A Gathering (updated)

Sometimes it is difficult from afar to tell whether the demons belong to someone else or are your demons going for a short walk.

There is going to be quite a story behind this sad situation. A 31-year old, third generation minister with three young children is shot to death in "a bedroom" of his home by his wife. She appears to have rented a condo several hundred miles away after the shooting took place. The kids are so young - 8, 6, and 1; the wife is 32.

I hate to say it, but some of the meanest and cruelest men I have ever met have only been mean and cruel to their wives - and behind closed doors with a Bible next to their bed. Those men take the Word and think they know it so well that their filter is best. They demand selfless devotion from their wife. They inflict degrading behavior. They think that they cleanse their tortured soul through regular prayer.

Did Mary Winkler see no other way out but to waste him? Was he that cruel that he had to die? Was she saving her children? Or was she fighting demons of her own?

Some updates are surfacing. Police know the motive. Infidelity has been denied; abuse has received no comment.

UPDATE. Some interesting comments out there. "I'm related to Mary through marriage. Her entire side of the family is a little cuckoo. It is a matriarchy run by Mary's grandmother. If you don't do things her way, you are blacklisted. I have seen it first hand, and it's a really ugly story. They pride themselves on image. They are very self-righteous and look down on people "inferior" to them. Behind the wonderful church image is sheer ugliness." "I think he's 32 and from Tennessee. I believe he and Mary went to Freed-Hardemon. Either there or Lipscomb. I remember her telling me people used to give them dirty looks because she's so petite he looked like her dad or something when they first started dating. We still have no idea what happened."