Temptation in Texas
Produced by Alec Sirken, Ryan N. Smith, Shoshanah Wolfson and Claire St. Amant
[This story was previously aired on June 2, 2015. It was updated on Sept. 3, 2016.]
KELLER, Texas -- It took nearly three years, but Prosecutor Jack Strickland finally has Michele Williams just where he wants her -- in court charged with the murder of her wealthy husband, Greg Williams.
“She sees the killer of her husband every single day that she gets up and looks in the mirror. Every single day. So you bet your bottom dollar that she knows who killed her husband, ‘cause it’s her,” he said.
In the defendant’s chair, Michele looks dramatically different from the seductive vixen who had enjoyed the good life with Greg. Gone is that inviting smile of this once-proud mother.
To understand Michele Williams’ journey from wealthy suburban housewife to murder suspect at the Tarrant County Courthouse, you have to go back and look at her tangled history -- which has soap opera written all over it. Michele’s life is a twisted tale of lies, manipulations, betrayals and fractured lives.
“I was 17 when I got pregnant with my first son,” Michele told “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant.
By the age of 24, Michele had three children -- two boys and a girl -- by two different men. Then, a second marriage. But Michele says that all her relationships, like all the others in her life before Greg, ended because the men cheated on her. She cites just one example.
“Had an affair on me with a 17-year-old dental assistant girl who, to this day, she remembers it quite well,” Michele said of a past relationship.
But her younger son, Andrew O’Brien, now 27, says it wasn’t the men who were cheating.
“She cheated on my dad, got remarried to another man, cheated on him, left him for another man, cheated on him and then got with Greg,” he told “48 Hours.”
“What do you say to the allegation that you have never been faithful to any of your husbands?” Van Sant asked Michele.
“I say that’s an absolute lie,” she replied.
And her older son, Lee O’Brien, says his life as a kid with his mother was madness -- involving strip clubs and many men.
“When my mom was doin’ dirty stuff for money and I was sorta just tagged along,” he said.
“Dirty stuff?” Van Sant asked.
“Yeah, I mean, I knew she was workin’ at a strip club at one point -- topless bar, Baby Dolls ...” Lee replied.
“You believe at times your mother was a prostitute?” Van Sant asked.
“I believe there’s a very good possibility that she was. If she wasn’t getting paid for it, I know she was sleeping around,” said Lee.
But in 2007, Michele hit the jackpot when she married Greg Williams.
“We were in an $800,000 house,” she said. “He was a successful businessman.”
“He had a Mercedes in the garage --” Van Sant noted.
“Two, yes,” Michele replied. “We got them for our anniversary together.”
Greg’s sister, Michelle Fletcher, and his brother, Michael, always felt the other Michele, as they called her, was bad news.
“She was never nice to me. I didn’t like her from the very beginning,” said Fletcher.
Michael was there at Greg and Michele’s first date.
“We went to a nightclub afterwards and she was just -- I mean, I don’t know if I can say slut on television, but--” said Michael Williams.
“You just did,” Van Sant quipped.
“Well, OK, she was just doing some things in a bar to my brother that I just don’t think--” said Michael Williams.
“Most people get a room,” Fletcher said with a laugh.
Michele Williams brazenly used her sexuality with the men in her life, and even tried it with her brother-in-law, Brynn Fletcher.
“She crawled up into the attic at my brother’s house and said she needed his help, and when she crawled up to the attic she wasn’t wearing anything under her skirt,” said Michael Williams.
And with many men, including Greg Williams, her tactics seemed to work.
“He bought her whatever she needed, whatever she wanted. She had everything. And he treated her like gold,” said Michelle Fletcher.
“Did you feel Michele targeted your brother once she realized he had money?” Van Sant asked.
“She was all about the money, the lifestyle,” said Michael Williams.
Greg Williams was a big, strong, self-made man -- a brilliant computer engineer and workaholic who had built a successful business that he ran out of his home.
“He was a genius, he really was. He was a salesman, he could sell anything to anybody,” said Michele.
Greg and Michele had a 4-year-old daughter together, Makayla. And Greg already had a daughter, Taylor, 14 at the time, with his ex-wife. By all accounts, he was devoted to both his daughters.
“Essentially, I lost my protector, the person that I could always go to when I was upset,” Taylor Williams explained. “And if I just wanted to go talk about something random and spend time with my dad, he would do that for me because he’s my dad.”
“You miss him?” Van Sant asked Taylor.
“Yes sir,” she replied.
“He was the most amazing man. He loved me and he -- loved our daughter so much. He took really good care of me,” Michele told Van Sant. “We were very happy together.”
Michele says everything was going great until that night it all happened.
“My mom called me and she said, ‘Michael are you home?’ ... She said, ‘Bill wants to talk to you’ -- Bill being my stepfather -- and Bill said, ‘You know, your brother is dead,” an emotional Michael Williams said.
“... and I’m like - ‘What?’ I was like, ‘No, no, there’s no way! I don’t believe you,” Michelle Fletcher said with tears in her eyes.
“Why would Michele ever want to kill the goose that’s laying the golden egg?” Van Sant asked Strickland.
“I think maybe he was just tired of layin’ the golden egg,” he replied.
But Michele insists Greg was far more important to her alive, than dead.
WHO SHOT GREG WILLIAMS?
“What do you miss now that Greg is gone?” Peter Van Sant asked Michele Williams.
“I miss his blue eyes,” she replied. “No matter what was going on with anything else, when Greg was here, everything was OK.”
Everything looked bright in Michele Williams’ future in October 2011.
“We were about to close on a house in two days,” Michele said. “We were designing a new pool for Makayla to play in. And everything was awesome.”
But her fanciful life came to a sudden in their home. She says she was sleeping on a couch in the living room with her daughter, Makayla, when in the middle of the night a loud noise woke her up. She made her way to the master bedroom.
In the darkness, Michele claims she was smashed her in the face, briefly knocking her out. When she came to, she walked up to the bed where she saw her husband bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head. She called 911. When cops arrived, they discovered a very odd death scene.
Greg Williams had been shot with his own gun, a wrench was lying next to the gun, and there was no sign of forced entry. And everything had been wiped clean.
“So this intruder came in, shot Greg, and on his way out, put the very gun that he used to kill him on the floor by the back door?” Van Sant asked Michele.
“I suppose so,” she replied.
“That’s crazy you know ... killers don’t leave evidence behind. Why would he do that?” Van Sant asked.
“I don’t know,” said Michele.
Cops were immediately suspicious. The death scene seemed staged. When Michele was interviewed by police later that morning, she kept telling the detective about an intruder.
“I heard a sound. I get up,” a teary Michele told investigators “I got hit by something. I could see it was a male in dark stuff ... dark clothing.”
Asked by Van Sant where she was hit, Michele points to the right side of her face.
Michele says the swollen mark on her face is proof she was hit with that wrench that was found on the floor next to the gun. But how was it both those items had been wiped clean of any fingerprints?
Police Sergeant John McGrew turns up the heat on Michele, asserting that there are only two possible scenarios: Greg committed suicide, or Michele had something to do with his death.
Sgt. John McGrew: I mean, those facts and everything, Michele, don’t add up, OK?”
Sgt. John McGrew: Either it’s self-inflicted and you covered it up, or potentially you may have been involved.
Michele Williams: I did not hurt my husband and he did not hurt himself. ...There was a man in my house.
He keeps hammering her on that point:
Sgt. John McGrew: Again, all I have is what I have. That’s all I can say, one of the two things would have happened. One of those two things, Michele.
Michele Williams: I did not -- (crying) you will find that out because I did not do anything to my husband!
“This went on and on and...” Michele told Van Sant. “Back and forth.”
“Do you feel you were being pressured to change your story?” he asked.
“I totally was. I was completely coerced into it,” Michele replied.
Finally, after Sgt. McGrew asks her for the eighth time...
Sgt. John McGrew: Please tell me now...
Michele Williams: I broke. I was in shock.
Sgt. John McGrew: If you did it and you covered it up, just tell me.
Michele Williams: He did.
Sgt. John McGrew: Huh?
Michele Williams: He did. ...It’s just so bad -- I couldn’t let her know that her daddy killed himself.
Michele tells the detective she didn’t want her 4-year-old daughter to know her dad had committed suicide:
Michele Williams [crying]: I couldn’t even look at him. There was blood everywhere. I took some Clorox wipes -- I use Clorox wipes all over the house. ...I wiped the gun with the blanket that he had right there. And I set it down. Then I had to figure out what the hell to do at that point ... I opened the door and put the gun by the door.
She also admits that bruise on her face was self-inflicted:
Michele Williams: In order to make it make some sense I had to have an injury ... and I just thunked myself too hard.
Sgt. John McGrew: With the wrench?
Michele Williams: With the wrench.
Even after her police interview, Michele told this same new story of a suicide to her older sister, Laura.
“She actually said, ‘Oh, my God, Greg shot himself ... I better ... make this look like a crime scene so Makayla won’t think that her dad shot himself,’” Laura told Van Sant. “And then she said, ‘So then I went and cleaned his hands and cleaned the gun.”
But investigators never believed Michele’s new version that her husband committed suicide. They felt the evidence overwhelmingly pointed at her.
Three months after Greg’s death, Michele Williams was arrested and charged with murder.
“Did you murder your husband, Greg?” Van Sant asked Michele.
“No, I did not,” she replied in tears.
As police prepared to bring Michele to justice, what they didn’t count on -- and neither did “48 Hours -- is that Michele would later change her story yet again.
“I’ve been wanting to tell this part of the story for two years and 115 days,” she said.
“If she’s talking, she’s usually lying,” said Laura.
MICHELE’S CHANGING STORIES
Michele Williams’ son, Andrew O’Brien, says right from the get-go, his mother was telling different people different stories of how her husband died in their bedroom.
“She has told us both the stories of suicide and an intruder. She has told us everything. And she keeps going back and forth,” he said. “It’s like she can’t decide which lie she wants to make herself believe more.”
“I’m trying. I’m trying so hard to give you right details--” Michele said in her interview with police.
Her last story to police in October 2011, was that Greg committed suicide. Lead prosecutor Jack Strickland believed Michele had murdered Greg, but he was worried that his case had holes in it.
“There’s no DNA that links Michele to this murder, correct?” Van Sant asked Strickland.
“That’s correct,” he replied.
“No fingerprints on the murder weapon?”
“That’s correct.”
“There’s no gunshot residue on her hands, correct?”
“Correct,” Strickland affirmed.
That’s because Michele, by her own account, had cleaned the crime scene.
“We didn’t have fingerprints because she’d wipe things down. She’s repositioned the scene and she had wiped things down with I don’t know how many Clorox wipes, which she then flushed down the toilet,” said Strickland.
The Keller Police Department, inexperienced at murder scenes, had not done a great job in their initial investigation.
“There were mistakes made,” Van Sant commented to Strickland.
“Oh, absolutely there were mistakes made. Absolutely there were,” he replied.
“I believe there was cross contamination between the bedding and the body, the person of Mr. Williams, all right? When his body was transported from the scene to the Medical Examiner’s Office, he was simply wrapped in the sheets that were on the bed,” Strickland continued.
With all those problems in the case, Strickland offered Michele a plea bargain. Rather than murder, she could plead to tampering with evidence and a Texas charge called “deadly conduct,” which means wielding a weapon irresponsibly. Michele accepted.
“How long do you think you will spend in prison?” Van Sant asked Michele.
“Couple of years,” she replied.
In fact, the plea deal carried a maximum sentence of up to 20 years -- but Michele was hoping for the minimum, about two-and-a-half years.
“I took the plea deal to be able to get back home to my daughter sooner than when she’s 18 years old,” a teary Michele said. “If I went to trial with not having the representation that I feel I needed on this case, I could lose the case and go away for 50 to 100 years.”
When “48 Hours” did this interview, Michele was waiting in jail to finalize her plea in a few days at a sentencing hearing. She stunned us by going back to the original story she told police -- that Greg had been killed by a mysterious intruder.
“As I started coming to ... I saw someone go out the front door,” said Michele.
And then she tried to explain how the murder happened--in a way that is, frankly, hard to believe.
“I believe Greg reached for his, which he kept under his night stand right there by the bed,” Michele explained.
“And this intruder took the gun out of his hand and shot him?”Van Sant asked.
“Out of the gun bag,” Michele replied. That’s what I’m thinkin’ ... I’m saying he had his own weapon but, I don’t know--”
“With his opposite hand, grabbed your husband’s weapon and used that on him?” Van Sant continued.
“I don’t, I don’t have a theory. I’m just sayin’ I think they came into the house with a gun,” said Michele.
Judge Scott Wisch learned about Michele’s new story from the deputies guarding her during the “48 Hours” interview.
The judge hauled her into court and chews her out for denying what she had already pleaded guilty to.
“...and don’t play games with yourself, your lawyers or with the system,” Judge Wisch said.
Prosecutor Jack Strickland asks Michele about that deadly conduct charge for firing the gun that killed Greg Williams:
Jack Strickland: So let’s start with the simple question. ... Are you in fact factually guilty of that offense?
Michele Williams: No, I’m not (cries).
Judge Scott Wisch: ...If you’re not guilty of tampering, if you’re not guilty of deadly conduct, the answer to that question is a trial by a jury of your peers.
...Lady Justice may be blind but she’s neither deaf nor stupid!
A trial for murder. She now denies all responsibility so her plea deal is revoked. Rather than a few years in prison, Michele is rolling the dice--with a possible life sentence if she is convicted.
Her sister is not surprised.
“I always thought Michele thought she could win the trial. Because I know she thinks, ‘I’ll work that jury,’” said Laura.
On the eve of her trial in September 2014, three years after Greg’s death, another bombshell from Michele. Her lawyer says the defense they’re going with is one of her earlier versions of the truth -- that Greg committed suicide.
“Why did Michele tell me that an intruder killed Greg? Was she lying to me?” Van Sant asked Cofer.
“Well, since Greg took his own life, clearly she was lying to you,” he replied.
BETRAYALS AND LIES
As she prepares to go on trial for murdering her husband, there’s only one man left in Michele Williams’ life who still believes she’s innocent: her new boyfriend, personal trainer Gene Wallis, who is 12 years younger than Michele.
“He 100 percent believes in me. He has not one doubt in his mind,” she said of Wallis.
Asked if he loves Michele, Wallis told Van Sant, “I most certainly do.”
“What do you love about her?” Van Sant asked.
“I think I love more than anything else -- how incredible she is to her family,” he replied.
Wallis met Michele her through her son, Lee, who used to be Wallis’ best friend.
“Through the growth of our relationship, of course, I got very, very attached,” Wallis said, becoming emotional.
Lee learned about the secret romance when Wallis approached him at his mom’s house.
“And he said, ‘Well ... I just wanted to come up like a man, because you’re my friend, and let you know that I’m probably gonna sleep with your mom tonight.’ And I snapped. That was it. I went full out, I was about to attack him,” said Lee.
“Your best friend is sleeping with your mother. How do you deal with that?” Van Sant asked.
“That is like one of the hardest things to deal with because it is the utmost betrayal on both parties,” Lee replied.
“This is like the National Enquirer on steroids. You know that,” Van Sant commented to Michele.
“It is,” Michele said, nodding her head in agreement.
“You’re a tabloid times 10,” Van Sant said.
“Yeah, I know,” Michele replied.
“And this is all true you’re telling me?” Van Sant asked.
“I’m telling you,” she said.
But there’s more. In the earlier plea deal, Michele had told the judge she was pregnant in an effort to delay going to prison.
“We were expecting twins unexpectedly,” Wallis said.
Asked if a sonogram was done, Wallis said, “Yes.”
“Did you see?” Van Sant asked.
“I got pictures, yes,” said Wallis.
The judge agreed to delay the sentencing on Michele’s plea bargain until the babies were born. But it was all a lie.
Prosecutor Jack Strickland was equally fooled.
“I fell for it, hook line and sinker,” Strickland said. “And I take responsibility for that. ...I think that the likelihood that a defendant would come in with that story developed to that degree under these outrageous circumstances was so far-fetched that it never occurred to me that somebody would do that, so she manipulated me as well.”
Michele’s sister, Laura, had seen this kind of deceit before.
“It’s one of her things, if you will, that she’ll fake pregnancies. She’ll fake miscarriages. Sometimes to ... get attention. I mean there’s been a lot of them throughout the years,” she said.
As the trial begins, Strickland and his co-prosecutor, Sheila Wynn, are about to lay out their case against Michele Williams.
The first witness is Andrew O’Brien, Michele’s younger son.
He tells the court an incredible story. After Greg’s death, his mother used him to try to frame Greg’s ex-wife, Kathy, for the murder.
“She said ... Call some friends, tell them to pick up an extra large sweater ... go somewhere, and fire a pistol -- so that the gunpowder residue would get onto the sweater, break into Kathy’s car, hide the sweater under a seat and go to a payphone, and call 911, and leave an anonymous-- anonymous tip so that cops would search her car and find the sweater,” Andrew O’Brien testified.
This trial is only about Greg’s murder, and not all of the lies and manipulations in Michele’s life. Prosecutors can’t tell the jury about all of those. But they focus on a key factor -- that Greg Williams would never have committed suicide, and that the evidence proves he didn’t.
“Based on the photographs it is clearly not a contact gunshot wound,” Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani told the court.
Dr. Peerwani testifies that in his 35 years in the job, he has never seen a suicide from the distance the gun was from Greg’s head.
“Beyond six inches, less than 24 inches,” he demonstrated.
Then, Greg’s mother, Betty Middlebrooks, testifies that her son would never have taken his own life.
“He was tired from working long hours, but he was very happy and bubbly and telling me all about the plans he had for the new house they were buying,” she said on the stand.
As for what triggered the murder, prosecutors pointed out, through forensic accountant Jeanette Hanna’s testimony, it was money:
Jeanette Hanna: Michelle was signing for the withdrawals.
Prosecutor Jack Strickland: And they total how much please?
Jeanette Hanna: $104,000.
Despite Greg’s $800,000 income that year, with Michele’s out-of-control spending, they weren’t even going to be able to make the down payment on the house they were buying.
“The total amount they had in all of their bank accounts was $28,614,”Hanna testified.
“I think she revealed that to him that night that, ‘we just can’t do this, we don’t have the money.’ And I believe an argument ensued,” Strickland told Van Sant. “I think he slapped her, hit her in the face ... maybe he told her -- we have no way of knowing -- ‘all right, this is the last straw, this is over.’ I don’t think the golden goose was going to produce any more after that night. And then, she made sure of it because she shot him in the head.”
After spending most of Greg’s fortune, prosecutors believe Michele had only one source to turn to for cash: Greg’s $850,000 life insurance policy. And that, says Cody Cofer, one of Michele’s lawyers, is why she first came up with the intruder story in the first place.
“One of her last hopes at bridging the financial gap to take care of her daughter was an insurance policy that had a suicide clause. And she would not be able to collect under that suicide clause,” said Cofer.
But that doesn’t quite explain why she switched to suicide in her police interview, and then switched back to the intruder with “48 Hours.” Michele never takes the stand to explain her many-changing stories. And that makes her defense an uphill battle.
“It’s a substantial obstacle to get jurors to -- I guess forget that the accused has provided a story inconsistent with the evidence and inconsistent with the defense,” said Cofer.
And to drive that point home, prosecutors show the jury excerpts from the “48 Hours” episode that aired in April 2014, the interview that turned Michele’s life -- and this case -- upside down:
Peter Van Sant: Who shot Greg?
Michele Williams: I have my assumptions.
Peter Van Sant: Are we talking a relative?
Michele Williams: Possibly.
“We used the ‘48 Hours’ tape to demonstrate not only that she had changed her story yet again, ‘cause she couldn’t leave well enough alone. She’s added an additional fact that ‘not only was it an intruder, I think I know who it was.’ OK, that was just beyond the pale. So the tape was very beneficial to us,” said Strickland.
Michele Williams had accidently become a witness against herself. And in his closing statement, defense attorney Cody Cofer speculates as to why Greg Williams had killed himself.
“He’s lost his best friend to suicide. He lost his grandmother, who was his refuge in his childhood when he started making bad decisions,” Cofer addressed jurors. “He’s looking on his laptop at his bank statements, and he knows that he can’t do this. And he -”
“Judge, I’m gonna object. This is all totally outside the record,” said Prosecutor Sheila Wynn said.
“Sustained,” the judge ruled.
“Thank you. Can I have an instruction that the jury disregard this entire narrative about what was going through Greg’s mind,” Wynn asked.
“Jury will disregard the last statements,” the judge said.
The prosecutor then lowers the boom in his closing.
“The overwhelming, the obvious, the inexorable fact is -- is that this woman killed her husband in cold blood,” Strickland told the jury. “She lied about it. She lied about it. She lied about it. ...And when she finished lying about it, she kept on lying about it, time after time after time. ...The blunt truth is folks, that this woman is a cold-blooded killer.”
It takes seven hours over two days, as jurors meticulously go over the evidence. Then came the moment of truth: Michele Williams is found guilty.
Moments later, after hearing the verdict, Michele Williams is overcome with emotion, her lifetime of lies having finally caught up with her.
With this conviction, it appears Michele’s story has come to an end. But in this twisted Texas tale, there may be one, last turn. A former sister-in-law is convinced that Michele has killed before.
“I believe she’s responsible for not just my brother’s death, but my husband’s death, too,” said Michelle Fletcher.
ANOTHER MURDER?
“I get ill every time I come out here,” Michelle Fletcher said of the place where her husband died. “I know this is where she killed, him, I don’t like being out here at all.”
Ten months before Greg Williams was murdered, his sister, Michelle Fletcher, said goodbye to her husband, Brynn, for the last time. He worked for Greg and was going on a business trip in the company pick-up truck.
“He kissed me goodbye. I told him, you know, couldn’t wait for him to get back. He said he couldn’t wait to get home either,” said Fletcher.
Brynn Fletcher drove out on Highway 34, following directions Michele Williams had given him.
“Michele would give Brynn a map. She would tell him which way to go. Brynn was from England. He didn’t know these roads,” Fletcher explained.
Brynn was more than an employee to Greg Williams; he was also his best friend and confidant.
“He was happy, he was lookin’ forward to the future,” Fletcher told Van Sant. “Everything was going great.”
About 45 minutes into his drive, Brynn pulled off the highway.
Michelle Fletcher believes it was Michele Williams who lured Brynn here.
“Why would Brynn have ended up ... on this road by this tower?” Van Sant asked.
“I believe Michele knew this area,” Fletcher replied. “This tower stands out, it would be an easy place to meet someone, to just point it out and say, ‘Hey meet me here.’”
When Ellis County sheriff’s deputies answered a call about an abandoned truck, they found Brynn’s body. He had been shot once in the head.
“And the county says it’s a suicide. Do you agree with that?” Van Sant asked Fletcher.
“No, I don’t,” she replied.
“What do you believe it was?”
“I believe it was murder,” said Fletcher.
“And who pulled the trigger?” Van Sant asked.
“Michele Williams,” Fletcher replied.
“You certain of that?”
“Yes.”
Michelle Fletcher came to that conclusion when Michele Williams was charged with killing Greg.
And Fletcher realized if Michele had killed Greg, she might also have killed Brynn.
“Why would Michele kill your husband?” Van Sant asked Fletcher.
“To cover up all the lies, to cover up the stories she’s been telling. Brynn would have been onto her,” she explained.
Fletcher believes Brynn was about to tell Greg Williams about Michele’s out of control behavior -- the money she spent and a bizarre story accusing Greg’s daughter, Taylor, of trying to poison her.
“And if Brynn had told Greg, what would have been the consequences of that?” Van Sant asked.
“Well, Greg would have gotten rid of her. He would have divorced her. They would have been done. He wouldn’t have put up with that. He loved his daughters,” Fletcher replied.
Fletcher believes Michele Williams had to silence Brynn Fletcher -- she killed him and then tried to cover her tracks by taking control when sheriff’s deputies found Brynn’s body in his pickup truck.
“She told them not to talk to my sister. She said she was distraught. She told them to keep things from her. Not to bother her. That she would handle everything,” said Michael Williams.
“That Michele Williams would handle it,” Van Sant said. “Not Michelle Fletcher.”
“Yes,” said Fletcher.
Michele Williams handled things, all right. She quickly arranged for Brynn’s body to be cremated, destroying any evidence that might raise questions. And, Fletcher says, her sister-in-law tricked her to sign the papers while she was out of her mind with grief.
“You know, I was feelin’ -- just signing whatever. And I didn’t realize I had signed -- I’d signed the paperwork for Brynn to be cremated the very next day,” said Fletcher.
She believes Michele Williams even fabricated an alibi for herself.
“She made about six phone calls, that I’m aware of, to her own family members trying to let them know she was at Target,” Fletcher told Van Sant.
“Why would she be telling people she’s at Target?”
“An alibi,” Fletcher replied. “She didn’t want anyone to know where she was.”
By the time Michelle Fletcher gathered her emotions and called the sheriff’s office to tell them her theory, it was too late.
“They told me immediately after -- after speaking with Michele and me, that they -- that it was open, closed suicide. Period,” said Fletcher.
“And what did you say to them?” Van Sant asked.
“I said, ‘I don’t believe you.” I said, ‘He didn’t kill himself.’”
Official reports of what happened inside Brynn’s car at the watchtower are confusing. The medical examiner says Brynn was shot right between the eyes. The police report says he was shot on the right-hand side. The problem with that? Brynn was left-handed.
The Ellis County Sheriff’s Office told “48 Hours” they have no plans to reopen the case.
Through her lawyer, Michele Williams denies any involvement in Brynn’s death.
While it may never be known whether Michele Williams did murder Brynn Fletcher, there’s little doubt today that she killed her husband, leaving behind a lifetime of immeasurable pain to members of her own family.
“’Mom’ to me carries more meaning than the word, ‘love,’” son Lee O’Brien said. “She’s my mother, but she’ll never be my mom.”
“...on some level, do you still love your mother?” Van Sant asked Lee.
“I love who I thought that she was whenever I was younger. I love that -- that fantasy,” he replied.
“...it’s taken a lot to take control of my own life. Because she controlled it for so long with her tears and her -- her crying and -- and the lies, that I’ve -- I’ve had to learn how to take over my own life again,” said son Andrew O’Brien.
Michele’s young daughter, Makayla, now 9, is in the custody of family friends. They take her to visit her mother in prison occasionally, and will do so as long as Makayla wants to visit.
“She needs to pay for what she did, absolutely. What’s to keep her from doing something horrible to Makayla? She’s proven how much family means to her,” said Michael Williams.
Michele Williams was sentenced to 60 years in prison. She will be eligible for parole after serving 30 years at age 74.
Additional photos of Michele and Greg Williams by Mark Kaplan/Naked Lens Photography
