She just wanted to talk to him.

Oprah had Mary Winkler on your show yesterday. Mary was the minister's wife from Tennessee that shot her husband and was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. This case received a great deal of national attention.

She was released from prison after serving 7 months. Clearly, Mary's husband physically, mentally and sexually abused her. She fits the profile of a battered wife. Here is her description of the events that led up to her killing him. I do find it rather interesting how folks in Tennessee try to get someone's attention. Let's start the conversation with a loaded shotgun!

From her comments on Oprah's program:

"Mary Winkler says she doesn't remember getting the shotgun. She says she thinks she held the gun to get his attention. "I just know I was terrified of him, and I just wanted to talk to him," she says. "It was my fear. I was afraid of him. I never in a million years would have dreamed that there would have been something in that…in the gun being loaded. I just thought that was a rule that he always took [the bullets] out."

Mary Winkler says she was afraid for her life but that she only wanted to talk to Matthew and tell him "just to stop, just be happy. He just, he had to be miserable the way he acted, and just to stop being so mean," she says. "I'm safely sitting here right now thinking of what I wish I could have said to him. In the heat of the moment that was not realistic."

Mary Winkler says she doesn't remember aiming the gun at Matthew. "When I heard the boom I just thought that it would have hit the ceiling, the window, and I just thought, 'Oh my goodness, he's going to think I meant to do that on purpose,'" she says. "And so I took out. I just took out of there and took off running. And then at some point I just realized he wasn't chasing me, and I just had to go back in and face the realization."

According to the autopsy report, the single shot Mary Winkler fired sent 77 pellets into Matthew's back. He survived for several minutes, but without medical attention, he bled to death."