappearance and the discovery of his body. Denise and Brian eventually split up, and Brian kidnapped Denise in hopes of staving off the divorce. Shortly after that incident, Mike Williams’ body was found.
So there are going to be a lot of twists and turns, with Kathy discovering the affair being only the first. Despite knowing the facts of the case, we’re still on board to see it unfold.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: “To say that Denise stabbed me in the back doesn’t even touch it; she stabbed me in the soul,” Kathy says.
Sleeper Star: Alton Ranew, of Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, gives a lot of riveting information on exactly how an alligator catches and eats its prey.
Most Pilot-y Line: Things do get confusing as we try to keep Kathy, Brian, Mike and Denise straight, given that the two men and the two women look very similar. But it’s worth concentrating to decipher who’s who.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Knowing how many twists there are to the story surrounding Mike Williams’ disappearance and death, it’s imperative that the viewer doesn’t just casually watch Mr. & Mrs. Murder, which is high praise for any true-crime docuseries.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.