Donnah Winger /// Part 1 /// 559 | Forensic Files

n [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you were doing thanks
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gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] in August of
1995 the quiet safe Suburban town of Springfield Illinois was rocked by a shocking and horrific crime it was a
Tuesday afternoon when the following 911 call was made emergency emergency help me my God my
wife stop breathing okay you need an amulance I need everything I need everything pleas yes help me what's the
problem I just shot this man in my house he's inside your house my he beat my wife is he in there right now
yeah does he have a gun her planes are everywhere where's the man he's laying on the
floor is he dead I don't know he's making weird sounds 2 slow down I can't understand you slow
down is the man still in your house yes he's laying there on the floor the bullet in his head did you shoot him yes
I shot him he was killing my wife please my baby's crying my baby's crying I got to go I'll call you right
back Winger yes yes this is the police department we've got officers in route I need to know what's going on there my
wife is dying on the floor okay is she still alive I think so okay we've got ambulance in route and we've got police
officers in route where is the gun I pest it on the table it's on the table it's on the table please Dad please come
here we got people on the way who is this man I don't I don't know who he is he's still inside the house yeah she's
laying on the floor okay I got to hold my wife I got to get to my wife okay are you Mark
Winger yes I am yes I am okay and your wife is Donna yes she is when did the man come here I know a few minutes ago I
got to get to my wife please just let me get to my wife I W hang up okay okay is
that option okay my door's open okay as you heard the man on the phone is Mark Winger sadly his wife did not
survive the attack now two people are dead and each were killed by someone else Mark's wife Donna was brutally
killed in her own home and her killer was then gunned down and killed in self-defense this is true crime garage
and this is the case of Mark and Donna Winger [Music] on August 29th 1995 the Springfield
Illinois police received a 911 call from a distraught man at 2305 West View Drive
in a nice family neighborhood Mark Winger was on the phone his wife had been attacked in their home he shot the
attacker he's requesting emergency medical technicians and the police to come immediately to his home mark Winger
hung up on the 911 operator because as you heard he says his baby was crying the responding officers found the front
door of the Winger's home unlocked this is a onlevel brick ranch home cautiously
they walked into a very bloody murder scene Mark Winger the man who had called police was crouching over a woman who
lie on the floor he was crying hysterically the woman Donna Winger his wife is lying face down there is blood
all over her she has obvious and very violent visible head trauma a bloody claw hammer lay nearby
next to another body this is the body of a man with two visible gunshot wounds to
his head police find a 45 caliber pistol lying on the dining room table living in
the home we have a family of three mark his wife Donna and their newborn adopted
daughter Bailey and it isn't like law enforcement has to guess how one of the people died because Mark already told
them on the phone I shot a man Mark identifies the woman on the floor is his wife Donna she is still alive at this
time now emt's rushed her to Memorial Medical Center where she herself worked as an operating room Tech doctors
recognized her but could not save her after 40 minutes of trying they called it and the time of death was
539 p.m. the Intruder the injured man at the scene was somehow still alive as well but barely and he was dead before
arriving at the hospital an officer at the scene this is Officer Dave baringer managed to shoot three photos
of the bloody crime scene with a polaroid he had in his car before the two people lying on the floor were taken
away by the EMTs detectives Charlie Cox and Doug Williamson also arrived at the Winger home before the EMTs removed the
victims detective Cox removed the wallet from the pocket of the mail victim and took a look at his ID he quickly
surveyed the scene but it was chaos the EMTs were working very hard trying to save both of these individuals
and it's kind of a messy home and there was blood everywhere this was an incredibly bloody crime scene and we
have one of the officers saying quote I've been in crime scene work a long time and there's been very few that I've
had that and there's very few that I have had that was as severe and as bloody as this one was end quote that's
from detective Cox that's from the great work that they're doing over at this show 48 hours they needed to get to the
bottom of what happened here obviously and Captain we have detective Cox and detective Williamson they found Mark
Winger the 911 caller he's in his bedroom at some point during this process rocking back and forth he's
holding a bloody T-shirt with blood on his neck and arms right police incident reports describe him as distraught as we
would expect him to be and constantly asking how his wife was doing once once they could get him to
talk he explained to them what had happened or at least what he had seen and witnessed leading up to their
arrival Mark said that he had been on the treadmill in his basement of their home doing his usual run around 5:00
p.m. this is when he heard a noise coming from the upstairs he said it sounded like a loud thud so he went
upstairs to see what was going on and was concerned when he noticed that his 3month old daughter Bailey was lying on
a bed alone and crying so then he hears Donna scream so Mark grabs his gun from the bedside table drawer and ran down
the hall toward the front door when he came to the dining room to his [ __ ] Mark saw a Man attacking his wife Donna
he told the officers that he did didn't recognize this man didn't know who he was but this man was hitting his wife on
the head with a hammer she was kneeling on the ground the man is kind of bent over her the man stood up when he saw
Mark looked at him and then looked back down at Donna frantically Mark aimed his
gun at the man and fired it hitting him in the head the man fell backwards Mark shot him again just seconds later the
according to the Chicago Tribune that did an expose on this case which I heavily relied on in researching this
this episode Mark called the police then he realized the guy was groaning so he whacked him in the chest with the hammer
until he was still he himself got all bloody during this process and this is because he was
frantically holding his injured wife now Mark told the cops that he had no idea who this man was who the man was that he
had shot but the officers looking at the attackers ID said his name was Roger Harrington the detectives told Mark that
the dead guy was Roger Harrington and immediately Mark reacted saying oh my God this guy has been harassing us all
week but it seems pretty simple so far we have a husband that's covered in blood because he was holding and his
dying wife we had a intruder that comes in and attacks the wife he stops the attack by shooting the man the guy is
not dead when when police arrive but like you said later on will'll die but it seems pretty simple
and the evidence that's in front of us seems to make his story makes sense right well and of course when he tells
the police hey this guy's been harassing us all week when he's told the name of the the individual of course they want
to know what do you mean harassing you all week so then Mark tells the detectives this very bizarre story he
says that up until this day and when he walked into the room mid murderous attack on his wife Donna he had never
physically seen this guy Roger Harrington before but that he and his wife had been having a major problem
with this guy and he tells the police that this started the week before Donna's murder when Donna went on a
week-long trip to visit her parents in Florida so she takes their New Daughter Bailey with her and she stays with her
mom her mom's name is Sarah Jan and her stepdad which is Ira dresser upon her return on August 23rd she hires a car
service and this is so that she could have a ride for her and Bailey from the St Louis airport all the way to their
home so she used a company called Bart transportation and the drive would be a long one it was approximately a 100
miles from the St Louis airport to their home Roger Harrington the man that is found near death shot on their floor the
Intruder and the attacker here Roger Harrington was the driver of that trip mhm now after the long drive she's
dropped off of course at her home this is when Donna told Mark that this Roger Harrington guy the driver was super
weird and very inappropriate with her right he talked her ear off about disturbing things like his ability to
communicate with the dead and wild sex parties that he attended he talked about some violent fantasies that he has
saying that voices were telling him to kill people sometimes while he's at work yeah that's great to hear while you're
in the car this dude's at his work and you're in the car with your little baby yeah I I just call that a typical
Tuesday he said he had a live bomb at his house as well and he said that he had this Alter Ego named Dom and that
Dom was the one telling him to hurt people he also drove erratically during this trip which is I mean even without
the the the horrible conversation is going to be enough to set you on edge right he's speeding up and slowing down
he's zipping in and out of lanes Donna was beyond freaked out by the time that she got home when you hear this story it
sounds unbelievable but normally when a story is so detailed with such strange things you tend to believe somebody even
more yeah so she gets home she's Beyond freaked out and she tells her husband Mark all about this trip and I mean 100
mile trip to be hearing this guy kind of go on and on about all this crazy stuff and a lot
of it pretty violent stuff is terrifying that's a lot of voices in one's head so
the encounter with Roger Harrington didn't really end as one might expect when Donna got
out of his car Mark believed that Harrington became fixated on Donna and this Harrington Guy starts calling the
house anonymously and asking for Donna so Donna was shaken up by this enough that Mark told her to start writing
everything down so that they had some kind of record of it some reports are that the writing was actually a letter
of complaint that would be mailed to this Transportation or limo company and he himself Mark called Harrington's
company that Bart transportation to register an official Complaint right this resulting in Roger Harrington
getting suspended from the company bye-bye that very morning the morning of the the
homicide Mark had called Roger Harrington and told him to stay away from his family police found the
handwritten memo penned by Donna on the family refrigerator it contained all the
details related to them by Mark and they verified the story with Donna's mother as well Sarah Jane later Donna's mother
told the media quote she said the guy was really nuts talking about hearing voices and how he needed to do things to
kill people end quote Donna had been so perturbed by the driver that she called her mom from the car you know while
she's in this vehicle with this dude she's calling her mom saying hey this guys freaking me out well again more
evidence that this story that she is telling is true also Donna's friends backed up the part about the phone calls
you know telling police yes she told us she's receiving these phone calls apparently her friends were quite
concerned concerned enough to notify the Springfield Police Department who actually put an officer on patrol to be
on the lookout for any suspicious activity in the neighborhood now clearly this Roger Harrington guy was
unhinged a background check told police that they were on the right track Roger Harrington didn't have much of a
criminal history but he did have a history of psychiatric problems and delusions and he had even spent time in
a mental health facility furthermore he was a high school dropout and he had a hard time
holding down a job he had mental illnesses but you have to applaud one for trying to seek out and get help
right I don't know I I don't know if he sought out the help or if he was forced to I it's it's difficult to say unless
you found something that I didn't but well either way I mean sometimes the person that has a mental illness is
incapable of seeking out help but what I'm saying is because of the family and everybody surrounding him at least he
was trying to get treatment correct and I think that some of that stemmed from some violent Outburst that he
had had so he had some history of violent Outburst but I don't think he had anything on his record no he did
have a criminal record he had a criminal history just not a lengthy one right now
at the time he was living in a rented room within a trailer home owned by somebody else so Harrington kind of
Falls firmly in this undesirable element of society category unlike the Wingers who were hardworking upstanding citizens
police theorized that the mentally unstable man blamed the Wingers for the loss of his job since Mark had
complained about him to his company and had maybe had gone out off of the deep end after losing this job but that
wasn't all detective Cox had a history with Roger Harrington one of the officers he happened to own a trailer
park in town where Harrington had lived with his ex-wife he said that he had to get involved D in some domestic disputes
between the two and Harrington was volatile and had a bad temper once Cox had to pull Harrington off of his wife
this guy you know was bad news as far as detective Cox was concerned and detective Cox had no problem believing
that he could have gone over to the Wingers to try to get his job back or appeal to Donna and Mark and in the
course of doing so maybe he lost his temper and picks up a hammer and then kills Donna with it in a full-on rage
attack of course a death is going to have a big impact on your family but this is not just a death this is a
murder yes this is the murder of a young wife and mother the neighbors the Winger's extended family and everyone in
the Winger Circle were all flabbergasted and horrified by Donna's death it was of
course incredibly shocking that to everyone that she was attacked in her own home by this deranged man who was
stalking her it was especially tragic because everyone knew Mark and Donna adored each other and had a model
marriage and they finally had a family a little girl Bailey they fulfilled this dream of theirs adopting a baby Mark and
Donna welcomed baby Bailey into their family just 3 months before Donna's murder now she was motherless
it says quote we felt terrible for him look what he's lost he's lost his wife also and then he had to turn around and
shoot a man this was from Ira dreser Donna's stepfather he and his wife Sarah Jan unequivocally supported Mark
throughout the whole ordeal and for years afterwards 6 weeks after Donna's death Mark wrote a letter to a
Springfield newspaper thanking the community for their support of him and his family
throughout these tragic events he wrote glowingly about how Donna was filled with compassion for others and
exemplified Humanity through her good deeds yeah very difficult to take an individual's life but probably also it
weigh on you more that you didn't get to your wife's defense sooner let's take a look at who the uh Wingers are and
their family and and what we can learn about them because the detectives were inclined to write up their incident
reports reflecting the events as Mark Winger had related them to them but of course they had to do their due
diligence right they took some time to look into Mark and Donna Winger Mark was a first cousin of the actress Deborah
Winger Deborah has been in a bunch of stuff but notably she played [ __ ] DAV in one of my favorite old movies Urban
Cowboy now Mark Winger himself was a real success story Mark graduated from Virginia Military Institute with a
degree in physics and then served in active duty in Korea after his service was up he remained in the Army Reserves
even while working as an engineer for the state of Illinois he was making $62,000 a year mark and Donna met in
Florida in 1987 they were married in 1989 and moved to Springfield from South Florida in 90
or 91 they had tons of friends and their friends and family all told detectives the same thing Mark and Donna loved each
other and had a special bond quote it was very apparent that he and his wife were very much in love and that this
should never have happened this was even stated in the report this is a directly
from the report written by detective Cox so as you can see they're a bit of a power couple here Captain uh both both
successful individuals they have a yes they have a great marriage and now finally they have their baby so as said
these Wingers are thrilled that they finally brought home Bailey baby or sorry the Wingers are thrilled that they
finally brought home baby Bailey because they tried for three years to have a baby of their own the adoption was still
technically officially pending at the time of Donna's murder but as far as the Wingers were concerned Bailey was their
child Donna was on maternity leave from work and spent her time caring for the newborn on the murder sorry on the
morning that she died she actually brought Bailey to Mark's office to introduce the baby to
all of his co-workers so this was supposed to be a happy day a normal busy working Tuesday an additional
testamentary to the Winger wholesomeness detectives quickly learned that they were very active in the local Jewish
community and within their Temple this is Temple bth H this is Temple Barth Shalom while detectives were questioning
Mark in fact his his and Donna's Rabbi Mark dats was present offering consolation and comfort to the very
distraught husband it seems like everybody's testimony points the idea that this is a loving couple that were
starting their family together they were both successful and then tragedy hit [Music]
[Applause] [Music] all right we're back that's a little nod to uh Stabbing Westward oh yeah yeah I
missed the Stabbing Westward that was a good band do you hear it a little bit of
course I hear yeah cheers everyone now as for the crime scene here Captain really it looks like there was only a
couple things that were called into question uh one thing that gave detectives pause was that the hammer
used by Roger Harrington to strike Donna came from within the Winger's home it belonged to the Wingers
so this seemed to be one of maybe just two mysteries in the case and what should be a pretty open shut case but of
course we're going to wonder why Roger Harrington didn't bring his own hammer or his own choice of weapon to the scene
of the murder but then again it also seems likely that Roger Harrington did not come to the home with the intention
of bludgeoning Donna to death or even attacking anyone because it was thought that he had confronted her or wanted to
confront her with his feelings and then at some point maybe she rejected him or they get into an argument and then he
grabs the hammer right but of course police want to know well why is the hammer there lying around to be grabbed
by an asent in the first place well that is easily answered so Donna had taken the hammer out of the toolbox and left
it out on the dining room table this as a reminder to mark that he was to hang a
hat rack that Donna recently purchased right the detectives understood this often having received gentle reminders
from their own wives to get things done around their own homes now as for the gun of course it made sense that Mark
would set it down on the table before grabbing Donna in his arms as said the police found the gun on the table he
says you can hear him say on 911 that that the gun is on the table of course the the 911 operator wants to figure
that out in advance if she can pass that along to the officers the responding officers hey that there's nobody holding
a gun uh when you walk into this home right another thing that was strange was that there was no sign of forced entry
into the house so how Roger got into the house we don't really know we don't know
exactly why he was and this is something that was stated by the Springfield police well yeah and because if you have
these harassing calls and then this gentleman shows up to your house you would assume that you wouldn't let him
in right so Mark tells the detectives that hey you know he reminds them this is it's daytime and you know this is a a
family friendly safe neighborhood he and Donna he said were not in the habit of locking their door while they were home
awake and moving around the house you know they would kind of check the doors before going to bed let's just let me
just give everybody a nice little piece of advice here lock your doors yeah so using the information gathered from a
Mark B Donna's note C supporting information from her family and all the testimonials about the
Winger's marriage and an upstanding moral character and finally D what they learned about Roger Harrington and his
alter ego Dom telling him to hurt people and the strange heavy breathing phone calls being made to the Winger home
detectives quickly concluded the following on the day of the deaths Harrington drove over to the Winger's
home he parked outside and somehow got Donna to answer the door either let him in or maybe he forced his way in maybe
she opens the door tells him to leave and then he forces his way in right at some point he grabs the hammer off of
the table in a rage and he hit Donna in the back of the head as she tried to flee from him the autopsy reflected that
Donna had seven blows to the back of her head all caused by a hammer wow when Donna fell to the floor it caused the
thud that Mark heard from in the basement while he's on the treadmill he runs up the stairs discovers what's
going on and he shoots Roger Harrington to death trying to protect his wife or or or stop the attack on his wife but as
you point out and as we know Captain unfortunately it was just too late one of the things that I've always thought
was strange about how they tried to piece together how Harrington got into the house was they found a coffee cup or
coffee mug and his cigarettes at the dining room table right you'd think that would be a weird
way to like force yourself into the house you you never see in a movie hey let me in and by the way I got some
coffee I don't want to Spill and I'm also holding my cigarettes well and I think that's why they question if
possibly Donna had let him in for some reason or maybe he discovers the the door unlocked right but now she is
deceased so she can't tell us and Mark was downstairs so we just don't know yeah and I think to me that kind of
backs up the idea that maybe he wasn't there with the intention to harm or kill when he first gets there as you pointed
out bringing the coffee mug and cigarettes to the home with him and setting them down inside but I think
what we have here though too Captain when you're looking at this is that it seems like it's it's a case of deadly
Obsession that at some point yeah Roger Harrington who seems to be already a loose cannon anyway or at least a little
derailed this based off of the conversation that he's having with Donna in the vehicle while he's driving her
and the harassing phone calls that maybe he did become somewhat obsessed with her
or obsessed with getting revenge or some form and now we have what looks to be mark who is Justified in The Taking of
the life of the man who killed his loving wife and life partner so this is just tragedy all
around yeah but in this Safe Community they're going to start looking at Mark as a as a hero one of the first
newspaper articles covering the deaths this is from September 6th in the Florida Sun Sentinel read quote in a
stunning act of violence that has scarred communities in Illinois in Florida Winger age 31 was hammered to
death last week by a limousine driver who 6 days earlier had shuttled her from St Louis airport to her Springfield
Illinois home on the very day after the deaths an attorney the state's attorney Patrick Kelly announced that the state
considered the slaying of Roger Harrington to be a case of justifiable homicide right and so a Coroner's jury
found the same Mark Winger would not be charged with anything the forms were stamped the evidence was boxed up and
the case was closed Springfield police had investigated for a total of 3 days you know checking all the boxes doing
their due diligence Mark Winger was sent home to take care of his new baby girl his wife Donna was buried after a Jewish
ceremony detective Cox went so far far as to call Mark Winger a hero like you said Captain and the public and the
media agreed but they did do autopsies on on both individuals correct it's required by law so this is the the
aftermath part the the sad part right Captain so after all of this poor Mark is left alone he's left to raise a baby
on his own mourn the loss of his wife and maintain his job as an engineer seems like quite a bit seems
like too much right he sought Financial Relief by filing a claim under the Crime
Victims compensation act and was awarded $25,000 because he was ex-military the USAA Insurance paid out a
$150,000 policy on Donna Winger Mark used the funds to hire a full-time nanny for Bailey he also put the house he and
Donna had lived in on the market saying that it was just too painful to stay there yeah I mean it's a crime scene
yeah I it's it's it's going to be a constant reminder of the tragedy of the loss yeah but also what he had to do I
mean it's it's not like yes everybody wants to defend their loved ones but it's not like there's not repercussions
for doing So eventually he got a promotion at work um rising to the title of Chief supervisor of the Illinois
Department of nuclear safety Mark he's trying to move on he's he's trying to rebuild his life pick up
the pieces and rebuild his life and continue on for his daughter going forward now Mark told the same story
each time anytime he was asked about this by police or anyone else he's telling the same story every time he
says he ran down the hall from the bedroom and as he approached the dining room this is when he says he saw Roger
Harrington hitting Donna with the hammer he said he fired his gun his handgun at
Harrington twice the first shot was from several feet down the hall and it hit Roger Harrington in the head as
Harrington standing up Roger Harrington Falls backwards away from Donna the second shot he fired right into
Harrington's forehead as he tried to Rise Up from the floor so a shot in the back of the head and then when he turns
around a shot in the front of the head yes and you asked about the autopsies and there is a slight problem with
Mark's story so this problem is that the autopsy shows that Roger Harrington was
first shot in the upper back of his head so it it's it's not exactly spoton with
Mark's story here now the detectives they pretty much chalk this up to or I'm kind of guessing for them
here Captain maybe they likely check chalk this up to Mark just misremembering I mean this all this
stuff's happen happening very fast right it's jarring he sees an attack on his wife this is not anything that you
expect to run into you never expect to run into a situation like this so if you don't get everything 100% correct I
think that it's easily understandable you've been through the the the big the biggest tragedy of your life and now
you're asked to give us a detailed statement of how the whole thing went down I put more weight to him not being
able to remember because he shoots the man trying to protect his wife and then there's all these events that happen
before he's able to tell please what happened so he's calling 911 he's checking on his wife he's checking on
the guy he's trying to figure you know put the pieces together in his head what the hell just happened it's a flurry of
activity and Mark likely just misremembering the details in the blur of the event perhaps Roger Harrington
was bending over Donna and that's how Mark first shot him in in the back of the head but that was hardly the only
inconsistency and detective Williamson began to feel uneasy very uneasy about this whole
situation there was this nagging feeling at him that there was something missing
from the story or there was some puzzle piece that wasn't fitting in with the overall crime scene and the overall
activities of this situation another thing that didn't really add up was the timing between the two
gunshots on the 911 call Mark can be heard saying that the guy on the floor has a bullet in his head right remember
Mark told the police that he shot Roger Harrington twice in quick succession boom boom Forensic Files reports that a
neighbor heard two gunshots so this backs up Mark story right but not exactly because the neighbor says I
heard two gunshots and they were roughly about 5 minutes apart so not boom boom boom four and a half five minutes go by
and then boom again well it's more like boom you know go make a cup of coffee have a
cigarette and then and then come back and shoot him again so the problem with that is pretty obvious if that all is
true then it calls into question Mark's facts of how things went down and how and when did the second
bullet get fired into Roger Harrington I mean that's a big one where I'm just going to put a you know just put a
little flag up and go okay again but this eyewitness maybe she maybe she's misremembering the shell casings found
at the scene were also problematic Mark told detectives that he had shot at Roger Harrington while Mark while he
Mark was in the hallway outside the dining room these shell casings from Mark's gun ejected backwards
yet the two casings were found in the dining room on the carpeted floor so this you know in fact they're in physics
and all that good stuff and this is really just an impossibility if Mark story were
true these shell casings should not have been found in that dining room yeah but
what we know from Mark as he is moving around he tells the 911 operator that he's checking in on his kid
he's checking in on his wife he holds his wife once he goes and touches his wife he already contaminated the crime
scene so it's not unreasonable to think that he didn't maybe kick the shell casings I I mean I guess but uh that
that's whether I he must have done it unknowingly I I don't know I'm just calling into question what the
detectives are seeing at the scene and what they're calling put a little pin in it saying hey this is a little
suspicious the detective spoke to other folks who lived in the trailer where 27-year-old Roger Harrington was renting
a room and they told the police that they were fairly certain that Roger Harrington had gotten a phone call that
morning and it was from Mark Winger now you'll recall that Mark told police that
yeah he had called Roger Harrington and warned him saying hey stay away from my family quit calling us quit harassing us
stay away from my family and we know that he called Roger Harrington's boss and asked for
Harrington's phone number so he could call him directly and tell him to leave his wife alone so that doesn't seem to
be such a big deal but the roommates said no that was not what Roger Harrington told them about the phone
call Trisha Ray whose mom owned the trailer told police that she was certain that Roger Harrington told her that Mark
called him and invited him over to his home to discuss the complaint that Mark made to Harrington's employer Harrington
wanted to make peace with Mark so he could keep his job and Trisha said he was eager to go to that meeting
[Music] I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage and everybody that
joined us at Brew doog last weekend we had an amazing time if you'd like to hear about that we talked about it on
this week's off the record you can find that at True Crime garage.com we also talked about some of the comments that
Doug Carter made about the selfi murder so if you're not subscribed to off the Record then you ain't nasty and you need
to get hip to it also we sent out a promo code for the next two weeks at 25% off if you're on the mailing list but
you didn't get an email that means that you put an an invalid email into that so
you have to you'll have to Reign up I had to delete about 2,000 invalid emails so you want to check that out so much
more to get to in this case tomorrow Colonel we got so much more to get to in this case until then be good be kind and
don't litter [Music]

Donnah Winger /// Part 1 /// 559

Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

August 1995, the quiet, safe, suburban town of Springfield, Illinois was rocked by a shocking and horrific double homicide. An Intruder attacked a woman in her home. The woman’s husband discovers the attack in progress. Minutes later two people were dead. Join us in the Garage for another fascinating case with plenty of bumps along the way. Oh yeah, and a couple of cold ones too.

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Brief Summary

Mark Winger shot Roger Harrington after he attacked his wife, Donna, leading to a complex investigation into the events surrounding her murder.

Key points

The Shocking 911 Call. In a frantic 911 call, Mark Winger reveals he shot an intruder attacking his wife.
The Crime Scene. Police arrive at a bloody crime scene where Mark Winger is found with his dying wife.
The Unhinged Driver. Donna Winger's unsettling encounter with her car service driver foreshadows tragedy.
Community Support After Tragedy. Mark Winger expresses gratitude to the community for their support after his wife's murder.
Mark and Donna's Love Story. Mark and Donna Winger's deep love and commitment is highlighted by friends and family.
A Loving Couple's Tragedy. Mark and Donna Winger were seen as a loving couple until tragedy struck.

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0:40WatchOct 27, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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