Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Donnah Winger

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

In 1995 a new mother is killed after being attacked by a man who'd been harassing her. Or at least, that's what everyone believed. But years later investigators learn there might be much more to the story. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkie.app/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-donnah-winger/ Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllc Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat.Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF You can join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, crime junkies. We were supposed to be off this week. But if you got my hint, hint, wink, wink to tune in, we didn't want to leave you without your Monday fix. So we thought we'd give you a little treat. We've never done this before. But so many people always ask us what to expect from the fan club, that we wanted to give you a little taste. It is more of exactly what you love here. And actually, lots more. If you're already in our fan club, then you know we release three extra bonus episodes every month, along with all of our regular episodes ad free as they come out. The little taste we wanted to give you today is actually a mini story. So we put out one of these every month. We also put out a full length every month. And we put out a headline segment where Britt and I talk about

what's happening right now in the world of true crime, like updates on cases we've covered, just everything we're talking about in the fan club. I mean, just like, what is the true crime news you need to know? And we also drop audio extras all the time. Like, for example, we had four of them in the last four weeks. And the best part is, for a limited time when you sign up, you actually get the whole back catalog all at once. That won't last forever, but that's three years of bingeable true crime content that you can access right away. So take a listen to today's little extra episode. And if you like what you hear, head over to crime junkie podcast.com to sign up for the fan club. And we'll be back next Monday with our regularly scheduled programming.

Hope you guys enjoy. Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I want to tell you today is one that almost never got told. It's a lot. It's a lot of It's a story of love and loss, of opportunity, intrigue, and eventually of justice. This is the story of Donna Winger. It's late on the afternoon of August 29, 1995, when 911 dispatchers in Springfield, Illinois, get a frantic phone call. My wife. Take that place. Yes.

Hold me. What's the problem? I just saw this man in my house. It's inside your house. My wife. Be my wife. Is he in there right now? Yes, your bar.

Does he have a gun? Her planes are everywhere. Where is the man at? He's laying on the floor. Is he dead? I don't know. He's making weird sounds. That's 20.

Can't understand you. Slow down. Is the man still in your house? Yes, he's laying there on a floor of a bullet in his head. Did you shoot him? Yes, I shot him. He was killing my wife. My baby is crying.

My baby is crying. I gotta go. I'll call you right back. The man on the other end of that line is Mark Winger, a married father of a three-month-old baby. And you can hear from the call. He's absolutely frantic. Yeah, definitely. When police arrive at the Winger home, the scene was total chaos. The front door is open and inside the dining room they find Mark crouched over the body of his 31-year-old wife, Donna.

According to a 2002 story by Linda Rocky in the Chicago Tribune, blood is oozing from seven wounds in the back of Donna's head, and she's lying face down. And about five feet away from Donna, also on the floor, is another man, and he's laying on his back. He's been shot in the head, and next to his body, police see a claw hammer that's covered in blood. Now, both Donna and the unknown man are still breathing when paramedics arrive, and they are quickly rushed to the hospital. At the Winger House, though, it's now a crime scene, so police continue to try. and calm Mark down and figure out, you know, what the heck happened here. So they offer him some tissues and drinks.

And, I mean, Mark's sitting there. He's in total shock. He's covered in blood. And he's literally just rocking back and forth on the bed asking if his wife is okay. So what exactly happened? Well, Mark tells police that he was downstairs on the treadmill when he heard this like thump sound upstairs. So he goes up to check on what's going on. And according to a 2008 series from CBS News,

he found the baby all alone in their master bedroom. And he said that when he saw the baby alone, he knew immediately something wasn't right. So he tells police that he can hear more noise coming from the dining room. So he grabs his gun and follows the noise. Wait, this seems to be moving, like, kind of fast. Like, it seems like it's escalating really quickly. Like, why would he jump to, I need to protect our home, like, right away?

You know, I don't know. I kind of actually had the same thought, too. Like, I don't even think it's that. for a three-month-old baby to be alone. I don't, he didn't say necessarily as far as I could tell the baby was crying or, I mean, babies nap, babies get put down. I don't know. Yeah.

And then again, the baby's alone and that's your only indicator that you think something is weird, so you go immediately and grab your gun. I mean, I guess without knowing Mark, I have no idea how normal that might be. But to me, that would definitely not be my first reaction. Anyway, so he says that he gets this gun. He goes to the dining room, and that is where he finds Donna on her knees. and a man that he says he's never seen before leaning over her and beating her with a hammer. Mark says he then instinctively took aim and fired his weapon and the attacker fell backwards.

But Mark said the guy looked like he was trying to get back up. And so he shot him a second time in the forehead. At that point, Mark tells police that he rushed to his wife's side, trying to give her CPR, but the strange man started like groaning again. So Mark swung the hammer at his chest and he stopped. And that is at the point when he calls 911. So who is this other guy? Is he just like some random person off the street?

Police identified the man as 27-year-old Roger Harrington. And when police give his name and like say, hey, this is who the guy is. Do you know him? Do you recognize him? Mark instantly recognizes the name. And according to a Forensic Files episode from 2004, called A Welcome Intrusion, Mark tells police that is the guy who has been stalking my wife. Like, this guy has been harassing my family.

What? Yeah, for some time now. And so then Mark goes on to tell police this story about Roger. And he said, Roger had been calling the house all week asking for Donna, talking in, like, weird voices. And police are like, I mean, what is her connection to him? Why would he be doing this? Did you have any idea? And Mark says, yeah. So almost a week ago, he tells them, Donna and her three-month-old baby Bailey had taken a shuttle from the St. Louis airport to their home in Springfield. Like she was visiting family in St. Louis. They were coming back. And Roger Harrington had been the driver of that shuttle bus. And apparently, Roger had been super inappropriate during the drive. He was talking to Donna about wild sex parties, these violent fantasies, telling Donna that sometimes when he drives,

these like higher powers come to him and they pull him out of his body, like very, very bizarre things. And not only is what he is saying making her uncomfortable, but the way he was driving was making her uncomfortable too. He was super erratic, going really fast. And Donna felt really unsafe. Now, she did make it home in one piece, but it left her super rattled. Yeah, I can't imagine how creepy that situation would be in general, but especially to have your baby with you. Oh, totally. And so when Mark hears about this, when she actually gets home, he's pissed. And he tells police, like, when she told me this story, I called to the shuttle company where he worked and complained about the driver.

And he even had Donna, like, write out the details kind of in a statement about what happened while it was still fresh in her mind. And police actually end up finding this written statement by Donna on the fridge, which spells out not only what happened that night, but also how afraid she had been of Roger. Mark says that basically after he makes that complaint, that's when the harassment really started. Because Roger had actually been suspended from his job because of that complaint. And in fact, just that morning, Mark said that he had to call Roger directly to warn him to leave Donna alone. Now, when they start looking at this guy, Roger, he wasn't exactly a stranger to police. He wasn't like a hardened criminal or anything, but he did have some prior arrest.

One of the detectives who responded to the scene at the Winger's house that day actually had arrested Roger before for a domestic violence incident at some time. But mostly Roger was just kind of known to police because of this history he had with psychiatric issues, which included him having delusions. Okay, so that maybe explains at least some of his behavior while he was driving Donna and the baby back from the airport. But I guess my question is, what brought Roger to the Winger House that day? Well, I mean, as police are looking at the scene, I think the conclusion that they're coming to is that somehow Roger became obsessed with Donna somehow after that ride or at least he became obsessed with this idea of vengeance, maybe even after he lost his job. Again, without Roger here to say anything, I mean, he's in the hospital at this point. They don't know for sure. But the theory is. But he would have a reason like an extagrined. Right, right. Axe to grind, again, whether he was just obsessed with her, whether he was in a delusion, whether it's because he was suspended. But he became. like so obsessed with this idea of getting to her that he eventually stalked and attempted to kill her. And, you know, ultimately, she did end up dying.

Despite the life-saving measures, Mark said he tried to perform, Donna did not survive the vicious attack. According to Linda Rocky's piece in the Chicago Tribune, Donna suffered seven massive wounds to the back of her head from that claw hammer. And in fact, what's interesting is that it was the winger's own hammer, which Mark told investigators Donna had left. out for him, like on the dining room as a reminder that he had to hang a picture. And as for Roger, he was actually pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

So all of this, I mean, it was all a horrible tragedy, this young mother taken too soon, a doting husband who's now left to pick up the pieces of his life and raise an infant baby on his own and he has to somehow move on. Except Roger's family cannot move on. They keep calling up investigators, insisting. Roger is innocent, that he's never been violent before. He definitely wouldn't start now. And they're adamant that there has to be some kind of mistake, something that someone is missing because something isn't right. But for police, it was a tragedy. I mean, absolutely yes. But from their perspective,

and this was one that was shared by both the coroner and the state's attorney, the man responsible for Donna's death was also dead. So really, when they looked at this, there was no further investigation required. It seems pretty straightforward. Yeah, no charges were going to be laid. The case was closed. And a few weeks later, the coroner's jury agrees with the police and the prosecutor. And that is where this story may have ended. Except just like Rogers family can't move on from what happened. There's one detective, a rookie investigator named Doug Williamson, who is also struggling to let this case go. There were a few things about Donna's murder that just never quite sat right with Detective Williamson. Like what? Well, some were small things about Mark's behavior at the crime scene that to him just seemed a bit off. Like, for instance, the detective found it strange that Mark hadn't mentioned or even asked about like going to the hospital to see his wife after the paramedics took her away immediately after the attack.

So there's an episode on this case in the series Murder Byte. the book. And Detective Williamson says that he would have driven Mark himself if he'd asked for a ride, but he never did. And again, remember, she's like breathing when they take her away. So he's like, why don't you want to be there? Why don't you? Why don't you care? But even more than this, he wondered why Donna, who is this doting new mom, would leave her newborn baby alone on the bed to go open the door for a man that she is supposed to be afraid of. She wrote a statement that she is afraid of this guy. Do we know for sure that she let him in? Like, couldn't he have broken in? Well, no. So that's one of the things. There was no sign of forced entry. So she either made the

decision to let him in or the door, potentially it could have been left unlocked. But anyone who knew Donna said that she never let that door unlocked, even if she was home. So if we're making the assumption that she opened the door, she's opening a door to a guy she says she's scared of, leaving her baby alone. It's just not sitting right. And another thing that the detective finds super weird is that Roger's car had been parked right outside their house. And inside the car, there were two potential murder weapons. He had a knife and a tire iron. But he didn't bring them in with him. Exactly. Detective Williamson is wondering if he came here to hurt Donna, her husband, her baby anyone, you have weapons with you. Why didn't you bring those in? What you end up using

to hurt her is the hammer on her own dining room table. But he would have had no way of knowing that that hammer was there. He'd never been to the house before. Yeah, it was just chance. Right. But that's not all. On the day of the murder, Detective Williamson noted an insulated cup and a pack of cigarettes on the dining room table next to Mark's gun. And when he asked about those items, Mark said that they belonged to Roger. And this was the thing that he just never could quite let go. Because he doesn't understand how those cigarettes and cup could have played into that whole murder scene that Mark describes. Because would a man so full of rage about being suspended from his job storm into Donna's house to kill her?

But first, like take a time out to like grab a drink, set down his smokes. Yeah, it sounds like a casual interaction more than anything. thing. Right. And on top of that, why would he bring his cigarettes and something to drink and not a murder weapon? Exactly. It's not adding up. And on top of that, when you continue to pick this story apart, Donna's murder was only able to happen the way it did because Mark had been in the basement when Roger came to the door. According to Mark, this was like a surprise visit. They weren't expecting him. They had no idea who was going to come by. But when police searched Roger's car, not only did they find those potential murder weapons, but they also found a note in the car with Mark's name, Mark's address, and And 4.30 p.m. Wait, like he was supposed to show up at a certain time to meet with Mark? Yeah. So again, Mark claimed that Roger just showed up unannounced. But that note sure made it look like there was some kind of appointment that was made.

And according to the Cold Blood episode on this investigation, at least one person had confirmed that there was an appointment. It was Roger's roommate who said that Mark had called Roger to set a time to meet. Now, detectives asked Mark about the call, but he explained it away by saying, like, yeah, I did call Roger, but all he did was rave about this evil spirit guy. We didn't say we're going to meet, like, none of that is real. So Mark is trying to push it off on, like, a delusion. Exactly. To be honest, I'm kind of shocked that none of these discrepancies were followed up on, like, especially if there was this one detective in the mix who is questioning Mark's tale the entire time. Yeah, no, it's weird, right?

And, you know, if it were just one of those things, I could see being like, no, this is pretty open and shut. But that's like a lot of discrepancies. Yeah. And I think one of the reasons that maybe it wasn't as noticed or as paid attention to early on was because of Mark himself. Like everyone in Springfield knew Mark as this good guy. I mean, he was a nuclear engineer working for the state. He served in Korea. He's now in the Army Reserves.

He and Donna had tons of friends. they were active in their local Jewish community. And everyone said that their marriage was good. It was healthy. It was strong. They were this happy, picturesque couple. So it didn't seem like there was anything else to look at. And literally even the police report says that.

It literally says, quote, it was very apparent that he and his wife were very much in love and that this should never have happened. End quote. But whatever happened before again, they closed the case. Detective Williamson couldn't let it go. And he wants to follow up on it now. He doesn't buy Roger as the murderer, so he keeps urging everyone to reopen the case. But every single time he tries, his superiors keep saying, no, we're like not going to hurt this poor husband again. There's always loose ends in the case.

Sometimes it doesn't just fit nice and tidy into a tiny box and you got to walk away, dude. Case closed. They just shut him down every time. But what's interesting is that Williamson isn't the only person. who thinks that this should be open. Mark must think so too, because a few months after Donna's murder, he actually goes back to the police station. And he says he wants his gun back. But he also stays a while and he asks the detective how the investigation is going.

And the detectives are like, well, what investigation? Yeah, it's not. Yeah, this is closed. And he kind of brushes it off again. Nothing like big happens, but it's weird, right? Like it's very open and shut. The police aren't looking into this. And it's strange that he's asking these questions.

Yeah. Now, eventually, after he gets shut down so many times, Detective Williamson steps back from his suspicions about Mark because there just isn't a whole lot more to go on. And Mark himself is moving on with his life. You see, he hires a nanny to help care for his daughter. And in an interesting twist, he actually ends up marrying this nanny just a year after Donna's death. And they go on to have three more children together. And again, he's like living a very normal life. It's a quiet life.

They're raising their family together. And truthfully, again, this is probably where the story could have, would have ended. Except the real showstopper was yet to come. In February 1999, this is three and a half years after Donna's death, a woman comes forward to police saying that she needs. to clear her conscious about Donna's case. This woman's name is Deanne Schultz. She is a friend of Donna's, and she says that she'd been having an affair with Mark. Yeah, Deanne says that Mark had started their affair about a month before Donna was killed,

and they kept seeing one another until a few months later. Not only that, Deanne also claims that Mark told her he wanted out of his marriage, so that he could be with her. And things would just be so much better if Donna was just dead. According to the CBS news piece, I mentioned, Deanne says Mark not only asked her to help him kill Donna at one point, but within a week of the murder, she says Mark mentioned Roger Harrington,

saying that he needed to figure out a way to get him to the house. Now, when he's confronted with this story, Mark doesn't deny the affair with Deanne. He just claims that the rest of the story is bogus. And he basically says, listen, yes, I was a crappy husband that does not make me a murderer, which like, to be fair, that is the general rule here at crime junkie, crappy husband does not a murderer make. But the affair, especially because it was with Donna's best friend,

destroys this image that Mark had built up of this like perfect hero husband defending his wife. And remember, that image is kind of what made police close this case so quickly in the first place. So with this now, realizing that maybe they didn't have the full story, police decide to look at the case again. The first thing they notice when they open the case file is three Polaroids of the crime scene. And its pictures they didn't even really know existed until now. One of the police officers had taken these photos of the crime scene before the paramedics moved the bodies. But because the case closed so quickly, no one had, like, bothered to look at them. Like, open shut, don't need to, like, analyze anything. Right. But what they see when they look

closely at those photos actually tells a completely different story than the one Mark had been telling all this time. Now, remember, Mark said that he came up the stairs from the basement, and he found Roger Harrington standing over his wife, beating her in the back of the head with a hammer, and Donna was kneeling. So what you'd expect to see is Roger on his back, feet pointing toward Donna. But that's not what was seen at all. It's actually completely the opposite. His feet were pointing in the opposite direction. So the police actually hire a new crime scene analyst to look at all of the evidence. And his conclusions leave them dumbfounded. The expert tells police that Donna's death was most likely a domestic homicide stage to look like a home invasion and that Roger was lured to the

house by Mark and framed for Donna's murder. One of the most interesting things the expert points out, which I am shocked nobody picked up on on day one, is that Roger had no blood splatter on his shirt, which is something you would, yeah, something you would definitely expect to see on somebody who is bludgeoning another person with a hammer. Yeah. But remember, when police came in, Mark was, in fact, the one covered in blood. And not only that, Roger's own gunshot wounds were totally inconsistent with Mark's story. Okay.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but Mark told the police that he shot Roger twice. Once from the hall when he first saw Roger attacking Donna and then that like downed Roger, but then he started getting back up and Mark shot him in the head, right? Right. But here's the thing. So what police find is that the first shot actually hit Roger in the back of his head near the top, not the front. So what they're kind of piecing together is investigators now think that Mark lured Roger to his house with the hopes of Roger maybe getting his job back. Like we don't know what he said or how he got them there, what he promised, but they're thinking maybe, you know, maybe he called and said, listen, I'll talk to your supervisor.

It's not that big of a deal. Like, let's come and have a discussion. Let's settle this. Let's get this over with. Right. Right. So once Roger was in the house, police suspect that Mark had him turn around and kneel and then he shot him in the back of the head. Now, in Mark's initial statement, he claimed that Roger had looked up at him and that's when he shot him the second time. But the new forensic analyst starts checking the ballistics and they say the placement of the shell casing doesn't match Mark's story again. But everything does kind of fall into place if he shot him from behind. So what they're kind of thinking is that Mark killed Roger and then police figure that when Donna heard the noise, she rushes into the room and that's when her own husband hits her with the hammer before calling 911.

So, Brett, remember the 911 call I played, I mean, right off the bat at the beginning of the episode. Yeah. So I want you to listen to just a sloth. liver of that call again. Can't understand you. Slow down. Is the man still in your house? Yes, he's waiting now for the bullet in his head. Did you shoot him? Yes, I shot him. He was killing my wife. Please ask. My date is clang. My biggest crime. I gotta go. I'll call you right back.

And let me just play this one little part, one more time. Yes, I shot him. He was killing my wife. Please ask. My dad is clang. My biggest cry. I gotta go. I'm calling right back. What is that? Well, Mark says that it's the baby crying. But what detectives hear, and, you know, if you're looking for it, what I can hear, too, is someone moaning. Police assume that the groans are why Mark hung up, not because the baby was crying.

They now believe that Roger's body was laying face down when Mark heard the moaning and that he turned Roger over. and shot him in the forehead. And this also better explains an ear witness that police had earlier, but again, they didn't think was relevant. This person said that they heard two gunshots, but the gunshots were a couple of minutes apart, like five minutes, which makes sense if, again, he kills Roger first, attacks his wife, calls 911, realizes Roger is still alive and has to shoot him a second time. Didn't you say that Mark hit Roger with the hammer too? I guess what was the point of that? So it's interesting because, you know, Mark says he does it out of anger or whatever. He thinks that the guy is still moving, whatever.

But police agree that they think he did it only to explain why his own prints would be on the hammer. Oh. So in police's new version of the crime scene, now the photos, the ballistics, the blood, all of it finally makes sense. But police can't afford to make another mistake. So they spend, wait for it, two years putting a rock-solid case together against Mark. And finally, six years after Donna's death, Mark was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. The defense tried their best to argue that the police's original investigation was right, but the evidence against Mark was undeniable. In 2002, Mark was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

But this isn't where Mark's story ends. Because in 2005, an inmate in the prison where Mark is serving a life sentence comes forward to say Mark tried to rope him into a murder for hire plot in prison. What? Who is he trying to kill now? Deanne Schultz, Donna's best friend, his own ex-lover, and the woman who pulled at the street. strings that made Mark's story unravel. And they have it in writing. Mark's new murder for hire plan is literally 19 handwritten pages long.

In it, he outlines his plan to have Deanne kidnapped and then forced to write and record statements saying she made the whole thing up and that Mark is innocent. And after she gave those statements, she was supposed to be killed. But she wasn't even the only person he wanted to kill. There was another target. a guy named Jeffrey Gelman. Who's he? Jeffrey was actually a childhood friend of Mark's.

He's this wealthy real estate developer living in Florida at the time. And Mark was apparently pissed off that Jeffrey wouldn't post a million dollar bail for him. And according to a story by Chris Detrow in the Ohio Times reporter, Mark wanted Jeffrey kidnapped and then demand a ransom in exchange for not killing Jeffrey's family. His 19 page note also said that if there were any... money left over after Dan was dead and Jeffrey and his family were dead, they could go ahead and kill Don his father, too, like just for the heck of it. So that guy Chris Detrow, he also wrote a piece for the Times Telegram, which said that Mark even planned to get the hitman to hire him after

prison because, and this is a direct quote, quote, I know I can pull a trigger, end quote. So he was trying to hire this man and then like line up a job when he got out. Like you cannot. You cannot make this stuff up. No, this is so... Bananas. Wild and confusing and baffling. I don't even know what to think anymore. Mark said that the whole thing was just an elaborate fantasy, but of course the jury doesn't buy it.

They actually convict him on two counts of solicitation of murder, one for Deanne and one for Jeffrey. And he's sentenced to another five years on top of his life sentence that he's already serving. You know, I can't help but wonder how this case might have been. been different if a quick thinking police officer hadn't snapped those pictures in the beginning? Or if a guilt-ridden Diane hadn't come forward to police all those years later? Or if the whole house of cards that Mark had so carefully built, this persona that he had so carefully crafted hadn't fallen down around him? Yeah, and Roger, too.

I mean, his story might be the most heartbreaking of all. He was going to this meeting at the Wingers, probably to apologize and clear things up. Maybe get his job back. I know. And he not only ends up dead, but framed for murder for years. I know. I mean, he is just as much a victim as Donna. So Mark Winger planned what could have been, what almost was the perfect crime.

And if not for a few Polaroids and a guilty conscience, he might have gotten away with it. Crime Junkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? So you guys, if you want to hear more stories like this, go check out the fan club. You can find it on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. We've been doing that for almost three years. There is loads and loads of never before heard episodes that I think you guys are really going to love.

Again, that's crime junkiepodcast.com. And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode.