(CNN) — A preacher's widow walked Tuesday out of the Tennessee jail where she had been held since her March 23 arrest for allegedly killing her husband with a single shotgun blast.

With eyes cast downward, Mary Winkler clutched the hands of her lawyers, Steve Farese Jr. and Leslie Ballin, and sighed as she walked out the McNairy County Justice Center in Selmer, Tennessee, shortly before noon.

Winkler, 32, did not speak, and she did not look up as her lawyers paused briefly to address news crews that had staked out the courthouse for days.

Farese urged the media to respect his client's privacy as she adjusts to her freedom. "She will have to get used to carrying a purse again. She mentioned that today, " he said before hustling her into a waiting car.

Winkler's attorneys worked feverishly for five days to secure her release from the McNairy County jail in Selmer, Tennessee. With rollercoaster drama, it seemed imminent on several occasions, only to be delayed.

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Winkler pleaded not guilty last month to a grand jury indictment charging her with first-degree murder. In Tennessee, murder defendants can obtain bond if they are not charged with a capital crime.

Judge Weber McCraw set bond at $750,000.

The indictment alleges Mary Winkler killed her husband, Matthew Winkler, with premeditation in the couple's bedroom at the church parsonage. But prosecutors have not given notice that they are pursuing a capital murder conviction punishable by the death penalty or life in prison.

A third generation preacher, Matthew Winkler, 31, was minister of the Fourth Street Church of Christ in Selmer. Church members came looking for him when he failed to turn up for a service and found him dead in the bedroom on March 22, shot in the back.

At a bond hearing in June, an investigator testified that Mary Winkler said she "snapped" because of the couple's strained finances and what she told authorities was her husband's repeated criticism.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent Brent Booth read from Winkler's initial statement to police: "I heard the boom, and he rolled out of the bed on the floor, and I saw some blood on the floor and some bleeding around his mouth. I went over and wiped his mouth off with a sheet. I told him I was sorry and that I loved him. And then I went and ran.

"He asked me, 'Why?' and I just said I was sorry," Booth read.

Winkler's attorneys have asked the judge to suppress statements she made to police in Alabama and Tennessee after her arrest. In those statements, Winkler told officers she did not want to smear her husband's name in public, according to another defense attorney, Leslie Ballin.

The suppression of evidence hearings last week shed additional light on what police say Winkler told them.

She told Alabama officers that the killing was not planned and that she had been verbally and emotionally abused by her husband, Ballin said. She also said she had been through a life-threatening event in the past year, Ballin said.

The attorney would not elaborate on that event, and no details were given about the abuse Mary Winkler claimed she suffered. Winkler did tell police that the emotional and verbal abuse from her husband had worsened over the past year.

"I have nerve now, and I have self-esteem. So, my ugly came out," Alabama investigator Stan Stabler quoted Mary Winkler as saying, according to a report on the hearing published in The Jackson Sun. She referred to herself as a "moron" and an "evil woman," the newspaper reported.

In addition, Winkler told Tennessee authorities about losing $17,000 in what investigators have described as a "Nigerian 419" check-kiting scam.

Winkler will be driven to McMinnville, Tennessee, where she is to live with Kathy Thomsen, an old friend. The Winklers lived in McMinnville before moving to Selmer just over a year ago.

Winkler has a job lined up at a dry cleaner in McMinnville, according to testimony at her bond hearing.

Under terms of the bond, the Thomsens can keep no guns in the house and Winkler is not allowed to leave the county except for meetings with her attorneys, court appearances and visits with her children -- Patricia, 8; Mary Alice, 6; and Breanna, 1.

After the shooting, Winkler drove with the children to Orange Beach, Alabama, where she was arrested the next day.