Guilty Creatures: Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida

“But just as a drowned body will rise to the surface, whatever is repressed will always return.”

Mike and Denise Williams and Brian and Kathy Winchester were childhood friends, attended the same Baptist schools, married around the same time, had children, and attended services regularly in the conservative Southern city of Tallahassee. In other words, they seem to be following the path expected of those in the social milieu.

But under the surface, boundaries are being transgressed. Denise and Brian are carrying on a torrid affair. Kathy suspects there are more than just friendship between her husband and Denise.  Mike wonders why his wife is aloof and questions the big sums of money she is constantly withdrawing from their bank account. And there are the numerous insurance policies Denise has taken  out on her husband, policies sold to her by Brian, who is an insurance agent.

In lust and maybe in love, Denise and Brian yearn to be together without subterfuge. Most people would consider getting divorced but the two have their images as well as the expectations of their society and the rules of their church to consider. Divorce, they decide, isn’t an option. Murder is.

Brian would carry out the deed and Denise is totally in. Both men are avid outdoorsmen and Mike readily agreesto meet Brian before the sun rose to go duck hunting. Ironically, it is Mike and Denise’s sixth wedding anniversary and they have plans afterward to spend the night at a romantic inn. But Mike never comes home. As for Brian, he has set up an alibi and claims he had never met Mike that morning.

Many turn out to hunt for Mike, first hopeful that they’d find him wet and cold but safe. But as time went on and his empty boat was discovered, theories as to what has happened abound. He’s fallen overboard and water, filling his waders, has pulled him under the lake’s surface. Alligators have devoured his body. He has disappeared down an alligator hole. He has run away—though no one can explain why he would do that.

It takes a long time for both authorities and friends to call off the search. Bodies usually pop back up when the spring comes but the warm weather doesn’t bring any sign of Mike’s corpse. As people slowly accept that Mike is dead, there is one holdout. Cheryl. His widowed mother. She believes that Mike is alive and pays for billboards and flyers with his photo. She writes every day to the governor. She calls the police and everyone else she can think of.

Denise threatens to withhold her granddaughter unless Cheryl stops her search. But as much as she loves her granddaughter, Cheryl can’t stop, even as the years go by. Why, she wonders, and asks people she knows, didn’t Denise want to find out what happened to Mike? The answer to some is obvious.

Denise collects over a million dollars in insurance money. Brian and Kathy divorce and he and Denise marry. People talk. But Mike’s body never surfaces. No body. No proof.

But love or whatever Brian and Denise have between them that made killing a husband and best friend seem like a good idea doesn’t typically go the distance. And soon the marriage starts crumbling. Instead of holding together, they start falling apart.

Mikita Brottman, the author of 15 books who frequently writes about true crime, juxtaposes lines from such famous films about murder as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, based on novels by James M. Cain that parallel the faltering relationship between Denise and Brian.

“I had killed a man to get a woman,” says Walter Neff, played by Fred McMurray in Double Indemnity. “ I had put myself in her power so there was one person in the world who could point a finger at me, and I would have to die. I had done that for her, and I never wanted to see her again as long as I lived.”

Brian begins drinking heavily and indulging his sexual fantasies. Denise wants out of the marriage. To convince her to stay, he kidnaps her leading to his arrest. The police, already suspicious of the two, are ready to pounce.

As incomprehensible as the murder seems—after all it’s easy enough to get a divorce—Brottman astutely shows us how Brian and Denise, with their religiosity and narcissism, make the choices they do. Money, the fear of social stigma, and the need to continue with their sexual liaison made murder the only answer. And it is ultimately their undoing.