Invitation to a Murder

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Speaker 3 Now, approaching the entranceway via the front door.

Speaker 4 In the family dining room area, we see what appears to be a large pool

Speaker 3 of blood.

Speaker 6 I learned: never let anyone's emotions cloud your vision when you're investigating a crime.

Speaker 3 A hammer covered with what appears to be blood.

Speaker 6 And never jump to any conclusion

Speaker 6 until you've had plenty of time to think about it.

Speaker 8 I had seen many crime scenes where there was a lot of blood and gruesome sights, but none that bad.

Speaker 8 I was at the Springfield Police Department in the major case office and I heard the radio call.

Speaker 8 Manual emergency wage emergency emergency, emergency. This means he made my wife.

Speaker 2 I shot him.

Speaker 2 Please hold me.

Speaker 8 Detective Cox, who was my partner at the time, drove.

Speaker 6 Dispatch advises that the second victim that was at the scene was actually believed to be the intruder and that the husband had shot the intruder.

Speaker 2 Hold me, what's the problem?

Speaker 2 I just saw this man in my house. He's inside your house in my house.
He killed me. He beat my wife.

Speaker 2 He had the hammer in his hand, and he was standing over her.

Speaker 2 And I was like, oh my God. Donna, oh my God.

Speaker 2 Are you Mark Winger? Yes, I am.

Speaker 11 Yes, I am. And your wife is Donna? Yes, she is.

Speaker 2 I gotta get to my wife. Please, just let me get to my wife.

Speaker 12 Springfield is a beautiful little town. It's Midwestern, it's small.
The people are sweet. It's just a lovely place.

Speaker 13 It's a very friendly and clean city with very sensitive and compassionate people.

Speaker 12 My name is Sarah Jane Dresher, and I am Donna Winga's mother.

Speaker 12 Mark and and Donna were just so happy.

Speaker 14 We don't know where she's sleeping tonight.

Speaker 13 I mean, she was just so enthused. I mean, that's all there was to it, to be a mommy.
I mean, that was the best for her.

Speaker 1 She's beautiful.

Speaker 13 My name is Ira Dresher, and I am Donna Winger's stepfather.

Speaker 13 Mark told the police basically what had transpired.

Speaker 13 Here he was, 31 years old, with a three-month-old child, and he had to shoot a man.

Speaker 5 My gosh, our hearts bled for him.

Speaker 12 I don't think there was ever anyone who met her who couldn't love her.

Speaker 5 Say hi.

Speaker 12 Who would want to hurt such a beautiful person?

Speaker 12 Where's the man at?

Speaker 2 He's laying on the floor.

Speaker 6 From every case, you learn something. And this one taught me: you never take anything at faith value.
Nothing. He was killing my wife!

Speaker 6 Invitation to a murder. Tonight's 48 Hours Mystery.

Speaker 6 Emergency, emergency. Please call me.
My God, my wife's breathing. Okay, you need an ambulance? I need everything.
I need everything.

Speaker 5 Mark Winger was calling from his own home after his wife Donna was attacked on a hot August afternoon in 1995.

Speaker 10 So many of the good things have been stripped away from you.

Speaker 5 Almost everyone who knew Mark and Donna Winger.

Speaker 13 They were terrific together. Adorable.
She was crazy about him.

Speaker 5 Thought they were perfect together.

Speaker 12 They were absolutely an adorable model couple.

Speaker 5 They were both respected and successful members of their community. Mark was a nuclear engineer for the state of Illinois.
Donna was an operating room technician.

Speaker 15 I would like to just say hello to Donna and Mark.

Speaker 5 And both sets of in-laws were delighted when the couple got married in 1989.

Speaker 12 Donna, Mark, we love you so much.

Speaker 5 The Wingers were eager to start a family.

Speaker 16 But there was a problem.

Speaker 5 They learned Donna could not bear children.

Speaker 12 She's so excited. She hasn't slept for days.

Speaker 5 So when Donna and Mark adopted a baby girl in June 1995, they were elated.

Speaker 10 I mean, my heart was just pounding. I just couldn't believe it.

Speaker 17 Here's Grandma Pressure

Speaker 5 holding our little baby. Mark and Donna doted on their daughter.

Speaker 14 Are we on daddy? And here's Deanne.

Speaker 5 There's Deanne.

Speaker 14 Here Aunt Deanne.

Speaker 5 And they showed her off to everyone, especially Donna's best friend, Deanne Schultz.

Speaker 18 Donna was really special, very friendly, real exuberant, full of life.

Speaker 5 But just three months later, the good times ended abruptly.

Speaker 5 It all began when Donna returned from a visit to her mother and stepfather in Florida.

Speaker 12 When I kiss them goodbye, the last thing I always say is tell the pilot to drive carefully. And I kissed her and off she went.

Speaker 5 Donna Winger and her baby arrived here at the St. Louis airport and got into a shuttle van for the hour and a half long ride back home to Springfield.

Speaker 5 It was an unusual drive with an unusual driver. A man named Roger Harrington, who'd been working for the van company for six months.

Speaker 10 The guy scared her.

Speaker 8 She said that he was very frightening.

Speaker 10 He said things about killing people, setting car bombs, mutilating people.

Speaker 5 Harrington was also speeding.

Speaker 10 He was telling Donna that sometimes while he drives, this god-like character would come to him, pull him out of his body, and he would be flying above the trees.

Speaker 5 She and the baby made it home, but Donna was very rattled.

Speaker 10 She was scared enough to tell me that she was very uneasy and scared to be alone.

Speaker 5 Mark Winger complained to Roger Harrington's boss.

Speaker 10 I blew up at him, told him about, you know, his van driver speeding, you know, with my wife and my baby, the inappropriate things he was saying.

Speaker 5 Then, less than a week after Donna's wild ride, Winger says he was on his treadmill in the basement when he heard a thump.

Speaker 10 You come up the stairs and it's very dark in that stairwell. I'm just starting to hear crying from what sounded like the bedroom.

Speaker 5 The baby, he says, was alone in the master bedroom and there were strange sounds coming from the dining room.

Speaker 10 Instantly, I knew that that wasn't right at all.

Speaker 10 I just...

Speaker 10 grabbed my gun and started going down the hall.

Speaker 5 Winger says when he came down this hallway, he saw one of the most horrifying things any husband could see. His wife was on the floor here in the dining room.

Speaker 5 There was a stranger over her, bludgeoning her with a hammer.

Speaker 10 You can't imagine it.

Speaker 2 You can't.

Speaker 10 When I came down the hallway, I had my weapon pointed at him and I went to pull the trigger.

Speaker 5 And that's when Winger says he shot the man in the head.

Speaker 5 When police got to Winger's house, the victims were in terrible shape, but alive.

Speaker 19 The male was taking real deep, labored breaths, and I thought his time was limited.

Speaker 5 As paramedics went to work, Officer Dave Barringer got his Polaroid camera.

Speaker 19 So I thought, if we're going to have pictures showing where the bodies were located, I'm going to have to take these pictures now because they're going to be gone within a matter of a few minutes.

Speaker 5 He showed us how quickly he took pictures.

Speaker 5 Three pictures.

Speaker 8 I only had three pictures left of my camera.

Speaker 5 Within minutes, both Donna and the man were rushed to the hospital.

Speaker 10 I just knew that she was in dire straits.

Speaker 5 And Mark Winger began telling police what happened that day.

Speaker 2 And I was like, oh my God.

Speaker 2 You know, I was like, Donna, oh my God.

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Speaker 6 I've been in crimes and work a long time and there's been very few as severe and bloody as this one was.

Speaker 5 Homicide detective Charlie Cox knew there was little hope that either Donna Winger or the man lying near her on the floor would survive their their wounds.

Speaker 6 I said a prayer. I do that at all my homicides.
I stand over the body and

Speaker 7 say a little prayer. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Cox grabbed the man's ID from his wallet and then he got right to work questioning Mark Winger in the bedroom.

Speaker 10 I was in shock. I was in shock the whole time they were questioning me.
I did my best.

Speaker 6 And he's more or less rocking back and forth as he's talking to us.

Speaker 6 And you can tell he's nervous and upset. So I'm trying to be as delicate as I can with my questions.

Speaker 5 Winger told the detectives the hammer was his, left out by Donna as a reminder to hang a hat rack.

Speaker 5 And he had a question of his own.

Speaker 6 He said, who is that guy out there? Is his name Roger? At that point, I felt compelled to let him know the truth. And I said, yes, that's Roger Harrington.

Speaker 6 He says, oh my God, that's the guy that's been harassing my wife and me.

Speaker 10 Oh, my God. And I fell over on my side and just cried.

Speaker 5 Harrington was the van driver who drove Donna home from the airport six days before. Winger told Cox about that harrowing ride.

Speaker 5 He also told Cox about two anonymous phone calls that Winger believed were from Harrington.

Speaker 10 I thought I was going to jail because I just shot a man in the head.

Speaker 5 But Winger could not have been more wrong.

Speaker 6 I tried to console him.

Speaker 5 The police had all but cleared him. They didn't consider him a killer.
They considered him a victim.

Speaker 6 At least here, in my mind, you're somewhat of a hero. I said, you've killed the person who was killing your wife.
I said, uh...

Speaker 5 You said he was a hero. Yes.

Speaker 5 Cox's partner, Doug Williamson, helped to calm Winger.

Speaker 8 I was trying to let him know what we were going to do, how the police were going to help him.

Speaker 5 After Donna and Harrington were taken away, Winger managed to give the detectives a detailed statement. He told them that Donna was on her knees when he took aim at Harrington.

Speaker 5 Harrington looks up at him,

Speaker 5 and he shoots him.

Speaker 6 Because he's getting ready to go down and hit her again. And then Harrington,

Speaker 6 from what the position he was in, he said at that point, he fell off of his wife and rolled back.

Speaker 23 Like that.

Speaker 5 Cox's investigation of the crime scene backed up Mark's story. Basic evidence in here where the crime occurred

Speaker 6 matched up with what he was saying.

Speaker 5 Everything matched up. There was blood where Donna was killed.
There was blood where Harrington's head landed.

Speaker 6 And bullets were on the table as he said it was from when he called 911.

Speaker 5 What's more, Harrington had been a psychiatric patient with a history of delusions. And Cox knew him.
He once broke up a fight between Harrington and his wife.

Speaker 6 He had her bent over the couch, getting ready to hit her again when I grabbed him.

Speaker 5 him.

Speaker 8 Harrington seems to fit the profile of a murder suspect pretty well.

Speaker 5 Very well.

Speaker 5 Harrington died shortly after arriving at the hospital, and Donna died minutes later. She never regained consciousness.

Speaker 5 Oh, God.

Speaker 7 I felt deeply for him.

Speaker 6 I'm a very religious person. He seemed to be that as well.

Speaker 5 Donna's mother and stepfather, Sarah Jane and Ira Drescher, were inconsolable when they heard about her murder.

Speaker 24 I had to hold her because she was wailing, howling, wailing.

Speaker 5 They were shocked to hear that Donna's ride from the airport had escalated into a homicide.

Speaker 1 She's a good girl.

Speaker 5 Was she scared?

Speaker 16 by this driver?

Speaker 12 She wasn't scared. No, she wasn't scared.
She was just

Speaker 12 disturbed in a way, you know, that this was such a crazy conversation.

Speaker 5 Ira and Sarah Jane rushed to their son-in-law's side.

Speaker 4 We felt terrible for him.

Speaker 13 He's lost his wife also, and then he had to turn around and shoot a man.

Speaker 12 He was crying, and I said, Mark, I know you did the best you could, and I love you very much.

Speaker 5 It was an open and shut case. One day after Winger shot Roger Harrington, the prosecutor announced his conclusions.

Speaker 23 Mr. Winger acted in self-defense when he shot Mr.
Harrington, and therefore at this time, no charges will be filed against him. And I anticipate that there will never be any charges filed against Mr.

Speaker 23 Winger.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I was fine with that.

Speaker 6 Case closed. Case was closed before then.

Speaker 5 There was an outpouring of support for Mark here in Springfield. Almost everyone believed he was a good family man whose life had been shattered by a madman.

Speaker 5 But one family wasn't buying that story at all. Roger Harrington's family.

Speaker 5 What were you trying to tell the police?

Speaker 25 I was trying to tell him there is no way. You guys are so wrong.
I knew he was not capable.

Speaker 5 Harrington's sister, Barbara Howell, pleaded with Detective Cox.

Speaker 25 He was very rude. Very, very rude.
Oh, very rude.

Speaker 25 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.

Speaker 5 Roger's mother, Helen, felt the shame of a city that believed she had raised a psychotic killer.

Speaker 17 Just felt branded like...

Speaker 17 Who are we? You know.

Speaker 5 You felt branded.

Speaker 17 How would anybody feel if their son was called a murderer?

Speaker 5 The Harringtons bore their grief quietly, believing they were alone. They didn't realize that someone else doubted Winger's story, someone close to the investigation.

Speaker 5 How convincing was Mark Winger that night and the night after?

Speaker 8 It was very convincing.

Speaker 5 Detective Doug Williamson. Were you convinced?

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 5 Williamson had a lot of questions. Why would Donna leave her baby alone on her bed and open the door to Harrington, a man she supposedly feared?

Speaker 8 Roger Harrington was allowed into the house. There was no forced entry.

Speaker 5 Somebody let him in. And Harrington parked right in front of the Winger home, leaving behind a piece of paper with a puzzling message.

Speaker 8 I saw that there was a note on the front seat, and it had Mark Winger's name, his address, and 4.30 p.m.

Speaker 8 He says he doesn't know Roger Harrington, has never met him, and he does not indicate any appointment when I have already seen the note, which indicates an appointment.

Speaker 6 There's always things in every homicide that don't fit. So, what did you do with those things that bothered you? Just let them bother me, like they always do.

Speaker 5 Cox saw no reason to doubt that the nuclear engineer justifiably shot a disturbed intruder. But Williamson wanted to investigate further.
His bosses turned him down flat.

Speaker 8 They discounted everything I said.

Speaker 8 How did they discount it? They just said the case is going to be closed. That's it.

Speaker 5 And that's the way it stayed for three and a half years.

Speaker 5 Until.

Speaker 16 You didn't know what she wanted to say.

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 16 But you knew it was going to be big.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 5 A surprise witness came forward.

Speaker 5 Everyone in Springfield, Illinois, knew Mark Winger's story.

Speaker 5 It was heroic and heartbreaking.

Speaker 5 But Detective Doug Williamson had never believed one word of it.

Speaker 8 I was argumentative. I pointed out what we call red flags, pieces that don't seem to fit.

Speaker 5 At first, Williamson couldn't even convince his own partner, Charlie Cox, that Winger was a murderer. But Cox says he started getting suspicious when Winger kept showing up here at the police station.

Speaker 5 A few months after the murder, Winger came by to ask for his gun back.

Speaker 6 I released the gun back to Mark and we sat and talked for about a half hour.

Speaker 7 What did you talk to him about?

Speaker 6 Just things in general.

Speaker 7 He was wanting to know how the case was going, and as far as I was concerned, he should have just accepted it was closed.

Speaker 5 Winger denies it, but Cox remembers him dropping by a second time, this time to say he was getting remarried to his daughter's new nanny, whom he had hired just five months after Donna's murder.

Speaker 6 And he kept coming in. I kept feeling like he was

Speaker 6 trying to find out if we were checking into anything.

Speaker 6 And I went back to Doug and said, something's wrong here, big time.

Speaker 5 Winger's behavior was making Cox believe that his partner had been right all along.

Speaker 5 He thought about the problems in the case, like that note in Harrington's car. And now Cox also wanted the case reopened, fearing that Mark Winger had duped the police.

Speaker 6 And the boss has said, no way.

Speaker 6 We're not going to open a case of this magnitude with your gut feeling and embarrass the department and embarrass Mr. Winger.

Speaker 5 As the years passed, Mark's new wife adopted his child, and they had two other children. And then, all of a sudden, the whole case got turned on its head.

Speaker 8 We got a lucky break.

Speaker 23 What was that?

Speaker 6 Deanne Schultz.

Speaker 5 Deanne Schultz was Donna's best friend. You're high at Deanne.

Speaker 16 And she was deeply troubled.

Speaker 18 I was hospitalized. I started drinking.

Speaker 5 I

Speaker 18 tried to overdose.

Speaker 18 I wanted to die.

Speaker 5 For three and a half years, Deanne Deanne had kept a secret, and what she was finally ready to say would change everything.

Speaker 18 I know the police think that he didn't do it, but they maybe if you know if they knew a little, you know, just a little bit that I knew,

Speaker 18 there could be an investigation.

Speaker 6 So she said that her and Mark had been having an affair.

Speaker 5 It was a shock to everyone, especially Cox, who right after Donna's murder had written, it was very apparent that he and his wife were very much in love and that this should have never happened.

Speaker 5 And now, Deanne Schultz, just like that, says we were having an affair? Yes. What did you make of that, detective?

Speaker 6 I said we got the evidence we need.

Speaker 5 Deanne told them the affair began a month before Donna's murder and continued a few months after she died until Winger ended it.

Speaker 18 It was an enormous burden.

Speaker 7 You sort of wanted to unload this information?

Speaker 22 Yes.

Speaker 5 And she dropped an even bigger bombshell.

Speaker 5 She told police Mark wanted out of his marriage so badly, he had talked about killing Donna.

Speaker 18 He mentioned that it would be

Speaker 18 easier if

Speaker 18 Donna just died.

Speaker 5 Deanne said Winger suggested that she could play a role. Daddy's feeding you.

Speaker 18 He had said that he would be out of town and he mentioned me coming and finding Donna.

Speaker 18 That was the the gist of the conversation.

Speaker 18 Yes, and I said you're crazy and Deanne said Winger even talked about the van driver Roger Harrington According to Deanne Schultz He told her he had to figure out a way to get him into the house My impression was that he was gonna give him a hard time and make sure he never messed with with his family again Winger admits he had an affair with Deanne.

Speaker 10 I was a good husband to Donna. I made a mistake.
I'm human. It was stupid and it was wrong.

Speaker 5 But he denies everything else she said. You said to her, you wish Donna was dead.

Speaker 5 That's a horrible, horrible lie. Did you ever say that to her? No.
You never said that it would be easier if Donna would just die?

Speaker 5 At the time, Deanne says she didn't take Winger's comments seriously. But as the years passed, she felt mounting pressure from her own conscience.

Speaker 18 I wish that she would have lived and I would have died. I would have traded traded places.

Speaker 24 Why did you feel that?

Speaker 18 Because she didn't deserve to die.

Speaker 18 She shouldn't have died.

Speaker 5 With Deanne's dramatic revelation, the case was finally reopened.

Speaker 6 Look at it.

Speaker 5 The detectives went straight to the old files and found yet another surprise.

Speaker 5 Those three Polaroids taken by Officer Barringer.

Speaker 5 Well, did you look at them in 95?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 5 Why not?

Speaker 6 Didn't know they existed.

Speaker 5 The Polaroids were taken before Donna and Harrington were moved to the hospital, but were never shown to investigators. When the detectives finally saw these photos, they were flabbergasted.

Speaker 8 It didn't take but 10 seconds. It was a smoking gun.

Speaker 5 It was the smoking gun. Why?

Speaker 8 Roger Harrington's body, the placement of that body in that photo, blew Mark's story out of the water. It was over.

Speaker 8 Roger Harrington's head and feet were in the opposite way of what Mark told us happened.

Speaker 5 In the chaos, detectives did not have time to note for themselves where Donna and Harrington lay before paramedics rushed them to the ambulance.

Speaker 5 To understand why the police now thought Winger had to be lying requires a little forensic fancy footwork.

Speaker 5 Charlie Cox went with us to the Winger's old house to demonstrate.

Speaker 6 The story that Winger told us, Mr. Harrington would have been lying

Speaker 6 basically like this.

Speaker 5 Because he would have fallen backwards. He would have fallen backwards and landed backwards and landed here.

Speaker 5 Remember, police said Winger told them when he shot Harrington, Harrington fell backwards off of Donna. So how was he found?

Speaker 6 He was actually completely

Speaker 9 180 degrees the different direction.

Speaker 5 Police believe it could not have happened as Winger said.

Speaker 6 He would have had to completely do a flip

Speaker 6 and land over here.

Speaker 5 Land how?

Speaker 6 Land

Speaker 5 like this.

Speaker 6 And it's physically impossible with a.45 caliber round to have done that flip.

Speaker 5 Barringer's three Polaroids were becoming the centerpiece of the case. How could nobody tell you that there were Polaroid pictures of the crime scenes?

Speaker 5 I mean, we're talking about the only three pictures of the bodies as they lay. I agree.
How does that get lost?

Speaker 8 Got overlooked.

Speaker 6 And in a case where it was as closed as fast as this one was,

Speaker 6 it was never thought of again. This thing was closed by the 10.30 news that night, for all practical purposes.

Speaker 5 Four years after the crime, the detectives had no doubt that they had botched the original investigation.

Speaker 5 They had allowed Mark Winger to get away with murder by pinning the crime on the obvious suspect, Roger Harrington.

Speaker 6 Roger Harrington was a perfect patsy to set up for this crime.

Speaker 5 Police believe Mark Winger began methodically plotting the double murder immediately after Donna's bizarre ride with Harrington on the way home from St. Louis.

Speaker 8 It's the perfect guy to seize on to make it look like an intruder had come in and killed his wife.

Speaker 5 He fits Winger's purposes perfectly, correct? Front door. The detectives could not afford any more errors.

Speaker 5 After Deanne Schultz came forward, it took them two more years to cover every detail and put together a murder case against Mark Winger.

Speaker 5 Finally, six years after his wife Donna was killed, Winger was arrested and put in jail awaiting trial.

Speaker 6 Being a religious man like I am, I haven't gloated on that.

Speaker 6 I'm just glad that we've got the right guy in jail, that he didn't get away with that. You haven't gloated, not even the teeny

Speaker 6 tiniest.

Speaker 5 I'm not a perfect Christian.

Speaker 6 I'm not a perfect Christian.

Speaker 5 Detective Charlie Cox, who once called Winger a hero, is now intent on proving him a cold-blooded murderer and vindicating the innocent man who was killed.

Speaker 6 I hurt the Harrington family a lot. They buried him as a murderer.
And yeah, that bothered me a lot.

Speaker 5 But Mark Winger is just as determined to prove that the police got it right the first time.

Speaker 10 Roger Harrington killed my wife.

Speaker 2 I saw with my own eyes.

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Speaker 11 The scariest stories you've ever heard in your life. All told by real

Speaker 11 people.

Speaker 11 And off we go.

Speaker 11 This wasn't a human being that I saw. There's something here in this house.
Something out of this world. There was a woman moving through the hall.

Speaker 29 I stepped back and I was completely alone.

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Speaker 12 I am just so sad.

Speaker 13 How could a normal human being do something like this?

Speaker 5 Nearly seven years after Donna's death, Sarah Jane and Ira Drescher came to Mark Winger's trial knowing the evidence against him was strong, but still clinging to the hope that something would exonerate him.

Speaker 5 Why were you so eager for him to prove that he didn't do it?

Speaker 12 Because we loved him. Because he was part of our family.
Because Donna loved him. Because they appeared to have such an incredibly wonderful marriage.

Speaker 5 Did you kill Donna?

Speaker 5 No. With that hammer.

Speaker 10 No, I did not.

Speaker 27 Mark Winger is a cold-blooded, calculated, deceitful person that planned and staged this event.

Speaker 5 The prosecution team, led by John Schmidt, said Winger lied from the beginning, even during his 911 call.

Speaker 27 It was a lie.

Speaker 5 They say Winger knew very well who that man was. He invited him to his house.
And that was the crux of their case.

Speaker 4 The question of the case in a lot of ways is very simple. What's Roger Harrington doing in the house? The evidence was very clear that it was a meeting that was set to lure Harrington into the home.

Speaker 27 If it's a meeting, it's a murder.

Speaker 5 Ray Duffy, who owned the airport van company, provided the crucial link for the prosecution.

Speaker 16 It was obvious that he wanted to talk to the driver direct.

Speaker 5 Duffy testified that Winger called to complain about Harrington's behavior during the ride and afterwards.

Speaker 16 He just wanted to talk to this driver and tell him to leave his family alone.

Speaker 5 Winger claimed Harrington was making anonymous phone calls to Winger's house. So he wanted to talk to Roger Harrington.
Yes. Was that unusual?

Speaker 16 Yes, it is. Usually, when people have a complaint, they just call the office.

Speaker 5 And Duffy said Harrington was eager to work things out.

Speaker 16 I explained to him that Mr. Winger wanted to talk to him, and he he said that's fine.
Give him my number and have him call me.

Speaker 8 Mark called Roger Harrington, set up an appointment for 4.30.

Speaker 5 But police believe there's one thing Winger didn't plan for when he lured Harrington to his house. That note Detective Williamson found in Harrington's car.

Speaker 8 If Mark would have told us there was a meeting and the guy went berserk in the house, this case probably would still be closed. It would be done.

Speaker 5 But he didn't. When Harrington went in the house, police say not only was he unarmed.

Speaker 8 Mr. Harrington had a coffee mug and a pack of cigarettes.

Speaker 5 He left a far more deadly object behind.

Speaker 8 Roger Harrington had a tire iron fashioned as a weapon in his car. If he was going there to bludgeon someone, he had a weapon in his car.

Speaker 8 Yet he chose a weapon from inside the house that he would have no idea was there.

Speaker 5 What do you think happened?

Speaker 8 I think that Roger Harrington showed up. They were seated at the table in the dining room, and he held a conversation.
At some point, Mr. Winger shoots Roger Harrington in the head.

Speaker 8 I believe that Donna was in the bedroom because she didn't want to be around Roger. She comes running out of the bedroom to see what had happened.

Speaker 8 Mark Winger picks up a hammer. He strikes her several times.

Speaker 5 Untangling the evidence in this seven-year-old case was a huge job for the jurors.

Speaker 32 You wanted to believe he was innocent.

Speaker 26 The timeline of everything going on.

Speaker 15 I just got chills thinking about it.

Speaker 5 Three of them sat down to talk to us. The defense told them that unlike Winger, who was successful and a respected member of the community, Roger Harrington had a troubled, violent past.

Speaker 15 Here is some testimony that really does make Roger look guilty. I mean, Roger was weird.
Roger showed up at their house. You know, there were some phone calls.

Speaker 18 It could have been him.

Speaker 5 The defense also pointed out that at the time of the murder in 1995, detectives had the Polaroids, they had the note in the car.

Speaker 5 In fact, they had all the same evidence that they now found so incriminating against Winger.

Speaker 15 Trained professionals saw this same scene we saw, and they closed the case the next day.

Speaker 5 Deanne Schultz, who was given immunity, provided the only new evidence, testimony that Winger had talked about killing his wife.

Speaker 5 But she had attempted suicide four times and had undergone electroshock therapy. The defense called her unreliable.

Speaker 10 Roger Harrington killed my wife.

Speaker 5 The jurors knew what was at stake. By now, Winger and his new wife had four children, including the baby he and Donna adopted.

Speaker 32 To tear him away from his family, I had a hard time with that.

Speaker 5 But Roger Harrington's family was looking for justice. Were you sure that your son didn't do it?

Speaker 17 Oh, I know he didn't do it.

Speaker 5 No matter what the decision was, one family would feel more pain. Were you leaning one way or another?

Speaker 13 No, no.

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Speaker 5 After nearly two weeks of testimony Sarah Jane and Ira Drescher are overwhelmed by the evidence against Mark Winger.

Speaker 12 And what is so hard to understand is that

Speaker 12 the way he murdered Donna

Speaker 12 was so vicious and so violent.

Speaker 5 Roger Harrington's family hopes to clear his name.

Speaker 25 I was praying. I kept going, Raj, if you're up there, you hear me.
Bring us something good. Bring us something so that, you know, mom and dad can sleep good tonight.

Speaker 5 The jury deliberated for 13 hours before reaching its verdict.

Speaker 10 I knew the moment they walked out the door.

Speaker 12 I remember seeing the jury coming in. I remember my heart feeling as though it was going to come out of my chest.

Speaker 27 I can hear Judge Zappa's voice. We, the jury, find the defendant, Mark Winger, guilty.

Speaker 5 It is the verdict that the Dreshers both hoped for and dreaded.

Speaker 12 Math and Papa Irose getting a look now.

Speaker 5 Confirmation that they'd been betrayed and deceived. Daddy's feeding you.
By a man who had been part of their family. Spot for the camera, sweetie.

Speaker 12 I have no idea why he did it, and I think I will never

Speaker 12 understand why he did it. And I think it's a question that will never be answered in my mind.

Speaker 5 Winger's parents, who had spent a small fortune defending their son, were stunned by the verdict.

Speaker 24 We believe in the absolute innocence of our son.

Speaker 6 We got the best help we could.

Speaker 24 Inside, we're dying by inches.

Speaker 5 The jurors say the case against Mark Winger was clear. and they believe Deanne Schultz.

Speaker 26 She was very emotional up there. She loved Mark at the time.
I think she was sincerely telling us the truth.

Speaker 22 I feel free.

Speaker 18 I didn't realize just how powerful secrets

Speaker 18 can be.

Speaker 5 But ultimately, the jurors say the state's best evidence was the first evidence police ever collected.

Speaker 5 Those three Polaroids.

Speaker 5 Did the defense offer any acceptable explanation to you about how the bodies ended up in the position that they were?

Speaker 32 No, there was no explanation.

Speaker 5 Mark Winger didn't offer any explanations because he didn't testify.

Speaker 5 But five months after the verdict, he spoke with 48 Hours at a prison in Pontiac, Illinois. He now claims that he personally saw the paramedics move Harrington, although they all denied that at trial.

Speaker 16 The bodies had been moved before the Polaroids were taken? Absolutely. Why should we believe you?

Speaker 10 Why should you not believe me?

Speaker 6 Because a jury didn't.

Speaker 16 What's the best evidence of your innocence?

Speaker 10 The fact that I had a wonderful marriage. Everybody knows I had a wonderful marriage with Donna.

Speaker 5 But Winger cannot explain the note in Harrington's car.

Speaker 10 The thing is, I can't offer you any

Speaker 10 answers to, you know, why Roger Harrington had 430 written on a note.

Speaker 5 Harrington's family says the meaning of that note has always been clear. Roger went to Winger's home because Mark Winger invited him.

Speaker 7 Did you feel vindicated?

Speaker 9 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 9 How are you doing now?

Speaker 17 Pretty good.

Speaker 17 I guess.

Speaker 5 Does it still hurt?

Speaker 4 Sure, it hurts.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it sure does.

Speaker 8 Are you embarrassed?

Speaker 5 Oh, yes. Are you?

Speaker 6 Very much so.

Speaker 5 Former lead detective Charlie Cox says he learned a valuable lesson. How close did he come to getting away with murder?

Speaker 7 Very close.

Speaker 5 Instead, Mark Winger was sentenced to life in prison, which could have been the end of this story.

Speaker 5 Except it wasn't.

Speaker 5 In spring 2005, an inmate at the prison in Pontiac came forward and said that Winger tried to involve him in a murder for hire plot.

Speaker 12 I knew in my head that he was a murderer, but my heart had a hard time believing it still.

Speaker 5 The intended victim was Deanne Schultz.

Speaker 5 And Winger's plot was so complicated, you might say twisted, that it took 19 handwritten pages and hours of secretly recorded conversations to spell it out.

Speaker 5 Deanne would be kidnapped and forced to write and record lengthy statements, all scripted by Winger, saying that she lied, made everything up, and believes Winger is innocent. Then she'd be killed.

Speaker 5 Winger's notes covered everything. Only Deanne's fingerprints can be on the tape cassette, letters and envelopes.
Her saliva must be found on the stamps.

Speaker 5 And Winger asked for one more victim, if possible.

Speaker 13 Oh, by the way, if there's any money left over, kill Ira Drescher also because he's the son of a gun of a father-in-law that I dislike.

Speaker 5 In June 2007, Winger stood trial in a Pontiac, Illinois courthouse. He told jurors the whole thing was a fantasy he never planned to carry out.
Ira Drescher was there.

Speaker 13 He was chained by his hands and he was chained by his feet. And I looked at him straight in the eye and I said, Mark, your miserable life is over.

Speaker 5 This time, the jury took less than three hours, including lunch. Mark Winger was convicted of soliciting murder.
and sentenced to another 35 years.

Speaker 12 I've always been afraid that he would get out on some technicality. Now I know that he will never be free.

Speaker 5 With Winger locked up for good, Sarah Jane and Ira Drescher are dedicated to keeping Donna's memory alive.

Speaker 12 Donna really was the ultimate victim of spousal abuse. I had to find a way to keep her spirit going.

Speaker 5 And they do that by helping other abused women, raising money for a charity named for Donna.

Speaker 13 We established a fund at Women in Distress.

Speaker 12 And not only do we help the women, we help the children. Smile.

Speaker 12 And that is all in Donna's spirit.

Speaker 5 Mark Winner will never be eligible for parole.

Speaker 11 And a horra.

Speaker 11 Nava comodarte un gustaso por tam poco. Los extra value meals están de regreso.

Speaker 34 Gana por la mañana con el extra value meal, sausage, mcmuffin with egg, hash browns, and a cafe,

Speaker 34 poro seizolaris. Bada, ba-ba-ba.
Preces y participación pueden varías. Los preces de la promosión pueden serme nores que los de las comidas.

Speaker 29 It is my great honor to welcome you all to Starfleet Academy.

Speaker 11 There's never been a better time to enroll in Star Trek.

Speaker 29 It's our job to prepare you for the unimaginable.

Speaker 11 To the night, cadet.

Speaker 30 In high-pressure situations, positive reinforcement is crucial to one's success. You're doing a great job.

Speaker 11 This is what we train for. These friends of mine, they all live for something bigger than themselves.

Speaker 11 And that's Starfleet. Starfleet Academy.
New series streaming January 15th on Paramount Plus.