Mike Williams Case Update (2026): Where Denise Williams and Brian Winchester Are Now
ABC's 20/20 spent two hours on Friday night with a case that Florida investigators spent almost 17 years getting wrong. Here is the spine of it, in dates, before anything else.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Dec. 16, 2000 | Mike Williams, 31, vanishes while duck hunting on Lake Seminole |
| 2003–2005 | Brian and Kathy Winchester divorce; Brian marries Denise Williams |
| Aug. 2016 | Winchester is arrested for holding Denise at gunpoint in her SUV |
| 2017 | Winchester pleads no contest to kidnapping, gets 20 years, then confesses to the killing under immunity |
| Late 2017 | Winchester leads investigators to the remains at Carr Lake, an hour from Lake Seminole |
| May 8, 2018 | Denise Williams is arrested on murder, conspiracy and accessory counts |
| Feb. 6, 2019 | Sentenced to life without parole |
| Nov. 25, 2020 | Florida's 1st District Court of Appeal reverses the murder conviction |
| Sept. 9, 2021 | Resentenced to 30 years on the conspiracy count |
The gist
- 20/20's "Mr. & Mrs. Murder" aired Friday, Sept. 18, 9–11 p.m. ET on ABC, anchored by David Muir and Deborah Roberts, and is streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
- The hour follows two Tallahassee couples — Mike and Denise Williams, Brian and Kathy Winchester — and the 17 years it took to establish that Mike was shot, not drowned. Nobody has ever been charged with the murder itself.
- Denise Williams is serving 30 years. The man who admitted pulling the trigger was never charged with the murder.
What case was "Mr. & Mrs. Murder" about?
Mike Williams went out on Lake Seminole on the morning of Dec. 16, 2000, his sixth wedding anniversary. His boat was found. He was not.
The working theory for years was that he had fallen in and been taken by alligators. No body meant no crime scene, and no crime scene meant the file went cold.
Three years on, Brian Winchester — Mike's best friend since childhood — divorced his wife Kathy and married Mike's widow. ABC's own episode description frames the rest as Kathy's story: more than a decade of pushing, she told the network, at a case everyone else had closed.
Who actually killed Mike Williams?
Brian Winchester. He said so himself, in October 2017, and he said it from a position that gave him very little to lose.
By then he was already going to prison. In August 2016 he had been arrested for holding Denise at gunpoint in her own vehicle; he pleaded no contest to the kidnapping in 2017 and was sentenced to 20 years. Prosecutors then gave him immunity on the Williams case in exchange for the truth about it.
What he told them, and later told a jury, was that he lured Mike onto the water, and that when the staged drowning did not work he shot him. Winchester then led investigators to the body. It was at Carr Lake — about an hour from Lake Seminole, and nowhere near where anyone had been dragging the water since 2000.
Winchester has never been charged with the killing. That is what an immunity agreement buys.
Why was Denise Williams' murder conviction thrown out?
A Leon County jury convicted her in December 2018 on three counts: first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and accessory after the fact. Circuit Judge James Hankinson sentenced her to life without parole on Feb. 6, 2019.
That life sentence lasted 658 days. On Nov. 25, 2020, a three-judge panel of Florida's 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee reversed it, writing that Denise "did not do or say anything to 'aid' or 'abet' Brian in the murder" itself.
The same panel was blunt about what the evidence did show: that she and Winchester "had an agreement to kill Mike and that Denise intended for Brian to kill Mike." So the conspiracy conviction stood, and with it a 30-year term.
Florida's attorney general asked the state Supreme Court to put the murder conviction back. In June 2021 the justices declined to take the case, and it went back to the trial court for resentencing.
Where is Denise Williams now?
In Florida state prison, serving the 30 years, with credit for time served since her May 2018 arrest.
At the Sept. 9, 2021 resentencing her lawyers argued she had been a minor player. The judge did not buy it, saying from the bench that she "could have stopped this."
👉 One thing viewers get wrong: she is not serving time for murder. Her only standing conviction is the conspiracy count.
Where is Brian Winchester now?
Also in Florida state prison — on the kidnapping, not the homicide. The 20-year term dates from 2017, with 15 years of probation to follow.
The arithmetic here is the part people find hardest to accept. The man who confessed to firing the shot is serving a fixed term for a 2016 abduction in which nobody died. The woman the appeals court said never touched the gun is serving 30.
What did Kathy Winchester do?
She is the reason there is an episode. Brian's ex-wife — now Kathy Thomas — kept pushing at a file everyone else had closed, and ABC credits her with more than a decade of it.
The piece that mattered most was not a theory. In 2018 she recorded a conversation with Denise Williams, and ABC News reports that recording helped investigators break the case open.
The $1.75 million life insurance policy at the center of the state's theory was one Brian Winchester himself sold to Mike, about six months before he disappeared.
Is 20/20 new next Friday?
Yes, and it is a big one. 20/20 opens Season 49 on Friday, Sept. 25. Dateline NBC starts Season 35 the same night, in a two-hour slot. We keep the running answer on the Is 20/20 new tonight? page and the night-by-night breakdown in the Sept. 21–27 guide.
48 Hours is the odd one out: CBS has it dark through college football, with Season 39 starting Oct. 10. Channels, times and streaming windows for all three are in our viewing guide, and what is on this week sits on the weekly hub.
What else is moving in court right now?
Monday morning is the busy one. The Indiana Court of Appeals hears oral argument in Richard Allen's Delphi appeal at 10 a.m. ET, and in Ohio the Caleb Flynn murder trial resumes after its first week of testimony.
Later in the month, Larry Millete is sentenced in San Diego on Sept. 29, the same day a Massachusetts judge decides whether Lindsay Clancy is retried. Everything we are following is in Case Updates, and the show archive is at 20/20.
FAQ
What case was on 20/20 on Sept. 18, 2026? The 2000 disappearance and murder of Mike Williams of Tallahassee, in an episode titled "Mr. & Mrs. Murder."
Where can I stream "Mr. & Mrs. Murder"? Hulu and Disney+, from the day after the ABC broadcast.
Is Denise Williams still in prison? Yes — serving 30 years for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder after her murder conviction was reversed in 2020.
Did Brian Winchester go to prison for the murder? No. He received immunity for his confession and is serving 20 years for kidnapping Denise Williams in 2016.
Sources
- ABC News press release — "Mr. & Mrs. Murder," Friday, Sept. 18, 9–11 p.m. EDT
- ABC News — the $1.75 million policy, the body at Carr Lake, and Kathy Thomas' 2018 recording
- CBS News — Denise Williams arrested May 8, 2018, on murder, conspiracy and accessory counts
- NBC News — life sentence, Feb. 6, 2019, before Circuit Judge James Hankinson
- WTXL — 1st District Court of Appeal reverses the murder conviction, affirms conspiracy
- WCTV — resentenced to 30 years, Sept. 9, 2021; Florida Supreme Court declined review in June 2021
- WFSU — Winchester's 20-year kidnapping sentence and the immunity agreement
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