From chapter 3:
The Winklers were facing financial despair, like many young families with a modest income and a nursery full of children. Mary Winkler, her family's bookkeeper but something of an Internet naïf, likely fell victim to one of the religious salutations as a way of getting her family out of debt.
Prosecutors say Mary Winkler was drawn deeply into the scam, eventually depositing two fraudulent overseas checks totaling $17,500 in family accounts, and then shifting the funds to other banks in the financial shell game known as check kiting. Withdrawals and wire transfers are made on the bad checks before the fraud is discovered.
Bank officials at two Tennessee banks, Regions Bank in Selmer and First State Bank in Henderson, caught up with the scheme on the day before Matthew Winkler was murdered, and the couple bickered about the problem.
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