Re: More Breaking News(Tenn.)
UPDATE:<br />Slain pastor's missing wife, 3 children reportedly found alive.<br />_________________________________________<br />SELMER, Tenn. - The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says the wife and three young daughters of a slain minister has been found safe in Orange Beach, Ala. <br /><br />TBI agents said Orange Beach police spotted the family van on the side of the road around 7:30 p.m. CT. The TBI said the children appear to be in good physical condition. No one else was with the family when they were found.<br /><br />The TBI said Mary Winkler, wife of Matthew Winkler, the minister, was being questioned Thursday night.<br /><br />She hasn't been arrested," said TBI spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson. "We want to talk to her and find out what she knows" about the slaying of her husband.<br /><br />Johnson said the TBI had learned about an hour-and-a-half before they were picked up that the family may have been in southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Florida and Alabama authorities were preparing to issue Amber Alerts shortly before the family was found.<br /><br />"We're just so relieved that the kids were found safe and now we can focus on the next task" of solving the crime, Johnson said. <br /><br />Selmer city clerk Tracy Stewart said investigators plan to go to Alabama to interview the family.<br /><br />The popular and charismatic minister was found shot to death in his parsonage. Selmer police Chief Neal Burks said earlier it was unclear whether the family was abducted. He declined to say whether the wife was considered a suspect in the slaying. <br /><br />Church members went looking for the 31-year-old pastor Wednesday night when he did not show up for an evening service at the Fourth Street Church of Christ. They used a key to enter the adjacent parsonage and found him dead in a bedroom, Burks said. The family was gone, along with their minivan. <br /><br />Johnson said there were no signs of forced entry at the parsonage. <br /><br />Amber Alert issued<br />The bureau issued an Amber Alert early Thursday for the couples daughters, Breanna, 1; Mary Alice, 6; and Patricia, 8. The alert said the girls might be with their mother. <br /><br />Mary Winkler was last seen late Tuesday afternoon picking up the children from school, said Ed Jones, TBI assistant director. Burks said she worked as a substitute teacher at the elementary school. <br /><br />They were a nice family, said former Mayor Jimmy Whittington, who said he worked with the pastor collecting donations for hurricane victims last year. They just blended in. <br /><br />Winkler was hired as pastor in February 2005, said Wilburn Ash, an elder at the 200-member church in Selmer, a town of about 4,600 in western Tennessee. The job was Winklers first full-time ministry after working as a youth pastor at another church. <br /><br />He preached the Bible<br />Ash said he never saw any conflict in the family. He seemed like he was real happy here, and we were happy with him, Ash said. He preached the Bible. He didnt make his opinions known on what was popular or what was politically right. He just preached the Bible. <br /><br />Members of the congregation gathered Thursday inside the one-story brick church. Were just trying to console each other, Ash said.<br /><br />Pam Killingsworth, a church member and assistant principal at Selmer Elementary, where the Winkler children went to school, said: I cant believe this would happen. <br /><br />The kids are just precious, and she was precious, Killingsworth said, her eyes red from crying and her voice cracking at times. He was the one of the best ministers weve ever had just super charisma. <br /><br />Arkansas and Kentucky state police were on the lookout for the familys minivan.
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<br /><br />Burks said Mary Winkler was a substitute teacher and had been working at the towns elementary school on Tuesday.<br /><br />The couple had lived in Selmer, a town of about 4,600 residents in western Tennessee, for about a year, Burks said.
