Williams was initially presumed to have drowned on a 2000 hunting trip to Lake Seminole, a large reservoir straddling the Georgia-Florida state line; his mother always suspected he had been the victim of foul play, possibly at another location.

[9] In 2016, Winchester was arrested on charges stemming from an incident where he allegedly kidnapped Denise, the missing man's widow, who was now divorcing him;[10] he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on the day before the FDLE announced that Williams's body had been found.

[11] She was found guilty that December, after Winchester testified to shooting Michael at Denise's behest when their original plan to stage a boating accident failed, and was sentenced to life in prison in January 2019.

He grew up in Bradfordville[6] (north of Tallahassee), the son of a Greyhound bus driver[3] and a day care provider who raised him and his older brother Nick in a double-wide trailer.

Instead of building a house, the parents saved their money so both boys, who helped by working nights at supermarkets, could attend North Florida Christian High School.

[13] According to Denise Williams, on the morning of December 16, 2000, a Saturday, her husband awoke early, leaving the house on Centennial Oaks Circle[2] well before dawn, boat in tow, to go duck hunting at Lake Seminole.

The lake is a large reservoir approximately 50 mi (80 km) west-northwest of Tallahassee located in the southwest corner of Georgia along its border with Florida, where three other streams merge to form the Apalachicola River.

Searchers thus assumed that Williams had hit a stump with his boat, fallen out, sunk into waters 8–12 feet (2.4–3.7 m) deep when his waders filled, and then drowned when he was unable to extricate himself.

Investigators assured the Williams family that his body would surface, like other drowning victims, within three to seven days, or perhaps slightly longer due to the cold front that had moved in after the first night's storm.

"Nothing in investigative or search and rescue efforts has produced any definitive evidence of a boating accident or a fatality as of this date," read the final report, issued in late February 2001.

'"[16] It was suggested that perhaps Williams's body had become entangled in the beds of dense hydrilla beneath the lake surface, and then found by the alligators later, with turtles and catfish finishing what they had left behind.

However, there were no teeth marks or any other damage on the waders, none of the recovered items showed signs of having been in the water for anything like the period Williams had been missing, and there was no DNA evidence found to link the clothing to him.

Nevertheless, a week later, a Leon County judge granted Denise Williams's petition to have Mike declared legally dead on the basis of those recovered items and an assumption that alligators and other water life had consumed the body in its entirety.

"Some things looked unusual right off the bat," said the FFWCC's Arnette, who had initially thought the situation was a typical case involving a missing hunter and a possible boating accident.

While the diver who retrieved them reported that they were in an area of disturbed weeds with alligator excrement nearby, consistent with the original belief that Williams had drowned while wearing them, he allowed it was "anyone's guess" as to whether they had been later planted in that spot.

[13] On the water, he never put his waders on until he had reached the point where he planned to get out and start hunting, following a common safety procedure in order to avoid the type of accident from which he was later believed to have died.

Williams's Bronco and the boat had been returned to his family and friends, the footsteps of the many volunteers and searchers all over the lakeshore had made it impossible to collect any evidence from that area, and the items later recovered from the lake had not been retained.

[3] A possible new lead emerged in October 2007, when Michael Williams's older brother found a photograph and the serial number of a .22-caliber Ruger pistol that had once belonged to their father.

After Jackson County sheriff's investigator, Wester, asked the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to look for it, agents visited Denise and Brian Winchester, now married, in their house (the same one she had lived in with Michael), to interview them.

[15] However, Brian Jones, an expert in insurance law at Florida State University, told the Democrat that any fraud case would have to rest on more than just those facts already known to have aroused investigative interest.

But if Michael Williams was to be proven dead and the beneficiary were to have shown to have been involved, or if he was still alive (as his mother and many residents of Jackson County believed possible),[3] then an insurance company would strongly consider pursuing a case.

Carrie Cox, a self-described psychic[17] and certified forensic psychological profiler from Kentucky reviewing the case had identified a possible location of Williams's body.

[10] Denise told Leon County Sheriff's Office investigators that, on August 5, the day when the appraisal had to be filed with the court, she left her home to drive to her job at Florida State University.

[4] The next day, at a news conference, Mark Perez, the FDLE's special agent in charge, announced to assembled reporters that Williams's body had been found and it had been determined he was the victim of a homicide.

[5] Subsequently, the FDLE revealed they had found Mike Williams's remains at the end of dead-end Gardner Road in northern Leon County, five miles (8.0 km) from where he grew up; they were confirmed as his following a match to his mother's DNA.

Denise's estranged husband, Winchester, was serving his sentence at Wakulla Correctional Institution near Tallahassee; his attorney said his client would take the stand at trial if legally compelled to do so.

Denise suggested staging a boating accident on the Gulf of Mexico where they could throw both Mike and Kathy Thomas overboard, but Winchester did not want to kill his children's mother.

Since Mike's death could no longer be passed off as a boating accident, Winchester buried the body where it was later found, then cleaned out his truck and went to a family Christmas party, where he learned that a search was underway.

"[28] Assistant state attorney Jon Fuchs said this evasiveness, as well as Denise's dispassionate response when Winchester told her how he had killed Mike, demonstrated how cold-bloodedly she helped plan the crime that happened on her behalf.

Carrie Cox, the psychic and profiler who had identified a possible burial site at which no body was found, published Alligator Alibi, a lengthy book with documents from the investigation, Cheryl Williams's notes, and her own commentary.