56: Became a “Hero” After Luring a Stranger to His Home to Murder His Wife? | Donnah Winger

In 1995, Mark Winger walked upstairs and found a complete stranger brutally beating his wife Donnah with a hammer, so he grabbed his gun and shot the man dead. For years, Mark was treated as a hero, until one of Donnah’s closest friends walked into the police station with a secret that made investigators question everything they thought they knew.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Annie Elise?

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• 1:13Speaker 02

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• 1:40Speaker 03

  In the family dining room area, we see what appears to be a large pool of blood.

• 1:47Speaker 04

  Never let any one's emotions cloud your vision when you're investigating a crime.

• 1:54Speaker 05

  This man, can you read my wife? I shot him. He's inside your house, my husband. He beat my wife.

• 2:07Speaker 04

  Oh, God. Oh, my God.

• 2:16Annie Elise?

  It was Tuesday, August 29th, in Springfield, Illinois. Thirty-two-year-old Mark Winger was having a normal afternoon at the home that he shared with his wife, 31-year-old Donna Winger, and their three-month-old daughter Bailey. And at that time, Mark's only focus was running on the treadmill and hitting the goal that he had set for himself for that day. But then, he started hearing something. Now, since he was in the basement, it was a muffled sound. But it was almost like there was some kind of commotion going on upstairs, almost like a loud banging or something heavy dropping onto the floor. So immediately, he was on edge because his gut instinct told him that something was wrong. Maybe Donna had passed out, maybe she fell down, maybe she had dropped Bailey, or something like that.

• 3:00Annie Elise?

  So he ran upstairs. And at the top of the basement stairs, there were multiple directions he could have turned to. To the right, though, was the master bedroom and the bathroom. And that was the first place that Mark decided to look because it sounded like the noises were coming from there. So as he enters the bedroom, inside, he saw little baby Bailey lying in the middle of the bed. Healthy and fine, but alone. So in that moment, for a split second, he relaxed, thinking like, okay, this is weird, but at least she's okay. But then, once again, he started hearing those noises again. Only this time, they were louder. So he made a spur-of-the-moment decision. He grabbed his 45 caliber gun, and he just wanted to have it just in case.

• 3:44Annie Elise?

  I mean, he wanted to believe that it was nothing, but with every step that he took toward the sounds, they got louder and louder. Loud banging sounds, scuffles. And that's when he came upon a scene that he could have never imagined in a million years. Donna was on the ground, with blood and body matter all around her. And on top of her was a man who was holding a bloody hammer. Mark didn't even stop to think. His only instinct was to protect his family in that moment. So he fired off two rounds into this man and then immediately called 911.

• 4:20Speaker 05

  911, emergency. Emergency, emergency. This man, can you read my wife? I shot him. Please help me. He was killing my wife. Are you Mark Winger? Yes, I am, yes, I am. Okay, and your wife is Donna? Yes, she is. Is the man still in your house? Yes, he's waiting there, a bullet in his head.

• 4:42Annie Elise?

  The first responders rushed over to the Winger home immediately, and they were shocked at the scene that they had encountered. From the front door, both Donna and this mystery man could be seen lying on the floor, and there was blood everywhere. On the walls, on the carpet, the dining room table, the ceiling, I mean, you name it. Now Donna luckily was alive, but she was barely holding on. It was apparent that she had been repeatedly hit in the head with that bloody hammer that was now lying on the floor nearby that that man had been holding. And the mystery attacker, that man, he was also alive. But again, barely. He had two gunshot wounds to the head from her husband, right? So they both immediately were transported to the hospital.

• 5:25Annie Elise?

  However, they died not long after everything. Everything had happened so quickly. The Wingers had been a happy, healthy family of three, and now, suddenly, Mark was planning a funeral and trying to figure out how to get bloodstains out of the carpet in their family home. How had this suburban family's life turned into such a nightmare in the blink of an eye? Well, it's a case that was about to get even more twisted, with things that nobody could have seen coming. Hey, guys, I'm Annie Elise. This is 10 to Life. Let's jump right in.

• 6:09Annie Elise?

  Mark and Donna had first met sometime back in late 1987 or early 1988. They had been set up on a blind date by Mark's brother Greg, who worked with Donna. And Greg had told Donna that his brother was single, that he had just come back from a year in Korea as an army lieutenant, and the two of them should meet up and that they would hit it off. Now, very rarely do blind dates ever actually work in anybody's favor, but in this case, it did. Mark heard that Donna was a single, beautiful, operating-room technician and thought, why not? Why not go out with her? I mean, worst-case scenario, they don't vibe with one another, but why not take the chance? And when Donna considered the date, her mom's exact words were, how bad could it be? Just go. So she did.

• 6:54Annie Elise?

  And their date went well, really well. And from there, they continued seeing each other, and they grew their relationship pretty quickly. Six months into their relationship, Mark ended up proposing, and Donna said yes. So by March of 1989, the two of them were married. Not too long after marrying, Mark then got a job offer in Illinois. And it was very far away from the life that they were both living in Florida, but it was one of those offers where it was too good to pass up. They were young newlyweds, and they were about to start their life together, so what better time to move around and experience life in a new place, right? So they packed up their bags, and they started over in Illinois. And everyone who witnessed their relationship said that it was really one that was out of a storybook.

• 7:36Annie Elise?

  Whenever they were together, whether it was in public, or with a group of people, or maybe even just a couple of friends, they just could not keep their hands off each other. They were constantly hugging, holding hands, or just holding on to each other in general. And they were always smiling. Just, they were the perfect couple, and their families meshed together just as easily, too. Mark's mom said they loved each other very much, and that love, it rubbed off on everyone around them. So not long after they got married, Donna and Mark began trying for a baby. Donna had always dreamed of becoming a mother, and she wanted a house full of little versions of her and the man that she loved. However, Donna learned pretty quickly that those dreams may not become a reality.

• 8:19Annie Elise?

  She was told that she may never be able to conceive on her own. And hearing that news, it was like a punch to the gut. I mean, she had found her dream man, they had bought their dream house, they were living their life, and she wanted to fill it with kids. She was devastated. She couldn't imagine her life not being a mother. So she and Mark started moving forward with adoption. And on June 1, 1995, their daughter came home. And they named her Bailey Elizabeth Winger. How do you feel, Donna? I'm overwhelmed. And I just want...

• 8:53Speaker 06

  I want her to know that it just so happens that the day she's coming home to us is the anniversary of our engagement of Mark and I.

• 9:01Annie Elise?

  Oh, isn't that wonderful? She's beautiful. And thinking through everything, when Donna and Mark first got together, it felt like everything in their lives just made sense. But then, when Donna found out that she couldn't get pregnant, that feeling of normalcy disappeared. Yet, as soon as Bailey came home, everything felt right again. So Donna immediately acclimated to the role of being a mother. So those months when they first adopted Bailey, they were the greatest months of her life. So fast forward to this horrible tragedy, and the fact that she only had a few months to spend with Bailey alive, that made all of this even more difficult to comprehend. There was no denying that Donna's death was a brutal homicide, but why? Who was this man?

• 9:45Annie Elise?

  Well, on that 911 call, when Mark was asked whether or not he knew him, his answer was no.

• 9:52Speaker 05

  Who is this man? I don't, I don't know who he is.

• 9:55Annie Elise?

  And it wasn't because the guy was wearing a black ski mask, or anything else that you might picture in a stereotypical home invasion. He wasn't trying to conceal his identity at all. He was just simply a complete stranger to Mark. Mark didn't know him. And Mark was a mess. I mean, not only had he walked in on a stranger killing his wife, but he couldn't believe that he actually shot someone, let alone shot them twice in the head, ultimately killing them. He knew that, yes, he was defending himself and defending his family, but he was still a total wreck, knowing that this guy had died. The detectives even said, they didn't know how to comfort him. He was just rocking, back and forth, crying, just beside himself. Clearly, he was very traumatized by the events that had just taken place.

• 10:39Speaker 07

  I thought I was going to jail, because I just shot a man in the head.

• 10:43Annie Elise?

  So understandably, he asked the detectives who this man was, wanting to at least put a name to the situation. And right before the paramedics transported the mystery man to the hospital, the lead officer reached into his pockets, which, to his surprise, he found this man's wallet with his ID inside. He kept his identification on him during this home invasion. And the mystery man? He was none other than 28-year-old Roger Lee Harrington. But his name didn't mean anything to the investigators. So now, it was up to them to figure out why Roger had been in that Winger home that night. Maybe it was a random break-in, maybe it was something more personal, maybe it was targeted. Whatever the reason was, they knew they needed to get to the bottom of it.

• 11:28Annie Elise?

  But before the investigators could ask more questions to start to look into things, Mark basically solved the investigation for them. His eyes got wide, his face went pale, and it was clear in that moment that the name that the detective had told him, he recognized. And that's when Mark blurted out, "Oh my God, that's the guy that's been harassing my wife and me." So understandably, the investigators, they wanted to know more. The only thing they knew about Roger was his name. And here is what Mark explained. He didn't know Roger on a personal level either. That's why he didn't recognize him as the attacker until he heard his full name. He only knew him by name. Donna didn't even really know him either. She had only met him a week before.

• 12:11Annie Elise?

  You see, after Mark and Donna adopted Bailey, they wanted to make sure that all of their family got a chance to see her and get to know her, even family members who were still back in Florida. So the week before, Donna had been in Florida with Bailey, visiting her mom and stepdad. Now, why Mark didn't go, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe he just couldn't get the time off work, maybe there was something that came up. It's definitely plausible. They were enjoying the summer together, though, bonding with their new granddaughter, making all the kinds of memories that they had dreamed about before she was even born. Then, when the trip was over, Donna flew from Florida to the St. Louis airport, which was about an hour and a half away from their home. So she decided to take an airport shuttle back home. And usually, those rides are pretty smooth and pretty professional, but apparently, the

• 12:56Annie Elise?

  driver had rubbed Donna the wrong way, almost immediately. His driving was erratic, he was speeding and weaving in and out of traffic, which, keep in mind, Donna had her three-month-old baby in the shuttle with her. And it's terrifying enough to be in a car with a reckless driver on your own, but knowing that your baby is with you and you're not in control, that is even scarier. And somehow, his driving wasn't even the worst part. It was the things that he was saying. Because there was rarely a moment of silence. He just kept droning on and on about things that didn't even make sense half the time. At one point, he even told Donna that sometimes when he's driving, a godlike character would pull him out of his body, and he would fly above the road in the trees.

• 13:40Annie Elise?

  He also talked about killing people, setting cars on fires with car bombs, mutilating people. I mean, really unnerving stuff. So Donna was scared out of her mind, but she didn't know what to do. I mean, this was 1995. She couldn't call 911 on her cellphone, or tell him to just pull over and she'd catch an Uber the rest of the way home. She felt stuck, so she tried to be as brave as possible. And thankfully, they made it home safely. But that didn't mean that Donna still wasn't really rattled about the entire situation. And she told her husband, Mark, everything about what had happened.

• 14:14Speaker 07

  She was scared enough to tell me that she was, uh, very uneasy and scared to be alone. I blew up at him, told him about, you know, his van driver speeding, you know, with my, my wife and my baby, the inappropriate things he was saying.

• 14:27Annie Elise?

  On top of the call that Mark made, Donna also wrote in a letter. She wanted to complain and put this on record. Now, they found out that this man had only been working there for a short period of time, around six months. And as far as they knew, he hadn't even been fired, but he had been suspended from the job. And that driver was none other than Roger Harrington. According to Mark, after they had made the multiple reports against Roger, they got two suspicious and anonymous phone calls to their landline. And these calls were in the days leading up to Donna's attack, which at the time, they didn't think a whole lot of it. Yeah, it was a little bit creepy, of course, but they weren't overly panicked by it. But now, Mark felt like it could have been a more clear warning of the tragedy to come.

• 15:12Annie Elise?

  He didn't know for sure, but he felt in his heart that it must have been Robert who called. So the pieces of the puzzle were coming together, I mean, shockingly fast at that. Because if what Mark was saying was true, especially about the things that Robert said to Donna in the car, it seemed like he wasn't totally well mentally. And getting suspended from his job, I mean, that could have given him a reason to want to harm Donna. He also knew exactly where she lived, considering he had dropped her off at home just a week before this attack. It was a heartbreaking case. Mark had done everything that he could do to save Donna. If he had just been there even a few moments earlier, she might have lived. Still, though, he knew he had to defend his wife and his home.

• 15:54Annie Elise?

  He had at least kept his young, little, three-month-old baby Bailey safe, which that's what Donna would have wanted. But there was still one thing that the investigators were curious about. And that is where the hammer came from. But that was another easy question to answer. The hammer belonged to the couple. It belonged in this home. It had been sitting out right there in a common area, because Donna had wanted to remind Mark that he needed to hang up a coat rack that she had recently bought. So the murder weapon? That really had just been a spur-of-the-moment thing. It seemed like Roger went to the home with the intent of finding Donna, confronting her, maybe hurting her, however he could, with his hands, with a kitchen knife, with a household item he found lying around.

• 16:37Annie Elise?

  I mean, the truth is, anything could be turned into a murder weapon when it's in the wrong hands. And that's what happened here. Then, in the days after Donna's murder, the investigators did an interview for the Sun Centennial. And the article read, "How Harrington Got Into the House, We Don't Know. Mark Winger Was Exercising in the Basement When He Heard His Wife's Body Thud to the Floor. He Grabbed a 45 Caliber Pistol and Shot Harrington Fatally in the Head. Police Said Harrington Had a History of Mental Illness and That Mark Winger Shot in Self-Defense and Will Not Face Any Charges." It later came out that Roger had a history of violence, and that the local police had actually witnessed it firsthand. And I'm not entirely sure what led officers to be at Roger's home, but at some point,

• 17:22Annie Elise?

  they were there with him and his wife. And while they were there, I guess they saw Roger bend his wife over the couch and raise his hand as if he was about to hit her, so officers had to physically go grab him and pull him away. So I mean, there was already a documented history of Roger being violent toward women. And while Donna's murder was completely unexpected and shocked the entire community, once the investigators started looking at Roger, both the possible motive and the way that she was attacked, it seemed to fit. But the truth was, Donna's death, it had been more than tragic. It had been traumatic for Mark and for her entire family. It was hard to fathom that just a week earlier, she had been happy, healthy, was smiling, and showing off her new baby girl to her friends and extended family.

• 18:07Annie Elise?

  And it was especially hard for her family to comprehend that somebody would want to kill her, even if it was in revenge. She was always so sweet, always so full of joy. So Donna was laid to rest back in Florida near her relatives. And in the months following her death, everyone really came together for Mark and the rest of her family.

• 18:25Speaker 05

  We felt terrible for him. He's lost his wife also, and then he had to turn around and shoot a man.

• 18:30Speaker 06

  He was crying, and I said, "Mark, I know you did."

• 18:35Annie Elise?

  The best you could. More importantly, they all came together for Bailey. Mark was still learning to be a parent, getting into a routine with Donna when all of this happened, so now, becoming a single father and doing it all on his own, that was tricky. So, around five months after Donna's death, Mark made the decision to hire a nanny to help him out. Right after Donna's death, her family had flown in to help with whatever they could, but that was only temporary. They couldn't stay forever. So eventually, it needed to be something that Mark would figure out on his own, and in this case, he decided to enlist help. And the truth was, Mark still had a job that he had to be present for. He was also now a single dad to a child under a year old, and that was rough. Let alone taking care of everything else that needed to be done in the house, so it

• 19:20Annie Elise?

  just made the most sense for him to hire help, and I don't think that anybody judged him for that. So the nanny he hired was 23-year-old Rebecca Simic. And Rebecca was a professional nanny. This wasn't something that she had just volunteered to do because she had free time or was looking for some extra cash and wanted to help out. She was a career nanny. At the time, Rebecca had interviewed with a lot of different families, and she was weighing her options. But when she met Mark and Bailey and she heard the whole story, she knew that she would be their nanny. She was even quoted as saying, "I interviewed with a lot of wealthy families, but she was the only baby who really needed me. I knew I needed to be there for her." And Rebecca really was the perfect fit for them.

• 20:01Annie Elise?

  She and Mark got along, more importantly though, she and Bailey got along really well, and even though she was of course, not trying to replace Donna in any way, she did fill that motherly void in Bailey's life. It was a job for Rebecca, yes, but it was also more than that. She was determined to give Bailey a good childhood. That's how much she cared about children in general, but that's especially how much she cared about Bailey. Even Donna's family was over the moon to hear about Rebecca and how helpful she was being and how much she cared about Bailey. They even went as far as telling Mark that they felt like Rebecca was an angel sent to their family. So she really had everyone's blessing. Besides, everyone just wanted the best for Mark and Bailey. And Mark only ever had amazing things to say about Rebecca too.

• 20:46Annie Elise?

  So much so, that I really don't know if a lot of people were even shocked to find out that, a few months into nannying, Mark and Rebecca started dating. Which yeah, it does feel like a little bit of a cliche when you think about it, oh, he brings a young, hot nanny in, then they start dating, but he was lost, he was grieving, she was stepping into this void inside the house, helping out the family, accepted her, the family loved her, and it just blossomed into romance. And things between the two of them, they progressed pretty quickly. By the end of the year, Rebecca was pregnant with Mark's baby. And by October 1996, when Bailey was just 14 months old, the two of them eloped to Hawaii. Now it was hard to see Mark move on.

• 21:28Annie Elise?

  Donna's parents had seen him as the perfect son-in-law, and they couldn't have crafted a better person for their daughter to marry. And while they knew that yes, he deserved to be happy, it was hard knowing that Donna was gone and that he was moving on. So over the next few years, Donna's family stayed in touch with Mark, Rebecca, and Bailey. Mark and Rebecca built a family together. Rebecca adopted Bailey, and then she and Mark had three more children together of their own. And they seemed to be moving forward. Now Mark had been raised Jewish, but he converted to Christianity, something that Rebecca really wanted for their family. And they both got heavily involved with the church. They then ended up selling the house where Donna was killed, and they moved into a new home together. New beginnings, fresh start.

• 22:12Annie Elise?

  So eventually, as time went on, people stopped looking at them as this, you know, poor unfortunate family who suffered a terrible loss, and instead, they became the family who had been through hell and back and still somehow managed to come out on the other side of things. Until one day, in 1999, when someone came forward with a secret. A secret that changed everything.

• 22:38Speaker 01

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• 24:20Annie Elise?

  It was February of 1999 when a woman walked into the police department in Springfield, Illinois, and she told investigators she had information about the murder of Donna Winger. And that immediately caught their attention, because as far as most people were concerned, Donna's murder had been solved from day one. The case was closed. There wasn't supposed to be anything left to uncover. But they still agreed to hear her out. Her name was Deanne Schultz, and she wasn't some stranger coming forward with a rumor or a random tip she saw somewhere in the newspaper or wherever. Deanne had actually been one of Donna's best friends. They worked together at the local hospital.

• 25:01Annie Elise?

  But as it turned out, Deanne played a much larger role in Donna's life than Donna ever knew. She wasn't there at the police station to tell them about something that she had heard. No, no, no. She was there to make a confession. To confess that she and Donna's husband Mark had been having an affair. The affair had started about a month before Donna was murdered, and it even continued after her death for a few months. Presumably, before he got with Rebecca. So the investigators kind of looked at each other a little bit, and they were like, "What's going on? Like, okay, maybe Mark was a crappier husband than everybody thought, but that's not illegal. I mean shitty, but not illegal." But Deanne told them that that wasn't the concerning part.

• 25:45Annie Elise?

  It was the things that Mark had said to her before Donna was killed. Things like, their relationship would be so much easier if Donna was dead. Not divorced, not out of his life, but really, truly dead. And that's not even the worst of it. According to Deanne, after Donna told Mark about that terrifying car ride with the airport shuttle, Mark basically laughed it off. He thought that it was funny. And then Deanne claimed that Mark took it even further. He allegedly told her that he needed to somehow get that driver to come to their house. And that when all of it was over, all Deanne would have to do was find the body. So Deanne told the investigators that she never in a million years thought that he was being serious. I mean, what normal person says that?

• 26:29Annie Elise?

  But then, a few days later, when word got out that Donna was dead and brutally beaten to death in her own home by a driver who had made her feel uncomfortable just days earlier, it all started to click. Deanne told the investigators that she knew in her heart at that moment that Mark had killed her. She didn't know how, she didn't know why the driver was at the house, and why it looked like he had killed Donna as revenge for getting him suspended from the job, but she knew. And she claimed that even though Mark never told her that he killed Donna, he threatened her, and he told her that she could never tell anyone about the things that he had said about Donna. Not her friends, not her family, and especially, not the police. So she didn't.

• 27:12Annie Elise?

  She didn't go to the police, even after she and Mark ended things. But she told the detectives that the guilt was eating away at her. She had even tried to take her own life several times, just so that she didn't have to live with it. And it was all very interesting, but it's not like Deanne said that she actually saw Mark murder Donna, or had any proof that Mark had confessed. And the truth was, why, after almost four years, had she suddenly decided to come forward with this information? Could it be that Deanne just resented that Mark had chosen someone else? And she did admit something else. The reason she finally did decide to come forward was because she had seen Mark and Rebecca the month before when they came into the hospital. But she claimed that by seeing him, it made her grief and all of her guilt come flooding back.

• 27:57Annie Elise?

  It had nothing to do with wanting Mark or being jealous seeing them together, it just was more of like, an overwhelming flooding of emotions. So the police took down some notes, and they told her that they'd get back to her if they had any follow-up questions. But when she left, they all kind of just looked at each other and asked like, "Well, where do we go from here?" Donna's death wasn't an active investigation. They had all the answers that they needed. They were satisfied with the conclusion. Donna's family was also satisfied with the conclusion. And the truth was, the only people who were not happy with how things had ended were Roger's family. Because they had pushed back for years that Roger wasn't the person that the media had portrayed him to be. They weren't denying that he had had a past run-in with the police or that he suffered from mental illness, but he wasn't a cold-blooded killer.

• 28:42Annie Elise?

  He didn't even know Donna. Roger's sister tried time and time again to advocate for him too, but the detectives just wouldn't listen. They didn't show her any empathy or give her at all the time of day. What were you trying to tell?

• 28:56Speaker 03

  Tell the police. Was trying to tell him, there is no way. You guys are so wrong. I knew he was not capable. He was very rude, very, very rude. Oh, very rude. He said, ma'am, anytime you want to know how your kid brother walked in that home, snapped and killed that woman, come to my office and I'll show you step by step.

• 29:15Annie Elise?

  Still, though, Mark had seen Roger over Donna's body, brutally beating her. There was no way around that, right? Or was there? Well, as it turns out, two detectives had always had their concerns about Mark. They were Detective Doug Williamson and his partner, Charlie Cox. Now, where the other investigators and the community saw a hero, according to them, they saw a con man. Which I know, that's a really bold claim, but they had been keeping notes on Mark for years. Even if everybody else was saying, case closed, Roger was the killer. And Doug had been the first one to feel like Mark wasn't who he said he was. Literally, since the moment they were called to the family home the day that Donna was killed, he felt like something was off. But there wasn't a lot of evidence to back up

• 30:00Annie Elise?

  his suspicion. It was more so unanswered questions that he had at the time. Even his partner, Charlie, kind of shrugged them off. Unanswered questions like, well, how did Roger get into the house? There were no signs of forced entry anywhere, not the front or back doors, not any of the windows. Yet Mark told the investigators early on that they always kept their doors locked. And Roger had to have gotten in somehow, and if Mark was downstairs, that would have left Donna to answer the door and let him inside. And it seemed odd that she would have let him in, this man that she had reported for scaring her so badly. Obviously, yes, he could have forced his way in somehow when she was answering the door, but still, it didn't really make sense. Another thing that didn't make sense

• 30:42Annie Elise?

  had to do with Roger's car. It was parked right in front of the Winger home, facing in the opposite direction of traffic. And something that was noted right away through all of that was that inside of Roger's car was a tire iron and a knife. So Doug was curious. If Roger had multiple suitable weapons in his car, why would he have gone in empty-handed? He couldn't have known that Donna just so happened to have left a hammer sitting out. I mean, what were the odds of that? It didn't make sense that Roger would go into the home intending to kill Donna, but leave perfectly usable weapons behind in his car, and then just hope that there would be something within arm's reach once he got inside. Not to mention, Roger hadn't gone in completely empty-handed. When investigators

• 31:27Annie Elise?

  first got to the Winger house that day, they discovered that there was a pack of cigarettes and a coffee mug on the dining room table. And these items didn't belong to Mark or Donna. They belonged to Roger. So again, why would Roger bring in cigarettes and a coffee mug, but not a murder weapon? But there was also one more thing that never sat right with Detective Doug. And to him, it might as well have been a flashing neon sign saying, you know, look at me, look at me, but everybody else just shrugged it off. But here's what it was. Inside Roger's car, in the front passenger seat, there was a small piece of paper. It looked like it had been torn off from a bigger sheet of paper, something like you might do when you're grabbing something to like, you know, jot down a quick note.

• 32:10Annie Elise?

  And the paper said, Mark Winger, 2305 Westview Drive, 430. Now, there's a lot that I could say about that note, and I'm sure a lot of you will agree with me on that. This is almost like something that you would write down when you have an appointment. The name, the address, the time. And I know some of my viewers might be, eh, a little younger, but back in the day, when we, all we had were landlines and not cell phones, you would just have to grab the closest pen and paper near you, quickly write everything down and keep that with you. There wasn't a notes app on your iPhone, there wasn't an iPhone at all. I mean, remember, cell phones didn't even exist. So while there were a lot of things about Roger that were strange, this really didn't make sense. If Roger's plan

• 32:53Annie Elise?

  had been to drive to the Winger home, find Donna, kill her, then why did he have Mark's name written down? And why did he have the time of day written down? Remember, Mark said that he had never personally met Roger. And remember, Donna and Bailey were the ones in the car with Roger the week before. So how did Roger even know Mark's name? And what was 430 supposed to indicate? Now, I can't remember for sure, but I don't think I've ever done a case where a killer wrote down the time that they were planning on killing someone. So that would be a first. I mean, unless, of course, you're thinking Rex Heuerman, Long Island serial killer. I know he jotted down a lot of things, so possibly, but you get my point. And yet, that detail was brushed off like it was a

• 33:34Annie Elise?

  totally normal thing. Nobody was listening to Detective Doug, not even his own partner. Everybody just wanted to put the case to bed, because they wanted Mark and Donna's family to just be able to mourn and move on. Detective Charlie said, there's always things in every homicide case that don't fit. No case is ever completely cut and dry or makes perfect sense, yes. And to him, this was one of those cases. And it was closed, even if certain things didn't add up. Except, in the months after Donna's death, Mark himself didn't seem too eager to move on. Sometime after Donna's death, Mark came into the station asking for his gun back. It had been taken in as evidence, of course, but since the case was now closed, there really wasn't any reason not to give it back to

• 34:17Annie Elise?

  him. And Detective Charlie said that even after he handed the gun back over to Mark, he stuck around for another 30 minutes, and he was asking a lot of questions. Detective Charlie is quoted as saying, he was wanting to know how the case was going. And as far as I was concerned, he should have just accepted that it was closed. Then, a few more months went by without seeing or hearing from Mark. Not until he came back into the station again. This time, it was to tell Detective Charlie that he was remarrying Rebecca. Now, what's interesting is that Detective Charlie remembers this vividly. It was weird, and it was not something that law enforcement needed to know. So I understand why it stuck out to him and why he remembers it. But to this day, Mark denies that he

• 34:59Annie Elise?

  ever even did that. But regardless, that's when Detective Charlie finally admitted to Detective Doug that maybe he was right. Maybe there was something off about Mark.

• 35:11Speaker 02

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• 35:39Speaker 03

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• 36:09Annie Elise?

  For months, that then turned into years, both of them pleaded with their higher-ups to take another look at the case. They didn't have a lot of evidence to prove that Mark was lying, but there were a lot of holes in the story. That being said, though, the higher-ups refused. And I kind of get why. Opening the case back up without substantial evidence, it could do more harm than good. It would open up fresh wounds, not just for Donna's family and friends, but for Roger's family and the entire Springfield community. It was too risky, and nothing could change their minds. That was until Deanne came in with her confession. Detective Doug and Charlie didn't want to say, you know, I told you so, but they had always suspected that Mark was lying. And Deanne, she had just confirmed

• 36:53Annie Elise?

  it. It still wasn't much, though. I mean, a cheater was one thing, yes, but a calculated double murderer? That was an entirely different ballgame. So when investigators asked Mark about these new allegations, he was floored. He admitted that what Deanne had told them about the affair was true, he had been cheating on Donna. Everything else, though, he said that that was just a cruel lie. He regretted cheating, especially during such a big time in their lives, welcoming Bailey into their family. But he said, it happened, and he couldn't take it back. He said, I was a good husband to Donna. I made a mistake. I'm human. It was stupid, and it was wrong. But Mark admitting to the affair? That really changed something for the detectives. The day that Donna was killed, there wasn't a

• 37:36Annie Elise?

  single person in that house who didn't feel bad for him. His grief had seemed overwhelming. One of the detectives even wrote in their notes from that day that Mark seemed like a husband who was very much in love with his wife. So everyone that they interviewed all said the same thing. That Mark and Donna's love was something that everyone around them envied. But that then begged the question. If Mark could fool not only the detectives, but his own friends and family into believing that he was a loyal and loving husband, what else could he successfully hide? Against the lead detective's better judgment, he decided that maybe it was worth looking into after all. So they decided to reopen the case. There were plenty of files to go through, and one of the detectives decided to go through

• 38:21Annie Elise?

  one in particular. It was the file on a lawsuit that Mark had filed against the transportation company where Roger had worked. And in these files, there were three Polaroid photos. Just three photos. But these photos changed the entire outlook on the case. The photos had been taken by one of the responding officers, and he said that he would have taken more, but he only had three pictures left in the camera. So he did what he could. Because remember, this was also before the digital camera day and age. So it's like, you either have your disposable camera, you have your Polaroid camera, that's basically it. Now, these photos were from when the first responders noted that both Donna and Roger were still alive, and when they were about to be taken to the hospital. So the officer hurried, snapped

• 39:03Annie Elise?

  three photos where their bodies were lying before they were taken away. And the photos had never seemed particularly significant. Until now, when they were being looked at through a different lens. You see, on the day of the murders, Mark gave a very in-depth recounting of what he saw before shooting Roger. Mark said that from the hallway, he saw Roger standing over Donna with the hammer, held above his head, about to strike Donna once again. Then, he shot Roger, making him fall backwards away from Donna, but still facing both Donna and Mark. So the way that he told it, Roger's feet would have been at the top of Donna's head, pointing toward the hallway where Mark was.

• 39:44Annie Elise?

  But get this, the Polaroids showed something completely different. Roger was facing the opposite direction, 180 degrees from where Mark claimed he should have been. Instead of Roger's feet being near the top of Donna's head, their heads were actually next to each other, with Roger's feet pointing toward the kitchen, not the hallway where Mark claimed to have shot him from. And that did not line up with Mark's story at all. For the bodies to have ended up in those positions, Mark would have had to have approached from the opposite side of the house from where he said he did. And if that was true, it meant that he would not have been down in the basement when everything started. He would have heard the commotion right away.

• 40:27Annie Elise?

  It also meant that he would have already had his gun on him, the same gun that he usually kept in the master bedroom, which remember, that was at the top of the basement stairs. So that one little detail, it changed everything. And the craziest thing about these Polaroids is that the investigators never saw them in that very moment, not until years later, because the case had been closed so quickly, none of the detectives ever thought anything of them. They got thrown in the back of a filing cabinet somewhere, never to be seen again. And even though these Polaroids were a huge discovery, another two years passed by, not because investigators weren't actively working the case, but because this time, they wanted to get it right.

• 41:09Annie Elise?

  If they were going to point the finger at Mark, they wanted to make sure that they had the evidence to back it up. And something that really helped was the blood splatter analysis, because it revealed multiple different things, each one proving that Mark had lied. The first thing the experts were able to note was that Donna didn't have any of Roger's blood splatter on her body. And if Roger really had been standing over her when he was shot, his blood definitely would have gotten on her. Also, Roger had been shot twice in the head, and at the time of the murders, nobody thought anything of that. Maybe Mark had fired one shot after another, not thinking anything of it because of the panic in the moment. But a thorough investigation of the blood at the crime scene told a very different story.

• 41:52Annie Elise?

  The first blood stain near Roger's body indicated that he had been shot in the rear top of his head, causing him to lie face-first while the blood pooled around him. Then, another blood stain indicated that he had been rolled over onto his back before being shot again. And I think that the most frustrating part about this case is that for years, investigators insisted that there wasn't enough evidence to justify reopening the case. But once they finally did, they realized just how much evidence had been there all along. Old neighbors of the Wingers told investigators that they remembered hearing two very distinct gunshots that day, but they weren't right after one another. They heard one shot, then a few minutes passed, and then they heard another shot.

• 42:35Annie Elise?

  And sure, you could play devil's advocate and say that years had passed and witness testimony is often inaccurate, especially when someone is trying to remember details from years earlier, but investigators found even more evidence that really seemed to back up what the neighbors had been saying. In the 911 call that Mark placed himself, as he's panicking and as he's telling the dispatcher that his wife had been shot, you can hear something in the background, something that sounds like a person who is moaning in pain. Then, Mark told the operator that his baby was crying, that he had to go, and he hung up the phone. So the new theory was that after he hung up with 911, he rolled Roger over onto his back, and that's when he shot him again.

• 43:19Annie Elise?

  But there was still a major unanswered question. Why was Roger there? How did he even get into the house? I want to make it very clear that Donna's ride home from the airport had all been true. Roger really was her driver, and he really was saying some out-there things that scared her. It was the story, though, of what happened after that ride that Mark had started twisting. It turns out that Mark had contacted the owner of the shuttle van company. He told him personally that he wanted to speak with Roger and speak with him in person, just to discuss his behavior and why it was inappropriate. He didn't want him getting in trouble with the company or anything like that, he just wanted to talk to him. And as you can tell, this was back in 1995, because now, no boss at any company is ever

• 44:02Annie Elise?

  gonna be like, "Oh yeah, sure, here's all of Roger's personal information, go ahead, set up a meeting with him." But at this time, that's exactly what Roger's boss did. I mean, he checked with Roger beforehand, yes, and Roger told him that it was fine to go ahead and give Mark his number, but he put the two of them in touch. And three of Roger's old roommates also told investigators that Roger had confided in them that he was having a meeting with Mark. According to Roger, Mark wanted to talk to him about the reckless driving incident involving his wife and baby from the week before. So that's why Roger had that piece of paper in his car with Mark's name, his address, and the time on it, because he really was meeting up with Mark. It also makes sense why there were no signs of forced entry going inside the home, because

• 44:45Annie Elise?

  the truth was, Roger was let inside the home by Mark. Finally, six years after Donna and Roger were killed, Mark was arrested for both of their murders. Mark denied any wrongdoing, though. He claimed that the police had it right the first time, and now he was being framed for something that he didn't do.

• 45:03Speaker 07

  Roger Harrington killed my wife, saw with my own eyes.

• 45:05Annie Elise?

  There was also a lot of shock at Mark's arrest, and I can't express this enough. Everyone saw him as this fragile widower who saw his wife die right before his very eyes, he had to shoot the intruder, kill him in self-defense. When he had remarried, people were happy that he found some semblance of peace, they were happy that Bailey was gonna grow up with a mother figure. So now, for them to find out that Mark had plotted Donna's death and killed an innocent man in the process? It was almost too hard to believe. Even Donna's own parents wanted to believe that the investigators had gotten it all wrong. They thought that once the case went to trial, people would see that these detectives were grasping at straws. That's not what happened.

• 45:47Annie Elise?

  Mark's trial began in May of 2001, and the prosecution, they came in prepared. They wanted to prove to everyone that even though they had gotten it wrong in the very beginning, they were more than confident that they had it right this time. They argued that Mark had been toying around with the idea of killing Donna for quite a while. And Deanne's testimony, that Mark had suggested everything would be better if Donna were dead and even floated the idea that she could help, that really helped solidify the argument. But Deanne, remember, she had brushed him off, thinking that he was just talking crazy. So Mark needed another plan. And when Donna came home frantic about the awful airport driver, his plan came together.

• 46:29Annie Elise?

  It was like the opportunity had presented itself, and all Mark needed to do was get his hands a little dirty. So he set up the meeting with Roger on the day of the murders, he called around 9:00 a.m. explaining who he was and why he wanted to talk with him, and since Roger's boss had already asked if it would be okay to give Mark his number, Roger knew what the call was about and agreed to meet with him. So that's when Roger wrote down the address and the time that he was supposed to meet on that piece of paper that was later found in his car. And at 3:30 p.m., he got in his car and he headed toward the Winger home, having no clue what was actually waiting for him when he got there. Mark made himself look like a caring, concerned husband and father, someone who didn't want

• 47:11Annie Elise?

  to get Roger in trouble, and the fact that Roger had this history of mental illness, though, it made everything easier for him, and made it so much more believable that Roger would seek revenge over his job. What's scary, though, is that the investigator said that they believe if Roger hadn't made a note about the meeting with Mark, this case may have stayed closed. Not to mention those Polaroids that were buried in the case files. So after seeing all of the evidence that the prosecution laid out, Donna's family and friends couldn't deny it anymore. They knew that the investigators were right. Mark really had killed Donna. Mark's side of the family, however, refused to believe it. Mark's mom argued that he had nothing to gain by hurting Donna.

• 47:53Annie Elise?

  But something that is less reported on this is that Mark definitely did gain something after Donna's death. Not only his freedom, but he received a $150,000 insurance payout. On top of that, he got an additional 25 grand from a foundation for crime victims. So Mark received a total of $175,000 when Donna died. And when you factor in the affair, I think that there is definitely an argument to be made that Mark had a lot to gain from Donna's death. In the end, the jury deliberated for around 13 hours before finding Mark guilty of Donna and Roger's death. The detectives also apologized to Roger's family. For years, they had believed that Roger wasn't the killer that the investigators claimed

• 48:37Annie Elise?

  him to be, but nobody would listen. And I'm not sure how much an apology could mean after everything that they had been through, but at the very least, Roger's name had finally been cleared. His family could go out in public without getting weird stares or being treated like they were somehow guilty too. As for Rebecca, she did not stick by Mark's side. She relocated with all four kids, Bailey included. She moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and that's where they all started new lives. As for Donna's family, they tried to find a way to close this painful chapter of their lives, and they kept in touch with Rebecca and Bailey. Mark was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He never admitted to what he did, and he never told his side of the story, though.

• 49:22Annie Elise?

  However, the story didn't end there. Three years after Mark was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, his name was back in the headlines again. Apparently, he was trying to plan a pretty elaborate hit on both Deanne for testifying against him and Donna's stepdad. The police, though, luckily discovered this. They, you know, were able to catch wind of it before anything came to fruition because an inmate overheard Mark's plan. And it wasn't just something that he wanted to do or wished that he could do, it was well thought out. Apparently, Mark knew a guy named Jeff Wellman, who had a lot of money. And when Mark was first arrested, he even asked Jeff if he would cover his $10 million

• 50:04Annie Elise?

  bail, to which Jeff had essentially said, you know, "Hell no." So Mark decided that in his little revenge plot, he would hire someone to kidnap Jeff, then he would threaten Jeff's family unless Jeff started handing over money. Once he had the money, he was going to pay someone to kidnap Deanne and make her right that she had committed perjury during his trial and that he was an innocent man. And then, which yeah, I know, we're still not done, the kidnapper would kill Deanne, but he would make it look like it was self-harm. The hit on Donna's stepdad, that wasn't really as planned. He wanted him dead because he was, quote, "a son-of-a-gun father-in-law that I dislike." That's the direct quote.

• 50:45Annie Elise?

  Then, if Mark had enough money left over, he'd have Jeff and his family killed too. So technically, this two-person hit, it was turning into a whole group of people being killed. I read that the inmate who told on Mark ended up writing 19 pages just to describe what they had learned about the hit, which, I mean, first of all, it's like the complexity of all this is insane, right? But also, the thought that he could get away with it. Clearly, Mark felt no remorse sitting in prison for killing two people. He was actively trying to kill more people from behind bars. So Mark was charged with two counts of soliciting murder for hire, and he was found guilty. So he was given an additional two 35-year sentences, which really meant nothing when

• 51:29Annie Elise?

  it's next to his life sentence, but still, at least he was held accountable. This whole case is just so full of twists and turns from beginning to end, and it just goes to show that there's always more that is going on behind closed doors, more than we think. I'm glad that Rebecca didn't stick by his side, I'm glad that Bailey has a parent that is taking care of her and loves her, and it's just, once again, like, so senseless. As I always say, just get a divorce. So thank you for tuning in for another episode with me today, guys. I will be back with you with an all-new case very soon. Don't forget, new cases are out every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday between 10 to Life and my other true crime podcast, Serialishly.

• 52:14Annie Elise?

  It's all linked in the show notes below, you can go check it out. And I will be back with you very soon, but until then, stay safe. Bye.

• 52:21Speaker 02

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