True Crime Campfire - A Spider's Web: A Killer Who Almost Got Away

Episode Date: December 25, 2020

We like to think we can trust ourselves—that our read on a situation, whatever that situation may be, is correct. We need to believe we’ve got this, we’re seeing the world as it really is, nobody’s gonna get the drop on us. But sometimes, we find ourselves through the looking glass. Sometimes, just when we think we’ve got a handle on a situation, everything shifts like the changing images of a hologram, and our whole world rocks on its foundations. Sometimes we have to face the fact that nothing is what it looks like. Sometimes we have to admit we were wrong—and if we don’t right that wrong, it will spell disaster for everyone around us. One of the people in this story found that out the hard way. Sources:Invitation to Murder by Gail Abbott ZimmermanCBS's "48 Hours," episode "Invitation to Murder"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie and I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. We like to think we can trust ourselves. That our read on a situation, whatever that situation may be, is correct. We need to believe we've got this. We're seeing the world as it really is. Nobody's going to get the drop on us. But sometimes we find ourselves through the looking glass. Sometimes, just when we think we've got a handle on a situation, everything shifts like the changing images of a hologram,

and our whole world rocks on its foundations. Sometimes we have to face the fact that nothing is what it looks like. Sometimes, we have to admit we were wrong. And if we don't write that wrong, it will spell disaster for everyone around us. One of the people in this story found that out the hard way. This is a spider's web,

the story of a killer who almost got away. So, campers, we're in Springfield, Illinois, August 23, 1995. It was 427 in the afternoon, a bright sunny day when the 911 dispatch received a frantic call. The man on the line sounded terrified, nearly hysterical. He was breathing so fast, he was almost panting, and he said, Emergency! Emergency! There's a man! He beat my wife. shot him my god my wife is bleeding so i mean just right out of the gate terror the dispatcher asked him to try to slow down a little and she said okay is the man still there yes he's lying there on the floor

with a bullet in his head i shot him he was killing my wife at this point in the call the dispatcher thought she could hear moaning in the background and it's actually really creepy because there's a 48 hours mystery about this case and you can hear this 911 call and i'm not a super big fan of playing 911 calls because they're really traumatic to listen to but you can if you are interested probably find this we'll see if we can find it if you guys want on the social media but you can hear this moaning in the background and it is just it's goosebumps inducing make your hairs on the back of your neck stand up you know it sounded like a male voice but she couldn't be 100% sure and then there was a brief silence and then my baby's crying i'll call you back and the caller hung up ooh not a good move

campers. If you're ever in this kind of situation or an emergency situation, do not hang up on 911. No. The dispatchers need to get information from you, and they will guide you through what you need to do. Oh, absolutely. They can guide you through CPR and the whole thing. They can't help you, you know, if you're going to just hang up on them. So the dispatcher could see that the call had come from the home of Mark and Donna Winger in a part of town where crime was rare. And interestingly enough, it can be difficult now. This was 1995, so this was before everybody had cell phones. So everybody

had a landline, so it was really easy usually for dispatch to look up an address based on the number that the call was coming from. But now, because everybody has cell phones, it's a totally different story, and it can be really difficult. They have to triangulate, and so it's really important that, you know, you give them your

address right away. Where are you? John Oliver did a really good segment on this actually on his show where like if you don't get give an address they could go to the completely wrong end of town it could be a disaster oh absolutely yeah i remember that actually because didn't somebody get kidnapped and they they could have saved her and they didn't because they couldn't figure out where she was was horrible yeah so the dispatcher called the number back she needed you know more information so that the officers on the way would know what to expect when they got there

and the man presumably mark winger picked up he sounded even more worked up than he'd been before, if that was even possible. And the dispatcher said, look, I need to know what's going on. I have officers on the way. And Mark yelled, my wife is dying on the floor. Dispatcher said, okay, who is this man who attacked her? And he said, I don't know. I don't know who he is. I got to hold my wife. I got to get to my wife. I got to get to my wife. I got to get to my wife. I got to me doing it, right? The dispatcher asked when the man had gotten there, and he said, I don't know. A few minutes ago, please let me get to my wife. I won't hang up. My door is open. And the dispatcher tried to ask another question, but Mark Winger dropped the

phone. And the dispatcher could hear him in the background shouting, don't die. Oh, my God, Donna, don't die. Oh, it's just awful. And underneath his wailing, she could hear another sound, that low-pitched moan still going on. Anybody got goosebumps besides me? Oh, just, yeah. This one. This case just, bleh, gives me the Wiggins. So police and paramedics were there within minutes. Police got there first, and in the living room of this nice suburban home, they found a bloody nightmare as bad as any horror movie scene. A young man lay in a pool of blood with a hammer laying on the floor near his hand. He was bleeding from gunshot wounds to the head and chest and what looked like bludgeoning wounds to the chest as well. He was still breathing, moaning in pain,

but not responsive to questions. A few steps away, Mark's beautiful wife Donna lay beaten and bloodied from absolutely horrifying bludgeoning wounds. They assumed from the hammer that was lying beside the unconscious young man. And like the man, she was unconscious but still breathing. Mark Winger was kneeling beside his wife, and he was holding her and yelling at her to breathe, breathe. Come on, Donna, breathe. Just like something out of a movie,

just unbelievable, dramatic scene that they walk in on. The officers went over to Mark and they ushered him into the bedroom and sat him down on the bed so that the paramedics would have room to help her. And Mark and Donna's adopted baby girl was screaming her head off on the bed, so one of the officers picked up the baby and kind of walked her around and comforted her, and Mark seemed not to even hear her crying. He seemed just to completely be in shock, kind of rocking back and forth

the way people do when they're really traumatized. And the patrol officers noticed a 45 semi-automatic handgun sitting on a table. Paramedics rushed to help both of the injured people, but before they could start their rescue work, An officer who just happened to have a Polaroid camera in his squad car stopped them, and he said, hang on just one second, let me get a couple of pictures of the scene. He knew that this would be the only record of the crime scene, you know, where the bodies were and everything once the paramedics moved the man and woman to the ambulance,

and he only had film for three shots. So he very quickly just took three pictures of the victims from three different angles, and then he said to the paramedics, okay, go, go, and they rushed over to start working on both of the injured people. and this was just absolutely surreal for everybody there. I mean, for God's sake, it was broad daylight, it was in a nice, extremely low-crime area of Springfield. What the hell had happened here?

And why had it happened? Now, normally we don't go into a ton of detail about the detectives in the cases we cover, but in this case, it's important because the vastly different perceptions that these two detectives had of this case from the very beginning will have a huge impact on how the story unfolds.

This story almost went a very, different way with a devious killer getting away with murder. So I'm just going to give you a sketch of these two guys. So Detective Charlie Cox was a former CSI. So he immediately realized how compromised the scene was after having the paramedics trampling all over the place and rescue debris all over the floor. And he was a 19 year veteran of homicide. So very experienced detective and forensics guy. He had really good instincts and over the years he'd learned to trust them. He was a religious guy. He prayed over the bodies of his victims at his crime scenes. That's what's a thumbnail sketch of Detective Cox. His partner, Detective Doug Williamson, was 10 years younger and about

eight inches taller. It's just like you and me. It's pretty true, yeah. I know. He was still pretty new to homicide. This was only his second murder case, a little bit of a rookie in terms of working murders. But he was a careful detective, thoughtful and methodical and detail-oriented. And both of these guys were right out of central casting, right down to the matching mustaches. Do detectives get crime-solving powers from big, luxuriant mustaches? Because so many of them seem to have them. Do they, like, teach it at the police academy? Yes, definitely.

And the way it works is the higher your score on the Cellick scale, named, of course, after Magnum P.I., Tom Selleck. the more crime-fighting magic you get. So, like, if your stash is kind of wispy, you might get a little extra Sherlock Holmesy mojo from that, but if you're sporting a full Ron Swanson, look out. We get a star coming through. So, yeah. So this was by far the worst crime scene

any of the officers or paramedics had ever seen. There was blood and tissue on almost every surface in the room. Yeah, so the paramedics were still working on the mail. the guy's face was covered in blood, but Detective Cox thought he recognized him, but couldn't place why. He knelt down and felt in the man's pocket and drew out a wallet to check the driver's license. The name on it was Roger L. Harrington, 27 years old. Cox then realized how he knew him. The guy used to live at the mobile home park that Cox owned, and Cox had had to go to his trailer more than once because of loud arguments between Harrington and his wife.

Once, Cox had seen him hit her during one of their volatile boosy fights. Oh. Yeah. He was a disruptive tenant, and he struck Cox as, quote unquote, not all there. Mark Winger was sitting on his and Donna's bed when Cox and Williamson went to go talk to him, still rocking back and forth. He kept asking what was happening to Donna. repeating, who was that guy? Do you know who he is? And when they were able to get him

calmed down enough, Mark told them his story. He said he'd been running on the treadmill in the basement when he heard a noise, a big thunk. They'd only had their baby daughter a few months, and they were both in nervous new parent mode. So Mark got off the treadmill and went upstairs to check on Donna and the baby. He heard the baby, making little baby noises in the bedroom and went to go check on her and found her lying alone in the middle of his and Donna's bed. This was very unusual for Donna to leave her alone on the bed. He heard a commotion in the living room and

something about it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He grabbed his 45 out of the drawer and cautiously walked toward the commotion. And he walked in on a horror. A man was attacking Donna, hitting her over and over again with a hammer. And as this man reared back to hit her again, Mark shot him. The attacker fell to the ground, but he was still moving, tried to sit up. And Mark shot him again, right in the center of his forehead. The guy fell back.

Then Mark ran to Donna. Right away, he could see that she was in bad trouble. He held her and saw that she was still breathing. And then he heard the attacker start to moan, and in a fit of rage, he grabbed the bloody hammer off the floor and pounded him in the chest until he stopped. Wow, dang. Then he ran for the phone. This was a howering story.

No kidding, right? Yeah. After he told it, Mark again asked. Do you know who that guy is lying on my floor? Detective Cox said, don't worry, we'll find out. He didn't want to distract Mark from the narrative just yet. Cox's partner, Williamson, was in and out of the room, checking on things in the living room and then coming back to Mark. Williamson told Mark the baby was safe.

She'd been taken to a neighbor's. Mark nodded. He seemed too distracted to really process that and asked again about the intruder. He seemed fixated on finding out who the man was. Who was he? Who was he? He asked that question over and over. Every now and then, he'd cry out his wife's name and say, oh, my God. Oh, poor guy. Can you imagine?

I can't. At one point, Mark took off his bloody shirt and started twisting it around his hands, fidgeting. Cox asked Mark to take him through his whole day. starting with waking up that morning. It had been a regular day, he said. He'd gotten up. He'd gone to work. There had been one odd thing, though.

He'd had a conversation on the phone with a man who had been having some problems with Donna. The guy had been harassing him and Donna. Mark had wanted to reason with the guy and ask him to stop bothering his family, and the guy had started babbling a bunch of weird nonsense on the phone. as though he was having a conversation with an imaginary third person while he was talking to Mark. Oh, that's no good. Not good at all. No, that's creepy.

At this point in the story, a loud siren interrupted them. This was when the ambulance arrived to take Donna and the intruder to the hospital. Both were still alive. So I know that's kind of confusing because we already talked about the paramedics. This is what's going on in the back bedroom while all of that is going on in the front room. Yeah. Just to clarify. Yeah, the cops arrived first and then...

Like, took Mark, you know, some of them were milling around and looking at everything in the living room. And then the detectives took Mark into the back room and, yeah, started this conversation with him while they were waiting on the paramedics. Mark asked what was happening with Donna and the detective said, she's in good hands, Mark, don't worry. I mean, Detective Cox said it, but he knew it wasn't likely that Donna would pull through. Her wounds were absolutely horrendous. Cox wanted Mark to elaborate on his conversation with this guy. How was this guy bothering your family? Who was he? And Campers, it was a bizarre story.

About a week before, Donna and the baby had flown back from Florida. They'd been down there visiting Donna's mom and stepdad. They flew in to St. Louis and had arranged to take a shuttle van from there to Springfield. Donna and the baby were the only passengers, and the driver had freaked Donna out. Not only did he drive like a bat out of hell, speeding and weaving in and out of traffic. He also said all kinds of creepy and appropriate stuff. Like what? Detective Cox wanted to know. Mark said, oh, he talked about a demon who told them to do bad things.

Oh, my God. Like, you know, plant car bombs and stab people. Oh, is that it? Is that all? Okay. No big deal, right? And he had some weird name for it. I forget what. The driver had also talked about liking older women and he'd invited Donna to a party at his place. He said he had lots of naked parties with wild sex. Okay, so first of all, older women. I'm sorry, screw you, my dude. Donna was like early 30s tops, so 42-year-old me request, can we not? Older women. Anyway, second of all, that is just creepy beyond my ability to express.

Like, imagine you've got your baby with you, you're a captive audience in this cab, and now the driver is not only telling you that he hears demon voices, who tell him to stab people, now he's inviting you to an orgy. Not great. Not what you hope is going to happen when you make your reservation with yellow cab or whatever, right? Yeah, this. brings us to an interesting point of order, too, is you are allowed to get out of a vehicle at any point and say, hey, please pull over at the next exit. I'd like to get out.

Yes. Just a note. Yeah. And this creepy-ass talk had gone on for the whole ride. And Donna had been terrified. She was afraid to ask him to stop or pull over, afraid she'd make him mad. Yeah. And I'd bet you one million dollars that there are people listening right now probably especially female identifying people but really it could happen to any gender at all who have been in this situation before i know i have not anything quite this terrifying nobody was talking about demon voices but i've had scary cabbies you know i lived in two major cities i've had plenty of scary cabbies and it it's a terrifying situation and lately you hear all those uber horror stories and

stuff and when you're in that situation like what do you do it's scary to think of telling the guy off It's scary to think of asking him to let you out because you don't know how he might react. And it's scary to sit there and do nothing. So it's scary no matter what you do. It's like you don't have any good choices. Like I think probably the best choice is to say, let me out. But, you know, women get in all kinds of trouble for saying no to men. Right.

You know? So you never know what's going to happen. And if you get a bad vibe off a guy, I can understand why she wouldn't do that. Yeah. No, I am, you know, I live alone, campers. And as a point of order, I actually never let an Uber driver meet me at my physical apartment. That's really smart. I always make them meet me at a different location or drop me off at a different location because they don't need to know where I live.

Very smart. That's a really good idea. That's a good tip. And also, if you, you can also share your trip with somebody. So if you have a designated person to say, hey, I'll be riding in an Uber from this time to this time. Keep an eye out and watch my progress. You've shared them with me. before yeah i got a text one time at five in the morning because you were going to the airport and i was

still up because i'm a night out anyway so so at this point in the story mark asked if he could have a diet coke from the fridge because his throat was getting dry and detective williamson agreed to go and get it and as he went to open the fridge door right smack in front of his face on the fridge he noticed a letter on yellow legal paper like fixed to the door with a magnet and it appeared to be a complaint letter to a cab company written by dana about the very scary driver that Mark had just told him about. And the letter gave a little more detail than Mark had. It said, quote, he started telling me about his spirit, Dom, spelled D-A-H-M, which makes me wonder

because Dahmer happened around this time, you know, not too much before 1995. So maybe he was thinking of Jeffrey Dahmer when he made up that name. He said, sometimes Dom takes him out of his body when he's driving and makes him fly above the treetops. and it was so eerie for Williamson to hear Donna's voice through the letter after seeing her so bloodied and beaten just moments before. And when the detective came back with the Diet Coke, Mark continued his story. Donna hadn't told him about the cab driver right away because Mark had a big test coming up. He was doing some continuing education.

And she didn't want him distracted, but she had told her best friend Deanne. And Deanne had come over to be with Donna so she wouldn't be alone. Donna had told Mark about it after his test and he was just furious with the cab company I mean here's his brand new baby and his wife and everything so he had told her to write that letter so that they could lodge a formal complaint against the company and against this driver and he had also called the company to complain

and he said the supervisor seemed to take it seriously he got the impression that the driver was going to be let go and as Mark was finishing the story Detective Cox's pager buzzed with a 1079 code letting them know that both Donna and Roger Harrington had been DOA at the hospital. So, sadly, Donna didn't make it, and neither did her apparent attacker. He didn't tell Mark right away because he wanted to keep him talking and get as much info as he could before Mark fell apart.

So after he hung up with the creepy cab driver that morning at work, he hadn't spoken with the guy again. And when he got home at 3.30 that afternoon, Donna had asked him to hang up a coat rack in the front hall. and she'd laid out a hammer on the dining room table for him to use. So, of course, the detectives are listening to that, wondering, was that the hammer that killed her? And shortly thereafter, he'd gotten on the treadmill. And then all hell broke loose, as he'd already told them. And for what seemed like the 50th time, Mark asked the detectives who the man was who attacked Donna.

And finally, Detective Cox told him. Okay, his name is Roger Harrington. And Mark said, oh, my God, that's the driver. He's been harassing us all week. And then he just fell over and cried. And when he composed himself a little, Detective Cox asked him to elaborate on the harassment. He said, well, it was phone calls, creepy phone calls, where this guy would ask for Donna by name. Donna had gotten some of the calls.

Her best friend Deanne had taken others while she was there. The guy hadn't identified himself, but they figured it had to be this creepy cab driver. And Mark asked the detectives, you know, am I going to go to jail for shooting this guy? And they said, no, I don't think so. but it seems like a very clear case of self-defense and defense of your wife. And Cox said, look, to my mind, you're a hero. You did what you had to do. Damn right, right?

I mean, if that's not a clear example of stand in your ground, I don't know what is. Somebody comes into your house and you actively catch them beating your wife with a hammer. I think you're allowed to shoot them, right? So Williamson went out to look outside, and there was this old beat-up car parked in front of the house. He'd noticed it when they pulled up. The license plate said ROG 1001, so Raj 1001, and lo and behold, it was registered to Roger Harrington. The detective noticed that there was a scribbled note on the front passenger seat, so he made sure the evidence text bagged that along with everything else. So in addition to the notes, they found a couple of things in the back seat, like there was a tire iron that had some like electrical tape wrapped around it as if it was for gripping, like maybe for,

a weapon or something like that. So they, you know, bagged and tagged and took everything in the car. Now, inside, the detectives asked Mark if he'd walk them through the situation and demonstrate exactly where he'd been standing, where Harrington and Donna had been, et cetera. And to their surprise, he agreed, because, you know, a lot of people would be too traumatized, but he was like, yeah, I'll do whatever I have to do to help. So this was one of the bravest, most cooperative, most helpful witnesses that they'd ever interviewed. You know, they were just impressed with his ability to hold it together. And Mark walked them through it, out in the bloody living room.

To the detectives, it seemed to perfectly fit the evidence. Everything he said fit. You know, where he was standing, where Donna was lying and being beaten, and, you know, all the blood patterns and everything to Detective Cox's sort of experienced CSI. eye. It just seemed to all make sense. And as they were doing that kind of walk through, Mark's rabbi arrived and spoke to Detective Cox. The rabbi said, you know, can I be the one to tell Mark that Donna is dead? And Detective Cox was probably glad to let him do it because every detective will tell you that's their least favorite part of the job is having to make death notifications

because it's just heartbreaking. And when the rabbi told Mark that Donna had died at the hospital, he just fell to his knees and just collapsed and everybody there said it was just incredibly sad. So, you know, to Detective Cox, this is just one of the most senseless, saddest things he's ever seen. And he was impressed with Mark Winger, now a single father of a baby girl who had tried his best to save his wife. I mean, this was somebody who truly was a hero, even if he hadn't managed to save her life. He tried. And really, you know, they saw no need to trouble. him further and they went back to the station. But let's put a pin in that for a few minutes and

get some background on Mark and Donna Winger, who had met in Hollywood, Florida, just six years earlier. Donna was beautiful, dark curly hair and eyes, big bright smile. She was really friendly and lively, super close to her mom, Sarah Jane Dresher, and her stepdad Ira, close to her mom to the point where they were really one of those mother-daughter teams that were like best friends. She told her mom everything. Sometimes it was even a little too much everything for Sarah Jane's taste. Like she wasn't super thrilled always about hearing about her daughter's sex life, for example. But they were that close. And I have to add, anytime I've ever tried to talk to my mom about anything within a light year of sex, she has shut me down hard. So, you know, I guess she and

Sarah Jane would have that in common. And Donna adored her stepdad, even though she'd only known him for four years. She called him Popeye. And he loved her back. He thought, thought of her as his own daughter, which is, you know, not always the case in step-parent, step-child situations at all, right? Despite a learning disability that made reading really challenging for her, Donna pursued a career as a surgical assistant, and she was great at it. On a family vacation one time at the Grand Canyon in 1992, she actually saved a man's life.

They had driven up on this terrible accident on a really deserted road, and she had put pressure on just an awful wound for two straight hours and talked to the... the man and kept him awake and everything while her stepdad went for help and they all waited for a helicopter to arrive and airlift this guy out because it was the Grand Canyon. Wow. So two straight hours of talking to this guy and keeping him awake and putting pressure on the wound and everything. So just somebody who was a born nurturer, born healer, a good egg. And in 1989 when she was 24, a colleague at the hospital where she worked set her up with his brother, Mark Winger. And Mark for his part, he was a bit of a rock star himself. He'd been,

a lieutenant in the army. He had a degree in physics, so really smart, obviously, which is always a turn on for me. He was always a high achiever. You know, somebody who studied hard, got nearly perfect grades, but he managed to be really social on top of it all. He was pretty much his parents' golden child. And like Donna, he was very close with his parents and his brother Greg. He had kind of a soldier's build, so musly, a dark hair and bushy eyebrows and glasses. And, you know, Donna loved his sense of humor. It was just all good. And, yeah, they hit it off immediately. They were both driven and they both wanted the same things in life, especially to have a family.

But they were a classic opposites attract couple in terms of personality. Donna was energetic and outgoing and emotional. Mark was quiet and practical and thoughtful. Their family thought they balanced each other out. Yeah, my husband and I are kind of like that, actually. And it works. I mean, at least for us, I'm definitely the people person of the two of us, a little bit more gregarious, and he's a little quieter and more thoughtful.

Like, I'll fall into a 20-minute conversation with a stranger in line at Walgreens. He would never do that, you know. He's probably too British to do that. But, you know, it works. Some couples, it works. Some couples, it probably doesn't. But sometimes you just compliment each other. And I think that's what Donna and Mark's families thought about them.

Oh, totally. So Mark and Donna moved to Springfield, Illinois shortly after they got married. Mark found a job as an engineer with the Illinois State. nuclear safety department, and it was too good to pass up. Donna hated to leave her family in Florida, but she wanted Mark to pursue his dreams, so she was game to pull up stakes. Once they were there, Donna got a good job as a surgical assistant at Memorial Hospital, and she quickly became one of the most popular staff members there.

And she made a good friend there, a nurse named Deanne Schultz. They started going to the gym together, and she started going to the gym together, and soon they started getting together with their husbands. And lo and behold, the guys hit it off too. Which is the dream when you're a couple to make couple friends. Mark and Donna also became active in their synagogue and in the Jewish community in Springfield. They befriended the rabbi and his wife. They met lots of other young professional people.

It was going great. Starting a family was a top priority for them. And they started trying for a baby right away. But soon, months of trying turned to years, and they knew something was wrong. And in early 1994, Donna learned that there was a problem with one of her fallopian tubes. Oh, right? Her doctors told her she'd never be able to conceive. Oh, man.

This hit her and Mark hard. But later that year, an OBGYN at Donna's hospital introduced her to a 15-year-old patient who was pregnant, and looking to give the baby up for adoption. And their baby girl was born on May 27, 1995. A home video shot on the Dressor's video camera shows the baby's adoption day. Donna and Mark are beaming and getting all choked up. Donna's best friend, Aunt Deanne, is holding the baby. The rabbi is conducting a naming ceremony in the living room.

It's all beautiful and touching and everybody's teary-eyed with joy. And there's this really, like, adorable moment on the home video where Mark takes the camera into the baby's room while she's sleeping. He leans over the crib and tells her, I just wanted a little time alone with you to tell you how much daddy loves you. Aww. So, you know, precious. Yeah. Here's a blissfully happy couple with a brand new baby, and only a few months later, this nightmare unfolds. now this baby will never know her mother and mark will be left to raise her alone yeah we're talking months later that's one of the biggest tragedies of this case is that they finally got the family started that they wanted and then literally is like three months later that donna's murdered

so back to the aftermath of donna's murder mark's rabbi and his wife were mike and joe dats They loved Mark and Donna, and they were devastated when they found out about the murder. When Mike found out, he called Joe at work, but because she was pregnant, he didn't want to tell her over the phone. He just made, like, an innocuous excuse and asked her to come to Mark and Donna's house after work. And, of course, when she got there, she saw the yellow crime scene tape, and her heart sank. The first person Joe ran into was Deanne Schultz, Donna's best friend. Deanne was hysterical, sobbing, saying, Donna's been hurt.

Oh, God. Joe was devastated and totally horrified. Donna had told her about the crazy cab driver, and she couldn't believe he'd actually come back and killed her. It was something out of a horror movie. No kidding. The friends consoled Mark as best they could. He kept repeating,

I killed a man. and crying. But Joe reassured him. Mark, you killed Donna's killer. You were trying to protect her. You shouldn't feel guilt about that. Absolutely. Donna's mom and stepdad were devastated beyond words.

Sarah Jane had lost not only her daughter, but her best friend. Obviously, they were in a huge amount of pain, but they also wanted to reach out to Mark and let him know how much they loved him. That they didn't blame him. him. They were grateful that he'd tried to save her. They rushed up from Florida to be with him. Everyone rallied around Mark, his friends, his family, Donna's family. They were all amazed at his strength. For example, Ira was surprised and impressed when Mark was able to go back into the house to get some things for the baby. Just walking through the front door made Ira sick and

Woozy. But Mark walked right over to one of the pools of blood and pointed out the bullet hole in the floor where he'd shot Harrington. Not that Mark didn't melt down. When he, his brother Greg, and some members of Donna's family, went to the funeral home to choose a casket. The funeral director asked if they wanted to see the body. Mark said he did, and Greg went with him. And when they pulled back the sheet, Mark fell to his knees and melted down. He sobbed and asked God to make take him instead. It was rough for everybody who witnessed it. At the end of the funeral service, Mark leaned down and kissed Donna's casket.

Oh, my God, that hurts my heart to hear that. Yeah, that's a rough one. So, on the day of the murder, the detectives had started looking into Roger Harrington's background. No domestic violence charges had ever been filed, despite the fact that Cox had once witnessed him hitting his wife at the mobile home park. His wife hadn't pressed charges. But they discovered he'd spent some time in a mental health facility.

They also discovered that Donna's best friend, Deanne, had called the police about the creepy cab ride and harassing phone calls on Donna's behalf. The police had stepped up patrols and mark in Donna's neighborhood as a result. Yeah, and it seemed a very clear cut to the police and to the district attorney. they actually held a press conference that night to let everybody know what had happened and that no charges were likely to be filed against Mark Winger, who had acted in self-defense and defense of his family. And soon after, a jury was assembled for a coroner's inquest into Roger Harrington's death,

which was basically just a formality, and the death was ruled justifiable. So the case was officially closed. Mark took a leave of absence from work for a few months to go stay with his parents in Cleveland, but soon, you know, he started to come back to life, as people do. he went back to Springfield and his job he decided to stay in the now of course cleaned and redecorated house where he had lived with Donna and you know the one thing was

that friends and family said he seemed consumed with the fact that he had taken a human life that he had to shoot this man he brought it up all the time and they all kept reassuring him again and again that you know look you did what you had to do but he just seemed fixated on it I killed a man I killed a man So, you know, when people are grieving and when people have gone through a trauma, they will sometimes fixate on something like that and have intrusive thoughts and everything.

So everybody just tried to keep reassuring him and letting him know that they supported him and, you know, that no one blamed him for that, etc., etc. Some people thought that he might give the new baby up for adoption now that he'd have to be a single dad, but it turned out no way. He hired a 21-year-old nanny from an agency and he committed to being the best dad that he could be. and he wrote a letter to the newspaper in Springfield thanking the whole community for the love and support that they'd given him and praising his wife as the most caring and decent person he'd ever known. It's actually really sweet letter you can read it online. Meanwhile, Roger Harrington's family was not experiencing any community support, as you can imagine.

They were grieving alone, and they were pretty much baffled by the whole thing. Roger, in their minds, was a happy-go-lucky guy. True, he'd had a bad marriage and his wife had brought out the worst, him they said he lost his cool one time and hit her but they said that was just the one time it wasn't typical of him by the way i don't care if it's one time or ten times do not hit your partner let's not minimize that for god's sake it's not okay so i don't let you know like i don't care if it was one time or a hundred times no but i think that their point is it wasn't a pattern of violence yeah that's what their argument was but he's not typical of him or whatever yeah there's still

consequences for those actions absolutely yeah and i mean we don't know for sure either we're way, I guess. So, anywho, Rogers family knew that he had checked himself into a hospital four or five years ago for a short stay. They couldn't remember much about why, but they said, look, this guy was not capable of this. He was happy in his job. He had been doing well lately. He was sensitive, in fact. He cried like a baby when his dog died. Like, this is not a man who could beat a woman to death with a hammer. But, you know, families do this. And the police took all of this was skepticism because they seem real defensive about Roger, which I guess is understandable, but they just seem to be pretty much in denial.

And detectives see that all the time. And we see it all the time on true crime shows. I mean, don't you roll your eyes when you watch a date line or something and you see the kind of ridiculous mental gymnastics that the family members of killers can come up with to explain, my little lovely lambkin could never have done this, even in the face of like mountains of evidence. Like literally I've seen cases where there's been video proof and the families have still not believed it. Well, that must have been faked.

Okay. Ooy. But the family insisted. Roger couldn't do this. They tried for weeks after Roger's death to get the police to listen to their concerns and their disbelief. They couldn't understand why they had just believed Mark Winger's story right away. Was it because he made good money and he was a nuclear engineer and he lived in an upper middle class? neighborhood while Roger and the rest of their family were working class. That's how it felt to them

anyway. And they were especially frustrated because the police showed no interest in what they considered to be an important witness. Roger's roommate Susan had told them that Roger had an appointment that afternoon to meet with a customer. And they thought, what if this was Mark Winger? If the man knew that Roger was coming, then he wasn't an intruder. He was invited. His whole story would fall apart. But the family's efforts pretty much came to nothing and they were left feeling like pariahs.

People stared at them, the grocery store. It was hard. And I should make it clear. In most cases, I feel really badly for the family members of the murderers. Most of the time,

these people bear no fault whatsoever for what happened, but they have to live with the fallout anyway and people can be vicious, especially on social media. I've seen some ugly stuff go down. So one thing

we've been keeping under our hat until now, is that from the very beginning of this case, there was some conflict between the two detectives about how to handle it. To Detective Cox, this was a clear-cut case of a hero husband who tried to save his wife. Detective Doug Williamson, on the other hand, wasn't so sure.

He was the methodical, detail-oriented one of the two, remember the one who just kind of stood back and observed without saying much, and he had some suspicions pretty much for minute one. and he had tried from day one to get a closer investigation of the case. So on the day of Donna's murder, Williamson felt there was something off about the way Mark was acting. He was sobbing, but Doug didn't see any actual tears. Yeah, that shit when they talk about in true crime shows is the creepiest thing in the world to me.

It's definitely a trope. It comes up a lot. I just saw a case the other day where, you know, somebody was making the crying noises. but no tears were coming out and there was one case actually I wish I could remember which one but there was a case of a woman who murdered her husband and she actually went so far as to tell family members at the funeral that she had a problem with her tear ducts so that they didn't work so that's why I'm not crying wow talk about phoning it in yeah I so I'm the kind of person that like I'm I cry at TV commercials yeah you're a weeper I get I get emotional I cry all the time. And so, like, at the drop of that, I'll cry. And so I can't imagine being so emotionally

detached from a situation that you can't cry. But that you pretend to, which is what Williamson suspected was going on with Mark. It is super creepy. You're absolutely right. And Williamson had also taken note of the bloody white t-shirt that Mark kept ringing in his hands. You know, why had he taken that off? And why was he kind of manipulating it and all that? That was weird. And also, they told Mark several times during the interview in the bedroom that Donna was still alive, but he had never asked to be taken to the hospital. He'd never said, I need to go see my wife, which in their experience was typical. You know, if you've got somebody who knows that their spouse is in mortal danger like that and bleeding out and has been taken to the hospital, a lot of people

say, I don't want to talk to you right now. I'll talk to you later. Take me to see my wife. He didn't do that. And Mark asking for that soda while they were talking to him at the scene, Williamson found that a little too convenient. Because remember, Donna's complaint letter about Roger Harrington was right in front of his face when he went to the fridge. And Mark had asked for the soda, sending him to the fridge right as they began to talk about Harrington. Hmm.

There was also the fact that there were things in Roger Harrington's car that could have been used as weapons. That tyrant I told you about, there was a knife in there, but he didn't bring him into the house with him. He just lucked into a murder weapon sitting right on the dining room table. Also, why would Donna leave her baby alone on the bed and let a man she was afraid of into the house? I mean, there was no sign of forced entry. I guess he could have pushed in, but he had some suspicion, some worries. And finally, there was a note in Harrington's car. That note said 4.30 Mark Winger.

Now, this was the thing that bothered him the most. Why would Harrington have this note? Did he have an appointment with Winger? If so, that meant that Mark's story about him just showing up unexpectedly was a lie. And you remember what Harrington's family said, that his roommate said he was going to an appointment with a customer. Now they have this note in his car that says 4.30 Mark Winger. Yeah. So, of course, he laid all this out for his partner,

but Detective Cox told him, look, you're new to this. Remember Occam's razor. Most of the time, things are what they look like. There are always going to be unanswered questions in a homicide. There are always going to be red herrings. There's always going to be stuff that bothers you, and you just got to let it bother you. It doesn't necessarily mean there's anything off. And that's true.

So detectives will tell you that nine times out of ten, it's going to be the guy who is standing over the body with a knife and hand saying, and I do it again, too. But sometimes the red herring isn't really a red herring. Yeah. Sometimes the red herring did it. Mm-hmm. Detective Williamson did talk Cox into testing Winger's story that he heard a thunk from upstairs while he was running on the treadmill.

And as Williamson suspected, the noise of the treadmill made it very unlikely that Mark would have heard a noise from upstairs. Those shits are loud. Oh, I've got one. It's bananas loud. Yeah. But it's possible if it was loud enough, Cox pointed out. Maybe he has better hearing than you. Let it go. Mm-hmm. Let it go, Elsa. Mm-hmm.

Williamson got the same line from his boss, too, and the DA. But Williamson didn't want to let it go. It didn't feel right to him. He kept pushing, pushing, bringing up things that bothered him, but the powers that be wouldn't budge. Other detectives made fun of this overzealous rookie. Oh, boy. Wow, I have a feeling some of these people are going to feel like assholes here in a little bit, don't you, Cambers? Uh, you can say that.

Yeah. A few weeks after the murder, Mark called Detective Cox, and Cox was surprised to hear from him. I mean, the case was closed. But Mark wanted to know if they were looking to the case any further. Cox reassured him. No, no, it's closed. As far as I'm concerned, you're a hero. A couple of months after that, Mark showed up at the police station.

He wanted his gun back. He said, it was a gift. I'm sorry, he wanted the gun he used to shoot his wife's murderer. Mm-hmm. What the what? That is so disturbing and weird. Why would you want that gun back? Mm-mm.

No, have it melted down for parts. Seriously, throw it in the volcano at Mount Doom. It's got bad vibes. Such bad vibes. And it was that that finally got Detective Cox worried. I bet. Jeez. Why would this man, who had seemed so traumatized by having to take a human life, want that gun back?

So now Cox was on board. They did need to look into this one a little more carefully. Sometimes it's like that. A small detail like Mark wanting that gun can be the straw that breaks the camel's back for detectives. It's not necessarily incriminating by itself, but when you take it with the rest of the evidence, it's concerning. So Cox and Williamson went back to their bosses. So, hey, we want to reopen the Winger case. But they got the same line as before.

Nope. No dice. Look, your gut feeling isn't enough. There's no actual evidence here. Well, hmm, I wonder why there wasn't any evidence. I mean, could it be because they took Mark's Winger's story at face value and didn't gather any evidence? It's not just going to walk through the door. Oh, Lord have mercy, I hate when they do that. And we've seen that before, haven't we?

There's no evidence. Brick, come back when you have evidence. You're supposed to go get the flipping evidence. That's literally your job. Do you not know that? I know, right? Go get it. And you have two detectives that feel so strongly. Yeah, exactly.

Like, one of them's actually been convinced by the other one. You'd think you'd, you know, sit up and take notice of that. And, I mean... Go look into it. I guess it would be a PR disaster, maybe. if Mark. There's always that, isn't there? But even then, like, say, hey, we had a couple questions. We just, we just want to, like, clear a couple things up. Also, maybe don't hold a press conference the night it happens. That seems like that horrible. And say, this guy's

not going to be charged. Maybe wait a minute, for the love of God. It was in a middle class neighborhood. Yeah, I mean, you know what? His Roger Harrington's family had a point about that. This guy's a nuclear engineer. He couldn't possibly be lying, could he? Oh, for fuck sake. one of the poor got into our neighborhood Riff Raff again The riffraff again Oh Lord

My shoulders just went up to my ears I'm so tense Sounds annoying Very irritating So yeah they got shut down hard Is what we're saying Yeah It was rough especially on Cox

Who had poo poohed his partner And probably helped create the situation In the first place I'm sure he did Because he was a respected experienced detective So everyone tried to get on with life and deal with their grief. The first nanny Mark hired didn't work out, and Sarah Jane, who was visiting a lot to help with a baby, tried to talk him into hiring a more mature woman instead of a 20-year-old.

But Mark said, nah. And he hired another early 20-something, a pretty young woman named Jessica. Hmm. Fortunately, Jessica quickly won everyone over. she was great with the baby and one evening on a visit early in Jessica's time with the family Sarah Jane was surprised when Mark asked if she would watch the baby so he could take Jessica out for a couple of beers a couple of beers this was only a few months after Donna's murder you know if you're sticking it to the nanny you should really hire a second nanny

to actually look after the kid when you take the first one out on a day Okay, but what happens when you start dating the second one? Do you get a third? Yeah, you just, it's just nannies all the way down. Nannyception. Oh, Lord. Why is this such a, it's just, stop, stop screwing your nannies, guys. It's just not hard. Shades of Martin McNeil. Of course, he was screwing the nanny before she was the nanny and she never was the nanny in the first place, but still, you know, it reminds one of Dr. McNeil, doesn't it from season two? God, I am.

Okay. It struck Donna's mom as odd, and it hurt a little, but Sarah Jane tried not to be judgmental. Everyone grieves differently. Maybe it helped Mark to get out into the world a little. She noticed during her visit, though, that Mark disappeared a lot, sometimes for hours. The nanny was usually gone during these times, too. Some of Mark's friends noticed disturbing changes in him around this time as well. Rabbi Mike and his wife had expected Mark to draw closer to them in the Jewish community after the murder,

but he did the opposite. He started pulling away, acting distant. One night, Mark was having dinner at Joe and Mike's, and when Mike left the table to use the restroom, Mark said he missed Donna. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah, hang on. specifically he said he missed having sex with Donna oh oh no yeah he said he missed a woman's touch oh no he stared into her eyes as he said it oh of course because it wasn't already creepy enough

right yeah she was stunned it 100% seemed like he was propositioning her oh my god i mean okay what did he think she was going to do lean over and say Oh, okay. Let me take care of that for you. Blach, right? Like, what are you doing, man? Like, even if you have those thoughts, don't you know not to express them out loud? I just... Oh, my God, he's a creep. Especially, what? Your rabbi's wife, dude? I know. Your rabbi's wife. While he's in the bathroom. What are you? Like... He's coming back in like two seconds.

God almighty, this man, I swear to God. God. What an idiot. in case you haven't figured it out campers we're turning on mark we're turning on mark hard I know we were real subtle with that I think the point of no return is propositioning your rabbi's wife yeah I think the worm has turned don't proposition any spiritual leader's spouse at the dinner table months after your wife has been murdered great not a good look not a good look and what's also not a look is that he went on a spending spree. He bought all kinds of gadgets and an expensive new truck and a new computer system.

And he left the baby with babysitters for long stretches of time at a time when you'd think he'd want to be with his one remaining family member. And then he told Rabbi Dats and his wife that he was planning a trip to South Africa in a few months. What did they think about him taking a female co-worker with him? Would that be cool or no? Only absolute shitcrackers. What did they think about it? They think it's probably not a great idea, Mark. How in the name of all that is holy did this man not know the answer to that already? Like, your wife is barely cold in the ground, my dude. Oh, yep. It's an idiot at this point. Like, dumb. They just can't, they can never hold it together.

No, that's exactly right. They can't help themselves these guys. But, you know, his friends and Donna's family made excuses for him. He was grieving. People grieve in all kinds of ways. It can look weird from the outside in. And that's true enough. I mean, it is, you know.

Yeah, and you know what? People spend money as a form of therapy. I get it. Oh, for sure. That part is very understandable. Retail therapy is a real thing. But I think the line, again, is, Propositioning. Propositioning the rabbi's wife is...

That's not great. Beyond the pale. Anyway, I'll stop harping on that any minute now, I promise. And so after the new nanny, Jessica came through, everything changed. She took control of the household, and Mark seemed to be shaping up. Jessica was a sweet girl, a preacher's daughter, and she seemed to be a good influence on Mark. One night, Mark called the dressers and announced that he was converting to Christianity. This was a huge shock. Mark's Judaism had always been a huge part of his life. But when they asked him why, Mark said he wasn't getting what he needed from Judaism anymore. He said he'd been led to Christ. Yeah, led to Jessica, more like, because like you said, she was a preacher's daughter, and by now Mark was trying to suck up to her family.

I wonder why. Soon the dressers became aware that his relationship with Nanny Jessica had turned into something quite a bit more than employer-employee. But they didn't really judge him. They liked Jessica, but it was uncomfortable, obviously. He was taking her on trips. They were talking about building a house together, like a dream house. And Mark had collected about $150,000 in life insurance from Donna's death, and an extra $25K from a victim's compensation fund. So presumably, it was this money that was going to fund this dream house, which, by the way, was the kind of place that Donna had always wanted, which really, really hurt her mother, obviously.

A year after the murder, 1996, Mark married Jessica. The dressers were sad to see Donna replace so fast, but they were also happy for Mark that he was finding happiness. They truly loved him. And I have to say something about Donna's family here. These people, Sarah

Jane and Ira, are pure class. I mean, I am not sure I could be ever this, like, loving towards my daughter's husband if he started dating months after her murder and then married another woman and, like, built her a dream house with my daughter's life insurance money i mean i just don't know if i could be happy for him i maybe that makes me a bad person but i think i would probably have some resentment but sarah jane

like she genuinely wanted the best for mark she's a class act through and through this woman bless her heart jessica's family on the other hand was less enthused about the marriage her brother in particular pretty much hated mark on site and he talks about one of the first times they met Mark had told him the whole story of Donna's murder and totally turned him off with like the way that he told the story. He was acting all macho. There were no tears. There was no

anger. He told this horrific story as though he were describing an action movie or just something that had happened to a total stranger but like with even less emotion than most people would do that. And it just struck Jessica's brother all wrong.

But you know, Jessica was pregnant and Jessica was in the love so like people tend to do they tried to be supportive and after he married jessica marks relationships with rabbi mike and his wife joe and with his in-laws started to completely fall apart the friends were upset that he converted to christianity but still wanted them to hang a mazouza on his new house now if you don't know what a mazouza is it's a pretty container for a scroll containing verses from the Torah and jewish folks put them on the doorways of their homes to remind them of their relationship with god and to let strangers know that people of the Jewish faith live there.

And he wanted the Mazuzza. And Rabbi Mike was like, I can't hang a Mazza. You're not Jewish. You converted. And Mark was like a total asshole about that and didn't understand and everything, which is so strange to me. Rabbi Mike and Joe were also upset that he hadn't come to them to talk about the conversion first.

Like he's saying he's not getting what he needs from Judaism, but he had never mentioned that to them. And in addition to being his rabbi, Mike was his good friend, you know? so that was hurtful and confusing to Mike and Joe Mark also accused them of blaming him for Donna's murder which just was a bizarre thing to say it wasn't true at all that had never even occurred to them that it was his fault that Donna was dead

and then he freaked out on Sarah Jane and Ira for continuing to be friends with the rabbi and his wife like still seeing them when they came to Springfield to visit and he wrote them this asshole letter and like threatened to sue the rabbi for slander like just bizarre behavior and it seemed like he was just looking for any excuse to sever ties with

anybody who had been in his life before the murder just like scorched earth new life nothing from the old life allowed salt the earth right never happened and when they found out he'd remarried so fast detectives Cox and Williamson were like oh my god and they tried yet again to get the case

reopened but still no dice and they were just seething about it by now because they tried so hard to talk the powers that be into like seeing what they saw and then three years after the murder detective cox went to a blood spatter conference he sat down after one of the panel discussions with one of the experts and ran the winger case by him and this blood spatter analyst was really intrigued and he asked to see the clothing and other evidence and stuff but when they went to get it the evidence wasn't there guess why oh my god

it wasn't there because mark winger's attorney had signed it out because mark was suing the transportation company for Donna's death for millions of dollars and by all accounts the suit was going in Mark's favor so he was about to be a rich man off of this cab company that Roger Harrington had worked with right so they had the evidence which is really disturbing and one day during a visit from Donna's parents Mark freaked out when he saw the baby playing with a pendant that Sarah Jane was wearing that had belonged to Donna and he was like how dare you wear that put that away it bothers me to see that How dare you let my daughter touch that and all this weird shit? It was so baffling.

And after that, he refused to let his and Donna's little girl call Sarah Jane Grandma anymore. Oh, Jesus. And he was really nasty about it, too. And Ira, like, called him and, like, tried to talk sense into him about it. And Ira had always treated him like a son and genuinely loved and cared for him. And Mark was just a massive asshole to Ira and everything on the phone. It was just so bizarre. So all this is going on.

And in the background, detectives Cox and Williamson, they, as best they could, kept tabs on Mark in the upcoming years. Through the marriage to Jessica, the ongoing lawsuit, the first child, and then a second child with Jessica. And they worried, like, if he could kill his own wife, not to mention Roger Harrington, who didn't even have anything to do with the situation, what might he do to his new wife?

You know, could he be a family annihilator down the road? I mean, if this is what he does to people who get in his way. and some of Mark's friends had begun to have some doubts themselves, though they tried really hard to squash them. The rabbi's wife, Joe, the one that he had propositioned at the dinner table, remember Donna telling her about the creepy cab ride at a baby shower a few days before she died? But the thing was that Donna had told it just like it was an interesting story. She didn't seem scared, like at all.

And her mom, Sarah Jane, remembered it exactly the same way that she had mentioned it. but she hadn't seemed scared. And then, four years after the murder, March 1999, the Springfield police got a call from an attorney. And the attorney said that Deanne Schultz, who remember was Donna's best friend, was their client and wanted to speak to the detectives. So they're like, sure, absolutely, we want to hear what she has to say.

And when she came in, they were shocked at the sight of her. She looked absolutely awful, and she's a beautiful woman, but she looked rough, like much older than her age, gaunt, dark circles under her eyes. Like, she looked like somebody who was terminally ill. Deanne had pretty much fallen apart in the years following Donna's death. Depression, drug addiction, hospitalization for mental health issues. And once they agreed not to use anything she told them that day against her, as long as she was truthful, she opened up and, oh my God, was it a bombshell.

So, months before Donna's death, she confided in her friend that her marriage was unraveling. Their sex life had dwindled to nothing. Deanne was just feeling unattractive, unloved, unwanted. And she was thinking about leaving her husband and moving out of state to be with an old boyfriend, which sounds like a terrible idea, by the way. Like, I'm just going to hop from this toxic relationship to be with my ex, which I'm sure will work out great with, like, no period in between to, like, you know, get my head straight. Yeah. But she confided all this to Donna, and Donna told her.

Mark about it that night. And the next day, Deanne got a call from Mark. And Mark said, Donna told me you're thinking of moving away. I don't want you to go. And he told her he treasured her friendship and that he'd always found her beautiful. And then he asked her if she'd be interested in seeing him on his next business trip and talking some more about this. Oh boy. And Deanne said, look, you know, I was in a bad place. It was nice to hear compliments. And she drove 200 miles to see Mark at a Comfort Inn the next time you went out of town on business because we're keeping it classy at the Comfort Inn. And of course they ended up in bed. And this began an affair that started months before Donna's death and lasted for months after it.

They met in motels and parking lots, super classy, shades of Diana Hahn and Michael Dally in the Vaughn's parking lot, right? And it got hot and heavy fast. They were saying, I love you, within weeks. And in early August, so about a month before the murder, both couples had been at a barbecue at Deanne and her husband's house, and she and Mark stole away together for a few minutes, and he told her, you know, it would be easier if Donna just died. And he said, I can't stand the sight of her.

I just want her gone. Deanna told him, you're crazy? And she thought it was a sick joke. But it wasn't. He'd been thinking about it. for a while. And he said, you know, maybe you could have a part in it. I'd be out of town. There'd be an intruder. You could come by and find her body. Yeah. Yeah. She told him to stop. She told him he was crazy. And she wanted no part in this.

But he kept bringing it up again and again and again. Yeah, he's nothing if not persistent. Right? And then, after the creepy cab ride, Mark came to her all excited. It's perfect. It's a gift. This is just what we need. The cab driver was the solution to all his problems. Mark said, look, all I have to do is get this Roger guy to the house. He told her he'd insisted Donna write a letter to the cab company so they would have a written record. Deanne told him absolutely not. She said, Mark, if you do this, I'll cease to be a vital person. We'll just divorce our spouses.

And she said she really thought she'd talked about it. They'd had one more conversation about Harrington. Mark said he was going to have him over to talk about the situation and do what men do. Give him a hard time and make sure he never messed with his family again. Mark was concerned about the baby, he said. He wanted to scare the guy off. after the murder she thought he might have something to do with it but she wasn't 100% sure when she saw mark the night of the murder he told her to keep their affair secret he said

it was imperative diane thought back to that morning he'd called her and asked her if she would love him no matter what he sounded unusually urgent about it she had a sinking feeling but she squashed it like we do i mean people are good at this and and we can certainly judge d'an plenty don't get me wrong but people are damn good at squashing their bad feelings and we've talked about that before you know people don't listen to their little voice by the way if somebody says would you love me no matter what in that like earnest urgent voice the answer is no what are you plotting yeah no it depends what is it you're thinking of doing if it's a child yes no matter what you tell me i'm kidding i love you yes if it's your child you say yes i'll love you no matter what

if it's a guy you're having an affair with yeah if it's your affair partner the answer is no and also fess the hell up what is it you're planning because it's going to be something i'm not going to like right yeah don't let me hold on one second let me hit record on my recording device Go ahead. Exactly. So they continued their affair for months. They even exchanged symbolic wedding rings. Oh, barf.

Deanne still had hers when she was speaking to the police. So, of course, the detectives wanted to know why she hadn't come forward sooner. Well, Mark had told her that if she did, she'd look just as guilty as he did. Their relationship had started to fall apart after Jessica came away. long, and after that, so did Deanne. She'd attempted suicide four times. Oh, my God. She'd undergone electroshock therapy, and she'd been terrified of Mark for years.

But not anymore. Donna didn't deserve this, she said. She deserves justice. She told the detectives she'd give them whatever they needed. she'd testify, she had to do it for Donna, who used to be her friend and for her own mental health. Yeah, so this was her way of atoning, you know, basically for betraying her friend and for not going to the police right away when he started about, you know, talking about killing his wife, which again, God, nobody ever does, apparently, except other inmates in prison when they start trying to hire prison. Hitman, then they'll sometimes go to the police. God.

It's just frustrating. God. People start talking about killing people. Please take them seriously. Mm-hmm. You can report them anonymously. Absolutely. So the detectives wanted to high-five each other right there at the table.

Mm-hmm. This was exactly what they needed. Not that an affair proved murder, but Dian had said that Mark wanted to get the guy to the house. That corroborated. what they'd always suspected about the note in Roger's car. 4.30, Mark Winger. This proved Mark had invited him over. He wasn't an intruder.

That did it. They were given permission to quietly reopen the investigation. Finally. But not too quietly, because Mark became aware of this pretty quickly. And once he did, he dropped his lawsuit. against the transportation company like it was hot. Mm-hmm. The evidence was returned to police and quickly sent to the blood spatter analysts.

The most startling finding? There was none of Donna's blood on Roger Harrington's clothing. Only his own. Plus, they became aware of the three Polaroid pictures that the patrol officer had taken of the scene before the paramedics started working on the victims. They never knew these existed before, and they were a bombshell. They proved that Mark's story was impossible. Harrington's body was lying in the wrong position.

180 degrees wrong. He and Donna were lying with their heads facing the same direction. If he had been straddling Donna and hitting her with the hammer as Mark claimed, and Mark had shot him in the head, he'd have fallen backwards. his feet would have been facing Donnas. To land this way, he was lying in those polaroids. Roger Harrington would have had to do a flip. Unlikely.

Right? This thing could not have happened the way that Mark claimed it had. No way in hell. That's so amazing because that was just the merest hair's breadth of chance that that patrol officer had had that Polaroid camera in his car and thought to say, just wait a minute and let me get a few pictures. If those pictures hadn't existed, God only knows if they could have ever made an arrest in this case. It's really scary.

It's really scary. Just be a Boy Scout. Be prepared. And more evidence soon emerged, too. We can't get into specifics or we'll be here all night. But suffice it to say, there was some nice physical evidence to add to the growing mountain of circumstantial evidence in the case. It took two years of additional work before Mark was. arrested and charged with the double murder six years after donna and roger died when the cop showed up to arrest him that they found him in a back room hiding under a desk oh boy big tough guy huh oh yeah now if you

think this story is over you're wrong there's a bizarre post script to this case so buckle the hell up campers, because it is bananas. I so did not see this come in. Mark was convicted of the double murder and sentenced to life without parole. Everybody said about getting on with life, though Mark maintained his innocence. Of course. And then in spring 2005, an inmate at the prison came forward and claimed that Mark Winger was trying to involve him in a murder for higher place.

lot. The intended victim? Deanne Schultz, of course, his former mistress and the star witness against him at his trial. His plan was so complicated that it took 19 handwritten pages of instructions and hours of recorded conversations to lay out. He wanted Deanne kidnapped, forced to write a confession saying she'd made the whole thing up, and killed. And he wanted it to look like a suicide. Oh, my God. Winger's note said, only Deanne's fingerprints can be on the tape cassettes, letters, and envelopes. Her saliva must be found on the stamps. He's thought this through. Oh, and by the way, if there was any money left over, he wanted one more person killed. Ira Dresher, Donna's stepdad, who had treated him like a son.

Good God. And so, as so often happens when these dipshits try to hire a hitman in prison, he just ended up hosing himself worse. A jury took less than three hours to find him guilty of soliciting murder and added 35 years to his sentence. Which, I mean, he already got life without parole, so I guess he figured, what do I have to lose? But basically, Mark Winger is not going anywhere. And he's in a supermax prison and spends 23 hours a day in his stinky little cell. Thank God, because he's. He is a shit stain. And that's the story, Camper, so it is a wild one, isn't it? And, of course, Roger Harrington's family was vindicated in this, and Detective Cox actually apologized to them with tears in his eyes. You know, Roger might not have been the best guy in the world. We know he had a troubled history, but he didn't do this. And Mark most definitely did not have the right to use him in this way.

And I have to say, to Detective Cox's credit, he was on 48 hours talking about this case. and he didn't try to shy away from the fact that he screwed up. He said it was the greatest and hardest lesson of his career, and he really didn't try to softball it in the least, which I think is refreshing. I mean, it sucks that they screwed up in the first place, but you very rarely find a detective or a police force

that's willing to actually own up to a mistake and fix it. So when you do see it, it's nice to see. It doesn't absolve them of the mistake in the first place. And you know all those people that made fun of Detective Williamson for being like, oh, you're just a rookie and you don't know what you're talking about? Don't you know when he passes those people in the hall? He's like, hey, you know? Oh, sure.

He's a rookie now. So he must have felt pretty good about that, being right. Don't you love being right? Yeah, I love being right so much. But he strikes me as being a classy enough guy to not say I told you so. He's probably thinking it, though. And by the way, Jessica, Mark's second wife, stuck by him briefly, but then she divorced him. So good for her.

and she's actually raising her and Mark's kids as well as Donna and Mark's adopted little girl because Jessica of course was the only mom that that little girl ever knew so it made sense for her to keep her but Jessica invited the dressers back into that little girl's life so that's a tiny happy thing for all this awfulness and before we go I just want to remind you about a couple of things first of all how fixated Mark was after the murders about having killed a man You remember? He said it again and again. I killed a man. I killed a man. And then he went and wanted that gun back, which was the thing that got Detective Cox suspicious of him in the first place. Now, knowing what we know about Mark's guilt, how flipping creepy is that? That he wanted that gun back and that he just kept harping, which if you think about it, if you were an innocent person in that situation and someone came and brutally murdered your wife with a hammer and you had had to shoot that person, I would think at some point, point you might have to contend with the fact that you took a human life but in the immediate aftermath of the murder would your focus not be on i couldn't savor i tried to save her and i couldn't

savor if you were going to feel guilt wouldn't that most likely be where that guilt would be coming from not i killed a man i killed a man yeah what do you think about that do you think he was just essentially like bragging like just pleased his punch with himself for being so clever or do you think he just wanted to talk about it because he enjoyed it or what the way he set up this murder is a narcissist dream oh absolutely it was incredibly clever honestly it's clever and you get to be the hero yeah and i also want to direct your attention back to the fact that he was obsessed with almost solving the case for the detectives and making sure they got to the conclusion he kept asking them over and over again who was that guy who is that guy who is that guy absolutely you're

right he was real fixated on that like i said he's nothing if not persistent right not where's my wife yeah does anyone know how she's doing can i go to the hospital and see her and then he sent the detective right to where he knew that letter would be with all those details about roger harrington and his demon voices and everything and and that gun would have absolutely been his little trophy absolutely that's what i think too i think he wanted it because he was enjoying the memory of shooting this man and he liked nothing to do with it and i think he liked being people telling people I think people telling him that he was a hero was his drug. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah, I think he enjoyed this whole thing. And knowing that he like orchestrated it probably got him off to the fucking creep. Yeah, I think he enjoyed it. And I think he was on some level just bragging and enjoying the memory of killing a completely innocent person in this. I mean, Roger Harrington had nothing to do with him and Donna. And the fact that he described that situation to Deanne as a gift is just, chilling. That was his reaction to this experience that Donna had with this mentally troubled cab

driver. It's a gift. It's exactly what we need. And doesn't it remind you of Tracy Richter? So much. And I need to know, but I don't want to know, but I need to know, who did he kill first? Oh, God, right? I think it had to be Donna. It had to be Donna. It had to be Donna. I think with a hammer, which a hammer is up close and personal. He shot Roger, which is bad enough. He beat his wife to death with a hammer. That's rage. That's overkill.

And I think it's very much worth noting how close this man came to getting away with this murder, a double murder. And if he hadn't told his mistress about it, we probably wouldn't be sitting here right now. and who knows whether Jessica might have ended up in the same place as Donna later on if she ever fell out of favor I mean he's a scary dude and by the way he looks like grizzly Adams now if you look at his most recent mug shots he's grown this bizarre big old zizi top beard so he's clearly like unraveling in there he looks like a hermit that lives in a cave now so he just hopefully he's like slowly unraveling and he's miserable because he deserves to be So, rot in your stinky little jail sale, Mark Winger, you piece of shit.

Anyway, I'm really mad at this guy. He's the worst. So that's all for now, campers. You know we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe. Until we get together again around the True Crime Campfire. You can follow us on Twitter at TC Campfire, Instagram at True Crime Campfire, and be sure to like our Facebook page. If you want to support the show and get access to extras, please consider becoming

a patron at patreon.com slash true crime campfire.