True Crime Vault: The Perfect Lie

Speaker 1 This show is supported by Hot and Deadly, a podcast from ID. Hot and Deadly brings you American true crime that is often stranger than fiction.

Speaker 1 Every week, dive into shocking stories of murder and betrayal, from IRS impersonators in Kentucky to a South Carolina businessman deceived by those closest to him.

Speaker 1 You'll hear first-hand accounts from investigators, witnesses, and family members as they share the chilling details behind each case.

Speaker 1 If you love True Crime with a southern twist, you're going to want to check this one out. Follow Hot and Deadly so you never miss an episode.

Speaker 1 You're listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault.

Speaker 4 It's such a bizarre story. Sometimes I don't even believe that it happened to me.

Speaker 5 I had everything right there. Donna, a beautiful baby.

Speaker 6 What would you say

Speaker 6 to the doors?

Speaker 2 These could be your neighbors.

Speaker 7 Maybe you had them over for a barbecue.

Speaker 7 Okay, we've got ambulance en route and we've got police officers en route.

Speaker 8 Where is the gun? I bless it on the table.

Speaker 9 It's on the table.

Speaker 10 Donna had been the victim of some strange phone calls.

Speaker 10 Police found a note. It was a bank deposit slip and on the back was the time of 4.30 p.m.

Speaker 11 Keep going.

Speaker 3 And in comes Rebecca, this young, beautiful nanny who has a heart of gold, wants to help out this poor man.

Speaker 10 You still had signs of life and a pulse with two gunshot wounds to the head.

Speaker 2 I've written over 30 crime novels, but here's a real-life case that is more twisted than anything I could have dreamt up.

Speaker 4 Their lives were shattered, and it was my purpose

Speaker 4 to make this family whole again.

Speaker 4 This is the first time I've sat down to tell my story.

Speaker 6 And watch the whole world fall apart.

Speaker 7 There's something going on here that we missed.

Speaker 15 On this very special day at this very special house, a very special little baby is going to come live with us.

Speaker 16 And who do we see but the mommy?

Speaker 2 All these movies is just, they could be yours, they could be mine, it could be anybody you know.

Speaker 15 Look at these special kids. They've waited so long for this baby.

Speaker 2 You are watching the birth of a family. After six years of marriage, Mark and Donna Winger are about to to adopt a baby girl.

Speaker 16 How do you feel, Donna?

Speaker 15 I'm overwhelmed. And I just 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.

Speaker 6 Oh, isn't that wonderful?

Speaker 19 Mark and Donna were sort of put on this pedestal as this beautiful young couple who had struggled to have kids and now they finally were able to adopt this three-month-old baby.

Speaker 15 Here comes our special delivery.

Speaker 6 Oh,

Speaker 6 look.

Speaker 2 You look at this beautiful mother with her beautiful child and they're just starting out the relationship. Donald doesn't have a clue.

Speaker 2 This is going to be one of the last times that she's able to have a moment like this with Bailey.

Speaker 2 Emergency, emergency. This man man just

Speaker 2 meet my wife. I shot him.

Speaker 2 Please help me. He was killing my wife.

Speaker 2 Are you Mark Wingert? Yes, I am. Yes, I am.
Okay, and your wife is Donna?

Speaker 10 Yes, she is. On August 29th, 1995, the Springfield Police Department responded to a 911 call.

Speaker 8 Is the man still in your house? Yes, he's laying there on the floor with a bullet in his head.

Speaker 7 There had been a shooting

Speaker 7 at Westview Drive in Springfield.

Speaker 19 It happened in a nice neighborhood right when people were coming home from work by a ballpark where kids play baseball.

Speaker 10 When they arrived they found a very grisly scene.

Speaker 7 I could see the victims from the front door.

Speaker 10 Donna was clinging to life. She had been hit no less than seven times in the head with a hammer.

Speaker 7 The second victim was an unknown white male lying on the floor.

Speaker 10 He still had signs of life and a pulse with two gunshot wounds to the head.

Speaker 7 It was quite chaotic. They were working on them, putting tubes in them.
I knew that they were going to be transporting the victims soon, so I wanted to try and get identification on the male subject.

Speaker 7 So I went and took his wallet out of his back pocket, and in his wallet, he had a driver's license which identified him as Roger Arrington.

Speaker 7 Then I proceeded to assess the crime scene itself to try and gather as much information as I could.

Speaker 4 We have

Speaker 6 a

Speaker 8 hammer covered with what appears to be blood.

Speaker 7 The husband reported that his wife was being beaten by a guy with a hammer.

Speaker 25 We have a.45 caliber semi-automatic handgun.

Speaker 7 On the dining room table was the weapon that was used to shoot Mr. Harrington.
Also on that table was a yellow mug and a pack of cigarettes.

Speaker 10 Roger Harrington's car was parked going against traffic, facing the wrong direction.

Speaker 7 It was very out of place for that neighborhood.

Speaker 10 Inside of the vehicle, the police found a note. Written on there was the time of 4.30 p.m., the address,

Speaker 10 and the name Mark Winger.

Speaker 7 I proceeded back to the master bedroom to talk with the husband, Mark Winger. He was rocking back and forth on the end of the bed.

Speaker 10 He was very upset, very emotional.

Speaker 7 He kept asking, who's that man that was in my house?

Speaker 7 And even though I knew who it was, I did not want to let him know at that point. We got him calmed down.
Then we started getting into what had occurred.

Speaker 28 He was working out downstairs on his treadmill when he had heard a thump upstairs.

Speaker 7 At that point, he shut the treadmill off and started walking up the steps to make sure everything was okay.

Speaker 7 When he got to the master bedroom, he seen his three-month-old child laying on the bed, which he said Donna would have never done, which concerned him.

Speaker 10 He then said he heard noises, which made him believe that Donna was in distress.

Speaker 7 So at that point, he got his semi-automatic weapon out of the nightstand.

Speaker 28 And as he walked down the hallway, he observed a man beating her with a hammer.

Speaker 7 The male subject looked up at him and then lowered his head again to take another swing at his wife and that's when he shot him.

Speaker 10 Mark had stated the man fell backwards, landing on his back, and that he began to sit up and that Mark immediately shot him a second time. Does he have a gun? Planes are everywhere.

Speaker 10 Is he dead? I don't know. He's making weird sounds.

Speaker 10 I don't know who he is.

Speaker 7 He asks us many times who this gentleman was. At one point, he said it was that guy's name Roger.

Speaker 7 and at that point I felt that I needed to answer his question.

Speaker 10 I told him yes his name was Roger Harrington and Mark was shocked and he said oh my god that's the man who's been harassing my wife this week.

Speaker 7 Four or five days before this incident his wife had went down to visit her parents in Florida.

Speaker 17 Donna told me that Mark had a conference.

Speaker 17 I said to her, why don't you come to Florida? It would be so wonderful.

Speaker 8 Looks like Grandma and Popeye Popeye have found the baby.

Speaker 17 Donna was excited to show off her baby and as all of her trips it was always very sad to see her go.

Speaker 13 Say hi Daddy.

Speaker 16 Say we miss you.

Speaker 17 I dropped her off at the airport

Speaker 17 and she left.

Speaker 17 We had hired a driver to pick her up in St. Louis and drive her right to her house.
This way she could just take care of the baby.

Speaker 30 It was about a two-hour drive and there was a lot of time to talk.

Speaker 30 And so this gentleman started opening up to Donna

Speaker 30 about issues he was having. He had a voice in his head named Dom.

Speaker 30 Dom would tell him to do bad things. Recently, Dom was telling him to hurt people.

Speaker 7 And then he started flirting with her, saying that he liked older women and he liked to have sex parties. And he invited Donna

Speaker 7 to join him.

Speaker 2 And this ride, as she describes it, is really scary. He's driving erratically, 75 miles an hour.
He's raving about demons that talk to him.

Speaker 33 It's terrifying.

Speaker 11 She calls me, she tells me this whole story.

Speaker 11 And I said to her, like any, you know, supportive sister would, you had a really crazy driver, but you're home. You're safe.
You're going to be okay.

Speaker 11 She said, I really, I am really scared.

Speaker 10 After the harrowing ride, Donna had been the victim of some strange phone calls. They had believed that the driver had been stalking her and was a danger.

Speaker 30 So Mark started calling the limousine company and filing a complaint.

Speaker 10 Roger got suspended from his job because of the complaint.

Speaker 11 And Mark suggested that Donna write down the story, and it would be good information to be very specific, just in case they need it.

Speaker 2 At the murder scene, one of the police officers goes over to the refrigerator, and he notices this note written in Donna's handwriting.

Speaker 2 We entered the van and he introduced himself to me as Roger. He talked to me about his spirit, Dom.

Speaker 2 He told me things like, Dom makes him do things, like said car bombs and killing people. I felt as if my life and the life of my daughter were in the hands of a nut.

Speaker 2 For Detective Cox, this note on the refrigerator fits in neatly with what Mark Winger is saying.

Speaker 7 It got us up to speed on why they were worried about this guy and why this guy came to his house.

Speaker 10 Detective Cox viewed Roger Harrington with great skepticism. He had a history with Roger Harrington.

Speaker 7 I knew him as a very volatile type subject. I owned a trailer park in town and him and his wife rented a trailer from me.
Roger and his wife had had domestic disputes that I had to get involved in.

Speaker 7 Knowing what I knew about Mr. Harrington in the past, how quick he was to anger,

Speaker 7 I thought that he very well could have went over there to try to get his job back. And he snapped.
There's a hammer laying right there on the table. He picks it up, goes into a rage.

Speaker 23 Then the husband shoots the bad guy.

Speaker 10 Donna died a violent death.

Speaker 10 She was struck from behind one time from the left, and then she was struck at least six more times on the base of her skull, where she was brutally beaten to death with a hammer.

Speaker 7 I told Mark that he had done everything he could to try and save his wife.

Speaker 7 But we still needed to tell him that his wife had passed away.

Speaker 7 He had called his rabbi to come to the house to help him through this.

Speaker 2 He was a wreck, you know, and I was trying to comfort him and not knowing quite what to say because I didn't know what there was to say.

Speaker 10 When the police examined the scene and when they listened to Mark's explanation of what happened, the detectives came to the conclusion that Mark Winger acted in self-defense and the case was closed within approximately 48 hours.

Speaker 27 It all fit pretty good.

Speaker 7 In fact, almost too good.

Speaker 26 Mark Winger ran upstairs from his basement,

Speaker 38 witnessed the beating death of his wife at the hands of Roger Harrington,

Speaker 38 and then shot Harrington to death in self-defense.

Speaker 2 You see this terrible tragedy and you wonder, how did they get there?

Speaker 30 When Don and Mark got married, he received a job offer that brought him to Springfield, Illinois.

Speaker 19 Springfield is the state capital. We have about 115,000 people who live here.

Speaker 10 Springfield is very much a hometown, if you will. People here generally know each other.

Speaker 39 Mark and Donna both were well-respected. They had good jobs.
They lived, I would say, an upper-middle-class existence. Nothing stood out.

Speaker 40 Mark and Donna had a very nice married life. He was a nuclear engineer.

Speaker 39 Donna Winger was a technician at Memorial Medical Center.

Speaker 40 Donna was the oldest of the three girls.

Speaker 17 She was outgoing.

Speaker 25 She loved life.

Speaker 30 She lit up a room the moment she walked in.

Speaker 17 Donna always said what was in her heart and in her mind. She didn't mess around.

Speaker 30 Mark's brother set Donna and Mark up on a blind date, and things moved pretty quickly.

Speaker 30 He was smart, Jewish, he was attractive, and he was fun. She just felt like she had found her person.

Speaker 17 He was good to her, and as a mother, that's all that I would care about.

Speaker 40 He came from a very nice family, and what more can you ask for?

Speaker 17 He was quiet, but he had a fabulous sense of humor.

Speaker 22 This is a fest of the Winger Broadcasting System.

Speaker 17 The rest is history.

Speaker 30 We always joked about that when one sister marries, that husband marries three sisters. We shared our lives with Mark.

Speaker 30 We were a very close family.

Speaker 40 Donna couldn't have been happier. The only thing was she would have liked to have had a child.

Speaker 17 Donna called up and she was hysterical. She had just just found out that she could not get pregnant and that was a very hard moment for her.

Speaker 40 Mark was unhappy for the fact that I know he wanted to have a big family.

Speaker 11 Really all she wanted was to become a mom. And so when this didn't happen, it

Speaker 11 took a toll.

Speaker 11 There was a lot of tension in their home.

Speaker 30 The way Bailey came into Donna's life is a really special story.

Speaker 17 Donna was working in the operating room one afternoon.

Speaker 43 One of the physicians walked in and said, well, I have a young teen mother who wants to put up her baby for adoption.

Speaker 13 Is there

Speaker 43 anyone that knows somebody that wants to adopt a baby?

Speaker 17 And this was the baby that they were going to adopt.

Speaker 46 Tonight is Friday night and we have services tonight and tonight is her naming.

Speaker 17 It was

Speaker 17 the best.

Speaker 17 Absolutely the best.

Speaker 13 Doesn't she look pretty?

Speaker 15 She sure does.

Speaker 16 Hi Bailey, say hi Grandma Sarah.

Speaker 30 We're gonna go to work to show her off.

Speaker 30 Becoming a mother was probably the best thing that had ever happened in Donna's life.

Speaker 15 Turn the video and we're gonna look at our little girl here.

Speaker 8 Here she is.

Speaker 9 She's being a good girl.

Speaker 11 I remember asking her, how is it that you could get connected so quickly to a child that you didn't birth?

Speaker 11 And she looked at me with tears and she said, Michelle, I knew it the minute They put that baby into my arms. She has always been mine.

Speaker 2 for my mother becoming a grandmother was something that she had waited for for quite a while here's grandma dresser as a new father mark seemed to excitedly be videotaping his family all the time mommy's feeling very comfortable these days with bailey and i think we've sort of fonded a little bit oh i think we fond it a lot

Speaker 30 When Bailey first came home, everybody wanted to see the new baby.

Speaker 46 Say, hi, here's Aunt Deanne.

Speaker 6 There's Deanne.

Speaker 2 As you can see in the video, Deanne is really a close friend of Donna's.

Speaker 30 Donna met Deanne at the hospital that she was working at, and they became fast friends.

Speaker 18 This is my just the sweetest little niece.

Speaker 30 So she was definitely there to help Donna with new mommy trials and tribulations that we sometimes face.

Speaker 11 Mark was just as excited to become a dad as Donna was to become a mom.

Speaker 40 Jay was just a model American couple.

Speaker 6 Look at that face.

Speaker 47 Looking back on those videos, no one can imagine

Speaker 47 what happened.

Speaker 40 We got a phone call. I've got some very bad news to tell you.

Speaker 25 I remember screaming, Ira, tell me, tell me what is wrong.

Speaker 17 What are you talking about?

Speaker 34 I am so excited for this spa day.

Speaker 13 Candles lit.

Speaker 4 Music on.

Speaker 41 Hot tub warm and ready.

Speaker 34 And then my chronic hives come back.

Speaker 14 Again, in the middle of my spa day.

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Speaker 14 Two rings surrounded by a steel cage.

Speaker 14 You want to play games?

Speaker 14 We're going to play games. Oh my God, are you kidding me? This is going to be a war.

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Speaker 40 It was around 11:03 on a Tuesday evening when all of a sudden we got a phone call

Speaker 40 and it was Mike Datz. And Mike Datz said to me, I've got some very bad news to tell you.

Speaker 17 I remember screaming, Ira, tell me, tell me what is wrong.

Speaker 17 And finally he said to me, Sarah Jane,

Speaker 25 Donna was murdered.

Speaker 3 And I said to him, murder, what are you talking about?

Speaker 13 And then I finally said to him, we have to tell the girls, and I have to break their hearts.

Speaker 6 It was four o'clock in the morning, and I said, Jenny, it's mom.

Speaker 37 Something terrible has happened.

Speaker 30 My mother begins to sob and says, Donna's dead.

Speaker 17 Donna's dead.

Speaker 12 I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't understand.

Speaker 30 And we sat there in my room,

Speaker 13 the four of us,

Speaker 34 just crying at this unimaginable loss.

Speaker 17 And Wednesday morning, we were on an eight o'clock plane to Springfield.

Speaker 17 We went right to the rabbi's house.

Speaker 40 The first night

Speaker 40 in the Jewish religion, you have a prayer service in the evening, and the rabbi was just ready to start the service when Mark walked in with the baby in his hand, and everybody cried.

Speaker 37 We had heard

Speaker 30 right away that it was Roger.

Speaker 17 I couldn't imagine what an evil person he was and why he would do such a horrendous thing.

Speaker 10 Springfield's a small town and a small community and a case like this is shocking to everyone in the area.

Speaker 39 The details, when they came out, then people started imagining how someone at random could take a hammer and kill this woman.

Speaker 30 I kept thinking to myself, oh my goodness, how awful this evil man was so close to my brother-in-law. How horrific that he had to go through this experience and watch his wife being murdered.

Speaker 11 My mother and I started to go to Illinois.

Speaker 17 We were taking turns in taking care of the baby.

Speaker 30 In the beginning, it was fine.

Speaker 17 But as I think back, Mark was quiet. He was off in his own little world.

Speaker 11 I spent a lot of time with Mark. And I'm observing these odd behaviors.

Speaker 17 He was drinking a lot.

Speaker 25 He would go to bars.

Speaker 17 He would watch movies like pulp fiction.

Speaker 8 And you will know my name is the law

Speaker 8 when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

Speaker 11 This movie's violent after what he just went through.

Speaker 34 Why did he pick this movie?

Speaker 11 But if this is the way that Mark grieves, then I will have to accept that.

Speaker 2 You really can't judge anybody by how they grieve. When you lose somebody close to you, it's devastating.

Speaker 10 You never know how somebody's going to react.

Speaker 17 I didn't understand it, but I loved him because he loved Donna. And that's what was important to me.

Speaker 17 But I had to be very careful because I did not want to ruin my relationship with him because I did not want to ruin my relationship with the baby. I wanted to be a grandma.
And she made me a grandma.

Speaker 30 We tried very hard to make sure that Bailey had everything that she needed.

Speaker 11 We couldn't keep going up there and taking care of Bailey, and we needed to get him some help.

Speaker 17 So I suggested to Mark that he hire a nanny.

Speaker 3 And in comes Rebecca, this young, beautiful, tall, blonde nanny who

Speaker 11 has a heart of gold, wants to help out this poor man.

Speaker 17 She was just adorable, which made me a little nervous because she was really cute.

Speaker 36 This is Rebecca Interview Take One, Sawsticks.

Speaker 4 This is the first time I've sat down to tell my story.

Speaker 4 Mark just had a way of being extremely influential in that I needed to accept this position.

Speaker 4 I was going to become her nanny or governess.

Speaker 8 Can you say hi?

Speaker 4 I would move into the home and take care of her basic needs and I just felt like she deserved the best. Pinko!

Speaker 4 Mark asked me to train her, to show her all the things about the baby, and I felt really good about them.

Speaker 8 Say hi.

Speaker 50 Can you say hi to grandma?

Speaker 30 I think deep down I didn't want to like Rebecca but that it was hard to not like her and seeing her with Bailey there was really

Speaker 30 nothing bad we could say about her.

Speaker 8 Stand up here, show grandma how you stand in your crib.

Speaker 4 I was blown away at what this little girl had been through in her life in such a short time. She lost two mothers by the time she was three months old and she was so smiling.

Speaker 8 Can you say hi?

Speaker 4 I wanted to get in there and say I'm gonna help and I'm gonna make this little girl's life better.

Speaker 8 There she is standing at her crib.

Speaker 4 It was a big responsibility but I was ready for her like Bailey made me a mom and sometimes a child has to appear for the mom to be created.

Speaker 7 Failey's kind of the start of great things for Rebecca.

Speaker 9 There she is, most beautiful girl in the world.

Speaker 17 There she is.

Speaker 17 Mark called up one day and he said to me, I just want to tell you some good news. The nanny was pregnant and I thought, oh my god, what is happening here?

Speaker 4 When I first met Mark, he was just crushed, you know, when she was gone. That was never supposed to happen.

Speaker 42 The name you've chosen for her means blessing.

Speaker 4 And it was just a little bit uncomfortable for me because I just felt like I was in the middle of this crime scene, you know.

Speaker 4 There were times I would

Speaker 4 play play on the floor and Bailey would be down there with their toys.

Speaker 8 Bailey, Elizabeth.

Speaker 4 I kind of wondered like we were just in the same spots in the same areas, you know, that all this happened.

Speaker 4 Bailey had no idea. the chaos that had gone on around her and I just wanted to protect her from that.

Speaker 4 Mark, he wanted nothing but the best for her.

Speaker 8 Happy Father's Day, dear daddy.

Speaker 4 He was just a provider and a protector and just a stand-up guy.

Speaker 8 She picked up the bottle and put it in her mouth all by herself. Because

Speaker 9 you are hungry.

Speaker 6 I say I know I always think of you.

Speaker 4 There was nights where we would sit up talking and having wine and he would tell his stories and he would explain things.

Speaker 2 Rebecca felt welcome in her new environment. There was only one person who made her feel uneasy, made her feel uncomfortable.
That was Donna's best friend, Deanne.

Speaker 4 Deanne pushed to be involved in a part of Bailey's life. I just had the feeling that she wanted to step and take over where Donna was.

Speaker 18 This is my just the sweetest little niece that I've ever seen.

Speaker 2 In this home video, Deanne seems to be so close to the whole family, so close to the baby.

Speaker 16 I mean, what's your mommy?

Speaker 4 I mentioned something to Mark about it, and he just said that she's really hurting from Donna being gone.

Speaker 44 Say hi, Daddy.

Speaker 2 So Mark Winger starts to return to his regular life, but then he decides to sue Bart Transportation for Donna's death in a wrongful death suit.

Speaker 22 Mark Winger filed a civil suit against Bark Transportation.

Speaker 23 The allegation is that Bark Transportation should not have hired Roger Harrington.

Speaker 17 I remember him saying that he was so angry with them, that they hired somebody, that something was wrong with him.

Speaker 8 Bailey's first meeting from her mom.

Speaker 4 Whatever he asked for, it was worth it. Donna lost her life.
It was necessary that they be held accountable.

Speaker 7 Normally, when you close a case and it's done, especially when he's the hero in this case, you never hear anything else from him.

Speaker 7 But Mark Winger called me on the phone and asked if he could get his gun back.

Speaker 7 So he comes down to the station and he's asking how the case was going, if it was still open, if we're doing any more interviewing. I just had an uneasy feeling about it.

Speaker 2 So the police have a few things that are making them wonder.

Speaker 23 Roger Harrington's car was parked facing facing the wrong way.

Speaker 2 They have Roger's coffee mug. Why would somebody bring a mug if they're going to commit a murder? They have Roger's cigarettes.

Speaker 27 Again, why?

Speaker 2 Roger Harrington's family insisted from the beginning that their son was harmless.

Speaker 20 He was no troublemaker.

Speaker 20 He was a good kid, you know, he wouldn't even strike at anybody.

Speaker 24 In the newspaper and all the reports come out saying that this Dom character was telling him to kill people.

Speaker 24 I was thinking, man, you've really got this wrong. Dom.

Speaker 24 Dom was a rubber mask that he had.

Speaker 24 And he had told my oldest son, it's just a mask. It's there to scare people.

Speaker 20 I don't think he would have hurt anybody, and I don't think he was crazy.

Speaker 2 Then again, can you trust the word of the family?

Speaker 2 Even though there's still a few pieces of the puzzle that didn't quite fit, the case was closed and Mark Winger was going on with his life.

Speaker 8 Someone's here, baby. Someone's here.

Speaker 4 When you live with someone and you're taking care of a child together.

Speaker 10 Knock him down.

Speaker 4 She only does that with me.

Speaker 4 It's very easy to kind of play house.

Speaker 4 You're already put in those roles.

Speaker 8 So clean, clean it well.

Speaker 4 Mark made me feel like I was like an angel sent to him from God or Donna.

Speaker 4 And it was my purpose to make this family whole again.

Speaker 30 The relationship between Rebecca and Mark grew from a business relationship to a romantic relationship.

Speaker 2 Here's this young, smart, attractive woman coming into their lives, taking care of the child. She sees a caring husband who had been a hero trying to save his wife.

Speaker 2 It's easy to see why they were drawn to each other.

Speaker 4 And I remember asking him how he could move on so quickly, and he explained to me that when you have a good marriage, it's natural for you just to want that again.

Speaker 7 My first interaction with him, it was just kind of an awkward meeting.

Speaker 7 He starts telling me the story. It just didn't seem right.
It was more about the way he used his gun than it was emotional for him to lose his wife.

Speaker 7 So it did make me feel uncomfortable when Rebecca started to become more romantically involved with Mark.

Speaker 7 Cookie.

Speaker 2 Grab the cookie. As the romance continued, Mark kept capturing moments with Rebecca front and center.

Speaker 8 Look at Daddy. Say hi, Daddy.

Speaker 9 Danny's been walking for about a week.

Speaker 8 Go see him. Hi, sweetheart.

Speaker 4 Mark had always told me that he was not capable of having children.

Speaker 4 I was very surprised to find out I was pregnant. Obviously I wasn't careful, but it was just kind of a shock.
He was thrilled. He was absolutely thrilled.

Speaker 4 I felt like it was a victory to him.

Speaker 4 Mark put pressure on me to marry him and have children with him.

Speaker 4 Immediately, he started going to church with me to persuade me that we could have that life.

Speaker 4 He writes to me, I love you, you love me, and you're pregnant with our child.

Speaker 4 I believe that you and I together can raise a family in a truly Christian home.

Speaker 4 I would be honored to be your husband and blessed if you were my wife.

Speaker 2 I said, You know, Mark, I don't understand you. You've always claimed to be such a loyal Jew.
Why are you changing your faith?

Speaker 42 Elijah is one of our prophets who is with us through thick and thin.

Speaker 23 He said,

Speaker 2 Judaism is just too difficult and unforgiving.

Speaker 7 And I said, Mark, I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 23 What do you need forgiveness for?

Speaker 15 There's our view on our balcony, and Prince Charming is cooking breakfast.

Speaker 4 So it's very very easy to understand why I'm going to marry this man.

Speaker 4 Mark and I eloped.

Speaker 4 We went to Maui and it was kind of a secret and a surprise and I didn't even tell my own family.

Speaker 28 She's Mrs. Winger.

Speaker 6 I'm filming for the first time.

Speaker 30 It was just so hurtful in knowing that

Speaker 30 in his life, Donna could be replaced so easily.

Speaker 11 I said to myself, what?

Speaker 35 Now Rebecca's pregnant?

Speaker 12 Now they're going to go into Hawaii and getting married?

Speaker 3 Like, seriously, can I say it on camera?

Speaker 13 What the f?

Speaker 4 I'm sorry, but seriously,

Speaker 3 who does this?

Speaker 17 I remember when Mark told me that he was going to sell the house and buy a house in the country.

Speaker 4 It was my dream home and my marriage and I just think when we built that home, I had so many ideas of what would happen at that home. And then we had Anna.

Speaker 4 And then a year later, we had Maggie.

Speaker 6 Look at the little teddy bear.

Speaker 2 Home videos show their growing family filling the house in the country.

Speaker 6 Where's Anna?

Speaker 4 I was so busy with wife and kids. We were just living our best lives.

Speaker 48 There's mommy and Anna and Bailey and

Speaker 8 this is Bailey's interview tape one.

Speaker 47 My name is Bailey Elizabeth Summick.

Speaker 47 We had a pond in our backyard and we would all go like play out and that together while my dad would fish.

Speaker 2 I think for Donna's family, they were probably torn. They wanted Mark and Bailey to have normalcy.

Speaker 2 But as Mark then, with Rebecca, started to pull away from the family, it was really very painful for Donna's sisters and her mother.

Speaker 4 Sometimes when Sarah Jane would be around Bailey, She would just cry because she would see Bailey and she would just want so badly to share that with Donna and she would just get emotional.

Speaker 4 That bothered Mark because he didn't want her to cry around Bailey.

Speaker 17 I remember visiting the new house.

Speaker 40 Sarah Jane had the baby in her arms and she had a necklace that had Donna's significance on it.

Speaker 4 She wanted to put it on Bailey and it upset Mark.

Speaker 40 Mark said, Mom, could you please take the necklace off? It makes me feel bad. That was the first instance where we felt felt that Mark said something that was inappropriate.

Speaker 4 That was kind of the beginning of the end.

Speaker 17 I received a letter from Mark one day saying to me, I could not be called grandma.

Speaker 17 So I wrote him back and I begged him, please let her call me grandma. And he said, I'm sorry, there's no way that I am going to allow her to call you grandma.
And that's the way it is.

Speaker 30 We really all decided together that we just couldn't continue enduring this type of pain and Mark was somebody that we just no longer knew.

Speaker 17 I mourned that for a long time and I really felt then that when this child is old enough

Speaker 41 She will want to know

Speaker 17 about the first three months of her life

Speaker 41 and about

Speaker 37 her mom.

Speaker 47 Every year for my birthday, they would always send a birthday card, and I always remember asking my mom, Who's Sarah, Jane, and Ireland?

Speaker 47 And my mom would always explain: like, those are Donna's parents, and they just, you know, want to let you know that, like, they love you and that they remember you.

Speaker 6 Happy birthday to

Speaker 6 you, Dana.

Speaker 4 Mark wanted to go and be checked out at the emergency room because he wasn't feeling well. And I looked over in the waiting room and I saw Deanne.

Speaker 4 And she glared at me like she was just very angry to see us again.

Speaker 19 And it sort of triggered Deanne.

Speaker 19 After Donna's death, her life went one direction and Mark's went an entirely different direction.

Speaker 4 Mark told me that we're probably going to be hearing from her again.

Speaker 4 My life and the home that I had built was completely shattered.

Speaker 28 Deanne Schultz's statements were an absolute bombshell.

Speaker 40 Now that this woman came forward, hello, there's your motor.

Speaker 52 An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu.

Speaker 31 Mom Talk started as a sisterhood and that's gone to flames.

Speaker 14 New secrets and lies are coming out.

Speaker 31 This is going to be catastrophic.

Speaker 10 We're fighting for our marriages and the girls are just putting us through hell.

Speaker 31 They make everything about themselves.

Speaker 29 I can't.

Speaker 53 Hopefully, this doesn't end in a bloodbath.

Speaker 52 Watch the Hulu Original, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bubble subscribers.

Speaker 23 Terms apply.

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Speaker 4 It's such a bizarre story.

Speaker 4 Sometimes I don't even believe that it happened to me.

Speaker 6 Watch the pieces fall apart.

Speaker 2 This is the case of really kind of the ordinary man, the ordinary family.

Speaker 6 And I watched the whole world fall apart.

Speaker 5 I had everything right there. Donna, a beautiful baby.

Speaker 38 That's what's so tragic. A disturbed person had been stalking Donna Winger before her murder.

Speaker 12 The driver was really crazy.

Speaker 19 This man comes and destroys everything that they have.

Speaker 44 Winger said he found Harrington beating his wife with a hammer, and to save her, he shot Harrington twice in the head.

Speaker 20 He was an innocent victim.

Speaker 2 And then you find out this dark, deep secret.

Speaker 30 This one Polaroid picture pretty much opened the case up completely.

Speaker 28 The police department had turned a blind eye to some red flags.

Speaker 6 What would you say?

Speaker 17 He is like a chameleon.

Speaker 6 To the dark.

Speaker 4 His past affected my whole future.

Speaker 2 That collision of these lives, I don't think you could really script that.

Speaker 4 I see here on the bottom of the stairs the Winger Inn established 1996, which was the year that we got married.

Speaker 4 Everything was supposed to be perfect, just like in this picture.

Speaker 4 I had this beautiful, wonderful, perfect, untouchable family.

Speaker 4 But I have learned that things just aren't always what they seem.

Speaker 19 It's been three and a half years since Donna was murdered and people have moved forward. Mark's married and has a couple kids and Donna's family is still sort of dealing with their grief.

Speaker 2 And then Deanne Schultz, who had been Donna's best friend and was close with her family, comes forward to the police with a secret that breaks the case wide open.

Speaker 10 Deanne Schultz explained to the police that she had been having an affair with Mark Wenger prior to the murder of Donna Wenger.

Speaker 30 Mark was having a romantic relationship with Deanne,

Speaker 30 one of our sisters, as we considered her,

Speaker 30 and that was something that we never ever suspected.

Speaker 2 In this home video, Deanne seems to be really a member of the family.

Speaker 18 Here's Deanne. Say hi.
Here's Aunt Deanne.

Speaker 2 And yet, we know that she's very, very close to one of the great betrayals.

Speaker 17 The last week that Donna was at our house, she told me that Deanne and her husband were having marital problems. And she said that Mark was helping to guide them.

Speaker 17 He was going to help be the mediator that brought this marriage back together again. Or so Donna thought.

Speaker 10 Deanne Schultz also stated that prior to the murders, Mark made a number of incriminating statements.

Speaker 19 She tells them that he said things like, it would be easier for us to be together if Donna just died. All you'd have to do is come in and find the body.

Speaker 10 Deanne stated that she declined to participate in that.

Speaker 10 After Mark learned about the trip that Donna took with Roger Harrington, he told Deanne, I've got to get that driver in my house.

Speaker 39 Deanne said the day of the murder, he called and said, will you love me no matter what? To which she replied, yes, I would.

Speaker 39 Mark and Deanne continued their affair for about six months after the murder, and of course, to which point he had already hired Rebecca as the nanny.

Speaker 4 Her behavior was just very flirtatious in front of Mark,

Speaker 4 and it was uncomfortable around myself, but she was also married at the time.

Speaker 2 Deanne struggled to make sense of the information that only she knew. It weighed on her and left her in a fragile state.

Speaker 10 Deanne Schultz, after the murders, her life went on a downward spiral to the point to where she had engaged in multiple suicide attempts.

Speaker 28 She never came forward until that chance encounter at that local hospital.

Speaker 10 That was a catalyst that caused her for the first time to reach out to someone other than her physician to discuss the case.

Speaker 40 Now that this woman came forward, hello, there's your motive.

Speaker 28 Neanne Schultz's statements were an absolute bombshell.

Speaker 10 Now the police were able to look at that case through an entirely different perspective. Through the eyes of a man who was unhappy in his marriage, was resentful of his wife.

Speaker 7 Now we have a motive.

Speaker 10 The first step when you reopen a closed case is to go back and look at what you already have.

Speaker 7 We got down to the evidence room and to our surprise, it's gone. And so we got over to the evidence officer and I asked him, where's our evidence?

Speaker 7 He says, well, it was released to the Winger's attorney for a civil lawsuit against bar transportation for wrongful death.

Speaker 22 I worked as a law firm investigator for the civil attorney who represented Mark Winger. And for many years, that evidence remained in the law office.

Speaker 23 And it was technically the property of Mark Winger.

Speaker 8 Now approaching the entranceway via the front door.

Speaker 19 There are several pieces of evidence that they're looking at that just don't sit well with the detectives as they're re-examining everything.

Speaker 23 First of all, Roger Harrington's car was parked facing the wrong way.

Speaker 2 He also brought his cigarettes and his coffee mug.

Speaker 39 But who would do that if they were planning on killing someone?

Speaker 8 45 caliber rounds.

Speaker 28 There was no signs of forced entry.

Speaker 28 Not only that, but Roger Harrington left what was clearly could be used as weapons inside the vehicle.

Speaker 10 There was a tire iron. It had black electrical tape wrapped around the handles.
They also found a knife inside of his vehicle.

Speaker 8 We have what appears to be a large metal hammer.

Speaker 39 Why would Roger come into the house with mayhem on his mind and just happen to find a hammer on the table?

Speaker 10 Mark Winger wanted to kill his wife, and then opportunity presented when Roger Harrington drove Donna Winger.

Speaker 10 And he told Deanne that he needed to get that man into his house, and that's exactly what he did.

Speaker 2 What if Roger Harrington had not picked up Donna Winger Deerford? What if another driver had taken her and there had been no complaint?

Speaker 27 Was this the moment when Mark went from thinking about Berger and realized, oh my goodness,

Speaker 23 I can maybe pull it off?

Speaker 7 While we're leaving the attorney's office with our evidence, We're getting ready to walk out his door and he says, hey, do you want these three Polaroids? And I didn't remember any Polaroids at all.

Speaker 7 I hadn't seen any. But instead of looking stupid, I said, sure, we need those two.

Speaker 19 One of the first officers to arrive at the scene had a Polaroid in his vehicle, and he happened to take three photos of the scene.

Speaker 19 They showed the positions of the bodies before the bodies were rushed to the hospital.

Speaker 2 These three Polaroids are not seen by the police for years. This one over here, especially, is troubled.
The way the bodies are lying does not fit in to the story that Mark Winger told.

Speaker 10 Mark Winger had stated that Roger Harrington was kneeling down right next to Donna Winger's head and he was beating her with a hammer.

Speaker 10 He stated that he shot him and that the man fell backwards so that his feet remained near Donna's head. In reality, the Polaroid photographs showed the exact opposite.

Speaker 7 These photographs actually showed Mr. Harrington and Donna Winger basically laying in the same direction.

Speaker 10 And as such, there's no way this murder could have happened the way Mark Winger described.

Speaker 28 The physical evidence, along with the fact of the affair, was clear that this was a staged domestic homicide.

Speaker 17 The detective said to me, I just wanted to tell you that we now suspect Mark to be the murderer of Donna.

Speaker 17 And I said to him, what are you saying?

Speaker 17 That's not possible.

Speaker 40 I was flabbergasted, to say the least. I couldn't believe what he said.
And I said, you've got to be kidding.

Speaker 20 We thought it was about time the truth came out.

Speaker 24 Roger's name would be cleared. That That was one of the biggest reliefs I had, just knowing that

Speaker 24 people would not think

Speaker 24 that my little brother was a killer.

Speaker 39 More than four years later, the newspaper ran an article based on allegations in the civil suit that Mark had arranged the murder himself and had killed Roger and his wife.

Speaker 4 Everything kind of came to a head. It changed everything.

Speaker 46 I mean

Speaker 4 it went from Winger as a hero who was defending his wife, this noble stand-up guy that every man wanted to pat on the back to

Speaker 4 manipulative, deviant murderer.

Speaker 38 Harrington's roommate Susan Collins said Winger invited Harrington to his home. She said she saw Harrington write down Winger's name and address.

Speaker 28 Susan Collins had been briefly spoken to initially and she had claimed that she was present when Roger Harrington fielded a phone call from someone asking to meet him the day of the murders.

Speaker 10 Police found a note inside of the vehicle. It was a bank deposit slip, and on the back was the time of 4.30 p.m., the address, and the name Mark Wener.

Speaker 50 Why did he leave the baby and her upstairs, the house unlocked, and him go down and play on the treadmill?

Speaker 10 Roger Harrington was not an intruder, but rather he was lured into that home by Mark Wener.

Speaker 38 Attorneys for Roger Harrington's family say two new court documents in a civil case indicate Winger planned the murders of his wife and Harrington.

Speaker 9 Mr. Winger

Speaker 36 made some comments about

Speaker 36 perhaps it would be easier if his wife were dead.

Speaker 22 Dean Schultz's cooperation with police, the fact that there was evidence that raised questions about Mark Winger's story, all of that came out prompting the voluntary dismissal of the civil suit.

Speaker 9 Oh, the thing.

Speaker 4 I didn't see it coming. I didn't know that this whole investigation was brewing.
I never thought the whole time that they thought my husband was a diabolical murderer.

Speaker 8 Here she comes.

Speaker 16 Here comes the world's best daddy.

Speaker 4 I remember making it to 2001 and thinking, I think we're okay. They must not have the evidence against him.
It's been a whole year and then they still haven't arrested him. They must not have a case.

Speaker 10 We were conducting an exhaustive investigation. During that same timeframe, Mark Wenger was a free man.

Speaker 10 He was still working for the Department of Nuclear Safety and had three more children of their own.

Speaker 8 You don't go kiss the daddy, boy, daddy, kiss.

Speaker 23 While the police are closing in, we see home videos.

Speaker 2 And Mark just looks like a normal suburban father raising four kids.

Speaker 39 People still wanted to give Mark the benefit of the doubt. These were just allegations.
They weren't anything that had been proven in court yet.

Speaker 10 We knew the stakes of this case. This was a big case, and it was one that on the front end, some mistakes had been made.
So we knew that on the second go-around, we had to have it right.

Speaker 4 as the investigation continued my partner and i started to conduct surveillance on mark winger's home i remember walking bailey to the end of the driveway to put her on the bus and we saw a police car near the cornfield and we just thought it was odd

Speaker 28 when mark winger left that day Instead of turning right to go towards work, he turns left towards me.

Speaker 28 I put the car in drive and started heading to town.

Speaker 28 Well, Mark turned around and started following me.

Speaker 28 And I, of course, call my supervisor and say, this is just taking a turn for the surreal.

Speaker 4 Mark ended up following that police car

Speaker 4 and seeing who it was, and he confronted that police officer.

Speaker 28 He'd said something to the the effect of leave me and my family alone, don't bother me. And I said, I won't follow you anymore.

Speaker 4 And Mark went on to work, and then at that time, the grand jury was meeting.

Speaker 10 The grand jury was out for a very short period of time deliberating on the case, and they indicted him for the murder of Roger Harrington and Donna Winger.

Speaker 10 And once the indictment was returned, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Speaker 30 We weren't sure if Mark was going to fight back or if he was going to run or what.

Speaker 28 We had every belief that he was at his work.

Speaker 28 As we make entry, I yelled, Mark Winger, Springfield Police here, where are you at?

Speaker 28 And he said something in a low voice like, I'm in here. And we ordered him out.

Speaker 4 I had made plans to go to McDonald's McDonald's Playland and I got a phone call and it was Mark's secretary

Speaker 4 and she told me that

Speaker 4 Mark had just been arrested. I mean I just was sick.

Speaker 4 Like my whole body just kind of went numb and I just couldn't believe it and physically just gathering my stuff and getting these kids in the car seats and I was shaking so badly and I just remember feeling so

Speaker 4 scared. I just didn't feel like anybody really cared about the kids and I because we were a part of him.

Speaker 2 You look at Rebecca, this young woman who stepped in,

Speaker 2 built an entire life around this man and this family. And then all of a sudden, Mark gets arrested and this whole life is just blown up.

Speaker 37 I didn't feel relief the day that Mark...

Speaker 11 got arrested. I still wanted to believe was innocent.

Speaker 19 To see him finally get arrested and indicted, I think people were just absolutely shocked.

Speaker 35 I was six years old when my dad was arrested.

Speaker 47 It was really scary just coming home and then now your dad's not here and I just remember like everyone just trying to remain calm and kind of at the time be like dad's just going away for a while and that he'll be back soon.

Speaker 10 The moment he was indicted, we move from the investigative phase into the next chapter, which was prosecution.

Speaker 17 All I wanted was for my brother-in-law to look at me and tell me he didn't do this.

Speaker 18 Bailey is resting very comfortably in her daddy's arms.

Speaker 47 Bailey, I remember the very first time I ever held you in my arms. You were so small, but I fell in love with you immediately, Bailey, and my love for you has never stopped growing.

Speaker 47 After dad was arrested, he was always writing us letters, so something that I was always really, really excited about to get in the mail.

Speaker 47 He would always like draw this circle at the end of those letters, and then he would kiss it, and then we would kiss it. And it was like he was giving us a kiss.

Speaker 4 I felt that I owed it to him and to my kids to just stand by him.

Speaker 4 Nobody wants to go through a murder trial.

Speaker 4 It's very surreal.

Speaker 4 I just had to tell myself, walk, sit down, don't fall, don't cry.

Speaker 40 Mark would come in on the left-hand door right next to me.

Speaker 17 He walked in like he owned the place.

Speaker 17 And I thought to myself, how could he be so confident and so cocky?

Speaker 4 In my mind, Mark was innocent before. He was innocent from the start.
That's what everybody thought.

Speaker 11 First time I saw Rebecca was at the trial.

Speaker 11 I wanted to love Rebecca.

Speaker 12 She adored Bailey.

Speaker 11 But, you know, I also wanted to hate Rebecca. Because Rebecca took my sister's husband, married him, adopted her child.

Speaker 45 You're almost there.

Speaker 11 And then had three more children that my sister wasn't able to do.

Speaker 44 Winger said he found Harrington beating his wife with a hammer, and to save her, he shot Harrington twice in the head.

Speaker 20 Well, I don't think that Roger would have ever done what they accused him of doing.

Speaker 20 All we wanted was his name cleared

Speaker 27 up.

Speaker 2 So one of the keys for the prosecution was to prove that Roger had come to the house for a meeting and not to commit murder.

Speaker 39 Walking through the entry hallway.

Speaker 2 So what did they have? They had the cigarettes,

Speaker 2 they had his coffee mug. Why would somebody bring a mug to commit a crime of murder?

Speaker 23 The way he parked, they had the weapons that were still in the car.

Speaker 27 This is sort of huge.

Speaker 2 In Roger's car was this note in his handwriting saying Mark Wingard the address and the time. In other words, when this meeting was going to take place.

Speaker 10 And for us, it was very simple. If it's a meeting, it's a murder.

Speaker 19 Mark's attorney argued that Roger was mentally ill. He had this mask that he sort of worshipped.
That he had had other erratic behavior and that he was capable of this.

Speaker 19 They put on their own experts to verify this.

Speaker 39 Mark's defense was that everything occurred just the way he said and the Polaroids he tried to explain away

Speaker 39 that perhaps the paramedics moved the bodies.

Speaker 11 It is physically impossible where Roger Harrington was and where my sister was to believe Mark's story.

Speaker 7 There was no way that Roger would have fallen off Donna

Speaker 7 in the fashion that Mark said that.

Speaker 7 And so from then my mind was really racing.

Speaker 7 Here we are at the ceremony of putting in the loser. The story wasn't what he said it was.

Speaker 28 It's our belief that Roger comes to the house, he is allowed into the home, and there was no signs of forced entry.

Speaker 28 And he was executed at that time.

Speaker 28 Hearing the gunshot, Donna Winger then comes from the bedroom to investigate.

Speaker 28 He then beats his wife to death with a hammer.

Speaker 28 Mark then calls 911.

Speaker 8 Is the man still in your house? Yes, he's laying there on the floor with a bullet in his head. Did you shoot him? Yes, I shot him.
He was killing my wife.

Speaker 39 A 911 call to most people, I think, showed that Mark was very upset and very worried about his wife.

Speaker 10 In the 911 call, you can actually hear Roger Harrington moaning in the background.

Speaker 10 Is he dead? I don't know. He's making weird sounds.

Speaker 28 It's our belief that Roger is not dead at the time.

Speaker 10 He told the 911 operator that he could hear his baby crying.

Speaker 10 My baby's crying. I'm going to go.
I'll call you right back.

Speaker 2 Your baby's crying, so you hang up on 911?

Speaker 2 I've listened pretty closely to that tape. Did you hear a baby crying? I heard a man moaning.
He realized that maybe he had called 911 too soon.

Speaker 22 Maybe he had to make sure that Roger was silenced.

Speaker 28 He had already said that he had shot the man and there was a bullet in his head.

Speaker 28 When police arrive, there's two two bullets in his head.

Speaker 2 Trials never go the way you expect. That's part of being in a trial.

Speaker 22 But everybody was hotly anticipating Deanne's testimony.

Speaker 30 When Deanne got up to testify, her voice was shaking.

Speaker 30 She just didn't seem together whatsoever.

Speaker 53 He said that, you know, it would be easier if Donna just died. I thought it was crazy talk.

Speaker 19 Deanne testified to some of the statements that Mark had made after the chance meeting at Doctor's Hospital, where they run into each other.

Speaker 53 I just said, you know, how do you live with yourself? He said that he had found Jesus Christ and that he was forgiven. He,

Speaker 53 well, he told me that if I told anybody, our gooses will be cooked.

Speaker 4 I didn't think that anybody would believe her and I just thought if that was truly the case and Mark truly did that she would have come forward right away.

Speaker 39 The defense had answers to Deanne's testimony that she was emotionally unstable, could have been a woman scorn.

Speaker 10 Deanne Schultz's testimony was able to demonstrate that in reality, Mark was obviously unhappy, was unfaithful, and who had specifically talked about wanting to kill his wife.

Speaker 28 Do I think that Deanne Schultz is partly responsible? Absolutely.

Speaker 30 The guilt that I'm sure she lives with every single day is worse than sitting in a jail cell.

Speaker 10 Deanne Schultz was granted immunity for her testimony.

Speaker 10 There was no direct evidence that linked Deanne to actively participating in this crime, but at the end, she was such a valuable witness as it relates to presenting the motive.

Speaker 19 When the case went to to the jury, I was sort of thinking, you never know. You just had to wait it out.
And, you know, it was really nerve-wracking.

Speaker 4 I really believe that at the end of that trial, that he was going to walk out and walk home with us.

Speaker 54 When I heard the judge read the verdict, it was like insanity.

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Speaker 30 When When we found out that the jury had come up with a verdict, our hearts were racing.

Speaker 34 We had pits in our stomach.

Speaker 17 I know I was sitting next to my husband when I heard the judge

Speaker 25 say that the verdict was guilty.

Speaker 4 I mean, it's just one word,

Speaker 27 but

Speaker 4 what a word that is. It just kind of rings in your head and echoes guilty, guilty, guilty.
I wanted

Speaker 4 the earth to open up and swallow me.

Speaker 54 It is so devastating. It was surreal

Speaker 54 and it was almost, it was like insanity because I know I'm innocent.

Speaker 39 Mark turned in his chair and Rebecca was sitting right next to him and said, I love you.

Speaker 7 I know Rebecca couldn't believe it. She was still defensive, even though she was devastated by the verdict.

Speaker 4 I didn't understand how 12 jurors could be so certain that that's how it went down when I had so many questions.

Speaker 17 My daughters were with me, and the three of us just embraced and cried.

Speaker 30 I instinctively just wailed

Speaker 35 out loud.

Speaker 30 When you find out

Speaker 13 that

Speaker 30 somebody is now going to be held accountable for the brutal death of your sister.

Speaker 3 You well.

Speaker 24 Heartbreak came first.

Speaker 46 Anger

Speaker 11 came second.

Speaker 11 Acceptance

Speaker 24 came third.

Speaker 11 And sadness never ends.

Speaker 17 My first thought was to turn around and give Mr. and Mrs.
Harrington a hug

Speaker 17 because they buried a son who the whole city of Springfield felt was a murderer.

Speaker 20 We knew that Roger was innocent and it finally got proven.

Speaker 20 He was branded a murderer at the time, but then all this came to an end.

Speaker 7 I was ashamed of the way the investigation went. I hurt Roger Harrington's family.

Speaker 23 I

Speaker 7 run this kid through his name through hell for no reason.

Speaker 7 I mean, he was an innocent victim.

Speaker 24 I knew that finally my brother could rest in peace. Donna could rest in peace.
They got him.

Speaker 28 The police department had too hastily closed the case and turned a blind eye to some red flags.

Speaker 22 And to right such a wrong,

Speaker 52 it felt great.

Speaker 8 Say bye-bye. Bye, Daddy.

Speaker 47 We were so convinced that, you know, our dad was going to come home, and now he's not. And it was kind of

Speaker 47 difficult to put those pieces together in your head of, you know, now it's just us and mom.

Speaker 2 If you think about it, you really can't have light without shadow.

Speaker 22 I think the Mark Winger case is kind of proof of that.

Speaker 2 We see a loving father, or so we seem.

Speaker 2 But underneath that, what is he really thinking?

Speaker 2 We can't ever know.

Speaker 30 I think Mark was a master manipulator. So much so that Donna never even saw it.

Speaker 41 He is like a chameleon, that he

Speaker 17 appears to be sweet and kind and wonderful. When in reality, I believe that Mark is a monster.

Speaker 54 If I didn't love Donna, I would have just gotten a divorce. You don't murder somebody because you're unhappy being in that relationship.

Speaker 28 I think Mark believed that he was smarter than everybody else, that he could get away with it.

Speaker 30 He changed the lives

Speaker 30 of everybody

Speaker 30 by one

Speaker 30 selfish

Speaker 30 action.

Speaker 4 When we lose someone,

Speaker 4 we gather, we have a funeral,

Speaker 6 but

Speaker 4 when someone goes to prison, what do you do? You can't really have closure with that.

Speaker 44 The final chapter of the Mark Winger murder trial comes to a close as Winger is given his sentencing.

Speaker 17 Mark was sentenced to life in prison with no parole. He had two counts against him, one for Donna, one for Roger.

Speaker 4 It wasn't just

Speaker 4 being sentenced to life. We were sentenced to a life of a father in prison.

Speaker 10 Those children that Mark were raising were going to be without their father. There's a consequence to those children that they certainly didn't deserve.
But at the end, justice has to matter.

Speaker 10 And Mark Winger is where he belongs.

Speaker 7 Oh, I'm happy.

Speaker 9 I'm Yapping. Please take these up.

Speaker 47 I really missed him.

Speaker 47 And it was really hard seeing all the other kids like have their dads in that relationship, and now suddenly I couldn't just like go to my dad's room or have him pick us up from school or anything like that.

Speaker 4 I do feel that that whole time,

Speaker 4 Mark was giving a grand performance. I could never come back and say, Oh, he got angry at me, or he was rough with the kids.
I had nothing. I had nothing.

Speaker 27 He was perfect.

Speaker 27 I love you.

Speaker 8 Do you love mommy? Yeah.

Speaker 9 He loves Bailey.

Speaker 8 Okay, let me see a kiss. Close-up kiss.
Close-up kiss. Give daddy kiss.

Speaker 8 Say I love you.

Speaker 9 Hello, huh?

Speaker 8 That's a kiss. Cano hug.

Speaker 14 The first thought I thought when I was watching that was how much more, Bailey, this has affected you. And you just remember so much more about Mark and that family unit and that house.

Speaker 46 Looking at like the pictures and the videos, it's like it just all feels so fake to me.

Speaker 46 Like I find myself like analyzing every single thing he does and every move he makes and like trying to figure out was he my dad or was he just like

Speaker 47 this

Speaker 36 guy who used us for pity or whatever he needed to maintain his innocence I was one when my dad went to prison I can look at the pictures and look at myself and say that kid had no idea what you know he was way too young to know anything that was going on

Speaker 31 i just learn him as this evil character so like even though it looks like a genuine smile here it's just like in my head it's like no that's all fiction

Speaker 54 they could go their whole lives and never reach out to me and i will still love them and pray for them every night

Speaker 2 Mark Winger has been sentenced to prison.

Speaker 2 And just when you think this is all over, a reunion no one saw coming.

Speaker 19 About three years later, Mark would get in trouble again for a murder for hire plot where he wanted to put a hit on Deanne Schultz and also a childhood friend who refused to pay his bail.

Speaker 39 The murder for hire plot, which he wrote in a 19-page scenario, he said that was just his fantasy.

Speaker 54 I can certainly say that I fantasized about people

Speaker 54 coming forward and confessing that they lied. Now, killing, I think that's a little far-fetched.

Speaker 10 Mark was subsequently tried again and convicted of solicitation of murder for hire.

Speaker 39 Mark was sentenced to an additional 35 years in prison for those crimes.

Speaker 4 I was married to to a murderer. Then after he was convicted, I went from being a stay-home mom to being homeless overnight.

Speaker 4 Our home was foreclosed. You file bankruptcy.
You don't have good credit. You know, you have to find a job.
And it is hard.

Speaker 4 I didn't have anything to give my kids. Everything had been taken away.
All I had was love.

Speaker 30 Rebecca felt that it might be helpful for Bailey to come meet us, that it was time.

Speaker 4 I think the last time they saw Bailey was when she was three, maybe.

Speaker 4 I thought they could teach her about Donna and her love in a way that I couldn't.

Speaker 47 And we went down on Memorial Day weekend to meet them and kind of revive that relationship that we had.

Speaker 11 I couldn't wait to wrap Bailey in my arms and give her these big gigantic hugs and butterfly kisses that my sister loved to give.

Speaker 30 We knew that this would have been Donna's wish

Speaker 17 that Bailey would continue to be a part of our lives and that we would look after her baby.

Speaker 47 It was so incredible to see that there's this whole big family that loves me and Sarah Jane still has my baby picture on her kitchen counter with all of her other grandkids. You still

Speaker 47 consider me and love me as one of your grandchildren, even though we've been gone for so long.

Speaker 4 We'd been hurt a lot by the same person, but it didn't break us.

Speaker 24 There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about him.

Speaker 24 I miss him.

Speaker 24 If I seen him right now, I would just tell him, though, you know,

Speaker 24 I truly love you.

Speaker 17 There is never closure when somebody murders your daughter. Never.
I think of Donna every day of my life.

Speaker 30 I think her legacy will live on through the beautiful memories that we have of her.

Speaker 8 Doesn't she look pretty?

Speaker 15 She sure does.

Speaker 8 Hi, Bailey. Say hi, Grandma Sarah.

Speaker 47 She was so beautiful and you could...

Speaker 47 like see how much she loved me and how much she really

Speaker 3 wanted me.

Speaker 18 So we'll say bye-bye for now.

Speaker 8 Okay, catch you guys later.

Speaker 17 I miss hearing her voice.

Speaker 25 Nothing that we've done or will do in the future will ever replace her.

Speaker 1 You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9 on ABC.
You can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020.

Speaker 3 Thanks for listening.

Speaker 32 30 years ago, Jeff Bezos, complete nerd, Bezos now, ripped to shreds on his super yacht, and the boxes keep

Speaker 6 coming.

Speaker 26 Watch Sebastian Maniscalco, It Ain't Right, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Disney Plus for bundled subscribers.

Speaker 23 Terms apply.