In the small town of Otisco, New York, a story of unimaginable loss and eventual justice unfolded around the death of a baby boy. Ronald Winters III, a 5-month-old male, passed away on November 21, 1980. At the time, his death was attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome a conclusion that would stand for over two decades. The infant was living in a trailer with his family at the time of his death.
Years later, a separate and tragic incident would cast a new light on the cold case of
Ronald's death. In November 2006, a two-year-old boy named Ryan Rivers drowned in a bathtub while in the care of Ronald's mother, Shirley Winters. This event prompted investigators to re-examine the deaths of Shirley's other children, including Ronald. In March 2007, authorities exhumed Ronald's body, along with the bodies of his two siblings, Colleen and John, who had died in a suspicious house fire in 1979. The new autopsy on Ronald revealed that he had been smothered.
Following the exhumation and the new findings, Shirley Winters was indicted by an Onondaga County grand jury on March 28, 2007, and charged with the second-degree murder of her son, Ronald. This charge came as she was also facing a murder charge in St. Lawrence County for the drowning of Ryan Rivers. The renewed investigation also uncovered that Shirley Winters had been linked to a total of 17 fires since 1979 at homes where she or her family members lived.
On April 24, 2008, Shirley Winters pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of first-degree manslaughter in the death of her son, Ronald. This plea was part of an agreement that also saw her plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of Ryan Rivers. For Ronald's death, she admitted that she had tried to seriously injure him when she smothered him. An Onondaga County Court judge sentenced her to 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison for Ronald's death, to be served concurrently with a 20-year sentence for the death of Ryan Rivers. Shirley Winters was released from prison in May 2024 and sent to a psychiatric facility.
