Shirley Winters
Shirley Winters | |
|---|---|
| File:Shirley Winters.jpg Mugshot | |
| Born | Shirley Winters February 27, 1958 |
| Conviction(s) | Murder |
| Details | |
| Victims | 2-7 |
Span of crimes | November 21, 1980 – November 28, 2006 |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | New York |
Date apprehended | March 2007 |
Shirley Winters (born February 27, 1958) is a convicted murderer and arsonist from upstate New York. In 1980, she smothered her five-month old son, Ronald Winters III. In 2007, she drowned 23-month old Ryan Rivers. She is suspected of setting a fire which killed her two older children in 1979, and one the day prior that killed a friend's three children. Per a plea bargain, she can't be prosecuted for those.
Early life
In 1966, Winters' 10-year-old brother and 4 and 11-year-old sisters died from an apparent carbon monoxide leak in the family home.[1]
In 1979, Winters' first two children, 3-year-old Colleen and 20-month old John, died in a 1979 fire in the family's Hyde Lake cabin in Theresa, New York. Investigators blamed an electrical defect.[2] When her children's bodies were exhumed in March 2007, autopsies showed Colleen and John received blunt force head injuries before the fire.[3]
The day before the fire, another at Winters' friend's three children in their nearby Hermon, New York home. St. Lawrence County police re-investigated this fire in 2007.[4]
Winters was near at least seventeen fires since the 1979 ones, nine determined as arson.[5] She pleaded guilty to criminal mischief in relation to two in 1981. A November 12, 1989 fire started in a Syracuse home where Winters was staying with her three children. She rescued her four-year-old daughter and two-year-old son, but lost her five-year-old daughter, who rescued herself.[6] She was convicted of burning her mother's home in 1997. Her mother died in a car accident two months before Winters began her eight-year prison term.
Murders
On November 28, 2006, Ryan Rivers drowned in a bathtub at his grandparents' Pierrepont home, while Winters visited.[7] She was indicted by a St. Lawrence County grand jury in August 2007 of second-degree murder, first-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child.[8]
This prompted police to exhume Winters' son, Ronald Winters III, who died on November 21, 1980 in Otisco, New York, of supposed Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Based on their findings, police charged Winters with second-degree murder on March 28, 2007. [9]
On April 21, 2008, Winters pleaded guilty to manslaughter for drowning Rivers. Under the terms of the plea agreement, she also agreed to plead guilty in Onondaga County Court to first-degree manslaughter for smothering Winters. She was sentenced to 20 years for Rivers, and 8 to 25 years for Winters, to be served concurrently, with parole eligibility after 17 years. She is imprisoned at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility[10] By pleading guilty, she avoided possible second degree murder convictions and multiple life sentences, as well as prosecution for the 1979 murders of Colleen and John Winters.[11]
References
- ^ "New York Mom Charged in 1980 Death of Child" FoxNews.com AP 3/29/07
- ^ "On a Trail of Tragedies" Syracuse Post-Standard O'Brien, John 3/28/07
- ^ "Winters enters guilty plea for manslaughter" News 10 Now Carey, Bill 4/29/07
- ^ "Most Pyromaniacs Are Not Killers" Syracuse Post-Standard O'Brien, John 4/8/07
- ^ "Mom Accused of Killing Son" Syracuse Post-Standard O'Hara, Jim and O'Brien, John 3/29/07
- ^ "The Life of Shirley Winters" Syracuse Post-Standard 3/21/07
- ^ "On a Trail of Tragedies" Syracuse Post-Standard O'Brien, John 3/28/07
- ^ "Trial set for Shirley Winters" Syracuse Post Standard Ramirez III, Pedro 11/28/07
- ^ "New York Mom Charged in 1980 Death of Child" FoxNews.com AP 3/29/07
- ^ "Shirley Winters pleads guilty" www.syracuse.com Dowty, Douglass April 22, 2008
- ^ "Upstate NY woman pleads guilty to second child's death" Associated Press via newswatch50.com 4/25/08