Oklahoma City couple seeks justice in daughter’s death
An Oklahoma City couple who never believed their daughter killed herself two years ago is now looking ahead to a court date for her husband, who was arrested recently in connection with her murder.
They published their daughter’s photo in an advertisement Tuesday in The Oklahoman marking what would have been her 51st birthday.
On Jan. 3, 2015, just before 7 a.m., police officers and medical personnel in Henderson, Nevada, were dispatched to the home of Susan Winters, a 48-year-old University of Oklahoma graduate who became a lawyer and moved west to take a job with the Clark County District Attorney’s office in Las Vegas.
They found Winters unresponsive and not breathing in the home she rented with her husband, 54-year-old psychologist Gregory Brent Dennis, who grew up in Blanchard and played defensive back for the University of Tulsa from 1980 to 1983. The couple had been married for 19 years, separated on at least one occasion, and were rearing two daughters.
As emergency responders worked to save Winters’ life, Dennis told them she was depressed and threatened to commit suicide, according to a Henderson Police Department declaration of arrest.
Dennis speculated that his wife may have ingested anti-depressant drugs and antifreeze, according to the declaration. Medical personnel were able to get her pulse, and Winters was transported to a local hospital. She later was pronounced dead.
The Clark County Coroner’s Office ruled officially that Winters, a graduate of Blanchard High School, killed herself with a deadly cocktail of prescription painkillers and antifreeze, which contains the poisonous ingredient ethylene glycol.
Dennis later told authorities he and Winters had been drinking throughout the previous day, and he suspected his wife had mixed her drinks with anxiety medication. A detective found on the family computer several searches related to the ingestion of antifreeze.
Her parents, Avis and Danny Winters, who run several Sonic Drive-in franchises, refused to believe their daughter, who had become a parttime judge in North Las Vegas, would take her own life.
She didn’t leave a suicide note. There were no medication bottles in her bedroom, and there were no antifreeze bottles in the bedroom or the house, according to the arrest report. Later on the same day, Dennis speculated that maybe a previous resident left the antifreeze behind. He went to the garage and showed a detective two bottles of antifreeze and said he found them after he returned from the hospital, according to the report.
Suspecting their sonin-law, the grieving parents hired private investigators to track Dennis in the months after their daughter’s death. As they pushed for law enforcement to take another look at the case, the couple also filed a lawsuit against Dennis, blaming him for their daughter’s death, saying his motives were financial in nature, and seeking to recover $2 million in life insurance and inheritance money he had collected after Winters died.
“We were disappointed at the legal system, we were disappointed that the people in charge do not read evidence before them, we were disappointed that the Henderson police did not do any investigation, and the Clark County Coroner’s Office just accepted what they were told by Brent,” Avis Winters said.
In August, Dennis received notice that he was the subject of a grand jury investigation. In December, Henderson police used search warrants at Dennis’ home and his Boulder City health clinic. Prosecutors began calling witnesses in the grand jury investigation.
On Feb. 2 at 7:30 a.m., during a traffic stop near his home, police arrested Dennis on suspicion of open murder with a deadly weapon. Winters’ parents say the arrest was the fruit of their persistence, after authorities had closed the case shortly after their daughter’s death. “There was no investigation by anybody, and it’s solely because my husband Danny and I knew Susan wouldn’t do this,” Avis Winters said.
‘He wanted her money’
Susan Winters was born in Altus on March 14, 1966. She played softball for the 1983 Class 3A state softball champion Blanchard High School Lions.
Winters earned a degree in political science from OU, and went on to study law there. She briefly practiced law in Oklahoma City before moving to Nevada and taking a job with the Clark County District Attorney’s office in Las Vegas. She later entered private practice and became a part-time judge.
Both having emerged from divorces, Winters married Dennis in August 1995 and the couple had two daughters by the spring of 2002.
Known for her love of family, good books, and Elvis Presley, Winters often returned to Oklahoma to visit relatives and friends. She was an avid runner, and was quick-witted, her mother said. Before her death, she started working as an attorney for the family business, Winters Restaurant Group.
Described by her family as full of life and devoted to her children, her marriage to Dennis had been fraying. In 2013, the couple separated and Dennis moved out of the family home while they discussed divorce. Winters sought counseling from licensed professionals. The couple eventually reconciled.
Police Det. Ryan Adams noted in his declaration of arrest that Winters, based on a psychiatrist’s reports, battled depression and anxiety. Friends related that Winters periodically discussed suicide, but never acted on those thoughts. Family and friends reported that Winters was in a good frame of mind during Christmas 2014, just before her death.
In group text messages to friends on Oct. 14 and Oct. 15, 2014, an apparently upset Winters claimed that Dennis was either having an affair or was gay, because he did not want to have sex with her, according to the arrest declaration.
After Winters’ death, her parents hired a retired FBI special agent and licensed private investigator to track Dennis. From Jan. 9, 2015, to March 27, 2015, the agent and other investigators observed Dennis on 15 different days.
Investigators watched Dennis travel to a hotel on four occasions, meeting with convicted drug dealer Jeffrey Crosby, sitting in his own vehicle with his head down, coming up and rubbing his nose, actions investigators found “consistent with a person using drugs,” Adams wrote. Similar conduct occurred from Aug. 18, 2015, to Sept. 4, 2015, according to the arrest report.
During a 13-month period leading into February 2015, nearly a month after Winters died, Dennis’ phone records showed more than 3,900 contacts between his phone and Crosby’s phone, according to the declaration.
Adams said in his report that an investigation into Crosby led to his July 2016 arrest for trafficking cocaine, and that he had often supplied Dennis with the drug. Dennis was not shy about discussing his “recreational” drug use with the Winters family, and even asked members for their prescription narcotics, Adams wrote.
Dennis allegedly received prescription painkillers from his own patients. When he was arrested, Dennis had three painkiller pills in his right front pants pocket, according to Adams.
“It was well known among family and friends that Dennis had a substance abuse addiction,” Adams wrote in his declaration of arrest.
Avis Winters said Dennis knew he was on the brink of losing everything.
“I believe that Susan learned that Brent was using their money to do the drugs,” Winters said. “Susan said she was going to turn him in to the psychology board and he would lose his license, and he didn’t want that, and he wanted her money.”
The declaration of arrest draws heavily from a special private investigative report prepared by former Clark County District Attorney David Roger. On April 18, 2016, the report was delivered to Adams, the detective. The report was attached to an affidavit of Anthony Sgro, a law partner of Roger’s, and lawyer for Avis and Danny Winters.
The report claimed to show the motives Dennis had for allegedly murdering his wife. Henderson police reopened their investigation.
On Jan. 5, 2015, two days after Winters died, Dennis called the insurance company three times to report her death and collect benefits, according to the arrest report.
Winters had a checking account with BancFirst in Oklahoma. Her family says dividends from her interest in Sonic were deposited in the accounts by Winters’ family, and Dennis was not a signatory on the account, according to the declaration of arrest.
Six days after his wife’s death, Dennis withdrew $180,000 from the bank account, according to the arrest report. According to Adams, a check was made payable to “G. Brent Dennis and Susan Winters,” and was dated months out of sequence. On Jan. 9, 2015, Dennis deposited the $180,000 into his account, Adams wrote.
On Feb. 27, 2015, the insurance company issued a check for a little more than $1 million payable to Dennis. He deposited the proceeds into a T.D. Ameritrade Investment account, the report said.
‘Probable cause’
Dennis has given conflicting statements on what happened leading up to his wife’s death, according to the declaration of arrest.
For example, Dennis was awake the previous night and in the early morning hours before Winters’ death, and he met with Crosby, the drug dealer, around 3 a.m., when he claimed to be sleeping next to his wife, Adams wrote.
Also, a claim that Winters searched the home computer on “how to kill yourself using antifreeze,” was false, according to the report. Adams wrote that Dennis later admitted it was he who conducted the search, after returning from his visit with Crosby, and about an hour before he called 911 concerning his wife.
Later that day, as Winters was on life support, Dennis allegedly made several attempts to contact his “computer guy.” The computer expert, Todd Emond, was convicted in 2011 on a felony conspiracy to commit mail, wire and bank fraud.
Emond had set up Dennis’ computer at his mental health clinic in Boulder City, with a network connection accessible from the psychologist’s home. When questioned by police, Emond said in the spring or early summer of 2016, Dennis asked him to come to his home and conduct a forensic search on the computer to find anything related to antifreeze, according to Adams’ report.
The computer expert said he found a virus on the computer, dismantled the machine and sent the hard drives to a friend who owns a business back east, and who could “mirror the hard drives and conduct a search.” Emond claimed no evidence of anything related to antifreeze was found on the computer, according to the arrest declaration.
“Emond had no explanation as to why Dennis was asking him to tamper with the evidence which had been demanded by Winters’ parents’ lawyers on multiple occasions and that Dennis’ lawyers had represented they had asked for,” Adams wrote.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Emond’s defense lawyer said his client was involved in data recovery, not scrubbing, and if Emond tampered with evidence, “it was unknowingly.” His attorney said Emond cooperated fully with investigators, according to the Review-Journal.
Adams wrote in his declaration that it is not known exactly how the deadly substances entered Winters’ body, but that Dennis could not have known what he initially claimed when first contacted by authorities.
“Based on these facts, there is probable cause to arrest Gregory Brent Daniels for the murder of Susan Winters,” he wrote.
‘Every day is a trial’
Dennis has since been released on $250,000 bail. The Nevada Board of Psychological Examiners has suspended his license. The civil case has been halted temporarily in light of the criminal case. A preliminary hearing for the criminal case is scheduled for August.
Dennis’ lawyer, Richard Schonfeld, said he looks forward to defending his client in court.
“The preliminary hearing will be the first opportunity to present evidence that’s favorable to Mr. Dennis,” Schonfeld said. “The Clark County Coroner’s Office and the Henderson Police Department reached the conclusion that Susan Winters’ death was a suicide.”
As for Avis Winters’ insistence that Dennis is guilty, and that their daughter did not commit suicide, Schonfeld said such is common.
“Her parents would not accept that determination,” he said. “And as a result they hired the former DA as one of their lawyers in an effort to have the investigation reopened. It is consistent with other families that deal with suicide. It is something that people tend not to accept.”
The bail amount, agreed upon by lawyers on both sides, was acceptable, Schonfeld said.
“Given the circumstance that the suicide was two years old, and was determined by police and the coroner to be a suicide, the evidence that exists that is favorable, to me, is Mr. Dennis’ lack of criminal history and his outstanding community ties,” Schonfeld said. “It is a reasonable bail setting.”
Attorneys for Avis and Danny Winters could not be reached for comment.
Avis Winters said her former son-in-law is a sociopath who will forever claim not to have murdered her daughter.
“Every day is a trial,” she said. “And we don’t get to see the granddaughters. He has told them we’re evil people. As long as we’re getting justice with Susan, we will do what needs to be done. We want to have a relationship with our granddaughters. We want them to remember Susan as she was. And we want them to remember us as the loving grandparents we are.”